# Council Work Session - August 20, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 20, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6189 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6189?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-08-20 - **Last revised**: August 20, 2024 - **Length**: 16,452 words - **Speakers**: Mayor > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened on August 20, 2024, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber in Lexington, Kentucky, with Vice Mayor Wu presiding over the session. The council addressed seven agenda items during the meeting, covering a range of municipal business including administrative approvals, budget matters, and capital projects. All seven agenda items were approved by the council, including the approval of the July 9, 2024 Work Session Summary, various budget amendments, new business items, mayoral appointments, donations, procurement matters, and council capital projects. The meeting included seven motions and votes, with one public comment heard during the proceedings. The session demonstrated efficient municipal governance with unanimous approval across all presented items, addressing both routine administrative matters and substantive policy decisions affecting the Lexington-Fayette urban county. ## Attendance The meeting on August 20, 2024 was attended by 14 members, with 2 absent. **Present:** • Vice Mayor Wu • J. Brown • Ellinger II • Fogle • Lynch • LeGris • Monarrez • Sheehan • Gray • F. Brown • Baxter • Sevigny • Reynolds • Plomin **Absent:** • Mayor Gorton • Worley No members arrived late to the meeting. Vice Mayor Wu presided over the meeting in the absence of Mayor Gorton. ## Votes and Decisions The council conducted seven voice votes during the meeting, with all motions passing unanimously with 14 ayes and 0 nays. **Approval of the July 9, 2024 Work Session Summary** [timestamp: 00:03] Vice Mayor Wu motioned to approve the work session summary, seconded by Plomin. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 00:05] Plomin motioned to approve budget amendments, seconded by Baxter. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of New Business** [timestamp: 00:07] Baxter motioned to approve new business items, seconded by Fogle. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of Communications from the Mayor - Appointments** [timestamp: 00:09] Baxter motioned to approve mayoral appointments, seconded by Monarrez. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of Communications from the Mayor - Donations** [timestamp: 00:10] Plomin motioned to approve donations communicated by the mayor, seconded by Sheehan. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of Communications from the Mayor - Procurements** [timestamp: 00:11] Wu motioned to approve procurement items from the mayor, seconded by Gray. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). **Approval of Council Capital Projects** [timestamp: 00:12] Fogle motioned to approve council capital projects, seconded by Reynolds. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (14-0). All votes were conducted as voice votes rather than roll call votes, with no individual member votes recorded. No abstentions were recorded for any of the motions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed three significant financial authorizations totaling $530,315.10 across multiple city projects and services. **Roots and Heritage Festival Agreement (L0752-24)** The council authorized a $35,500 purchase of service agreement with the Roots and Heritage Festival, Inc. This contract supports the annual community cultural event. **Mt. Tabor Road Infrastructure Project (L0761-24)** Authorization was granted for Change Order No. 2 (Final) with ATS Construction for the Mt. Tabor Road Multimodal Improvements Project, adding $182,474.10 to the existing contract. This represents the final modification to the infrastructure enhancement project designed to improve transportation options along the Mt. Tabor Road corridor. **East Hickman Pump Station Project (L0763-24)** The largest financial commitment involved approving a $312,341 Engineering Service Agreement with Hazen and Sawyer PSC for the East Hickman Pump Station Expansion and Rehabilitation project. This engineering contract covers the design and planning phases for expanding and upgrading the critical water infrastructure facility. These three authorizations demonstrate the city's continued investment in cultural programming, transportation infrastructure, and essential utility systems. The contracts span different municipal departments and represent both ongoing project modifications and new engineering initiatives to serve the community's infrastructure needs. ## Public Comment The public comment period featured one speaker who addressed compensation issues within the urban county government. **Rick Day** spoke at [timestamp: 02:45] regarding what he characterized as arbitrary compensation decisions within the urban county government. Day highlighted specific discrepancies in salary recommendations for two recent hires, pointing to inconsistencies in how compensation is determined for new employees. His comments focused on the lack of standardized processes for setting salaries and the resulting disparities between similar positions. Day's remarks centered on the need for more transparent and consistent compensation practices within the government structure, using the two recent hiring examples to illustrate broader systemic issues with salary determination processes. ## Contested Items The August 20, 2024 meeting featured two contested votes related to ad valorem tax rate settings, both resulting in split decisions by the council. **General Services Fund Ad Valorem Tax Rate** The council voted on setting the General Services Fund Ad Valorem Tax Rate at Option 1, which resulted in a split vote. One council member voted against the proposal while the remaining members supported it. The measure ultimately passed despite the dissenting vote. **Urban Services Fund Ad Valorem Tax Rate** Similarly, the council considered setting the Urban Services Fund Ad Valorem Tax Rate at Option 1. This item also generated a split vote, with one council member opposing the proposal while others voted in favor. The measure passed with the majority support. Both contested items involved the same voting pattern, with a single council member consistently opposing the Option 1 tax rate settings for both funds. The specific details of Option 1 for each fund, the identity of the dissenting council member, and the reasoning behind the opposition were not specified in the available meeting data. These tax rate decisions represent significant fiscal policy choices for the municipality, affecting both general services and urban-specific services funding. The split votes indicate some level of disagreement among council members regarding the appropriate tax rate levels for these funds. ## Approval of July 9, 2024 Work Session Summary [timestamp: 00:03] The council considered approval of the summary from their July 9, 2024 work session. Vice Mayor Wu presented the item for consideration by the council members. No corrections, additions, or modifications were requested to the work session summary as presented. The council proceeded without any discussion or debate regarding the content or accuracy of the summary document. The July 9, 2024 Work Session Summary was approved by the council without amendment. ## Budget Amendments The council considered proposed budget amendments during the August 20, 2024 meeting [timestamp: 00:05]. Fred Brown served as the key speaker for this agenda item, presenting the amendments to the council for approval. The discussion was brief, with the council moving efficiently through the review of the proposed budget changes. While the specific details of the amendments were not extensively detailed in the available materials, the item was structured as an approval matter requiring council action. Following Brown's presentation and the council's review, the budget amendments were approved by the council. The streamlined nature of the discussion suggests the amendments may have been previously reviewed or were relatively straightforward in nature, allowing for quick consideration and approval. The successful approval of these budget amendments enables the necessary fiscal adjustments to move forward as proposed. ## New Business [timestamp: 00:07] The council addressed several new business items during this portion of the meeting. Council members Baxter and Fogle were the primary speakers for this agenda item. The new business section included various authorizations and agreements that required council approval. While the specific details of individual items were not provided in the available materials, the discussion covered multiple matters that needed formal council action. The council proceeded through the new business items systematically, with Baxter and Fogle leading the presentation and discussion of the various proposals. The items appeared to be routine administrative matters requiring official authorization from the council. Following the presentation and any necessary discussion, the council voted to approve the new business items as presented. The approval was granted without significant debate or opposition noted in the available records. The new business agenda item was completed efficiently, allowing the council to move forward with the remaining items on their meeting agenda. ## Communications from the Mayor - Appointments [timestamp: 00:09] The council considered mayoral appointments during this agenda item. The discussion involved key speakers Baxter and Monarrez, who addressed the recommended appointments from the Mayor. The council reviewed the appointments as presented, though the specific details of the positions, appointees, or discussion points were not detailed in the available materials. The item proceeded as a standard approval matter for mayoral appointments. Following the presentation and any discussion, the council voted to approve the Mayor's recommended appointments. The item was approved without recorded opposition. ## Communications from the Mayor - Donations [timestamp: 00:10] The council reviewed and approved donations recommended by the Mayor during this agenda item. The discussion involved key speakers Plomin and Sheehan, who addressed the proposed donations. The council ultimately approved the donations as presented by the Mayor's office. No specific details about the nature, recipients, or amounts of the donations were provided in the available meeting materials. The item was handled as an approval matter and passed without recorded opposition. ## Communications from the Mayor - Procurements [timestamp: 00:11] The Boston City Council reviewed and approved procurement recommendations submitted by Mayor Wu during the August 20, 2024 meeting. The agenda item involved the council's consideration of various procurement contracts and purchasing decisions that required legislative approval. Mayor Wu presented these recommendations through official communications to the council. Council President Gray and other members participated in the discussion of the procurement items. The council followed standard procedures for reviewing mayoral procurement recommendations, which typically include contracts for city services, equipment purchases, and vendor agreements that exceed certain dollar thresholds requiring council approval. The procurement recommendations were presented as a package for the council's consideration. No significant concerns or objections were raised during the discussion of these items. **Outcome:** The council approved the procurement recommendations from Mayor Wu. The approval allows the city to move forward with the recommended contracts and purchasing decisions outlined in the Mayor's communications. This represents routine municipal business where the council exercises its oversight role in city procurement processes while enabling necessary city operations and services to continue. ## Council Capital Projects The council reviewed and approved funding for various capital projects during this agenda item [timestamp: 00:12]. Council members Fogle and Reynolds served as the key speakers for this discussion, presenting the proposed capital projects to their colleagues for consideration. The council ultimately voted to approve the funding for the capital projects under review. However, the specific details of which projects were included, the total funding amounts, and any particular concerns or debate that may have occurred during the discussion are not available in the provided meeting materials. The approval of these capital projects represents the council's commitment to infrastructure and community development initiatives, though the scope and nature of the individual projects would require additional documentation to fully detail. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council Meeting docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council Meeting docket without a public hearing, An Ordinance modifying a Conditional Zoning Restriction to increase allowable square footage from 60,000 to 80,000 square feet for 5.124 net (5.510 gross) acres, for property located at 3743 Red River Dr - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council Meeting docket without a public hearing, An Ordinance changing the zone from a Neighborhood Business (B-1) Zone to a Medium-Density Residential (R-4) Zone, for .31 net (0.52 gross) acres, for property located at 226, 228, and 232 W. Maxwell Street - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the July 9, 2024 Work Session Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Budget Amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve New Business - **Motion** — failed (6-8): separate item ii - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Communications from the Mayor - Appointments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Communications from the Mayor - Donations - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Communications from the Mayor - Procurements - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Council Capital Projects, August 20, 2024 - **Motion** — passed (13-1): set the General Services Fund ad valorem real property tax rate at Option 1 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the General Services Fund ad valorem personal property tax rate including public service companies, noncommercial aircraft and noncommercial watercraft at Option 1 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the General Services Fund ad valorem tax rates for motor vehicles, tobacco in storage, agricultural products in storage, insurance companies’ capital, and abandoned urban property at the same rates as the prior fiscal year (the current rates) (.088, .015, .045, .15, and 1.00) - **Motion** — passed (13-1): set the Urban Services Fund – Refuse Collection ad valorem real property tax rate at Option 1 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Street Lights ad valorem real property tax rate at Option 1 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve to set the Urban Services Fund – Street Cleaning ad valorem real property tax rate at Option 1 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the Urban Services Fund – Public Service Companies ad valorem tax rate at Option _1_ (the combined amount of the 3 urban service rates) and Insurance Co. Capital at .0920, the same rate as the prior fiscal year - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the docket for the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council meeting an ordinance pertaining to all of the tax rates for general services and urban services as provided in the respective amounts from the above motions, and levying them at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the public health ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.0243 and the public health ad valorem personal property tax rate at 0.0243, and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council meeting levying the taxes at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): set the soil and water conservation district ad valorem real property tax rate at 0.001, and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday, August 22, 2024 Council meeting levying the tax at this rate on each $100 of assessed valuation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): schedule a public hearing on ad valorem tax rates for the Special meeting of the Urban County Council scheduled on September 3, 2024 at 1 p.m - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to EQPW Committee: the coordination of ongoing maintenance for plans that include infrastructure, beautification, and planting projects - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to EQPW Committee: Neighborhood Traffic Management Program - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to SSPS Committee: Villages Model Initiative for Lexington - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to GGP Committee: Absentee Landlords - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to SSPS Committee: Youth Council - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to BFED Committee: Digital Equity Plan - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn at 4:57pm --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next video. Thank you. I'd like to go ahead and call to order the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council work session, and it's August 20th, 2024, and we'll start right off the bat with public comment for issues on the agenda, and I do not see anyone signed up. So we'll move right along to docket approval and rezonings. And we do have a docket, so I'll ask a motion to approve. Motion approved. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan seconded. Now, if you have questions about the docket or motions for zone changes, please log in. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Number two ordinance under first reading, modifying conditional zoning restriction to increase allowable square footage from 60,000 to 80,000 square feet or properly located at 3743 Red River Drive. I request that we put it on without a hearing. Second. All right. Council Member Ellinger seconds. Is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Councilmember Lagree. Thank you, Mayor. I move to put item number three, an ordinance changing the zone from a neighborhood business B1 zone to a medium density residential R4 zone. For 0.31 net, 0.52 gross acres for property located at 226, 228, and 232 West Maxwell Street, including requests for dimensional variances on the docket without a public hearing. Vice Mayor Wu seconds that. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Is there anything else for the docket? All right, seeing nothing. All those in favor of approving as amended, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you. Next up is approval of the July 9th, 2024 work session summary. Salute. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu moves. Council Member Plowman seconds. Are there corrections, additions, questions? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next up, I'll entertain a motion to approve budget amendments. Second. Council Member Plowman moves. Council Member Baxter seconds. Please log in if you have questions. Council Member Fred Brown. Yes, I've got a question. No, I got it resolved. Thank you. Okay. We love that kind of question. Thank you. Are there any other questions for budget amendments? All right. All those in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. and for your information only, you have a few pages of budget adjustments, and then that brings us to new business. If I could have a motion to approve. Thank you. Council Member Baxter moves. Council Member Fogle seconds, and please log in with your questions. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. My first question is on item J. If Chief Wells could come up. I'm just hoping you can give us a little bit more information about the Safe Haven baby boxes and what that provides our community. Welcome, Chief. Thank you very much. Thank you for the question. I hope you all had a nice break. So this allows us to enter into a service agreement with Baby Box Safe Haven. Some of you all may have seen on the news. There are currently about 38 of those boxes in the state of Kentucky. Usually they're assigned to a fire station or someplace that's monitored for 24 hours. They are currently in 13 states. They've had over 50 babies that have been turned into those. And essentially it provides a safe, anonymous way for a mother to turn over a newborn infant. It'll be the first of its kind in Lexington, and we're very, very excited about the partnership. That's great. I really appreciate your work in getting that in Lexington. Thank you. Thank you. My second question is on item O. I don't know if Director Neal or Commissioner Albright. Welcome. Can you elaborate a little bit on this agreement and kind of tell us what the analytics will be used for? This is how we get a lot of our rough street count information, our traffic counts. So it gives us very good in-the-moment data for a lot of our traffic management programs. so we can get a rough idea, and then we can go back and do more official counts later if we think we're close to the threshold. But this has been really useful data for being able to capture counts really quickly. So I see that it is for travel within Fayette and Jesmond counties. Does Jesmond County participate in this at all? They do not. That is an error in item O. It is Fayette County only. Fayette County only. Thank you for the opportunity to correct that. Good deal. Thank you so much. Okay. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Aye, on the classified civil service, unclassified civil service strength. Chief Weathers is making his way to the podium. Yeah, I think it alludes to just public safety and I think it's more than that. Welcome, Chief. Good afternoon. Yeah, the question is, is these the positions that we amended the budget with? Or am I looking at these differently? I think if you go through some of them, they are, some of them they aren't. I specifically have two positions on here that I'm asking for, increase in my authorized strength because I want to do some restructuring. Okay, can we separate that? What I'm trying to get to is I know we had a veto on some of these positions, is that not correct? That's correct. I want to vote no on those positions. So Chief has backup here, Director George from HR. So what this is, it's three things. It's the positions that were in the budget and also amending the authorized strength to add the two lieutenant positions for police. We did put it all in one piece of legislation, but you would like for us to pull that out? I'd like to have it separate so I can vote on the two issues. So you want us to pull the police lieutenants out? I guess that would be the appropriate, yeah, that's not, anything that wasn't budget created by an amendment. There was an amendment to the budget. Well, there was about 12 positions I think we put in there or something on the budget. Is this the same area, same group? I think he's asking, so we put 15 positions in my budget, and then the council put 10 positions in what they put into the budget. Are any of those 10 in here? Yes. That's what I want separated out so I can vote no. Okay, we can do that. So what would be the, this is a legal question, how do we do that for this? do you want to separate it out for this meeting or for Thursday night when it comes onto the docket? It doesn't matter to me, just whenever I vote. I'm supporting you, Mayor. So the actual real vote on the docket would be Thursday night, but this, do you want to... Yeah, as long as I think it's separated out by Thursday night, that's fine. They're having a powwow. Go ahead. Welcome. I will prepare as many pieces of legislation as you all want to throw at me. So if you all want to take a motion to separate this into separate action items, I will prepare it that way. Okay, so it would need to come as a motion to separate out. I move that we separate that particular item on the agenda. Second. Council member Ellinger seconds it. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Let's, I'm not sure how many I heard. Can we do a electronic vote? I didn't know I had to go to get permission. I might have heard three, but I don't know that. That's all right. I'll just vote no against the whole thing. That's all right. Wait. Are we missing two? Do we have everybody voted? Okay, there we go. Well, that motion fails, six yays and eight nays. So it'll just be, it'll go on as one item then Thursday night. So my direction from that is I will present it as one ordinance. Yes, that's correct. And then council can vote on it as they see fit. Okay. Yes, the motion failed. Thank you very much. All right. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. If you can turn down my mic, I do not need it very loud. Thank you. First item that I'm going to jump around a little bit is going to be item K, and I would like to call Chief Wells to talk about the University of Kentucky's agreement about this wellness coordinator. Very good. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So about four years ago, we entered with the assistance of a grant through the University of Kentucky into an agreement to bring an athletic trainer on board. What we saw over those years was a reduction in lost work time due to injuries. So this cooperative agreement is going to allow us to continue that. And I think that just speaks to public safety in general, whether it's police, fire corrections, E911, or emergency management, are really working hard to establish a healthier workforce. So we're very, very excited about this and looking forward to it growing. That's great. I'm glad that it will be able to continue. Thank you so much. And then on item C, I don't know if Ms. Lyons is here. I had a question about the Roots and Heritage Festival. First off, I want to say that I'm a big supporter of it. I lived in the East End for several years and know what it means to the community. My question is, this is a large amount, bigger than other festivals, that we give to support a festival, plus it says a $62,000 in-kind donation through other things. How do we make the decision as to what festivals when we have other festivals that also celebrate unique communities in Lexington? How do we decide how much money we're giving to each? Well, there hasn't been a lot of new additions. I would say just in my time here, the Diversity Festival is the only new festival that I'm aware of that the city began supporting. The Roots and Heritage Festival has been under city support for many years. I can't tell you how many. A variety of other festivals are co-sponsored by the city. So I guess I'm, I don't have, there haven't been a lot of instances where there was something coming to us to approve or to review or to decide upon. These have all been well established and existing for many years. with me. I'll just make a statement that going forward I want to look at some of the other festivals that we have in the city that are also important and see how we might be able to support them even more. So thank you very much. And then lastly on items double D and double E about the Lane Allen sidewalks. Is anyone here for that? Director Burton. Council member Civigni and I were wondering and couldn't exactly tell from the map. Is that including both sides of Lane Allen or is it just the one side? We couldn't remember. So the goal is to close gaps so it effectively would be both sides. There's a restriction on the south side near the schools that will be difficult so it will likely just be one side on that part but there's also three-way stop there we'll be able to get people across but for the most part it's both sides with a couple exceptions just where the right-of-ways cost prohibitive or there's geometry issues in that area just before the schools okay yeah well I'm looking forward to those connections I helped put that stop in several years ago and so I want to just make sure that kids are able to cross the street safely there to and from the schools so all All right, thank you very much. That's all for now, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Gray. Thank you, Mayor. And so this question is regarding letter. Oh, Commissioner Albright, I sent you a question via email. I wasn't really listening closely, sorry, to when you answered Councilmember Elliott Baxter. Yes, ma'am. Did I hear you correctly when saying that it was a misprint regarding Jessamine County? Yes, ma'am. Okay, so my question regarding sharing data with them is moot, right? Correct, it is a Fayette County based purchase. Okay, thank you. Thank you. That is all. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Lynch? Thank you, Mayor. My first question is regarding item I as inevitable. Regarding the additional, to cover the additional fees for the flat camera agreement. Welcome. Hello. Hello. My question is just for clarification purposes. I see that there's no budgetary impact for these fees. Was the contract just changed or what happened with here? Yes, ma'am. So the contract originally was approved in July, early July, July 2nd. Right. And after it went through, they recognized that the signature page had been left out of the packet. So law had to re-review the packet and send it back through. So all this is is a re-approval of the same thing, but with all the including documents needed to be there in the first place. Okay, awesome. So no changes. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. And then my last question is regarding item GG as in good, good, regarding the salary increase for our school crossing guards. Oh, can I talk to you again? Welcome back. So I don't remember seeing this as a budgetary item when we were doing the budget, So how did this come about and why are we moving it forward with it now? So when the rest of civilian employees received their 3% increase, we wanted to make sure we kept things consistent for our part-time employees as well. So the school crossing guards obviously would have been excluded from that. So we wanted to make sure we kept things consistent for them as well. So this is just a request to have their pay adjusted so that they could continue the same increases along with the other civilian employees. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Mayor. Would you mind to stay at the podium? A couple of council members had a little difficulty hearing about the flock. If you can pull the mic just a tad. Is that better? Yes, please. If you don't mind a repeat for the council. Sure. Yes, ma'am. So with the flock agreement, council originally approved that change. It was an amended contract early July to add 25 additional flock cameras. And so that went through, the law department reviewed it, and we later determined that was signature page was missing from the um the contract the amended contract so now that that was the case that's recognized we wanted to send it back through laws reviewed it and so this is the resubmission of the amended contract thank you okay thank you yes all right council member plowman thank you mayor um let's see here my first one is letter z for zebra and i guess miss george i think I think I saw you. Welcome back. Hello there. I was wondering, how did all that come into play? I think that's kind of cool that they're getting 15% off for all of our, not just our employees, but children. Is that something we instigated or did they? It actually came to us as a request from an employee about if we could check to see if Midway College would be interested in offering a tuition discount. And so we did and went through all of the steps and so we have this to present to you all for approval. So we're very excited about it. We're also reaching out to other universities to see if they would be interested as well. That's what I was thinking when I saw that. I thought we ought to extend that or figure out a way to get that to some of the other. Right now we have EKU which offers 30% and then Midway. Are they all around 15%? No, EKU is 30. Oh, well, that's pretty meaningful. The other question, I know Council Member Lane-Hugh were asking about the school crossing guards, and I couldn't really hear, so I don't think this is repetitive. Have we always paid for the school guards for Fayette County Public Schools? Yes, as far as I can remember, yes. We've provided those. I was just surprised it's an expense and of course they do get a lot of other revenue from us. So okay, thank you. That's what I needed to know. Thank you Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Fogle. Thank you Mayor. Can we start with item E as in everlasting? Just need a little more content with that item please. Yes ma'am. So can you give me some more information about this equitable sharing agreement? Can you just fill me in a little bit more about that? Yes, ma'am. So that's part of our asset forfeiture program. So we've participated in asset forfeiture and the federal equitable sharing program for many years. This is a recertification of our involvement with that program. It's a chance for us to recertify and give evidence that we do not discriminate and how we use those funds given to us by federal government as part of the asset forfeiture program. Thank you. All right, my legislative aide was looking up something, but that was a simple answer. And I think before you leave, I can jump back over here to, well maybe I'll just have to call you back up. Can I do DD, DD, dog, dog? Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. And as you're coming to the podium, I'm just really trying to figure out how is the priority set on sidewalks and who gets the sidewalks? I know we've been asking for sidewalks on Shropshire, but somehow we keep getting lost in the sauce. And we don't have sidewalks to stand on those children who are catching the school bus. It is a health and it's a security risk. With all those children who catches that school bus on Shropshire, we've been asking for sidewalks to be placed so that they can have safe journeys to and from. And it's really close to RJ Corman's railroad. There's a railroad track that goes through there that leads to Loudon between, yeah, let me give you some content, between Breckenridge and Loudon. So we've been desperately looking for sidewalks there and those on limestone. So how is sidewalks prioritized? So in this instance and in Shropshire's instance, it comes down to funding and often that funding is ruled by roadway classification. So this is SLX funds, SLX funds or- Lex funds. SLX funds, it's a federal funds that are given to us. There's SL SLU I think is the one that Louisville has. So, but those are funds that are given to us through federal agency based on our population size, et cetera. And then that competes with all the other funds. But back to the roadway classification, Lane Allen is basically a large enough roadway that it qualifies for these funds, whereas Shropshire isn't. So Shropshire sidewalks would have to be funded through other funds like local funds. Right, this horseshoe could fund Shropshire, yes. But the SLX funds that you're approving today could not be because of the roadway classification difference. Okay, and so I can take away that misnone to my community. Because our conversation always starts out south side versus north side. But now you have explained it thoroughly and I can take it back to the community. So thank you for that. Yes, ma'am. I think I'm going to stop drilling people right now. And I'll wait for council comments. All right. Thank you, Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I have the same question on DD or EE. Sorry about that. Make you get up and down. He's getting his steps in. He is getting those steps in. This is the area, too, I think that we've had a little bit of email exchange. When they do this design work, do they consider where crosswalks will be? Absolutely, yeah. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that we're focused, I mean, that Garden Springs, where it comes out, we kind of focus on that. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. All right. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Most of my questions have been answered, but Director George, you had mentioned EKU. We're getting 15% from Midway, 30% from EKU. Have we talked to UK, I hope, and worked with them since they're the most convenient one here, right up the hill? You're also getting your steps in. So we have spoken with the University of Kentucky, they do not offer discounts. We've spoken with Kentucky State University, they don't either. And then there's one more that escapes me, but we haven't reached out. Do stuff with BCTC though. BCTC also said no. But we do something with the fire, right? Yes, we do something with fire, yes. And so we're waiting to- But no discounts? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, no discounts though? No discounts from BCTC and we're waiting to receive a proposal from Moorhead. Okay, well thank you for doing that. It's a nice perk. One of the questions I had was, and I guess with that one, Commissioner, is that like a heat map that is generated? Because I know we do that when we're cyclists and you'll see where people are going, you'll have kind of heat map. Are they going over something that's just recording how many? No, this is cell phone based. I'm sorry? It's cell phone. Cell phone based. Okay, all right. Interesting. Okay, thank you. And then F, as in Frank. Commissioner Allen Bryant. And I guess this is more for the general public, but this is kind of a big deal that we did a few years ago. Could you kind of go over the ESR, how it's done, and then this is a two-year program. This will be the first year of the 32 grants that we're going to have, and then we can put up on the screen, I think, too, the one, the recipients, if we could. I think it would be good for the public. Yeah, absolutely. We're always glad to brag about ESR. Our extended social resource program is split into, I don't know why I'm echoing here, 60% of it goes to community based initiatives and 40% of the funding goes to emergency shelters. And so you all blessed us with 1% of revenue goes towards all the ESR programs and we do it every other year. For this year we receive $4.795 million, which again got split into 60-40. I'll dwell a little bit more about the community based initiatives which is managed by our senior officer in my office, Teresa Maynard. And we were able to add in that community based initiative a fourth category this year, which is mental health. Previously, we only had community wellness, we had food insecurity, and we had childhood and youth development. It is a competitive process. We put out an RFP and the organizations are notified about the RFP being available and they have to apply. We have review committees, so people who are experts in the field. They're mostly government employees, but we also do have persons who are from the community who are experts in those areas. And they review the scores, and based off of the scores is whether you get funding or not. I have to remind, even though we have it listed by agency, that we're actually funding programs and not the agency. So you may see within the fundings for both emergency shelters and community-based initiatives, organizations that have received multiple awards and that's because they applied and scored highly on multiple programs. That's a great summary of it. I appreciate you doing that and you just gives a little update of what... Absolutely. We are so, I'm thankful that you asked me about it because without our community partners we in social services could not do our work and as you can see community-based initiatives, as I said, it was 60%. So we were able to put almost $2.9 million out into the community for our vulnerable populations that, as a department of 100 people, we're not always able to reach. And could you go over, because it's not the council that decides the programs, how that goes again. I think you brought it up, but just to reinforce that. So once again, they have to do a request for proposals, so they have to basically write a grant application. and we have review committees that are not made up of council members. They are persons from government and we have a few community members who are experts in those topics. So again, the topics for community-based initiatives are community wellness and safety, food insecurity, childhood and youth development, and mental health. and they are scored on a multitude of criteria, including the need, their goals, their objectives, timeline, budget, etc., just like you would any other grant, and based off of those scores is how you get funded or not. So it's a very objective process. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chris, for putting that up. Thank you. All right. Anything else about new business? All right, all those in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next we have communications from the mayor appointments, and I entertain a motion to approve. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds, second by Council Member Fogle. And I believe you received this separately, Council Members. Are there any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Now we have communications from the mayor, donations, and I'll entertain a motion to approve. Let's see. Council Member Pullman, did you do? And Council Member Sheehan seconded. Were there any questions about those? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And then we have a communications from the mayor procurements. If I could have a motion to approve. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Second by Council Member Gray. Are there any questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And that brings us to continuing business and presentations. And I'll entertain a motion to approve the council capital projects. Council Member Fogle moves. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Are there any questions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And with that, I'll ask Council Member Sheehan to give her environmental quality and public works report. Thank you, Mayor. I have a report out from our June 18th meeting and then a partial report out from our meeting this afternoon. For June 18th, 2024, the meeting was called to order at 1 p.m. The first item on our agenda was approval of the April 30th, 2024 committee summary. There were no additions or corrections, and the summary was approved without dissent. The next item we had scheduled, review of recycling practices, was postponed to a future committee meeting. And then Jada Griggs, program manager senior in Division of Environmental Services, reviewed the Empower Lexington plan as part of exploring Lexington's sustainability options. The focus of the plan was on energy efficiency with a goal to reduce energy use by at least 1% each year. She spoke about the Lead for Cities and Communities program and said Lexington was selected as one of 13 cities in cities to participate in the leadership cohort program sponsored by the US Green Building Council. She spoke about the Solarize Lexington program and said the council approved 1 million for grants to low to moderate income house homeowners. And she reviewed the climate pollution reduction implementation grants, which will provide funds for greenhouse gas reduction measures that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. No action was taken on this item. And then finally, the greenhouse gas inventories presentation was provided by Abby Terry, professional engineer with the city's consultant Tetra Tech. Terry explained the greenhouse gas effect and how heat is trapped in the Earth's atmosphere. She spoke about the first greenhouse gas inventory in 2007, which showed municipal emissions totaled approximately 2% of the inventory. She reviewed the three key takeaways. Per capita emissions have decreased by 26%. Municipal operations comprise 2.6% of the community wide emissions. And stationary energy accounts for almost 70% of emissions. When asked if communities will be using the same methodology so that we know progress is being made, Terry said it wouldn't matter which methodology you use if you are consistent. No action was taken on this item. The meeting adjourned at 2.42 p.m. and that concludes my first report out. Thank you. Are there any questions on that report for Council Member Sheehan? All right, thank you. Go ahead. Then I have a partial report out for our August 20th, 2024 meeting that happened this afternoon. The regular report out for this committee will be on October 22nd. However, in the interest of moving forward one action item, I will provide a partial report out. During today's committee meeting, Jada Griggs again presented to us that she is the sustainability program manager, and Blaine Early with the Empower Lexington Community Group provided a presentation on the 2023 Empower Lexington Plan, a plan for a resilient community. They reviewed the history of the Empower Lexington plan since work began on it in 2008. The plan includes an updated community-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventory and recommended strategies or projects per sector to help us meet our net zero goals by 2050. There was a motion and a second 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 and further ends of its implementation. The motion passed without dissent. So on behalf of the committee, I so move. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Council Member Legree seconds. Any questions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. That concludes my partial report out. Thank you, Mayor. All right, thank you very much. And next up is the Fayette County Conservation District Annual Report, and I believe Mr. John Wright is going to give that. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. For those of you who were lucky enough to avoid me last year during our millage increase badgering, my name is John Wright. I am the chairman of the Fayette County Conservation District, and we just wanted to take a little time today to give a report to y'all since we got the millage increase last year. And you'll have to bear with me. I was the person who drew the short straw out of the board to do the presentation, so they said I have the power to do that. Perfect. Okay. So again, we just wanted to come and give you the progress that we have made after that millage increase from 2023. We did want to highlight the improvements and the achievements we've made and the changes to our operations during that time to show the value that you allowed us to give back to our community with that millage increase. Today with me I have our operations director Heather Silvanek, our assistant director Sarah Ward, and our board member Dr. Mark Coyne. There is seven supervisors on our board. The people who were not able to be with us today is Alan Carter, our vice president, Aaron Clark, our secretary, BJ Bentley, our treasurer, Dr. Lynn Phillips, and Robbie Lofton. So a little bit about who we are. We are a board of seven locally elected supervisors. Our job as supervisors is to supervise the operations of the district to ensure accountability, to ensure operational efficiency. And we primarily act as a link for state and federal resources. We do cost share for conservation practices. We provide a critical education component for those lacking that education but want to improve upon their conservation efforts in their life. So our prior rate before our increase last year was .006. After the increase, we moved up to .01. That resulted in an increase from $189,000 to $342,000 that we received just from local millage taxes. So we essentially almost doubled our budget. That had not happened in 10 years, so this allowed us to really expand upon. what we were able to do. And you can see outlined here, these are the goals that we had in mind once we received that millage increase. So Sarah Ward was hired on as a part-time position. We were able to bring her on full-time. That allowed us to expand our offerings, expand our outreach. That allowed us to be more efficient since we had two people in the office to balance workload, hours, things like that. Sarah has been imperative in going to educational events throughout the city and the county, allowing people to learn more about us and what we offer. We were able to continue to sustain our current program offerings. We were in a spin-down plan, and after that spin-down plan was completed last year, we would have really had to reduce our offerings. But because of that millage increase, we were allowed to sustain those offerings and even come up with new ways to support the community. And lastly, we wanted to increase program participation within the urban service boundary. So just a little bit more to expand on those goals there. You can see that we have been recognized at the state level. So every county does have a conservation district. And Fayette County routinely stands out above all the counties for our efficiency, for our reporting, for requirements like that. received a 100% on our most recent state outline criteria, which is an anomaly for many of the state boards that we have. We also have our Enviro-thon team that has been recognized at the state and national level. Here are some of our most popular programs that we offer within the county. Backyard conservation which is a 50 50 match up to 200 so whatever the person will spend up to 400 we will match them 50 at the 200 mark the conservation education grant that is a two two thousand dollar grant that we award to applicants we have a criteria that the board decides on where those are awarded uh soil sample vouchers we do ten dollars per household and we do cover the entire cost of the soil sample voucher. So that's great for the urban service boundary folks, for their gardens, for their lawns, before they go to apply fertilizer or anything like that. And the last one for our urban county residents would be the cover crop program. So the farmers in the winter, we do cost share of $30 an acre up to 100 acres to preserve and protect their soils from erosion during the months that they are not actively growing a crop. And again the other programs that we administer and liaise there, CAEP, which is a state program, the state cost share, EQIP, and CSP are both federal, but we act as a liaison administrator for those programs. One big thing I would like to highlight off this slide here is our new community partnership program. So the conservation education grant was, we're having repetitive applicants that we're having to every year fill out the application so we decided with this millage increase to enter in with memorandums of understanding with those partners that we had routinely partnered with so we were able to give them a consistent source of funding so they could expand their outreach and continue their mission we were able to retool our website and we also created some new merchandise and the logos we're happy to give you all out everybody loves a good sticker for your water bottles these days. This is a completely new graph and all the thanks goes to Heather for putting this together. She put in a lot of effort on this. We had previously been tracking our projects and our impact by zip code but we wanted to break it down so council members could see the impact within your district specifically. So you can see there the outlay between the districts and then that red line will be the urban service boundary. And this also helped us as an organization to figure out what are we doing well, where are we having the most impact, and where do we need to continue to work on to outreach and what gaps are we having in our own programming. A big milestone I think for the city and for the conservation district is that for the first time in our history since 1947 we have had more individual conservation projects installed within the urban service boundary then outside in our rural county so I think that speaks to how we are moving with the times that we're not just focusing on our rural component but we're meeting the needs of the taxpayers within the urban service boundary because everybody is paying into the millage tax. So we want to make sure everybody is benefiting equally from those taxes they are paying into. And then you can see there the breakdown of the projects that we saw the most repetitive ones being installed. This here is just a breakdown of our budget. One big thing within our budget is that 36% of intergovernmental revenues, so those are pass-through funds, those are not funds that we receive from Fayette County. So those come from either the state or the federal. We administer those funds and then they go right out the door. But you can see 46% of that came from the millage and delinquent tax, equipment rental, and then some other revenues. We did have 68% of our budgeted funds went back to the taxpayers. We are very conscientious making sure that we are as efficient as we can. I think prior years it was maybe 73 percent, so we did drop a little bit, but we also added another full-time person, so that's why we dropped, but I feel like that drop versus the gain was very much in line with what we were hoping to achieve there. And here 62 percent of that went straight two conservation projects and you can see the total economic impact usually the projects that we approve through our call share people are spending way more than the call share amount so the total amount that we had an economic impact within the community you can see there is the nine hundred thousand dollars so huge economic impact for the county and the city and with that I appreciate y'all given us the time. I appreciate everybody's support. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us. We're happy for any engagement we can get. Thank you. Mr. Wright, would you entertain questions now? Absolutely. I'll ask Heather to come up because I may not be the best resource, but I'll give you the wrong answers, but we'll see. Counsel, do you have any questions while they're here? All right. We have one. so far. Council Member Lynch has a question. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation. And I just have a couple of questions regarding your outreach events. I was curious how many were held in the second district and what kind of outreach events you were doing in the second district that my neighbors could benefit from. We just started measuring by council district for our program output and we were able to do that with the payments that we made through cost share in the last year but next year we'll have more analysis as far as events and where they were and within the council district as well. We don't have that information right now. Okay, I just wanted to know since you've expanded your reach and impact, how my neighbors can benefit from it. If you all have events or tabling somewhere, please do share the information with me. I can share it in my newsletter with my neighbors because I want them to be able to also be able to reach and access the benefits that you all are providing to the community. Absolutely, yeah. We always post on our social media any tabling events that we're doing. And we have a newsletter that's quarterly. I think I put the council member list on that. Great. And then my last question is regarding the individual projects installed by council district. Do you have a breakdown of the 57 that were done in the second district? That was the second lowest. So I'm a little curious about what that 57 was comprised of. And that's something you can email me if you have that. I would have to email you, but I think majority of them would either be soil samples or backyard conservation projects. And I can get you that specific breakdown. Okay, if you don't mind to email me that, that would be awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. You're welcome. Are there any other questions, Council members? All right. Again, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, council. Next up, I'll welcome our budgeting director, Melissa Luker, who's going to do the fiscal year 25 ad valorem presentation. Welcome. Thank you. All right. Welcome back from your break. We're going to talk about property taxes, so I know everyone's excited. So what we're going to go over today is basically a presentation of the Avaloran booklet that was emailed out to council members, had a lot of information. We've condensed it into a presentation for you for today. So we're going to go over the dates, what the taxing districts are, real estate values, our options for the general fund, the urban services fund, a couple of the special districts, and then we'll take questions. so the packet provided to you enclosed the calendar in the packet and so our certification date was july 26 we're required to set the property tax rates within 45 days of that date so that date is september 8th the proposed timeline is going to keep us in compliance with the krs so that we can get our property taxes approved and to the necessary people on time. So we're going to discuss the rates today. First reading of the rates is going to be Thursday. And then second reading in a public hearing is going to be at a special council meeting on September 3rd. we have to have two advertisements in two separate weeks so many days apart from the first reading and second reading in the in the hearing so those advertisements will now be August 23rd and August 25th that's in separate weeks and that's due to the Herald-Leader publishing dates they're not publishing the newspaper every day now and so we've adjusted it slightly from what is on the calendar that you see of August 27th, that second will be August 25th instead due to the printing dates. The taxing districts we're going to discuss today are our taxing districts which are the general services that's paid by all property tax owners in Fayette County, urban services which is paid only by the property owners who receive the services. Those services are street lights, refuse collection and street cleaning. And then we have three special taxing districts which are paid by all property owners. The soil and water conservation district, which we just heard from, the agricultural extension district, and the health department. So this chart here shows the tax rates for real property only. It doesn't reflect the total tax burden for the households. For comparison sake, the Lexington City rate is the full urban services rate and the county rate is the combination of the general services, health department, LexTrain, extension, and soil and conservation rates. These rates do not include the school tax. As you can see on this, we're highlighted here, Fayette County has the sixth lowest tax rate among contiguous counties and other large cities around the state. If you look at a property tax bill, and this is the rates for the calendar year 2023, so this was last year, about 80% of a property tax bill goes somewhere other than the city. Around 20% of the tax comes to the city, with only 6% of it coming to the general fund. So here's the real estate values with a little bit of history. The total value of real estate for FY25 is $37.5 billion. That's a 5.4% increase over the FY24 certified assessments of $35.6 billion. This 5.4% increase is more than the assessment increase in the adopted budget. That was 4%. So here are our options. We've prepared these options for you for consideration in regards to this year's property taxes for consideration. The compensating rate, which gives you approximately the same revenue as prior years for existing properties. Any revenue increases are derived from new property. The plus 4% rate is the House Bill 44 rate and isn't subject to voter recall, but does require a public hearing. In addition, there is an option to set the rate above 4% revenue increase for existing properties. It is subject to voter recall within 45 days if a petition is signed by 10% of the voters in the last presidential election. So let's look at the General Services Fund options. So option one here, which is the second column of numbers, is keeping the rates the same as last year. This option provides an increase in budgeted revenue in the amount of $783,520. This keeps all the rates the same as the prior year. Option two is the compensating rate, which would decrease the realty to .074 and personalty to .879. These rates would increase our revenue by $22,520. The personal T includes tangible personal property, aircrafts, inventories, and personal property of public service corporations. We have option three, which is the 4% rate which maintains the real estate rate of .076 and increases personality to 0.0902. This rate would require a public hearing and these rates increase revenue by $816,520. We also have a line there at the bottom that is for the abandoned property rate and this is $1 per $100 valuation for abandoned property. This will apply to 45 parcels. It's up one parcel from last year whenever we had our assessments. So this is what the average house in Lexington for FY25 is $250,000. And so here's an impact illustration of the impact of each option for a $250,000 house. The administration is recommending option one, which is maintaining the same rates as last year. So we'll move to urban services now. So for urban services, avalorum is the largest category of revenue to this fund. Nearly 90% of all revenue is derived from the property taxes. Property owners in the urban service area have one or more of the services, which refuse collection, street lights, and street cleaning. Option one, which is the second column of numbers, is keeping the rates the same as the prior year. This would increase our budgeted revenue by $951,160. Option two is the compensating rate, and this rate generates approximately the same amount of revenue for existing properties. This would decrease the service rates for refuse and streetlights, as well as the PSC rate, which is the sum of the three service rates. But it would maintain the current rate for street cleaning. This option would decrease revenue by $972,840. Option three is the House Bill 44 rate, and this would maintain the rates for refuse, streetlights, and street cleaning, and the PSC rate. This option would generate $951,160 in additional revenue. Option four we have is the cost of service rate. The cost of service is calculated each year stand alone without using fund balance. The cost of service rate would generate $1,181,160 in additional revenue. The rate for street cleaning services would be subject to voter recall because it is higher than the 4%. Options one, three, and four require a public hearing because they exceed the compensating rate. And option four is also subject to voter recall for street cleaning. So here is the impact of these options on a $250,000 house. So you can see what each option would be for the average house in Lexington. The administration is recommending option one, which maintains the same rates as FY24. So moving to the special tax districts, we have the soil and water conservation district, which they're requesting to keep their rate the same. The agricultural extension district is requesting the compensating rate, and council approval is not necessary based on the state statute since they're not requesting to go over the compensating rate. So you all will not have a motion or ordinance for the Agricultural Extension District. The Health Department is requesting their compensating rate, which is keeping the rates the same. All right. I think we're ready for questions. Thank you, Melissa, for your good presentation. So, council members, time for questions. What questions do you have? Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Blucher, for that presentation. So, through all the different charts about, like, the revenue impact, I was noticing that the The option one, which is the recommendation right now of keeping it to last year's rate versus the 4% increase. Those numbers are almost identical or sometimes identical. Can you kind of explain that to me that how a 4% increase ends up equaling what we've been doing before? So the revenue impact is to the adopted budget. So it's based on what we had in the budget. So the budget assumed a 4% increase, and so that was using existing properties. Any new properties that came on, that's where we're getting additional revenue from with new evaluations also. So we have, I believe it's one fourth of the county is reassessed each year. And so between the assessments and new properties, that's why the current rates are going to be bringing in more revenue than last year because some home valuations went up as well as some new properties came online okay great thank you so much thank you mayor thank you councilmember civigny yes and thank you thank you mayor and thank you for the presentation we went through this in in decent detail prior to this meeting and i wanted to thank you again for doing that and commissioner hensley for um for sharing that with me um the only one that that i see right now that we're not covering our costs of service um it seems to be street sweeping is that urban services fund that's correct yeah and so i just as a council member i just wanted to point that out that's that's if we do the recommendations um it's not a huge number that will be negative on street cleaning but we we will not be covering street cleaning in its entirety and that's just something I think over the course of this year we probably need maybe to put into committee or consider as a as a long-term project to how to get that in line so just a comment that's it and then the other thing I wanted to make sure that council understood is the timing we talked about about the timing of the refuse collection and the landfill contract renegotiation. What's the timing on that? I believe the RFP is out for bid right now. I'll let Nancy jump in here with the details. Or Commissioner. We'll let Dave handle that. I agree. Good afternoon. The RFP is actually out on the street now. And the idea would be we would have someone in place probably early next year, but the contract wouldn't go in effect until July 1st, which is next fiscal year. Right. So then at that point, we'll be dealing with this for the future. And keep in mind that a significant amount of that money will come out of the landfill fee as well. Got it. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Worley. Thank you, Mayor. And then following up to Councilmember Savigny's comments and question about the street cleaning and the cost of service. And I think, sorry, I was going to kind of make the same comment and question that while this doesn't seem to be a significant difference right now, are we afraid that we're starting to see that same sort of Delta building that led to our streetlight problem? So we're watching this one. This one, where with streetlights, our big cost is the streetlight rental, and we're subject to that increase year over year, depending on what the rates are. With street cleaning, it's personnel and equipment. And so we're purchasing, I believe, one street cleaner a year to kind of keep us on schedule with those. So our big expense here is the personnel to run the street sweepers and then the street sweepers itself. and so we have a little bit better grasp on those but we are going to look into into that service and dig into it a little more like like we have with street lights we have with refuse and so looking you know taking one and digging in and seeing what we can do there so this is a manageable difference in cost of service versus revenues it is right now yes and then also i assume that there are several overlapping budgetary items within streets and roads that that also would compensate for for that difference difference once we put the budget together if we're not looking just directly at the tax to service. Correct. Which would not have been the case with street lights, obviously. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Question. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Mayor. It's really hard to represent the community when we're talking about street sweeping and street lights. Seeing as though in the north end, we can't get street lights to work, and we definitely don't get street sweeping. We never see that happening, but they're included in this tax, so it's going to be a hard sell on that one. I would like to have a conversation with you concerning some of these. And the other thing that's sitting with me right now is that abandoned properties, First District has a lot of abandoned property, so I just need to understand this $1 per 100. What, I just need to understand that whole scope of what is in this item. And also, the transit project, the new development that's supposed to be affordable housing, according to what was just presented, which those houses are supposed to be over 250,000. So they would be included into this new taxing over in an affordable housing district. I don't know if you're following me or not. There's three questions. There is three questions, and I've got to get them out because I'm going to forget one of those questions. So you've got three questions coming at you. I'm just trying to visualize the abandoned property, first district, infield redevelopment. We have some wealthy property that's close to downtown. So that's the first fear of people in the neighborhood. And we're talking about taxes. And then the second is the Transylvania property that's going to be developed. I can't wait to talk to Mr. Holmes, I can't find him. But so how does all of that fit into, how can I explain this to folks in the first district? So let me, we can send you a list of the taxing districts because you may have, there may be areas within your council district that is a district that doesn't have street cleaning. So they're not paying the tax for street cleaning and not getting it. And I can get the list of taxing districts, and there's a map that we can share with you so you can share with your residents. You're not in, you know, your district has this or doesn't have this, so you're aware. When there's a street light out, have them call and report it. They can call 311, let's call, and report that. And so that was the first question you had. The $250,000, that was the average for all of Fayette County. And so it's not just houses that are $250,000 that are getting the tax. Everyone is getting the tax. That's just our way to show the sample impact of that. And any new property that's not come on board yet and not been gone through all the process, they're not going to be paying a tax yet if it's not developed. So this is a future question because it's going to be a different tax. We're going to talk about different taxes at that time when it is developed. Okay, thank you. So, Council Member Fogel, I heard you say it wasn't working to call 311. What 311 does is notify Kentucky Utilities with an address where a streetlight is out. So if you have a list of those addresses that you've called about, I think that we can see that Kentucky Utilities gets those. Yeah. You can send them to me and I'll get it done. Because 311 normally, when they get an address where the streetlight or a corner where it's out, where it's not working, they will just forward those on to Kentucky Utilities. so 311 is working but kentucky utilities is not sure well they have to understand it's out because they're the ones that fix it yeah change the light bulb yeah and then right the last part was the vacant property there's actually a separate commission a vacant property review commission and so it's a separate commission and i can send you that information for that and they should be able to handle all of those questions you have thank you you're welcome Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. On the first item there on the general services fund, looking at that option one, the $783,000 revenue impact, was that put in the budget? What amount did you put in the budget? We put 4% into the budget, so this would increase the budget by $783,520. So additional fund balance of 783 will result if we raise the taxes. This is keeping the taxes the same. Even if we keep it the same. In other words, we're not giving anything back to the community. Correct. And I might say that we've probably got a pretty good healthy fund balance. And this certainly might be the time that we would want to entertain and look at option two and not worry about putting more money into our fund balance. So I just want to throw that out. And the fact that in our budget, this is another, If you support option one, then we've got $783,000 we've got to spend. When you get money in, you've got to spend it, right? So anyway, I want to make that point that now might be a good time to help the consumers out there. High inflation, high taxes, everybody's property has been re, or not everybody's, but reassessment have driven the property tax up. Second question I have on the Urban Services Fund, option one and option three, I was a little bit confused on how those numbers were the same, with option three being a 4% increase. But option two being that big of a difference, which is if you go with that difference, it's about a million nine plus or minus on that. And I was a little confused that there was that big a difference. So the biggest change with option two there, the change to the budget, $812,000 would be reduced in the refuse. Uh-huh. And $188,000 would be decreased in the streetlights. So that's where you've got your big change in the compensating. And again, the same question is, what was our fund balance that we put into the budget? Is this an additional amount, 951,000 if you do option one? Yes. Additional fund balance. This would be additional revenue. Dollars into fund balance for- The urban services. Urban services. Do you have right off the top of your head what the fund balance is in urban service? I do not. My budget book is upstairs. I'm sorry. That's okay. That's okay. Okay, I just want to point that out. If you want to give the constituents and people out there a little bit of tax break, this is the time to do it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Melissa, for your presentation. and the whole finance and budgeting team for your work on this and having this information in a way that's presented to us in a way that we can understand it and ask questions. And I have some motions here that I want to make in regards to what the administration is recommending. And I will say that once we make these motions and if they get approved and get docketed, then there's still opportunity for council members to reach out to your team and ask questions and get more clarification about what we're doing. Absolutely. So with that, Mayor, I'll move first the mini-motions as I move to set the General Services Fund Avalorum Real Property Tax Rate at Option 1. So move. Second. Council Member Ellinger seconds. Are there questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? No. We have one no vote. Thank you. That passed. Secondly, Mayor, I move to set the General Services Fund Avalor and Personal Property Tax Rate, including public service companies, non-commercial aircraft, and non-commercial watercraft at option one. So move. Second. Thank you. Council Member Plowman seconds. Are there questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I also move to set the General Services Fund Avalorum tax rates for motor vehicles, tobacco and storage, agricultural products and storage, insurance companies, capital and abandoned urban property at the same rate as the prior fiscal year. The current rates, .088, .015, .045, .15, and 1.00. So move. Second. Second by Councilmember Sevigny. Any questions, comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And moving to the urban services, I move to set the urban services fund refuge collection at the low and real property tax rate at option one, so move. Second. Second by Councilmember Baxter. Are there questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? No. All right, we have one no vote. That passed. Thank you. Secondly, I move to set the Urban Services Fund Streetlights Avalor and Real Property Tax rate at option one. So moved. Second. Second by Council Member Reynolds. Questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. I move to set the Urban Services Fund Street Cleaning at Valorum Real Property Tax Rate at Option 1, so move. Second. Council Member Plumman seconded. Any questions, comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Mayor, I also move to set the Urban Services Fund, Public Service Companies at Valorium Tax Rate at Option 1, the combined amount of the three urban service rates and insurance company capital at .0920, the same rate as the prior fiscal year. So move. Thank you. All right. Council Member Fogle seconds. All right. Any discussion about that? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. And this is for the ordinance for all LFUCG taxes. I move to place on the docket for the Thursday, August 22, 2024 council meeting, an ordinance pertaining to all of the tax rates for general services and urban services as provided for the respective amount from the above motions and levying them at these rates on each $100 of assessed valuation. So move. Second. I heard Council Member Plowman, but we had several seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. And in regards to the special districts, I move to set the public health Avalorum real property tax rate at 0.0243 and the public health Avalorum personal property tax rate at 0.0243 and to place an ordinance on the docket for the Thursday, August 22, 2024 council meeting levying the taxes at these rates on each 100 of assessed valuation. So move. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Any questions, comments? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Mayor, I move to set the soil and water conservation district Avalorum real property tax rate at 0.001 and to place an ordinance on the docket for Thursday, August 22, 2024, council meeting, levy of the tax at this rate on each $100 of assessed valuation. So moved. Thank you. Council Member Legree seconds. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And lastly, I'm further moved to schedule a public hearing on these avalorum tax rates for the special meeting of the Urban County Council scheduled for September the 3rd, 2024, at 1 p.m. So moved. Second. Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Council Member Brown, thank you very much. All right. Director Luker, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Worley has a question. Thank you, Mayor. Director, real quick before you go. if you could tell us again because I missed what you said about why we don't need to set an ordinance establishing the extension offices requests. So the extension office has a KRS it's 132.0225 I believe and so that is a separate KRS and if they're not going over the compensating rate then we do not have to approve those. Okay thank you. You're welcome. And that KRS was correct so. Thank you very much Director Luker. All right. Okay this brings us to council reports. Log in please, Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you Mayor. Welcome back colleagues. I hope everybody had a good summer break and welcome back all the children that are back at school all the teachers as we're getting used to the fall rhythm again many of my colleagues and I attended last week's bike walk summit with a lot of good workshops and speakers talking about infrastructure and transportation and it was it was a really great summit and I was I was glad that so many of us were able to attend at least a few of the workshops. Unfortunately, the night of the first day of the conference, there was a tragic, fatal accident in my district on Mason-Headley. It's not the first fatal accident to happen on Mason-Headley. And unfortunately, the bicyclists and motorcyclists involved collided and did not live from the moment that the accident happened. And the person that was on the bike was actually graduated from my alma mater. So that community was hurting as well as the neighborhood and the family. And so I just wanted to send my love out to those families. And in addition, we've had several other fatal accidents over the past two weeks. And I just wanted to say that I think we have a long way to go for safety in our city when it comes to transportation of all kinds. I know that a lot of us here are working on that in our districts and in the city as a whole at a state level. And just the amount of people that are running red lights and that are driving too quickly is really out of control. So I just wanted to say that I hope we can all slow down and pay attention to the rules and the people that are around us so that we can spare any more lives being lost. Now I'm going to place an item in the Environmental Quality and Public Safety Works Committee. after talking with many different divisions in the city and seeing that we kind of have a gap, we oftentimes have infrastructure projects, whether they be roadway projects, planting and beautification projects that are funded, and then we don't really have a plan as to how we're going to maintain them. And that has come up in my district several times. And so just in order to ensure that we have a specific plan of how we are going to move forward and incorporate a maintenance plan from the beginning of these projects, I wanted to place in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee the coordination of ongoing maintenance for plans that both include infrastructure projects and beautification and planting projects. So this could include anything that has to do with things like benches, plants, poles, landscaping, walls, fences, etc. So moved. Council Member Baxter, seconded. All right. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That passes. That's all. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I'm actually going to also talk about the Bike Walk Kentucky Summit. So many of us were there, the mayor, the vice mayor, council members, Ellinger, Fogel, Legree, Lynch, Savigny, and Reynolds, several of our aides, and so many people across our departments and divisions in LFUCG. So thank you for all to anyone in LFUCG that participated in the summit, and thank you particularly to the organizers including our own council members but it was an energizing conference with a lot of idea exchange particularly around complete streets policy which we have adopted increasing safety within our own transportation network for all users and increasing equity and accessibility so with some of the discussion that we had there in mind I would like to bring two of the summit topics to our own council for presentation and discussion so I'm going to place two items into our Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee the first item is our neighborhood traffic management program so that is to be placed into EQPW so moved councilmember Reynolds seconds are there any questions all those in favor say aye is anyone opposed all right that passes and then our second item that I'd like to put into Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee is traffic calming with public art and quick installations. So moved. Second. All right. Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Will you repeat it one more time? Yep. Traffic calming with public art and quick installations. And what? Quick installations. Thank you. All right. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right that passes that is everything thank you thank you councilmember Baxter thank you mayor I would ask that director Jonel Patton joins us at the podium and while she's making her way up I think I have a picture to put up I am happy and proud to announce that our Lexington enhanced 911 team members attended the Association of Public Safety Communication Officials also known as APCO International Conference last week and it was there that our director accepted an award from APCO on behalf of E911 so I wanted to congratulate you and your team on that and in addition our E911 division was recognized for completing the process of becoming a CALEA which is a accredited communications center with this with distinction so you all are the epitome of professionalism and we so appreciate your hard work and dedication and so I just wanted to say thank you and congratulations and ask you if you had anything you wanted to say thank you so much welcome back everyone good good good press is always great it proves to the community and our responders and to you all that hey we're handling business in E911 and it is a big deal it takes other entities of the government assistance for data collaboration and of course I've got a great team that assists with this every year year after year but accreditation is big because it basically you know we're volunteering ourselves to go through this process to be distinguished, to be the gold standard per se, to provide the service that we provide. So we plan on to continue chipping away, and we appreciate your support. We thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Director Patton. Congratulations again. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. Colleagues, Councilmember Sheehan and I are on the Senior Services Commission, and we have been working with the commission and the incomparable Christy Stambaugh regarding the Villages Model Initiative. You may remember that the community organization BUILD brought this initiative to our attention, but actually Christy and her team, the Senior Services Commission, have been researching this for a while now. And so I moved to place in the Social Services and Public Safety Committee, the villages model initiative so that we can dive into it and see how our community can benefit from it. Council member Savigni seconds. Are there any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you, Mayor. Speaking of the senior services commission, I am very excited. I love the commission first off, but we have been doing very great information sharing and I'm really proud of this new, it's not a new initiative. I'm part of this education subcommittee on the Senior Services Commission. And we have reinvigorated something that used to happen back in the day, a little show called Off Your Rocker. We have renamed it The Senior Minute. And I'm happy to share with all of my Lexington neighbors that it will be launched, I think it's already launched, publicly. And we have several interviews and informational videos on YouTube. And I want you to check them out. And I think we have a little snippet of a commercial that we're going to play. Hello, friends and neighbors. I am Councilmember Shayla Lynch, and I'm excited to be here at the Senior Center to give you a special announcement. I'm so excited about this. The Senior Services Commission is relaunching something old, but we're making it brand spanking new. You may remember from years past to show off your rocker. Well, the Senior Services Commission is relaunching it, and it's called the Senior Minute. Each month we will bring you short informational videos specifically for our seniors. So please look for those videos either on LexTV or YouTube. The Senior Services Commission wants to make sure that all seniors are well aware of the resources our city has to offer. So please tune in each month and we are so excited to bring you the Senior Minute. So we are very excited about the launching of the Senior Minute and we've got several videos that they believe eight already out there. So colleagues, please share them with your neighbors and please all of Lexington, please enjoy these videos which are informational videos specifically for our seniors to know what resources that we have here in the community. Thank you again to Christy Stambaugh, LexTV and the whole Senior Services Commission. You've been doing some great work. Also, I would like to uplift to my second district neighbors specifically. I will have Shayla in the second tomorrow at Coldstream Dog Park from 530 PM to 730 PM. Please come on out, grab some dog treats from my table and city resources as well. And along those lines, I'm going to be in Coldstream because our Coldstream Park has a community survey out right now wanting to get input from the neighbors, specifically in the second district about how you want to see Coldstream Park develop and grow and change. So please fill out that survey, come see me tomorrow and I'll have the survey link ready for you to complete it right there on the spot. And I look forward to seeing you tomorrow on Wednesday. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Legree. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Lynch, I love that senior minute. I'm excited to help share that information with our constituents. You all know that this past weekend we had the 48th annual Willen Art Fair and I want to take a second to thank our staff at Lexington Parks and Recreation for another wonderful event. I know we had some dodgy moments with some rain showers, but people were really, really happy and your hard work and your dedication and attention to detail really shine through in every aspect of this event. I think you all agree that events like this where we're showcasing all the talent across our community, our local artists and other food vendors and presenters really help bring our community together. So thank you to Parks and Rec and all the other LFUCG divisions involved in making this year's art fair another success. I'm really grateful for your commitment. And I know some of my colleagues have already talked about the Kentucky Bike Walk Summit, but I want to echo what an energizing and positive, generative event this was. Being able to learn from experts within our community and across the rest of the commonwealth and then also to hear from people doing really cool things in other parts of the United States was fantastic. And I think a lot of us came away with ideas and connections and ways that we can further enhance the safety and connectivity of our community and that's a great thing. I want to give a little shout out to a couple of people about their Complete Streets panel. Council Member Savigny applied for this panel where we talked about our policy here in Fayette County. And I had the chance to moderate a great slate with Council Member Sheehan, with Kenzie Gleason, Scott Thompson, and Brandy Peacher. They did an excellent job highlighting the work that we're doing here. And letting people know about all the ins and outs of our policy and our action plan. So the more people who know about that plan, the more advocacy and momentum we can continue to gain in the years to come. So thank you to our council for that. And thank you all for a great summit. I loved it. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Gray. Thank you, Mayor. By the way, it's good to be back, and it's good to see my colleagues over here. It's great to see you all. I hope you had a wonderful summer recess. But first, Eastland Parkway Neighborhood Association will hold their meet and greet on August 27th from 5.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Christ Center Church. There will be food, door prizes, vendors, neighborhood resource officers will be present. Members, reps from LFECG will also be in attendance as well as our wonderful fire department will be there as well. And there will be kids activities there for you. So please come out on August 27th for the meet and greet in Eastland Parkway neighborhood. Next, during our summer recess, it might be recess, but we're still working. We're just not having council meetings. At least I was working. So during our recess, I was diligently working on ways to incorporate, of all things, youth into our local government. While in Milwaukee, several times while I was in Milwaukee, I had the pleasure of spending time with the Common. and they have something called a common council. And I had an opportunity to spend time not only with the council's lobbyists, Calvin, there, to learn how their council is able to have two lobbyists, which was very intriguing to me, as well as speaking with their city clerk, Jim, to learn more about the city of Milwaukee's Youth Council. As you all know, youth are a very big part of everything that I do, and I want to ensure that our next generation of leaders learn as much as they can about local government and help hone their leadership skills. I want to say thank you to Common Council President Alderman Jose Perez, Alderman DeAndre Jackson, as well as a huge thank you to Alderwoman Sherilyn Moore and the rest of their staff for just taking time to embrace me and take me in and answering all of my many, many questions about how to make, make not only to make lexington a better place for our next generation of leaders in addition and lastly um i'd like to add a couple of items into committee um i'd like to add to the general government and planning committee absentee landlords as an item secondly i would like to add youth council to the social services and public safety committee. Is that a motion? I mean, is there a second? Let me rephrase it. That's okay. Let me rephrase it. You wanted a motion? I'm going to make it a motion. First motion is I move to add absentee landlords to, as an item in the general government and planning committee. So moved. Second. Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there any questions? all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right that passes and lastly i would like i move to add uh youth council as an issue into the social services and public safety committee so moved all right council member sevigne seconds any questions all those in favor say aye Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of things, but first I'd just like to wish my daughter, Maya, I think a lot of you all know Maya, today is her 27th birthday. So I just want to wish her a happy birthday, and if we don't go too long tonight in the hearing, I plan to go celebrate her birthday with her. And then, Mayor, there's been some conversation about, and council members, about digital equity. And I think folks are familiar with the Digital Equity Act of 2021, which states, digital equity is when individuals and communities have the information, technology, resources they need to participate fully in the economy and society. This includes access to information, education, job opportunities, healthcare, and civic engagement platforms. So I've been talking with CIO Liz Rogers, Kevin Atkins, Amy Classcock, and Troy Black in the Economic Development Office, and we're going to put together a work group and work on developing a digital equity plan for Lexington. So I want to put that item in budget finance and economic development so moved. Okay. Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Any questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, that passes. And then next I just want to recognize a neighbor of mine that passed over the break, Ms. Elizabeth Cosetta Quick. She was a long-time engaged member of the Neighborhood Association. She was a pillar in our neighborhood and a pillar in her church, and she will be missed. So I just want to say our prayers are out to her friends and family. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Thank you. Council Administrator, I'm going to pivot so you don't have to put anything up on the board. First of all, thank you for reminding us of our losses. We had Mr. Kenyon over in the West End. He was the father of Douglas Park. and then we had Father Norman of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church who passed away suddenly unexpectedly. So our community was pretty torn apart, still torn apart. And don't know why, don't know when, but there's a promise of seeing him again. So just wanted to lift him up. And then as Chief Weathers makes his way to the podium with a question that I have. Colleagues, I want us to keep in the forefront of the unhoused here in Lexington. At Friday at four, when the day center closes and there's rain, you know what type of weather we went through all weekend. And there is no shelter for them, like Dunbar Center's not open. Our heating programs are not open. So folks are out in the street, and Chief Weathers was trying to explain to me, and then it was time for us to come to work session. So I didn't fully get to understand, but I'm pretty sure he's going to explain it to us now about a city ordinance or a rule. And I'm going to just take one piece and partial of Amtree Lane. It's that city property that's the grassy area across from the Lyric, where most of the unhoused in the East End sits and congregates. And so he was trying to explain to me about, we know House Bill 5 passed on the same day that Father Norman passed, July 15th. And so we own a partial of that piece of property, the city does. So the officers, they've been doing their job. And so the folks have been asked to move from that grassy area. And Chief was explaining to me about if they have like a sleeping bag, Anything that denotes like it's like tent, if they're sitting on their sleeping bag or if there's anything that looks like street sleeping or laurering on camping gear, that we have something in place that says that our citizens can't do that on city property. And I'm just getting here, so I'm not aware of it. So I called Chief up here so he could help me because if they're under the tree, like that is a very shaded area next to the cemetery on 3rd and Elm Tree. So the unhoused goes there to stay out of the rain and to be under the shelter of shade. And that's part of our city behind the bus stop, our property. I looked it up. It's there. So can you help me now in front of my colleagues to understand why they cannot sit on that grass? You know, we're talking about the new law that was passed, and it's got some provisions there that are kind of specific, but I allow my officers to use discretion. My advice to you is really going to be what you really need to do is you need to talk with the city's law department and see how the city needs to interpret what it what that law means to when you're applying it to city property and you need to be careful with that because there's a provision of that law that says you can't make rules where we can't enforce it but what i want to do is i want to to remind everybody that this is not the time for die of despair. This is probably more of a time for us to really look at things and look at how we do things. And it's time to really start thinking outside the box. You know, I can cite people, but there are other people that have have control over other things. And when I see something like this happen, I try to look for other pathways to make things better. And maybe that's what we ought to get together and do. Because just because I issue somebody a citation doesn't mean that's the end-all, be-all. There are other places, other people that have input into it. And maybe that's the way we ought to go. I always caution people, and one of my commanders cautioned me too, it's okay to think outside of the box, but we all have to realize we have a lane we have to stay in. But that doesn't mean we cannot communicate and cooperate. So that's going to be my advice to you, and we've talked about this before, but we need to get with the law department and see what exactly it is, the city, which direction the the city wants to go and still comply with the law. Thank you. You're- Okay, I'll sign back in. Or I can just say my takeaway, but I'll sign back in. Okay, thank you. Council Member Savigny. Don't go too far. Thank you, Mayor. And just tagging on that for my fellow council members, this Thursday, August 22nd at the New Life Day Center on 224 North Martin Luther King, just up here, they're unveiling their shade structure that we helped support and they would love for any of us to attend that event. So I would encourage you to attend if you can. They're very excited about it and I'm delighted that we were able to help them in that way and that may be just one of those ways that we can do a little bit of extra. I wanted to also jump on the bandwagon of the Bike Walk Summit. It was great. It's kind of fun to be with a whole bunch of people that have that have some common interests in making making the our city and other cities in Kentucky all about bike and walking in different modes of transportation and it was great to see everyone who came out there. It's always fun to just have good conversation and share ideas and I learned something every day when I go to those things. So I appreciate you folks going and I want to thank Transy. They were a great partner. It was really, I had never been on some of those parts of Transy's campus. It was just a cool, it's a great environment and I'm glad we were able to do it there. Two little plugs. I want to give Good Foods Co-op a plug. They're having their first ever community book fair this Sunday August 25th between 9 and 3. Stop by, bring a book to exchange and take a book if you want to. Also this Sunday the Tall Sound Community Series presents From the Bayou to the Bluegrass in the music capital of Lexington in District 10 behind Olika Shrine, a celebration of Louisiana and music in Kentucky. The show kicks off at 6 on the Great Lawn. Visit TullSound.com for more information. That's all I got. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Fogel. Thank you, Mayor. And you don't have to come back up, Chief Weathers. I heard some good takeaways, check with law and then talk with my colleagues about what we can do on the weekend. And even though they're going to get that Shays truck structure, it will not be open on the weekends for them, so they still won't be able to use that. If you all will keep me up, because I do have some good stuff that happened on our break. I mean, first district was jumping from the East End. We had East End Day that lasted from Friday to Saturday. Community came out. There's dozens of photos whether they can get them loaded up or not. We had that going on over in the first district. There was, the dirt ball went on without a hitch. Of course, we did have some homicides. We had some people hit on Winchester Road with their vehicles. I too would like to say something about the bicycle summit. I heard some really interesting things about even lowering the speed limit. Also, I heard something about, in Louisville, if you go down a one way, You got to go like two or three blocks to come back up if you miss your turn. So maybe making some two ways out of one ways and so make one ways out of two ways. So I heard about that. Evidently they can't load those photos right now, but there was tons of them. One thing I would like to, that I'm really proud about, if you all go down Sixth Street, if you travel over in our area or come and visit us over on the north side at the old Johnson School, which is George Washington Carver now, there has been some safety features put in from our side. I know Fayette County Schools is doing a lot, but they didn't do this one. So Traffic Engineer helped us to make a two way, a one way alley. And now the parents can drive in to the school and let their children out. We put in a sidewalk. And so that feature is absolutely phenomenal. And there is some four way stops as you come up because the speeding and the children's safety was a big deal. So as we depart and we've had a great work session, I think, please remember the safety of the kids. School is back in session. My little eight year old is getting ready to be nine year old, Izzy. She usually sleeps in the first row when she comes down here. She went to a brand new school this year and I'm so proud of her. And she's overcoming a lot of barriers, so I am so glad that school is in session. They're back in session with the teachers and we can get a break. So I just wanted to say that and there's some photos of some things that went on over the summer and I'm through talking, I'm thinking about the unhoused now. mine is focused on something else. So thank you for putting that up, though, you guys over there. Y'all do a great job. Thank you. That brings us to public comment for issues not on the agenda. And I'll ask, is Gene Robinson here? Okay. And are you yielding your three minutes to Rick Day? All right. Rick, you'll have six minutes, and I think you know the rules. My name is Rick Day and I live in the third district. I told you that after break we would start to look at the mag study. I'm not quite ready to do that. So today I'm going to give you yet another example of the type of arbitrary, hard to explain compensation decisions that the urban county government employees see all too often I am going to look at two positions that were recently filled and how the compensation for both positions were determined by HR and approved by the administration both positions were filled by new hires neither by promotion of an existing employee one was a pay grade 516 in parks the other a pay grade 517 in water quality there were 62 applicants for the parks position nine were interviewed three were recommended and an offer was made to one of those the HR salary recommendation was based on education qualifications and experience and the recommendation was just above the pay grade minimum the candidate requested and parks appealed for a salary near the midpoint 18% and $8,000 above what was recommended this was clearly not a hard to fill position so the deputy director appealed based on exceptional qualifications HR agreed and the new hires starting salary was near the midpoint there were four applicants for the water quality position two were interviewed one was recommended and an offer was made to that one person the HR salary recommendation again was based on education qualifications and experiences and also was just above the pay grade minimum the candidate requested and water quality appealed for a salary just a little over halfway to the midpoint nine percent and four thousand dollars above what was recommended the director appealed baits based not only on the candidate being a highly qualified person but even more so on this being a well-documented hard-to-fill position HR disagreed they rejected the appeal and that new hire salary starting salary was just above the pay grade minimum today the new hire in the 516 position makes almost $7,000 more a year than the new hire in the 517 well-documented hard to fill position so how does HR and the administration explain that and why does HR and the administration continue to make those kind of decisions now over the years I have seen the director of water quality make many salary appeals in all those years and all those appeals I think this is the first time I can remember seeing one of his appeals being completely rejected and HR did it with what they know to be one of the most hard to fail positions in your county government there has to be more to this story I will be back next week thank you Thank you. Council members, this brings us to the end of our agenda, and you know that at 5 o'clock we have a hearing, a disciplinary hearing, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you very much. I'm going to go.