NEXT VIDEO ಠಠಠಠಠಠಿಗತಇ ಅದಬರಿದೂತದಲಾನದ ಬಡಿಪಿತಾಽಗಿಲಗಲಿಗಟಾಳಾತರತನನಾದರತಿಸಡರತರಪದನಾನಥರಂತದತಂ ಬರತರ कोईಬದರದಗಲನದರಗರಾಲನದರಂದತನ ಮತರಗಂಪರದನಸಲಠರಂಡ ಬಗರದರನದರರನಟರರನದರಂದರರಗಸರಠರರನದರತನರನದರರ� ಅಭಂ ಈಸ ಈರದಿನ್ಯಿ ಥಗೆದರನದರನದ ಈಸ ಫರ್ಷದದರನಿಂದರದ ಅದದರನ ನಿಮಿಕಾರಿಸ ನದರದತದರನಾದರನಧರನನದರನದರನದರನನದರನ ඇ ಆಯಡಿන් සිනැවාසය සිනැවාසයේ කරාදාවාසයේ කරාරා� සිනැවාසය කරඏරා සිනැවාසය සිනැවාසය සිනැවාසය කරාරා Bir tanesinin tavsiyelerinde bir çeşit çeşit çözünürlük açıklaması yapmalıyız. Bu çözünürlüklerimizin geliştirilmesi için bizler de neyi geliştirmek istediklerini açıklamaya çalıştık. Açıklamaya çalıştık. İstediğimiz soruların fokusini arttırmak için tepki vermek istiyorduk. İstediğimiz komisyonlarımızda ihtiyaç duyguları var. Bu inisiyatifin lütfen bu usulde and we recommended a demographic survey of the current membership the general government social services supported these recommendations and so we've been working on these recommendations since that time and we've gotten most of these recommendations all of them completed and some of them are kind of a work in progress that we're still working on as far as internal review and materials we created a diversity statement which was approved and we have placed that on the website and on the application so it is available for the public to see we did review the application we did not make too many changes to the questions that we asked but it was a great review process to make sure that the wording was correct for the questions that we were asking and we revised the nomination letter to request that our outside organizations consider diversity as well since it was something that was important to us to improve and then for communication we did communicate this to existing members we sent out email and we did send out snail mail to those few members that don't do email to let them know what we were up to and then we created a distribution list it's maintained by Arthur and by myself and it is kind of a work in progress all the time it is a list that has a lot of members from different organizations on and it's open to the public so anybody who wants to be part of the distribution list that will announce vacancies is allowed to sign up at any time so it's something that's out there and it's public knowledge and then we did do our PSA to the public at large to let them know that this was something that we're moving forward with and we're looking forward to their help and then we had two projects in 2019 which we completed one was the recruitment fair for boards and commissions and one was the demographic survey of current members so the recruitment fair that we had was in spring and we had it at the senior center it was a pretty great spot to have it and to kind of get more activity going on at the senior center which is always busy anyway but it was kind of cool to bring people into that area that aren't typically going that way and they took great care of us it was in the morning from 9 to noon and we had at least all boards and commissions represented with paperwork if not with people so probably more, about half and half showed up to present for their board or commission and if they didn't they provided me with at least a little bit of information I could hand out if people had questions and we had about 45 people come to attend and it created a lot of conversation for people that couldn't attend and kind of created an on the table topic as well for boards and commissions so it just generated a lot of conversation I think it was really successful I got a lot of applications before and after and it's a good jumping off point for another recruitment fair in the future I believe so our other project that we did was a demographic survey and Craig Kammack in the mayor's office created, implemented and organized the information for the most part so that we could analyze it so I'm going to have him kind of jump in and kind of give you the breakdown of that good afternoon council so as Melissa said we did produce I would say one of the major tenants of this one and a half year process and understanding what our boards and commissions make up currently is which is the purpose of this demographic survey so we sent out an electronic survey went out to 624 contacts that we have we had a 56% response rate which is pretty good for a survey and as you can see there were a multitude of categories that we asked information about so we would have more of a thorough guideline not all this information is things that we can compare to the community because it's not collected by the census per se but we thought it would be a good idea to have an idea of what our makeup is and if we need to work on any specific areas in the future so with that of the key facts that we found both the median and mean average years that the respondents and keep in mind this is all based on respondents we can't say this is of everyone on a board commission but of our respondents median and mean average number of years they've lived in Lexington is about 29 years so that's a pretty good amount of time I would say so they should know the city fairly well and be able to represent well and about 92% actually live in Lexington we have a few that live in surrounding communities most of the council districts were represented between 8 and 10% of the respondents the only outliers on that would be the first district which is a little shy of 7% the 4th district again shy of 7% the 7th district less than 5 and then the 8th district which was a little shy of 