# Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - June 10, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · June 10, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6451 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6451?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-06-10 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: March 1, 2026 - **Length**: 15,227 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality and Public Works (EQPW) Committee met on June 10, 2025, at 1:00 P.M., with Hannah LeGris presiding. The meeting covered four agenda items spanning administrative business and several informational updates on ongoing initiatives. The committee took 2 votes during the session, including the approval of the May 13, 2025 Committee Summary. No public comments were heard during the meeting. The three remaining agenda items were informational in nature, covering an update on the Empower Lexington initiative, a discussion on Urban Forestry and Street Trees, and updates related to HB 443 concerning Engineering and Waste Management. No public comments were received during the meeting. ## Attendance The following 11 members were present at the Committee meeting on June 10, 2025: - Hannah LeGris - Dave Sevigny - James Brown - Tyler Morton - Emma Curtis - Liz Sheehan - Denise Gray - Joseph Hale - Amy Beasley - Hil Boone - Dan Wu No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions Two motions were brought before the committee during the June 10, 2025 meeting, both of which passed by voice vote. - **Changes to Engineering Manuals (effective July 1, 2025):** The committee voted to accept changes to several engineering manuals, effective July 1, 2025, in order to comply with House Bill 443. The motion was seconded by Dave Sevigny and passed by voice vote. Because this was a voice vote, individual ayes and nays were not recorded. [timestamp: 1:39:22] - **Ordinance Amending Chapter 16 – Dumpster Service Standards:** The committee voted to approve an ordinance amending certain sections of Chapter 16 related to dumpster service standards. The motion was seconded by Denise Gray and passed by voice vote. Because this was a voice vote, individual ayes and nays were not recorded. [timestamp: 1:40:58] ## Approval of May 13, 2025 Committee Summary The committee took up the approval of the summary from its May 13, 2025 meeting. Hannah LeGris was the key speaker on this agenda item. No concerns or substantive debate were noted in connection with the summary. The committee approved the May 13, 2025 summary. ## Empower Lexington Update [timestamp: 04:30] Jada Walker-Griggs presented an update on the Empower Lexington plan, with the presentation focusing on sustainability and emissions reduction strategies. The item was informational in nature, providing the committee with a progress report on the plan's current status and direction. No additional speaker details, specific data points, debate, or concerns are recorded in the available meeting materials for this agenda item. ## Urban Forestry/Street Trees [timestamp: 1:00:15] Heather Wilson provided a presentation to the Committee on the urban forestry and street tree programs. The update covered ongoing pruning initiatives as well as cost-share programs related to street trees. The agenda item was informational in nature, and no vote or formal action was taken as a result of the presentation. *Note: Additional details regarding specific program metrics, concerns raised, or further discussion points are not available in the source material for this agenda item.* ## HB 443 Updates: Engineering / Waste Management [timestamp: 1:30:58] Doug Burton and John Howard presented updates on the committee's compliance efforts related to HB 443, with the presentation covering two primary areas: stormwater manual standards and dumpster service standards. The update was informational in nature, with Burton and Howard outlining the steps being taken to align engineering and waste management practices with the requirements established under HB 443. The presentation addressed both the stormwater manual — which governs how stormwater infrastructure and drainage are designed and managed — and standards related to dumpster services, reflecting the legislation's scope across multiple operational areas. No specific outcome or action item was recorded from this agenda item, as it was presented for the committee's awareness and informational purposes rather than for a vote or formal decision. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Accept changes to several engineering manuals effective July 1, 2025, to comply with House Bill 443 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve ordinance amending certain sections of Chapter 16 related to dumpster service standards --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Our presentation today is an update on Empower Lexington. The Empower Lexington plan is Lexington's guide for a sustainable, resilient future. And we have Jada Griggs, who is our sustainability program manager, here to provide this update for us. Welcome. Can you hear me okay? Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present what is really a follow-up to Empower Lexington. So I am Jada Walker-Griggs, program manager senior for sustainability. And I actually have Abby Terry here with me from Tetra Tech. You've heard her before when we did our emissions reduction plan. And so she has a few slides that she's going to go over today. But this is really to introduce you to our emissions reduction plan. It is our race to net zero. So what is sustainability? Sustainability in Lexington means meeting the needs of generations while ensuring future generations are able to enjoy our urban communities, our tree-lined rural roads, equine farms, and countless other physical and social elements that contribute to what makes Lexington Lexington. And this is a quote from our Empower Lexington plan. It really involves three main points and areas, our environment, people, and economics, our economy. So protecting our natural resources and reducing pollution to help keep our planet healthy. It ensures a fair and equitable treatment of all individuals and improving the quality of life of our residents and to create a robust economic system that we can support ongoing growth without depleting our resources. So this approach helps strengthen our community. It helps us improve the abilities of being able to handle challenges. And by doing these, the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County government can show how we can all work together for our future and to make our future better. So this is a timeline that we put on here because we think it's important for you to know the journey that we've taken as a government towards sustainability. And in 2008, council passed a resolution authorizing Lexington to participate in the City for Climate Protection program. For three years, for 2009 through 2012, stakeholders developed the Empire Lexington Plan. In May of 2012, that plan was passed, a resolution to support the implementation. During June of 2021, the Program Manager Senior position was approved for FY22 budget. I was hired on February 28 of 2022 as a Program Manager Senior for Sustainability. Work began updating that plan in 2023. I will tell you that almost from day one, when I came in and started this position in February, I started looking for individuals that were instrumental in creating the first Empire Lexington Plan and asked them to join me. There are several of those in the room today, and if you feel like it, please raise your hand if you contributed to our updated Empire Lexington Plan. In December of 2023, Chrissy Balding was hired as our Environmental Initiative Specialist for Sustainability. We started working in early 2024 on our Emissions Reduction Plan. Council passed a resolution approving Empire Lexington, and then in November of 2024, we received silver certification for Leeds for Cities. Our strategies for sustainability are these three documents that you see here. Empire Lexington, our update to our Community-Wide Emissions Reduction Plan, which also includes our LFUCG Municipal Operations, and our Emissions Reduction Plan, which we have named a Race to Net Zero. Just to give you a brief background on Empire Lexington, there were about 50 stakeholders that came together to review information in six sectors that you see there. I'm not going to read those six, but we did align those sectors with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design of Leeds for Cities certification. So this helped us identify other areas that were critical to us reducing our environmental impact. This plan includes the updated emissions reductions, and then also a high level of strategies per sector to help us meet our net zero goals, so those goals that make us sustainable. I will say that we also identified the top three that the community said that was important to them. So here's the resolution, just a summary of the resolution that was approved in 2024. So this resolution was to approve the Empire Lexington Plan, which is our plan for a resilient community, a community-wide sustainability plan, so it was designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also energy use for our community, and then also to say that they support us, the council supports us in our efforts to implement these plans. So the race to net zero, this is directly tied to our emissions inventory. To give you a definition for net zero, it is achieving net zero means that any emissions that are produced in our community by human activity, that we counterbalance that by an equal amount of emissions being absorbed or offset. So this plan includes a vulnerability piece. It looks at our exposures, our sensitivities and adaptive capacities for the exposures that we have, and also a suite of reduction measures to help us facilitate our transition to net zero. So why does it matter, right? And I hear a lot of people say, well, why? Why are we doing this? So science tells us that an increase in our greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it traps heat, disrupts our weather patterns, and leads to more extreme events. So more excess rainfalls, heat waves, and strong storms. It increases our exposure to natural hazards. So in our plan, and I have on this slide, is a risk index. So this is a FEMA tool that rates communities in the U.S. at the risk of 18 natural hazards. And if you look to the right there, you'll see the index for Fayette County. So our community. And if you look at those, you'll see, yeah, we're vulnerable to these, right? So cold waves is very high for us as a risk. Tornadoes, strong winds, lightning, ice storms are relatively high. And if you think about, and we try to separate weather from our emissions and what we're doing, but there is a direct correlation to that. And so it's important that we look at our vulnerabilities. So climate vulnerability, the exposure to this, this is the degree to which our community systems or individuals are subjected to the impacts