Thank you. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh. We'll be right back. But if you tap on the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. get started. Okay, so we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order for the Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting today, September the 21st, at 1.02 p.m. With that, the first item on the agenda is the approval of the August 10th, 2021 Committee summary. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Move to approve. Second. A motion has been made to approve the meeting summary for August the 10th and seconded. Are there any questions or corrections to the summary? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any that oppose? That motion passes. Moving down to the next item on the agenda, the home-based business inclusion of hairdressing. It's going to be presented to us today by senior planner Autumn Garawist. Did I say it right? That's going to become a thing now, me and Names. All right. She'll present us with the presentation and be available for questions as well as Director Duncan and other support from the Division of Planning. So, Autumn, I'll turn it over to you. All right. Good afternoon. I'm here today to talk to you about a potential zoning ordinance text amendment to allow haircutting as a home-based business. I want to start by giving you a brief overview of how home-based work is currently regulated by our zoning ordinance. So currently, home-based work has three levels within our zoning ordinance based on the level of intensity of the business occurring in the home. So the first category is the home office. That means an office for record-keeping and administration of work. This includes things like working on a computer or using Zoom or using the telephone to do your work, similar to what folks were doing last year. The second category is a home occupation. That is a little bit more intense, and that's something that could include home-based processing, which might be baking and decorating cookies or making soaps to sell on Etsy, things like that. And then the most intense level of home-based work in our zoning ordinance is what we call the home-based business. This category can include customers or clients coming to a residence. Some recent examples that we have seen include individual yoga instruction, counseling, piano instruction, and nutrition coaching. So currently home offices and home occupations are regulated as accessory uses, meaning that they are allowable by right when accessory to the residential use occurring on the property. These are allowable because they do not typically include customers coming to the property except for some scheduled drop off or pick up times. And they generally have a low potential for causing a nuisance to neighbors. Home based businesses, on the other hand, are regulated as a conditional use. Those are approved by the Board of Adjustment. Those require notification to neighbors and a public hearing. So this is because these uses have a little bit more of a potential to create a nuisance or to impact traffic. and they do allow for outside visitors coming into the property. So the conditional use process allows the board to place conditions on the use. Those things may be hours of operation or the number of clients who can come to the property at a time or throughout the day. So these categories are all limited to 300 square feet within the principal primary structure so that they can't take place in any accessory structures. They won't be taking place in a detached garage or something like that. They can't have outside signage. The building and the parking areas that exist cannot be modified or expanded to change the residential character into something that has a more commercial character. And they can only employ residents of the property. So they cannot have any outside employees coming and working and leaving. So you may recall that you have looked at home-based businesses pretty recently. you had a second reading of another ZOTA related to home-based work last week. That ZOTA was involving the allowance of home-based processing and microprocessing and caught us up with some state regulations related to firearms. So again, going back to what we're talking about today regarding haircutting and styling, in recent years, the board has seen some applications for other home-based businesses, which we have sort of fit into that same category, and that have been denied by the board based on the prohibition of barbershops and beauty salons because they're regulated at the state level in the same way. So I wanted to touch on these services that are regulated by the state similarly because they would also be things that could potentially be done as home-based businesses if the prohibition for salons and barbershops were to be removed. So requests that we have seen have been for things like aesthetic services, like facials and skin care. And then also for the application of eyelash extensions. So those are some sort of tangential businesses that operate similarly to beauty salons and barber shops. And again, the state Kentucky Board of Cosmetology licenses these facilities. Beauty shops, nail salons, aesthetic salons, and limited facilities for blow drying services which can include like washing hair, arranging it, cutting and blow drying. but excludes some of the more intense uses, like dyeing and that sort of thing, and excludes the cosmetic services. So any home-based business that would conduct these activities would also be subject to the state's regulations. So a question, of course, is why don't we allow these now? Currently, the zoning ordinance states that the term home-based business shall not include barbershops or beauty parlors. These uses have been explicitly prohibited in this way, since sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. And the general sort of assumption is that there may have been some issues with these causing traffic or other complaints or problems whenever they were allowed prior to the 50s or 60s. So they have been prohibited ever since then. Move forward here. Again, some similar, or not similar necessarily, but other home-based businesses that have been approved in the last few years have been things like Pilates instruction, health nutrition coaching, piano lessons, and counseling. In 2017, the homework categories in the zoning ordinance were expanded to include the home-based business. Prior to that, we just had the home occupation and home office. So we've sort of delineated those a little bit further so that home occupations and home offices could be treated as accessory uses and home-based businesses could receive a little bit more scrutiny under the conditional use process. So if there is a consensus to change the zoning ordinance to allow for hairdressing and haircutting to be allowed as a home-based business, the changes to the zoning ordinance text would be quite minor. A simple strike-through of barbershops and beauty parlors in Article I under the definition of home-based business would alleviate the prohibition. Other regulations related to home-based businesses are contained in Article 3, and those would remain the same, or could remain the same. So, again, just to remind you how a home-based business and a conditional use would work. All home-based businesses where customers are coming to a residence are treated as home-based businesses, which are conditional uses in the zoning ordinance. and so an applicant would make an application to the board of adjustment they would provide notice to neighbors and the planning staff would review an application and make a recommendation to the board that recommendation would likely include additional conditions related to hours of operation the number of customers who could come to the house the frequency of appointments and things like that and then the board of adjustment would make the final decision at their meeting whether or not to approve an application. If the application were approved, conditional uses are inspected annually to ensure that they're operating in accordance with their approval and that they're meeting all of those conditions that were established by the board. Other things that can trigger an additional inspection would be if we receive citizen complaints about that those conditions are not being met or that there's an extreme amount of traffic or something like that. At that time, a zoning enforcement officer would visit the site and verify whether or not it was operating in accordance with its conditional use. And a final sort of mechanism that the board has is that if a conditional use is found to not be in compliance and no effort can be made to resolve that issue, the board can hold a revocation hearing and rule to revoke a conditional use. That doesn't happen too often, thankfully, but that is something that the board does have the power to do. So that concludes my presentation for you all today. If you have any questions, I'm available to answer those. thank you autumn for that presentation council members are there any questions in regards to the presentation uh council member bledsoe thank you chair thank you for your presentation i know that this is an issue that is more and more has happened because of covid so i'm just curious the president setting of this are there other groups who also want exemptions similar to this or is there any considerations outside of just the hair right so the the comprehensive plan did call for a more comprehensive review of home-based businesses in general and that's sort of where we got started with the with the home-based processing microprocessing and firearms soda that you saw I think we do anticipate that there could be further changes to the home-based business and home occupation categories and that review will be forthcoming Okay, so we're basically doing this as a case-by-case basis as you all go through it and decide which ones are not worthy, but which ones are ready to move forward. Right. Fair. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Members, are there any other questions? Seeing none, I just have a couple of questions. And so are there any recommendations, Autumn, in regards to some of the issues that folks have mentioned in the past in regards to home-based businesses? Is that part of your purview is to work through ways to address, and specifically in regards to traffic and parking is my question. Sure. I think that how we look at it right now is that this is not dissimilar from some of those other home-based business uses that we have seen. while it has been historically prohibited, I think that the way the zoning ordinance is written now and some of the changes that have been made over the years to Article 3 relating to the amount of space that can be used for the use and things like that and the ability that the board has to place conditions could alleviate a lot of those concerns because those are similar concerns that you would have for some of these other uses that are being approved like personal training in someone's home on an individual basis where an individual is still coming for an appointed time and then leaving and potentially they may have other clients coming throughout the day. So those conditions that would be placed by the Board of Adjustment in that review could largely alleviate I think the concerns that have sort of been historically held. Okay. So what's the next step? So the next step would be for this committee to move this on to the council. If the council were to initiate a zoning ordinance text amendment that would then go to planning commission and could be heard by the planning commission as soon as the end of december or the beginning of january so has the text amendment not been developed yet the language that i showed today would be our recommended language um the just the simple strike through of salons and barber shops unless the council were inclined to to make additional changes but we believe that that would be sufficient. Okay. So with that being said, I would entertain a motion to move this forward to the full council to make this amendment to the zone tax amendment in regards to home-based businesses. So I'm second. So a motion's been made by Council Member Bledsoe and seconded by Council Member Reynolds. Are there any questions in regards to this motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any that oppose? Seeing none, it looks like that motion passes. Thank you for that presentation and see you again at the full council. