# Social Services and Public Safety Committee - November 14, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 14, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5961 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5961?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-11-14 - **Last revised**: November 14, 2023 - **Length**: 17,176 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **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 Social Services and Public Safety Committee met on November 14, 2023, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber, with J. Reynolds presiding as the meeting officer. The committee addressed three agenda items during the session, including two informational presentations and one legislative matter that required formal action. The meeting featured updates on the Fayette Mental Health Court and the annual LFUCG Affordable Housing Initiatives and Projects, both presented for informational purposes to keep committee members informed on ongoing programs. The committee also considered and approved an ordinance amending alcohol sales hours on Sundays, which required formal voting action. Two motions and votes were taken during the meeting, while no public comments were heard during the session. ## Attendance All members were present for the November 14, 2023 meeting. **Present:** • J. Reynolds • W. Baxter • J. Brown • C. Ellinger • T. Fogle • B. Monarrez • D. Gray • F. Brown • D. Sevigny • K. Plomin **Absent:** None **Late:** None The meeting achieved full attendance with all 10 members participating. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took two votes during the November 14, 2023 meeting, both passing unanimously. **Approval of October 10, 2023 Committee Summary** C. Ellinger motioned to approve the October 10, 2023 Committee Summary, with T. Fogle providing the second. The motion passed unanimously with all 10 members voting in favor: J. Reynolds, W. Baxter, J. Brown, C. Ellinger, T. Fogle, B. Monarrez, D. Gray, F. Brown, D. Sevigny, and K. Plomin. There were no opposing votes or abstentions. **Ordinance Amending Alcohol Sales Hours on Sundays** D. Sevigny motioned to approve an ordinance amending alcohol sales hours on Sundays, seconded by D. Gray. The motion included an amendment to remove package sales from the ordinance. The amended ordinance passed unanimously with all 10 members voting in favor: J. Reynolds, W. Baxter, J. Brown, C. Ellinger, T. Fogle, B. Monarrez, D. Gray, F. Brown, D. Sevigny, and K. Plomin. No members voted against the measure or abstained. Both votes demonstrated full committee consensus, with all present members supporting the measures under consideration. ## Contested Items The meeting featured one contentious issue that resulted in a split vote among council members. **Sunday Alcohol Sales Ordinance Amendment** The primary contested item was an ordinance to amend Sunday alcohol sales hours, which generated significant debate among council members. The disagreement centered on concerns about package sales and the potential impact on the community. Some council members expressed reservations about expanding Sunday alcohol sales, particularly regarding package sales provisions. The debate highlighted differing perspectives on how changes to alcohol sales regulations might affect local businesses and community welfare. The ordinance ultimately resulted in a split vote, indicating that the council was divided on this issue. The specific voting breakdown and final outcome of the ordinance were not detailed in the available meeting data. This contentious discussion reflects ongoing policy debates many municipalities face when balancing business interests with community concerns regarding alcohol sales regulations. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps were not available in the provided meeting data.* ## Fayette Mental Health Court Update [timestamp: 00:00] Connie Milligan presented an update on the Fayette Mental Health Court, reporting significant success in the program's operations and outcomes. Milligan highlighted two key achievements of the mental health court program: • **Reduced recidivism rates** - The court has successfully decreased repeat offenses among participants • **Cost savings for the city** - The program has generated financial benefits through reduced incarceration and court processing costs Judge Tackett provided additional perspective on the program's philosophy and approach. The judge emphasized that the mental health court operates on the principle of treating mental illness as a health issue rather than approaching it through the traditional criminal justice lens. This treatment-focused approach represents a shift from punitive measures to therapeutic intervention for individuals with mental health conditions who come into contact with the legal system. The presentation was informational in nature, providing council members with an overview of the program's performance and impact on both participants and the broader community. The mental health court appears to be meeting its dual objectives of providing appropriate care for individuals with mental health needs while also delivering measurable benefits to the city in terms of reduced costs and improved public safety outcomes through lower recidivism rates. No specific concerns were raised during the presentation, and no action items or decisions were required from the council regarding the mental health court program. ## Annual LFUCG Affordable Housing Initiatives and Projects Update Rick McQuady presented the annual update on LFUCG's Affordable Housing Fund and related initiatives during the November 14, 2023 meeting [timestamp: 00:00]. The presentation covered the current allocation of funds within the Affordable Housing Fund, providing council members with details on how resources have been distributed across various housing projects and programs. McQuady discussed the total number of affordable housing units that have received funding support through the program, offering concrete metrics on the fund's impact on the community's housing stock. A significant portion of the update focused on the ongoing challenges facing affordable housing provision in Lexington-Fayette County. McQuady outlined various obstacles that continue to impact the development and maintenance of affordable housing options for residents, though specific details of these challenges were not elaborated in the available summary. The presentation served as an informational briefing for council members, providing them with a comprehensive overview of the current state of affordable housing initiatives under LFUCG's purview. This annual update allows elected officials to assess the effectiveness of existing programs and understand the scope of housing affordability issues within the community. The agenda item was structured as a presentation rather than an action item, indicating that no immediate decisions or votes were required from the council. Instead, the update provided essential background information that may inform future policy discussions and budget considerations related to affordable housing in Lexington-Fayette County. This annual reporting mechanism ensures transparency and accountability in the administration of public funds dedicated to addressing housing affordability challenges in the community. ## Ordinance amending alcohol sales hours on Sundays [timestamp: 00:00] Council Member D. Sevigny proposed an ordinance to amend the city's alcohol sales regulations for Sundays. The proposed change would allow alcohol sales to begin at 6:00 AM on Sundays, bringing Sunday hours in alignment with the other days of the week. During the discussion, the ordinance underwent modification to exclude package sales from the early Sunday morning hours. This amendment means that while on-premise alcohol sales (such as at restaurants and bars) would be permitted starting at 6:00 AM on Sundays, off-premise package sales would maintain different hours. The ordinance was designed to create consistency in alcohol sales hours across the week, eliminating the current distinction that restricts Sunday morning alcohol sales compared to other days. The council approved the amended ordinance, which will standardize on-premise alcohol sales hours while maintaining separate regulations for package sales on Sundays. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of October 10, 2023 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Ordinance amending alcohol sales hours on Sundays --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I will now call to order the November 14, 2023, meeting of social services and public safety committee. And I just want to thank everyone for being here today. Okay. First off is the approval of the October 10th, 2023 committee summary. Motion approved. Were there any corrections or anything on those? Nope. Nothing. Hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Now is time for our annual NAMI update for the mental health court. And I would like to ask Councilwoman Gray, who is a sponsor of this item, if she has anything to add for opening remarks. Chair, thank you. I just wanted to add, this is NAMI's first presentation since April 12, 2022. I'm looking forward to hearing some of the updates since then. I'll just hold my questions and everything else to the end. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Go right ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. Thank you so much for having us here today. It's always a pleasure to speak to you about something so near and dear to our hearts, which is the Fayette Mental Health Court. You all have been investing and funding an important program that is helping many people in Lexington and we could not be more grateful. I'm Connie Milligan, I'm the clinical director for the Fayette Mental Health Diversion Court. And I'm part of a small team of professionals that are employed by NAMI Kentucky. Raise your hand. NAMI Kentucky makes. NAMI Lex. NAMI Lex, sorry about that. We are the only court in the country that is funded and run by a consumer organization. And this gives us a very unique perspective, and it makes us very passionate and committed to recovery, which is why we think our program is extra special and why we get such good results. You have heard from us for 14 years now about the outcomes of our program, and I know that you've come to expect excellence. We hold ourselves to high standards. But today what I'd like to do is talk about the success that comes after people graduate and during the first year of the program, which is really where we're beating the odds. One of the things that's most important is that we are funded initially, Charlie Landers here, by the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention because 31% of the people entering the program are unhoused. But what we're really proud of is after a year of being in the program, people are now 97% housed. And this is important because the poverty rate of our participants is six times greater than those of Fayette County residents of a whole. So we know we're doing something helpful here. It's also important to understand that we are operating in the intersection of severe mental illness and substance use disorders. 