public comment on the issues that are on the agenda for today. Does anyone wish to address the council? Seeing none, we'll proceed. I'd like to ask everyone's indulgence in order to deviate from the agenda just a little bit. We have a very special guest here with us today, and I'd like to turn the podium over to Councilmember Linda Gordon. Thank you very much, Mayor. This is a very distinct honor for me, and being a visual person, I have brought maps. First, I'll orient you to South America on our map. All of you, I'm sure, know that Chile is a long, thin country on the west side of South America, and then the country of Chile has as its capital, Santiago. I wonder if, Chris, you could point to Santiago. It's right sort of in the center there. Yes, there's Santiago. To orient you to this part of the world, because it's a great honor for me today to introduce the mayor of Pirque, Chile, who has been visiting Lexington. I would like to honor and bring to the podium Mayor Jaime Escudero. Will you come join me? He lives in horse country, and so he's been very interested in seeing our horse country, and I have for you a small lapel pin. It's our small key to the city pin, which, with your permission, I'd like to put on your lapel. Welcome, and would you care to say a few words? Thank you, Councilor. Mr. Mayor, thank you for inviting me, and first of all, I have to apologize for my Mexican bandit accent, but I'm very proud to be here with you. It's an honor for me to be receiving for the Council of Lexington. I've been enjoying the hospitality of the Lexingtonians for three days, and I had the opportunity to know what you are doing in the horse park and all the equestrian games. I hope I'll be able to see these games in 2010, and as I said, the Councilor came from a town where we breed a lot of horses as well, race horses, and it's been a trade between our two cities, so I hope these trades can come again, and I hope we can do many different things, interchange for our students or for our health care system. So I had the opportunity to see the part of the education in Lexington, also the primary care attention in this morning, so I learned a lot, and I have to say thank you, Mr. Mayor, and for all the people who have been taking care of me. Quisargen has been a great, great, I lost the word in English, but I have a great time in Lexington. I won't forget my stay in Lexington, so I only want to have to say thank you and invite you to my town one day. We will be waiting for you with the best wines of the world, the best reds of the world, and so thank you very much to receive me. Thank you. Mayor, thank you. We are honored by your presence here today. I had an opportunity to visit with Mayor Escudero just a little earlier today, and he is a delightful person. What I've learned, as is often the case when we visit with guests from other countries, particularly those involved in local government, we have many of the same issues to contend with, and so it is a real pleasure for me to have had the opportunity to visit with you, and as a memento of your visit here, I'm real pleased to provide you with a julep cup. I think you know what to do with one of these, so I hope you will use it and remember your visit to Lexington. Mayor, we will be delighted for you to stay with us as long as your schedule permits this afternoon, but we wanted to go ahead and move you up on the agenda a little earlier so that to the extent you need to go in order to keep up with your schedule today, don't hesitate to do so, but thanks so much for being here. We do not have a docket to approve today, but we do have a summary of the April 8th meeting for approval. I move approval of the summary. Second. I have a motion by Councilmember Stephens and a second by Councilmember Beard. Councilmember Gordon. Yes, Mayor. On page 9, I believe Councilmember Lane's name might need to be inserted into the second paragraph, a motion by Councilmember, and then we need a name, and I think it was Councilmember Lane who made the motion. That's consistent with my recall. Any objection to that change? Any other comments concerning the summary approval? Then those in favor of approving the summary with the change noted by Councilmember Gordon, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We have no budget amendments. We do have several items of new business for your consideration. Is there a motion? I have a motion from Councilmember DeCamp to approve the items of new business. Do I have a second? Second from Councilmember Blues. Let me just mention that my monitor is not working today, so if I could get some help from the clerk's office. In the meantime, if you wish to speak, just raise your hand. I have a second by Councilmember Blues. Any discussion on the items of new business? Are we prepared to vote? Those in favor of approving the items of new business, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That takes us down to our presentations, and the first one is from the Services Committee. Do you want me to go ahead, or do you want to go with it? Okay. Thank you, Mayor. The Service Committee met on April 8th. Has everybody had the summary in front of you? It wasn't part of the packet, but it was separate, and all committee members were present. The first one was the sidewalk cafe ordinance. It was brought forth by Ms. James, and she gave background information regarding this issue, and she stated that the Commission for Citizens with Disability researched and discussed this issue. David Barbary, the Department of Law, spoke to us and stated the changes allow building inspection to abate the furniture that is encroaching the four-foot zone area. He stated it also allows for automatic