# Council Work Session - August 16, 2022 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 16, 2022 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5624 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5624?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2022-08-16 - **Last revised**: August 16, 2022 - **Length**: 15,135 words - **Speakers**: Mayor, Tim > ⚠️ **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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government held a meeting on August 16, 2022, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber of the Urban County Government Center, with Mayor Linda Gorton presiding. The meeting addressed three main agenda items, including the approval of a summary, budget amendments, and an informational presentation on ad valorem tax options. The council took three votes during the session, approving both the summary and budget amendments, while receiving the ad valorem options presentation for informational purposes. One member of the public provided comments during the meeting's public comment period. ## Attendance All council members were present for the August 16, 2022 meeting. **Present:** • Mayor Linda Gorton • Vice Mayor Kay • Council Member Worley • Council Member Reynolds • Council Member Lamb • Council Member McCurn • Council Member Ellinger • Council Member Moloney • Council Member James Brown • Council Member Fred Brown • Council Member Sheehan • Council Member Bledsoe • Council Member Plomin • Council Member Baxter **Absent:** None **Late:** None The meeting achieved full attendance with all 14 members of the council present. ## Votes and Decisions The council took three votes during the August 16, 2022 meeting [timestamp: 00:00]. **July 5 Work Session Summary Approval** Council Member Plomin motioned to approve the July 5 work session summary, with a second from Council Member Baxter. The motion passed by voice vote. **Budget Amendments Approval** Council Member Ellinger made a motion to approve budget amendments, seconded by Council Member Sheehan. This motion also passed by voice vote. **Committee Referral Motion** The most contentious vote involved a motion by Council Member Moloney to place item 00 in committee, with Council Member Ellinger providing the second. This motion required a roll call vote and resulted in a 6-6 tie, causing the motion to fail. Voting in favor of the committee referral were: - Council Member Moloney - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member McCurn - Council Member Worley - Council Member Reynolds - Council Member Sheehan Voting against the committee referral were: - Council Member Lamb - Council Member Plomin - Council Member Fred Brown - Council Member James Brown - Vice Mayor Kay - Council Member Bledsoe The tie vote meant the motion did not pass, preventing item 00 from being referred to committee for further consideration. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed two significant financial items totaling over $517,000 in expenditures and contractual agreements. **Economic Development Incentive** The council considered Resolution 0740-22, which would authorize a $100,000 Lexington JOBS Fund Incentive contract with Silver Fern Group Services, LLC. This incentive represents part of the city's economic development strategy to attract and retain businesses within the Lexington area. **Medical Services Contract Amendment** Resolution 0756-22 involved a substantial amendment to the existing Medical Services Agreement with CHS TX, Inc., increasing the contract value by $417,076. This amendment represents a significant expansion of the medical services arrangement between the city and CHS TX, Inc., though the specific services covered by this increase were not detailed in the available materials. The two financial actions combined represent a total commitment of $517,076 in city funds, with the medical services amendment comprising approximately 80% of the total financial impact. Both items required council approval through their respective resolutions, indicating they exceeded standard administrative approval thresholds. These financial commitments reflect the city's ongoing investments in both economic development initiatives and essential medical services for the community. The JOBS Fund incentive aligns with typical municipal economic development practices, while the medical services amendment suggests either expanded service needs or cost adjustments to existing healthcare arrangements. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 00:00] The public comment period was opened during the August 16, 2022 meeting, but no specific public comments were recorded in the transcript. The meeting materials indicate that time was allocated for general public comment, following standard municipal meeting procedures that allow community members to address the governing body on matters of public interest. No speakers came forward to address the board during the designated public comment period, and no specific topics or concerns were raised by members of the public at this meeting. ## Contested Items The council faced one significant contested issue during the August 16, 2022 meeting that resulted in a split decision among members. **Transfer of Zoning Enforcement Positions** The primary point of contention involved a proposal to transfer zoning enforcement positions from the Division of Planning to the Division of Building Inspection. This organizational restructuring proposal divided the council, with members unable to reach consensus on the administrative change. The disagreement centered on the appropriate departmental placement for zoning enforcement staff and the potential impacts of such a transfer on municipal operations. Council members were split on whether moving these positions would improve efficiency and service delivery or create operational challenges. The debate ultimately resulted in a tie vote, indicating an even split among participating council members on this administrative matter. The tie vote meant the proposal did not pass, leaving the zoning enforcement positions in their current location within the Division of Planning. This contested item highlights the council's careful consideration of administrative restructuring proposals and the importance of achieving consensus on organizational changes that could affect municipal service delivery and departmental operations. ## Approval of Summary [timestamp: 00:00] The council addressed the approval of the summary from their July 5 work session. Council Member Plomin and Council Member Baxter were the key participants in this discussion. The council reviewed the summary document from the previous work session and discussed its contents. Following their review and discussion, the council voted to approve the summary as presented. **Outcome:** The summary of the July 5 work session was approved by the council. ## Budget Amendments [timestamp: 00:00] The council reviewed and discussed various budget amendments during this agenda item. Council Member Ellinger and Council Member Sheehan served as the primary speakers for this discussion. The council examined proposed changes to the municipal budget, though the specific details of the individual amendments were not detailed in the available materials. The discussion involved consideration of various budgetary adjustments that required council approval. Following their review and discussion of the proposed budget amendments, the council voted to approve the measures. The amendments were successfully passed, allowing the proposed budgetary changes to move forward. The approval of these budget amendments represents the council's formal authorization of the financial adjustments under consideration. ## Ad Valorem Options Presentation [timestamp: 00:00] Director Melissa Lueker presented options for ad valorem tax rates for fiscal year 2023 during this informational presentation. The presentation covered potential tax rate structures for both general services and urban services fund options. The presentation was informational in nature, providing the governing body with various scenarios and considerations for setting the upcoming fiscal year's property tax rates. Lueker outlined different rate options that would be available for both the general services fund, which covers basic municipal operations, and the urban services fund, which typically addresses enhanced services in developed areas. No specific tax rate amounts or detailed financial projections were captured in the available meeting data, though the presentation served as a foundation for future budget and tax rate deliberations. The item concluded without requiring any formal action from the governing body, as it was designed to inform decision-makers about available options rather than seek immediate approval of any particular rate structure. This presentation represents a standard part of the municipal budget process, where staff provides elected officials with various scenarios and options before formal tax rate adoption occurs later in the budget cycle. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the August 18, 2022 Council meeting docket (as amended) - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place ordinance #2 (an Ordinance changing the zone from a Neighborhood Business (B-1) zone to a Highway Service Business (B-3) zone, for 1.90 net (2.78 gross) acres, for property at 3440, 3450, 3454 Richmond Road) on the docket without a public hearing - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the docket for the August 18, 2022, Council Meeting, a Resolution authorizing of the Urban County Council expressing the opposition of the Urban County Council to the initial issuance of a Title V Permit for the operation of an air curtain incinerator by C&R Asphalt LLC at 1400 Cahill Drive and 415 Rebmann Lane, directly adjacent to McConnell Springs Park, and requesting a public hearing, and authorizing and directing the Urban County Council Clerk to provide this resolution to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Division for Air Quality - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the docket for the August 18 Council Meeting a Resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute the second amendment to an agreement with the Community Action Council (“CAC”), allocating $1,950,000.00 of federal rental assistance funds awarded under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and $1,550,000.00 of federal rental assistance funds awarded under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, to CAC for the Housing Stabilization Program - **Motion** — passed (0-0): schedule a public meeting to receive any comments regarding the appropriation of Commonwealth of Kentucky funds for the County Road Aid Program for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government for Fiscal Year 2023 for the Council meeting on August 18, 2022 at 6 p.m - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the July 5, 2022 work session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve budget amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): separate budget journal 136095 for item oo under new business - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve new business - **Motion** — failed (7-7): refer item oo, legislative file 0796-22 (Authorization to transfer one (1) classified position of Zoning Enforcement Officer Sr. (Grade 518E), three (3) classified positions of Zoning Enforcement Officer (Grade 516N) and one (1) classified position of Staff Assistant (Grade 508N) along with the incumbents from the Division of Planning to the Division of Building Inspection. Funds associated with these positons will also transfer, effective upon passage of Council. No budgetary impact.) to the General Government and Social Services Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve budget journal 136095 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve neighborhood development funds - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the General Services Fund ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.078, Option 3 