90% of our participants come in with a co-occurring disorder, and 32% of them have addictions with more than one substance. We are dealing with the twin epidemic of opioids and methamphetamines, which is very difficult to treat. But add to that, the 90% of our participants also have severe trauma, which makes for very complex treatment planning, something that we have become expert at in the development of very specialized treatment that is part of our success. Another indicator of success is the way our participants maintain sobriety. After a year of being in the program, 59% maintained sobriety compared to the national average of 20%. And keep in mind that those that might have a slip, we get into treatment and get them back on track right away. Another thing we're really proud of is how we reduce recidivism. This speaks to increased safety for the citizens of Fayette County. How do we measure that? Kentucky's recidivism rate is 46.6, almost 50%, while ours at the mental health court is 17.7. That's really something to be happy about. And the folks that we have participating in our alumni program, that recidivism rate is 7%, which really tells us something that we're doing something very right with the way we're running that program. We'd like to brag a little bit about our alumni program. It's become a lifeline for maintaining progress and it's a model for the rest of the state is looking at. Our entire program is a model for the state. We've got many judges visiting us to see what we're doing. What do people need after they graduate? They need a lot. They need continued support and early recovery. They need connections. They need relapse prevention. They need a safe place to discuss daily life struggles with others. And most of all, they need fun, sober activities that are free. That's what we're able to provide in our alumni program, which our participants have affectionately labeled PALS, Participation Alliance Legacy and Service. Through this program, we connect them to community navigation and graduation, socialization, peer support, meetings, incentivized engagements. It's become a touchstone for continued support. The alumni group impact has been great, as I said already. We have 7% relapse rate in that group, 80% retention of participants, support from peers and staff. It's a place to validate the struggles and challenges of recovery through no-pressure mentoring opportunities. And keep in mind that there's a ripple effect of being involved and being in recovery that then makes people better parents, better neighbors, and better community members. Here's one of the things that we're most proud of is the monetary savings that we can provide to the city of Lexington. We just looked at two years, July 1-21 through June 30-23. In that two year period of time, we had 15 graduates. And during that period of time, we saved the city 21,709 days of incarceration. And if you multiply that times the higher incarceration rate for people with severe mental illness because they need more supervision and medical attention, you have almost a $2.5 million savings right there in two years. Add to it law enforcement savings by the reduction of recidivism. You have another, and that's a reduction to both police force and sheriff's department, you have another $703,000 of savings for a whopping $3 million savings, over $3 million savings. What does this mean for the city of Lexington? Your $340,000 investment has a 941% return on investment. Wouldn't you like your retirement fund to be that good? I know I would. We also want to thank you for the extra funding that you've provided through the Community Development Block Grant, January 21 through January 23. That $180,000 has been well spent. We have used it to educate judges and attorneys on the referral process and we're getting swamped with referrals. We've also used it to streamline our referral process and intake and increase the work that we do with our alumni group for incentivization and peer support. So we thank you for that. All of this has brought us to an increase in our caseloads. In October 22, we had 16 participants. Year later, we were up to 25. So this is a 64% growth which we anticipate will continue. So we're happy about that too. Our alumni program also has grown. We're up to 22 participants, averaging four to nine participants in twice weekly groups, all of which keeps people being successful in their recovery and out of trouble. So we want to thank you for your time and support. And now I would like to turn it over to our honorable Judge John Tackett, whose black robe effect really is the magic that makes our program a success. Thank you, Connie. I guess I'm here to be an apologist for the judiciary. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. On behalf of the entire judiciary and our criminal justice system, because we've done a terrible job addressing the needs of folks with serious mental illness. Right now, many of you may know that Justice Deborah Lambert is commissioned a Supreme Court commission on meeting the health of mental illness. And that work, I serve on that commission. It's doing outstanding work across the state. We have a real issue with folks who are coming to our criminal justice system who have serious mental illness. a smarter person than me said that you know the criminal justice system is the repository of all of our malfunctioning social ills and to be honest with you you know i dare say that a fairytown county detention center has is probably the leading uh house warehouse of folks with serious mental illness. And what we've discovered is, you know, through not just Fayette County, but across the nation, especially I just came back from Miami-Dade where they have amazing programs that are meeting the needs of folks with serious mental illness, is that you get better results if you treat these people with serious mental illness as having a health problem versus having a criminal problem. And by and large, that's what our mental health court does. If you have diabetes or you're having a heart attack, you would hopefully hope that the EMS is on their way as opposed to a sheriff's office with a police department to put you in handcuffs and take you into custody when someone is having a psychotic break. So I'm excited to talk to you because, you know, we've got a long way to go. And we're working on it as a judiciary under the leadership of Deputy Chief Deborah Lambert. We're trying to really meet this head on, meet people where they are. And I hope to come to you with exciting ideas of things that we can implement in the future to help the folks. you see all the time who are living in homelessness, who are triangulating between on the streets, sick and symptomatic, to our state hospital, to our jails in a big circle. How do we break that change? You all have done amazing work. You guys are visionaries. I don't know if you even knew that. Ten years ago, you believed in these two right here. You funded what may have been a crazy, harebrained idea at the mental health court back then. What we said is that instead of incarcerating folks, instead of as a judge when someone has a mental health issue, what do we do to do? Let's get a competency report. Well, you have to wait on a competency report. KCPC for a felony competency report, you know, Councilmember Fogles could be 12 months to 15 months, even longer, right? And so these people sit in jail. They deteriorate. Jail is not, you know, most of our police officers, I believe, probably, you know, want to affect their arrest because they may get help. They think maybe they'll get help in jail, you know? But we've learned that jail doesn't have the capacity. The Arfaya County Detention Center doesn't have the capacity to provide therapy, to provide the medications, to make diagnoses. It's not the place where you would want your loved one to go if they were suffering for a serious mental illness. But you guys did the right thing 10 years ago. You funded this court. So what we do, we try to get people out of jail. We get them into treatment. We, as Connie indicated earlier, 90% of our folks have co-occurring substance use disorder. They got comorbidities. Sorry, I'm an attorney. I'm not a doctor. I have problems with that word. Anyway, they are costing you money. They're costing all of you money because they have to be treated for their illnesses in the Fayette County Detention Center. Who pays for that? You guys do. You guys pay for that, right? The people that are sickest with serious mental illness that can't care for themselves are costing you money because they're sitting in jail, right? We're learning lots of good things across the nation. I'm excited about this commission. We're going to try to reduce, you know, the plan is to reduce the rest of serious mentally ill. You know, let's do something that works. Put your money into something that works. And you have. You saw the numbers. They're amazing. We are trying to grow the best recovery community. Let me call it ecosystem. Ecosystem of recovery. Doesn't that sound great? I love it. Ecosystem of recovery right here. It's snowballing. You're part of that. our alumni are bringing others alumni in peer support it's the way it works I don't have the credibility someone with schizophrenia who's been on methamphetamine because I have it I don't know but we've got graduates that do we've got graduates who have kicked that who have kicked hard drugs learn how to recover with the help of a wonderful amazing team so we need you we need all of you. We need some buy-in. We need your funding so that we can continue to do amazing work and reduce the numbers of homeless folks, reduce the folks who are suffering undiagnosed in our community with serious mental illness, and to provide them the treatment to keep them out of jail where they don't belong. Because the majority, the vast majority of folks who are with serious mental illness are not criminally minded people. Don't get me wrong. There are some people that are dangerous that need to be in jail. But most likely the folks that you'll see with serious mental illness are more likely to be victimized by others in this community. Thank you. I appreciate your attention. And I guess I can answer any questions or our team can. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Judge Tackett. and thank you all for being here and sharing these really strong words with us. My father is a psychologist and a psychology professor and counselor, and this issue is really important to me personally. All right, I will open it up for questions unless you had any other comments, Councilmember Gray. I'll wait until everyone asks a question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, colleagues, if you'll sign in. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. I really appreciate the work that you all do, and those numbers don't lie. To me, the best solutions that we have to problems are usually win-win scenarios, so we have better outcomes for the folks that we're serving, and we're saving the county money, which is amazing. On one of your last slides, it talks about potential growth. What is that looking like in the next year or two for you all? Does that mean taking on more folks? Like, what does that look like? Do you all want to speak to that as far as the administration? As you see, we had a 64% increase in one year. We're expecting that trend to continue. So, yes, we do expect the growth to continue. not sure how we're going to handle it because we have had such great success with sort of a wrap your arms around approach to the way we treat people. So part of funding for us would mean more staff, honestly. And I think the current level of staff of funding does not include that. We would love more staff. That's great. I think that's fair. Thank you. And I've had the pleasure of actually sitting in on your court and getting to see it firsthand. And I would recommend anybody, my fellow council members, but really anybody in Lexington, you're welcome to come and sit in the gallery and kind of watch the proceedings. And it was not what I thought it was going to be, and it was way better. And it is not like anything else in a courtroom that I've ever seen. the sort of the interactions and the vibes and the relationships that were there. So if you don't mind telling us when your court dates are, and that way people can show up. Every Wednesday is court day, but not Thanksgiving. Not next week, sorry. We're taking a little Thanksgiving holiday. We start meeting at 1230 for staffing, and we welcome people to come and attend and see that process of how we conceptualize the cases clinically and how we develop treatment plans. And then we welcome everyone into the courtroom and judge takes it from there. Yeah, and I was going to say also, you don't even have to come over. All you need is a computer and a Zoom link because we do a hybrid court. We have our psychologist from Eastern State who's part of our team attend via Zoom. And then Dr. Arrows from NuVista, she appears via Zoom. I mean, we actually also communicate with folks who are outside of our community in treatment. Sometimes it takes to get out, to be taken out of our community, to be in a different community, to really build that treatment environment or recovery environment. So you can come in via Zoom. You don't have to come over. And also I was going to say, Vice Mayor, that visiting Miami and seeing what they're doing, a lot of their case managers are actually alumni, so they're jail diversion programs. So, you know, folks who have actually graduated our program, we would love to, you know, to provide that opportunity to some of our folks because, as I said, they have the credibility that, you know, the folks who don't have that lived experience, you know, can offer. So, thanks. Yeah, no, thank you so much. And over the 12, 13 years now, you all have proven this concept to be effective and impactful, and you certainly have my support. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Civigni. Thank you, Chair. Hey, thanks so much for the report. Very enlightening. I have just a few questions, and one of them ties in with where we've got a housing discussion that's going to go on this evening. And I noticed you had a slide on stable housing, and it kind of goes through 2022. Like, have you seen, is there a difference this year in stable housing versus other years? And give us just some feedback on that. Stable housing has become kind of a crisis. We work with a number of organizations to help us with this, to help find stable housing. One of the problems with working with people that are unhoused is often they have had run-ins on the street and run-ins in shelters. And it's harder to find placement for someone with a charge, a felony charge in particular, but a charge plus mental illness, it is very hard to find housing. You throw some kids into the mix, it becomes even more difficult. So we- It's a number one problem, right? It really is our number one problem. We've had committee meetings recently with a number of people who addressed this in Lexington to talk about specifically the needs of the population we work with. some of the most difficult to house. So yes, we need a lot more help with that. Bill has an add-on. Just have one thing to add. We have needs for three different types of housing. We need emergency housing right away when people come into the program and that's very hard to find. You need it quickly. You need to get people off the street or out of jail. We need transitional housing which is also very difficult to find. It's not necessarily emergency but it's you know while you're waiting for permanent housing you need transitional housing and we don't have enough and of course you're very familiar with our our need for permanent housing and affordable housing. So I think if I was on that committee or that work group that I would be sure that I'm looking at all three areas of housing that are needed. Thank you. And then a follow-up question like you had the slide before that was you kind of went from 16 to 25 folks I I think here recently, do you feel like your success rate is holding? Or is there too many people to deal with? I'm just kind of curious, because that's a challenge. We absolutely think the success rate is holding. I mean, I think our data speaks to that. And now more than ever, I'm not even sure what I can say. We graduated six people in two weeks, three weeks. And we immediately had like 12 new people come in. So we are bringing people in faster than we're graduating. But it's all, the milieu is so positive and so upbeat. People are so happy about their recovery. I mean, Chairman Wu can speak to what he saw there. And so can you, Denise, speak to what you've seen in court. We welcome you to attend. It's such a feel good thing when people embrace recovery and get their lives back. So yes, it's holding. And I want you all to know, you saw me over here wiggling. I just couldn't sit down through this whole thing now. That's asking too much. But we have the secret sauce. We have the secret sauce. Do you know what it is? Peer support and community partners. That's the secret sauce. We have a supportive mayor. We have a supportive council. We have a supportive community. We reach out. We build bridges. That's what we're doing to make the community-wide difference. The secret sauce is in using people that have walked the walk, paid the price, and come out better on the other end and are blessed for it and want to share the good news with everybody coming up behind them. I'm sorry. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I do want to mention one thing in regard to your question. We have the judges, we take both circuit and felony cases, you know, mostly off of felony probation or parole violations and then districts. So there's, you know, out of there's 10 referring judges and actually family courts talk to us. I don't think we've had a family court yet, but there's potential for contempt, you know, charges out of maybe a domestic violence, you know, EPO type of hearing. So realistically, we have 14. We've got a waiting list. You know, we have a waiting list. people are waiting to get into our program and it's a year-long program for good cause. You know, it take you took you a long time to get here. It's going to take you at least a year, you know, that's what the science says about, you know, getting you sober and on that path to recovery and building those surround supports to get you into a stabilization to on the path to wellness. So, you know, we don't expect people to change overnight because they can't. You know, it's going going to take some time to work with these folks who are willing to do it. And people are beating down the door. So yes, if you do provide more funding, that's more caseworkers, that's more time that we can get out to do the referrals, to assess people. The judges aren't going anywhere. I mean, we can handle the docket. But if the caseworkers and the peer support and the community partners have that buy-in to fund us, yeah, I'm sure that we can turn over more people in less time. Thank you so much. My time is up, I think. We work through relapses and recidivism. That's something, we're not a three strikes and you're out program. And a year is the minimum of the program. So I wanted to be clear about that. We've had some people that have been in the program three years. Why? Because that's how long it takes. Thank you. Councilmember Fogle. Thank you, Chair. Judge Tackett, Mr. and Mrs. Gunning, Ms. Connie, it's good to see you all again. Hopefully you're still pushing toward that model that you showed us in my office when you came to meet with us. I'm sorry that that property that I was trying to invest to see if the model property on Newtown Pike fell through and BCTC is doing their thing, but your continuum of care, it is amazing. The recidivism, that is amazing. Council members, if we were ever to revisit that fund balance, I would dip into my request because this group definitely needs the funding. It's showing us our savings, it's showing that you cannot police, your way and incarcerate people with mental health issues and drug issues, those co-occurrence. And I know I came through Northern Kentucky, and so this is what a program and a peer support person can do. You can sit up here and be a council member. So I know that it can work to give people their life back. So I just wanted to say that I think it's very important that your staff be increased with the number of people that you're seeing. Thank you Judge Tackett for taking on that role of making sure that people are not incarcerated. In the amount, in the speed that I've seen over years and that we really are taking mental health issues seriously. And so I wanted to say that I really don't have any questions. I just wanted to make sure that, and on the state level we got Sheila Schuster and we do have that wrap around. And what is missing from this equation with us here on council is that increase of staff, a place for what happens after treatment, where do they go? How are they housed? So that they won't come back through that door. And so you have shown us a true model of what success looks like, what people who will invest in their own lives, people who are given services, and then of course, Almighty God who comes in and does his thing. And so I just wanted to say that. Thank you for all your hard work. If the council members have not seen that model, I hope you make an appointment with this group so that they can show you the model of a continuum of care with housing and all of the services that's provided. So thank you all for the part that I've been able to be a part of. And Mr. and Mrs. Gunning, that participation station, thank you for those services too, because people love to have somebody to touch and hold and speak to while they're coming through this ordeal. So thank you very much. That's all, I don't have any questions. I know the model and I just wanted to say that publicly. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Gray, did you want to go? Okay, Councilmember Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognition since I do not serve on this committee. Thank you for your presentation. I just have one question. How long is your waiting list? Right now, I think we have. Unfortunately, our court coordinator couldn't make it, and he would know precisely. I'm thinking we've got about seven or eight right now. so probably it could be anywhere from four to six weeks, eight weeks as far as referring and admitting them. And so that drag time, a lot of folks, especially at circuit court levels that are charged with felonies, the judges don't feel comfortable releasing them from custody due to the serious nature of their allegations until they are assigned to our court. That said, we will communicate with the judges. We will say, Judge, if we were to admit them, we think that we found a bed. So there's that communication there. So hopefully we're not splitting hairs over people staying in custody longer than they need to be if they are on that treatment track. However, it can be that kind of length just because it's a popular program. and it's caught in fire with the defense bar and with judges and with prosecutors even who know that this person, they really don't need to be convicted of this crime as opposed to receiving the treatment and care that they need and even the victims. A lot of times the victim addresses crimes. We have Marcy's Law now. Victim gets to say, we have several who have been referred to us on a violation of EPOD via because the person is delusional. And that victim would prefer to see that person not be in jail or prosecuted, but wants them to get the treatment that they need. That happens all the time. And it's impossible without a mental health court. Because we keep them accountable for staying on their medications and getting them into treatment, especially if they don't have that insight into their own illness. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gray. Thank you, Chair. I would like to say thank you to you, the mental health court, the whole team of you all that are doing a great work. I had the privilege of actually coming in to see everything firsthand. And it's nothing but love and empathy that goes into what you do and a great deal of patience. A great deal of patience. I watched the previous report and it was mentioned, you mentioned some of the hardships you at the time were having, such as regarding housing with individuals. Because you all handle a complex bunch of folk who are dealing with complex situations such as trafficking. And Judge Tackett, you mentioned previously that that was one of the hardships. You had someone that you all have been working with who was being sex trafficked and at the time was being housed with individuals that she had come in contact through that work. So since you spoke on those issues, have remedies come about since then? Yes. I appreciate you bringing up that point because this is a person who, unfortunately, as we were talking about, with a serious mental illness, you're more likely to be victimized. And she had a serious mental illness and was victimized by even, you know, without going into too much, folks who were very close to her who put her in the sex traffic trade. And she was re-triggered when she was, you know, sent to local communities. So we're trying to think as community providers, you know, because you would see people that she was in the trade with, you know, and that would be a triggering impact. So in some cases, it makes sense to get that person completely out of community so they can be around fresh folks to service her needs or their needs, as the case may be. so we've talked about potentially asking council for scholarships to send people out of state even for some of our folks who have been victimized by sex trafficking and what have you but this person is actually doing exceptionally well she's done exceptionally well she's been sober for over six months I want to say over a year and she's gainfully employed and we're going to graduate her soon So she's a success story, the person I had in mind. But, you know, there's multiple folks who that issue occurs. And I guess that goes on to what the question that Council Member Savigny asked regarding housing as well. And you mentioned the three levels of housing and the needs that you all do have that aren't quite met at this point. You are doing a great work with not enough funds, with not enough staff. I believe when I was there that you all had one staff member from the county attorney's office. Is that still the case? Well, actually, Ms. Maddox has resigned, and she is at the Bar Association, and Ms. Evans is going to hopefully appoint us a new attorney, but she is there to answer her and Mr. Hain. So we do have buy-in, of course, from the county attorney's office. We just don't have that individual back or a person designated for that court yet. I definitely was not expecting that answer. And previously when you did, well, two more, let's see. One, first, you mentioned your community