of climate change and hazards, environmental hazards. Sensitivity is the degree to which a community system or individuals are affected by the impacts. And then also the adaptive capacity then would be our ability to be able to adjust to those impacts of climate change and other environmental stressors. So I will say building resiliency is very important. And the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government has several divisions and programs that we have in place that are already working toward resiliency and quality of life. And so I just kind of put some of those there, but we summarize it in the plan and know how important it is for our work to continue building a resiliency to climate issues and changes. This is just to show you our emissions reduction plan that we reactivated in 2021, and we have a commitment to do our plan every two years. The city did contract with Tetra Tech to complete that inventory. We calculated community-wide and LFUCG, Municipal Greenhouse Gas Emissions. So the activities that occur within the Urban County Government are a subset in our community-wide inventory. And I will tell you, we are at 2%. So the other 98% will come from where? We need work across the board, right? But we certainly lead by example. And this pie chart here shows our breakdown. So these values are presented in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. And about 70% of our greenhouse gases is a direct result of stationary energy followed by transportation. And you look at municipal operations, those two are the highest for us as well. And so at this time, I'm going to ask Abby Terry to come forth and go over the next few slides. So this is what you've been waiting on, really, right? What are your proposed measures? And so she is going to explain these and how we came to these and the co-benefits that are so important with this as well. So I'll turn it over to Abby. Thank you, Jada. So you've heard Jada say several times already the term reduction measures, and I just want to first define that. So a reduction measure is a shift from a high-emissions activity, such as using fossil fuels to generate electricity, to a lower-emissions activity, such as using solar to generate electricity. So this plan includes a suite of measures for each sector from our greenhouse gas inventory. Just to reiterate, the difference in this plan and Empower Lexington, Empower Lexington is high-level, while these measures are tied directly to the emissions in the emissions inventory. So once we had our suite of measures, we performed a comprehensive analysis. We looked at what the current status of the measure in the region is, what the greenhouse gas reduction potential of each measure is, who are the key stakeholders involved in implementing this measure, how much would it cost to implement this measure, when can this measure be implemented, what level of authority does LFUCG have in implementing this measure, and what other benefits does this measure provide. So all of these measures reduce greenhouse gases, but all of them also have other benefits as well. Improving air quality by reducing other pollutants, improving public health by increasing physical activity, and then social equity, economic development, and climate resiliency. And we determined which measures to include through a combination of what we heard through the Empower Lexington process, and what we heard through community outreach for the Lexington Fayette Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, because we wanted Lexington's strategy to align with that. Okay, so let's take a look at the sectors. So for stationary energy, which as a reminder, is mostly our energy use associated with buildings, we propose to become more energy efficient through adopting the latest building code and doing retrofits and weatherization. Electrifying sources of natural gas, and then also cleaning up our resource generation mix by partnering with the utilities to incorporate more renewables. For transportation, it really focused on shifting those journeys in single passenger vehicles to public transit, and electrifying those that we could not shift to public transit, as well as being intentional about our development to reduce our reliance on transportation. Next up, we have waste. We really wanted to emphasize reducing waste at the source before it's generated, before we make it to that reuse or recycle phase, and then composting and recycling what we could not reduce. And then agriculture, forestry, and other land use and industrial processes and product use are very small contributors to the inventory, but if we are going to get to net zero, we have to address those as well. Agriculture, forestry, and other land use is an area where we're able to subtract some emissions through carbon sequestration in our urban tree canopy, so we propose to continue that effort as well as optimizing fertilizer usage by switching synthetic fertilizers to organic fertilizers and optimizing usage. And then finally, in the industrial processes and product use category, refrigerants often have a very high global warming potential, which means that their effect on global warming is much higher than that of carbon dioxide, and there are some lower global warming potential refrigerants out there, so we propose shifting to those. So once we identified our suite of reduction measures, we performed calculations using the Handbook for Analyzing Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions, Assessing Climate Vulnerabilities, and Advancing Health and Equity, and the total got us to about 80% of our baseline emissions for 2050. It's really difficult to not have any emissions. 80% to 90% is typical in what you'll see in emissions reductions plans, and of course our advancements over the next 25 years may allow for higher targets. So I said targets. We also set targets for the sectors that you saw on the previous slides, and we did that by looking at what is currently feasible, so that can always change as well. That last little piece, we'll have to offset through a combination of power purchase agreements, renewable energy certificates, and offsets to achieve net zero. A power purchase agreement is an agreement with the utility to obtain the benefits for renewable projects. A physical power purchase agreement is typically a project within your boundary. So for example, if we were to install solar at the Haley Pike Landfill, whereas a virtual power purchase agreement is typically a project not in your region, but you still have an agreement with the utility to get the benefits of that. So I'm going to turn it back over to Jada to set the stage for what's next. Thank you, Abby. And so we really get a chance to shape the type of city we want Lexington to be. And as I mentioned, the majority of this for our greenhouse gas emissions, the 98% is the rest of the community, and so everyone has a role here. But I would like to end this presentation, you know, at a time when we are often reminded of just how different we are. I want to leave you with this quote from Kentucky and Wendell Berry. It says, the earth is what we all have in common. Thank you. So I'm ready for questions. Thank you all so much. Colleagues, now's the time to sign in if you have questions, and hopefully you do. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much for the presentation. Could you go back a couple of slides there? Keep going to the... Yeah, so I just kind of wanted to go through these a little bit more or just ask a few more questions. So this... I remember when we did the initial inventory, like, it seemed like there's absolutely no way to get there with... Kentucky is considered like a dirty power state. I mean, because coal is a power generator and it's cheap, but there are... Like, we're rated on the number that comes out of our state as a whole, I think. Is that correct? Yes. And so, well, one of the things is to partner with the utilities. I will say that, you know, our research shows that the parent company for KU and LG&E and KU, they do have a net zero... A net zero emissions by 2050 as well. Yeah. And so you're correct in that they will actually kind of... The work that is done with them will kind of decide how this actually moves... Yeah. ...when it comes to our stationary energy. Yeah, I just think they have a huge effect. Yes, absolutely. And I don't know if we're... And we've talked about this before, but I just want to make sure that our lines of communication are open, that we're really trying to do everything we can to be supportive of them. And I also did get their... I got their sustainability plan, and I couldn't tell if they were just trying to be internally net zero. Like, it's like LFUCG, us as a city government, saying we're going to be net zero, right? I didn't know if internally they were going to be or on the transmission side, and they haven't responded to me yet on that question, so I'll... Yeah, I believe that there are some questions that still remain for that. Yeah. So, yes. Okay. And on the transportation side, I do think... And first of all, on the stationary energy side, I also think that there'll be probably other technologies that hopefully create a difference. Could you explain why gas, why we're going after natural gas more? Maybe as a heat provider, is it? Versus having... One of your things says natural gas, trying to lower the amount of natural gas use. Yes, electrifying that, because when we go through this change for our proposed reductions, we're trying to take a shift in those emitters that are higher and shift it to something that is less. And so switching over to electrifying homes that are served by natural gas actually helps that. And in our inventory, it did actually show that we had a significant increase in gas. And from my talk internally and some external conversations that I had, it seemed like that shift came when electricity started to become more expensive, gas was cheaper, natural gas was cheaper, so they switched. And then you're starting to see that raise with that. And so if Abby has a more significant explanation, potential explanation for that, I'm happy to let her answer that as well. But those are kind of the shifts that we've seen and why we believe it's important to shift from that to a lower emissions. Yeah, Jada mostly covered it. The strategy, we want to use less energy, period, and then we want to electrify, and then we want to green the grid. So you're right, until the resource mix improves, there are still some challenges there. And I've got a follow-up. Like in Louisville, they've got a net zero goal as well. But they've just kind of, like this whole, I don't know if you're following, like the amount of power that's used in data centers and artificial intelligence. And I'm wondering if there's a strategy that as a city we don't want. You know, they attracted that, but I think their power usage is supposedly going to go up like 50%. So it seems, I mean, it seems very, it seems difficult to weigh those two things, right? And I don't know if, I'm just