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you council members. The next item on today's agenda is the sustainable growth study update. We have Craig Vince with us today from the mayor's office that will provide a presentation. Thank you Craig for joining us. Good afternoon. So the, since the last time this committee received an update, the Sustainable Growth Task Force has completed their work in recommending a framework to make long term decisions regarding the urban service. service boundary so today I'm just going to provide kind of a broad overview of the tasks that they've undertaken and we'll open it up for questions after that just as a reminder what we're talking about today is the urban service boundary it was established back in 1958 the first boundary in the nation and it's really there to manage infrastructure and development in a responsible manner the last expansion was nearly 25 years ago and that resulted in the expansion area master plan so the study that I'm talking about today is is a result of two goals in the comprehensive plan and theme a urban and rural balance the first maintained during your last plan update maintain the current boundaries of the urban service area until the goal was superseded by goal 4 and what goal 4 calls for is the creation of a new process for determining long-term land use decisions involving the urban service boundary and rural activity centers this first phase the study that I'm presenting today is is taking care of that underlying part there we're addressing the urban service boundary the Planning Commission as a next step would be addressing rural activity centers so this slide just shows the goals of the of the study it creates an objective and measurable methodology really helping to guide those decisions regarding alignment of the urban service boundary and in plain English what that means to expand or to not expand there's a couple of things that are really important to note that the study does not address first the study does not identify specific areas that are appropriate for for future expansion also it does not make us recommendations or any assumptions regarding the future alignment of the urban service boundary. So this is a framework process. It does not recommend expanding the boundary or leaving it as is. It just provides a framework to help make those decisions later on. This study was guided by the Mayor's Sustainable Growth Task Force, which is a task force made up of 13 members as well as six advisory committee members. was appointed by Mayor Gordon in late 2019. And again, it was formed specifically to guide the work of this study. Their specific tasks are listed on the bottom of that slide with the real emphasis being on the review and refinement of the evaluation framework that I'm discussing today. This slide just shows the members of that task force. The task force was co-chaired by Ann Bacus as well as Greg Padgett. This slide is, I left this in here, it was in the last update you received, just to reiterate the tasks that were undertaken as part of the study. All of these tasks have been accomplished at this point, with the exception of the optional task six. That's great out there, which is a data clearinghouse. There is a future opportunity to put together a web-based data clearinghouse that could be used community-wide that uses the data that results from this study. So one of the deliverables that was completed in July for the study was an existing conditions and growth trends report. And what that is is really a collection of data with a 20-year time horizon. It takes a look at everything from the community's population and demographics down to vacant land use analyses. It takes a look at commercial market trends and community facilities and infrastructure. This part of the study will be updated on an annual basis. The intent is that we would keep this data updated not only for this study, but for other planning efforts and for other community efforts. And the report, the existing conditions and growth trends report is available on the study's website. That's LexingtonSustainableGrowth.com. everything that we've worked on is available on that site. So this was one of the major tasks that we undertook when we started the study. This is an updated vacant land use map, and unfortunately I'm seeing that it doesn't show up great on your overhead. Hopefully it shows up a little bit better in the packet. But it is on the website, the project website, and it's broken out into sectors, so you can see much more detail on this. The yellow area that you have on the map there is considered developed land, and it actually looks a little bit more peach colored, I guess, on the slide there. Importantly, the green areas that you see on there are truly vacant land. They're subject to future development. The orange that you see on there is labeled other, and I've just been generically calling that off the table, land uses. is it includes things like golf courses, parking areas, public services, governmental HOA land, retention basins, and that sort of thing. And lastly, the blue areas that you see on the map that are kind of scattered around the periphery, those are properties in transition. So those are areas where we either have a development plan that's going through the process, Or we know that there's going to be development in the very near future on those properties. So in total, the vacant land, those green areas, are about 5,045 acres. As part of this process, after we had developed some data, we had community meetings, 14 of them, between January and March with stakeholders, and those were very well attended. We had about 150 people total, 150 stakeholders attend those. We also, once we got further down the road in July and really had a framework to share, held a community meeting virtually via Zoom and had 45 people participate in that as well and received some great input. So I think the last time I talked to you about this, we were just at the beginning of developing some build-out scenarios, some development scenarios, and those have been completed now. And really what those scenarios do, and I'll talk a little bit more about this, but they inform the evaluation framework. So they're a tool that we're using. They're not set in stone. We anticipate that they'll change each year, but they're a tool to evaluate potential development in the community. So there's three of those. Scenario one is a baseline development pattern, and what that really is is status quo. So it assumes we continue developing pretty much exactly as we are developing with the zoning that's in place. Scenario two assumes an implementation of policy goals and the comp plan for greater density and flexibility. So you'll see a little bit more in terms of density on sites and some mixed use and things like that. Scenario three takes that one step further and assumes some increased density and really has an emphasis on infill and redevelopment type of projects. it's important to note all three of these scenarios are are consistent with the current comprehensive plan any one of these scenarios that we developed could be one of could be a future for Lexington so they're just different ways to look at how we may build out over the next 20 years and again those can be adjusted for analysis purposes we would expect that they would be adjusted as we move forward in time and we see what some of the development patterns on those vacant lands are going to be we'll update those build-out scenarios and again this all informs the evaluation framework I'll tell you more about the evaluation framework but in a nutshell it's a transparent data driven process it's really the framework to evaluate really whether whether that boundary line is is more likely to stay where it is or whether it needs to be adjusted in the near future so the evaluation framework answers two basic questions This is the easiest way to think of all of this because it seems very complex on its face. But there's really only two questions that we're trying to answer. And the first is, do we have enough land to accommodate demand over the next 20 years? And the second is, are we developing that land in a way that's consistent with the comprehensive plan? At its core, those are the two questions we're trying to ask. So this is the evaluation process we use for the framework. And this will be the same process we use annually from this point forward. We'll be collecting and organizing baseline data. And what that means is GIS and PVA data as well as zoning data that we have right now. We'll be estimating demand through a 20 year time horizon. And I'll tell you a little bit more about how we do those estimates. And then we'll be developing those build out scenario capacities. That's those three scenarios I was just discussing. We'll be evaluating those scenarios. we'll be inserting them into this framework we're talking about. And the results of all of that, again, doesn't make the decision, but it'll be provided to the decision makers so that they have that tool when they're evaluating the urban service boundary. This slide is really for illustration only. The answers that you see under there are just for, those are examples only. And really what this slide, what this table seeks to do is answer those two questions that I mentioned. The first being, do we have enough land for the next 20 years? And the second being, are we growing in a way that's consistent with our comprehensive plan? So the first question on there answers that question of, do we have enough land? So what the task force and the consultant, working with the consultant, arrived at was taking a look at each one of those scenarios, and evaluating them to see if they're meeting 100 percent of low growth projected demand and 75 percent of our high growth projected demand there's there were two demand scenarios that were put in place a low and a high essentially and we want to make sure that we're at least 75 percent of that high growth demand over the 20-year planning horizon and then again questions two and three answer that that next question about consistency with the comprehensive plan and the way we're doing that is putting together a number of questions that that correlate back to the goals of the comprehensive plan and determining if each scenario scores above 50 percent are we significantly consistent with the plan in our evaluation matrix so These questions answer or inform that first question about land availability. And this looks like a lot, but really we're asking the same two questions for four different land use types. So the first is residential. We're asking if the scenario supplies enough residential units to meet the conservative or that low growth projection for 20 years. And similarly, does it meet 75% of the full growth projection for 20 years? We ask those same questions for residential, office, retail, and industrial uses. This is really those same questions, but put into a graphic format. That's a little bit easier to digest. So what you're seeing over there under the supply column, that is the, for this particular slide, it's the residential units that are provided for over the 20-year planning horizon for each one of the scenarios. So, in other words, scenario one, the least aggressive scenario, provides an additional 26,600 residential housing units. What we did is we took a look at our conservative and full, the more aggressive growth trend numbers, calculated the 75% number for that, and simply evaluated each one of those to see if we're providing enough land over that 20-year planning horizon in each one of these scenarios. And as you can see, scenario one, kind of the status quo scenario, we're not providing enough land to meet residential dwelling unit demand over the 20-year planning horizon. Scenarios two and three are, however, meeting those requirements. This is that same analysis for office use. Office use is meeting projections across the board. Even