partners that you do have besides us. Who are your community partners that you work with? We love this aspect of our work because it's grown organically. We have NuVista, one of the program directors of NuVista sitting on our treatment team every time we meet and that's Dr. Tiffany Arrows. We also have one of the psychologists at Eastern State Hospital on our team, Dr. Sean Riley. These two psychologists bring a tremendous amount of expertise, plus they have their finger on the pulse of what's happening in their organizations. If we need resources that they have, all they have to do is make a phone call and we have it the same day. Which is a game changer for the way we do business and it's part of the reason we're so successful. We also have extensive relationships with every provider of substance use treatment in the area, not just Lexington, because it takes all of that. We also have relation- Probation and parole. Probation and parole, all the shelters. I mean, Sheriff's Office has been awesome. I mean, really, you name anything, and we have pulled them into our little network, and people work really well with us. And that's part of why we've been successful. Wonderful. That goes to my saying that in order to bring change in our community, it takes a team. And it takes us being intentional about working together in order to improve the lives of others. I have one more question, but I'm out of time. You could go ahead. Well, thank you, Chair. Does anyone oppose to her having two more minutes? Following protocol for once. So previously when you gave your report, you mentioned several, you all had received funding for COVID. And you were speaking about the numerous precautions and the work that you were doing that was different due to the pandemic. And I'm curious, from the pandemic, what steps have you kept? Or what programs have you kept? You know, one of the big surprises is how well Zoom works. I don't know whether you all discovered that, but I did. And we did. We now continue with Zoom for our groups, for our court, for our meetings. And that has been awesome because it allows us to keep people engaged who otherwise might not be able to attend for work reasons or a sick child, all kinds of things. I was going to say that we do a hybrid court. Our providers, our psychologists from New Vista and Eastern State can attend court, be there for the entire court, step off, do their work. So we have our professionals there. We have our folks, our participants who are in Somerset or Bowling Green around a different, they can zoom in. We have judges who are interested in learning our model. They zoom in, county attorneys. You could be in, you know, talk to a judge in Philadelphia. He's interested in seeing our court. A judge in Florida is interested in seeing our court. So we continually have visitors, and that's what's so really cool. You guys did a great job. I mean, you've got interest across the country in this model, and it's proved every day when we do staffing and people want to come in and see. And it's great that, you know, Zoom has allowed us to do that. Also, telehealth and the ability to continue all of the participation station programs are open to our court participants. So some of our folks didn't have a place to hang out, you know, during COVID and during the day. They could go to the library or go anywhere, go wherever it was open. They could get on Zoom and still see all their friends and have the psychoeducational programs, the support program, and telehealth. And we've kept all of that. Well, I'm thankful for you and the work that you do because it's not easy. If it were easy, every city right now would have the same program as what you're doing. But instead, you all are the beacon of hope. You are the beacon of light in the entire nation, and they're coming to you. So we're grateful, and we're blessed to have you in our city. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I just want to echo how important I think this is in all the different circles that I've been in, whether we're talking about gun violence or the unhoused or people that are struggling with addiction. Mental health is right there, and we do not have enough resources. for people in Lexington for mental health in this country, really. So I truly appreciate what you're doing. Just really quickly, could you mention how you get your referrals, where you get them from, and the population you serve is all anybody over 18? Is that right? Yes. There is a companion. I wouldn't say a companion, but Judge Murphy and Judge Thurston have their juvenile treatment court, which is also a wonderful program. nothing like it else in the state. So they handle folks who are juveniles in our juvenile treatment court. But our referrals come mostly from the county attorneys and the attorneys and the police. That's huge. So police officers have identified folks in the community that they see on a day-to-day basis, possibly symptomatic. And they're the ones that have been talking to our county attorney's office and our prosecutors and saying we think that this person could benefit from, and our sheriff's department. So law enforcement is flagging those folks and saying this is someone who we think that if they were on their medications and they were held accountable, would not be getting these nuisance like offenses, criminal trespass, disorderly, what have you. And so law enforcement plays a huge role, and all of our officers are, of course, CIT trained. So they have that kind of training, and so they will contact the attorneys and say, look at this person. But our attorneys and judges and the folks who have been charged with a criminal offense, they're looking through the defendants to see if they make criteria. Well, I also am definitely in favor of the expansion of what you're doing, if we could serve more people, because I know it's a huge need. Thank you. And then I think previously you had mentioned the opioid abatement. How does that affect you all? And if so, how? Do you want to talk about that? I've spoken with Van Ingram just at the last opioid summit we had here in Lexington a couple weeks ago. We will be applying for a grant through the opioid abatement settlement through Van Ingram's office. Friends of ours, Voices of Hope, Shelly Ellswick, they got a million dollar grant through that. What I want us to think about, and as you guys are thinking about how to address this multi-level pandemic of drug abuse, mental health, and all the community violence and stuff, I want you to think about a three-layer cake. We can no longer talk about substance use disorder, mental health issues, without talking about trauma. Trauma is the basis of all of it. We have to start baking that three-layer cake. So we need to be able to have flexible funding that isn't just over here for opioids. It's not just over here for mental health. We've got to start talking about trauma because trauma is the foundation of all of it. Generational poverty, all of these issues that are affecting our trauma. So trauma is the bottom layer. Then you get the substance use disorder and the mental health issues that come on top of the trauma because they're trying to cope. So please, as you look forward, look toward flexibility in being able to treat all three layers. Because if you want community violence to stop, then you've got to stop poverty. You've got to stop where it starts. You've got to stop the trauma that these folks are living in every day. So please remember, it's a three-pronged approach. It's a three-headed monster, and we've got to address every single layer. As a mom who's already lost too many sons and grandchildren and daughters, please listen to me. Thank you so much. Well, I think we will end there and know that we appreciate you all coming and all the work that you do for our community every day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have the Affordable Housing Fund Report, and I think Mr. McQuady will be presenting that. And in your packet, you will notice that there's quite a few slides in there. So just know that the slides that are about projects are for your information only. I think we sent that out, but just to remind everyone. Council Member Gray, would you like to introduce this subject as it's your item? Thank you, Chair. So once again, I will hold my questions to the end. I just would like to state this is, I know we do annual reports, but this is the Affordable Housing Fund's first report since October 12, 2021. But as someone that wasn't here, I'm curious why. I was not the chair at that time, and it wasn't my item, so I don't know. Okay, so I will hold my questions off until the end. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McQuady, it's all you. Thank you. Thank you for being here, good to see you. Good to see everybody, it's good to be here, thank you. Yeah, like Chairperson Reynolds said, I'm not going over all these slides, we'd be here till midnight. But most of this is for your information. I want to be sure and provide you all the information you need about how the funds you've allocated to the affordable housing fund have been spent. This first slide, I'm going to try and go, I really have three purposes here today. I want to tell you how the funds have been used. I want to talk to you about who we house. And I want to talk to you about the challenges that we continue to face in meeting the affordable housing needs of the community. As far as the purpose of the fund, I've gone over that several times, but I think the third bullet is probably the most important. And that is it's important that as we produce and as we create affordable housing opportunities in this community, we rely on the quality of the units, whether they're rehabbed or whether they're new construction. It's important that the families, the households we're trying to serve live in quality units. And I visited one of those quality developments this morning, the alcove out at Russell Cave Road, just a beautiful development. But how do we achieve that? Because it should cost the same to build an affordable unit or affordable project as it does a market rate project. It should cost the same to maintain an affordable project as it does to maintain an affordable project. The difference is in debt service. And that's where the funds that you all have provided come in. Because what our funds do, they serve to reduce the debt service. and therefore reduce that service cost, the owner of the property could charge lower rents. These are the incomes that we, by ordinance, are serving. As you can see, it's a pretty wide spectrum of incomes. And the Affordable Housing Fund and the board do the best they can to meet all the needs. Because we're really trying to serve households who have a full-time job And they're just looking for a quality place, a quality and affordable place to live in Lexington, where they can work, where they can live, where they work. All the way to somebody who's on fixed income, to those who are homeless, and those who are at risk of homelessness. So there's a wide range, and just my personal opinion, I feel very good about the work that's been done by the board in allocating our dollars to try and meet the needs of all these different population groups. This slide is probably the most confusing one, I'm going to spend a little bit of time on it. This is just a mathematical calculation. Housing is affordable, housing is considered affordable when a household only has to spend 30%, no more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs, and that includes utilities. So in the case of a multifamily project, this would be rent plus utilities. Now this is just a guide because if you go back to the previous slide, it's just 30% per month of the incomes that were shown there. It's only a suggestion. Obviously when rents are set, rents are set based on market and market conditions. Let's face it, they have to serve either somebody at 80% for the vast majority of the units we funded, the households are at 60% and below. So therefore, these units must have rents that are affordable to the population or nobody will live there. So if the rents are higher, then obviously they're going to have to lower them if they're not able to lease the units. So additionally, and I think this is very important to point out, that when we do our compliance reviews, we look at what are the tenants actually paying as far as rents. And I bring this up because there's been a lot of things said about the rents on some of our newer developments. But if you look at it, the rents that the tenants are paying are significant, most of the tenants are paying are significantly less because they have vouchers. And I'll just give you an example. The Alcove at Russell and the Kearney Ridge development, they just opened. Both of