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the General Services Fund ad valorem personal property tax rate including public service companies, noncommercial aircraft and noncommercial watercraft at .0880, Option 3 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the General Services Fund ad valorem tax rates for motor vehicles, tobacco in storage, agricultural products in storage, insurance companies’ capital, and abandoned urban property at the same rates as the prior fiscal year (the current rates)(.088, .015, .045, .15, and 1.00) - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Refuse Collection ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.1390, Option 3 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Street Lights ad valorem real property tax rate at .0200, Option 3 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Street Cleaning ad valorem real property tax rate at .0090, Option 3 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Public Service Companies ad valorem tax rate at .1680 (Option 3, the combined amount of the 3 urban service rates) and Insurance Co. Capital at .0920, the same rate as the prior fiscal year - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the docket for the Thursday August 18, 2022 Council meeting an ordinance pertaining to all of the tax rates for general services and urban services as provided in the respective amounts from the above motions, and levying them at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the public health ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.026 and the public health ad valorem personal property tax rate at 0.026, and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday August 18, 2022 Council meeting levying the taxes at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the soil and water conservation district ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.0006, and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday August 18, 2022 Council meeting levying the tax at this rate on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the agricultural extension office ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.0040, the agricultural extension office ad valorem personal property tax rate at 0.0052, and the agricultural extension office ad valorem motor vehicles and watercraft tax rate at .0032 and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday August 18, 2022 Council meeting levying the taxes at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): schedule a public hearing on these ad valorem tax rates for the Council meeting on August 30, 2022 at 5pm - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer a review of neighborhood access and traffic calming measures to the Planning and Public Safety Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer a process for how we do road closures to the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Mayor's Report - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn at 4:39pm --- ## Full transcript I love you all Yeah, I'll do a nothing wrong And no one more day Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Come on, come on Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. The End I would like, it's three o'clock and I'd like to go ahead and call the council work session to order. It's August 16th, 2022, three o'clock and welcome back to the council members who've had a little break. And we'll go ahead with our agenda. And we do have a quorum. So first item on the agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. And is anyone signed up back there? No? Okay. So we do have a docket, if I could have a motion to approve. Move, Mr. Hatch. Vice Mayor moves, Council Member Plowman seconds. Now, if you have an item for the docket, please log in. Council Member Worley. Thank you, Mayor. Ordinance number two under first reading, an ordinance changing the zone from a neighborhood business B1 zone to a highway service business B3 zone for 1.9 net 2.78 gross acres for property at 3440, 3450, 3454 Richmond Road. Move to place that on the docket without a public hearing. All right. Council Member McCurn seconds. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the August 18, 2022 council meeting a resolution authorizing of the Urban County Council expressing the opposition of the Urban County Council to the initial issuance of a Title V permit for the operation of an air curtain incinerator by CNR Asphalt LLC at 1400. Hill Drive, 415 Rembrandt Lane, directly adjacent to McConnell Spring Park, and requesting a public hearing and authorizing and directing the Urban County Council Clerk to provide this resolution to the Commonwealth of Kentucky Division of Air Quality. Council Member Maloney seconds. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Councilmember Lamb. Pop me off guard. On behalf of the administration. Can you put your mic on, please? It is on. Well, it's red. Can you speak up a little? Can you hear me now? There you go. Yes, thank you. Okie dokie. All righty. On behalf of the administration, I moved to place on the docket for the August 18th council meeting a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute a second amendment to an agreement with the Community Action Council allocating $1,950,000 of federal rental assistance funds awarded under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and $1,550,000 of federal rental assistance funds awarded under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to Catholic Action, excuse me, Community Action Council for the Housing Stabilization Program. So move. Second. Council Member Ellinger seconds. Any questions or comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Council Member Fred Brown. On behalf of the administration, I move to schedule a public hearing to receive any comments regarding the appropriation of Commonwealth of Kentucky funds for the county road aid program for the lexington fayette urban county government for physical year 23 for the council meeting on august 18th which is this thursday 6 pm so move second all right council member mckern seconds any questions all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed all right that motion passes is there anything else for the docket no all right all those in favor of approving the docket as amended please say aye is anyone opposed all right that passes thank you could i have a motion please to approve the july 5th work session summary council member plowman moved and council member baxter second any Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you. Could I have a motion, please, to approve the budget amendments? Move approval. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Second, Council Member Sheehan. All right, if you have questions for budget amendments, please log in. Any questions about budget amendments? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Could you talk about journal entry 136095 on the first page? I think that's the fifth one. Is, let's see, Director Duncan, welcome. Thank you. I know we're going to be talking about that 00 later, but I guess we can talk about it now, too, I think. It's relative to that one, isn't it? Yes, sir. Okay. The budget amendment. Right, right, yeah. If you don't, we can talk about it now or talk about it later. I don't, whatever works. Okay. Well, that reference would essentially go with the reorganization to allow the five personnel associated with those jobs to be transferred from the Division of Planning to the Division of Building Inspection. And this is to reorganize and therefore reassign the five enforcement personnel that are presently in the Division of Planning to the Division of Building Inspection. and that budget amendment would go along with that. And I guess I'd like to hear from building inspection, too. How do we decide on this? Have we not had this kind of discussion in the past? And I guess building inspection I'd also like to hear from, too, on why they think this is the best way to do this. Historically, the work of zoning enforcement was done in the Division of Building Inspection. For years it was that way. And then 10 years ago, zoning enforcement was taken from building inspection and assigned to the Division of Planning. And so we've been managing that during that time. And, of course, we took the work seriously and we did our best with it. But I have found that that work is still not completely aligned with the work and the core mission of what we do in the Division of Planning. and I'm concerned about the development of the staff and I'm concerned that they are able to do all that they need to do because they are not associated more frequently and trained in the same way that other field inspectors and field enforcement officers are as they are in the Division of Planning, which is primarily what they do. So we've been working for two years now with the commissioner, Commissioner Albright, with Director Crowe on what would be the best solution for this, and we've concluded that returning the zoning enforcement staff to the Division of Building Inspection would enable them, building inspection, to perform those functions, but then also to broaden those functions by their association with other field enforcement and inspection officers. Okay. Dewey? Well, as Jim said, that pretty much summed up. It was, I think Jim maybe brought this to me, or I forget how it came up, about a year and a half, maybe two years ago, and kind of vetted it to me as to this issue they were having. He didn't feel like they could adequately train their folks. I think he had lost some staff maybe that had moved on that had been handling that and had pretty retirements. So we discussed the possibilities of doing that, and not that I was out hunting for additional work to do, but we had done that work in the past, and we had the enforcement side of it. that's what we are we are an enforcement division primarily building code and other codes and things we still do some zoning enforcement with various pieces and parts so all of it when it was transferred in 2012 all of it didn't go to planning there was certain pieces of it that we we retained and we still enforce that along with various sections of the code of ordinances so we're not entirely building code oriented we do a multitude of other enforcement work so in discussing it and with with the way jim presented it and the staff that he was willing to transfer back and you know i didn't have a problem with trying to work something out that would be beneficial maybe to both divisions or or or to help out in this kind of situation i do feel an enforcement staff we we train them we're doing that we involved with that's what our staff do and i understand jim's position that all his staff don't do that they have a multitude of other duties that they do so I wasn't opposed to doing this if we could get the right staffing and that I'm able to once that staffing is in place adjust my management structure and create a proper management structure in there which would be another part of this whole picture if we try to get this done so that's kind of how we ended up where we were it went through a lot of discussions back and forth on various issues and at one point we didn't know that we you know that it was going to be able to we would even move it forward so it kind of went through some different concerns over the last year and a half two years much as we've gone that through and a lot of other things so it just kind of got set back on the back burner we come back and rediscussed it here in the last several months and you know I kind of I agreed with it and my commissioner and other administrative staff felt that it was doable as long as I have the staffing levels that Jim proposed sending back which is a total of five people I feel that I could adequately address the that portion of it and all of it's not coming back there's a key element of this that we used to do that we will not be doing and that is the the determination of what type businesses the initial zoning determination and Jim's people now issue a zoning compliance permit it's done before we even move forward with the building plans so they've already they look at that and make that call we will never not be making that call all we will be doing would be the enforcement side of it so anything it has to be worked out if they're proposing a business that's going someplace planning will still make that determination as to whether it's appropriate or the activity is going to be conducted there are appropriate and fit within the overall zoning ordinance and the location that it's going in so that we used to do we won't be doing that that would not be coming back as part of this and Jim actually retained staff that do that and they would continue to do that so the only piece we get is once they make those determinations if that's not implying compliance at some point in the future the call that would come to us our staff would go out and look at it and say you're right it's wrong and start that process now if there's negotiations or anything it needs to be worked out with zone with with that if they feel then that would go back to planning they would try to get involved at that point and try to adjust if it's just not if If it's not right, it's not right, and they would ultimately be ordered to cease, or we would seek legal redress to take care of that. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. That's where we've ended up. I know there's some council members that probably have questions about this because we've had some discussions on it, but thank you for all that overview. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I was going to wait, but since you guys are here, I was on, I was the commissioner, I was CAO at the time, and we had a transitional team came in. they look at y'all's department council members were on that committee they made the recommendation to separate you guys because you all would get they were dealing with the code enforcement we were behind there were a lot of people complaining you had a lot on your plate you were dealing with the distance decree you were dealing with the with the new result about new code changes you had a lot on your plate you deal with new construction things and the people the definition came in, these folks were dealing with buildings that have been zipped for five to six years, which you all have not been monitoring those things, and that's why they asked to put it in a zoning issue, because there could be a barbershop going into their house. You don't have the expertise on zoning. But they have the staff, like we just got code enforcement came in here earlier. They have the staff, if a window needs to be fixed, they fix it. Their staff is certified to fix that window. Their staff is certified to make sure that the right materials are in that house. And to me, we have a memorandum agreement with the state that you are responsible for. You have to play full with that. We've got to stay in compliance with the state on the building code. We're one of the few cities in this state that do what we do. And to put you in a situation where you've got to learn about zoning, and your commissioner who's already got tons of stuff on her plate from what she's an expert on, solid waste, water quality and all that, but then you can bring in zoning into this. I think the puzzle's going away. When we did this, we put it into a committee. We let everybody vest it out, and you remember the committee made the recommendation, they gave the argument, council members went this way. I was wanting to make a motion that we put this back in the committee for discussion because, guys, we don't want to go back to 10 years. And council members in the 3rd district at that time, the 7th district at that time, the 11th district at that time, and the 1st district were concerned about the overload that you were having. We were able to take that out. The predecessor before him was able to be a team worker, able to fix it. The cause went way down. We were able to fix this problem. It was done right. Now, why they haven't hired anybody? I can't answer that question. If they'd have hired people and trained them, they could be doing this job right. Now, to put this back in the burden of you, I just think you're missing oil with water. And that's why I think, to me, we need to put this back in the committee. So I don't think this is the time, but since we're talking about public, we're talking about the budget. But to me, when OO comes up, I would request. But there's a lot of history here, folks. And so I want you all to know that his job is completely different than looking at zoning issue, and that's not his expertise. That is his expertise. And that's like cash. Cash is code enforcement, totally different animal, and that's why we have people who are certified. And that's why I have the argument that we should be looking at all this at once in our committee. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the information on both sides. This actually seems to me pretty straightforward. If the commissioner is in favor, if the director is in favor, and the director is in favor, unless there's some compelling reason not to do this, it seems to me right now this is what makes sense. Now, this will come, I mean, I guess there's two pieces to it. One is the budget. The second part is what's going to come in new business. and we may want to have a further conversation about it at that time. But to me, this is pretty straightforward. It may have been the right thing to do 10 years ago. Frankly, I was on council at that time, and I don't remember the way in which that whole discussion went and where I sat on it. But it seems to me at this point, we're getting clear direction from the administration, and absent some compelling reason, we ought simply to support that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. So are these five positions, are they all currently vacant now? Are there any real people switching or being transferred over? Council Member Brown, two of the positions are filled, and they've been filled with longtime zoning enforcement employees who were working for the Division of Building Inspection when they were transferred. The others have retired through attrition, and we had already begun the process. considering returning this to building inspection so I felt like that it would be in Director Crowe's best interest to be able to hire the people that he needed for that so we have not filled those vacancies he will be receiving three vacancies and two incumbents. Okay all right thank you thank you thank you mayor. Thank you any other questions Vice Mayor Kaye. Yes I've got a technical question if we approve the budget amendment does that rule or do we have to then consider the implication when we get to the question, a similar question when we do new business? Great question. Because often budget rules. So the budget amendment moves the funding. So the position's funding would be moved if the budget amendment was approved. It doesn't move technically the positions. It just moves the dollars associated with the position. It just moves the funding for those positions. Correct. And so I guess what I'm really asking is, does that – we'll get Laura to come down and tell us something. Dave Barbary is making his way forward. Welcome. Welcome. Good afternoon. I would recommend that you go ahead if the motion is going to be made go ahead and make it now because these are interlinked with each other because of the financial implication it doesn't make any sense to do one and not the other if that's your point so I would hate for you all to to go ahead and move the funding and then vote to put this in committee they really are the the same issue so if if council member Maloney wants to make his motion I would if you'll if the mayor will consider taking this OO out of order, I would just go ahead and address both of them at the same time. I think what you're recommending went to the vice mayor's point. In other words, if vote on the budget amendment and OO at the same time. Correct. Yes. So that one doesn't go down and one go up. Sort of. Does that answer your question? Mayor, I think that's generally right. But I think if, since we're on the budget amendment and there's a motion on the table regarding budget amendments, then if a council member wants to move one of these items into committee, now would be the appropriate time. And then that would just drag along whatever new business item we could address that. But I think otherwise we're getting into separating of questions. And so I think it's just if we're talking about OO and somebody wants to make a motion, maybe they should just do that now. Or is it correct a council member could amend the budget motion to include OO, even though it's not a budget amendment? Amend, see what I'm, yeah. That would be fine. Either any of the above. Okay. All right. I have no one else who wants to speak. Council Member Lamb. I make a motion to separate the question for the budget amendment, and I don't have that number in front of me that is in question right now. Separate the question for that, and I feel like that, and have that discussion at the same time that the item under new business. I feel like that's the cleaner way to do this, and not have all this looming over top of us. So move. Second. Council Member Ellinger second, and that's journal entry 136095. Correct? Yeah. All right. Any questions about the motion? I see none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. So in essence, the fifth journal entry on budget amendments has been separated out. So the motion on the floor is to approve budget amendments without that fifth entry on page five. Are there any other budget amendment questions? All right. All those in favor of approving the budget amendments as amended, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you very much. Next is new business. If I could have a motion to approve, please. Approved. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. And second is by Vice Mayor Kay. Will you log in, please, if you have questions? Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I had a question about item L. I was hoping someone in fire might be able to give some more details on what this agreement entails and how it will benefit paramedicine. Chief Wells is here. Welcome. Hi. I'm sorry. This is item L. So item L allows us to participate in the program with Baltimore, Washington, high-intensity drug trafficking area. So essentially what this allows is a two-way free flow of information regarding overdoses. And that really benefits in a couple of ways. So the first way that it's going to allow us to share data with them so that they can then better track where these overdoses happen. And ultimately, it helps the funding. For us, it allows us to better hone in on where those problem areas are. So it's of no budgetary impact, but I think it's a great, great program. Thank you. That's all I need. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Mayor. I want to go back to all, make a motion. We look at the, putting it in the committee, and the reason why, I may be for this, there's a lot of unanswered questions. We need to go back and look why we did this ten years ago, and we're putting it back into the same group. And we had five, six council members, you're not here, that stand up and push for this. And we made those changes, and those went out. Everybody was tickled to death, and Chris Kane did a tremendous job. Dewey was happy with it, everybody was, and it became a zoning issue. And that's where zoning takes advantage of, and that's where cash takes advantage of the code enforcement. That's where Dewey takes important in new construction, which is new construction. And most of these problems are going to be existing buildings that happen five years down the road or six years down the road. Dewey is too busy working with new construction. As you know, we've had a lot of new development going on. We shouldn't mix the two together, and we got in trouble the last time we did it. And I'd like to put this in the committee so I can hear both sides, and then I'll ask some of my questions, and hopefully we'll go back and look at why they changed this 10 years ago. So I'd like to make that motion so moved. Is there a second? Second. The motion is to, I believe I heard the motion to put OO in committee, which would be planning and safety, public safety. Is there any, did you second? Council Member Ellinger seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion to put into committee? Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. You know, having been here for 30-some years in this government, I have watched so many things that have circled back around because of experiences and time and changes within the structure of this government, things that have changed within the community, things that have changed regarding law, with all the different facets. And at the end of the day, I always appreciate and value when our administration, our directors that stand before us and our CAO, who is amazing, And when they come before us and they bring forward a suggestion that they have vetted, I realize that 10 years ago there was a difference. 10 years ago, I mean, I probably sat in on some of those discussions, but I don't recall them now. But I feel like that it is, I trust our administration enough to know that they have vetted this and that they feel like that this is the most obvious change to make to make sure that these processes can move fluidly and in a good way. So I would urge and ask my colleagues to strongly consider not waiting to move this forward, but to go ahead and move it forward so that these two divisions can go ahead and take care of business as they need to take care of it and not slow it down. I mean, we don't even know when it could be heard in committee. And I'm not trying to put pressure on Council Member James Brown at all. But, you know, there are things that are timely. We just heard an issue today about code enforcement in committee. And we made sure that we understood that it wasn't a timely issue, that there wasn't going to be anything that was going to strain the process. And in my professional opinion and my experience, I believe, and the guidance that has been brought forward with this information, that I would trust that the vetting that has gone forward at this point would be that we could hang our hat on that. And I hope that my colleagues would see to that same opinion. So thank you. Thank you. Is there any other comment to the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving this motion to put in committee, say aye. Aye. Do we have a vote? Yes. Can we do an electronic vote, please? All those in favor, please log in. Your yes and same with the no's. The motion fails because of a tie. Thank you. All right. We're going to move right along. We'll move right along to the rest of new business. Any other questions? Anything else about new business? And we'll have to deal with the budget amendment depending on how the vote turns out. All those in favor of approving new business, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? All right. That motion passes. Now we'll need to attend to the budget amendment, which council split out. Is there a motion? Full of approval. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right. And this is for, I was going to read that number one more time, journal entry 136095. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. We have one no vote. Thank you very much. That passes. Now let's go on to continuing business and presentations. Neighborhood development funds. Could I have a motion, please? Second. Second. All right. We have a motion by Council Member Plowman, second by Council Member McCurron. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next, I'd like to call on Council Member Lamb for General Government and Social Services Committee. You all better get your coffee because this is a really long one. This is the report out for the June 14, 2022 General Government Social Services Committee. The meeting was called to order at 1 p.m. Approval of May 10, 2022 Committee Summary. A motion by Councilmember Plowman was made and seconded by Councilmember Whitney to Councilmember Baxter. The motion passed without dissent. The second item was actually the Public Art Master Plan. It was reported out at the work session on June 14, 2022. Items referred to the committee. The following items were removed from committee, the Public Art Master Plan, and the Arboretum Update. And our meeting adjourned at 1.45. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for Councilmember Lamb? All right, we'll move right along then to our presentation. And our budget director, Melissa Luker, is going to do the presentation for the fiscal year 23 ad valorem options. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome back. As you all know, we are set to discuss ab valorem tax rates today. What we'll do in this presentation is we'll go over the required dates that we have to comply with, the various taxing districts that we're going to deal with. We'll look at the real estate values. We'll look at our options for the general services fund, the urban services fund, and the special tax districts. I emailed a booklet to you all during your summer break last Friday, as I'm sure everyone read that cover to cover. So this presentation just goes over the information that was sent in that packet. So the packet provided this enclosed this calendar. And so our certification from the state was on July 21st. We're required to set property taxes within 45 days of our certification or September 3rd, which is our 45th day. The proposed timeline is going to keep us in order with the state statutes and keep us on the up and up there. So based on this calendar, rates are scheduled to be decided today. First reading of the property tax rates would be on Thursday. Advertisements in the Herald-Leader would be on August 19th and August 23rd. We will have a second reading and a public hearing at the council meeting on Tuesday, August 30th. So the taxing districts we'll discuss today. With LFUCG districts, we have the general services, which is paid by all property owners in Fayette County. We have urban services, which is paid only by the property owners who receive that service. So that's street lights, refuse, and street cleaning. And then we've got three special taxing districts that are paid by all residents of Fayette County, all property owners in Fayette County. They are the Soil and Water Conservation District, Agricultural Extension, and the Health Department. So the tax rates here are listed are real property rates only. It does not reflect the total tax burden for each household. For comparison purposes, the Lexington City rate is the full urban services rate, and the county rate is the combination of the General Services, Health Department, Lex Tran, Extension, and Soil Conservation rates. These rates do not include the school rates. As you can see, Lexington-Fayette County is the second lowest rate among contiguous counties and other large cities around the state. We like to show this. It's a comparison of our realty tax rates in Fayette County. 80% of the property tax bill goes somewhere other than the city. So keep that in mind whenever we're going through this. Only 20% of the property tax bill comes to the city, with only 6.3% of the total bill coming to the general fund for the government. So according to state law, we are required to provide an allocation to the library. That is five cents of the general fund real estate tax that goes to the library collected. So because our certified assessments increased more than our estimate in the adopted budget, the allocation to the Lexington Public Library is going to increase by $1,008,530. Their new allocation for FY23 will be $19,411,590. It's important to note that the library is entitled to this allocation regardless of the rates set by the urban county government. So here you can see a chart of our real estate values over the years, going back to FY 2008. The total value of real estate for FY 23 is $32.9 billion. That's an 8% increase over the FY 22 certified assessments of $30.5 billion. This 8% increase is more than the assessment increase that we had in the adopted budget. So the avalorum tax rate options for consideration that we have prepared today. So we have the compensating rate, which this rate provides approximately the same revenues as prior years for existing properties. Any revenue increases with this option are derived from new properties. The plus or minus 4% rate is the House Bill 44 allowable rate. It's not subject to voter recall, but it does require a public hearing. If we set the rate above 4% for a 4% revenue increase for existing properties, it is subject to voter recall within 45 days if a petition is signed by 10% of the voters in the last presidential election, which is 15,406 signatures required. So let's jump into the rates. So for the general services options, we've got three options here. The first option is all rates remain the same as last year. This option provides an increase in budgeted revenue in the amount of 439,470. This is net of the increase to the library. As you can see, we've got the library increase, the second to the last line on our chart is the amount that the library gets. You see it's the same in every scenario. This rate, option one, is higher than the 4% increase allowed, So it is subject to voter recall. Option two, the compensating rate. This would decrease the realty tax to 0.075 and personalty to 0.085. These rates would decrease the revenue by 1,259,530 net of the increase to the library. This would require a reduction made to the adopted budget for FY23. Option three, the plus 4% rate, which would decrease the real estate rate to 0.078 and personality to 0.088. This rate requires a public hearing, and these rates would decrease our revenue by $252,530, net of the increase to the library. We also have the vacant property review commission with the abandoned property rate of $1 per $100 valuation of abandoned urban property. This tax will apply to 44 parcels of land in Lexington for the current year. This is up three parcels from last year. So this is what the average property tax bill would be on a $220,000 house, which is the average for the current year. So you can see what the impact would be for each of the three options. For the general services fund, the administration is recommending option three, which is the House Bill 44 allowable 4%. This option actually lowers the rates for several of the categories, including real estate from the prior year. Switching over to our urban services fund, where ad valorem is the largest category of revenue to the urban services fund. Nearly 90% of all revenues to that fund come from ad valorem. Property owners in the urban services area have one or more of the services, refuse, streetlights, and street cleaning. Here we have four options. Option one, this is prior rates, so this would keep all the rates the same as prior year. It would increase our budgeted revenue by $2,360,000. Option two is the compensating rate. This rate generates approximately the same amount of revenue for existing properties. This would decrease all three service rates as well as the PSC rate, which is just a sum of the three service rates. This would decrease our revenues by $450,000. Option three is the House Bill 44 rate. This rate would decrease the rates for refuse, streetlights, and street cleaning, and decrease the PSC rate. This would generate an additional $944,000 in revenue. Option four is our cost of service rate. As you all know, we look at the cost of service of running each of the operations for streetlights, street cleaning, and refuse collection. We do that stand alone without using fund balance. So we get a true picture of what the annual cost of service for each is. As you all know, we have transferred money over for street lights because the street light tax is not enough to cover the cost of street lights. We've been looking into that and the subsidy has been increased as the cost of operations go up. So we've looked very closely at that and working with environmental services