# Council Work Session - March 21, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 21, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5787 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5787?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-03-21 - **Last revised**: March 21, 2023 - **Length**: 12,555 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened on March 21, 2023, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber of the Urban County Government Center in Lexington, Kentucky, with Mayor Linda Gorton presiding. The council addressed four agenda items during the session, including public comments on agenda issues, requested rezonings and docket approval, budget amendments, and new business items. The council took four votes during the meeting, with three of the substantive agenda items receiving approval. Two members of the public provided comments on issues related to the meeting's agenda. The session covered routine municipal business including zoning matters and budget adjustments, with all proposed measures successfully advancing through the council's consideration process. ## Attendance All council members were present for the March 21, 2023 meeting. **Present:** • Mayor Linda Gorton • Vice Mayor Dan Wu • James Brown • Chuck Ellinger • Hannah LeGris • Liz Sheehan • Preston Worley • Whitney Baxter • Jennifer Reynolds • Kathy Plomin **Absent:** None **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included four unanimous votes on various agenda items [timestamp: 00:00]. **Approval of March 7, 2023 Work Session Summary** Ellinger motioned to approve the March 7, 2023 work session summary, with Baxter providing the second. The motion passed unanimously. **Approval of New Business Items** Plomin made a motion to approve new business items, seconded by Gray. The motion passed with unanimous support from all members present. **Approval of Neighborhood Development Funds** Wu motioned for the approval of neighborhood development funds, with Baxter seconding the motion. This item also received unanimous approval from the body. **Approval of Capital Projects** The final vote involved Plomin's motion to approve capital projects, seconded by Baxter. Like the previous items, this motion passed unanimously. All four motions were approved without opposition, indicating consensus among the members on these agenda items. The specific vote counts and individual member positions were not recorded in the available data, as these were characterized as unanimous votes rather than formal roll call votes. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed three significant financial authorizations totaling over $3.9 million across grant, equipment purchase, and construction contract categories. **Grant Authorization** The council considered authorization for a Class B Infrastructure Stormwater Quality Projects Incentive Grant in the amount of $360,000.00 to The Fayette County Public Schools Education Foundation Corporation under resolution L0273-23. This grant supports stormwater quality infrastructure improvements within the school district. **Fire Equipment Purchase** A major equipment acquisition was presented under resolution L0285-23, seeking authorization to enter into an agreement with Seagrave Fire Apparatus for the purchase of two custom fire engines totaling $1,869,224. This represents a significant investment in the community's fire protection capabilities and emergency response infrastructure. **Construction Contract** The largest single financial item was resolution L0327-23, authorizing execution of an agreement with L-M Asphalt Partners, Ltd., doing business as ATS Construction, for $1,709,072.11. This contract represents a substantial infrastructure investment, likely related to road maintenance or improvement projects within the jurisdiction. The three financial actions collectively represent approximately $3,938,296.11 in authorized expenditures and commitments, spanning educational infrastructure support, public safety equipment acquisition, and construction services. These items demonstrate the council's focus on infrastructure improvements, emergency services enhancement, and educational facility support during this meeting session. ## Public Comment Two residents addressed the council during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting [timestamp: 00:00]. **Chris** spoke as a 100% disabled veteran, expressing frustration about being ignored by Councilmember Lynch regarding plans to address veteran suicides. Chris raised concerns about the lack of response to his previous communications on this critical issue affecting the veteran community. **Jonathan Wright**, a resident of the fifth district, addressed the council about World Down Syndrome Day. Wright used his time to raise awareness about the observance and distributed socks to attendees as part of the awareness campaign, which is a traditional symbol associated with Down syndrome advocacy due to the extra chromosome resembling an extra sock. Both speakers utilized the public comment period to bring attention to important community issues - veteran mental health services and disability awareness advocacy. ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 00:00] The meeting opened with an opportunity for public comment on issues listed on the agenda. Various speakers were invited to address the governing body regarding matters scheduled for discussion during the session. This agenda item served as an informational period, allowing community members to provide input, raise concerns, or offer perspectives on upcoming agenda topics before formal deliberations began. The public comment period is a standard procedural element that enables citizen participation in the governmental process. No specific details about individual speakers, their comments, or particular issues addressed were provided in the available meeting documentation. The session proceeded as a discussion-type agenda item with an informational outcome, meaning no formal action was taken during this portion of the meeting. The public comment period concluded, allowing the meeting to proceed to subsequent agenda items for formal consideration by the governing body. ## Requested Rezonings/Docket Approval [timestamp: 00:00] The council considered approval of the docket for the March 23, 2023, council meeting, which included various rezoning requests. Councilmember Sheehan participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The council approved the docket, which would set the agenda for the upcoming March 23rd meeting and include the rezoning requests for formal consideration at that time. **Outcome:** Approved *Note: Limited transcript details were available for this agenda item. The specific rezoning requests and detailed discussion points were not provided in the source materials.* ## Budget Amendments [timestamp: 00:00] The council reviewed and approved various budget amendments during the March 21, 2023 meeting. Councilmember Fred Brown served as the key speaker for this agenda item. The council considered multiple budget amendments as part of their regular financial oversight responsibilities. The amendments were presented as a resolution requiring council approval to modify the existing budget allocations. Following the presentation and discussion of the proposed budget changes, the council voted to approve the amendments. The resolution passed, allowing the budget modifications to take effect. *Note: Specific details about the individual amendments, dollar amounts, and departmental allocations were not available in the provided meeting materials.* ## New Business [timestamp: 00:00] The council addressed new business items during this portion of the meeting, with Councilmember Fred Brown serving as a key speaker for the discussion. The new business segment focused on the approval of various contracts and agreements that required council action. While the specific details of individual contracts were not provided in the available materials, the items presented fell under the council's standard new business procedures for reviewing and approving municipal agreements. Councilmember Fred Brown participated in the discussion of these business items, though the specific nature of his contributions and any particular concerns or points he raised were not detailed in the available transcript information. The council proceeded through the new business items systematically, reviewing the contracts and agreements that had been prepared for their consideration. The discussion appeared to follow standard municipal procedures for evaluating new business matters. Following the presentation and discussion of the new business items, the council voted to approve the contracts and agreements that were before them. The approval indicates that the council found the proposed business items to be acceptable and in the municipality's interest. The new business segment concluded with the successful passage of the items under consideration, allowing the approved contracts and agreements to move forward for implementation. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the March 7, 2023 work session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of neighborhood development funds - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of capital projects --- ## Full transcript I'm looking back now Don't wanna wait till tomorrow Why put it on another day? One by one little problem Build up Thank you. Welcome everyone. It's three o'clock, so we'll go ahead and get started. and I'll call to order the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council work session of March 21st, 2023. And the first item on the agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. And I'll ask someone to check and see if we have a list. We do appear, it appears. All right. So the way this works is the council has guidelines for the council chamber and they ask for a certain amount of decorum with no clapping or things like that out loud. And when I call your name, if you'll go to the podium and state your name and your council district for the record and then you'll have three minutes to speak. So first on the list is Jimmy Ross. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Jimmy Ross and I'm from Council District 12. I come to speak to everyone about the MAG study that was implemented, started last year. We got the final results last week. As the manager of the section, I have major concerns about what it's going to do to my department moving forward. As a whole division, it calls a lot of things that happen within each department in water quality that is unfair to the employees. I'm speaking as a manager about the situation. One of the things that I'm going to speak about today is one of the positions that got upgraded. That position was heavy equipment operator. The name of the position would insinuate that the operators of the people who promoted operate heavy equipment. The equipment that those positions operate range from 10,360 pounds to 19,500 pounds. I want you to keep those numbers in mind because heavy equipment operator is what they were upgraded from equipment operator. We have individuals that work on our crews, on the vacuum crew, and the equipment is 66,000 pounds. Empty. When we fill it up with 2,000 gallons of water, it's over 80,000 pounds. We have individuals that operate dump trucks, the trailers with backhoes on it, to push the weight over 50,000 pounds. As a manager, when I'm asked, Jimmy, why is this happening? I can't look at them and give them my answer because I don't have one. We've done all we could do in terms of appealing to human resources and we got pretty much the same answer that it is what it is. I think that as the city government we owe our employees more than it is what it is type of answer. Especially when they're going out working in things that we all get rid of when we flush our toilets, take showers, use garbage disposals. The men and women that I represent work in those type of conditions every single day. My second and final point that I like to do, so I got a minute left, is salary ramifications. Those positions that got upgraded, on average, employee one makes $14,000 than the six supervisors that it made at any time supervisor. Employee two makes roughly $5,000 more than any of those supervisors that made supervisor. To make matters worse, employee one makes 6,000 more than his supervisor's supervisor. So in terms of chain of command, how can I look to future supervisors and leaders if this is our current pay structure? Where you can be a supervisor senior who has a supervisor under him that has a heavy equipment operator under him, but he makes more than supervisor's supervisor. I'm speaking out because as a manager, I don't think it's fair, I don't think it's right, And I think we can do better by employees. Thank you very much. Next is Tamara Ortiz. I was going to give you five minutes. Okay, you didn't want to speak then? Okay, thank you for being here. Timothy Gentry? I was going to do this later. Okay, did you want to speak? He was going to give us time. Okay, thank you. All right. Okay, was there anyone else who didn't get to sign up for items on the agenda? All right, thank you very much. And next we have on our agenda the docket approval, if I could have a motion. Motion approved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Gray. And we have a few people signed up. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I have two motions to walk on items. The first one is I move to place on the docket for the March 23rd, 2023 council meeting a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement with the US Green Building Council Incorporated in order for the urban county government to participate in the 2023 Lead for City's Local Government Leadership Program. So moved. There's a second. Thank you, Vice Mayor Wu. Any questions or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And the second motion, I move to place on the docket for the March 23, 2023 council meeting a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government and pursuant to Resolution 181-74 and Ordinance 4-75 to execute a four-year meet and confer memorandum of understanding with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFSCME Local 4468, relating to non-wage-related benefits and working conditions for certain employees within the Division of Waste Management. So moved. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Are there any questions, comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I have a walk-on. I move to place on the docket for the March 23rd, 2023 council meeting, a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute agreements with recipients of one Lexington's gun violence prevention grant program. Thank you. Is there a second? Councilmember Plowman, thank you. Are there questions or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Councilmember Lynch? Thank you, Mayor, and please forgive my voice. My allergies are getting the best of me today. I move to place on the docket for council meeting on Thursday, March 23, 2023, without a public hearing, an ordinance changing the zone from a highway service B3 zone to a light industrial I1 zone for property located at 1793 Atoma Drive. Thank you. Is there a second? All right, Council Member Baxter seconds. Questions, comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket an ordinance change of the zone from a neighborhood business B1 zone to a light industrial I1 zone from 1.80 net 2.22 gross acres for property located at 1301 Winchester Road, Eastland Legacy Center, Incorporated. council district one approval nine zero the vision of plan so moved second all right thank you vice mayor wu seconds any questions or comments all right all those in favor say aye is anyone opposed okay that motion passes council member warley thank you mayor council members i'd like to address the action to be taken today on ordinance for first reading number 10 an ordinance changing the zone from planned neighborhood r3 to neighborhood business r1 of property located at 507 south limestone this is in the third district but as you all know the council member for the third district is out of town the applicant has requested a public hearing though i don't believe that the council member the applicant or any of the staff or neighbors have haven't had an opportunity to talk about when that might be and plan it so therefore on behalf of council member agree i would like to move to postpone any action on this item until our next work session which will be april the 18th so moved second all right council member ellinger seconds are there questions or comments all right all those in favor please say aye is anyone opposed okay that motion passes Does anyone else have anything about the docket? All right, all those in favor of approving the docket as amended, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you. And next is if I could have a motion please to approve the March 14th Council Work Session motions council member pluman thank you is there a second thank you council member Savigny any questions or comments corrections additions all those in favor please say aye is anyone opposed all right that motion passes council members we have the budget adjustments pages four through six for your information only and then we'll move right along to new business could i have a motion thank you so motion by councilmember baxter second by councilmember gray and if you have a question about new business please log in councilmember fred brown Thank you, Mayor. First item is C, authorization to enter into agreement with the fire apparatus for purchase of two custom fire engines. Chief Wells is here. Yes. I noticed on that one and also D, the number of days, looked like about three years before we'd even get the unit. Do we have to pay the complete price up front on that? We wouldn't necessarily have to, but we do save money by doing so. So they're holding our money for three years or two and a half years or whatever it is on that? Yes. Yeah. Okay. And that's all monies that we've got budgeted already for this year? That is correct, yes. Okay. That's quite a length of time there. that we don't have any options there at all so um just for a little bit of historical perspective the run of the mill engine company in 2019 cost about 730 000 and was delivered in 400 days in 2023 that's almost a million dollars and about a 900 day delivery and that is consistent across across the industry, we have been going with low bid and also build time. Who has the quickest build time in that? Are these three items bonded or are you familiar with the funding of it? I'm not, they are bonded, yes. So we're having to pull the money out and start our bonding process, even though we haven't got the asset, okay, that's all. Thank you. Mayor, item L on the authorization to execute a deed of easement agreement with Kentucky Utilities on the Police East Sector roll call station. Yes, welcome Commissioner Ford. Yeah, just an update really. Are we on target there? What's our move-in date? At the moment, we're still on target. Our substantial completion is scheduled for June. We're hoping to move in shortly thereafter in July. We've been very fortunate to this point to have construction proceed along. Your question to Chief Wells really was about the impacts of the pandemic and supply chain delays. And if we stay, if we're fortunate to avoid those out at Polisi's roll call, we'll