Music Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. We'd like to get started. If you would finish up your conversation, find your seats. Good morning. Chris, can I get a little more volume on my mic? Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome. This is a special meeting of the Committee of the Whole to continue our conversation about the American Rescue Plan Act funds that we have to distribute. And the first thing I want to do is read a memo that I sent to council about how we might proceed this morning and see if we're all on the same page about that. So what I had suggested after consulting with Council Member Bledsoe and our council staff is the following. that we give each of the subgroups, there are five subgroups, 10 minutes to describe somewhat briefly what they have brought forward as projects at this point that they believe the entire council ought to consider. Following that, questions, comments regarding any of the items that the subgroups have included in their reports. and third, to not make motions except to place anything on our docket yet, except for those items that are clearly time-sensitive, so where a delay would cause some negative impact. And then finally, consider scheduling a meeting for public comment on the results of work to date on Tuesday, November 2nd at 5 o'clock. So this morning is for council members to hear the reports from the five subcommittees to discuss among ourselves how we view those, whether we have questions, we have comments, other things that we might want to bring forward. It's not a time at this point for public comment, although I appreciate all of you being here. So questions or comments from Council Members about how we're going to proceed? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We had talked about recessing and coming back after the work session. Are we not going to do that? So if we have not completed our work by noon, because we have meetings at 1 o'clock this afternoon and on, If we've not completed, then we would not adjourn, but we would rather recess and reconvene after our work session this afternoon. And I believe we also have a placeholder for a follow-up meeting on, I can get that in front of me. I think it's the following week. Is that right? At 4 o'clock. Yeah. on November 4th to continue with the work that we're doing if we need to do that. So, Council Member Maloney. When did you, being in it, not hearing everything, when did you all discuss that we were going to continue this after the work session today? I didn't hear it. If I did, I would have voted against it because I have a commitment tonight. I believe that Council Member Maloney that we decided to do that the last time we met. That we would, we talked about simply setting a placeholder to continue the work, and it was suggested that we reconvene after the work session, and that was agreed to. That means we'll be here at 10 or 11 o'clock tonight, because I can see the argument going. To me, I've got a commitment, so I'll probably, if it gets too late, I won't be here for it. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Other comments? Okay, I'll just say one more thing. I cannot hear very well if I don't have these earplugs in. They go right to the mic, but if I have them in, I can't speak very well because I get reverb. So I'll be taking these in and out as I need to and putting my mask back on as well. So, any other comments, questions? Okay, if not, then the first group, I'll just take them in the order they are and I'll pack it. That would be infrastructure. I'm doing it. Council member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council members, if you look in front of you on the all proposals, this long list right here, this one, I'm going to work from this document. If you look across on the, I don't think the public has this document, but. I wonder if we could put this on the screen while we walk through. Would that be okay, Chris? Is that possible? Just because it might be easier for the public to follow along. If you look on the right side, I'm just going to explain this real quickly. I want to thank our council staff, Stacy, Hillary, Kendra, and the administration for working so hard over the weekend to get all this ready so we can discuss it. Really appreciate your hard work. And you'll see in the highlighted column under expected expenditure category, that will show where this qualifies under ARPA. On the right side of that, under revenue replacement, it'll show how much of those dollars count under the revenue replacement dollars. And then you'll see the IDs and notes next to it. Our group met. My group was Council Member Fred Brown and Council Member Hanlagri. and we had four things that we decided to bring forward for your consideration. The first item on our proposal list is the Coldstream 200-acre site for site development. This is $17.5 million one-time dollars to develop the infrastructure of Coldstream Park for the creation of future revenue. This is one of the biggest budget-critical opportunities we have in ARPA funds as a revenue-generating property. Of that 17.5, 10.845 of it is under revenue replacement dollars. Second, the group discussed growing trees infrastructure. There were a number of tree-related type proposals. The committee agreed that some allocation between the $1 and $5 million was appropriate with a compromise of 2.5 to allow us to have that conversation here. Of that, that is actually under the infrastructure clean water stormwater category. and would be an ARPA funded project. And thirdly was the critical government needs. I'll run through these briefly. These were the essential purchases to support critical government services that can be done without going into a bond or creating long-term debt. They include projects such as $400,000 for cybersecurity, $1 million for assault bomb, $400,000 for phones, $700,000 for police annex and headquarter building, $300,000 for solar panels on city buildings, and $30,000 for broadband. That totals 2.830 of infrastructure money. Of that, $2,800,000 would actually be under revenue replacement dollars. The $30,000 would actually qualify under ARPA. And then lastly, we discussed bike and ped initiatives. There were a number of projects that actually asked for pedestrian improvements with trails and whatnot. The group discussed a number of different options, And then we asked Scott Thompson to come back with us, which instead of going through which ones are better or worse, we asked Scott to basically prioritize which ones the city felt like were the most important or the most ready, shovel ready for the city's master plan, of which include the following. A Brighton Rail Trail connection with Liberty Park and Elementary, two sections of a Harrisburg Road Trail, and the Manchester Street Pedestrian Facility. That was $1.2 million under infrastructure. Of that, $1.140 would be under revenue replacement. And those are the options that the subcommittee would like to move forward for further conversation. And I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Then the next group is the city government needs and public safety. Thank you. I'll be reading it. Councilmember Lamb. Sorry. I just, I appreciate being recognized. The revenue replacement, I just think that, and if we've already said it here this morning and I didn't hear it, I apologize. But maybe for the public's understanding of exactly what that means, revenue replacement, and just so we will. Sure. Thank you. I'm sorry. So as you know, in the ARPA funds, there are different ways to qualify as expenditures. And the city's allocated, based on a percent, how much we can use under revenue replacement for general fund dollars. Under the allocation for 2020, that's about $30 million. And so we only can spend today up that amount under revenue replacement. Everything else must qualify under ARPA general specific regulations, if you will. We will find out the 2021 number of how much of our revenue will qualify, and that's a loss between projected revenue and 4%. That delta is the number that we find out from the federal government how much we can use for revenue replacement. We won't know 2021 delta number until January. So as of today, we can only budget that $30 million towards revenue replacement. And once we're out, we're out. Now, that can change in January once we find out how much more of our 120 we could use towards that funding. Thank you so much. That's very important. Thanks. Okay, if I can just add. to be maybe this is clear to everybody already but essentially the Harper money has certain guidelines and if a project falls within those guidelines then it's acceptable if a project does not fall within those guidelines it can still be funded with revenue replacement dollars a second category so we'll see if we end up by having trying to juggle some projects, but basically those two different categories, one of which is much more permissive. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. I appreciate what you all look at. I'm looking at some of these criteria that we're supposed to look at. I understand, number one, economic development, bringing jobs here, that has a pandemic issue. The problem I have is on the other ones is ongoing costs. when I read these things, we don't want to have ongoing costs. If we replace these trees, we're going to have ongoing costs. And my question is why, when I look at the stormwater and clean water, why we're not working with Charlie Martin's group when he has a lot of money over there that can be involved with some of these projects instead of us taking the top of money, which means we're going to have to maintain these things ongoing. So, Councilman Maloney, if I may, I had suggested, and I think the council had agreed to hold questions and comments until we've heard from all of the subgroups, and then we can go back. So, if you have questions about something in that subgroup, you want to make a note or whatever, and when we've had all of the reports, then we'll come back and open up the floor. And the reason why I brought that up is you all saying that each one, we recommend to go on approve and move this stuff forward. i had a question that when you have that statement i've got concerns are we gonna vote to move these forward now or you are going to wait till we hear all five of these recommendations because i just want to be sure because i mean that's just it's just gonna uh... i find there's gonna be a lot more questions to be asked on this is going to get confused and i'd rather be consistent understand one thing and then go to the next thing but if we put them all in one pile it's just going to get really confused in my opinion that's just me Okay, thank you. The report from City Government Needs and who is, I'm sorry, who is it? Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We have several recommendations out of our City Government Needs and Public Safety Subcommittee. The first is that of the SCBA for fire, 3.1 million. This is a capital project for self-contained breathing apparatus replacement. The Lexington Fire Department applied for a federal grant, but they did not get it. And the current SCBAs are out of date by three NFPA cycles. So the total replacement will be required no matter what within the next one to two years. The next one is for Fire Fleet. This is around $6.1 million. That would be for six engines at $750,000 each, a ladder five at $1,200,000, and one EC unit at $400,000. This is going to be a necessary expense for LFUCG and will have to be funded in the near future in some way. Next, we have police fleet. We recommended $5,030,300. These funds would replace 97 vehicles with a Chevy Tahoe and Toyota Camry models. This would get rid of all the Crown Vicks, and we have the breakdown in the packet. Next is General Fleet, $4,2669. These funds would replace 47 vehicles for several units of government outside of police and fire. divisions impacted our building inspection code enforcement community corrections environmental services fleet services humane society parks maintenance streets and roads traffic engineering and youth services and you can find a list of all these vehicles to be replaced for police and the general fleet in in the additional information packet on pages 44 through 48. Next, we recommended that the Black and Williams Gymnasium be restored to a functioning level at $590,000. LFUCG manages the Black and Williams Center, which provides services and programs supporting multiple generational populations. The gym is located at 498 Georgetown Street. This project would return the currently shuttered building to an accessible and environmentally safe condition ready for functional use the capital enhancement includes mechanical electrical and plumbing system upgrades environmental abatement and a da accessible restrooms also in the packet is additional information on pages 8 to 14 next is the hybrid meetings and meeting space improvements this recommendation is to improve infrastructure and to support the continuation of virtual and hybrid meetings including upgrades to the Phoenix building third floor conference room and the council chamber to allow for hybrid meetings for all city boards commissions and council virtual meetings became a necessity during the pandemic which brought both conveniences and inconveniences one benefit of virtual meetings realized was the opportunity to make meetings more accessible for instance for people who could provide public comment virtually rather than in person this proposal was made because the subcommittee feels it deserves serious consideration a very rough draft estimate is a cost for around $200,000 but an RFP would be necessary to determine the actual costs and additional details may be needed in order to determine whether this should be funded the subcommittee also considered both fire headquarters proposals and fire training Academy closely we decided to recommend the Fire Training Academy at 2.5 million. Ultimately, we decided on this proposal because the upgrades would improve health, hygiene, and efficiency for the fire department. Third party and internal reviews of the site have shown deficiencies in the area of restrooms, showers, and proper storage and fume exhaust. This upgrade would include an additional building structure to be built on the FTA campus that have enough space to house training apparatus like fire trucks a couple of recruitment classrooms and two large male female bathrooms with showers and locker rooms currently there's only one shower on campus shared by everybody more information about this request can also be found on pages 41 through 43 next the youth sports complex proposal was actually assigned to the park and and Recreation Subcommittee, but we as a committee wanted to make a recommendation for a youth sports complex, as it was mentioned several times. And we wanted to make a recommendation for $20 million because we feel strongly that this proposal deserves serious consideration. Our recommendation is for further serious consideration of a regional sports complex with multi-sport soccer, baseball, turf fields, the pursuit of a public-private partnership to accomplish this project. Note that to fund a site study at a cost of $30,000 with a fund balance would provide additional information and allow for serious consideration of this proposal. And that concludes our ARPA recommendations, but we did want to mention that our subcommittee has two non-ARPA recommendations, and we believe that these items should be in the annual budget. And one of those is for the $30,000 for this youth sports complex that I just mentioned. And then one Lexington's It Takes a Village program and the Community Paramedicine Program. We believe that these things are important enough to be in LFUCG's budget, instead of just being funded by one time money, like ARPA money. Thank you. Thank you. Next would be economic growth and Council Member Worley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And this subcommittee followed the link that we had in the last budget as myself, Council Member Lamb, and Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank our aides for all their hard work and go through this quickly. Our approach, we've got in your packet only the items that we've put forward as we believe deserve substantial consideration moving forward. We do have in some of the other information that we've provided to everyone, other recommendations and some notes about some other items that we think still deserve consideration, just not necessarily for this discussion or need more information to be put back into this discussion maybe another time. So we'll start first item on the list is $1 million for Visit-Lex and in the hospitality industry recovery. Generally, this was split into two $500,000 items that are related to marketing, primarily creating a marketing strategy and marketing infrastructure and equipment for our folks at Visit-Lex to promote our tourism industry. We thought that this fit all of our needs with ARPA and should have substantial consideration. The next, $7.5 million for the Town Branch Park. I want to be clear that we're not talking about the park funding and general operation as we understand it now, that the folks at the Town Branch Park are here are raising money. This is for infrastructure needs, so this is public needs. the access in and around the park, safety in and around the park for pedestrians and vehicles. As the park has developed out, there are needs that have come to light. And particularly as negotiations continue with Main Street Baptist Church, the park may have additional public infrastructure needs. So we believe that this $7.5 million for public infrastructure, This is not in the private park area, though it is a public park, privately funded. See Ms. Baker's there. This would be for public infrastructure in and around the park. The next, $12 million for a Davis Commons project that would include a permanent home for the farmer's market. As we talk about this, I want to talk about it together with the next one, $5 million for a workforce development and economic development center for Lexington. First, we do think that a Davis Commons project to continue to develop that area and potentially house the farmers market in a permanent structure would be a valuable tourism and economic development investment for our city. We also see an opportunity for synergy here. we do think that the workforce development center owned and operated by the city would be beneficial and we see that there could be an opportunity there in Davis bottom to do both of those together and that's we don't want to put those forward as consideration where mutually exclusive of one another either or should get serious consideration but we think just keep an eye towards the opportunity to combine and use economies of scale there. The next, $2.25 million for ag tech economic development. This is simply an investment in economic development related to ag tech and we believe deserves serious consideration. The next, $920,000 for summer youth employment expansion. we all were very very supportive of this we think we need to continue to support our summer youth employment opportunities I will point out while we think that this certainly deserves substantial consideration and should be funded we do think that there should be a consideration of whether that could be a fund balance funding discussion as opposed to ARPA funds either way we believe it should be funded but there are other opportunities we think the next on our list is simply developing properties to attract businesses to Lexington. A reference in there was something like Coldstream. Now that was put into the infrastructure group and was their number one recommendation and but our group discussed that from an economic growth economic development and we did support that. I will note though all candor through everyone in the sub committee there were some reservations about long-term planning and spending for this type of this type of investment but we did still believe that that deserves serious consideration the next the proposal to expand Commerce Lexington's minority business accelerator that's just short of a million dollars it looks like and we wholeheartedly supported that that is an opportunity to help develop and support more minority-owned businesses in our community and then also allow for the city to do business with them as well. That is put forward by Commerce Lex and I would also point out has been publicly supported by the Black Faith Leaders Group. And then finally is economic recovery and growth transforming Lexington History Museum and its tourism impact. We wanted the full council to discuss that, I guess is the best way to say that. While some of these, I think you could probably say we would come forward from the subcommittee saying we think they deserve serious consideration and by that we mean we support them and we want to fund them, this is something that we just thought deserved consideration from the full council. We're not sure that it fits in our ARPA discussion and the parameters that we put forward, but we do think that the tourism and cultural impact of a Stown History Museum and the proposal that they put forward is something that deserves serious consideration. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilman Worley, I think you skipped over two things that are on our list about the distillery district. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that is important. while not in our packet, there are two items that we believe needed additional information but could very likely bump into that, deserve serious consideration. The first is a COVID-19 bilingual online outreach referral and teaching instructional courses for migrant and Hispanic marginalized population. And while we got a little bit of information about that and we thought it made sense, but we didn't know exactly what it was and how it fit, so we wanted more information about whether that should be part of the ARPA funding. And then next, the distillery district revitalization and investment opportunities. A consortium of distillery district business owners and property owners submitted a proposal which was impressive, quite frankly. And it would be an amazing infrastructure investment in an area that is a booming and growing area in our city. That being said, it was massive in scale. And so we have asked for more information about scaling. Are there certain projects that make sense for the city to do versus a private citizen? Are there partnerships available? There were a lot of great opportunities, and we think, given more information, some of those opportunities should be part of this discussion. But we needed more information. Vice Mayor, was there any more information about those you wanted me to share? I think that's fine. In the final packet that Council received, two pieces of that proposal are included. the $500,000 for parking and street improvements and stream restoration and wafer signage, etc. As examples of what might be considered for funding. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next is equity services. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Kern. We had Equity Services and in our subcommittee we had Councilmember Maloney and Councilmember Sheehan. I'd like to thank both of them and their aides for all of their work. I'd like to thank my legislative aide, Alicia Larmore, as well, and our council staff, Kendra, Hillary, and Stacey, for everything that they did to help us behind the scenes here along with the administration. Excuse me. Our subcommittee coming forward had four main focuses as we went through every individual project here. We had a whole slew of projects. I believe that our subcommittee had over 30% of what the council moved forward with. Every project proposal was a good proposal, but we are looking as we move through the subcommittees or these the focus is that are our buckets or what we are going to recommend coming forward with and then we are going to have a few individual projects as well so our subcommittee's main focus is we had youth services social services as it relates to violence prevention and intervention affordable housing homelessness prevention intervention and nonprofit growth to assist with those affected most by the pandemic to begin with our buckets as you can see here going down the list still number 23 we have ten million dollars that we would like to allocate in a bucket to affordable housing projects again while all of the recommendations were solid recommendations we believe that we have a team that's already enacted with the government here that can move forward finding dollars that help match this or or help spread as far and wide as possible. The next option, number 24, $5 million to go to OP or Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention for housing stabilization and homelessness initiatives. We've put a lot of money over the past year into housing stabilization with rental assistance, but this is not just focused on that. We believe that giving the $5 million to OB to move forward with, they would be able to, again, spread those dollars far and wide and pick what's the best recommendations for them. We recommend $3 million to public health for the potential need to assist in vaccination of kids under 12. This is to also assist with more clinics and information to move forward with continuing COVID-19 responses. We recommend $9 million to nonprofits to provide funding for capital projects and programming for those community partners that provide critical services. And then we recommend $2 million to youth services and social services to further assist with those most impacted by the pandemic. This is something that we would keep either in house or look outside for nonprofits support as well. Our subcommittee moved forward with a few specific recommendations. One of those being $350,000 to Safety Net Initiative and Lexington Rescue Mission for Violence Intervention Initiatives. $240,000 to the expansion of It Takes a Village Mentoring Program. $40,000 to provide transportation to one Lexington office. and $78,000 to Radio Lex for relaying critical COVID information in multiple languages and to underserved populations throughout the city. We do believe that as we have further discussion, that it should be had on which nonprofits should receive ARPA funding. I mean, it's not just necessarily from this council, but I believe that we can either look for a committee to be formed of some sort of how we look at that nonprofit infrastructure moving forward and I believe it also recommended from our subcommittee that qualifies for revenue replacement is allowing up to $150,000 for the city to hire a consultant to conduct a new assessment on an ADA improvement plan the subcommittee also strongly alert urges us to look at other ways to enhance accessibility across LFUCG as we received proposals from the commission on people with disabilities in building inspection. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Next is Parks and Recreation. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you to my subcommittee members, Councilmember Plowman and Councilmember Baxter, as well as the core staff who helped us in this effort. also the Department of Park and Recreation. The approach that we took to looking at these projects and initiatives were to set somewhat of a dollar amount of allocations to consider for the to bring forward to the full council. The specific allocations total close to a 20 million dollars and we relied heavily on the advice and the the experts in park and recreation in regards to the city's master plan as we looked at certain areas to allocate funding. So the first category that we reviewed and talked about and allocated $1.1 million was towards trails, trails along the front of Jacobson Park, Masterson Station, and other areas around the city. And then the next area that we took a look at was sport court renovations, where we allocated $2.6 million to repurpose existing courts and facilities around Lexington. There's also a map in your packet that, in the more detailed information, that kind of shows the locations and how this was dispersed throughout the city. We also looked at playground renovations throughout the city. We allocated $1 million towards that initiative. Building maintenance, specifically talking about neighborhood and community shelters and some of our parks and public spaces, we allocated $1 million towards doing those upgrades and deferred maintenance around the city. And then also aquatic system repairs. Our pools throughout the city constantly need upgrading and renovation, So we had decided to allocate $1.8 million towards those initiatives. Then we also looked at specific renovation to Dunbar Community Center. And the subcommittee recommended $1.3 million to go towards the Dunbar Center, the Dunbar Community Center renovation. And then also continuing to look at community centers around the city, the subcommittee also recommended expanding Valley Neighborhood Center, an expansion project that is already mapped out and shovel ready at $1 million. dollars and then looking at other parks in parts of our city that were truly impacted in the communities around them from the pandemic Whitney Young Park for park improvements at 125,000 and then sticking with the theme of the master plan Cardinal Run North which is included in our master plan and has its own master plan the subcommittee recommended uh 10.1 million dollars to design i think it's already designed but to develop the infrastructure and sports facilities and playgrounds and trails connections in that park there are a few other recommendations that the subcommittee had made in regards to park and recreation and some of these are non well all of these are non-ARPA related considerations one is to for our division of park and recreation to look for partnership opportunities with our nonprofit and sport league partners throughout the city and then also for our division of parks and recreation to look to program public and community spaces for our youth in a lot of our parks throughout the city. And then we also, the committee also would like to recommend placing in the general gov committee the issue of looking at soccer as an official park and recreation sport going forward. And then to add to the things that our subcommittee looked at and want to add to the list for future funding consideration, One is a regional aquatic center. Another one is a disc golf facility. And those specifically, because there was a lot of requests for those facilities, but from our conversation with folks in Park and Rec, those are initiatives that need quite a bit more information and to be further along down the road before we recommend funding for those out of ARPA funding. My subcommittee members, did I cover everything? Is there anything else we need to mention? All right. That completes my report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. At this point, then, I'll open the floor for questions, comments, starting with Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. On that last item, Council Member Brown, you indicated all those items requested, and I wasn't sure about if the $20,000,030 covered all those items below there or all those items below there were in addition to the $20,000,000. Yes, sir. But that 20 million covered all those items below it. Okay, I think that need to be clarified. So the parks is really asking for 20 million, a little over 20 million? Yes, sir. Yeah, a little over 20 million. And what you're doing is identifying the particular areas so that your committee felt like they were priorities? Yes, sir. Okay, well that clarifies that. Because when we're looking at this balance down here, we've got $155 million that we're wanting to spend as estimated cost. That's not a true figure because you've got about $20 million you can take off of that. You see what I'm talking about when we look at the numbers? Yes, sir. Council Member Brown, that $20 million isn't included in the total at the bottom. and that's why we noted the total request and the breakdown of that 20 million was below it it's not included in the bottom line total but we're still looking at 155 million yes sir well we're going to have to ask the federal government to give us a little bit more more money i think the other uh follow up on that i'm looking at the total revenue replacement that last page is a 97 million plus and i think we probably need to make this maybe in our priority discussion we've only got 30 million dollars that we can really uh suggest at this time we may have another 30 million but it'll be after the first year so we need to we need to kind of Try to figure out what we want revenue replacement monies, where we're at on that, and then go back into the ARPA as to what we can do on ARPA. That's just a suggestion because revenue replacement seems to be leading the pack as far as finding out what we can do with that money and then trying to shove it back into maybe ARPA. and I noticed some of these items are going to be probably budgetary items in the next budget. So that's my thoughts. Thank you. Okay, and just to clarify, if a project qualifies for ARPA, then it can be funded now. if it qualifies for a percentage of the replacement money, some of that can be, as you said, $30 million roughly, can be budgeted now. And if I can, maybe a question for the administration. My assumption is that we will have the final number on revenue replacement shortly and that we will have the additional allotment from the federal government on July 1. So in part, it's a question of committing funds that we know are coming even if we don't have them in hand. So is there anybody from the finance who can kind of address this issue so that we're clear about where we stand? Commissioner Hensley, welcome. I thought I might make it through this meeting without getting called before. No. So we will, Council Member Bledsoe is absolutely correct. The $30, roughly, million that we have qualified for to this point is for 2020 revenue loss. We will calculate, based on a calendar year, again at 21 and at 22, and we may have a calculation at 23. I can't remember. But we will take a look at that year over year for the calendar years through this program. The difficulty is if there are projects that you want to do out of revenue replacement and you're going to need them through that period of time, we won't know that those dollars are eligible until we recalculate everything through the end of the period. So the timing is really important. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions about that aspect of what we're doing at this point? If not, Council Member Lamb. I was going to ask, I wish I could have flagged you. I guess, are there any, and this is not me talking when I'm at my next question. This is specifically on this issue. Are there any of the expenditures that the administration that we've already been talking and processed that would fall under the revenue replacement? Does that make sense? So what we have done with the list that you all have given us is try to go through and qualify those projects based on where we believe they fit now with the information that we have. And some of the administration's projects have been brought forward with the council's proposals. So those that are in there that were the mayor's priorities and proposals that qualify as revenue recovery would be those items. Okay. All right. I think that's important for us to keep in mind as well. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. And then you were in the queue for questions and comments. Do you want to proceed? Yes, sir. Vice Mayor, I do have one more question on this topic. All right. I apologize. Thank you. Commissioner, this is called the revenue replacement. This is funds that ARPA qualifies to replace our lost revenue. Is there any amount of that that is going to be needed in order to maintain our budget going forward? Since it's replacing revenue that we have, do we have a number that maybe we should be not trying to use in projects because that's going to be needed for the replacement of that revenue? So we are not at this time for the 23 budget thinking that we will have any of those dollars to use to balance our budget based on the process and all the proposals that have come in. So we're not counting on that by any means. That being said, if there's anything you all would like to hold over for that purpose, we certainly will not object, or I will not object. How about that? Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Commissioner, I've got a question for you. Yes, sir. The previous administration, the president gave us $25 million. That helped us get through paying for police, fire, overtime for all these folks. This additional $30 million that we have out there right now that we've already committed to the other one, Is that going to be part of some of this money that we don't know for sure because we haven't seen the real revenues come in yet? Will it be part of that paying some of the budget like we did the previous $25 million we got from the previous administration? So the way the previous administration grant funding worked is that we were able to reimburse ourselves for expenses that we had incurred during the pandemic. So we had already incurred the expense. We brought the revenue in, and it offset that expense. That's why our expenses look a little bit different for the last year. This is completely different in that it's on top of whatever we have. And if we wanted to do something similar to that process, we could. But that's so far not been something that has been proposed. I mean, I'm worried about the budget. It's what I'm worried about. And before this pandemic with $30 million shortfall, we had at that time the previous president gave $25 to get through this pandemic. Now we're coming to hopefully the end of it, but I have not seen the light yet. But I am really worried about some of the numbers that I'm hearing, the soft numbers, businesses going out. And I'm concerned about, we're going pretty fast to spend this money, and we have five years to spend this money. Why, in my opinion, should we wait and see how this budget shapes up before we start making big decisions? Like, I mean, we got another year to go through a budget to see what impact it has. I really threw a little flag out there for my concern because I don't think we're out of the woods yet. So I just worry that we're spending this money way too quick because we may be back to where we were $30 million shortfall before the pandemic. and we could be a lot more so that's my question to you is so the the timeline on this funding is to have our expenditures obligated by december of 2024 and spent out by december of 2026. and so the the challenge i guess that is presented is if there is a transformative project that you all would like to select with this funding and it is a construction project or an infrastructure project or something that takes a very long period of time, the timelines are going to conflict with each other. We presented this year's budget having to use one-time funds to balance it. I don't anticipate that that will be different next year. But again, that being said, I've seen a lot of projects come forward. I know you all have been evaluating those projects. And so that's not something we were planning on as a staff, using these funds to balance our budget. So as of now, we have $62 million. We spent a lot of that so far. We have $30 million left until next year we get the other $62 million. We have a short time until we see our real budget numbers. I'm just more cautious to say maybe we ought to wait. I mean, these are great projects. It's wait until seven months from now to find out what our real numbers are, And then we put a priority list to see if these are the things we can afford instead of throwing it out there now. I'm worried that some of my people out there are thinking that we're spending it now. I don't want that impression. And you're telling me we may not have to spend now. We may want to wait until. That's what I want to make sure because I don't want to be sitting here voting on something today that I don't feel good with the numbers that are coming in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you. I appreciate all the projects that the subgroups brought forward. I think there's a lot of learning to be had here. So the one item, item 23, about the affordable housing, the equity services subgroup, we had a presentation in general government social services this past month, And I just wanted to speak to the fact that we asked Mr. McQuady about how monies, if put back into affordable housing, how that could be equitably used across multiple organizations. And Mr. McQuady said that he thought that that would not be a problem. And I know that there have been many different areas of the community that have had ideas to bring forward for affordable housing. And I just wanted to make sure that we understand that I think that there's a great opportunity for collaborative for all the different projects across the community. And I just wanted to make sure that I stated that for the public to hear at this time because this is going to be – I do support that greatly, and I am grateful that we would have the opportunity to do things that we would not otherwise, especially with our affordable housing. And when we're talking about it, I hope that we will also talk about it in different buckets for both individuals but also families and make sure that that is an equitable divide amongst the $10 million. And I think that's everything I have at this point. I do want to put a plug in for the History Museum. I know that while it might not meet all of the ARPA guidelines, I think that as a local government, we have struggled trying to make sure that we keep a History Museum in our community which is something that I think is very important for our community, not only for our community members, but also those visiting. And I just really want to put an extra plug out there that if we don't consider it with ARPA funds, that we do have a conversation about it with our fund balance. Because, you know, it used to be that the government was more responsible for the history, And there's an opportunity for us to collaborate with the History Museum on the outside and to make sure that they have a step up from the government, of which we have kind of held them back in many different ways over the past several years. So it's my hope that we will be able to help them to move forward. So thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a few things. First, Stacy Maynard is going to send around to the committee, to the council members, the non-ARPA recommended list. So those who did not have specific numbers who were either committee referrals or maybe fund balance or other things, she's going to send it around to us today so you'll have that as a supplement, things that are mentioned. Two, today in the budget committee at one o'clock we'll hear a fund balance conversation, which will be piece two to the overall conversation about our budget. So that will happen today at one o'clock. Thirdly, on Thursday at 1.30 will be the compensation and supplemental pay conversation, which is a whole piece of the pie on Thursday. Hopefully by Thursday afternoon, we have heard everything that at some point the council or the committee has asked us to consider, at which point we'll have public comment next Tuesday. And we can hopefully then move forward with actual discussions. I think the important piece of that is the $90 million of revenue replacement of which we have about 30. Those, that's, I'm not a math genius, but that doesn't work. So we're going to have to have a serious conversation about how, to your point, what we do with that revenue replacement dollars. How much you want to spend of it and what is the priority in that long list to use one time funding for that fit with our goals and objectives for that money. We're not looking to have a conversation now, just we need to be thinking about that and maybe come together and have some good, God wills moving forward. The only item on here that I feel very strongly about from a timeliness perspective that I think is really important is the $1 million for Visit-Lex. As you know, that is actually completely under 2.11 negative economic impacts aid to tourism. It's completely ARPA qualifies. One of the few things actually in the bill that specifically mentions tourism industry. So because the timeliness of the convention center opening up here very shortly, we have a very limited time to capitalize on that, I'd like to make a motion to allocate $1 million to visit Lex for the negative impacts under the bill under ARPA funding to be placed on the docket for Thursday, October 28th. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much council members for that support and I'm done. Thank you Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council member Reynolds. Thank you. I had a question about one of the items, would now be the appropriate time to ask. It is about the, under the equity services, the nonprofit capital projects and programming. Can you give us a number? I'm sorry, it's 26. Thank you. I know we had a lot of community partners and nonprofits propose really great projects and that it was a lot. And some of those numbers for some of those projects were really, really high. And I know that we have kind of been trying to figure out how are we going to address them and fund some of them. So is this $9 million, is the idea that it's going to be kind of like a grant and different nonprofits that have already proposed things would try to compete for that money? and then, like someone had mentioned, there would be like a committee that would decide who was funded? Is that the idea behind the $9 million? Vice Mayor. Thank you. Great question. So it's kind of tough with this because with federal dollars, there's such a process behind here that a lot of things are required. So it's ensuring that if, one, anybody who does apply or is able to seek some of these fundings, that they can have the information necessary to move it forward and then be able to spend the dollars that are given to them as well. So that's where we were talking about, hey, there's opportunity of having some of LFUCG's staff, our social services department you have to determine some of these projects that could maybe fit into that category and spend those dollars so so so then would they would they compete for that money essentially it would be it would be kind of like a kind of like a grant program with the ARPA money well yeah in a sense I mean it would kind of be on the same determination of where we are here right now just me ensuring that they can fulfill everything that is needed on our end but that but that that nine million would be designated to nonprofits it it would all be yes we're kind of saying we're spending these things internally but we want to allocate nine million for correct so also with that too is I mean some of the projects that we had come in several of them ranked or asked for more money than the nine million that we're we're allocating here here one project was 15 million one was 9.5 million so you know immediately one of those projects can take all of this so it is you know reaching out and seeing if somebody applied for 15 million can they get by with 2 million and still move forward with that project because if they can't move forward with that project unfortunately that's probably going to be taken out immediately I mean but that's yes but it is going to be a working with every nonprofit here trying to move those dollars far and wide I like the idea of setting aside a certain amount and then trying to fund what we can with that amount because like you said we got we got some proposals that were very large that we're not going to be able to fund so allocating and designating some money for that I think is important so thank you thank you I see nobody else signed up at the moment Councilman Maloney would you mind taking the chair I have some comments Sure, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Now, the first has to do with number 23, which is affordable housing. And I want to echo a little bit what's already been said about that, but add a comment or two. Mr. McQuady, who's been administering this program, was very clear that were we to use $10 million of these funds and allocate it directly to the Affordable Housing Fund, that he anticipates that it would meet some of the demand that's already been expressed. And this would be a very simple way to allocate those funds. There are a number of outside agencies which have proposed use of affordable housing funds. This would allow the existing mechanism, which is the Affordable Housing Board, with full disclosure, I'm a member of that board, it would allow that board to basically continue doing business as it has been, evaluating proposals for partnerships that would utilize some of the affordable housing money. So what I would like to do as we get closer to making decisions is consider essentially including language in that section that says the $10 million would go to the Affordable Housing Fund to be then administered in conjunction with partners as it has been doing. And related to that, 24, which is housing stabilization and homelessness, with all due respect to the Office of Homeless Prevention and Intervention and Ms. Ruddick and the good job she's doing, housing is not their primary purpose or functioning. And so there are, in that, if you look to the right in your packet, there's about eight or ten proposals that really have to do more with housing than they do specifically with homelessness. So I would like to encourage council to consider looking at the list of the specific items within number 24. and rather than allocate that money to the OHPI, to look at those specific proposals and see which, if any, would enhance the program that we're working on and which of them directly impact the low-income community. I had one other, and this has to do with the Cold Stream And I think I'm going to ask our economic development officer, Kevin, if you wouldn't mind. In the subcommittee that I was a part of, this topic came up and we had a brief discussion about it. And I indicated that I had some, if not reservations or concerns, at least questions. and so we had an opportunity to hear from Mr. Atkins at a previous meeting but I wanted to kind of run through exactly what we're doing and what impact it will have so if you wouldn't mind we start with I'm going to kind of lay out a little bit and then you correct me or add in we start with 50,000 acres at Coldstream. I'm sorry. Give me the right number of the first parcel. 50. Five zero. Five zero. So 50 acres. And my understanding initially was that as those parcels were sold, that the revenue from those parcels would be used to fund the infrastructure development on the remaining 200 acres. Is that correct? Almost. Okay. The exact wording was it would go toward the development of that. Those lots, if they were sold in their totality, you've got to keep in mind half of those proceeds go to the University of Kentucky under the agreement. Would never total enough to pay the $17.5 million bill out. It would be about $4 or $5 million. I looked at it the other day. Okay. I'm sorry, but I missed the beginning because I can't hear that well. Yeah. So keep in mind that half of the proceeds go to the University of Kentucky. So the exact wording was those proceeds would go toward the build-out of the 200-acre site. They would never, if you sold all 50 acres at one time, the amount that LFUCG would receive would never be enough to build out the entire $17.5 million. It would be roughly $4 or $5 million to LFUCG. Okay, and it looks like my time expired. so I'll have to come back Mr. Councilmember Brown Can we talk about this particular subject? I know you've got some other people on the list here but I had I think there are other people who may want to speak on it this particular subject here if you want to come back and ask more questions I'm glad to do that on this question only can I have the hands who would like to speak I know Councilmember Brown wants to speak on this anybody else okay councilman brown uh mr atkins um that was in our committee infrastructure committee and of course it's a big number and of course it's a part of the revenue allotment um we felt like that it was you know not only in infrastructure but in the economic growth area to move that along would be a you know a positive thing and as you've indicated the money we get back from selling those lots is not going to pay near the amount that we need to do my question along with what you've discussed there what's our timing on this as far as when would this when would you need this 17 and a half million if we move forward on that I mean, can that be done over a two-year period? Oh, the build-out would take basically a two-year period. So I guess my question is, is we wouldn't have to commit the total $17.5 million out of revenue monies this year? Good morning. So the property transfers from the University of Kentucky to the LFUCG by July of next year. Ideally, we would want those funds available, encumbered and available, so that we can begin with the site development. We're working through an RFP right now to actually move forward with the design and the marketing of the site and would be looking at breaking ground on actual infrastructure improvements as soon as possible after that transfer date in July. So it would be better to do the $17.5 million so it would be encumbered? Yes, sir. One quick addition. The CEO just reminded me of we can't award contracts that don't have all the money allocated. Okay, okay. And I might mention, Vice Mayor, that when we're looking at that particular project, it looks like $7 million would come out of ARPA. We're only doing $10 million out of the revenue according to the last schedule here that I've got. $10,845,000 would come out of revenue replacement, not the full $17.5 million. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor, would you like any more questions? If I can. So I guess what I'll start by asking is, absent an allocation now of $17.5 million, dollars, what would be the time frame for development of the two parcels? And what happens with the income when those parcels are sold? So the first question on timing, the timing is delayed without funds. And it would basically depend on when the entire 50-acre portion is sold to allow us to move forward on the 200. So it is a total, it's a timing issue. On the second question, as I mentioned the other day, that's a policy question that the council would have to answer. Whether today that money goes into an account that's held here under Coldstream Development. And if they could go into that account, you know, I can remember back to the debates, well not debates, but conversation earlier, and Council Member Lamb mentioned, does that go toward economic development efforts going down the road? Those are the conversations we would still have to have, or do you put it back for the down payment on another piece of property when all this property is exhausted? Okay. So on timing, I guess my understanding is that from previous comments, that if the land has fully developed infrastructure, it is easier to market. But my question is, are there entities that might be interested, let's say tomorrow, an entity came and said, we're interested in a piece of land, and we know it doesn't have the infrastructure on it yet, but we still are interested in that land. Would that have essentially been absent this money, that's how that would work? Is that correct? I think what you're going to see is what the governor said yesterday or the day before. The companies are primarily only looking at sites that are already developed and ready to go at this point. So absent this money, those sites would not be developable? So undeveloped, those sites would not be attractive to companies looking to locate. Okay. But not to split hairs, but that's, yes, I understand that. It would not be as attractive, but it would not mean that we'd never be able to market them. Because I presume when we made this deal with UK, we understood that the build-out would be slow, that we would not have the money for all the infrastructure going forward until we started selling some of those parcels. So the bottom line for me is this. I'm concerned that that's a lot of money to basically sink into the development of land with the hope that over time that will be sold. And we've seen, I guess, enough examples of land that's been developed where the infrastructure has been developed so that it's shovel-ready that never gets sold. So that's my concern. And it may or may not be shared by other council members, but that's a big dollar amount. And I understand about the timing issues. So thank you very much. Thank you. uh councilman blesso i believe you have questions remind me never wear hoops again okay thank you thank you councillor um so i'm going to go back to just a couple years ago maybe back in 2016 maybe when uk members of uk members of the horse community members of the building community members of this body myself was at that table others, met for a long period of time, months, trying to figure out how do we have more available land that is shovel ready for I property. At the end of all of that, Coldstream Partnership came out. Ms. Bacchus was there. It was a multi-prong, lots of different interests, lots of work, came to this conclusion. And we said we were going to develop Coldstream. That was the ball game. We made that promise. And that's $17.5, $10 million would be revenue replacement. $7.5 is actually ARPA qualified under infrastructure, specific infrastructure. And I agree the concern about wanting to have it done. I think for me, the only way we would have the resources under short budget is to do this periodically. So the thought was if we sell the property on the front part and help fund the infrastructure, it will happen. It's just going to be at a snail's pace. it's going to take a really long time and it still wouldn't have been enough. Like we've said, we would still have to have a bond. We would still have to take out other effort to do so or put general fund money towards the infrastructure to make this work. It was going to be years, years to get that done. What we have here is an opportunity to speed that process up, to move it more quickly, to make the shovel-ready land faster available. And I think the governor is exactly right. Companies are looking at what is available today. Not two years, not six months, not five years, today. This was an opportunity to speed up our opportunity to have more land, which we do not have for industries, especially industry land. It's a speed-up process. It's an accelerator process. It allows us to have it more quickly. And actually, the money then, the $4.4 or $5 million that we would have sold on the $50, we could then use for other things, other general fund opportunities, be it housing or anything else we want to use it towards. It frees up future bond money that we would have had to spend on this. That's why I think it's important from a time-in-its perspective. Thank you. Aye, Council Member Worley, and then Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. and to echo some of council member bludsoe's comments and and then to add what you all have heard me say many times is my philosophy on this money should not be to use it to just make it easier to spend and buy things we already would have we still have bonding capacity we have revenue growth to me this money should be used for things that we would never have the opportunity to do but for this money and this is one of those we had a great plan i believe the vice mayor points out for when we didn't have any this money of when we make a little out there we'll spend a little out there but now we have an opportunity to take what could have been a 20-year grow out and make it a five-year plan and we could start having companies come in here and buying that property or leasing that property and adding to jobs and and revenue in this community very very quickly this is an opportunity that would never have come to us but for this money and i think that the the subcommittee did an outstanding job of really diving in and figuring out how to spread out that cost to preserve as much of the revenue replacement money as possible and to find what has been difficult to qualify infrastructure costs in the ARPA money. So I think this is a wonderful proposal, and I think we just have to think we never could have done it without this, and this is how we all decided this was going to be our economic development push, and we're coming up getting ready to discuss a new comprehensive plan soon. And in the last comprehensive plan, we weren't going to expand the boundary. There may not be any flavor for that next time. But that was what everybody said, we need jobs land. And so we said, cold stream. That's the answer. So we can't say that that's the answer and then wait for a plan after a plan after a plan and still say, where's our jobs land? So now we have an opportunity to get our jobs land ready right now and then let development officer and his team go out and market it to businesses to come to our community. I think this is one of the best, if not the best, proposal for the use of this money that we have on this list. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you. I'm not going to repeat everything that Council Member Bledsoe and Worley just said, but I'm just going to say ditto, ditto and ditto and ditto i totally agree with everything they said and this is an opportunity shovel ready property is what we need in this community and i totally support this and i hope that my colleagues at the time we get ready to make this decision that that everybody will understand and see that there this is a opportunity almost of a lifetime i mean to be able to have our 200 acres ready and to move forward and it's just I can't wait I hope I live long enough to see it all the 200 acres developed and and and see all the jobs that it creates so thank you thank you sir anyone else before I hand the chair over the vice mayor vice mayor thank you sir next would be The Council Member McCurran. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question and topic is number nine on the Black and Williams gymnasium. First off, I'd like to thank the subcommittee for moving this item forward. I think this is a crucial project for not just the area, but for the community as a whole. The gymnasium has been closed for about four years and it's a staple of the community. The community wants to see it back and rehabilitated, but back to full functionality. Now, I believe the request came forward at a million dollars. I'd like to ask somebody from the subcommittee of why we brought it down to 590. Please. Yes. Originally, they had said, and Commissioner Ford had said, a million to make it kind of everything, ideally, that it could be. And then that was kind of a large number. So he went back and found out that this lower number would bring it up to what it needs to be. So maybe not quite as ideal as we would like, but it would take care of all the environmental problems and bring it up to functioning. Sure. No, and I appreciate that. I mean, moving forward as just opening the doors and getting people back in, we want to see that, absolutely. But I would love to see this at its full capacity and not just do the job halfway. So I would like to ask that if we do consider this project that we ask for to add the full million dollars moving it forward. I'm not sure if I need to make a motion or if I can just ask that as a recommendation for us to consider. May I ask Commissioner Ford to come forward? Would that be okay? Yeah, just for clarification on process. At this point I think it's recommendations for consideration rather than motions if that's okay. I'm sorry, Vice Mayor, I can't hear you. recommendations for consideration rather than motions at this point for modification. Well then I would just ask that the recommendation be at a million dollars and Commissioner Ford if you will please if you can speak to kind of the additional items that can be included in this million dollars. Thank you. Thank you Council Member. Thank you Vice Mayor. As Council Member McCurn has mentioned our staff and general services has long been studying this project. initial estimates dating back to 2019 do call for investments up close to a million dollars. That's to be determined what those amenities would be. When we were brought forth to the subgroup, we did express that to the subcommittee, that we had those estimates provided. However, when the project was submitted to the listing, it didn't have any additional information. I was just fortunate. Of course, John Sheed is here, and I was just fortunate during my time in social services to be intimately familiar with the facility. The 590 we brought forward is just to bring it to functional use. As I indicated in our email to the subgroup, that if additional funds were available in future years and future phases, we could definitely make that available. We just thought that this would be the responsive number just to bring for the discussion of the committee right now. we of course will always do what is the will of the council. Thank you Commissioner. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds did you on the same topic did you want to comment? No thank you I think Commissioner Ford just answered. Great thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you Vice Mayor. I have some questions and some concerns about how we plan to move forward with, I guess it's better categorized as Category 6, the community partners infrastructure projects. So we have a lot of proposals out there that I think benefit the community in regards to infrastructure for our nonprofit and other community partners. We haven't had that conversation about how that's going to move forward through our process. What do you think our next path forward with that conversation? Because a lot of the projects and initiative that I would like to support would put them in that category. And whether that's a competitive grant process, my thought is that we talk about allocating a certain amount of money to get that process started. So I guess that's what my question is to you or Council Member Bledsoe about when do we have that conversation. Council Member Bledsoe, you wish to respond or would you like me to? Yeah, so I think there's a number of things on our list that require more discussion about what implementation would actually look like and whether this council wants to look at the projects within a category or they want to allocate money and let somebody else do that before it comes back to us. I think that's a procedural question. Frankly, I don't have a strong opinion about that, although I probably lean toward more analysis by this council and more direction. But I think before we're done, I think that's the part of the conversation we need to have about the few piles that look just like, buckets, piles that look just like that. Okay, yeah. Okay, well, I guess I don't know where to go with that answer. But I think my thought, and kind of going back to what the mayor's recommendations were, is maybe we allocate a certain amount of money, whether it's $10 million to be considered for outside community partners, one-time infrastructure request, set up a process, and maybe council's input into that is to set the criteria for what will qualify based off of what is an ARPA approved initiative or census tract for the project. Okay. Council Member Bledsoe, on the same. Yes, yes, thank you. And we're talking specifically about, because this was also under the mayor's recommendation list as well, and I believe the administration has a plan or an implementation plan that they had discussed before they put that forward. And if Ms. Hamilton would like to speak to that, maybe now would be an opportunity for you to do so. Sorry to put you on the spot. Thank you. These earrings and masks don't work together. The idea, when we first, Commissioner Bryant brought this idea to our attention, that she thought we were looking for an ESR-type project, but we did not want to get into another ESR because of the continuing cost of it. So she felt, and I thought it was a great idea, that we had a lot of nonprofits that really needed some infrastructure needs, roofs, various things, and that they never could apply for that in ESR because they needed that money for their ongoing operation. So what we did was, is we did just a little implementation of what we thought this thing, how we thought this thing could work. And some criteria. And what our thoughts were was if this were funded, then we would bring this back, this implementation plan back to the council like we do with ESR and say, is this the way you think? Here are our ideas of how we think it ought to work. Do you agree or would you like to add something else to it? Because I think you need to see how it would be implemented, if that helps. That does help. So I won't make a motion on that at this time, but I think that's the motion that I would consider bringing back to this council to consider a certain dollar amount for the administration to present to us what that program or what that process looks like for us to consider. So thank you for that. Thank you. Okay, I've got two people in line. I still got time, Vice Mayor. You've got eight seconds, you'd like to use it? I did, well, I'll come back. I had Councilmember Sheehan and then Councilmember McCurran. Councilmember Brown, from the Equity Services Committee, we actually ended up with a lot of the community partners proposals and the $9 million that we allocated towards that community part, I'm forgetting, hold on, what the actual title was. And the number, please. the non-profit capital projects and programming the nine million number 26 that is the funding i believe that you're talking about the mayor's proposal had six million in it and we bumped that up to nine million because we thought there were a lot of projects that deserved some funding um so that is the funding that we have allocate have recommended out of our committee to allocate and that was some of the grant discussion that we were having earlier but that does need a structure like you're asking for. So we have, we've kind of said, we think that this is the amount, at least at this point that we're recommending, but we do agree that that structure needs to be in place. And we're kind of turning that over a little bit. Council member Brown, if you wish to know that that's fine. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I guess I missed it earlier, but so to move that forward, do we need to make a motion for the administration to present us with what that process may look like based off of the recommendation from the committee? I think we can just make a request. I don't know if we need a motion. Is that something that the administration can come back to us with at our next? Yes, sir. Whenever you need it. Thank you. Councilman McCurran, do you still have an issue? Thank you. No, I will just say ditto. Okay, so I did have one question. The way it's listed, it says infrastructure and programming. So I'm a little concerned about the programming part. I can understand infrastructure. One time I'm concerned about trying to sort out programming. we get into the ESR the whole thing. Can you tell me what the thinking was of including both those? Councilmember Maloney? I was in that meeting. The program will still go through the ESR. This is a building one-time money which is going to be similar to what Wick McQuady does. We give him $10 million and they get tax credit. If we get the money committed, they can go out and get tax credit or other funds. This is the chance for these nonprofits to come to the table and show what other partnership we've been able to make this work to take more bang for the buck than taking it all from us. That's what Rick McQuady does. And that's what I'm going to bring that question up about what you brought up, which I appreciate you bringing that up. But it's a similar program. Will you get more bang for your buck? And the program is not going to bring the bangs in the back. It goes through the ESR. This is going to be structured. It's going to show where they're getting fundraisers or they're getting federal funding. And it really is going to show how you're going to get more for the money. Thank you. Councilmember McCurron. No, Councilmember Maloney is correct on that. But I think to add to that as well, I think we left the programming language in there just in case this council decided that they want to specifically move forward with an individual project. So we didn't want to just narrow down if this council decides as a body that we want to have one project proposal to be funded, then it will come out from that $9 million. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on this question? Okay, council member will agree. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I had a couple of points to bring up in relation to number 15, the Davis Commons project. And first off, I want to thank the economic growth subcommittee for bringing forward both number 15 and number 16, the Davis Commons project and the workforce development program. Both of those are located in qualified census tracks with the Lexington Community Land Trust. And I believe that there may be justification for the Davis Commons project to be funded out of non-revenue replacement, ARPA monies. I have sent Commissioner Hensley, my office has, and thank you to my legislative aide, Sally Lambert Warfield for doing a deep dive into the final interim rule. I've sent additional information about the ways in which the Davis Common Project could qualify for an alternative use of funds other than revenue replacement. And I don't know if I need to go into that right here and right now. But I believe there's some flexibility there. Okay, so my suggestion on this is that before we meet again, that we ask for a sort of these projects by revenue replacement and our qualifications and then if there are ways in which we can modify or suggest modifications we do it at that time okay okay um i'd also like to add kind of in this vein that i believe that there could potentially potentially be a third project in relation to these first two, number 15 and number 16. And I would like the council to consider it in tandem potentially. And that is, I think, associated potentially with equity services. But that's for the funding of a state of the art childcare facility located in the Davis Park community. And it is connected potentially in terms of the same building infrastructure and to help similar communities as the Davis Common Project and the Workforce Development Project. And I would be glad to provide an argumentation for the ways in which that could be funded under non-revenue replacement ARPA funding as well. So my goal is just to put that out there to say that we may have a third level of project for services to disproportionately impacted communities in the Lexington Community Land Trust area. Okay, thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple comments I want to make. First of all, we go back to affordable housing, the $10 million, which I support. To get that money, we have to have commitment if we go to Frankfort for tax credit. So my question is, do we need to go on and put some of that money aside and maybe come back next year for the next $5 million for the next round, or do we just go ahead and put the $10 million? I don't want to understand you've got $30 million, but that $5 million right now may be a commitment for them to put their application together, the Federal Home Loan Bank or the tax credit that Kentucky housing, because once they're committed, they know we the main part of it that means that money they put the application will go sky high and they will get the points immediately i just want to be sure that we don't hurt them if we got half a million of it right now for the first round and maybe half a million i mean five million and then five million that's something we can just that i would hope if you would bring up in your motion whatever you want to make the second thing i want to bring up i support the $17 million. We need jobs. We've been fighting here for the last seven years, finding land or jobs, and I think we need to support that, and that's one of my top priorities. The other one that I supported Council Member Clover last week on the hero pay for the private sector. I know that we don't have the votes now. Hopefully that will change. But the third one that I really want to make everybody understand is this farmer's market. I was a huge farmer's market for the last 25 years on this. I tried to get money. I had money to build one, but at that time, the mayor didn't want to build it. This does not only affect that whole community that's going to be changing, and when they build that new viaduct through there, it also brings jobs, and it affects low-income people, and it's a grocery store that we have not had downtown and to me when i look at the 17 million dollars we're putting out there you can really restructure that whole area of david's bottom with our farmers market because i've seen it i've gone to finley farmers market up in cincinnati where they put it out there and condos go for a million dollars if people want to be around a farmer's market if one of them and it It brings jobs and as you know as we go through these tough times these next few years and as we all went on this tour where we want people to have their own growth here in Lexington for food, this is the best only golden opportunity that I've ever seen that we have a chance to take this. So I'm trying to compare the economic development and the 17 million and the 12 million. I'm kidding. I'm going to be honest with you. I think your 12 million will go a lot farther than the 17 million citywide because it will affect low income families. It will affect everybody and it will revitalize that whole Davis bottom. And to me, I'm on board with you. I hope my colleagues realize how important that this is, that we have a chance to do something important to this community. So I hope we get it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll echo your thoughts about asking finance to scrub the list again and come back and give us more clarity on the projects that aren't revenue replacement. Partly because our parks and recreation list, the way we built that and presented that is kind of a complete package for parks and recreation. Whether or not, well, if we approve it, I think that will give them a lot of guidance moving forward with their request in next year's budget. I think it will give potentially them all the capital projects they can handle in a year and will lighten our load next year for the budget as we plan to move forward. So I think our committee's preference would be to make a motion on that complete list and move that forward. So if we can get more feedback whether or not some of those projects are revenue replacement or not, I think that would help us. I do support the economic development and the infrastructure at Coldstream Park. I know there's been a lot of conversations about the best way to pay for that infrastructure and whether it's to bond it or to finance it. And if a portion of that infrastructure could be used, if we could use ARPA funds to do the 7.5 million, I would support that as we have conversations about what's the best way to move forward with the remaining amount, if that makes sense. So, you know, I would leave somebody from that subcommittee the opportunity to make that motion, if so be it. And then I'll go back to affordable housing. I think the vice mayor had some good points about clarity in the language surrounding affordable housing. I think allocating that money now, to Council Member Maloney's point, it would give applicants the opportunity whether or not to use state or federal tax credits for projects. So I think that's something that we can move forward and will also help us in the administration in preparation for next year's budget. So with the language that Vice Mayor suggested, I make a motion to move the affordable housing proposal or recommendation of $10 million forward to the full council. So moved. So I had suggested that we not make motions until we've had an opportunity to hear from the public. And I do have a motion and a second. But I wanted to remind council of a procedure that I thought we had agreed on. And having said that, I've also said in the past, and I'll repeat, it's always that council members can make motions whenever they want according to our procedures. So if you would like to speak to this motion, please. I've got two people in line, so if you raise your hand or... Councilmember McCliver. Councilmember Brown, I support your motion, but I question if it has an urgency that it needs to happen today. Would you be willing to delay this until after we've had public comment on these meetings in order to talk about this again? Because I would like to support it, but I think that we'd like to hear from the public on all these matters. So that's just my question to you. Council member Brown. I feel like we've heard from the public in regards to this manner. I think affordable housing is a serious need in our community. I think we know and have seen where people have been impacted from the lack of affordable housing, that lack of access to affordable housing, and the lack of access to funds for affordable housing. We had a presentation by Rick McQuady last week via Zoom and committee. He stressed that those funds are needed and can be used and allocated in a timely fashion. I haven't heard anything but support for it today. So I do think it's an urgent need that we need to move forward. So I do support it going forward. Thank you. Councilman McClover, you still have the mic. Any of you still have time? I'm all right. Okay. Can I ask council members Plowman and Baxter to remove your name from the list for the moment? If you just take your name off the list so I can open it up because I saw a bunch of hands. If you want to speak to this item, please log in. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I appreciate Council Member Brown and McCurn for moving this forward. I do feel like that there is an urgency in our community, and I agree with what Councilmember Brown is just. That was me or not. Oh, dear. But I do believe that it is an urgent need, and I do believe that there are a number of great opportunities that are already out there for collaboration, as I said earlier. and so I will support this motion. I do think that it is a timely matter and that that this is the right time to move forward. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you Vice Mayor. I'm in support of the affordable housing. I'm in support of a lot of these things but in just an effort to keep our process I'm not going to vote for it today because I think a lot of of the things that we've talked about we're in agreement with but we decide not to move them forward and so either I'm gonna start making motions for things that I want to move forward today and we all can do that or in my opinion we should wait one week and I think we're just talking about waiting a week and I don't think that's very long so I won't be able to support this motion today. Thank you. Councilmember Maloney. I will support this because it follows the criteria about the pandemic and as you all know a lot of people being evicted and the landlords don't want to get back in the business there's a lot of vacancies and to me with the quicker we get this these housing people are ready to look for this kind of housing use and rick mcquady's already said it is a huge demand and as you all know every meeting we've ever been housing is the biggest issue in fad county and i know how to write i've written these grants before i've applied for them and if there's a golden opportunity that we can today send a message that we care about it and we got money set aside those applications become a lot we're going way up quicker than those folks sitting there well i gotta wait to get funded well this opportunity is a good funded this is a strong that we're standing for the pandemic use as affordable housing and to me, I support this. Thank you, Councilmember Floman. Thank you, Chair. I also support, when I think of, when we started out this process, the word transformational was used over and over again. And you think about affordable housing and what that does to someone's life. Do not have to spend all their money on their housing, the quality of life, the enhancements that they can move forward. I just think it's critical to our community. I think that we send a statement to our community that this is very important to us. And it changes lives and we need to keep that in consideration and do the right things, do this type of thing. I really support it, so thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Sheehan. I was on the equity services subgroup, and I just wanted to clarify the language here first. When we, even though it is not written into this document, our intent was to put these funds into the affordable housing fund because we do believe that that structure is in place to evaluate projects. I also agree that we have heard from the public. While we have one item here in this list, number 23, that allocates funding to affordable housing, we got many proposals and much feedback already from the community in our public sessions, too, that this is something that the community wants us to support. So I'm going to support the motion. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up. Councilman Maloney, would you mind taking the chair again and recognizing me? Sure. Thank you. So I find myself in the somewhat awkward position of being a member of the Affordable Housing Fund Board and fervently in favor of the intent of this proposal. There's no question on its merits that this deserves support. On the other hand, I'm stuck on process. And we had one long process discussion already in this body. I will just say this. I cannot support a motion, any motion, at this point, regardless of how strongly I favor it. It's not about the merits. It's also not about whether we understand at this point that this is going to have wholehearted support from the public. it's about what we've said we were going to do in terms of how we wanted to proceed. And Council Member Reynolds, thank you for pointing out that if we do this, then that opens the door for any and all motions. And we're in a whole different posture. So I would urge my colleagues to vote no on the motion with the understanding that it has nothing to do with the merits of the proposal itself. Thank you. I'm back to the chair back. Council Member McCurran. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I understand that, but didn't we just take a vote, 15-0, for VisitLex to have a million dollars from ARPA? I think that we just did it during this meeting. So I think moving forward with this recommendation right now, this is extremely important. And we're saying this is extremely important, but we can't vote on it because of the process. But we just took a vote on something outside of the process. If I may. I understand the time constraints. I do understand that. But it still is a vote ahead of us. Thank you. So, this mask is going to drive me crazy. So, if I may respond. What I did not say, because I wasn't thinking about the fact that it would already entertain one motion, is that that motion had to do with time sensitivity. And I think you can make the case that as soon as a visit Lex knows they've got that money, they're going to start to spend it. You cannot make that case for affordable housing. The affordable housing fund is a slow process. It has a bunch of projects in the pipeline which it has adequate funding for right now, waiting a week, frankly, or even a month or two, would not make any substantive difference in the functioning of the Affordable Housing Fund. So in my mind, this simply is not time-sensitive in the same way. And so, yes, we made an exception for one item, and the rationale was you could make the case that it really was time-sensitive. I don't think you can make the case with this particular proposal. But I appreciate the thought. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. Vice Mayor, we have agreed and disagreed on a few things in our lifetime, but I have to disagree. This is time sensitive because I have done these kind of grant writings, and we have a window that will be committed like you all have the million dollars we just voted on that they're hurting. Affordable housing is, I had two people call me yesterday. They were a family of two or five and living in a car. They got money, but they can't find anywhere to live. So to me, this is very sensitive, very important, and I am going to support this, and I have to disagree with you on this statement. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Worley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I don't think anybody would disagree that we all kind of set a process and this might jump outside of it, And so I would ask that my colleagues not take this as an opportunity 10 minutes before our stop time to start running on everybody's favorite project. That being said, this is something that I think we all support and all will support. And I'm going to support it now. I don't think that this was the time to make the motion, but it's here. And it's on the table. And this fund is something that has proven time and time again to be one of the most valuable things that we've put into this government. When you think about affordable housing, we've got a lot of issues in our community about affordable housing, but some of the subsidies and the funds available out there are HUD or USDA that are for 80 percent average median income or 60 percent or sometimes even 50 percent. And they come with restrictions and 30-year land use restriction agreements. this money that our affordable housing trust fund is soft development subsidy that we can use however we want and Rick McQuady has been so creative of if this project needs a hundred thousand dollars and it couldn't get that money from HUD or it couldn't get that money from another grant but if it could get that hundred thousand to two hundred thousand and now that apartment is affordable for a family of four whereas otherwise a developer couldn't have built it for that. And that's what this fund does that I think a lot of people don't realize. This is not helping with rent just by giving out rent money, though it could technically. This is helping make, in a community that development is so expensive, almost cost prohibitive. This allows for developers to build units that are affordable for the folks that live here. And so it's something we've all talked about for years and years. I wish we could fund it more. I wish we could fund it more. and we went on a chamber trip to Raleigh, they have a dedicated tax that actually funds it. And I don't know that we would have that capacity here or desire, but they raise $6 million every year that they put into affordable housing. So this is, again, an opportunity. When else would we do it but now? And so while the timeliness of the motion may be debatable, the substance I don't think is – I think this is something we need to do, and I'll support it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Councilmembers, for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this item and this motion. I felt like what we talked about doing today was hearing all the proposals and all the recommendations before we made any motions, with the understanding that we could make motions at the time. I didn't make the motion to put council members in a funny spot. I think this isn't a pet project, this is something that supports our whole community. We could wait a week, but I think the public is tired of waiting on us to do something. I think this is an opportunity for us to make a statement like we've made other statements along this process. that we recognize the need and the importance of some initiatives and are willing to make decisions to move them forward. And I think this is the time to do it. If somebody feels different, I mean, you can make a motion to postpone and so on and so forth. But I didn't make the motion to put folks in a precarious position. I just made the motion to help move us forward in this process. So thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up to speak. Therefore, I will call for a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. No. Can I get an electronic screen so we can see the votes? Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, we're in the middle of a vote, so I think we need to take the vote. If you would, council members. That vote reflects passage of the motion. Thank you. Just wanted to clarify that the expectation would be that this would be a walk-on budget amendment for today's work session. I'm both fine. I know. I was wrong. So I'm not sure. We would have to have a report out. And we would have to have a motion to report it out this afternoon as opposed to... I was just going to make the motions at work session myself. Yeah, we just wanted to make sure we were prepared to do what you all wanted to do. If someone wants to make the motion to take it as a walk-on, Council Member Bledsoe. That's what I was planning on doing. And then I was also planning on making the motions at work session for public comment and for the next committee of the whole to be formally scheduled, if that were appropriate. Okay, let's take them one at a time. At work session. Okay. Motion to place that to walk it on this afternoon at the work session. Is there a second? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That motion carries. I've got two people in line to be recognized. I'd like to recognize them before we recess. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. There is an item that is very, very time sensitive and it's under three critical government needs and it is the 30,000 for broadband. And just let me explain it briefly. We have an opportunity right now to get into the project with Scott County with Spectrum. They're building out Scott County now for the broadband and an opportunity that we can be a part of that build out in northern Fayette County, 250 households. And this is a big signal statement to our community that we're very concerned and we're very committed to providing rural broadband. So what I would like to do is go ahead and make a motion to place on the docket for this Thursday, October the 28th, the $30,000 for broadband infrastructure and related government support on that. But again, this is just, it happened really fast, it's happening right now, and we need to get this earmarked. So moved. Okay, just to be clear, this would be a motion to walk it on at work session. I have a motion, is there a second? Is there a second? I have a second. Discussion on the motion, Councilman Maloney. I appreciate that, but I think the president is working on a new bill to pay those kind of projects. So I would wait and see once that passes, then we go that way. Because I think this $30,000 can be used for that use. We need the 30 or whatever. As you can see, the money is getting smaller as we go by. So I would recommend that we wait until the president gets his vote. And I won't support this because I think it goes into the other money that will be coming. And we'll be having this discussion here probably with that money. So I just want to be prepared for that. Thank you. And, Council Member Maloney, you are right. There are monies that are coming down for infrastructure. I mean, for this throughout the whole county, throughout the whole region. But this is an opportunity that just came up this week. And we have to make a decision this week in order to be taking it. It's a small investment in what it would really cost and it's taking place because Spectrum and Scott County have already committed the monies and we can get in there right now. And so it is very time sensitive, so thank you for your comments. Other comments, questions on the issue, on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. I'm sorry, I heard two. Let me have a screen again so we can see the votes. Thank you. I'm missing one vote. Is there someone who's not? Thank you. That vote reflects passage of the motion. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Maloney alluded to it earlier, and I feel like we've been circling the subject for the last 45 minutes in regards to timeline goals and spending priorities as far as this entire process is concerned. So as we move forward, I would really encourage us to not only set the parameters for how we want the process to look going forward and making sure everybody agrees to that, but also getting those timeline goals and spending priorities outlined as well. Because we do have some things that are time sensitive. And we do have some things that we could spread out over the course of the next couple years. So while we want to make some moves and make some immediate allocations that are warranted, we also need to reserve some of those funds for down the line, in my opinion. So I would just encourage us all to really be cognizant of our timeline moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Maloney. All done. Okay. It's 12.01. My question for council is do we need to reconvene this afternoon for more discussion? I see most heads shaking no. Then I want to be clear to reemphasize. I believe we have a meeting tentatively scheduled. I don't know if that actually got scheduled. Council Member Bledsoe, do you want to make a couple of motions regarding public comment and that meeting? I was planning on making these at work session. And the motion will be to schedule public comment on the ARPA funds for Tuesday the 2nd at 5 p.m. And then to have the next committee of the whole meeting at 4 o'clock on Thursday the 4th. And I'll make both those motions at work session. Thank you. That will do it. Is there anything else we need to do before we adjourn? Seeing none, thank you very much. I'll take a motion to adjourn. I have a motion. Is there a second? Without objection, we stand adjourned.