Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. our first item on our agenda today is the approval of the june 18th committee summary are there any additions or corrections okay seeing none is there a motion to approve so i have a motion from councilwoman gray a second from councilmember lagree any discussion on the motion Okay, seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion passes. Thank you, everyone. The next item that we have on our agenda is our annual stormwater priority list update. And we have Mark Sanders here, our engineering section manager in Division of Water Quality, for our presentation. So thank you for being here. Thanks. As this comes up, I think I've met everybody. I'm Mark Sanders, engineering section manager with Division of Water Quality, and this is going to be the storm water section update for this first fiscal year. Today, we're going to talk about the priority project overview, talk about active capital projects it's in construction talk about projects that we have in design into the low overview of capital maintenance work nearly some time for questions severity scoring list in the priority list this priority list which you've heard this is the genesis for what capital improvements are that we are working on we'll talk about this list here in a little bit me trying from low to high on the most main for a buck to be able to actually get on the list for new project it goes through the steps one notification of the problem comes through three one one your office sir come straight to us will investigate it look at the storm see if that fixes it it was in that a cruise the fact he said it losing into being able to look at the engineering report in the end take it a step at a time to be critical things on actually being able to get on the list is the storm of the end one is a twenty five year twenty four hour v yet but it's got to meet to thresholds uh... one is structure flooding water actually has to give you into the the structure third or window or me at the other one is street flooding were has to get a foot of water or has to get over the crown room those two things are aren't me at or it's over the 25 year it won't qualify for a year that the priority list. The actual list is on the link below it's actually on our stormwater website. I think it link actually works if you might want to click on it. But we update this list annually so we'll get updated usually around December on everything that's been completed or upcoming for this for the next physical year calendar year. Active projects in construction we got line drive this is a stormwater project between line drive and Fort Harrod addressing flooding on line drive upsizing the existing stormwater line and expanding the detention basin at Fort Harrod. The bid came in a little under 1.4 and looks like we're going to be able to complete sometime in early October mid-October so soon we get some good weather but that's what we're shooting for this is the project line drive is the road on the right hand side of the screen kind of cutting through the apartment complex over to Fort Harrod and in the hatched area on the top left is the detention basin that we've expanded some construction photos Eastern Ohio Council District 1 project mitigating uh... and flooding at ohio and uh... east third and serious photo on the rack and famous photos going being around for a little bit uh... undersize infrastructure in the area this project came in a little well rather with under two point two million yellow line is a storm line and green line is the uh... a aging center line that were replaced as part of this project this is them by the lyrics so was kind of a middle you know tree in the start past some projects that we have in design that coming uh... joyland area stormwater district is that district one and six under size infrastructure did have been a team detention in the area we broke this project up into two phases phase one which was some detention basins at least a cabin chan and we completed that last year phase two is some infrastructure on freeman drive and also covert under allen drive that project we thought would qualify for fema the hazard mitigation grant we applied last january february was awarded had to play through twenty twenty three but was awarded the uh... the grant about a month ago so they provide her or gave the city one point little under 1.1 million so this just kind of shows the breakdown of the grant we're working a little in a million little bit more for some management fees city's commitment is pt 2000 roughly for 1.1 million projects and blue line images got shifted a little bit blue line on the right of the images the line down free minutes will cover to the stream and in the blue arrow is for alan drop over here period of performance which means we've got to get the project complete by with the grant is may 2nd twenty twenty six which will be a problem everybody most of everybody that especially in that area is her about the cave it's just a area out in the joyland there out in joyland that takes the uh... lot of water miss carlson co that uh... or majority but that's just picture the case uh... cooper drives for more project we just had a uh... public meeting on the s project planned around seventy five percent construction slated for next year it's a solid flooding upon romney road over on and over and a little bit over on colony boulevard The construction estimate right now is 2.5. It was at 3.5. We did some value, a little bit of value engineering. We got that cost down pretty considerable. Mentel Park Northwest or South. Mentel Park North. We studied Mentel Park, and it's actually two projects just due to the size of it. We broke it into a North phase and South phase. Preliminary engineering report is done. This is addressing flooding on Mentel Park. This north phase is going to take the new storm line up Mentel Park, Kramer, and then back down to North Ashland. Design is going to go through this fall and spring. Construction estimates around 1.7. We're targeting construction sometime next year. This is Mentel Park South. Again, the lines on the image have shifted. but this one's going a little bit a little bit taller task because we have to kind of cut through a couple apartments to get over to North Ashland and it'll keep us from getting having to get out on Richmond Road which we're not trying to do but that one's going to be after phase one is complete so we're guessing sometime maybe 2026 maybe 27 but it's it'll just follow the first part capital maintenance this is kind of the smaller projects that a lot of you deal with her see your or encounter a also was takes into account the repair and cleaning projects that that we see just on existing infrastructure and can keep it up to date and also larger repair projects that they don't qualify for typical under the priority list so as you can see the yellow dots are where these are in counter war dealing with these which is all over the county the third makes three out of the gate mill for phase two dogwood park and bernard those are all keyed up probably next six weeks struck break constructs are short to break around on the next five are the ones that currently in design samantha guilford mash station great acres like court for along hacker court her cortex leon at me we got some more in the city that there I'll be talking about throughout this next year with each other so on our summer capital maintenance group we've got a group of three they have overseas a million dollar contract with the city contractor that goes out just help some small for water issues this is kinda some of them one is after a big storm events still go out help clear out debris top right one is over windham hills there's a very good storm line they went out and cover rehab the downstream section of the drain minray street here last month or two we can't are conflict with kentucky american the broken storm lines they worked with the Kentucky American and got the storm line fixed. More issues in our little group handles curb licks and you know gets filled with trash it creates ponding issues. Cleaning concrete flumes working all hours of the day and night. Can't see it but you know the bottom right is a cooler that's blocked in the storm line. They also help with broken the inlets whenever that comes in or something. This is the number on the right is the total work orders that they have produced yearly. 