and just give me about four more here three yeah and then once again I'm gonna kind of open my legs up okay I'm going to show you the seated version first and then you can join me standing if you want to it won't be for everybody arms come front right here palms out shoulders back and down I'm just gonna do a little bicep curl think slow don't think anything fast and jerky nice and slow oh yeah sweating so you could choose to stay right here or I'm gonna come up and if you notice my legs are kind of wide so it's more of a wide squat that I'm gonna go into my toes and my knees go in the same direction when I go down again I'm pulling the abs in chest is proud so let's just start with the squat first so you're just kind of take it down and up same direction almost like you're pulling a piece of paper apart with your legs okay rip that paper you don't want the knees to come in take everything nice and tight and again you need to drop this part drop it but I'm gonna add I'm gonna squat I'm gonna curl and stand up I squat curl stand up feel free to sit back down and just work the curls little down yes good job down curl working your legs working your upper body you're getting low to pick something up like a heavy box or something make it functional for you take it down squeeze don't lean forward let's just do several more all right good afternoon everybody good afternoon thanks for joining us I'm calling to order this confirmation hearing for Ethics Commission for Thursday March 20th 2025 this is for the Ethics Commission and we have mr. Trace Williams if you would come up to the podium for us and I just want to make sure is a trace or Tracy trace trace gotcha thank you for checking I appreciate that no I always double check I appreciate you being here appreciate your willingness to serve basically the way this works is I'm gonna ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us about why you're interested in applying for this Board of Commission then I'm gonna open up the floor to my colleagues for questions and comments and then we will go into closed session back here to make our decision and then we'll come out and let you know our decision so mr. Williams if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in applying yeah perfect well first of all my security picture my eyes are closed but hopefully you guys can tell I'm the real trace Williams so I'm actually from Kentucky I just say Kentucky but I've always kind of grown up in Lexington lived in eastern Kentucky with my grandparents you know for breaks and holidays and things like that but I'm a Lexingtonian went to Lansdowne then LTMS which is being renamed and STEAM Academy then I went to UK so I've always kind of stayed around here I worked at partners for youth when I was 17 turning 18 so a few familiar faces you know it was a great experience I got to see a lot of LF you CG and what they stand for get a lot of exposure that way so I've always kind of had this passion for being involved when I was at UK I was very involved on campus I was the director of pop culture for the student activities board where I got to bring build out a science guy and Marlon Wayans to campus and things like that I was also on the black student Advisory Council which got to meet with President Capilouto at the time Provost Dave Blackwell dr. Turner etc so again you can kind of see that I've always had kind of a passion for being involved no matter what capacity that's in now I have graduated I work at the University of Kentucky again and I currently serve on the Fayette County Public Schools Equity Council Commission so that's an experience that I get to do right now which is a been a great experience I'm also involved locally with my fraternity I notify theta fraternity incorporated we're establishing a graduate chapter here in Lexington and I was elected as the first president of that just like a few days ago so um you know my plates full but I can't complain because I've always wanted to eat so I guess that's a why I'm here because I just want to give back even more so yeah right thank you so much for that colleagues if you have questions or comments please log in and congratulations on your being named president thank you thank you yeah councilmember Lynch hello good evening thank you so much for being here and for applying to be on a board and Commission I love the Ethics Commission I used to serve on it so my question to you is why the Ethics Commission that's a great question I would say I've always had like a very strong drive for morality it's been instilled in me from a very young age I grew up thinking my grandfather was like the most moral person alive so I kind of have modeled my actually this is one of his ties I've actually had to model my like you know ethics based on him he's somebody that would always do the right thing no matter what it costs to him sometimes at great personal cost and I've always really admired that so I would say ethics is really important to me because I would say I'm a very principled person you know it's very easy when you're in a position to take advantage whenever it benefits you even if you'd hate if someone on the other side did that but for me I would like to be known as somebody that like even if something will benefit me I wouldn't want to do it as long as it follows the principles that are established like I'm very big on principle and precedent you know so I think that the Ethics Commission seems to stand on that you know chapter 25 I looked over it I think it's very very important I think it's important that we have ethical employees and officers and you know Fayette County in Lexington and I think that this is a position that really can have a meaningful and measurable impact especially on a bigger scale you know if it's like a company you might be impacting just like a small business or medium or large size business but like this is a city that impacts you know hundreds of thousands of people so I think that it's a really important Commission and I think that I would love to serve on it thank you so much for your answer Thank You vice mayor Thank You councilmember Brown Thank You vice mayor and Thank You trace for putting putting your application in I know I guess I got I do have one question it's what took you so long and yeah no I just know that you know working with you wouldn't you were partners for youth and we you know we didn't like seeing you go and knew you was going to come back and do great things and volunteer and and use your time to help serve the community and look I'm glad you put your application in but yeah what took you so long to get to get back you know you stumped me I don't know maybe it was I just needed a break from you for a little bit you know no I would say that you know just life kind of takes you in a few different directions I've been trying to build my career up and I wanted to have something that I think life experiences are really important to add to this so I kind of think that I've actually matured in a lot of ways since then and got more life experiences and a few other things that you know have ultimately led me here today so thank you thank you councilmember Curtis Thank You mr. Williams for being here today and for volunteering yourself up to serve our community like this I'm deeply appreciative of a lot of aspects of your application but one in particular I share your affinity for filmmaking and I don't know if my colleagues know this but I actually have a film degree and I was wondering if you could speak to how your experience working in video production in filmmaking and whatnot has what that's taught you about collaborating with people who might have different opinions than you and working towards a common goal within that which is a skill that I think would be very applicable in this setting first of all that's very awesome you know I think that filmmaking is such a beautiful collaborative art and it is definitely hard on a larger scale so mostly I'm a director of photography so I get to lead the camera and grip or lighting departments and things like that so there's actually a lot of people I have to collaborate with and then you have to collaborate with the director and then the producers and the actors and it all has to kind of come together so I would say sometimes people have seen my age and been like I've been doing this for 40 years you know and you're coming in and like technically you have to tell me what to do but I think that the beautiful thing is you have to include those people and it's like I can still learn from you you know and I have learned a lot from these people so I think that I'm actually always trying to learn from others even if I'm like the leader of the department and you have to kind of give and take you know you have to know when to pick your battles like is a marginally better image in my opinion going to be worth the risk of you know breaking up this relationship with someone else so it's all about balance I would say but at the end of the day we all want to make the best product possible so you have to kind of you know work together to make that happen thank you councilmember Morton you mentioned age I wouldn't bring it up but you mentioned so there we go and now you know it's nothing not because I'm actually the youngest person up here and I think eight I think you know when we think about diversity in our city of Lexington we must be represented both in backgrounds age and all different type of things so how do you think your age can be an asset if selected to be on this board that is a fantastic question I would say that sometimes people get really steeped in traditions and they don't want to break through that and for me I'm all about like let's look at this from different angles and try to get just again the best result possible so you know the model for my fraternity is actually building traditions not resting upon one which really resonates deeply with me I think people can just really be steeped in that tradition and just seeing like from one lens and I think that younger blood can come in and they can bring diverse perspectives as you mentioned with just different life experiences you know like life was so drastically different amongst generations and I think that each generation brings such a profound viewpoint to things and I think that balance again working with the different the different views kind of creates ultimately the best decisions for things thank you thank you Mr. Williams have you in your experience or education had any either ethics training ethics courses classwork workshops anything of that sort no nothing official I would say every day I'm faced with ethical as we all are ethical challenges but uh no nothing official okay and and I asked that question is it's certainly not a disqualifying question and I want to clarify for my colleagues as well the Ethics Commission has nine members seven of which are kind of designate members with certain particular kinds of backgrounds and then two positions that are at-large and my understanding is Mr. Williams is an at-large nominee so and I think to me the intent of that on our boards to have at-large nominees is to have folks from the community without necessarily having to have specific technical designations so my last question to you is have you found yourself in your experience in a situation where you were the minority opinion where the rest of the group was going one way and you were going another way how did you navigate that quite often I'm in that position actually I love it I'm kidding I love whenever we all can agree but yeah I'm not afraid to have a minority or dissenting opinion on things I would say that let me try to think about stories or examples I can tell that are you know within like the non confidentiality things so I worked on a project you know a video project and the client was like we're worried that these videos like we like the idea but we're worried that it's not gonna maybe resonate well or it could have some backlash and I had to really fight to get the videos made and we had to do like all kinds of testing and talking to different people and some of the people who have been in that position for a long time we're like you know who cares about this idea ultimately I fought for it so hard they agreed to let me make the video series and within 24 hours it was the most viewed video series you know that they had with like 95% positive you know feedback from everybody so that was an example I think that was worth fighting for and had a good outcome all right I appreciate that answer if there are no more questions colleagues I'll take a motion to go into closed session all those in favor please say aye any opposed all right we're in closed session we'll be right back you can take a seat thank you all right welcome back everybody if I can get a motion to come back into open session we have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye any opposed all right we are back in open session mr. Williams will you join us back at the podium please mr. Williams thank you so much for your willingness to serve I'm happy to let you know that this council will be approving your appointment to the Ethics Commission so congratulations awesome thank you guys thank you all right we are adjourned