# Urban County Council Work Session - October 7, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · October 7, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/615 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/615?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-10-07 - **Last revised**: October 7, 2008 - **Length**: 32,233 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 Urban County Council convened on October 7, 2008, at 3:00 PM with Mayor Newberry presiding. The meeting addressed three main agenda items, including informational presentations on the Family Care Center Health Clinic and a Monument to the Fallen, while deferring discussion on Lexington Fayette Emergency Operations to a future meeting. Council members conducted eight votes during the session and heard one public comment. The meeting focused primarily on receiving updates and information rather than taking major legislative action, with two items serving informational purposes and one item requiring postponement for further consideration. ## Attendance The meeting on October 7, 2008 had strong attendance with 14 members present and one absence. **Present:** • Mayor Newberry • Gorton • Blevins • DeCamp • Stinnett • Stevens • Helms • Beard • Lane • McChord • Henson • Gray • Blues • Crosbie **Absent:** • Andrea James **Late:** • None ## Votes and Decisions The council took eight unanimous votes during the October 7, 2008 meeting, covering administrative matters, funding approvals, and procedural actions. **Administrative Approvals** • **September 30, 2008 work session summary approval** - Motion by Gorton, seconded by Blevins, passed unanimously • **New business approval** - Motion by DeCamp, seconded by Stinnett, passed unanimously **Funding Decisions** • **Monument to the Fallen funding** - Motion by Gorton, seconded by Beard, approved $10,000 from fund balance for the Proposed Monument to the Fallen, passed unanimously • **Commerce Lexington payment** - Motion by Stevens, seconded by Lane, approved payment of $2,750 from the Council Office's Economic Development Fund to Commerce Lexington, passed unanimously **Committee Referrals** • **Newtown Pike ordinance referral** - Motion by Gorton, seconded by DeCamp, referred draft ordinance on Newtown Pike to the Planning Committee, passed unanimously • **Day Treatment Center referral** - Motion by Stinnett, seconded by McChord, referred update on the Day Treatment Center to the Planning Committee, passed unanimously **Session Management** • **Closed session entry** - Motion by Lane, seconded by Gorton, approved going into closed session for two purposes, passed unanimously • **Return to open session** - Motion by Blues, seconded by Crosbie, approved reconvening into open session, passed unanimously All motions received unanimous approval from the council members present. No specific vote counts, individual member votes, or transcript timestamps were recorded in the meeting documentation for these decisions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed two significant financial appropriations totaling $12,750. The council considered a $10,000 appropriation for a proposed Monument to the Fallen. This appropriation represents a substantial commitment to memorial infrastructure, though specific details about the monument's design, location, or timeline were not specified in the available materials. Additionally, the council reviewed a $2,750 appropriation designated as payment to Commerce Lexington for the Equine Industry Task Force. This payment appears to support ongoing economic development efforts related to Lexington's prominent equine industry sector. Commerce Lexington serves as the recipient organization for these funds, which likely support task force operations, research, or promotional activities related to the local horse industry. Both financial items were presented as appropriation requests, indicating they represent new spending commitments rather than budget transfers or routine payments. The combined $12,750 in appropriations reflects the council's focus on both commemorative projects and economic development initiatives during this meeting. No resolution numbers or additional vendor information were provided in the available documentation for either financial item. The appropriations require formal council approval through the standard legislative process. ## Public Comment During the public comment period for issues not on the agenda, two speakers addressed the council. The meeting records indicate that community members utilized the opportunity to bring forward matters of concern that were not part of the formal agenda items. However, specific details about the speakers' identities, the particular topics they discussed, or the nature of their concerns were not documented in the available meeting materials. No transcript timestamps were available for this portion of the meeting. ## Contested Items Two significant issues drew opposition and concern from community members during the October 7, 2008 meeting. **Proposed Monument to the Fallen** Beard raised concerns regarding the proposed monument project, specifically focusing on the relationship between the planned monument site and a proposed parking garage structure at Phoenix Park. The nature of Beard's objections centered on how these two developments would interact spatially and potentially impact the area. The specific details of how this concern was resolved or whether further discussion was scheduled were not detailed in the available meeting materials. **Emergency Operations Center Relocation** Blues voiced opposition to the proposed relocation of the Emergency Operations Center, expressing particular concern about the potential impact on neighborhoods surrounding the new proposed site. Blues advocated for greater community involvement in the decision-making process, specifically suggesting that a public meeting be held to allow citizens to provide input on the relocation plans. This recommendation indicated a desire for more transparent community engagement before finalizing the center's new location. Both contested items reflected broader themes of community concern about municipal development projects and their effects on local neighborhoods and public spaces. The opposition voiced by Beard and Blues highlighted the importance of considering community input and potential conflicts between different municipal projects when making planning decisions. ## Family Care Center Health Clinic Update Commissioner Helms provided an update on the Family Care Center Health Clinic, introducing two key healthcare experts who are partnering with the organization. Mark Birdwhistell and Dr. Jay Perman were presented as part of a collaborative effort with the University of Kentucky's healthcare system. The presentation focused on three primary areas of emphasis for the clinic partnership: • **Compliance** - Ensuring the clinic meets all regulatory and operational standards • **Accountability** - Establishing clear metrics and oversight for clinic operations • **Access** - Improving healthcare accessibility for the community served by the Family Care Center Commissioner Helms highlighted the value of bringing in UK healthcare expertise to strengthen the clinic's operations and service delivery. The partnership appears designed to leverage the university's medical knowledge and resources to enhance the quality and effectiveness of healthcare services provided through the Family Care Center. This was presented as an informational update to keep the commission informed about the ongoing development and improvement of healthcare services. No specific action items or decisions were required from the commission regarding this partnership. The update demonstrates the organization's commitment to maintaining high standards in healthcare delivery while working to expand access to medical services for the community. The involvement of university-affiliated healthcare professionals suggests a focus on evidence-based practices and professional medical oversight. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps were not available for this agenda item.* ## Monument to the Fallen Lt. Jeff Garris presented a proposal to erect a monument honoring seven firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty. The presentation outlined plans for a memorial dedicated to these fallen firefighters, with Phoenix Park identified as the proposed location for the monument. The proposal represents an effort to create a permanent tribute to firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving their community. Lt. Garris detailed the concept for the memorial, which would serve as both a place of remembrance and a public recognition of the dangers faced by emergency responders. Phoenix Park was selected as the preferred site for the monument, though specific details about the park's location, the monument's design specifications, or construction timeline were not detailed in the available information. The presentation appears to have been informational in nature, introducing the concept to the meeting participants. This agenda item concluded as an informational presentation, with no immediate action items or decisions recorded. The proposal represents the initial step in what would likely be a multi-phase process involving design approval, funding considerations, and formal site selection procedures for the firefighter memorial. The monument proposal honors the memory of seven firefighters who died in the line of duty, though the specific identities of these individuals and the circumstances of their deaths were not detailed in the presentation summary. ## Lexington Fayette Emergency Operations Commissioner Bennett was scheduled to deliver a presentation on Lexington Fayette Emergency Operations during this meeting. However, the presentation was postponed and did not proceed as originally planned. The meeting participants determined that a portion of the emergency operations discussion would need to be addressed in closed session, indicating that some aspects of the topic involved confidential or sensitive information not appropriate for public discussion. **Key Details:** - **Presenter:** Commissioner Bennett - **Status:** Presentation postponed - **Outcome:** Deferred, with partial discussion planned for closed session The deferral of this agenda item means that the substantive discussion of Lexington Fayette Emergency Operations was moved to a future meeting or handled in the closed portion of this session. No specific details about emergency operations procedures, protocols, or current status were presented during the public portion of the meeting. The decision to move portions of the discussion to closed session suggests the emergency operations presentation may have included information related to security protocols, sensitive operational details, or other matters that require confidential handling under applicable open meetings laws. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of September 30, 2008 work session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of $10,000 from fund balance for the Proposed Monument to the Fallen - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Refer draft ordinance on Newtown Pike to the Planning Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Refer update on the Day Treatment Center to the Planning Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve payment of $2750 from the Council Office’s Economic Development Fund to Commerce Lexington - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Go into closed session for two purposes - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Reconvene into open session --- ## Full transcript And he gave us his action plan matrix, which covered the audits which had been done over the last several years, and asked for our opinion concerning the outline and the matrix as he prepared it. The council was supportive of it and asked him to continue that, the committee. The revenue report for the month of August was given by Commissioner Coe, and our receipts, unfortunately, have been rather level, at a lower level than we would like. And when and if this will change, of course, is anybody's guess. the commissioner then told us about a special fund which had been discovered recently by the accountant, Ms. Pfister and this fund had been created back in the 90s according to the commissioner accounts who was then commissioner of finance to conform with the comprehensive recommendations of the Government Accounting Standards Statement. This fund then had money accrued to it each fiscal year and had been reported dually in our balance sheet and in the comprehensive annual financial statements. However, much to the embarrassment of some of us who are on the Budget Committee, we had overlooked this through the years, and 12-point-some-odd million dollars had accumulated. However, we had several needs for this money in that our health department, our health fund was short, and other funds were short, and the money will be well spent for our deficits, which we need to make up. And this fund, since we've changed our accounting system, is no longer necessary and will not be continued, I think. We asked if there was necessary to pass an ordinance to discontinue or a resolution, but since none was ever passed to start it, it was felt to be not necessary. the council member James had requested that we review UDAG financing which comes from the federal government's HUD for various projects in our community and she would like a ongoing spreadsheet of how much money is in that fund, how much is available and where it goes this seemed like a reasonable request and we would request that be done from the Department of Community and also for budgeting if necessary. That completed our report, our meeting, and I don't believe there's any action that's necessary by the council. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Council Member Stevens? Seeing none, we'll move along. It's a pleasure to turn the program over to several folks who are here today to talk with us about the Family Care Center. And let me begin by saying we're really pleased to have Mark Birdwistle, Dr. Furman, together with Commissioner Helm here. I don't know how long I've known Mark Birdwistle. We'd probably both be better off if we didn't figure that out. But I do know this. There's not anyone who has devoted their life any more extensively than Mark Birdwistle has to the health care of Kentuckians, particularly in the Medicaid area. And I'm personally delighted you're at U.K. and very, very pleased to have you here today, Mark, who formerly was Commissioner of Medicaid and a whole bunch of other titles in Frankfurt in the health care arena. And of course, Dr. Perman is Dean of the College of Medicine at UK, and we're very, very pleased to have you here. And I'll, having said that, turn it over to Commissioner Hale. Good afternoon and thank you for introducing our guests, our partners. We are pleased to be here this afternoon to present an update on the Family Care Center health clinic. that there's been much discussion during the spring and summer and so it was felt that this would be a perfect opportunity to bring you up to date with where we are. The Mayor has already introduced the two gentlemen who accompany me this afternoon so I will not go further into that. Just to give you a little background, Family Care Center Health Clinic opened in October of 1989 with the express purpose of serving young mothers, young teen moms, and their young children. A very noble mission, a very important mission for our outstanding community. In April of 1990, we were fortunate enough with a lot of hard work by a number of dedicated individuals to receive a primary care center license. This license is very important. It's one that is licensed under the state of Kentucky. And it ensures that entities that are operating, providing health services as primary care centers live up to certain regulations and standards. There are over 100 of these primary care centers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and we are very fortunate to have one here within LFUCG as well as other primary care centers. If you're looking for examples of others, the UK has several clinics that qualify as primary care centers. The Lexington Health Department would be considered a primary care center as well as others throughout the state. What you also might not know is that in the very first year of operation, we had about 135 medical visits in that first year of operation. And why is that important? If you turn, you see the next slide, you will see that we went from 135 medical visits in 1990, which is the year that we opened. In 1995, that number went up to 6,000 medical visits. And in 2007, the latest year, the last year that we have figures, we had over 12,000 medical visits. So as you can see, this is a clinic that has certainly met a need in the community. It has certainly been well received and we are providing a number of services to the community. LFUCG has approximately 17 physicians that are authorized to provide services at Family Care Center. These are clerical as well as clinical. We also have social workers and interpreters. The clinic operates with 1.4 full-time UK physicians and 3.5 full-time advanced registered nurse practitioners. And we also have about 15 residents, UK pediatric primarily residents, who rotate throughout the clinic weekly. In February, as all of us are aware, management partners, as part of their overall government review, reported in recommendation M27 that perhaps LFUCG would want to examine the feasibility of partnering with another agency within our city who has experience and expertise and perhaps some background in running a primary care center. And so they specifically suggested the Lexington Health Department. In addition to that, we thought we probably need a little bit more information about what this primary care center is actually serving and what are the needs. And so we contracted with Medical Management Solutions to do what is called a practice assessment. I will point out that this medical management practice assessment actually was also a request by the former executive director and others who thought that perhaps based on the management partner recommendation we needed a look at our clinic by an organization who would strictly focus on primary care centers. Because again, management partners did not necessarily have that broad expertise and it was pointed out that we did not have an infrastructure necessarily to support a health clinic. In addition, the Office of the Inspector General, as required, makes visits to primary care centers to make sure that we are in compliance. And our most recent visit by the Inspector General was in August of this year. Physicians Computer Company is a company that provides LFUCG with scheduling help through its software packages, also provides information about patient accounts, and provides also Billing Software. That's a company that we had been working with since 1999 and they have clients across the United States, they're actually in 35 states, and this is important because I'll make reference to this company on a number of occasions. MD Billing is a company that we just recently contracted with in July basically to help us with our medical billing because this is an area that we felt like we needed some support. And then finally, as requested by Dr. Stevens or as recommended by Dr. Stevens, we entered into a contract with a company, Blue and Company, out of Louisville to conduct a financial audit of our health clinic. This financial audit is just getting underway and I talked with the primary auditor yesterday and they believe that it probably will be sometime late November, early December before they have a complete report because they're having to go back and really put together some reports that I think in some instances we would already have as a total package and we do not have that at this particular time. The other item that occurred during this time, this is a lot of visits and a lot of input, Our own internal auditor had conducted an internal audit, if you will, of the health clinic back in November of 2007 and made a couple of recommendations that we will talk with you a little bit about later as well. Around this time, we also recognized that it was about time to renew our contract with our partner, the University of Kentucky. And we felt like this would be a very appropriate time to perhaps get together and really talk through the contract because the contract is self-renewing and had been in place for a number of years. The University was asking for some changes. We had recognized that we needed to make some changes and so we suggested that we take this fiscal year to go back and re-look some of those particular issues. So with that in place, we contacted our partners at the University of Kentucky to move forward from there. And Dr. Perman is going to talk a little bit about our next steps from there. Dr. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I, on behalf of the University of Kentucky, appreciate the opportunity to address the Council and report to the Council. This partnership that has been longstanding is terribly important to us, and we were delighted to agree to this request on the part of the Commissioner to look at the services that we're providing at the health clinic and make sure that they are absolutely excellent. This is a personal opportunity and privilege for me because some of you know that while While I may be the dean, I always consider myself first and foremost a pediatrician. So much of this is about children. So as you can see, in addition to myself in engaging in this effort with the Commissioner and her staff, I asked Mr. Birdwistle, who as the Mayor reflected, has so much experience in the delivery of health care to populations that are often underserved. To help us in this regard, with regard to having expertise that we have with regard to compliance in the delivery of health care, we engaged Mr. Brett Short and Ms. Kim Johnson of our organization who are expert in matters of coding and compliance. Dr. Carol Steltenkamp is a senior pediatrician at the University of Kentucky, who is particularly expert with regard to information technology, particularly as it relates to the electronic medical record. Our College of Nursing, which is very much a partner in the provision of services at the Family Care Center Health Clinic, has a new associate dean for community engagement, Dr. Suzanne Prevost, who has been working with us. And since there are matters of contract here, we engaged our general counsel, Mr. Harry Dads. We decided together that we needed to focus on three principal areas. One, the issue of compliance, which has been brought up. Two, the issue of accountability. You need to know that we are providing what we agree to provide. And perhaps most importantly, we wanted to focus on making sure that the community has access to health care services. Well, thank you, Dr. Perman. I guess I should say something to the mayor that was a great introduction. It is good to see so many familiar faces. I guess one of the characteristics of having served in health care for 30-some years, many of you and I have crossed paths in many different settings, and it's good to see everyone. I'm very pleased to be here and pleased to talk about this partnership that we are embarking upon with Lexington Fade Urban County Government. They gave me the slide to talk about compliance. I don't know why, but they gave me the compliance slide. Well, if you can see, it's pretty geek speak. It's got all the tag numbers in there of all of the different things. But the takeaway I want you to get from this slide is that the Commissioner said early on that the Family Care Center, the health clinic, is a licensed entity. And with that license, brings certain standards that have to be adhered to for health and safety. And one of the things we've been wrestling with over the past couple of months are a citation from the Office of Inspector General. And they cited us in five areas, and I won't go into these other than the fact to just say at a high level we needed to have a physician there full time, we needed to have contracts in place for other services such as ambulance services, such as inpatient care, and we had to have policies and procedures about how we manage the medical care of our patients. I'm very pleased to say that just before we got here that we received a letter saying that our plan of correction had been approved. So that's a major milestone that at least we're moving in the right direction and we're making some progress through our partnership. The next slide is compliance. Indeed, it has an IT flavor. I'm not an IT person by any stretch of the imagination other than I enjoy using my BlackBerry. But from an IT standpoint, there are compliance pieces that have to be adhered to as well. We must safeguard patient information. So we've identified some areas that we needed to make improvements. We had to do the appropriate checks in place to keep the viruses from contaminating our databases. But first and foremost, we had to ensure that our patient records were maintained in a safe and secure environment. At this point, I'm going to turn it back over to Commissioner Helms who will talk a little bit more about accountability. I think I mentioned earlier that I would come back to PCC, which is the Physicians Computer Company who has responsibility with us for helping us with scheduling and at that point in time some of our billing records. One of the first things that we recognize, we received a report back in July, and apparently this is a report that this company sends out quarterly, but it certainly is the first time that it had been brought to my attention in my 17 or 18 months on the job. What it pointed out was that there is a national average for accounts receivable. In other words, from the time a patient is seen by a medical entity and the billing is done and gets back to the clinic or the primary care center, the national average, as you can see in that first column, is 39 days. For the Family Care Center, and they, in their report, they expressed that they remain, they continue to be very concerned about the length of time that it was taking us to get our billing and accounts aligned, our average was 127.8 days. PCC also went on to say that with all of the clients that they have across the country in 35 different states, their average was 33 days. So their average for their clients was below the national average. And ours was 127.8. And I believe at one point in 2003, our turnaround time was over 200 days. We began to contract with MD Billing in July. We asked them to take over the billing for us starting for this fiscal year. And they started in July. And they've been billing July, August, and September. And as you can see, our billing turnaround time is now at 21 days. Basically, what PCC was telling us is that 98% of their clients have a lower turnaround rate than our practice did. And they were continuing to express concern that it was taking us such a long time to get this done. The next slide simply shows you, I guess, another way of looking at this for the quarters. We go from second quarter in 07 at 167 days to the third quarter, 144 days, to the fourth quarter almost 200 days. So there was some inconsistency there. The first quarter of, or the second quarter of 08, we're beginning to notice that we're putting a little bit more focus on it and beginning to get that number down. Some of the other concerns that we were finding is that we were batch billing. In other words, we would get information from Medicaid where they had denied some of our claims, and rather than fix the claims, we were simply bundling them up and sending them back. And what we found is that in some cases we were sending them back as many as six and seven times without making any major changes. We do not or did not have a write-off policy, and that is something that every primary care entities should have, and that is if you are not going to try and collect on a policy, if you are just going to consider it a non-collectible, there should be a policy that has been approved, in my opinion, by this Council. And then the balancing of accounts was not a standard practice, and this is something that was pointed out by the internal auditor as well. The internal auditor also pointed out that we did not have a real good clear separation of duties for internal controls and they wanted us to correct that. That was something that was included in the internal auditor's report in November of 2007. In March 2008 that practice was noted that it still had not been corrected and then in May when Medical Management Solutions issued its final report that practice had still not Thank you, Commissioner. As I mentioned earlier, we've tried to focus our efforts together in these three areas, compliance, accountability, and access. And if I may, I want to make a few remarks related to why this center is so important, particularly with regard to access. If I could see the next slide, please. What we want to do in conjunction with Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government is to preserve and strengthen not only service but teaching in this center. The service needs are obvious. We're very committed to those service needs. needs. But I also want to suggest to you that the opportunity to teach and train future pediatric providers for this community is something that is critically important, and this center contributes markedly to that teaching and training. I should also point out to you that there is plenty of evidence that the care that goes on in teaching environments is excellent care. No one should think differently. And in addition, as our pediatric residents in training complete their training, it is from our residency that so many of the practices in our community draw future pediatric providers. So this partnership of teaching and service is critically important, and the Family Care Center Health Clinic is a major venue for providing service to a needed community, to a needed community, and also providing the training opportunities. We think that with improvement in our procedures, we can serve even more families efficiently, and if we can do all of this, I think we'll preserve a very unique community resource for both the children in our community and their families. I'm going to make a couple of comments because I know we're probably going over our time and I've had it drilled into my brain that we couldn't go over 15 minutes. But I think the last three slides can be encompassed by the word partnership. We're working with the Lexington Fayette County Government to try to take this situation and make it even better. We're partnering on compliance. We've got billing training going on. We've had one round of training. We're going to have another one. We've focused on accountability so that we can improve access, so that we can serve more children. Because I think the dean is very eloquent when he says that's what this is all about. We want to serve more children, but we also want to focus on the families. We want to go back to the broader definition of family services and see if we can extend those services to families because that's another one of our compliance issues is that we have to be providing services to the full population. And then last but not least, we want to look at technology. We want to see what we can do to bring the systems that are in place at Family Care Center up to par and can make them consistent so that they can talk to each other between the University of Kentucky clinics and Family Care Center. So with that, I'll turn it back over to our partner, Commissioner Helms, for any final comments. It certainly would not, we certainly could not end our presentation without making note of our staff that we have at the health clinic. They are for the most part a very dedicated and well trained, well prepared staff. We certainly want to give them credit for the services that they provide. We also want to just reiterate, this clinic is very valuable to the community, to the University of Kentucky. It is one that we want to strengthen. We realize that there are some issues that we need to clarify and straighten out, and we certainly appreciate the partnership that we have with the University of Kentucky. When we were visited, I think as Mark Birdwistle said, and we were visited by the Office of Inspector General, their compliance officer who's here, Brett Short, was wonderful in stepping up and saying, okay, I know exactly how to help you do this. This is what you need to do. This is how you need to write it. And he looked around and he said, where's your compliance officer? It's like, okay, we don't have a compliance officer. So in this case, it is very appropriate. So rather than duplicate by having a compliance officer on, you know, on LFUCG's payroll and employ, we can work in partnership with the University of Kentucky. And so we certainly want this partnership to continue. We want to strengthen it. And there is a committee. Dr. Perman has appointed three persons from the UK College of Medicine. The mayor has appointed three of us from LFUCG to work to look at the contract and to make recommendations to enhance and strengthen the contract. And we believe that we'll be ready to present that contract at some point within the next 60 days. We should have something ready so that for fiscal year 10 we will be ready with a new contract and a stronger partnership. So again, we thank you for the opportunity and we certainly are willing to take questions at this particular point. Thank you. Any questions? All right. The list isn't coming up, but it looks like Dr. Stevens. Thank you, Mayor. on your partnership and the progress you've made. I know it will continue. Thank you very much. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to congratulate you on the partnership. Mr. Roy Whistles, good to see you again. Good to see you. And I had one question. I'm not sure if you've gotten this far in the negotiations for your contract, but I know that previously we discussed having UK pick up the billing instead of having that third party do it? Has that been discussed as part of the process? You want to pass that one off? I appreciate the question because, as I've told the commissioner, I'm not sure how we could do it otherwise. Everything that we do with regard to the clinical services we provide in every venue, we're responsible for the billing. We want to be responsible for the billing. We need to be responsible for the billing. So we have had those discussions, and I hope we proceed to that outcome. The company that we are currently using, MD Billing, and there is a representative here from that company, has absolutely come in and been just marvelous. They've come in, they've helped us to understand some of the coding. I mean, you know, that's just not something. We have a great accounting department, a great finance department, but we're not accustomed to dealing with Medicaid and some of these third-party insurers and the language and the protocol that we're supposed to use. So they have been absolutely marvelous, and I think that's a great point. UK, that's another service that UK is already accustomed to doing. There is no sense in us having it duplicated. We would hate to lose MD billing, but I think they understand that we, you know, will probably move toward that at some point. Okay, because there's no sense in us outsourcing that either when UK is at the table and they can do that very, very well. Keep it in the family. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. families with children and I think it's really important so thanks for all of your hard work on this. Thank you. You mentioned children Councilwoman and there were some concerns raised over time with regard to dental services which needed to be suspended because of the difficulty in our College of Dentistry finding appropriate pedodontists and salaring them at the rate that the market demands. That's a tough market, pediatric dentistry. And so we've had to bring the children over to our U.K. clinic where we have what pediatric dentistry we do have to serve them for the moment. We hope that as we take on more and more of the operation and the billings, that perhaps we'll be able to come back to a point where pediatric dentistry can be provided at the Family Care Center Clinic. Council Member Lane. Thank you all for coming today. I'm glad to get your report. I just saw it as a closing question. Is there anything that the Oregon County Government needs to do to help you in your ongoing effort over there? Is everything running fairly smoothly now? Thank you, Councilman Lane. I would ask for patience with a CE. We've got a lot of work to do. We're not sure how this is going to come out financially. We hope that we can grow to a point where so much of the service that we provide that is billable can make this work financially. And I don't think we're going to get there instantly. And I hope that all of you as our leaders will be tolerant of us along the way as we work through these procedural issues and also look at the finances for how we can best support this clinic. And I guess I would add to that too. If you hear of anything, if you have questions, we will make our numbers available to you so you can call us. I'm a great communicator. I love to communicate. But I think we need to stay in close communication, either through this setting, Mayor, or any other settings. We'd be happy to sit down with you, go through documents, go through contracts, go through green bar printouts if that's your thing, because we need to be fully transparent as we go through this process. What we know today will probably be obsolete tomorrow. So it's very difficult to keep a constant information flow out there. But my ask of you would let's keep a clear and open dialogue. If you hear things that you think don't make sense, that sound inconsistent with what you're hearing here today, pick up the phone, I'll run over to talk to you, and we'll try to get to the bottom of the answer to the question. Anything further? Well, I want to conclude by talking about Commissioner Helm just a little more. I said a little bit about Mr. Birdwistle and Dr. Perman on the front end, but those of you who have been involved with family care issues over the course of the last several months know that it has been very difficult to work through some of these issues. For a long time, I think everybody just looked at the inherent good of the Fayette County Family Care Center and as a result of that we probably haven't challenged the the operations there as aggressively as we should have in the past but we have done that and dr helm has done a magnificent job of working through those issues and has brought to the table the parties necessary to make a thorough evaluation of the situation and and I just want to tell you I am very very appreciative of work you have done. Thank you all very much for being here. Thank you. On some of the agendas there was an item about customer service recognition today. We are going to postpone that for a week if that's on your agenda. We'll have that next Tuesday. But it is now very much my pleasure to ask some of the folks from our fire department to come forward. I don't know if Chief Hendricks or Chief Fowler, Chief Hendricks, could step up and make the appropriate introductions for us. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor and members of the Council. We're glad to be here today. It is with a great amount of trepidation that I remind you of what happened in 1871 in Chicago, Illinois and Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and there were many hundreds of buildings destroyed, Over 1,200 persons lost their lives, and over a million acres were destroyed in Pashtego, Wisconsin, both on the same day. In remembrance of that, the National Fire Protection Association and the Fire Service generally across the United States organized Fire Prevention Week. And amongst my many important duties, probably the most important is that of preventing fire. Certainly addressing emergencies comes right up there, but if we can prevent things from happening, that's the best duty that we have in any given day. It is my special pleasure today to recognize a person that helps us learn to deal with that in the school system. Many years ago, we realized that as good as firefighters are, they aren't the best teachers in the world, and that there were people who could communicate with them better than us. And such things, such programs as Learn Not to Burn, where you, probably many of you even learned to Stop, Drop, and Roll and things like that, as well as programs related to Risk Watch, which broadened the horizon of dangers and risks that might be out there. We learned to let teachers communicate. But about that same time, in the early 60s, we know as far back that Lexington is also had a junior fire chief. So let me take just a moment to read from the press conference from yesterday, the press release. The Lexington Fire Department is pleased to announce the selection of the junior fire chief for 2008 and 2009 school year. Meredith is a 10-year-old who attends fifth grade at Athens Childsburg Elementary. She's very involved with her school and community, participating in sports and church activities such as softball, the jump rope team, and fundraising events. Meredith plays violin and stated her favorite classes are math and science. Meredith is an animal lover and likes cats, dogs, and horses. Meredith was nominated by her fifth grade teachers due to her strong academics, good behavior, and ability to speak to her peers and community about fire safety. It is my pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, to introduce to you our new junior fire chief, Meredith Mason. She has a few words she'd like to share with you. This week is Home Fire Prevention Week. Focusing on home fire prevention, and I would like to share with you how to lower the risk of having a home fire. Home fire prevention is very important. People who don't know about home fire prevention are the ones that are more likely to have fires in their homes. Home fires are very dangerous. In 2006, they killed more than 2,500 people in the United States. The leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries is cooking, while heating equipment and smoking are the leading cause of home fire deaths. And the fire departments are very busy, as they respond to over 400,000 calls per year. Some things you should make sure are in good shape before you go to sleep or leave the house are Make sure all electrical cords are in good condition and are not damaged. Also, don't plug too many things into one outlet or use too many extension cords. Make sure that the furnace has been inspected in the last year. And always be sure to change your filters regularly. Make sure you and your family have an escape plan in place and that clutter and trash are out of the path of escape routes. You should practice these exit drills several times a year. Make sure all smoke detectors work when tested and be sure to change the batteries in them twice a year. An easy time to remember this is in the spring and in the fall when the time changes. Make sure your family has a designated meeting place outside so if there is a fire, you can be sure everyone is safe or notify a firefighter if someone doesn't make it out. Now, I could go on all day about home fire prevention, but I hope you remember these simple tips that prevent home fires. Let's all do our part to prevent home fires. Thank you very much for listening. Have a nice day. Thank you all very much. Chief Meredith, thank you very much for being here today. I can assure you that was one of the most more enjoyable presentations we'll have here for a while. Thank you. While we're talking about Fire Prevention Week, it's probably appropriate for us to focus on the next topic just a little bit in conjunction with all of our activities with the Fire Department. And I'd like for Lieutenant Garris to step forward, if he would, and tell us just a little bit about a project that he and others with the Fraternal Order of Firefighters have been working on. Lieutenant. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers. I'll do a few introductions here. I'm Captain Jeff Garris with the Lexington Fire Department. I am the committee co-chair of the Fraternal Order Firefighters Monument to the Fallen. To my right is the other committee co-chair, Firefighter Travis Myers. It is an honor for us to be here to present this historical monument which we want to present to the citizens of Fayette County. A little video here to show you what the project will look like as a flyby. Well, maybe not. We'll move on from here. What this does, it shows as you were walking down Main Street, you would see an overhead view of how the monument would look in the new proposed area for the new monument next to the law enforcement memorial. Why do we want to do this? Well, since 1775, there have been seven firefighters that have been killed in a line of duty. We want to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to the citizens of Fayette County. The Fallen. Fire Chief Louis A. Travis, Firefighter Henry H. McDonald, Lieutenant Estelle B. Rickerson, Jr., Captain J.C. Moynihan, Firefighter Robert Martin, Firefighter Charles Williams, and Lieutenant Brenda Cowan. Now, we didn't want these just to be names on a piece of stone in Phoenix Park. We want the public and you all to get to know these people. Fire Chief Travis died in his office on 3rd Street. Henry H. McDonald was found dead in the bed at Station 4. He is the phantom of Station 4, and I personally have heard him rocking in the upstairs at night on shifts at Station 4. Lieutenant Estill Rickerson. He died after a fire prevention detail for Fire Prevention Week. Captain J.C. Moynihan. Captain Moynihan was responding to a mutual aid call in Wilmore and collapsed at the scene. Doesn't he look like a fun-loving guy? These are people that lived in our community. Their family members still live here, a lot of them. We don't want them just to be names on a rock. We want people to understand who these people were. They lived in our community. They provided for the citizens of Fayette County. Firefighter Robert Wayne Martin was only 18 months into his career when it was ended. His life was ended. Just had just started his career with the Lexington Fair Durban County government. And, of course, the more notorious would be firefighter Charles Williams. Many of you may have been on the council at that time or living in the city at that time when Chuck was tragically killed. And then Lieutenant Brenda Cowan, the most recent. Brenda was a great person. We miss her every day, her smile, her go-get-it attitude. We just want to honor these people. Where do we want to do this? Well, it's proposed at Phoenix Park next to the law enforcement memorial. It was approved by the Urban County Arts Review Board on the 25th of June, 2008. This has been a project that has been in the works for over three years. We followed all the steps, all the meetings, had numerous meetings with the Arts Review Board, had two or three design changes to meet their criteria. We also met with, recently, the Parks Department and received their approval. We also met with the law enforcement counsel that devised the law enforcement memorial and received their approval. This is the site as it is today. You have one monument in the park by itself. This is looking towards Limestone Street. Looking towards the library. So how are we going to do this? We're going to raise funds publicly through the Fraternal Order of Firefighters, which is a 501c3 organization, tax deductible. We're asking for private and corporate donations for this endeavor. We're going to be doing an extensive marketing program using video, print, and radio in the upcoming months. We started by last week kicking off at our press conference on October 2nd, letting the public know. Last night we walked the streets, Travis and I, handing out flyers, letting people know. And the overwhelming reception that we got was unbelievable. Proposed site view. In your package you all have a smaller version of the board up here. This is looking from Main Street towards the library. As you notice, our monument is in similar stature, shape, and size of the law enforcement memorial. We did not want to take away from them. We feel that they are as equally important in this community as we are. We also feel that we are both the pillars of safety in the community, and those are two strengths, two symbols of strength there. We included in the design the two bollards there to coincide at the old courthouse, which is now the Public History Museum. We also incorporated a Maltese cross, which is a symbol for firefighters. The cross will be made of bricks, which we're doing brick sales right now to raise funds for this project. It will be made of granite, similar stone at the law enforcement memorial. We won't be able to match exactly, but we're going to be close. And it's a simple, clean design. This is looking towards Limestone Street as if you were walking down Main Street. the main street side would have the first seven names of the fallen. Now there will be room on this monument, God forbid, that we have any other tragedies in this community. But there's room to add other names if needed. So in closing, we just want to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. They gave to the community all that they could. They gave everything. We wanted to design, are designed to match the existing law enforcement memorial. And we want to do publicly and corporate funding through this. How to get involved? Well, the public can purchase a memorial brick right now. We have 462 bricks that we can sell that are in the Maltese Cross. We offered it to current firefighters and retirees first for the first 30 days. That was September 3rd to October 6th. And then, of course, we opened it up to the public on October 2nd. Or if you didn't want to buy a brick, the public can just make a flat donation, monetary donation. How to do that? Well, you can go to our FOF website at www.lfdfof.org and go to the link on the left-hand side that says FF Memorial and follow the links on the page to go to our donation page. Contact info, my contact info is there, and also Carla Darnall with Event Strategies, who is handling our marketing and publicity. Any questions? Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, I want to congratulate both of you and all the firefighters who have worked on this for these years. I think it's really wonderful that you've dedicated your efforts to this, and it's quite appropriate. And I know you've worked really hard to incorporate it with the public safety monument, and I think that's important. And I also noticed that you've brought out our state fire marshal here today, too, it seems. This, I'm hoping, and maybe you can speak to this, that it will be in place by 2010. Is that your hope? That is our aggressive goal, to have it dedicated a year from yesterday, if we have the funding. How much, you said you've opened 30 days to firefighters and retirees. How much have you raised so far? About. We have sold 92 bricks so far. Okay. So. Very good. And your goal is $250,000? $250,000 for the project. Yes, ma'am. And I know that I had an opportunity to talk with these firefighters, And one of the great things that they're doing is that $250,000 will also include a portion of money that's dedicated to maintenance of these memorials. Yes, ma'am. You might, if you would, talk a little bit about that. Yes. One of our goals is to set aside a certain dollar amount to upkeep both memorials and to have the recruit classes from the police and fire to go down twice a year and build that into their camaraderie and working together, police and fire, to clean and upkeep the site. Also, the funds will, if a brick is broken, it will be replaced. It won't have to wait for funding to come about to replace the bricks. If the bushes are damaged, they will be replaced. It won't be an eyesore for any amount of time. That's part of the funding package that we're doing with this. I think that really shows foresight on your part because so many times we get things in our parks that don't come with maintenance money. And so I think that's really good. One of the things I had intended to do today was to pass a neighborhood development fund request for funding. And several council members had already dedicated anywhere from $250 to $500 each. But in conversation with some council members, I think it would be wiser rather than taking the money from neighborhood money to go ahead and do a budget amendment right here today. And the goal for the neighborhood development funds was $6,000, and we were well on our way. So I want to go ahead and move that the council give $10,000 to the memorial through the budget process, not through the MDFs but through fund balance. Second. I have a motion and second to approve a budget amendment to appropriate $10,000 to the monument. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Council Member Beard? Yes, one. I'm losing. A couple of other questions. An eternal flame also? Yes, sir. Okay. It may be just the perspective of some of those photos. It looks like it's larger than the police. In scale size, with the space that we were given by the Arts Review Board to get the Maltese cross there, our memorial may be a couple inches wider and maybe an inch taller than the police memorial. Well, I couldn't have probably made the distinction. I guess the third question I have involves something that we all deal with constantly, it seems like, recently, and that is what's going to happen with Phoenix Park as it relates to a parking garage. and is that going to be bothered at all or whether they're going to have to move the monuments and then bring them back? We don't have the answer to that yet. I'm sure that's up to the council on how the placement will be and with the parks department. We understand that we've been working on this for three years and that we understand that the center point development has come up and things are changing at a rapid pace, and we're a very patient group, and we've waited this long for it. And if it takes another six months, a year, before our memorial is erected, that's okay with us. Well, I commend you all for doing it. I look at pride at the police monument because my great-grandfather was the first fallen hero. He was the senior, well, he was actually marshal of Lexington at the time. and was stabbed to death in 1858. And so, you know, again, I applaud you all, and we need to continue to support the families, especially of those that we've lost. Thank you. Anything further? Thank you very much for being here today. We appreciate your time. The last presentation that you have on the agenda pertains to the Emergency Operations Center. Commissioner Bennett has requested that we postpone that until immediately before the closed session because a portion of the presentation is to be done in open session and a portion is to be done in closed session. And I think it would flow a little better if we simply moved it immediately by the closed session. agenda. So having said that, if we could go ahead to Council Reports now. If it appears as though Council Member Blues is the first in. I'm sorry. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I have two items. The first is I was asked to announce that the Friends of the Library will have their book sale October 11th through the 19th, and it will be at the Old Gold's Gym off of Boston Road. That's in the Mill Pond Center. And it begins on Saturday, October 11th for Friends members and then goes through the 19th. And this is a great sale if you've never been. You can get lots of books for not much money. And then the second item is Our Division of Planning has finished a draft ordinance relating to the Newtown Pike Extension and the Scott Street Connector. And this has to do with traffic movement and traffic safety along the new Newtown Pike Extension. And I would like to go ahead to move to put that in planning committee. I have a motion by Council Member Gorton to refer that item to the planning committee. A second by Council Member DeCamp. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple things. So, one, I know we heard a presentation from Commissioner Helm earlier in regards to the Family Care Center, but there was another item in her area that was very, I guess, created a lot of talk during the budget process. And if we could, during the next planning committee meeting, have an update on the Day Treatment Center and its current status. I know we had a lot of discussions, but I think we're three months into the budget cycle. And if the chair would accept the motion to place an update on the Day Treatment Center, as well as anything else you'd like to present to the planning committee, because that is the most appropriate form for your department, we would definitely welcome that at our next planning committee. So moved. Second. Mayor. We have a motion by Councilmember Stinnett and a second by Councilmember Myers. Councilmember Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Stinnett, we have filled up our agenda. Do you want to knock something off of it, or would you be willing to hear it in November? It can wait until November. We've already planned our October. We have five items in October. And we could, I believe, easily hear it in November if that would suit everyone. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Thank you. All in favor then of referring the Day Treatment Center to the planning committee for discussion in November. Please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. A couple other things. One, you'll be hosting, Mayor Thursday night, the neighborhood presidents of the 5th and 6th council districts. I just want to encourage all of our neighborhood presidents in the 6th District to be here at 6 o'clock, and hopefully we'll look forward to some good conversations. Also on Thursday night, we'll also have the Joyland Neighborhood Association meeting at 7 p.m. as well for the Joyland Neighborhood folks there in the Mary Todd areas. And then last but not least, one quick road update for the 6th District. I know we have a lot of road projects. Hopefully this month we'll be finishing up the Liberty Road extension there towards the intersection at Manowar, as well as installing the streetlights should be done hopefully by the end of this month. And then last week, thank you again to Rick Day and Charlie Martin and folks in our sanitary sewers for getting old Paris Pike repaved. We still have one road out there, Laclede Avenue. It was part of that project that hopefully will be repaved here very shortly by the end of this month, if at the very latest, during this paving season. So I just want to give a couple of those quick road updates. And then I saw Logan ask you in here. Did he sneak out on me? Thank you, Commissioner Ben. I appreciate it. It seems to be there seems to be a question. I know we're passing around some NDFs today amongst ourselves, and several councilors have wrote the word election on here, meaning that we can't give any of our NDF funds during an election season, which is the council rules and the norm. Also, we've all received an email this week saying that we can't do any council reports 30 days prior to the election. Is he getting, Commissioner, to ask you? I think the big question is some of us, I think we're all on the ballot this time. There's no question all of our names are on the ballot, except Dr. Stevens and Councilman Rodecamp. I understand that. But I think everyone's name is on the ballot this fall. But I think there's some discrepancy as to whether or not we can still do our GTV3 reports as well as contribute NDF funds. And if you could look into that for us, Commissioner, ask you. I don't know if you heard the original question, but there seems to be a differing of opinion. I know the council rules say we can't give any NDF funds or participate in our council reports 30 days prior to the elections. Does that apply for everyone or only if you have an opponent? I'm not familiar with that rule. I will take a look at that and get right back with you. I know it's been in the past. It's only been if you had opposition, but technically we all could have opposition via a right-hand candidate. So if you could check that out for me because we've all received different correspondence within LFUCG that states a different opinion. We'll do that and get something to everyone. If you could clarify that for us, that would be great. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member McCourt. Thank you, Mayor. A couple things. One, just again, an announcement about second Sunday this Sunday from 2 o'clock till 6 o'clock. We're participating along with 71 counties across the state of Kentucky to do something that's never been done before, to close roads all across Kentucky, invite folks to come out and blade, bike, walk, push a stroller, and exercise from 2 o'clock to 6 o'clock. We want to welcome everyone, council colleagues, along with all your constituents, because it is about number count. It is about how many folks can we get down here, can we get across the state of Kentucky, and make a national statement that the poorest health state in obesity is leading the way across the United States with this. So I would encourage you to come out on Sunday. It's free, it's open to the public, and you can enter anywhere along South Line that you want. There's no starting point, there's no ending point. And along with that, with regard to trails, in the 9th District, we've been working extremely hard to get a mile and a half worth of trail put into Wellington Park, a 32-acre park that's along Clays Mill Road that we've had, I guess, the privilege of mowing grass for 12 years. and now along with the dog park that has gone in, the parking lot, and now this trail will really serve folks on the south end with what I think is, much like the Arboretum is, a very nice passive park that can mature over time. And so I was excited to see the dozers out there starting to move dirt, and I look forward to that ribbon cutting. And along those lines, on October 25th, which is a Saturday, Coming up, the other signature trail in Lexington is the Legacy Trail. It runs from the horse park to downtown or downtown to the horse park, a project that the Knight Foundation has taken on to see completed by the 2010 games. And we are having an open meeting, open house, trailer treat, if you want to call it that, for kids and families and everybody on October 25th that morning. The Knight Foundation wants to ask all the community to come out and give their input and to see what is coming along this trail. So more information will be out in the media from the Knight Foundation. And I just wanted to go ahead and put it on your radar that all are welcome and we look forward to this. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Council Member Stevens. I have several announcements to make. our One World Films annual series begins. It will start on Saturday, October the 11th, and Sunday, October the 12th at the Central Library Theater. The presentation will be the boys from Baghdad High, and that's Baghdad, Iraq, not Baghdad, Kentucky. And on Sunday, as I understand, Main Street will be closed from 2 to 6. But for those who choose to come to the presentations, which will be at 2 and 4.30, and who do not want to rotor blade or bike or walk, they can come into Vine Street and come in the back door of the library and have access that way. So that will be open Vine Street. And the One World Film Festival will continue with films periodically in which will be announced. And it's been very popular. That's why they're having three presentations of this one film, The Voice from Baghdad. The second announcement I have is a form at the Henry Clay High School cafeteria. No food will be served on Wednesday, October the 15th at 7 p.m. The two candidates for the 5th District Council seat, Mrs. Cheryl Feigel and Mr. Ed Norton, will be there to make presentations and be available for any questions which any citizen may want to ask. Again, that's on Wednesday, October 15th at 7 p.m. in the Henry Clay High School Auditorium. I'm sorry, cafeteria. The third announcement is an announcement that you may have seen this in the paper or you may have gotten an email about it, that the Transportation Cabinet has funded our application for Tate's Creek sidewalks. I'm, of course, pleased with this because I think it is a public facility that will add a lot to our community and will benefit the area. However, there is spirited opposition from some of the residents who live along the street, Tate's Creek, and you'll be hearing from them I'm sure but we need to get organized and meet with them so we can work out whatever we can to make it a benefit for everyone and the plans are underway to do that so we're not ignoring the objectors Shane did you want to say something while I was going along yes sir I just wanted to make one correction thank you for bringing up the one world film festival on Sunday. Vine Street will actually not be accessible because it's one way. So people will actually need to enter from Water Street, from Main Street, come from Main Street onto Quality and then Water. Well, if Main is closed, where will Main be closed? Main will be closed from Martin Luther King to just past Limestone. So people will be able to come down Main Street and turn left on Quality and then immediately right onto Water Street. But if they were coming down Vine Street, they would not be able to cross over Limestone. No, what I meant was that they could park off Limestone off Vine someplace and walk to the back entrance of the library. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. And the third thing is a little bit of business. As you know, the council created a task force many months ago to look into the equine business and how we as a government and a community could help create and sustain our equine thoroughbred business. The task force met. Mr. Lane and I were on the task force, and we met many times, went over it, And we had a presentation last week from Mr. Bob Quick, one of the chairmen, and we've now received a bill for some of the work that was done, $2,700, 2750. And I would like to move that this bill be paid from the funds which the council has appropriated to the Economic Development Task Force. I have a motion and second that the $2,700 bill be paid from the funds allocated for the Economic Development Task Force. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. If I knew it was that easy, I'll be back. Council Member Henson. I hope I'm not restricted from giving a council report. If I have an opponent, no. Okay, good. I wanted to announce that there's an apartment building on Village Drive that's been renovated, and it's called Cardinal Crossing. They have a new community center there. It's a very positive addition to the community, and they're having a ribbon-cutting Saturday at 3 o'clock. if anyone would like to attend. And also the Village Branch Library on Monday, October 13th at 11, is going to have their dedication for their new expansion. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Yvette Hurt, who many of you all may know, as the energetic and enthusiastic and inspiring creator, I guess, imagination behind the bus shelters, the new bottle stop that's being soon to be directed on Bursells Road, has asked me to announce that on Saturday there will be the first Art Shelter Summit, connecting art and our community. And that will be held beginning at 8.30 with coffee and pastries at the Old Tar Distillery on Manchester Street, going through about 11 o'clock. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. It was, I guess, interesting, for lack of a better term, to find out about the Tate's Creek monies that have been allocated toward the sidewalks along Tate's Creek. Dr. Stevens mentioned that there is some pretty strong opposition to this. That opposition resides in the 4th District on the west side of Tate's Creek. and it is extremely vigorous, I might say. I would like to see and let the public have the opportunity to discuss this project in some type of a public hearing and how we might be going to do that, Mayor. But I think these folks need to have a voice. They feel like they've had no voice. and much of this has slid under the radar. I know it's slid under mine. I don't have an immediate answer for how most effectively to have that hearing, but I think it's an appropriate request, and perhaps we can brainstorm a little bit about that between now and next Tuesday and come back with a recommendation at that point. That would be great. Thank you. That's a good point. Thank you, Mayor. Does any other council member wish to make a report? All right. I just have a couple of quick items, one which I will credit to our council clerk, Susan Lamb, for bringing to my attention. We've had several employees who have been working hard in setting up an exhibit that is out on the mezzanine here. Roger Hampirian folks in the council clerk's office Dottie Bean and Fred Paxson from government communications have all been working especially hard and I just wanted to credit them for a lot of hard work to tell us a little bit about our history and we're very grateful for that the other thing that I wanted to bring to the attention of the council members is before the winter season hits and we've got a little bit of a dry spell here, there may be some streams in publicly owned areas that have some litter issues that might be effectively addressed right now before we get some more rain, hopefully a little bit later on in the fall. If there are publicly owned streams or, for that matter, litter issues in any publicly owned right of way or park. If you could bring that to our attention we'll try to use some of our inmate labor to get those issues addressed pretty quickly. And now it's just a fortuitous time to get that done. Those are the only things I had. Which brings us down now to the public comment section. I have a couple of folks who have signed up to speak with us today. Mr. Marr. Yes. If you'd step to the podium. you'll have three minutes good afternoon you guys hello Eric Petromar 207 Cassidy Avenue I uh continuing on from what I was talking about Thursday night when I've always been talking about I have another picture of one of my high school friends just so you guys know uh economic development is what I'm talking about uh and different things to go with it this This is Stephen Chan, who graduated with me from Taste Creek in 1991, went on to MIT in 1995, got his MD, PhD from UCSF 2003, now is a clinical and research fellow at Massachusetts Gin. Lexington doesn't attract Stephen Chan. Also in the right-hand picture in the snow cave, you can see the other guy. He's actually a classmate of mine, too. to Penn State and now lives in Los Angeles, just talking about how to grow our economy by growing our people. I have a little, how much time do I have left? Like two minutes probably. A little speech. We are living in the most transformative, I believe, historical crossroads we have ever seen in our entire lifetimes. In many ways, we are in quite uncharted territories. Our world, our nation, and our city are experiencing many monumental things all at once. that we have never experienced before. Economically, several are saying these financial times are the most difficult since the Great Depression. Not just locally or nationally, this economic environment is quaking financial institutions around the globe. Demographically, we are witnessing one of the largest transitions of influence ever in American history. The baby boom generation is slowly but surely retiring. Generations X and Y are finding themselves in roles they've never been in before. Socially and governmentally, Barack Obama is reshaping America one way or another. No matter what side of the aisle we sit, he's an ethnical minority leading the presidential polls with a month to go. Clearly, however, the most pressing issue right now is our precarious economic environment. And while I realize my urban county council is not specifically commissioned to solve the international financial meltdown, nor the credit crunch, it does seem to me that we can and we should do our part in our region of the world. Toward that issue of our economic development practices, it seems that most folks talk endlessly about the issues as if each of us is a powerless spectator or a bystander. But what our city, state, nation, and world needs are our great hearts and our great minds to solve our problems and even prevent these issues from occurring in the future. Locally, we do have the ability to proactively and purposefully construct and build our economy in the best possible way. In fact, as elected officials and business leaders, I believe it is our fundamental responsibility, even a moral obligation, to do just that, to look out for the well-being of our people. And we must start today, right this second. I have more, but I don't have time, so thank you guys. Thank you very much, Mr. Moore. The second person I have who signed up is Mr. Cobb. If you'd step to the podium, you'll have three minutes. Obama. Peace and love to the council. Mayor, may I ask you a question? Yes, sir. How many times, man, you had talks? I lost track. Every time we talk, I've always had a great deal of respect for you. I seen you last night on the back of that truck. You look good on top of the fire truck. And I like a mayor that's flexible. I know you're being stressed like a rubber band, and I'm not your enemy. I want to help you because my job is harder than a farmer's job. No disrespect to them. They're doing a grateful job because they just saved me two or three times. But the reality of it is I need everybody's shoes. The common denominator of me and your conversations over the last five years, even at Dunbar when you had an open mic to chance to meet the mayor, and I was amazed that didn't nobody take advantage of that, but any time you get a chance to talk to the mayor, you better come down and talk to them. All my main focus was the shoes. And I need everybody's shoes. I am economic development. I got a job based on population. And it's not about color. It's about survival. If we got a place where everybody can bring one pair of shoes a day, I can eliminate homelessness. Not me. The box can. I thank you for dealing with me in the various times we talk. But we need a new urban league. We need a new communication to the young black youth. They're very valuable. A lot of them would love to meet you. They think it's impossible to meet the mayor. But I thank you for being approachable. There's never been a mayor that's been under such duress as you in these times. I appreciate you. But I'm still buggy about the shoes. Because it's my job. And if you bring me some shoes, Vice Mayor Gray, you bring me some shoes, it's all good. We need to come together and that might be an answer to a lot of the economic problems. A lot of people, if they want to shine some shoes, they can get some money. We can't give nobody nothing right through them. If they want work, I train them out to shine shoes and then they can go to your office and pick up some shoes. If y'all don't want to come in, they come to his office, pick up some shoes, so we can eat too. We got 2010 coming. We got the growth of the Hispanic population. We're going to have to have a common denominator. Everybody got on shoes. Pray with that thought. And one last thing. People are coming up to me and asking me why I'm VIP. I'd like to take an opportunity to show everybody at a future time what the VIP is because we all are VIPs. Sometimes you just got to tell yourself that long enough to believe it, even if nobody else tells you. everybody in there is a VIP but if you got too much pride come see me some of y'all need to shine some shoes I know some people want you to shine their shoes and they'll get saved they'll get power thank you thank you Mr. Cobb does anyone else wish to address the council alright that will conclude our public comment section Mayor yes sir Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I move for Council to go into closed session for two purposes. One, pursuant to KRS 61.8101M in order to discuss infrastructure needs and plans related to the Public Safety Operations Center that are exempt from disclosure under KRS 61.8781M. and, number two, presented to KRS 81.8101BNG in order to discuss an economic development matter involving real property. An open discussion would likely affect the value of the specific piece of property to be acquired for public use and would jeopardize the siting, retention, expansion, or upgrading of a business. So move. Second. We have a motion and second to go into closed session. I might add that I believe we will return to open session for a brief while after the closed session is completed. So if anyone is interested in staying for that open session, please feel free to do so. Is there any discussion on the motion to go to closed session? All in favor of them, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Your sweet love made it that way It was a watermelon summer A hummingbird hummer Every day was a slumber in the shade It was a tale-telling whopper Banana split topper A tall, cool blast of lemonade You made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah, yeah, you made it that way Your sweet love made it that way It was a lot of water splashing A fall down kind of laughing Good old times rehashing afternoon It was a backyard barbecuing A hammock swinging woman Neat the summer's watermelon moon You made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah, yeah, you made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah It was a melody of crickets Singing in the thickets It was the game of hide and seek To kick the can It was all the odds and free Every time for you and me Cause hiding was the best part of the game You made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah, yeah, you made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah, yeah, you made it that way Your sweet love made it that way Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, my God. I'm wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, whimpering child again. Be which bothered and bewildered am I. Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep When love came and told me I shouldn't sleep Bewildered am I Lost my heart, but what of it? He is cold, I agree He can laugh, but I love it He doubts on me I'll sing each spring to him and long for the day when I'll cling to him. Be with bothered and bewildered. I'm all Elipsed, bothered Elipsed, bothered and bewildered I'm all I'm all You're working work for years and years You're always Never take a minute off too busy making dough Someday you say you'll have your fun when you're a millionaire Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rocking chair Enjoy yourself It's later than you think Enjoy yourself In the pink The years go by As quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself Enjoy yourself Later than you think you're gonna take that ocean trip no matter come what may you've got your reservations made but you just can't get away next year for sure you'll see the world you'll really get around but how far can you travel when you're six feet underground your heart of heart You're ravishing brunette. She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet. Lay down that gun, don't try my friend, to reach the great beyond. You'll have more fun by reaching... ...or a blind. Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think. Enjoy yourself. The years go by as quickly as a wink. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think. You never go to nightclubs and you just don't care to dance. You don't have time for silly things like moonlight and romance You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn't kiss you back Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think Enjoy yourself while you're still in the pink The years go by as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself It's later than you think Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon? Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon? We would float among the stars together, you and I. For we can fly. Up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky Or we can fly Up, up and away my To the twilight canopy We'll see you next time. If you'll hold my hand, we'll chase your dream across the sky. But we can fly. Up, up and away. My beautiful, my beautiful, my love. I'm not going to die. The days of wild Moses Laugh and run away Like a child that played To the metal and toward a closing door A door marked nevermore That wasn't there before The Lord The lovely night disposes A passing breeze Filled with memories Of the golden smile That introduced me The days of Moses and you Day by day, I'm falling more in love with you Day by day, my love seems to grow. There isn't any end to my devotion. It's deeper dear by far than any ocean I find that day by day Seeing all my dreams come true So come I want you to know I'm yours alone And I'm in love To stay As we go through the years Day by day Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh As we go through the years day by day The day of mine and roses Laugh and run away Like a charlotte play Through the meadowland Toward a closing door A door I'd never known That wasn't there before Lonely night is closing Just a passing breeze I'm sorry. The Moon Only night discloses Just a passing breeze Filled with memories Of the golden smile that introduced me to To the days of wine and roses and you Days of wine and roses and you What's it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more than we give Or are we meant to be kind And if only fools are kind I'll be Then I guess it is wise to be cruel And if life belongs only to the strong Alfie What will you lend on an old golden rule As sure as I believe There's a heaven above Alfie I know there's something much more Something even non-believers can believe in I believe in love, Alfie Without true love we just exist Alfie Until you find Love you've missed You're nothing Alfie When you walk Let your heart Lead the way And you'll find Love any day Alfie I'll see Thank you. Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. It's time to get ready Time to get ready Time to get ready for love Time to get ready. Time to get ready for love. Time to get ready. Time to get ready. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to discover a friend Watch this age rose many a time Remember me to the one who was there He once was a true love of mine Are you going to discover a friend? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme Remember me to the one who is there He once was a true love of mine Are you going to skydive fair? Was this sage rosemary and time? Remember me to the one who is there He once was a true love of mine Thank you. I'm going to Skyrim Past the sage-rose there in town Remember me to one who lives there He once was a turtle in my The sky above the sky The End Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you Embrace me, you irreplaceable you Just one look at you, my heart grew tipsy in me. You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me. I love all the many charms about you. Above all, I want my arms about you. Don't be a naughty baby, come to papa, come to papa do. My sweet, embraceable you. Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you. Open session. Council Member Blues is moved. Council Member Crosby has seconded the motion that we return to open session. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll now recognize Commissioner Bennett to move forward with the presentation on the emergency operations center, the public safety operations center. Thank you, Mayor. We're nearing the time where we're about ready to advertise for the first round of construction bids for the Public Safety Operations Center. So I wanted to come to you today, bring you a brief update, give you a little perspective you haven't seen. There's been a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on in the development of the program. We've been through the schematic design phase, the design development phase. We're now in construction documents. So I wanted to bring you an update, kind of let you know where we've been as well as where we're going and what's going to be happening in the near future. As you know, this facility has been talked about for a long time. It originally started as a concept for an emergency operations center. It has now broadened to more of a public safety operations center. Our new facility will house our emergency management operation, our enhanced 911 function, LexCall 311, as well as a fairly significant IT support function within the building. We'll try to go through this fairly quickly. I know you've had a long day, but I want to ask Sam Hawley with Omni Architects. to come up and kick us off. Omni is the architect of record, project architect. You'll also hear in turn from Mark Hill with Messer Construction, our construction manager, and Teresa Smith from Ross and Barazzini, who is our systems integrator. Thank you, sir. Try to take you over. Do we know this one over here? Okay. Yay. Okay, I'll try to take you through there pretty quickly this time. This is the Coldstream Master Plan. We initially had a site right here, and for those of you in the back right back there, that was about a 7 1⁄2-acre site, and we now have been given a new site by Coldstream, which is this site right here, which is approximately 15 acres in size. This is a part of the site survey, so it is the actual site right adjacent to Coal Stream. You can see a little better the delineation of the site. This piece right here and right here are both neighborhoods that the site backs up to. This is a site plan that is unfortunately a little bit faded, but the entrance is off of Citation right here. There is a turnaround. If you come in the wrong place and want to get back out, you can circle back out. There's a dead-end piece shown here for future development. There's another approximately 7 1⁄2 acres over here. Public area for parking will be right in this area here. There is an overflow piece back in this area right here where in times of activation of the center, we can park up to about 90 more cars back there on grass blocks. So it'll look most of the time just very green, but in times of activation, we'll be able to park on it. There is a secure gate right here that you'd have to go through if you're one of the employees working in this area, and there's another secure gate right here. And the main employee entrance is right here, public entrance is right here. There's a secondary access out of the site right through here. These are elevations, flat elevations of the building. We're seeing the southeast and southwest elevations. This is the main entrance, public entrance to the building right here. This one-story section back in here is mostly the EOC. And these are the other offices in ECC on this side over here. This is a stairwell right here. This is the EOC from that elevation. Looking on the other side, this is the secure entrance to the building on this side right here. This is basically the ECC area. The ECC and EOC being the two prime tenants in the building. These are perspectives of the building generated on computer. just to give you an overview of the sort of a bird's eye view on one and a worm's eye view on the other side of the various views. We are utilizing sunscreens here for lead points, trying to use as much daylighting as possible on the project. And this is going to be a LEED certified project, and some of the highlights of the areas we're trying to get lead points would be materials with recycled content, materials regionally manufactured, minimizing the use of water. We're utilizing a cool roof. This will be an all-white roof that will not reflect heat back into the atmosphere. And we'll be optimizing energy performance in HVAC systems, and we're controlling construction waste. I'm going to turn it over now to Mark Hill of Messer Construction. Good evening. My name is Mark Hill. I'm the Operations Vice President for Messers Lexington region. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you all this evening. I want to spend just a few minutes talking about the advantages to contracting at see them at risk or construction management at risk. This is the process that the University of Kentucky has went to the last several years for projects of this type and size, and you're going to see the advantages of it, and I'm just going to hit a few of those. One of them is the selection of the team. You get to use the same process, similar to the process you do to select your architect. You get to look at the experience and the qualifications to the team, and select those people that you're going to be working with every day while they build your building. And then when you get them on your team, it becomes a very team approach. We use a collaborative approach with architect to the owner, not only through design as we get on board very early on, but also once construction starts. So you're making decisions based on the best interest of the owners at all times. The risk is with the construction manager. We give a GMP, guaranteed maximum price, and we hold all of the subcontracts. So all the risk assumes to the construction manager, which in this case is Messer. As far as schedule, and this is maybe one of the bigger advantages, particularly on this project, it allows you to what we call fast track the approach for the building. And what we're talking about there, and we'll touch on it in just a few minutes about our bid packaging, But we can start certain phases of the project as far as the site work and the foundations before the design is completely finished. So it allows you to get the project done early. It also allows you, if you've got some long lead items, in this project one of them is steel. Right now there's delivery problems with steel, so we're putting that early package out for steel, and we'll have that on site in time when we need it. Document review, the CM gives you sort of a back check of the documents. At the same time, it gives you somebody that's doing the constructability review as they're involved early on in the project, you know, during design. And what we see with this is it lessens the number of change orders when you actually get into building the building. So, bid package write-ups, with us getting involved early on, it allows us to be part with Omni and writing the specifications and putting specific items in there that are important to the owner and to the project. Sam mentioned the lead requirements. We'll have a write-up on that and what's going to be required of the subcontractors to be able to do that. It gives us the opportunity to target specific scopes of work for minority contractors. That's something that's very important to Messer as well as I know it is to LFUCG. Any safety goals or safety requirements we have, it gives us the opportunity also to put those in the bid packages. And then just to get responsible contractors, we've got a pre-award process that we go through that the owners invited to participate in and we can make sure that we're getting qualified contractors to build your building and we'll turn to the next slide is a quick look at our estimate oh i guess i can turn right this is the first estimate that we've done for the project is on the design development documents and this is for the bricks and mortar cost of the project basically the building itself we've got a very detailed and this has sort of been divided up into the pacific work categories that we'll have on the project with that i'm going to turn it over to david dawson who is a project executive for our company and he's going to give you just a real quick overview of how we got the packages broken down and sort of the timing for those just like this okay good afternoon I'm the I'm going to be the on-site manager for this project and I just wanted to go briefly through how we've organized the construction phases our bid package one which is going to bid at the end of this month. The advertisement period is listed there at the end of October to mid-November with an anticipated bid date of