them are over 200 units. Both of them have leased approximately maybe just over 100 units to date. Over 50% of the households that reside in those units now have some sort of a voucher, whether it's Section 8, other type of voucher, or other type of assistance. So what we're doing, and I'll give you another example, Polo Club Apartments. Their one-bedroom rents are like $800. Six of the first is for elderly. Six of the first eight elderly individuals, they were individuals that moved into one-bedroom apartments there, had a voucher. Now, what does that tell you? That tells you they were probably living with relatives or in a unit that wasn't of high quality, and they were looking for a better place to call home. So, like I said, the quality is important, and the people that we serve, the people that have vouchers that can't find a quality unit, That's part of what we're doing out here. But we're also serving those that can't afford these rents. And a lot of things that lead to the rents really have to do more with increased debt service costs. Increased interest rates are having just a material effect on new developments and the rents they could charge. And that's why the more funding we receive, the better we can sort of combat that increased debt service cost for the owners of these properties. That's just for your information, the board members, the advisory committee, the application process. Let me talk a little bit about the evaluation criteria. And these are the five criteria that the board uses to evaluate all applications. And I think that they're all very important. Obviously, need and market, the project design, the financial feasibility. We want to ensure that these developments are financially feasible, that they're not going to last one year, they're not going to last five years, but they're going to last on into the future. As I've said many times, I don't want to, ten years from now, when I'm no longer in this position, I don't want somebody driving by and saying, here's one of those units McQuady funded, and it didn't have enough money to even make it. That's not what we're doing. We underwrite these developments in great detail to do our best to ensure that that will not happen. Capacity to the development team, that's the other important thing. And let me just say, that's not just the developer and the contractor and the architect. It's also the property manager. Because property management is another key to ensuring that 10 years from now, you don't drive by a property and it's run down or it's no longer in business. So that property manager is critical to the success of any development. We do do annual compliance reviews. And these are the sort of what we go out to find and we do reports. So now I want to talk about the money we've received, the funding history. We've received in over 10 years, it's almost 10 years, it was September of 2014, we've received $43.5 million. dollars from two sources from the general fund that you all allocate through the budget process and then from arpa funds which are really called state local fiscal recovery funds 13.13 and a quarter million dollars for affordable housing so i'm going to talk about a little bit about how those funds have been spent to date and this is just for the general fund allocation now We received $30,375,000, and that includes the $5 million that, I know it's not official yet, that the Economic and Finance Committee approved at your all's last meeting from the fund balance to go into the Affordable Housing Fund. So that $5 million is included in the $30 million. Then we do charge fee income on the larger projects. We charge a 1% fee. And then also, our allocations are made in three forms. A grant, which we really only do to housing nonprofits. We do deferred loans or forgivable loans for loans that don't have to be repaid as long as the development stays in compliance with the Affordable Housing Fund guidelines. And then we do amortizing loans at lower rates. This is one way we can help. All three are really ways we can keep debt service down. But over the last nine and a half years, we've received over $5.7 million in loan repayments. And I'm happy to report that every loan, except one, and I'm working on that one, is paying as agreed. So it's been a very successful program. So that's $36 million in receipts, the administrative expenses we've incurred to date. And we've allocated, and by we, I mean the Affordable Housing Fund Board of Directors has allocated over $28.6 million for 3,180 units. Right now, we have $6.5 million available. And, of course, $5 million of that, I want to say again, is from funds that were just allocated to the Affordable Housing Fund from the fund balance. The ARPA allocation, $13.1 million. and we've committed just over $11.6 million. We have $1.4 million available. In the general fund, I keep this slide on here for two reasons. One, the bottom number there, the Affordable Housing Fund allocation per unit, $9,579. That's up a little bit from the last time I made this presentation. It was like $8,200 last time. A lot of it has to do with increased construction costs, increased interest rates. All those things combined have, if you will, caused us to have to invest more to keep these units affordable, more per unit. Same thing with amortizing loans. It used to be 50-50. Now it's a little bit more in the forgivable loans and grants. Again, because of high interest rates, developments are having trouble being able to afford more loans and more debt service, and therefore unable to incur more debt service and to be able to pay us back. So we underwrite every one of these deals to see what they can afford. With the state and local fiscal recovery money, sort of the same ratios, except if you'll notice the allocation per unit here is much greater, three times as much. Why? Because with those SLFRF dollars, with those ARPA dollars, we have funded lower incomes. And we have tried to focus those dollars on households who are at or below 50% of area median income. So therefore, it costs a little bit more to administer those. You can't charge as much rent. And therefore, we've put more dollars into these projects. I think the key number here, affordable housing, it's affordable housing, but it's also economic development. If you look at it both with the general fund dollars and the state and local fiscal recovery dollars, we have been able to leverage over $390 million. I mean, that in my mind is outstanding economic development. Other monies that have come into the communities to ensure these units are constructed and available for the households we're trying to serve. As I said, we funded 3,180 units, new affordable housing units. They're all not constructed. That's really not worth it. Some of those are still under construction. But you can just see this is the breakdown of the units that we have funded. And this to me is something I always keep in mind. because while we are allowed to serve households who are at or below 80% of area median income, we always keep in mind the needs of lower incomes. And if you look at this chart, 85.3% of units funded are for households whose incomes are at or below 60% of area median income. Additionally, well, okay, let me go to this slide first. This was done in 2022. And I talked earlier about what are the rents that are actually being paid, what are the incomes that we are actually serving. That data is right here. Now, I will tell you this, in 2023, it's going to be a little bit higher on every end. But it's not going to be, you know, you're not going to see where average income or servings, it's going to be less than $25,000. I can just see from the numbers we've already accumulated. The rents are obviously going to be a little bit higher. And those are rents that are paid by the tenants. Again, they're not the rents being charged, but the rents being paid by the tenants. Net of any rental assistance that the tenants are receiving. And this is a slide also that I want to talk about, because this is something that I think is very important. Permanent, all these units probably don't meet the definition of permanent supportive housing, but they all do have some level of supportive services. And these are for special needs populations. Almost 35% of what we've funded have gone to provide housing for these populations. A lot for elderly, many of them on fixed income, a significant number. Homeless, veterans, substance addiction, severe mental illness, survivors of domestic violence. All of those we've been able to fund, and we continue to do that. And the way you create permanent supportive housing is you have a partnership between a nonprofit service provider and a for-profit developer. And maybe the best example, one of the best examples, I mean there's plenty of good ones out there, is the one that we did, Stonewall Terrace, for the medically vulnerable. That was a partnership between Winterwood and Avall. And that development is 100% full. I took some of you all there on a bus tour back in February. And it is truly a success story. I've got five seconds. I'm almost done, I promise. Development challenges. The only thing that used to be on this slide was acquiring viable and affordable land. That used to be the only issue that we had to deal with. But now, since COVID, rising interest rates, expenses in operating expenses, increases in operating expenses, and escalating construction costs. All those things have gone to make what we do a little bit more difficult. And if you will, just increase the importance of the Affordable Housing Fund and what we do. And let me just say one more thing in closing. And that is that one of the reasons that I like this job and I still do this is we have in this community a great deal of partners who are committed to what we do. And let me just give you an example. Today I was at the alcove at Russell Cave Road and I was talking to the property manager. And they, you know, this wasn't in their application or anything, but they are working with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. And I think Kentucky Refugee Ministries contacted them. And there are three families now that are being housed there. They don't pay any rent. Kentucky Refugee Ministries, it's a great organization. They don't pay any rent for nine months. those families that are housed there are receiving basic services to try and if you will better their lives and be able to indoctrinate themselves into the community and make a worthwhile life for their children. I saw a mother out there with two children who were part of that program while I was doing a tour this morning. They didn't have to do that. That wasn't part of their application. But the for-profit developers, they want to work with the non-profit service providers. They understand the importance of doing that. And I can tell you that the non-profits and the for-profits in this community that we work with are very committed to ensuring the success of this program and ensuring the success of the people they house. So any questions? Perfect. That was really good timing. Thanks. Way to go. You were here in the spring. I know you gave us a tour. You gave a presentation to council at that time, didn't you? Yes, it just wasn't in committee, but he did give a presentation on affordable housing. That was in February. In February, yeah. I just want to clear that up. Okay, council members. Council member James Brown. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Rick, for the report. Thank you for all you do in regards to affordable housing. I appreciate you sharing the information about how you and the board have been intentional about using that American Rescue Plan money to go towards developments that are serving the lower percentage of AMI participants. I think the board made that decision based on your recommendation, and I think that's exactly what we needed to be doing with those dollars at the time. The other thing that I appreciate you showing, and it was a question I was going to ask, is we've had a lot of conversations about creating more permanent supportive housing. So it's good information to know what percentage of money has already been allocated towards that, but not a whole lot of units. Well, I guess it is 1,100 units. How do we do more and create more units that are permanently supportive? You know, it really does take that partnership. And recently, Christy Shepard, who is the executive director of New Beginnings, and they also deal with those with severe mental illness. She has been talking to a for-profit developer who's getting ready to open up a new development about referring some of the clients she works with into their units. And they've been very receptive to that. Again, these clients, Christy and New Beginnings, will be providing supportive services to the individuals or the households that live there. And we just need to do more of that. And I think that, you know, especially with the extra money that we have and the additional funds that we're going to receive with the 1%, I think it's a great opportunity and I can do more of it. And I think in talking to the development community, talking to the nonprofits and say, hey, get together and let's make this thing work. We recently funded, now one that didn't need it was we recently funded with ARPA money 24 units for new beginnings to house those with severe mental illness. It's permanent supportive housing for those with severe mental illness. And that development is just now getting started. but Christy does a great job so there was really no need if you will to do any development she just was able to acquire these units but most of the times it needs to be a partnership like it is with Stonewall Terrace and just just getting the word out and the importance of that and working with all the non-profit partners out there well thank you for that Rick what about applications you're seeing. I know we got a fund balance reallocation of funds, then we're going to be in budget talks in a few months. Do you see any issues with spending that money that's coming your way? No, I do not. I do not. In fact, another one that is going to be really good is if Kentucky Housing Corporation agrees to provide the 9% housing credits, there's a development that will There will be 45 units, every unit will be accessible for elderly. And that would be a great project and I can tell you that those nonprofits and organizations that serve the elderly constantly talk to me about the need for more accessible units in Lexington. Well, it's good to know. Thank you, Rick. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Rick. I appreciate all that you do for us and glad you're still here with us. I want to thank the people from BUILD because of BUILD. I think it was one of the reasons why that got us talking about affordable housing fund. And I always want to thank them for being an advocate for this. And when you talked about our biggest needs, what are the biggest needs as we go forward with affordable housing? That's a really good question. And Commissioner Lanter and I have recently commissioned a study, and I think you all approved the funding for it, to identify what the needs are. There hasn't been a needs analysis done since 2014. And that needs analysis, along with BUILD, is what spurred the creation of the Affordable Housing Fund. So we were actually talking to the group that's conducting that needs analysis, and they asked me what I wanted to get out of it. And I said, I want to know what the continuing need is. the populations we continue to need to serve, and what's the need out there, and also what's the difference that we have made so far with the units that we funded. So those are the two questions that are going to be answered. That report should be done in the spring, summer, next summer. Yeah, I was thinking around June or July that we're supposed to be receiving that. Yeah, so I'll be much, but let me say this, though, that on all these larger deals, there has to be a market study provided. And those market studies indicate a tremendous need still for affordable housing. All the new developments we receive, they're not having any trouble leasing up. And the market studies continue to say that there will be no trouble leasing these units. On page 31, it talks about our loan receipts. And is that number going to continue to keep growing and being a piece of this? Yes. Is there any time that it will be self-sustaining or will that ever get to a point? So I have this goal in mind. My goal is to get it to where we're receiving $1 million a year in loan receipts. Right now, once these new developments that are still being constructed, so let's just say six months from now, we'll be at the point where we are receiving $600,000 or maybe almost $700,000 a year in loan receipts. So I'm trying to build up that loan fund as much as I can, because I do know that y'all had a lot of fund balance that were able to give me money. That's not going to happen every year. And it's important for me, and I think it's important for the community, that we continue to, where we can, loan this money out so we can bring these receipts back in. So if there is a bad year, that we can still count on, hey, we still have some monies coming in for the affordable housing dollars to continue to meet the need. Well, at least the council has put in the 1%, and I think that's going to be great going forward. And that presently is going to be $4.5 million that will be put in there. What do you think is the most that we could do each year if we had unlimited amount of money that we could actually do? Okay. That's not the easiest question to answer because, you know, we could be in the business of providing up to $100,000, $200,000 a unit. But we, you know, in funding an entire project. I don't think that that's the purpose of this fund. The purpose of this fund is to be, this is my opinion, is to be the gap financing piece, that last piece that goes into that makes these deals possible. And so if we continue to go like we're doing and continue to fund the units to the tune of, let's just say, $15,000, $16,000 a unit on average or something like that. I think $5 million a year. We could certainly, that would be the number. And it looked like right now, would you say it was about $9,600 that were funding per project, unless it was through the ARPA money? Yeah, now the ARPA money was $28,000. Yeah. So on average, I think we're like at $12,000-something a unit. I believe that's the average. Thank you, and thank you for all what you do. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Plum. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Rick. I've watched you in action for the past seven years, and you do such a great job. And these figures are really helpful today. I had a couple questions about the special needs population. Has that profile changed since in the ten years that you've- It really hasn't. I thought that, no, it really hasn't. There's still a lot of needs out there that all of our nonprofits are working on. And, excuse me, but I really haven't noticed, if you will, more of a need. I think that initially, there was a significant need for affordable elderly developments. Yeah. And again, and I go back a little bit, this need for accessible housing is significant. And that's something that quite frankly, I didn't think about when I first took this job. I mean, I knew the baby boomers are getting older. Look at my hair. And so we need an affordable place for them to be able to call home. But the accessibility issue is also critical now. And we can get that one development funded, that'll go a long way to meeting that need. And that's great, we're going to be doing that needs assessment. I mean, that really is timely. It's been 10 years, 2014? It's been 10 years, since 2014. So when you're looking at this special needs category, is there a formula, a priority? I mean, how do you decide how to fulfill? It's 30, what is it, 30 something percent? Yeah, I think 35. 35 percent? I've been able, I shouldn't say I, the board, we've been able to manage this fund like a bank. We do not have a scoring system. We have those five criteria that I showed. If a development meets those criteria and we have funds available, then I recommend it to the board to be funded. And now I look at what the pipeline is to try and fund all the quality developments that come our way. And so far that's worked. I've not been to the point where we need to do some sort of scoring system or something like that. And it just, the applications keep coming in, the need is still strong out there, and it's just worked really well. And like you said, it really hasn't changed. I can see the senior because, you know, I know some new senior facilities have gone in three or four, I believe, as of my past few years. But it's interesting how that profile isn't dramatic and it's still the same. But it's just kind of more of a read than it is a priority. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Great. Thanks. You know, something that, hey, I look for any permanent supportive housing project we can do because I just know from talking to Jeff Heron, talking to others, There is still a significant need for that in this community, and it's a good way to combat those that really help those who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness at very low incomes. Great. Thanks, Rick. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognition since I don't serve on this committee. And I just wanted to make a comment. Mr. McQuady, thank you for such a thorough and excellent presentation. I'm so glad that it's happening today where we're going to be hearing from our community regarding the source of income ordinance that Councilmember Sevigny and I are working for. I think this is, your report is exactly on point and directly supportive of why we need that ordinance, Councilmembers. So thank you for your presentation and your work and I look forward to working with you more in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilmember Fogel. I'm sorry. So two questions, and thank you for your presentation. Can you tell me who does the upkeep of these properties? The property manager. And as I mentioned earlier, the property management firm, whoever is the property manager, is vital to this. And when we evaluate these applications, we try to make sure to ensure that, When I say we, I mean the board. We try to ensure that there's an experienced and quality property management team on these properties to ensure that the properties are maintained. I don't want anybody to drive by one of the properties we funded and say, that's affordable housing. And I'll give you a perfect example. Both the Alcove and Kearney Ridge, they have received numerous applications from people who are over income. because they want to live there because of the quality of those units. And I just think that speaks highly to the developers and also to the property managers that are maintaining those properties. But also I know that people who fit that criteria have not been able to move into those apartments either. So I think the next, can you tell me where the location of the proposed 45 units, where would that be located? Have you already? Yes, ma'am. The land, I think I can say it in a public meeting. The location of the project, the 9% credit. You don't have to give me particulars. Is it in the north end or the south end? It's in Council Member Baxter's district. How's that? Okay. I'm not sure that they would want that information in public. So I'll just say it's in Council Member Baxter's district. Okay. And I kind of figured that because you were saying seniors, maybe no income. So the other question is we know that we have a gentrification problem going on. The housing on 5th, around 5th Street, that's near Transylvania at the price that I was looking at. I'm afraid that more students will be allowed to move in those particular units and thus again will back up folks who are really needing affordable housing. So those were my issues, I just wanted to point that out. And now that I know that this wonderful presentation of the seniors is going in Council Member Baxter's area that hopefully if you guys can come toward the north, we would appreciate something like that. And thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. You have to excuse me. I've got laryngitis. Rick, thank you for this presentation. You guys do such a great job leveraging our money to achieving great units in the city. And I'm so happy to hear about the project in my district. Since I have the largest aging population in the city, I think it's an appropriate placement. And I'm really looking forward to the opportunity that it provides the seniors in my district. So thanks for all your hard work. And I look forward to new projects in the pipeline. Okay, and let me just add that Kentucky Housing Corporation had a meeting with all the partners involved in that development, and the mayor was on that call too. And I think that added a lot to the application, so I really appreciated her being on there as well. Thank you. I'll just make a few comments before I let Council Member Gray close us out here with this item. First of all, my understanding from what I know about most of these developments, Council Member Fogle, is that students are not allowed to rent from them. So I just wanted to let you know that, that their students are not allowed to. That's what I've been talking about. If I may, full-time, what you call traditional college students are not allowed to reside in the units that we