Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Hmm. Okay? Yeah. Mm Hmm. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to call to order this confirmation hearing for Board of Adjustment for Mr. James Pursley. Um, we're basically, we're going to call you up, ask you a little bit about yourself. We're going to open up the floor to questions from council, and then we'll go into a quick closed session to have our discussion, and then we'll come back out. So Mr. Pursley, if you would come up to the podium, please. Thank you for being here. Thank you for applying for this position, and if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and also why you want to serve. Sure. Good afternoon to everyone here. My name is James Pursley. So I am a resident here of Lexington, Kentucky. I'm originally from Georgetown, Kentucky, though. Just a little bit about myself. I grew up on a farm. I graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BS in agriculture economics. I currently work for state government, child for health and family services. I do data for them. I basically work in Excel and send out spreadsheets for family support, basically. Also I am a realtor on the side. I have my own independent real estate brokerage that I do sales as well. So in a nutshell, one of the reasons that I'm interested in being on this board is because I wanted to be a little bit more involved in the city and just kind of be a little more attached with local government. I felt like this would be a very good opportunity to take that step in doing this, and once I saw that the opportunity had presented itself, I thought it would be a shoo-in, just kind of in line with my interests and everything that I have going on, and just to learn a little bit more about how things work with local government. All right. Thank you very much. Councilmembers, please sign in for questions for Mr. Bursley. Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you so much for your willingness to consider this position. It's voluntary, so we really appreciate folks' interest. What is your specific reason why you would like to serve? Specifically, I really just kind of want to learn a little bit more about the process. Like a lot of people, I was kind of foreign to what all goes on when it comes to urban county government, the whole process as far as getting things approved, and just what happens with the Board of Adjustments and how it all works out. I did a little research online, but of course, to join and be a part of this, you kind of really learn a lot more and a lot faster on how things work with local government. It is a position that at times can take a lot of time. During the work week, sometimes the meetings last a really long period of time. Is that something that you have the flexibility to be able to consistently be at meetings? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Allengard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you for your willingness to serve. I was going to ask the same question, because it seemed like you have basically two jobs, and then this can be a very time-consuming, especially with the short-term rentals issue that we have laid on your all's desk, because your docket has a lot of those. Time is not going to be an issue for you, because we definitely need people to show up, because we have a lot of important stuff that we deal with. Sir, time should not be an issue for me at all. I'm very interested in this board, so it would be first priority for me as far as time-wise on making sure that I can make it to the meetings, and not only just make it there, but fully attend and be present. Glad to hear it. Thank you for your willingness to serve. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Mr. Persily, for your willingness to serve. There's been some concern brought up to us about having too many real estate professionals on the Board of Adjustments. Do you think that you can make unbiased judgments on applications that are made to the board in regards to how they impact neighborhoods and separate that from your professional career as a real estate professional? Absolutely. I say that because myself, being an independent principal broker, I'm kind of a one-man show to where I'm not necessarily pulled by one side or the other. And I feel like it is a strength for me to kind of be objective when it comes to making decisions. And I appreciate that answer. So can you tell me a little bit about what your niche market is in real estate? Do you sell commercial real estate to families, to investors? Yes, sir. Primarily, right now, I am a residential real estate broker. So I specialize basically in residential single-family homes. I do also on the side dabble in multifamily properties, but that's really more so on a rental and property management basis. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair, and thank you again for applying for this. We do really appreciate it. For me, one of the big things is, you know, every one of these boards, and the board of adjustment is a tough one. The planning commissions are tough ones. I'm really looking mostly for diversity of thought and kind of decision-making process. So I'm kind of wondering what your experience is like working with a group of people. Where do you feel like you're — what thought process do you use when you're going to have to come down — generally, you're going to be making a decision that is going to make someone happy and someone unhappy, typically. So I'm kind of wondering just how you do that and kind of what your thought process is, and where do you feel like — where do you feel — what voice are you going to bring to the table that might be different than someone else's voice and perspective? Yes, sir. Great question. Well, first of all, just like anybody else, I'm an individual, and when I come into a group setting, like most people, you kind of already have in mind what you think and how you feel maybe a process should go. But one of the beautiful things about working with a group, you hear other people's opinions, and you hear other people's thoughts. And sometimes other people's thoughts and opinions may shape or change your mind about a process or about a decision. So I feel like the collaboration of not only myself, but also a group as well, it helps out. And at the end of the day, I still make a decision on how I feel as far as the aspect goes or whatever decision is made along with the group. So I just feel like me having a voice there would maybe, in certain cases, may change a position, or may change a group's mind, or may even give somebody a different kind of point of view. Thank you. And do you feel, I mean, do you feel comfortable being, have you been on a volunteer board before, I guess? And have you had to been a lone dissenter or a lone supporter on an issue? I have been on volunteer boards before, and unfortunately, I have been one of those folks that's been on the only man on the outside. So yes, sir. Sometimes it can be intimidating, but one of the things that I've always felt is that you stand on your own, you stand on your feet on what you believe in, and if those are really your beliefs, then you stand with them, no matter what the decision comes to be. It may not be a popular decision at the end of the day, or maybe it will be a popular decision. But either way, I get comfort in knowing that my decision was my decision, and not someone else's or the next person's, whether it was popular or whether it was unpopular. Thank you. That's all I have right now, Chair. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair. Hello, Mr. Persily. Thank you so much for applying and being willing to serve. My question is, I noticed on your application, you listed a few different boards and commissions you were interested in. Why specifically were you interested in the Board of Adjustment? Why did this attract you? Personally, because I feel like Board of Adjustment comes a little bit in line with my practice in real estate and knowledge with working with the local government, more so than any other board. While I was in school, I participated in the feasibility analysis for the City of Lexington, Kentucky, so I've always kind of had an interest in planning and local government, how it all works together. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. I would also like to extend my thanks for you putting your name forward and being willing to serve the community in this way. We've already kind of mentioned short-term rentals. That is a big thing that's coming before our board currently, and it's folks that are applying for a conditional use permit to have an unhosted short-term rental, generally. Sometimes there are requests for approval for changes in occupancy for a space for a short-term rental as well. Those cases have been sometimes contentious. We have a lot of neighbors showing up who might support or not. We have operators in the room and all of those, so they're getting a lot of attention, and you get a lot of feedback. I would like to know a little bit about your view of short-term rentals and then how your decision-making process for those cases would be. To be honest with you, for me, it's a case-by-case basis, because when you talk about short-term rentals, I don't really look at it as kind of an umbrella thing. It varies by area that you're in, the neighborhood itself that the short-term rental is located in as well. For me, personally, it's really just a case-by-case basis on specifically where we're talking about and what the makeup of that neighborhood is, because sometimes short-term rentals may be a good idea, depending on the neighborhood, and it may be a bad idea, depending on the population and the neighborhood that it's located in. Would you mind to expand a little bit about some of the factors that you think might make a good location or a not-so-good location? Well, really, area is really one of the biggest things for me. Area, the type of building or structure that we're talking about, and for me, whether it's just a single-family home, whether it is a large building that has other people living in there, all of those factors kind of come into play for me when it comes to making a decision. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Perley, thank you for your interest in this position. My question has to do, I noticed that you graduated from UK in Agricultural Economics. Can you talk to me a little bit about what that involved? Yeah, sure. So Ag Econ, basically, just like any other economics course, it's focused on agriculture. So basically, land use, best use of land, how farming impacts subdivisions, neighborhoods. Urban sprawl was kind of one of the things that was focused on when it comes to agriculture economics. Basically, just kind of how it all works together, how a new subdivision being built right beside a farmer who has 50 acres of land and how that can impact, whether it's machinery involved or whether the makeup of the neighborhood itself being developed kind of changes the agricultural aspect of it. So it's kind of all of that in a nutshell, basically. Yeah. That's a good experience and good knowledge to have, because there are decisions on the Board of Adjustments that deal with agricultural land. So it would be good to bring that to the table. So thank you, sir. Thank you. Mr. Persily, we've touched on short-term rentals several times. It's obviously a contentious and kind of a moving target issue for us here in Lexington in the last couple of years, and it's something that we, the council, tasks BOA with handling. There's been some sort of back-and-forth and different opinions on whether or not the instruction or the parameters that we gave BOA was too loose versus too tight and how much subjectivity or how much leeway that the BOA had versus maybe a tighter set of parameters. Do you have any thoughts on that? Honestly, I don't really know as far as the parameters itself that you're speaking about. One thing I will say from what I've read and just seen on the news, a lot of times when the parameters are very loose, then trouble can come about. I think parameters are needed in anything that you do, just so people know what they can and cannot do. However, I understand that when the parameters are too tight, it may restrict certain folks as well. So it takes a very good balance as far as being able to kind of keep noise levels down but also make a productive type of situation as well for it. Thank you for that. Council members, any other questions for Mr. Persily? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to go into closed session. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. We're in closed session. We'll be right back. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Can I get a motion to come back into open session? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. We are back in open session. Mr. Persily, will you join us back at the podium, please? Mr. Persily, I'm happy to let you know that this council has approved your appointment to the Board of Adjustments. So congratulations. Thank you. We'll move it to the docket. That's right. Yeah. And we will move that on to the docket. So thank you all very much. Thank you. We are adjourned. Thank you. All right.