revocation of a license if they have the same type of encroaching violation three times within the monthly period. He stated that when they talk about removing furniture, that is only the encroaching furniture and not all the furniture. Mr. Barbary stated if someone's license was revoked, then they would have to remove all furniture because they would no longer have a permit. Maury Latour, the chair of the Citizens with Disability Commission, stated they have drafted a letter that is going out to all restaurant owners as they apply for the permits. Dewey Crowe, with Building Inspection, stated they have all the information from the ones that permitted last year and can notify them of all the changes because that was a concern from the Council that all the restaurants would know that this, although we have this law right now, that they would be having some new pillings that would go along with it. There was a motion that came out with it, a motion from Mr. DeCamp, that proposed changes in the ordinance dealing with the sidewalk cafe be approved and either through restaurant association or previous individual permit holders be notified. They are bringing this forward before it goes on the docket. It was seconded by Councilmember Henson and passed without dissent, and I bring this forward to the Council. So moved. Second. I have a motion from Councilmember Ellinger and a second from Councilmember Myers. Any discussion? And I have spoke with Mr. Dewey Crowe, and he has sent a letter out to them. So we asked him to do that, and he did send it out to the people who are permitted presently. All right. Does anyone wish to speak to the motion? Then those in favor of approving the motion, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. The second item we dealt with was the noise task force update, and they had their first meeting on March 26th. They hope to include their work and report back to committee by mid-June. There will be a public meeting at 6 o'clock on April 30th here in the chambers. And there does need to be something changed in the summary. In the last sentence on page 4, it said he stated they will take up the subject, and it should say will not take up the subject, barking dogs, because that was taken apart in the task force on barking dogs. The third item was the vicious dog update. And Mr. Schoeniger talked to, gave us an update on this, and Kevin Horne at the law department stated the state statute has a definition for vicious dogs. The local government has to be consistent with state statute. As chair, there were some issues that were brought forward, and if there are any recommendations that we need to have looked at that the law department needs to determine if there is going to be differences, to send them to me, and then we will send them to the law department. And Mr. DeCamp said that if there are no recommendations that come in from the committee members at the next meeting, we'll make a motion to leave the ordinances as is. That is what we dealt with on the 8th. Mayor, thank you. Any questions for Councilmember Ellinger? All right. We'll move on down the list. The Fair Housing Proclamation, I understand, has been rescheduled for April 29th, and so that brings us down now to the Public Health Heroes Award, and I'd like to call to the podium Dr. Rowe from the Health Department to tell us just a little bit about the recipients. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmembers. We take April as Public Health Month, and part of what we do during that time is make folks aware of things that the Health Department does because a lot of things that the staff do, you all don't know about, and the community doesn't know about, so it's up to us to make folks aware. So people don't realize that every day in Kentucky, every day in Lexington and Fayette County, public health touches the lives of folks, and whether that's helping to prepare for a disaster or an emergency, encouraging folks to get their flu shots before flu season, inspecting restaurants and enforcing the smoking ordinance. All of those are things that those public health workers do, but by the same token, we also realize we do not do public health in a vacuum. We do it as part of a community where we all kind of work to make things better, and Public Health Heroes came out of that, recognizing there are folks who do not work at the Health Department who help us further improve the health of the community. So we have two of those folks that we're going to recognize, and Kevin is here with some of the plaques, and I'm going to turn it either back over to the mayor or Councilwoman Gorton to do the recognition, but these folks have had an impact locally and statewide, and they're our Public Health Heroes for this year. Dr. Rowe, it is a real pleasure for me. It is a personal pleasure as well as a professional pleasure for me to have the opportunity to present these two awards. One is presented posthumously to Dr. Doan Fisher, and if I may, I'll just read the commemoration that we have prepared. This is a commemoration in memoriam, recognizing Dr. Doan Fisher, M.D., as a 2008 Public Health Hero, whereas Dr. Doan Fisher, who died on April 7, 2008, at the age of 84, spent more than 50 years serving Kentuckians as a physician and a teacher, and whereas throughout his life Dr. Fisher remained committed to providing medical care for those in need, particularly children and those unable to pay for services, and whereas in 1969 the University of Kentucky College of Medicine recruited Dr. Fisher to establish the Division of General Pediatrics, and he remained director of the pediatric clinic until 1988, and whereas Dr. Fisher served as the medical director of the Family Care