And I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. And the first item of business is public comment for issues on the agenda. And I believe there's no one signed up for public comment. So there are no. For docket approval. And so next is the council work session of January 25th table of motions. If I can have a motion to approve. Move approval. Second. Thank you. Any questions about the table of motions? Okay, all those in favor, please raise your hand. Is anyone opposed? Motion passes. There are no budget amendments today, and so we do have some new business. If I could have a motion to approve. So moved. Thank you, Council Member Bloman and Council Member Baxter. Thank you. Council Members, please log in if you have any questions. All right, Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I have one question about item K, the Homeland Security Grant. I don't know if there's somebody that... Commissioner Armstrong, are you or Chief Wells? Is anybody in the chamber or are you on the Zoom? Here comes Commissioner. Good afternoon, ma'am. Welcome, Commissioner Armstrong. Council Member Baxter has a question. I am curious if the allocation that we have put into our ARPA conversations included this amount, or if we will be reducing that number by a few dollars anyway. These, if you, obviously, these SCBAs, there are a different version of these. This is actually specifically for hazmat situations and their hazmat team. So they're not, while they may use the same moniker, that does not mean they're the exact same thing. So these are more specially designed. And this will purchase anywhere between six and eight, depending on the filter cost, as prices continue to rise on equipment like this. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Who day for all those big old fans out there. I get to wear my hat proudly today, at least for the next two weeks. And on number A, I just want to bring to council members attention. This is the senior intern program that's been going on for many, many years here. unfortunately we haven't been able to have it for the the last couple years and the week of june 6th through the 10th will be the senior intern program and we will be asking the administration and also council members to participate so we'll be sending out information about that but we have our luncheon on the 10th when we have our graduation and i know mayor's been there in the past to help out pass out diplomas and we look forward to that but we're glad that we're going to be having that again this year. So just wanted to pass that on. Thank you, Mayor. That's great. It'll be good to be back in person. Anyone else have a question about new business? All right. I see none. So all those in favor of approving new business, please raise your hand. Thank you. Anyone opposed? No, that passes. And next is continuing business. And first is neighborhood development funds if I could have a motion to approve. Okay, I heard vice mayor and I heard council member Plowman. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you. Is there anyone opposed? Okay, that passes. Next is, I believe this is council member Fred Brown with the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to report out the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee meeting as of December 7, 2021. First item on our agenda was approval of the October 19, 2021 committee summary. There were no additions or corrections, and the summaries were approved without dissent. Next, we had the annual MS4 program update presented by Director Martin. He explained the permit process for the program and said compliance revolves around meeting objectives of 10 program elements, which he reviewed. He mentioned that in January this year, we were released from the MS4 provisions of the consent decree and said the MS4 program no longer operates under court-ordered sanctions. However, we are still under the permit obligations for the MS4 programs. And this is a very positive note. When asked about staffing, Martin said it is a function of the regulatory community, which could sometimes call for additional staff. But right now, the concern is filling existing positions rather than creating new ones. No action was taken on this item. Our next item was the LFUCG Greenway Encroachment Agreement presented by Director Kerry with Division of Environmental Services. She provided the history and explained the process used for updating these agreements. Kerry explained green infrastructure is more about various practices that can be installed to meet the requirements in the stormwater manual. No action was taken on this item. Our last item was wrong way driving, which Council Member Bledsoe placed in committee after several wrong way collisions in Lexington. Jeff Nill, Director of Traffic Engineering, said wrong way driving is likely something that occurs frequently, but it is difficult to detect and often you don't know it until it's too late. In Kentucky, there are 40 deaths per year due to wrong way driving. And nationally, it's about 500 a year. So those are still a little eye opening as far as the wrong way. And we saw that in Lexington on a couple of occasions this past year or so. The committee asked the Division of Traffic Engineering to develop a pilot program and review that at a later date. But there was no action taken on this particular item. our meeting adjourned at 227. That concludes my report out. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Are there any questions for Council Member Brown? All right. Thank you. Oh, Council Member Maloney, did you have a question for Council Member Brown? Yes. I'm surprised you didn't, the girl, the ladies, the councilwoman did not say who were the main reason for these wrecks. There was a big article about what sex, so I'm not going to mention what sex it was, but I'm surprised the women didn't stand up and say something on that. But so appreciate that report. Thank you. It wasn't in my report. Sorry. Councilmember Ellinger, did you have a question for Councilmember Brown? No. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Brown. Okay. Council next is council reports. Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. and we just received an email that is giving us an update for a detour that's going to be on the legacy trail is is commissioner Albright there by chance i could ask her a question i think she is we'll give her a minute to get on and i'll just say that that the email that we were sent said the section of the legacy trail will be detoured to allow for utility installation between the new upper cane run wet weather storage tank and existing pump station this is going to start on monday and then trail users will be able to ride around the construction via the development drive and will join the original trail route where it crosses creek view drive and and expect to reopen on march 11th and i guess my question is is the welcome commissioner i don't see her but it could be another screen okay there you are are are we going to have signs that will be showing the detour it's it's it's um it's an easy detour and i appreciate us for you all doing that so we can and i've used this road before when we go around the trail so it's it's very user-friendly but will we have some signs that will show the people on the trail how to get there and what to do? Yes, sir, we will. Thank you for that question. There will be signs and markings for the trail, and then there will be some protection for the trail users versus the people using the traffic on development drive. Well, thank you, and thank you for doing this because I know we won't be getting near the emails that we did last time, so thank you for being proactive here. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Next is Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. And I just have a motion to add an item into my General Government Social Services Committee, and I make a motion to add the renovation and expansion of the Dorothy Oates Visitor Center at the Arboretum for a presentation. So move. Is there a second? Second. I will agree. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I also have an item to put into committee. With the rising rates of overdose deaths and increased isolation for those struggling with substance use disorder during the pandemic. I've talked with Amy Baker, our program coordinator for the substance use disorder intervention program to potentially give us an update. So I moved to place into the general government and social services committee a substance use intervention update to discuss the ongoing efforts to reduce rates of substance use in Lexington. So moved. Second. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Is there any discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Anyone opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Is that all? Yes, thank you. All right. Councilmember Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. If you could get Director Farmer, I think I told her I was going to ask her a question. If you could get her on for me, please. Yes, she's in the waiting room. Thank you. She'll be here in a moment. Welcome, Director Farmer. Welcome. Council Member Maloney has a question. Thank you, Director, for being here. I noticed the other day in the council report last week that there were a lot of people that resigned from being on the correction. How many people resigned this month? That's my first question. How many people have you lost this month or the last two months, really? Okay. Second, I'll pull that report up so I need to correct the numbers. Okay. Okay, for the month of January, we had four people retire January 1st, and then we had four officers that left us and went to Woodford County, and then we had eight more that left for various reasons for medical relocation and wind termination. Okay. And what does that bring your number to staff? I mean, last I heard you around 100, but I know what is your total staff now? Our total officer vacancy is at 108. We have five sergeants that spots that are vacant, one lieutenant and one captain from the retirements that we had the first of the month or first of January. And my final question is, how many do you have that are in training? Right now, there's just the two over there. And usually, of all the years I've been here, there's usually 38, I mean, 25 to 20. And when you lose this many people, when I catch enough, I'm worried about you. That's why I'm trying to ask these questions. How do we fix this problem? Because the numbers, when you tell me these kind of numbers, it really scares me that we're losing. where you added up it's close to 15 and we got two going through training. Those numbers are not catching up on top of the 100 and something. And the collective bargain, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm trying to figure out how we're going to make sure your staff is safe and how we make sure that the folks that are in jail are safe. And then when you look at these numbers, it scares me. Now, you all convinced me that it's not true, then I would like to see how that's not true. Because that too, in training, really scares me. So I didn't know what you have comment. I figured you may not have a comment, because you've been trying to deal with this for a long time. But this is really starting to terrify me a little bit. I'm not sure how far I can go into it with the CBA, but they're voting on it Friday. I think the part of it was... I don't. Okay. But the pay, obviously, was one. The four that we lost to Wilford County, they left here because they were starting them out, for example, $18 and a little over $18 an hour. So it was a pay raise for them to leave here to go over there. Okay. I appreciate it. Hopefully they come to an agreement this week, but I don't... It still concerns me. Are you going to be able to get when you're 108 behind as you think they passed it you think you'll get your 25 30 people wanting this job as soon as possible because that you're talking 10 weeks of training it's still going to be we're still not out of the woods that's what you're telling me this may be a long time before we get out of the woods so we see see daylight or something um i'm optimistic it of course um i think that we will get there we have a lot of recruiting going on right now we have um morehead coming up to eku we have kingland and we have our we're just waiting on the contract to be finalized to do recruiting at bayette mall all of public safety is for um i think that's going to be three months we've reached back out to channel 27 to do um tv ads commercial ads um social media for us. We're working right now on a professional recruiting video so that we can post everywhere. And then we're also doing ads through Arthur Lucas's office on the buses as well. So we've got some recruiting events going on. So I think that we will get there. It's just not going to be all at once. Okay. I appreciate it. Those numbers just terrify me a little when you got that mean retire and you only got two recruits. So probably in another month or two, I assume I I will come back or may contact you to find out how we hopefully things will change to the good. But I appreciate the information. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to give credit to Director Farmer for all her hard work on this. And she also what council members need to know is that we have worked for quite some time now, and she has led the way on getting state and federal prisoners out of our jails so that the numbers, the census could continue to go down. So thank you very much for all that hard work, Director Farmer. Thank you. Next is Councilmember Plowman. Thank you, Mayor. We've got a little time on this, but this event's really important to our rural land, and I wanted to get it out. It's going to be their 39th annual farm machinery auction. It's out at the horse park. And I know the mayor you've gone and it's acres and acres of everything you can imagine. But it is important because they take these monies and they use it for an annual scholarship for young people that do want to go into into farming. So, again, that's going to be on the 19th begins at 830 in the morning. And also another reason I just put out an NDF. your support would mean a lot to them and this is an opportunity to do just that with the show on the 19th that's all thank you mayor thank you and I think last year it was virtual wasn't it it was and that's another good reason to say it now because it's going to be there at the horse park yeah thank you councilmember Bledsoe thank you mayor just a few things Haley if you'll pull up some of these pictures I'm going to do one quick announcement first this Thursday night, I'll be at the Pensacola Park Neighborhood Association for their meeting. It's an opportunity to connect with some new neighbors that are now on the 10th. And if you live in the neighborhood, we'll be at the Hunter Presbyterian Church on February 3rd at 7 p.m. And now this is the new playground equipment at Southland Park, which still has a way to go. We still need to place some mulch and do some more items, but it's looking really great. So if you can tell, if you go back one slide quick, Haley, if you look on the pavilion on the top right, The gentleman at Lexmark built that for us. It's iron. It matches the playground equipment. It looks fantastic. Council Member James Brown and I helped paint that building over there, which it looks great. So the playground's coming along. And again, this was part of the reconstruction of the project to expand for the water quality. The tension basin, which will be back there behind the tennis courts. And you can scroll through real quick, Haley, just a couple of these. but Michelle Kuznick and Parks has done a great job. It's just taken us a while to get the material in. We hope to have it done this summer, so it's definitely on the way, but hopefully weather will work with us a little bit and we can get this open in time for spring. So shout out to them. I'm really excited about it. Thank you, Mayor. Very nice. Congratulations. Next up is Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to add my congratulations for Stephanie Hong and her retirement. I think some council members that recognized her last week for her service in the Department of Youth Services. I know she has given a lot of her time and energy to the work that she's done for our young people throughout the community and just wish her the best in her retirement. And then also congratulate Brianna Pursley and her promotion to replace Stephanie in the Department of Social Services and Youth Services. She has done an excellent job with Partners for Youth and has an opportunity to build off of some of that success she's had and share that knowledge in the rest of the department. So congratulations to her. And then I guess I'll give a reminder. This month is Black History Month. I plan to use this month as well as the rest of the year to continue to share some of the contributions that folks in the black community have given to our community. And I've been seeing social media posts from our Department of Social Services and our Department of Parks and Recreation sharing some local black history in regards to some of the parks and some of the trailblazers and some of the buildings that are named from some of these trailblazers in our community. So I think it's exciting to see them sharing that history as well as other folks in our community this month. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to update colleagues. I hope you looked at your email. Well, if you haven't yet, I sent out an email on maybe getting us off of square one for our Cal on Thursday related to ARPA funds. And basically what I did was some suggestions related to that and what the administration had given us, the CAO specifically, had given us as a going forward point on how to use the, or what we were going to use the ARPA funds for, what we were going to do in budget stabilization, and what we were going to do in maybe bonding. So I hope you'll look at that, and feel free to give me a call, because I would like to explain, there's a schedule with that. I'm not sure it came through on the email, But there's a schedule and it represents what Sally had given us when she did that PowerPoint. And that was a spreadsheet of ARPA funds approved, those proposed, and then it went into budget stabilization column and the bonding column. So I think Thursday will give us a chance to maybe move forward, especially we need to move forward on some of the items that will affect the upcoming budget. and we need to get squared away as to what we can fund out of the ARPA or out of stabilization fund or whatever so that we can kind of get clear everything out and to where the budget can be processed going forward. So if you've got any questions, please call me because I met with Sally today and there's already a couple of three tweaks on there where we can move a little bit of money around. But we really need a consensus on where everybody's at as far as the $120 million. So thank you for looking at that and be glad to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have a council report? All right. There's no mayor's report. And I believe, Stacey, there's no one for public comment for issues not on the agenda. Is that correct? That's correct, Mayor. All right. So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Council member Ellinger seconds. All those in favor, please show me your hand. Thank you. We are adjourned. Thanks so much. Don't go breaking my heart I couldn't if I tried Honey, if I get restless Baby, you're not that kind Don't go breaking my heart You take the weight off of me Honey, when you knock on my door Ooh, I give you my key Ooh, ooh Nobody knows him When I was down I was your crown Nobody knows Nobody knows Right from the start I give you my heart I give you my heart So don't go breaking my heart I won't go breaking her heart Don't go breaking my heart Nobody told us Cause nobody showed us Now it's up to us, babe Oh, I think we can make it So don't misunderstand me You put the light in my life Oh, you put the spark to the flame I got your heart in my side Ooh, ooh, nobody knows it But when I was down, I was your clown Oh