♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Folks, so we're going to go ahead and get started. And I'll call the meeting to order for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council. This is the work session and it's March 11th, 2025. And the first item, we do have a quorum. So the first item is public comment for issues on the agenda. And we do not have anyone signed up right now. So there is no docket or rezoning. And that moves us to the March 4th work session table of motions. If I could have Council Member Baxter move. Council Member Ellinger seconds. Are there any questions? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. We have no budget amendments, no budget adjustments. And that brings us to new business. If I could have a motion. So moved. Second. All right, Vice Mayor Wu moves and Council Member Baxter seconds. Now, if you have questions, please log in. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Armstrong or someone from police, I have a question about item I. Oh, there. Thank you. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of explain what this was about and how it benefits us. Item I is a member of understanding to delineate the responsibilities with the Louisville Street Task Force with the FBI. It formalizes the relationships between the participating agencies for policy guidance, planning, training, public and media relations. It is a continual formal relationship that we would have with the FBI and the surrounding participating agencies. It allows us to have more intelligence, more cooperation, makes it easier for us to solve the violent crimes. They would be in with cases as bank robbers, human trafficking, murder suspects and violent crimes of that nature. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Morton. A couple questions on item I as well. So who are the participants? What participating agencies are you speaking about, I would say? It's the FBI and it's just surrounding law enforcement local police agencies. Okay. And is it so regarding federal partners, is it just the FBI? Yes, sir. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Can you also speak about item E and how this will help the Lexington Police Department to solve crime? Yeah. Item E is a request for $700,000 for the federal government for the continuation of its NIBIN. We have the resources and the equipment where we categorize or collect spent shell casings at crime scenes. We have been acting somewhat as a regional agency that we will collect and take from other agencies. Those then get uploaded into computer information systems. It is able to help us track suspects, crime scenes. If a crime scene happens where a gun is used in another agency, it is something that we would be able to link together and then with law enforcement partners together work that and come up with an arrest and prosecution hopefully sooner. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. One more question. I'm just curious. Why is it called the Louisville? The regional FBI who is stationed in the region is in Louisville. I asked the same question this morning. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on letter B, Charlie Martin. And while you're coming up here, this is a stormwater grant much like the stormwater grant was for Fayette County Schools. This particular one is canceled. I know we've had it happen a few times. Could you just tell the group what tends to happen when people cancel? I know we've talked about it before. You and I talked about this very recently. This is one of those unfortunate circumstances where the cost of the projects have gone up to the point where the grantee can't absorb the cost any more than we can. Typically, they have a 20% match. And so when it goes up, their 20% goes up as well. And I think this is the case where the church gave it a valiant effort trying to make this happen, but they couldn't. And I think there's a real opportunity to maybe examine the way that we administer the grant program to try to avoid where you've got a lot of money tied up for a long time. As you can see, this is FY23. Yeah, and that's kind of what I was getting at. These things take a while to go through the system, and that happens. And then I think you told me, too, we do have a change order process that possibly allows for some help, but it probably didn't. We do have a change order process, but it is capped at the maximum amount they would be eligible for if they came to a grant. So once they reach that cap, then it's all on them as well. Got it. I appreciate it. And fellow council members, this is kind of why I put this in committee, just so that we could talk about these type of issues. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Yes, sir. My apologies. Just for public transparency, could you also speak about why the terminology alien smuggling was used rather than human trafficking? Yes, sir. Alien smuggling is a federal terminology. It's their member of understanding. It does not include, from what I understand, crossing the border type crimes. That is always sent out to Homeland Security. This is just dealing with human smuggling. But that is their term, not ours. All right. Any other questions about new business? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. We have no communications from the mayor. And that brings us to continuing business. We have the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. And I believe that's Council Member Legree. Thank you, Mayor. I have the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee report out summary for the February 11, 2025 meeting. The meeting was called to order at 1 p.m. The first item on our agenda was the approval of the December 3, 2024 Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee summary. There were no additions or corrections, and the summary was unanimously approved. Our first presentation was an overview of the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, NTMP, provided by our Traffic Engineering Manager, Roger Mulvaney. NTMP has been Lexington's primary traffic calming program for 25 years. Traffic calming helps achieve safer speeds for local streets and vulnerable roadway users. Moving forward, they are working with a consultant to streamline and modernize how NTMP notifications are processed. The Citizen Connect portal project is intended to provide a user-friendly interface for the public to share traffic calming concerns. And that portal is designed to provide project tracking and progress information and will show the public where active and past projects have occurred via mapping featured. No action was taken on this item. Next, Director Martin provided an update on the Odor Control Program, which resulted from a significant increase in complaints about sewer odor. Webster Environmental Associates was hired under an emergency declaration to assist with corrective action. He reviewed what was accomplished in 2024, including equipment improvements, evaluation of chemicals used to control odor, and transitioning from a reactive to a proactive state of mind. Martin introduced Rick Bowman, Odor Control Manager, who was hired to assist with monitoring the odor. Martin added that the best way to file a complaint is to call LexCall and provide as much information as possible. No action was taken on this item. Finally, during the annual review of committee items, microtransit, recycling practices, and division and program reviews were removed from the committee. The meeting was adjourned at 2.12 p.m. This concludes my report out. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Are there any questions for Councilmember Legree on her report? All right. Thank you very much. Next up, we have the Brianna Pursley, our Director of Youth Services, has a presentation and she has some folks she will introduce when the time is right. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Councilmembers, for having us here today. As Mayor Gordon said, I am Brianna Pursley, the Director of Youth Services. Our mission is to provide quality services to this community of Lexington by providing personnel and comprehensive programs. All of our programs are court-involved, most of them, I should say. That would be CASA, Juvenile Probation and Court Services, and Parent and Guardian Empowerment. All of those are court-involved youth and we do have, through Parent and Guardian Empowerment, a community piece. We are doing a pilot through this community piece, which is a new delinquency prevention and recidivism reduction initiative. Through this initiative, we are trying to provide something that's atypical. Normally, with programs like this, you're going to see mentoring programs, you're going to see self-building workshops, you're going to see community interventions. But with this program, it not only includes those things, but it also includes art as part of this initiative. And through the art, it focuses on history. It focuses on the history of each individual here. Everyone beside you, they come from a different familiar lineage. And through that lineage, you learn about who you are. And so this brings about focus for these young people on self-awareness so they know who I am through their own eyes. This next introduction will be Ms. Marjorie Guyon, who is the artist behind I Was Here Project. And she's going to talk a little bit about the history of I Was Here. Hi, everybody. In November of 2016, I had a vision of an African mother and child that moved from window to window of the historic courthouse like points of light. This was the seed of the I Was Here Project. The original spirit portraits were signed by thumbprint alone to honor those whose names and language were erased. When we launched in 2017, it was with the original set of thumbprinted spirit portraits. We began with the idea of anonymity. So this is an installation that Mayor Gordon requested in Government Center. The project received an international award for public art in 2019. The award brought national attention and partners who helped us. And we were invited to One World Trade Tower in Lower Manhattan. A team from Florida came to Kentucky to create video for One World Trade. They filmed in the historic courthouse where the vision for the project began. This should be a video. Whoops. The one before should be a video. Oh, well. So it goes. What was created, so you can go to the next. So what was created for One World Trade was incredibly beautiful. But we realized that many passersby did not understand what it was about. For the past year and a half, I Was Here has worked as a team with Roberta Davis and her nonprofit Operation BU to bring forward a people's contribution to the foundation