# Budget and Finance and Economic Development Committee on 2024-03-19 1:00 PM - March 19, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 19, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6071 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6071?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-03-19 - **Last revised**: March 19, 2024 - **Length**: 16,867 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Budget, Finance & Economic Development Committee met on March 19, 2024, at 1:00 PM with James Brown presiding as the committee chair. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, focusing on both routine administrative matters and significant policy initiatives related to economic development and parks funding. The committee took three votes during the meeting and received two informational presentations, while no public comments were heard. Key accomplishments included the approval of the February 27, 2024 committee summary and advancement of a parks funding ballot referendum. The committee also received updates on the city's financial status through the monthly financial report for March 2024 and heard a presentation on Commerce Lexington's Regional Competitiveness Plan, both serving as informational items to keep committee members informed on ongoing economic development efforts and fiscal health. The meeting demonstrated the committee's dual role in overseeing both financial oversight responsibilities and economic development initiatives, with particular attention to infrastructure funding mechanisms and regional economic planning efforts. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on March 19, 2024: **Present:** • James Brown • Chuck Ellinger • Hannah LeGris • Liz Sheehan • Fred Brown • Whitney Baxter • Jennifer Reynolds • Kathy Plomin • Tayna Fogle • Shayla Lynch • Brenda Monarrez • Denise Gray • Dave Sevigny All expected attendees were present for the meeting. No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took three votes during the March 19, 2024 meeting, all of which passed by voice vote. **Approval of February 27, 2024 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:30] Liz Sheehan motioned to approve the February 27, 2024 Committee Summary, with Hannah LeGris providing the second. The motion passed by voice vote with no recorded opposition. **Advance Resolution for Parks Funding Ballot Referendum** [timestamp: 02:20:00] Richard Worley made a motion to advance a resolution for Parks Funding Ballot Referendum, seconded by Hannah LeGris. The motion passed by voice vote with no recorded dissent. **Report Out Resolution at April 9 Work Session** [timestamp: 02:22:00] Richard Worley motioned to report out the resolution at the April 9 work session, with Hannah LeGris again providing the second. This motion also passed by voice vote without opposition. All three votes were conducted as voice votes rather than roll call votes, so individual member positions were not formally recorded. The committee appeared to reach consensus on all matters brought to a vote during this meeting. ## Approval of February 27, 2024 Committee Summary [timestamp: 00:30] The committee considered agenda item I, the approval of the February 27, 2024 Committee Summary. James Brown presented the item to the committee for review. The committee reviewed the summary document from their previous meeting held on February 27, 2024. No specific concerns or amendments were raised during the discussion of the meeting summary. Following the review, the committee approved the February 27, 2024 Committee Summary without modification. **Outcome:** Approved ## Monthly Financial Update – March 2024 [timestamp: 01:00] Commissioner Hensley presented the monthly financial update for March 2024 during this informational agenda item. The presentation focused on the organization's current financial position and budget performance. **Key Financial Highlights:** • Revenue variance showed positive results compared to budget projections • Personnel costs remained close to budgeted amounts, indicating effective cost management The update was delivered as an informational presentation without requiring formal action from the board or commission. Commissioner Hensley's report provided stakeholders with insight into the financial health of the organization and its adherence to approved budget parameters. The positive revenue variance suggests that income streams are performing better than initially projected, while the alignment of personnel costs with budget indicates disciplined spending in what is typically one of the largest expense categories for government entities. This monthly financial reporting serves as a regular checkpoint for fiscal oversight and transparency, allowing officials and the public to monitor the organization's financial performance throughout the fiscal year. ## Commerce Lexington Regional Competitiveness Plan Update [timestamp: 01:30] Andy Johnson from Commerce Lexington presented an update on the regional competitiveness plan during this informational agenda item. The presentation focused on current economic development initiatives and efforts to enhance regional collaboration across the Lexington area. Johnson provided an overview of the competitiveness plan's progress, highlighting key economic development strategies being implemented to strengthen the region's position in attracting business investment and supporting existing enterprises. The update covered various initiatives designed to improve the area's competitive advantages in the marketplace. The presentation emphasized regional collaboration as a central component of the competitiveness plan, detailing how different stakeholders and jurisdictions are working together to advance shared economic development goals. Johnson outlined specific programs and partnerships that have been established to coordinate efforts across the broader Lexington region. This agenda item served as an informational briefing, allowing meeting participants to stay current on Commerce Lexington's economic development activities and the implementation status of regional competitiveness strategies. No formal action was taken during this presentation, as it was designed to provide updates on ongoing initiatives rather than seek approval for new measures. The update reinforced Commerce Lexington's role in coordinating regional economic development efforts and demonstrated the organization's commitment to maintaining momentum on competitiveness initiatives across the area. ## Parks Funding Ballot Referendum [timestamp: 02:00:00] The committee discussed agenda item IV, a proposed ballot referendum to establish a dedicated fund for parks maintenance and improvements. The discussion featured presentations from two key speakers who provided different perspectives on the funding mechanism. Victoria Meyer presented the case for the ballot referendum, outlining the proposed structure for a dedicated parks fund that would be supported through voter-approved funding measures. Her presentation detailed how the dedicated fund would ensure consistent financing for parks operations and capital improvements, addressing current budget shortfalls in parks maintenance. David Lowe also addressed the committee regarding the ballot referendum proposal, contributing additional analysis and considerations for the funding initiative. The presentations provided the committee with comprehensive information about the proposed referendum's implementation and potential impact on parks services. The committee engaged in discussion about the merits and logistics of placing this parks funding measure before voters. The proposed referendum would create a sustainable funding source specifically earmarked for parks, rather than relying on general fund allocations that can fluctuate with budget cycles. Following the presentations and committee discussion, the parks funding ballot referendum proposal was approved. This approval moves the initiative forward in the process toward potentially appearing on a future ballot, where voters would have the opportunity to decide whether to establish the dedicated parks fund. The committee's approval represents a significant step in addressing long-term parks funding challenges through a voter-supported mechanism that would provide dedicated revenue streams for parks maintenance, improvements, and operations. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of February 27, 2024 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Advance resolution for Parks Funding Ballot Referendum - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Report out resolution at April 9 work session --- ## Full transcript Thank you. All right, it's one o'clock. Yeah. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order for the March 19, 2024, Budget, Finance, Economic and Development Committee. We'll go straight to our agenda. And the first item on the agenda is the approval of the February 27, 2024 committee summary. So moved. Second. all right there's a motion to approve and second it are there any questions or corrections hearing it seeing none all those in favor please say aye are there any that oppose hearing none that motion passes the next item on our agenda is the monthly financial update we have commissioner hensley director holbrook and director lucre commissioner i'll turn it over to you Hello, everyone. So sorry for the delay in getting the financials out this month. This meeting came quite early, and we are a little occupied at the moment. So thank you so much for your patience as we had a little extra time to get that to you. The items I'd like to comment on today are back in the current year to prior year cash flow variance and then the actuals to budget for the expenses. We are running ahead of schedule. We mentioned that last month as well on our revenues. So our revenues are doing well to budget, and we're continuing to do better than expected year over year. And then we are also... Okay, let's try that again. So sorry. And then we are experiencing higher spend than we did last year, but we are well under budget, particularly in our operating account. And so these are important pieces to know going into the budget this year. As you all recall, and as we've mentioned during the budget retreat, the last several years we have used a mechanism called pre-funding, which moves expenses from a future year back into a current year and these are the kind of areas that we look at to be able to do that so we again expect to have pre-funding as part of our balancing strategy for this year's budget and you can kind of see through the financials where we are a little off to where we budgeted this year so we'll be looking at those again and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have Commissioner, first up we got Councilmember Savigny. Thank you. I just have a quick question and I just noticed this when I kind of went back on some previous meetings from previous years. Is there a reason that we don't go through the financials of the other funds as well? We used to provide several years ago, prior to me actually being here, a quarterly financial update on the other funds. It wasn't reported on since it is really restricted as far as the uses go. We could absolutely provide that to you all again, but it wasn't ever reviewed because really the revenues and expenses are restricted in their purpose. Okay. Thank you. I do think it at least tells it, gives you a picture of how those funds are doing, whether or not we're covering our expenses with income, etc. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next, we have Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And I just want to follow up with Council Member Subigny. I think that would be a great idea if we could reinstitute that and do it either quarterly or semi just to kind of give us a feel where we are in those funds. Sure. Happy to. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Are there any other questions for the commissioner? I'm not seeing any. All righty. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that, commissioner. Other information that's in your packet is the American Rescue Plan update information. That's for information only. Next item on the agenda is the Commerce Lexington Regional Competitiveness Plan. We have Andy Johnson, the Chief Policy Officer and Director of Regional Engagement for Commerce Lexington, who is here to give us this update. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Again, I'm Andy Johnson. I am the Chief Policy Officer and the Director of Regional Engagement for Commerce Lexington. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the regional competitiveness plan. I'm joined here today by the Commerce Selects team, Bob Quick, Jenna Greathouse, and Betsy Dexter. We are all working hard to lead this project alongside our regional leaders, and the entire team will be available to answer questions about the project at the conclusion of the presentation. So before we get into the regional plan update, we thought it may be beneficial to remind the council of the two ways that the city currently invests in commerce lexington for economic development work commerce lex is contracted with the city through the rfp process the economic development rfp for 300 000 for lexington specific economic development initiatives these activities are targeted business and job growth here in lexington bay county so the team works with our existing businesses to help them to help retain those jobs help them expand through the lexington economic partnership cheryl cleaver on commerce lexington's team coordinates those meetings and meets with over 100 businesses every year here in lexington we also regularly promote lexington assets to our site selectors and our business targets and commerce lexington is responsible for managing all the new development projects the rfi's the rfps the client visits that come here to lexington additionally this work includes our ceo roundtables our minority business engagement programs that are led by tyrone tyra we also keep a property registry and a database of the available properties and sites here in lexington and build those relationships with the commercial property owners to make sure that's up to date and make sure that information is connected back to the state economic development cabinet so they have the most up-to-date information about lexington when they're marketing the state so the regional plan works the city is also investing an additional 322 000 in our regional competitiveness plan to support the action items over the next four years the regional plan initiatives these are new activities these are value add services for lexington and for the region related to economic development so these initiatives they don't replace what we're currently doing to promote Lexington rather these are just additional services that help both Lexington and the region attract jobs and people so why the regional approach we've said this before and you all know this but we are competing against much larger metros for projects and for people so it's to our advantage it has been to our advantage to market a larger geographic location just to be in the game to be at the table when we're competing against those million person metro so the nine county region that we're working within that's a 700 plus population that's a larger workforce to draw from that's more business site options that are available more quality of life and more affordability that we can lean into by marketing as a region so we are better together and when we're talking about the regional plan so to give you all a progress report on where this is at as you may remember one of the first action items that we've talked about is the need for a regional brand identity. What do we call ourselves? How are we marketing ourselves as a unit? So last year, we worked with DCI and regional leaders, did a lot of research, a lot of focus groups on what was the best brand identity to lean into. And the recommendation was to lean into Greater Lex because of the brand equity that's already established through Lexington being the largest city, our airport call letters, our LEX, and the regional tourism marketing that's already been invested behind the VisitLex messaging. So when you see this brand, this is the brand representing regional collaboration for both jobs and people attraction. So just as a reminder, I know we've been through this several times, but just so we all remember the measurable goals, the things that we're trying to accomplish with this regional plan over the next three to four years. Our goals are to increase our regional jobs, the wages that people are making, the GDP, so the things that we're making here in the region to at least the national average. We're also seeking to increase our regional labor force, specifically within those young professionals, 25 to 45 category. And we want to be tracking and making sure that we're attracting more state and federal investment in priorities that support these action items and that benefit the entire region. So these are the data points that you're going to see us reviewing at the annual regional summit. We'll also have more specific ROI metrics that are attached to each of the action items, but at a high level, this is what we're trying to impact over the next three years. And the regional plan itself, just as a reminder, these are the seven action items that underpin this plan, And these were items that regional leaders, both our government and our business leaders agreed to because they felt like these would be mutually beneficial to all communities. If we did these things together as a region, we were going to have a much greater impact than if we went at these alone. So for the purposes of the work plan, we divided the work into three categories, economic development, workforce and talent, and policy advocacy. So let's start with economic development. So this year, Jenna Greathouse and her team are working with economic development leaders in the region on four specific deliverables. They're going to be refreshing the Locate and Lex website. They're going to be ramping up their outreach to site selectors to bring more attention to Lexington in the region. They're attending new events, new conferences to promote Lexington in the region. And they're offering new leadership and education events to our leaders that are involved in economic development. So with the website, we just wanted to let you all know that we're currently working with Houston out of Charlotte to do this refresh of the site. This process is just beginning. The launch is going to be in early fall along with the talent site. And the key goals of this are to align the site with the regional brand, to make the site more user friendly, and to highlight our updated strategic targets, and to make sure that we're incorporating in that talent and quality of life messaging that we know is so important to job creation. Additionally, because of the regional plan investment from both our business and government leaders, CommerceLex is able to go to more new events to promote Lexington in the region. So this is just a snapshot of March through June, and what we've highlighted here are five new events that are increasing the visibility of Lexington and the region to prospective businesses. And this includes two biotech events, which is a key strategic target for the city of Lexington. So speaking of the strategic targets, as a reminder, the city invested last year in updates to our strategic targets for business growth. You may remember Ted Abernathy came and provided an update last fall on what our clusters are, what are those opportunities for growth. And the top five targets are things that Lexington should lean into for growth. So that's biopharma, life sciences, ag tech, medical devices, business and professional services, marketing design. These are all areas that are areas for growth for the city. The three bottom categories of automotive, advanced manufacturing, food and beverages, logistics, again, those are also clusters here, but they're likely to be stronger targets for the region just because of more available land, larger buildings, and just the cost factors there as well. Something else I just wanted to note before we move on from this slide is that Ted's report did talk about the need to develop a strategy to support the tech ecosystem. Tech jobs do underpin all of the sectors that we have here in the region. We have tech jobs that we're working to recruit. We're working to recruit tech talent through this marketing campaign, but doing what we can to really dive in and create a strategic plan that gives us some guidance on the things that we can do internally to grow the ecosystem is a good action item and a good next step moving forward from this plan. The other things that we're working on, we're kicking off a new leadership series for our regional officials and our economic development leaders. We invite all council members to participate in the April 29th workshop with Ted Abernathy. The goal of this event is to provide education, professional development resources to our business and government leaders, those of the closestly involved in economic development for their communities and so we hope that you all will join us for that event later in April. So let's talk about talent. The talent strategy we also have four key deliverables for this year and Betsy Dexter and our team is leading this effort. We're going to be creating a new talent attraction website. We're also going to be creating a new talent social media and digital marketing campaign to key audiences in four cities. We're going to be hosting workshops and advisory groups to make sure that our talent messaging is aligned and then we're going to continue to develop strategies with our business community and our education partners and our students to increase that retention here in the region so with regard to the talent website we wanted to let you all know that we have been working with dci again on the talent site we've been working with our regional tourism partners and our economic development professionals on this new site the development process launched in January and we're concluding the first round of design at the end of March. So we're planning for a stakeholder preview in early summer and launching this site in early fall in conjunction with the economic development refresh. So this site's going to include resources on working here, living here, playing here in Lexington and the region. It's also going to feature an interactive map that profiles all of our communities. And I'll just say this is probably one of the most important things that we're doing because we don't have anything like this and people are looking online for resources. 70% of people when they're considering a relocation are looking for a one-stop shop to get that information. And jobs are important but also quality of life. Those are the top two things people are looking for when they're considering those decisions. So this is definitely going to be a critical asset for us when it's completed this fall. Other things that are on the site we wanted to let you all know about. It's going to have a cost of living calculator. to show prospective talent that your dollar will go further in greater lex it's also going to feature our top employers our strategic targets those key businesses here in the region it's going to have a jobs board where people can search for jobs or internships and those those key sectors are going to be advanced manufacturing business and professional services technology life sciences and health care logistics and our headquarter operations So social media and digital marketing is also a priority and a target to launch this fall. This campaign is going to be centered around the five quality of life messages that we learned through DCI, the research, the focus groups that were the strengths of the region that we needed to lean into. And those themes were find your career path, what are the jobs here in the region, we do have those opportunities, we just have to tell that story. Our outdoor amenities, our food and culture, our education, our health care, and being a friendly, safe, welcoming, affordable community. These are all the messages that were viewed as strengths that we need to lean into. The target is four cities initially, and these were the cities that the data showed we were losing young professionals to. So that's Nashville, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, and they're all going to get these messages promoting relocation to greater legs. in addition we're going to be doing some employer toolkits to help our businesses have resources when they're recruiting candidates and then later in the fall when we launch the talent campaign we're going to be promoting that to local national media to get more visibility on what lexington's doing in the talent attraction space so finally the third component is the policy advocacy and some things we wanted to to flag for you all we we've been doing this we want to continue to coordinate the advocacy with our regional partners around an agenda at the state and federal level that increases investments in things that are going to benefit this plan in the region. So two things that we've been talking about in Frankfort during this General Assembly that we've been advocating for is for the General