in scenario one, there is enough office land or land that can be used for office use to accommodate requirements over the next 20 years. And similarly, retail use, we found that over the 20-year planning horizon, there's no shortage of retail land either in any of the scenarios. Industrial use had a wide variance in the conservative and full demand curves. And the reason for that, that we dug back into, is that we did this taking a look at a 10 year growth trend and a 20 year growth trend. When you look back at the last 10 years, growth has been a little bit slower than if you look fully back 20 years before the recession. There was a boom of industrial land supply shortly before that recession, and that is what is informing that higher number, that 5.6 million square foot full growth trend. Using the 75% numbers, bringing that down to 4.2 million. But for this scenario in particular, all but only scenario three is meeting requirements. I think it's important to mention, this slide really illustrates it. We're going to be updating the data on an annual basis. And so I think what you'll see as we move forward and we include 2020, which is going to be a little bit different for all of these demand projections, we'll see that conservative and that full line come closer to each other, and there won't be nearly the variance between the top and bottom lines for this. So this slide answers the second question about consistency with the comprehensive plan. The task force evaluated these goals in the comprehensive plan and applied them to the scenarios that I mentioned, those three scenarios. Determining things like, do they prioritize higher density development? And that last one on the slide, have a positive impact on LFUCG operating expenses. What that's really asking is, is development paying for itself? And you see the rest of them on this slide as well. So what we did with those criteria, the criteria that you just saw on the previous slide are listed on the left of this slide. We asked our task force members to weight each one of these particular criteria. We applied a point rating using a Likert scale to each one of these. And long story short, we came up with a score for each one of these criteria. And essentially what we've done, using that 50% kind of pass fail number, we've determined that scenarios two and above do meet the intent of the comprehensive plan. Scenario one, which again is the status quo scenario that we had put together, that's kind of the growth along the same curve that we're on, did not meet the 50% requirement. So with all of that said, this is the project schedule where we would like to go from today forward. The Mayor's Sustainable Growth Task Force has recommended the framework that you heard about today for planning commission consideration. We did present this to the planning commission last Thursday during their work session, and we intend to bring it back to them on October 28th during their public hearing for additional discussion. and hopefully for a vote. And the intention is that after the Planning Commission votes on that and there's a final version of it, we would bring it back to council for your consideration in November. Again, lexingtonsustainablegrowth.com is a resource for all of this information. It has videos of all the past meetings we've had, minutes, and a number of other resources. And at this point, I'd like to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Craig, for the presentation. I know it's a large task force. Do you have any of the task force members here with you today? I do not believe any of our task force members were... We do have a task force member here. Lynn was able to make it to the task force meeting. Are there any other task force members that are in the audience? Of course, I neglected to mention, of course, We have two council members that were on the task force, Vice Mayor Kay as well as Council Member Bledsoe were on the task force as well. Thank you for that, Greg. I just wanted to just acknowledge those folks that worked on this task force and thank you for your time and dedication to this initiative. So with that, I'll open it up to council members for questions and comments. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. Actually, what I'd like to do is, I didn't see anybody else signed up, but I'll defer to other council members who were not on the task force before I make my comments, if that's okay. Yes, sir, that's fine. Council Member Klober. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Greg. Obviously, we've been long awaiting the results of this, so it's always great when we can get this kind of a presentation. I wanted to kind of go back to the third slide in the presentation there, the one that has the goal. Right, yeah, one up from that. So, when I'm reading this, one of the major goals here, and I guess we can read it together here, is about identifying land for future urban development. Right? It happens in Section A, Section B. It's continually placed in there in the goal in the comprehensive plan. And on the very next slide, it explicitly states that this study does not identify specific areas appropriate for future expansion. That's correct. So how was that decision come to when it seems to be the overriding instruction on what this task force was meant to do that we were going to not identify that specific question? Sure. The directive or the goal of this particular task force and study was to put together that objective framework with the understanding that next steps are always going to be exactly what you're talking about. The next steps will be to take a look outside the boundary and identify those areas that would be appropriate for future expansion. So that will be in the hands of the Planning Commission moving forward. So am I mistaken in understanding that the reason for this task force's creation was to fulfill this objective, but then they decided that that was not their objective? Well, their specific task was to put together this evaluation framework that you have before you today. Okay. So in that evaluation framework, several times you brought up, you know, having enough land as a metric. Where did that come from? Because, again, when I'm looking at these objectives, that's not brought up as a standard at all when we're looking for the potential and specific triggers and thresholds and timings identifying these lands. Sure. Well, the task force and working with the consultant felt that really job one was taking a look at the existing land that we have inside the urban service boundary and determining what the timeline would be for the use of that land. In other words, how long can we continue to grow and under what circumstances can we continue to grow before that land runs out? And that would typically, in the past at least, that would be the deciding factor for expanding their urban growth boundary or urban service boundary or not, would be whether we have sufficient land. So that was job one, it was updating that vacant land use map and making determinations regarding how long we can go before the land that we have is absorbed. So what I'm hearing is that there was an assumption made about a trigger or specific condition, and it was just internalized and decided that the amount of land that we had was the condition, Not, for example, gentrification forces or affordability of housing or any of the other forces that affect our residents. It was decided by this group that the only trigger that mattered was the available land. It wasn't put in those terms. It's best practice, essentially, nationwide. When communities do studies like this related to urban service boundaries, the very first thing they do is do a land inventory and determine what they still have available and how long that's going to last. And they have to determine methodology to get to that answer. Some communities have a future land use map where they can just do some math and figure out if it builds out according to that map, what can they do. Our planning process is a little bit different, and so what we did is come up with those scenarios. We developed our own future land use maps, essentially. Thanks for bringing that up. And, again, I'm just kind of jumping around because I don't have all the time in the world. When we get down to these scenarios, it seems like, again, we've made this one assumption that it matters only about the land that we have. And, I mean, again, it's good to have that inventory and to know it. But when I look through these scenarios, it appears to me that the only thing that we have stated is that we could put higher density on land to support more population. Certainly that's intended to be one of the options. But we're not making that decision as part of this study. We're putting that forth as one of the scenarios. And one of them is to stay on the exact path we're on. But the scenario itself is not designed to make any decisions. It's just designed to inform those decisions. Yes, it's a framework that has been designed such that a decision can be made so long as we all agree that the only thing that matters about whether we look for more land is the land that we already have. We're not talking about specific uses or impact on the city itself. Well, the other part of that equation, though, again, is consistency with those goals of the comprehensive plan. So even if we do have enough land, if we're growing in a way that's inconsistent with the comprehensive plan, we're recommending that's also something that would be looked at. Understandable, and I know I'm out of time here. I'm just going to wrap this up. I do believe that what we were looking for from this particular task force was something that would supersede, as you said in the first task there, that we'd be superseding the previous Section 3. And I think what we got instead was a somewhat expensive study that told us that if we wanted to have more density, we could. And I don't find that to be the most useful thing in our decision making or a good framework for us to look at going forward. But thank you. Thank you, Council Member Klober. I'm signing to speak, but if anybody else is, I'll. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And I just want to piggyback a little what Council Member Klober was saying. So if the council approves this in November, then where do we go from here then? Is this going to be an annual look at this, or how is this, what's the process? Because when we came up, we wanted basically objective criterias to figure out, and I think to say what he was saying is do we need to expand the urban service area or not? And are we going to get a number that says at 51, then yes, at 62 percent, yes? every year then where do we decide that we have or haven't hit that trigger and how does that work? So the study itself, the framework is designed to be repeatable. It has to be repeatable in order for it to really be of use. And so all of the data in there, the consultant is essentially putting together an instruction manual so that staff can update this on an annual basis. And really kind of update the report card for how we're doing. we're doing? Are we consistent with our plan? In whatever form the plan is in future years, it'll allow for changes of policy goals and those sorts of things. And we'll be taking a fresh look at land use in the future as that changes as well. So I think what's going to happen is those high and low numbers, that kind of space between those high and low development numbers that I was showing are going to get a little bit closer to each other over time and help inform the decisions a little bit better. But yes, all of that to say the intent is to update this on at least an annual basis so that it can be used as a tool to help guide those discussions. So will this be done by the staff then? They'll take it to the Planning Commission and they bring it to us then? How will the annual review happen? It would follow the typical process that is definitely staff would be updating the data and then bringing it to planning commission for discussion. That's correct. And it's my understanding that council is responsible for adopting goals and objectives. So you would definitely retain that. We do that every five years with the confidential plan, but this is supposed to be done annually, isn't it? It is. It is. So there's a possibility there, and that's still under discussion, but at least an update. should be provided and perhaps in committee on an annual basis to to make sure that council is that's what i'm hoping i don't i don't know is that is that part of this because i'm hoping that annually we would get an update where we stand and that was kind of to have the objective criteria to know how we're doing sure i think that'll be an implementation task so it's not specifically listed in the in this but that is something that would i i would expect that that would be in in the future guiding document mr duncan do you is that how what you foresee coming forward? Council Member Ellinger, we will be available to make that information available to you all, to the Planning Commission, and I think annually would be about the right time. We couldn't really, any less than that would not be appropriate. And then certainly codifying this into the goals and objectives, into future goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan would be a way to ensure that that report does get to you all. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member McCurron. Thank you, Chair. A real brief question for you, Craig. Mr. Benton, excuse me. It was about the stakeholder meetings. Yes, sir. My interest is who all, besides I see on here, of the list of people who you had involved with it, but I don't see anything about public safety being on here. Public safety was engaged. We had one of the stakeholder groups was internal to LFUCG, so public safety was invited to that meeting, for example. They may have been invited to some of the others. I'll be glad to take a look at that and report back to you on that. Okay, please do. And what about the advertising for this, like neighborhood associations? Was there ever a target of, hey, let's look at some neighborhood associations who just went through a recent zone change? So for the stakeholder meetings, I believe the task force in consultation with staff had put together a list of community organizations that we knew we wanted to chat with, that we knew we wanted to meet with because they were known stakeholders. For the community meeting that we had later on in July, that was definitely advertised. It was advertised on our website and there was an email blast that went out to the same listserv that we used for our comprehensive planning efforts and that sort of thing. So we made all efforts to get the word out about those. Sure. So I wouldn't necessarily invite council members to the meeting to speak on it, but I would say at least include us if you're going to target our districts or areas so we can advertise in our newsletters or social media as well. So I know some people were interested in being engaged more with the stakeholder meetings but didn't quite know about them until after the fact. I see. Then back to my last part of the question was, what about areas that have just recently gone through zone changes? because obviously we've had some conflicting zone changes that have come up recently and when we're talking about more density of what we're wanting that's not necessarily what the neighbors are saying to us here in chambers during those meetings yeah so that's a great question and that's really one of the drivers behind wanting to keep this updated on an annual basis we did have to kind of draw a line in the sand at some point or we would have just updated it continually but it will be important to you know take into account any sort of zone changes and any other changes you know in the land use of the city as we move forward. All right thank you. Thank you chair. Thank you Councilmember McCurran. Craig I have a few questions and comments myself but I'd like to start off asking I want to ask my fellow council members their impression and their experience on the task force. But before I do that I'd like to ask Director Duncan or anybody from the planning staff. We had a lot of conversations in the last comprehensive plan about this new process and what it meant or could mean to the conversation around the comprehensive plan development and that sort of thing. Do you feel that that all the promises were met and that we have a process that's going to actually address a lot of the issues that we were confronted with and continue to be confronted with in regards to growth. Council Member Brown, I think we were looking at a Herculean task to begin with. This has been a significant issue for as long as we've had an urban service boundary. boundary, is then what happens to that boundary when we think it's time that we need to grow or when property owners who are not in the urban service boundary want to be able to cash in and develop their land. It's kind of two-fold. And so what we were hoping to do with this was to separate it as a process from the comprehensive plan so that we could spend the year and a half to two years that we developed the comprehensive plan talking about future policies for the community and how we address those and not whether and of course the boundary is a policy but there are hundreds and hundreds of policies that affect how we grow where we grow what we grow what we do and the boundary is one of those it's a significant one and what we were hoping was that there would be perhaps a clear-cut answer to tell us how to do that outside of the comprehensive planning process. And I think what we found as we got into this, and the consultants have stated this, they stated this to the Planning Commission last week, that really what we thought we were looking for, at least in Lexington, may not really exist. And so we had to create a policy as best we could to respond to that request from the council and that goal and objective to address future growth. And so that's what the consultants, I believe, attempted to do with this, was to create something that would provide guidance and tell us, provide guidance on when we need to look at the urban surface boundary. And so it's not perfect. It's not ideal. But I'm not sure that now that we've been through this process that what we were looking for was possible anyway. We have more information now. We have certainly what the consultants did was validate the work that the council and the planning commission did in 2018 with the comprehensive plan to show that the land that we have is indeed land that's available for future development. And so that process was good and certainly more information, updated information is good. But to say that we're going to be able to completely separate the comprehensive plan and the decisions about the urban service boundary, I'm not sure we were able to do that. And I'm not sure that we could have done that really if we wanted to. Well, I appreciate that answer and I also appreciate the term Herculean task. Because I think it was a lot that we were asking for and I think it was a lot that we're looking for. And what I see in front of us today, I don't think it gets us there either. I think we're still going to have to have those conversations. But one of the elements that excited me the most about what was being proposed in regards to this new process, what if somebody outside of the boundary, the urban service boundary, had a, in regards to an application of a development, what would we look at to either, on the merits of it, to see if it was something that we would even consider, as opposed to just denying it because of its location. So, you know, I thought that was something that we could potentially have a conversation for, or could be a component of this, but I know it's easier said than done, and we may have to take this in phases, but I just want to make sure that we're taking the right steps to have that conversation. So then I'll just ask my fellow council members and vice mayor that were on the task force, the same question, pretty much. What do you think the next steps are, and what were some of the challenges with having this conversation and developing this process? I'll kick it off. I think the first thing to recognize is the amount of work that's been done to get this report to the stage that it's at. There may be other words besides Herculean, but there's no question that it was a very heavy lift, and i appreciate the work that mr bentz and the other members of the planning staff put into this having said that i think it's important to recognize the limits of what we have comes member clover kind of started going in the direction that i would go in and i tried to to make this case probably too often for other members of the task force, but to be clear about the limits of what we had asked the consultant to do and to urge that the task force really had more to do than just bless the consultant report. The decision was made to end the work of the task force. And so where we are is exactly as Mr. Benz has described it. I would point out two things, and this is kind of reiterating a point that has been made, but I think it's important. If you look at goal four and the objectives, it's very clear that identifying land for future urban development was a part of that goal. It's very clear that ensuring the study designates rural land for long-term preservation and identifies land for potential future urban development was part of that goal. When you get down to Part D from that goal, it says implement the process superseding Goal 3. And Goal 3 is maintaining the current boundary. At a minimum, what I would urge people to understand is that this report from the consultants, this being forwarded to the Planning Commission, does not satisfy the terms of Goal 4. It does not supersede Goal 3. That leaves us pretty much, I think, where we have been. We have a fairly, I think, complex and for the most part, although not entirely agreed upon, for the most part agreed upon set of criteria for evaluating demand. What we do not have is any consideration of a host of other factors that have been raised. And so if the Planning Commission, through its process approves the report and then that gets forwarded to to the council i just want to be clear that what we would be approving is simply the results that the consultants have brought forward to us and that we're not what we're not doing is claiming that we have a new process in hand that's going to help us understand better how to evaluate whether to expand or not and it's not a tool yet that would allow us to avoid the contentious conversations that we typically have when the question of expansion arises. So that's a start for me. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Blitzo. Thank you, and I think the Vice Mayor summed up that nicely, the challenges. And the committee has spent, I mean, we have spent untold hours over the last year and a half, weekly, two-hour meetings, trying to do this. And I applaud the staff and the committee members who worked tirelessly trying to figure out, to get our hands around this. And it wasn't easy. I think the vice mayor is exactly right. When we go back to that conversation that we had in 2015, I believe, and we said, how do we handle this? everyone had a i've explained it to kind of colloquially as every every councilman had an idea of why they were making this decision do we expand because it's a housing issue do we expand because it's an economic issue do we expand because it's um a school issue there's all these different quote triggers everyone kind of has their own values of deciding what is or whether it's not enough to trigger and the goal behind the committee was to try to figure out is there a holistic view of this and it is just a lot harder than I think anyone anticipated trying to do if that's fair and we all had different ways of thinking about what was the trigger which we knew I think up here we would have lots of different ideas and opinions on what those triggers might look like and how fast we hit them therefore if you look at the evaluation process and the scenarios that are brought forward I think you see trying to evaluate them as projects come in what does it look like if the council makes decisions the planning commission make decisions where they are higher in density higher in those numbers then obviously it reduces the impact and the growth or the the need to push further on that secondary conversation which is do we need to expand or not that's kind of the thought process behind this now the challenge and i think um craig if you don't mind maybe speaking to us a little bit that where i disagreed a little bit friendly with the committee was that I thought the rate of that I thought should have been more aggressive than less. And I say aggressive, aggressive sounds a too harsh for a world. I should have thought that we move a little more forward motion, I would say that. So when you talk about the consultants recommended I think 70% in my head and we settled on 50%. Yes. Do you want to explain a little bit for the committee why we came up with that number, what the the committee thought about that number? Certainly, so I believe what you're describing is when we were putting together the criteria for the consistency questions with the comprehensive plan. The consultants initial number that they put forth for that was 70% for kind of the pass fail line, if you will. And over time and through discussion with the task force, We had evaluated that at 70, and then I believe we tried it at 60, if my memory serves. Yeah, I think I failed both of those times. Then eventually we did settle at 50. And 50 really is what gets us to a level where, candidly, that scenario two works. I believe when we were at 60 and 70, all but scenario three were failing. And that would put, I think that would put everybody, that would put the Planning Commission and Council in a difficult spot to only have a choice of very aggressive development or expansion. So it was a matter of trying to build a little bit of flexibility into the process. Now, my understanding, and I think one of the very most important things of all of this, this whole process, is that the framework is static. The framework itself will stay the same, but there's opportunities to make changes with those thresholds, with the weighting that we put in there, certainly with the scenarios. All of this is meant to be evaluated at least on an annual basis. So if it turns out that that 50% number is just too low for whatever reason, we're just not seeing the type of development we want to or whatever the case may be, there's certainly the opportunity to change that. Thank you, and that's what I just want to kind of mention, is that I think that's the conversation that, as a committee or as a council, we need to be thinking about. The Planning Commission, I'll be interested to see what they recommend as well, because if you look back in the previous year and you show, wow, the council, we've only approved, let's say, low density on those items, because what we want in theory and then what we pass can be different. And I say that based on zone changes that we've had, where it has been recommended to be higher and we've lowered that density because the neighborhood said no. That didn't happen in mine in particular, but it's happened in others. And so I think when you go back and you look at that and you say, okay, how do we then respond? Those things have a domino effect is the point. And we have to be mindful of that. And what the public is willing to take and what we would like them to take can be two different things and have an impact then on our thresholds and our numbers. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you Chair and thank you for this presentation. Kind of to piggyback on what Councilmember Bledsoe said, we can sit here all day and talk about what our goals are and what we want for infill and what we what we desire in terms of growth but at the end of the day if the public isn't engaged and doesn't understand what our goals and objectives are this isn't going to work because we've seen in our zone changes just like councilmember Bledsoe said you know there's infill and you know it's something that the commission wants to move forward it seems like it's meeting the goals and objectives but people don't want it in their backyard and it's not something that a neighborhood wants and as council members we can't consistently vote against our constituents so how can we how can we do better I don't know education public engagement and help people understand that if we're not going to expand the boundary we have to be we have to be having growth and infill because a lot of people you know really want to maintain the boundary a lot of people really want infill but then if it's in their backyard they don't want it and this is just consistently something that we've seen the past few years and we're going to continue to see and so we can sit here all day and say we want to do this this this and this at the end of the day if our residents aren't on board with it it's not going to work How do you respond to that? Sure. Well, I would say one of the useful functions of this framework is that it really is an implementation exercise for the comprehensive plan. It's taking the plan and it's showing how and implementing it in various ways, what the results are for the community. And I think that will help in some ways inform some of the future plan updates because we'll be able to demonstrate some of the results of that. So I think that the plan update process, and I don't want to speak for Director Duncan, but I think the update process itself is pretty robust in terms of community engagement and getting the word out and getting that input. But there's a possibility now that we'll have this framework in place that that can be integrated into those discussions as well. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think messaging is super important here. And how are we going to message our plan moving forward? How are we going to engage with residents? How are we going to explain the necessity and what things look like and what might happen in people's neighborhoods? Maybe even before we get to a specific zone change or before we get to a specific development plan. Just keep, you know, keep, I mean, the comprehensive plan is huge. It's very complicated for some people to understand. So how can we just keep perpetuating the message in a way that people can understand, I think, is important. So thank you very much, and thank you to the council members who worked on this as well. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you again, chair. So this is not specifically about this report that we have before us, but I think, I guess I was going to say I'd be remiss if I didn't make a few more comments. And I guess what I really mean is that I can't stand sitting here and not making a few more comments about planning and growth. And people, a lot of people have heard me say this any number of times, but I want to remind ourselves, I guess, and the community, that what we're talking about ultimately is what we want this community to look like. Right now, two-thirds of our land is rural. A lot of people think that's what makes us special. They may be wrong, but a lot of people believe that. The land is a finite resource. Once it's developed, it's not going to go back to farmland. It's not going to become rural. That's not going to happen. So the question in my mind is long range. When all the developable land is gone, how much of the rural area will we have preserved? if demand is the only criteria we will use up every single bit of it and then we'll look like every other community every other small, large-sized community in the country I happened to grow up in an old mill town in Massachusetts that was basically four square miles, very small very industrial and when I was growing up there was no vacant land it had been developed in the turn of the 19th century and into the 20th century it was all done and somehow that community has survived and you can, I mean, that's an example there are the obvious example on the very other end of the spectrum is New York City. Somehow they've managed to, yeah, I don't want to live there, but somehow they've managed to be a viable community without having a single piece of vacant land to speak of. So eventually that's where we're going to get to. The question is, when we get there, how much of the land that we have has been preserved? And so demand cannot be, in my mind, the only factor when we think about growth and the urban service boundary. We have to think about what that rural land contributes to this community and how much of it do we really want to preserve. And that was a part, the second part of that goal was to take on the hard question of how much of that land really do we think could conceivably be developed without negatively impacting the farm economy, the tourism economy, the viewshed that we enjoy. Is there some land out there and how much? And then under what conditions do we want to consider developing it? So I appreciate this first step for setting criteria for demand, but I hope people understand that that's just one factor in how we need to think about this very difficult and complex question. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate those comments. I agree with them. I think we're going to have to make that clear that this is just a first step. I guess my comments are going to go to what I think the next steps are. I think there's still more work to do. Before, I actually thought our planning department was capable of doing a lot of this work. Capable and having the bandwidth is two different things. But I think we still, and I think we've got to make it clear to the public. Craig, maybe you can answer this question. So the next step in this process is the planning commission is going to have what? Is it a public hearing to talk about this process or what? Yes, sir. They had a work session meeting last week to hear about the framework, and then the next step, as I understand it, will be that public hearing in October, where they'll hear public comments and they'll further consider the framework. So I think we have to be clear, because what I've been hearing is folks think we are going to have the discussion about growth in the urban service boundary sooner than expected. And I think that needs to be cleared up because that's not the conversation that we're having. And then in regards to some of the comments and some of the challenges that still surround this issue, it almost needs to be made clear that this is just part of the work that needs to be done. There's still conversations where this is going to fit into this piece of the puzzle, but there's still some other puzzle pieces that we have to work on. and right now I'm thinking more specifically to some of the components of the pressure that we're seeing in some of our neighborhoods because mainly what I see this process speaking to is density and where do we add more density and the impacts that it has on existing neighborhoods we've talked about them for the last couple of years in the neighborhoods in transition But we didn't talk about, I think what we did is we educated the task force and the public more about the boundaries and some of the elements surrounding that. We knew that this work by this task force was going on at the same time and thought we would be able to get a clearer picture about how those conversations will go. But I don't think we're at that point yet. So we still have to factor in how density, how gentrification and displacement gets talked about and gets referenced when we're talking about increasing density. Because if we don't, then it seems like we're pitting one portion of the community against the other. And I don't think that's what we're talking about. So I think we've got to be clear about that. the other thing in the answer council member Reynolds question is I think we got to continue to get more people more voices to the table that's I think our job I think that's our responsibility is to explain to people what we're talking about how it impacts them and their neighborhoods and their families and have them weigh in not just when it's a zone change that impacts your neighborhood and in your street you got to come and have these conversations all the time because we're always making decisions about the future of this city. So I think that's one way that we need to work to address it. So I guess I'm saying a lot of things. I