# Council Work Session - January 24, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 24, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5740 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5740?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-01-24 - **Last revised**: January 24, 2023 - **Length**: 29,386 words - **Speakers**: Mayor > ⚠️ **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 Council Work Session on January 24, 2023, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber, with Mayor Linda Gorton presiding. The meeting focused on three informational presentations covering key municipal services and programs affecting the community. The Council heard presentations on Urban Services Corrections, the Parking Authority, and the Housing Stabilization Program, all of which were informational in nature rather than requiring formal action. During the session, the Council conducted 10 motions and votes on various matters while receiving input from 14 public comments from community members. The three main agenda items provided updates and information to Council members on important city operations and initiatives, allowing for discussion and questions without requiring immediate legislative action. ## Attendance The following members were present at the January 24, 2023 meeting: **Present:** • Wu • J. Brown • Ellinger • Fogle • Lynch • LeGris • Sheehan • Gray • Worley • F. Brown • Baxter • Sevigny • Reynolds • Plomin **Absent:** • Monarrez No members arrived late to the meeting. A total of 14 members were in attendance, with one member absent. ## Votes and Decisions The council conducted ten voice votes during the January 24, 2023 meeting, with all motions passing unanimously [timestamp: 00:00]. **Docket and Procedural Items:** • Motion by Plomin, seconded by Baxter, to approve the January 17, 2023 council meeting docket - **Passed** • Motion by Reynolds, seconded by Ellinger, to remove ordinance #4 and refer it to the General Government & Planning Committee - **Passed** • Motion by Fogle, seconded by Worley, to place ordinance #1 on the docket without a public hearing - **Passed** **Meeting Records:** • Motion by Sheehan, seconded by Plomin, to approve the December 6, 2022 work session summary - **Passed** **Financial Matters:** • Motion by Ellinger, seconded by Reynolds, to approve budget amendments - **Passed** • Motion by Ellinger, seconded by Gray, to approve neighborhood development funds - **Passed** **Administrative Items:** • Motion by LeGris, seconded by Plomin, to approve new business - **Passed** • Motion by Gray, seconded by Baxter, to approve the Mayor's Report - **Passed** • Motion by Sevigny, seconded by Wu, to approve the Mayor's Report - Price Contract Bid Recommendations - **Passed** **Adjournment:** • Motion by Plomin, seconded by Ellinger, to adjourn the meeting - **Passed** All votes were conducted by voice vote with no recorded opposition, abstentions, or individual vote tallies. The council demonstrated unanimous agreement across all agenda items, including both routine procedural matters and substantive policy decisions involving budget amendments and neighborhood development funding. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed multiple financial authorizations totaling over $569,000 in expenditures and grant acceptances. **Major Purchases and Contracts:** • **L0042-23**: Authorization to establish Mavron, Inc. as sole source provider for three prisoner transport van inserts at $117,390.60 • **L0049-23**: Authorization to establish The Henry P. Thompson Company as sole source provider for three CL520 Boerger Rotary Lobe Replacement Pumps at $46,243.14 • **L0046-23**: Authorization for remittance to LexArts for cost-reimbursement of commissioned art panel installation at $21,460 • **L0064-23**: Authorization to execute Professional Services Agreement with Element Design for Oliver Lewis Way Bus Shelter design services at $32,600 **Grant Acceptances:** • **L0062-23**: Authorization to accept $106,597.90 award from Kentucky Department of Military Affairs, Division of Emergency Management for FY 2023 Emergency Management Assistance Project • **L0065-23**: Authorization to accept $120,000 in federal funds from Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for Virginia/Red Mile/Forbes Trail Connectivity Safety Study **Contract Amendments:** • **L0063-23**: Authorization to execute amendment with New Vista of the Bluegrass for $124,830 • **L0066-23**: Authorization to execute amendment with Stonewall Terrace, LLC under HOME Investment Partnerships Program with no budgetary impact **Other Actions:** • **L0043-23**: Authorization to donate three chainsaws and a walk-behind concrete saw to Letcher County Road Department with no budgetary impact • **L0044-23**: Authorization to amend Article XLIII of Chapter 2 of the Code of Ordinance for the Commission for People with Disabilities The financial actions encompassed public safety equipment, infrastructure improvements, emergency management funding, and community partnerships across multiple departments and agencies. ## Public Comment The public comment period featured 14 speakers, with the majority addressing concerns about recent parking policy changes downtown [timestamp: 00:00]. **Urban Services** Sarah opened the session by expressing concerns about the opt-out option for garbage pickup taxes on certain streets, arguing the policy was unfair to affected residents. **Parking Policy Changes** Thirteen speakers voiced opposition to new downtown parking policies, citing various impacts on businesses, workers, and residents: • **Business Impact**: Sarah Brown described how new parking hours and rates negatively affected her business and raised safety concerns. Debbie Long criticized the policies for frustrating patrons and hurting downtown businesses. Gregg shared concerns about impacts on his business and downtown's overall image. • **Worker and Resident Concerns**: Josh England discussed how parking changes affected downtown workers and urged the council to consider transit alternatives. Trish shared personal experiences of having to move her car multiple times due to parking policies, affecting her work productivity. • **Financial Burden**: Catherine Perkins opposed the changes, stating they discourage downtown visits and affect those on fixed incomes. Lisa Cox criticized increased parking rates and hours while expressing safety concerns about parking garages. • **Community Access**: Tanya expressed concerns about the impact on her ability to enjoy downtown with her children. Carol Jordan discussed how the changes affected Carnegie Center programs and participants. • **Policy Process**: Brittney Miller presented a petition against the parking changes, highlighting concerns about lack of transparency and insufficient public input in the decision-making process. • **Alternative Perspectives**: Jim Holes expressed understanding of the need for rate increases but urged consideration of alternatives to evening and Saturday extensions. Richard and We'd Today Michael opposed additional parking fees, citing negative impacts on visitors and arguing that paid parking puts downtown businesses at a disadvantage compared to other areas. The overwhelming theme was opposition to the parking policy changes, with speakers citing economic, accessibility, and procedural concerns. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during the January 24, 2023 meeting centered on proposed parking changes that drew significant community opposition. **Parking Changes** The meeting featured substantial community pushback against new parking rates and hours under consideration. Multiple community members voiced their opposition during the public comment period, raising concerns about the potential negative impacts on local businesses and public safety. The opposition focused on two main areas of concern: • **Economic Impact**: Community members argued that the proposed parking rate increases and extended enforcement hours would harm local businesses by deterring customers and making it more expensive for people to visit commercial areas. • **Safety Concerns**: Residents expressed worries about safety implications related to the parking changes, though the specific nature of these safety concerns was not detailed in the available materials. The community opposition appeared to be widespread, with "numerous community members" participating in the discussion according to the meeting records. The sustained nature of the opposition suggests this was a significant issue for local residents and business owners. The outcome of this contested item was not specified in the available meeting materials, leaving unclear whether the parking changes were approved, modified, or tabled for further consideration. The level of community engagement on this issue indicates it likely required additional discussion or review by the governing body. This parking controversy represented the main source of disagreement during the meeting, highlighting the tension between municipal revenue needs or traffic management goals and community concerns about economic and safety impacts. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps were not available in the provided materials for this contested item.* ## Urban Services Corrections Public Hearing [timestamp: 00:00] The meeting included a public hearing to gather comments on proposed changes to urban services corrections, specifically addressing street lights and garbage pickup services. Sarah served as a key speaker during this agenda item, though the specific details of her presentation or comments were not provided in the available materials. The public hearing was designed to allow community input on modifications to urban services corrections that would affect two primary areas: • Street lighting services and maintenance • Garbage collection and pickup schedules This was an informational hearing, meaning no formal action or voting took place during this portion of the meeting. The purpose was to provide a forum for public comment and feedback on the proposed urban services corrections before any potential implementation. The hearing format allowed residents and stakeholders to voice concerns, ask questions, or provide input regarding how the proposed changes to street lights and garbage pickup might impact their neighborhoods or daily routines. No specific concerns, objections, or support statements were detailed in the available meeting materials. The outcome was informational, indicating this was part of the public input process required before making final decisions on urban services modifications. ## Parking Authority Presentation Gary Means delivered a presentation on the Lexington Parking Authority during the January 24, 2023 meeting [timestamp: 00:00]. The presentation covered the organization's historical background, current operational challenges, and strategic plans for future development. Means provided an overview of the Parking Authority's evolution and its role in managing the city's parking infrastructure. The presentation addressed the current challenges facing the organization in meeting parking demands and maintaining existing facilities. The discussion included the Authority's future planning initiatives and potential strategies for addressing ongoing parking needs in Lexington. Means outlined various approaches being considered to improve parking services and infrastructure management. This was an informational presentation with no formal action required from the meeting participants. The presentation served to update attendees on the Parking Authority's status and provide insight into the organization's operational priorities and future direction. ## Housing Stabilization Program Presentation [timestamp: 00:00] Jonathan Wright presented an update on the Housing Stabilization Program during the January 24, 2023 meeting. Wright discussed the current status of the program and outlined future plans for its implementation and expansion. The presentation served as an informational briefing for meeting attendees, providing insights into how the Housing Stabilization Program is currently operating and what developments are anticipated moving forward. Wright's presentation covered both the present state of program activities and strategic planning for upcoming initiatives. This agenda item was structured as a presentation format, allowing Wright to deliver comprehensive information about the program without requiring immediate action or decision-making from the meeting participants. The informational nature of the presentation suggests it was intended to keep stakeholders informed about program progress and upcoming changes or enhancements to housing stabilization efforts. The discussion provided attendees with an opportunity to understand the program's current performance and future trajectory, though specific details about program metrics, budget allocations, or implementation timelines were not captured in the available meeting documentation. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): move the public hearing to the start of the meeting - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the January 17, 2023 work session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve new business - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the docket of the January 31, 2023 Council meeting a resolution accepting a Memorandum of Agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police Town Branch Lodge #83, representing the Corrections Officers and Sergeants in the Division of Community Corrections, to increase base salaries and address retention issues - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve neighborhood development funds - **Motion** — passed (0-0): allow three (3) additional minutes for the presentation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer eviction diversion and the right to counsel to the Social Services and Public Safety Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer giving more boards and commissions seats to tenants in the community and ensuring that all boards and commissions are equitably served, including our tenants groups to the General Government and Planning Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn at 6:08pm --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. It is 3 o'clock and I'll go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone. It's 3 o'clock and I'll go ahead and call to order the Urban County Council work session of January 24th, 2023. And Council Member Ellinger has a motion. Thank you, Mayor. I move to put first on our agenda the public hearing the Urban Service corrections. So moved. Thank you. Council member Reynolds seconded. Are there any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. Thank you very much for that. So with that, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing. And this is a public hearing for any of the public to comment on the changes that are being made on the urban service urban services corrections and i believe i understand council members got a list of those perhaps last a couple weeks ago maybe and these are changes to street lights garbage pickup those kinds of things where corrections are being made Is there anyone here who wishes to speak to this? All right. If you will go to the, the council's rule is that you go to the podium and you'll state your name and your council district. And you'll have three minutes. There's a timer right on the podium so you can see your three minutes and when it's up. Welcome. My name is Sarah Katzenmeier. I'm in District 1, a proud member of District 1. I've spoken to several of you all individually while I was campaigning either for or against you about this issue. And I got some answers, but everyone seemed surprised about this, so I wanted to bring it up. Since we're looking at these districts anyway, why not look at a bigger picture and question why a street like Crescent Avenue, which in case you don't know is at the end of State Street, which I know everybody knows where State Street is, why would they be able to just opt out of paying for the tax district that charges for garbage pickup? I'm here on behalf of my son, who is a landlord of a property on Crescent, so he probably would not want to pay more taxes like all those landlords on Crescent. However, he thinks it's stupid because students come in there and sign leases on Crescent and don't realize because they're not told that they have to pay $120 to Rumpke or Republic for garbage pickup. So what happens is they take their garbage and dump it on State Street. Shocker. And nobody notices. Shocker. So why would we let a street like Crescent Avenue and there are many others opt out of paying full taxes and getting garbage pickup when they're right in the middle of town, right in the middle of campus? It makes no sense. So why are we not looking at that bigger picture? That's the question. Thank you very much. Now, I believe, is Catherine Perkins here? I am, but I'm not going to speak. Sorry, I changed my mic. All right. Very good. Thank you. And I believe those are the folks who were signed up to speak to the public hearing. Does anyone else wish to speak to this issue? all right thank you very much i'll declare the public hearing closed and then we will move on to public comment this is for issues only on the agenda and so this is issues there is no docket it's issues which are either new business or presentations So I have a list of folks who are here for items on the agenda. And when I call your name, if you'll please come to the podium, state your name and your council district for the record. And the council rules are, which they are going to enforce, are that you will have three minutes and there will be no extensions to your time. So there's a little clock there in case you need to remind yourself at the podium. So first is Josh England. Welcome. Hello, Josh England, 3rd District. I'm here to talk about the changes to parking downtown. And welcome all the new council members. It's great to see all your new faces. You've never seen me up here before probably, but I have got to speak many times. I want to bring up two points today, and that is I understand that Lex Park needs to make changes, and they've been very amenable when we have been able to talk to them about changes and adaptations to their 2023 fees. I would encourage the council to continue to think about what downtown looks like as we move forward, whether parking is a major concern that we need to continue to address transit into and out of downtown especially on the weekends as we know something like Lex Tran has either a half or a third as many routes and many of the service industry workers that rely on street parking downtown are unable to access transit because it's already closed by the time they get off work and so as we continue to look at changes that Lex Park is going to make other parking providers like SP Plus, the city and the council really needs to examine how do we continue to move forward to make sure that our tourism sector excels, how our service industry sector excels, and how people still have access to food via the farmer's market, even with changes in the modality that they reach downtown. So I really want you to think through what priorities we want to have as we continue to grow as a city and as different authorities make inputs and changes to how people reach and access downtown. We need to make sure that there's an overall comprehensive approach to make sure people still have access to the amenities and services that are provided by our wonderful downtown organizations, businesses and religious organizations. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Sarah Brown. The council rules ask you please respectfully not to clap, boo, or otherwise comment. Welcome. Hi there. My name is Sarah Brown, District 3. I own Lucy Brown Coffee Bar, which is a couple blocks that way. I've been living in downtown Lexington for a long time. And these sudden changes to the Lex Park hours and rates have already affected my business. Evenings and Saturdays, which were very busy times, a lot of foot traffic, are now it's a ghost town. Not necessarily because of weather, but solely because of the parking and the anxiety that this new hour and new rate bring to a lot of people. So I can firsthand say I've already seen some negative effects to my business because of these changes. Something I was brought up to this meeting that was before the end of the year and was a surprising throw at a lot of us. I represent not everyone, but a woman and a queer woman that works downtown. I have to walk to my car very late at night. And I think safety is a big thing that's being overlooked and was ignored with this jurisdiction. I'm not saying you're going to solve crime, but I think it's really unwise to ask a queer person to leave their job at 4 AM in the morning with a lot of cash and go further because they had to park further away because it didn't end until 9. Or as Lex Park has brought up, they have these service industry things for the garages. A queer person was murdered in those garages less than two years ago. If you ask any of the service workers downtown, we often are mugged or held up. And these things, I'm not saying you're going to solve crime, but these can be prevented solely because the service industry and the people and the locals are able to park a little bit closer to their jobs. The one thing it points back to is the Lex Park hours. We desperately need Saturdays back or this is just going to get worse. I've already had regulars that I've seen for five years straight say they can't come back downtown now because it's too expensive. There's just too much going on. It's a negative effect for nonprofits, for Thursday Night Live coming up, for gallery hop, for families. It's inaccessible and not smart. And we really need to do something about it. And I ask that you guys step in. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next is Jim Holzman. Welcome. Jim Holzman, residence is 6th District. My wife Martine and I, we are co-owners of Martine's Pastries, which is 1st District. And I'm speaking on behalf of us. And I definitely understand that Lex Park may very well have to raise rates. We're business people, we understand that. We understand that things get more expensive. we certainly don't purport to have the answers, but on behalf of our retail community, in particular restaurant and entertainment patrons coming down, the city itself and the reflection on the city in terms of out-of-town visitors coming, we'd like to seek an alternative to the evening and Saturday extension. Just like Ms. Brown was stating, it's definitely something that's going to hurt businesses. It's an inconvenience to the public. It makes it much more difficult to come downtown. It makes it much more difficult to enjoy a vibrant downtown. I also believe it's going to put pressure on the immediately surrounding neighborhoods. Any streets or any neighborhoods that are close to the paid parking districts, they're going to start to see, especially in the evening, they're going to see pressure on their on-street parking. And I think also, like I said, I think it hurts the image of the city as a whole that during the key entertainment hours, during the key hours that people come and enjoy downtown, it's now going to be much more difficult to do so with paid parking extended from five to nine and on Saturdays, not to mention the farmer's market on Saturday, which is such an important part of what makes downtown awesome. So I'd really like to urge Lex Park and the city to get together. Also I think it would be awesome if the public had an opportunity to comment and come up with some other solution other than the extension from 5 to 9 and Saturday parking. Thank you very much. Welcome. Martine Holzman. Okay thank you. all right debbie long welcome i'm going to read this just to stay on track um i think you all some of y'all received this through your emails but if you haven't for the record debbie will you state your name and oh i'm sorry debbie owner of dudley's on short in third district thank you i spoke with um ex-Mayor Gray yesterday, and he was the vice mayor at the time when the parking authority was created. And he said to me, he said, the parking authority was created to make parking more efficient, improve downtown, not to compromise it. So as we look at this situation that we have right now, imposing a two-hour parking limit, the new policy states that anyone utilizing street parking is required to move their vehicle every two hours. This occurs six days a week from five. After five, a person must move the vehicle every four hours. People come downtown to attend events, classes, meetings, especially on Saturdays. Patrons and businesses will suffer the most if they are not required to move their vehicle every two hours. Uncertainty and frustration will mount because the new policies have not been simplified enough for people to follow. street parking affects events happening downtown including but not limited to farmers market the literacy center lexmark children's theater opera house ruff arena uk games suite 16 and many more it also affects our downtown businesses and other communities around such as a chevy chase clay avenue south hill district woodland park holiday parades ethnic celebrations and more Lex Parks does offer hospitality house for $20, which covers parking from 2.30 p.m. to 9 a.m. every day. Unfortunately, workers who work at 2 p.m., they don't have a pass or required to move their vehicle at 4, again at 5, to abort a parking violation. A person must move their vehicle regardless of weather, rain, sleet, or snow. A person who comes to work at 8 a.m. would have to move their vehicle four times, 10, 12, 2, and 4. It appears the real purpose for time-limited parking isn't necessarily for turnover as much as it is to look for opportunities to apply fines and increase revenue. You will not only defeat your purpose of raising revenue by frustrating patrons with hard-to-follow rules, you'll hurt the very people who make downtown the thriving place it has grown to become. An article appeared in the New York Times reported on 10 cities in the U.S. that survived the COVID pandemic. One of these cities was Lexington. They didn't interview or photograph anyone from the Fayette Mall or Hamburg. They interviewed those businesses downtown. I think Vice Mayor Wu was interviewed in that article. Do you want us to go backwards? The fabric of our community is downtown, Chevy Chase, Clay Avenue, South Hill District, Manchester District, and National Avenue. Not your Fayette Malls and Hamburg and Summit. Not that we don't need them. We can go on further, but I think my time's up. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next is Richard Plymale. Welcome. I'm Dick Plimel, District 3. I'm an attorney. I lived in Lexington for 35 years, and I'm here to speak against charging any additional fees for parking. I eat downtown all the time, have for many, many years. I come downtown for all types of cultural entertainment activities, including eating. from every part of the world come to Kentucky for sports events, to buy and sell horses for concerts, and see many of our beautiful horse farms in the surrounding area of Lexington. They often drive to this city. Whether you're a foreign visitor or a sports fan from Owsley County, a horse lover, a food worker or professional who works downtown like myself, if anyone says getting a parking ticket is a pleasant experience, they're lying. It's very disheartening, and it will be for visitors and residents of the city to get one and pay a penalty for parking on a public street at night now that they've changed that. And frankly, any increase, I think, is a burden on the taxpayer. This is a mistake. Lexington will get a lot of negative reaction. And sadly, it will cause a lot of people to go to neighborhood restaurants and not come downtown and shop or eat. Yesterday, as I was thinking about the comments I might make to this council, my son called me. and lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I told him what I was doing today and he said, dad, that's crazy. He said, they tried it here in Jackson. The visitors from Yellowstone who came down to Jackson, the skiers in the winter went crazy because they got tickets and they stopped it and they'll never consider it again. So Lexington, like Jackson, Being a horse capital world is a proud, beautiful, and friendly city. It makes it less so by charging people to pay more for parking, either in the daytime or in the evening, and to pay tons of money in, they pay tons of money in other taxes. They don't need this additional tax. It would be a big mistake. If you're going to increase it, you should have a basis for the increase. There should be an audit of the parking authority, which I understand from checking with public officials has never been audited. And if that's so, it should be audited. And the audit should show what the needs are. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I have to be the referee. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Next is Carlo Vaccareza. Okay. We'll come back and see if he may have walked out. Next is Weta Michael. Welcome. Well, my name is Weta Michael and I own Zim's Cafe in the Thirsty Fox, in District 3 in the historic court house. And I'm here to speak against the extended parking hours. I do think we can compromise on meter increases for the current metered times. For me, one of the things that I want to question is why we have paid parking at all on streets in downtown Lexington. The downtown merchants and the downtown restaurants are in competition with developments on the outskirts of the city. And I know that simply because I own restaurants, I own a big restaurant in the Summit. And tomorrow, if Bear Property called me and said that all the parking at the summit was metered and going to go up, the summit would essentially crash. And what we have is that same situation downtown. We're in competition, a friendly competition, but we're in competition with all aspects of the city in order to bring our community back to the center of the city. And for decades, it was a ghost town. It took a lot of money and a lot of perseverance by every member of our community and by this council and Mayor Gordon and mayors before her, including Mayor Pam Miller, to bring this downtown area back. And now we have an extremely strong downtown, nationally recognized for coming out of COVID. And the response shouldn't be an article in the paper suddenly that says, oh, we're going to add Saturdays for metered parking. We're extended four hours into every entertainment sector to 9 o'clock at night. That sends a very negative message to our community. Not just about the charges, but it sets up uncertainty in the mind of the consumer. Should I go downtown? Do I have to park? When is there free parking? Will I have access? How much is the parking? Do I have to move my car? There are a million questions because there are a myriad of rules about parking on the streets. Garage parking is something different. You know, it's funny, in Manhattan there is no paid parking on the street. I know that because I just moved my daughter to New York City. Park on the street for free. it costs you $60 an hour to park in a garage, but street parking in Manhattan is free and you only move your car once a day to the other side of the street. It's something to consider. What would the message to Lexington be if the City Council said street parking in downtown is free? There is no charge for street parking in our downtown. That's how much we want you to be down here. That's what Fayette Mall says. That's what the Summit says. That's what Hamburg says. That's what every big development says and it's even required by planning and zoning to do. They are required to have free parking when they build something new. But we don't have the same opportunity in downtown Lexington. But we are the heart of the community. Just something to think about. Thank you. Thank you. Dave Craven? No, I may have gotten that wrong. I apologize. Cronin. Dave Cronin. Welcome. Thank you, ma'am. If I could start talking now, do I? Your three minutes is started. Yes, ma'am. Can I ask rhetorical questions or real questions? This is just for the council to hear you. All right. Anybody here have off-street parking? You all have driveways, right? I'm sorry to interrupt you. Tell me your name. Dave Cronin, 211 West Maxwell Street. Thank you. Thank you. I assume everybody here has off-street parking. You have a driveway. So my question to you is if we said all of a sudden you had to start noticing where you were parking, the meter times, now there are brackets on the street. If you're not in the bracket, Lex Park tickets you. Basically, I've been living in the same house since 1991, and Lex Park has been very, how can I put it, they've gotten ugly in regards to what they're doing. I assume that's because of revenue. So instead of saying move your car just up a little bit, get in a bracket, or your meter just slipped, they'll ticket you immediately. Is anybody here from Lex Park? Gentlemen, what do you want to talk about? sir excuse me this is a time for you to speak to council okay and let them could you ask lex park when you get a chance if they really need the revenue or or is it enforcement i think it's they need the revenue i could have off street parking but i chose to have a garden instead my wife and my daughter and i have enjoyed it over the years i'm going to have to tear down the fence and put in parking now because of these gentlemen deciding that they need the revenue, not for enforcement. So I really think that it's a misjustice. As you said, Jackson Hole and Lexington have the same vibe to it. They have no parking. I've spent summers there. You can park and move on. Here you have to make sure you have this correct or that correct or the meter doesn't reach. There are different times for the meters. Please ask Lex Park if they have any consistency at all in this, or are they just deciding that they need a money grab. I really get a sense that that's all it is. And I'm sorry to say that I'm going to have to make off-street parking in my house versus having, you know, and over-paving it when I had grass and all that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next is Trish Tungate. Welcome. I will tell you that I'm a whole lot more comfortable behind a bar than I am at a podium. Okay, if you'll give your name. If you want to order a drink, that'd be great. Name and council district. Trish Tungate, District 3. I own Minglewood downtown on Limestone, and we've been there almost seven years. This is my second restaurant in Lexington. I own one in Chevy Chase also, so I have been dealing with this parking situation from both ends for quite a while. In the last meeting, Lex Park brought up a bunch of other cities around us and near us in a similar size and whatnot that had parking things similar to us. But I found in Nashville, Louisville, Cleveland, New Orleans even, and Corpus Christi, Texas, which has a beach very near it, is free parking on the evening, free parking on the weekends, and many holidays and whatnot they have free. So these are cities that bring in a lot of tourism, which we would like to do. These are cities that have a lot of people that work in the hospitality industry and local businesses in their downtowns and whatnot that have to have parking for the people that work there, that work with those people and don't try to put a hindrance on them. I would like to see Lexington take that approach. Also, I don't know about you guys, but I am a working owner. And so I am the cook, chief water washer, psychologist, you name it. I'm there every day. And so I have to move my car three times a day. It adds up to 720 times a year that I have to move my car. It's 84 hours about a year that I'm going to spend just simply moving my car. So that's a two-week paid vacation that I don't get to go to the beach. I just then move my car. Not real fun. Also, you know, the restaurants, the community organizations, the salons, the stores, the concert places, all these places create our community and bring forth creativity in our community also. And that is so vital into creating a space where people want to come downtown, people want to come in from out of town, out of state, XYZ, and share in what we have to offer here. I think a great woman told me one time hairdressers and bartenders and servers make the world go round and our businesses and our community will move the traffic around. We don't need a parking meter to do it. Just hope that you'll consider that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next is Katherine Perkins. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Catherine Perkins, District 12. I just want to say that I am opposed to these changes, primarily because I like coming into downtown to eat, but not at 9 o'clock. and I don't like spending $20 on parking and another $100 on a meal with my husband and someone else. I'm on a fixed income, or almost am. I'm kind of unemployed, but that's neither here nor there. So I am opposed to it. I think that Lexington should welcome us downtown and those of us who contribute to the local economy instead of trying to push us away. If that's your intention, if for some reason this council feels that they don't want Lexington's taxpayers to come downtown, then go on and jack up the prices. don't give us anywhere to park or any alternative so I do ask you if you decide to adopt these new measures for parking and costs to come up with an alternative for your tax paying citizens so that we can come down and buy local eat local and be a part of the community and come to these meetings without worrying about our cars getting ticketed because sometimes these meetings are a little long-winded. I'm just saying, I've been here. Maybe not you guys, maybe you guys are really good, but planning? I mean I've been four or six hours at a planning commission meeting and it's a little, you leave and then you miss your turn to speak. Thank you for giving the citizens the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much. Lisa Cox, welcome. My name is Lisa Cox. I own Sidebar Grill. We opened in 2009. We're on North Limestone and at that time we also lived above the bar. I can't imagine having to deal with living downtown and having to pay the meter rates. It was hard enough then getting up at 8 in the morning to start paying the meter. Now paying more and starting at 9 and going until 9, it's just ridiculous. Not all of us have the luxury of committed off-street parking when we live downtown. Lex Park's solution is go to the parking garages. Now the parking garages, they raised rates on that too. I don't have the numbers in front of me. but I have lived in San Francisco and I felt more safe in San Francisco parking garages than I do in ours. I don't think they are policed as well as they could be. Sarah mentioned that someone was murdered in one about two years ago. I don't want that for me or any of my employees that may leave at night. I'm lucky at the moment. I have a lot of employees that live downtown and walk, but good luck if I need to hire anybody. They do not want to come downtown and have to pay the parking rates. so it's making an already bad situation even worse um we are i feel like we can compromise you know we all accept we have to pay until five like everybody i've talked to will accept paying a little more hourly but from five to nine is just unacceptable and the arbitrary way that they went about doing it um they say it's to justify the six percent raise on taxes and how do they justify how much more money they're bringing in than 6%. I agree that there should be an audit. The fact that they've gone this long without one is criminal. The fact that they did this without having a public hearing, if I do anything to my house, I have to go through historic preservation and have a hearing. I want to change a fence. I have to go do a hearing. Now they're making a decision that affects every citizen, every business owner, every every employee downtown, every tourist, and not in a good way. It's going to leave a really bad taste in the mouth of people that visit here that get a ticket right away. And I don't know about you guys, but how many of us are risking a parking ticket right now just by being here? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next is Brittany Miller. Welcome. My name is Brittany Miller. I am one of Debbie's front of house managers. I've been with her for seven years and I've been an employee downtown for the last 11. I would like to start off by mentioning that I have brought a petition with over 2,200 signatures in opposition to the parking changes from citizens all over Lexington. Not only employees of downtown, but residents and concerned tourists. one of the biggest issues that we're facing here is that downtown is the heart of lexington people come for the horses they stay for the food they stay for the drinks and they talk very much about how we are kind and unbelievably close to one another and the fact that a board of our government has been able to make decisions without speaking with everyone that's a part of this town and our downtown is a little hard to believe i fear that there's not enough oversight on this committee it is not transparent and it does require an audit as mr plymel mentioned one of the things that i was looking into was the ethics act that you all agree to in the first line is the proper operation of democratic government requires that public officials and employee be independent impartial and responsible to the people the government decisions and policy be made in the best interest of the people the community and the government and that the public office may not be used for personal gain and the public have confidence in the integrity of its government. And out of the over 2,000 signatures I have, the most common comments are, what is Lex Park? Who are they? Why are they making these decisions? And how can we change who's on the board? They don't have confidence in this board. they want a little bit more say than who's being elected and they want a little bit more information from them periodically in 2009 they made parking changes went from 25 cents to a dollar and when that document was released they did three different segments on their page and it went as far as one document to come in to have Gary Means personal cell phone on one of them and this time around we just got a headline saying that things were changing and I just want a little transparency a little bit more honesty from someone that's supposed to be representing me and my employment at the end of the day thank you thank you very much Carlo Vaccareza Is Carlo here? No? All right, that completes our list and I want to thank each and every one of you who testified and those of you who came to our meeting today and as many of you, I'm sorry. I know I have a problem, is it a way asking? yes if you if you would like to speak please come to the podium and state your name and your council district and you'll have three minutes tanya whitfield district one i am a mom of two beautiful princesses and we go to downtown a lot and it's just very disheartening to hear that Lex Park is going about these changes in a very inappropriate way. They're not really respecting us as citizens, as constituents, as human beings. And as we've heard, and I don't want to try to repeat anything of what other people have said, but I just know for me, I have limited resources, but I always try to do things with my daughters and to give them opportunities and to have fun and, you know, and things like that. And so being downtown is the best area. It's more convenient. but with these prices and these hikes. And I feel like it's more why it's such a bad situation because it's not about the prices. It's about the methods that they have used. And I'm just thinking in my mind, how is this legal? How is this okay? And I don't want to attack anybody because that's not who I am. But I just want the council to really look at all the information that has been said, look at all of the research and really take your time and really decide, is this a problem y'all really want to have? Because as I tell everybody all the time, I don't just look at today. I look at ahead of time, two years from now, three years from now, seven years from now. Is this really a problem that we want to have? Because it's just starting and it's already been a lot of people complaining and they have facts to back it up. They have stats to back it up. They're not just complaining because they're complaining. Like it's a real reason. And me as a mom, you know, I work hard. I'm a new college student and I'm wanting to do more in my life. And, you know, these prices are just, it's just not necessary. And so I would just say to the council to please really think about what kind of message you're sending to us as your constituents and as what you're sending to the community. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who didn't get to sign up who'd like to speak? Yes, welcome. Hi, my name is Carol Jordan, and I live in District 1. I work at the Carnegie Center and I run an after-school tutoring program downtown, which is Carnegie Center. If you don't know, it's near Gratz Park. We typically have 200 students in our after-school program during the school year. Parking has always been a bit tricky for the families and volunteers, but now it's more than just tricky and now it's expensive. Parents who bring their children for extra help, and 75% of my families are on free and reduced lunch. Now they are more burdened with the cost of parking. And virtual tutoring might be an option, but I have a background in teaching, and I can tell you that especially with elementary, in-person is far superior. The tutors are all volunteers coming to help with a struggling student in their spare time and now they are going to have to pay more or pay something. If they were coming at 530, they weren't paying at all, and now they will have to pay. And I'm already, at times, I already struggle to find volunteer tutors to come downtown, and this will directly impact that. We also house Operation Reed at the Carnegie Center. This program is through BCTC to provide English classes for immigrants and refugees. Obviously, this is a population that does not have a lot of money. The current rate is now $2 an hour, which means $4 per class, which they attend four days a week. This is $64 a month for a population who can ill afford that much. I understand that costs are going up, but have all other options been exhausted? Are there bonds or grants? Can the city give some tax money to help offset the increase? Could the city provide a zero-interest loan for specific building needs? I looked up the mission for Lex Park, and it says, Our mission is to provide, maintain, and operate adequate, high-quality, customer-focused public parking and encourage economic growth for the benefit of the residents, businesses, and visitors of Lexington Fayette County. This recent change does not adhere to that mission statement. Please consider other options before adding what is effectively a tax for doing business downtown. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak who didn't get to sign up? Yes, sir. My name is Greg Penn. I'm with Columbia Steakhouse here in Lexington. Thanks for letting me speak. without signing up anyway i just want to reiterate what all the other restaurant people have said i have owned columbia's steakhouse here in town for over 30 years and i've owned other restaurants in the city around the city for longer than that and i can tell you emphatically i can show you the numbers how that the businesses have changed and my the number one things that people tell me at my other stores that damaged it downtown but due to parking parking has always been an issue i can show you numbers from when it didn't cost as much the difference in my sales and it's a major issue with i'm sure all these restaurant people understand and it is a big big problem and i don't understand why this was done why was this not done with any of our input that's what i couldn't understand nobody asked us i don't think there's any restaurant people on the board of the lex park i mean it cost me two dollars just to come in here and come to a city government meeting what's that doesn't make sense you know we're coming down here with taxpayer money i mean it's just just crazy but it this parking is a major deal it's a major and with the cost of rents i mean fortunately i own my building but you see that's why you see restaurants switch and change and stuff like that that's a it's a big expense and i've got some tenants over my building as well and that's another issue and luckily most of my downtown people work and live down they live downtown too but if they didn't i mean that's an issue too getting people qualified people to come downtown most people don't want to come down here and their number one thing is parking yeah that's all I have and thanks for everybody that said stuff thank you very much thank you now is there anyone else who didn't get a chance to speak on this issue alright thank you to each and every one of you for coming and for your thoughtful comments council members you know that our Lex Park folks will have a presentation in just a few minutes alright We'll go right on then with our meeting. There are no zonings and no docket approval. And so if I could have a motion, please, to approve the January 17th meeting. Make the motion. Minutes. Council Member Gray moved and Council Member Fogle seconded. All right. Is there any question or comment? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. aye anyone opposed all right that motion passes there are no budget amendments and there is no for information only adjustments and so we'll go to new business could i have a motion council member plumbman moves do i have a second council member sheehan seconds council members if you have questions please log in council member sheehan I don't have a question, but I will for item I have to recuse because of my affiliation with UK. Councilmember Legree is in the same situation. Okay, so we'll have two recusals on item I, Councilmember Sheehan and Councilmember Legree. All right, Councilmember Plowman. Thank you, Mayor, and this has to do with item H. um but director conrey and i had a quick question about this has to do with the the oliver lewis way bus shelter and maybe i don't understand this and you just need to explain it to me why why would not lextran be a part of this this charge or why they would not pick it up is that something that's different so thank you council member this is part of the sunset agreement with the Oliver Lewis Way extension. Parks and Recreation was working with the designer on Davis Park. The bus shelters are with the same designer. And so we are working with Lex Tran. We're working with all of the divisions of LFUCG in engineering and environmental quality and public works. We blue-sheeted the process, again, just because we're working with the same designer for Davis Park. So this was kind of part of the whole package? when it was from the onset. Okay, I understand. Thank you, Ms. Conrad. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Monica, before you go back, if you don't mind, it says site one through four. Is that just, there's not going to be four, it's just they're trying to figure out where it's going to go? Is that what that is? There are four proposed sites along Oliver Lewis Way. One of those will be designed to a little more customization than you would see in just a standalone stop. So that is what the design element is for in this blue sheet. But there's only going to still be one? There's proposed to be four. There still will be? Okay, so there are going to be four. Okay, all right, great, thanks. And then, Mayor, aye, please. Let's see. Jim Duncan, Director Duncan, welcome. Welcome, Director. Could you tell me about what's going on with this? Because I'm on the MPO. I've been looking at this. especially for we're trying to get from down in Metathorpe to get in there, that area really needs to be changed. When you finally get across there and you get east of Versailles Road, then you have bike lanes and you have more infrastructure. But we're looking at that whole stretch all the way to UK from Metathorpe. Is that my understanding? Yes, sir. This is a study? That's right. And the study will look at the opportunities and the gaps within that corridor and provide recommendations on how, particularly in the industrial area, those pedestrian and bicycle facilities can be added or improved. That's well needed and looking forward to it because I was on it not too long ago and it is your take on your risk. When you get past Vercel's Road heading east going to Metathorpe, it is kind of dangerous. So I'm glad we're going to be doing this. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. Director Duncan on the same item. What is the time frame on that? I'm looking forward to that study and a lot of my constituents are too. do you know when it might be finished and then it would be leveraged to get the connectivity done, correct? Well, and this is just a, this will just be a planning study. So any design recommendations that come out of this would then have to go through that more capital project. But studies like this generally take about six to eight months. So I would expect before the end of the year that this study will be complete. Okay. Thank you very much. and i'm sorry um director conrad i have another question on that item h about the best shelters okay so i i was a little confused about if there was one or four as well because i was originally told there was going to be one big one there on that corner of oliver lewis and versales road so if they're going to be additional shelters is the money that we're approving just for that one shelter or is it is it going to be divided into all of them great question council member it is the design for the customizable shelter so there will be four three of those are kind of off the rack if you will the design funding that you're seeing today in the blue sheet process is for the one that will be customized okay thank you i'm very familiar with bus shelter so that's helpful thank you very much thank you mayor thank you council member baxter thank you mayor i have a walk on i moved to place on the docket of the january 31st 2023 council meeting a resolution accepting a memorandum of agreement with the fraternal order of police town branch lodge number 83 representing the corrections officers and sergeants in the division of community corrections to increase base salaries and address retention issues so moved thank you council member ellinger seconded any questions or comments i believe you received an email about this last week all right all those in favor say aye is anyone opposed all right that motion passes is there anything else on new business all those in favor of passing new business as amended please say aye Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, and we had those two recusals on aye. Thank you, that passed. And now we'll go on to our continuing business and presentations. And first is Neighborhood Development Funds. Moved and approved India. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger moved. Council Member Plowman seconded. Are there questions, comments, or amendments? Seeing none, all those in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Now I'd like to welcome Gary Means of the Lexington Fayette County Parking Authority to give a presentation. And Jim Frazier, welcome both of you. Good afternoon, counsel. I am Jim Frazier, chair of the Lexington Parking Authority. With me is Kenton Ball, who is the vice chair, and Mr. Means is our executive director. Believe it or not, we look forward to the opportunity to talk to you, to let you know who we are, what we've done, and where we're headed. Mr. Means has prepared a slideshow for you to walk through, and he'll have all the information. Any questions, of course, we'd be glad to ask or answer if we can. I will tell you that the overarching things you're going to hear are all centered around safety and security and efficient parking, which is why we're here and I think what we have done. And I think the pictures will bear out that. Mr. Means. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. so what you'll see in this presentation that we're going to give is we're going to walk through basically three phases the parking authority's creation we were just an on-street organization until 2012 then we shift into sort of a safety liability risk management phase and then we'll bring it up to current pretty much why we're here today to talk about impacts and reasons for the decisions that we've made so there's a lot of questions about the makeup of the parking authority we'll talk about the creation in just a minute but i wanted to show this org chart so whichever way you're looking at it the the section on the left is the parking authority so we have the lexan and fayette county parking authority six commissioners and there are four of us on staff that work directly for the parking authority then we use a management contractor that's everything to the right side of to run the Lex Park program. And so here I'll also say there's confusion about Lex Park. Is that a company? No, it's a program. It is the downtown parking program of the parking authority, which was created by the city. So going back to the history, why was there ever even this idea of a parking authority? And this all happened outside of our involvement and purview back then. And before, all things parking was kind of broken out into five different divisions. Police clearly did enforcement. Nowadays, they don't do as much enforcement on the meters, but they do other enforcement on on-street. Division of Revenue, collections of the meters and permits that are purchased. General services had the garages. Traffic engineering would spec where on-street spaces should go. And most importantly, they helped with the residential permit parking program, which I might add, you'll see a whole lot of before and after as we go through this. But one of the best things council ever put together, and we haven't made many changes to, is the residential permit parking program. It works really well if you're in a neighborhood that has overflow parking issues. And then computer services basically was the database management of citations, license plates, and would send out delinquent notices. All of that plus the significant cost of an annual subsidy by council to really for the garages in the most part. There were a lot of deficiencies back then, a lot of lack of upgrade to the program, lack of public compliance, lack of strategic planning, and really the no coordinated management is where this next slide comes into play. So the rationale for creating the parking authority really happened. In 2005, the city council saw a presentation from some mayor staff and some of the staff of different departments and divisions. And really, the idea is to create the single focus on parking, basically put everything up under one umbrella, minimize political involvement, create an enterprise fund is a good way to kind of give it an example, dedicate parking funds to parking improvements. And then parking should be self-supporting. And you'll see why that's super important as we move on. This next two slides kind of says here's what we do and here's what we don't do, especially in light of the on-street and this section of the phase that we're in. We all know about enforcement. We've been talking about that in meters. But manage a meteor bagging program. We have an appeals process where if you feel like you were wrongfully cited, we have volunteer hearing officers. That program also was created by the city and then handed over to us when it was created, where you would get unbiased judgment on your appeal, and then customer service. And, of course, as I mentioned, the residential permit parking zones and districts, which there are now 48. I think there was around 30 when we took over, and we've added about 12 to 18 since then. This is what we don't do. So a lot of times the word authority sounds bigger than maybe it really is. We don't patrol any private lots. We don't write citations for parking in yards. That's always the police. They have the right to go on to private property. We do not. We don't have any control of other entities and elicit. Some of them there sometimes gets confused. So this brings us to 2012 when city council decided to transfer the garages. And this is really where a shift kind of comes into play related to the parking authority in safety, liability, risk management. So there are four garages that were transferred. The ownership of the Helix, the Transit Center Garage, and Victorian Square went to the parking authority. The courthouse is still under a financing program through the city and AOC, but we manage that garage. So we try to have a unified Lex Park management brand on all four. Right before we took over the garages, we hired our own engineering firm to do assessments. So what are we getting ourselves into? How bad are these garages? You might have heard us talk, some have been around a while. We'll throw out the $6 million loan that we took out in the very beginning. That's what made up that loan. And take note, the top and the middle lines, the Helix garage was definitely in the worst condition. And you'll see some photos here. All in, we probably spent $3.5 million because parks, the middle line, that stands for parking access revenue control systems. All the gate equipment that we took over was out of date, so we had to upgrade that. which is extremely expensive. So that's where we first started in the garage world. That's a picture of rebar in the back, only as a reminder that we have put a ton of new rebar. And for people that don't understand why is it so expensive to take care of garages, when that stuff starts rusting in the concrete, concrete starts popping loose and things get really dangerous. So this is what the Helix garage looked like when we took it over. A lot of you remember those posts that used to prop up the Helix ramp. And it was like this throughout, and this is why that particular garage took at least $3 million just to get it safe. Our board members were very, very cautious when we took over. Even one didn't even want to take the garages and said, why don't the city fix it up first? But we knew with the revenue stream from the meters that we'd be able to pay that loan off at some point. Water getting into concrete is the big problem. So this is kind of a before and then after we put a membrane, probably of that $3 million, probably nearly 30-40% was all down on the roof because it was just in really bad condition. And then that membrane helps protect it and give it some more life. This garage was built in the 60s. But when we got finished, it still was this ugly looking garage on Main Street. And so we put money into it. And we'll talk about that slide on the right here in a minute. Also, lighting upgrades were badly needed. This is an example of how it looked when LFUCG was running it, how it looks after we took over. And then just recently, we're kind of moving into our current scenarios, and I'll get close to wrapping up here really soon. The stairwell in the Transit Center garage has been deteriorating badly over the years. That garage was built around 1990, and those stairs had metal on the bottom. It's rusting out. You can see it in those pictures. We had to spend over $300,000 just this last fall to put in a material that won't rust. And really a lot of this, try not to be gross, is body fluids that have soaked into the concrete, created this rust scenario. And our customers that park in that garage have had to carefully step over or take their walk to work in an unsafe manner. So we spent that money just recently to fix up those garage stairs. We talked already about concrete and steel, and that was a piece of the safety that we were looking at. But now you all know downtown has a different sort of safety alert that we all share that we want our downtown to be successful. And so we are now looking at a smart camera system that will help us do things like identify a difference between a person, a vehicle. Is there a congregation getting ready to happen in a certain spot? It can send off alerts. That's a great thing, and it can give us 24-7 surveillance and alerts and alarms. and we're