Assembly to continue to invest in the Kentucky Product Development Initiative. And also to allocate funds towards talent attraction marketing from a state perspective, as well as creating some local and regional grants that can enhance what we're doing. We just wanted to flag this as an example of how impactful the Kentucky Product Development Initiative has been at getting more sites and buildings online in the region. This was a challenge not just for Lexington but for our regional partners when we went through this process two years ago. So it's been tremendously successful in accelerating that development. Regional leaders are talking more about collaboration. And a good example of that is what Scott, Madison, and Fayette County leaders are pursuing a joint business park in Scott County. so let's talk about the funding so from a commitment perspective this is a 1.6 million dollar strategy that supported two to one to business we've raised nearly a million dollars in annual investment from the business community over five years the regional government partnerships have invested over 500 000 annually as of today following the per capita model and you can see we've got 11 local governments that have committed annual investment we really appreciate the city of Lexington leading this effort. The majority of them are following that dollar per person model. We've got four governments that are pending, but we feel confident we're going to get those in in the months ahead. So in conclusion, I'll just say we are better together, and Lexington wins from a regional approach. We have unique strategic job targets, quality of life amenities that are different from the region. And the region also has strengths and assets that are different from us that we need to leverage. So together, we really are the total package. And Commerce Lexington is committed to marketing not only Lexington, but the region in a way that's a win-win for everyone. Lexington is the anchor. And so if a company or a person doesn't locate here, we want them to be in the region because we still benefit from those economic outputs. And we have the modeling to show that we will benefit from those things. So we appreciate your leadership on this, your continued support of the regional plan. We're excited to see the results that happen from these efforts over the next few years and reporting those back to you all. So the team behind me is working hard on this effort, and so we're all available to answer any questions that you all may have about the initiative. Good timing. So, Andy, thank you for the update. And, council members, if you all remember, during the fund balance discussion, we allocated the funding to continue this initiative. So there's really no action that we need to take today. This is just an update to bring you up to speed on the efforts of Commerce Lexington in regards to the regional competitiveness plan. So, Andy, thank you all for your work and everything that you're doing. And, council members, please sign in for questions. and first on the list is council member Plowman thank you chair thank you Andy that was a great presentation and I know I've said this to each of you is I think this is so important and I know that you're taking it now and running with it but you look at the success stories they're all over the country when they take this regional approach and I'm very impressed I went to that last regional summit and it just really bring home for what we ought to be doing I don't think you're this far yet but maybe ultimately there'll be revenue sharing on that is that correct okay I think are you talking about the business park yeah Kevin may be the best to answer and because I know years ago this This was kind of tried and it didn't succeed. But it was real novelty back then. And Kevin, I know I asked you this question when we were in the seminar. And it's a great question. It goes to another layer of the importance of the project. But yes, we're looking at the revenue sharing for all the different categories, whether it be insurance taxes, property taxes, obviously payroll taxes. But you haven't figured out that formula. Well, we're going to be talking to you about that some more. what we all hope to get to is a third, a third, and a third. Okay, great. Again, good job. Excited to see where this goes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next is Council Member Jennifer Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. I just really wanted to chime in and say that I am impressed with this presentation and the work that you all have done, having seen from my first commerce trip to Raleigh, was that five or six years ago now? And we talked, they talked so much about regionalism and it was very inspiring to me what they were doing on a regional level, working together despite their differences. And so I just really appreciate that you all saw that and understood the importance and you've run with it. and it wasn't just an idea that we heard, it became a reality and a focus. So I just want to say that I genuinely appreciate that. And I was wondering, when we talk about developing regional talent attraction, what specifically can we do in order to do that? Is it all social media or is there more way of developing local talent attraction? Yeah, I think that with the talent attraction piece and the retention piece, the main thing was telling the story and having all that information in one place. So I think the digital paid place is the best place to start. Like Andy said, 70% of people find it online, especially when we're talking to folks who are not here. So the digital space is where we want to start. It's an expensive endeavor, so you just got to kind of start there. Of course, we'll promote it through our local social media. That doesn't cost anything. We'll ask our partners to do the same, but I think you'll find that digital is where we're going to spend most of our efforts to get the message out. So there won't be a lot of actual person-to-person outreach in terms of trying to attract people? Probably not. Mostly online and in stories and hopefully online tools, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. I like the branding too. Good. Thanks. Thanks so much. the record and counter your role in the... Sure, I'm Betsy Dexter, Commerce Lexington. I do our talent and workforce strategies. We have the business and education network within the chamber and I run that. That's our focus is to make sure we're thinking about the people piece to economic development. So, thanks. Thank you. Was that all you had, Council Member Reynolds? Next is Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for that presentation and thank you for the work of the whole team on this. I think we all very much value regionalism. My question would be, with our regional county and city partners, do you get a sense that everybody is fully on board, not only with their words, but also with their action and with their funding? Are there any sort of gaps? Are there any sort of strategies to make sure that everybody is fully on board as much as we are? um no thank you for the question i think you know we spent the last year educating meeting with our city and county government partners meeting with fiscal courts with the city commissions and so i think for them it's been an education process to learn what this plan is about what the background is what we're all working on together but it has been very exciting to see them understand the value of this and want to be part of it so the reception has been overwhelmingly positive from the majority of the communities i think once they learn about it and understand it they all see that these are things the seven things that we're doing have are mutually beneficial to everyone especially with marketing the more we can do that together it's going to have a greater impact and a greater value so i would say we're in a really good position quite frankly i think we're further along that we thought we would be after the first year in terms of the commitments that we're seeing from from those partners so we're continuing to have conversations there in their budget processes just like you are to get those commitments for next year but we want to see all the communities in and as close to that dollar per person model as we can and i think we're in good shape to get there that's good to hear has anything popped out or stood out with the conversations with our neighbors and partners in terms of what specific concerns they may have or stumbling blocks or hesitations anything like that any challenges that you can think of i think there's just you Everyone wants to make sure that their community is seen through this campaign and that the strengths that we all have to bring to the table are being communicated, whether it's from the job side or the talent side. So I think we're just going to work with intentionality with the economic development professionals, our tourism partners, our chamber leaders, to make sure that each community, its unique characteristics and personality are shown through the campaign, but that we're doing it in such a way that we're presenting a product to external audiences where we're all stronger. I mean, we really are the total package together of what someone may be looking for. Whether you want city amenities, you want a more rural lifestyle, suburban, we have it all. We just need to market it as a unit, but make sure we're giving equal play to all the things that we have to offer. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you for the thoughtful work that you all have done on this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next is Council Member Worley. Thank you, Chair. And I'd just like to speak to the value of this work. I'm glad that we're getting involved. Regionalism is really a part of our identity. here, you know, like many in the community because the University of Kentucky, Lexington became my home, but I see Dr. Owen out in the gallery there. I grew up with his sons in Madison County. And so I think many of us see the region as home as a whole. So it truly is part of our identity, but also it is our reality even now. We have many people who live in Madison County, Clark County, Scott County, who come here to work either because of the university, the hospitals, the jobs here. We have several people in this community that go to Georgetown and work in Toyota. We have manufacturers all throughout the region that service Toyota. So this really is our reality now and I think a little work to raise all tides for all ships is strong. I hope now actually serving in Fayette County that our land use policies and our economic development here in Lexington actually land some of these new jobs and people here but all the same the indirect growth by the growth in the region will be great here because we still will be the hub for health care higher education retail and so this is a great effort for all I think so thank you thank you chair thank you councilmember next we have uh... council member gray thank you chair so high and my question is so going f and can we bring up the slide uh... the second to last slide the words the funding breakdown uh... we see that the city of lexington has i guess committed over $300,000 to the plan. Let me, it's the next one he's looking at, so I'll slide up my own. And we see that the other regional governments have committed $227,000 or so. It just seems, you know where I'm going, that Lexington is carrying this. And I know that Vice Mayor Wu spoke up regarding the commitment or the feedback you're receiving from the others. I'm just, I understand what they're feeling, but it's obvious that Lexington we're carrying it. Is there, what's the actual, because I know the last time you and I, we spoke about this, We had a few areas that were on the fence of how they felt about this, but what is the actual, what is the reality of it? Does that make sense? It does make sense. Thank you for the question. And again, I'll just reiterate, you know, Lexington's leadership in this as the largest city has been extremely important. the matching grant that you all put forward to start this initiative really was the carrot that helped us in these initial conversations with the communities. And so I would say that Scott County, Madison County, Bourbon County, Woodford County, all have very quickly come in at that dollar per person ratio that we started as a benchmark to get these conversations going. and then we have had positive discussions with the city of frankfurt with jessamine county and nicholasville it's more of a timing thing of when those contributions are going to come in with clark county they've also been extremely positive