don't have a lot of answers, but I think that we're not, I don't think we're finished here. And I applaud the task force and the work that they've done, but I think we still got a lot of conversations that we need to have because as we go into the next comp plan, we all know the drill, and it's coming. So thank you, Craig. Are there any other questions for Craig about the presentation? Seeing none, we'll move to the next item on the agenda, and that's the Lexington Community Paramedicine Program. And we have, I know we have Chief Wells, but we also have Captain Lockert and other representatives from the Fire Department here today. So gentlemen. Good afternoon. Thank you for letting us come talk to you, kind of explain where we've been, what we've been doing, and hopefully where we're going. As I start on slide one, I've got a little history of where we were. We started in 2017. The fire department was awarded an AFG and assistance to firefighters grant. That was an amount of $272,000 with the intent of starting a community paramedicine program. At that time, it was a high funding opportunity for the federal government, so we were able to secure a grant. And after jumping through some hoops, getting a pilot permit from the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services, we actually started and went live March 1 of 2018. Shortly thereafter, we actually added a police officer in the summer of 2018. We approached Chief Weathers about putting a police officer with our team. We quickly realized that a lot of our super utilizers, our familiar faces, were common among both agencies. So if we're together pushing somebody in the right direction works better than us pushing a little bit and a police officer pushing a little bit. we were able to get a police officer assigned to the team. And it was instrumental. Another thing happened in 2018. You all executed an MOU with the mayor's signature with the UK's College of Social Work. We were introduced to a professor at the College of Social Work through an E-911 dispatcher, Tracy Wells. And the faculty at UK, Dr. Allison Gibson, met with us. And we explained to her all that we were doing. She had worked on a program when she was at Ohio State University, and we were trying to figure out which direction we needed to go and how do we document some data and great stuff. And she's like, you know, you all are social workers. I'm like, yeah, we're really untrained social workers. So we were able to become a practicum site for the College of Social Work, and we were bringing on two students a year, which was phenomenal because they brought us a different perspective. You know, we're paramedics and firefighters, and having that social work perspective was very instrumental. 2018, we were able to get a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice. It gave us $500,000 and it was actually to hire a social worker. We hired Maria Sloan, who happened to be one of our first students. It was valuable because Maria had over 20 years of mental health experience, so she really brought a lot to our team. She was an invaluable asset to our team. That was a big win for us, having a social worker. 2019, I think you all recall the hospitals were willing to put up $200,000 to cover some backfill overtime costs. That was supposed to last a year. We just pretty much ran out of the money in the last couple of months, so we were able to expend that money fiscally responsibly. 2022, last year, we actually got a second grant. That's twofold. Number one, it continues to pay Maria. and we were also able to add a second social worker to our team which was again another asset to us and that grant is a three-year grant so we'll we'll have that for a few more years and then we just you probably recall this summer got a core grant for $150,000 and that's enabled us to bring on another firefighter paramedic transitioning over because that will cover the backfill overtime cost some of our costs that we've associated for the year for the years this as you recall this is over backfill overtime costs our salaries and benefits are covered by the city but one of our costs that we have associated because you know Patrick Brando myself and now Ken Howell on on fire trucks is we've created a vacancy so that's what a big cost so that we've tried to kind of over you know cover the hospital money did that and so in 2018 the backfill overtime cost was $199,525. In 19 it dipped down to $107,214. And then in 2020 the number was $142,630. Since we started this, these are the grants that we've received. Again, the AFG grant for $272,000, the hospital funding of $200,000, and this core contract that we just got for $150,000. And then finally, the two Department of Justice grants. And the Department of Justice grants, that $500,000 over two years seems like a lot of money. There's some things that it was allocated to do. Step number one, it paid for a social worker for two years. Due to a grant extension, we actually got to last almost two and a half years. We also have been able to spend nearly $200,000 for Narcan purchase for the fire department. And then another component of it was it's actually paying for an evaluation with the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center. They're looking at what we've done, how we've done it, to kind of make a final report that will be published as a best practice type of technique so we can all learn from this type of performance of what we've done with outreach on nonfatal opioid overdoses. The 2020 grants, the five-year, it's going to pay for two social workers for two years. And over the course of three years, we'll be paying about $75,000 for Narcan for the fire department, which is a big cost savings for us. When you look at what we've done in... I think I skipped a slide. Where do we get our information from? I think our biggest asset, our biggest source of information is the first responders. It's both our firefighters that are out, firefighter paramedics that are out making the calls, seeing these individuals in their homes. It's also very valuable to get it from the police department. And I'll tell you why it's so valuable. When I was on an ambulance, you'd make those individuals that you knew needed help, you knew needed more help than you could provide, needed to go to the hospital, and you couldn't convince them to go to the hospital, and it wore on you. You'd carry that baggage home. You'd worry about that person for the next few days, wondering, are they okay? I made an individual who had fallen and I thought broke a hip, and we spent about two hours trying to talk this individual to go in the hospital. A couple of days later, the individual made it to the hospital. She didn't have a broken hip. She had a broken femur. And you worry about those individuals knowing that there's something wrong, that they can't walk across the floor, and it does start to grow on you. So having us as a repository, hey, can you go follow up on this individual, it allows us to take some of that burden off the crews that are making the runs and seeing these things day after day. It's very, very beneficial. We also get some referrals from our community partners. the hospital social services agencies we work quite commonly with the office of homelessness prevention intervention polyuretic is is a good friend of ours we work with the senior center and christy stambaugh we work with some of the fqhcs like health first bluegrass we're trying to work together to just to work with these individuals the best we can and get them in a good spot and so there's so many others to name we compiled a list a few years ago and the And the number of agencies that we work with and know a contact with how to engage them, over 100, and a normal individual on an ambulance or a fire truck is gonna know five to 10 different agencies or groups to call. So we know a lot of places. And then finally, ESO. ESO is our patient care reporting software. And we actually can look at our patient care reporting software and see trends of individuals that are calling a lot. And that becomes another source of sometimes you don't get a phone call from somebody or an email from somebody or a text from one of the personnel that are out there making the runs. And so you can see somebody, you know, Ms. Smith making a lot of calls to 911. And then you can start engaging Ms. Smith to see what you can't do to engage. How do we do it? We team up. Generally, we don't work by ourselves. Depending on the circumstances, depending on the scenario, it may be a firefighter paramedic. with the social worker, it may be a police officer with the social worker, or it may be a firefighter with the police officer. Just kind of depends on the scenario that we're going out to work with. Everybody is unique. That's one of the nice things about it is this is not a kind of a cookie cutter type of response. We're really responding and serving the individuals where they are. We're not crisis response. Limited staffing, we can't be out on every single call every single time that somebody truly has a crisis that's escalated. But we do act as a resource to those responding personnel, whether it be police or fire, being able to act as a kind of a resource to them to help them navigate through that crisis. We'd like to come in after the crisis has been stabilized, see how things have worked out, see what things are working on, and that's usually how we respond. 2020, calendar you. And when you look back at what we document our patient care software we use it as well we served documenting over 300 unique individuals that we work through problems with on top of that we served we tried to make contact with over 1200 individuals within Fayette County and the surrounding area that have suffered a non-fatal overdose and it's not just about the individual it's about the family as well we don't just are trying to talk to them into the individual we're talking to the family and trying to offer support as best we can. Since in the last little less than a year we've started leaving behind Narcan with a program with the healing community study at UK and we've left nearly 200 Narcan behind with families or individuals to have as a resource. It's a harm reduction technique and it's a great great tool to have. On the police department side, Detective Smith has worked with, followed up with over 300 individuals over the last year and she peruses the crisis intervention reports. These are any time when somebody's having a crisis that doesn't fit like a criminal report or damage report that's something way to document and can become a good tool to look back at a history of somebody. And then we worked with over the as I said with the hospitals and last year we had over a hundred referrals from hospitals to follow up with individuals so we stay pretty busy. Solution, I got to ask about a solution and and I think the unique thing about the paramedicine program is there are so many things that we can do and it's and it's unique to the to the community. If you've seen a community paramedicine program you've seen a community paramedicine program. What we do is unique to Lexington. Louisville Metro EMS is doing something totally different. Oldham County EMS is doing something totally different. Every community looks at what their need is, and this is kind of what we've kind of done within Lexington and looking at what our community, based on our fire department and our police department. We're not your typical response. We're very unique in how we respond. Again, we're not tied to a, we're not looking at a ticker, we're not getting a dispatch call saying that we need to get out of the hospital or getting a call, we can spend an hour or two hours or an evening with an individual if that's what's necessary to help somebody, which makes it very unique. And we're flexible and we're agile. We can turn. We're not beholden. When we run into a barrier, we work through that barrier. When we started this program, the instructions to Patrick and I were, go solve problems. and if you get something out of your wheelhouse, just keep me informed, which makes it really nice and refreshing so we're not beholden to a whole bunch of rules. It's very, very flexible, which helps a lot. And we're responsive. We feel the needs in both departments being a resource to those difficult patients, difficult residents that we're working with. It's important to have that type of resource in the community. What are our roles and responsibilities? What do we do, roles and responsibilities? This is a unique role for a paramedic. Generally in the state of Kentucky, if a paramedic is responding, it's responding in an ambulance. We show up in an SUV, generally just one paramedic with a social worker or a police officer, which is really an atypical, but it's an expansion of our role as a paramedic. With the police officer, they're using their expanded knowledge and tools of mental health. And they're making sure that our clients aren't becoming victims. A lot of the individuals that we serve and are working with are individuals that are subject to becoming a victim, being exploited, being criminalized. And we want to make sure that they are taken care of. And then our social worker are great advocates for patients, ensuring that their basic needs are met. And self-determination. When we started this process, we were like going in and educating like, hey, this is what you need to do. And it became, we quickly learned it's about motivational interviewing, about educating the clients and letting them make their own determination and their own choices. And we've quickly learned how to do that fairly effectively. Some data, 2013 to 2017, I'm a numbers geek. In 2013, we made 33,507 ambulance runs, incidents, 33,500 incidents. And when we started in 2018, 2017, we had finished with 48,238. It was a 44% increase from 2013 to the end of 2017. Significant growth, unsustainable growth, over 8% a year, 8% and around 8% at 50,000. It was 4,000 ambulance runs a year that we were going to start growing. In 2018, we started, we dropped a percent. First year we've dropped in a decade, right? And we've been able to sustain that. 2021, looking back to 2019, 2020 was an anomaly of a year, so I don't want to compare too much to it yet. But 2021 to 2019, we've seen an increase about 7% thus far. Going to have to dig some more on why. A large number of COVID patients that we're dealing with, would we be dealing with that type of transport, that type of demand? That's a good question, but time will tell. And I'd like to finish with a letter. I think this kind of sells exactly what makes us so great. We work with a bunch of individuals, and I like to give praise where praise is. We had an individual who had overdosed between 10 and 15 times, and the family was invoking what's called Casey's Law. Casey's Law is basically a judge rules that somebody is forced into treatment. And it's very much like a petition, a mental health petition or petition. The individual gets evaluated by a health care provider and gets evaluated by a mental health professional. You have to line up a treatment facility ahead of time, and all this stuff has to get done within about a window of a week. If anything falls outside of the time frame, it gets ruled. And so in the county attorney's office, there is a Casey's Law attorney, and we were working with her. Maria was working with her, and I'll read the letter. Chief Wells, this is in reference to Maria Sloan. I'm an assistant Fayette County attorney. Sorry, I get emotional about this stuff. I apologize. And I'm assigned to handle the cases, law cases that are filed in Fayette County. In these cases, we attempt to involuntarily commit individuals to treatment for substance abuse disorders, and these cases are extremely challenging. Often the people who are trying to commit are combative, and the families are distraught. We recently had a case where the family spoke Spanish, and we were having issues getting the individual to treatment. Maria Sloan had worked with the family through the paramedicine unit and stepped up to the plate. Miss Sloan found a treatment bed for the individual, arranged for an interpreter for the mother and provided assistance for the family. The individual was volatile and Maria helped keep everyone calm. Miss Sloan arranged for transport to the facility treatment facility and obtained information throughout the case to make my job much easier. Without Miss Sloan's assistance I am certain that we would not have that individual safe and receiving the very necessary treatment during one of the hearings Judge Thurston singled out Ms. Sloan for her assistance with the case and committed her for her dedication to the work she was doing. Please accept this gratitude of the work of Ms. Sloan and I work forward to working with her in the future, signed Elizabeth Bancroft. And what's been a really amazing, I'll give you the date, because this individual was committed for 180 days. This was April 15th and we've been in communication with the family and he this individual is gone on to more treatment and looking to work with a treatment facility at the end like he's on the right path to recovery on the right road to recovery and and and I say Maria got all the praise the day that this happened, we actually as a team were divided into two houses. Mom, brother, myself, and Maria were in one home. Patrick, Detective Smith, father, and the individual were in another home, keeping them separated because we felt this individual might get quite hostile. And it truly is a team effort to affect this type of change in our community. I believe you may want to say things? Unless you all have any questions. Thank you, Captain, for the presentation and for sharing the letter. And I apologize to Council Member Reynolds. I didn't see you signing up beforehand, so I'm going to turn it over to her and let her speak. All right, Council Member. Thank you so much, Captain Lockhart. I really appreciate the presentation and Chief Wells and the whole paramedicine team for being here. I really, really appreciate it. I had the opportunity to to spend some time with Chief Wells a few weeks ago, and one of the stops that we made was to the paramedicine program, and I got to hear from all of them and see the tiny space that they work in every day. And you know, we've been talking about this program for years, and not everybody really understands the complexity of what it is, and I thought it was important that we hear from them, we understand what they do, the difference that they're making in Lexington every day. And so, as a council member, I get a lot of, in my office, a lot of complaints about social service type things and people that need more than just an emergency run to the hospital or emergency police call. And so, what this team does is they work on following up on some of those really difficult cases that we have in our community. like was mentioned, they help with overdoses, they help with people that call 911 all the time, or chronic callers. They help reduce the calls that we have to 911. And so it's kind of hard to explain what they do, but I hope that this presentation has helped and also to think of them as like a response team that's following up with some of our most vulnerable people in our community. and sometimes like like Captain Lockhart said they spend hours and hours on one family or one person and they're making a huge difference and so I've gotten a lot of requests as a council member about you know how could we how could we grow something like this so can you can you or chief Wells explain what are your needs and if you if you think about something like this growing what would that look like? Thank you all very much and thank you councilmember for the question. I think now probably is a good time to just preface my response by saying that the residents of Lexington decide what level of service they would like to pay for and that comes through their elected officials. It's my job to take our resources and make the very best that we can out of it. So with that said, I think certainly there, you know, one thing about the fire service is it is difficult for us to quantify sometimes what we do. You know, we have very good qualitative data with all of the letters and the people that we've helped, but sometimes that quantitative data is hard to come by. It's not so necessarily with this program. We have seen the measurable difference in EMS volume and with the sustained call volume increases that you saw on that slide, we were adding, on average, an ambulance every three years. And certainly, you know, we've been able to kind of slow that down. So where do we go from here? What does that look like? I am of the opinion that the first step would be to solidify what we have. our two social workers are paid for off of grants and the three paramedics that we have we currently cover with backfill overtime so I think it's very important to to solidify what we have growth from that point is going to kind of be at the leisure of of the residents of Lexington and and this council and the administration I think certainly I have ideas about expanding the team and would we go at some point and look at a 24-hour team? I think certainly those are viable discussions to have, and I would be excited to have those discussions at some point. So any other specific questions, I'm happy to have. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I know my colleagues have some questions, and I might have some comments after they're done. So thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. and thank you chief well Seth Patrick your team you know I recall back in 2015 we had these conversations I remember distinctly sitting up with Chief Chilton at the time and Commissioner Bastin talking about the cost of overtime the cost of our of the the runs that were happening the frequent flyers and saying this is unsustainable what on earth are we going to do and he said we have applied for this grant and it was kind of like okay we've applied for the grant and then what and so what you've done from that moment to now is really incredible and I applied all the effort I mean it is hard to quantify I know that what you've done at Natalie Sisters in particular is just one organization that I happen to serve on the board for so I know directly that quality of care that you are giving to just them as just a small example the number of people that you're touching and I think for us we're balancing the cost and the taxpayers are we being wise with dollars and also the quality of care for the people that we serve and that that tension is really what we're trying to be wise about and I think this was a really unique approach to trying to be mindful of we have to control our costs this isn't working and we also have to provide quality care so I was very interested in the run data that was where I first was I didn't see that slide in the packet so I'm very glad you brought it and I'm in COVID is a little bit interesting you know it's really going to be hard to see if that would have changed had we not had to have some of those things because otherwise it was looking really good you know and dropping well so I'm curious to see how it does moving forward and I'm curious also what other qualifying you know it's hard to show over time I know if we had more personnel dedicated you wouldn't be have the overtime costs or the other things that you're measuring that we can show for future justification for more grants and also our own general dollars towards it that would show again best use maximum care maximum investment of the taxpayer and feel free to jump in I think there's probably a lot of data that we have not even started to extract yet. We do have a fairly robust EMS reporting system that we can dig into and really get into what are our contacts, how many people are we reaching, and then I think you can really start to delve into how does that correlate to the run volume, how many people have we gotten into treatment, what is overall the city's Narcan administration, and things like that I think can really start to build a strong case, and if I'm missing anything feel free to jump in. But those would be the types of things that we would look at as far as specific numbers. And we know that run volume trends up with population increases. So if that run volume is staying steady as the population is rising, overall we're winning. Absolutely. No, I think that that was really, that's a good indicator of me of it's not substantial growth, honestly. And I think that would be really important. I would love to see more of that data, because I think it's a really good test case to show that we are being really wise with taxpayer money. We're investing it where it's making the most impact, and we're actually helping people at a high level of care that we weren't able to help before. And I think all of that's a really big win for the community, especially in terms of replication, in terms of where others might we do something similar to this in other areas. This is a good way of showing that and be able to replicate it. So I applaud your efforts extensively. And I think you've really shown what the beginning, taking on a very innovative approach to something and moving quickly has shown. And I'm thankful. And to that point, Council Member, one of the things that just occurred to me, and we've really not even scratched the surface of this yet, my focus has been on fire department data. It would be interesting to get with Detective Smith and start looking at some of the data from police as well. because, again, a lot of the super utilizers were utilized by multiple agencies were being used to serve them. You're exactly right. And not to mention the extended care of the social workers' time and effort and what they're doing as well. All of that provides a multiplication of care, if you will. It's a domino, a compounded work, if you will. So I would love to see all of that. I think it's really important. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Captain Lockhart, for the presentation and to all of you for being there. And to Chief, it struck me that you knew exactly what you were doing when you took me on a runaround and brought me over there. I'm just as impressed as I could be with the commitment and the passion. I've mainly met with Captain Lockhart, but I presume that that's reflective of the entire team. our citizens should know that these people care so much. And to my mind, this kind of a prevention program, Council Member Bledsoe has already talked about some of the ways in which the financial aspects of it can be demonstrated, but it seems to me simply in terms of what we need to be doing as a community to serve a certain segment of our population, That's exactly what we need to be doing. And we need to be sure that we fund it. And I know that the hospitals benefit, but they don't always want to contribute. But regardless, this may be one of the things that really only government can do. So I commend all of you for this good work. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the team in chief for this presentation today. Like some of the other council members, I recently had the opportunity to ride with Chief Wells as well and visited with the paramedicine program. And like Vice Mayor, I am so impressed with your all's commitment and dedication to this community. I think it takes a special person to be a first responder, but it takes a super special person to do what you guys do day in and day out. and the love of your job is just so evident. And our community is so fortunate to have you all. So I guess as we look forward to funding and everything else, I am very interested currently in the mental health of our first responders. And I know we talked about this when I visited with you guys, but I can imagine that this work gets very personal for you guys as you're creating a relationship somewhat with the people that you're helping. So I was curious what you guys do to take care of yourselves and if you have what you need to take care of yourselves at this point. So I'll start off and then I'll pass it off if they would like to add anything. First and foremost, as a longtime firefighter, in the old days, as we say, our debriefing used to be around the kitchen table and it was that camaraderie and that trust that you build in the firehouse that allows you safe space to decompress and to to talk about what has happened and I don't know that I've ever been a part of a crew that's that is as tight-knit and close and caring and compassionate as these individuals are so that I think is the first line of defense. The second line of defense for us is that we recently instituted a peer support team. We have a peer support, a dedicated peer support coordinator who oversees a team of people who are available at any point in time, 24 hours a day, to these individuals, as well as some extended mental health resources. So if you all would like to add anything, please jump in. They joke that I'm a talker. I think everybody addresses it individually and uniquely. You know, I've got two new ones at home, and family time is what it's about for me, turning off the phone and getting away. And everybody has it a little unique. And I think we do a pretty good job of it. There are some days you come in and some days you just don't, you end up staying in the office because you feel like overwhelmed and you can get caught up on your paperwork to get your mind right again. And you just have to process those days like that and take advantage of them. But we watch each other. As he said, we're close knit. There's six of us in an office that's probably a hundred square feet and a little more than that. But it's a pretty tight fit. So we can sense when somebody isn't having a good day, and we try to help each other out. That's great. And I'm very thankful that you guys do have that peer support team, and I'm actually doing some meetings tomorrow with that team. So I commend you guys for your work, and I thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Baxter. Council Member McCurron. Thank you, Chair. Captain, thank you for the presentation to the paramedicine team. Thank you for all you guys do. You guys are a huge asset to our community, and we are very, very fortunate to have you all here. Chief, I thought I was a special one getting to go on these ride-alongs with you. Everyone else is going through it. No, I just want to say thank you for everything that you guys do. And I don't think that the recognition is always necessarily there, but as much as we can to promote this program, I want to help forward it and better it. I did have a quick question for you, Captain. if I may. You mentioned some numbers for this year and I caught the tail end of it and I apologize, but are we seven percent above last year or where we at? I have a tough time comparing last year to anything right now. I'm not a numbers guru. Don't try to think that I am. I went back to 2019 because because I think 2019 was a fairly normal year and we're up on 2019 a little bit. The million dollar question I think is why? And I think when we start looking at like our drilling down on say the COVID type of calls, you know, COVID is a complaint or difficulty in breathing as a complaint that I think explains a good portion of our rise, but I haven't drilled down a lot and really studied it enough to give you an idea of exactly why, But that's my first working theory right now. But that's okay. I think if it's okay if I keep going. I think the, I don't think you can ever have a true negative growth sustained for years upon years because you are having that population growth. At some point you're going to, I think, hit a point where you're going to see some growth. I think the biggest question becomes what happens in, say, 22. Are we able to track that back down again? compared and I think that's it will be interesting to see over the next you know year and a half or so well even with our growth of seeing a plateau almost and a slight decrease over the last two years that's excellent so and it does show that the program makes a big difference but you know detective Smith I the last time I saw you guys you told me a story about somebody getting in the vehicle with you and saying I would never have gotten in a vehicle if I knew this was if i was with a police officer and she goes well i'm a police officer and i i find that to be so unique how you guys are able to reach out and touch the community so for that i'm extremely grateful and thank you thank you captain thank you chief thank you chair thank you council member council member ellinger thank you thank you chair like my colleagues i want to thank the chief for giving the ride along and it was a few years ago i did a um a buggy ride from fire station three and and I think at the time, I'm not sure if it is now, it was the most active, and it was one of the busiest days of my life going out riding with them and seeing all the different calls. But one thing that was unique is how, as I think Council Member Blitz had said, they're frequent flyers, and I think there was one person that they said about 400 times in a year that they had picked up. And I thought to myself, boy, it would be cheaper to have for the city if we had a nurse for that person just staying there. And we start looking at the numbers and what you all have done, and this is one of my favorite programs and when we look at budgets budgets are about priority we need to make sure that we don't have to just rely on grants but we make this as something that we fund as something that we can continue because I think a service that we do for the community is isn't better served than what you all do and I will make sure from this council and when we set our priorities that we take care of this group because they do a lot for this community they actually they they save us money if you start looking at the numbers and when the runs start going down that's going in the positive way as the city grows they're still going to be consistent but they're going in the right way and thank you all for what you do and we got to make sure from our perspective that we take care of you all thank you thank you councilmember councilmember Reynolds thank you chair for recognizing me again I just want to finish my remarks I just want to thank everyone once again I want to say that I I really see this as the wave of the future and that I think this is a dream team, you know, bringing police and social work and paramedicine together, or paramedics, I should say, and fire together. And that this is, I can see how this could be a new model for dealing with a lot of different issues moving forward. So I want to keep this in committee, and I want to look at making sure that we secure funding for this program, moving on, and how to do that, and then look at expanding it. So I want to thank you all once again for everything that you do and your time here today. And I know that every day, day in and day out, you might not get a lot of thanks, and you deal with a lot of really difficult situations. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. and thank you Chief and Captain for today's presentation and all the work that your team does but before you all get out of here do you mind introducing the team that's here with you today? I would be honored to. These are as I've said on some of the ride-alongs this is the most dedicated compassionate group of people I think I've ever met so you've heard from Captain Lockard seated next to him is social worker Mackenzie Gross. Along the back row we have firefighter Ken Howell who is the newest addition paramedic to the team. One of our original and probably one of the most dedicated people I've ever met is firefighter Patrick Branham many of you know, detective Christy Smith, and our first social worker Miss Maria Sloan. Thank you Chief. Do you have any other remarks before we adjourn this meeting? I will let you go very quickly. One thing I would like to say is I've been around this work in this department for about a quarter century now. And in my time I've seen a lot of service delivery fads. And this is not a fad. not a fad. This is the future of how we should be delivering service and it's a model for departments across the country. I'm extremely, extremely honored to be a part of it. Thank you. Thank you Chief and thank you all for the service you provide to our community. Council members, if there's no other business, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. Our motion has been made and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Are there any opposed? Seeing none, this meetings adjourned thank you