of our country and the ancestral significance of their descendants. We've held workshops across the city, gathering narratives from the descendants of these nation builders. Roberta will tell you more about the result of these workshops. Hello, everyone. I'm Roberta Davis. I am the founder of Operation BU, Inc., and we are a nonprofit for girls 10 to 17 years of age. And what we do is we teach life skills, and we empower them just to be successful both economically and socially, just for their lifelong success. So I'm just going to give you a little bit of information how we all got, how we start the collaboration with the I Was Here project. So in the spring of 2024, we had designed a program for the girls called A Journey to Find Me. And this program was pretty much focused around self-awareness, self-love, and self-preservation. And so what happened is Marjorie, through social media, found out about us performing this program. And she contacted me. And when she told me all about the project, I'm like, wow, it fits exactly into this project and where we were as far as just starting the self-awareness piece. And when I say self-awareness, it's just teaching the girls who they are, where they come from. And it just matched together. And so from there, Marjorie and I planned a workshop. We didn't know what this workshop looked like. We didn't know how it was going to go or even how it was going to be received from the young ladies. But when we had the workshop, it was more than we could have imagined. The narratives that they developed as far as being nation builders, when we look at the difference between African Americans being spoke of as being enslaved versus African Americans being the cities and the country's nation builders, it was empowering to the young ladies. And not just the young ladies, to myself. And so their narratives, with that narrative shift, it really, like I said, it empowered them. And you're going to see a little example of that from two of our participants. But I want to also say from that workshop, they shared, when their parents came to pick them up, they shared what they had done. And what the parents did, they came upstairs and said, hey, we want to do it. And so then we planned the parents' workshops. It was like, well, with the young ladies, it was 30 of us in Marjorie's headquarters. And we performed a workshop with the parents with the young ladies being the ambassadors. So they pretty much guided and helped their parents through that. And then from there, we planned seven workshops within the community in all four corners of Lexington. And, again, just what we gained from the community was very empowering. So for the young ladies, again, it empowered them. It gave them the ability to be ambassadors within the community. And they have not stopped. And for each workshop that they have participated in, their narrative has just matured to the point where I'm going to stop here and I'm going to let you all hear a couple of those. So I am going to introduce you to two of our OBY participants. If you can both come up. First, we're going to start with our OBY junior ambassador, Riley Williams. And then after Riley would be our OBY member, Gabby Gatewood. Hello, everyone. My name is Riley Williams. I am 13 years old. I am in eighth grade. And I go to Sayre School. It is my fourth year in the OBY program. And as Ms. Roberta said, I am a junior advisor. The I Was Here program helped me figure out what I wanted from myself and what I wanted from my community. So I'm going to share my narrative with you. Dear America, I know my love for you is overlooked. Seen simply as an act of obligation and not for what it truly is. A reminiscing of a time when my ancestors built you from the ground up. But America, it's more than that. It's a dream. A dream that many before me have worked to fulfill. Equality and equity is this dream. Vitality is this dream. We have the materials, America. We just need you to open the door. Those before me have bestowed upon me the responsibility to help you. But I have been marked as an inconvenience. Dear America, I don't want to be seen as your weakest race. I don't want to be looked down upon as you would the mud on your shoe or the blood on your knife. I am your legacy. Your future. I am here, America. I was here. Hi. I'm Gabby. This is my first year in OB-Y. It was a really good experience to seeing me and knowing more about my ancestors, my legacy, and just more about me. So I'm in fifth grade. I'm in fifth grade. I'm 10 years old, and I go to Dixie Elementary, and I will share my narrative to you. I am a descendant of a nation builder. I have been pushed around and told what to do and what to be. I am beautiful. I am a dancer. I am a hip-hop dancer. I am more than you know. I am more than you think. I am me, and that's all I want to be. I dream of becoming more. I dream of becoming a better me. I dream of becoming a person who believes in all people. I am me. Those were wonderful. So with this new delinquency and prevention and recidivism reduction program or initiative, these young ladies have taken it upon themselves to be young ambassadors. And so currently, we are working with Leestown Middle School Boys and the Kappa Club. So we have Mr. B.K. Kelly, who's the associate principal at Leestown Middle. And I believe this falls in your district, Council