2018 was the inception of the program. We didn't know where it would go or where it would grow into, but so first year had 87. 2019 kind of ramped up to 140. COVID hit, nobody knew really what to do. So, you know, hanging around that 60 mark. And then these last three years, it's kind of built back up pretty solid to the low 200. And that's kind of like what we're seeing right now. So with that, we're kind of quick, but anytime with questions. Colleagues, go ahead and sign in if you would like to speak. Councilmember Lynch. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions about projects that are on the Stormwater Priority Projects Master List that are in my district. Okay. You prefer to answer them now or I can just shoot you an email. Either, I mean, yeah, you can shoot an email and I can either come down and talk one on one with you or, yeah. Okay, I have a couple of questions about some projects, so I'll shoot you an email. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Cipigny. Thank you chair and thanks so much for the presentation Mark and I just wanted to publicly state that It's been it's really fun having you on the team You've done a great job dealing with the neighbors in my district whenever we're dealing with stormwater problems and you you always take the time to make sure they understand what's going on and It's very well done and very professional site just want to tell you how much I appreciate appreciate your hard work and and I do hope to get lion drive project yes completed soon thank you councilman gray thank you chair thank you as always for your presentation and as an awesome resident of the sixth district I applaud you but concerning the Barnard Drive project can you just give a little bit more details I For my colleagues on the committee, Barnard Drive has been dealing with extreme flooding where there's – it's like a river coming down for those residents who live there. It's been an undue hardship for them for a while. It is a flood zone. But more details about that? We've got that project, probably this last year, it's been in design, and we advertised it this past spring, summer, and we have just had the pre-construction meeting this past, I think, two or three weeks. So, contractor is on board, and we're getting close to getting them out there to start the project. That's wonderful news for those residents there. And then also regarding the Joyland neighborhood ongoing issue. It's just wonderful to know that soon the next phase of the project will take place, which is a great win for the residents of that neighborhood for sure. Like I said, we're hoping to advertise that next month, and just due to weather and timing and getting through council, it'll probably hold to March, April before a contractor actually starts just because they like to wait until a little bit better weather. But by fall next year, everything will be finished out there and everything will be repaved and be out of the citizen's hair. Progress is being made and that's always a great, great win for us all. So thank you for all that you do for our city and for things that we don't even know that you all do over there. Thank you. Council Member Lickery. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Sanders. Really appreciate this update. i know that some of it includes the third district and you all have always been so helpful and communicative with us when our constituents have questions or if we're wondering about a particular project or its priority um council member civigny mentioned this as well just that communication piece and so that neighborhood leaders and constituents know who might be watching can you talk a little bit about what that neighborhood outreach looks like typically during different phases of a project and what people should expect if there is something that is slated for their neighborhood yeah as from from the inception of the project we'll one we'll start working with the council to kind of see what the issue is and then through the first part be like an engineering report and then before we actually move forward with an actual project will come out talk with the homeowners of the affected area and then once everybody's on board and we have complete buy-in then we can start looking at either budgeting and planning for the next step next phase which would be the design phase once we get into the design phase then we'll have some meetings throughout that to kind of just be sure again everybody understands the plan because sometimes you know a lot of our lot of our projects are dealing with big pops big structures and it gets a little messy through the whole thing so the earlier that we have buying in just understanding just makes that process easier but throughout the whole phase you know that we're always welcome and open to any questions that you know they can call into water quality or three one one just to or or your offices to get an update or see what's going on great thank you i know that um just making sure that people have accurate information and they know what's going on it helps all of us along the the process which can be quite lengthy so so thank you for that that's it council member sheehan council member fogel thank you chair um and i'll jump on that wagon with the rest of my colleagues i want to thank you first of all for the work that's being done in the first district. It is roots and heritage, and everyone is panicking because the work is being done in front of the lyric, and it's going to move to Ohio Street, and there's a big parade that usually comes down. But you guys came out to the Wimwells Brown Neighborhood Association, and that's what I want to give you thanks for. You know, James Cleveland, which is a famous gospel singer, says, give me my flowers while I yet live. So I'm going to throw out some bouquets of flowers. your team came out to the Wilmwells Brown Neighborhood Association for everyone. And for those community members that are looking, we need you to come down to the Neighborhood Association so you can put your input in and that way we can ease the tension. Roots and Heritage is so large, it's one of the largest African American events that happens in the city of Lexington. And you all guarantee that the roads would be smoothed out, the work is still being done. But I live right around the corner, so I watched that work being done. And you guys always run into another problem that wasn't foreseeable. That's another problem underneath a brick that was underneath a slab that was underneath the dirt. And so things got backed up. So for my constituents, and to tell you all, thank you for the hard job. I see you. I've seen you rush through, but do a great job. You're not just padding it down so you won't hear all of the complaints. And so Thomas Tolliver, he's a member of our community and he was drilling