looking for reflection if you have any or if you've thought about it. It does kind of seem a bit counterproductive when it comes to reducing your greenhouse gases, right? Yeah. And that is definitely a challenge with them increasing it there. Is there a potential to affect the grid here in Lexington? Possibly. And so that is definitely more of a challenge for them there. Yeah. But, you know, it is what they're facing. Yeah. So, you know, they can deal with that. And I will say that they committed to net zero by 2040. Yeah. Yeah, I know. They're going to have fun. All right. Thank you. My time's up. Appreciate it, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. Jada, for your presentation. It's always very thorough and stated in a way that people can understand. So I appreciate you, since this is not my wheelhouse. So along with what my colleague Dave Savignies just said, so along the lines with our natural gas, a lot of what we do depends on another entity. So we can set the goal. So we have this goal of being net zero by 50? Yes. 2050. So do we have a plan to work with our partners such as LexTran as to because I see the transportation is an element here. What conversations are we having with LexTran to ensure that they are also on the path to this goal? And you all have great questions, and thank you. And so, you know, we are working. I'm basically the outward face for that. And so we met with LexTran, and we were attempting to get some implementation money from our MSA grant to help them because they do have a plan that they have said we're going to switch over to this, and they're working toward those goals. And a lot of industry does have that. But as we go forward, we are going to really kind of put Empire Lexington and our emissions reduction goals out there for the community and ask for their support. Because basically what we're asking them is to basically get on board, right? We all have a part to play. We're asking them to find out where their part can be and to go with it. And so internally we're thinking of initiatives that we can do to help our partners and others in the community because, you're right, without industry and commercial, without residents, regardless of where they live and what type of home they're in, doing something, then we're going to fall quite short. So, yes, we are asking them. And you will start to see more and more outreach to this as well. Which leads to my next question about outreach. Good job. Nice segue. So right now, do we have a plan for how we will reach out to our residents about this plan? Oh, I'll let you go. So I can say that we know that education is a big piece in that. And I have conversed with Angela Poe, who is our program manager senior for public information and education. And so we're saying, yes, we're getting ready to do this. The exact plan for it has not been in place, but we're already talking about it. And, you know, to be honest, we're not starting from scratch. There are a lot of things that we're already doing. And I know I'm kind of looking over here, but, yes, we're already doing, right? But there's just more that we need to do. And so she will help with this piece as we go forward in reaching out to the rest of the community. And then we have great partners that are in the room today that represent a lot of our big stakeholders, if you will, in the community, and even outreach organizations that are here that email me and call me and that I'm in the room with. And they're just like, just tell us what to do, and we will help get the word out. So we are working on that. So there's not a defined plan, but we are working toward that. And I appreciate you all for working towards this together because, as mentioned before, if we're not working together, if we're doing this all in silos and not working with our community partners, it's all for naught. So thank you for your partnership with our community partners and the work that you're doing. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Briggs, for the presentation. I really appreciate it. I have a good chunk of questions, so I'm going to get right to it. So if we could go to page 16, please. All right, so I'm looking through our list over here, and I'm going to start by asking a few questions about the transportation section. Item T1 talks about increasing LexTran ridership. Have you all considered, should the city go forward with something like a microtransit program at a larger scale, what impact that would have on this plan? No, we have not. Ideally, we have this. The city has been working really hard to come up with programs that encourage our residents to get out of their homes and out of their cars and walk or bike and that sort of thing. So looking at the microtransit, as far as getting people to ride the bus, you're taking a vehicle off the road, and so you then can reduce that. The micro, us looking detailedly at that particular thing, we have not. This is just our plan for our scenario. And honestly, when we were going through this process, LexTran did not have that, and I'm not certain that they do now, but yet, right? But all those, the data will be captured as we move forward, and that's what you'll be able to see on our greenhouse gas emissions inventory that we're going to be doing in another year or so. But as we go, we'll be able to see those numbers and see where we possibly need to adjust and what we can do to help enhance things even more. Great. So thank you for that. I'm going to ask a question now about T3, which has to do with the transition to electric vehicles. As you all are considering the prioritization of that, what impact did the availability of EV infrastructure in Lexington and the greater Fayette County area play into that? Because some of the issues that I've seen with the adoption of electronic vehicles is that Kentucky is currently remarkably lacking in EV infrastructure. And additionally, there's a class component to this as well, where generally the folks who are able to afford infrastructure updates to their homes are the only people who can practically afford to use electric vehicles. So I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. So with EVs, currently, with the current federal administration, the push for EVs has kind of, if you will, slowed, and there's some friction there. And honestly, there are for a lot of the programs that we have. And so for EVs, what they are going to, we were waiting on the federal government's funding to come down to the state level, then would trickle out into the communities for potential EVs. So one of the things that we talked about is having a plan done to evaluate our community and see exactly where we need to have those. Also, potentially putting EVs in areas where someone possibly wouldn't be able to have them on their home, but nearby so that they can charge. The other side of that is as we switch and then vehicles then are traded in for newer models, it would then make EVs less expensive, if you will. And then that would open up for potential households who would normally not have them. And so at that point, that's kind of the transition. And so with us kind of being in limbo with EVs, but we're also looking at what can we do internally to support EVs in the community that people would be able to access as well. And we get emails constantly about what about putting one at this community center or at this park? So when we have visitors come in outside of Lexington and Fayette County, they have a potential for that. But really, it is kind of leaning toward having EVs at home, battery sources for EV charging at home. And then the possibility or the likelihood that someone who may not be able to get a new EV would be able to get one that has been traded in and it'd be cheaper, just like getting a used car for someone. Okay, my time is up, so I'm going to sign back in. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Griggs, for your work. Can we go back to page 12? So this is the slide that kind of really jumped out at me because it lays out very starkly that the bulk of the problem is in stationary energy. And then if you add transportation, that's almost all of it, right? And so while I'm seeing all the different reduction measures, and I'm generally a proponent of put all tools on the table and let's do everything, how are you all thinking about sort of prioritizing having the greatest impact, right? Which to me is in the stationary energy part. You know, we should certainly do things regarding waste, regarding the other land uses, that sort of thing. But how are you all thinking about sort of prioritization? And, you know, ultimately we have a finite amount of people power and financial resources, right? Yes, and so like you said, we have put everything out there. But we know the biggest bang for our buck, and we've had people say, well, why don't you just pick the biggest thing? But the biggest thing is likely the most expensive, and how likely is it that you're going to be able to do that? And so I just want to, you know, remind everyone that this is a community-wide plan and not just LFUCG, although certainly looking from our pie chart, there are some changes that we need to do internally. But I have been thinking about ways to, because when you drill down into the stationary energy, it's about buildings more than anything. And so the idea of if we get our building codes updated that we can make going forward, that will take care of new builds. But those that are already there, there would then need to be some upgrades that are done. How can we work with our commercial industry to help with this? And so I've been talking with my colleague, James Bush, about doing just that and how we may be able to work with them in a way that can help do what he's done for us internally, is to let the commercial industry see where they are from an energy standpoint and what they may be able to do to help with that. So that's another piece of this that is not, you know, how we can go about doing it in this plan, but some things that we are considering for that. And it would be the same thing for transportation. So there's still a significant work to do. But one thing is I wanted this plan so that we could see what work needs to be done and then to do the work. I didn't want to come up with another plan. It's time to really dig in and get to the work for this. And so that's how we've been talking about moving forward. Have you all had conversations yet with developers or the builder community about how they move forward and how we can kind of nudge them or look at how they're building in energy with their buildings? No, not how we work with them or to nudge them. I will say that I have met with our affordable housing group. And so I actually put in for a grant to see about potential green banks to help with that, I will say. That is one of those grants that are on hold. So we may or may not get, but we had already started about a game plan, a potential partnership with non-profits to help with that piece. And I felt like our affordable housing side of it was because they have dedicated funding for it. And that we could start there with the potential to build on to commercial instead. You mentioning grants kind of leads me to my last question. And you spoke to it a little bit earlier. We currently have a federal administration that is not going to be keen to provide funding or prioritize sustainability or any of these kind of energy issues. Are you looking at alternatives right now to federal funding and grants in terms of where else we can find money for these projects? Yes. So we have, and we have a summer intern that's been helping do some research. We've been looking for research, and we found a mini-grant. But it was not related to the energy side, but beating the heat and how we work on quality of life for those that are more susceptible to heat stresses. So there are some, but they're very small and few and in between. But we will continue to look for those and apply for those when they come available. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. My pleasure. Colleagues, before we get to the second round of questions from some of our committee members, I have a couple to ask, if you don't mind. Thank you so much for this report to us. And I just want to remind you all that you've received the race to net zero plan via email from Ms. Thompson. And that interactive PDF is also on the sustainability website. So that has some really good information to supplement what we're seeing here. And I am really curious. When I look at these proposed reduction measures, our stationary energy summary with the 2030 target and the 2050 target, and then transportation, for example, and also some of our waste reduction. These are goals that we're trying to move toward incrementally. But I'm aware and we're aware, we don't have that long. We have 25 years, may seem like quite some time, but it's really not. And some of what we're seeing is really, as you said, expensive. Some is about infrastructure. Some is about, like, some of this is about behavior shifts. So do you all mind just walking me through some examples? Like Councilmember Curtis was asking about, like, LexTran ridership. And, you know, we have our Complete Streets Action Plan and Bike Pad Master Plan. And I see this 2050 target of 30% for both of those areas, for example. What does that look like in practice? Can you give us some additional metrics or numbers or some concrete examples that we can imagine together? Yes, and so I'm going to actually call Abby up here for that. She has been in the weeds with the matrix and moving forward. So I'm going to ask her to elaborate on that a bit. And then I'll speak to some things as well. So there are two ways to do an emissions reductions plan. There's kind of a bottom-up approach where you lay out your roadmap and see how far that gets you. Or there's a top-down approach where you set a goal and figure out how you're going to get there. So imagine Lexington 2045, set the goal of net zero. So what these measures do is say, okay, based on our emissions from the emissions inventory, what do we need to shift in order to make that happen? So these measures are based on what is currently feasible, like the 30% shift to EVs for 2050. That's small. Hopefully there should be advancements in the next 25 years that would make that target higher and get us closer. So that way we don't have to offset as much. But to answer your question, if you look on each sector summary, we have tracking metrics. So that is what we're going to look at in each emissions inventory to track our success. So in the case of transportation, the metric we use to calculate emissions is vehicle miles traveled. So shifting vehicle miles traveled from conventional fossil fuel powered vehicles to EVs would reduce those emissions if we clean up the grid. And then the same with public transit, so on and so forth. So to make sure that we have a transparent and effective plan, that's why we have identified the tracking metric associated with each of these measures. Yes, building on what you shared, I mean, that's a lot of data collection. So for complete streets, vehicle miles traveled or miles of infrastructure constructed. I mean, are we talking about the number of people who have changed their habits away from single occupancy vehicles and miles traveled by bicycle or on foot? Are we looking at vehicular miles traveled in terms of fewer vehicle miles in a car? And then can you tell me a little bit more about the data collection side of that for that area or, for example, with LexTran and ridership or whatever you want to share? Yeah, absolutely. So when you calculate the inventory, you're primarily focused on those vehicle miles traveled. So what we would hope to see is a reduction in those vehicle miles traveled, because people have shifted to biking or walking or riding public transit. Those targets came about by evaluation of the current status in the region. So for example, if you read the comprehensive operations analysis for LexTran, I think they proposed to increase service by 27% in their plan. So that's where the 30% for 2050 came from. So they're all tied to the current landscape. Okay. And let me just say that when you look at the plan, because it's really hard to get everything that we probably could have conveyed to you in 15 minutes. And so when you look at the plan, you will be able to see what other supporting documents and plans that are out there that we looked at to come to this. Okay. I may have some more detailed questions as we kind of examine our role in getting us closer to these goals in terms of infrastructure, habit change, education, and what have you, because these are some initiatives that we're currently working on. So I guess I'm also curious about what more we could do in this current moment as a governing body. And maybe that's an additional conversation. And I know my time is up, so I may log back in. And if you will. And so my role in sustainability is very broad, right? I'm working in a lot of areas that I'm not the expert in, but we have the experts and we know how to get to them. And that's the expertise that we used and the technical support groups that came together to say this is what we need to do. And, yes, we can do that. And so all of this is tied together into this plan. So, yes, moving forward, then we will continue with those experts and continue to get the outreach done. But when it comes to the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, it is very data driven. And so the data is what we're going to be able to plug in and see exactly if we're starting to see a reduction. Will we be able to say that someone rode their bike for something? We will not be able to do that. It will be directly connected to the miles that are driven that we get the data through from the state. Okay, great. That's helpful context. Council Member Savigny, you have some more questions? Yeah, thank you, Chair. And so my questions are, so we've got a 2030 target included in this. At some point, is there, do you feel like there's a series of ordinances that, like, so if we're on target, we just kind of keep going with whatever strategy we're using to kind of make some of these things happen. But at some point, my guess, there's communities that are doing things that might be more ordinance driven, that might be pushing the envelope a little bit. And I'm wondering if you've been to some sort of educational experiences that you know some of those levers that might need to get pulled down the road that this body might have to start thinking about. And will you be the one bringing those to us, or are we going to find those things ourselves, do you think? I believe that I'll be the, we'll be the ones to identify those and bring them to you. Okay. There will be programs, initiatives, potential policy changes, especially with our own LFUCG operations. We definitely get to decide what we do internally and how we go about selecting contractors and how we go about our development of our construction projects and things like that. We will need to consider all of those, but yes, you will be able to help us. We can identify, and then you all can help us with, yes, it's doable or maybe not now, but we'll continue to work on certain things as we move forward. Thank you. And I do think some of the things that we're looking at, like in our budget link, we looked at vehicles, most budget links are looking at vehicles. We have a group in fleet that are great, great folks and they know how to work on certain types of vehicles, but we really haven't transformed our fleet. So there's some things that we haven't done that I think that maybe some leadership, you know, maybe some leadership in looking at what are the best vehicles for fleet that we might be able to use. I mean, there's a reason Amazon is using Rivian, you know, Rivian vans, they're doing it for a reason and they're standardizing their fleet, right? And then I had a couple of quick questions and I don't know if I'm out of time yet, but what were these abbreviations, because it's the first time I've seen those. I think one of them, yeah, the IPPU I think is, that must be a refrigerant type for HVAC, is that what that is? What's IPPU and what's A-F-O-L-U? A-F-O-L-U and IPPU. So these are really kind of our sector names and so it's the Agricultural, Forestry and Other Land Uses and then the IPPU and I just kind of went shh when I started talking, my apologies. And for the IPPU, Industrial Product, there it is, Industrial Product and Processes. Thank you. Thank you again. I really do appreciate it. It's always exciting. We're making, and I hope we continue to make progress. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Our pleasure. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Chair. And going again to these priorities and, you know, we don't have to necessarily go back to page 16. We can if you want to, but the thing that I'm looking at is the most significant items in terms of their greater impact. We're looking at stuff like, you know, partner with utility companies to reduce carbon intensity or, you know, these types of things that are seemingly reliant upon the private sector's willingness to go along with them. And it seems, as the Vice Mayor pointed out, that the culture writ large within the federal government right now is kind of denying that climate change even exists. So how do we plan to go about getting buy-in from companies that are not required to buy into this? So I think overall and large is that leading into this shift of administration and the changes that you see, a lot of industry, a lot of businesses were already doing the work and they are continuing to do the work. I don't really like to say what my hope is, you know, that the utilities will continue to do the work that they say that they want to do. But I do understand that they kind of run into roadblocks along the way as well. And then the other side of that is I'm hopeful that it's temporary. So I try not to get too stressed, too excited about the changes, although it is a little stressful, the changes that we're starting to see. But then I just try to remind myself that hopefully it's temporary. And since we're not looking to do all these by next year or two or three years from now, we're looking down the road and we'll be able to continue to do the work. And then as things potentially change, then we can get back on speeding things along, if you will. But you're right. A lot of these things we can't do without other people. And of course, with this being a community wide, LFUCG cannot do it without the rest of the community. Well, yeah, and so if we're looking at transportation, item T4, which says continue to prioritize affordable, equitable, and connected community developments, and that's one of the most significant leaps between the 2030 estimated reduction and the 2050 estimated reduction. But by my reading of something like House Bill 443's policy that everything must be approved in a way that's objective and ministerial. There's not going to be a way for us to prioritize affordability, equitability, and connectivity. Our approval of community developments is going to have to be strictly numbers based. And there's not necessarily a way to create a numerical quantifier there. And so my big concern here right now, and I really do appreciate the work that you've put into this and the progress that's been made, is that when we go back to, let me find the slide number, slide number eight. And we're looking at this national risk index report. And we are at the highest risk for cold waves, tornadoes, strong winds, lightning, and ice storms. That's all stuff that we've experienced here in Fayette County at increasingly alarming rates over just the past few months. And so this isn't something that's a hypothetical future problem. It's something that is very tangible and it's very immediate. And colleagues, I would like to say that I view our role here as being the mitigators of climate change in that direct way. In the same way that we work to improve our winter weather response, we have to work to improve our contributions to the conditions that create and cause climate change. And so while I really, really do appreciate the work that's gone into this plan and the hypothetical framework, I just, I have a lot of continuing concerns that we're over-promising people here. That the majority of what's been proposed here is reliant upon the goodwill of private companies and the whims of federal administrations. So I would like to encourage you all as you go forward in looking at how to implement this, that we look at solutions that are not necessarily dependent upon the goodwill of bad faith actors. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. Colleagues, any other questions or thoughts to share at this point with Ms. Griggs or with us, with the group as a whole? And it is significant information. It's a lot of information. So, and I will say that at the end of my presentation, our public information and education team is prepared to put out a news release. And then this information will be on our website. But we are going to continue to build that. I thank you for all your comments. I respectfully thank you for your comments and your input. And we're all in this together, whether people believe it or not. And so, I do thank you for your time today. And so I'm not sure if I'm done, but thank you. Well, and thank you and thank you to your team and everybody who's worked on this report. I think that you've heard a lot of support here and a sense of urgency and our understanding that our role, our advocacy, our policy work is really necessary in moving forward with these metrics that we've reviewed here as we get closer and closer to 2050. So, thank you all for your presentation. And colleagues, as you look at the PDF, if you have follow-ups with Jada and her office, I'm sure they'd appreciate talking to you more, but you're all set, thank you. Yes, absolutely, thank you. And so, again, I know my Empire Lexington group was saying, so what's your short-term and long-term goals and how much is that all that? And so all that is included in this because I didn't want to just come up with stuff. It was important for me to have things in order for us to look at. Although it may not be perfect, it is certainly a good start and we will continue to do those works. And so, if you have any further questions or comments for me, sustainability or our team, I welcome those and thank you. Thank you. All right, colleagues, next we have an update on our street tree program. As you all are all aware, street trees are typically located between the sidewalk and the curb. And we're going to hear a lot about their benefits, environmental, aesthetic, socioeconomic, and otherwise. And we're going to learn a little bit more about urban forestry from Heather Wilson, our urban and community forestry section manager, and welcome. We're looking forward to your presentation. Thank you, Council Member Legree. Good afternoon, everyone. It's hard to follow up Jada's presentation. She did a lot of really intense information, which is really good to speak about. But today, again, like Council Member Legree spoke, I'm going to give an update on our urban forestry program a little bit. Really kind of a focus on our street trees and update on some of the programs we have for that. I remember how to make it slide. Okay, so just to give a brief of the topics. For a lot of you, this will be a recap. It's very similar to last year's, just with some updated information. For some of you new to us, this will just kind of give you a groundwork for where we are in urban forestry and what we do. And at the end, we'll have hopefully plenty of time for questions. I wanted to start off by kind of introducing you to our urban forestry group. For those of you that don't know, we do have a very active management group within the county government. I have a city arborist that works with me, and he has a crew that actually goes out and does work on our city trees, making sure that they're safe and there and available for the public for all the benefits they provide for us. We also do have a tree nursery. It is at Bryan Station Road out at Hyslop Farm Park. This is a resource that is available to the city for any of our public spaces. There are trees out there that we grow and manage to make sure that they are available for planting out in projects and on city property. We also have, that's supposed to say mowing and horticulture crew. So I do have a crew that is designated for mowing our medians and our public spaces, as well as maintaining our beautification beds that are located kind of scattered throughout the city downtown and in the outskirts as well. The other side of our program is the urban forester, Eric Sutherland, and with him is an arborist technician. Their main focus is compliance for our street trees, as well as working with planning and development to make sure that trees are an integral piece of our infrastructure moving forward as new development comes. Adjacent to us is also Ben Crennett in the Natural Resources Protection Section. They are tasked with making sure that our development communities and trees that are needing enforcement are kind of fallen under that wing and follow through is there for them to make sure that those trees are meeting compliance. Adjacent to us over at Streets and Roads is another forestry group, and their biggest role with us is assisting with us for county road maintenance of trees, and then also for those emergency situations. When we have our big storms that do come through more readily now, making sure that our public right of way is clear. And then we just have two boards as well that were directly related to tree board and the infrastructure hearing board. Background on street trees in Lexington, like Council Member Legree mentioned, street trees are those trees that exist in the space between the sidewalk and the road. They are the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. About 10% of those street trees, and in particular I can think of Man O' War as a good example, are actually owned by the LFUCG and we manage directly. 90% roughly is actually privately maintained and managed, and so the responsibility falls on those adjacent property owners to make sure that they are pruned, planted, removed as appropriate. We do have two programs, which are what I'm really going to focus on for this presentation, to assist private property or industry with, or actually it's homeowners, sorry, the Hazard Street Tree Cost Share Program and the Courtesy Street Tree Pruning Program. And I just wanted to kind of back up a little bit and say why this matters that we're talking about it. We need to know the numbers of our street trees. We need to know the money that goes into maintaining these trees for the safety of our community, but also for all the environmental benefits that they come. It's less expensive to have a good, healthy urban canopy than it is to not, due to all the benefits that they do give back to us. So for those of you that aren't familiar with our Hazard Street Tree Cost Share Program, this program exists to assist private property owners with the removal and replacement of hazardous trees that exist in that street tree, that easement place. This was developed because there were a lot of large trees that cost a lot of money to maintain or to remove and replace that were just existing in this space, which were hazardous to the community. Also, we were having a lot of trees removed and not replaced. And so one of the goals of this program was to make sure that while we are making sure to get rid of the, or remove the hazardous trees, that we're also still continuing to grow and keep our urban canopy. The other piece of that is because, again, the cost is really high. It's to assist homeowners with that cost at a half reimbursement rate. We do also have a program piece of that that is available for individuals that fall underneath an income threshold, and we can supply 100% grant program funding for them for the removal and replacement. There is a process, we do, and I'll go a little bit more into this in the next couple slides, but we do have an allocation provided to us at the beginning of the fiscal year every year. That money is pretty much gone by September of that very same year, every year. So this is a very well loved program. Previous to 2020, our budget for this program really hung around that $150,000 realm. With the pandemic in 2021, we did have to drop that, or that budget was dropped down to about $50,000. That money was gone almost immediately, just the backlog of people submitting for applications at the end of the fiscal year previous. In that year, we were also given an allocation to Urban Forestry of 1.5 million to bolster our Urban Forestry program. The very first allocation of that money for that program was to go to bring back up to even our Hazardous Street to Cost Share program to kind of take care of everybody that was in our backlog, and then also to supply a piece of that to directly go to those 100% recipients. Because