excited to keep exploring. It's something we are going to do. Our board's committed to it. But we also have to have security personnel. And so in a go forward, we're going to be spending over $150,000 annually for security personnel, and that's just in two garages. So again, kind of wrapping up the previous section of what we did when we rolled out the Lex Park program, I wanted to stop here and emphasize turnover is important. We still feel like turnover is important. Any comments about where we went from two to four hours in the five to nine period or the Saturday was really because that particular scenario that people would bring up is you can't do a dinner and a show at the Opera House or dinner and a game. And so we felt like since those periods had been free and you could stay pretty much as long as you wanted, that was why we made that concession. But basically, through all the work that we've done, the garages are now safe. There's no more shoring posts. We've also rolled out a lot of technology. I won't go through all those. But some of the cool things that we've done, besides we were one of the early cities in the United States to have a mobile app back in 2011. We put in credit card accepting meters back in 2011. Online reservations. If you're going to go to a game or a concert, you can go online and get a reservation for parking and know that your parking is taken care of before you even get down here. And then one of the real leading technologies we put in, a gateless technology in the transit center garage, which is kind of a free flow. The term frictionless comes up a lot. And I know the monthly parkers there enjoyed being able to get home from work quicker. Speaking of turnover, one of the things that we knew early on when we, this goes back years ago, you see on the first bullet point, we've had this in place since 2015. We first started having consultants tell us about if you want to stay financially viable, one of the things you can do is extend your hours. And we knew that there were a lot of people that parked in meters and we created this. It wasn't really taken advantage of until just recently, really, because you could pull in. If you had a three o'clock shift, you could pull in, pay two hours at a meter, and then stay there the rest of the night. Most of those meters were pretty full with people who work downtown. And I would have done the same thing. I understand why they did that. But that also takes away spaces from customers. And so that's why we still go back to turnover is important. But this is a great rate. We have a $90 garage that you can park for 20 a month if your schedules work like that. Debbie Long mentioned earlier 2.30 set 3 o'clock start time is not set in stone. We really do want to work with the hospitality workers and for folks who brought up living downtown we also can extend this program to folks who live downtown. But it really allows for street parking to be more for customers. The idea of even having to move your vehicle every two hours has never been what meters are about and if you did that and you paid for all that you'd spend way more money than like the courthouse garage is only $75 a month and you can stay there as long as you want. The hospitality program is great. We've added 44 since the announcement of this change. That takes us up to 75. So if you really think about it, 44 employees who probably were staying in meters have now found a very inexpensive safe place to park at $20 a month. We want to remind everyone that we do care about downtown. We do care about people. We have a lot of programs that we've done over the years, and this is one of the most famous nationwide, actually, internationally. But in the nine years, we've collected over 30 tons of food. We also have made major investments in the community and public art, and we have reinvested over the period of the existence of the parking authority, $15 million, in the garages and other parking programs to make downtown better. the public art that we funded on our facilities the helix garage facade you saw the picture a minute ago we also have done on the victorian square garage a new sign and some lighting and then the pedway lighting all of that is over 1.1 million and you know the helix garage was voted one of the top 10 garages in the united states on an online poll you see its pictures all over the place. And another way we want to share that we've been supportive of our downtown. We all go to the restaurants. We love downtown. We love our restaurants. We love the people that work there. And when COVID kicked off, we were one of the first cities. I sat on Zoom calls with people who run parking all over the United States asking me, how did you guys do these pick up and drop off spaces so quickly? Well, it's because they didn't have a parking department that would have had to come sit in front of you and say, we need to change something in our ordinances to be able to make this happen. Our board was able to be nimble and make a decision. And the total amount with all the different spaces that we did for the restaurants was over $250,000 during that whole pandemic period. And of course, we don't want to harbor this because we all, every business suffered, everybody struggled with the pandemic, but we did lose over $3.1 million during the pandemic. The farmer's market topic came up a lot early on and there was some misunderstandings. and we have met with Josh. Josh and I have talked over the years and get along well and worked through problems. And so what we've done, and we wanted to make sure you all knew that, item number two was a validation program. We already had one in place. We're going to continue it where a customer going to the farmer's market can get a heavily discounted rate at the Victorian Square Garage. The farmers, item number one there is about the farmers who need to unload because they have a pavilion booth and then go park somewhere and sometimes it's an oversized truck or a truck and trailer. They can't get into a garage. We're working out parking arrangements for them at their request. They showed us where they like to park. We're going to make that happen. And then the winter market was something I didn't realize was going on. You may come down to the winter market and just want to jump out, grab some kale, and head off. We added two pick-up and drop-off spaces, and we'll be working with them to get that to happen there on Short Street. I'm so sorry. I know you just have basically your conclusions. Your time, that little beeping was the time. And so, Council, would you like to give a little bit more time for the presentation? Will three minutes be enough, Mr. Means? Is three minutes enough? Yes, yes. We can make a motion that we give Mr. Means three more minutes. So moved. All right. Council Member LaGree seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. Okay. We've got two no votes, Councilmember Gray and Councilmember Fogel. All right. You have three more minutes. Thank you. I'm sorry. So there will be probably three slides so we can do this. There are four major drivers that caused the catalyst for the recent changes. I want to remind you, top two bullet points, we received no taxpayer revenue and street parking subsidizes the garages. So UK LFUCG land swap, it was an impact. State sales tax, an impact. Security costs going up, an impact. And inflation, we all deal with it, but nevertheless, inflation is an impact, and all construction going forward is going to cost more because of that. I want to jump to this slide, which is really what I think at the heart of, what did you guys think this was going to make money-wise, and where is it going? So outside of we spend anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million a year working on the garages, is we think that the meter hours and the meter rate increases is right around 300,000. We also are losing about 300,000, and our most recent November and December numbers are saying that's going to be more than 400,000 from the UK LFUCG land swap. So part of this whole discussion starts with how do we replace that 300,000 to keep doing and keep keeping them safe. And then we have new, the software for the new cameras and additional personnel, and you can see by the red at the bottom, it still doesn't really cover what we're trying to do. And it's an estimate. So those numbers can be argued. I'm going to let our chair come up and close this out, and we'll be finished and get out of here. And, Mr. Means, can you provide the slides that weren't in the packet to me and the council? Stacey has the new one, and so she can send it on to everybody. Thank you. There's a minute 22. I'm looking at it, Mayor. I got it. I got it. Just to reiterate, first of all, we are audited every year by an outside accounting agency. We move that, we bid that out annually so we don't get too comfortable with our auditors. It's not good business practice. That audit is performed. It is on the website. It's open to the public. It's not hidden in some vault somewhere. So anybody can see it who wants it. So it is done annually. We operate very lean and very nimble. We don't have any extravagant lunches, dinners. We don't travel. If Mr. Means goes somewhere, he has to get approval from the board to attend a conference. I personally look at every one of his vouchers. So we are very good stewards of this revenue, and it's what it is. And the biggest takeaway from this is the garages are cleaner, they're safer, they're brighter. They've become an icon for a lid shirt out of Visit Lex for our Helix garage because of those of us who live through the tragedy of the Chase Bank building, when I was there, when that happened, that young woman died. You know, we didn't want that happen on our watch and the fact that in the BB&T, but for the grace of God, someone could have been killed there last winter during the COVID or during the snow. So Gary's covered all the points and obviously we're very proud of the work. We are unpaid volunteers and we are proud of what we've done. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much to both of you. And we do have several council members with questions. So we'll roll through those. and first is council member Ellinger. Thank you mayor. Mr. Means could you go just for everybody what the changes were made in this last on hours and costs and all that do you have that broken down for us please? Sure so the in a nutshell enforcement at meters used to be Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. We've gone to Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Then we adjusted. Some of the areas are already four-hour limits. Some of the areas are two-hour limits. But everywhere, after 5 p.m. till 9 and all day Saturday, is a four-hour limit now so people can still conduct what they're doing. And I will say, too, that at the Saturday, four hours is only going to be $4. You're not going to find any surface lot or garage that's going to be less and now those spaces will be available because we're creating turnover. Those are the main changes. The increases, we used to have a 50-cent an hour area, a dollar an hour area, and a dollar 50. That went to 75 cents, a dollar 50 an hour, and two dollars. Generally, the highest densest area working out to the least parked areas, and that included the sales tax on that. So of a 50-cent, say from the dollar to the dollar 50, that's a 50-cent. in a $2 charge, that's 12 cents tax when we're getting the rest of that. And I think the big issue here is the time changes that we've had. Mr. Barber, I've asked you to come up here and kind of tell us. I think I was actually the only person on the council in 2012 when this actually went in. And I know that besides the mayor, Mayor, you're here. Yes, you're here. But you're not on the council now. I was then. You were then. And we made some changes that I think were necessary, and you all have done a good job for us. But I am concerned about the time change, and I think everybody out here has proved that they are concerned, too. Could you explain to us and the public with what happened in 12 and what our authority is now and how we go about if we don't like the changes, what can be done? Sure. So good afternoon. So you all created the parking authority, and I think there's also maybe a state statute that you can utilize to go ahead and create one. I think they did a good job of explaining the history. And ultimately, as it currently stands, this is codified. I think it's in Chapter 2 of the Code of Ordinances. There's a section on it, and it's pretty brief, and it explains what their powers, duties, and authorities are. And right now they have the authority carte blanche to set all of their hours and the rates and things like that. Now, because you all created them and because it's a creature of an ordinance, you all could step into that situation if you wanted to and probably regulate them more than you are now. Understanding that any kind of regulation you put on them is probably going to result in some sort of impact. And my guess would be it would be a cost impact. So I think one of the reasons we originally, you know, transferred this authority to them was because we were not a very good steward of doing any of this ourselves. And I think generally speaking, they've probably done a pretty good job of it. But if you start to get into that business of regulating them, I think there's probably going to be an impact. It's probably going to be a cost impact. And at some point in time, they're probably going to be looking to you all to supplement whatever that cost impact ends up being. Thank you. That's a good synopsis. Mr. Means, my time's running quick, so I only get five minutes. I'll probably come back for five more. What are the costs? Because I think the big issue here is the after 5 o'clock and the Saturday. What is that, Con? If we tried to work out some agreement, not that I'm going to speak for everybody, but try to work out something that we helped with fund balance or something that could help pay or to subsidize you all, because I think that's where the big issue is. The last thing I want to do, we've done a good job of getting people downtown. I don't want to now, after we've done this, got through the pandemic and now all of a sudden, now people are going to come down because they're going to be fearing about having to pay to park to come down where they're used to come down just to see our downtown. What are those costs? So in that slide that I had two or three from the end, we anticipated the rate increase and the hours to be about $300,000. So if you just talked about the hours around 150,000 is what, but this is all an estimate because none of us know how we're all coming out of the pandemic. We could be low. We could be high on what that is, but that's an estimate of what the hours we anticipate would get us. You know, I know you're asking this, but on a larger scale, we've done the math. If all on-street parking was free, you all would probably have to cut us a check for about $2 million a year to continue to do the things that we're doing in the garages. and and i don't want to do two million but the 150 000 is something that is doable for the government because i think a lot of people have gotten used to having the hours after five and we maybe we can make it to after six i mean we could we could have a little hybrid there but i think people have gotten used to that and especially on saturdays too we we want to promote getting people downtown we want to do anything that's going to hinder that i have one question i'm running out of time i think or did my time run out mayor yeah it's my time okay i will come back Yes, Mayor, I do. Thank you. All right. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. And thank you for all the restaurant and hospitality folks that have come out today. I was very lucky to be part of this hospitality and restaurant community for years. And I understand how hard this business is. We're a business of, I say we, you all are a business of thin margins. and any little thing that happens is, you know, tough to get through. We talk about the rejuvenation of downtown. The people that spoke today are the survivors of the last two, three years of COVID. We're not hearing from the people that have closed and shut down. So I have a lot of sympathy for these business owners, not just restaurant folks, but retail folks as well. and all of your workers. So this whole situation concerns me on a bunch of different levels, and I think a lot of the focus has been on the number of hours of enforcement. We just went from 45 to 72 hours of enforcement. That's 60% increase like that, on top of the also that the rate increases as well. And I think that's been a big part of the criticism. It felt very drastic. So I have a few questions, starting with that one. Why was the decision to make that big of a jump that fast? Why not something a little bit more incremental over the course of years, ease into it? Sure. So something about that increase is you can't do the math based on all hours all occupied. So the actual projection, when our first consultant told us back in 2015 that this would be one way to help you all be sustainable is about a 37 percent increase that gets us to about that 300,000 figure at that point. There is, you know, these comments about reaching out. There are times where if you're thinking about something like if we want to rename the Victorian Scorer Garage to something cooler, that'd be a great opportunity for public input, and we would welcome that. In this case, we had planned to do it in 2019, held off for the pandemic, saw that things were coming back, but the UK LFUCG land swap was also right on our doorstep. We're already seeing, like I said, the November and the December numbers are down about 37,000. It's going to be over 400,000. And so it was really a matter of it's time to do it. We've been talking about for a while and we just need to do it. It's not really a, in our case, it wasn't an up for discussion scenario, although we realized there were some situations that maybe we weren't thinking about that whole dinner and a show. So we made some compromises to get that four-hour time limit made. Yeah, that leads into my second question. I mean, when you all had the public sort of hearing or public meeting about that, that was called very quickly. From my point of view, that was put together because there was so much pushback, because there was so much resistance and antipathy towards this move. And so you say that, you know, this is not sort of something that has an input process to it, that it's just like you all figure out you need to do it and you go and do it. Well, when that input process happened from that meeting and the public came out and spoke, you all made some changes right there at that meeting. So I feel like there's got to be some level of you do respond to that public pressure, right? Because you could very easily also say, doesn't matter what the rest of you are talking about, this is just how we run things and this is our need and we do it. So there is that responsiveness built in. Why couldn't that responsiveness have been built in on the front end to get the engagement of all these business owners and workers who are impacted by this? I don't necessarily have an answer for that other than what I've already said, just the timing of things and that we knew we were up against the wall and we needed to make some changes. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I think from the response and from what the audience, we've already had public input. I think we've got a problem. Everybody acknowledges that. I'm glad to hear that you do have a financial audit. I thought you did have. I would like to have a copy of the last two years. I guess we'd go through our office to do that. I didn't go on website to get one. I didn't think there was any reason, except now we've got this turmoil, so to speak, because I would like to see the asset values and how your cost centers are. And I would hope that you would have a cost center for each garage. I don't know if you do, Mr. Means, if you have a cost center for each garage on the revenue for a particular garage and the cost and expenses incurred with that particular garage. I think that would be interesting to see. I'd like to see the occupancy of those garages, that information back, so that we can maybe evaluate, do we need all those garages in this city? I don't know whether we do or not. I understand this corporation owns these garages, and, you know, tearing a garage down some of the major cities, they're doing it, and then rebuilding a particular garage that has more spaces or is more cost conscious. And then I'd like to see on the audited statement, I'm sure I can see what your debt situation is as to bonding or whatever you've done there. Also, can you break down any expenses and revenues associated with areas of the city or streets of the city? In particular, I hate to see, I go out to Chevy Chase. I hate to see parking out there, meters and everything. I think that ought to be free parking out there because to me that's not downtown city. But that's me personally. But there's got to be a revenue and expenses attributed to particular areas, but I don't know if you have that information from your computers. But if we could have that. Obviously, it's an inconvenience more than anything. As part of the problem that we've got is an inconvenience for a lot of people to come downtown and have to worry about parking and moving their vehicles. and what I have to do if it's not free after five, and what I have to do if I'm going to this particular place or not. And I think we need more info. And I don't guess it's an appropriate time because there's other council members who want to speak. But I'd like to put this in committee and get some of my answers and be able to look at that because there's one thing here that maybe nobody spoke to. We have people that come down here and spend money, and if they don't come down and spend money anymore, it affects the net profits that we get taxes off of in the city. So, you know, we've got to look at that. And perhaps, Mayor, if we look at all that and get some numbers together, we may have to subsidize some of this because we've got, you know, this parking is a major problem on downtown. And we can deal with that. I'm sorry. I need to ask you all please not to respond. It takes time. Well, it's a council rule, Mr. Brown. I'm the one that has to enforce those rules. That's all I have. I just really think, I don't know if somebody else makes a motion, But I think we need to go to committee with it, really do. Thank you. And digest all this. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Laguerre. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to everyone who's come out to speak. We have so many downtown stakeholders here and so many people who want our downtown to thrive, to continue to thrive. And I really appreciate the comments being made about the fabric of our community and our shared interest when it comes to safety and vitality downtown. This is obviously an issue that means a lot to our community as a whole. And I also want to thank you all for providing some additional financial modeling in this presentation. Vice Mayor Wu asked a question that was on my mind when it came to How much revenue is being forecasted out for fee increases and then how much with extension of hours. Something that I'm thinking about and the vice mayor gestured toward in a way, as did council member Fred Brown, is this idea of what would this look like in actuality beyond modeling? And is there any kind of possibility of doing a tiered roll out, finding out how much money could be made from fee increases alone versus evening hours or Saturday hours? And so that's something that's still on my mind. I'm not sure, council member, if you are entering this into committee, but I guess we'll find out at the end of our comments. My understanding, and I want to make sure that these numbers are correct from the presentation, is that it sounds like from the UK land swap, there's a forecasted loss of $300,000 to $400,000. And that the 6% taxation due to House Bill 8 that our legislature passed, that that will cost about, potentially about $250,000. Is that accurate? Okay. And then I've also heard that there are 2,500,000 of slated improvements to garages upcoming. Is that inclusive of the camera system and security or those capital improvements? Thank you. That is not the camera, but it is capital improvements, mostly structural. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood all of the numbers that we are going through. I hear a lot of concerns about the impact to ease of access downtown. And a lot of feedback and concern shared about the cost of accessing our downtown. And my hope is that if there is some kind of additional compromise or some kind of middle ground or a tiered approach that could be taken, that that would be explored. I know some commenters have talked about this in relation to a council decision, but it's my understanding that this is a Lexington Parking Authority Board decision. And I also would like to see some more exploration of issues like what you shared with the farmers market. As people are saying, we have barriers to access to things that are really special to our downtown. I hope that we can look for some additional compromises like what you shared with the farmers market. And I believe that was an addition to this presentation that wasn't in our packet. So I appreciate that update. And I also, if possible, would like some more information about what you brought up for opening garages and the hospitality rate to downtown residents, because that's a question that I'm getting a lot. What about our residents who live downtown, whose livelihoods are affected by the increase in hours of meter parking? What are our solutions? So those are my comments and I think we all really want a safe and vital downtown. And my hope is that where parking plays into it, we'll do everything we can to support our businesses and our business owners, many of whom are here today. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for the presentation and being willing to come before us to give us this presentation. I can honestly say that I'm a person that used to live downtown and walk everywhere. I am now a person that lives near downtown and does not always park here. I park at meters. I park in all the garages. And so I'm very familiar with the parking situation and also the local business situation and the restaurant environment because I frequent almost all of the businesses that are represented here today. So I do feel that I have a grasp on what's going on and I understand everybody's frustration and that we're in a pickle. I think my biggest concern as we talk about this parking is I feel like expectations were not managed. And I am very straightforward, and I will just tell my constituents what's happening, even if it's not positive, because I want them to understand what is going to unfold instead of be upset and reactionary to something that is put on them. So I think that there is more room to compromise still in this situation. I appreciate the compromises that have already been met, but I think that there's still more room to compromise and that we should have been engaging the local business owners and residents in this process from the beginning. And so I'm really disappointed that that did not happen. And I'm glad that we're here now and that we're all having this conversation, but I think it's really important that we listen to each other. And to your all's point, I think, you know, we're concerned about the garages. I feel much safer in the garages than I used to. And I feel like a lot of those improvements and the money that's gone to those improvements has been extremely helpful. And now we're talking people are concerned about the garages and some of the things that have happened over the past two years. And I think that these cameras would be super helpful in addressing those security concerns. So how do we balance, the question is, in my opinion, how do we balance this need for security to make the garages safer and the increased fees and times over the weekend? I don't know what the answer is, but I feel like there's enough smart people in the room that we could come to some sort of a solution as to how to do that. I don't know if it's getting a grant for the cameras or what, but I do not agree with this largely expanded time in Lexington for where we are right now to support the businesses that we have right now. Yes, downtown is busy. We want to keep it that way. But a lot of that movement in the evening is from young folks and not to families going out to eat. I know personally if I want to get a drink or a coffee, I don't want to pay for two hours at a meter extra money for one drink to meet my friend at a local business. I'm not a person that can afford that frequently. So I just think that we need to take that into consideration as we move forward. And if it means putting it in committee, if it means having more of these conversations, I just hope that the board will be open to all the feedback that you've heard today. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Mr. Means, thank you very much for presenting. I just have some, I'd love to get just a 30,000 foot level of the general finances. So if you don't mind, so everyone knows kind of generally how much, like what your budget is for on-street parking, what your budget is for the garages, and then kind of how your expenses run out. And then basically what, you know, your capital improvements and, you know, basically kind of a quick cash flow high level. Sure. So pre-pandemic, we were headed towards clipping the $5 million mark total before the pandemic. Our budget for that fiscal year was $5. It's about half on street, half off street. The garages, we had one of the garages, the KU bill was $4,000 for a recent month. So the garages have a lot more expenses, and so they don't net. And the question that Council Member Brown had about it is kind of eye-opening. Some garages lose money just in operations. The Victorian Square garage is a profitable garage. But we were surplusing around $700,000 out of that figure. So of $700,000, we've been typically spending anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million in structural repairs. Some of that's coming out of funds that we'd already built up. So if we even continue on that path, at some point we're dwindling down what reserves we have. So then when you add in that slide, basically, if you start to show the impact of these new four things that we're dealing with, then we're going to quickly run out of funds to keep doing what we do in the garages. So in a nutshell, that $700,000 surplus mostly is on street. It is less expensive to operate meters. They generate more money. that's a simple asset compared to a parking structure. Does that help? Does that make sense? Yeah. In a nutshell. That's good, yeah. And I do agree with Councilman Fred Brown that we probably, the more information we have, more in detail, it will at least help us figure out if there is a way for us to help you, it might help us. So more data is definitely helpful. And I appreciate your guys' time. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Gray. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a comment, per se, but I am definitely in agreement with my colleague, Council Member Fred Brown, and to move it to, we need more information to make a solid decision. But what I feel, you all are a community partner, correct? And I feel that the manner that this has gone about, that partnership was definitely missing. Part of a partnership is making sure we're all at the table making the decision. And with this decision, it seems that the community has been left out. Those who would be particularly harmed, or harmed is what the case says. And from my standpoint, is that you're not a good partner right now. And I agree that we should come back to a committee and have more information so we can make a better decision about the constituents of Lexington. That is all. Thank you, Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Means, for your presentation. Just a couple of questions. I would like to hear more about the security cameras, their placement, and what all they will be, how they will be utilized. I think our specs, we walk through the garages and look for blank areas that weren't covered by the cameras that we had. I think we're looking for somewhere around 140-something total cameras. that smart technology that they deploy will be able to give us alerts if there's congregation going on if it looks like something's getting ready to happen or in other words it's an artificial intelligence that says well if somebody gets out of their car and walks through that's not an alert but somebody stops or a congregation starts happening that's an alert so it enhances just what a basic camera would do so there's the initial outlay and what causes a lot of that expense is running all the conduit and cabling to the cameras. Cameras are actually pretty inexpensive. And then the software layered on top of that will be an ongoing software subscription like most of us deal with with different softwares. So there's the plus half a million to put out this system and then there'll be an ongoing subscription fee to move forward. I would still say that it's as everyone deals with labor shortages and we have to supplement anything we do with real security personnel and we will continue to do that. There's no way we can have like a 24-7 coverage. So we really feel like this gives us, you know, all the nooks and crannies are being looked at by smart cameras. Does that help you a little bit? Yes, that is helpful. So have you all, are you working on protocols and procedures when you see a group of people congregating, you know, so what will happen when the camera picks it up? What will happen? We haven't worked through those. We want to get the system specced in place, select an operator or manufacturer to do the install, and then we'll scope out that. We plan to meet with the police. We want to talk about, you know, where would, if a first call comes to us and we see it's something that our team isn't well equipped to deal with, then being able to get on the hotline and get some police to help. Sometimes it's just, you know, you walk up and say, hey, you guys need to move along. But sometimes it's something a little bit more than that, and we would need police backup or something like that. So we'll work through protocols, and those are things that we just need to see what it's really going to be totally capable of doing, and then we'll work through that process. I look forward to hearing more about these cameras as well and that process, those protocols you all establish, so that we can let our constituents know about the changes that will be going on in the parking garage. And just lastly, I would just like to comment that as a person who works downtown every day, I feel and have heard the comments from my patrons that come to the Carnegie Center, and I worry about our low-income folks that can't afford to pay it now, and my seniors that come and take our classes every day that honestly have a hard time figuring out how to use the parking kiosk. We try to take extra effort and pace to make sure that our senior population, older population, can be able to park comfortably and understand everything. So I look forward to getting more data and talking about this with my colleagues in committee, making some good recommendations about what's best for our community. Because we want to continue to have a thriving downtown. It's very important for all ages. Thank you. I totally agree. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I'm not going to continue to beat you up, but I thank you for your presentation. I thank the community for your presentation. I'm just going to talk about some things that's really simple. People talked about barriers, and I represent First District. I'm a working class poor person myself, and my district is poor, one of the poorest districts. But we're the highest population that goes to court. Already going down there to pay a fine or getting ready to get incarcerated. So that parking fee is going to be very difficult for folks to achieve to pay. And then the weekends. I'm just thinking about the summer. When we can't afford, because I have 11 grandchildren, and we can't afford to go to the pools, we go down and get in the fountain. Now, by your cost, we're not going to be able to afford to get in that fountain if I have to park and pay every time I go down on Saturdays. Saturdays, and folks go to church downtown, and they're going to have to pay to go to church. You know, they already got a gift collection. And so that's going to be a hardship. I'm just thinking about the hardship for, I represent the people. I'm not the politician. Somehow they looked up and voted me in. And I'm just an average person. But I do represent and I feel the pain. And so I wanted to just bring that up. And if we're here to build relationships, the mayor talks about it all the time. We're thriving in Lexington. We want to be seen and heard. Barrier on top of barrier on top of barrier. Now, not only do we have to worry about paying rent, electric, our gas, co-pays, now we got to worry about paying the meter. I like Columbia Steakhouse. I can't always afford to go in there. But when I save up my money, I don't want to have to worry about if I eat too slow, because I do chew ten times. But if I eat too slow and I come out and then I got a ticket. So most of the time, people are just not going to pay the ticket and then it'll build up and it'll build up. Now we got a warrant for our arrest. I mean, it's just complicated. And so I just wanted to bring it to your attention. I just want you to feel the impact. So I agree with the CMs here on this shoe and And would like to just plus one with CM Brown and what he said. And just get more information. And I just, I want all of Lexington to enjoy it. It just seems like, I don't even know how much income tax you all will be paying. And do we benefit as the city for all this money that you guys are going to make in the parking? I don't know. I'm new. I'll ask them. They'll tell me. So I withdraw that question from you. But I told you I'm not the average council person. But, you know, we got, I just passed down on Main Street, and they were already putting that ice skating ring up. And people come down and they pay for that. And there's so much going on. We have events at the courthouse when the sheriff's department has that domestic violence. Now we got to pay to go down. That's going to take people away. hey, they're not going to attend these events or support these events. I am really nervous about this new process. And people just want to be heard and want to be seen. And when you exclude them, you exclude us. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Gary, for the presentation. I remember when we did the land swap, the UK Cold Street land swap, and found out after the fact that it was going to have a negative impact on your budget. I think this year is the first year it's going into effect and you're actually starting to fill it. So I have concerns about that because I understand it. The other thing is, I thank you to all the business owners, all the employees, all the residents that live downtown for coming and sharing your concerns and ideas about ways to do this differently. I think there's an opportunity to address several things. I think there's opportunity to address the public input and engagement strategy with how the parking authority goes forward. I think there's also an opportunity to maybe go back and revisit some of the changes that you're proposing or are going to go into effect soon. In the presentation, it actually mentioned warnings are being issued for six weeks. Is that something that was communicated to the public on the front end, or is that something that the authority did as a reaction to kind of phasing these changes in? Typically, when we've rolled out something new, a new meter system or meters in an area where there weren't, we'll usually write warnings for a certain period of time. So we had already planned to do six weeks of warnings. And so whenever we've written a citation, we'll put a warning on that vehicle in these extended hours. And then if that same plate is seen again in nonpayment, it'll be an actual citation. So if you just say we're writing warnings for six months, it could lead people to believe that you can just get all the warnings you want. That won't be the way it works out. But we didn't make that announcement. What we are using, we have a little warning slip that gives information, and we have been writing warnings since January 3rd. Okay. And I understand why you wouldn't want to say that up front, But I think it's important for people to know that you are taking these concerns into consideration. The other thing I think was missed and I think a lot of folks are taking advantage of now and are happy to hear is about the benefit for the parking garage, the $20 for a month. I think that's a big benefit that people didn't know about and hopefully addresses some of the concerns. I know council members have talked about putting this in committee. I'm interested in seeing how the parking authority is going to react to the comments that they heard before and that they heard today. I think they have a meeting coming up in February. I think if they're going to maybe react and take a look at addressing some issues and maybe altering their policies going forward, then maybe we don't need to put it in committee and react. And if we do put it in committee and start to look at the board and the makeup and the representation, do they have the authority to potentially create a spot to represent downtown businesses, whether it's retail or restaurant community? I'd have to look at that. But, I mean, I think that they would probably be receptive to some changes like that. But we'd have to go back and look at the ordinance. I suspect it can be changed to add members if that's what you're talking about. And it's normally not a problem to designate some background that the member might have to have. Okay. If that's something that they can do internally, I would encourage you to take a look at it and see if that's something that you're interested in doing. The other thing that I would also encourage is I think, I know you've mentioned that y'all had bought $6 million in the past. And I think we are appreciative of the parking authority being proactive to do the maintenance that you're doing on the garage. The last thing we will want is to have incidents happen in the parking authority garages that happen in some of these other privately owned garages. So I appreciate you all thinking ahead and being proactive. But I think we have some financial tools in city hall that could be beneficial, whether it's municipal aid bonds, whether it's the industrial revenue bonds, or I think Kevin Atkins may have some other tools that we can make available to lessen the cost to do some of these improvements. I would encourage you to do that. But I think the one thing that got reiterated at the beginning, and I'll reiterate now, safety and security is what we are striving for. And from what I hear, some of the improvements that you are talking about making and need the revenue to do so is focused on that. So I think I'm out of time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Worley. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I appreciate everyone that's come to speak, And there's a lot of valid opinions here and a lot of valid experiences that I think need to be taken into account. And I think that there is ample room for the parking authority to take those things into consideration as they move forward. I, like Council Member Brown, am hesitant to take hold of this in a committee at this point when there's still opportunity for the parking authority to take this on their own. And part of the reason that over 20-something years ago the Parking Authority was created was to take some of the politics and city budget out of the management of parking. And I think that they've been incredible stewards of our parking in that time. And I'll tell you, to make those comments, I represent the suburbs. I represent folks that may have to make a very intentional effort most of the times to come downtown. A good portion of the people that I represent live in the furthest southeastern tip of this community at exit 104, where the most of our visitors from southeast Kentucky also enter our community to come downtown, making a very conscious effort. And to those folks that I represent and those visitors, what I hear is that safety and safety concerns is much more deterrent to them coming downtown than confusion over some of the parking times or an increase in the parking rate. Now, certainly those are valid concerns. I'm not dismissing any of that, but safety is the number one concern that I hear about coming downtown and the deterrent to coming downtown. And safety includes infrastructure that will not collapse. and personal safety where people will not be attacked or risk or be afraid of being attacked downtown. And what I hear is that this parking authority is doing everything they can to increase security in these parking garages and the safety of these parking garages. And they've always done that. And I take on this $6 million loan that they took on 2012 coming out of a national recession, national housing crisis. This city couldn't afford to take care of those parking garages. The parking authority took that on. And quite frankly, we don't want them back, I don't think. Because you listen to this budget and we could not absorb that in our budget right now. And that $6 million loan, we would still be paying for it. That bond would have just rolled off potentially this year if it hadn't been refinanced 20 years. That we would have been paying for it. So this is all by way of saying, while I want us to see where we can compromise on making everybody feel good about coming downtown. And about these parking regulations, we have real true budgetary issues we have to keep in mind. And people mention, is there something that we can help you with? I hope, and maybe that is a solution. But maybe it's not because we've also had budgets. Mayor, you'll remember the first years that you took office, that we were having legitimate conversations about closing the senior center for a couple hours a week that we couldn't afford to keep the lights on, not opening the pools for our public parks and our swim teams for our kids. We've had those tough discussions, and you don't think that maybe $150,000, $300,000 throws you into those discussions, but it does. So I say that not to diminish any of the comments made here, not to diminish what we need to do to work towards compromise, but there's a very true government budgetary finance aspect of this that we have to be respectful of in this conversation, too, and have to take into consideration. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I'm going to take first the council members who haven't yet spoken. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Means, for your presentation today. I know it probably was an easy one to give, but we have caught ourselves in another, I like to call them rock-in-a-hard-place situations where there are things that we need to do that we can't always do easily or successfully. There is a need for infrastructure improvements and safety improvements. However, we have to balance that with the concerns of our community, residents, visitors, employees, and the like. And I'm sorry if I missed it, but I do have a couple of questions. When you were deciding upon the current strategy of rate increases, I've heard you mention other cities and things like that. But did you look across the board at best practices, other communities similar to us? And then did you look at any other options, any other models, I should say? You know, like if we, there were several people that mentioned free on-street parking. Did you look at maybe doing that and raising garage rates? Or were there any other conversations had? Or was this kind of, did you feel like this was kind of the only option? We've certainly looked at other options. We also had national consultants that did work for us, the first one in 2015, the second one in 2018, and then they benchmarked us. We can make both of those available. I believe one, if not both, are already on the website. But you can see in some of the, there's a lot to it because one of them was a best practices audit. So we had them, look at what we're doing, is there any improvements? And then the other one was give us a 10-year plan. What if we want to, what if downtown needs another garage? This is all pre-pandemic right now. They're not as occupied as they were then. But, you know, how could we be financially positioned to be able to afford a loan of a new facility? So those were the two different themes of those. Let me step back just a bit about the on-street meter parking. One of the things that resonated really well when we first increased the rates, when Lex Park took over, the city had been for about 25 years, 25 cents an hour. We bumped it to a dollar an hour. All of these same concerns were said then. You're going to run everybody out of downtown. It's going to be awful. Downtown's been great since. And I'm not trying to take away from anybody's concerns and what they're currently right now dealing with. But one of the things you think about with turnover is if you have 1,000-metered spaces and they're free, 1,000 people are going to park in them and sit there all day long. And when you have turnover, that turns into 4,000, maybe 5,000 spaces. So part of this narrative really should be instead of having to pay $8, $12, $20 in a surface lot or garage, you can now find open metered spaces. So this turnover really benefits businesses. It's not just – I guess what I'm getting at is free parking typically isn't a mechanism for economic development in a dense downtown. Okay. I appreciate that. And I truly appreciate all of the community members that came down to speak and show your, I wouldn't say support, but your concern for the issue. I think that, you know, similar to what Council Member Worley said, you know, balancing how we handle the tourism draw or the entertainment draw of downtown with safety concerns is, it's a hard balance. So, and also, I'm not really sure that I totally agree with putting it into committee right now either, because I'd love to give you guys the opportunity to make some changes if there are changes to be made. I mean, you've heard a lot of comments today, and I think you have some time to think about, you know, if there's some compromises that can be made. So, I appreciate everybody coming down today, and that's all I got. Thanks, Mayor. Council Member Plumman. Thank you, Mayor. I thought I would chime in here towards the end. I've really listened to everyone's comments and to our folks that came from downtown. But like Council Member Worley, I represent more the outside suburbs in the rural area. But I will tell you, since this first came out in our community, I have gotten a lot of phone calls from folks that live out in that area. As a matter of fact, today walking into the mayor's state of the city was bombarded by folks that I know do not live in the downtown area, and they don't work downtown. So I do think that made a statement. I think my big thing about this is that it sends a message, and the message is we need money. I respect that. But let's just go ahead and do what we need to do to get that money. And I remember when this came out that I watched the meeting and quite honestly, I felt that the folks got dismissed. Now since then, I know you've come back today and you've shared. But the nice thing too, I've seen you take notes and nod your heads. So I think there's potential in working together, because we're all in this together. It's not a downtown, it's our community. So we need to figure out how to do this. Councilmember Brown, at first I thought, yes, let's put it in committee. But then also maybe there's a way to give our folks from the authority a timetable that we'd like to have you come back and look at what you can come up with to maybe a little consensus on both parts, but not just this somewhat of a mandate. I did have a quick question. When you were doing your projections for this infuse of revenue, was that starting immediately or did you have down the road or was that a fiscal year, July 1? some of the there's there are a few other little rate tweaks that we did in the garages back in the fall but when we were looking at this fiscal this fiscal year 23 is our first year with the uk lfucg land swap impact because that basically started july 1 of 22 so looking at the implementation of the meter hours and rates was is a half a year but those numbers are a 12 month number. We factored in doing it at this point in the year, but only having six months of it in this fiscal year. So hesitation or pause, it can happen. Oh yeah, definitely. Well, and it's, we've been pausing since 2019 on it, but. Yeah, it's happening. Okay, great. Well, I hope we can all work this out as a community and look forward to the next steps in our conversation. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for everyone who spoke today and for Lex Park for your presentation. I just have one I'm going to say that we have turned this authority over, and so I would like to give you the opportunity to address the feedback and what you've heard here tonight before putting this item into committee for further review by us. I would like to give you that opportunity because that is the authority we've given you in the past, and that's the history that we've talked about today. Two things that I would like to particularly have you think about and that I've heard tonight, certainly you've heard a lot of things, but I don't want to rehash all of those, but one is the public input process. Like you could see on our agenda today, we started with a public hearing because we had changes in our urban services. So in your bylaws, you could put in a policy to have a public hearing whenever you're going to have proposed rate changes. So I would like to see something that is a systematic change in that. So that's one piece. And then the other piece is thinking about our nonprofits that are working downtown. Like we heard about the people attending classes at the Carnegie Center, but that's not the only nonprofit that we have that is working on with folks downtown. I'm wondering if there is a rate that could be extended similar to what you have proposed for residents that live downtown or our hospitality workers that would function for people who are those regular users of our nonprofits that function there that might have financial strain and burden to have to make these parking rate changes for their own personal finances. I'm trying to think about that or if there's some subsidy that could be provided to nonprofits to have like certain spaces or a parking pass kind of situation that could be shared. So those are my comments for today. Thank you. Thank you. Now we're going to go back and council members who've spoken have a second round. Council member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to start out by saying I did get a copy of the financial statements, and I can read them pretty quick. The parking authority, you have a real good financial statement. You got a good opinion on it, and so I've got a little bit more information there. And it looks like what I can see there is that you don't necessarily need an increase this year based on what you've got, but that's from an auditor looking at your financial statements. You all have done a good job. Privatization for this particular area, parking authority, I think, is the way to go. I don't have any problem with that. And you all have done a good job on that. I just think when you get the community involved and you have some of these increases that the community just doesn't agree with. And to mention that you all mentioned public safety. I think the public safety aspect is just the garages. The majority of the people that come down here weren't concerned about garages. They're concerned about their businesses and the on-street parking. So you've got to look at that phase related. You know, you've got public safety versus the garage versus on-street parking. So I don't necessarily have to put this in committee. What I would like to ask, well, first, are the fees in place now? Can you withdraw that and, you know, just as a public statement, cancel those fee increases? until you look at some information there, I would rather put it in committee so that you all could come back to the committee and give us the answers that you could do because, you know, it may need to go into budget committee. We may need to subsidize some of this. If we want viability downtown and we want revenues to continue downtown, there's a feedback those revenues come back to us in some kind of form, you know, when you weigh that out. But I don't know, this is kind of, you really don't know what will happen until you put the fees on and people don't come downtown to visit the restaurants or the businesses. So we really don't know, it's going to be a cycle of six months to a year before we really know how much we could suffer as far as the taxes that the city would have. So that's all I'm asking. I don't need to put it in committee, but I think we need some feedback in some form or shape, and we probably need it pretty quick. But I don't know what committee it comes to unless you have it back into work session and you have the same forum that you've got here, another public hearing, is basically what it will boil down to. I think in committee you can divert that if you're all willing to say, okay, we'll work on some things and get some other questions. I've still got some questions about the financial statement and what you all plan to do and how come you got the increases as you do. And the Saturday parking really bothers me. So that's where I'm at. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. To reiterate and kind of piggyback off of some of my colleagues, I also don't think that putting this item in committee is the best approach. Mainly because, and I want to kind of emphasize this, we do not have direct oversight over the decisions of Lex Park. Okay. So the onus is on Lex Park and their board to make whatever decisions they make. What I want to talk about is kind of our process and their process. we have been the target of criticism many times over many years for not doing enough public engagement you know what i mean um and that's something we're looking at now to improve if we go and just make decisions without getting the input of the public and we don't always make decisions that everybody likes but if we don't bring that input in that's where the resistance comes in and that's where we're not doing our jobs. And so beyond this single issue that we're looking at right now, I would love to see the parking authority engage in more proactive taking of input, of buy-in from citizens, from residents, from business owners, and from the council, because this is all, everything that's happening right now is reactive. A thing happened, a decision you all made, got everybody fired up, and now we're here. And to me, there's a better way to do this than if there are decisions being discussed that will impact the public in a really big way. Talk to the public. Talk to us. I think there's just a better way to go about it. And I will say the two biggest things that I've probably heard from business owners and workers and patrons is not so much the rate increases themselves. It's the Saturday and it's the five to nine, Monday through Friday. Those are the two biggest things, and I hope you all will look at that. And I would love for you all to come back if you've made any changes or amendments or decisions, come back and present to us again. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I think I was first and I might be last to wrap up here. How are you all considered as you're set up as an entity, not a nonprofit or as a quasi-governmental? How would you be labeled? You know, I think some of the official Barbary language might be it's we are an agency of, an instrumentality of LFUCG, but we're not a corporation. We're not even a 501 3C. You know, we're not a nonprofit. that we are an outside agency of the city. You could consider it, I don't know, all the ins and outs of, like, the airport authority or housing authority. The city creates an entity, but then it creates its own budget. It finances itself. That's a similar comparison, but I hope that helps you. Yeah, looking like Council Member Brown, I looked over the audit that actually just came out, and the Strothman and Company on January 12th of 23 was the most recent one. And that's on your website, and I think it shows how bad the pandemic hits you and how actually your numbers have come back and are better than the 2020 numbers. And so I think things are moving in the right direction. I didn't see anything prior to that. Is that on there, or can we get that information to see where you were pre-pandemic? So far, the way our auditors have built our audits is a two-year look, but we have audits going back several years. It's a great question. And I would just also comment to CM Brown, even if this doesn't go into committee, if we can try to tabulate the request, there's a lot of information that we are totally happy sharing. But what is missing in that particular audit is the UK LFUCG land swap. So that was through June 30. Now we're in a new year. It really changes. So while it looked pretty well in our board, I mean, they're very hard on me in terms of penny pinchers. we watch every nickel and dime. We always get audited and we've done a good job, but now we're facing some new impacts that aren't in that audit. I think you've heard from the public, you've heard from the council. We'd like for you to come back here, come back with some ideas that we can maybe work together and make some changes because I think there needs to be some tweaks here and I think we can come up with a compromise everybody can work with and if we need to help out, we're willing to do that. I'll speak for myself, but I think the other council members have said the same thing. is the big issue that we have, I think, is the parking after 5 o'clock and then also the Saturday. So see what we can do with the numbers. We want to have the safety. I was on here, like I said, initially when we created this, and it's worked well. But I think there are some things here that we might have to adjust here. And I hope you are willing to come back to the council and for the citizens, because I think they requested it, and I hope you do it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council members, does anyone else wish to speak? All right. Thank you very much to everyone who came today. Thank you to Mr. Means, Mr. Frazier, Mr. Ball, and to the public. Thank you very much. Next is our presentation on the housing stabilization program. And I'll ask the birthday boy, Charlie Lanter, commissioner, to give our presentation. All right, thank you all very much. Excuse me, if you all can do your visiting in the hall, please. We still have to finish the meeting. I'd like to welcome Commissioner Charlie Lanter and wish him a happy birthday today. Thank you, Mayor. Not everybody gets to do a presentation on their birthday. Welcome. Lucky me, right? Lucky you, that's right. Welcome. Great. Well, the first thing I'd like to do is start out by thanking some very, very patient partners who have stayed with us here today. Here in the chambers with us today, we've got Community Action Council, our Executive Director, Sharon Price, and her staff are here. As you all know, they have been our partner from almost the very beginning in terms of operating the housing stabilization program, running the day-to-day, getting the funds out the door, and dealing directly with clients. But also here we have a couple of our other partners, Fayette District Courts Judge Dino Tragunther, who has been just a fabulous partner with us, along with the other district court judges, legal aid of the Bluegrass, and representatives from Kentucky Equal Justice Center, all of which have key roles to play in our housing stabilization program and all of whom have been a part of developing some of the changes and initiatives that you're going to hear about today. And so I know we've got some new folks here. I want to start out. We're going to try and go quickly. I want to respect your time. I know it's been a long day for everyone. I'm going to bring up Jonathan Wright. For those who don't know Jonathan, he is the manager of the housing stabilization program. and he's going to walk you through some slides, starting out with a quick recap of where we are and how we got here. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. As Charlie said, my name is Jonathan Wright. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you this afternoon, this evening, about the housing stabilization program. As most of you know, the city received an initial $9.6 million in federal emergency rental assistance money back in January of 2021. At the time, we thought that was just an almost overwhelming amount of money to spend on rental assistance. But we got another allocation directly from the Treasury Department later in the spring of 2021. and then seeing continued need in the community since then, have worked with the state and our counterparts in Louisville, as well as the Federal Treasury Department, to get now three, four additional reallocations of ERA money, including most recently $15.8 million that was reallocated by the Treasury Department from the state to Lexington. That $15.8 million is really what we're here to talk about today. Of all the money that we just went over very briefly, we're basically down to that $15.8 million. We have a little bit of additional money that we can spend on housing stability services, but for the most part, that's the money that we have left from the federal government for emergency rental assistance. So the question is, how do we spend that in the most effective way and in a way that preserves the infrastructure that we have built around eviction prevention and diversion effectively and for as long as possible with the federal money that we have left. The whole model for this program was really built from the very beginning around partnerships. Charlie began meeting with his counterparts at the state and in Louisville before we'd even received the first dollar to design programs that were as aligned as possible. we've worked with community action council since before day one we brought in legal aid at the bluegrass to provide in-court representatives and help people actually complete applications in person while they're in eviction court and then we've continued to work with other partners like Kentucky Equal Justice and others that Charlie mentioned. So just a really quick recap of the program's progress so far. We have dispersed over $41.5 million in direct rental and utility assistance since early 2021. That served, and this is one of the numbers that I'm most proud of, that served one out of every 12 renter households in Fayette County, which is just really, you know, for a social services program, is just a really wide scope and a big impact that I and the folks who work in the program are really proud of. The population that we've served is, by law, a hundred percent of the population is at an income that's 80 percent or less of the area median income. But as you'll see, that is actually skewed to much lower income households than even the federal requirements. The last thing I'll note is just that the program has made rent payments on behalf of tenants to over 1,100 unique landlords. That number's probably even a little higher now. So the program has helped tenants. It's prevented many, many evictions over the past couple of years, but I think it's also important to remember that it has helped stabilize the finances of, you know, over a thousand property owners, many of whom are Fayette County residents and small businesses themselves. A quick look at the demographics of the program. Essentially, they skew towards minority and historically marginalized populations pretty heavily. Most of the time when it comes to issues of racial equity and justice, I believe that the best thing that I can do is usually listen. But when I look at these numbers and think about our experience over the past couple of years, the two big takeaways for me personally are we've done a pretty good job of reaching minority populations and historically marginalized populations. and that we have a lot of work to do in this space, that there are very obvious disparities and challenges to be met when it comes to housing and questions of race, ethnicity, gender. The program's been nationally recognized. This little snippet is from a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. What we're here to talk about really today, we're currently spending about $2 million a month on rental assistance. That is an extraordinarily high number. And given the fact that we believe that we have $15.8 million left and that that is likely to be the last federal money we will receive, what is the best way to manage that money. If we keep spending $2 million a month on emergency rental assistance, we would need to shut down the rental assistance application portal sometime this spring, probably late March, early April, so that we would have enough money to work through the then-pending wait list and ensure that anyone who applied, that we would have money left to pay their benefits. That would result in a pretty dramatic benefits cliff sometime this summer, likely in June. This is, you know, the analogy that we have used in exploring our different options is something around a plane that's flying pretty well right now, and do we try to bring it in for a soft landing or risk running out of fuel in June? To help us answer that question, I just want to briefly review the current eligibility criteria and benefits that are available so that we can then talk about the proposed changes that we're hoping to make. Right now, to qualify for the program, you have to be a tenant in Fayette County. your income has to be 80% or less of the area median income, and you have to have had some financial impact that's related to the COVID pandemic. As financial assistance, social services program go, those are pretty broad eligibility criteria. The main thing, you know, especially when we're dealing with folks in eviction court, is getting verification of their income. So So most of the folks who are applying live in Fayette County. If they don't, we can direct them to the correct program. And I would wager most of the people in this room have had some financial impact as a result of the COVID pandemic. Risk of homelessness or housing instability is really where we're talking about making a pretty significant change. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. If you meet those eligibility criteria, then under the current program, you are eligible to receive up to 12 months of pass-through rent and up to three months of forward rent and the same number of months for each of your utilities. So a late utility makes you eligible and you're eligible for all utilities and rent. Same with a late rent bill, all utilities and rent. That has been tremendously helpful during the pandemic to just give people a lifeline, get them on their feet, and help them move forward. We've also, since the program started, for about a year now, been offering relocation assistance, which can help with security deposits and some prospective rent as well when people have to move or they actually have an eviction judgment entered against them. So we are proposing today that we move this program into a new phase. As I said, the aim here is really to, number one, be good stewards of the federal money that we have left to try to sort of bring the program in for a softer landing as we transition from a pandemic response that is designed to really stop the bleeding for people who've suffered a financial injury as a result of the pandemic into the program's next phase, which is really aimed at true eviction diversion and eviction prevention. So once we've stopped the bleeding, how do we help people in a way that is sustainable and long-lasting to promote their housing stability so that they don't wind up back in eviction court because we didn't help fix the underlying problem that got them there in the first place? So, how do we do that? Excuse me. The Treasury guidelines for the program actually allow us, just because it's a different funding stream, to change the financial impact from related to during the COVID impact, which just makes it a little easier to administer the program. I don't think that's something you all, you can worry about it if you want to and ask questions, but it's not the biggest thing we're here to talk about. It's really a federal language change, and it's helpful. The big change is we'll move from the risk of homelessness or housing instability needed to demonstrate eligibility currently is simply one late rent or utility bill. So a few days into January, once you've passed your grace period, if you haven't been able to pay your January rent, you can apply for the program. you can provide us a notice from your landlord that says you're late, and then you're eligible for the full benefits offered by the program. That would change going forward so that the folks who are eligible for the program are those who actually have an eviction case moving through district court. So we're targeting a smaller but higher risk group of people, and just as importantly, if not more importantly, aiming to provide those folks with additional services over the course of the next year that are really aimed at promoting their housing stability and making sure that, yes, we help them through the short-term difficulty, but put them on a path to not wind up back in eviction court when potentially this level of federal rental assistance money is not available. The other big change that that would result in is that the program would stop paying utilities as we pivot to that focus on eviction prevention and diversion. So with that, I will pause and await your questions. All right. Thank you. Does that finish your presentation? Yes. All right. We'll go to questions. Council Member Civigni. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. Really appreciate it. Just on the numbers, you basically said there was about 6,000 households helped, I think, I think it was in the statistics somewhere. And are we currently helping about 6,000 a month? Or what's our current monthly rate, monthly group of people that we're helping? And then are we going to, do you think we'll hear from those people that are having those problems once this kicks in? You know what I mean? I don't have this broken down by month, but I can give you the numbers for the fourth quarter of 22. 2,243 households received assistance during that quarter. So what's that? 750-ish per month. Of those, 1,231, so about 55%, received assistance for the first time. So the number of households that have come back for a second round of assistance as time has gone on has gone up. It's still not the majority, but that rate has increased quarter to quarter. And that's really, as we look at this data, part of the reason that we're saying to you, we're seeing this trend where people are coming back because we're just essentially throwing money at the problem. And we'd like to make an effort to, yes, when financial assistance is warranted, offer it for as long as it's available. But while we have that money to spend some of it on additional services that try to keep people from winding up in the same situation. Thank you so much. And are we doing anything, are you doing anything actively to reach out to the people that are currently on some sort of monthly assistance to kind of let them know that in a way that they understand that the program is ending and they'll have to get to, it sounds like they'll have to get to an eviction court in order. so we have been very careful about our public messaging before today it's this is all a balancing act right we want to be as transparent as possible we want to provide as much notice to the public as possible we want to get feedback from you all we also don't want to slow things down or overwhelm the system and you know spend the money faster than expected it. Later this week, a series of emails will go out that are designed to reach out to people who have previously applied to let them know about the changes to the program. Most importantly, the folks who have submitted an application and it's waiting for review, they've done everything they need to do, we just haven't sort of gotten to them on the wait list or it's actively being worked, they'll get an email that says, don't worry, we're still going to process your application. Landlords who have previously received assistance will get an email targeted to them so that they know what to tell tenants going forward when their residents need help. And then the folks that you see here in the room today, they're going to get new material that they'll help get in the hands of tenants going forward who need assistance to make sure that they know you're still eligible for this program if you're headed towards eviction court. It's really important that you come to court, work with us, work with your landlord, so that we can prevent you from having an eviction judgment entered against you that's going to follow you around for years. Real quick to that end, if you have knocked on a tenant's door, say, this week, to let them know about the program. Raise your hand. There we go. That'll happen, and that'll happen even more. I really appreciate it, and thank you. It does seem like a logistical nightmare a little bit, but it sounds like it's somewhat under control, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Not to make light of the situation, but somewhat under control is, I'll take that. That's pretty good for an eviction prevention program. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Wright, Mr. Lander, for your work on this. When we met before, I think the analogy you all gave me, and I love analogies, was that you're flying in a plane and you know you're running out of fuel. You could just go full bore until you run out of fuel and then you crash, or you can start heading down and making a landing as rough as that landing might be, it's a much better alternative. So that made me understand it very well. My question on one of your earlier slides with the demographic representations, I saw that African Americans are well overrepresented in the recipients of this program, but I saw that the Latino and Hispanic populations are just under our demographic average. So they're slightly underrepresented. When I see numbers like that, I always have concerns about access and how are we getting information out to our foreign language communities, not just Spanish, but, you know, we have a very multicultural city here. What are we doing to get that information to these vulnerable populations for whom English is not their first language? So that particular issue is something that we have, I want to say, made attempts to address at several points and really constantly since this program launched. I think you're right to look at that ethnicity number and see that it is basically in line with the Fayette County population and not higher like the other minority groups that are shown. Some of that certainly is difficulty of access. We've taken steps to try to address that. the application portal itself. I know, I got language data from Isabel Taylor and Global Lex and made sure that the portal could be translated within the portal itself just by selecting a different language into, and I forget whether it's six or eight languages that the portal will support, but whatever the top six or eight languages spoken in Fayette County are, the portal reflects and supports those top spoken languages for Fayette County. That's not to say there aren't access issues. Again, I think a smaller scale but targeted program allows us to develop particularized approaches to address, say, the disparity in the ethnicity numbers more effectively as we move forward. Yeah, I appreciate that, and I hope that is a big part of your consideration going forward with this, and honestly in kind of everything that we do as city government. Thank you for your work. Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, thank you for your hard work, and I definitely want to thank Community Action, because I have had a lot of family members that were able to access the COVID funds when they caught COVID, lost their jobs, lost their housing. I've got a few questions. So we're talking about the $16.5 million. Is that what we're talking about right now? The latest reallocation from Treasury was about $15.8. And is that the total that we're working with? There's a little bit left over from previous rounds. Can you tell me how much that would add up to be? We have some housing stability services. services. It's the money that can be spent on housing stability services from our previous ERA 2 round, somewhere in the quarter million to $300,000 range that we hope to add to the million and a half of that $15.8 million. But by and large, this $15.8 million that we most recently got from the federal government is essentially all the money that we have left. Okay. And is any of that going to be spent on the administering the program? Yes. And how much would that be? So 75, once we take out money for basically 12%. I don't want to take too much of your time to get you down to it. I'll sign up to talk again. Is there anything set aside for legal and mediation? Is there anything coming out of this spot for that? So 10% of the $15.8 million can be used for housing stability services. And that's things like connecting tenants with attorneys, providing access to counsel, growing our pilot mediation program that we've built up with Judge Gunther and her courtroom. And that's all part of this, you know, the additional services that we're talking about providing. Okay, so we got 12% administration, 10% on legal fees. Now, we're getting down now because we got a lot of people running around that may be evicted. And did you say that they have to be at the process of being evicted, and then they can come in and access this three months forward if they are evicted and they look for other housing? Or do we have prevention and they can take that three months and stay in their home with their children so their children will not have to change schools? Because if they get evicted, we got a whole family issue here. So that's what I'm asking. I'm really glad you asked that question because the number one goal of any effective eviction prevention diversion program, which is exactly what we're trying to build, the number one goal is to prevent tenants from having an eviction judgment on their record. Now, hopefully, in many if not most cases, we can prevent an eviction judgment by providing some financial assistance while providing these other services so that as many families as possible can stay right where they are. But I can also tell you from our mediation pilot and just having folks in court every day for two years now, it is often the case that even with financial assistance, the best course of action for a particular family may be that we help get you current so that you can stay. But maybe even by agreement, you move and we help you find a new place in the next 30, 60 days. But to do that, most importantly, without you having an eviction judgment entered against you in court. Because if you have a court judgment entered against you as a tenant in an eviction case, for the next five plus years, it's going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult for you to find a safe, stable place to live. And so that's really what we're trying to prevent as much as possible is exactly what you said, people being sort of involuntarily displaced. So I understand everything that you just said, and I'm just going to go to practicality before my time runs out. Here's what I do know, because I have been a person that has been evicted in my poorest, poorest day with my four children. So we know that in Lexington, housing is almost obsolete. It has either tripled in the value of how much you have to pay. So with these fine people I heard doing the work, we still have to find a person, a place to live with their children. And then I saw the utilities struck out. So how will they get that money to pay the utilities? Who helps with the moving costs? I mean, these are systemic issues that will take place. We don't even want to get to eviction. I'm trying to talk about prevention. And so how many people do you have mediating in your program for families? Because you have one out of two people was able to, one out of 12 folks was able to stay in their home. That's not a good percentage for me, one out of 12. If you'll answer Councilmember Fogel and then I'll ask her to come back when she has more time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Just on that last point. He explained it. We can roll on. I'm coming back. Just so folks, other folks know that one in 12 numbers, the program has provided assistance to one out of 12 Fayette County renters. That doesn't have anything to do with our rate of success in preventing eviction. And again, the goal of what we're trying to do by focusing on eviction court and providing additional services is really aimed at preventing eviction. That's number one on the list. Okay. Council Member Fogle will be back later. Right now, Council Member James Brown has the floor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Jonathan and Charlie, for your presentation, and thank you to Community Action and the other partners for all their work in this effort. So is there an application deadline or cutoff for the folks that are already in the system and in queue that may be expecting to be approved for the previous program, the old phase, so to speak? So if you have an application that's been submitted today and it's pending, just hasn't been reviewed yet, you're waiting on a payment, you have nothing to worry about. It'll be processed under the existing rules. And that'll be true even because we wanted to provide some transparency and provide everybody with a little time before we made any changes. That'll be true for at least the rest of this week. So somebody who hears this or reads a story in the news tonight can still go and apply tomorrow and receive the same benefits that the program has always offered. Okay. So is this new phase, is this our strategy internally, or did we talk to the partners about this is the direction that we need to go in regards to addressing the most immediate needs and making sure that we are going to use the funds before they expire? So sometimes you spend a week or two getting ready for something like this, and you have a really important point you want to make, and then you just sail right past it until Council Member James Brown asks the perfect question. um this plan is not something that you know charlie and i came up with charlie and i and the mayor came up with this plan is a result of very um deliberate and intentional conversations with all of our community partners not even just the folks in this room who have a direct relationship with lfucg to administer part of it but advocacy organizations and and you know non-profits that sort of work in the space just outside the housing stabilization program. It's a conversation that we've been having to some degree for a long time now, but very deliberately and very intentionally for the past couple of months. Okay, okay. And so you also have the flexibility, I would imagine, to pivot and do something different. If the pace of funds going out the door isn't what we expected it was going to be, or if for some reason we get another influx of cash from the federal government or for the state, we can make adjustments. Do we have that kind of flexibility? So let's say we make these changes and our spend rate slows more than expected. So instead of lasting until November, December of this year, it would last into 2024. That's okay. We would not lose any money. The current funding that we have from Treasury is we can keep it and spend it through 2024. So we'd slower, you know, would be a concern as far as are we being as effective as we want to be, making the difference that we want to make, but there would be no worry about losing money. If the spend rate was faster, you know, the goal would be to adjust as we go along. But this plan, I think, gives us enough of a runway to sort of see far enough into the future that we're not going to just run off a cliff without any warning. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for that. And please keep us posted. I think the main goal and intent is to try to keep people in their homes. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for this presentation and for all of the work that you both have done on this, on the housing stabilization funding and program, and certainly the Community Action Council. Thank you for your work on this. I know we have become a model for, like, how this is done. So a lot of time and energy and good work has happened here and a lot of benefits to our community. I have two questions. One, with this transition, say somebody doesn't qualify anymore for these funds, but they call the housing advocate. Do you have kind of a quick list just for public knowledge of other resources or programs they might be able to take advantage of or apply for? Yes. So again, later this week, our plan is to just as widely as possible distribute both an FAQ document that helps answer a lot of these questions in an easy to understand way. You all will get a copy of that, as well as a list of available resources for other assistance that folks might qualify for. The other thing that I would mention, just because you mentioned a specific case, somebody calling me a housing advocate and needing assistance, our plan also involves identifying sort of the most vulnerable groups of people and making sure that there is a way for those people to access rental assistance through the housing stabilization program if they qualify for as long as possible. Right now, that plan specifically includes domestic violence victims and public housing residents because of the risk of very long-term and serious effects for those folks losing housing. Okay. And then in December, our federal government released the all-in strategic plan for preventing and ending homelessness. And that had a number of policy recommendations and talk of collaboration. Do you anticipate any or have heard of any new policies coming through or potential sources of future funding that might assist with this particular population? At the federal level, I do not currently, just quite frankly, I mean, what we're hearing from advocacy organizations at the federal level, I wouldn't anticipate a renewal of the federal emergency rental assistance program. Do you see potentially other programs being formed? And this might be outside of your scope of where you're working in this moment, so I understand that. But that's a question that I'm very interested in. It's also a question that I have no real authority to influence or even predict. But like I said, based on what we've read, it would be very surprising to find out that the ERA program itself was renewed at the federal level, though there was certainly some talk about that at one point. So beyond that, I don't know that I am really qualified to answer your question, at least in this setting. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. May I just say quickly to your point, we have had a very deep discussion about the things that might lift people up so that they do not find themselves in these situations, such as job training and education and a GED and some of those root causes. So we've been in those conversations, to your point. And some of those are in the strategic plan as well. So thank you. Okay. Council Member Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation. I just have a question. One of the many complaints that I've heard about the program is that the time period for the funds to come takes so long that many of the landlords have refused those funds, which leaves the tenants forced to move. What is being done to remedy that portion of it? So, to answer your question about the specific time periods that it takes between when someone applies and when the money actually goes out the door to the landlord, that is very, very dependent on where a particular tenant falls in the prioritization matrix that ranks our wait list, basically. Some of those specific factors are required by the federal government. And then we, when we started our program, introduced our own prioritization factor, which oftentimes takes, it really causes an application to jump to the top of the list. And that's having an eviction case in eviction court, because that means we're on a very short timeline. Um, since the program started to now, regardless of where you fell in terms of prioritization, that time has gotten shorter and shorter and shorter, um, and has continued to, um, you know, over the past, uh, just constantly over the past couple of years. So it's entirely possible if you show up to court for the very first time and have an eviction case and haven't applied, but your landlord is willing to participate. Judge Gunther or another one of the district judges might send you to a conference room at the back of the courtroom where a representative of the housing stabilization program would help you finish your application or help you submit your application. And it is, I'm not saying it happens every time, but it is entirely possible that in two, three weeks, certainly 30 days, by the time you wind up back in court for a second appearance, that particular case has been paid. But that's in part because of the eviction case, that particular application moves further up the wait list. What I would guess some of what you referred to is really tied to is landlords, really from the beginning, many, many landlords did not like that we had a required waiting period. So after we've paid a tenant's rent and they've agreed to let the tenant stay, we basically put a 75-day waiting period before the landlord could even seek eviction again. So even if the tenant never paid anything else, they would have to wait 75 days. The idea behind that, it was promoted by the Treasury Department, was to give tenants, make sure they had an opportunity to catch up, right? Landlords didn't like it. It was the number one complaint we got from landlords. It, as time went on, reduced landlord participation rates just consistently over time. Now that we have moved a little further away from the pandemic, we have lifted that waiting period at the end of the rental assistance process and have started to see landlord participation rates go back up. So you said that there are certain cases where the eviction is in process, that they're shot to the top. So is the information out there that the applicants can readily see this whole process? Because what I've been hearing is that there's a lack, from their standpoint, a lack of transparency in the entire process? Yes. So there is some information on the website about how the problem is most of those folk don't have access that they can't pay the rent. You know, the accessibility issue. These are all, as you're picking up on, this work is almost always very complex because it involves access issues, technology issues. That information is on the website. I'm certainly not going to promise you that that means that it's reaching everyone. But thank you. And to that point, if anything, I think this plan helps with that because it's simpler. We're not prioritizing based on four different factors that involve unemployment insurance and income and when your court case was filed. It's if you're in court, we're going to help, period. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll go back to Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I've got to get a shout out to Judge Gunther and her and the way that she is performing in the court and this new initiative. Thank you so much. And so just for me, all of this feels like proactive once they get to court. I'm still trying to hone in on the fact, Will these funds be able to keep them in their home as a prevention and as the limited staff from the community action who does a great job race to make sure that these people don't get to court. And so I'm going to go back to the utility part and I would like for you to answer if the application fee will be paid with this set of money for folks. Because they're going to move. And I know y'all talked about landing the plane and all of that drama mean because I'm talking about the plane. But I'm talking about right now. I'm not even looking at the future. See, the God I serve will replenish what we use. We're not supposed to hold on these funds. Families that need these funds right now is who we should spend these funds on right now. It's getting ready to be cold out there, and they're going to be evicted. You know, Judge Gunther has one court. There's going to be many people going to all these other courts for eviction notices. She has a great program. What are we going to do about those folks? I'm just talking about the here and the now. I know that people try to have a little nest egg, but what are we going to do for the folks right now? So that's what I'm asking you, and I'm really having a problem, because community action, they don't run out of money for utilities. And then you go to the next people, they might have a new fund, but they'll run out quick. Catholic Charities, you go to Catholic Charities, they say, oh, we don't have any. And then you might go to Adult Intendid Services. So I'm just saying the process for individual who's already suffering, And I'm talking about first district because I represent first district, but I'm also talking about everybody else's second six and all the other districts who are having these issues. We are talking about people, not numbers, not the statistics. I want to talk about people because they are who we are supposed to value. And I saw the families that slept in cars. I worked with the families who were being put out. I drove down Chestnut, Ohio, 5th, 6th, and saw everybody's belongings set out on the curb. It is going to be cold. It's cold now. So what are we going to do about that with this 16.5, whatever the total is? Well, how are we going to help families? So, just, I want to make one, like, really important point. If you ever see this program that I'm in. Can you go to the microphone, please? I'm sorry. If you ever see this program that I'm responsible for, not treating people like people, come see me and talk to me about it. Because we have every single one of these partners from day one has endeavored to build a program that sure was as successful as possible and that we had a data dashboard that could prove it. But there's absolutely nothing more important than treating each and every person, tenant, landlord, roommate, anyone affected by any one of these cases with humanity and dignity. So can you answer the question about the infrastructure of the application fee, the money that is taken to get a U-Haul truck? Can you answer that question before you step away from the mic? I think, Council Member Fogle, to answer your question, the program is absolutely going to prevent people from going out on the street. That's the whole reason that it's going to be in eviction court. To the extent that we're trying to prevent people from being evicted, that doesn't change. If anything, it focuses even more on the courtroom. You mentioned the application fee. That's a new element of the program that we've developed in response to the calls we've gotten from folks who said, I can't find a place or I can't afford to find a place because everybody wants to charge me $50 per adult in the household to apply. And there were no programs anywhere in Lexington that paid application fees. And so we've developed that as a new component of the program, all to be sort of responsive to the problems and the challenges that we've encountered in trying to help the people. There is a high rate of percentages in the first district. We are so tired of court. That's all our community lives in. We either live in court or we're going to funerals. I am so tired of court. I'm sitting here talking about what can we do with this money to prevent us from even getting to court. Is that in this plan? It is not. And if we don't change that, we'll have to take the application down in March or April and stop the program. Thank you very much. Thank you. I don't have anyone else signed up to speak. So thank you very much, Commissioner Lanter, Mr. Wright, for your presentation. Council Member Gray? Council report? No? Okay. We're ready for council reports. I thought maybe you had one. Council report? Okay. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to put the item of eviction diversion and right to council into social services and public safety. So moved. Second. All right. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Did you have anything else? No, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor, and I will be very brief. I just wanted to thank you, Mayor, today for recognizing my sweet Cora Jackson and your state of the merged government address. It was the highlight of her day to get to miss school to come out to be recognized for her great work. And it's encouraging to our community for young people to get involved. So if you don't know her story, look it up. It's cool. I've talked about it several times, let's be honest. And then I got really great news today that our wonderful parent-teacher store that resides in the 9th District is not closing their storefront. So I wanted to share their hours with everyone so that you can help keep their doors open. Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, 1 to 6. And they're changing their business model a little bit to include less office supply things and more focused on educational items and things that can help with teachers and homeschool children and all the things. So if you haven't visited them, they are in Keyshire Shopping Center off of Clay's Mill Road behind the Burger King. and they would really appreciate your patronage. Thank you so much. Thank you. Councilmember Plowman. I will also be brief. I don't think this has ever been said, but congratulations to our former colleague and friend, former Councilmember Susan Lamb on her recent appointment to the Fayette County Clerk in light of Dawn Blevins' retirement. I know we all know she'll do a great job with all of her years in public service and it's got her perfectly planned for this, but yay. Councilmember Lamb and we wish Don Blevins the best as well. And also quickly, yesterday was an exciting day in the 12th district. We had a groundbreaking at the new Fayette County Public Schools Middle School, which is located on Polo Club Boulevard. The school will have a capacity of 1,200 students and it's planning to open in the fall of 2025. This is the first middle school that we have had in Fayette County in 20 years. So that's exciting. And what's really cool, it's at the side of a former horse farm. And so what they're going to do is it's going to look like a traditional look of a barn with dark metals often seen on tobacco barns. It'll include limestone accents with plank fences and pitch roofs. And so we're really excited to have that come to the Hamburg Polo Club area. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Thank you for a great work. Thank you for lifting up the young man who had two years of recovery. That is so important with our community. And I would like to report that we are working really hard on our advisory board, the first district, bringing everyone to the table. And there's a better student who have opportunity to mentor for students in our section to learn about diversity and to just grow. So I'm so excited about that. I love being first district councilman. Well done. Thank you. Councilmember Gray. Turn your mic off. Turns out I have to say something to say after all. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity of having a tour of Carter G. Woodson Academy. Part of being city councilwoman for the 6th District and being a reformed educator, it is my goal to amplify our public schools, our administrators, and our students. And I just want to say that there is so much greatness happening at Carter G. learning the fact that during COVID when our students were at home on their laptops those administrators, when they learned of individual students who were not on their laptop, what did they do? They got in their cars they put on double masks and they went to those homes and they made sure those students got on that laptop. That is dedication, that is love and it's just a joy to have in the 6th District and I just wish that all of our public schools had that educators that went that extra mile like those at Carter G. Woodson Academy. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I want to uplift the issue that was brought forth earlier today about convening a group to study giving more boards and commission seats to tenants in this community and making sure that all boards and commissions are equitably served, including our tenants group. So I would like to bring that forth for committee, I believe, or for the General Government and Planning Committee to be studied there. Is that a motion? That is a motion. All right. Is there a motion? Okay. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Any questions or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Anything else? Council Member Lynch? Okay. Anyone else have a council report? There is no Bears report, although I would like to reiterate one thing that I said in my State of the City address today that may have just passed totally by. For four years, we've been working on our partnership for AgTech here with Commissioner Quarles, Dr. Lyons, and Dean Cox. And the council last year put in $1 million in this current budget to go forward with this effort. And we learned over the weekend that we had gone a couple weeks ago to testify before the Kentucky Ag Development Board. And we learned this weekend that they have awarded us a million-dollar match. You're going to go on. So we have $2 million now to get this effort up and running big time. And we're ready to, we have applications for the consultant who will be hired to take it to the next level. So I wanted everyone to know that because this has been a labor of love big time for four years. So with that, we do not have a mayor's report or a mayor's price contract bid recommendations, but I'd like to know if there's anyone here to give public comment to any issues, any other issues not on the agenda. Does anyone wish to speak? All right. Shall we have a motion to adjourn? Move. Second. We have a motion from Council Member Ellinger and a second from Council Member Fogel. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much.