Center Health Clinic and was instrumental in the creation of the center, and whereas Dr. Fisher served on the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department's board from July 1993 until August 2004 and was chair during his last year, now therefore the Council of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, on behalf of all Fayette Countians, commemorates the late Dr. Doan Fisher, M.D., as follows. Section 1, we applaud Dr. Doan Fisher's selection by the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department's Board of Health as a 2008 Public Health Hero, and Section 2, we're deeply grateful for Dr. Doan Fisher's service to this community and accomplishments in the medical field, and we join his family and friends in mourning the loss of this outstanding citizen. This is the 15th day of April 2008, and I've signed it as mayor, and I am personally pleased that Dr. Fisher's son, Dan Fisher, who is a member of Urban County Government, works in our HR department here, is here today, and Dan, if you would come forward, it is an honor for me to be able to present you with this certificate. I've known Dan for a long time but have not made the connection with Dan and his dad until here just recently. Thanks so much. Thank you. Our family would just like to thank everybody who was instrumental in getting Dad this award, and I know he was pleased to find out that he was to receive this this year, so thank you all very much. The second commemoration is one which I suspect every member of the council will have just as much pleasure in hearing as I do in having the opportunity to read it, and it is a commemoration hailing and recognizing Dr. David Stevens, M.D., as a 2008 public health hero. Let me just read it here quickly. Whereas Dr. David Stevens, M.D., is a retired orthopedic surgeon and former chief of staff at Shriners Hospital for Children, Lexington, and whereas Dr. Stevens has a lifelong commitment to public service and improving the health of Fayette County residents, a commitment he has demonstrated in many ways including his sponsorship and subsequent passage of a public smoking ban in Lexington and his central role in the creation of the local blood bank, and whereas Dr. Stevens is currently serving his 15th year on the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Council and he was instrumental in helping to draft the government charter at the time of merger, and whereas Dr. Stevens remains active in many civic organizations currently serving on the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Airport Board, the Bluegrass Council Board, Boy Scouts of America, and the Kentucky Blood Center Board, now therefore the Council of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, on behalf of all Fayette Countians, commemorates Dr. David Stevens as follows. Section 1, we hereby applaud Dr. David Stevens on his selection by the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department's Board of Health as a 2008 Public Health Hero. Section 2, we thank Dr. David Stevens for all of his extensive public service. Dr. Stevens, if you'll come forward, please. Thank you. Thank you for everything. We have one for both of you. Congratulations. Thank you. We've got a proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. I'll take the chance. You can. I don't often turn down a microphone, but I do want to thank the Health Department, Board of Health, and Dr. Melinda Rowe for this recognition. It's always nice when your peers recommend you for something like this. I do appreciate it. I'm sorry that Dr. Doan Fisher cannot be with us today because I think he truly deserved this, though some of us may not. You know, I've kind of been interested in public health. It sort of got me into this field because I can remember when I was a start-out in high school, I read a book called The Microbe Hunters. Mr. Dewey, I think, was the author. I tried to find it last night, but I couldn't. But it's a book about the heroes of two centuries ago who discovered the causes of all our communicable diseases in the world, and public health has just about eradicated all of them. We still have a little trouble with TB and a few other things, but smallpox, the plague, and typhoid fever, those diseases have been eradicated thanks to The Microbe Hunters. So it kind of got me going. I kind of got deterred into bones along the way someplace, but public health has always been an interest of mine. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Gorton. I just wanted to congratulate both families. Dan, I had no idea you were Doan Fisher's son. I've known Doan a long, long time and thought the world of him. And David, you know, I think, the world of you and all the work that you have done for our community. So just congratulations for both honors. If there's nothing further, we'll move ahead to council reports, and I'll turn the microphone back over to Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Mayor. I had a few items. I wanted to let the public know that the health department is conducting a community breast and cervical cancer screening on Saturday, April 26th, from 9 o'clock a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m., and this is at the new public health clinic south, which is at 2433 Regency Road. And so if the community members have questions, they can call 288-2446 or simply show up on April 26th between 9 o'clock and 2 o'clock for breast and cervical cancer screening. And then secondly, in May, we have coming up Armed Forces Week, and there are several really wonderful activities going on that week. The first one will be on Wednesday, May the 14th, and this is the Salute to Women Warriors Luncheon. It