city of winchester has been supportive of this effort it's just the timing of getting in front of their city commissioners to talk more about this as they begin their budget process so it may seem like that we're a little bit behind there but just from an education process that's happened over the last year to build trust to help people understand that this is not just about Lexington it is going to help the region too it's it's just taken some time for people to ask questions and us to take the steps in the process to get to the point where we're talking through the financial commitment so again I really do feel like we've got eleven governments we've got four pending i think by by june you're going to see that number even higher and we're just going to continue to work through this next six months to a year to show some results that continue to build that trust from our partners and so what we'd like to see next year is that it's at that 50 50 ratio because if you look at the population really lexington is 50 percent the other region would be 50 and that's what we'd like to see and and that's our commitment to continue to work towards that so but again i know this you're initially taking this step out and really leading on that and it's helping us be able to do the assets like the website and the social media to really show what this can be and that is building trust and keeping the momentum that we need to bring more of our regional partners along so i hope that answers your question but thank you for your leadership on this and that's what we in Lexington do we lead the way but on top of that is there anything that we can do to help you in this endeavor I think well continuing to support it financially would be extremely helpful I think you're all's presence at the at the believe the leadership events that we host where these other local officials will be there I think you all getting to know them and speaking favorably about the plan and just creating that synergy among regional partners is helpful so anytime you can be present at the regional summit or these events that we're offering i think that just builds the type of collaboration that just makes this effort continue to to be stronger thank you thank you thank you council member next we have uh council member savigny thank you chair and thank you very much for the presentation uh it was great andy um i've just got a few questions um on the second i think it's the second slide it's basically the lfucg funding of 300 000 and it kind of broke it down don't get dizzy so i think it's the yeah keep going keep going it's like it's right it's the second from the top so you're at the bottom yeah so you have it broken down the 300 000 dollars into different pots of money for existing business and one more page there you go up there you go um did we specify that um in this uh did you respond to an rfp did we specify that or is that the buckets that that you chose to put the money in i'm just curious i'll let jenna answer that question okay it's a little bit of both so we put some funding in or we put some ideas behind it but the critical piece there would be the existing business and retention program so we also contribute to that program as well from our private sector dollar race so sixty thousand dollars doesn't cover what we do for our existing businesses minority business development has long long been a role and a goal for the city of Lexington. So we are managing that component of it with Tyrone through the Access Loan Program, the Accelerator, the Minority Business Opportunity Exchange, and others. And again, that is also supported by private sector dollars, but these pieces, this piece of it is specifically what you all wanted us to do. New business, do you want me to go through the other ones? I guess my real question is if we're the ones who stated this, do you think that ratio, all those ratios are right? Or do you think we should be investing more in a particular line item here? I would say yes. So what's missing from this right now, what we had in previous years was money to support our entrepreneurial startup community. So more of the ecosystem, working with individuals to help them start their business. Those components are still out there. We had it all in one place at one time, and you may recall it was called the BBDP. So having everyone in one place was really important to the entrepreneurs so they didn't have to search and go. You know, I think the thing to go back and say is the private sector is shouldering what we're currently do at a much greater level. Our goal was $750,000, and we're at $996,000. The last two investors have come from private sector outside of the county who are now buying into and supporting the greater regional plan. Does that answer? Yeah, and I noticed that on the funding side, it looks like you basically have two-thirds of the funding is basically from the private sector, which I truly do think you've delivered that message to them well, that the investment is required from both. The public sector just can't manage this on their own, that they're going to be benefiters of good economic development as well. So I really think you've done a great job. And I know that lift, like you guys have done that lift. You like doing it. Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate that. And so you mentioned the entrepreneurial thing. Is there anything, is there any number on here that you think, like, you can get five times the return on if we invested? So I'm always like an investor, right? It's like, hey, existing business and retention, if we invested three times the amount, we might get ten times the return. You know what I mean? I still think we need to bring back some of the things we used to do. So I would call them, they're events, but they're also Venture Club, work more closely with the Bluegrass Angels, reinvigorate our who got the money, where we ask all our entrepreneurs, how many jobs did you add? How much private sector money did you raise? How much did you personally put in? What kind of venture capital did you receive? So you can actually see the tech ecosystem growing. Yeah. And we used to manage that process and I'd love to kick it off, re-kick it off. You know, frankly, we work with UK and Awesome Inc both to, I want to call it, lift the ecosystem up, which is exactly what Ted Abernathy put. While it's not strategic target of who we should be recruiting here, it's who we should be growing here. And I think that it needs some more support. Thank you. I don't really have anything else, but I do appreciate everything you guys are doing, and I think the investments are absolutely worth it. Thank you so much. Am I allowed to go back and add to one question? So when you all asked Andy about the nine counties and who's contributing and what cities and counties, so if they have not contributed as a city or county, their local economic development group, which is funded by city-county governments, have put money in not to the level that we want, but they're in it, and they're going to work with us on their city-county governments. And we've got one in two weeks. We've got another one in two weeks. We call it barnstorming. And we're going to go to another county and make our case and have the ED professional there so they can also talk about what we do for them with them. Thank you. Chair, I have one more thing, too. I recall. Hey, it would be helpful. I'm sorry, Councilmember. Did the time expire? Yeah. I don't think so. I think you had three minutes there. Yeah. Well, just sign back in, Councilmember. I'll get you back in. Next is Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. First off, I wanted to commend the Chamber. I still use the old language, the Chamber of Commerce, for what you all do for the City of Lexington and the region. The fact is, the Mayor asked us to put our budget requests in, and we were supposed to put our top three. And regionalism was one of my top three. So this is definitely supportive of what you all are doing. Bring that slide back up, Chris, that Council Member Svegna had. That one there, the 300,000. And I understand you put pots in there, but what's the accountability for each one of those areas? do you have a an accountability factor or do you you know have some type of report that states what you're doing in each one of them and and how effective it is and whether you're going to continue you have a reporting method that's required by our purchase of service agreement and then we do our own reporting and goalkeeping at the beginning of the year so as an example for existing business retention and expansion we have a goal of meeting this year we raised it to 125 last year it was 100 we made 102 actually we made 165 attempts meaning to get in the doors of company we generated 20 active expansion projects and we located seven of them so meaning our technical support and getting with them making the connections and introducing them to opportunities might help might help them with their growth is working chief executive round tables we do twice those twice a year we record numbers we record conversations we record who the companies work for it's been it's traditionally been global ceo meetings and now we're opening it up to chief executive roundtable meetings and we are currently in the process of developing the next one coming up this fall minority business development that supports everything tyrone does so from access loan again from access loan to him as a person to supporting our project manager that works with tyrone and with our team so it supports fallon on our team as well and the accelerator and of course the new business job creation so where we're on the road where we're redoing an older website where we keep up with our our current expenses on the property register and and other things that support that website. I encourage you to go on and look at the property register. It's really pretty interesting. But they're. Yeah, thank you. I guess what I would say with minority business specifically, it is much like the existing business program. It is one on one. Have you all put your request in for the budget, 25 budget? No, we are awaiting the timing on the RFP. Okay. have to see what you know where that you're not sure what you're all going to request but this is what our budget of dollars go to that's what those budgeted dollars and just a comment well one question I had I was curious how did Montgomery County get into this field of I'm just curious about that and then I'll maybe give you the answer if you don't have it Well, I can tell you they have been a longtime partner. They were not officially in the Bluegrass Alliance. Sandy Knapper, now Sandy Romanesco, wanted to do team building and be part of what we were all working on together. So how long ago did we add? We added Montgomery County in because Sandy was a great economic development partner. And when she retired, we have continued along with their new executive director, and he has contributed to the overall campaign out of his own personal economic development budget. Well, the answer I would give is that when you look at your logistics, I-64 and I-75 are certainly critical in our regional planning and everything. And one of the things we've given you in the urban services boundary, we have added some properties along the interstates. and even though they may not be Fayette County project development you all are involved if you're involved in the region then you have that to offer some of the other parties that hey we're in this together and we'll work with you on that so that was my comment thank you I'll remember that I 64 connection and that's part of it okay thank you oh I cannot thank you if you'll let me one more thing if you'll let me just add Neogen Corporation which is located here and was a spin-off out of UK and when they ran out of space in Lexington we were working with Neogen to try to convince them to stay here in some capacity there weren't facilities that they were particularly fond of and there was one in Montgomery County that Montgomery Montgomery County happened to have available and we pushed them that direction as opposed to losing them to another community outside of our region thank you for that next up is that councilmember Lynch Thank You chair and Andy thank you for the very thorough presentation I just have a few questions Chris do you mind to bring up the third slide where you listed the additional services for Lexington Fayette County I was wondering if there was a difference between items number two and five they sounded similar to me but maybe different regarding refreshing the regional job attraction website and developing a regional talent attraction