Member Lynch. Whose district does this fall? Oh, okay. So Council Member Reynolds. And the young men from Kappa Club who are now receiving these workshops, and it will conclude tomorrow. And they will do their presentations to their student body by way of intercom and their morning news. So we're excited to hear their narratives once they are completed. So as you see with this model, it uses the old African proverb of each one teach one. What these girls have learned from I Was Here Project, they are now teaching their peers what that means to them. And it was very well-recepted. So we're really happy to be able to share this with you all today. We hope to keep this project going and start involving universities and colleges so those students can take the workshops and become ambassadors themselves, which also will hopefully be credited to their community service or any type of college credits that they need as well. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. We'll take questions if you have any. Thank you so much. That was wonderful. Thank you all. Now we have a few questions. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all for being here today. I think this is just a good example of how Marjorie and her team and those that work with her continue to turn this project that gets more recognition outside of Lexington than it does in Lexington to change and to be something that people can actually relate to and give our young people the opportunity to find narratives within themselves and take the opportunity to create art. So I just want to thank you for the presentation today. Thank you for the continued work and to continue to look for ways to turn this project into something that people can see and feel and be a part of. And then, Mayor, I know this is probably out of the norm, but when we get through answering questions in the presentation, if we could take a picture with the group, I think that would be a good idea. That's a great idea. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all for your presentation today. This is a wonderful, wonderful project, and I'm so happy you're here. Now I want to speak to the girls. I'm a mom of a 13-year-old daughter as well, and you all are so eloquent when you speak. And I know that I'm very proud of you for standing up here. It's not easy to stand at that microphone and do what you did, especially from memory. Holy cow. Great job. So I just wanted to encourage you all to stay the course and keep working on your confidence and your public speaking skills. Well, I can't even talk right now. Your public speaking skills, because that will get you really far in life. And so I'm really, really proud of you guys, and I'm really thankful for this program building you all up and making you into wonderful young ladies. So keep up the great job. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. My comments are along similar lines to Council Member Baxter's. I just wanted to thank especially Ms. Williams and Ms. Gatewood for being here today. I know that sometimes, especially when you're a young person and especially when you're from a marginalized community, it can be so difficult to take up space when you have people telling you that you don't belong. And I want to make sure that you all know that you belong here. And I know you already know that, but I think sometimes it helps to hear it from the people who are sitting on the other side of these desks and the people who are in power. I spent a lot of my morning today in Frankfurt hearing a lot of state legislators talk, and I wish that those folks were about half as articulate as you were today. So this storytelling gift that you've been given, I hope you'll continue to use it as you grow up and as you continue to be a part of our community, because the empowerment that you're displaying today is going to empower others around you to tell their own stories. So I'm very grateful that you came here today, and I feel privileged to have heard your narratives. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Director Persily, for the presentation. Thank you, Ms. Gatewood and Ms. Williams, for your beautiful words. I want you to continue to dream and know that you can reach your dreams, and I'll continue to make sure that I emphasize that our youth should be able to dream and reach them. So as everyone knows, my heart and my priorities lie within the youth, specifically making sure that we're as impactful as possible for our youth. So I just have one question, and this is tailored to how could you see this project growing and what would be needed to expand and make this project grow? Well, as you see, we have a community here that surrounds our kids. We have parents. Parents, raise your hands. And we also have our leaders of our other programs. Matthew Crutcher is here from Juvenile Probation and Court Services. And, of course, we have the support of our commissioner and her full team. So how we see this grow and to be sustainable is to really reach out to the colleges and universities. We've had a model similar to this where we use college students and they get credits for their classes. We work with the professors to ensure that. And so having them come to our workshops and take a workshop first, because you have to understand it to be able to execute it and implement it into other youth, but using them to grow the program. And it's really subliminally not just a leadership program. It's literacy. It's spoken word. It's anything you can imagine. And it's probably more than we can actually see because within each youth, it means something different. So we don't put the words in their mouth. They form those words. And so, you know, as they grow into adults, they keep it going too, becoming agents of change. And so that's how it becomes a sustainable model is that each one teach one and that snowball effect. And not just colleges and universities that are within our community, but, you know, outline colleges and communities. So we really want to embrace them and get them to understand the concept so they can also implement it in their communities. I appreciate that. In any way that I can help or we can help to help grow or expand this, I would love to, especially to reach our misunderstood and our impacted youth. So I would love to have that available for them. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have any other questions? Thank you so much for your presentation. Now we'll all come get a photo with the council. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That brings us to council reports. Any council reports? Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Mayor. Let me do my fun ones first before I do my not so fun ones. So I would first like to thank Fayette County Public Schools for inviting me to come moderate their academic team challenge on Saturday at Glendover Elementary. It was a lot of fun. I forgot how much fun that actually was. And I'd also like to take just a second to acknowledge somebody in the room who was leaving me. Today is Matt Patrick's last day in a council meeting. He's decided he wanted to join the corrections team for whatever reason. And so this will be his last week here with us before he starts over there with them. And they're going to take really good care of him. Correct? Thank you. All right. All right. I'm very sad to have him leave because he takes good care of me. He even walks me to the car at night when I'm here late. Okay. So let's talk about the elephant in the room. We had two young people lose their lives yesterday. One was 19. One was 24. We as adults have to do better than we are doing with our youth. So if there's any youth out there watching this or can hear me, if you need mental health services because of past trauma, please reach out to my office. You can call 311. They'll patch you right through. You can leave a message on the voicemail. If I'm in the office, which I usually am late, I'll answer the phone. We have to figure this out. We can't keep losing another child every day. It's ridiculous. There's also on my webpage, on the LFUCG website, there's a link on my webpage. In addition to the survivor things that we have here at LFUCG, there are other survivor resources. If you scroll to the bottom past my picture, there is a link that will send you to another page that has other outside agencies listed on there. Sorry. I'm trying to make sure I don't forget anything. If you are looking for something to do, like if you're an adult and you're looking for something to do right now, please reach out to 1LEX. They are trying to get 100 men or 100 black men to help mentor in the schools. If you don't want to do that, you can reach out to any Fayette County public school. They have a real read program. You can go to the school and read to a classroom one hour a day or one hour a month. They give you the book. They give you some questions. They give every kid in the room a book. I encourage you to join my office, the Department of Corrections, as well as Streets and Roads. We are all going next week to read to a school. Streets and Roads is driving a dump truck, so good luck competing with that. But, again, anybody need anything, any kind of services to help deal with any unresolved trauma, please reach out to my office. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to remind my neighbors that on Thursday, we will be meeting at Sandersville Elementary School to talk about the new elementary school that's going to be built on Greendale Road. So please meet me at Sandersville Elementary School in the library at 6 p.m. and bring your questions, and you'll be able to see the beautiful designs of the new elementary school coming our way. Ground is breaking in May. And then, secondly, the Tree Canopy Ad Hoc Committee is doing some community engagement over the next few weeks. So please encourage you to look at my social media page. Please come out. Give us your input about how you feel about trees. We want to get your input as we move forward with our Tree Ad Hoc Canopy Committee. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Mayor. So last night, I was able to host our first community town hall. I got it done, didn't I? I want to give a big thank you to Council Member James Brown for coming and meeting and showing your support. And thank you to Lexington Leadership Foundation for allowing us to use the Woodhill Community Center for this meeting. It was a great space in which to engage with the community. We had folks in attendance from both inside and outside of District 7, and there was a lot of productive conversation. A common theme was the need for more youth programming and mentoring programs. This is something that I look forward to exploring with my colleagues in the coming weeks. I plan to host quarterly town halls in various locations of District 7, so please keep an eye out for a town hall near you. Also, I want to thank Chief Colvin and Deputy Chief Joyner. I was able to go visit the correction facility, and they gave me a tour and explanation of their facility last Thursday. The staff's detailed description of programming for detainees aimed at fostering practical skills and knowledge for successful reentry was impressive. I commend their dedication to this critical work and appreciate the time they spent with me and the transparency with which they approached my visit. Lastly, but not least, I want to announce that this Thursday, March 13, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Lexington Senior Center, 195 Life Lane, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will be holding a public meeting regarding a project that will widen New Circle Road from Woodhill to Trade Center Drive. This is going to be a big project that will impact many of my constituents. The public meeting will provide the opportunity to view possible designs, ask questions, and give them feedback. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. So for those of y'all who don't know, this past Saturday was International Women's Day, so I just wanted to take a second and appreciate all of the women that I'm blessed to serve with on this council. I'm going to go down by name and give each of y'all your flowers while we're still here. So to Council Member Lynch, Council Member LaGrie, Council Member Sheehan, Council Member Baxter, Mayor Gorton, Council Member Reynolds, to Councilwoman Gray and Councilwoman Beasley, I appreciate you, I see you, and I cannot express my gratitude enough for how welcome y'all have made me feel here. I also want to take a second and acknowledge that today is my legislative aide Sarah Ritter's birthday, and I'm very appreciative of her as well and the work that she puts in to help run the office for the people of the 4th Council District. So if you see her today, wish her a happy birthday. So thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you for that. Council Member Morton. Thank you. I have a couple pictures. So this weekend I also had the privilege of attending the FCPS Academic Challenge. I was actually at Northern Elementary, able to see some of our wonderful youth and children take part in their excellence and their educational activities they have going. Afterwards, it wasn't too pleasing, I was on my way home, and those are some beautiful pictures of the youth taking part of that academic challenge. So afterwards, I was en route home and I noticed a car that was wrecked between the trees, so without hesitation, I got out to ensure the safety of those that were there before the fire department there, and making sure that everything was okay. But within minutes of calling 9-1-1, our EC, let's see, Fire Station 10, which is actually in the 1st District, was there. Right within like two minutes, I wanted to give them a shout out. They are lifesavers in the toughest times they're available. Unfortunately, actually, this was a lady I went to school with, but she made it out and she was safe and the firefighters were there to help her. So I wanted to give a shout out to Fire Station 10 and specifically Parker Reeves, the supervisor of the EC unit. Moving on, later that evening, as I was wrapping up, after a long day, I was at Texas Roadhouse and I was approached by a young child at a restaurant. He recognized me from about a year ago on some billboards and some yard signs, and he just emphasized that he wanted to be on those billboards and yard signs as well. He actually just came from the same academic challenge that I was at. So I emphasized to him that I would shout him out at our council meeting and that he can reach his dreams. So a shout out to him. And as President Obama said in one of his quotes, young people are not just our future, they are the present. And he and his brother are the present. So there we go. Then lastly, first I want to thank One Lexington for reaching out to me today and keeping me informed and in constant communication about the homicide that took place in District 1 today. So as many have been informed, there were two homicides within 24 hours of each other yesterday. And at this point, there are just so many in Lexington, it could be almost one every other day or at least one a week. And it's almost to the point where it's feeling like it's a routine and it should not be. We behave as if this epidemic is normal. And it's not normal and it's not okay. It's not normal to sit here and accept everything is going to be okay and that gun violence is down. It's not normal for certain neighborhoods to be stuck in a state of trauma. Hearing gunshot wounds possibly weekly. Knowing someone in the community who has been shot or killed each month. And having to continue to go through this nonstop ending vicious cycle. And while now the majority takes place in my district, unfortunately, that is changing. And that's not a good thing. It has taken place everywhere in Lexington. So when is enough enough? These statements are not fixing issues. We need direct intervention, direct prevention, and investments aiming to address root causes of gun