honors women veterans and current women in the armed forces. And so if you're a woman veteran or service member or know someone who is and would like information about the women's luncheon on May the 14th, you can call 245-1100. And then Saturday of that week, on May the 17th, there are two Armed Forces Week events. The first one is that Kentucky baseball is going to salute members of our armed forces, and so the University of Kentucky is playing Ole Miss at Cliff Hagen Stadium at the University of Kentucky. The game is at 1 o'clock on May the 17th, and if you are a veteran or a current member of the armed services, you can show your military or veteran ID and get into the game free of charge. So that is on the 17th at 1 o'clock. And then finally is the Armed Forces Week Dinner and Awards Ceremony, and that's the night of May the 17th. And that will be held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, and dinner is at 7 o'clock on May the 17th. And for more information about any of these events, you can call 245-1100 or go online to www.BMAC, that's B-M-A-C, online.org. And then finally, I wanted to just make a note of a wonderful award for one of our Lexington citizens whom many of you know, Marilyn Moosnick, has been honored nationally by the Americans for the Arts. And this organization is the nation's leading nonprofit for advancing the arts in America, and they have given Marilyn Moosnick their 2008 Michael Newton Award. And Marilyn has been active in our arts community since the early 1970s, and in fact she was the first chair of the Lexington Council of the Arts in 1972. And so I just wanted to make note of that wonderful honor for Marilyn, who's a really wonderful citizen who gives back a lot to our community. And one more thing, I almost forgot. Our noise task force is meeting on April 30th at 6 o'clock here in the council chamber for a public meeting to hear from the public on their perception of what the noise problems are. This does not include barking dogs. That issue has already been covered by the dog task force. So 6 o'clock April 30th in the council chamber. If you have a noise concern, come let us hear it. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of announcements first. On this Saturday, April 19th at 8.30 a.m., Bryan Station will be having a 5K run. So I invite all of our runners. I know Council Member Corr participated with me a year ago. I know a couple of other people. Mayor, you're welcome to come give a good run early on Saturday morning if you'd like. But it's at 8.30 is the start at Bryan Station High School this Saturday. And also this Thursday night at 7 p.m. will be the Joyland Neighborhood Association meeting at First Church of God there on Kingston Road. Again, that's this Thursday, April 17th at 7 p.m. And also, Council Members, I mentioned three meetings ago, three work sessions on March the 25th about bringing forward the ordinances to waive our calendar year increase, which was supposed to take effect January 1st, 2008. You all should have a copy of those ordinances in your mailboxes that were passed out today as well as by e-mail. The mayor has also accepted to waive his increase for this year, which I understand only amounts up to about $20,000 combined, all of us, in terms of the actual dollars. But I think it says even more that while some of you may be against us waiving that increase, it says that if we're putting public safety officials on hold, if we're not hiring other positions in government, then it's only right that we set the tone and save everywhere and be as cost-effective as possible, even on our own salaries. It is not unprecedented. It's been done several years before. 92, 93, 94, 95, 2001 was the most recent. And also it is the opinion of the Law Department that I know you've received an e-mail last week that says some of us can deny it, some of us can't accept it. It's up to each individual Council Member. Well, that's not necessarily the case because by charter and by public policy, we as a whole need to accept it or not accept it, given the fact that one district may be making more money in several years if they choose to accept it than another. So everything's before you. I'll make a motion then to place the ordinances on the docket for April the 24th, Council meeting, waiving the cost of living increase for the mayor and Council for calendar year 2008. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Stennett and a second by Council Member Beard to add those ordinances to the April 24th Council meeting docket. Any discussion? Council Member Gordon. And Council Member Stennett, you did say that's for the calendar year, which is January through December. Yes, ma'am. It already increased by charter. It's calendar year, not fiscal year. Thank you for clarifying that. Council Member James. I have a couple of concerns with the wording on the ordinance and because I believe in paragraph number two, it almost assumes that we're accepting the mayor's proposed budget. And so I wonder if the wording may need to be looked at just a bit where it says will be approved. We haven't made that determination yet. We're not at the end of our budget session. So I have a bit of a concern about moving forward with that and the intent and the perception that could give to our employees who think that we're really working the budget and not just accepting the proposal, as well as I do paragraph number three, where I believe if we're saying that we're doing this because of economic conditions and because our employees could be hurt by our budget that we approve, then we should make that a different word instead of desire. If we're saying that we feel obligated as a council to not take an