November 18th. And just wanted to bring your attention to the that we would need to award those contracts before Thanksgiving because we have a time frame to start construction December 1st. And so we would need to have those contracts awarded by the 24th. In that bid package one, you'll see that that is primarily the site development, so that's all those activities that are listed below there, and our concrete structure. Bid package two, which falls in almost immediately behind bid package one, is going to be the precast and structural steel packages. It's necessary that we put these out because they are long lead items, and so we've worked together with the design team to get that part of the design ready for these bid packages. And again, you can see the timing of the advertisement period, the bid dates, and the award. Next is the balance of the building systems, which is the bulk of the work and the building, and that is not scheduled to be advertised until spring of 2009, and so there is considerable there's a longer advertisement period because there's more information for for us to communicate to the construction market and you'll see that there's a award period because the number of contracts that have to be awarded during that time every one of these big categories represents a separate contract with our company so at this time I'm going to turn it over to Teresa or EHAB. Good afternoon. I'm Teresa Smith. I'm the project manager representing Ross and Barrazzini. We're involved with the systems integration portion of the project. That's everything that's a low voltage electronic system. I'm going to pass it over to EHAB who's going to walk through some of the system elements and I will talk about the budget. Good afternoon. I'm Ehab Osman. I'm the lead technology consultant for the Public Safety Operations Center. And we'll look at the different elements. The first element is the site infrastructure, and the site infrastructure is intended to allow multiple communication paths to come to the facility. We have dual routes. They are both redundant. they will ensure that should any event, such as construction or a cable or anything that is being affected, then we have another route to maintain the operation in the facility. The next piece is the wireless infrastructure. This is a public safety facility which requires a significant amount of communications, including radio communications for fire, for police, for emergency operations. There are also ham radio operations. There's also civil air patrol. And there are several types of wireless communications. So the facility is provided with what we refer to as a monopole antenna tower. It's a tower intended to be very minimum intrusion, specifically more suitable for areas where you are bordering residential type. A little bit higher in terms of cost than your typical average lattice-type tower, but on the other hand, it provides better aesthetics for the area. The tower will house antennas for the county, which in turn will connect back to the public safety operation building. On top of the building, we also have a small, what we refer to as an antenna farm, in which antennas for ham radio, for emergency operation, for other entities will be located there, as well as any county-type antennas that are needed for immediate operation there. The facility infrastructure is based on what we refer to as raised floor. In reality, it's not actually raised. It's actually we depress the slab so you don't have to go over ramps or anything. It's actually we refer to as access floor. Underneath the floor, we will have distribution of all communication cables as well as power, as well as actually air conditioning for the facility. So that would allow easy modification in the future in case of moving equipment, moving furniture, rearranging consoles. that can be done at a very easy and economical method. There are multiple communication centers in this facility. There is the 911, which is the emergency communication center. There is the emergency operations center, which has a communication room where multiple entities will operate. They also have the call takers, and we have different consoles at different locations for emergency operations. We also have the LexCol, and LexCol in this case also is a communications center. These are consoles that provide the operation as well as the human factors, So people that operate multiple shifts, they will be able to operate as well as to be able to access information fairly easy. And, of course, the facility will be equipped with multiple audiovisual systems. One of the key areas is going to be the emergency operation. This is the nerve center. And if there's an event, whether it's event regionalized or whether it's a national event, this is where the civic leaders and the decision makers are going to be able to operate. Information will be displayed at multiple locations, and there will be a complete situational awareness of the event until it is declared over. At this point, I'll pass it back to our project manager to discuss a little bit more of the system budget side. Russell Barazzini has just submitted what we call our schematic design submittal. That is a 30 percent completion. But what we endeavor to do at the very start of the project is to devise a probable cost summary or an order of magnitude. As you can see, we've identified every area that we anticipate to be resident in this facility. As EHBIT talked about earlier, typical public safety operation facilities, you're going to see your large percentage of budget consumed by your E911 dispatch systems, your radio systems, and your audiovisual systems, as that will offer you the best monitoring and control capabilities. These prices are based on what we call common off-the-shelf components, and we've employed best practices as we've seen at other operation centers. Below the total line, you'll start to see some typical loading factors for a contract, if you will, and we've also provided the cost per square foot right now is anticipated at just over $300 a square foot. Just to give you an example, some other public safety facilities of similar size in order of magnitude are running somewhere between $350 and $400 a square foot. With that, I'll pass it to David. the last slide we have here before we go to questions is kind of an overview of the total budget for the project the top one is the site acquisition which we have already gotten a contract with cold stream the second is the design and implementation professional services from the three groups we've seen represented here today. Those are all fixed costs. The construction has been broken down to the brick and mortar, which reflects the presentation from Messer, the 18.8, and then we have a contingency fund on that as well. The last grouping there is the costs, which were just reviewed by R&B, for the technical infrastructure. The second line is actually for the non-technical furniture. The desk, the cubicles, the conference tables and chairs, et cetera. And then we do have a contingency or escalation on those factors as well, which bring you to that final total at the bottom at 42.8 at this moment. Please be aware that although Messer did go through the cost for the 18.8, the technical infrastructure and furnishings are what we are calling retail costs at this time because none of those have been bid or sent out for using state price contract. And this time we're open to questions. Any questions from Council Member Blues? Thank you. I've got several questions since this site, which is hard up against two neighborhoods in my district, is new to me. One question I think I have is why did this new site come as a surprise? Well, originally we had a smaller site that we had chose, a little over seven acres, and as we got into the requirements of Coldstream and of the zoning, 200-foot setbacks from the property edge, the parking requirements, and then the installation of our tower, actually Coldstream approached us and said, although the site you have is workable, or actually we needed to expand it by an acre, they said we have another site within Coldstream that the school will not be using and offered it to us. We did a lot of study on it and found even though it was twice as large, it was actually at a higher elevation and would work to our needs a lot better. It had no infrastructure in it like the previous site, but since we have to do redundant infrastructure anyway, there wasn't really much additional cost for us for this much larger site. At the same time, it would have been helpful to have had some communication, I think, with the stakeholders in this site, which are principally the two neighborhoods. So I have some questions about that, and I'd like to start with the slide that shows the site plan, and perhaps the designer architect could help me with... Is this the correct one? There was reference to a secondary access, and that has to come out in a neighborhood somehow. And it's not clear to me. It looks like it's coming out almost into a park. It's coming out into a park. There is a parking lot in this area. We would extend a road to and through the parking lot. Excuse me. We would extend a road out that exit and through the parking lot and then back out. And this is only an emergency exit. It would only be in times of emergency when I don't think anyone would be in the park anyway, that for some reason Citation Drive or other roads leading to Citation would be blocked. and so this would not be a route used except in emergency. Well, what kind of impact is this going to have on, this is Highland Park, a neighborhood park. Yes, sir. What sort of impact will it have on it? Will it take up some of its acreage, of its space? We've been preliminary talking to parks about two things there. It's not shown here, but you're right, there is a parking lot here at the corner. we would like to extend up into this corner of the property and also extend a trail from this park to Citation Park for the rails to trails right across, actually using that driveway as part of the rails to trails thing. So you're right, it will have impact on the northern part of the parking lot, which I'm sure you're familiar with, to extend it a driveway length up into the corner. and then along this back side continue it as a trail feature so people can go from park to park. And will this have any impact on the park shelter, which is? No, we will not encompass that area. I see. And I'm hoping that we can have some more detailed images of this, And I think that the Highlands neighborhood, which will be amazed to see this news, as well as the Belmont Farm area, they'll be quite surprised to see what's on their doorstep. I think there's going to have to be some serious communication with these neighborhoods and some real attempt to be accommodating with the kind of information that they will want. We have a building here which, by the images of the elevations, is not... I mean, it's obviously going to be state-of-the-art and extremely effective in terms of its functionality. It's not terribly aesthetically appealing, at least from what we can see here. How will it be buffered from or relate to the neighborhoods in terms of landscaping, in terms of lighting, in terms of noise, and also in terms, and I'm not sure whether this would be a factor, but with all of this technological equipment and communications equipment in there, will this have any impact at all on radio, television, reception within the neighborhood, that sort of thing? Those are all very great questions, and you're right. We need to go to some public meetings and spill those out for those residents. But right off the top, there is a 200-foot buffer around the building. The tree stands that are there currently will remain. And additionally, the requirements of Coldstream Park alone requires us to plant, I forget the number, but it was about 25 trees per acre. So it will be heavy vegetation. and as far as the building itself, you're right, it is almost a three-story building, but it will not be that high because of the way it will be cut into the landscape. But we do not have those detailed drawings with us now, but those are things you're definitely correct. We need to take to those areas and those neighborhood associations and spell out what it will be because as one being in that facility, we want to be great neighbors and have it out in the open, what will be there and what effect it would or will not have. Well, I appreciate that, and I think that's an absolute necessity, and I'm hoping that we can have that meeting very quickly. I think that when the folks in Belmont Farm and in Highlands neighborhood see this news in tomorrow's paper, some of us are going to get a lot of phone calls. And it's really important that we, and I have to say belatedly, have this, you know, have a public meeting. I'll be glad to work with you to set that up and so that the questions of the residents of the area can be answered. I agree with you. It was belated, and I apologize for that. Vice Mayor Craig. Thank you, Mayor. I was wondering if y'all could go back to that command central picture. I just wanted to see. You really don't have to. I just wanted to see if Dick Cheney was in there somewhere. That's impressive. Earlier, Council Member Lane said he, in an unusual fashion, agreed with me. And in an unusual demonstration, I'm going to disagree with Council Member Blues because I actually think it's a pretty cool-looking building, Sam. That having been said, can somebody explain the budget to me, how it went from $23 million to $43 million or whatever that number was? Go first. And how long ago and that sort of stuff, since it's now September 2008, a different world. What is driving this budget? And we have known since we made the initial presentation to all these folks about this project. Traditionally across the country, these things, as Teresa said, can cost anywhere from $375 a square foot to $700 a square foot. What drives that are two major factors, I think. One is the redundancy of all of the equipment. And we have to have dual everything. We have to have monster generators that can run this facility. We have to have two sources of power, two sources of communications, two sources of everything coming into the building. So we're paying twice for all that. The next thing is the fact that this building needs to be ballistic resistant. And so it is very heavy duty. We have a roof and walls on this building that can withstand a two-by-four at 260 miles an hour hitting it, and windows that do the same thing, very expensive windows. So all of these are like double or triple, in some cases three or four times the cost of normal construction just to make this thing meet requirements. It amazes me as well. Okay. Did the scope, did the original, I thought I heard you say it was 43,000 square feet. About $48,000. $48,000. So it's around $800 a square foot or better. It's on the top end of that number, right? Yes, including all the furniture systems and all that sort of thing. Okay. So I'm still, I mean, originally we planned 40-some thousand square feet? Originally it was a $30,000 is where we started. And I'll tell you, we or I miss drastically on the size of the mechanical. facilities that were required. We did add additional features, which we did not have in our original. Lex call was just a thought to put out there. We did move them out because 90% of the technology they need on a day-to-day will already be there. So they did add some square footage. So a lot of the cost that we missed was not on the brick and mortar. Some of it was because of the mechanical, but a lot of it was on the technical side. And quite frankly, we didn't have the expertise to cost that properly. Once we did obtain that, that is, I would say, where 80% of the cost increase was in the bad projections of the technical size of this project. So our budget this year included a $23 million project. Is that right? Roughly? Roughly. That's what was authorized this year. There actually There are no dollar appropriations in the current year budget. Okay, but the debt service began in two or three. Yeah, the debt service at this point, I think, wouldn't begin until fiscal 2011. Well, I'm just going to say, you know, this is what I'm having to do in my world, is we get something like this and we're told to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how to reduce the cost. And has that been done? I think, Sam, you said that the projects are running anywhere from $300 to $750. a square foot, so what does 300 look like? And I'm not expecting that, and don't misunderstand me. I understand, I really, really, really respect, you know, you guys do a great work, Messer does great work, but that's a big delta, that's a big difference, and maybe I'm the only one who's discovered it today, or heard it, maybe others have known it, And I didn't. We are trying, in all honesty, it may not sound like it, but we are trying, in all honesty, to provide the necessary services that have, we went through a whole, you know, space programming phase of this where we delineated each space and how large it should be and how many people had to go in there and that sort of thing. So we designed to that space program not really, you know, at that time still thinking about maybe $400 a square foot or, you know, $370, which still, compared to other construction going on today, it's very high, and we recognize that. But I believe we're at the point where either we have to take things out to make the facility not functional or eliminate some whole portions of the, you know, to get back into numbers that you're talking about, we're going to have to eliminate a whole department somewhere in the building to get it back down. Well, that's why I was asking about the scope. If there had been scope increase can be defended or translated and explained, and so it went from 30,000 to 48,000 square feet, so. Just, yeah, just, and the numbers that David gave you were numbers that they tried. their very best to generate without the benefit of a lot of professional expertise. And then when we got involved and actually did the space programming, that's when it started to move up. Councilmember Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I was also interested in costs, too. I don't know, maybe Commissioner Bennett, and I could bounce a couple of these questions off, though you might want to refer them to the appropriate party. Sure. The first question I had was the construction manager's fee arrangement. Could you just generally touch on that? Is it a flat rate or a percentage? How is that structured? It's a fixed fee. It's about, as I recall, $1.7 million, which when we advertised for a construction manager, we had three responses, one of which did not meet the minimum qualifications, so we were left with two. The Messer fee proposal was half the proposal of the third firm, So we felt like we got a very good quote on that. Right. Well, I think Messer's an excellent company, so I think we've done well there. Correct. The guaranteed maximum price arrangement, can you explain how that works a little bit? We're going to be using, in this case, what's called a construction manager at risk, as Mark talked about a little bit. That'll be the first time Lexington has used it, the Urban County Government. It has been used for some time at U.K. And it differs a little bit, well, actually it differs quite a bit in the benefits from a typical construction manager arrangement. But in this case, we'll be bidding, we jointly will be bidding all the construction work, the trades. The construction contracts will actually be between the trade contractor and Messer as the construction manager. They'll hold the contracts. They'll be responsible for the budget. They'll be responsible for the performance of the trade contractors. Typically, those contracts would be between the urban county government and the trade contractors. So we risk the budget, and we risk performance and schedule. In this case, that's a big advantage with Messer. The arrangement then between Messer and the urban county government, each time one of these contracts is awarded and executed between Messer and the trade contractor, there will be a contract amendment to our contract with Messer to increase the contract amount by that bid award amount. Their fee doesn't go up, but their contract will go up by the amount of that bid award so that the funding flows from us to Messer to the trade contractors. So effectively, in the end, it's kind of like a cost plus fixed fee arrangement. Well, how do you come up with the maximum price for the construction? Do you have that number on the front end, or as you're bidding along, I don't understand how you get the guaranteed maximum price. The guaranteed maximum price, and Mark may want to speak to this a little more, really has arrived at through the bid process. It's not what we did, those of you who remember, when we built the jail, and we did the design-build process, which I know the vice mayor is very familiar with. In that one, you've got a guaranteed maximum price on the front end, before the trade contracts are bid. In this case, each of those trade contracts is bid, and the lowest and best bid is accepted and awarded, and the contracts are amended, and the guaranteed maximum price would be the aggregate of those subcontracted amounts. Okay, but if you're negotiating and phasing the construction work, how long will it take you to get an absolute final cost? By what we were showing up there, once bid package three bids, we'll have all the bids. And at that time, that would all be changed to us, and we would all be a guaranteed maximum price. And it's basically, at that time, it's an open book process. And if there's any savings realized throughout the project, that in turn gets turned over to the owner. Do we get a percentage of the savings or all of the savings? All the savings, yeah. Oh, 100%. All right. And that last bid date, Council Member Lane, that he spoke of, would be in March of 2009. Would be when we know all the contract amounts. Okay. The other question I had is I guess we're going to take bids from any qualified contractor, but are we encouraging contractors in central Kentucky as well as in Kentucky to bid on this as opposed to out-of-state contractors? Absolutely. Our goal is to get as much local participation as we possibly can, as much DBE participation as we possibly can. That's one thing that we've had long conversations with Messer about in structuring the bid packages, how can we best take advantage of our local contractors? Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor had to leave. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This may be a question for Kimra. Yes, Kimra. I'm glad I didn't have to call you up while you were still motoring around with a wheel on your foot. Me too. Was it anticipated all along that the data center was going to go out there, or were we, when we were talking about government center, thinking about the data center being down here? It was anticipated that the data center was moving. And the numbers that were quoted for the government center did not include the data center? That's correct. Okay. Same thing true for LexCol? Yes. Okay. I just was wondering because we might be double counting and maybe that's really all I had. Sorry to have to make you come up for that. You could have just hollered at me. No problem. I'm glad to be there. Thank you. I missed that. You done? Mr. Beard? I don't want to short-circuit you. Mr. Blevins? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have several questions. First one, I'll ask, I guess, Mr. Bennett, you might have the answer to this. Do we consult any other government entities in town for the use of the data centers for floor space? It seems to me that would make good sense as well. Examples that come to mind, PVA, county clerk, that kind of thing. I don't know. I was not involved in those discussions, but I don't think we did. David, you know. We've had discussions with other government entities about sharing our facility. You have? Yes. And they've declined or? I'd rather not go into that right now. Fair enough. I'd like to have that conversation offline then. No problem at all. You can assure me, though, publicly that we have looked at the smart usage of the space. For example, the county clerk or the PVA, if they were to so desire to move their operations out there to take advantage of having redundant power supplies and all that kind of stuff. Yes, we've talked to other government entities about sharing that facility. And from a public's point of view, we've done the right thing as far as gathering anyone that would make sense to move to that facility to share the cost. We've done that work. That is correct. Okay. Okay. Next question is, when did we make the decision to change the site from the original site out at Coldstream to the new site at Coldstream? When was that done? Probably three months ago, I would say three to four. We mentioned it to Council. We haven't actually brought the lease amendment to you yet. A lot of departments are viewing it right now. And I apologize if we didn't go in depth enough on the potential change when we came to you earlier. it was not as a presentation item it was more just an informational item so again apologize if we didn't go in depth enough about the about the change the the most aggravating thing about the the new construction will be probably the tower so my next question is where is the location of the tower if we could go back to that diagram it'd be nice i've had some experience with this in my district and it doesn't go well Right now the tower is planned to be about in this area right here. Right next to the park. Trying to be like 150 feet better here, 150 feet or more here, 150 feet or more in that direction. All right, thank you. Let's see. The secondary access gate for emergencies only, will that be gated or will it be open all the time? So it will be gated because we all know the employees will use it if we don't. All right, good. The $43 million, is this all LFUCG responsibility or will there be regional or state help on the money? At this point, it's all our responsibility. We saw it of a Homeland Security grant for part of the Bricks and the Water piece. It did not get awarded the grant. We've also made some requests through our congressional delegation, which are still pending. But it's essentially a local obligation. So any help we can get will be appreciated, but no one's obliged to participate at this point. Okay. And then finally, with respect to the changes between the $23 million original estimate and the now $43 million more firm estimate, is there a way that we could get just a high-level summary breakdown over what changed? Specifically, and we don't have to go into it today, but off the top of my head, I'm wondering why we would locate IT out in a very high cost per square foot. I'm really wondering about the 311 operators. There's no need for them to be physically there. If it works out to be cheap and okay, yeah, but it seems to me that's a high cost per square foot to locate that, and we know we can locate them anywhere we want via telecommunications. All right, that's all I had. Thank you. Mr. Lane. Yeah, I just have one follow-up question. Have we prepared like a five-year budget to operate the facility? I wondered what took you so long to get to that question, Mr. Lane. The answer is no to this point, but we will be doing that. As we get the final systems designed and everything, we obviously will have to put that together. I mean, I think that's real important because not only do we have the debt service we have to pay, all the utilities and everything, and that, of course, will be an ongoing responsibility of the government to pay for that. Absolutely. So, you know, that would be a priority as far as I was concerned. Absolutely. And just one little supplemental question to that. Would we be able to reduce our cost for, like, the downtown office facilities because we're relocating some of the personnel out there that would normally be working downtown now? That's possible, especially if, to the extent we move forward with the new government. and can reduce the size of it and the operating cost of it to the extent we're moving people to other locations. That would all go into the equation. And if I might, while we're talking about the budget, our charge is to work down from that $43 million number, the $42.8. As David said, we anticipate from fairly substantial savings on the system side of things as we bid the systems or take advantage of either state or local price – or state price contracts. We also are attempting to work to reduce the cost of the bricks and mortar piece of it. One of the things we're looking at is directly buying some of the high-priced materials, steel, for example, directly rather than through the contractor so we can save the 6% sales tax. And 6%, when we're talking about numbers this big, can result in some fairly substantial savings. So we're going to look at everything we can to reduce the cost. I don't like the $43 million number any better than anyone else. And all of us are determined to bring that down. The question right now is how far can we bring it? Thank you, Commissioner. That's all I've got. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Anyone else have any questions? Not the chair will entertain a motion. If I might ask the mayor real quickly before we go. Thank you. A couple of things that we're going to be bringing to you in the near future to get this thing accomplished and keep rolling on it. One will be an increased reimbursement resolution. If you recall, you previously approved reimbursement resolutions totaling $6.5 million that permitted us to acquire the site and engage the consultants that we have on board. As we get to the point of awarding contracts, we're going to need budget amounts in place to be able to do that. So between now and when we let the first contract, award the first contract, we'll be bringing to you a reimbursement resolution and asking for your approval for that. Second thing, you heard how tight the schedule is going to be if we get this thing done by spring of 2010. It's going to be extremely tight. And if you notice, some of the bid dates, some of the bid award dates are going to be when council's not here. The second bid package particularly is going to be while council's on its Christmas break this year. So what we're going to ask is for you to give the mayor the authority to execute the contract amendments with Messer to keep the project rolling and to get these contracts in place. these contract awards are going to have at least five levels of recommendation on them. They'll have the recommendation of the architect, the recommendation of the construction manager, the recommendation of our project manager, Charlie Millward, the recommendation of Brian Markham in purchasing, and my recommendation. And along the line, depending on what they are, we'll have some additional people approving them. So I hope that gives you a level of comfort that we're going to be awarding to the lowest and best contractor. Simultaneously with that, we'll inform you of every one of those along the way. But my fear is if we go through the normal council process and take anywhere from three to five weeks to approve a contract, the project is not going to get done anywhere near on time, because each one of these bid projects is going to extend the schedule by anywhere from two to four to five weeks. And when you compound those, it's not going to get done until the end of 2010, potentially. So I would ask you for your consideration on that. I'm not looking for an answer today. We can talk about it more as we move along, but that's something that I think is going to be critical to getting the project completed. Mr. Lane, then Mr. Blues. Just to follow up on that, let's see if I follow what you're saying. You're saying that we will come up with a price that's going to be $38 million. You've got the price down $3 or $4 million. And that will be the total price you're asking for of the authorization of the mayor to, as we go through individual contracts that are awarded during the process, to sign off within that $38 million budget. Correct. And on this initial phase, it will actually be the authority to sign off up to that $20 million construction number. I'm not asking you to give us blanket authority for the whole 3843. Okay. It's a lesser amount going into it, and we can see how that works. It's not unprecedented that you've given us the authority to, not you necessarily, but Council has given us the authority to execute change orders before without Council approval. Courthouse project, for example, Council gave us authority to execute change orders on that with periodic reporting to Council of the ones we executed. That worked well. It kept the project moving well. So numbers are a little bigger on this project in terms of the contract amendments, but the concept is something that has been done before, both on the courthouse and on the day treatment center project. But theoretically, we would approve the budget amount. This would just be components of the budget amount? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. Blues, then Dr. Stevens. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the need for moving this project forward expeditiously. At the same time, and I come back to this issue, I do want to make sure that the neighborhoods that I represent are not going to be negatively impacted by this project. And frankly, I'm somewhat disturbed that I knew nothing about this location change, that obviously none of the residents of the area have known anything about it, that it's sort of sprung upon us, full-grown, fully designed, completely planned, with no advance word, no consultation, no reaching out. So I do not want to hold up an important process. At the same time, I want to make sure that these neighborhoods are going to be treated fairly, and they're not going to be negatively impacted going forward. Understood and agreed. Dr. Stevens. Last week, Mr. Lane and I met with Mr. Bennett and with the law department about approving these contracts during the time when we're not in session. and they reassured me and I think it's perfectly okay and I move we adjourn. It's a motion and a second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Meeting adjourned. Now this new one is a consequence of a one Be the unavoidable consequence of a There's so many people who can talk and talk and talk and just say nothing I have used up all the skill and no end at the end I've come to nothing Nothing so I can do my first I will pour into that one note Anyone who wants Me possibly Better play the note you know I don't know. Ba-do-ba-do, three-three-doo-doo Ba-do-ba-do, three-three-doo-doo Ba-do-ba-do, ba-dee-bo, ba-dee-bo, ba-dee-bo, ba-dee-bo He will find himself with no show, better play than don't you know He will find himself with no show, better play than don't you know Hooray for Hollywood That screwy valley Hooey Hollywood Where any office boy Or young mechanic Can be a panic With just a good looking pan And any barmaid can be a starmaid If she dances with or without a fan Hooray for Hollywood Where you're terrific if you're even good Where anyone at all from TV's Lassie To Monroe's Chassis Is equally understood Go out and try your luck You might be Donald Duck Hooray for Hollywood Hooray for Hollywood That bony super coney Hollywood They come from Chilla Coffee and Paducah With their bazookas to get their names up in lights All armed with photos With their hair in ribbons and legs in tights Hooray for Hollywood You may be homely in your neighborhood But you can be an actor, see Mr. Factor He'd make a monkey look good Within a half an hour you'll look like Tyron Park Hooray for Hollywood Thank you. Thank you. do do do I'm going to go ahead and put it in the middle of the room. Thank you. I'm going to go. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and get some more of the stuff I've been doing. Thank you. I'm going to go. I'm going to go ahead and get it. Thank you. so Thank you. Amen. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. All I want is to be a good day. There's a room somewhere From the cold night air With money north The nippy-lugger-lee Lots of chocolate from knee to knee Lots of cold ink and lots of heat One face, one hand, one fee Oh, boy, the nippy-lugger-lee Oh, so lovely, sit down. Be still. I would never do it till spring. Someone's head rested on my knees. More than 10 feet. Who takes good care of me? Thank you. What a la la la la la la What a la la la la la la la Oh, so lovely, so absolutely, so I would never bud till spring I'll be right back. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. . Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. The one you've been waiting for Great blossoms of white will burst into sight And your love will be true evermore Thank you. There's a saying old Says that love is blind Still we're often told Seek and ye shall find So I'm going to seek a certain I've had in mind Looking everywhere, haven't found her yet She's the big affair I cannot forget Only girl I ever think of with regret To add my initial to her monograph Tell me where is the shepherd For this lost love There's somebody I'm longing to see I hope that she turns out to be Someone who will walk over me I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wound I know I could always be good To wonder what's over me Although I may not be the man some girls think of As handsome to her heart, I'll carry the key. Won't you tell her please to follow my lead? I know how I need someone to watch over me. She may be far, she may be nearby I'm promising hereby To my heart she'll carry the key While she tell her all her love I will save I'll be her slave, oh how I pray Someone to watch me Someone to watch me I love you. Thank you. In a restless world, this is Love is an spirit gun And too many moonlight kisses Seem to cool in warmth of the sun When I give my heart It will become my lead For I'll never give my heart And the moment I can feel that You feel that way too I feel that way too So when I fall in love with you When I fall in love It will be forever Or I'll never fall in love Or I'll never, never fall in love In a restless world like this is Love is ended before it's begun And you let me move my kisses Since you rule in the world for the summer When I give my heart I'll never give my heart At the moment I can feel that you feel that way too Is when I fall in love When I fall in love When I fall in love with you Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me, my lover stands on golden sand and watches the ships that go sailing. Somewhere beyond the sea, he's there and watching for me. If I could find my birds on high, then straight to his arms I'm your savior. Beyond the stars, beyond the moon, I know, beyond the dark, my heart will be blessed, We'll be beyond the shore We'll kiss just as before We'll be beyond the sea And God will save you Thank you. Happy will be beyond the sea. And never again I will say. Beyond the sea. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next video. Thank you. Thank you. Oh Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Kaya. Come back again. I have to take six more lessons for that. You've been so lovely, I'd like to introduce another song. In fact, I wouldn't say introduce because this song was written by one of America's great composers, Mr. Cole Porter. He is back and I think it was a very wonderful O.D. We hope you enjoyed his call. Miss Otis Regrets. The way you wear your hair, the way you sip your tea, the memory of all that. No, no, they can't take that away from me The way you smile just beams The way you sing off-key The way you want my dreams No, no, they can't take that away from me We may never, never meet again on the bumpy road to Thou. Though I'll always, always keep the memory of the way you hold your night, the way we dance till three. The way you changed my life No, they can't take that away from me No, they can't take that away from me I'm going to go to the next video. I'm going to go to the next video. do Thank you. We may never, never, never meet again On the bumpy road to love Though I'll always, always keep the memory of The way you hold your knife The way we dance till three The way you change my life No, they can't take that away from me No, they can't take that away No, they can't take that away No, they can't take that away from me Thank you. A long, long time ago, on graduation day, you handed me your book. I signed this way, roses are red, my love, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, my love, but not as sweet as you We dated through high school And when the big day came I wrote into your book Next to my name Roses are red, my love, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, my love, but not as sweet as you. Then I went far away and you found someone new. I read your letter, dear, and I wrote back to you. Roses are red, my love. Violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, love, good luck, may God bless you. May God bless you. Is that your little girl? She looks a lot like you. Someday some boy will write. Look to roses are red, my love. Violets are blue Sugar is sweet, my love But not as sweet as you Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. The Lord is a very splendid king. It's the April rose that only grows in the earth's gray Nature's way of giving a reason to be living The golden promise that makes a man a king There's a story told that once On a high and with me In the morning mist To love her His kiss and the world's a tear Then your fingers touch My silent Thank you. La la la, la la la, la la la la, la la la. When your fingers touch my silent heart, and you are hard to see. Yes, true love, so very slander. Thank you. I can only give you love that lasts forever And the promise that each time you call And the only heart I have For you and you alone That's all That's all I can only give you country walks In springtime And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall And a love whose burning light will warm the moon tonight That's all, that's all There are those I am sure who have told you They would give you the world for joy All I have are these arms to enfold you And a love time can never destroy If you're wondering what I'm asking in return, dear You'll be glad to know that my demands are small I feel that you adore for now and evermore, that's all, that's all. I'm not alone. You'll be glad to know that my demands are small Say it's me that you'll adore for now and evermore That's all That's all The End Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the middle of the middle. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the middle of the room. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the middle of the room. I'm going to go ahead and put it in the middle of the room. Thank you. And now the purple dusk of twilight time Steals across the meadows of my heart High up in the sky The little stars climb Always reminding me That we're apart You wander down the lane And far away Leaving me a song That will not die Love is now the stardust of yesterday The music of the years gone by Sometimes I wonder The lonely night Dreaming of a song The melody Haunts my reverie And I am once again with you When our love was new But that was long ago Now my consolation Is in the status of a song Besides the garden wall When ours You are in my arms The nightingale Tell me A paradise where roses grew Though I dream in vain In my heart It will remain my stardust melody, the memory of love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're so kind. Come back again. I have to take six more lessons for that. You've been so lovely. I'd like to introduce another song. In fact, I wouldn't say introduce because this song was written by one of America's great composers, Mr. Cole Porter, a few years back. And I think it's a very wonderful old dean. We hope you enjoyed its call. Miss Otis regrets. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, and I hope you feel better. A pain in the neck is both literally and figuratively nothing to have. We last met at the service committee, as you recall, to consider the proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act. And since then, there have been multiple meetings. Some of our members of the committee, Mr. Lane and others, have met with Ms. Miller, who is planning to be here. I don't, is she here? Oh, yes, Peggy, thank you. And Mr. Santer, and the latest iteration was mailed or emailed to everybody on Friday or Thursday night, last Thursday night. However, since then, further changes have been made, and today I circulated a draft of the ordinance to all present. I think there's some extra copies that some people in the audience might want. And I'll briefly go through those, and Ms. Miller and Mr. Sanner are here to answer questions. We also since then have contacted the booster clubs and offered our help in ways that we might be able to ameliorate some of their problems. And I think there's some data that relate to bingos and other things that you might want to look at before we're through. And I believe that's been circulated also. but there are representatives here from the university who have been working on, of course, the smoking ordinances around the state and the nation and can bring us up to date on any questions. So would you want to hear from the law department first? I'll just briefly mention these things, and then the law department will be happy to answer the questions. Why don't we bring the law department up, and they can just tell us what the changes were, if you don't mind. Okay. On page two, we have added the word temporarily to paragraph one. Temporarily, this would preclude somebody with an outside smoking area from having temporary screens or blinds, which would close them off and prohibit the 60% openness of an outside bar. on page three relating to business Dr. Stevens I think we had a question on that Mr. Lane Dr. Stevens would it be alright with you as we went over each proposed change and discussed it item by item so we could air out that issue and ask any questions we may have because we ended up having to go back and do it anyway probably but it's not going to take me very long I'll let you be the judge I'll let you summarize it then we'll come back with the law apartment there you have some questions that we can ask questions of all of them then. On page three, a statement's been added to the top line two. This relates to businesses which are conducted in a dwelling. And it says a single or multifamily residential housing unit. There's been some question about whether you might have a dwelling with a business in the same building and would the business be exempted if the person in the dwelling owned the business. So that was put in for that reason. And similarly on page 4 in paragraph in the last sentence this exception also extends to a business located in the dwelling owned by the occupant living in the dwelling. That's what would be exempted not the rest of the building. on page nine that's the next last page under B and C at the suggestion of Mr. Lane which I thought was a good idea a fine of $250.250 for the second offense within one year and similarly on line C which has been added and those are the only changes in the ordinance which you received on Thursday night. So if you suggested the attorneys to come up to the front, is that what you want them to do? I think so. Mr. Sander, if you could come up, and I think, Mr. Lane, you wanted to go over the first issue. Okay. Why are we adding the word temporarily in that provision? Could you explain the reason for that? My understanding is that some of the restaurants have patios with a permanent roof on it. In the summertime, they roll up tent flaps. So it's a patio. In the wintertime, they drop the tent flaps. Right. So the tent flaps are temporary. So the ordinance would not cover that patio when the tent flaps are down. Okay. I don't think that's the spirit of the ordinance. If there's 40% interior walls and 60% open area, even if those flaps can be rolled down during the winter, as long as they comply when they're smoking on that area, that seems to be fair. So I would be opposed to adding to work temporarily. That's my understanding as to why it was added. Dr. Stevens, do you have anything further you want to clarify on that? That's the reason it was added and it was in there originally and it's still the same as it was originally. Any other question on this issue? No, I don't have any others. Anybody else? Okay. Ms. Crosby, did you want to ask? I just agree with Councilmember Lane. I don't understand why that had to be added in if they're currently compliant. I don't. It was originally in the ordinance, proposed ordinance, permanent or temporary. Then probably Revision 3, temporary was taken out, and now Revision 4, temporary is put back in. Hail to the leaders. Nothing is Michigan buts. I'll wait and see if anybody has further questions because I still have, I think there are a few more questions I may have. Anybody else have any questions on the new changes? Mr. Lane, did you have any questions? And if there is going to be potentially an issue with that and if you will make a motion to change that or amend that, then we'll have to bring a motion forward towards that. Otherwise we'll keep it as it is in the present form. Okay, I think the other item in here is on page 6, paragraph 4, and the airport is located in the 12th District, and that's the district I represent. And it's my understanding that this would affect the airport operations, And I would like maybe to ask for, first off, your comment on what this new ordinance would mean to the airport, and then I'd like to ask the airport to speak to that issue. The ordinance as written would exempt smoking in the airport. Okay. But in the amendment. I mean, not exempt. You can't smoke in the airport. But in certain areas in the airport. But the amendment that's here would eliminate smoking in the airport, is that correct? There's no exemption. I said that backwards. There's no exemption to allow smoke in the airport. So right now you cannot smoke in the airport if this is passed. All right. Okay, perhaps, Ms. Mike from the airport, I know you're interested in speaking to this. Would you like to say something? Good afternoon. I'm Mike Gobb. I'm the Executive Director for Bluegrass Airport. Spent a little bit of time with a number of you over the last 10 years, my tenure at the airport. Bernie Lovely is here, the Airport Board Chair, and John Sloan is our Director of Planning and Development. John's passing around some of the diagrams of where the four smoking lounges are, the smoking rooms are in the airport. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, John. A little bit of history about Bluegrass Airport. Over the last decade, we put considerable effort into identifying our core customer and focusing on that customer with facilities, with amenities in the airport, and have become much, much more competitive. Our competition is the other airports lying within Kentucky, CVG to the north and greater Louisville to the west. As we're looking at the amenities, as we're looking at what our customers are asking for, one of the items that comes up on the list is access to smoking lounges. Now, the airport has four. We have one located in the ticketing lobby. And if you're looking at the diagram, the green areas are the smoking lounges. And if you look on the far right, that would be the ticketing lobby smoking lounge that's located across from Delta and American Airlines ticket counter. That's the only smoking lounge that's in the public area, the general public area of the terminal building. As you go through the security checkpoint, the screening checkpoint, there is a second smoking lounge located at the top of the diagram, and that would be at gate A4, Alpha 4 on the main level, on the lower level. There's a third located adjacent to the retail space on Concourse B. And the fourth smoking room is located in the executive lounge. What used to be the observation deck for the airport is now our common use executive lounge. The red line is the demarcation for the non-sterile and sterile areas of the airport. simply meaning that once you go through the security checkpoint, you're screened for all the things that TSA doesn't want you to have in the sterile area or on board commercial airliners. One of the challenges we face, particularly for smokers in public buildings, is once our customer gets through the security checkpoint, while we can say they may have an option of going back out of the sterile area and smoking their cigarette outdoors, they would have to be rescreened to come back into the concourse. When we're looking at the competitive nature of our business, we looked at our ability to provide that as a competitive advantage. Now, Northern Kentucky Greater Cincinnati Airport certainly has smoking lounges. The Louisville Airport has chosen not to have smoking lounges based on their city ordinance. So there's certainly argument on both sides. But what the airport board did was, in the design of the smoking lounges, all except the smoking lounge down front was new construction. So as we designed those facilities, we designed the facilities such that the air inside the smoking room is vented to the outside. The only unique facility we have, currently each of the three of the main smoking areas have doors. The fourth, if you've been in the executive lounge, you notice that there is no door that they use. We use negative pressure to keep the smoke contained inside that room, and then that's vented outside. We also pay particular attention to there is no reason, there's no other reason but to smoke to go in the executive lounge, even to the point where in the smoking lounge, even to the point where in the executive lounge, We ensure that the television that's in there is on the same channel as the television that's immediately outside the room, so you're not even going in to watch a different television channel. So we've specifically designed these smoking lounges so that we keep the air separated, we keep any contaminated air separated. I'll give you a couple anecdotal examples. We just finished with the Ryder Cup. Monday was one of our busiest travel days at Bluegrass Airport for people departing the airport. We had a number of people traveling international. Our smoking lounges, smoking rooms, were probably the busiest we've seen them with the international customer. The international customer is not terribly familiar with our airport. Quite possibly they haven't visited the community before, so they're not comfortable leaving the secure area. They're traveling in a foreign country, so they may not be real comfortable with what TSA requires them to do versus their home country requires them to do. So as a customer amenity, making sure that these individuals are accommodated has been very important to us. One of the other issues we have is delayed flights, canceled flights, where the airlines ask you to remain in the gate area for further information. So the airlines are asking these customers, these smokers, not to leave the gate area. TSA closes the security checkpoint, I believe it's 30 minutes after the, or just prior to the departure of the last airliner. We run into a number of situations during inclement weather, during winter operations, or mechanical anomalies with the airlines that flights are delayed, or in some cases flights are canceled and they have to be reaccommodated or another aircraft has to come in after the security checkpoint is closed. So certainly, and we've had this happen to a couple of our customers, where the passenger's flight was delayed. They wanted to leave the concourse for some reason. They exited, and then they couldn't be rescreened. They couldn't get back to the aircraft, which would certainly be a situation that our customer would be faced with with a delayed flight in the concourse where they absolutely wanted to get out and weren't aware that they could get back into the concourse. So the smoking rooms give us the flexibility to accommodate those folks without impacting the other customers. That's some of the basic information. John Sloan's here to answer any of the technical design questions. We have had a number of comments about the type of smoking room that we provide, the amenities we provide, the finishes we provide. It certainly isn't just the cube that you go into. I've seen some that have had so much smoke in them that you may not necessarily have to light your cigarette to get your fix on the cigarette. We certainly don't have that situation at Bluegrass Airport. It is important to us that we maintain the ability to offer the smoking environment for those customers. We don't make any argument, and if you view that as a concession, we don't make the argument that in the public area, across from the Delta American Airlines ticket counter, that that smoking room must remain. Those customers certainly have an option to leave the terminal building and come back into the terminal building where the customers down the concourses don't. Any questions? Mr. Sloan, did you want to add anything to that? Well, Mike mentioned that all the lounges were designed with the air inside the lounges is exhausted to the outside. The air that's provided, the supply air to all the lounges or the makeup air is also outside air, so there's no intermingling of the air sources from that perspective. And all the lounges are designed with a negative pressure so that the air pressure inside the lounge is lower than that of the air pressure outside the lounge, which also helps when the doors are open to keep the air from inside the lounge from leaking out into the public area. Okay. Any questions? Mr. Beard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Other than the Ryder Cup, which happens, what, every how many years? It's probably the last time. Decades, maybe, for a while. How much are the lounges used otherwise? I think, you know, I think there's a tendency, obviously, if they're there and somebody's a smoker, they'll use them. I was a 30-year smoker myself, three packs a day. and I would walk through concrete blocks to get someplace to smoke if I couldn't easily. And I'm sure you have that situation. I guess one concern I might have would be a parent who had children, small children, and of course, again, if they're as addicted as I was, they would take their children into the smoking lounge with them. there is no way to accommodate any other way to keep that from happening, is there? I don't believe so. I can only tell you anecdotally that I've not seen that happen. And that's one of the reasons we've located the smoking lounges where we have. If you notice the A-Concours smoking lounge, that really is designed to serve the C-Concours. So it's just down the steps, so it's relatively close to the gate hold area. They're all glassy. You can see outside. You can see inside. And, of course, the B-Concourse serving the B-Concourse area to make it convenient. One of the other situations we face is the airline customer, including me, tends to get to the hold room. They don't want to stray too far from where their aircraft is going to depart for fear that it will depart without them. We don't have the numbers on usage. I mentioned the Ryder Cup as an example. but when we look at the number of international customers that we have or strong business customers that we have, we could do a survey over a multi-day period to get the use. It's not extensive use, but when it's required, when it's asked for, it's important. Do you have situations where people are actually transferring from one plane to another? And occasionally, that's not a major portion of our business. One of the other considerations that we face over the past 10 years is we've added new destinations, and we're about to add the two to the Tampa-St. Pete area and Orlando area with a nonstop service from Allegiant. I'll get a little bit of plug in there. But as we've added these flights and you start looking at nonstop flights to Houston, You look at the nonstop flights to New York. We're talking to carriers about nonstop service to Denver. When you start factoring in the time that the airlines and TSA ask you to arrive at the airport, clear security. You've got one hour prior to departure. And then, for sake of argument, look at a Houston flight where you're looking at two-plus hours, then in transit and then looking at the time that you spend at the other airport. There can be a considerable period of time where that individual, not arguing whether it's right or wrong, but that individual does not have access. And that's a competitive customer issue for us. I got called down by a stewardess for going into a restroom on a flight from Dallas to Houston, which is about an hour, hour and ten minute flight. And it set off an alarm. Most everybody in the plane took the crash position. and they pounded on the door and my defense was that there was still a small ashtray on a little pedestal right next to the toilet. And so I pointed to that and I said, well, you had the ashtray there, so I assumed you allowed me to smoke in here. Well, you know, there were signs all over the place that said differently, but that was my defense anyway, and it cooled her off a little bit. Otherwise, they probably would have thrown me in cuffs and dragged me off the plane as soon as we landed. So, you know, I feel for your clientele and such, but most of your flights are an hour and 15 minutes, aren't they? Yes, they are. And most movies last two hours. Thank you, Mike. Dr. Blues? Thank you. Thank you for coming and making this presentation. I've got a question about competition. Sure. What is the competition? If you can't smoke in the Louisville Airport and you don't have two airports out of Lexington, Sure. How does this mount up as a competition issue? That's a great question. Our core customer is the business customer. The customer that we tend to lead to greater Louisville tends to be the leisure customer, where passengers are making the choice. And I'm not saying everyone's going to make the choice which airport they fly out of based on whether or not they can have a cigarette. But between the two airports, between CVG and Lexington, both of those airports currently offer that amenity. And taking that choice away from the customer simply gives them an opportunity to have a negative experience with us that may drive their business in the future. Well, I ask that question not facetiously because I can see that if we granted this kind of exemption on that grounds, that other entities would come to us and say, well, I'm put at a competitive disadvantage, and I'm not sure we want to go down that. No, and I completely agree with that. Our core argument, if you will, is that we are a unique government building with the security check, with the federal government doing security screening where there may be opportunities, opportunities, there may be times when a customer simply cannot, cannot leave the sterile area of the terminal building concourse and reenter, even if they wanted to, because TSA closes that checkpoint. I understand that, and that reference to a government building leads me to a question, but it's really, I think, for Mr. Sanner. So if you could come up for just a second. And the question is, if we made an exception in the ordinance, what kind of precedent might that set with reference to government buildings? There's two ways to make an exception for the airport. One is by statute 6165.3A, where a government agency can set the smoking policy for all government buildings. So in this case, you could have a written smoking policy allowing smoking rooms for the airport, but you can't single out the airport. You'd have to allow smoking rooms in all government buildings. And the other way would be to do a specific exemption for the airport in the ordinance. There may be some legal concerns with that. I think Peggy Miller has some case law on that that I'm not familiar with this time. So we could be opening a wider door here. If you established a written policy as a council for all government buildings, you would essentially essentially allow smoking room in all government buildings if you allowed it in the airport under the statute. You could exempt the airport specifically under the ordinance, but that might lead to some legal concerns. Let's ask Ms. Miller if she would come forward and try to answer that question, if you could, please. First, I agree with what Mr. Sander said, that under 61-165, I don't believe you can carve out one building if you have a smoking policy, if the Urban County Council adopts a smoking policy. And the case that he was referring to, and I don't happen to have it in front of me, but you might recall when Louisville Metro government first enacted their ordinance, it was challenged because there was an exemption for one location, Churchill Downs. and that challenge was successful. So my concern would be the same thing here. If there's an exception for one particular entity, it might invalidate the ordinance and we'd be back to where we are. So there possibly could be some grounds for distinguishing an exemption for an airport as opposed to a racetrack, but I don't know. I just know that that's what happened in Louisville when they tried to create an exemption for Churchill Downs. It wasn't successful. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, I've got one more question. Certainly. And this would be directed to persons in the health community who might want to respond here. And it has to do with the argument that a room, a particular room, is sealed off from the rest of the building. and so that only smokers are endangered. And I'm interested in two questions, I guess, with reference to that. One, is that actually true? Can you actually do that? And then again, getting back to another precedent issue, would, granting an exception in whole or in part for that reason, would that cause a problem where we don't do that for other businesses and enterprises within the province of the ordinance? So I don't know, Commissioner, if you'd want to respond to that or somebody else in the health community, I'd be glad to have that information. Sure. I'd be happy to answer that. In 2006, the Surgeon General's report, oh, I'm sorry, Ellen Hahn, I'm sorry, professor in the College of Nursing and the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky, Ellen Hahn, the Surgeon General report in 2006 specifically said that enclosed smoking rooms don't work, and there's really no scientific evidence that you can keep secondhand smoke from leaking in enclosed smoking rooms unless you use very high technology, which I have never really seen one of those. There's apparently some health facility in Ontario, Canada, that's built a tunnel and created a room with several anterooms and doors, and someone goes in with a hazmat suit and changes the filters. The bottom line is those kinds of rooms aren't feasible, nor are they cost efficient. And so, no, bottom line is those rooms have been shown to leak. And the second issue from the health standpoint is that people still have to go in those rooms to clean them. And so workers are put at risk because they have to go in there to clean them to maintain them. So in general, really, enclosed smoking rooms are not a recommendation of the health community anywhere in the world, actually. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor. Yes, it does. I have Mr. McCord next, but Mr. Lane, did you have someone to follow up with that right there? Yeah. Okay, Mr. McCord. Mr. Chairman, can I follow up on that? Sure. Real quickly. We've contracted with two entities to come in and do air quality testing outside of the smoking lounges. One was the University of Kentucky. We don't have that report back yet. That is open. Okay. Where we don't have the data yet. and the second is OSHA came in and did testing just last week and we're awaiting that report to address specifics about if anything came out, what came out at what levels, what the exposures are. And when do you expect those reports to be? We have the draft from Ellen, the U.K. College of Nursing, and we expect the report. Could you come to the microphone, please? We do have the draft of a report from Ellen Hahn, U.K. College of Nursing, which we just received. And the testing that was just done by OSHA was just done last Thursday, and we don't expect that for a couple of weeks. Thank you. Mr. McCord? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of things. How do we treat Keeneland in the current ordinance? Can anyone speak to that as how Keeneland is affected or isn't affected? Yes, I can answer that. I'm not an expert, but my understanding is they don't get any exceptions at all. The gentleman would like to answer that question. Just give your name and address, please. I'm Luke Matheson with Environmental Health of the Health Department. Keeneland actually is compliant. They are held in compliance with the ordinance. Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure. I didn't hear that answer. They are in compliance? They are in compliance, yes, sir. Okay. Mike, with regard to the airport, walk us back through the last couple of years here through your all's renovation and expansion and so forth. When did you start all of that, and when was it completed? Well, we just opened the extension of the B-Con course here last year to accommodate the growth that was happening and the growth that's to come. As far as the smoking lounges, John, they were put into operation? The first smoking lounge, which is the one in the public area directly across from the Delta, an American Airlines ticket counter, that actually was built in about 1996, I believe. The Concourse A lounge was the next one that was built, and I believe that was built about five years ago. So primarily, again, Mike mentioned it serves Concourse C, but also the TSA employees tend to, since they're screened and working on the secure side of the airport, that lounge became necessary in addition to our customers in Concourse C for TSA employees once TSA was charged with security at the airport. And then the lounges in Concourse B, the Concourse B lounge was built with Concourse B addition, and it was opened in April of 2007. And the executive lounge was opened in November of 2005, I believe. Okay. And then as far as overall cost of the project here over the last couple of years, can you give me a ballpark figure of what the airport has invested in the expansion and renovation? Probably. I know when we built the first two, they were in the neighborhood of $15,000 at that time. I would say that's escalated. Those were not broke out separate at all for the last two, the Concourse B or the Executive Lounge. So probably in the $20,000 to $30,000. Okay. Well, that was my next question. I was looking for overall what you've spent on the airport renovation over the last number of years. What's the ballpark? $17 million on Concourse B, probably about $22 million to date, with another eight or so to spend in the next couple of years. And so I guess my point is that over the last number of years, you all have been planning extensively, have really been working towards making this a world-class facility, and that because of the way that the law was written, Certainly, you all have done a number of things to try and mitigate smoking to the general public, try to capture it. You're very intentional about what you did with the design, and you spent some extra money specifically with regard to these things. And so I think it's one of those kind of unfortunate situations we find ourselves in where I think you've done a phenomenal job of really trying to look out for the best interests of everyone. And yet here we sit where, you know, an ordinance can basically say, you know, the rooms that were designed for this, they really don't serve any other purpose. You know, that was something that we just, it's going to be a casualty of this and so forth. So I just, I want to point out that there was a great deal of intentionality with what you've done with regard to safety, with regard to the ordinance, with regard to your customer base and so forth. and that sometimes these things have unintended consequences or things that the public needs to know that, you know, this is how money was spent and now potentially, you know, if this moves forward, we strip that out and just start over. So I just want to bring that to light. Thank you. Mr. Lane? I just wanted to just touch back on a couple of points. You said you would close the smoking room that's in the general public area in the front of the terminal because the patrons of the airport could go outside or over to the garage and smoke. Because they have a choice, yes. Right. And then you're proposing to leave the three smoking rooms that are currently located in the security areas of the airport? Yes, and one of the groups that I left out that John mentioned is the TSA employees. If you've not seen them come to work or seen them go back into the sterile area, they're screened every time they go back in. So one of the reasons that smoking lounge was expedited to allow those employees to stay inside where neither do they have a choice of whether or not they can leave their workstation. I guess they do. It just extends the period that they're away from their workstation, and they can't smoke on the airfield. You can't smoke around airplanes. There are regulations against that as well. So that serves TSA in that area as well. Okay. Could I follow up with your comment with a question for Ms. Miller regarding this issue? Yes, sir. It seems like I'm catching all of the unique situations. It's coincidentally the detention center, Fayette County Detention Center, is located in the 12th District. And that is another secured building, which once you get in, it's hard to get out. And in a few rare occasions, we've had an exception there. We currently have smoking rooms in the detention center. They're only for the employees that work in the jail. And, of course, that's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation, and the breaks that the jailers receive are very short, and it's not possible for them to go outside. And it seems to me these two facilities, the jail and the airport, since they're under security issues, would be the justification that I would like to see approved to allow smoking in an enclosed room with proper ventilation. And we could even add a provision that the health department could inspect them annually or regularly to ensure that there's no secondhand smoke going outside of those areas. Now, that being said, and since you're the guru in the smoking ordinance, Do you not feel this would be proper justification for making an exception for these two buildings only because of the security issue? I'm not sure on the Fayette County Detention Center, but I know that at the state level there is a statute that allows the commissioner of corrections to permit or prohibit smoking by inmates. I would assume that there may be some provision at the state level for allowing that. I don't know whether there's a statute that allows that to be done at the local level. But I understand your justification, your points, Mr. Lane, but the problem goes back to 61.165. It doesn't allow a legislative body to pick and choose. you either can allow a designated smoking area or not in buildings, and it doesn't allow you to pick and choose among those buildings, and that seems to be the problem here. All right. Would you restate that? I'm sorry. I'm not an attorney. I didn't get that precisely. Okay. KRS 61.165 provides that certain legislative bodies, such as an urban county government can adopt smoking policies. And if you adopt the policy, it's either A or B. B being prohibit indoor smoking and A being requiring the government authority to provide accessible indoor smoking areas in any buildings where smoking is otherwise restricted. It doesn't say that you can allow it in some buildings and not others. It would be a policy that the council would adopt that would allow smoking in accessible indoor areas, but there's no provision that says you can allow it in some buildings and not others that are owned or operated or under the jurisdiction of the government. Okay, so then what you're saying is the council, in its wisdom, could vote to allow smoking at the airport and the jail, and that would be permissible? No, sir. What I'm saying is that my reading of KRS 61.165 is it's all or nothing. The council could vote to have a policy that would allow accessible indoor smoking areas in any buildings where smoking is otherwise restricted. It doesn't, I don't think that you can interpret that, but maybe Mike Sanner has a different interpretation. to allow that policy to apply only to specific buildings. In other words, I don't think it will allow you to permit it only in specific buildings owned, operated, or under the jurisdiction. Okay, now is there a case law to back up your opinion, or is that just your opinion? It's the language of the statute. It's my interpretation of the language of the statute. Okay. Okay. All right. That's – those ends my question. So if somebody from the airport would like to address that point, I'd like to hear what you have to say. All right. Thank you. Hi. Bernie Lovely, Chairman of the Airport Board. I will address Councilman Lane's question in just a minute. I want to emphasize a couple of things. As was made clear in Mike's TSA example, Councilman Beard commented that the flights are only an hour, but I think each of us has been delayed at this airport and any airport throughout the country for two to three hours because of maintenance problems and they can't go back. Finally, to get to your point, I believe, and we would have to see, that you could fashion an exception related to secure areas. I don't know why you couldn't. I mean, Ms. Miller just said that if you do that, you would open it to everywhere, but that's not true. You have exceptions in this ordinance where you're allowing smoking in certain places, and I don't know why there can't be an exception for security. The Churchill Downs case, as I understand it and as I understand how she explained it, is a public place that has no secure area. People can come and go as they want. Councilman Beard again mentioned the theater in the last two hours. If you want to smoke, you can get up and miss two minutes, five minutes of the movie. You can go outside. Every place where smoking is prohibited, there are no restrictions on the movement of the people. The airport and the customers there are restricted on what they can do. And that would be an exception that I believe would withstand the law and doesn't allow my restaurant, for example, to smoke. I can't set up a secure area and do that. So I think that you could do that, and it would be very helpful to the airport and more particularly to the users of our airport. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Dr. Stevens? As I'm sure everybody here knows, I've been on the airport board for over six years now, and I am a great admirer of the management of our airport because I think they've done an excellent job. While other airports around us are losing seats and passengers, ours has been able to maintain it. However, I think that I'm opposed to allowing an exemption for this airport and this building in our urban county government because I think it sets a bad precedent for other buildings. Secondly, I think the legal situation that Ms. Miller brought up may be a problem, but I think it's, to me, it's more of a political thing. It's where we let certain places be exempted and not others under our government. I think that you have in front of you the airports in the United States who have smoke-free airports. There are 133 on this list. and they're being added to each day. So it's not unusual for airports with the same kind of security restrictions to have no smoking. I think our airport is a little different, too, than, say, Atlanta. I've been stuck in it. I don't smoke anymore. But I've been stuck in Atlanta for six or seven hours between flights in the secured area. I don't believe our customers at the Bluegrass Field are under that same time constraints. I don't know, as you know, probably, when the state legislature had a law that required all government buildings, local government buildings, state buildings, to have a smoking room. And that law was repealed, and the plans for our airport were constructed and planned during that time before the repeal of that law. So, and that was just done a couple years ago, as you recall. So I'm for not including any exemptions. Thanks. Thank you. Dr. Blues? Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, I had Blevins, and I saw blues. I'm sorry. This is you, Mr. Blevins. Thank you, Chair. I want to come back to this issue as well. Ms. Hahn, do you have the latest statistics for actual smokers in the bluegrass region, percentage-wise? I know it's on the decline. My memory is, like, below 20 percent. Adult smokers in the bluegrass region. I don't have it off the top. The whole region is probably, my guess is it's about 23 to 24 percent. What do you have off the top of your head? Fayette County? Fayette County, yeah, Fayette County is about 18 percent. About 18 percent. Thank you. That's what I needed. I want to remind us that we're zooming in on one small particular problem area for the ordinance, but let's zoom back out. Remember, this is a public health and safety issue we're talking about, and we're trying to be fair across the board. it would be very difficult politically for us to implement a new policy, a new ordinance here, where we're going to actually exempt businesses as well and yet not follow our own law by exempting ourselves. I want to tackle the problem of competitiveness of our airport and point out a few things. Dr. Stevens already mentioned this 133 other airports list of non-smoking airports. Here's a couple that might be of interest to you. The first two I would point out are Tampa and Orlando, the two destinations that you just mentioned a few minutes ago for your new nonstop routes. Here's a few just to lay out the land there. Los Angeles, San Francisco, LaGuardia, JFK, Orlando, all international airports, all huge airports several times the size of us. I'm sure there are ways to logistically handle both employees and flight delays, because I know for a fact those airports deal with them much more often than we do. As a former business travel with more frequent flyer miles than I care to admit, I can tell you that choice from your business customer comes first on costs, and all costs being equal, then it becomes convenience on the flight time and the destination arrival time. So I really don't see the argument that this is a competitive issue. When you add in the legal problems, yeah, maybe we could wiggle around it with some sort of security thing, but we wouldn't know until it was challenged in the courts to find out one way or another. It just comes back to me that exemptions lead not where we want to go. Where we want to lead with this issue is to restrict smoking, not expand it or allow it. We want to restrict it. So I'm going to be in favor of keeping this in. Thanks. Mr. Beard, and then I think Mr. Meyer is going to bring a motion forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on the basis of security anyway, there are two other buildings right downtown here that have heavy security. the District Court building and the Circuit Court building. And so I guess we would have to exempt them, too. This thing is kind of snowballing on us, it seems to me. For that matter, at some point, we may have security here in this building. And I'm sure the employees would be clamoring for an exemption for us also. So I, again, would support that we hold our ground here and have no exceptions. Thank you. Mr. DeCamp. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I feel a little bit differently about this. I feel that, you know, the airport, because the restricted area is so restrictive, I mean, we talk about other places where you have to walk through, you know, one thing. you have to go through or jump through a lot of hoops, and once you're up there, you don't want to do it again. We do entertain a number of especially foreign dignitaries and other people who come here for the horse industry, which is our major, certainly significant industry within our area, which appeals to many foreign business people. So I think in view of that, you know, that an exception could be made and would not raise any red flags, I don't think, to any other businesses because of the restrictive covenants which go around an airport to get in and out of the sterile areas. So I would be in favor of exempting the airport from this ordinance. Thank you. Mr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question I had come in just a hair late, and I know I believe Dr. Stevens had addressed it, and it's not about the airport. I wanted to let that line of questioning go. As far as speaking with booster clubs, I know I saw the e-mail that was sent and so forth. Would you mind just speaking for the mic? Have you all talked to anybody specifically or talked to them live and in person? Carol Riker from the College of Nursing. No, we have not. Nobody's requested that. I sent that email out through several routes, as you saw, to hopefully cover all the athletic and other types of booster clubs. Gave them my information on how the pull tabs can be sold outside. Okay. And we haven't had any requests to speak. I've had a couple because one of the problems, I think, with the email was when it went to Coach Adkins was they usually have a meeting in the spring, and he kind of saw it as, well, we don't really meet until the spring. And so a number of individual clubs had kind of contacted me. But I believe Mr. Myers is going to bring forward a motion that I'm going to support to bring it forward because I believe there will be some public discussion or ask for some public discussion. And I think that will give them the opportunity to speak to this rather than trying to get people together beforehand and so forth. So I just wanted to ask to make sure I didn't miss that when I came in. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. At this point, I'm going to have Mr. Myers is going to bring a motion for it. I think he's going to bring the full package, and if there's some issues or something needs to be amended, then we'll probably address those as we go. But let's, I think, go ahead and have the full motion, and then we might look at there's potential conditions or amendments on that. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we adopt the ordinance as amended and presented today. and as a part of that motion I also want to establish a public hearing on September 23rd at 6 o'clock p.m. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Could you repeat the date then that we would be having the public hearing please? October 23rd. It would be a hearing or meeting, Law? This is not a zoning question, so it could be a hearing or a meeting. The meeting, you take comment from the public. The hearing is more of a formal proceeding where you take evidence and swear in witnesses. Now, a public meeting requires a quorum of the council. The public hearing does not require a quorum. Okay, then I would move to have a public meeting, and the date and time that we have would be 6 o'clock, which would be before a council meeting, so we shouldn't have any problems getting quorum. We could do it at 8, and we know that we're going to have a meeting. What would be the preference of the committee? 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock. All those in favor of 6 o'clock, raise your hand. All those in favor of 8 o'clock. All right, let's make it at 8 o'clock then. Okay. So then can I restate the motion? Certainly. Please restate your motion. So I move to adopt the ordinance as presented today, and as a part of that motion, schedule a public meeting October 23rd, 8 o'clock p.m. So moved. Could I ask a question? And I think, Mr. Beard, are you going to second that? Yes, I'll second that. Okay. And now a discussion. Yeah. Mr. McCamp. Would this public hearing preclude bringing this forth before the council public meeting? I think the process that we would have now, I would report this out if this passes next Tuesday. We'd have a first reading on the 23rd, and then we would also be having a public meeting, so they would have an opportunity before we had a second reading that would happen on the 6th of November. So they would be able to have comment on this if we need to change anything, but will we take a final vote? Is that okay? Any questions, any discussions on this motion? Ms. Crosby. Yes, going back to Section 3, the wording temporarily. I know you said that this is already in here, permanent or temporary, from the original ordinance law, perhaps. and I was just wondering if, or, I know it's in there, I have the current ordinance in my hand, but George, I was wondering if maybe you might consider taking out or temporarily the addition just because that is a material change to the new ordinance, because it's redundant. In the old ordinance, it says, let me find it, hold on, what does it say? It has down whether permanent or temporary under Section 3A, where you have that under whether permanent or temporary under building Section 1, and then you're adding in temporary here. So you're making a material change to the ordinance by adding in closed walls. So I guess my point is if somebody's going to put down an enclosing, then it would be considered inside anyway. Does that make sense? So they would be smoking inside. I would not be willing to make that motion if you would like to make that motion to amend that. I'd like to make a motion that we take out the word temporarily. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. No. Aye. Let's do a hand vote. All those in favor, say raise your hand, right hand. All those opposed. If that fails, are there any other discussion? Mr. Beard? Thank you again, Chair. This question of all or nothing bothers me somewhat, and we're going down a path where there still seems to be some difference of opinion amongst the council people as to what the interpretation is. Is there another authority, no reflection on this Miller, but is there another authority who we might be able to go to to get between now and the 23rd to maybe make all this a moot point? What do you mean make a moot point? Well, if in fact it's all or nothing, if we exempt them, we're going to have to exempt every government building. And if that is the case, that could change everybody's vote. Well, I think that's the law department needs to. What's case law on that? I don't believe there is any case law. The statute's fairly new, a year or two old, so it's not been through the courts yet. What does the statute say? I don't have a statute in front of me, but I reviewed it. And my interpretation of the statute is the council can create a policy on smoking for government buildings. And it would apply to all government buildings. You can't pick and choose. That's just the wording of the statute as I read it. Ms. Miller, do you have anything to add to that? Would you come forward, please? Yeah, could you just reiterate what he said, or could you give us a statute of what it says, please? Yes. Would you like for me? It's pretty brief. The statute provides that any policy relating to smoking in governmental office buildings or workplaces of counties, municipalities, special districts, urban county governments, etc., shall be adopted in writing by the legislative body of the government and shall, A, require the government authority to provide accessible indoor smoking areas in any buildings where smoking is otherwise restricted and favor allowing smoking in open public areas where ventilation and air exchange are adequate and there are no restrictions otherwise placed on the area by the state fire marshal or other similar authority. That's one provision. or B, prohibit indoor smoking. So it's an and or. Are there any further questions on that? Ms. Crosby? I was just going to ask Mr. Sanders, maybe if you could get us a copy of the statute prior to our public hearing, please. I can email one to all of you for your out-of-work session. Thank you. I think Ms. Henson had a question. I had a question for the airport.