2.5% and then the outliers on the opposite end would have been the 5th district which was represented in about 16% of respondents and then the 10th district which was around almost 11% 90% of our respondents own their own home which is a little bit higher than home ownership than in the community at large that is what we have as far as people who are applying to serve on our boards and commissions some other facts when we're looking at gender identity we are pretty much on the mark as far as our community goes reflective of our community 50% identifying as male 48% as female and then 1% as non-binary or transgender the additional 1% did not respond so we know through census studies that we are very close as far as the gender goes it usually ranges right around 48, 49 to 50 vice versa as far as disability status our respondents, 5% of them identify as having a sensory, physical or mental disability and there's a breakdown if you want that I can get that to you but we ask them what type of disability specifically if they decided to respond we have that if we choose to get that we did find that about 50% are between the ages of 45 to 64 which is quite a bit higher than our general population but I think that can somewhat be expected for boards and commissions because these are folks who may be more established in their career possibly have a little bit more time to be able to spend serving on these voluntary boards and then when we look at our race and ethnicity background about 78% identify themselves as white and caucasian 15% as black or african-american and 3% hispanic or latino and then we had others whether it be multiracial or asian or pacific island or whatever that may be we had smaller percentages and again as far as the white and caucasian and black or african-american percentages those are pretty much on the mark with what the census tells us our population is in the general area of Fayette County so that was good we can work a little bit more on increasing the hispanic latino representation because that's generally right around 6% or so approximately according to census but we can work on that we know that as far as military service experience 18% have experienced military service in some form or fashion whether they are still currently active duty of some form in the reserves or national guard and then we also found 54% have total household incomes of $100,000 or more which is higher than our general population 69% are employed full time a little less than 20% retired and a little less than 10% are self-employed and then nearly 90% have a college degree or higher education so overall I think the study tells us that we're doing a good job we know there are areas where we can continue to do better and that will be the role of Melissa and the outreach and what she'll talk about next is increasing that and then we'll do these studies every two years so we can keep up and find are we trending steady are we increasing some places getting less in other places and then we'll also of course this year have new census numbers collected which will come out in 2021 so that will be better reflective of what we know our general population to be cool and that is that I'll turn it back over to Melissa so going forward we're definitely going to continue the routine communication of vacancies I try to send it out as close to the first of every month as I can there's a little bit of sorting out to pick out who we're appointing and all that stuff there's a little bit of coordination in that but it's very effective I get a lot of inquiries when I send that out people ask me questions even about boards that aren't on there so I think it's a really good way to get the information out there I definitely think that we'll probably start involving more community leaders I hope and different organizations who will want to be on our distribution list I did put everyone in council on the list so hopefully you can forward that out to your districts if you ever have vacancy in the district and that helps a lot too I definitely think we'll intentionally update the distribution list annually I get some bounce backs sometimes from our notifications that so and so has left and that makes me go into the organization and re-engage them it's really helpful to clean it out a little bit so we'll do that for sure we will share the survey results with the board members and on the website so the public is aware of what we've done and how we intend to improve and how close we are in areas where we're going to try and focus and maybe they'll help us a little bit with that and then the survey, as Craig said, we'll do biannually this will catch people who are going in and out of their terms so we can survey different people at different times and I think that the information that we got really helped us determine where we need to focus our efforts and so it'll be a great tool moving forward Other questions? Thank you all for this presentation, I appreciate that Council Member Fred Brown Thank you, Chair People that are interested in the boards you're getting the information email or through I guess calls or whatever what do you do, just send them an application out? How does that process work? Yes, so a lot of people can just apply it's on our website, there's a link there's an application, they can just go click the link and it'll open up and it's a fillable form or they submit it, it comes directly to me if they're not able to do that, I can send a paper application some people prefer to stop in and do it in person which is great too So the best method is online probably, isn't it? Okay, when you get the application in for a particular board or commission how long do you keep that? The application is active for one year One year, okay because I mean the boards and commissions they come and go and some people may leave or retire off of them or to where you've still got that name So once you get that application then where does it go from there as far as it getting approved? So there are different methods of recommendation for these boards some boards require some boards have set in place a committee that approves maybe an executive committee that looks at the applicants some boards require attendees come to a meeting before they're recommended to the mayor some boards just go straight to the mayor and it just depends on the board or commission but they're kind of routed to the people that need to see it So how do we identify that? And I like the method of you sending that to the council of what openings are there but how do we identify whether who's really going to make the decision because as we all know the mayor has several of the boards and commissions that she makes recommendations and then brings them to us as a council that we vote up or down So I'm always available if you have a question for a certain vacancy to kind of answer that like where the application is in the process I'm working on going to each individual board's landing page and kind of updating that saying to be a member of this board you must XYZ because right now it's a little bit in legalese it's kind of in the ordinance language which is not helpful to everyone I think that would be good to identify it down a little bit So we're working on that for each board Yeah And I don't know if you all even thought about tiering the boards and commissions into levels I guess one, two, and three or whatever because there's a difference There's a difference in the boards and commissions so I didn't know if you all discussed that or not Okay I just had those questions Thank you Council Member Jennifer Reynolds Thank you, Chair Thank you so much, Melissa I guess my questions have a few different ones I'll start with in terms of trying to increase diversity whether it be socioeconomic, age as we see we don't have a lot of diversity in age or the Latino community what are your strategies to try to do that specifically? Well, the thing that I've noticed since we've been working on it where I get more applicants in so we're kind of strapped with the applicants that we have We can't appoint people that we don't have applications for so our goal is to get more applications and more diverse applications We get a more diverse pool of applicants when we reach out and in our survey we asked one of the questions that we asked was how did you hear about boards and commissions? and most of the responses were I was invited to apply so we really have to reach out to people and invite them to apply for what we need on the boards and commissions That's kind of our focus now that we have the data like what groups we need to kind of reach out to in order to make that happen How you could kind of like advertise it whether that be online or with flyers or something maybe to some of the demographics that aren't as well represented Definitely, and I'm welcome I'm open for recommendations on different ways to kind of communicate that to different places Okay, thank you Thank you. Also, if somebody let's say they apply and they don't get picked is there a notification process that they receive to know that they were not picked for a board or commission or does this just stay in the system and they don't really know for a whole year? Yes, so I keep the application open and on my desk basically until a decision is made by the mayor I notify everyone when all the vacancies are full So for an instance, there may be a board with three vacancies We may appoint one person but still have two open I'll hold on to those because they're still being considered before we appoint them Then once they're full, I let everyone know What's the turnaround for if you get an application I guess to when the mayor appoints? It depends on the board It can take a while depending Some boards have more specific membership of what they're looking for and some boards don't So it's usually about a month turnaround Sometimes it can be longer Okay, I've had people ask me these questions which is why I'm asking So thank you Thank you Council Member Plowman Thank you, Chair And thank you, Craig and Melissa I think that's a really healthy exercise to go through that But I wanted to just bring everybody's attention to something that I've been working on and I've mentioned it before and that is Get On Board And Get On Board was started at United Way right after the racism summit that was held here in 2002 And the intent of Get On Board was to bring underrepresented populations to the table so that the landscape of voice was such because those boards and those commissions make decisions every day that impact others that are not on boards and commissions So we had probably 350 graduates so that, as I said, the landscape of voice really changed But then it kind of went away and we spent this last year with an advisory committee revamping and relaunching Get On Board There's going to be two classes The first is going to be starting off on February the 3rd run eight weeks Another one will be in the fall And we talk about things like board rules and responsibilities what's a 501c3, parliamentary procedure legal ethical responsibilities So they graduate and then we have a graduation fair with agencies and commissions that come forward that want underrepresented populations And these folks are trained in voice and they pick out the ones they're interested in and the agencies pick out the ones they're interested in and we marry them up So it's just a really, really good, I think, program and I wanted to make sure you all were aware of it We've actually got Angela Council Member Evans is going to be part of teaching more of the legal Arthur's going to be with us doing diversity and inclusion And then we've got other folks in the community that are taking their niche of what they're accounting For instance, we've got someone that will be talking about board financials So it's getting ready to go again It'll be at the plenary Mondays from 6 to 8 o'clock And I've got applications if you'd like to distribute them to constituents But I think it's a healthy exercise Maybe we can work together Maybe even get it on the website so that these folks that may be intimidated about signing up for a board or commission would feel better if they were trained with this voice So I wanted to let everybody be aware this program's going on Thank you, Chair Thank you Thank you And Council Member James Brown Thank you, Chair And thank you, Melissa, Arthur, and Andrew Blank Great For all your work on this initiative It's been a long time And I think last year I think we made some great steps forward with the recruitment fair And I think the survey has given us a lot of information that we can build off of and target our efforts going forward When we start talking about minorities involved with our boards and commissions I think the percentage and the number seems kind of low But like you said, I think it's relative to the population that's represented in our city I think we just have to stay focused on this initiative and on this effort to better diversify our boards and commissions But looking at the survey relative to the population it looks like we're doing pretty decent in some categories where I think a lot of us thought that there's a lot of room to improve based on the applicant pool that exists One of the things I will offer is if the first district is one of the districts that is lacking in representation is maybe we can have a recruitment fair in the first district making it more accessible to the folks that we're trying to reach and bring on to some of our boards and commissions So I'm willing to work with you to try to plan something at a good central location like the Leary Carnegie Center or something like that to see if we can get more interest folks interested in filling out applications The other thing I would say and I think this is kind of holistic to the city Today, this morning I woke up and heard a commercial from the fire department and one of the statements they said in that commercial is that they're looking and working to recruit folks that represent our community So I think this effort combined with what we're doing as far as the city's workforce efforts sends a loud, clear message that we take diversity serious in Lexington and are working to do our best to get folks that reflect our community involved either with employment with the city or in our boards and commissions So thank you Thank you, Chair Council Member Evans Thank you, Chair Thank you all for doing this work I will say, I will agree with Council Member James Brown that this is a good start but I think it's only a start because when we're talking about diversity and you look at these numbers just offhand it looks like we're doing good but I think you need to look at if all of the, I guess the example of my concern is that we've got 5% that identify with a disability but if they're all on a board that focuses on disability to me that's not diversity Same goes with whether it's female or whether it's a racial ethnicity So that is where I would request you take this information to the next level because we're not diverse until all of our boards are reflective of a full community Now I understand some people will have more of an interest in one or the other but just looking at the Mayor's report with some of these appointments there's one board where only 2 out of the 9 members are female So I commend you on the work that you've done but it's just starting So I ask that you look at it from that perspective as well We've got some wrong numbers right now but when we're talking about diversity we need to look at it really from the level of each board and what does each board makeup look like Because again, we want to get people involved Well, I'll just leave it at that I think there's more to be done and we need to look at it from a different lens and really think about what diversity means and I think it means making sure our boards truly are reflective of everyone and individual boards But then I did have a question about Have you all talked about extending the life of an application? Because one year is really short and if someone only wants to be on a specific board and there just aren't any openings at that point then they might forget or life happens and that application is just dead Have there been discussions about maybe just extending it to another 2 years because that