increase, then maybe there's an obligation, a necessity, a duty, an intent, something of that sort. So I don't agree with putting it on the docket as worded and would actually request some changes in the wording. Thank you. I think there may have been somebody else that wished to speak to the motion. Maybe not. If there's nothing further, we'll proceed to vote on the motion, which is to place those items on the agenda for the April 24th council meeting. Those in favor of approving that motion, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Anything further? Yes, sir. A couple of other items. Thursday, April 17th and Friday, the general government council link will be having our council link meetings, be at 9 a.m. both days, and invite anyone who wants to participate in the general government council links to come on those days. And also I've asked Dr. Stephens if we could also have a meeting amongst council link chairs at the next available time, so if our chairs could be thinking about when they could get together with the other link chairs so we could talk about the upcoming budget process. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I noted with some amusement that I have indicated a desire to speak in council reports on the monitor here. Okay. Well, I couldn't figure out what the dilemma was here, but now we know. All right. Okay. I think that addresses what my problem was earlier, but we'll get that straightened out. Next person I have on the list is Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. It's come to my attention, council members, that there might be a flaw in our grievance policy and some human resource issues. Is there anyone here from human resources that I know that Michael Allen said that he would be gone. Is there anyone here from human resources that would be willing to come forward? Thank you. Thank you for coming. Are you here on behalf of Michael Allen? Yes, Michael Allen is on vacation this week, and I'm Daryl and Combs from the Division of Human Resources. Okay. I just have a couple of questions. As far as our current grievance, can you please tell council members what our current grievance policy is, what an employee feels like a grievance form, and then what happens? The steps of the grievance? I wouldn't expect me to do that today, but, yes, I can go through it with you. The grievance is found in Chapter 21. I'm going to make sure I get the right number. But anyway, it's in your Code of Ordinance, and it does have the steps of the grievance. But the first step of the grievance is that a person can come and verbally give their grievance to the supervisor if they felt they had been aggrieved. That's the first step to a grievance. Okay. You just have a conversation with a supervisor? Yes. How is that documented? How is that put in writing? The person actually tells it to the supervisor, and the first step, the supervisor actually writes down what they're saying, and then they have so many days that they can dialogue with the person, and they have so many days in which they can actually accept it, what was said, or they can say, I don't concur with it. And by the way, to clarify, too, I didn't realize you were going to talk about the grievance procedure today because we do have a manager that's over that particular area. Okay. Who's in the Division of Human Resources. Okay. And I'm over Talent Acquisition, but she is in the Employee Relations. Okay. We may have to get her to come down at some point, and if you can't answer something specifically. But I hope there's some type of cross-training that goes under Human Resources where everybody pretty much knows the policy of the Human Resource Department. Yes. Okay. Yes, and it's in the handbook. Like I said, as well, it's in the Code of Ordinance. Okay. So a grievance, you report to your supervisor that you have a grievance verbally, and then the supervisor writes that down. And is there signatures needed from the employees making the grievance, as well as the supervisor, to move forward? And like I said, I'm not looking at it right in front of me, the grievance procedure, but it has these steps on it. But normally what the process would be for the person to just at that time is just a verbal, and you're trying to actually resolve the grievance at step one. Okay. Of the grievance. And it requires once you give it back to them, the person, once you've given it to the supervisor, the supervisor has five days because you may come in to me and say, hey, this is a problem, and I may have to look into what the problem is. Right. And within five days I would give it back. In fact, you keep the original and you give a copy to the employer, the person who felt they've been aggrieved, and then at that time when you give it back, they have five days in which to go to step two if they didn't agree with you. Who keeps the original copy of the grievance? The original should be in HR. And the other thing, too, it has to be what your grievance has to be within ten days of the occurrence of the event. So you have ten days to file the grievance. Okay. There is a time frame. Should a grievance, a copy, or the original grievance always be a part of the employee's personnel file? Should that be something that's on record regardless of whether whatever happened with the grievance, the action that came forward? And I don't want to answer that question because I want to make sure it is correct, but the grievance is by ordinance, it is a CAO policy that goes. So I guess some of those questions you could probably refer to Joe Kelly on those because he's the person who actually answered the grievance. But it does go in a separate file to answer your question. So human resources at all times, if the grievance process has been followed as per the handbook, should have a copy of a grievance in a personnel file regardless of the outcome of the grievance? I can't answer that question. I'm sure, yes, I would think so. Okay. But it would be. And, again, like I said, the manager of employee relations probably could answer that question better than I. What's her name or his name? Leslie Jarvis. Okay. Let me ask you, too, about. Leslie is on her way down because I was told this meeting would be about. Well, I've got to ask you that, too, because I'm going to ask you about why you're here. I didn't realize that you did different things. But you're probably here about demotions and pay decreases? Yes. Okay. Are demotions, do they usually come forward on a council? Is that something council is aware of? Demotions, you can look in the employee handbooks. It refers you to Chapter 21-26.1 that says, yes, upon approval of the appointing authority by recommendation of the Director of Human Resources, the council has to approve a, you said demotion, a demotion, yes, has to be approved by council. At all times that should come forward to council. Right. Okay. Pay decreases the same circumstance? As it relates to a demotion, yes. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all I have. And Leslie is on her way down. Okay, great. Oh, there she is behind you. Thank you, Leslie. I don't know if you heard the question, but one of my specific questions was, is the grievance which an employee files, if they decide to file a grievance, a handwritten copy of the grievance, the verbal, the written copy of the verbal complaint that's given to the supervisor, is that permanently part of an employee's personnel record? No, we do not place the grievance. If it makes it all the way to step four, which would come to the Division of Human Resources for investigation on behalf of Mr. Kelly, Joe Kelly, it would go into a separate grievance file. It is never made a part of the employee's personnel file in Human Resources. At any point, is that grievance torn up and thrown away? No. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I just have three announcements. Tomorrow evening, Wednesday, April 16th, the Spicewood neighborhood will get together at the residence of Rob Fry at 2768 Stony Park Lane to discuss and to begin to organize a neighborhood watch. This is an important meeting, and I encourage all the Spicewood neighbors who can to turn out for this. Once again, 7 p.m., 2768 Stony Park Lane to discuss the formation of a neighborhood watch. Then on Thursday, April 17th, and this echoes what Council Member Stinnett announced earlier, the Joyland Neighborhood Association meets at 7 p.m. at the First Church of God. Monday, April 21st, the Windburn Neighborhood Association will hold its monthly meeting at 630 p.m. at M.L. King Park Community Center. Thank you, Mayor. That's my report. Thank you very much. Council Member Stevens. Several announcements. One, I suggest that Link Chairman get together at 2.30 next Tuesday, assuming the IG Committee, Intergovernmental Committee finishes in time, for a quick huddle before we get our heads together. On May 14th, there will be a district meeting of Council District 5 at the Henry Clay High School at which the three candidates in the primary, Carolyn Feigl, Richard Mars, and Ed Norton, will be present to visit with any citizens who care to meet them and ask them questions. That's at 7 p.m. at the Henry Clay Cafeteria. And the Smoking Interest Group, which is composed of people from the Health Department, from the U.K. College of Nursing, and from other interested groups in the community, such as the American Heart Association, and so forth, will have a meeting at noon this Friday. That's the 18th of April to discuss our current smoking arguments and whether any changes are indicated for that or not, or any ideas concerning that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Yes, Mayor, thank you. I'd like to announce that this Saturday from 9 to 3 is Reforest the Bluegrass out at Jacobson Park. So please remember to call LexCall if you want to participate in this program. And then also, Mayor, I've been getting a lot of questions regarding an issue in the budget. It's regarding the health insurance premiums and a 19.3 percent decrease. And I guess my question is, if you can answer, is this due just through the loss of employees through attrition and retirement, or are we reducing the level of contributions for all city employees? I'll have to, unless Commissioner Coe can provide an answer offhand, we'll have to do a little investigation and report back to you. Thank you, Mayor. She may be able to answer the question now. Thank you. I'm sorry, I haven't yet responded to your email. I've been out sick and just came back at noon today. But I did have a chance to look that up. The reduction is actually due to the difference in the way we negotiated the contract that we are in right now. You might know that our health insurance contract is on a calendar year as opposed to a fiscal year. So that savings is what we project over the last half of this fiscal year, the last half of the contract year, and the first half of the next contract year. You might recall that we added some things like the high deductible plan and a number of other things. We added employee plus one, some other things that generated a significant amount of savings for us. So we have not reduced and do not plan to reduce the level of benefits. They are what they are right now, and we intend that contract with Humana is annually renewable, but it's for three years, and we have no intention of changing. The only minor difference that you will find is as we go into the next plan year, we will be making adjustments in the cost of the premiums. Right now, and I'll have to get this to you in writing because it's fairly complicated, but there is a million dollars in savings in the budget because right now we are supplementing our outside agencies. In fact, LFUCG is picking up part of the cost of their health insurance, and we decided that really if they were going to be part of our health insurance that they needed to be paying their own way. So we will be adjusting our benefit pool in such a way that everybody will be paying the same thing, but we will be recouping from the outside agencies the total cost of their premium rather than supplementing it. So that's a million dollars of the savings that's in the budget. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to bring everybody's attention. It's coming in two months will be our senior intern program. For over 20 years now, this government has been participating in this program, and it's open to seniors over 50 and older in Fay County, and it gives them an opportunity to learn more about local government by talking to key decision makers, main class activities, and visiting several facilities. This year it's going to be between June 16th and June 20th. We're expanding the program. Normally we have 40, and we're going to try to have 50 this year, and at this point we have 32 people have confirmed in their applications, and already if you would put on Channel 3, I'll put an application in a way that people can contact, but it's filling up quick, so I'd like to have somebody from every district. I would recommend each council member try to find somebody from each of your districts and try to get somebody participating, but it is filling up quick, so try to get that applications in soon. As I said, it's from June 16th through 20th. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. A couple things. I move to approve the NDF for this week. Second. I have a motion to approve the NDF. I heard a second from Council Member Blevins. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. I also wanted to announce that there's a Friends of Children 5K this weekend, this Saturday at 9 o'clock at Coldstream Farm. This is Coldstream Park, thank you. This is National Child Abuse Month, and for more information on that run, you can call LexLink at 381-1302. Also, I wanted to welcome, officially, Rocky Burke, who's actually been here for over a month as the new head of LexTran. I had the opportunity to meet with Rocky this morning and talk about some of the ideas that he's bringing to LexTran and some of the things that we can expect from him for our community. One of the nice things to announce or to put out there is that there are 15 bus shelters that will appear over the next month or so, and I know that's an issue with a number of us around the city that have wanted to see some of these bus shelters out there, and Rocky's been able to kind of push that through, and we're going to see, I guess, a number of those appear on the horizon. I would encourage every council member to schedule some time to go meet with him and talk about the future of LexTran and some of the direction he has for that. We want to welcome him. And as we move into this time of budget and we're talking about doing things differently, our city has grown to a size where we cannot continue to do things the way we've always done it, and I think the mayor's budget is reflective of that, and I think that the conversation that it spawns and the links that we're going to have over the next few months, I think citizens as well as those of us that work for LFUCG have to recognize that we cannot keep doing things the way we've done it, and that doesn't necessarily have to be bad. It doesn't necessarily mean that the alternative is worse, but that it is different. And as we move forward, I'm on the general services link with Council Member Stennant and Beard, and one of the things that I want to bring forward are some motions and some suggestions as it relates to our parks department. We have some very antiquated laws or rules within parks and some other things that we do that don't really allow us to bring in the kind of money that we're going to need to do the capital projects in the future that we need, but as a city that suffers from health, and as we've been sitting here giving health awards to folks, I think that we've got to start to look at our parks department for what it really is, and it is one of the best PR opportunities we have in this government, and it is also a tremendous opportunity to help the physical health of our community improve. And so I just want to let folks know that there will be motions and suggestions coming forward from this council person as it relates to some changes within parks so that more folks can begin to have a healthier lifestyle and that we can start to bring in revenue that we may not have. And then lastly, if it's okay with Council Member James, I would make a motion that we put the grievance process into the Intergovernmental Committee. I have a motion and a second to put the grievance process into the Intergovernmental Committee. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Does any other council member wish to make a report? I see none. Seeing none, there's no Mayor's report, so that takes us down to Item 9 on the agenda, public comment for issues not on the agenda. Does any member of the audience wish to address the council? Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I move we adjourn. A motion by Dr. Stephens, second by Council Member Blevins that we adjourn. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries.