# Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - July 5, 2022 > Auto-transcribed civic record · July 5, 2022 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5605 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5605?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2022-07-05 - **Last revised**: July 5, 2022 - **Length**: 13,968 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality & Public Works Committee convened on July 5, 2022, at 1:00 PM, with F. Brown presiding as the meeting officer. The committee addressed three informational agenda items during the session, focusing on key infrastructure and environmental initiatives affecting the community. The meeting featured presentations on the North Limestone Road Diet traffic engineering project, the 5-Year Solid Waste Plan, and an Urban Forestry/Street Trees Update. All three agenda items were presented for informational purposes, providing committee members with updates on ongoing environmental and public works initiatives. The committee conducted five motions and votes throughout the session, demonstrating active deliberation on the matters at hand. Public participation was represented through two public comments, allowing community members to share their perspectives on the issues being discussed. The meeting covered critical areas of municipal responsibility including traffic management, waste management planning, and urban environmental stewardship through tree maintenance and forestry programs. ## Attendance **Present:** F. Brown, Ellinger, Moloney, McCurn, Sheehan, Kloiber, Bledsoe **Absent:** Kay, LeGris, Worley **Late:** None Seven members were present for the July 5, 2022 meeting, with three members absent and no late arrivals recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took action on five motions during the July 5, 2022 meeting. **Approval of May 3, 2022 Committee Summary** Ellinger moved to approve the May 3, 2022 committee summary, seconded by Bledsoe. The motion passed unanimously. **Greenspace Commission Code Repeal** Ellinger moved to repeal sections of the code of ordinances related to the Greenspace Commission, seconded by Sheehan. The motion passed unanimously. **Greenspace Trust Amendments** Ellinger moved to accept amendments to the Greenspace Trust, seconded by Sheehan. The motion passed unanimously. **Amendment to Remove "or Work" Language** Kloiber moved to remove "or work" from the amendments in the packet, seconded by Bledsoe. This motion failed on a roll call vote with 3 ayes and 4 nays. Voting in favor were Bledsoe, Kloiber, and McCurn. Voting against were Ellinger, F. Brown, Moloney, and Sheehan. **Citation Officers Code Amendment** Moloney moved to amend section 14-10(f)(5) of the code of ordinances related to citation officers, seconded by Kloiber. The motion passed unanimously. Four of the five motions passed unanimously, with only the motion to remove "or work" language failing by a narrow margin. The committee successfully approved routine business including meeting minutes and made several changes to municipal code sections related to the Greenspace Commission and citation officers. ## Public Comment Two residents spoke during the public comment period, both addressing the North Limestone Road Diet proposal. **Dave Cooper** [timestamp: 02:00] expressed support for the road diet proposal, emphasizing that it would improve safety conditions for cyclists using North Limestone. Cooper offered a specific suggestion to enhance the proposal, recommending the addition of lighted "do not enter" signs to improve visibility during nighttime hours. **Alan Bartley** [timestamp: 03:00] also voiced support for the road diet proposal. Identifying himself as both a downtown resident and cyclist, Bartley brought a user perspective to his comments. While supporting the overall concept, he suggested a modification to the bike lane placement, recommending that the bike lane be positioned on the right side of parked cars rather than the proposed configuration, citing safety concerns as the rationale for this adjustment. Both speakers demonstrated support for the road diet concept while offering constructive suggestions for implementation details focused on safety improvements for cyclists and motorists. ## Contested Items The meeting featured one contested item that resulted in a split vote among council members. **Amendments to the Greenspace Trust** The primary point of contention involved proposed changes to the membership requirements for the Greenspace Trust. A motion was presented to remove the phrase "or work" from the existing membership criteria, which would have narrowed the eligibility requirements for trust membership. The proposal generated significant disagreement among council members, reflecting differing perspectives on how inclusive the trust's membership should be. The debate centered on whether the current language that allows people who work in the area to participate should be maintained or eliminated. When the motion came to a vote, it failed by a narrow margin of 3-4, with three members supporting the removal of "or work" from the requirements and four members opposing the change. This close vote demonstrates the divided opinion on the issue, with nearly half of the voting members favoring more restrictive membership criteria while a slim majority preferred to maintain the current, more inclusive language. The failed motion means the Greenspace Trust membership requirements will retain the existing "or work" provision, allowing both residents and those who work in the area to qualify for membership. The split vote highlights ongoing tensions regarding the scope and accessibility of community trust participation. ## Traffic Engineering: North Limestone Road Diet [timestamp: 00:30] Grace Foley presented the North Limestone Road Diet proposal during this informational session. The proposal focuses on redesigning North Limestone Street to address current safety concerns and improve traffic conditions for all users. The road diet plan aims to reduce speeding along the corridor by reallocating existing road space. Key components of the proposal include: • Converting vehicle travel lanes to create dedicated bike lanes • Adding parking buffers to provide separation between parked cars and moving traffic • Implementing traffic calming measures to encourage safer driving speeds Foley explained that the current configuration contributes to speeding problems that pose safety risks for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The proposed changes would maintain traffic flow while creating a more balanced street design that accommodates multiple transportation modes. The road diet approach involves narrowing or reducing the number of vehicle travel lanes without necessarily reducing the overall street width. Instead, the reclaimed space would be repurposed for bicycle infrastructure and enhanced parking areas with buffer zones. This presentation was informational in nature, providing city officials and the public with details about the traffic engineering analysis and proposed improvements. No formal action was taken during this agenda item, as the purpose was to present the findings and recommendations for the North Limestone corridor. The proposal represents part of broader efforts to improve street safety and create more complete streets that serve pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists throughout the city's transportation network. ## 5-Year Solid Waste Plan [timestamp: 04:00] The committee received a presentation on the 5-Year Solid Waste Plan during agenda item III. Commissioner Albright served as the key speaker for this informational presentation. The discussion focused on updates to the county's waste management strategies and outlined future goals for solid waste handling over the next five years. A notable component of the plan includes exploring bio-digestion systems as part of the county's waste management approach. The presentation was informational in nature, providing committee members with an overview of the strategic direction for solid waste management in the coming years. The bio-digestion systems represent a potential advancement in the county's waste processing capabilities, though specific implementation details were not elaborated upon in the available summary. This agenda item served to keep committee members informed about long-term planning efforts for solid waste management and the county's consideration of new technologies and approaches to handle waste more effectively. ## Urban Forestry/Street Trees Update [timestamp: 05:00] Heather Wilson presented an informational update on Lexington's urban forestry and street tree programs during agenda item IV. The presentation covered several key areas of the city's urban forestry initiatives: • **Staff Changes**: Wilson discussed recent personnel updates within the urban forestry program that affect the department's capacity and operations. • **Tree Maintenance Programs**: The update included information about ongoing tree maintenance activities and how these programs are being managed to ensure the health and safety of Lexington's urban canopy. • **Future Initiatives**: Wilson outlined upcoming plans and initiatives designed to enhance and expand Lexington's tree canopy coverage throughout the city. The presentation was purely informational, with Wilson providing council members and the public with a comprehensive overview of the current state of the urban forestry program. The update appears to be part of regular reporting to keep stakeholders informed about the city's environmental and infrastructure management efforts related to trees and urban canopy preservation. No specific concerns were raised during this agenda item, and no action was required from the council. The update served to maintain transparency about the city's ongoing environmental stewardship efforts and keep the community informed about how Lexington is managing its urban forest resources. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of May 3, 2022 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Repeal sections of the code of ordinances related to the Greenspace Commission - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Accept amendments to the Greenspace Trust - **Motion** — failed (3-4): Remove 'or work' from the amendments in the packet - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Amend section 14-10(f)(5) of the code of ordinances related to citation officers --- ## Full transcript The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Order. First item is approval of June 7th, 2022 committee summary. Need a motion? Second. Got a motion over here in a second. Did you get those, Kendi? Okay, so we'll go right into, Well, one order of business. I wanted to recognize Council Member James Brown, add you to the committee for this purpose because one of the agenda items is in his district and he's very familiar with it. So I'll just add him to the committee for that reason. Okay, we'll go into item number two, traffic engineering, North Limestone Road Diet. and this is really coming from the commissioner's office and Miss Foley will present. Go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Grace Foley. I'm a senior traffic engineer and I primarily work with the neighborhood traffic management program. The concept and design for the North Limestone Road Diet was developed following several NTMP requests, as well as a community meeting with residents of the area. This presentation reviews neighborhood concerns, traffic engineering analysis, and traffic calming mitigation options to address these concerns. A road diet effectively slims down the portion of a roadway allocated solely to vehicular traffic. Most examples involve a four-lane road that we slim down to one lane in each direction with a center lane for turning. An example of this would be Euclid, formerly used to be four lanes. Now it has one lane in each direction with a center turn lane. For North Limestone, we currently have two travel lanes, as you can see in the before picture. The road diet essentially would create two parking buffers on either side, one through travel lane, a buffer between the through travel lane and a bike lane in the center of the road. Effectively, a road diet reclaims public space allocated solely to through traffic and reallocates it to other public uses. It will include turn lanes, bus stops, and a bike lane. On July 7th of last year, we met with members of the North Limestone Neighborhood Association. We've also received several NTMP requests from neighborhood members along the corridor from 3rd Street to Loudoun Avenue of North Limestone. The concerns they have expressed have been consistent. They include what citizens have deemed extreme speeding, frequent collisions, head-on collisions at 7th Street, wrong way driving, the feeling that it is unsafe for bicycles and pedestrians, parked car side swipes, and racing vehicles. Specifically after our neighborhood meeting on July 7th, I went out and started looking for more data to validate and quantify their concerns. In November 2020, we completed a traffic count. Although the speed limit posted is 25 miles per hour, the average speed of vehicles on this corridor is 33 miles per hour. The 85th percentile speed is 35 to 38 miles per hour, depending on where the data was collected. This indicates that 87 to 92% of vehicles traveling between 3rd Street and Loudoun Avenue on North Limestone are speeding. A review of crash history from December 2015 to December 2020 identified 149 collisions. These are just the collisions reported to Lexington's police department where property was damaged. If there is no damage to a property, a collision cannot be reported. Of those 149 collisions, 45 had injuries and three involved pedestrians. In those five years, only two wrong-way collisions were reported. However, over the six-day count in November, 11 vehicles going the wrong direction were identified. Many of these were late in the evening, and several of them occurred at 5th and 6th Street, not just at 7th. Of the 149 collisions, 49 of those involved a parked car. This is an image of the collisions from West 4th Street, or 4th Street, up to 7th Street. This shows that the dispersal of these collisions, although there are some concentrations at intersections, is consistent throughout the corridor. From 2015 to 2020, there were 149 collisions, as I stated. we changed the signal timing to reduce the speed and better encourage drivers to go 25 miles per hour. Over the last six months with that change, there have been 19 reported collisions, which is an increase, but there have been two fewer injuries from collisions, which is a 50% decrease than what would be expected. Additionally, at 7th Street, there have been zero injuries from collisions in the past six months. Over this time period, there would typically have been at least one. west 7th east 7th and north limestone had the highest concentration of collisions this is due in part to the change from a one-way street to a two-way road as well as the changing width of the lanes and many people trying to speed up due to the faster or i'm sorry the wider lanes. Traffic calming mitigation approaches as they are part of the road diet include reducing the lane width and adjusting signal timing further. This will influence speeding. The frequent collision types indicated a high amount of parked car sideswipes so we will be identifying a parking buffer boundary and maintaining consistent lane width. The consistent lane width reduces cars on a through path, weaving in and out of parked vehicles. At 7th Street, our intention is to change driver expectations by consistently dropping the left lane starting at 4th Street. Drivers will expect the left lane to require them to make a left turn, reducing the likelihood that they will continue straight at 7th Street. Additionally, we are going to change the type of warnings we have, which you'll see on the plans to follow. For wrong-way driving throughout the corridor, we're going to add different type of warnings directly on the pavement. Studies in Texas have found that drivers who are impaired are focused primarily on the pavement, trying to keep the vehicle between the lines. In this situation, signs have been found to have a reduced effectiveness, whereas pavement markings have become more effective when a driver is in that state of mind. Reducing vehicle speed and creating a bicycle lane will improve safety for bicycles and pedestrians. And by reducing the corridor to one travel lane, we will hopefully eliminate the tendency for drivers to use it as a drag strip. This is the profile of the road. It varies in width from 34 feet to 36 feet. It's hard to see those numbers underneath. One of the improvements to driver expectation is establishing a lane that is a consistent width rather than changing with the very old property lines that are along North Limestone. On each side of the road, there will be a 7.5-foot parking lane, and then an 11-foot through lane, and a 5-foot bike lane. Although the road changes in width, this change in width will be put into the buffer between the through lane and the bike lane, so it's not going to change how much space any of the travel modes have to operate. Starting at 4th Street, the very first arrow on the left will be dropping the left lane. There will be a through and right turn lane, and you can sort of make out the green paint that delineates the through bike lane. There are squares representing pockets that will be labeled for no parking. this is similar to what's on Loudoun Avenue for people to put trash cans or just be able to have a safe place to look before they get in or out of their vehicle. And that middle arrow is pointing to a bike lane symbol. These will be continuous along the corridor. At Fifth Street, we're indicating an increased presence of thermo markings. These arrows will better define what each lane is for through traffic, as well as indicating to traffic potentially turning the wrong way that they are going the wrong way. On 5th Street, in front of the Nest, we're showing a bus stop in that parking buffer. This is already present. I believe they are having a bench put in if there isn't one. This space will be marked out for bus only. Should there be a lot of parking on that side, the bus will still be able to reach its riders. And then at 6th Street, the curb has been bumped out to reduce the width of the crossing for pedestrians. Because of this more narrow width, the straight through and right turn lane are combined, and again, we are showing the bike lane with green markings. Between 6th and 7th Street, at 6th itself, there is a grocery store as well as Al's Bar. These markings will better aid trucks making deliveries, specifically any semi truck making that turn won't be clipping vehicles. And that first arrow in the middle is pointing at the merge section for the bicycle traffic and vehicular traffic. I believe we have about 150 feet there. The idea is to merge the bicycle and vehicular traffic prior to the intersection with Alabama. We wanted to reduce the number of movements possible during that merge area. Alabama Avenue will be painted to increase the awareness, or we'll have markings added to increase the awareness that it is right in, right out only. Where that yellow arrow is pointing to, we will be adding yellow pavement markings, first of all indicating no parking, and second indicating to any driver who missed all of the signs and the three left turn arrows should they go through the intersection at 7th the wrong way you're going the wrong way and please stop here effectively creating a place for the vehicle to stop rather than in many cases somebody panicking and continuing the wrong way down the street. The red arrow pointing to the intersection will be adding new signs changing around the current sign placement and then that median in the middle is just paint so buses or semi trucks making a turn including our waste management vehicles do have a wider space to turn. It's also a refuge area if someone does continue through the intersection going the wrong way. A car who notices them has a place to get out of their way as well. Not ideal, but the space is available. This is from 7th to Loudon Avenue. There are not many technical changes here other than shifting the center line so the space is more evenly divided between the lanes and actually painting in a parking buffer. And I believe moving the stop bar back from Bryan Avenue slightly and adding the bicycle sharrows. The overall project outcomes are to reduce speeding, reduce collisions, specifically reducing parked car collisions, improving driver awareness of the lane and direction changing, create a safer space for non-vehicle road users, eliminate the drag strip, while maintaining traffic flow at peak times. One of our concerns with reducing North Limestone to one lane was potentially creating a backup of traffic. Our signals group did an analysis. Currently, if you start at 3rd Street and continue through, there's the difference between now and with it being one lane is a two-second delay average for each vehicle. So there's the analysis model did not show that there would be any type of gridlock other than anything currently experienced by maybe the first few minutes of a game letting out. But typical traffic flow would experience a two-second increase to their travel time. Thank you for the presentation. I do have one person that has signed up, and I'll bring them forward and let them speak. Dave Cooper. You can come to the podium there and state your name and the council district. And you have three minutes. I'm Dave Cooper. I live at 124 Paris Avenue. I cycle up and down. I ride my bike up and down North Lyme a lot. So I was really interested in the proposal. everything looks really good to me it looks like a lot of thought has been put into the proposal i think for cyclists it'll be a lot safer i do see people going the wrong way on north lime like fairly often you see it they go i don't know how they where they make the wrong term but you know it's pretty easy for somebody who's from out of town going towards town on north line at 7th to just go straight instead of jogging over to upper. So one thing I might suggest is when you get to that intersection, if you're going into town, there's a lot of clutter as far as the signage there and you know it's just like a whole lot of things at once. I've seen before where they have like do not enter signs that are lighted so that at night you know just give it a little bit more impact not to add more clutter to the intersection but it just might be something to consider going outbound on north line this is out of the proposal area but the really the worst pinch point there is right at broom wagon where you cross loudon there's really nowhere for a bike to go and so i ride up as going outbound i go up on the sidewalk which isn't ideal at all but it's just really not safe to ride in the street there it's just it's too narrow um another comment on the proposal as you're going outbound as you're bicycling outbound um approaching seventh there's a downhill and you you pick up you know a pretty good amount of speed there and the way that that that this is laid out um you know you've got that door zone where people or somebody in a car can open the door into the bike lane and that's not a real big problem if you're going slowly enough and you're alert you know you can stop in time but when you got that downhill and you pick up a little bit of speed you know a door suddenly opening into the bike lane is kind of a pretty big problem and completely outside of this proposal we really need sidewalks on north line in between new circle down to withers there's so many people walking in the street there and i did send a photograph in that shows how the street floods in that area and there's just yeah you can't really see this but this is um yeah thank you this is looking going looking south on north line every time it rains there's these huge puddles and there's just nowhere for people to walk and you got people in wheelchairs and elderly folks and so on and they're just nowhere to walk so as time goes on i would really hope that we can get some sidewalks in this area thank you mr cooper uh we have we have sent that photograph to traffic engineering for them to look at that. It's not related to this, what we're doing today. Also, I think anybody else want to speak? Come on to the podium there and give your name and your council district. You have three minutes, sir. Thank you. My name is Alan Bartley. I live at 353 South Mill Street. Very quickly, two quick things I want to talk about. I am a downtowner. I do ride a lot. I have a 9 and 12 year old. We ride down through this area. I'm one of the bikers that I would call very fearless and confident. I've been certified as a league certified instructor by League of American Bicyclists, a national organization. I know my rights. I'm willing to get out in front of traffic and say I'm a vehicle. A 9 and 12 year old cannot do that. we ride down this street a lot it's great I love so much of what was here I'm so excited to be part of Lexington to see this happening but I think there is a an equity issue for for families that are trying to get their kids to places I love the example given of how there's no sidewalks I think for if we're looking for the future these small changes make big changes later on If we want people to be able to walk and bike, we have to make these changes now. My second point is I am a professor of economics at Transylvania University. I just spent a sabbatical. I just returned from six weeks working with a company in the Netherlands on bicycle design. And what I'll say is these are great. I love them. This is very depressing. the picture on the right hand here of the bicycles to the left of the parked cars. If you have, I know this is an engineering issue. I know there are green books about how to do things. If you have any say whatsoever, I definitely suggest that this be removed and the bicycles be put on the right-hand side. I visit my brother in New York City in Manhattan. We have bollards. I will bike with him every day. But if you put a 9-year-old and 12-year-old out on the road, they are still next to cars going very, very, very fast. If you put the lane over here and the bicycle lane over here, it is another psychological thing of that if it's one lane and cars are going, then when they not only see that there's one lane, but they're riding beside cars, they will slow down. If there is a lane where there is not a bicyclist that's five feet wide, they will not slow down. It's a purely psychological thing that's been proven many, many times in the literature. They will not slow down if there is a wide car lane, only one, but there's five lanes and no one in it. If that lane is full of dozens and dozens of bicycles, they will slow down. When it is not, they will still keep speeding. I know that there's a lot of things about the highway administration and its rules and what engineers do, but I strongly suggest you look at keeping the exact same thing but moving the bicycles inside. Cars won't park there, delivery trucks won't park there, bicyclists, families, people with equity issues can get where they need to go, it's a very simple solution. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else in the audience want to speak to this item? If not, I'll go to council members. Have council member McCurran first. Thank you, Chair. And Ms. Foley, thank you for the presentation. I do have a few questions for you, if I may. And actually, to start off with the gentleman's last comments, that's my biggest concern. I've spoken with traffic engineering about this in the past too, especially after a study from New York City came out showing that that is a safer method of bike lanes. Why are we not looking at that as well? We did do a review of bike lanes. It's hard to hear you. We did an initial design with bike lanes on the right side. But the significant issue we had was getting bicycles back to the shoulder across that one lane of traffic. Effectively, they would have to merge and then get to the other side of vehicles because the road changes directions at 7th Street. Okay. Is there a way of trying to create a pathway for them or anything to a sidewalk? Or is that an interchange that we can create something more unique? Now, I see it from his perspective, this gentleman that just spoke a minute ago. And I do understand because when cars are, you know, especially doors opening up too, if you open up your door, you're primarily looking for another car to come, not necessarily a cyclist. So that's a danger to them. But there's also putting them right next to the roadway that has oncoming traffic. If you move them inside and then you put the buffer in between and then you put the parking, just like you were on the left side of the street, I think that would be the most logical and then find a solution of how down the street you can cross in and make it safe still for pedestrians. I'll leave my two cents at that. I know I'm not the engineer here and I completely understand it. But just by some of the studies I have seen, I would like to see that if I may offer my input. And then my next question is about bike lanes. Is there any spot that the bike lane is not going to be fluid? Is it going to stop? Is it going to merge in? It need to be on the sidewalk for a little bit at any point, even after you get to 7th Street? So upon reaching 7th Street, bikes would be sharing the road, sharing the lane again with vehicular traffic based on, well, due to the width of the road. There, at this time, we need to maintain that two-way traffic in order to get vehicles from Loudon over to Upper. Okay. That's all my questions. I appreciate you talking about how much traffic would slow down as well. That was another question I had, but by only two seconds, that's okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council member Legree. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Foley, for this presentation. When I first moved here to Lexington, I lived on Loudon Avenue, and I worked on second. And I often biked to and from work, and so I traveled this stretch of road really regularly. regularly and I still do, though not every single day. And so I'm really glad to see that we are working on a solution to slow cars down and to make it friendlier towards cyclists. I'm glad that Council Member McCurn and Mr. Bartley brought up this idea of other ways to do the bike lane. I also have an additional kind of streetscape and bike lane question. Council member McCurran asked about this at the end of his statement. And I know that the bike lane ends at 7th and then cyclists are meant to merge into traffic and share the road. As Mr. Bartley said, if you're a really experienced cyclist, you're confident, you have practice, then that's manageable, but it's really not ideal. And thinking about what Mr. Cooper said with the sidewalks and with kind of general safety and best practice, I'm wondering if there's any possibility for, or any studies that we are working on for a streetscape redesign or additional options from Loudon all the way to New Circle. Is that something that has been discussed or just in terms of bike lanes, sidewalks? It's something that has been discussed long term into the future. This would be step one. Yeah. OK. That's very helpful. It's my hope that this is a step one in the right direction And then when you think about roads like Limestone and Shropshire, if you've traveled that on foot, there are a lot of opportunities for us to build in some more really needed infrastructure. So thank you for this start. Council member Elgar. Thank you, Chair. Chris with the MPO, you got ready to stand up. So do you want to comment on this? Hi, for the record, Chris Evilla, Director of the Metropolitan Planning Organization. So I do want to answer the question about withers out to New Circle Road. There is a project in the design phase right now looking at sidewalks, bike lanes for that section. And as has been seen, there's a big drainage component to that project. and the MPO has put some of the SLX federal dollars that we receive on an annual basis to get that project to completion. So we'll have that section at least in a pretty good shape probably in a few years. So I did want to address that. Thank you. I saw you wanted to answer, so I wanted to make sure you had the opportunity. As an avid cyclist, working on my 50,000 club mile this month, hopefully I will have it in the next couple weeks. I'm less than 500 miles away to get my new 50,000-mile jersey for the club, which I'm excited about. And I ride this road. Some, it's not really one preferable road because it is not the safest road. But being a cyclist that is used to being on the road, I'm always on a swivel, always looking. So I feel comfortable. I know the laws is 189A that gives us a ride to be a vehicle. And sometimes I have issues, or I don't have issues. People have issues with us sometimes on the road and sometimes have to explain to them that we are, by statute, considered a vehicle as a cyclist on the road. So this, I think, will be a nice change here because this is a road that does have some issues. If I look what we did at Polo Club and how that, I think if we could do all of our roads like that, that we have the roads, we have the little space, we have the bike lanes, and then we have the parking, has been a great way to see what we can do. I'm not really, I'm not sure the difference on what was, I think Ms. Bartley had talked about with the moving the bike lanes all the way over to the side. I don't know from an engineering standpoint which one is better. I know what we have now certainly is better than what we do have going forward. What I do like is that we have the little space between and then the cycling. and as you said, if you're in a group, you certainly are a lot more visible and people do slow down. When you're by yourself, they do tend to just move you on to the curb and just keep going down. So that is something I think we could look at. I'm not sure what the studies on that are, but I know when you have the bullards, those certainly are really nice to be protective. And one thing you always do have to be worried about is when people are opening doors, giving that little stretch between the bike lane and that, but you still are going to be moved over to where the cars are parked, and you do have that issue. You stood up, so you might have a question here. We reviewed adding bollards to that buffer between the bike lane and the vehicular traffic. That would reduce the road with 2-1 vehicular lane. That could potentially impede emergency vehicle response as well as city services. As it is now, the bike lane and buffer would be accessible for emergency vehicles as well as a place for once a week waste collection to utilize that space as they are progressing through the corridor. One of the issues that they brought up is if we do go to the far right with the bike lane and then you have the parking, And then we do have where we have like legacy trailer or where you have the green that shows where you put the paint on the road that kind of shows where. And you could kind of do that to bring them back into the 7th Street, could we not? The, yes, the significant concern we had was that a vehicle or a bicycle would have to merge with vehicular traffic and in the center and then get all the way over if they were going through at 7th Street. So rather than just merging, they'd have to get across the lane. what's the best practice right now for for this because i've seen it more the way that we have it diagram but have we looked at what's best practice on this situation we've looked at several examples from other cities as far as a best practice if the goal is meeting driver expectations than as all the other bike lanes in Lexington are on the side we are showing that is where drivers would expect a bicycle to be where we can't delineate between the two lanes without impeding emergency service access and we can take another look at the right lane that's actually where this project started was with bicycles on the right lane. The major concern was coming downhill from 6th towards 7th. A bicycle would have to get across the through lane, basically two lanes width of traffic, in order to be able to go straight at 7th Street. Okay, thank you, my time's up. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Chair. I'm looking at the road profile, and as I look at where the bike lane is and where the parking is, and there may be reasons why, why would you not switch that? Because I agree with the gentleman that while you drive down there and you see a parked car, people attempt to slow down. Then when they see a bike trail, they speed up because they get in that lane and start driving a lot faster. and the only thing I'm not an expert, if I had to think why you may not do that because when you come to an interchange, because of the park car, to me I wouldn't have any parking on that interchange because you get a distant site and the bike can come back out and go on straight across the turn. Why, is there any way that they have ever switched where they put the bike trail close to the sidewalk and put parking where the bike trail is and why you couldn't do that? There's probably a bunch of reasons, I'm just curious. That is something else that we also looked at. In doing that, we would split the, if we were to split that buffer and the bike lane with parked vehicles, we again would be impeding emergency access. And any waste collection vehicle would cause through traffic on North Limestone to come to a complete stop. There's no way for vehicles to go around if that bike lane is moved to the outside of parking between the parking and the sidewalk. Okay, I understand. You got all the rules. I just, I mean, are there other places in the country where they have bike trails right next to the parked cars like that or is there a reason? There are. They have wider roads when they do that. If we were going to do something like that, it would require us to eliminate the parking. And many of the residents there don't have off-street parking options. And I kind of would like this. If I was driving down, I'd drive down the road all the time. And I'd see a parked car a little bit farther. I'm going to slow down. But I'm more looking at concerns of the safety. People on bike. We want to go that direction. and get more people. And if they know they got that car between them and that sidewalk like other cities, I kind of like that idea. But if there's a reason why we don't do it, that's fine. But if other cities are doing it, to me it seems like it would be more friendly to the bicycles. That's the direction we want to go in this city, especially in that area of town. I'd rather do whatever we can to slow the traffic down, which is everybody flies down that road. And then to me, I wouldn't want to ride my bike, and I commend you for what you're doing. But if we can put the car there between you and the bike, I think to me it saves people's lives. And I appreciate it, but I think I'd rather go that way. But I'm not a bike rider because anything I touch, my body ends up just going crazy. So I just end up being in a hospital. But I listen to his story, and I think we've got to look out for those kids. And with the downtown, to me, it shouldn't be a speed. And that is a speed road. People fly down that road all day long, and if you park cars out a little bit farther, I think it's going to slow that traffic down. And if you put the bike trails there, you'll have more people riding the bike. That's just me. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I, too, have never ridden the bike down this area of town, mostly because I, too, am scared to ride my bike on a road, outside the trails, and around the neighborhoods. And even that very carefully, because I'm not a very good bike rider. So I do that. I just wanted to acknowledge that. But what I hear from this presentation that I just want to take a moment to say is thank you, because you and your work in the last several years have gone above and beyond in serving customers that are citizens. And I've seen it in emails and responses and your consistency and follow up has been just excellent. And we don't say thank you very much because this is a response to someone saying I need help. And we've done that, which is listen to people's concerns and provided something that's an improvement. And we don't say thank you very much. You've been exceptionally patient with people in my district in particular on issues. And I just wanted to say it's appreciated. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. It's his district, so let him sum it up here. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Grace and Brian, for your responsiveness to this issue. This did start as a constituent issue, and we met with them. I think you heard the concerns and the challenges with addressing their concerns. I don't think the printout or the presentation gives the roads justice, but There's a lot of varying in regards to blocks and width and the challenges to make sure that we maintain the parking, create a situation to save for pedestrians and cyclists at the same time trying to prevent traffic from going the wrong way on multiple blocks. I mean, this is way more common than I think we were aware of until you actually did the study. So the fact that you listened and came up with a plan that is pretty drastic. It's a pretty drastic change. And the neighbors that brought it forward, I know they had some frustration about how long it was taken. But this is something that I think we, that is really going to address the issues in these three blocks. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate all the questions and concerns that folks attending today brought up. And then council members, I think Grace and Brian had taken some of these into consideration and trying to make them happen. But I think one of the most important things is this is a first step in regards to making that whole corridor safer. A couple of points that were brought up I think are important to address are that this plan I think can be executed with minimum cost. I think it's a lot of paint and signage that could really change the culture of travel in this corridor. And I think we still, I think we got a good response from the neighbors in the neighborhood about how this is going to change traffic flow. I think we're still going to get some feedback from drivers or folks that use this corridor to travel in vehicles about how this is going to impact their commute. But with the study, I think you said it only increased travel times by a few seconds. So it'll be noticeable because folks will be more in a line and it'll seem like more cars. I think as long as the signal in is coordinated, I think it'll keep traffic flowing. And if I miss say something, by all means jump in. The other thing, especially when we get down to 7th Street, 7th Street, crossing over 7th Street gets kind of tricky. And I think the improvements in putting paint there in the median to create a refuge, but also still have pavement. And so vehicles that need to take a wider turn or get caught going the wrong direction have an opportunity to correct their travel path, I think is important. So, and then also the decluttering the signage. We had talked about that as well. So I think, I can't remember if it was shared in the presentation. But I think when you're going towards Limestone and you get to 7th Street, going to be an effort to clean up that signage so it's more clear that you shouldn't go that way. Other than that, my questions are timeline and what kind of notification is going to go out to the immediate neighbors about this change and when. So what do you anticipate on that? Right. Timeline, we are working on allocation of funds and figuring out paving timelines for the various blocks of the street. So we can put together a timeline that is the best use of public funds notifications. I have not changed a street from two lanes to one before. So I will have to ask someone who has. So I think with that, I think as much notice as we can give the neighborhood, I think it's going to be beneficial. And what kind of budget do you have for this project? What's the anticipated cost? 45 to 50 grand. So we didn't budget it, excuse me, so we didn't budget in this current year's budget? Ideally, we will be using funds from any funds remaining from the Alexandria, Pasadena, Malibu corridor improvements and reallocating funds from some of the pedestrian improvement funds we have. Funds were not specifically allocated for this project. Okay. All right, Council Member. So when I come back with a budget amendment, I want some support. Do you need any action from this committee today on this going forward, or is this just for information only? Mostly for information. I'm sure everyone's phones will be ringing. Thank you. Thank you, Grayson. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Thanks for the presentation. I think we've got a lot of information there, and we'll be responsive to that. And if nothing, anybody else got any other comments, we'll move on to our next item. That is, oh, this is exciting, a five-year solid waste plan. Thank you. Yes, sir. I don't know if it will be quite as riveting as the last conversation, but I'll do my best. This is, as some of you all may remember, this presentation is really surrounding, we call it a plan, but honestly it's all dictated by KRS and it is a state required 30 page form. So it is really just a really long form that we fill out once every five years and then we do an update in between those five years. And so we're up, we're due for the next submittal, this being the kind of the revamp. So, and I say that a little tongue in cheek because it does actually, through the process of filling out that form, it does make us kind of step back and take a bigger look at where our waste management strategy has been going over the last five years and where we want to see it moving forward. So it does lend itself pretty well to the ability to take that bigger picture that a plan kind of implies. Some of the key points, again, all of this is dictated by KRS. The advisory committee structure this year was pretty specific about the three specific types of people that had to be represented on your committee, your advisory committee. We held that meeting last month, and the advisory committee consisted this year. Ed Holmes represented the local business community. A gentleman named Don Gebhardt with Valvoline represented the industry for this area. And then Megan Cranbrin, a kindergarten teacher at Tates Creek Elementary School, represented a local resident. So that was our group that gave us a morning of their time and was much appreciated for walking through all of this with us. Again, as I said, this is somewhat very dictated as to how we move forward. So this will be published in the Herald-Leader tomorrow, and there is a public comment period. And we've also, thanks to the suggestion through the CAO's office, we will add a link on our website to be able to review it. There will be a copy in our office and a copy at the Division of Waste Management at Bird Thurman. And then comments we receive along with a request for a public hearing will be summarized at the end of all of that, if they're received. So again, this gave us kind of a lot of it is looking back over the past five years. How did we address kind of some of the goals we had? And we document a lot of that. And several of you have been a long part of that journey with us over the last few years. So this is sort of just where we stand today and the services that we provide. And our collection services diving a little deeper. Many of you all know as well, again, that we have the route wear and Zonar. Those are two different daily used software systems that run the diagnostics on our truck and run the routes for our drivers. Those have come a long way over the last few years. We've optimized both our fleet and our routes in the last five years. Our fleet has been up to almost 50% compressed natural gas. So and along with some of our F-150 trucks. Again, you all know we have a 98,000 residences every week that we touch at least once plus several businesses. And the loan box program has increased vastly, especially with the COVID changes that we put into place. Some of the protocols that actually we're continuing those because they've been so successful. with the online reservation systems that that has seen a big increase in how much we have reservations for the loan box. So it's been a great success, I think, coming out of COVID and how we do that. And then again, this is not necessarily news because you all see the press releases. We do about it all the time. But we have several special waste collections. The next one will come out in this week's free trash day. But we also have the household hazardous waste and paper shred. And again, many of you all are familiar with the process that our household waste goes through with the regional transfer station managed by Waste Service of the Bluegrass. You've seen some information about our recent agreed order with Haley Pike and the efforts that we are starting diving a lot deeper into with addressing the leach aid out there and making sure that we stay in compliance with the state on that. And the construction and demolition debris landfill out beside Haley Pike is actually is actually going through a request for an expansion along with this submittal so that they can continue to receive that material for the next few years. And again, it's a little bit newer. We have the Yard Waste Program, which is very successful. The transfer station is new. They're behind the regional transfer station down below by the old incinerator. We have the program where we reduce a lot of, quote, windshield time for our drivers. It all gets collected there, and then we haul it by semi-truck out to the composting service out at Haley Pike. And again, for our environmental work, we are starting to work on the biodigestion disposal system, or as most of us know at the digesters, that study is ready to go out, that RFP is ready to go out to look at that process for Lexington specifically. And then we just did a waste characterization analysis of everything that comes through the regional transfer station. That was a little different than several years ago. We did a very in-depth analysis of our organic system and what that could mean. And that will be part of what this RFP for the digester will be able to use. in addition to one we just did that sort of analyzed by statistic significance kind of what comes through our regional transfer station in a week. And of course, the annual leaf collection is a big help to divert material from the landfill to our composting program. The materials recovery service, and again, this is just a lot of it's also looking backwards and looking forwards at the same time. Several of you probably remember that we lost Barry Prater to retirement. He worked at the MRF for a few years. He retired back in May. But we are continuing a lot of the work that he's been doing while he was here as we look to replace him. And Barry, one of his skills was commodities. And so how do we continue the work that he was doing of finding new places for paper, for glass? The grant we got from the carton council that comes with a certain amount of assistance of finding markets for the cartons that we bring in. The plastics three through seven. So there's been, we still continue to do that. We were doing that and we're going to continue to do that. The efficiency upgrades, a lot of you were able to join us back in April for the ribbon cutting of the new equipment. Much appreciated. And the investment is much appreciated. All of these kind of detail-oriented pieces that helped us do that, now our machine keeps up without being stressed like it was before. To keep up with the material, the quantity we were bringing in before, meant our system had to run full throttle all the time. Now it can comfortably run at about 75% and keep up with the stream on good days. So we are very happy with being able to keep up with everything a lot smoother. And again, we've added cartons. That's a new system. And, of course, paper's back in. Rosie's, which is still going fine, and everything is able to be sorted more efficiently. So we are pretty excited about the changes and watching those go into reality now the last couple of months. And of course several of you are familiar with our electronic system and the biggest win out of that really is that very last part at the bottom. It's not a huge number out of everything we get. When you think 253 tons out of, we get about 360 tons maybe in a year. And so a whole lot of it is still going to our contractor that is able to break down and repurpose a lot of the material in a lot of the electronics. And that's great. And then, of course, as a lot of you know, in our society, people get a new TV. They already have a TV. It's not actually broken, so they take it to the Electronic Recycling Center. And those things get snatched up pretty quickly by our nonprofits, if they're still functioning, to then use as part of their services. And that goes for vacuum cleaners and small appliances and things like that as well. So they get CDs that are the ones that are appropriate to be reused. They're still in good condition or whatever. they