♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It's 3 o'clock, so I'll go ahead and call to order the Lexington Fayette Urban County Work Session of April 22, 2025. And I would like to start this meeting with a comment about one of our Fayette County family members. It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of a member of Lexington's Community Corrections family. Officer Kevin Chaney passed away of natural causes over the weekend while off-duty. He was 42 years old. Officer Chaney graduated from the academy in June of 2024 and was serving as a custody officer on the first shift. He will be deeply missed by his brother and sister officers at the division. He was a likable, upbeat, and hard-working officer. Kevin was a single father of a daughter, 8-year-old Emma, and is survived by his mother and his twin sister. And I ask that you join all of us in keeping his family, as well as all of our corrections officers who knew him as their family, in your hearts and prayers at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, we are ready for public comment for issues on the agenda and we do not have anyone signed up for this public comment. So, next is our docket approval and I'll entertain a motion to approve. Motion approved. Second. Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Council Member Gray. And if you have questions or additions, please log in now. All right. All those in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That motion passes. At this time, at this time, we are looking at our April 15th, 2025 work session table of motions. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Vice Mayor Wu, do I hear a second? Second. Council Member Reynolds, are there any questions or corrections, Council Members? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That motion passes. At this time, we are ready for budget amendments. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Council Member Savigny, Council Member Curtis, seconded. And if you have questions about budget amendments, please log in. No questions. All right. Council Member Gray. No questions. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And for your information, there are a couple pages of budget adjustments. And then that brings us to new business. And I'll entertain a motion to approve. Council Member Baxter moved. Council Member Sheehan seconded. And please log in with your questions. Any questions on new business? Council Member Morton. Yes, indeed. I just had a question for item B. Mr. Karama or Mr. Payne. Kenneth Payne, welcome. Hey, how's it going, brother? Just can you talk a little bit about the summer, the It Takes a Village summer program, what we're offering this year? You want just more information in general about the summer youth program? Yeah, and what we're offering this summer. Okay. So I believe this is our fifth year of doing a summer youth program. And we've been trying to expand it, you know, look at ways to expand it, do more, offer more for the kids. So every two, we meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from about 830 to 230, 3 o'clock, depends on what we're doing in the afternoon. Every Tuesday, the first part of the day we have the Andrews brothers who come in and do like group counseling therapy sessions. They do that with our kids, you know, to kind of split them up, talk through some things that they're dealing with and just, you know, as it relates to their mental health. So we do that on Tuesdays. And then the evening we do something fun, whether it's Malibu Jacks or if we're going to, you know, some other place. And Thursday we'll bring in a community partner that may talk to them about certain different skills and jobs and other opportunities. And then, of course, in the evening we do another fun activity for the kids. So we do about eight weeks, like I said, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every week we start the first week of June is when we start the program. It usually ends towards the end of July. And then the last day we take them to Hurricane Bay in Louisville, you know, just to end the summer youth program and have some fun. You're welcome. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question about item F. And I think Commander Cooper is coming down. I'd love to hear that we are making a hiring process more efficient. And I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell us a little bit more about it. Yes, absolutely. Good afternoon, everybody, Mayor, Council. So yes, we have been working with Human Resources. In the hopes of adding efficiency to our hiring process. So with that we began combing through the current ordinance which outlined a two-phase process for how we would go about bringing in applicants going through a hiring process. And ultimately we were able to come together and try to shorten that a bit with hopes of not just maintaining the efficiency but also keeping our applicants more engaged through the process. By being able to the two phases, let me back up and describe the two phases. Initially there would be you apply, you would take a written test. If you pass the written test you would move on to a physical abilities test and you would move on to an oral interview. That would conclude phase one. Phase two, if somebody made it through that, the candidate made it through there, they would go to phase two which would involve all of your background investigations, suitability screenings and things of that nature. Then the offer, conditional offer of employment would come. We found on several occasions going through these processes that's a long time to wait. You know, somebody could from application to finding out they're going to be hired could be five to six months. There were also some stipulations of what we can and can't ask in a background investigation without somebody having a conditional offer of employment. So in the spirit of several different initiatives we've worked with human resources to go away from that phase approach and we would now be able to, with the passing of this ordinance, offer a conditional offer of employment after they've completed what would be the former phase one, if you will. That's great. And I appreciate the collaboration with human resources to make the process more effective and efficient and hopefully that equals more officers in the department. So I appreciate all your hard work. Thank you so much. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council member Reynolds. Thank you, mayor. Both of my colleagues mentioned the two other items I was going to mention. So I'll mention the third and that is L. I just had a quick question about what this access in sport court redevelopment is. Is this money that we're using to hire, hello, welcome, Director Conrad. Thank you. To hire somebody to do a special type of sport court design? I'm just trying to understand. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So this is actually looking at access, pedestrian and vehicular access within Castlewood. So as you approach the community center, we know we're looking at sport court redevelopment, the access to the barn. This was funded several years ago. I think council member Baxter and council member Brown funded this back in FY24. So with conclusion of those ARPA projects, we're now putting this out for design. So it's looking at access, pedestrian, vehicular, through that whole area of the park. Okay. So redesigning how people access those things. That's correct. Okay. And I agree that that is an issue there. So I was just trying to understand exactly where the money was going. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Are there any other council questions? Council member Ellinger. Thank you, mayor. Number E, please. I know we're going to be having a presentation here soon. I was curious. Why do we go from five years to ten years? Because it's always been five years increments. In this one, it looks like it goes from five to ten. In the previous two, it's been five years. There are locations where it is just perpetual. So there is not that time limit in the statute. So the ability, and the board discussed this at length, so the ability to do some larger projects where you potentially save some of the revenues, where you could do, and the example we used, which is much too big, but the bean in Chicago, for example, where you had a truly signature kind of project, you could do if you had a ten-year window to do that you could not do if you had five. So it really just allows the district to better serve the boundary within. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Any other questions, council members, about new business? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. We do have communications from the mayor for appointments. Thank you, vice mayor, council member Curtis. Are there any questions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. There are no donations to approve. And the final communications from the mayor is procurements. I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, council member Gray. Second. Vice mayor Wu seconds. And are there questions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Now we are going to continuing business and presentations. And first is environmental quality and public works committee. And I'll turn to council member Lagree. Thank you, mayor. This is the report out for the environmental quality and public works committee for March 11, 2025. The meeting was called to order at 1 p.m. The first item on our agenda was approval of the February 11, 2025 Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee summary. There were no additions or corrections and the summary was approved without dissent. James Bush Energy Initiative section manager reviewed the utility expenses for fiscal year 24 and the prior year comparison for fiscal year 21 through 24. He shared that there will be minor allocation requests in the mayor's proposed budget for fiscal year 26 in anticipation of a federal grant. And moving forward, there will be a continued emphasis on solar photovoltaic or PV and coordinating with new and re-roofing projects. The Senior Therapeutic Center will be the first building to include PV in construction. When asked if there have been repairs or replacements due to storms, Bush said there have been minor repairs but no replacements. No action was taken on this item. Next, Commissioner Albright presented the pavement management plan. She reviewed the adopted budget versus expenditures and said the fluctuation between the two is attributed to contractors and scheduled projects. She reviewed project prioritization and explained the budget allocation by road class. Since the fiscal year 26 budget figures were unavailable, she utilized fiscal year 25 budgets to explain how funds are allocated. She reviewed the paving calendar and said that the paving season begins in April and runs through December. Moving forward, staff will streamline and find efficiencies through coordination with utilities, update paving scores with new field survey data, and pursue software integration designed for GIS mapping. Again, no action was taken on this item. Finally, Richard Dugas, Administrative Officer in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Commissioner's Office presented an update on the Haley Pike Landfill Solar Feasibility Study. As a result of inquiries LFUCG received regarding solar developments at Old Frankfurt Pike and Haley Pike Landfills, an internal study was completed, subsequently named the Phase Zero Study. External subject matter experts were utilized for site evaluation, regulatory analysis, financial viability, and to estimate the cost for future phases. When asked if there would be an RFP process, Dugas said it would fall under the RFP requirements for what we want to see out of this, and then would set the parameters. No action was taken on this item. The meeting then adjourned at 2.13 PM, and Mayor, that concludes my report out. Thank you. Thank you very much. Does anyone have questions for Council Member Legree? All right, thank you. All right, next is our first of three presentations. And this is the Downtown Lexington Management District Recertification Process. And I believe Jim Frazier is going to lead this presentation. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. Good to see everyone again. I'm Jim Frazier, Chair of the Downtown Lexington Management District. And I'm here to present to you our petition and plan for reauthorization for the management district. As Council Member Ellinger pointed out, we have been authorized at five year intervals, starting in May 2015, and we did two of those five year intervals. This is a ten year authorization of which the members within the district, which we will look at shortly, all signed a petition to authorize. So the ten year term, as Mr. Atkins said, it allows us continuity to do bigger projects, and it also gives us the ability to bond. I cannot right now go bond anything with five years. Ten year window with our income coming in for ten years gives the banks more comfort and more security that they're willing to bond us so we can do larger projects, more signature things. I'm not sure we'll ever match the beam in Chicago, but we talk about it a lot in our board meetings. The impact on the management district downtown is kind of interesting. If you look at the land size, it's roughly 2% of our entire county, yet we employ 24% of the people who work in the city. So it's kind of in the hotel rooms, the 35% number, the revenue is generated within the core of this particular district. So you think about all the hotels at the Marriott, out at Harrodsburg Road, the Manchester is not included in this district, but we stop at the Oliver Lewis Way, which we'll get to in a minute. So it just kind of gives you an overview of the impact. Small land area, but high economic development impact within this district. This is the initial footprint, the purple, our favorite color and our signature color on our purple shirts, if you probably know. This is the initial district that we did ten years ago. It has not changed. We did look at possibly changing it this year. It did not work out. The areas that wanted in, we couldn't make it work. The areas we did want in, we couldn't make it work. So this is the original district that was done in 2015, and it's not changed today. It's bounded by Oliver Lewis Way on one side, you've got Midland on the other. High Street forms a boundary, and then we go up Bar and around. It's kind of gerrymandered, but we had to do it this way because within this core, there are so many non-paying governmental entities. We have government buildings, we've got churches, a lot of these folks don't pay tax. Remember, this management district is a local option tax levy of ten cents per hundred value of assessment. So if I own something for $100,000 within the district, my tax bill's $100, okay? So because it was drawn this way, because we had to go out and find more tax paying entities, because it wasn't a perfect rectangle or whatever you might even want to call that. This is the same picture, but a little more granular. You can see Rupp Arena, the Civic