marketing website is there a difference between the two are those two different yes there will actually be two different sites okay so there will be a that we have an existing located in lexington.com site that is the economic development site so it's going through a refresh and then we're creating a brand new look at lex.com which is geared towards the talent attraction messaging so we i don't know if we go back to the actual let's see i was just gonna i mean this isn't exactly what it's gonna look like but it will definitely be a different site from the ed site but they will be like sister sites so they will link to each other but they will definitely have a separate presence okay thank you for clarifying that and then on your regional competitiveness plan slide you talked about the three measurable goals do you have any kind of timeline or time stamp for these three goals and yes those are things that we wanted to see I'm trying to get back there I'm sorry so when we did the original executive summary report with Ted Abernathy back in 2021 these were the three areas that we were below the national average in. And so these were things that we wanted to be monitoring to show that we were moving forward, that we were making progress over the next five years. So we will, at the regional summit this year, incorporate this into Ted's annual update to show us where we are in relation to the national average as these things begin, to show that these investments are working. And I can tell you, we did talk to Ted earlier this year and the trend lines were actually increasing all of these areas particularly in labor force so the gap is closing but we've still got a lot of work to do so we're hoping this additional marketing efforts will help with those things right and then my last question is it's just purely out of curiosity the branding around this is greater Lex are the other counties does this put them in their feelings so to speak are they okay with pushing Lexington out front even though this is a team ever effort a collaborative effort are they okay with that brand new greater lakes and then how did you decide on that greater Lex branding so yes they are we we went through this process last year with DCI we did focus groups we looked at the research I mean DCI is a nationally renowned firm that's worked with cities and regions and states across the country it was nice to have an independent professional group do an assessment and come back with recommendations and so based on the assets that we have the fact that Lex Lexington is the largest city in the region and a lot of communities do lean into the largest MSA in their marketing promotions. Our airport call letters are LEX and most communities don't have that built in branding that's already there. And then of course for many years, Visit Lex and the regional tourism partners have already been promoting the region to visitors under that Visit Lex, Look at Lex, just that type of campaign. So the recommendation was just from a brand identity to external audiences that we lean into that and also promote ourselves as Kentucky's Bluegrass region, the nine county region. And we did talk with the regional leaders about that. But we just have to keep reminding ourselves that this is meant for an external audience and how people on the outside are looking at us. So we are trying to give them a geographic sort of a digital marker of where we are and And so leaning into that largest city is important so people can find us on a map and know where they're coming to. And I think when you think about it from the context of if you're sitting next to someone on an airplane, it's like, how do you describe where you're from? And when we talk to regional leaders about that, they're like, yeah, I do say Lexington. So I think when people start thinking about it, how they're sharing that to a person who's not from here, we all understand that there's value in leaning into that. But our commitment is through the messages that we're promoting that the region will have representation, that we'll be promoting their quality of life assets, their housing opportunities, in addition to Lexington, so that we're doing it together as a package, as a unit, because we all have strengths to offer. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. That was a very good question. I know I was in a meeting where when they announced the name, and who was in their feelings the most were Lexington business leaders. And the reason because is they didn't want to lose the buy-in from the regional partners. But I think having that concern and voicing that at that meeting let the regional partners know that Lexington is truly committed to this effort and want them on board. And I think Andy and her team and Visit Lexington, Mary Quinn, have done a good job of expressing why Lexington needs to be the center of that and getting buy-in. We are the anchor, but we do have to be intentional about making sure our partners do feel like they're seen through this effort, too. All right, next is Council Member Focal. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Council Member Lynch. It was a great segue into what I wanted to ask, and I was thinking about the branding also. Along with the branding, as I was looking at the wonderful presentation that you did, I noticed that the diversion, inclusion, and equity, the photos does not represent an inclusion part. Like, I really paid a lot of attention to the photos. And so as we're branching out into the other regions, and we want to attract, and I saw the amount that was given to the minority business and just thinking about these other small towns that we're going in partnership with. I would like to see in the future more people of COLA in some of your photos of the presentation so that everyone around the regions can feel included. It's hard to, I'm excited about it. Went to a wonderful downtown Lexington partnership luncheon yesterday. I was excited about that and the things that's going on around Lexington, especially being, I was raised right in this inner city of downtown. And the way it looks now versus the way it looks then, I just wanted us to keep on just making sure everybody feels welcome at the table. And so if we are going to attract small businesses, minority businesses across the region, I hope that we will reflect that from Lexington since we have the lead. And I always want to feel that we're a part of the Lexington Comprehensive Plan going forward. So thank you for your wonderful presentation. I think I had something to ask about the $60,000 for the minority business. Help me understand that. It seemed like that was the same amount that was presented when I first got here. Did it not increase? Can somebody help me with that? It has not increased, but that's because our purchase of service agreement is for two years. So we're in the second year of our PSA with the city and would anticipate that we'll have support as well as we go forward. Our minority business program again is supported by full stride, which is that 996, hopefully a million soon. But the minority business development is also supported by sponsorships of those events from our membership and engagement side of our team. So there is a significant amount of dollars that goes into diversity, equity, inclusion, and one-on-one consulting, et cetera, with our minority businesses. And there's 27 banks now that are part of our access loan program. So we keep building and building upon that, and it just continues to grow. Okay, and that's something, that's a different pocket than what the bigger picture is, like it's just sectioned off and forget it, I'm going to withdraw that question. I think I understood exactly what you said and you answered my question. I'm going to go back and do a little bit more research, but I know just like Council Member Brown asked, we'll see the accountability piece to this, right, and outcomes. I want to address what you said a few minutes ago as well where you talked about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how important that is to economic development so that you see small businesses getting assistance. Well, on the RFPs that we respond to, when we get an RFP from a major consultant or a corporation that's coming from a big city, whatever type of project it is, we have to show that we are doing the things that we have committed to do. so when they come to town when we have a client come to town we have urban league at the table we have other people that we can show them and it's not just um it's all kinds of diversity at the table so we have to show them lexington is not a small town so you know we have resources for everyone here and we want them to know they have access to it yeah i i see the rfp like women veterans there's all kind of there's all type of categories and so we're we're going to hold their feet to the far right especially making sure women are at the table right and we also cover lgbtq so we want to make sure that everyone feels inclusive when they want to move here you know so we want them to all be welcomed when they choose lexington i hope or the region or the region thank you you thank you council member next is vice mayor woo thank you chair um i had one more question that popped up in my head when council member warley talked about the idea that we're already an interconnected region in that a lot of our workforce lives outside of lexington i've heard this figure thrown about that 50 of our workforce in lexington lives outside of lexington do we have data on where people actually live when it comes to these eight other surrounding counties do we have percentages things like that i don't think that we have updated and we could get that to you but the last number we saw was just more holistically about the turn of where people are coming from the region into lexington and it was over 50 of the workforce yeah i've got that right yeah i feel like that that data would be really good to have in kind of crafting our strategy with these partnerships because for me i don't look at these eight counties i'm sure you all don't either you don't look at the eight counties as one big blob and one big entity it's it's all these different governments it's all these different kind of community personalities in a way industries demographics all that so it'd be very interesting to know if you know a big proportion of our workforce was living in one particular county or another how we can kind of craft our strategies around that so thank you we can get that information to you thank you thank you thank you vice mayor next is council member pluman thank you chair and thank you for allowing me to answer another quite ask another question so i'm looking at with the upcoming summit or whatever you're calling it and it looks great um and there's no cost to go correct to april 29th event April 29th, no it's free. Yes, no cost. What do you hope to accomplish from that? And also what would be next steps or the timetable on the journey, this regional journey? What was the last part of your question? What kind of next steps after that or timeline on what you're doing or planning for the next part of the regional journey is what I said. Okay, do you want to talk about the TED again? Yeah, I'll talk about TED. as one of the seven things that was outlined in what the regional leaders and our business leaders wanted was more education on economic development the importance of economic development what it means besides just a job for someone etc so we're paying Ted and Kat to come back in and teach this course I want to thank you all because we have four council members that have registered there are 50 people right now registered from the nine counties so Fayette County and our council members again are five five five now so I really appreciate and others from Fayette County what do we hope to appreciate to gain from it so you all know what we do and how we do it because you've been active supporters of ours for a long time so we just hope that the the education component will teach them some of the ins and outs they're not always at the table you can't have everyone at the table when you have a client there so it'll be a full day there's continuing ed for city and county governments so they'll be given credit you'll be given credit for this because we worked with can take you later League of Cities in Keiko to make sure that this would benefit you as well so this the leaders asked for it and we're delivering it and then we'll see what goes from there we're also planning i should say this we're planning the i call it the economic development simulation so if anybody has done leadership lexington day or leadership central kentucky day we do