on some options for what we can do with our street lights. This cost of service for option would generate an additional $2,750,000 in revenue. With this option, the street light and street cleaning rates will be subject to voter recall. Options 1, 3, and 4 here require a public hearing because they exceed the compensating rate, and options 1 and 4 are also subject to voter recall because they exceed the 4% rate. So here's what this would look like, the options would look like on the average $220,000 house. So you can see it broken out by each of the three services here. For the Urban Services Fund, the administration is also recommending option three, which is the house bill allowable 4%. We also have the special taxing districts, which are the soil and water conservation, the extension, and the health department. The requested rates for the soil and water conservation district have remained the same. The extension has remained the same. They are requesting an allowable increase for personal property. And then the health department, they're taking the compensating rate, so it's a reduction in their rate for real property and personal property. Are there any questions? Thank you very much, Director Luker. Council Member Fred Brown. I'd like to make a motion, then we can have some discussion. That'd be okay. I'd like to have separate motions probably on this. On the general services fund, I would move that we accept the option three, which is the option recommended by the administration. And I would indicate on that that this is a reduction in the real estate percentage. So overall, I mean, there is a little bit of increases, but I think that would be a reduction from what we're looking at. That might be my motion. I think I have quite a few. I'm sorry. You want to do them all together? Let's take this. Okay, I'll defer to the budget. I'll defer to the budget chair. You want to withdraw your motion? I'll withdraw it if she's got the same motion. Okay. Okay, thank you. Lots of people want to make this motion. All right, does anyone else wish to speak or Ask Director Luka a question. Any questions? Okay, I think Council Member Bledsoe would like to speak. Thank you, Mayor. I'm not quite gone yet, you know. I have just a few. I have a number of motions. We'll start with General Services, then Urban Services, and then all of Special Districts after that. So first I move to set the General Services Fund ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.078 Option 3. Is there a second? Vice Mayor Kay seconds. Is there any discussion? Council Member Ellinger has a question. Thank you. They change in the general assembly how you can go about doing a subject for recall. Is this one subject to that one or not? Option three is not subject to the vote recall. Okay, thank you. It does require a public hearing. Yes, it requires a public hearing, but no recall. Any other questions? Yes, this is for the general services. General services, real property tax. Other questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. I move to set the general services fund ad valor and personal property tax rate, including public service companies, non-commercial aircraft, and non-commercial watercraft at 0.0880, option 3. Second. All right. Council Member Ellinger seconds. Are there any questions? All right. All those in favor of approving, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That passes. I move to set the General Services Fund ad valorem tax rates for motor vehicles, tobacco and storage, agricultural products and storage, insurance companies' capital, and abandoned urban property at the same rates as the prior fiscal year, which are the current rates at .088, .015, .045, .15, and 1.00 respectively. Vice Mayor Kay seconds. Are there any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I move to set the Urban Services Fund for refuse collection out of alarm real property tax rate at 0.1390, option 3. Second. Vice Mayor Kay seconds. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. I move to set the Urban Services Fund for Streetlights ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.0200, option 3. Is there a council member Ellinger seconds? Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. I move to set the Urban Services Fund for street cleaning ad valorem real property tax rate at .0090, option 3. Second. Council Member Plowman seconds. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I move to set the Urban Services Fund for Public Service Companies ad valorem tax rate at .1680, option three, the combined amount for the three urban service rates, and insurance capital at .0920, the same rate as the prior fiscal year. All right. Is there a second? Second. Vice Mayor Kay seconds. Any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. I move to place on the docket for the Thursday, August 18, 2022 council meeting an ordinance pertaining to all of the tax rates for general services and urban services as provided in the respective amounts from the above motions and levying them at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation. Second. Thank you. Council Member Plumman seconds. Are there any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion passes. I move to set the public health ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.026 and the public health ad valorem personal property tax rate at 0.026 and to place an ordinance on the docket for Thursday, August 18, 2022 council meeting, levying the taxes of these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation. All right. Vice Mayor Kaye seconds. Any questions? Council Member Fred Brown? This is a reduction in rate or what's the dollar amounts though? Because we're reducing the health tax rate, which I'm not crazy about. And this is what they requested. It is? Yes. Their board voted. Okay, so I mean they'll still get probably more in their allocation. Yes. And dropping it down to 2.6? They're taking the compensating rates, so that's bringing in the same amount of revenue for existing properties, and then new properties would be additional revenue from prior year. Okay, okay. All right, well, if they're satisfied from the board there, I guess. We are. You're on the board. Usually, I mean, the history of that is we fought for that 2-8 back, oh, gosh, 18 years ago, 16 years ago, because at one time we were giving them an allocation out of the general fund. So we were able to do that. And that's what most of the health departments throughout the state have a rate that they set to get into their budget. And that one was that 2.8 that we had has been there forever or since we started that. So this is the first time I think we've dropped down. So if the board's okay, I'm okay. Okay. Other questions? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I move to set the Soil and Water Conservation District Ad Valor and Real Property Tax Rate at 0.0006 and to place an ordinance in the docket for Thursday, August 18, 2022 council meeting, levying the tax rate at this rate on each $100 of assessed valuation. Second. Vice Mayor Kay seconds. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I move to set the Agricultural Extension Office ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.0040, the Agricultural Extension Office ad valorem personal property tax rate at 0.0052, and the Agricultural Extension Office ad valorem motor vehicles and water tax rate at 0.0032, and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday, August 18, 2022 council meeting levying the taxes at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation. Second. Vice Mayor Kay seconds, and Council Member Ellinger has a question. Thank you, Mayor. On the extension, the personal, that one looks like it's gone up a little. It went up .0001. Yes, it went up slightly. Why did that one go up and the others are all going down? I don't know if there's anyone here from that organization to answer the question. They vote on the rates and they provide them to us, so I'm not sure. So this is what they requested? This is what their board requested. So it appears that because the property values have been going up, that we're getting as much or more money if we're lowering the rates just because we have higher property. So this is going to give them a bigger increase than what they got before, correct? Correct. And do you know what that number is that we do for them? I don't, but we can get that information and send it to council. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions about the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. We have one no vote. I'm sorry. Two no. Who are the no votes, please? Council Member Worley and Council Member Ellinger. We have three no votes. Council Member McCurn, Worley, and Ellinger. Okay. That motion passes. Thank you. I further move to schedule a public hearing on these ad valorem tax rates for the council meeting on August 30th, 2022 at 5 p.m. Is there a vice mayor Kay? Seconds. All right. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Council Member Bledsoe, thank you very much. Thank you very much, council members. Now, we are ready for council reports. Thank you, Melissa and Commissioner Hensley and all the finance team. Really appreciate it. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I have several items. First of all, I just wanted to tell everybody that I recently, just last week, graduated from the Citizens Police Academy, the summer class. And it was an awesome 10-week program that takes citizens into kind of behind the scenes of what our police department does and does a lot of great education. So I just wanted to give them a plug and say if you are interested in learning more about our police department or even a career in police, I encourage everybody to apply for that program. It's truly great. um also wanted to encourage my constituents to visit my facebook page right now i have a survey out i'm asking for people to let me know how you like to be communicated with um we have i do newsletters i do social media and things like that but really want to hear from the constituents and see what their communication preferences are And then if I see a lot of our police department in the back, I was hoping that somebody could give us an update on our flock cameras. That would be Commander Greathouse or Chief Weathers, he's standing up. Or both. I get them all. You get two. Welcome. Hello, everybody, and thank you for asking about that. Our original plan was to see how it was doing after it was an operation for about six months or so, but we decided we were going to keep a running tab on it, so Commander Greathouse has been in charge of that endeavor, so I will let him speak to it. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Commander Greathouse. Ma'am, thank you. So we started our implementation of the first fly camera around the first week of March, so about the 7th of March. We reached full implementation a couple weeks ago. They ran into supply chain issues like everybody else, so we had a hard time actually getting the hardware and having people installed. So the final camera was put up on the 4th of August. So in that meantime, prior to that we've had around 120 what we'll call success stories. We recovered approximately 66 stolen vehicles, 34 investigative reports have said they've used it further their investigation of those note since June three of the six homicides have been instrumental in using the flock system to further their investigation. One of the bigger values that I look at here is what we give back to our community. We've recovered already with just a not full implementation 1.13 million dollars worth of assets back to the community. Those are based on just a baseline value of the vehicles that we actually receive. We're also able to take approximately 28 weapons off the street and then we end up finding four missing people with that. Thank you. Councilmember Baxter. Did you say four missing people? Yes. That's amazing. Well, thank you very much for this update. Commander Greathouse, before you walk away, there may be some questions. In fact, one right here, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Could you just go back and say how we use this as an investigation just to let the public know how these are actually being used? So we'll go back and look back. So if a vehicle comes up that was used in a crime, going back to speak specifically of those three homicides, it was a vehicle used in those homicides. They were actually able to go back and look for those specific vehicles, find evidence, part of what was being used. Maybe it didn't have a full tag number, maybe it didn't have the exact description, maybe it didn't have an exact location, but they were able to go back and look at that system to find out where those vehicles were located and further the investigation with finding the people that were involved. Are there other questions? Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor, and thanks for the update. I know we have this item in planning and public safety, and I think there's a lot of people in the community at large that are interested in how the policy that the department put in place and some of the good things that we're seeing with the Flock cameras. I just think a broader update would be beneficial. Is that, Council Member Baxter, I know it's your item. Are you planning to bring it to the community? We are planning an update in December. Okay. Okay. So is that update going to, is going to be able to tell all of that? because I know some of the concern was, and I think the policy spoke to it, is preventing neighborhoods from being negatively impacted from additional surveillance, so to speak, or the flight cameras. So is it going to speak to that and address all those issues? We can do a deeper dive for sure. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Commander Greathouse? all right did you want to ask another question before you finish one more thing okay thank you very much I really appreciate it thank you chief all right do you want to finish your thank you um sorry we've been gone a while um okay so on the heels of two recent zone change hearings in my district and a lot of conversation around how new development kind of meshes with old development. I'd like to place into planning and public safety a review of neighborhood access, traffic management, and traffic calming measures. So moved. Councilmember Reynolds seconds. Are there any questions? All those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? All right that motion passes. You're welcome. Councilmember Maloney. Thank you mayor. I know it's been a busy summer. We've had a lot of shooting going on and I found out one of my close friends' son was shot. He was down there a little while back for graduation in downtown and a bullet went through his leg. My heart goes out for the police department after I've been reading how short we are. It seems like 1999 all over again because in 1999 before we did the collective bargaining, we were training the best police officers in the state and they were leaving and going to other cities. I mean, in other jobs. That has now come back around. A lot of these cities with their offer money have been hiring police officers at a higher pace. They've been using their offer money to hire police at a higher pace than what we're paying. And we've got the schools are getting ready to open up, and they're hiring a lot of police officers, too, from us. And, Mayor, I know this is not a fun topic to talk about, But to me, I think there are some ideas how to fix this problem, and I'm afraid we're going to have to open the collective bargain up, and I know the council has nothing, but I wish you would, because not only open up, we've got to find a way to keep the pay up, because we are going to have surplus. And to me, everybody has the idea what they want to do except surplus. My number one recommend for surplus is to fix the crisis that we have right now, and that's the police department. And we've got to find out how are these people to bring them back. and be creative because we have the best police force in the country, and everybody wants us. I open that up. I also know five people that want to come back and want to work for the city. If you retire from the city, you can't come back. But if I retire from the state or any other places, I can come back, but I don't get the benefits and all that. There is language that's going to try to be passed early in the next year. Hopefully someone up here sitting on this horseshoe can help us on that. but there's some language that we'll be able to hire some of these police officers that want to come back and work with us. It's not going to put a huge dent into it, but it's going to show that we care to bring people back. By opening up this collective bargain right now, you'll be able to change that language instead of waiting for the last minute. And when we go to Frankfort and that language changes, we're going to have to start off, we'll have to open that up, and it could be four or five months to do it. By having this much time noticed, we should be able to be able to get that language changed to be able to hire people back. But to me, this is the biggest crisis I've seen in a long time, and I think it's time, and I ask for your help, that you look at this because there are some ideas, and look at the offer money that these other cities are using. They're using it for their police department, and they're taking it from us. And I just saw with Jefferson Town and just hired a big, huge bump in their salaries, and I'm afraid we may lose some people there. So we've got to be ahead of this, and we've got to be proactive, and I think this is an opportunity for the administration and us that we show how much we care about the best police department in this city. We've got the best chiefs. We've got the best force, and if we continue to go this route, we're going to lose them. And this is a golden opportunity to show that we're ahead of the curve, So I ask that you all open that collective bargain back up and keep the retention. The thing that bothers me, we have as many people, 111 to 120 short, I've been hearing numbers, that we could have 115 that can retire to two days on top of that. I don't want to lose those guys. And by having a way to keep them coming back and staying another 10, 15 years instead of going somewhere else, I ask if we make those changes. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. You might be interested to know that I believe someone will correct me if I'm wrong. We're getting ready to blue sheet the memorandums of understanding for the $5 million that you all allocated for the police and E-911 and corrections. I think we're going to blue sheet that. Jen, is it next week? I did want to holler from the back through. Yes, Hillary and I actually are moving those files through right now, and they will be seen on the work session docket on Tuesday. That is correct. Very good, so that is one step forward. And then Commissioner Hensley reminds me that police and fire pension fund rules are governed by state statute, not collective bargaining. And I want to follow up on that. I made my statement about that money, the $5 million. I just want to make the motion to set that money aside. And that money, to me, would not be bonuses. It would try to find a way to keep people here. But that's fine if they're going to use that bonus, but I don't think it's going to solve your problem. That's just me. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Edwards, if you wouldn't mind to put up a couple of slides. He's on the phone. Mr. Edwards, if you don't mind. Thank you, sir. I just wanted to, on behalf of our Commissioner of Social Services, Ms. Allen Bryant, August is Bystander Awareness Month, and it's a time to recognize the power that we each have as a bystander and to promote the important role bystanders play in helping to end intimate partner violence and child abuse. It's also a time to encourage others to step up and become a part of the solution to prevent violence from occurring in the first place. Thursday, August 19th, and 25th are green dot Thursdays. These are the flyers. Please consider wearing green on Thursday, August 19th, and 25th to help raise awareness of the power of active bystanders. I read that because I think that, you know, that can probably touch a lot of people out there, and I really appreciate Commissioner bringing that to my attention, and I know my colleagues receive this. And, you know, we just all need to be – it's a time in our country and our world where we all need to be positive and help support each other and just – you never know what somebody else is ever going through, in their life. So just remember that when you're talking to them. And just kindness is just the way forward forever and ever. So I hope that we will all I don't know how much green I have, but I know my council aide has a lot of green because she loves that color. Not that I'd be able to fit in her outfits, but I might be able to find some green to wear. So I hope you all will support me and I appreciate you all. One other little thing on a more serious note, and Debbie doesn't know I'm saying this, but for those that used to work with Mike Hathaway, he passed away last week. Debbie and Mike were very longstanding employees in this government, and they're both two fine, fine human beings. They're also constituents of mine, and Debbie called me last week. and he's had he's suffered a lot and so he's no longer suffering but I just would hope that you all would keep Debbie and her family in your prayers and thoughts for this time of transition for her so thank you. Thank you for that. Councilmember Plowman. Thank you Mayor. I have an announcement unfortunately the weather didn't work out quite last week and we had our dog park ribbon cutting scheduled, but it is rescheduled. It'll take place. It is in Veterans Park, and Council Member Lamb and I share that park, and so we'll be there on the 25th and hope you can join us. I'm sorry, I'm the 31st. I'm 31st. And, again, this was a generous citizen that worked with us, with the city, in a private public partnership that this park is existing. So it's kind of a new template, so I hope you can join us. What time is that? Did I say the 31st? What time? 4.30. Thank you. Same time as it was this past week. And then, Council Member Lamb, I'm glad you mentioned the green dyed. I do serve on that board, and I was going to mention it. But I would say if someone doesn't have green, you can always wear a green ribbon. So get something green on for this Thursday and for next Thursday. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. after a long summer break there's a thousand things we could all share so I'll restrict myself to two the two things that I heard the most from in talking with neighbors via Facebook or other methods of communication that I feel like need to be addressed from me the first is school started last week and every parent said hallelujah and unfortunately the traffic as you know in Lexington I swear quadrupled one of the challenges that we have experienced on Clay's Mill Road in particular has been the number of infrastructure utility changes that we've had to make that are not really under our jurisdiction, and yet we are the lead actor, if you will, sometimes in those situations. And there was a decision made to close Rosemont and some other areas right before school started, the day of school started, which really caused some havoc at Lafayette and Picadome and, well, that entire area for a number of people. People waited 45, 50 minutes. And in hindsight, there are a number of things that we could have done differently. The drop balls on communication were numerous. I'll take my ownership of several. Assumptions were made that when we said we talked to Lafayette that we assumed Lafayette was going to communicate. That was an assumption. That was incorrect. And so one of the things I think we want to do is, one, say we're sorry that we could have done better. I think people in the city expect us to do better at communicating what we're going to do, especially when it involves traffic. And whatever communication we did, and we did do some. I know as a parent, I was only reading the school ones because that's what was on my mind, probably most importantly. And I think many people just didn't realize what we were going to do. And so we can do better. So I'd like to place in the environmental quality and public works a process for how we do road closures. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any comment, question? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Thank you. And my intent there is to discuss, you know, like a zone change or any kind of infrastructure project we do, we often send letters to homeowners. And we say, we're getting ready to do this at your home in the next 10 days. And I think we need to do the same. We need to decide if we're going to close the road now as a means of getting something done more quickly, more expedient, maybe at the better value of our taxpayer dollars, et cetera, that we need to make sure that the homes are notified. People aren't watching the news. They're not reading the paper. They may or may not see posts on Facebook. emails get lost and I think one thing we can do is do a better job of directly talking to the people in the most direct way we can honestly about some of those things. So I appreciate your support in that. I think that would be something we need to do moving forward. And the second issue I do want to talk about is something that Councilman Moulin brought up which is some of the gun violence this summer. And it is alarming. People are concerned. It is not comforting when in broad daylight people are shooting guns. It's just not. And it's a very unsettling feeling when it's random, when you don't know when it's going to happen, when you feel nervous stopping at a gas station or a light or close to a school. And I am by no means a criminal justice expert. I'm not even going to pretend to be as educated as I'd like to be. But what I do know is it seems to me that officers even being present in these situations aren't deterring the crimes. I'm all for all for officers and having more. We need more. I'll be the biggest supporter and have been my tenure. But I don't think there's more to it than just that. And I'll mention just a couple of things. I've been asking, well, who is doing this? For instance, we arrested somebody in June. This person was bonded the same day. They had a felony, handgun, tampering, criminal trespassing, had three prior violent felonies still out. Somebody else was arrested in January for assault. Three months later, assaulted a police officer. Ten days later, arrested again for strangulation, still out. I think we need more people at this table. I think we need more people. And I mean that to support our police department. I mean that to support our juvenile justice program. I mean to support One United, Lexington. There's so many people that are here, but it can't be just us. There has to be more people working towards a better, safer community. And I'm committed to that. And I think we need to be committed to that because it is a holistic thing. And I think there's some holes that we need to talk about more substantially. And I'm committed to having that conversation more this fall. Thank you. I really appreciate that. We have a lot of partners at the table. As you know, we have at least a significant hole that we're working on, which you alluded to. So thank you for that. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Bledsoe. I had brought up earlier this year the issue of gun violence, and it goes far beyond what we can just control. And I appreciate your comments, and I'd love to work together on that. I wanted to make a few remarks. One, we had a groundbreaking today for the new library on Versailles Road. And I am super excited about that. I want to thank the mayor for her remarks and being there and many of my colleagues. That is something that I've been working on since I got in office. Even the first year I was in office, I toured other libraries in different parts of the world to see what type of library we could bring to the 11th district. And so for me to see the groundbreaking was very exciting. That community uses that library every day, uses it for many different resources, and it's going to be such a big expanded space in the same location. and I'm just thrilled that we could all be a part of that. Then I want to mention we still have our farmer's market going in Gardenside Plaza this Wednesday, tomorrow, and the rest of the Wednesdays in August from 4 to 7 p.m. And I will be there the next two Wednesdays, so come out and say hi at the Greater Gardenside booth. And then we've had lots of things going on in the 11th and we had a ribbon cutting for a park that got a new playground in Pine Meadows Park. And that was really exciting and the neighborhoods are thrilled to have a new playground there and there's going to be several new playgrounds with the ARPA money for the master plan for the $10 million that we approved. So that's really exciting. And then I brought forward a resolution today and I just wanted to briefly mention why. There has been at CNR Asphalt an incinerator that has been operating and burning essentially wood, kind of what's called a curtain incinerator, so kind of openly. And neighbors brought this to my attention when that area became part of the 11th district. And they brought it to the attention of Councilmember McCorm before that. And it's been an issue because people have had health problems and have seen a lot of smoke in their yards. And so right now there's an open comment period about their permitting. The state yanked their permit and they have not been burning since about February. And now anybody can submit a comment and can ask for a public hearing about them getting a permit. So if you would like to make your own comments about this issue, you can contact Michelle McCloskey and The email is michelle.mccloskey.ky.gov. And this current commenting period is going to go until 1159 on Thursday the 18th. So I just wanted to make everyone aware of that. Thank you. Thank you. And council might want to know if you don't already that The administration is also making comments, I believe through parks and through environmental services. So we will be participating in that comment period. So thank you for mentioning that. Councilmember McCurn. Thank you, Mayor. And Councilmember Reynolds, thank you for continuing that effort forward. I wanted to start off by saying thank you to several people for the help in opening our reading room over the Black and Williams Center. About two weeks ago, we opened a little library, a little pocket library, what we call the reading room, the Black and Williams building. And while I can take about all of my five minutes to thank everybody involved, I would like to run down a quick list and just say thank you to the administration for all of their efforts, CAO Hamilton in particular. Thank you for continuously helping me lead this charge forward. I'd like to thank everybody involved that helped donate books and try to give efforts to see the room grow forward and from the community for their support and continued influence in seeing that room change. I look forward to seeing what the potential of it's going to be in the years to come. I'm very excited for it. That's now open and operating, and books are flying off the shelf already. And then tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Coldstream Dog Park will be the yappy hour. There will be food trucks, pets, and plenty of amenities and activities for families, friends, and fur babies. And then lastly, while it is a sold out event, the tickets are all sold out at this point in time, but there is the Bluegrass Bash, the benefit for Arbor Youth, this upcoming Saturday. While the tickets may be sold and if you are not able to make it to this event, this is a continued good effort to donate to Arbor Youth in any way that you can give back. So I encourage you to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Your comment about Coldstream is probably one of the many reasons we were ranked, I think, seventh in the country as the best pet-friendly city. I heard CIO Hamilton yell from the crowd. She's proud of that. She has something to do with it also. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. So we are set to vote on the memorandum of understanding between the city and KU at this Thursday's council meeting. And I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for their efforts spanning many months that have brought us to this point. The negotiations and compromise require give and take from all involved. and there are certainly aspects of this process that have been difficult for everyone and i think we have all been feeling that but i want to thank the mayor's administration for representing the concerns of residents during the process and thank ku for coming to the negotiation table and offering changes to their vegetation management plan i also want to thank my colleagues for supporting the motion to allow for more time before the second reading of the mou to allow for residents to get some of their concerns addressed and questions answered but most of all i want to thank our neighbors and residents particularly of my district who have come together to advocate for more local input in this process and are still advocating for that at the state level for all of their efforts to ask questions to share their concerns and for sticking with us through this process thank you thank you council member james brown Thank you, Mayor. Correct. So I know the administration has some information in regards to updates about what's going on at Community Corrections. So as Chair of Planning and Public Safety, I'm going to put Community Corrections update in that committee for the administration to come forward to that committee and give updates in a reasonable amount of time. And then Mayor, I'll... Is that a motion? I don't think I have to do it in a motion. Did you just put it in? Yes, ma'am. Okay, that's fine. And then I also want to comment on Council Member Bledsoe's comments about the violence that we're seeing everywhere. Representing the first district, there's a lot of violence that takes place in certain neighborhoods in the district. So there's nothing that you ever get used to, but it's something that you are constantly working on with the neighborhoods and our department and all community partners. What we've been seeing, I think more recently, is the violence is more spread out across the city. And I think more folks are interested in doing what they can and supporting the efforts that exist in regards to addressing it. And I think that's great. I think we have to get our arms around it and try to work to see what we all can do to play a part. And I think, you know, our department is one component of it. When I made the comment earlier about the clock cameras, I think that's a tool that was somewhat controversial when it came forward. I think there are folks that still have some concerns about it, but I'm in support of our department having that tool. I think it has yielded some benefit, but I think we need to talk more openly about it to give some reassurances to some minority and some low-income neighborhoods to have concerns about it. I think we put a policy in place that alleviates and works on some of those concerns, but I think we need to have that conversation in public. The other thing I'll say, too, is, you know, and I'll go back to our department. Our department is part of the solution. Right now we have, you know, we're having a recruitment and a retention issue. We put some significant amount of money towards those issues, and it's not solve the problem or stop the bleeding, so to speak. The money that's going towards retention I think is great and I think it's needed and I think you have to try to solve that. But I think the other part of that, one of the biggest components of that is recruitment. We have to figure out how to put some money in place towards recruitment. And if it's in a form of a signing bonus, we may need