way it would usually stay in administration So again, to me that just kind of shows that we're not putting the burden back on them every year I mean, that seems rather daunting and especially if there's one that they're specifically or someone is specifically interested in a year goes by really fast so I'm wondering if there's conversation about that if there's a way to do that because you could lose a lot of good people that just forget to renew it Yeah, I haven't had anyone mention that before Usually after a year it gets archived by the system but we could probably extend it on our end It's still in the system so really it's just the status goes to archived instead So if anyone contacts me and says they're still interested I just reactivate it for the next year But we can certainly discuss how long to keep an application active I appreciate that because sometimes it does feel, I think to Council Member Reynolds' point that maybe it does kind of just go into a vacuum and people apply and they're just waiting and they don't understand that something really could happen at the drop of a hat but then some of these are four-year terms so it would be incumbent upon them but if we could perhaps extend it longer than a year I think that would be helpful So thank you Thank you all And I will just add in my appreciation for everybody that has worked on this I know that I've learned a lot through this process and even though our numbers do similarly share the same as our population I always want to work to increase the diversity on all the boards and I think that we're going down the road at the right path to doing this just by nearly recognizing the opportunity to do that I mean we've done working on this a year and a half now about and so I know that there have been a number of boards that specifically that their diversity has been increased in which I really do appreciate The other thing is I really appreciate the fact that you send us out the vacancy list and while I'm sitting here listening to all the conversation I'm wondering because on my email list for my constituency I strictly send out just the newsletter Now I could combine something into the newsletter about that but I'm wondering if there's some way that we could turn that into a maybe a post that we could put on social media or Facebook that could reach out to more people as well and then I would encourage all of my colleagues to take advantage of that and to post that out on all of our social media because again it's just it's all about getting the word out to our constituency that there are these vacancies and if they're interested to please submit their application So I greatly appreciate all of this and I look forward to continuing to hear from the surveys and I am anxious to see what the 2020 census shows us population wise this year and see what we can work toward going forward and is there I'm seeing there are no other council members that are signed up to speak I really appreciate your all presenting today this information and I appreciate your continued efforts in this arena and I really appreciate Arthur you've been a very good part of this process and I think that we have I'd love to know the distribution list that we started with and then to see how much we've expanded it now I think everybody would be pretty pleased with the magnitude of who it goes out to now versus who it was two years ago so keep up the good work and we'll see where we are in another couple years with this so thank you all Thank you All right and Vice Mayor the next item on the agenda I will recognize you to introduce that Thank You chair this is an item that has to do with a recent suit Kentucky Supreme Court ruling on a case that had to do with the question of discrimination and this case basically I think people remember the hands-on original question was whether the owners had discriminated unlawfully the Supreme Court of Kentucky did not rule on the merits of the case what they ruled was that the people filing the complaint did not have standing and the basis for that ruling was that in our code of ordinances we have the word individual when it talks about the rights and privileges and the state statute which is really governing has the word person so all that I am interested in doing today is changing encouraging the council to consider changing one word in our code of ordinances so that it is consistent with the wording in the state statute and allows organizations and a range of people besides an individual person to bring suit a complaint of discrimination so what you will see in your packet is a strikeout which on page 16 changes the word individual to person and does the similar thing in two places on page 17 and on page 18 what you will see is the KRS chapter cited where person includes one or more individuals, labor organizations, joint apprenticeships, etc. so I will make a motion to put that on the docket but before I do that I would see if people have questions or comments thank you is there anybody that has anything to speak about I do think this is a very good correction as it relates to our state statute and the definitions under chapter 344 so I think that this is the right thing right way to move forward to make sure that we that our code of ordinances complies with the state statute there being nobody vice mayor did you want to make a motion that we yes ma'am I make a motion that we report out to the full council a amendment to the code