assimilation on a company and a city and actually three companies in three cities and you're given a set of parameters so some people are in companies and some are in cities and then you compete so and in the end and we we have the the companies tell which community they did and why and it just kind of helps you understand it's it's not easy this is this is a fun opportunity and a fun career that i've had but it's not easy so we may work on a project for six years and then them select someone else after six years and it's a big downer so but But the big goal is whatever we can do within our means to make it work, we're going to try. So we look out for our babies. I was reading through the agenda today, and it definitely looks like something I want to attend. So now you have six, and I encourage my colleagues to also consider going. I think this is a really important thing that's happening to us, especially to Fayette County, but to all of them, all of Central Kentucky. So thank you. Thank you, Jim. One other thing, so when we recruit a company here, so we look at it as an expansion of where their headquarters, where their operations are so if a company from out of Kentucky expands in Lexington they're located and then I call that an X and then there's a double X so when they come into us and they come now they're so confident in Lexington and they say we're so confident in Lexington we're going to expand again so we've got a company that relocated here because they like what they see and now they've chosen to expand with the support of city county government we put all our resources towards our our clients or our children thank you thank you for that thank you for the presentation and thank you for your continued efforts committee members council members the next thing that you'll see it will be a PSA or MOU agreement between Commerce Lex and LFUCG for for this funding going forward so thank you for all your work and all your efforts with this all right moving to The next item on our agenda is the parks funding ballot referendum. This item is an item put in committee by Council Member Baxter, and due to some personal family matters, she's not here with us today, so I just want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with her at this time. But who we do have with us today, it looks like a lot of representatives from our parks department, some folks from the park advisory board, also Victoria Meyer, who is the chair of the parks advisory board, and David Lowe, Chair of the Parks Advisory Board Sustainable Funding Subcommittee. They're here to present on the Parks Funding Ballot Referendum. So, Victoria and David, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you all so much for having us here. We want to thank Council Member Baxter for referring us to committee. We want to thank Council Member Brown for putting us on the agenda. And we really want to thank each and every one of you sitting here because of what you contributed already to our presentation today. Councilmember Ellinger and Worley serve on the Parks Advisory Board and we appreciate all of their input and they have really guided us along this way. We have with us today members of the Parks Advisory Board and other supporters and I'm just here to tell you a little bit about how we got here. As a retired nurse I came to parks because of my interest in community health but this has really been a master class for me in civic engagement. It's a citizen-led initiative that is rapidly gaining steam. I'll start briefly with how we got here, at least from my point of view. When we started, when I started on the Parks Board in 2018, we were doing a master plan. Branstetter-Carroll helped us with that. We did 60 in-person focus groups. We prioritized all the projects deferred maintenance everything that needed to be done in parks and it found significant capital needs in lexington sparks by 28 so we had hope we had a plan we had a vision and then in 2019 the pension uh problems came and the city had to pay that and so it was clear that the um general fund could not fund parks in the way that it should um in 2020 we started a sustainable funding committee. We had three subcommittees. We studied very hard on grants, foundations, and the ballot initiative. As the work groups dug into the history, we discovered that since 2001 was the first instance of minutes discussing the challenges with parks and its funding structure. It became increasingly clear that the ballot referendum was the only way to deliver sustainable and appropriately scaled parks capital funding and that's why we're here before you today since march of 2023 david and i have been working on pursuing this ballot referendum and i'll let david take it from here on our presentation hi there um as victoria talked about we've really been doing our research for some time i think it's really the part that we're we're most proud of and really the central component of this research is the data contained in the parks master plan. Brandstetter Carroll EHI there was robust public engagement portion as part of this park master plan the thorough inventory of our parks enterprise system and the data you see here on the slide particularly the top statistics come directly from that master plan that public engagement and that polling portion of the master plan. So we know in that effort again 2018 data that 90 of fa county residents visit parks nearly universal usage we know that 88 of folks surveyed in that effort want to see uh improvements and upgrades to their parks and really kind of the most interesting thing is when you engage a resident you say you know what do you want the parks department to do what would you like monica and her team to spend their time on the top three of the top five items that they talk about are upgrading buying and building parks so we have universal usage of parks in our community we have high frequency high visitation and really robust and widespread public interest and investment in these spaces kind of zooming out and viewing parks from a slightly different angle quality of life we know as the second most important site selection factor for corporate relocation and expansion we've heard our friends from commerce lexington talk about quality of life several times just today and i've had the great fortune of hearing jenna speak at leadership lexington emphasizing the criticality of quality of life and our ability to compete with cities similar size and also large metropolitan areas again from the master plan we know that there is a considerable capital need in our parks in lexington victoria and i joke it's not very funny but deferred maintenance is the gift that keeps on taking and if there are budget cycles that kind of pass like fiscal 20 where 187 000 was allocated to capital projects for over 100 parks in lexington those things add up and we know from that master plan update that there's 128 million dollars specifically in capital need in our parks in lexington again emphasizing the hard work that these work groups were engaged in and to in 2020 in 2021 we began to look laterally at how other communities are solving this problem lexington is not unique in this regard there are many other cities in the nation how are they approaching this this challenge 123 million dollars is a huge sum of money it requires big thinking creative thought so how did they approach and we very quickly found the trust for public lands and their great success with these referendums nationwide they've passed over 600 of them in in the u.s since the 70s and the pass rate is 83 percent so we thought well we should dig in further grants probably won't get us there so let's take a look further at the parks referendum it is worth worth highlighting that if you look at the parks master plan again conducted in 2018 the capital need that it identifies is 100 million dollars we're fortunate that brandstetter carroll came back and recalculated that figure again updating it to present day to 2024 as part of their interim strategic plan update our parks master plans run on 20-year cycles so we're kind of in the middle there so they conducted this interim master plan update they found after deducting the completed projects and capital projects and parks that have money appended to them think arpa think some of the general fund appropriations since 2028 even after deducting those and recalculating and then adding back inflation to present day that 100 million dollar figure has expanded to 123 million which is where we get that sum if you calculate inflation out to the master plan midpoint midpoint that number obviously gets a little higher so again universal need high frequency uh visitation in parks public interest and investment and a really intense figure there um so why again just highlighting those same things the idea of universal usage and public interest and parks investment part of brandstetter carroll's interim update was again updating that figure to 123 million dollars which brought our annual investment need identified in the parks master plan from 5 million to 8.5 million in annual capital needs we're certainly in the the middle of the budget process now so as you're working through the general fund you understand that an 8.5 million dollar annual need in the general fund is an incredibly tall order for parks again kind of emphasizing the need to think creatively and moving outside of the general fund to meet this need and then of course just beyond the the ordinary blocking and tackling of the budget cycle, the public has been able to see over the past few years what substantial investment in parks looks like. I have the good fortune of driving past Woodland Park on the way home every day. The restroom facility, the tennis courts, investments in the pool, all of those things made possible by massive one-time investment from the federal government as a result of the COVID pandemic. The flip side of that investment is that we now have an obligation to maintain, to be good stewards of that investment to put 24 million dollars in the ground in parks as a tremendous opportunity and it illustrates the commitment of this council and the mayor's administration in those public spaces but now we've got to make sure that we care for them which necessitates the challenge here so the vehicle it's on the first slide the parks funding ballot referendum this is the vehicle that we really arrived on as the appropriate methodology from our efforts in the work group again trying to find something that is sustainable a funding source that is consistent and something that's appropriately scaled early on with grants for instance we found that we could apply for a two hundred thousand dollar grant we may get that grant once every three years and that would be approximately one-third of one playground so this is really the vehicle that hits a lot of those different criteria and enables us to establish a dedicated fund for parks which is really critical a dedicated fund for parks capital projects we've designed the rate to deliver eight million dollars annually for parks capital projects again validating the math that the work group had done independently and what brandstetter carroll was able to validate through their interim update a critical difference in our ballot referendum versus other cities this is really critical to understand is that many other municipalities in the united states when they approach these parks and open spaces referendums is that they will issue general bond obligations. One example is Charleston. This past electoral cycle, they issued a $70 million bond. It succeeded at the ballot with 80% of the vote. We didn't think that that approach was right for Lexington. Citizens here are very interested in fiscally responsible approaches and being good stewards of their tax dollars, and we couldn't agree more. So how we've designed this referendum is a property tax line item that enables us to avoid two really important characteristics. The first is that when you issue bonds, you obligate the taxpayer to debt payments. We wanted to avoid that. Secondarily, you add pressure to the city's credit profile, which is also something that we want to avoid. We know that bond rating agencies are incredibly important. Their opinions of our city and our fiscal management impact the cost of borrowing. so we thought it a more prudent path financially to establish a property tax line item to raise cash and spend that cash again dedicated to parks capital projects in our city another element that's critically exciting about this is that to create a dedicated parks capital fund and allows us to pursue state and federal grants so when we think about that capital need from the parks master plan and BCI's interim update about 123 million dollars ordinarily we'd only be able to make it maybe one or two million dollars at a time with a dedicated fund we can take at least eight and those state and federal matching grants can increase eight to twelve or perhaps even to sixteen the last point here again designing the rate at 2.25 cents means the average homeowner would pay about 52.88 cents per year or about a dollar a week in terms of outcomes this is really kind of a remarkable think big moment eight million dollars in dedicated capital investment in lexington every year forever enables us to talk about transformational truly transformational and sustained investment and neighborhood infrastructure investment so in every neighborhood and every corner of the city and every council district every year is something that this eight million dollars makes possible so talking about trails open spaces recreational facilities how this money specifically plays out upgraded amenities in neighborhood parks new playgrounds safe and accessible walking trails new roofs hvac systems for recreational facilities rather than closing them closing community centers we don't really have to have that conversation anymore with an eight million dollar dedicated parks capital fund those are really the outcomes that we're looking for there is an obvious benefit in quality of life which is critically important not only for families currently in our cities but future neighbors as well the economic development impact of enhancing quality of life in our city already a stable competitive advantage relative to other communities in the nation we want to make sure to maximize that to lean into some of these advantages that are owned and are important to us and also benefits in public safety we know that when you put good amenities in a park when you program it that park becomes busy and that can have a benefit to public safety in the surrounding community so when we put dollars in parks we're not only talking about quality of life we're talking about public safety we're talking about economic development investments in parks just as much about standard of living as they are about quality of life from legal standpoint we know according to our research that parks is able to benefit from an out of loan tax quote for the purpose for the purpose of purchasing and maintaining public parks so we are good on that front and then from a process standpoint and Irma County Council would need to pass a resolution by a three-fifths vote 9 of 15 for this to appear on the November ballot so that's really the central question today is advancing this through the process to put it on the ballot and let the public decide regarding their level of interest and investments in parks in their neighborhoods this is the proposed ballot language a little short on time so we might not read it there are a few different points to highlight so again establishing the dedicated parks fund our mechanical terms improving and develop so what will that money do it will go to improving and developing parks 36 neighborhood parks in our communities community parks regional parks some different parks types here things that are really important to neighbors in our community obviously their neighborhood parks bike trails playgrounds dog parks etc to be financed by the additional 2.25 cents levy per 100 on our real property in terms of progress this is our last slide victoria and i and the parks advisory board have been hard at work since 2020 on this effort we engaged a dc polling firm to test this concept among likely voters in the 2024 election unsurprisingly to us it performed quite well there's great neighborhood interest and community interest in investing in parks not only reflecting what we found in the master plan but redoubling and highlighting that interest in investment in the poll we've had ongoing meetings with neighborhood associations community stakeholders from all over the city and those meetings really continue to present day and of course you may have seen the park sustainable funding education campaign launched in late February and kind of all that all of our information is that parks funding Lex calm I think we have a video that we'd be able to share if council members are interested and that's all I've got thank you again for the opportunity so So let me ask this. How long is the video? 90 seconds. If there is no, excuse me, if there's no objections from the committee, I'm going to let the video play because it does go past the presentation time. So if there's no objections, proceed. Parks are more than just patches of green. They are places for families, friends, and neighbors to gather, play, and reconnect. Research shows that 90% of Lexington residents use parks, and then 88% want to see them upgraded. Budget constraints often leave our parks yearning for love. If you've been to a park recently, you know they can be a bit rusty. In the future, our parks will need significant investment to meet growing community needs. This is where our vision for the 2024 Parks Funding Ballot Referendum comes in. If passed, the ballot referendum would create a dedicated fund for our public parks. providing $8 million every year to support capital projects like upgraded amenities in the neighborhood parks, new playgrounds, improved trails, and recreational facilities. The benefits extend well beyond swings and slides. Studies show that investing in parks can improve public safety and attract new, high-paying jobs to Lexington. The outcomes are clear and exciting. The Clark's funding ballot referendum will deliver transformational and sustained investment in every corner of the city, enabling the most significant improvement in quality of life in our city in a generation. All for a dollar a week. We are championing a brighter future for Lexington, one park at a time. Thank you for that. Thank you for the presentation. And I'm sure there's going to be some questions. So, council members, please log in. Today. All right, first up is Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for that presentation. I really appreciate all the work that you all have done in terms of engagement, not just with us as council members, but also with the public. I think that polling is really important. I think a lot of us agree that we don't want to put things forward unless we not know, but hope or are confident that they will succeed. And I feel like you all have done that legwork. The other part, whenever I'm looking at anything to do with revenue, is my question ultimately becomes, how much does this cost the average taxpayer or the average homeowner per year, per month, per week? And at a dollar a week, this is about as good of a deal as it can get. So I really appreciate your work on this. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next is Councilwoman LeGree. Thank you, Chair. I noticed in your slide, thank you for the presentation before I get started with my questions and for all the conversations you all have been having throughout the community and with council members and with various leaders about what this is, what it could do and the impact that it could make. I noticed in one of your slides you noted like ongoing meetings with neighborhood associations, associations with civic groups and community stakeholders from our perspective as council members with neighborhood associations that we work with is there anything that you all would need from us in terms of neighborhood contacts or information for us to put in our newsletters or things of that sort yeah sure we we'd love to have that kind of stuff we know that most of you have newsletters and that would be great if you have I think some of you have already forwarded requests to us for meetings in your neighborhoods we'd be happy to be there with you and answer any questions and if a neighborhood has a certain question significant to them one thing I want to point out is on the video they can put in their district and see what projects from parks are waiting and what priorities they are that's one thing another thing is if a neighborhood has a certain question David I was gonna say we will do the research and find the answer for them we we want to be your research department okay okay anything else David to add we certainly hope to have as many of those meetings between now and the end of the year as possible and these conversations are always really powerful we end up hearing and really some remarkable stories from folks about how they use parks the huge role that parks have played in their lives and in their children's lives so we we always welcome those conversations um excellent and and um chair i'm not sure um council member james brown if this is a question for you or um for council member baxter or others um would you be in the position to share anything about um our timeline for the resolution mentioned in the legal feasibility slide oh excellent i see a colleague of mine might bring that up later so i'll just hold that question thank you all again i know that parks make a huge difference to our residents and especially in the last couple of years during the pandemic we saw more and more people getting out exploring new parks and getting into neighborhoods even beyond the bounds of their own kind of walking distance or their typical kind of park radius. And I think your research has shown that that is not just an anecdote, but it is true. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next is Council Member Jennifer Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. Thank you both for all the hard work that you all have done on this. I'm very impressed with all the research that you did and outreach, and you all came to us with a lot of information and answers to our questions. So I really appreciate that. I see the need for this in that one of the biggest requests, actually just got one today, is for us to add amenities to parks. Constantly asking to add amenities, to upgrade things, to add things, on and on and on. And so I think our parks are one of the things that people use more than anything else in our city. We saw that during COVID. And then we've seen that people have continued to use parks maybe more than they did before. And so I've always thought, I mean, before the funding, the federal funding, the ARPA money that we got, we didn't know how we were going to continue with maintenance for all the, you know, over 100 parks that we have. And so I see that there is a need for something like this. I also have heard from a few constituents that they're concerned about this initiative. And I think a lot of it is because of lack of education that they had misunderstood and thought that the council members were just deciding to add a tax for something else. And I explained that it was going to be their choice and that it was going to be on the ballot and that put them at ease. So I think you've done a fantastic job and that you're continuing to do a great job at outreach. But I think we can continue to push the message as to what this is, what it's for, how much, and that ultimately our vote is for whether or not this goes on the ballot, not whether or not it happens. So I just want us to continue to push that message so that people are not confused. but i wanted to say that overall i think you all have done an amazing job and i appreciate how you have educated us on the topic so thank you thank you council member and i would say that you know that's something that we keep hearing is is real interest in amenities and neighborhood parks and on that site parksfundinglux.com there is a widget where folks can view those projects in their neighborhoods there are over 400 parks master plan projects that remain they are prioritized and they're split by council district and parks so if folks want to go there and see what's kind of planned for for their backyard park they can do that so we really appreciate you flagging that thank you thank you chair thank you council member next is council member ellinger thank you chair victoria david um welcome thank you all for the presentation and and being on the parks advisory Board. I made a couple recommendations. It looks like that you cleaned up some of the language on that, which I appreciate. And I would ask our attorney back there, just when we say defined on real property, could you just define for everybody what that brings in, just to clarify that? Because it has different terms when you say real property or... Yeah, we'll end up cleaning up some of the language on this ballot language. And one of them is that definition that you're talking about it would be taxable real property if you all didn't pick up on this under the statute you could you could