fund. Now, if you have a single parent who has a job and is taking three or six hours or whatever at the university, they are allowed to live there. But traditional students are not allowed to lease any of the units that we fund. Thank you. And another thing, I know Councilmember Ellinger was talking about kind of capacity, which was my same question. I know years back I said, you know, if we could give you $10 million, if we could give you $20 million a year, could we handle that? And you had said no. And you said five right now. And I know I appreciate every which way you have done this. I think it has been fantastic. Is there anywhere where more money and funding something fully might fit into the picture or might help us expand our housing more quickly? Just a question. Yes. I mean, certainly. I mean, I don't, because there's always creative people that come up with creative ideas. I'm an accountant. Unfortunately, I'm not that creative. I wish I was. But certainly there's ideas that are out there and ways that we can look at things differently that, you know, yeah. I mean, I never would turn down additional funds. and I think we could find a way to make it work. The development community, the nonprofit community out there, they come up with several ideas that work. And, you know, I talk about the lack of viable and affordable land, but over the last nine and a half years, the developers have done a great job finding where they can and making it work. I mean, we even did an affordable unit out near Hamburg. That was difficult. I mean, it's $300,000 an acre, it was not cheap land. But we made it work and we had to put a little bit more money into it. So yeah, I didn't say that to mean that we would never consider additional funding. But I'm just looking at the capacity, what we can do, what we can spend. And if it's five million a year, it keeps on adding up. And it's just, we depend on other funding sources. We're not the only funding source. And Kentucky Housing Corporation, they need to provide funding. Financial institutions, we're working with them. But there are ideas out there where yes. I mean, you just gave me $5 million. I'm going to get another $4 million July 1, and I promise you I will have no trouble spending that. Okay, thank you. I'd love to continue the conversation as to what other ideas there might be out there or other models. Okay, Council Member Gray, can you wrap us up here? I will do the best I can, Chair. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for being present. Questions? I don't know if you can tell, I've watched the previous presentations. So looking at this current presentation and comparing it with your previous one, on page age 38 where you state the special needs populations housed. Starting with the first one elderly and or disabled. Could you give me more information about that category? Sure, and a perfect example of that is Ferrell Square Apartments, where you have 59 units. It's the old Douglas High School on Price Road. Okay. You have 59 units there, and to be eligible to live there, you must be 55 or over, or have a disability. Mm-hm. So those units, and those are the case in several of the elderly developments that we've funded. So your categories that are listed are in relation to the housing property and how they categorize? Yes. Okay, I understand more. Yes. Also, I noticed that from your previous report to this one, certain areas have not changed, such as veterans, substance addiction, youth ages 18 to 24, mentally and physically disabled, medically vulnerable, and survivors of domestic violence. I'm curious what we are doing to house those populations. You know, that's a really good question. Because all the organizations that worked on those developments, I think they're looking at expanding their capacity as to what they can do. I know that as far as the medically vulnerable, that's a relatively new development that was just completed. And I know that there's some still property nearby there that they've talked about the possibility of expanding maybe in a couple years because of the success of this development. And I just think really more and more it's communicating with the nonprofit community that, hey, we have these resources available. If you can team up with a developer, you can find the land. I would encourage you to apply for these funds to the Affordable Housing Fund. Survivors of Domestic Violence, that was one of the first developments we funded. Greenhouse 17, I worked with them when I was at Kentucky Housing Corporation. That's a great organization. And if Darlene came to me and said, hey, we need some additional units, I would love to be able to help her if there's a way that she can find them and we can make it work. Same thing I do consistently with Christy Shepard at New Beginning. She and I are on the phone constantly just looking for units, looking for opportunities to serve the population she serves, which are those who really are either homeless, at risk of homelessness, and have a severe mental illness. Thank you. And so just for the next year's annual report, I just recommend that we have the change from 2023 to the next year instead of information from the conception or the beginning of the program. For example, as well, you mentioned the amount total, like for what those numbers right there, but also regarding the numbers regarding where we're talking about the, on page 31, where you mentioned the total allocations that the council has made. I'm curious, once again, the allocations and the numbers regarding from the previous report that was made for your annual report to now. Okay. I don't know if you have those numbers. I do. Okay. I'm just going to find them real quick. Okay, so fiscal year 2023, which is the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023, was 4.875 million. And that was just the general fund. And then fiscal year 2024 was $7 million, that's this fiscal year. The council allocated 2 million, excuse me, plus the $5 million that came from the fund balance. I don't have that divided by the ARPA funds, but I can certainly do that. Okay. I think $10 million was initially allocated in fiscal 23 and 3.3 and a quarter million then in fiscal 24. I believe that's right, but I would need to confirm that. I look forward to your confirmation. Thank you for your time, and thank you for being present with us. I do appreciate you. We all appreciate you because we all want affordable housing. One last thing before I did mention. I did see notice, and it's not a question. I did notice that majority of the affordable housing locations are in 1st, 2nd, and 11th districts. and just going forward, I would like to see it disperse more equitably around our city. Thankfully, we finally have one that's going to be happening in the 9th district, so that means now we have all districts that actually do have some sort of affordable housing, but I would look forward to not, I mean, we do love the 1st and the 2nd and the 11th districts, but hey, I know folk want to live elsewhere as well in the city of Lexington. I really appreciate you bringing that up because geographic distribution is very important to me And it's very important to our board as well. When I first took this job, I didn't want, don't put all the affordable housing in one district. That's not the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be spread throughout the community. Land prices do have a lot to do with it, but still, it is a priority for the staff of the affordable housing staff and the board. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you again for being here with us, and we look forward to seeing you next time and getting another update. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, colleagues, we have to finish at 3 p.m. So we have less than 30 minutes on our next item. So I'm going to ask everyone to be as brief as possible so that we can move this item forward and not have to put it off until the next committee meeting. All right. So we are now talking about Sunday alcohol sales. And Councilmember Savigny, this is his item and he will be presenting. So I will turn it over to him for the presentation. Thank you, Chair. I'll be using the, this is my first time using this instrument, so I'm excited about that. And I thank you for allowing me to present this. I put this into committee to be a little bit more transparent with the process and to give some time and context to this for my colleagues and for the public. Since I placed it into committee, I've had a bunch of interviews. I've talked to neighbors, I've talked to each of you about this change. And the feedback has been almost all positive, but there's been a few negatives. I did appear in news articles on the 14th of September in the Herald Leader and WEKU. On the 15th, WVLK in the Lexington Times, the 17th, WKYT, the 19th at Fox, and the 29th on Spectrum. And I've also mentioned it at neighborhood meetings and things. Moving on, what we're really kind of discussing is blue laws. These came to America with the colonists. It's fitting that we're celebrating Thanksgiving next week. And they restricted almost every activity on Sunday, the Sabbath. You can see some of the things that were outlawed at that time, hunting, selling goods, dancing, etc. These blue laws are slowly disappearing across the U.S., but they are still in play. In Kentucky, talking about alcoholic beverages sales, local governments have the authority to do permit Sunday alcohol sales by ordinance. And they're permitted by a variety of business types and times, etc., are all done by local ordinance. And those are the KRS statutes that call those out. This is a little bit of timeline on where we have been as a community on this issue. In 1982, Kentucky laws allowed merged governments the ability to allow sales. But we put it on as a referendum on the ballot. That referendum failed. And then in 86, they put the referendum back on the ballot. and the Lexington voters approved Sunday hours for drink sales from 1 to 11. Beer wasn't included in the language, and this has nothing to do with the fact that I moved to Lexington in 1985. So in 1987, council allows businesses to sell liquor and wine on Sunday, and they can also sell beer. In 95, New Year's Eve happened to fall on a Sunday and the council allowed restaurants to sell beer and malt beverages until 1 AM when New Year's Eve falls on a Sunday. Distilled liquor and wine were still regulated at the 86 level. In 2000, New Year's Eve falls on a Sunday. No council action was taken. In 2006, New Year's Eve falls on a Sunday and the council discussed and extended hours for one more hour on New Year's Eve so that restaurants could sell until 2 AM. No action was taken on that. But in 2007, council removes the sections requiring special license for Sunday sales and allowed selling, giving away and delivering spirits, wine and malt beverages by the drink at 11 AM on Sundays. And then in 2014, the council repealed the ordinance banning alcohol sales on election day in Fayette County. It deemed it old and outdated. And in 2017, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve both fell on a Sunday. Council allowed for the expanded sale hours of retail packaged spirits and wine when Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve fall on a Sunday. And that actually, that got walked on and got approved in two meetings in December. So that's kind of the history. This is kind of what brought the issue about for me. For me, it's an economic development issue. Lexington is a tourist destination and has a signature industry that includes bourbon. Weekends are the biggest draw. Saturday and Sundays are prime days for capturing tourist dollars. There's a few quotes there, but I shared with you guys the visit Lex request and the Kentucky Restaurant Association request. I did have another passing conversation with a restaurant owner just down the street. And they said if the hours increase, they can improve their bottom line by about half a million dollars a year. So, next slide. The other issue I think in Lexington is fairness. Workers and consumers should have same access to legal beverages each day of the week. And there's a few quotes there. Those are mostly from night, it's mostly night employees that get off at about, usually the night shift gets off at the hospitals at 6 AM. And there's a variety of people that like to have breakfast with their friends each day of the week. They kind of treat that as their happy hour and then they go back to work at night while we all sleep. So the solution that I'm recommending is to allow sales to start at 6 AM each day of the week. So treat all days the same and all parts of the ordinance. And I shared with you all a copy of that, the ordinance changes. And it basically just says the same thing for each day in that altered text. Questions? Okay, colleagues, if you have questions, please log in and please be as brief as possible. I'm sorry, I was looking and I didn't say your name. You were so brief you didn't even say my name. Thank you, Chair. Could you just give me what this will change? So it will just bring it in to all the other days? It will start at 6, and where is it presently, and what will it then go to? Yeah, all days are currently 6 a.m. They start at 6 a.m. and end at 2, I think it is. Yeah, 2.30. Right now it's at 11 o'clock. It's at 11. It'll move that to 6 a.m. and package sales on Sundays are at 1 p.m. And it would also bring them to 6 a.m. like the rest of the days. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Is there any other questions? Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Council Member Savigny, for bringing this forward. Just my first thought on it, or second and third thoughts, is I'm pretty supportive of the restaurant sales. The package sales, I don't necessarily know if there's a real strong feeling or history about it. Have you had any conversations with public safety and their thoughts on it or any other folks that may weigh in and have an opinion? Yeah, thank you for that question. I did talk to public safety, they didn't have any real comment. They asked for data on if hours make a difference in other communities. I couldn't find any data that showed anything about that. They didn't seem to, like the idea of treating all days the same seemed at least, at least all days are enforced the same. So they seemed okay with that. I did get some data though if you wanted to see data. I did get data on basically DUIs at what time of the day they happen, and on what days of the week are more prevalent for public intoxication. So in general, the morning hours, if you go down to the hours of the day, I mean, basically you see we have the most of our issues are late at night and early in the morning. Our least issues are between 6 and 11 on any day. And then if you look at the days of the week, Sunday is not the greatest day of the week, as well as Saturday. And it's primarily because of the early morning hours of bars. People go to bars on Friday night and Saturday night, typically. Okay. So. All right, I appreciate that information. The other thing I'll say too, and I guess with the holidays coming up, I think this is something in regards to having something in place that would benefit the businesses around that time. I'm just wondering if it, I didn't know what your intent was, because if it's something that we pass, I would like to give folks an opportunity to reach out to us and share their thoughts if they have any. As opposed to it seeming like something that we're trying to rush in regards to changing a policy that I guess a lot of people had a lot of opinions about in the past. So what was you thinking time frame wise? So I was going to make a motion coming out of this meeting to move this to full council and to a work session. And then I was going to make a motion to have it reported out at today's work session. And that would give us, that would end up getting on Thursday's docket. And then it would give us through Thanksgiving week and it would be voted, the final vote would be at the first week of December. So I think it would give us ample time for people to respond. Okay, well I appreciate you sharing that and I'm not opposed to that time frame. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Fogel. Thank you, Chair Persson. Thank you, CM Civigni. Let me start with hashtag give your liver a break is what I've been getting. I do not oppose our constituents in the 1st District has spoke on the tourism. And the thing about tourism is that people who have family members who are suffering from the disease of alcoholism, the tourism folks, they go back home and then we're left with the devastation in Lexington. But I don't oppose to restaurants and business and folks like that. And I have to piggyback with Council Brown on the package sales. That's where I'm drawing the line. I know every person in recovery is responsible for their own recovery, but just having that piece of where folks can just walk in to service stations or stores and buy alcohol that early in the day. And, of course, it's Sabbath for me and a lot of people that I serve on Sunday. But I just wanted to let you know that I support the tourism. I just cannot support the package sales due to how much money we put into recovery, second chances. And can I please ask, this is the last question, I really, really want to know. You may not have that statistic for your data. What areas of the community suffered the most arrests for alcoholism and with the data that you showed? Did they give you a specific area? I don't have that data. Okay. I'm sorry, but I mean, I can find it. Yeah. Thank you. Well, if you would do that for me, and I would like for the community also to weigh in on this. But if you could help me with that data that shows that I'm really interested to see where those arrests and those calls for alcohol. I really would like to see that. I think I'm pretty, I know where it is, but I would like for you to say it. So thank you, Chairperson, and thank you for bringing this to Council. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. I'll be brief. I'm opposed to any change on alcohol sales. You know, I think it's open to the community pretty much, and for us to maybe dishonor Sunday in this way. You know, Sunday's still a special day to me and to a lot of people in Lexington, and I think we need a little bit more. I'd like to get a little bit more input from the community, one thing, and I think it would be rushing it to try to take it through this week. I don't know that there's any hurry. Maybe there is on your part, Council Member, related to maybe the Christmas holidays and things of that nature, but I just don't see the need for this. you know we're still a pretty much wide open town and I'm just opposed to it thank you thank you council member Baxter thank you chair council members Vigni I know that the initial conversation was driven by restaurants reaching out to you have you had any conversations with package sales like owners of liquor stores and things like that i'm just curious if if they have pushed as hard as as restaurants have because i'm iffy on the package sale part of it yeah um there has been not no package store has reached out specifically just in support or opposition yeah just via the the visit lex um because that would be a package store kind of issue there Okay. Yep. Okay. Depending upon how my other colleagues feel, I may actually make an amendment to remove package sales from your proposal, but I'll kind of wait and see what everybody else does. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. As a former restaurant professional with my own restaurant, even though we didn't sell alcohol, I am for this measure from an economic development and small business support and tourism point of view. In its present form, I am also not opposed to separating out the restaurant piece from the package sale piece either, but I will likely support it in either form. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I just want to really quickly say my thoughts, and then we can get moving. But I want to respect everybody, including myself, that goes to church on Sunday and practices Sunday as a Sabbath. That being said, I do not think it matters when we have such access to alcohol, whether we're selling it on Sunday morning or we're not in terms of keeping people long-term sober if they struggle with abusing alcohol. We need to be sensitive to that and realize that that is the number one addiction, is alcohol, is struggling with alcohol substance use. And so we need to be cognizant of that. I don't think that these few hours on a Sunday morning, whether it's package sales or whether it's restaurant sales are going to make a dent in that problem if we prevent it. So that being said, I'll be in favor of this. Thank you. Okay, with all that being said, I'd like to make a motion then. I'd like to make a motion to approve the ordinance as it was presented today, so moved. All those in favor? Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, Chair. I would like to make an amendment to remove package sales from the conversation and just put forward on-premise restaurant sales and leave package sales in committee. So moved. There was a motion and a second on the amendment. Any discussion on the amendment? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Councilman Savigni, I asked this question, could you go over it again about what package sales right now is and what it would be or wouldn't be if this was? It's currently on Sundays at 1 p.m. and 6 a.m. on every other day. And then the restaurants are currently at 11 a.m. and 6 a.m. on every other day. Thank you. Thank you. All those in favor of the amendment? Aye. Aye. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Roll call vote. Do an electric vote. A push vote. Okay, this is on the amendment. Oh, push the vote. Can I vote? It looks like the amendment passes. And now we go back to the original motion as amended. We have, are you signed up to speak? I am not. Okay. Okay. those in favor of the original motion as amended. Can we have the vote again? She's trying. Okay. Can you read the amendment? Could you read the, could you put the motion up as amended? I don't have it. I don't have it in front of me. Dave, could you restate the motion? As amendment. Well, the ordinance, basically, what we're going to vote on right now is an amended ordinance that is only going to amend the sale at restaurants, not at package stores, to begin at 6 a.m. on Sundays. Package stores will not change any language with regard to package stores. So it will move from 11 to 6 a.m.? It will move from 11 to 6 a.m. Okay, and we're having technical difficulties. Okay, let's see if we can do this by, can we vote, can we go try to take a vote? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. You can raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Okay, all those opposed? Aye. Yeah, I think we, okay, that motion passes. As amended. As amended. So not the package sales, just the restaurant sales. I have one follow up. I think someone from law is here, correct? I just want to make sure that it's not an issue to not change both times. I just kind of would like your word on that, if you don't mind. There could be made an argument that it is an issue, but you have the authority to set the hours for each particular license. And these are separate licenses, so you can do that. I just want to make clear that you all were talking about restaurants. That also applies to bars also, just to be clear. Wait a minute. We just had a vote and it just passed and then Council Member Civigni has the floor right now. So he has the floor. Thank you, I got a follow up then. I move to report this item out during this afternoon, November 14th, Council work session. So moved. Any discussion on the motion? To report it out today. Council Member Fogle. Well, people would be able to public comment at the next two Council meetings. Any other? Yes, Councilmember Ellinger. I think this is germane to the question. When law came up here presently, we have different times right now for package sales and for bars and restaurants. So the issue that was brought up, I think, has already been addressed because we had a... Right, there are separate hours for those now, like I say. So I don't think that it becomes a legal issue then, does it? No, they're two separate licenses. Thank you. So you can. Thank you. Okay. So now we're voting on the motion to report it out today. Is that working now? Okay. Can you. Yes, please. All those in favor, please vote. Okay. Okay. That motion. Kathy, you haven't voted. Okay, all those, that passed. That's what I was trying to say. Okay, that motion passed. And now we have come to the conclusion of our meeting. The items that are referred, attention please, items that are referred to committee, I would like an update on those by the first of the year so we can plan out how we're going to do them for this next year. And if you have more items to refer to committee, please do so. And then I want to remind everyone that we have a special meeting tonight for public comments on source of income. And so all of my colleagues are invited to that as well, even ones that do not serve on that committee. But if you serve on that committee, it's important that you're there especially. And that will start, like I said, at 6 p.m. And that will just be for going over the ordinance and having public comments. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned. Without further ado. Thank you.