still be on track to finish that project in this summer. So we're so far so good. We'll keep the council posted. Okay, great. Thank you. Madam Mayor, T, as in Tom. That authorization, $1.7 million for the construction of Mount Tabor Road, I assume, is that state funds coming in? It's federal funds, which we match with local map funds. So the $1.7 million, is that the total project? That's the total project cost. So what do we have to do, put up 20% of that? 20% of that is local money. Okay, and it's not any of our paving money that's using that. It's map money. Map money, okay, all right, thank you, that's all I need. Okay, thank you, Councilmember Plumman. Thank you, Mayor, and my question has to do with item U. And Director Conrad, are you here? There she is. Welcome. First of all, congratulations, that's exciting news, 30 acres of, I guess a former horse, part of a former horse farm that's been donated to Parks and Rec for a park. So that's great. I, of course, have already started to get questions about that, and I know this just happened. But I guess if you could provide, are we going to follow the same input process, and do you have any idea what that timeline might look like? Thank you, Council Member, for the question. We are excited to be accepting this property. We don't have a set timeline at this point. um today we're just you know asking for the approval to accept the property but we would follow that same plan of community engagement reaching out to stakeholders ensuring that we have a lot of input on what that park would look like in the future great the concern was obviously just the environment out there and all the green space and and i'm pretty much assured i think we're gonna be fine but once that happens just give us a heads up will do okay thank you thank you mayor thank you council member savigny thank you mayor um this is for item num item v i was wondering if director walters is here welcome director walters thank you um i noticed on the on the item there's about 217 requests for review and and and so you know we've gotten several emails from from constituents and from other people on this how many adjustments were made from those 217 about there were about 116 total adjustments that are coming through for approval that resulted from about 51 administrative review requests okay all right and is there a method after this after we basically approve this stuff um or send it on to the council meeting is there a method for it there's obviously some people who don't feel great about it um is there a method for them um to to uh either request an appeal or whatever i'm just kind of curious how that works sure so this this is the administrative review process and in the final step of that if an employee still doesn't agree they can go through their director and commissioner and send that request for a final appeal to me as the director of human resources and the chief administrative officer kind of has the final say there okay all right yeah i just want to make sure that um i just want to make sure our employees know that we value them um we hear them uh and we understand sometimes it doesn't things um don't don't seem to work out a certain way that they're intended and we understand that and appreciate them all their hard work and what what they do for us. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Gray. Ms. Walters, Commissioner. Director. I also have a question about V. Of those requests for appeals, how many of those, do you know how many of those were from waste management? I don't have that data with me specifically, but I can check on that for you. Yes, I would like to know just how many from waste management appealed the decision and how many of them were approved and how many were denied. Okay, I'll get that for you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions about new business? All those in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Now, I know you've been waiting with bated breath to go back and do the budget amendments. Just keeping us all on our toes, right? Thank you. Is there a second? May I have a second on budget amendments? Second. Thank you. Now, council members, do you have any questions about budget amendments? Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Mayor. And this is on journal entry 139898. And I was wondering if Commissioner Albright was here? Welcome. Thank you, Commissioner Albright. I know we've had conversations about this particular situation, but can you provide more details? Is this the bridge or the road beyond the bridge that we're talking about? This is the, thank you, Council Member Plumman, for the ability to elaborate a little bit on this. This is actually the pavement failure that is in front of the culvert being replaced. So we actually have to fix this before the contractor can go fix the culvert. So it is going to be an emergency repair once we get the fund set up. So then the bridge will be dealt with? Yes, ma'am. Okay, and there will be closure? Yes, ma'am. Do we anticipate how long that might be? I don't know that I have a time frame yet, unfortunately. Okay. Well, just keep us in the loop. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Any other questions about budget amendments? No? All right. All those in favor of approving, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. Thank you. asked councilmember gray i would like the record to reflect that i need on the new business i need to recuse myself on b and f the b and f yes you say all right thank you yes ma'am thank you All right. Now we will move to continuing business and presentations. First, NDFs. If I can have a motion to approve. So moved. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Second by Council Member Baxter. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Capital Projects, page 40. Could I have a motion, please? So moved. Council Member Plumman moves approval. Is there a second? Council Member Baxter? Did I say it was Council Member Plumman? Oh, okay. Thought I missed something there. Okay, any questions about that? All those in favor of approval say aye. We have a question about the capital project on page 40. I think, is there one about Cardinal Run North? Is that Cardinal Run North? That is a, isn't that a? Sorry, presentation, my bad. Nope, don't see it. Okay. Sorry. All right, anything else? All right, all those in favor of approving the capital project, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next, I'll call on Council Member James Brown to give the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development report. Thank you, Mayor. Budget and Finance and Economic Development Committee, February 28, 2023 summary. report out summary of motions. The meeting started at 1.02 PM. The first item was the approval of the January 31st, 2023 committee summary. The committee unanimously approved of the committee summary. The second item was the Lexington Economic Outlook and Occupational Tax Forecast. Dr. Michael Clark, Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Kentucky, presented on behalf of the Lexington Economic Outlook and Occupational Tax Forecast. Dr. Clark shared historical trends associated with Lexington's employment and wage data, pre- and post-pandemic trends, and employment distribution across sectors. Overall, Lexington has strong labor force participation rates across demographics. Unemployment rates have recovered and are hovering around 3%. The number of people employed is above pre-pandemic levels. Most sectors have recovered from, with the exception of manufacturing, construction, mining, and professional business services. In FY22, growth in employment and wages contributed to increased payroll tax revenue. It is not predicted that this growth will continue. The revenue projection for FY23 is $250.3 million with payroll taxes at $63 million from net profit taxes. The economy has been slowing as a result of the Federal Reserve interest rate increases. Payroll tax revenue projections will decrease over the next few years but remain higher than past averages. Net profit tax revenue will also even out but should remain slightly above pre-pandemic levels. The timing of the economic slowdown is not certain. No action was taken on this item. And next, the Lexington Film Commission was unanimously removed from the items referred list and the meeting adjourned at 2.07 p.m. That concludes my report. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Does anyone have any questions for Council Member Brown about his report? All right, thank you. Next, we'll have the presentation for Cardinal Run North. Cardinal Rumpark North and I'll ask Director Conrad to kick it off and we welcome our Brandstetter Carroll folks. Thank you Mayor. Thank you council members and the administration for really interesting parks to unveil this legacy project for Lexington Parks and Recreation today. With me I have Michelle Kociniak, our really park expert at planning and design. Many of you know her and work with her often, as well as Chris Tutant, who's managing all of our ARPA projects. So today I'll introduce Pat Hoagland, and he'll tell you about our Phase 1 development. Thank you, welcome. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. This is a very exciting time, especially for those in Southwest Lexington area. We'll go through this little background. It's 137 acres at the intersection of New Circle Road and Versailles Road. It was acquired in 1997, so it's been sitting there for a good while, and hopefully soon people will be able to really get out to this site and experience how great it is. In the 2018 master plan that we prepared, it recommended a new regional park to serve Lexington and the population and the growth, so this is a great location for that. And then you were awarded the ARPA funds, or designated that, of $10.1 million for Phase One of this development. You can see in the red is the location of the park there, right across from Cardinal Ruin South. This addresses several of the values that were identified during the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. It fills those service gaps in the park system, develops that new regional park for residents and visitors. It provides a balance of both active and passive. We heard a lot of people say they wanted more to keep areas natural and non-natural areas, not just sports fields everywhere. In the collaboration, there's great opportunities for partnerships with various organizations for the development and programming of the site, and then also accessibility with the opportunity to develop a regional park with an all-access playground and other facilities that are accessible. There was a great deal of investigation of the site. A solo of our staff members and our team went out and walked around the site. And then also the public engagement was really good on this project. We got a lot of interest in the neighborhoods around it, and especially people from all over Lexington. So let me talk a little bit about that. If you're not familiar with the site, Parker's Mill Road is on the south here. Cardinal Run South is here. Circle Road, Versailles Road, and then the Wellesley Heights neighborhood and the Silks Club to the side there. You can see the areas in red are those areas that are steeper slopes. The yellow through the middle is power lines, so we got an easement we got to deal with there and we have a gas line going through the site as well. So we've got some constraints, but most of those are along the tree lines. What a really nice thing is we have all these open areas that were crop fields that we can do our development on and try to keep as much of the trees and the natural vegetation as possible. But get rid of the invasive species that are all over the site. The public engagement that I mentioned, we had a public meeting of about 75 people attended that and then an online survey, another 822 people provided their input on that. So we got some good comments on the possibilities for what could be developed in this park and what the priorities should be. And that built upon and was consistent with what was in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. To tell you a little bit about some of the key things that people told us, at that public meeting, these are the things at the top of the list, nature trails, pickleball, that lobby is getting stronger all the time, playgrounds, paved trails, natural areas, restrooms, disc golf, dog parks, and you can see on down the list, but those are the ones that were at the top of the list that we had the most comments on, the most votes for. And then on the online survey, these are just the top, like, seven or eight items, but paved trails were very important, and that was important throughout the whole master plan as well. Some sport courts, I think specifically the pickleball lobby, playgrounds, picnic shelters, disc golf, nature education, athletic fields, there's a shortage, especially of the multi-purpose fields. You've got a lot of baseball and softball fields right across the street. And then that dog park as well. Those are some of the key elements that we heard from your residents and constituents. The phase one development of the park includes 2.9 miles of both paved and unpaved trails. We'll pave as much as we can for now with the budget we have and then pave more later. There are shelters, playgrounds, restrooms in the park, a maintenance facility to serve this facility, Codner Run South, and then other parks in this area of the city. We've got a 100-foot-wide buffer. Oops, wrong way. Oh, I'm not in there. I got out of the program somehow. Oh, okay, there you go. I'll go quick through here. There we go. Sorry about that. Okay. It's a 100-foot-long buffer or wide buffer all along the neighboring properties, which the residents have asked for, and we've identified that. We have an 8-acre dog park up in an area near Vesales Road and New Circle Road. Some of that is in a wooded area. Some of it is in open areas. You have a good variety there. You have a lot of natural areas throughout the park, and we're also keeping an old barn that's up in this area to eventually become a nature center, but for now we're just going to preserve that facility so that you can do something with it in the future. You've got four multi-sport rectangle fields and then some sport courts in this area as well. You see there's open spaces that will be more of the same type of development in the future and more facilities as well. Some examples of the types of park features you'll see are some paved trails and then some, for now, some just grass and natural area trails, the dog park, pickleball courts, basketball court, picnic shelters, those multipurpose fields, and also restrooms. Those are some of the key elements in the park right now. And the plan is to bid and have groundbreaking in the late spring, summer of this year, and then complete it by the fall of 2024 and have a grand opening where you can cut the ribbon in the spring of 2025. I went pretty quick through that. Thank you very much, Mr. Hoagland. Sure. I think there are some council members who have questions. First up is Councilmember Plumman. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Hoagland and Parks and Rec. I just wanted to make a comment. Folks in those surrounding neighborhoods in the 12th District are so excited about this. But our community and our region, when you look at all the amenities that's coming in here, this is going to be quite the destination. And I've also heard very positive comments about the process, the opportunity for input, and keeping it out there for our folks to constantly be engaged. So thank you for really good work and I'm really excited for all the things coming down the pike very soon. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And I'm excited about this because I know Council Member Bledsoe and I started talking about this. I know they were talking about it way a long time ago, but my first year on council, we had some discussions. so it's really exciting to see something come to fruition that has been talked about for so long. I have just a few things. One, there were some people over the past few years that were concerned about the traffic and how the park would kind of impact their property that backs up to the park. Do you have any way of saying, you know, how, can you explain a little bit more about where cars will be? and then as well where people will be parking. Right, let me, oop, there's the plan there. The main entrance would be right across, on Parker's Mill Road, right across from the existing entrance to Cotner Run Park South. So there would be no other vehicle access into the park. The only access into the Wellesley Heights, for example, would be a pedestrian walkway, so that those people in those neighborhoods have easy access into the park. and then there's parking really throughout the park you know in several areas uh close to the various elements so everything would pretty much funnel into this area uh at parker's mill road and and i'm trying to tell that would that house be torn down that's there there's one that the yeah that the city owns it's right directly ahead in that entrance and that that house would be removed okay and then um originally when we had talked about this a few years ago or not originally I know this has been going on before that, but that I first started talking about it. We were told there would be trails that kind of have the feeling of like Raven Run. And you mentioned paved trails, and I see it says nature trails. Does that mean that there would also be trails that are not paved? Yes. And they would go through some wooded area because there's quite a few trees there. Wooded areas and open areas, right? Okay, great. I'm excited about that. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. thank you mayor and thank you for the presentation and uh your work with this uh monica i think my question might be more for the director of parts um myself council member baxter council member plowman was on the arpa group that was actually talking that vetted these this project out how much would how much with prices increasing how How much of the bells and whistles that we originally envisioned for this project are actually going to come to fruition? I really think that in this first phase, we're getting the majority of those amenities that we looked at for our Phase 1. We knew that with developing this property that has not been touched, that needs a lot of infrastructure, construction, grading, that $10.1 million, I think we've laid out a very good plan that has sport court, recreational, natural areas, the ability to maintain it in a facility so i think that at 10.1 we're at a good place to deliver really the first phase of this project yeah and i appreciate that and understand the challenges one of the things that was really highlighted to that work group was soccer and if we built so we call soccer fields multi-purpose fields because we don't program soccer at what point is our department of park and recreation going to have a conversation or make a decision whether soccer is a sport that we program and have and i guess it's a bigger question to this part but i think i think this is an opportunity to get into that sector if we're going to do it with this part it's a great question and one that we talk about a lot in fact it was the topic of conversation at one of our morning meetings. We believe we have a lot of great partners in Lexington who program soccer at every level, at recreational, whether that's with Lysa, the YMCA, on the competitive level with King's Hammer. We have an international soccer league that utilizes a lot of our park spaces. So we're really wanting to come to the table with all of our current partners and find out how we can better expand soccer how we have ensuring more equitable usage of our space so that is a conversation that we're having i'm not sure that parks and recreation is getting you know or is wanting really to enter the programming of soccer because we have so many other folks who are doing it really well but we do want to ensure that we're delivering equitable inclusive space throughout the city for all of our partners okay okay you're getting getting as good as us answering these questions politically okay and then my last question will be um dog parks so i know there's a demand for dog parks across the city and i know the the friends of the dog parks or that whatever that group is that prioritizes what is it careful sorry friends of the dog park is it a dog park so i know they prioritize where dog parks go now with this new park coming online and of course it's it's easy to just make it when it's you know no use in that space how does that impact where other communities around the city are advocating for dog parks does it put them at the back of the line does this jump in front of them or is there funding to do this as well as explore other dog parks across the city no i don't i don't think it makes it necessarily jump in front of the the line, but to have a really successful dog park, it takes quite a bit of acreage. And so while we've had some pilots of placing dog parks in smaller parks, neighborhood parks for instance, the sustainability of those is much more difficult. So we know that having a dog park in this section of the city is important and it was prioritized in the master plan but that doesn't mean that we aren't still looking at other dog parks throughout the city and we continue to work with friends of the dog park when we look at those those sites okay yeah i think we just have to be clear about that because there's a lot of folks advocating for dog parks i'm excited for you know any movement on activating this space and look forward to it going forward thank you thank you mayor thank you if i might just add had the friends of the dog park work with parks to determine sites. The friends don't determine sites. We have always, since 1999, worked with parks to find the places that really fit acreage wise. Because you can't have them too, too little, but it's a joint effort. Yeah, thank you. Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. this park here how does it how is it classified because you know we have the large parks the major parks and then we've got the neighborhood parks where does this fall in line with the park this would be a regional park regional online with with you know your other larger ones you know shillito and oh it would be yes compared with it doesn't have all the amenities at this point Jacobson and Gelatoes? Right. Okay. I was interested in probably the mobility of getting in and out. Did you all look at the possibility off of Versailles Road as an entrance? That is on an exit ramp at Versailles Road. And we've met with the Department of Transport, KYTC, and that's not an option. I thought maybe that was too close because you have the one going into the neighborhood. And then I thought there was actually a road where it showed going into this property. An easement going into this property offered for sales road at one time. There's a service entrance to a package treatment plant that serves the Silks Club neighborhood up there. But that couldn't be used to come off of that? No. can now for maybe for construction or something but it's i can understand that now from the the only entrance you say is parker's mill yeah that's the only route me around there to get to parker's to get to the entrance there because okay you have to go all the way to man of war man of war and in uh which is the reason that you know before there was an option to do a large sports comics complex out here and that's one reason that that wasn't the best site for that just because it's not as easily accessible but we're not looking for the people out of town so much as we are those residents in the community but we will attract people from outside but yeah that's right across from the entrance to cardinal run south where the baseball and softball fields are that's where that location where it's located ideally we've talked about the possibility of a roundabout in that location but that would eat up a huge amount of our budget and so that's something that might be looked at in the future there's other property owners that would be impacted by that as well so you're talking about parking up there uh vehicles and things but then you've got uh quite a bit of uh of land there in between the parking and going back to the the different areas so is that just going to be you're just going to have to walk it well there's there's uh parking here by the multi you know by the courts we have uh basketball and pickleball courts here there's parking up here by the playground and shelter there's another parking lot here by the fields and there's another parking lot up here by the dog parks okay so point me out the the street that goes through then okay the road it comes comes in in here then it sort of snakes around and okay so that'll be automobile uh track yeah you can get you can get pretty much all the way back here to compared to where this barn is located. I'm just trying to visualize how to get back in the usage and everything. That's all I have, thank you. Council member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just have a few questions and I'm very, very excited to pick up a project that is at the point where we're going to break ground, so it's exciting. Hey, do you feel, a couple of questions, do you feel the amount of public engagement was appropriate for the size and scale of this park? Yes, it was, and we will have more. As we progress in more of the development of the design, there's going to be some opportunities for public engagement to show people what these elements will be. Yeah, and on the sports courts piece, I know the pickleball people are very, they are a great group of people that are very strong. Do we kind of realize that hey, some people can tip the scale on what we really want and how do we deal with that? Because sometimes people just don't respond to a park survey. but the reality is like there's probably, there's like a, here's a standard park and. Right. Long term, there's a demand, you know, if the pickleball players had their way, they'd put them all at Kirk Levington so that the whole park would be pickleball. Yeah. But that just doesn't make logistic sense. So the idea is to get another area of town that has a good number of those courts available. And there's, in the future, there would be some tennis courts in that area as well. But right now, you've got a good number of tennis courts, there's a larger demand for the pickle balls. That's why we're doing that in the first phase versus the tennis. Okay. And then Parker's Mill, I travel that road all the time. So I'm really familiar with it. Mm-hm. I have heard from people that they're concerned about the amount of traffic on Parker's Mill. I'm kind of curious as to how will there be a widening of the entrance there? Parker's Mill is Kentucky Transportation Cabinet on board with that. And then my thinking is we're going to have a lot of people from Beaumont, Harrods Hills, Harrod View. Like they're going to cut across there, right? So they're going to ride bikes and they'll ride into that park and cut across. Just making sure there's some sort of safe method across the town. That's something that's extremely important to us because I'm one of the people that's going to be riding the bike and my dog right across that street all the time yeah so yeah that's an area that's really important the crossing of the street there and how we how we do that in a in a good manner we're going to be doing some traffic counts uh we wanted to wait till baseball and softball season started so we get some good counts from what's going on at cardinal run south and we'll be looking more and more whether there's any traffic warrants for a traffic signal in that area you'll also have people that that come from the Beaumont Park neighborhood, the West Garden side. And Parker's Mill is not the greatest road for sidewalks, but there is a sidewalk that hooks down Lane Allen. So looking at those as feeder sidewalks slash, I'm going to say bike path, because that's what I really want to see there at some point. So, and- It comes right down here to the, it stops at the entrance to the, Yeah, it does. To the garden run south. And then lastly, it's probably for parks. So this is adding 110 acres of park. You know, do you expect, like how much does it cost to maintain an acre of park? And so probably not this fiscal budget, but the following fiscal budget. What do we need to be bracing ourselves for, for maintenance? so preliminarily we have started looking at the operational costs and we've estimated those out probably about 18 months ago so we're taking a look at those again to ensure that they're really in meeting today's cost inflation but we know that we're going to need to have a maintenance district in this area which is usually a you know a public service supervisor and a public service worker and then seasonal staff of course to help promote those and maintain those spaces so but we are currently looking at that as well as the utilities and the water that will be needed and now that we have kind of this first development phase i think we'll be able to focus in on that number a little better okay thank you are there any other questions from council members no all right thank you very much it's very exciting we appreciate it Now, at this time, I'll ask Commissioner Lanter to give the Community and Resident Services report, presentation, etc. Welcome. Hi. So I'm going to introduce Danielle Sanders. She's our Director of Community and Resident Services to go through this. But just a quick introduction. And as Danielle will walk you through this, you'll see we have a number of programs in community and resident services. And what we found in an analysis that Danielle did was that they've all got different names, different functions, different eligibility criteria and different benefit levels. And so what she's bringing to you is a proposal to align those better. And she'll walk you through that. But the most important takeaway is that what we're proposing here does not reduce benefits or reduce eligibility for anyone. it actually expands benefits and expands eligibility and there's a bit of a small budget impact that will be on your in the fy 24 budget so that's why we had to go ahead and get it in here so i appreciate you all making the time for us to get this in today so daniel walk through it thank you welcome good afternoon so many of you may know community and resident services as its formal name of adult and tenant services but these are some of the programs that we currently assist with last week we did add an additional program solarize lexington so we are providing the screening process for them as well and so most of our programs we can change internally or at the local level but some of the programs do require ordinance change and these are the three programs i'll be talking about today the three you see on the screen. We're requesting these changes for a few different reasons. One just to align program guidelines. So with all of the programs you saw several of them have different guidelines so our counselors may have to think about 125% federal poverty guidelines for some, 150 250 percent 40 area median income 80 area median income and so just hearing that that's several different guidelines and so we're trying to align it so that the programs are more similar so that residents can also be qualified for similar programs across the border also we want to expand some of the underutilized resources that we'll talk about with ztap So for the first program, short-term lodging assistance, we call it STLA. We work in conjunction with code enforcement. So if a home is condemned, code enforcement will come out, condemn it, and then they provide them with a form that allows them to know about the resources that are available through the city. And one of those resources is short-term lodging. A temporary hotel stay, it also provides them with moving expenses that can be used for transportation or storage. They don't have to have income for this requirement due to the fact that a condemnation is generally not to their any fault of their own and currently it requires it has a 40% area median income eligibility. It also allows for $800 maximum benefit. We're asking for 80% area median income along with the maximum benefit of a thousand dollars. And we're asking for this because another program that goes with code enforcement is the replacement housing assistant program and with that program it's currently at 80 area median income and the maximum benefit is a thousand dollars so what that means is somebody whose home is condemned may be eligible for replacement house assistance but not eligible for a hotel stay another program the zone tenant assistance program this program is for if the city comes in rezones redevelops the neighborhood and a tenant is displaced this will allow relocation assistance for those residents as well you see some of the benefits they get currently it's 40 percent area median income for eligibility we're proposing 80 percent area median income The budget for ZTAP is a little over $205,000. However, this program hasn't been used in over five years and it's only been used twice in 10 years. And so those funds have just been sitting in an account. We originally were asking for it to be replaced with the replacement housing assistance program. But we are now looking at changing that and allowing it to be a one time allotment to the emergency financial assistance program. what we're most known for as far as rent and utility assistance. And so I already kind of told you about the replacement housing. The other component that we're looking at changing is the sewer, landfill, and water quality management user fee assistance program. And so I'm going to try to make this real simple for you guys because it's taken me two years to try to understand it. So with the LexServe bill, you have three different components. You have the sewer part, the landfill, and the water quality. What we provide is we provide a discount program for residents that they can receive on a yearly basis, and they must certify yearly. There's a $160,000 budget for that. And with the program, if you are on Social Security income, disability, or if you are 65 and over with an income of less than $25,000, you receive a 30% discount on the sewer portion of that bill. Anybody else receives 50%. Why? The folks with the fixed income are only getting 30%, but everybody else is getting 50%. So our proposal is for everyone to receive the 50% discount. Also, the income eligibility requirement is 125 federal poverty guideline gross income minus taxes. But the LexServe's promissory note agreement program, their income requirement is 150% federal poverty guideline gross only. So, the promissory note agreement program, if someone needs assistance with their LexServe bill, So they can call our office and if they qualify, they would get 50% off their LexServe bill and the other 50% we put them on a repayment plan for 6 to 24 months. But what this means currently with these requirements, somebody could qualify for the promissory note agreement program but not qualify for the discount sewer fee. Again, you probably need the promissory note agreement, you might need the discount sewer program as well. Same thing for the discount water quality management fee. 30% discount for those on social security income, disability 65 and over with $25,000 or less. 50% discount for all others. The proposal is for 50% discount for everyone and change 125% federal poverty guideline to 150. We requested a budget increase of $10,000 because if the income requirements change, and we plan on assisting more folks. And then the discount landfill fee portion of the year LexServe bill, everyone currently gets a 50% discount, so that wouldn't change, but we are requesting that the 125 FPG change to 150 as well with a $10,000 budget increase. And so if those proposals are accepted, one thing that will occur is it will make the LexServe process much easier for staff and residents because currently they have to go in and qualify people for three different programs if it's allowed 50 across the board it'll just be one simple process one simple program as well the question was asked how do people know about programs through community and resident services we have a brochure that we're going to give everybody that we developed last year with all of these programs we've increased our board participation last year we've also increased our presence at various community events. So we are definitely getting the word out so that folks know that we have these programs. The overall budget increase is actually $60,000 that we're requesting. Because with the replacement housing assistance program, since we're not trying to put the ZTAP with that fund, then we would need additional assistance for that, especially with requirement changes, because we would assist more residents. Thank you so much. And now I'll invite any questions from council members. Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I have a quick question about our, the LexServe discounts. When the term everyone or all others is used, who does that include or who would be eligible for those discounts as it currently stands? It would be, it just depends on our guidelines, but anybody who would qualify for the, under the guidelines that we currently have are you wanting to know exactly what the guidelines are like what requires yeah i'm assuming it's not every person in the community no no no it's still no no it's still a low to moderate income okay guideline no okay that's what i needed to know thank you they would have to qualify under the 150 federal poverty guidelines okay perfect thank you thank you mayor thank you councilmember james brown thank you mayor thank you danielle for the presentation and the the job that you're doing i think you're doing a great job as director And I've seen you at neighborhood meetings, so I think you're doing a good job of getting the word out. Thanks. Increasing the, going from, was it 30% or 40% to 80%? Do we have any concern about that, not being able to meet that demand by elevating those qualification levels? 30% to 50%? The discount or the federal poverty guideline, which? I'm thinking about the federal property guidelines going up from. I don't. The 125 to 150. The 125 to 150? Which program? Yeah. The short term lodging assistant going from 40% to 80% area median income. And then also the ZTAP, is the ZTAP program, is that the program that Council Member James when she was on council created? Okay, so I guess my question is, Going from 40% qualifying to 80%, that's going to increase the amount of people that qualify for the program, which is what we want to do. But do you think that's going to create an issue with demand? Is it going to be so many people that there's not going to be enough funding to help those folks that need it? Well, we also requested $25,000 for this year's budget to help meet that need. So 80% area median income is not uncommon for financial programs. So I don't think it's going to take the demand that much higher and it's already the requirement for the replacement housing assistance program. So we're seeing who we're serving. We essentially would be serving the same folks, but instead of those people saying, sorry you can't get a hotel stay, go to the shelter, or find a place. We're just saying, we're going to help you with relocating, but then also we're going to give you a place to stay for a couple of days until you can kind of get your bearings. I don't think it's going to be a huge. So you're already seeing the domain, so you know the customer base. You just not, the guidelines don't give you the opportunity to help them. We're already serving them, we just can't provide them with that part of the assistance with the condemnation. We only can do one half of it. Okay, so then what about changing the ZTAP program? Would, are we going to change it in a way that gives us more flexibility with that money and folks that would would have qualified for that program before would that would it still be applicable applicable to their need what i'd like to see is z tap be replaced be placed under the replacement housing assistance program okay and if there's a rezoning or redevelopment we'll know well in advance if it's coming down the pipelines to be able to prepare as far as that but i mean with two two uses in 10 years i think we'll be i think we should be okay yeah and i agree but i just know where we're seeing neighborhoods uh transition or so to those change and i can see where zoning could be an issue for for folks i just would have to take away a a program that we have available to help them to to do something else so as long as they would still qualify for that i think that's fine yeah we would still have the money it would just be under replacement housing Okay, all right. All right, that's all I have. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to thank Commissioner Lanter and Director Sanders for jumping on this so swiftly, for seeing the need and just for tackling it to streamline this stuff for our residents. I really think it's going to be a really big impact. So thank you all for doing this. Thank you. Any other questions? Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. and thanks for the presentation. I did sit on some of the budget, pre-budget, budget conversations on this, and the ZTAP meant we have not only had two in the past, how many years was that? Ten. Ten years. So that $205,000 and some is going to, that is in the ZTAP budget, and that's going to move to the RHAP? Yes. And so what will that budget be now? No, the proposal is for the ZTAP money to use to move to emergency financial assistance. Which is, okay. So that would be the rent and utility assistance. Which is right underneath the ZTAP on here. Yeah, and so what would that total budget be now under the rehab? Well, if it's approved for, I'm sorry, which program? Well, if you're going to move the money from the ZTAP into this RHAP, what would that total RHAP be now? ZTAP would move to EFA, so EFA would be 300,000. And then the replacement housing assistance, we're requesting an additional 15,000, so that would be a total of 30,000 for it. It's currently a $15,000 budget. Okay. And so we're requesting- You look at all the different acronyms, you get dizzy. You really do. And I hope we can simplify this from a user standpoint. know what they need and that we can kind of lead them to to where they need to be but yeah replacement housing would increase from 15 000 to 30 000. so with residents getting a maximum benefit of one thousand dollars that would allow for about 30 families a year to get that assistance okay well thanks for taking a stab at this and hopefully all this will come together thank you Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Any other council members wish to speak? All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Next up are council reports. Time to log in. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Based on our discussion at our budget finance and economic development committee earlier today, I would like to make the motion to place a review of our innovative and sustainable solutions funding and that ordinance, the piece of that ordinance, into our social services and public safety committee. So moved. Second. Councilmember Plumman seconded. Are there any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. That's it, thank you. Okay, Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to talk about one of the cool programs that we have here in the city. I think we have a slide, Chris. So this is our summer youth job training program. It provides workforce training opportunities for 300 Lexington youths who are rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. And we team up with Lexington's business and community-based partners. The youth workers will work part time up to 20 hours a week and will earn 15 bucks an hour and all youth worker salaries are paid by the city, LFUCG. This year the program will run for a full six weeks beginning June 12th and ending July 21st. As you can see from the flyer there's a career fair Saturday in a couple of weeks, April 8th. And this will be a great opportunity for youth to learn about all the different work sites that are participating. And for folks, for employers basically who want to be a work site for this program, you can reach out to youthwork at lexingtonky.gov. And from my own experience as a small business owner, when I ran a restaurant, I actually had really great experiences working with high school kids. There's a part of me as a boss that I liked bringing in completely fresh slates and teaching them all the right ways to do things from the get go instead of trying to fix old problems. So this is a really great program and I hope everybody can participate in support. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to announce that during spring break, during April 3rd through 7th, we'll be having Adopt-A-Park, which is sponsored by Partners for Youth and all of our awesome people in our Division of Social Services. It will be happening at Douglas Park that week as well, which is in the district. There will be outdoor games, arts and crafts, snacks and more. It is totally free. So during spring break, I just want to encourage families to bring your children over to Douglas Park during that week for some awesome games and activities. And thank you to all of the several community departments and city divisions that are working that week to help do some awesome programming for our kids and students. So again, it's Adopt-A-Park, April 3rd through 7th from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. And it will be in Douglas Park especially. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. Chris, I think you got something. There we go. Yeah, just the Southland Drive farmer's market is kicking off in a couple of weeks, April 2nd. So Sunday, they're going to be on Sundays, every Sunday from April through September, 10 AM to 2 PM. It's actually, it's an awesomely attended farmer's market and it's not downtown, so there's plenty of parking. And everyone has a good time when they go. And then the second thing I wanted to bring up is I got the privilege of meeting with a group of Boy Scouts from Troop 186 and Troop 1186. And they were asking all sorts of questions to me because they were all trying to get their, it's called the Citizenship and Community Merit Badge. The most asked about questions were about the storm and storm recovery. They were very relentless about asking about those topics, and I think I fielded them okay. And then of course the most important question is they wanted to know how much I got paid. So anyway, it was a great time and I appreciate the Boy Scouts and they all got their badge. Very good. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Mayor. And Chris, we've got a slide on this one, I believe. And no one can tell me they have not seen this to date. But tonight is our Lexington Hamlets Community Outreach. This is the first one. We've been working behind the scenes for six months, but it's at 630. It's the old Cadentown Church, and that is Cadentown. And I believe there's directions on there. I can't read it. But please come. We'd love for you to come. And I know that some of the council members are going to attend, and I thank the council members, my colleagues, that were able to take this information and share it on their Facebook page as well as their newsletters. But we're going to bring everybody up to speed on all the exciting details, show our new logo, Facebook launch, and website launch. I hope to see you. And then the next is as we continue in our month-long celebration of Whitman's historical feats, I wanted to share a few examples of bold women that changed the world. Bold women that changed the world. Well, this one's not the first one I was going to start with. Hello, CAO Hamilton, I thought about you. So let me move over to that page here. And this is Mildred Dickerson Zacharias. I don't know what language that is. known as Babe, played her way into national fame in 1932 when she entered the U.S. women's track and field. Her next stop, the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, where she took home three medals, one silver and two gold. She teed her way onto the golf scene in 1934 when she was the first woman to play in an all-male PGA Tour event. To this day, Babe holds the record for the longest winning streak in golf history, that's male or female, and she accomplished between 1946 and 1947. She wowed the crowd in a final time in 1954 when she won the U.S. Women's Open by a record margin of 12 strokes just a year after she was diagnosed with colon cancer. The Associated Press named her female athlete of the year six times. So, Sally, there's your challenge right there. I've got a few others. And what was really fun about this is I really didn't know that much about these women. And so I'm going to share more. On the night of April the 26th, 1777, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode nearly 40 miles to warn some 400 militiamen that the British troops were coming. Much like the ride of Paul Revere, Ludington's – oh, I don't think that's her. That's not her. That's okay. Stay on, babe. I'll tell you. But I thought this was pretty cool. Much like the ride of Paul Revere, Ludington's message helped patriot leaders prepare for battle. But Ludington was less than half Revere's age and rode more than twice as far to carry her warning. The next, too tired to give up her seat on the bus home from high school on March the second, 1955 Claudette Colvin refused to move for a white passenger, nine months before Rosa Parks would do the same. Later she said that she felt inspired by the memories of earlier pioneers to stand or sit her ground. As she told Newsweek, I feel like Zodurr Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other saying sit down girl I was glued to my seat. Another one that I'll share is often called and this one right okay that's her often called the most beautiful woman in film Hedy Lamarr was more than what met the eye. While Lamarr's screen presence made her one of the most popular actresses of the day she was also an inventor with a sharp mind. Lamar developed a new method of frequency hopping, a technique for disguising radio transmissions by making the signal jump between different channels in a pre-arranged pattern. Their secret communication system was created to combat the Nazis during World War II, but the US Navy ignored the findings. It was not until years later that other inventors realized how groundbreaking this work was. If you use a smartphone today, you can thank Lamar for her communication system was a precursor to wireless technologies including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Who would have thought? Just a couple more short ones, I promise. I hate to leave anybody out. Let's see. Born in the mid-1950s, excuse me, born in Li-Ho, China. Am I saying that right? Laihu China? I think that is her. Yes. Laihu China in 1912, Xing Xiong Wu, maybe related, was recruited to Columbia University as part of the Manhattan Project. Working as senior scientist on the atom bomb in 1943, she conducted research on radiation detection and uranium enrichment. In the mid-1950s, Wu was approached by two physicists, I'm going to mess these up, Swan Day Lee and Chen Ning Yang. They wanted help disproving the law of conservation of parity, which stated that two mirrored physical systems such as atoms behave in identical ways and do not differentiate between the right and the left. Using the chemical isotope, this goes on and on, we showed that the laws of nature were not always symmetrical, disproving the law that had been accepted for more than 30 years. It was key contribution to the finding. Only Yang and Lee received the Nobel Prize in 1957 for the discovery. So these are women that really made a difference. And I personally did not really know of any of them except for Babe. I had no idea that Paul Revere was preceded by a woman. So I thought I'd share that as we wind down our Women's History Month. We have Thursday left because we're on break next week. So please don't hold back. And I was thinking too, if anyone has had a woman mentor in their life, bring it forward. And let's hear who that is. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. First I want to thank Parks and Rec and everyone that worked on the Meadowthorpe Park, which is now complete. And that has been long in coming and residents are really excited and have said a lot of positive things about it. So thank you for that. And we will have a ribbon cutting with the neighborhood when the weather is warmer consistently. So I'm really thrilled about that. And Meadowthorpe Neighborhood Association is going to have some arts and crafts on the 16th of April. That's a Sunday. They've had a few different days like that on the weekends where folks can come out and do different activities. So looking forward to that. And then Cardinal Valley Park will also have an Adopt-A-Park program. And I am really excited that I was part of the first group that put together Adopt-A-Park together with Partners for Youth about 10 years ago, I think it was, the first one. And it has just been a really successful program to have something positive for kids that aren't able to go away or go to a camp during spring break. so i'm thrilled that that program is still going and it will also be in valley park between april 3rd and 7th and there's a lot of community partners including the government that work on that so thank you to everyone for that and then cardinal valley park which is the park activities board is putting on its annual Easter egg hunt and they will have between 13,000 and 15,000 eggs in the park is my understanding. So it's one of the Easter egg hunts that has, you don't really hunt, there's just eggs everywhere. And they divide the area into groups, age groups, and then say, ready set go and the kids just pick up as many as they can and it's a lot of fun so come out for that that's on easter sunday at 2 p.m so thank you thank you are there any other council reports all right there is a mayor's report if i could have a motion to approve all right i'm sorry who made the motion one of you one of them All right, and we got a second from Council Member Gray. Any questions? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. We do not have a price contract bid, any of those recommendations. And I wanted to add one more thing while we're on the mayor's report. I know some of you attended the Sweet 16 last week, the boys, and then before that the girls. So the attendance for the boys, Sweet 16, was 99,965 people. And the girls' attendance was 32,140. So there were a lot of people in town for those days, and we really are thankful for that. So next we have public comment for issues not on the agenda and we have two people signed up. The way this works is when I call your name, if you'll come to the podium and state your name and your council district for the record and you'll have three minutes to speak. So first up is Chris Bresaman, welcome. My name is Chris Breesman. I'm from the 2nd District. I am a 100% disabled veteran, attempted murder survivor, and a retired correctional officer from the state of Missouri, maximum security. A couple weeks ago, I tried to get a hold of Councilmember Shayla Lynch on Facebook to see what her plan was to do to keep veteran suicides down in our district. I did not receive a message. I have repeatedly tried to tag her on Facebook, which I know she uses, and she has repeatedly ignored me. I am here to publicly address why I've been ignored. Thank you very much, and we appreciate your service. The next person is Jonathan Wright. Welcome, Jonathan. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mayor. I think most of you know me at this point, but my name is Jonathan Wright, and I'm a resident of the 5th District. I'm here today with my sister, Emily, who works in the 10th District. And I know a lot of the time people come and sign up for public comment to complain or ask for money or both. So I'll just say right from the start that I'm not here to do either of those things today. One of the things I do outside of my work in Commissioner Lander's office is serve on the board of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Kentucky. DSAC exists to celebrate and support individuals with Down Syndrome and their families in our community. And if you didn't already know, today, 3-21, is World Down Syndrome Day, since people with Down Syndrome have three copies of their 21st chromosome. As I mentioned earlier, Emily is my sister, but she also works as an administrative assistant in DSAC's office. Part of her job is representing DSAC at community events, and let me tell you, she is a skilled advocate. But today, she agreed to let me have a shot. So one of the easiest and most fun ways to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day is with a pair of fun or mismatched socks. So to help you all celebrate, we brought you some fun mismatched socks. There are some DSAC branded socks, both adult and kid size. And then there are a few pairs of these like really, really fun socks. I don't want to pick favorites, so since we're at the end, I'm just going to like bring the bag forward when we're finished and let you all pick out the ones that you want. We hope these help you start a conversation and raise awareness about the work that the Down Syndrome Association of Central Kentucky does to build a community where people with Down Syndrome, and honestly, everybody, are valued and included throughout their lives. Thank you. Jonathan, thank you very much, and Emily, thank you also. Great to see you both. If you want to, Jonathan, if you want to give that to Kelly or Stacey or someone, thank you so much, that's wonderful. All right, I don't have anyone else signed up. So next up is a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Council Member Baxter, second by Council Member Gray. All those in favor, say aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you.