violence and poverty. Every neighborhood in Lexington deserves to be safe and healthy where our youth can dream. Our neighbors can walk down the street without having to look over their shoulders or wondering when the next shooting will take place. So to my constituents who have reached out today and over the weeks, I hear you. We hear you. We have to do better. We will do better. And there's more to come. So thank you. All right. Does anyone else have a comment or a report? All right. That brings us to public comment for issues not on the agenda. And the way this works is when I call your name, you'll come to the podium. And you will need to restate your name as well as your council district. And you'll have three minutes. So we have Rick Day followed by Amy Clark. Welcome. My name is Rick Day, and I live in the 3rd District. Our compensation system is a mess. Or as a mechanic at Fleet Services put it, our system is failing the employees. In the past two years, I have been here over 20 times and have given as many or more examples. Not one of you has followed up with even one question or made even one comment. So I have to ask, do you not see a problem? Or are each of you just following orders? Are each of you doing as you have been told? In any case, your silence is loud and clear. And your message has been received. No more random examples. Future examples will be directly related to a topic. And the next topic will be the 2014 and the 2022 MAG studies. Following that will be the 2022 study on race and gender. The MAG studies were classification compensation studies by the Management Advisory Group. And they are the go-to documents for all things compensation related. The studies were done by the MAG group as directed by HR and the administration. Dr. Russell Campbell represented the MAG group in the 2022 study. And Dr. Campbell claims he is so good that he could do his studies in his sleep. That alone might answer a lot of questions. All existing classification and compensation policies were suspended for the 2022 study. The very policies that the Urban County Council put in place when they approved the 2014 study were suspended for the 2022 study. So for the 2022 study, we had HR and administration directing an outside consultant whose lead person thinks he could do the study in his sleep. And there were no rules. As I have said once before when talking about these studies, what could possibly go wrong? I am going to suggest that those of you who were not here in 2022 take a look at the study so you will have some idea what I am talking about. I am going to suggest that those of you who were here in 2022 take a look at the study so you will have some idea what I am talking about. Thank you. Next up is Amy Clark. Welcome. I am Amy Clark. And I just put the substance of what I have to say into the record. And there are copies that you will come to in due course. I offered them for you and they are in your mailboxes apparently. I am in the 3rd District and, in fact, what I have to say is especially addressed to Council Member Legree as the chair of EQPW, the Committee Over Environmental Quality, and also to our 12th District Representative, Council Member Boone. I am here to ask that you docket as soon as possible, which I hope may be today, docket alone, walk on a resolution today for action in the coming Council meeting, which is not this Thursday but the next, to oppose Senate Bill 89 that creates a new definition for the waters of the Commonwealth that are to be protected from pollution. Kentucky has made such progress in our lifetime in protecting our water. Our water is a public trust, and I mean all of it, not just the ones that are evidently for public benefit shared among us all. What I have given you is a fact sheet from the Kentucky Resources Council that you can peruse at leisure. The new definition, SB 89, gives a new definition for waters of the Commonwealth, and it's in great part simply those defined as navigable under the federal Clean Water Act. But the federal, because the reach of federal law is limited to pollution affecting interstate waters, the protections against pollution in the Clean Water Act have never reached Kentucky waters of state value or concern, some of these waters. And I just want to highlight things that are left out, and in particular, the language leaves thousands of private wells across the Commonwealth deprived of protection as waters of the Commonwealth because they're private, and the groundwater resources that go with them. The new definition does not protect karst aquifers and those underground water resources. And think about our resources. Think about our bourbon. Think about what pure limestone-enriched water does for our county. The new definition also excludes other groundwater resources that are or could be used for a range of beneficial uses, including domestic supply other than drinking water, agriculture and farmstead use, food preparation, and industry. Wells rather than springs are the primary source of groundwater access for rural Kentuckians. These, too, would be left unprotected. Ms. Clark, your time is up. I urge you to ask the mayor, direct the mayor, to oppose this in legislation. Thank you, council members. This brings us to adjournment. Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. We are adjourned. Thank you all for being here.