actually assess this on all taxable property and which goes beyond real property but this would only be assessed on real property that's otherwise taxable so you know all the not-for-profits the university and stuff those those entities aren't gonna end up paying this it'll just be the regular taxpayers right thank you I just want to kind of clarify that and as we go forward to let everybody know and with that being said you're you're you're saying David about eight and eight to eight and a half million with the president roles right now is what would be and that should hopefully grow as our real property base grows too and one of the issues that by doing this will actually be able to save money from the general fund and and I think it was that about two million dollars on capital that we'll be able safe yes the research we conducted on general fund went back to fiscal 14 and i think approximately pre-arpa it's around 2.2 million but all your other points are correct as well and the the work groups were very passionate about creating a solution to the parks capital problem and so we we endeavored at all angles to do that thank you and one who's not big on wanting to raise and and levy taxes. I think there's probably not a better democratic process though to put it on the referendum and let the voters decide. I think that's what we'll be doing and give them an opportunity to make the choice. I look forward to seeing that. Thank you all for bringing this forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next is Councilmember Gray. I'm the chair. You're putting down the hammer right now. Okay, well thank you Chair, thank you. So I would like to say thank you for doing your due diligence by first of all, speaking with all council members. I know I've met with you all at least two times, at least. I would like to formally invite you all to my sixth district district-wide meeting on April 22nd at Bryan Station High School, I believe. school I believe to tell the the vet or inform the residents of the sixth district about this ballot initiative otherwise what is your comms plan and how you're going to besides the video which is a great video right but how what is what is your other means of communicating what exactly this is because already as mentioned there is a lot of miscommunication out there misinformation about what is actually happening and I'll let you do that and then I have one more question yeah thank you so that's that's a really important point this is kind of a civic muscle that we don't use very often so there is a certainly a huge public education component and so we can expect to see in the coming months kind of based on council's timeline that will certainly increase so across a variety of touch points we know folks are you know engaging in TV print media radio certainly digital media so those messages we intend to be everywhere excellent and so there was just a lot of even earlier this morning when educators were here from Bryan Station High School they had questions about our parks in the 6th District say this this ballot initiative is passed and the tax is there how can we ensure that all parks that it will be that all parks will see I guess some love receive some love from this director Conrad thank you ma'am we're not changing how you all do the budget good afternoon thank you councilmember gray for the question we envision this process being very similar to our process now we go back to the parks master plan we take those priorities that are already listed there we would then present that with part of our budget the council would have the ultimate authority of where and how that is spent and then we would go through that process so we would continue with community engagement we would continue with the master plan remaining the priority okay thank you so much thank Thank you, and thank you, Chair, for your decision to allow me to go. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member. Next is Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank you, David and Victoria, for your presentation. And to my District 2 neighbors, David and Victoria will be coming to our April district-wide meeting on Tuesday, April the 23rd at 6 p.m. at the STEAM Academy. So, neighbors, please bring your questions. David and Victoria are going to give their presentation, and this will be a great opportunity for you to ask your questions, especially after seeing this presentation today and what they're going to do on April the 23rd. So I look forward to hosting you all next month. We're looking forward to it too. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next is Council Member Sobigny. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for the presentation. Very good, and I appreciate you spending the time to come to my office as well. I do have just a few quick things. um is is this referendum is it legally like can we actually support it is it supportable i don't know if it's part of our charter that this is the way that we would do this um or if there's and maybe legal can kind of just weigh in i just want to make sure that so the process we're doing this is laid out in a specific statute for it and I think somebody brought this up earlier you all are just you in moving this forward you all would just be putting a resolution on to have language put on the ballot you're not what the government's not allowed to take a position on this the government's not allowed to spend money on this the government has to stay out of it your only role is to put it in front of the people for them to decide whether they like it or not great my second question is then if something like this were to go on the ballot we have the concept of is that four percent rule of revenue is that still in place with something like this because we're basically putting in a specific percentage this is not subject to the um uh god that revenue cap rule the 4%? The language is escaping me, but this type of tax is not subject to having the 4% apply to it every year. So it would just stay, you wouldn't have to roll it back if that's what you're asking. Yeah, okay. I just wanted to make sure of that. And then I guess the concept of installing $8 million worth of capital a year into our system, also has some there's what we've learned you know from the past here is you have a drag of operational expense that comes with putting in new big things and I am curious if parks has weighed in on what's the typical expense drag that will end up hitting our operational side for eight million dollars a year council member we have not um proceeded with that homework yet um we have been um on our end just determining you know how much we think we could spend per year and potential buckets that that could go into but again i think we're you know still um a ways away from the finish line so we are working through those numbers um and i think would have them in in the future. Okay, thank you. Those were my questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Next is Councilmember Fogle. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your presentation. First District has long awaited an opportunity to, and even with the parks and recreation right now, I drove by the West End and they are starting construction on our pool. I was going to try to wait until the next meeting, but since we're already here. But I look forward to that and I never take my head off, I just turn it around. And I also look forward to my full time job, which this is what we do. to make sure that when things are going on the ballot, that we work hard with it. So I look forward to just having that conversation with the Kentuckians of the Commonwealth and let them do what they do best. I just wanted to say that our parks in the first district, I have been dreaming about them looking like the parks on the south side, parks on the south side are beautiful. Some of my parks are, we just got, when I first came to council, I went to a dedication down at Northeastern where they had this boulder that these children are climbing on. I remember younger I would have been able to do that, but if I could climb the step, I'm doing pretty good. But I look forward to the amenities that I can just envision in the first district. So first district, green acres, I'm going to start with you. Just hold tight. We've got something coming your way. Just go to the ballot and vote for it. So I just wanted to thank you all for your presentation. Thank you for the touches that we have had. And I appreciate the work that you're doing. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Council Member. Next we have Council Member Worley. Thank you, Chair. So I'm going to be certainly supportive of this initiative and have a motion I'd like to make at the end of my comments. and most of you all know me and while i'm normally not supportive of additional taxing i think when you have an opportunity for an investment like this this is important not only do we will we see general fund savings here will we see lessening of necessity to bond but perhaps actually for the first time even in an inflated world fully fund a car parks capital management plan which we've never been able to do so this is a good opportunity and this is the the best form of if you're going to if you're going to place a tax on the people and you ask them do they want it and we're putting the decision in the hands of the voters of Fayette County so I think that this is the appropriate initiative and our parks are so important to all of us I think investment in public green space is a measure of a city's priorities in how it cares for its people. Public green space, the parks, contributes to public health, quality of life, and Andy's still here from Commerce Lex to economic development because those who want to invest in our community want to see how we would invest in the people that they may bring here. So I think this is an opportunity for Lexington which I'll be supportive and so chair if it suits the committee on behalf of councilmember Baxter I have two motions I'd like to make the first keeping in mind as mr. Barbary said that the exact language of a resolution is yet to be written but will match the presentation given today I move to advance the full council a resolution to place on the ballot a referendum on the question of establishing a parks fund as herein presented so moved. All right a motion was made and seconded. Are there any questions to the motion? Councilmember Legree. If there's no questions I'll call for a vote. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Are there any that oppose? Hearing none, that motion passes. Thank you chair and then again having the exact language of the resolution by this date I move that said resolution be reported out at the April 9th 2024 work session in a partial committee report out from this committee. Thank you. All right the motion was made and seconded. Are there any questions to the motion? Council member Brown, will you turn on your microphone? I will, sir. Will this give us ample time for it to be put on the ballot per legal? Is that what your intention was? That's the intention. This would be the next work session that would give us the opportunity to get everything drafted, but also I believe gives us the right time. Okay, fine. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions to the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any that oppose? Hearing none, that motion also passes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. David and Victoria, thank you all for your work. Thank you for the presentation and the information. I'll say to all the folks that are here from the Park Advisory Board, thank you for your service and your time and your commitment to our community. So thank you. Thank you. Committee members, going back to our agenda, are there any Any motions on items referred to committee? Do you want to make that correction? That's not my item. Okay. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make a little, I think it's probably a typo correction, on number nine, the Parks Funding Ballot Referendum that's being presented today. The date listed on our agenda says March 17th and today is March 19th. Do I make a motion to make that change or just? Kelly, do we need a motion or can we just do it? We can just do it administratively. Okay, thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you. Any other motions to items referred to committee? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All right, there was a motion and a second to adjourn. If there's no questions, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right, that motion passes, consider us adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.