the team. And you guys had an answer and you gave an answer and that's usually what community wants. They just want you to answer their questions. Thank you for the hard work. I know that Roots and Heritage is going to be just as good as it is any other year. We'll do some alterations and some shortcuts through the community, but we know where those shortcuts are. And so I just wanted to thank you for that work and for notifying. And you committed to notifying the residents in that area about the work that's going to continue to go on. So I thank you for that. And that's all I really wanted to say. Face to face, eye to eye. We're on the same page. Thank you so much. Thanks. thank you mr. Sanders I I'm gonna take a moment I'm now that there's no one else signed in to ask just one question but I first also want to say I appreciate you all so much you meet regularly with neighbors in my district and some of the projects that are upcoming are in my district and I just I really appreciate the time that you take you know with even small group meetings and then talking with individual people in addition to the larger neighborhood meetings that we work together on and so I just also want to say that I appreciate that um could we talk a little bit about the completed work orders table um I know on in 2019 the number was the total number was a hundred and forty two and then in 20 21 22 23 taking out the pandemic year yeah um it it's it's a pretty big number it looks like the jump is in point repair and and one of the questions that i have is um you know we're coming up in the to the fall and the council offices um particularly since we changed our like leaf disposal practices get questions about like leaves in the street right and if they're going into the drains or clogging the drains and um I know we have street sweeping and things that are going on to help with that, but it looks like to me based on these numbers that that wouldn't, that isn't having a huge effect on our systems that the, that I feel like would fall into like the cleaning repair section, which hasn't jumped up a lot, but the point repair section does seem to be an increase. So could you talk a little bit about that and what's going on there? The port repair is more of a broken pipe or pipe separation. We need to go in and actually fix hard infrastructure. The clean repair could fall. Maybe some of those items could be the leaves just going to get swept off. The big thing with these numbers on the stormwater side is this is a reactive group. So the numbers are just the complaints that come in. So it's not actively going and looking. So that's why there could be a fluctuation. You know, this year more people called in or more people had complaints or not. But that could be a little bit of the... I think it's good to see that the numbers haven't gone way up, though, on that kind of clean perspective. because I think we were kind of looking for some data on that, and to me this would indicate that that hasn't been a significant problem. Right. We've not seen anything, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you again. We appreciate you and appreciate your presentation today. Yeah. Thanks. Our next item on our agenda is the update to Chapter 8 in Code of Ordinances related to blasting. This item was referred to committee by Councilman Gray, and I'm going to turn this over to her for a presentation and discussion. Thank you, Chair. And if we could put the ordinance on the screen. So to give everyone an update. So this, when I came into office last year, one of the biggest issues I heard from the residents that reside in the 6th district near in the Tuscany area and West Wind neighborhoods were due to issues dealing with ramifications from the blasting that was conducted on polo club which is in the 12th district according to state law only those within 0.5 of the mile half a mile diameter or notified of any blasting within within the area so those who are not within the that within that region were not notified of any blasting whatsoever so after hearing those complaints I contacted the state of Kentucky which deals with blasting and I just want to advance say thank you to Martin Breshear who is basically the head of blasting of any type in the state of Kentucky who has been easy to talk with and easy to throw ideas at also in advance I want to thank our law department particularly Evans Evans Steven Stevenson there you are and director Burton and of course Commissioner Albright for all being so open and let me not forget our CIO Liz Rogers who has also been part of this discussion and as well as because no law is done alone it takes many people to put things into work so I want to also it's always important for me to reach out to those who have been impacted or harmed and those who may be potentially impacted by a new or pending ordinance for the city and in this case it would be those who do blasting in the city of Lexington dealing with construction so thank you to all of those from ball homes to ATS to other developers and can and who are involved in that realm for being open for discussions and thank you for your input because this is outside my my realm of understanding so thank you to everyone that has given their input to make this possible so going back to the point is that this law right here opens up the fact to give transparency and give residents who are not in that in that in that diameter that half mile region an opportunity to know of any blasting in our city and Evan would you like to say anything director Burton would you like to say anything so according to this this thank you everyone for coming up Commissioner would you like to say anything so this new ordinance right here reading through it it just it creates an arm for to create a website a web page where we will just have an area for blasting to be located and that is solely the encompassing of this ordinance right here that is all and I'm open for any questions Colleagues, go ahead and sign in if you have comments or questions. Councilmember Worley. She's not on the committee. Thank you, Chair. So this is an area that I know is highly regulated by the state and federal government and that most all blasting goes through the Department of Natural Resources. That's correct. So this doesn't attempt to impose anything more or different than the state or federal regs. As I'm reading this, this is more just a notice, trying to provide more notice to the public about blasting. This doesn't impose any more restrictions on these companies. I wanted to be clear. It's just notice. and it's subject to approval by the state before it will go into effect to pursue into the state law. We have to get approval of lasting regulations before they're implemented. So this will be sent to the state for their approval. Once it's approved, then it will be implemented. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for recognizing me since I don't serve on the committee. I just want to make sure I understood, is it the state that's going to have to send out the notifications, or are we taking on responsibility for sending out additional ones? So the state is just creating a way to notify our residents. Currently, our blasters go through, it's heavily, as Council Member Worley stated, it is heavily regulated. This is just a means to provide notice in any way whatsoever. ever and restate your question my main question was who's going to provide that notice will it be the state or will it be us it will be the state who relays the information to the city so they'll sorry this is really loud um they'll send the information to our environmental services and then we send out the notice or the state directly sends out the notices to our residents That's my question. So the state only by ordinance, by state law, they only send in half a mile from the blasting. So all we're doing is ensuring that those outside of that region have an opportunity to see. So the information comes from the state cabinet that deals with blasting who will inform the city. Basically, I'm getting everyone to talk because typically we are all in silos, And we have a state government who doesn't necessarily always communicate the best way possible with this local government. And this is just creating an arm to ensure that our residents have transparency and are informed. Director Burton? The way the ordinance is written now is the contractors who are getting the blasting permits from the state. Obviously, part of that will also be a land disturbance permit from us. So they'll be notifying us as well. I say they, the contractor who's actually getting the permit. And then we'll put that into the land disturbance permit in our SELA program. Once it gets pat, once this is fully vetted by the state, by us, et cetera, we've talked about working with our GIS folks to then pull that information from a SELA into a GIS map so that we could have dots on a map to show people where there's blasting. So we are not sending out blast notices. the contractor sends out that notice to a larger area and then notifies us. So this would, in essence, ask the state to send out more. This doesn't ask the state to do anything. Okay. This asks contractors. The contractors that got their permission from the state to blast, this will say to the contractors, you have to send out a notice that's further than that half a mile radiant. No. So I'll say it a different way. you through so when blasters when people do construction in the city of lexington they go through certain documents they have to file so in accela we're looking to add like a maybe something in accela saying we're going to blast on this certain day and it may happen from five to nine depending on the weather so this is just a way for when they do that they can go ahead and let us know and then no one does anything it's they just put it in there and we put it on our site right we haven't figured out the exact logistics of that yet but um the the general idea is that we'll use the existing infrastructure we have with the cell and our gis to create some sort of mapping so that the same thing happens if a lot of you have seen our right away map that we have so one of the primary calls we get from this horseshoe is who's digging in my yard so So, and that right-of-way map has really helped with to eliminate some of those phone calls. This will be the same thing. You'll be able to click on that dot, who's blasting, what are they doing, what is their schedule, this date to this date. Okay, I think I got it. So, we're not extending the area of notification. We're just telling the city, hey, we're doing this so they're aware. And if someone calls us, we can say, oh, yeah, someone's blasting over there. Right. Is that correct? Okay, thank you. I understand now. Sorry for taking so long. Thank you. Council member Savigny. Thank you, Chair. I just have a follow up question. Because I know off Leastown Road, we have a, there's a, yeah, there's that quarry over there. And I've been over there when it goes off at four o'clock almost every day. Do they have a different process for someone who's in the business of doing this? Yeah, they're still regulated by the Office of Mine Reclamations, but they have a standing blasting permit because obviously they blast every day at 3 o'clock. So the process is a little different from them because that one would be a dot that basically says they're blasting all year. So that would be a little different, but it would still, because they're getting a blasting permit, they would still notify us, but they don't have a land disturbance permit through us. So we'll have to figure out a way to handle that other than just manually putting in a dot that says we all know they're blasting every day at three o'clock for the next roughly 10 years. Yeah, it was it was something we could always set our our clocks to. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, chair. Councilman Gray, do you have a motion for us for moving this forward? yes I would like to make a motion for the community to approve this ordinance or this tentative ordinance and report out to the council yeah I have a motion do I have a second council member Lynch is our second discussion discussion on the motion please sign in if you have discussion okay Seeing none, I will call for a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. Our next item on our agenda today is the Empower Lexington update. We will hear from Jada Griggs, our Sustainability Program Manager, and Blaine Early with the Environmental Commission. to discuss the empower lexington plan update before they begin i'd like to take a moment to uplift the hard work that miss griggs and her team and community stakeholders have done to update this vitally important document the last version of the empower lexington plan was approved in 2012 and i don't have to tell you how much the world has changed in the past decade plus a few years Re-evaluating best practices, incorporating new research, and recommending a path forward as we work to meet the goals and objectives of our comprehensive plan are all such welcome developments and I look forward to today's presentation. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you Chair Sheehan and the committee members for the opportunity for us to present Empire Lexington, a plan for a resilient community. I know you've been waiting on this, and we're happy to present this to you all today. So I'm going to, let me back up just one. I am Jada Walker-Griggs, Sustainability Program Manager Senior with the Division of Environmental Services. And I have with me from the Empire Lexington Plan Committee, Blaine Early, the Stice and Harbison, and also the Environmental Commission. I'm going to go over the history and Blaine is going to go over the updates for the plan and then we will discuss what's next. So the history of the plan, Council passed a resolution in February of 2008 authorizing Lexington to participate in the voluntary City for Climate Protection Program. Under this program, communities were to develop plans to lower energy and emissions. It was a multi-year effort to develop the plan in 2012. The target was set to reduce community-wide energy use by 1%, and focused on managing using resources wisely, providing resources to communities needs to help us then to reduce the energy usage and also to be more energy efficient. There were approximately 75 stakeholders over the three-year period from 2009 to 2012. It was facilitated by LFUCG, also the Division of Environmental Services at the time. There were 27 recommendations and ideas developed by community stakeholders in five areas that we call sectors. So you see those residential, transportation, industrial, commercial and institution, land use, food, agriculture and waste were the five. Under the Climate Protection Program, Council also passed a resolution implementing the Empire Lexington plan. That resolution passed on May 10, 2012. Also the implementation for the Empire Lexington plan was in the 2018 comprehensive plan. Here's a timeline to give you an idea and I know Councilmember Sheehan, Chair Sheehan, actually kind of gave you a brief guideline, but here's a look at that. So in 2008, Council then passed a resolution for the city to participate in cities and climate protection program. There you see that three year period from 2009 to 2012 where the stakeholders developed the initial plan and May of 2012 was when the resolution was passed supporting the implementation of the plan. In June 2021, a program manager senior for sustainability position was approved in fiscal the year 22 budget. February 2022, I was hired as program manager senior for sustainability and started working on through the community to gather some of our stakeholders to come together as core teams, which started the process in 2023 for us to update this plan. So that's a brief history because I know in previous presentations I've given you a brief history, but here's what you've been waiting for, right? Anxiously awaiting the updates from 2023, and at this time I'd ask Blaine to come forward with that, please. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Griggs. I first want to clarify my position standing before you, Chair Sheehan, Council Members. I come today as a citizen, as a resident of Lexington and Fayette County, and offer you my insights as a participant in the core team. Even though I'm associated with Stites and Harbison and the Environmental Commission, I'm speaking for myself today, not my law firm, not the Environmental Commission. And so please take that. If you get mad at anybody, get mad at me for what I say. So the core team began by looking at the 2012 plan and we evaluated what had been proposed, what had been accomplished, a whole lot of things that remained to be undone, and then what kinds of things needed to be added. As Chair Sheehan mentioned, the world has changed a lot in the last 12 years. We looked at a variety of plans from other communities, trying to find a model that would let us advance Lexington-Fayette County and be able to compare ourselves just to see how we're doing. And we settled on this Lead for Cities program. Now, the Lead for Cities offered a number of advantages, and I think you're going to learn about the application by Lexington for the Lead for Cities program in the future. But let it be said that what the LEAD program did was to provide specific sectors that varied a little bit from the sectors in the 2012 plan. It was kind of a snapshot of what we are now and what might be needed to be accomplished to come up to the standards of the LEAD recommendations by the U.S. Green Building Council. So the core team set about looking at committee work for really kind of a parallel track. One was preparing the information responses to the LEAD4Cities application. The other was to develop goals, recommendations, strategies for our own Empower Lexington plan slash sustainability plan. Now one of the things that we examined really didn't fit into the LEAD system. And this is a copy of the charge to the committees, the working groups. That's at page 50 of your packet. And the very last item on there, item two at the bottom of this page on the screen, at the second page in your packet, 51, is the very unique relationship we have here in Lexington. We are not just an urban community. We're an urban rural community. And some of the lead analyses kind of didn't get that. So we've added a number of goals and objectives and measurements in the Empower Lexington plan that don't really fit into the overall lead format. The sector committees reached out, or to populate the sector committees, we reached out to a number of people that were of known interest and skills, knowledge sets, interested people, self-volunteers. There's a very, very broad outreach to get involvement. They had about 50 people. And then when you look at the number of individuals and groups to whom they were then contacted to get more information, it's much broader than that 50. Who knows how many are actually involved? But the list of long-term participants are in the plan. They developed individual sets of recommendations depending upon the sectors. Those recommendations were presented to the public by a series of public meetings and by an online survey. The opinions, the responses, the additional suggestions then came back to the core teams and then came back to the sector groups and then to the core team. The top community recommendations are shown in the plan itself highlighted in blue. All along this process is an overarching question about what our greenhouse gas emissions might be. That's important because as a measure of what we're doing to reduce energy use, to be more efficient and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to, we hope, mitigate climate change. We need to have that kind of measurement. The 2012 plan used one kind of model for that. Again, analytical techniques, modeling techniques, what we know about sources of greenhouse gases have changed, and so we have a different set of procedures that are used for this global protocol in the greenhouse gas inventory that you've already heard about. Now to the sectors. The first sector we're going to talk about is this materials and resources. A waste study was conducted in 2022, I think, and that found that really the principal categories of wastes going into the municipal solid waste landfills were things like organic wastes and paper and metal. Now the council has commissioned a study to look at a digester that might help to mitigate some of the organic waste going into the landfill. There are already recycling programs for paper and metal and those we're working to continue to improve those. One thing that's not addressed is plastics and if you remember from some of the pictures you saw in the stormwater system, the the stormwater report you just saw today, in some of the receptacles, the curb cutouts, the debris in the one sump that you saw, plastics literally gum up the works. They also can contribute to a variety of environmental harms that are only now beginning to be evaluated. So this particular one focuses on plastics, something that has been overlooked, but is a fruitful way to perhaps reduce wastes. The next on natural systems and ecology, we begin by recognizing what this community has already done. We have one of the first communities, or maybe the first, to adopt an urban services boundary. That's an ongoing discussion that we're having about the expansion of the paved areas versus the unpaved areas, the agricultural areas, natural areas, and so on. The overarching goal here was to continue to preserve land with vegetative and tree cover. One aspect of this is the, well actually, excuse me, two, but one aspect in terms of the greenhouse gases not covered by the current greenhouse gas protocol, the global protocol, is the role of non-tree cover, regular grasslands, vegetated natural lands, and their sequestration of carbon dioxide. The current protocol looks just at trees, but recognize that as we change land use, as we pave over grassy or natural areas, those reduce those carbon sequestering plants that are present and reduce the availability of that particular taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. So we'll see where that goes. I understand that the global protocol is moving to change that and integrate those other kinds of sequestration in the calculations there. Next in transportation, again, much of our, much of the greenhouse gas emissions related to transportation is outside of our control with our highways and railroads and aircraft. But one area that is within our control are our neighborhoods. And so this particular goal focuses on making our neighborhoods more walkable, more accessible, with the overall goal of reducing individual vehicle miles traveled to reduce energy use, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Quality