Center, again, non-taxable, right? But they're in our district. Far right toward Midland, when we first had this district formed, the hair leader was a tax paying citizen. Well, they're not anymore. It's owned by the Fayette County School Board. That was a big hit for the, I almost said the parking authority, the management district. So these just gives you kind of a bird's eye view of some of the major structures within the district. Of course, we pick up all the town branch. Again, a non-paying tax entity, but yet within the district. So, just give you some context of where we are. Let's see here. This is a little history. Again, as I said, we were established in May of 2015, originally for five years. There are 15 of us that comprise the management district board. I was on the original board and have been the original chair. I'll be rolling off in June 30th of this year. And it's been a great opportunity and quite frankly an honor to work with the fine folks on this board and you all and the city people. It's really been, it's been a labor of love for all of us. It really has been. This represents the current board, the three officers, myself, Dougie Allen, and Juan Castro, who I think you all met before in the parking or when he presents his budget for the management district, which we'll be back here in June to do. But this is just a current look at the board, who we are and what we do, and our day jobs, if you will. The cool thing about this board, which I think is kind of unique, is that each of us represent a different segment, if you will, of different, for example, Dennis Anderson and Clay represent the office and property owners. Dougie is hospitality and entertainment. Brianna and Mary Quinn do parking and tourism. I'm on the retail financial professional. And then the government has representatives of Council Member Brown, Council Member Legree, and Kevin Atkins from the Mayor's office. And Beverly Fortune, who is a chair, I will say, of our reauthorization committee. And without her, I'll be honest with you, we couldn't have got it done. So she's with us today, along with our board member, Thomas Pettit, and our good friend from DLP, Alan McDaniel, who is a vendor for us. He's executive director of the partnership, as you all know. But the three of them did a big, big deal in getting these things signed and getting it reauthorized. So we owe them a great debt of gratitude. You're getting some pictures now of some of the things we do. The bourbon and rye, we help put that sign up. We help pay for that with the owner of that. You know, recognize one of the purple shirts. We show lots of pictures of purple shirts. But as the marketing materials say, we are more than just purple shirts, even though that gets a big visual from all of us. But downtown beautification is a big deal for us. We enhance the landscaping, decorations, we maintain public spaces. It's good to remember that we do not supplement the city services. We simply augment it. We enhance them. That's the deal with this ordinance. We don't substitute what our government tax dollars pay, we just enhance it in the core. So think of it in terms of like that. Funding improvement, we do property improvement grants, we do beautification grants, we do lighting grants. Beverly and I are big on lighting, so if you have a light bulb, we'll probably help you light it up. So anybody wants to put more lights in their business in the core, you just call us. So we're big into lighting, but we've done a nice job, I think. And what it does, though, it gives the owners of the property skin in the game. So we'll match up to $9,000 of a property improvement grant. So if you want to take your facade on your building, and you want to enhance the awning, or you want to enhance the lighting, it's going to cost X. And they file an application process, we have a committee. It's not just done by Beverly and I, despite what people think. It really is a committee, and we look at it, and if it meets the criteria, we'll go ahead and approve a grant anywhere from $1 to $9,000 to help that business improve their property. And the view shed, and we all win with that. In the marketing and promotion, we work heavily with Visit Lex. We work heavily with the parking authority to increase foot traffic, to drive the folks who are here visiting, to make it a good experience and a warm experience until they want to come back. So that's an important part of our mission and what we do. The programs are kind of basically broke down in three areas, maintenance, safety, and visitor assistance. The maintenance is pretty easy. You see these folks day in, day out, picking up garbage, raking leaves, blowing things out the curbs, pressure washing. That's the kind of thing you see the maintenance part, clean. And I will tell you, I've been here most of my adult life, it's never been cleaner. You walk these streets, you walk the core of this management district, it's never been cleaner. Safety, we do it in two different phases. We have ambassadors that have helped escort folks to and from their garages. In the morning, we have a segment of folks that come to work very, very early in the management district. So we have offered, and they've utilized our services for escort services to walk with folks. And also, with regard to the panhandling, with some of the other issues that go with it. All of our folks carry Narcan, they're all trained in Narcan use, so it's helped. We obviously don't get involved in issues that involve the police, but we report, we call the police. Everybody's on speed dial, we've got the police, they all know us, they know our ambassadors. David Warren, who is the head ambassador, is very well known and liked and respected and very visible in this downtown core. The visitor assistance, we've worked heavily with Mary Quinn's group at Visit Lex. We pass out pamphlets with regard to places to go. They ask us questions, where can I go get something to eat, where can I go shop, anything and everything. And I've got some statistics here to kind of give you a breakdown of some of the encounters we've had along the way, but everybody loves numbers. And these are our numbers, how many bags of leaves we've collected and graffiti things we've removed and blah. The hospitality assistance, those are 14,000 separate encounters with visitors to our downtown. They all don't, I'm not saying they're all from outside Kentucky or Lexington, but a great deal are. And these are our ambassadors as much as Mary Quinn's group is at Visit Lex, so I think it's important to know that. And my favorite statistic is the one at the bottom, 65 tons of trash have been collected from 2016 to 2024. Think about that, 65 tons, that's in addition to the normal collection of garbage that the city does, okay? This is over and above the normal stuff that the city does. So I take great pride, and the whole board does, about the work that's been done. But this is the maintenance stuff that you see these folks doing day in and day out, regardless of the weather. Again, more visuals before and after, we deal a lot with where the homeless live. With the panhandlers work, maintain, some are more aggressive than others. But these are the general areas of which you'll see our purple shirt folks on day in, day out basis. The return on the investment, I mean, everybody talks about that. We talked about it's ten cents for every $100. These folks allow themselves to be taxed. So they sign an authorization saying, yes, I will pay you my tax dollars, but in return, I want to spend here. So what we do, we do the public art. You see some of the examples of it. We did the unlearned fear and hate on the side of the building over there across from the old courthouse. Again, we have already mentioned Bourbon Toulouse, but we help with that sign. These facades, I submit to you, would not look as good as they do today, but for this management district. And if you see the tube there on the bottom, the parking authority owns that tube. That's a bridge cross over Broadway from the Victorian Square garage to the square. Parking authority owns it, but the management district help use to light it up. Again, two partners within the same community working hand in hand to help enhance our community, our downtown core. I think it works, it just works. I can't say much more about it. Another thing with regard to safety, when Fuchsia's got introduced, we all went up and went to the war room and got to see it all done. So what we've done, we've added this to our grant system. Not only did the parking authority do it in all their garages, but we have now gone to landowners and say if you want Mr. Businessperson or Ms. Businessperson, you want to put in a security system, we'll help fund you up to a certain amount of money to help you tie into Fuchsia's, which allows the police to see all this in real time. It's a safety issue for everybody, the merchants, the patrons, so it's a win-win. So we're very proud of that, but we partnered with the police department to add that to our arsenal of things to do. Our stats, valuations have increased 40% since we started in 2015. 51% of the commercial property is 273, and the reals are commercial within this district. The commercial's up about 10%, not as much as the rest, but there's a lot of people living downtown, whether you realize it or not. If you don't spend a lot of time, you would not know it. Thomas lives in Maine and Rose. We've got the lofts. We've got countless other pockets of people living downtown. So, increase in property values because of what we do to enhance the look and the feel of it. This is interesting for lawyers. The KRS requires 33% of the owners within the property to agree to it, and at least 51% of the assessed value to agree to it before you can self-tax. This ordinance in Lexington is different. It is 50% of each. We have to have 51% of the numbers within the district and 51% of the value. So, it's a higher standard, if you will, than the state actually requires. Here's what we did, though, with Beverly and Thomas' and Alan's help. We got 64% of the value of the owners and 51% of the total owners. So, we eclipsed both of our mandated goals. Those numbers and percentages have been certified already by these law departments, so I'm real pleased with it. The bottom line is, it's clean, it's safe, it's more vibrant, it's more welcoming, and I think it's been a value added for everybody here. I think that's all I've got. I will tell you that even though it doesn't sound like a lot of money, we get about 560,000 a year with the current PVA assessments. Big hunk of that goes to our purple shirts. That's the block by block people. So, that doesn't leave us a lot of money for art, for property improvement grants, for all the other things that go with safety. We spent a lot of time in Sandy Park two summers ago, and I'm hoping we don't have to this year. Right now, it looks pretty good, but the warm weather will tell. But we partnered with you all, we did a matching grant, if you all recall. We each put up 50,000, we hired the deputy sheriff's off duty. We had two patrol cars, two officers armed there, along with your own police force to help kind of be a presence, be a visible deterrent, if you will. because that's an area that a lot of people go to and have a lot of fun, and we wanted to continue to keep coming back and forth. So, that's my presentation on behalf of the management district for this renewal. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you very much, Jim, and I am sure there will be a few questions, perhaps, council members. Any questions? Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Frazier, for your presentation, for being here today. I had a question about the grants that you all partnered with us on for the FUSIS system. How many businesses are participating in that right now? I'd say we have probably close to 25 to 30 small businesses. I mean, we don't count Central Bank, right? But I mean, I'm talking about the smaller ones around, and I'm not counting the parking authority, because the parking authority did that on their own, it didn't require a grant application. But once they understood it, it really was kind of a well-kept secret. It wasn't from us, but it seemed to be from a lot of people downtown. But once they realized it, yeah, it's gotten some pretty good traction. We've had some technical difficulties, as we all do when we get into the computer, or at least people like I do. But it's worked out, and it seems to be well-received. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor Liu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Frazier, for the presentation and the work that you all do. This council, every year, most of us go on the commerce leadership trips, so we get to see different cities, often comparable cities. And we very often come back home being particularly proud of our downtown, having seen other downtowns that aren't as vibrant, either during the day, during the weekdays. I came out of a movie around midnight, Friday night, at the Kentucky Theater. And my first impression, being somebody that doesn't stay out that late, is I drove out and I looked around and I was like, what's going on out here? Is there an event? Is something happening? And then I said, no, this is just Friday night in Lexington. And I think the work that you all have done, and I think the work that this city has done, especially post-COVID, to really revitalize our downtown and get things back in shape and really vibrant. I think really speaks to all the work that we put in. So I really appreciate the work that you all do. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. My question is, when you were thinking about expanding the boundaries of the district, what obstacles did you face? Because it sounds like you all decided not to expand it. And then, are you currently working now on strategies to overcome those obstacles? I'm just curious if you're thinking about continuing to expand those boundaries. Well, I was a big proponent for expansion, and I got out ahead of my skis, as they say. I went up to 2nd Street and 3rd Street and wanted to push up that direction, because there was a need for it. A lot of the residents and homeowners and business owners were calling me, saying, would you include us in your district? I met with countless folks up there, many, many times. It's a tough area. It's a tough area, the corner of Martin Luther King and 2nd and 3rd Street. It's tough. And here's our economic problem. The tax that we levy, the ten cents per hundred, brings us X number of dollars. To take on that demographic and geographic scope up there, the cost to adding more security people, more safety ambassadors, more purple shirts. I couldn't afford to do it, not with the current tax base. because I really wanted to expand these boundaries, and I pushed harder than anybody. So when I realized economically, we can't do this and lose money. I mean, we're supposed to put the money back in the street, but I can't go upside down. So we had to pull back from that end. We tried to go out Broadway over on the call, the 500s on Main, which is right across from, I thought that would be a good place. It's a condominium residential community. We had some buy-in, we thought. We had done some sampling, but obviously not enough. So when the first drawing went out with the petition, it was an outcry from the group. They don't want to be in. They don't want to be taxed. We pay maintenance fees. We don't need that. We listened to the constituents. I met with them. We all met with them, two or three times, the board and some other groups. So we pulled it back out, went back to our original design and moved forward. I'm always looking for more opportunities, but it's also a cost-benefit analysis. Because we can only get so much, you look at the values of what you bring in, but then you also look at what's it going to take to support that new area? How many people's it going to take? That's where the, if we were, you know, Louisville's three times our size as management district, and they have three times as much money. I mean, if I had 1.5 million, I could do a lot. But we don't. But does that answer your question? Yes, thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Legree. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say thank you, Mr. Frazier, for your presentation. Beverly, Thomas, Allen, everybody's been working really hard to get this recertification to happen. It took a ton of legwork. A lot of conversations, a lot of connections, and in a really positive way. And I just want to reiterate that the Downtown Lexington Management District does great work. And as the Vice Mayor shared, there's a lot of work to be done. After the pandemic, as people were figuring out new patterns of life, and you all adapted, you worked hard to meet people where they were, you connected your mission really nicely in terms of clean, safe, and beautiful, and the downtown ambassadors do a wonderful job. And we hear a lot of really positive stories about the connections they make, the conversations they have. In addition to all of the property improvement grants, and support of the arts, and partnerships throughout downtown. So I'm really, really excited about the future of the DLMD, though. You will be missed, and thank you for your term of service. But we all know that a healthy downtown is a signifier of a healthy city. And the DLMD makes our downtown even better. So thank you all for sharing this overview and for your work. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other council comments or questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. And congratulations on taking this from beginning to the 10th year. Really appreciate your dedication and all the hard work of those who are involved. It's a labor of love for all of us. Thank you all. Yes, thank you. All right, now we have, interestingly enough, the Lexington Fayette County Parking Authority, and this will be presented by Laura Boyson. Welcome. Thank you, good afternoon. I appreciate the time. This is our annual visit. Good to see many of you again. Thank you for the invitation. I am presenting on behalf of the Lexington and Fayette County Parking Authority. Mr. Frazier is our chair, and I stand as the executive director. I thought it'd be good just to do a quick, I promise, just a quick overview of what we do. I want people to be curious about parking. It's not the most fun topic. It probably didn't come up Friday evening after the movie, but I do want you to be aware that in 2009, and I have the article from the Herald Leader. We were established as a city. You chose to move that on-street meter enforcement to Lex Park. You started the authority. And it was interesting, the Herald Leader, and it's a little blurred there, but it said that the merchants, it was actually the merchants downtown that thought the existing system wasn't working, and they wanted more enforcement. So in 2012, the decision was made. We acquired three garages, the Victorian Square, Helix, and Transit, and we also managed the Courthouse Garage, and we'll take ownership of that once the bonds are paid off in 2030. At that time, we had to put $8 million to support the structures just to make them manageable. And then we added an additional about $4 million in technology, which was just part of the industry as the industry was evolving. So where are we today? We're starting another capital campaign. We spoke about this last year briefly, $14 million in a financial investment. We're trying to do that in the next seven years. It's not to enhance the garages, it's to keep them structurally sound, and we'll go through that a little bit more. We spend about a million dollars a year, literally a million dollars a year, just keeping them operational. Not, again, not adding more floors, I can't add any more curbs, etc. And we are looking at an additional $2 million in the next three years for technology. Technology is having a shorter and shorter lifespan. Our responsibilities, again, just please be curious about parking. We do manage all non-moving violations, that's actually in the ordinance. We manage all non-moving violations, safety enforcement. We work Monday through Fridays, 9 to 7, that is for meters. We are available on the weekends for safety violations, and we'll talk about safety violations. I just want to make sure, there's a difference between paying the meter and getting a ticket, or parking your car literally in a lane on Main Street, and getting a safety violation. And that will come up in just a minute, just wanted to get my lead story in there. Residential parking permit program, that is your program, you wrote it in 1990. We have approached you all to maybe modernize it. We've given you our suggestions. Our suggestions, what worked for our community, and suggestions from other communities. They were generous enough to put us in touch with their consultants. Currently, there are 51 permit areas. We have two additional under study right now. So that is an active program, the residential parking permit program. We also take care, as I mentioned, of the garages. And what we work to do there is to provide a superior value in parking, so we think that's very important to the economic viability of downtown. We are the highest value in pricing for garages downtown, and again, that's coming up. We are a community partner. We take that very, very serious on what we do, and I'll change slides. So in terms of what we do as a community, I hope you all know about our Food for Fines program. It started ten years ago. We have waived about $65,000 in citation value, and that represents about 2,300 tickets. It's not linear, some years it's more and less. We did repurpose it this year to Food for Fines, so instead of coming down with ten cans, find another parking spot to pay your citation, you can go online now and pick from any five community organizations, make a donation. And we will double that donation, so if you give $12.50, you get a $25 credit towards your citation. Very popular around August, we start getting calls to make sure we're still going to do that program. Some people just wait for the program, which is fine. Mr. Frazier mentioned our Fuchsia support. We spent $650,000 last year, $650,000 putting in 170 cameras within our three garages that we own. We do connect into the Fuchsia system. We're very proud of that. That was an expensive project, but again, it's important. It provides a level of safety and connection into the community. We are the only parking authority, the only parking vendor downtown, the only one that gives free holiday parking at all our garages and on street. Your holidays, we mimic your schedule for that. We do that to support the viability of downtown. Many of you might know this, but we provide garbage space for the downtown merchants to put their garbage and try to beautify downtown. You might know that we gave up, on Market Street, eight of our parking spots. Some of our highest valued parking spots, that's where your corral sits, your garbage corral. And we also, in Victorian Square, if you look closely, we have another garbage corral that we allow for free. People to use, and so we keep trash bins in there, and grease collection is in there also. Most people don't know about that. Every year, part of our mission is to support public art. This year we did give, we felt we gave a five figure donation to support the soundscapes for the 250th celebration of Lexington. So if you go in between 5th, 3rd, and the parking structure, the noise you hear is Town Branch. Well, they had to redo that, and now it's going to be vocals, and that actually premieres tomorrow. Each of our staff members are required to be trained in CPR, because if there is any issue on the street while our public enforcement officers are out there, or even come into our offices, we are trained in CPR, which I think we just want to connect to the community. Talking about the garages, again, please be curious about us. Our average garage is 40 years old, the Helix is 60, it celebrates its 60th year. The standard life of an above ground garage is 30 years old, is 30, so we are quickly, the rate of cost to keep them viable is increasing at an increasing rate. Technology has a six year lifespan, and we are coming up on that six years, and we spend, as I mentioned, a million dollars a year in maintenance. On street challenges, some of these pictures, please know that these are not stock. We did not stage these, this one's a classic. So the town car on the left used the loading dock, and that's your pivot point, right? So the loading dock is taken, a little bit of budding in the street, so Blue Moon couldn't use the loading dock, and we were fortunate that the ambulance did have one clearance to get through. So some of our on street parking is just overall, with the level of safety concerns, it's becoming more and more, and I'll give you some national numbers on that. ADA issues, people, they don't recognize the ADA, the handicapped spots. Commercial loading areas are being used for, I'm just going to run in quickly, we're blocking flows of traffic, we'll get to that. There's a very, very high demand. I can't create more curb space, but we are creating a better downtown for more people. But the curb space doesn't increase, and again, the residential parking permits are increasing. And then again, just the technology of on street, you see it as a meter. Within that meter, there's about six different vendors of technology. And you see it as a person walking in a tennis yellow shirt, tennis ball yellow shirt. Within that handheld, there's about seven different technology components, so it's a high tech industry. So, okay, so overall current challenges, when you take the challenges and you put them kind of bigger. Since 2019, and that's relevant for a reason, it's been about a 26% increase overall in inflation. We receive no ARPA funds. We try to keep our pricing as low as possible, but at a certain point we have to in order, we have to financially gain some momentum. We also have to gain momentum in terms of how we're addressing. the safety in our downtown corridor, and we'll get to another picture. We did lose, as many of you know, and probably next year I'll not remind you again, but we did lose about $350,000 with the land swap UK in the city. We had to make that up. And the other thing is that was just the meter value, not the citation value. We have not had an increase at Victorian Square parking garage since 2018. So that would be like your constituents not having an increase in their salary, yet eggs, etc. Everything around them is going up, and also in safety violations. Again, we'll talk about safety violations. We've not modernized that since 2016, so national trends. And I'm sure you're aware of this, because you see it with people running red lights, etc. But since there's been a market increase in non-moving infractions, so more parking infractions since 2019, and it's based upon driver entitlement, impatience, and that there's a perceived reduction in enforcement. Those are all the contributing factors. We did meet with consultants and have learned that most cities, most of our cohort cities, are moving to a minimum, if not above $50 against safety violations. This is not because you forgot to pay the meter or the movie ran long. This is because you chose to use an ADA spot, or you chose, and you think I'm kidding. I have, please look at my phone, I have people that park in the middle of an intersection. It is convenient, but, okay, we'll move on. All right, so we did look at cohort cities. And again, this comes from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. And they are actively, actively supporting increase in enforcement to protect pedestrians and to restore order on our streets. Those are just some remarkably tragic statistics. And unfortunately, we realize some of those in our community. So, we have two requests. We do need your support for this, is to move the safety violations. Most of them right now, and you have a chart in your package. Most of them are at 30 to 35, we're looking to take those to a minimum of 50. That is in the boundaries of our cohort cities. We are looking to drive behaviors, because right now, to park in the middle of the intersection, is that violation is less of an issue than getting to Rupp Arena late, right? Because your alternative to go to a parking spot is about $35. For the most serious ones, we're asking for 100, and I'll get to those in a minute. Implementation date, and this is open for discussion, we thought 60 days would be appropriate. Again, this is not metered, this is not, this is what you choose to do, and these are safety violations. We're suggesting July 1st, we'd love your input on that. And I'll just remind you again, we have not increased these in nine years. Hard to tell because of a shadow, this Toyota parked in front of that fire hydrant for three days, three days. Took that picture myself, and you can tell I'm still a little bit, still remember it. So, these are the ones that are already, the two parking within 20 feet of a fire station, 15 feet of a fire hydrant are already at 100, those will not move. But parking in a fire lane, so they park in a fire lane, parking in an intersection or obstructing traffic, which is what this Hyundai is doing. If you can notice, they're parked, this is our downtown, I can't read it. It was this year, they took out the parking, the bike lane, and about half of one of the lanes on Main Street in the middle of the day, and we couldn't find the owner. So, it is, you all don't notice it as much, but this wasn't a hard picture to find. And I just thought it might make the point. These are the things that I'm talking about, double parking, parking in the middle of an intersection, parking on a yellow curb. One of the things yellow curbs are for, when you come to an intersection, I'm running out of time. If you can't get a line of sight at that intersection because a car is blocking your, you can't see at Acton Park if a child is trying to cross the street. So, there's a reason for that. There's a reason we want you to not park right at the intersection. There's a reason we don't want you to park, double park, or something like that. So, we're looking, most of them are 35, going to 50, and the most egregious, two of them take to 100. On the increment, when you're late by 14 days, it stays, it remains at $15. Victorian Square, quickly, that has not increased in seven years since 18, there are the proposed rates. We're looking to take general parking to 105, restricted to 130, and hospitality, which is just, we're trying to move the hospitality to the courthouse. We have more space there than at the Victorian Square. And you can see the comparable pricing. We will still be under the market average. And those are some comparable cities of what they're charging. We'll be under market average here in our cohorts. And that's my proposed budget, and I'm glad to take any questions. Thank you very much, and we'll have questions now. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you so much for your presentation today. I really appreciate the opportunity to dig into the weeds on this a little bit more. So, I have a question about slide 54, I believe, is the number. And it was the one with statistics about the violence, or not violence. Yes, it's violent, but offenses, deaths from traffic violations. Yes, thank you. So, we're talking about the deadly consequences of lax enforcement. And I was wondering if you could explain the connection on these, because I share your concern for pedestrian safety and for the safety of all of our drivers. But I am struggling a little bit to connect these statistics with non-moving traffic violations. Okay, so that's non-moving, but this one is moving. But once a car engages in drive and uses their foot pedal, they are moving. So, Kenwick Table on Owsley, for example, I don't know if you've ever been there. Yes. Nine out of ten cars are parked against traffic because it was more convenient. Well, when you pull out of that, you're parking the wrong direction. You're pulling into traffic. I might not know you're pulling out, because I don't expect you to. You create a traffic accident. So, once you engage into drive, you become in these numbers. So, we're trying to get the launching point, the starting point to be correct. That's what we're trying to do. Pedestrian deaths, that again happens with parking, as I mentioned. If you park in a yellow line right up to the curb, and we've had people call, especially around Acton Park, because it is so dangerous. A young child, their ball goes out in the street or anything. So, we're trying to minimize the potential for a moving violation hazard. That's a great question, I appreciate it, thank you. No, thank you, and I appreciate that answer. I think that that's- I have five children. Every mistake starts somewhere. So, if you can get that starting point to change, you might minimize the probability of the tragedy. Yeah. Yeah, no, and I appreciate that, and I know that a lot of my colleagues and I, again, as I'm sure you know, we've been working on how we can make our streets safer. I think this is definitely part of that discussion, and I appreciate you raising it. So, I want to shift gears for a second, and as we're talking about the things that LexPark is going to be doing in the upcoming year, I want to ask some questions. Earlier this year, as you know, we had a winter weather emergency that there was a lot of confusion and concern from residents related to LexPark and street parking. I can speak for myself, I don't know about any of my other newbie council members, but it took all of about two minutes of my phone being plugged in in my office before I had constituents calling to ask me about why they had been issued certain citations. So, I was wondering if you could explain the situation from your perspective and explain a bit of what your communications with city staff were like regarding the winter weather emergency and issuance of citations. Appreciate it, thank you, because I think the more communication, the better the outcome. And there's an expression that I learned from what I would consider a great person. There's no solution, just trade-offs, right? Because if you have snow and you don't move the cars, you can't plow the roads, I mean, it's a closed box. So, the first snowfall, we waited four days. And our responsibility is to clear streets, help you clear streets, so you can snow plow effectively. Without, like in Boston, there's no conversation. They're clear about it, for example. So, we wanted to participate in that. We waited five days, and where we made the mistake is not engaging with your all's teams that make those decisions to say, okay, here's what we're looking to do. We're going to go out on Thursday. First snowfall was Sunday, if I remember, of the 25 inches we got in two months. So, lesson learned to communicate with your teams. We were getting feeds, but not aware. We did waive across the board all of those citations. Some of them were for other reasons, other parking reasons, but in a snow crisis, which we had. And so, we have asked multiple times, I can't think of the individual's name, but with your organization, that we be part of the discussion, not just the communication. Get us in there, so we know, and we can all orchestrate. because the other thing we'd love to do is put a bulletin out through you all, because you have a better reach than us, park in our garages. We'll give you free parking in our garages on a snow emergency anytime, because that saves everyone effort. And we have, I would rather be in a covered garage than on the street in a snow emergency. So that will be, that is a component that we have implemented. It will be for a snow emergency, free parking in the garages. Thank you, and I appreciate your answer. I have some more questions along those lines, but since my time is up, I'm going to log back in here in a minute and let my colleagues speak first. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor, and thanks so much for the presentation. You mentioned you kind of want to raise some rates. Do you mostly, like in that, I call it the festival market lot, but I think you called it something else. Well, it's called Victorian Square to most, and now we're calling it the 350 West Shore, because most people are naming their building after their address, so. Okay, all right, well that particular lot, I do use it occasionally. And do you get most of your usage out of these lots from these monthly, like what percent of your income is coming from the continual income versus the casual user on those? Thank you, most of it is coming from monthly parking. However, because of Oak View, Victorian Square, Festival Market, 350 West Shore is becoming much more of an event spot. That hasn't blossomed, but the rate of increase is huge. Yeah, and that's what my question was, I was going to go to, I use it for events. And event parking has nothing to do with hourly parking. It's like it's a lump sum, and you just pay it to go to the event. Yes. And do you see those rates changing, or does that have a sliding scale, depending on what the event is? That event is based upon surge pricing, perceived demand. And the demand is based upon the event, the artist, and the competing components downtown, Opera House, and what's going on at Rupp, and for example, NCAA. Yeah, it does seem to change a little bit. That's right, I mean, I've noticed that. And then, my next question is about, so enforcement. When, do you guys do the towing piece of enforcement? Or who does the towing piece? Or does it get turned over to us, or how does that work? Yeah, so we don't tow much, however our reputation is different. On average, we tow about 30 to 35 times a year. And you get warnings, and another warning, we just don't tow, because I couldn't tow that car on Main Street. Most of the towing is done, most of the towing that you, I believe strongly, that you hear about are private lots towing. Okay. Then the police. We get probably four to six emails a week. You towed my car. Where was your car? What was it? I won't tell the name of the, it's not our lot. Or this happened, that's not our lot. So a lot of people believe we own all the garages in Lexington, we don't, or all the surface lots, we don't. So we do not tow near what people perceive we tow. I mean, we have to tow eventually if we're responsible for safety, but we're not the towing organization. Yeah, and I only bring it up because I've had a few people get towed at certain times. And I do believe they were kind of on street parking situations. And unfortunately, sometimes towing, like that flips you into a whole different category of expense. And there's people's cars who aren't actually worth taking out of a tow lot. And then the person loses their job. It kind of escalates. And so- I respect that. I do understand and respect that. And again, there's trade-offs because a lot of times those cars have had three unpaid tickets. It's a safety violation. It's in front of a fire lane. And so, just for the example of the person on Winchester Road, if I had towed that Toyota, they might have been upset with me, but 991 Winchester would have been thrilled. So we have to balance, we have to be fair to all parties. And then my last question is probably about the technology side because it seems like you might be getting ready for a cycle change on that because I think you said your technology is about six years old at this point. And I know the airport has gone to the license plate reader style. And I do actually think it's super effective. And it's a pretty cool product. If you have an hour, we can talk about that. Just as a lead in for our next conversation, by statute in Kentucky, I have to affix the ticket to the vehicle. So what the councilman is talking about is that LPR, I can just scan and mail you a ticket. So huge efficiencies. And that's what we want to get to as an industry are the efficiencies, right? So, but in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, we can't do it because of that statute. I have to affix it. It's kind of tough to affix it to an 18 wheel. They have to climb up and yeah, so we do have an obstacle on that. But LPR, we do use it in one of our, in the transit garage. Thank you, and my time's up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Laura, for the presentation and your work and your leadership at Lex Park. You've been very responsive to me, and I've heard it from other council members. And then I think you've also beefed up enforcement. It's not a time that I park and get five feet away from my car and look back and there's somebody there checking my car. Is that a compliment? I think it's not a compliment. Can we note it as such? So, and I do understand that you have to, I know there's a rise in cost. I know the land swap, and this is not a compliment either, but you remind us about the land swap. It's a good story. Also, the investment in safety, which I think is warranted and was needed. I would like for your presentation in the future to maybe tell us a little bit, because I know not just increasing, you're looking to enhance your revenue, not just by increasing rates, but I know you are expanding your facilities and creating more on street parking. So I would almost like to know what that impact looks like in the budget. And with raising the rates on the garage, your biggest customer is us, right? So did y'all discuss that? Did anybody on our team have an opportunity to negotiate and talk about rates before we increase the rates? No, not, did we discuss it? Yes, before, that's Commissioner Ford, we met with him because your contract, you're under contract with us. So that, we discussed the contract. The contract was developed two years ago, it matures July of this year. We met with your general services area to ask for a discussion on that. And I think we have come to an agreement, but you're on a contract. So for example, you are not paying market right now because of the contract. And so we discussed, you're kind of a carve out from that, if that makes sense. So we've come to an agreement, you are 80, I think 80 to 90%. You are under market. We've come to an agreement, because our rates are moving up, if we're going to index and at what percentage we're going to index. So for example, we've come to an agreement that we're going to index the police at 80% of market. And we're going to index at transit at x, and we're going to index at Helix at x percentage of market. So you're a carve out from this conversation, if that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, I just met with Commissioner Ford recently. I can't remember, maybe two weeks ago. So does anybody from our team want to speak to it or, yeah. Thank you, Council Member, and just very briefly, as Laura mentioned, the presentation that she's bringing forth does not impact our employee parking. Just for the good of the council, Lex Park Services, on our behalf, a total of 650 vehicles. And our annual budget is just about half a million dollars, $500,000. The agreement that we're working on, and this is going to be important for the council, will be budget neutral. Okay. That we have for fiscal year 26 and 27. We very much appreciate their partnership moving forward. We think the new agreement will clarify things. But it's about 650 and three garages, half a million dollar budget a year. Okay, well that's what I was getting to the crux of, so I appreciate that answer. No, I appreciate the question. You all need, yeah. So like I said, so I have two concerns. One of the concerns, and I supported the increases last year. And one of the reasons I did is because we were encouraging people to go to the garages. And take advantage of that benefit. So I don't want folks to think that we double talk. Like we encouraged them to go to the garages, and now we're increasing the rate on the garages. So I'm concerned about that perception. And then the other thing is the communication timeline. We increased rates, or it was proposed, you all proposed increased rates last year. And I don't think we had enough time to communicate that effectively. So I would, and I think we can do it at the appropriate time. I would appreciate giving more leeway and time to communicate the rate increases to the public. We're fine with that, and I think that's a great suggestion. So we're suggesting July 1st, which was 60 days from the time this would cycle through your process. We can look, last time what we did in an April meeting, we did it in September. We can look at a September 1st. And so we're very open to communication on that, what would work best for your constituents. And again, one of our pillars is fairness, what works for fairness. Again, this is one garage and safety violations. So, but we have suggested July 1st. Last year we did a September 1st, which I thought was adequate time. Prior years we didn't give a lot of warning. So if you'd like, please, any suggestion, we're open to. Yeah, that is not an issue for us, and we appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member LaGrie. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Boyson. I really appreciate the presentation. And I have to say, as someone who rides in the bike lane and who walks around downtown, I do notice all the double parking, and the fire lane, and I get correspondence, calls, emails from downtown denizens about issues of that sort. So I do appreciate that you all are looking at safety violation, citation rate increases, and that you're looking at the relationship between overall roadway use and safety, and scenarios like this where important lanes are blocked, and access points, intersections, ADA areas as well. This is a connected question, but it may be a little bit outside of the scope. As, actually this photo is perfect in that it demonstrates kind of a loading area situation with that truck, it seems, the truck in front of the vehicle, the truck's open. So I get questions about loading and unloading zones in bike lanes, in fire lanes, etc., in narrow streets. How does that work in downtown, and is it related at all to some of what we're talking about in terms of parking violations? Or is there a different kind of process at place with downtown loading and unloading? Thank you. Loading zones are kind of a profoundly layered topic. Most of the topics you all deal with are profoundly layered. But for loading docks, we are one component. I can enforce somebody parking in a loading dock to try to change behavior. That's what citations are about, right? Change behavior. But I can't create more loading docks. And so we have, as you know, in a built environment, you have a finite amount of linear curb space. And the demand has gone up. And there are regulations on when you can deliver liquor, and we have DoorDash, and we have Ubers, and all this. So the demand has gone up. We do have some ideas. We've worked on it as a board on ideas to, again, find ways to maximize our downtown space. 38% of your downtown area is surface lots. You have an abundance of space, 38%. So we are glad, and we've met with people within your organization to participate in any type of conversation to help with loading. You have to, and we've met with Tate Russell, I've met with Clark Distributing. I've met with the general manager of the Marriott to understand their nuances. We're trying to get a conversation. We do have a conversation going. But it's going to take a collective discussion of people that have authority, enforcement, needs, nuances. And we have met, I've met with teams in Miami, I mean, if you've ever been to Miami, to understand what they're doing. They just brought in a consultant, and they were very helpful in giving us some ideas. You have this, and I'm extrapolating, but you have the same issue with garbage, that we have some thoughts. Again, you have 38% of your downtown space is in parking, surface parking lots. So, did I answer it close at all? I think that you did an excellent job talking about some of the interrelated issues with areas of density, curbside management, looking at patterns of behavior. You mentioned DoorDash, Uber Eats, loading and unloading. These things are all connected, and I think continuing the process of looking at our curbside management and also our surface lot, hopefully we won't always be 38% surface lot in downtown. I think filling in those gaps could be a really good thing, but figuring out some kind of interstitial spaces that we could fill other needs with. I appreciate the thinking that you all are already doing, and I hope to be part of those conversations moving forward. So this gentleman that created a loading dock on his own, it's cheaper for him to unload there and pay the $35 if we can get to him in time and make a citation. Again, we're trying to change behavior, not curb behavior. Thank you, I'm looking forward to talking about this more, and I appreciate the presentation, and thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. You've already spoke. I've already spoken, so I defer to my colleagues until- So let's wait just a minute. Yes, ma'am. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Boyson, I want to stay on this topic of the proposed increase for fines and citations. I'm generally philosophically for this increase, A, because we haven't raised rates in years. B, I'm always up for getting on par with our peer cities and being comparable. And I really take your point about changing behavior, right? I, myself, have on occasion made that calculation in my head of how much does it cost me to go over here, do this parking, versus eating a small fine. And I think, not out of any maliciousness, I just made a calculation, and I might have been motivated to do the easy thing. So I think changing that calculus for people is really important. Now, I wanted to look specifically at some numbers. If we can go to that last slide with your proposed budget, and I know it's hard to zoom into it there. I've got it zoomed in here. I'm assuming what you're proposing in terms of increasing the on-street violations, would that be under the, I guess, line number three, parking fines violation and booting? Right. On-street, is that what we're talking about? Yes, yes. So I'm looking at the two numbers here for FY25 year-end and FY26 proposed. And it looks like that revenue drops by almost 20,000. Can you talk me through that? 1.8%. Okay. I appreciate your awareness of it. Yes, the goal is to create safety behaviors. The other thing, in 2024, we had almost a 15% increase in citations. It was an unusually high number of citations. So in 2023, we wrote 39,000. In 2024, we wrote 45. So because of the nature of comparison, it was a high number that I had to normalize and then look at where we're going. So we're, one, hopeful that if you all will participate and support the increase, we will drive behavior. That's the goal. We're not looking at this one for the revenue. And then also, we had a disproportionately, we had a 15% increase in 2024. Okay, so that, at least for me initially, feels kind of counterintuitive. But what you're saying is basically the increase in fines, maybe in the short term, would you say, will drive up revenue because people are still engaging in the same behavior, but suddenly they're hit with a much bigger ticket. You're saying over the course of that fiscal year, by the end of it, we'll actually have a reduction in the revenue because fewer people are going to be doing this behavior? That is the goal. Yes, if I'm going to tell you we're driving behavior, I have to show a behavioral, I'm not doing it just for the math. They've seen it at UK, UK has seen the same thing, they're trying to drive behavior. And then again, the other thing is that the comparable year, 2024, it's not a linear, it's high. So I normalized that and then made a projection. Okay. It's two components in there, drive behavior, and two, I had to normalize 2024. Okay, so I kind of wonder a little bit then too, I feel like we potentially might have two motivations that run counter to each other. Like you all, as an operation, as an organization, want to increase revenue to stay solvent and do the work that you all do, and tell me if I'm wrong, but then if we're making increases, which in my head was changing behavior, increasing revenue, but it turns out it's changing behavior, decreasing revenue. I don't know, I'm having a little trouble reconciling that. I understand, it's a great point, but I do, the goal is to, again, it's a decrease over an atypically high year. So it will average out to about the same, but the goal, our goal, yes, I do have to create profitability to support the organization. I have to be fiscally responsible, but I also, part of this is to drive behavior to enhance safety, that's the driving goal. I think that's the goal of the entire room, is to first drive safety. If a byproduct increases revenue, fine, but to drive safety. So I just, we see it every day, these safety violations. And I'm sure you see it moving and non-moving. Yeah, and I appreciate that, and I think that is our top priority as well. So I think it's just for me to kind of switch my thinking into almost thinking about it as a potential loss leader, where you're going to try to find revenue in other venues, so thank you for that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Laura, for your presentation. Also want to echo how responsive that you have been with my office about different things. And you have a really hard job. A lot of people do not like paying for parking, and this is not an easy thing. We know that curb use over time, we've talked about this over and over. Some of the things you mentioned, how do we make it safer? How do we keep people from parking in bike lanes? How do we keep people from obstructing houses and businesses and the road? And so this is not an easy task, and you really have a challenge, and I appreciate how you've been working with us to handle it. So one thing that has come up, you all do a great job really helping residents that live downtown, enforcing their residential parking permits, I really appreciate that. My constituents downtown have really appreciated that. And now that you're talking about expanding into different areas, and we've talked about engagement, and how do people know that there's going to be new parking places, how do people know that fines are going to go up, can you explain how you engage businesses in those new areas, and how do you make sure that they're aware of what's going on, that they feel like they're a part of the decision of putting paid parking in front of their businesses? Thank you. So we started some time ago, call it six months ago, Jefferson Street very much mimics, I'm using Jefferson as an example, and this might be to your point, Councilwoman Brown. Jefferson Street very much mimics downtown. There are definitions for downtown in a built environment, there are static definitions for that, walkable density, etc., contiguous, and Jefferson mimics that. When we were getting requests from Jefferson, because Distilled took a valet lane, which took out some parking spots, other people were creating their own valet, it was just kind of open. And so we, with the conversation of your office, went and met with the majority, I would say 80 to 85% of the property owners and business owners, because some of those are different. And to get their input on us putting meters on Jefferson. It was remarkably professional and civil, the conversations. They were like, well, we were wondering when this was going to happen. And this is great, because when Town Branch opens up, everyone's going to be parking here. And this is helpful, because we need so and so's parking here all day long, and my clients can't get here, etc. So we met with them and tried to keep your office updated, I believe. We kept your office updated, and the majority of them, I think all of them were fine with it. They got involved and we're still working on it right now on what type of meter they wanted out front, the number of hours they wanted. And we also go in and we say, look, now that we have a consensus, a positive consensus, we're going to spend the first two months just with warnings. We want people to be aware of it. We're not just going to come in and day one start issuing citations, there will be warnings issued. So people will be aware. Our social media, we've increased our social media dramatically. That only reaches those people who choose to reach us. I can't get to you unless you follow us, but we will put it on our social media. And there will be signage on the street. If there's a business or resident that is concerned, they should reach out to your office directly. And they can work with you on that. Roosters did, as an example. They reached out, we went and, when I say I met with them, I go and meet with them. So I went and met with Roosters, and to my knowledge, they're fine because their address actually fits into a residential parking permit area. Well, I appreciated you all going out at my request especially, so thank you. And then, if somebody parks somewhere and there's a meter, and the meter isn't working, and they can't figure out how to get the app on their phone to work, and they're in a rush, it's an important meeting, and they don't know what to do, what should they do? And let's say they get cited, and they did try to pay, but they ran into some sort of a block. So of the citations we write, we waive, you can call and we'll just waive that. And that happens often, people can't see it, it's cold. Summertime, we have insects that infect inside of those. So for example, we provide about 14% of the citations we write, of the 45,000 citations we wrote in 2024, 14% of those were waived. You can call us, you can call the office, you can email the office. There is an appeal process online. You don't have to come in. We want to make it simple. And we're the first line of defense. If you tell us this happened, we'll waive it. If there's a disagreement, because we have about four pitchers every time. And this just happened with a gentleman on West Short Street. We'll go out and check the meter and waive it. And if not, we have an appeals, we have five or six attorneys that work with us. And they, you can make your conversation to them independent of us, and they'll make a determination. So, but most people don't realize we waive about 14% of the citations, so. Thank you, I just wanted to make sure that was public record. The goal, we have a lot of goals, safety. But one of the driving goals, and it shouldn't be a goal, it should just be inherent. We want to be fair. Fairness is a big component of what we want to be. Fair to everyone, to bring value, to have safe structures, safe parking, etc. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for this presentation and the thought that has gone into this. I know that, especially based on our previous conversations about rate increases, that I am sure you're being very intentional about this. I want to talk about the ADA and accessibility pieces that have come up in this conversation. I serve on the Access Lexington Commission, and so parking and restricted parking always comes up. But for the sake of time, I'll schedule separately with you to talk about accessible parking. But I do want to talk about the safety concerns in the citations here. So there is already a pretty high fee, which there should be, for blocking an accessible parking space. But I also would like more consideration about the citation for parking in a crosswalk, particularly if someone is blocking an ADA ramp. Because if you are blocking an ADA ramp, that means you are putting the person who needs to use that ramp in a very unsafe situation. Similar to if someone is in a bike lane and they have to go out into traffic to go around a car. So with the ADA ramps, I would like that for future consideration to be one of these higher rate citations due to the unsafe conditions that it creates. We agree, and if you notice our on-street challenges. The first safety concerns, ADA access. We are compliant. I want you to know that in our garages, etc., and as a community, we are ADA compliant. because we want to support the brand of Lexington. When people think about Lexington, it's great. We are ADA compliant, and we do meet with ADA organizations in our community. And the other thing we've asked is that they meet with all parking garages to make sure that they're ADA compliant and provide additional ADA access. But we'd love to meet with you, and if there's something on here that we've under supported, we're glad. Yeah, I think it would be, there isn't one specifically for blocking a ramp for someone who is in a wheelchair or a pedestrian, like the ADA crosswalks. So there is a citation for blocking a crosswalk, but I think the ramps are a big concern. But that's it, I just want that considered, and we can talk more about it. You want to, okay, because it, okay. But I appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. One of the issues that was brought up was license plate readers. Did you say that, because I think law says that you have the ability and you say you don't, is that? The state law, this was a lawsuit in Louisville recently, we have to affix to the windshield our ticket. So LPR, License Plate Recognition Technology, which is on a surface lot, I can use it. But we have on street, I cannot use it on street. So I lose the efficiency of LPR on street. This is, again, be curious about parking, please. So we have met with Louisville, Mike Tudor in Louisville, our counterpart. And in June, we're meeting with Covington in Louisville and us to see if the state would be open to discussing modernizing that so we can use more technology. because as you know, the more technology, the more efficient as an organization. So it's on street parking. Senator, you talked about changing behavior. Do you do any kind of graduated if you get your first, second, third, fourth, fifth offense that at some point that the fine goes up or are they all still consistent? And how do you get booted? Okay, so on delinquencies or repetition, there is no escalating penalty. It's $15 and then that holds. However, after three unpaid citations, you get notices. We are required by law to write you to the last known address. It's not just a notice on your windshield. We write you two letters, which is why postage is high. And then from there, you get booted, or you get a barnacle on your windshield. So is it after the third one in the letters is when you get the boot? Mm-hm. Have you thought about at some point, because one of your suggestions is to change behavior, is if you get your first one is $50 and then your second one's 100, have you looked at it? because we do that with other fines on things, to try to- To make it more behavioral, painful? We have not looked at it. One of the issues with that is I have to note that on my receipts and my technology doesn't allow that right now. It's a static $15. I don't have a menu within the technology. Is that something you have looked at? We started discussing it last month. We literally discussed it last, yes, at our last board meeting. I think if one of your reasons is to try to change behavior, I think when you get a bigger fine, then it does change people's behavior. Sure, yes, it would. But again, that's a technology. Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you again. I'll be very brief, just for the sake of time. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what written policies guide LexParks enforcement during declared weather emergencies. And if you have those, whether they're accessible to the public. Are guides for snow emergencies specifically? Yes. So no, we do not have an exact written policy. That is one of the things on our agenda, to meet with you. We have had active conversations to be, again, integrated into that conversation. And that will be the launching pad for that conversation. When we did go back out, I did meet with our PEOs. And unless they could see 90% of the surrounding asphalt, we couldn't give a ticket. There had to be a clear way to get out. So, but it's, again, we did speak with Cedar Rapids, Ann Arbor, some other cities to understand their policies, and we are starting to put that together. But that has to be done with you all, too. Absolutely, and I really appreciate you doing that, and I know that your job is not an easy one. So, I'm glad that we can have these conversations. And I think that, again, based on the presentation today, the discussions we've been having, this does warrant further discussion, and that this is a starting point, not the entire thing. And so, with that in mind, I do intend to introduce an item into committee today regarding the parking citation issuance during winter weather emergencies. And I hope to engage you and your organization as part of those conversations so that we can all be on the same page the next time we have a major winter weather emergency. We'd be glad to, and as I mentioned, we met with Cedar Rapids and Ann Arbor. We went north for the conversation, but our policy is, with the conversation, our garage is open. You call an emergency, garages are free. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Since I don't think there's any more questions or comments, I'll make a motion to move to place on the docket a resolution approving the FY26 budget of the Lexington-Fayette County Parking Authority with the rate increases to go in effect September 1st, 2025. So, move. Second. Council Member Baxter seconds. Would anyone like to speak to the motion? All right, all those in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you all so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you for your great presentation. Thank you. All right, next up we have 2025 Complete Streets Update. Brandy Peacher from my office and you have the floor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. All right. It's been a while since I've been up here at the podium, so reorienting myself. All right. Well, first, thank you for welcoming me here today to talk about Lexington's Complete Streets program. I think I know every one of you, but for those who don't know, I'm Brandy Peacher in the Mayor's Office and overseeing the Complete Streets coordination for LFUCG. It's an honor for me to take on this initiative with our very highly trained staff throughout government, and I look forward to continuing this work alongside of you and our staff. So before we dive into all the data, the details, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on why we're here and why we're moving forward together on this Complete Streets initiative. So when you hear the word street, many people often think about traveling from point A to point B, and oftentimes in your own personal vehicle. But I challenge you to look beyond that, which I know all of you already do. But for me, I think back to a time when I used our streets without a car. So I take it back all the way to as a child, learning how to ride a bike. I was out in a public street in front of my home. I wasn't in a park. I wasn't on a trail. I didn't have access to that where I lived. But that street became that space where, in a moment, it was more than just a street. It was a place for learning, a place for me to become, have some freedom on my own as a child, and a place for me to connect not only with my parent but my neighborhood once I became able to do so. So I say all that to say streets are more than just conduits for our vehicles. They're public spaces for our daily life. And it is very important that we remember that streets are not for just vehicles that drive there. Streets are for people. And so too often, we find that our streets lack facilities. And these photos in front of you are just representations of that from across the country, not necessarily from Lexington. But I think we can relate to many of them throughout our community. Because people have, we have designed our roadways for the cars for decades. And so we now, with the Complete Streets Initiative, are working to better support all users of our roadway, those with mobility challenges, those who are simply walking, trying to work, those trying to use our transit facilities. And a significant portion of our community in Lexington, Fayette County, relies upon our street network in a different way than just being in a car. What shocked me was to learn the stat that more than a third of our community doesn't use a car. That's either by choice, by circumstance, or because of age. So as we rethink how we design and invest in our streets, we must treat them as one of our most valuable community assets that they are. We also must remember that Complete Streets is about making our streets safer. And I thank Laura for really setting the table for this conversation. A lot of the legwork's already been done in that regard. But we often don't think of our roadways as a public health and safety issue. But by far, it most absolutely is. In Fayette County, roadway fatalities are one of the leading causes of deaths. They rank below major health issues, like heart disease and cancer, but exceed deaths that we see in homicide and violent crimes. So it is most definitely both a health and safety issue. I think we all can agree that any preventable death on our roadway, or in any instance that we have a way to prevent them, we should do so. And so many of these that we experience on our roadways could be prevented through better roadway and intersection design. That's by reducing speeds, making our intersections safer for crossing. And let me just say, it's not just about protecting those people who are outside our vehicle. It's also those of us in our vehicle. So making these improvements is for those in the car and outside the car. So simply, speed matters, design matters, and Complete Streets is about using the tools we have to reduce the risk, save lives, and build a safer, healthier Lexington. As Laura so said just a minute ago, if there's an opportunity for us to set the table at a different spot to reduce human mistake or make them less severe, that's our intent. So all of this underscores the importance of taking action through our Complete Streets program. Lexington is committed to redesigning our streets to ensure safety for users of all types, regardless of age and ability. What Complete Streets include could, anything that you see in this diagram that is very simplified in regards to what our roadway and our right of ways could offer. But it's anywhere from bike lanes and sidewalks to transit in addition to our travel lanes. We know that we have recent progress, thanks to you all, in regards to the approval and the adoption of our Complete Streets policy in December of 2022. And that laid the groundwork for the development of the Complete Streets Action Plan, which was finalized in December of 23. I'll emphasize that the policy and the plan apply to all transportation projects across the whole county, whether it's a brand new road, a major redesign, or even routine maintenance. Lexington's Complete Streets Action Plan was developed through a truly collaborative process, bringing together voices across our departments, but also through community organizations, advocacy groups, and the public. And so all of the action plan items are rooted in expertise as well as the values of our community. It serves as our roadmap, outlining the core building blocks for the program and identifying the high priority to-do list for the first three years of the program. And I wanted to say it's not a vision document, it is a practical working plan that has a clear timeline and real accountability for us to hold ourselves accountable to the community. And I'll just say again, it took us decades to get our roadways to where they are now, so you all as decision makers know that it's going to take us a long time to make changes. It's going to take years of investment of time, money, and effort. So this action plan makes sure that we are headed in the right direction and take those steps. Briefly, just to remind you, the action plan is divided into four categories. There's 39 tasks total. They're divided into these four categories on screen, safety, operations and maintenance, design and construction, and plan, prioritize, and measure progress. Each of those tasks identify the intended outcome, deliverables, target completion dates, and the lead entity within LFUCG who would take on the ownership of moving that project forward. But this plan was ambitious. We know that. It's meant to be flexible and evolving. So as we work through these tasks, we're already seeing opportunities for us to adjust, add to the list even, along the way. So don't think of this as just a fixed checklist. This really is a living document that will keep us moving forward. So now to the numbers about where we are. The action plan was, as I said, three years is our ambitious timeline for these tasks. Eight tasks that were proposed in year one, seven of those have been started and are underway. Of the 21 of year two, two have been completed, and I'm happy to say those are the two key positions to do this work. I myself, taking on the role of the Complete Streets Coordinator, and I have Michaela Gary, who is right here to my side, who is our Vision Zero Coordinator. She started last month in the MPO's office. So I look forward to working hand in hand with her on this work. Also of those year two tasks, seven have been started, and five of them are planned in fiscal year 26, pending approval of budget. Others may be started in this upcoming year or moved to year three. Also, I want to highlight that the plan identified seven coordinating entities within LFUCG. We have now combined and meet collectively on a regular basis to ensure that we're moving forward individually in our departments to see this work fully implemented. But I can't express enough that this is a team sport, and it's not just LFUCG's sport, okay? So our team is all of us inside City Hall, as well as the community. It's going to take partner agencies, KYTC, and our private sector, who's playing a role in building our roadways. In this first year, as you can imagine, we do have some lessons learned and challenges that we've overcome or identified. Like with any initiative, change takes time. I think we all know that. Culture shift takes time. But we are working hard to build those relationships with our aligned partners, understanding our shared values and goals. As I've met with every individual council member as I've started in this role, I've also tried to do the same with a lot of our external partners as well, so that we can start to continue to move this together. Also, as I said, it was a bold timeline, aspirational, which we have to start somewhere, right? And we have learned that in practice, progress can be slower. So we want to just acknowledge that we are moving forward, but the completion is taking longer to complete tasks than we had anticipated. But that is to ensure proper coordination. I don't want quick fixes. We need to make sure these first few years are laying the groundwork for decades to come. And then the last one I'll hit on, which is no surprise to anyone here, is federal priority shifts. So a lot of that we are still balancing and riding that wave along with you. But I do know one thing. Infrastructure will always be funded in some way. What we have to do is just lean into our local beliefs and values that we continue to invest in all of these elements of our right-of-way to ensure we're serving equitably throughout our community. So in this year, we've laid the groundwork with several items. I'm going to quickly go through those. The design manual is underway. This is foundational for establishing our design standards and engineering standards, and also meeting House Bill 443 legal requirements as well. So this document will be a useful tool for us internally as well as externally. And it will make sure that we identify the differences between what happens downtown versus in our neighborhood. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Baseline performance measures are also being collected right now across various divisions. A GIS database is being developed. And as you can imagine, we don't know how to check how well we're doing if we don't know where we started. So that work is underway. One of the most important ones is the Vision Zero policy. And I'm sorry, I'm rushing through as I see my clock is counting down. You all know me. I talk a lot. So an important one is the Vision Zero policy. And coming before you in the next work session is this policy that we have developed. And so if you're not familiar with Vision Zero, it is a community goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries. This is important as a foundational pillar for us to lean on as we make decisions moving forward. Also, what's interesting, what's exciting but challenging is that Complete Streets is not in its own little silo. It is across so many departments, so many efforts, and a lot of them you all are involved in. This list just gives you a snippet of what these are, one of which being the council's work group on streets. So I will spend my last few minutes here looking ahead for the next fiscal year. You have a full list here of where we feel our investment of time as well as budget will be spent. And so what I want to draw attention to is the fact that this is not all out of the mayor's office. This is not all out of planning or engineering. It is dispersed amongst all of our division leads who are leading the charge, who are part of that team making this work happen. I'll draw your attention to just a few of the key ones that I think are important. One is the modal priority plan. What that means is we're creating a design manual on how to do our streets, how to construct them, where do we want these certain implementations to occur. So that plan will identify our priority routes for bike and ped in addition to understanding all of our users of our roadways. Design manual, once it's completed and adopted, we want to ensure we're doing trainings for our staff and for our community and those who are external who will use this document. It's new to us, it's new to them. We want to make sure we're all on the same page. Public engagement and education will continue and that, of course, I already know is in collaboration with you all. Another one I want to call out with the MPO is corridor land use and transportation plan. They are funding a specific arterial study along Winchester Road next year. We know that that is an area of need and we will see that on an annual basis, investment on each major arterial to do these plans. Engineering will continue with their corridor and now more in the sidewalk gap improvement efforts that they have underway. NTMP, it's a program we're all leaning on and we're seeing how we need to lean on it more. So ways to make that more efficient and more robust and how it can continue to inform future projects of all scales, such as our pilot projects, some of which are coming out of your offices, planning and others. So I'll end there and say complete streets, I'll remind you, is not just about the streets. It's not about the concrete or the asphalt. It's an investment in our people, in our future. And so updates will be occurring on our website and I encourage you all to take a look at that periodically. We anticipate updates to occur in the next few months about where we stand today. So thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Peter. You made it literally on the dot. Hey, I have the seconds counting down. You're a pro. Colleagues, if you have questions or comments, please log in. Council Member Legree. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you so much, Brandy, for this presentation. I just want to say I'm so happy about the momentum with this work and about our Vision Zero coordinator and the work that you all will be doing collaboratively. I thought that in your first couple of slides where you highlighted that roadway fatalities are one of the leading causes of death in Lexington, ranking below major health issues like heart disease and cancer, but exceeding deaths from homicide and violent crime, that that was a really relevant bit of information to share. I think so many of us are interested in making a change in our communities so that everyone is safer. No one wants to hit a pedestrian. No one wants to hit a cyclist. No one wants to be on either side of the wheel in that situation. And I really, really appreciate that we're working on policy and interventions to make a major change in the statistics that have been happening exceedingly, kind of commonly in the last couple of years especially. And those aren't just statistics, they're people, they're lives, and there are so many more people who are also injured. So I just want to say I'm looking forward to working, continuing the work together with your office and with the Mayor's office and anything that we can do, or I will speak for myself, with public engagement, education, sharing accurate information about complete streets and Vision Zero. I really want to be a part of that because I think it's essential, that narrative piece as we've discussed, to making sure that our community knows what's happening and what's going to happen with these safety interventions. So thank you for sharing this with us. It's really meaningful and important. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you for this presentation and for all of the work you're doing and all of the partners in this work. So across LFUCG and outside of LFUCG, I could just say ditto to what Council Member Legree said, but I also want to add that I think it is just pulling all of this information together is an immense undertaking. In addition to the actual work that's happening is the coordination of all of these efforts. But I want to say that I am already seeing change. I'm seeing change in how people talk about projects within LFUCG. I'm seeing change in the conversations that Council Members are having amongst each other and with the community. So I think we are moving in the direction that we have been wanting to go. I do think we have momentum here and I think you're right. Even in spite of the challenges we may face, this work is aligning with the values that we're sharing and sharing with the community. And so I appreciate your time and efforts and I know we're already working together and I'm appreciative of you and everyone that is working on this effort. So I'm excited to be a part of this work and on this Council that has been working in this way and our last Council and the Council before that really because that's when the Complete Streets Policy was adopted. So I do, I'm excited about this I guess is the point here, right? Is that I do feel like change is already starting to happen and I see good things from here. So I'm appreciative of all the progress we've already made. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you Vice Mayor and thank you Brandy for your work and presentation. It's just been a long meeting. I think everybody's kind of running out of gas. But I just wanted to add my voice to those of the fellow Council Members that, and I agree, I feel like we are already seeing or feeling a difference about the way we are approaching things. And I think you have been intentional and focused about making sure that these efforts include every neighborhood and community in our city and not just making them safer but making them feel more connected holistically. So thank you for your work on this and thank you. Thank you Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. I'll be brief as well. I just want to echo my colleague's sentiments. You are really a powerhouse and having seen you work over the past few years and then your initiative with this project is just really incredible. And I really admire your work and where we started when I was on Council in 2019 to where we are now is a huge difference. And so I've seen the progress. I'm thankful for the administration getting behind this, my colleagues, yourself and all the partners that are working to accomplish our goal. And so thank you. I just want to thank you and everyone else that's been involved. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you. And thank you again for the presentation. All the same pile on. I have a quick one. Complete Streets Coordinator, Vision Zero Coordinator, when you look at, you've been doing this now for a little while, this whole kind of roll out of the project. Do you feel like we're organized the best way? Are the best in class cities organized the way we are around? Because it's kind of two very similar initiatives and we've got one in the MPO. I'm just curious what you think. Great question. And I think I'm seeing in a lot of communities where you do have both roles and they can be positioned together or separately, depending on your ultimate goal. I want to point you to one item that I did not have time to really capture in my comments, but it is about one, two, three, fourth bullet down, which is our approach for organizational implementation structure. I'd really like to dig into this in the upcoming year to say, how do we need to rework the way we do projects from concept all the way through completion and operations and maintenance to ensure that we're considering all of our Complete Streets and Vision Zero goals and who plays what role? So what is the new decision making process? What roles does everyone need to play and at what point? So putting that together, I'll have a better response to that. I will say at this juncture, I have found that my role being in the administration is helpful here at the starting point because it gives us an opportunity to reach out to community partners in a way that if a staff person were embedded within a division, it loses that ability to gain a seat at the table. But long term, I think we may be looking at a potential different structure. But that research and that effort, along with my colleagues, will tell us more. Okay. And I thank you. And I would just say, don't be bashful. I mean, you're an expert. Tell us the way you think it works. It works the best because we do want to be the most efficient at doing this. So thank you very, very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Preacher for your presentation and your work. I want to also welcome Ms. Gary to the team. And thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you to all of our hardworking staff. I'm just reporting on their work. So thank you. We appreciate it. All right. It's time for council reports. Colleagues, please log in. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to add my condolences to the family of Corrections Officer Kevin Chaney. My thoughts and prayers are with his families and colleagues during this difficult time. I just have two announcements I wanted to mention. This Saturday, April 26th, is the Antonio Franklin, Jr. Peace Walk against gun violence in Duncan Park. Things will start around 1.30 p.m. And I hope that everybody will come out and join. I will be there, and I will be working to promote a new community gun violence solution initiative with the city. And the campaign is called Count Me In. And we'll be launching to spread awareness about the negative effect of gun violence in our community that day. So come by the table and visit me and take a pledge. And then that evening, or I'm sorry, the evening before, the Friday, the 25th, I'll be attending the Lexington Children's Museum A Night for the Museum fundraiser at the Manchester Reserve. And this supports an incredible space for families and children. And I'm proud to celebrate it as the museum starts its new phase and to raise money to construct a brand new reimagined facility in the 11th District. I also want to encourage families to attend the Bluegrass Bird Festival at McConnell Springs this Saturday morning. It'll start at 10 and go to 4 p.m. And this is a free event that includes birding, walks, and is a fun way for the whole family to learn about wildlife and conservation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. I've got a couple pictures to go up. So this week, yesterday, I actually had the opportunity to visit with our city's fleet division. And I want to give a special thank you to Miss Keene and the team for their dedication to keeping Lexington moving and for the tour as well. So from maintaining emergency vehicles to managing citywide equipment, their work is critical to the services we rely on daily. I look forward to the continued conversations about how we can support fleet sustainably and efficiently. And it's also important to show support and recognize all of our city divisions. Without them, we would not be a full functioning city. No department or no division is more important than the other. And moving on, over the weekend, I also had the opportunity to participate in the Let's Grow Trees event alongside with residents and volunteers. Planting native trees is a long-term investment into health and beauty of our city and in my district. So thank you to Trees Lexington for leading this initiative and working to expand our urban canopy across neighborhoods. These efforts directly contribute to a greener, more resilient Lexington. And I spoke at the EQPW meeting. Coming into it, you know, we thought we were planting trees, but I've seen two things out of it. Kids smiling, so youth engagement, but also educational opportunity to how to maintain trees and how to maintain canopy. So that was an amazing time. Likewise, moving on, this weekend, this Saturday, past Saturday, I was honored to speak to the students of the BMW Academy this past week. Sharing my journey and hearing from these young leaders reminded me why we do this work. Their questions, energy, and vision for the future were inspiring. I'm committed to continue our support for youth-focused initiatives across the first district in the city. And it was a great, great time with those folks Saturday, those young leaders. Keep going. So next week, April 30th, it's an honor of mine to be able to attend the grand opening of the Reaching Higher Art exhibit, celebrating the creative work for senior students at Transylvania. And it's a special moment within my family, but to me, but my aunt, so Dr. Lula Morton-Drews, the first African-American to graduate from the Transylvania University, is being recognized with a center named in her honor. This event is a beautiful intersection of art, education, legacy, and a reminder of the importance of representation and opportunity for all. So I invite you all to come out next week, April 30th, 5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. at Transylvania University, the now named WT Young Student Center, which will receive a new name, which is in the heart of the first district as well. And then lastly, today we celebrated Councilmember-at-Large James Brown's 10 years of service to Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, a leader whose example has shaped my own journey as a mentor and as an early influence into the start of my professional career. His dedication to community, equity, servant leadership continues to inspire me daily. So for those who don't know, I always characterize Brown as the glue to our city and also the glue to the fifth floor, a very intentional understanding and strategic mind who doesn't care about credit nor recognition, just an all-around great guy. So congratulations to a well-deserved milestone, Councilmember Brown. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. As I spoke about earlier, I think it's clear that we need to have further discussions around the enforcement and citation issuance during winter weather emergencies. And so for that reason, I move to introduce a review of parking citation issuance during winter weather emergencies as an item to the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you so much. And now, like many of y'all, I was blessed to celebrate Easter this past weekend, and I found myself unable to avoid contextualizing this holiday and the resurrection story within the current political moment. My friend Jessica is somebody that I've known for a long time, and we've often discussed the connection between our faith and our service. So she shared some thoughts with me that I'd like to share with y'all now, not because I hope or expect you to worship or believe the same way I do, but because I think these are ideals to aspire to, regardless of our religion or lack thereof. She said, Jesus was a radical. Jesus was an outcast. Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew. Jesus helped the poor. Jesus cared for the sick. Jesus advocated for the needy. Jesus was inclusive. Jesus was selfless. Jesus loved. Jesus prayed. Jesus showed up. And Jesus spoke out. I think we should try to be more like Jesus. So I agree with her, and those are values that I aspire to live, even though it seems to have fallen out of fashion. Unfortunately, we saw that when, seemingly out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration, the University of Kentucky made the decision to not speak out and to not be inclusive by canceling programs to celebrate graduating students who are first-generation college grads, members of the LGBTQ community, who are black and indigenous people of color. So I appreciate the University of Kentucky, and I think our city has a great partnership with them. I don't envy the position that they've been put in, but in my view, I want to be very clear that this decision was wrong. It was not Christlike, and it doesn't reflect the Lexington that I know and that I love. So I think you can see that it doesn't reflect our city's values with the fact that community partners from private businesses like Lucy Brown to religious groups like the Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church have come together to fill the void left by UK's decision, and they're going to be holding a community commencement to honor those folks, those BIPOC first-generation and LGBTQ graduates from the University of Kentucky, and I'd like to invite you all to attend. It is going to be on Friday, May the 2nd, at Maxwell Presbyterian at 6 30 p.m. Graduates, so folks, if you've had your recognitions sort of taken away, you should RSVP by the 26th, which is this Saturday. And lastly, I just want to say to any of our graduating students who might have lost this recognition from your university, please know that you are seen. What you've achieved is remarkable. It is worth celebrating, and our city is better because you chose to pursue your education here, and we value your presence. So thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and I would like to echo Council Member Morton's comments. Congratulations, Council Member Brown, on your 10 years of service to this community. We are better because you have been on council, so thank you for your presence. I have a few announcements. This is a very busy weekend. And this is my second district neighbors. Don't forget the 5k run for site that got rescheduled from the top of the month. It's been rescheduled to this Saturday at 9 a.m. in Madison Station Park. Kite Fest is going on in Madison Station Park at noon. Come on out. Fly your kites. Also, at 10 o'clock this Saturday is the Madison Station Neighborhood Cleanup. Please meet all of our neighbors in the clubhouse parking lot to participate in the cleanup. Also, Partners for Youth is having their grassroots grant celebration this Saturday at 10 o'clock at our own Workforce Center. I was lucky to be able to participate in the judging of the grant application, so I look forward to seeing the winners on this Saturday. Also, because we are the 5k race capital of the city, there's another 5k on Sunday. The Coldstream Derby 5k will be in Coldstream Park. It is at 3 p.m. at Coldstream. And then also, do not forget, on Monday is our second district district-wide meeting. So, I invite all my district 2 neighbors to meet me at 6 p.m. at Sandersville Elementary School in the library. We will have a special guest speaker from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet who will only be there from 6 p.m. to 6 30 to talk about the Leestown Road expansion and double crossovers. So, please come out on Monday, April 28th at 6 p.m. at Sandersville for the district-wide meeting and please participate in the other many events going on in and around the second district this weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gray. Thank you. I guess I will say something nice about James Brown. I guess. I'm not going to. I've said enough already. I said your name. No, seriously. Council Member Brown, thank you for your service. 10 years and you have not done one thing that we have noticed. No, we are proud of you and we are thankful for the leadership you have brought to our city. You have made magnificent changes, positive changes in our community that we're better for because of you. So, thank you, sir. Next, I do have some pictures. Last week, we had our second annual Youth in Government Day. This year, we went with the entire seventh grade at Carter G. Woodson Academy. First of all, I would like to say thank you to council members, Amy Beasley. By the way, Amy Beasley sponsored the lunch that was served at the Youth in Government Day. So, thank you for being of service. I know she does not like me mentioning it, but I say that because I will also say I pay out of my own pocket for their transportation. So, it's a passion thing. It's a love thing for our next generation of leaders. In addition, I would like to say thank you to council members James Brown, Emma Curtis, Whitney Baxter, Tyler Morton, Shayla Lynch, Joseph Hill, Hill Boone, and Vice Mayor Dan Wu for all being present to speak and engage our next generation of leaders. I would also like to say thank you to Deputy CAO, Chief Administrator Glenn Brown for showing up to speak with our next generation of leaders, as well as Commissioners Chris Ford and Nancy Albright. Director Jim Duncan of Planning spoke about urban planning and students right now are talking about they can go into urban planning, which is amazing. These young scholars went home and have spoken to their parents. Their parents are texting me and sending me a message on Facebook about how great of an event that we put on for those young scholars. So, thank you all to you. I have more thank yous. Thank you to our entire Public Safety Division Commissioner Kenneth Armstrong who helped my office reach out to everyone. So, thank you to our Lexington Police Department who called me up the day before and asked if we wanted the copsicle vehicle there. And I said, of course. And the young scholars, they loved every second of it. I would like to say thank you to our Lexington Fire Department. SOS, am I saying? Jordan, thank you for being there in the Chief's stead. E911, Director Janelle Patton, thank you for your presence. The Emergency Management, Robert Larkin was present, as well as Chief of Community Corrections, Chief Colvin was there along with his employees, as well. In addition, and lastly, well, there's many more things to say. Thank you to Partners for Youth, Shantae Bruce for being present, as well as Judge Bernal who showed up on the spot when students were talking about going into law. They want me next year to incorporate the judicial branch, you know. It's like, we can go bigger. I will do all I can for our next generation of leaders. If that's what they want, I will make a way for them. In addition, I would like to say, also, thank you to Senator Donald Douglas who showed up on the spot, happened to be walking down the street and spoke to those scholars about what it means to be a member of the Senate. So, great things were happening on Friday. And lastly of all, I would like to say thank you to my legislative aide, Heather Parrish, who, I come up with big ideas all the time and she's the person that makes it work. And I could not have, this event would not have been a success without her. So, thank you, Heather, for all that you do and the times that I may have been frustrated, but you still stuck with it and you did all the work necessary to make sure these young scholars had something to talk about when they got home. And they're still talking about it. So, thank you, my colleagues. Thank you for believing in my vision. Thank you for showing up for me. And it means so much. It means so much to me that you all took your time to be there for these young people. And lastly, on tomorrow, we have our sixth district-wide meeting at Frederick Douglas High School in the cafeteria. The meeting begins at six and will end promptly at 7 p.m. So, I hope to see you tomorrow night at Frederick Douglas High School. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Very quickly, I just wanted to invite all of my colleagues to Raven Run tomorrow at 10 a.m. We will be launching the pilot program for our Action Track Chair. Here's a little bit of a video. This is a project that I sponsored and colleagues voted on last fall, which will make all of our nature parks more accessible. And I'm super excited about this. So, find out more about it. You can come tomorrow to the ribbon cutting. It's at 10 at Raven Run. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would also like to thank James Brown for all his service for the last 10 years and all of the grief that I have given him for the last 90 days. He probably deserved it all. I would also like to offer our condolences to Officer Chaney's family and all of our Department of Corrections. If you guys need anything, don't hesitate to ask. We were at Multicultural Night at Tate's Creek High School this past week. I'd like to thank Global Lex for coming and setting up a table with us. The kids there did an amazing job with the food and projects that they did for this program at Tate's Creek High School. I would also like everybody, this is the important announcement, so everybody pay attention. I would like everybody to go to my council page. Our new council comment is up about the Safe Haven Baby Box. Chief Wells and I met at Station 2 and talked all about it. You know, I have to have more views than Denise Gray, so make sure that everybody goes and watches it. It's pinned at the top of my Facebook page. If you need a link, text me, whatever you need to do so we can all watch that. Our first District 8 community meeting is May the 7th at the Tate's Creek Library. It's from 530 to 630. We're also going to have Vice Mayor Wu and his team there talking about our new growth management plan, so if you all want to come by and talk to him or just want to come out to the 8th District and complain, we'll be there from 630 to 730. I'm sorry, from 530 to 630 on the 7th, and then this upcoming Thursday night is the Tate's Creek Community Center Spring Festival. They're going to have food and games and lots of our community partners will be there, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood of the Tate's Creek Community Center, please stop by and see that. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Last on our agenda is public comment for issues not on the agenda. We have two people signed up. Is Nancy Ping here? And you're giving your time to Rick Day? Thank you. So Rick Day, you're up, and you'll have six minutes, and please give your name and council district for the record. My name is Rick Day, and I live in the 3rd District. I tell you often that our compensation system is a mess and far more fair and equitable to some than to others. In 2008, Charlie Martin and Billy Morris worked for the Division of Water and Air Quality. In May of 2008, and at the same council meeting, both Charlie and Billy were reclassified. Their job titles changed, their pay grades changed, and they both received a salary increase. Now, you need to understand that in our compensation studies, time in current position is a big deal. It is used to determine if someone is due a salary increase, and reclassifications impact time in current positions. The 2014 compensation study used the 2008 reclassification date to determine time in current position for both Charlie and Billy. The 2022 study used the 2008 date for Billy's time, but apparently overlooked Charlie's reclassification and adjusted his time back to his 2002 promotion. That adjustment added 2,287 days to Charlie's time in current position and almost $9,000 to his annual salary. Billy's salary adjustment was zero. How did that happen? It was not by accident. In March of 2021, shortly after the Management Advisory Group was again hired to do a compensation study, and it was almost certain that time in current position would again be used to help determine salaries, Charlie Martin informed HR that the dates they were using for him were incorrect. Commissioner Nancy Albright supported Charlie's claim, and apparently, without bothering to confirm, HR changed the dates. So in the 2022 study, with almost identical timelines, Charlie had 7,476 days for his time, and Billy had 5,282 days. Again, Charlie received a $9,000 salary increase. Billy received zero. Now, let me simplify it for you, so you don't need to understand the finer points of reclassifications and reallocations and promotions. You don't need to understand time in current position. All you need to know is that in the 2022 MAG study, for a yet-to-be-explained reason, numbers and dates were adjusted for Charlie Martin, but not for Billy Morris. Again, those adjustments led to Charlie getting a $9,000 pay increase. Billy got zero. I hope you will agree that our system was far more fair and equitable to Charlie than it was to Billy. The next time I am here, I will share with you just a few of the names or a few other names of other employees and what their salary adjustment would have been if they had been given the same consideration as Charlie. I have no luck getting answers as to how and why this happened. Actually, I know why it happened, but I would like to know how it happened. So if you are surprised that this type of thing can and did happen, then you have not been listening to Rick Day the last few years. Thank you. Thank you. That takes us to the end of our agenda. So without objection, we are adjourned. Thank you.