really one of the goals of this program is to help with the financial piece of this, and the people that need it the most really needed to have kind of a chunk of money set aside specifically for them. Since that time, we have come back to this $150,000 budget that's available for our community. And again, it has always gone pretty much by September. You can see to this point, already paid out to date before the end of the fiscal year is $149,000. And so there's just a little bit of lag is when the trees go in and the submittals come in for that reimbursement. This is a breakdown by council district to see where these participants are. The numbers are variable. There's lots of reasons behind why some districts receive more of this and some receive less. I'm happy to talk to that. And I just wanted to point out, I know my box is missing on that total for the participants for this year. We had a total of 72 participants this year. 11 of those participants did receive that 100% grant funding reimbursement, which is really great. One of our goals in the past couple years was to really start reaching out to those people that maybe felt that they couldn't support the other half of that funding for that assistance. So it's really great to see that number increasing. But overall, you can see in the past ten years, we have had 1,500 participants in this program. This one was really just to show that we have continued to increase the amount of money that someone spends on this program. Again, just showing that the need is really high in our community and well received. And also to show, as the years have gone on, of course, our cost per tree replacement and removal has increased. It makes sense. All products and services increase as time goes on. With a little blip right there in 2020, I think that was probably because of the pandemic. And then as we rebounded, those prices kind of skyrocketed along with all the services that we give out around the city. This was to show that we are still seeing a lot of incidences of removal and replacement needs for pear and pin oak trees. These have been two of our top contenders pretty much since this program started. The pin oak have been slowly declining over the past ten years. They are very large trees and they cost a lot of money to remove. And so we are working through that process right now. I feel like in the next couple of years we'll have fewer and fewer pin oaks coming into this program. Pear trees is the other big slice of the pie, and hopefully they will all be gone in the next two years. I don't quite see that happening, but it's really soon. So that number will start to die down. I don't think we will ever not have a need for this because trees age and impacts happen, weather changes, all of those things. So there will always be the need to support this program. And then the other pie slice there is to show that the replacement species that are going in. The number one important piece of this is that we are increasing diversity in Lexington. Though this pie shows that there is one species that is standing out among others for replacements. I'll talk a little bit about this in a second about how we're trying to mitigate that. The biggest important piece of replacing trees is to make sure that we are diversifying. For all of the reasons that diversity is important, but when it comes to trees, so that when pests and insects and other things come through, we are not losing whole neighborhoods of trees of one species. So these are some of the benefits of this program. We have safer streets, we have safer sidewalks, we're assisting people monetarily, so that big chunk of money is not coming out of their pocket. We're making sure that when we're losing trees, because we will always lose trees, that we are also replacing them. And so those are not falling under the cracks. And we're increasing that participation in council districts that maybe have historically not had a lot of participation. Again, there's lots of reasons, I think, behind the lack of participation and that increase. And a lot of that will have to do with forest age, as trees age and get into those stages when they need to be repaired or replaced and removed. Those other council districts that have historically maybe not seen as much activity will increase. To address the diversity piece, we have been working to reach out to vendors and landscapers to make sure that they are offering alternatives to just black gums. Black gum is kind of like the darling tree right now. Everyone loves it, it's really pretty in the fall, it grows really fast, it's got a nice form, but it is not healthy to have a single species canopy. And if the elm tree didn't teach us that back in the 1800s, the ash tree should have taught us that now. So just that's part of our goals with moving this program forward. The next little bit, I'll start with the street tree clearance pruning program. This is a program that isn't as old as a hazard street tree pruning or removal program. It started to assist ultimately the waste management routes so that the waste trucks were not being impacted by the trees and the trees were not being impacted by the large waste management trucks. That was how it was funded in the initial years. Since then, in the past two years, what we realized is that all vehicles throughout Lexington, all pedestrians throughout Lexington are impacted by street trees. So we're able to expand that service area to reach the entire community rather than just where city services are being allocated for waste management. It's been a great program. We have been able to prune roughly 38,000 trees through this program, which is really great because continued maintenance, like on any piece of infrastructure, is really important. Especially things that grow, because things grow and things break, and if we can proactively prune them, it's a benefit to all of us. This is where we have been able to put this clearance pruning program into action. Remember, this first chunk of years really was designated only to 30 services where waste management happened. The past two is where we've been able to allocate it everywhere. Again, there's many reasons why there are very large disconnects in the numbers, and I'm happy to talk about that in the question section. But we are slowly working to make sure that we are hitting every single council district. This year, our focuses were on 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11. We do try to rotate around the city. Trees, on average, need a three to five year pruning window, because that gives them enough time to have branches grow and break, and really raise those canopies so that we are meeting the standards. The way this happens is our arborist technician, Rob Ballard, goes and assesses the neighborhoods that we have highlighted as in the year of need, counts the trees. We pass those numbers out to our arboriculture services, and then they bid on it, and then the awards are awarded. And then they work through into the summer, typically pruning and removing those low limbs that are in the way of pedestrians and vehicles. This is why we have reduced damage to trees from vehicles in particular. It increases people's mobility on sidewalks because they're not having to duck around limbs. It does help make the trees healthier. And some of the damage from those vehicles make them more hazardous, because it makes those limbs hang and be potential damage later when storms come through. And then a lot of time is saved in compliance, because we're not having to spend the time to go out and work with the homeowners to make sure that they bring their trees to compliance, and that's a whole long process too. Opportunities for improvement, I really would like to build this into a more of a crown cleaning program ultimately in the future. Because right now we're able to focus on the limbs over the sidewalk and over the road, but there's a whole canopy up there that has other limbs in there that need to be addressed for the safety of the citizens. And that just gives long term benefits for the health of our urban forest in general. I don't have much time left, but I did want to just highlight again the crew that I spoke about in the beginning of this presentation. We do have a really active, really faithful group of arborists, ISA certified arborists, who really care about our urban canopy, making it healthy and making it grow and protecting it in the city. These are just a snapshot of the spaces that we spend a lot of our time. And to Jada's presentation, as our weather changes, as our storms become more prevalent, as our ice storms become heavier, there will be much more need to make sure that we have a tree canopy so that we can semi-regulate the way the environment is functioning. Also to make sure that we have enough people out there making sure that our trees are safe for all of us and safe for the forest itself. But again, we are all over the place in Lexington. We're in water quality lots, and we're in medians, and we're in parks, and we're in your council districts, and we love what we do. And we have a really, really great dedicated staff that I wanted to just make sure that I highlight here. Path forward, we will continue the street tree clearance pruning program each winter. Again, it would be ideal to broaden this to do crown cleaning as well as just the clearance pruning. Our street tree cost share program, I believe that will continue again into the future. Like I mentioned, we will always have trees that are aging and always have trees that are damaged. And so this will be a very key piece of helping our community have a healthy tree canopy as well as with the financial aspect of that. We were able to purchase a tree inventory software database this past year, which I'm super excited about. We are slowly entering all the data for our trees. It is a very long process. The time it takes to pull away to inventory the trees that we have out there means that we don't have staff to do the other jobs that are the higher priority. And so this is a process that I hope to be able to devote time to. And then, again, we will always need an urban forestry master plan, or not always. Hopefully one day it'll happen, but that is probably our biggest need at the moment. I think that's all I have. I beat it. Good job. Thank you so much for your presentation. Now we open it up to questions from our colleagues. Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Director Wilson. I'm giving you the title. So on the page where it has the street tree clearance pruning program, with the stats with this one, there it is. So I notice, per se, looking at my district, 6th district, since fiscal year 23 my district has had zero. Is this correct? It is correct, but the reasonings behind that is likely because, like I mentioned, trees are generally in need of a three to five year pruning cycle. The last time we were in there was 2023, or 2022. So we're just now at that three year cycle, and technically it could be up to five. Also, that has a lot to do with where those waste management routes were. And so while your trees may have received multiple years worth of pruning, because they were in the waste management districts or routes heavily. Also, once you prune a tree to a point, ultimately it won't have those low hanging limbs anymore. And that's the goal, then as you have new trees planted, new areas come into play, those will be addressed at that time as well. But a lot of that, I mean, ultimately as the tree grows the canopy up, they don't start to grow out to the side again unless they're damaged at the top. And so once you raise them to a certain point, you shouldn't have those little limbs to really have to manage so much over the road and over the sidewalk. It doesn't mean anything about the median area. So that's where it goes back to that crown cleaning, to do more of a thorough cleaning of that crown. So the rationale for the sixth district not having any numbers is because we are up to standard and we are perfection. Perfection, yes. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Councilwoman, I wouldn't say not any numbers if you look at three. All right, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for this presentation and for all the work you and your team do. One question about, we talk a lot about right tree, right place. Could you talk about what role you play in the, this isn't just street trees, but tree canopy in general. In the development approval process, when someone submits a development plan, how does that get reviewed? Are you reviewing just the amount of canopy there or the type of species that they're proposing for any particular site? So actually, that falls to Eric Sutherland, but yes, he is involved in the canopy conversation as far as quantity. But he's also involved in the species conversation, and that comes later. There's also the reference to the planting manual that we do have. Trees have to be pulled from that manual, and we do have trees that are not allowed in there. And that is based off of where they are in relation to the roadway. It's also in relation to where they are in the building and species appropriateness as far as climate. We do have some species still in there that are species that once we redo our planting manual, which we're in the process of, will be removed. And right now, we're able to have conversations with the development community about preferred versus non-preferred species. There are some development plans that are historically set aside that have already gone through that process before Eric was there. And so some of those species were already approved, which is why we still have newer communities that have pear trees as their easement trees. They were approved in a previous time well before that we could have any say over. But yes, we do have a conversation, Eric in particular has conversations about what is able to go in in future development. Thank you, and then when you first, I think it must have been a year ago or maybe a little bit more, you brought us a more kind of comprehensive program for street tree pruning. And you gave us a map at that time that I referred to several times from my packet. Is there a public place that people could see what areas you're focusing on throughout the year so they know what to expect or so that we can communicate when you might be in an area? Yes, we do have the maps. I just showed a snippet of just a couple of them in that slide. But we do have the maps, and I think that's a great idea that we can make them available to you. Am I going the wrong way? Like those maps like these? Yes, we do have that, and it would be good, I can talk with Eric the next time. So this round of trees have been pruned already for this past fiscal year. But for the next one, what we'll do is we'll look at our broad map, see where we've been most recently, and then do a field reconnaissance to find out where that actually need really is. And so that's how we kind of build our maps. And once that is available, then yes, we can certainly do that. I recall seeing a map that had the different regions, and then you had years on them to kind of show the cycle as well. So that was very helpful for me when residents were calling my office. And that is an ultimate goal. So historically, we've been very scattered, like patchwork with it, because we had to work within the waste management routes. We are currently in the process of trying to make sure that we either work in a pie shape around the city. It's hard now, because we've had those different patches in there to make sure that we get everything on a pruning cycle. And whether we're concentric ring out or work through district, district, district, we haven't really figured out the best path forward. But that is the ultimate goal, to make it easy for the public, and for each of you all, and for us to know where we're going to be each year and have this continual cycle. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair, and thanks so much for the presentation. I just have a few questions. One follow-up from Council Member Sheehan's. We do get neighborhoods complaining about a developer not actually planting. A, kind of clear-cutting, and then B, like not actually doing their planting plan. Where is the enforcement on that? Like where does that typically lie? Yeah, sorry. And so some of that is a timing concern, right? And so, unfortunately, it's not transparent for the public, the process of all of that. And also, unfortunately for a lot of us, before a plan comes to the development, to the planning board, it's private property. And so a lot of times, tree clearing happens before we even know that it's coming in to us. And so we don't have a say at that point in time. Once they have come, they are supposed to follow their plan. And if it doesn't happen, hopefully we catch it. But if we're not out and able to see what's happening and be able to quickly reference where they were supposed to be, we have to kind of rely on people out there watching. And so I'm always more than happy to have people call in and ask those questions. Because sometimes we can't be everywhere to see it, and I'd rather someone tell us to go look or ask us. But so the enforcement piece of that falls with Eric in the beginning, in that development plan and making sure that the trees are protected, that they're actually called out in an inventory. And really, it falls in planning to make sure that those pieces are being included in all the maps so that they are there for Eric to actually see. So that's a combination of work together. Following that, it falls then to Ben Cornett in the enforcement piece of that to go out there and make sure that those planting plans have gone up. Eric comes in in the beginning to make sure the tree protection has gone up. And then Ben is involved in the follow up once the development has happened to make sure that those trees have gone in. And then so one other thing I would suggest if people call in with those questions, because they're very valid questions. Planting season is really ideally in the fall. And so sometimes those developments will happen, and it will be void of trees for a little while. And that could be a need of getting the trees stocked from the nursery. It could be that they are given the appropriateness to wait until a fall planting season. That's a better survivability for the trees. There's a couple of incidences I've seen where they get their trees and they heal them in their pots through all of this horrible weather. And then they plant them, and then they're dead because they didn't wait to the perfect time to put them in. And so our group is really good at going out and making sure that they happen. It's just that the timeline is not transparent to the general public. Thank you. And then my other question is, there's a lot of places that are supposed to have street trees. So as I walk around the neighborhood, I'll come upon a house that has none. Then I'll come upon the next house that has two or three. You can see they had some at one time. There was something there at one time. Have we thought about, because my guess is the street tree program, a bulk of the cost is removal, and the planting is the cheap piece. And have we thought about maybe more money focused on replanting versus street tree removal? Just because I think that 15, I think you had like about maybe 1,000 bucks a tree or 1,500 bucks a tree with the removal. My guess is it would be more like 150 bucks to replace. That's just- One of my dream programs. I would love to have a separate program funding just the replanting to assist people with that. Sometimes in those neighborhoods that you'll walk around, people didn't realize when those removals happened that they were supposed to have one. Also, as houses change hands, the new owners may not realize that at all. The bulk of the cost is the removal, and so while that was 1,500 per tree, that's just our side. And so really, that's a $3,000 process, the removal and the replacement. But yes, one of a goal programs moving forward into future budget seasons would be to have a separate program solely designated to the planting of a tree. And you're right, the entire tree and planting process generally runs in that $500 to $700 range, depending on who you want to work with. If you're recovering half of that, that's maximum of $350, which would be an amazing program to help. Because I think people want trees. It's just a matter of knowing that process and setting aside that money. Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate all your work. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognition, since I don't serve on this committee. Thank you for the report. I'm always fascinated when you come and present on trees in our city. My question is about the Hazard Street Tree Program, the one with the graph with the breakdown by council districts. I just want to make sure I'm understanding the data correctly. So the top graph is the total number of participants in the program for those fiscal years. And in the bottom graph is that the total number of people that applied for the grant program. Is that right? And they got, I just want to make sure I understand what the bottom- It's basically the same. The top one was just showing the course of the past ten years, and I left that box empty by accident. So that box should actually say the total for this past year was 96. And so 11 of that 96 received 100% cost share. Okay, okay, I got it. But the rest received 50%. Okay, okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member, and I don't see anybody else signed in to speak, but we do have one more presentation. But before we move on to the next presentation, Heather, I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that dream program of yours. I know that with our private property planting initiative, we did plant a number of street trees. I know you're interested in mapping the location of street trees and the species type. Is there anything more that you want to share about that vision and the impact that it could have? Sure. Understanding what our tree canopy is, particularly in that public right of way, is vital for lots of reasons. Because one, we don't really know the amount of money that we're currently spending on maintaining those trees. I mean, even though they are privately maintained when they fall apart or we have to clear the public right of way, it really falls on us and our staff to do those things. And so I think understanding our species, where they are in the city, and how many they are is really important because it helps us really be proactive in that management. Making sure that we are designating the resources to making sure that we keep our public right of way safe and open. As well as making sure that if we have species that are susceptible to some new disease or insect that's coming through, that we know how to mitigate that up front. We know how to make sure that we have the resources there to protect those trees or if we need to make sure that we are removing or replacing proactively. In an ideal world, I would love for us to take on the management of those easement trees. That would require a whole lot more staff to do that. But the goal with that is then we could have a healthy urban canopy that we were just taking on that responsibility for. It wouldn't fall on the homeowners. We would have more public places that are easily managed for safety for each of us to work and live within. It also takes the burden off of the homeowners. I mean, so many of us throughout the city, one, don't even realize that those trees are the responsibility of that adjacent property. But also, there's a lot of cost that goes into managing a tree, just a tree. And a lot of people don't have that bandwidth for time or money, and I completely appreciate that. And so, the other side of that is making sure that we have a healthy urban canopy is vital for the health of our city. Human health, mental health, our infrastructure, managing storm water, keeping our cities cooler. And so, if we don't have to have that conversation, like please just have a street tree. If that's something that ultimately in a future world we took on, I think easy isn't the word because it's still a lot of work. But it encourages our canopy to grow and be maintained and always evolve. Trees will always be growing and dying and having to be removed and replaced. That's just a natural forest anyway. But I think that would be a really beautiful way for us to grow and protect our urban canopy. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. And you've given us a lot to think about and to build upon, and thank you for sharing this information with our committee. Excellent work. And that moves us on to some updates regarding compliance with House Bill 443 as it pertains to engineering and waste management. We have two sections to this presentation within 15 minutes, and we have Doug Burton, our Director of Engineering, and Antonio Baldon, our Director of Waste Management, here to present those updates. Colleagues, I will have a motion after this presentation, given that this is time sensitive and needs to be enacted by July 1st, so we'll need to, if we approve doing so, read this out early. Thank you, welcome Director. Thank you. Again, Director Burton, I'm Director of the Division of Engineering, and today I want to talk to you about the updates that we're making to both the stormwater manual and the procedures manual as part of the House Bill 443 requirements. So why are we doing this? All of you have, I know, seen House Bill 443 quite a few times, but I'll just highlight a few words here. The key was objective standards that can be applied ministerially. And really the only, which meant the only discretion that was allowed was called out in section two of KRS 100, which was basically if there's any threat to health, safety, and public welfare. So that's the phrase that we kind of focused on, anywhere we thought we needed to open the door for a little bit of discretion, or if discretion was already called out in our existing manuals, that we just gave ourselves the opportunity to do that, but still be compliant with House Bill 443. So what are we doing? Again, a couple changes in the stormwater manual, and I won't read all this to you, but again, at the end of the day, we changed some words like unusual conditions in May. To, if substantial evidence exists, a strict ministerial application of the objective standards would pose a specific threat to health, safety, and public welfare. Again, that same comment echoes to two sections of the stormwater manual. Again, that gives us a little bit of leeway if we see an issue that we know is a concern and does have that threat, then our hands aren't completely tied, but we're still complying with House Bill 443. And then again, in our procedures manual, the same thing, before it was more, again, it was discretionary and not ministerial in that it says address unique issues. Well, what's unique mean? Well, we can't do unique anymore, or unusual, or anything to that effect. So again, we got to copy paste the same sentence three times, because it's that same, if there's a threat to public health and safety and welfare. So, next is when? July 1st, we all know that. That's when the House Bill 443 takes effect, which means we have to have these changes in effect by then, which is why we need the report out today to work session, so that it becomes official. And I'm done. Any questions? Colleagues, we can either wait, well, we can go ahead and- I think they're different enough that you might want to separate questions. Let's go ahead and do that. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director Burton, for this wonderfully superfluous presentation. I will ask a very quick question, because I think it's a very brief answer. The language you presented to us, would you classify that as quote unquote clean up language? Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. I don't see anybody else signed in to have questions for you, Director. We'll move to our other director, who will be presenting out. Oh, okay. Our Deputy Director. My apologies. You get me. My name's John Howard. I'm Deputy Director, Waste Management. I appreciate the opportunity to go through the presentation with you. I do have a lot of staff that we worked on this as a group, so any questions at the end we can answer. But the purpose, we're going to do this thing here, okay. The purpose of today's presentation is to summarize proposed changes to Chapter 16, highlight the importance of dumpster service standards, and briefly discuss dumpster inspections, permits, and fees. There are approximately 3,800 dumpsters permitted by the Division of Waste Management. Permit applications must meet Division of Waste Management's requirements for dumpster placement. All dumpsters are serviced by the Division of Waste Management except when serviced privately, based upon tax district, or through a contractual agreement. House Bill 443 requires that local laws and regulations governing development plans shall be in the form of objective standards. Requested changes to Chapter 16 are to codify the division's existing requirements for truck maneuvering, concrete pads, and dumpster enclosures. To include compliance with ADA standards, compliance with all regulations of the division's dumpster service guide, currently under revision, and to be titled the dumpster service standards. Let's see. Chapter 16 would contain additional references to the division's dumpster service standards, previously dumpster service guide, dumpster service standards are currently being revised to correspond with House Bill 443. Dumpster service standards are regulations developed to ensure public health and safety around dumpsters and dumpster enclosures. Inspections and permits. The Division of Waste Management enforcement officers are responsible for performing inspections and approving new permits. Enforcement officers are also responsible for re-inspections which occur when a permit holder or dumpster location changes. Waste management drivers report problems when they're on routes and the issues with the dumpsters when they observe them. These matters are referred to the Waste Management Enforcement Group and they do an investigation on that. Permits and fees. Currently, Chapter 16 require a one-time fee in the amount of $25 to obtain a dumpster permit with no requirement for renewals, ownership change, or dumpster relocation. Division of Waste Management may consider a future proposal requiring permits to be renewed every two years with a re-inspection performed by the Division of Waste Management code enforcement officers that would approve renewals. Next steps. Council support of proposed storm water manual and Chapter 16 updates and then appropriate distribution and communication of finalized updates. Questions? Colleagues, I do want to call your attention at the end of these two presentations, you'll find new definitions. You'll find an updated ordinance connected to dumpster language per the presentation. And then you'll also find this dumpster service standards document. With additional updates as well. So you can see all those metrics, which are meant to bring these documents and our practices into alignment with House Bill 443. So I just want to make sure you spend some time looking at those in case you have questions. Colleagues, are there any questions? Deputy Director, I do not see any questions for you or for Director Burton. So good job, good work. Thank you all. Thank you. And colleagues, as I mentioned, I have two motions that I need to make in order to move these changes forward in accordance with the July 1st deadline. So I move to accept the changes to several engineering manuals. Effective July 1st, 2025, to comply with House Bill 443, which requires that objective standards be applied ministerially as presented at today's Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee meeting and is set forth in the committee packet. And to suspend the rules to report this out at today's work session. I saw a second from Council Member Savigny and I heard several. So all those in, any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I know, I'll never live that one down. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. My second motion is as followed. I move to approve an ordinance effective July 1st, 2025, amending certain sections of Chapter 16 of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County code of ordinances related to dumpster service standards as presented at today's Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee meeting and is set forth in the committee packet. And to suspend the rules to report this out at today's work session. Second. Councilwoman Gray seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye, okay. Any opposed? That motion passes. Colleagues, that brings us to the end of our agenda. And unless there are any other items of business you'd like to discuss, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. All right, we stand adjourned.