will offer those up as well. So it's been, that's my favorite part of that program. Again, part of the summing up what we've been doing over the last five years, that's a lot of what this is looking at. We all, several of us went down to Sevierville and that's of course a picture of that experience back a few months ago and how we're going to look forward with whether or not that type of service makes sense in Lexington. This graph, we realize I want to speak just to a minute. This is not tons. This is service points. So that continues to grow. So this is not a measure of how much we collect. It's a measure of the number of people we collect from every year. And as you can see, each of those continue to grow every year, which is just a reflection of our community growing. And of course the urban service boundary hasn't changed. That's where all of these people still are. And then again, one of our community goals I think is landfill diversion, broadly speaking. And so we continue to look for ways to do that. We continue to have a large education effort on the first two R's out of that campaign as well as the third. reducing and reusing are at least as, if not more important than recycling. So we continue to stress all of that during our education opportunities. And then the parts that will be set forward when we submit the plan in the fall will be, these are the summary of what we seek to be a focus for the next five years. So the biodigestion system, whether or not that makes not necessarily financial sense, although the financial risks, pros and cons will be a part of that conversation, as well as the looking at the opportunities based on what we collect and what some of our neighbors collect and whether or not it functionally makes sense for Lexington. And then, of course, another one of our things that we kind of have to do and we will plan to focus on over the next five years is that leachate at Haley Pike. And again, based on our carton council agreement, we will definitely continue to grow the recycling opportunities for cartons in this area. And just one of the things that kind of came out of that almost as a side effect of all of the work we put into the recycling center this past year is that we're hearing a little bit of rumblings of potentially opportunities to recycle glass a little closer to home. So that will be a savings to our effort just by not having to drive to Georgia with it. So those are a lot of the things that we're doing this year in Fayette County. and that we will hope to submit in a document that looks a lot like this when you all get back from break. So with that, I'm happy to entertain questions. Council members, any questions? What? You know, that was a very thorough presentation. You're welcome. I think we got the gist of it, but Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me, and thank you so much, Commissioner Albright, for this. I think you all do a fantastic job, and compared to a lot of cities, we're really far ahead and looking at even doing more, so I appreciate that. I just have a question. Some of my constituents, as you know, have been concerned about burning in the city and locations of burning. Is that part of the five-year plan, or is that incorporated into it at all? Does our five-year plan talk about burning? It does not. It would only talk about it if it were a part of our process of what we either take or send somewhere else. So we don't dictate. It's a state that dictates what people are allowed to burn and wear in our city. We don't have control over that. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for clarifying. Council Member Plumman. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the recognition. Commissioner, yes, you have a lot on your plate. It's very impressive and it's nice to see it all consolidated. My question, I either did not know or I forgot about the nonprofits, they're receiving our electronics and they're refurbished. How does that word get out or how do they know and how do you select? Well, that runs through our division of waste management kind of on a lower level. So they can sign up with our division of waste management and We'll kind of do a little vetting and then put them on a list and then every once in a while we'll tell them that stuff is there. Is there outreach to them so they know that they can enroll in this? There is once they're on the list. I want to double check. Okay, they're nodding so that makes me feel better. Once they get on the list, then we'll notify them. But we tend, they would probably reach out to us rather than us trying to reach out to all the nonprofits in the community. Okay, but we can spread the word on that. Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. I appreciate your presentation. I see a lot of confidence in the last five years. I do think we need to look at the new direction because it's clean energy. It's going to be the future of everywhere, not just Lutton's in but everywhere. And as we look at the digestion disposal system that we've sent out an RFP on that, I'm kind of excited about getting some of that back. Not only did we look within Sevilleville, but I have one of my council aide, her daughter in England does this. With theirs was a very small amount of landfill. And they're using gas and selling it and making money off of it. And they're using clean energy over there. And I think some of your staff is working, looking at that. but I do think we need to be more aggressive in that direction because we see a change happen all over the country. You can't find land here in Kentucky to put this trash in, and when we do find it, it's not in our home area. It's in some other city where we'll have to leave it in there for thousands of years, And those cities may start getting mad because we're using their land, and that's what happened in Scott County. So I'm looking forward to hearing. We have that RFP already out, or is that getting ready to go out? It should go out this week. Good. They're putting the final details on it and purchasing right now. When do you hope to have something back on that? I would assume we would give at least 30 days to respond. I don't have that information. I'll get it for you. Because I think it's a lot of moving parts out there with that RFP that I think is going to have a huge impact. Not even severe, but California now is using that project, but doing it different. Doing all the recycling up front and don't have to have much digester, which costs a lot of money. They're able to get the front part of it and get it out of the way. So we're at the right end of it. We just got to make sure we do that. I appreciate what you're doing. And back to your question about the fires. The fire marshal here has to get a permit. Our fire department gets that permit for, and usually it's not in the city. Most of the time it's out in the county. If you notice, some farms sometimes burn wood, but they have to get permits from our fire department to get that. Thank you. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you, sir. We'll go forward, I think, with the next item. Trees, trees, and more trees. Is that where we're at? Hello. Trees are nice this time of year, I'll tell you. Yes. With the heat and the sun. Yeah. We do provide that shape. Keeping some grass alive under them, so we're in their shadows. Go ahead. You've got a couple minutes. All right. Thanks. Thanks for having me this afternoon. I'm pleased to present you with an update on street trees and our urban forestry program. This just covers what we're going to talk about this afternoon. And I want to dive right into our urban forestry organizational chart, which has had some significant changes over the past year since Susan Pflueger gave you the last update in, I think it was May of 2021. Our previous program manager senior over the urban forestry program, John Saylor, he left for a job in the private sector. Heather Wilson, who was our city arborist, was promoted to the program manager position. Nathan Skinner, who was an arborist for us, was promoted to city arborist. We also were able to bring in Zach Pruitt as one of our arborists to replace Nathan. He's an external candidate. And then we had an arborist technician position that had been frozen previously and was funded this past fiscal year. And Connor Steele applied for and accepted that position. So we've had a lot of changes. And I have Heather and Nathan and Tim Query, who's our urban forester here. If you all would just wave or stand up, just so you can put names with faces. So when you have questions or issues or your constituents do with street trees, you know who to contact. Tim oversees the compliance with any ordinances pertaining to street trees, like Chapter 17B of the Code of Ordinances or with Article 26 in the zoning ordinances. And Rob Ballard works with him. And both of the programs that I talk about today fall under Tim's purview. And he and Rob were both invaluable in putting together all of the information that's in today's presentation. So I want to thank them for that. All right, so we've got about 55,000 street trees in Lexington. 10% of those are maintained by our crews. They are maintained by the city. And then 90% are within utility strips or the right-of-way adjacent to private property. And based on our code of ordinances, those are the responsibility of the private property owner to maintain and take care of. And we do provide two programs to help those private property owners to maintain and prune their trees. And that's what we're getting ready to talk about next. So first is the hazardous street tree cost share program. And it provides a 50-50 cost share for hazardous street tree removal and replacement. There is low income assistance available at 100%. It requires the removal as well as replacement with an acceptable tree species in a suitable location in order to be eligible to participate. The property owners fill out an application and obtain competing quotes from our city's pre-qualified list of vendors. And then once it's approved by the urban forester, the work can be performed and they can then receive reimbursement once they have paid the vendors. Our arborist technician does a follow-up inspection prior to reimbursement just to make sure that everything is in order and that the tree, the replacement tree was planted as it should be. And the program is open to owner-occupied residential properties only. And currently our guidelines state that participation is limited to homeowners in the urban service area. And that was an item that was referred to the committee last month by Council Member Plowman to take a look at. So we are certainly agreeable to take a look at those guidelines and make improvements as