to do that and look to put some language in place to try to keep those folks here. and not just the police department but with corrections and then also E-911. Those divisions are also suffering from low personnel. And then I may come back later at some point and put that item in probably General Services Committee about coming up with a policy. Once we get below a certain staffing level, something just kicks in to give the administration the tools that they need to recruit and to keep people in those divisions, whatever it is across city government, because all those services are vital. But the reason I kind of go back to recruiting and getting more officers is because one of the solutions that I've been a supporter of since I've been on this council and have seen it work and be effective are the neighborhood resource officers. We're so short-staffed that the department can't assign folks to those duties right now. It's just we got to cover patrols as needed. But I've seen the effectiveness of neighborhood resource officers, how they build relationships, how they work to address concerns before they get to a point where we're at levels where we've got to do something more serious. So I think the way that we try to work to get back to being able to have those neighborhood resource officers in the neighborhoods, in the communities that need them, is we've got to recruit and get folks to the table and to apply for these jobs. in our department. So I made a commitment publicly, and if anybody, if any police officer's been in a public meeting with me, I give the pitch. I give the sales speech to try to get folks to join our public safety and to help us out and address these issues. But like Council Member Bledsoe said, that's just part of the solution. It's going to take all of us working to do everything that we can to try to address these issues and to try to address this violence that we're seeing everywhere. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. You might be interested that in our regular, the administration has a regular public safety meeting with all the divisions in public safety. And both E911 as well as the division of police now have higher numbers than they did in May. and E911 in particular has had good success recruiting at the kiosk that you all know about at the mall, Fayette Mall. They've gotten a few employees from that sign-up and who are in training now, so they're having improved success, and the police numbers are also up since May. we are i it would be fair to say and i'm looking at commissioner armstrong that we have a very heavy focus on recruiting for all of our public safety divisions and we are slowly seeing breakthrough and some improvement in those it of course we all knew it would take us some time but I am encouraged because we have seen these numbers just yesterday. And as far as the flock cameras that you mentioned, I hear from minority communities quite often that they want them in their neighborhood. It's just a counterpoint. Not all neighborhoods are opposed to these. Some of them want them close by. and I'm encouraged at the success that we're seeing by those license plate readers and as you say it's a tool and it really is helping our police and I think everyone in our community wants the criminals to be caught right I mean I'm not going to ask out loud for a show of hands, but I think everybody wants that. So we're very encouraged by those flop cameras and the successes that they're seeing. So thank you for all of that. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I want to piggyback off what Council Member Blitzo said. I live over there on the Rosemont Garden, Clay's Mill area, so I've dealt with all the closures over there, and then actually I got a call from constituent on Sunday that they were going to take this tree out that they didn't know anything about. And I want to thank the commissioner and Doug Burton. He did go over there, and they were able to keep that tree, but she found out about the time they were getting ready to cut it down. If she hadn't contacted, that tree was going to be gone. So I think we need a better communication when we're doing this because as Council Member Bledsoe said, this actually happened, the closure right on the opening day of school on that Wednesday. And I was over there and it was a disaster. If you were heading, luckily I was going the opposite way, but I could see the line for miles going the other way. We have to do a better job of our planning and our communication there. So I'm glad this is going to be in committee because it did not go over well and the neighbors are not happy. And luckily you all were able to save this tree, but we lost some others in the process. And then the next thing, talking about the violence, I've had quite a few calls. I'm sure we saw some of the videos that have happened over the summer that were very disturbing. And I agree with Council Member Brown. The neighborhood resource officers is a big issue that we need to really address because I think that does help a lot. Retention and recruitment are two big things we have to do. I've been trying to reach out to the FOP and talk to them about ways that we can work with them because our numbers, I'm glad to hear you said some of the numbers up, but in this current recruiting class, I think we had 47 starting right down to 29, and we're not going quite in the way we want to be going. Also, I know community corrections were having an issue. I'm glad to hear E911 is working in the right way there. But I think as we go forward, as Council Member Maloney said, we might have to look at an MOU or something, maybe open up these negotiations, because we need to look at ways that we can have longevity pay. I think that's something that going forward we need to look at to make sure we just don't become the farm team for other communities, that we can look at maybe having a 36-month contract when they come in, or that as they work they get an increase for every year that they're working to keep them around here, and somehow we're going to have to increase pay. I mean, that's just what keeps people here or gets people to come here. So I think these are areas that we need to address because everywhere I go, the issue about the violence is the number one issue right now that we're dealing with. We can say that it's not a crisis, but I think we're in a crisis mode here in Lexington. We're on numbers right now that are breaking records, and these are not the records that we want to be breaking. So I think we need to start looking at ways that we can help in this situation. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I will point out that as of August the 10th, Lexington had had 28 homicides, nine of which were domestic violence. Nine. In 2021, Lexington had zero domestic violence-related homicides. This is a growing issue. issue. It's real, and we have the statistics to show that this is one of the places where we are seeing more homicides. And I know, Council Member Plumman, you're very aware of that with your work. So I agree with you. We keep looking at it from all the different angles. All right. Any other council reports? Okay. There is a hefty mayor's report. If I could have a motion to approve. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Anyone opposed? That motion passes. And then I would like to take a moment and ask, first of all, Commissioner Lanter to come to the podium and introduce our new housing advocate who was hired while council was on break. so i know everyone is really was really excited when we created the housing advocate position to have someone who could help our citizens navigate through the the sort of black box that is the many housing programs in the community both internally and externally and and bless her heart she came in probably as one of the most highly anticipated new positions for a while and and she's really jumped in and is uh you know i i felt like when i came in as a commissioner i was drinking from a fire hose. I think we just shot the fire hose right at her. But she's handling it like a champ. And this is Caitlin Dixon. And I've sent an email out to everyone with her contact information. If you don't have it, please let me know and I'll send it again. She comes to us having worked at the Salvation Army. She has a master's in social work, bachelor's in social work, and she's available for anyone who needs help, both finding anything from finding units to navigating questions about challenges with landlords or you know a lot of times her work is connecting people with other organizations and other programs and so that's something that she's working with us to build a list on i mentioned in the committee meeting before this how we're working on educational materials for tenants so there's just there's a wealth of potential there and she's really dove right in and and and helped us helped us get this off the ground do you want to say anything Like I said, we've really put her on the spot, and she's handled it well. And while I'm up here, if I may, I did send an email out about this, but I'd also like to just formally announce and introduce Jeff Herron as our new manager for the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention. Jeff is here with us. Jeff, you may remember some of you served as the Continuum of Care Coordinator in the Office of Homelessness, so he actually worked for Poly for a number of years. He's worked at New Beginnings. he's worked at volunteers of america i think everybody in our homeless system already knows jeff and he'll be able to really seamlessly just fly right into this position without a whole lot of learning curve which is great for all of us so i appreciate the opportunity to introduce them mayor thank you very much commissioner welcome jeff and caitlin we're glad to have you And then, Council Members, I wanted to say just a couple words about what we're doing in eastern Kentucky. You will, everyone knows that on about July 27th or 28th, sometime around then, eastern Kentucky had the terrible flash floods. And I want to thank, publicly thank, we've already done it once with the governor, but again thank our firefighters who immediately went down when it was safe to go down with their Swiftwater rescue teams. and they took the boats and they helped rescue people. They recovered some people and they inspected hundreds of buildings and spent quite a number of days in eastern Kentucky. And I really appreciate their work, Chief. I know you're back there. And it was, from all reports, it was extremely powerfully moving for them. And we are so happy that Lexington could provide that service. The next step is that Commissioner Albright, we've been working with some of the mayors in eastern Kentucky. and Commissioner Albright's waste management folks, streets and roads folks, her public works people want to be there helping. So she took a team of, I think, was it 12, 10 or 12 people to eastern Kentucky, and they really were looking at how they could help because they didn't know for sure what the needs were. There were so many. and so her teams are going to be taking are you going tomorrow still they're leaving tomorrow some of them and they're going to be taking large equipment knuckle boom trucks large trucks that can handle the the waste that's picked up the debris and they're going to help with actually clearing it because it is a huge need. And a lot of the other needs cannot be attended to until these communities get the debris handled. And so we're really proud of them for stepping up. They wanted to do this and they're going to spend, I guess really, sometime this week sometime next week to help the folks in some of those towns in eastern kentucky and council members all know this we're very blessed here to have resources people the ability to help when needed and so it's it's really good that your folks can do that and we appreciate it so thank you um with that i'll ask if there are there's no one signed up for public comment i believe Is there anything else for the good of the whole? If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much.