of life, even in the lead for cities system, is kind of a nebulous thing, but we can all agree, one, that Lexington's a great place to live. but two, not all of our residents take advantage or are able to take advantage of all the bounty that we have. And so the goal of this is to continue to enable neighborhoods to improve their qualities of life, whatever that might be. And it's kind of a mindfulness-raising exercise here to make sure that as we take actions, let's assure that we're having positive impacts on the quality of life for all the communities. Water efficiency is the next sector. We are blessed with an abundance of water. Thank goodness for the Kentucky River. Thank goodness for the surface waters and the car systems here in central Kentucky, unlike places like Las Vegas. But water is still an important feature. Water quality is an incredible feature. Because if the water that runs off of our properties, off of our streets, off of our yards, gets into the rivers, and eventually somebody's going to drink that. And if it's not clean, it's going to have to be treated and treated to a greater extent. So this particular goal focuses on using trees and riparian buffers to reduce water runoff and to improve water quality. Greenhouse gas emissions, the next sector. This is kind of a big focus. Remember the greenhouse gas inventory. But remember that with all the individual actions that were encouraged by the 2012 plan, which were couched in the area of individual actions to reduce energy use and thereby reduce utility costs, and at the same time have the win-win situation of reducing expenses at the same time of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Well, you can only take those individual efforts so far. They continue to be important, but if you are driving an electric vehicle and plugging that electric vehicle into charge in a grid that is supplied by systems that produce large amounts of greenhouse gases, in other words, electricity produced from fossil fuels, you still have a greenhouse gas emissions issue. And so this particular goal of the energy and greenhouse gas systems sector is to work with the utilities to see if we can't get them to move more to carbon neutral systems. And then before I turn this over to Ms. Griggs, I want to make two points. First off, during the pandemic, the Environmental Commission did recommend to the Council to fund a position to implement the Empire Lexington Plan. Then Vice Mayor Steve Kay got that in as a line item, as Ms. Griggs pointed out. How many more minutes do you think you might need to finish up? Okay, let's do five. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Griggs was hired, so thank you for doing that. I've worked with Ms. Griggs now for probably 12 to 14 years. I have found her, this is my second point, I have found her to be tireless, imaginative, insightful, a good team builder, and she gets it. So thanks, Ms. Griggs. Thank you, Blaine. It's my pleasure. But let's talk about what's next. So we view the Empire Lexington plan as a key to becoming more energy efficient in a more sustainable community. We have plans to develop an emissions reductions plan. So where we are, we know where we are looking at our greenhouse gas emissions inventory. How do we get to net zero by 2050, right? And so that's a big deal. This piece is coming. So, you know, our proposals for our reductions, 50% by 2030 and net zero by 2050 are in line with national targets and also Lexington's comp plan. Imagine Lexington, 2045 goals that were approved by council. Include an assessment of the effects of climate change along with the adaptation strategies to best address those challenges. You have to know what the challenges are, you have to know where you are in order to combat those. And so that's what we'll be looking at. We'll qualify our community-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventory every two years to track our progress. That was a recommendation from our energy and greenhouse gas emissions sector for Empire Lexington to share those results to council and also public and then to revise our plan as needed. So what we're also asking today then is to request Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee consider resolution to approve the 2023 Empire Lexington plan, a resolution approving Empire Lexington, a plan for a resilient community, a community-wide sustainability plan designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in Lexington, Fayette County, and further supporting community efforts in furtherance of its implementation. Approving the plan and supporting our community efforts will both have a positive environmental and economic impact. And so I'm going to put this acknowledgment sheet here that shows all the name of those who were technically members of Empire Lexington. As Blaine mentioned, we sought out information from many people whose names are not here. I want to thank them for their support, their insight. And then our residents were also filling out the survey that we put out as well. It was all a combination and Blaine's covered that, but without these folks here on this list, we would not have been able to finish getting things together for at least for city certification and then the information that was needed for the updates for the plan. And we do have several of the core team members and probably some members in the sectors as well that are present today at council, so I want to thank them again. And with that, we'll take any questions. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation and thank you to everyone here who is a part of this team to get to where we are at this point. Council members, if you have general comments or questions about the plan, go ahead and log in and then we will discuss the resolution after that. members of Vigni thank you and thank you so much for the work and I and I know that we've got a dedicated group of volunteers who have have done a lot of the lifting and I do really appreciate all of them and they do they do deserve a little round of applause I do appreciate that so I do think I mean from our greenhouse gas emissions discussion that we had prior to break that utilities and you and and the transformation of our utilities is super important do you feel like at some point there will have to make will have to make some sort take some sort of step as an urban county council to to encourage a different form of cleaner electricity because I I do know from our from the from the inventory itself like that number drives so much of our net zero and I don't know exactly how we're going to overcome that number unless something changes there I will agree that there are changes needed. And cleaner energy sources definitely are the way. One of the things that, and I want to be cautious how I speak because it's one thing to tell you and then it's another thing to show you what I mean. And so that is coming with the emissions reductions plan. Part of this process, and we ask them to look at, you know, the smart goals, are they attainable? How do we do that? And also be able to prioritize what we can do. And then with this, we'll become costs associated with that. If we do these, how much reduction we can make. And so that is pending. And so we're working through the comprehensive plan, which is the regional plan for the MSA that you all heard previously. As part of that process, we will look at it from a regional standpoint, but we will also pull out Lexington and Fayette County and exactly what we need. We're also going to have a Climate View platform. If you haven't seen that or are not sure what that is, if you would visit or search Cincinnati's, you'll be able to see how Climate View can, that platform can help us see what can be done. And so we've got a lot of things going on and we're going to have significant information when it comes to that. But you are correct, cleaner energy sources are definitely what is going to be needed to move the needle on greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you. And a follow up. I know is one of the things you do as a city is you try to lead by example, right? And so as a city government, I definitely would like to lead by example. Like, do we have things in place yet on our own building projects that we're trying to lead with? And I know we've been talking about a new government center at one time. I mean, there's a lot of things that are on the plate. And I just want to know kind of how you feel like some of the items that we should be considering is that we have direct control over. Well, let me say that I certainly want to lead by example. And my colleague, James Bush, who is the energy manager for the city, is at the forefront of just that, you know, that question. And so we've been discussing internally. I know that they have seats at the table with energy efficiency we're building, but there's work to do. And so that's coming as well. And I would definitely, we definitely would need the support to move forward with that. But with the changes that are made, we know budget is an issue and some of the needs or requests may be costly. And those are some things that council will definitely have to look at. But then knowing that, in order to make the move that we need to make to reduce our greenhouse and gas emissions, we will need to make some tough decisions maybe and think outside the box of some things that we've done traditionally. Like just lower cost of things. It may not always be the low bid. Thank you. Thanks so much for your hard work and thank you, Chair. Council Member Legree. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Griggs and Mr. Early, I just want to say I am really, really impressed with the progress that you all have made, with the report that you shared in this packet and the scope of your work, including the level of involvement that we see with experts within government and within our community. And I think that all the names on that sheet indicate what a priority area this is to Lexington, to the whole of our community. I also want to say, looking through the report itself, it's so informative. And it's so well designed, and it's really, really accessible, and has a range of resources that I think will be really valuable to our constituents. You have all those hyperlinks in there, some really great definition of terms. And I was glad to see that because I know that when I share it out with people, no matter where they are in their process of being invested in this work, that they'll have a good starting point. Yes. And I also think that this proposed resolution gives this work even more strength and power, and it allows us to confirm our commitment to the goals and strategies that you all have put out here, which I think are absolutely obtainable. I don't want to put you on the spot. I know council member Savigny asked a couple of questions already. But as we turn toward the future of what you have here, what can we do right now to help you? Do you need us to help generate attention for Empower Lexington? Do you need resources? How can we be good advocates and supporters right now? Well, your support is definitely welcome and needed for us to be able to do this community-wide, also leading by example. One thing, we're working to get the plan and the resources on our webpage, and our residents can find that information, and you all can find the information on our sustainability page. They will be able to click the hyperlinks to find the information. We've already been working on what we would call low hanging fruit or working through the 2012 plan. Solarize Lexington and Solarize programs were one of those initiatives in the 2012 plan. This is our second year for Solarize Lexington and then council gave us $1 million for each of those years for low to moderate income households. We've been working on initiatives to help. And one thing that I always try to remember to say is, there's no small thing to do. So the initiatives that we just did with the pickleball recycling, that's keeping a stream out of, something out of our waste stream. We will continue to work on those. the materials and resources recommendation that was number one on the minds of our residents was what to do about single use plastics. And so we're working on initiatives for that. But I think that working to help support budgets and working to help improve energy efficiency in any of our buildings and having the appliances that we need, the HVAC systems that are meant to do what James and his team would need us to do from an energy efficiency modeling and just supporting that. So we will continue. There will be many, many more things come out of this. And so I see Blaine approach, so he wants to add more to this as well. But having your support and helping with budgetary issues so that we can do this, and you'll be able to see this is going to cause this much, and again, this will happen. And then you'll be able to, we'll be able to do, prioritize and rank things to let you know which ones you will get the most for your buck, if you will. And so I'll let Blaine go ahead, please. Thank you. And Jada didn't ask me to say this. I appreciate your comments about the report itself. And that's the value of having an actual graphic artist help design that. It's not just a bunch of text with a few random photos thrown in. So thank you very much for pointing that out. I think one of the things that could be done to help the community, to help Jada, is perhaps more budget support for another position. I know you've recently hired an assistant, but with the EPA regional issue, the local climate plan, the Solarize Lexington, there's a lot to do. And a person whose job it is, is public outreach, is take all this information that all these individual groups have, whether it's the Empower Lexington plan or the greenhouse gas reduction plan or whatever it is, and actually go to the community centers, go to the churches, that person's job is community outreach and education. The Environmental Commission, this is where I will speak for the Environmental Commission, it's been trying to do that, but it's all volunteers, and it's limited. Someone who has that job and that accountability for going to those meetings and making those presentations would be extremely helpful. Thank you. And so you do see us in the community. I'm sorry, I know it's time. But just to wrap it up, you do see us in the community doing that. You will see more of that. In fact, this evening at 530, we have our regional focus group meetings. It's going to build on climate action plan for our region. And also Lexington is tonight at the Marksberry Library. And through that process, we will also have a technical focus group, which will be dedicated to those experts in the field. Blaine mentioned how many people were involved, and you saw the names, and some of them were very passionate about subjects and sectors. These will be technical experts who will help us look at each individual sector and what we can actually do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions regionally. And then we, again, will pull that information out for Lexington and Fayette County and then be able to present it to you. So some of these questions, you know, we'll be able to answer more in details. But, yes, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fogel. Thank you, Chair. And that comment leads me right into my question. Thank you for the segue. I was, one of my constituents called today because they got the news about the solar energy and all of that. They went to the either Community Action or Black and Whims, and that person there didn't know what to do. Like, she called me, she said, I've got my tax forms, I turned in my, everything that they asked. She said it was like pages of things that they had to turn in, in order to qualify for this program. But the person at the center didn't know what to do with it. So my question is more or less like training. I heard you talk about outreach, and I want to talk about our older community constituents in the north end of town. That they don't know about links. They can't get on the computer to trace this. And so I would invite, and I support the other position. I just want you to know, I'm going to say that out loud, I support two positions. Because this looks like if we're going to move in this direction, we have to have people in place. So that when the community gets there, they don't lose hope. And so over in the north inner town, this is very new. And we have elderly people who really don't like change, but can understand that their bills will be reduced. And we've got LexTran with all of that fuel that's poisoning our community. Even though we need to ride Lex Tran, but we got to figure out some way of getting some of that pollution down. And so the constituents are looking for ways to come into the program. But it's like in the evening, like if meetings are held at 10, 11 in the daytime, it's going to be hard for a community to get to those trainings or to listen. So I invite you all out to some of our neighborhood associations. We'll make that work out, let my legislative aide know so that we can get you all out so that they can understand. Some of the wording may have to be changed because I'm sitting up here trying to follow you as I'm reading through and turning pages. So I would suggest that that happens and that I saw where it said existing homes and new homes that will be built or new locations. I was reading through that and I was looking at the sidewalks and the infrastructure in the north end. And when you said priority and to prioritize, I said first district. First district. That's what went through all of my spirit as we look at priorities. So I look forward to this information coming and being in the North End. And so I would like to tell my constituent what to do next. And if we need more positions or if we need to train the people who are at these facilities so that they will have an answer for them because they're really grabbing hold to it and they understand. Look, my heating bill, I got six kids and my heating bill will go down if I get on board with this program. So that's what I wanted to say and thank you for all your work, thank you for your presentation. But maybe if we can have a conversation past this meeting, I would greatly appreciate that for the first district. And let me just, thank you, let me just touch on this. If you have a community event, my position is outward facing. I'm happy to, as my calendar will allow, and stuff to participate, that is what I do. I will say that for the Solarize Lexington program, Director Sanders and Community and Resident Services are doing the qualifying for the grant recipients. And this is the second year that they've done that. So I know maybe they've had some new people, but they certainly know about the grant itself. And they do ask them to come to that. So I don't know if the person maybe went to a wrong office or something, but this is the second year they've done it. And that's because that's what that division does. So as part of that, I get the information back from them and then I reach out to the homeowner. And I ask them if they can fill the form out online, but if not, I'm happy to help them. And I've entered many of them myself, so we're always happy to help. So if there's an opportunity for us to speak on something, if you'd reach out to us, we can certainly be available. Well, thank you for that, and you're also just one person. So council members, I know we always have trouble when we ask for positions, as we saw before we went to council break, but I'm pretty sure we can make that happen. So I'm no longer one person. Since December, I've become a sector, I'm used to saying sector, a section of two. And so, but if it is in your budget to see to another person, we do have plenty of work. Well, thank you so much. Colleagues, this presentation fell under my item in committee for exploring sustainability options. and with the resolution that Ms. Briggs has brought to us, I would like to make the motion for the resolution. I'll read that in a second for us to be able to discuss that. I move to approve the proposed resolution approving the Empower Lexington, a plan for a resilient community, a community-wide sustainability plan designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in Lexington, Fayette County, and further supporting community efforts in furtherance of its implementation. so moved but i have a mission and several seconds and discussion on the motion please find it council member lakery uh... thank you chair i have kind of just a logistical question uh... i'm curious about uh... for the sake of the expediency of this initiative and the associate a resolution if it would be uh... appropriate request that this be reported out early given that our next eqpw meeting is not until october that would be i assume a question for miss griggs or for you chair i mean i will respectfully say yes it will be appreciative if uh we would very much appreciate it if you could would expedite that and that's just another thing that just shows our community that you are are indeed moving things forward and interested in making sure that our city can be the most resilient community that it can be so I greatly appreciate that thank you thank you chair does that how does that work would you like an amendment a second motion yeah that would be a second motion so let's finish this discussion and then we can entertain that much okay thank you any other discussion on the motion for the resolution okay seeing none all in favor say aye any opposed okay that motion passes and then councilmember lagree if you would like to make the motion for suspension of the rules you can do that now okay thank you chair um i moved to suspend the rules um in order to report this resolution out early um today tuesday august 20th 2024 uh so moved second okay we have a motion and multiple seconds any discussion on the motion okay seeing no one signed in all in favor say aye any opposed okay thank you all and thank you on this plan and I'm excited to see it move forward the last item on our agenda is items referred to committees so if anyone has a status update or any items to remove we could entertain those motions now or discussion now okay seeing no one signed in just a little note we have our next meeting in October on the 22nd currently on the agenda for that meeting is our annual snow removal plan, the MS4 program update, and our at-home composting program for presentations. Council member Svigny? Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to remove item number five, review of the urban services fund from the list because I've done that presentation. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Okay. Seeing no one else signed in, I will call us adjourned for the day. Thank you, everyone. you