warranted. So over the past three years, you can see some details about the budget. And there was $150,000 in the fiscal year 20 budget, but that work had to stop in March due to COVID of that year. I think about $94,000 of the budget from that year was spent on the program. There was a requested amount in the 21 budget that was not funded, but $50,000 was included and allocated. $32,000, a little over $32,000 was paid out. Some of the homeowners who were eligible to participate in 21, just timing-wise with the vendors and their workload, weren't able to get it completed in 21, so we rolled their applications over to fiscal year 22. $50,000 was again budgeted in fiscal year 22, and we had paid out as of mid-June $51,388. So the overage there, the $1,388, was actually the first distribution from the $1.5 million that was allocated to the Urban Tree Canopy Improvements Project. And you can see there's a breakdown by number of participants or trees removed and replaced by council district at the bottom. And then just a little bit of discussion about the funding over the course of time, over the past eight years. You can see that there's a big price increase in costs per tree removed and replaced from fiscal year 21 to 22. And that is just due to soaring labor costs that our vendors have passed along through the program in order to cover their staff. And some wins related to the program. It has certainly resulted in reductions in Lex calls regarding dead and dying trees. It reduces the time needed from identification of a dead or dying tree to its removal and replacement. And then it also minimizes staff costs involved in enforcement and abatement. We do get a lot of positive comments from citizens who have participated in the program. And the low income assistance aspect has been critical to certainly allowing some homeowners to participate who wouldn't otherwise be able to do that. So then moving on to the street tree clearance pruning program. Our ordinances require that street trees be pruned so that there aren't limbs below 12 feet of height on the street side. And that is to provide proper clearance for many types of service trucks, especially our waste trucks that come through these areas. And then seven feet of clearance on the sidewalk side. And we use certified arborists who are on contract with the Division of Environmental Services to perform this work. We typically bid it out by neighborhood or subdivision, and they work in areas and take care of those. And then we'll look at the next area that we're going to move to and obtain quotes on those. You can see we've pruned over 29,000 trees over the past seven years, and we have spent over $367,000 on the program during those seven years. Again, we're seeing cost per tree for pruning has also increased. For the five years from fiscal year 17 to 21, it was just over $16 a tree, and now it's over $20 a tree. In fiscal year 22, the subdivisions that we pruned were Equestrian View, Home Place, New Market, West Wind, Pinnacle, and Waterford. Veterans Park will be the first neighborhood where we will be pruning in fiscal year 23. And that should start later this coming fall. And some successes related to this program. There have been reductions in ice and wind storm damage. There's been reductions in sort of the pruning that happens when large profile vehicles go under trees and take off a limb that's hanging or in the way. Lex calls have been reduced and storm damage response time. We're able to focus more on where we have, where we've got problems or trees that are down or limbs that are down. in areas that haven't been able to participate in the pruning program just because of the success of this program. We also get a lot of positive comments from citizens about this particular service that we provide. We did have some complaints this year about insufficient notification, and I completely take the blame on that. We were going to have to print new postcards, and I was like, I don't think we have the budget to do it and get this pruning all done. And so I was like, we're going to try social media. And that was not the answer. So we will revamp that going forward and make sure that we use other means of communication to let those neighborhoods and subdivisions know that we're going to be doing some tree pruning in their particular area. So then just some things on the horizon and things that we're working on. Certainly continuing both of these programs in fiscal year 23. we've got a vendor or consultant who is preparing our urban tree canopy change analysis and planting plan and that will be finalized this fall and we would certainly love to present it to either this committee eqpw committee or to work session as a whole and and that is certainly at your all's discretion but since there will be a report card done for each council district it might fit better to be heard at work session. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we are so grateful for the $1.5 million that's been allocated for Lexington's tree canopy. We've got an ad hoc committee that's been formed. Council Member Legree is the chair. Naki Braga with Geomancer Permaculture is the co-chair. Council Member James Brown, Christine Smith with Seedleaf, Diane Atchison with Lansdowne Neighborhood, Stacey Borden with Trees Lexington, and Jada Griggs, who is our sustainability program manager, all serve on that committee, and we appreciate their guidance and their help as we figure out the best and most efficient ways to spend this money. One of the first actions taken by the committee was to augment the cost share program, and they set aside $200,000 for that program. $150,000 is to help us clear the backlog that we've had and the waiting list that we've had for people who have wanted to participate in this program. And then they are matching the $50,000 in the fiscal year 23 budget with an additional $50,000. Once we get the program guidelines revamped to make the program even more, address more equity issues and make it a more equitable program. We also have some updates to Chapter 17B of the Code of Ordinances that we would also like to share with this committee when we've got the revised cost share program guidelines finished. So hopefully this fall we can come back and talk about that. And then, of course, we're always willing to provide an annual update to this committee. So if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Okay, council members. Council member Legree. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Carey, for your presentation and to everybody who's worked on this presentation and on these initiatives. I have two questions. Sure. And one, you touched on at the very end of your presentation. And I'm wondering, I know we've talked about this a little bit, but I'm wondering if you would mind going into a little bit more detail about some of the equity discussion that we've had. I know here in the presentation it mentions low income assistance available at 100 percent and people may be interested in some of the barriers for people with seeking access to this program. So would you mind sharing about that? So the low assistance guidelines are very well specified and delineated and there are certainly folks that don't qualify as low assistance eligible, low income assistance eligible, but it's hard for so many of us to make ends meet and to have extra income because taking down a tree, especially a large tree, can be quite expensive. And so we're looking to explore ways to sort of bridge that gap between the 50% reimbursement and the 100% reimbursement that low-income assistance eligible folks would be able to receive. So, you know, if there's metrics or things that we could look at to help sort of folks that just can't really accommodate this in their budget, or perhaps if we're able to at least maybe do a two-party check or something directly to the vendor from LFUCG, like we've done with other programs, so that they don't have to first outlay that cash to pay the vendor and then wait on us to do the reimbursement. If they could do their portion and the city simultaneously provide its portion, it could also certainly help with some cash flow issues for individual homeowners. Thank you for clarifying that. I didn't know if people knew about that part where people have to pay and then be reimbursed because that can be a challenge. Just on a weekly or monthly budget, so thank you. I had one other question and it had to do with the street tree clearance pruning program. And I noticed that it looks like, if I'm reading this correctly, But in Council District 3, there were zero? Can you explain why that is? Or do you have any additional information? I'm just curious. So the pruning program is limited to the full urban, full tax district, full service tax district. So I don't know if that's part of the issue with Council District 3. Or we also look at the age of the subdivision. And so if it's older subdivisions, the trees are more mature and they've probably been pruned in the past so that a lot of them don't need that clearance pruning because the trees have gotten tall enough that that's just no longer an issue. So it's probably one of those two reasons. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Chair. Council Member McCurron. Thank you, Chair. Director, thank you for the presentation. I always look forward to this presentation every year in this committee, and I think it's filled with a lot of useful information, not just to the council or this committee, but to the public as well, especially of the resources that are available. I did have a question for you on some of the trimming requirements or our ordinance that we have. Do we have anything for trees that do grow to full maturity that block streetlights, though? Do we have anything in the ordinance that they have to trim back away from a street light or a certain clearance from there? I don't think that's specifically spelled out in the ordinance. Typically, we encourage folks to call LexCol, and then we work with traffic engineering and our urban forester, Tim. they'll assess the situation and determine if it's something that if we just need, if it's a safety concern or issue like that, we can certainly go out and take care of it if it's on the street side for certain. So we just figure out the best way to address each on a case-by-case basis. Okay. And that's a concern that I've been hearing quite frequently, is that some of my neighborhoods are starting to get trees that are blocking their streetlights and the neighbors are saying, well, I'm not required to do this, but it is becoming a public safety issue. And so we'll be reaching out to you guys with some of those areas and hopefully we can come to an amicable solution. Thank you. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Carey, thank you for your work and for all of the staff that are here that work in this area. I appreciate it. Occasionally my office will get calls from a resident where someone in their neighborhood has taken down a street tree. And it might not necessarily be a hazardous tree, and it doesn't always get replaced. So I obviously don't expect you to be monitoring 55,000 trees every day. But what are the recommended actions when that happens? What would you like residents to know about that particularly? And then do you have any community partners that you might recommend to do street tree replacement when it might not necessarily, again, be that hazardous tree where they might qualify for city funds? So to the first question, we certainly expect or encourage folks before they take down their street tree to get a permit to have it removed. One of the conditions on that permit is that they are to replace it within one year's time. Of course, a lot of people probably have their tree taken down, especially if they're not using a qualified vendor who knows sort of what's expected within Lexington. If they do it themselves or hire someone that just does this as sort of a one-off type of thing, and they don't get a permit, then once we hear about it from a constituent or from one of you all, we will try to initiate conversations with that property owner to encourage them to get a permit to plant a replacement tree and get that planted. And then there are certainly neighborhoods where by deed restriction it is required that street trees, whatever has been planted there, is to be maintained and stay there. But that's on a sort of an HOA neighborhood association. And then when it comes to the replacement of those trees, do you have any community partners that you recommend that residents work with? Certainly Trees Lexington is a place to start. and that's or you know so many of the arborist companies in Lexington you know they're just very helpful and full of knowledge and can certainly steer someone toward picking a correct species that is going to fit in that utility strip and be able to thrive and grow as well as possible. Thank you for sharing that information because I also don't think residents always know about the street tree requirements here. And so it's not always like an ill intent or knowing that they're violating a rule that we have. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Councilmember Plowman. Thank you, Chair, and thanks again for the recognition. And also a great presentation, and thank you for pointing out that the Hazard is True program I just put into committee. And for my colleagues, I thought I'd give you just a reason why. And that is that we did not know about the guideline on the urban service area because we had, Westmoreland's a good example, 75 homes out there that have actively used this program. And what happened this year, they applied again and they received approval, but then it was rescinded. And so what we want to do is find out, because we have other neighborhoods, Wellesley is one. We have Spindletop Estates is another one. And these are older neighborhoods and they have older trees. So we want to figure this out and see how to be inclusive as we move forward. So thanks for putting that out and thank you for allowing me to speak. Council member Reynolds. Thank you Chair for recognizing me and thank you Director Carey, I really appreciate this. It's so helpful. I'm mostly wondering about marketing and I know you touched on that a little bit. I think that I look at my district and people that have contacted me, people that are out there that always have questions about who's in charge of a tree that's hanging over a road. And what could we do to kind of amplify our education and our advertisement of these services and who's responsible for what and then applying for help. Is there a way that we could do that? I know I would love to see some sort of like flyer or I know we could invite you to come speak at neighborhood meetings. I think that would be fabulous. But also some sort of information that we can share widely. And I would love to see some sort of flyer in Spanish too. I don't know if you have any ideas about that. Yes, we can certainly, I feel like we've probably got some literature, but we can certainly make it available in Spanish as well. And that's one of the reasons that the ad hoc committee approved the $150,000 to clear the backlog of the cost share program because it's not been a program we've ever been able to really promote and advertise because the funds are encumbered so quickly each fiscal year. because once we hit that number of applications where based on their cost estimates, it looks like we're going to hit the maximum, which was in September or October this past year, so only a few months into the fiscal year, it just never gives us an opportunity to really sell that program and what we're able to provide with it and the help that we can provide. So one of the items that the ad hoc committee is looking to allocate some funds toward is education about our programs, education about proper pruning, education about proper planting, and just things that can be useful to anyone in our community in ways to enhance and grow our tree canopy. Yeah, I think it would be great to have that information for us to be able to pass out at meetings, links and information on Facebook that just so that, I mean, even if it's not advertising the cost share program, just what are the parameters around street trees and a lot of information that you gave us today, I think would be helpful to be able to share more easily, so thank you so much. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. Just briefly, I'm really pleased to see the supplemental to clear the backlog and waiting list. Just because timing makes such a big impact. And so if you find out late, you come to the program and you're like, well, what do you mean? From a taxpayer perspective, people know the program exists, or at least they do in my district. And so when they feel like someone else is getting something they're not getting, simply because it ran out doesn't always go very well. So I am very pleased to see doing that. And I think the pruning makes a huge difference. When you have seen in the neighborhood when it goes through, it just cleans, it looks safer, it looks, cars aren't hit, and now people's cars are just taller. I mean, all of the above just makes it look so much nicer. So I think that was very proactive. A couple years ago we started doing that, and it makes a difference. So I'm pleased with that. And then lastly, just congratulations to Heather and Tim. Both of you guys do a great job in answering questions. And we, you know, trees are not, again, my expertise. And so you get lots of questions about them, and I have to call you all and say, okay, help me understand X or Y. I just appreciate your patience and help and it's been really good so thank you. Thank you council members and thank you director Carey. I think that's it. Appreciate the presentation. Very informative. We've got just a few minutes here if you all the council members we'll look at the list of committee referral items the last page there's probably two or three well we could take off the proposed solution for North Limestone need a motion to take that off we have a motion and a second any questions about that one all those in favor for 65% aye okay we've taken that off the five-year solid waste plan we got another five years before we have to do that we need a motion to take that off and second okay any questions all those in favor say aye all right I've got two of them off there that number 18 councilmember Plowman evaluation of properties eligible for participant participation in the hazardous street trees program that was what you alluded to to get that so there would be a presentation or something coming forward on that the item that we just talked about urban forestry slash street trees update number eight I would like to really move that to an annual committee presentation if that's okay with everyone okay then I have a couple probably and you might you might not want to discuss it now but or I got three one two and three councilmember Maloney has one item councilmember Sheehan has one councilmember LeGree has one those are our older items and if you would just let us know and how we want to proceed going forward because they are four years old. I can speak to nine. If you're ready to do something with them now or whatever that's fine. We've recently hired Jada Griggs in that sustainability program manager position and she has just started having some meetings about the sustainability efforts so I think we could have a presentation maybe later in the fall on her efforts there. Okay good good well and you can work that out with Kendra or or myself okay solid waste trash compactors Maloney you've been in there for a while people don't want to touch it because we're getting hit by a lawsuit because we have people we approved for Herbie's I mean dumpsters and the developers comes in and said the dump to take too much space so they asked for compact which is which is newer but they're still paying city taxes on top of getting the compact but a lot of these people have called me especially downtown they're paying two bills city taxes on top of that but they don't get to use the city pickup because we don't have compacts we had we did one for one company to keep us from suing but the We're still living like 1970s. This is 2022, which we do infield redevelopment, which compact is the future and I don't understand. People don't want to touch it. I do want to touch it because- Well, you- I want to keep it in there and hopefully we'll come up with a plan in the next few months because I've been asking for this plan too. Okay, okay. And I think to me and I know she knows how I feel about that and people don't want to touch that. But to me, we're sitting there with a bunch of people- Will you be in charge of bringing forward then, okay? I hope we bring it forward. Okay, good. Council Member LaGree. Thank you, Chair. My two items, number three and number six, were items that Council Member Jake Gibbs had in committee. I will leave item number six in and number three I will evaluate in the next month and a half and I'll get back to you. Thank you so much. Any other? Council Member Clover. Thank you, Chair. I had the presentation on CNG number four, so I would like to move to take that out of committee. Oh, okay. Any opposition to that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye? Aye. Okay. I'll move for adjournment. Second. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.