of ordinances as indicated on pages 16 and 17 of our packet today changing the word individual to person so move all right there's a motion and a second councilmember Farmer made the second is there any discussion on that motion there being none all in favor please say aye any opposed all right and now vice mayor I would assume that you would want this just follow the natural progression and come out and the next the next meeting we have in February that'll be fine all right thank you all right thank you and so on to the next is the referral item list that you will see in your packet and on page 21 I'll just put it out there instead of going through the whole list is there are there any items that anyone would like to make any motions regarding excuse me sure sure councilmember Farmer thank you madam chair the third item on the list is the public arts master plan which the which the newly seated public arts commission has undertaken a lot of public input on in fact tonight one of our bigger meetings will be at the lyric theater at 530 to take input about that we won't be done till later this year and I think that's reflected either in the notes or in the minutes but I just wanted folks to know we're working very hard to come up to speed as a new group and it'd be a great time tonight till we get 530 folks around thank you ma'am thank you thank you for that information vice mayor Kaye thank you chair given the recent action I would move to remove the issue of fairness ordinance so move there's a motion in the second on the floor to remove item 21 fairness ordinance is there any discussion on that motion there being none all in favor please say aye any opposed all right and I believe that if anybody if no one has any objection I think that we could remove the diversity officers involvement in the appointment of boards and commissions and and I think that it's headed in the right direction and I believe that that we have properly vetted that is there anyone that would entertain a motion to remove that all right there's a motion is there a second all right motion by councilmember Farmer seconded by vice mayor Kaye all in favor please say aye any opposed all right thank you and if there are no further comments on the referral list I wanted to point to the next pages 22 through 27 yes 27 which I really appreciate the core staff Hillary and for putting this together I think that this is really important and I'm glad that we're doing this at the first of each year calendar year it's kind of an overview of what each item is and kind of little history I think that's very important so we just need to hold this information for as we go forward and and then the last item is for information information oh and councilmember Evans okay there we go touch is too hard okay yeah I wasn't sure if we covered that or not but yes this is just for informational purposes and the travel policy was something that came up in a couple of different of our our budget links and there wasn't a real clear question or you know thought it was just a topic that we counsel kept hearing and just kind of I think just gathered just wanted to know more about so the policy has been revised as you can see there's a red line version in your packet was as recently as October the second of last year this is a policy that the council or I'm sorry the the administration is over it is a cao policy so there's very little if anything we can can do to you but it was really more for information and how the policy works what are the requirements for employees regarding travel but there were some issues that had been taken up with the administration I did talk to them after after our links process was done and and express the concerns that we heard through our budget links and again they're not quite things that I think we can or should take on as as a council but they they were addressed in some amendments so this is really just for informational purposes should there be some questions later on but yeah it's just kind of it is what it is and it's very similar to the state policy if if not the exact same so it was just more for informational we could remove that from from the list of items as well should should the committee see fit I'm happy to make that motion to remove it if there any questions or concerns I guess I was looking at the referral list and maybe I'm just not looking at it correctly but which item is it oh that number 10 business travel policy yes okay all righty okay well if you would like to entertain a motion then all right is there a second okay councilmember Fred brown made second any discussion on the item yes councilmember Farmer so you're saying we don't have to take action on it because this is the administration's purview is that it so the changes that are outlined there and the redraft have taken place and this is the current policy yes all right thank you thank you ma'am thank you sure all right are there any other questions or discussion on the motion that's on the floor there being none all in favor please say aye any opposed all right well I do believe we have moved through very nicely our agenda today and I appreciate it and I would entertain a motion to adjourn second all right all in favor please say aye any opposed thank you all I miss Daniel oh I miss him so much oh Daniel my brother you are other than me do you still feel the pain I miss oh oh I miss him so much oh yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah