# Rural Land Management Board - June 25, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Board · June 25, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6474 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6474?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-06-25 - **Body**: Board - **Last revised**: March 1, 2026 - **Length**: 10,345 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. 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 Fayette County Rural Land Management Board convened at 3:02 PM on June 25, 2025, with Gloria presiding. The meeting covered three agenda items focused on land conservation programs and easement management. Two items were informational in nature — an update on the Small Farm Conservation Easement Program and a discussion of PDR Easement Acquisitions and NRCS Funding — while the board also took up and approved an Easement Monitoring Contract for Charlie Farmer. Over the course of the meeting, the board held 3 votes and heard no public comments. ## Attendance **Present:** Gloria, Hannah, Phil Hager, Phil Meyer, Robert, Mary Quinn, Christine, and Margaret. Note that Margaret arrived late to the meeting. **Absent:** Joanna, Stephen, Beth, and Will. ## Votes and Decisions Three votes were taken during the June 25, 2025 Board meeting, all of which passed unanimously with a 7-0-0 vote (7 ayes, 0 nays, 0 abstentions). All seven members — Gloria, Hannah, Phil Hager, Phil Meyer, Robert, Mary Quinn, and Christine — voted in favor on each motion. - **Enter Closed Session:** Motioned by Gloria and seconded by Robert, the Board voted to enter closed session to discuss a potential acquisition of a real property interest. The motion passed unanimously. [timestamp: 1:06:16] - **Extend Appeals Deadline:** Motioned by Phil Meyer and seconded by Christine, the Board voted to extend the deadline for appeals on rankings to July 11th. The motion passed unanimously. [timestamp: 1:10:21] - **Adjourn the Meeting:** Motioned by Phil Meyer and seconded by Robert, the Board voted to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed unanimously. [timestamp: 1:12:10] ## Budget and Financial Actions The Board addressed one financial item during the June 25, 2025 meeting. - **Baseline Documentation Reports — $400 (Charlie Farmer):** The Board approved a contract with Charlie Farmer in the amount of $400 for baseline documentation reports. No contract identifier or resolution number was associated with this item in the meeting record. ## Contested Items **Military Pike Expansion** [timestamp: 52:09] A proposed road expansion by the Kentucky Department of Transportation (Kentucky DOT) generated concern among local farm owners at the meeting. The dispute centers on Kentucky DOT's plan to expand onto a farm protected by a Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) easement. According to the information presented, the proposed expansion is not permitted under the terms of that easement, creating a conflict between the state transportation agency's infrastructure plans and the legal protections afforded to the farm. The existence of the PDR easement is at the heart of the disagreement — such easements are specifically designed to restrict certain types of development or land use changes on protected agricultural land, and community members raised concern that the proposed expansion would run counter to those restrictions. No resolution or final outcome was recorded for this item in the meeting data. ## Update on Small Farm Conservation Easement Program [timestamp: 04:36] Gloria presented an update on the Small Farm Conservation Easement Program during the June 25, 2025 Board meeting. The presentation covered the initial rankings associated with the program, and a closed session was planned in connection with this item. No additional details or updates beyond the initial rankings and the planned closed session were provided at this time. The item was informational in nature, with no action taken or decisions made during the open session portion of the presentation. ## PDR Easement Acquisitions and NRCS Funding [timestamp: 04:36] Gloria presented good news regarding the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program, announcing that the agency has received match funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for two additional easement acquisitions, totaling **$265,000**. This item was informational in nature, with no action required from the Board. No concerns or debate were noted during the presentation. ## Easement Monitoring Contract for Charlie Farmer [timestamp: 45:06] Gloria presented a contract with Charlie Farmer for easement monitoring services. Under the agreement, Farmer would conduct 250 monitoring visits over the course of the next year at a rate of $100 per visit. The Board approved the contract. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (7-0): Extend the deadline to July 11th for appeals on rankings - **Motion** — passed (7-0): Enter closed session to discuss potential acquisition of real property interest - **Motion** — passed (7-0): Adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Yes, anything that we don't have to vote on, you can start on, and then I'll keep track, and I'll keep watching. Right now, we have you, Hannah, the two Phil's, and Robert's. We only have five voting members right now. Oh, and I have that it's 302 when I said that. Yes. Make sure you have your recorder turned on. Okay. Thank you. I know it's easier for you. And I will tell you ahead that we have some absences. They have told us ahead. Joanna had told me at the Juneteenth celebration, and I knew ahead, she'd already told me that she's going to be doing a special thing with Kentucky State, and she's going to be in Australia. She gave me some more plants to put in my garden. Stephen said he would not be here, Beth, and Will, all three of those are going to be out of town. And I do know that we have some time constraints to note that Margaret had said she was going to be late. And then Mary Quinn is coming, but she was going to need to leave early. So, we may need to change our schedule just a little bit when we get enough of the voting members here to make sure that we can go into closed session and vote on the important things when we come out of closed session to make sure that we have enough people and that we can do what we need to do business wise. Okay, and Mary Quinn just shared a note that she is on her way home and will be able to turn on her screen soon. Yes, I see that she has done that. And I'll just make sure we won't vote on them right now, but I want to make sure everybody did get their minutes. It was a, we had a lot of stuff to go over. I will, there are a couple of things that I want to thank Robert and Phil Meyer and Hannah and I, we all, I would ordinarily talk about this in our council, in our comments that each of us make, but the council members, the planning commission, a lot of us were invited by Mill Ridge Farm. To a two day charrette at the Manchester Hotel downtown talking about planning and zoning. I didn't count the people who were there. Hannah and I both thought there were about 50. Is that what you think, Phil, Robert, did either one of you all count? I did not count. But we guesstimated by the number of people sitting around the number of tables that there were about 50. We were all there on Friday, on Wednesday, last Wednesday. I did not go back on Friday. I don't know. I had a company that arrived. Coming in, flying in Friday morning, so I did not go on the follow up on Friday. I know Hannah did. Phil, did you or Robert either one? I did not go back on Friday. No. I did. You did? Yes. Okay, so we, we do, if we have a report later of some kind, you know, we can, you were there. So we haven't have an update. It was from on Wednesday started at 1 and the program part really was not over till 530. And some people could stay on and ask more questions. I had to leave. So I did not go. Did not stay and then did not was not able to go back on Friday. How many are we making here now? Let's see. 1, 2, 3, 4, wait. 5. You have 5 on camera, so we still can't vote. We could go ahead. And I could go ahead and talk about the PDR easement acquisitions and show that video and then I could send it out for the people that aren't here today or that are late. Okay, Mary Quinn's on camera now. Oh, good. Okay. Okay. All right, so on unfinished business, so on number a, on the update on small farm conservation easement program, we will have a presentation of the initial rankings and closed session. So there's no other update besides that on item B update on PDR easement acquisitions and the NRCS funding. So we have good news. We just received funding match funding from NRCS for 2 more easements. 1 is 90 acres and 1 is 30 and we received 265,000 from NRCS. And so I will present those 2 farms in closed session for appraisal authorization. And then we have requested the, we put 3 farms on our 2025 federal application with NRCS and they have limited funds due to, they're still using the farm bill funds because the Inflation Reduction Act funds are frozen. And so I think they only had about 800,000 for the entire state for this program. So 2 of ours got in, which is wonderful. The 3rd 1, we had someone a couple of years ago that was a 40 acre farm that declined our offer. And so we have another 30 acre that they're going to substitute. So they're working on that. So we should have funding for that 1 as well soon. And so before the presentation, so we closed another farm on June 6 and that made our 14th of this year, which is just incredible. So, last year, when we closed, when NRCS was still, before we were a certified entity, when we had to wait for it to go through the National NRCS and everything for approvals, we closed 1 the entire fiscal year. So, now that we are certified and can move forward, we closed 14. And so thank you to Gloria and NRCS and everyone and our attorney, John Watts, who isn't with us, but does a lot of that work. And our appraisers. Yes. So that has been wonderful. And that, I will quickly, I'll go ahead and share my screen and show you all a little. Yeah, while we're waiting, go ahead and tell them that makes it 33,249 acres. Is that right? Beth? I think we now have after you see this presentation. And we, and you all do need to know that we do have another 1000 in the pipeline because we have 3 donations coming and now we have these 37 small farm applications to work on. Yes, and you still watch best. So, you'll know if somebody's trying to get in. Yes, I should get a pop up. Okay. So, let's see. We will go ahead. There's only so these are the ones we've already so there are only 3 on this list because we've already shown you the other 11 as we've closed them. So, these are the 3 we haven't shown you that yet. So, farm 8, 2020 out on at 5400 to 5410 Sulfur Well Road is owned by Mitch and Elizabeth Cooper. It is 66 acres. It closed in February of this year. They have a 100% prime farmland soil score, which is amazing. So, most a lot of our farms, when you combine their prime farmland score and statewide get to 100 or somewhere in the 90s. But this 1 has 100% prime, which is just amazing. So, it is adjacent. I'm going to show you all map. It has multiple greenhouses where they go. They grow flowers and plants and vegetables, and they sell the flowers and plants on site in the spring and summer month. And they also provide vegetables to Ramsey's and to that little tamale stand on New Circle Road. And Southern States. That's where I got my pepper. Okay. I prefer veggies, peppers and tomatoes from Southern States. Yes, so that is fabulous. And so I'm going to slightly out of order on the next 1. So, this is the siblings farm. So, these are right next to each other and I'll show you that on a map. So, it also, it's 41 acres closed June 6 and has a soil score prime farmland of 100% as well. And she's adjacent to her brother, and they're both adjacent to Foxtrot, which is our nearly 1200 acre easement. And this 1 is used for general ag. And so here we are to orient you all. We're down on the lower half of the county. There's 8th and Spoonsboro 75. So, this huge thing here is Foxtrot. And so, this 1 here is Mitch Cooper's. And oh, sorry, this 1 here is Mitch's. And then this is his sister, Sheila. So, you can see that they added to an area of conserved land, a big area we already have. And so, that was wonderful. And then. Before you go on to the 3rd 1, stay on your map. So we can tell everybody that Beth and I did take 2 of the council members on a trip, showing them the rural service area. Along with their legislative aides this month, we left at Jacobson Park, and she can show you, we went down US 25 to Cleveland Road and turn there and all the way up Cleveland Road all the way past that down Sulphur well to the county line to the right there. And to show them the general ag farms, what people were growing, pointed out the conservancy farms as well as the PDR farms. It was really good because they got to see that some of the small farms that have applied were growing vegetables. They got to see some of these farms that we've already closed. 1 of them is being converted from general ag to horse farms. That's someone who's going to be applying. There were people, they were cutting hay in the fields. It was a great day for the tour for them to get a good idea of what it looks like and what people are growing and what these farms are doing. I thought it was they got to see a lot of things. They went through people who are using it for training. We passed a champagne run. They went past boondogs. So they saw and we talked about how there is very little business zoning that was grandfathered in. They saw that we pointed out the various PDR right along that area as well, because that's a pretty another thousands of acres right in one area. So it was educational and they asked some great questions. They came, the two council members, Vice Mayor Wu was there and Council Member Liz Sheehan and their legislative aides and Beth was there and I was there. So anything you want to add to that Beth while the map is up for them to see? I was going to talk about that when it was my turn to make a report, but I thought now while we're waiting for people, it'd be a good time to bring that up. Is there anything? Well, the only thing I would add, it was great as Gloria said, I will give Gloria kudos because she had done all this homework before and printed out small, like, 8 by 11 maps. She did screenshots of all this area that we toured. And so she did like a separate map for, say, an area like this, and then a separate map for this area and this area and went through and wrote the acreage on every 1 of those by hand and then copied them for each member. And I really noticed that Vice Mayor Wu and Council Member Sheehan were looking at that and that was very effective. So that I think Gloria did a wonderful job by providing handouts. I just wanted them to see the good things we can do and what we're up against because we also talked about how we have over 10,000 acres in Fayette County that's not really available to us because it's either owned by someone from a foreign country or the person makes far over the $900,000 and they don't qualify. So we talked about Shadwell and Juddmont when we passed it. We talked about some of the farms owned by foreign ownership because one of the big tracks is also somebody from Ireland. So what we're up against trying to get our critical mass together, we pointed out how good some of these small farms are for filling in some of these black spaces. And we actually passed some of those to show them what was going on on these small farms that have applied. They got a pretty good cross section. We could only do it for a couple of hours. And of course, those of you who know the county know well, you cannot drive from one part to the other and do a very thorough explanation in a couple hours. So, okay Beth, now to the third one. Okay. And one thing too, before we leave, so in either mine or Gloria's staff report, we'll just give you an update on that, how the Kentucky DOT has wanted to make some expansions onto a PDR farm on Military Pike. And so while I've got this map up, I'll show you all, so all this green on Military Pike is PDR. So you can see how much of that is PDR. And so we'll tell you all a little bit about that later, but while this is up, I just wanted to go ahead and show you all that. And you might show them on Military, right where the little orange dot is for Little Texas is right where they wanted to expand the roadway from there right into our PDR. And of course, she'll make a better report later, but there's, it's very clear in the easement and NRCS has written some letters as well. Yes. Okay. All right. So our next one is out on the other end of the town. So we have Farm 62021 on at 4721 Newtown Pike owned by Scott and Lynnae Pierce. It is a horse farm and they're originally from Arkansas and moved here for the horse business about 5 years ago. It closed on May 7th. It's 52 acres. The soil score for it is 80%. It's PDR adjacent and in the North Elkhorn Creek focus area and also has 2148 feet of road frontage. And so here it is. So if we come over here, it's right on the, it's on the Scott County border. So this triangle shape, and they actually have another 50 acres or so in Scott County. And so we've referred them to the Bluegrass Conservancy in case they want to put that part in as well. So, and you can see here how much of that added a tiny piece in between these green spaces. So that was a wonderful one to get as well and continue building this area of critical mass. So, in our summary, we closed 14 easements this fiscal year as a certified entity. These easements added 992 acres of conserved farmland. We have 33,249 acres permanently conserved and that equals approximately 67% of our 50,000 goals. So we are getting there. That is it. I'll stop in case you all have any questions. And that might be a good segue into our next, which are PDR farm signs that will be on all these beautiful farms soon. They arrived, the order just came in. They've been delivered to an LFUCG where the signs and road staff is out on old Frankfort Pike and Charlie Farmer is going to pass out a lot of these when he does easement monitoring. So he picked up 100 today. So I haven't even, I had not even seen them yet. And he sent me a photo and they're beautiful. So he's going to show us. So, Charlie, welcome. Before we move on while Charlie's getting that signed, Beth, just for your records, let me go around. So you'll know for the record. I'll tell you who's on the screen. Of our members. I'm here. Hannah is here. Phil Hager, Phil Meyer, Mary Quinn, Robert James. Okay, and we also have Allison Tucker this time. Thank you. And we also have Sean Denny with our office of planning and Olivia is here. And I see Hillary's also, council member Hill is also on as well. And we have council member Morton and we have Ian Young in our CS person is here, Heath Miner. We have Tracy somewhere. I see. And is that everybody? Did I get everybody? I think so, just Tiffany Holsky from the law department as well. Oh, yes, I see. Yes. I think he's ready to show us here. So there it is. And yes, so they're large and on my screen, it looks a little darker. Then, but it's a really a pretty green that matches the city visit, like, or the, I don't guess may. Does the city pay for those or visit lacks the ones that point out the. Areas, so that's something that the city pays for because it looks has collaborated with criteria and branding and that kind of stuff. We use the exact same color. So, Charlie, Charlie, hold it back up and back up just a little bit. So they can see the whole sign. There, the property is forever protected through a conservation easement held by the Fayette County rural land management board, and it has the city seal above. So, Mary Quinn, or do you do you like it after so much debate and work on it? I think it looks fantastic. It's really nice. And I think it does a great job of calling out the program and hopefully doing a little bit of that. Word of mouth right advertising that is so successful. And we think that as you and I, and the board has, we've discussed, it lets people know when it said PDR people coming here tourist and even a lot of people who live here had no idea what. And this is, this is pretty obvious that it's a conservation easement and what it says. So it's more self explanatory. Ought to be, like, you said, good PR. And then, let's see, so I was looking, our next update would be the easement monitoring contract for Charlie farmer. But we need 7 to vote on that. And so we do not have that yet. As soon as Margaret gets here, we can circle back, make a note. And then we could let Charlie and Ian talk about the ag water quality plans and conservation plans. That's next. But we also, if you all decide that you wanted to vote. To possibly change to ag water quality plans for the small farms, we would need 7, but. Let's see, we can go on, we can go to Phil's treasuries report because there's nothing there that we need to report on. Okay, and Tracy could do her process for accepting applications because she's just going to do a quick overview of what the rules are right now. If it's a. Phil doesn't require a vote our treasurer knows that we've had some invoices and. He can do you have your information in front of you? I've got a yes, I've got a 2 invoices this month, both from Charlie. Baseline documentation reports that are $200 each. Those are the reports we're having to do before these small farms if I'm correct. Tell me if I'm wrong. That's right. 2 of those are $200 each and have you paid those yet? Yes, and I wanted to make 1 note in case anyone noticed. So 1 of those, the name was redacted. And 1 was not the 1 that was not has not closed yet, or the 1 that is redacted has not closed yet. The other 1 has that was 1 of the ones we just reviewed. So that's why 1 was redacted for the landowner name and 1 was not. That's all I've got for invoices this month. Yes, and the only thing I will add on that treasurer's update is that the council did adopt the budget for FY 26 last week. And so, and all funding that PDR requested for operating funds was included. So that was good news. Okay. You want Tracy to provide just an overview. She's on, I see her. Hello, Tracy. Welcome back. She took a vacation. She took a trip with her kids. I always say, when you go on a trip with your kids, it's not always a vacation. I know you were supposed to be on vacation Tracy, but it may not have been a vacation. It may have been a family trip. Family trip, but my kids are both adults. So it was okay. It's probably the last time we're going to get to do that. So it's just the 4 of us. So I, Beth and I have just been talking, so we just wanted to bring this to y'all's attention. It's not going to require any action today, but we can, we wanted to kind of give you an update in processing some of the applications for the small farm program. We realized that we might need to revisit some of that because basically what we did was we adopted the process that we use for the PDR program to, in terms of having a deadline and everyone comes in and then we take all of the information in their application. We then use that information after Beth, you know, gathers it all and we use that to rank them and give them points. And then the ordinance talks about they have an opportunity to say, you know, maybe you didn't, you know, maybe you didn't actually figure my points correctly, or maybe you left something out or something like that. And then after that, you all adopt those rankings and that sets the rank order. Well, the system for the small farm follows that exactly because it adopted what was in the PDR ordinance in chapter 26 for chapter 27 of the code of ordinances. I know that you all have talked about in the past of having some type of a rolling application process. And so, if you are interested in trying to do that, there's a couple of ways, you know, the easiest way to do it is to allow people to file applications all year long. But set a particular deadline by which we're going to rank whatever we have in the pipeline. So, in other words, people could file their application at any time they want to, but by X date in hypothetically September, we're going to take what we have in the pipeline, rank all those and any that come in after that date would then go into a next cycle. And the reason we say that is because it's really practically impossible to rank them in rank order and follow the ordinance as they continue to come in, which, you know, as you might understand, you know, you have 10. So, you're ranking those and then five more come in and then you're ranking those, but they might displace some of the first 10, you know, so we sort of have to have a cutoff date or else we may need to consider changing that section in the ordinance, which raises the question also of do we want to change it for both the small farm and the PDR program or do we just want to change it for one or the other? So, we can look at ways to do that. We just wanted to make you all aware of that because we were unsure and it seems like there might have been some expectation that we were just going to continually accept small farms or the small farm program on a rolling basis, but we can't follow the ranking system in the ordinance if we do that. So, I mean, it's not that we can't accept them. It's just the point in time in which we rank them. And if we're going to do that differently, then it's going to require an ordinance change. And I don't know exactly what that would look like right now, but if there's a desire to do that on behalf of the board, we'll try to figure that out. But we just wanted to make you aware we've always followed a deadline, which helped us both with our federal program, which won't apply to the small farm program, and also with our fiscal year budget. But I don't know the answer to it. It's really your call, but we just have noticed that that is an issue because we can't continue to let them roll and rank them at the same time. It doesn't logically make any sense and it doesn't follow the ordinance. And so, you know, and if you have enough money to buy everything and everything qualifies 100 percent, that's great. You could do however you want, but we're not normally in that situation. We were only, as I recall, in that situation one time with the PDR program. Well, we had enough money to just buy everything and we still had a deadline and ranked them. So, something for you to discuss. We don't have to spend an inordinate amount of time on it, but if there's some thought process or if you are thinking a certain way, or if you want to discuss it some more, just so we kind of have an idea of, you know, what we should do. As it currently stands, if we're going to follow, I don't mean to be repetitive, but if we're going to follow the same, what we have in the current ordinances right now for both programs, we would just set a deadline. If you still want to accept applications all year long, you can, or if you want to change that, then we probably need some time to sit down and think through how best an ordinance should be changed and if it should apply to both. So, that's basically the gist of what we wanted to make you aware of. Comments, the farmers, Robert, Phil, Charlie. I think with the, certainly with the small farm program, we ought to have, like, maybe two deadlines a year for ranking and accept the applications at any time. And then the main program, I defer to Beth and workloads. I certainly like the thought of accepting applications at any time, whether it can handle two ranking points that the main program or just stick with the one that we've had, I don't know, but I kind of leave that to Beth. But that's, those are my thoughts. My only thought about the small farm program that I would interject is I would like for the deadline to be spring or summer so that when Beth and or Charlie go to see these, they actually can see what farm use is going on. In the spring and summer, you're going to have planting, you're going to have foaling, you're going to have calves, you're going to have some very active use going on that would be more visible than others at other times of year. Like right now, Charlie and I just comment on the fact that you see a lot of people. In fact, when we took the tour with the council members last week, there were a lot of people cutting hay. You could see that there were foals in the field, so I think it's a, would be a good time for them to be able to see what's actually, what the use is on the small farm, what's happening there. Are there any thoughts about that, Robert, Charlie? I agree that is helpful, yes. You know, talking about those two signups, you may want to do one signup and you may run out of money, you know, you might not have enough money for another signup, to do another signup. So, that's something to consider that, you know, you'd have to just, if you're doing two signups in the year, all the time, well, do you have the money to really fund that second signup? Well, I suppose we would know that after the budget is adopted every year by 1st of July. Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe we need a spring or so deadline for the small farm and fall for the regular program or something. So, they're spaced out as far as, you know, the work that goes into them and things, but. The point about being able to see farming operations makes a lot of sense. And so, if we have two signup deadlines, they're probably not going to be 6 months apart. You know, there may be one that's May 1st and one that's October 1st or September 1st. So, and then you have a long time until the next May rolls around. But anyway. Okay, I think that makes it easier for Beth, because on the small farm, she's already been to see, I know a couple of the people had commented. Oh, gosh, my such and such won't be here that I'm getting planted until certain time. And I said, well, just tell Beth that that it's when she comes that it's such and such is on the way. So, are there any other comments about that? Okay. It's like, this is the 1st time in forever, even during the pandemic that we haven't had a quorum and I'm surprised because Beth. Send out a note to make sure that we had things to vote on and reply. If you weren't coming, I'll move. Let's move on to Charlie and to talk about our soil. Since we have told you all already that we've had some trouble with getting our soil maps, because our staff has been the folks who've always helped us with that have at the federal level been cut very short. And we have had, luckily, we have a great group of folks who have been able to help us with some of what we require in the ordinance. So, to talk about this, we have Ian with us today and Charlie. Yeah, Charlie, if you want to go ahead and start off. Okay. What's that? About the required conservation plan. Yeah, and I'm just speaking really on behalf of NRCS, I guess, but he knows better than I do. He knows what the workload is in his region there, but it takes a lot of effort to do these conservation plans. And they've got other responsibilities that they have to address. The EQIP program, Conservation Stewardship Program, and so these programs are mandatory. And that versus the Kentucky Ag Water Quality Plan, which is required by the state of Kentucky. It's a state law that anybody with 10 acres or more that's involved in agricultural or forestry has to have an Ag Water Quality Plan. And the landowner can go in and develop that plan. UK has come up with a software to lead them through questions, and so they've got skin in the game. It's almost, I think, more effective to have an Ag Water Quality Plan, a landowner doing it himself, that he's thinking about his operation and what's needed than NRCS going through a lot of maybe really unnecessary things to address a small amount of acreage. And so, Ian, you may want to jump in and say a few things about that. Yeah, Charlie, I'll try. Charlie, wait, sorry to interrupt. I'm going to add one thing. The board's knowledge. So what we're talking about is the PDR program has always, one of the requirements of application requirements is that you have a conservation plan developed by NRCS. And we went ahead and did that for the small farm program. But NRCS has talked about how the conservation plans have expanded so much, the requirements of those since the PDR program started in 2000. And they just do not have the capacity, like we received 37 applications for PDR, or for the small farm program. So what we're more talking about is, do we change this for the small farm program? But so I just wanted to give that context. And then please go ahead, Ian. And Mark, for your, that we also, Christine has just signed on. Yes, great. Thank you, Christine. Well, Beth, I'll just comment on that, that as Charlie said to Ian, The Ag Water Quality Plan is required by the state of Kentucky. You all had mentioned like the IRA funds being frozen. In the process of that, they cut our staff. I lost three people due to reduction in my work unit. The state of Kentucky lost over 20. And I also have another employee, one of my main ones, that's detailed to far southeast Kentucky that's working on all the floods that happened the last several years. So I'm sure quite a few people. Even if we do a conservation plan, that landowner is still required to do an Ag Water Quality Plan. It doesn't matter what we do. They have to have one regardless. So we were thinking on a small farm what you're doing, they have to do it anyway, and it is a conservation plan and Charlie's right. They're more involved in making decisions and it steps you through every land use, different situations, and that landowner can make a choice of, yes, I want to do these practices on this. And once he does, he signs off, he certifies it, or she does, and they're supposed to take a copy, you get a final form that says you have one, to the local conservation district and they file it, usually to have it online, and they have a printed copy of their conservation plan, which they can provide that to you all, and that would pretty well take care of that. I understand on the PDR it's a little bigger deal, a little bigger plan, and a lot more acreage usually, and we'll try to do our best to work with that, but like I said, Charlie's right. We're mandated by Congress that we have to do our environmental quality, EQIP, CSP, and my one employee down there at EWP, Emergency Watershed for that flooding, we're mandated by Congress. That's first. And with my, I'm short, I cover 14 counties in this work unit, and I'm short on people right now. It's very difficult for us, the amount of time it takes to do what we're required to do in a conservation plan. It's difficult, and I'm struggling with that, wouldn't have to do that work quality anyway. If they can have more input to what they're doing on the Ag Water Quality Plan, it may actually be a shorter and better plan for them. Charlie, you want to say anything on what I said? I think you're spot on there, and you know, that's just the situation we're in, and it could be that there may be further reductions in staff. I had a meeting yesterday, and it's out there, they're hoping it doesn't happen. The state of Kentucky could lose 30 more NRCS employees, and that's really going to be tough. They're hoping that doesn't happen, but it's out there. Yeah. Well, let me add, on the screen, Heath Minear has been listening, I guess. He can help with some of these things, but he's stationed in Clark County for multiple counties like you are, Ian, and it is difficult to get these things done. I'll ask Sean and Beth, can GIS still help us with the soil maps? That's important because of the rankings, because the better your soils, the more you have of it, the better your point system, the better your ranking. So I want to make sure that we can at least cover our soil maps. Yes, NRCS, Heath shared that software with our GIS, and they are making those for all of them, and they look just like NRCS. They're using the NRCS software, and then our GIS boundary lines, and it's working beautifully, so yes. That's called a Web Soil Survey. Yes. Correct. Correct. I hope that Heath can at least hear, so he'll know we're thanking him for what he's done and for sharing these things with us as well. So Tracy, because it's required in the ordinance, I guess it requires an amendment, but if they want to consider changing it to the, like amending the ordinance to change it to Kentucky Ag Water Quality Plans for the Small Farm Program, can they do that? Can they have a policy, or does that have to just, could they vote now that they want to add that to our list of things we need to amend in the ordinance? What should they? We're only talking about the Small Farm Program, right? Correct. Okay. Just wanted to be sure. Yes. All right. I can't recall, but I think we listed it specifically in the ordinance. Like if it's specifically stated in the ordinance, then we would need to do an amendment to change it to something else, and also to take out what it says if that's not going to be able to be accomplished. So I think we can do that. We just, I just don't think, you know, I think we just would need to make that amendment, which would just really be a deletion and substitution. So. Well, Tracey, check that, Tracey, because I think at the time Phil Meyer brought up that we had to have, or Robert, that we had to have the Water Quality Plan anyway. As it stands, they may both be written in. That may be what we asked them to do two of. I think it says Conservation Plan or Forestry Plan. But it sounds like what I am saying is that, and Charlie, that they have 10 acres or more and they're farming, they're required to have that. The Kentucky Aquatic Water Quality, yeah. That's correct. I don't think that's what we put in the ordinance. It may have been a Forestry Plan, and whether or not we still want to keep that, I don't know the answer to that question. You all probably know better than I do, but I do think it said a Conservation Plan. So if we would rather have this, we definitely would need to change that. And then I guess the question would be whether or not we wanted to keep the Forestry Plan in there. And it seems like there was a reason we put that in. I just can't recall the discussion right at this moment. Like if we thought there were going to be farms that were going to be forested heavily that we needed to have, I can't remember. Okay. You know, but that's something to, if we're going to make any amendment we're going to make, it would be best if we could do it all at the same time instead of piece, you know, milling it. Right. But now, while we have a quorum, Beth, we ought to do the things we need to vote on. Okay. Robert was on this. Yeah. Do you all have any questions for Ian or Charlie about this? Or concerns about switching it, or do you feel okay about switching it? I think we could vote on it. We have, if Robert comes back on the screen, we have enough to request, make a motion that Tracy look at those two objects to make sure that we still do the water quality plan, but that it's not necessary that they do a full conservation plan on the small farm tracks. Okay. Okay. All right. Does someone want to make that motion? So moved. Okay, Christine. And then is there a second to do that? I'll second. I'll second. And no other questions. If that's the case, a show of hands, so I'll make sure we have enough voting. Okay. All right. It's unanimous, Beth. Okay. Thank you. Robert's in the field raising his hand. Okay. While we have people here, let's do the minutes real fast. Well, you know what? We could let, unless Charlie wants to stick around, we could do his contract real quick. Okay. So we need a motion to authorize. Charlie has agreed, luckily, to do 250 monitoring visits for us again next year. We would love it if he does more right now. He has grain kits and pickleball and all sorts of things. So the contract is in your packet. He'll do those at $100 each. Charlie is also now doing the NRCS-required pre-closing visits and baseline patients, and that's in addition to this contract. So we need a motion to accept the contract for FY26 for Charlie Plummer. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. Second. So all in favor, show of hands. Okay. Unanimous, Beth. Now, quickly get to the minutes here. We do, everybody said that was here earlier they had gotten their minutes. Do we have any changes, additions, corrections? All right. If not, I will entertain a motion for the minutes, to accept the minutes as presented in your packets. So moved. All right. The motion's been made. Mary Quinn seconded. All in favor, show of hands. All in favor, show of hands. Okay. We will have on your agenda, we are going to have a presentation in the closed session for the rankings, and I hope you all can stick around because we need to give you the first five so we can move on. Some of you have seen the farm signs, so we've done that. We've done Charlie Farmer's contract for next year, and he and Ian have given us, Ian, have given us what they wanted to tell us about the small farm plan and accepting the applications. Do you all want to think on this and next month decide whether or not we want to set a firm deadline? Right now we've had 37. Beth will be showing you all of this in closed session for the rankings. We do have some. As you recall last month, we extended the time period to give some people time to get their subordination clauses from their lenders and mortgage holders. We'll give you that in closed session, but we will always need to consider that because it looks like we are going to have a lot of these small farms in the future with loans and they're not with local banks, which makes it a bit of a headache. Rather than do my chair report or your report right now, Beth, I think we should probably go into closed session so we can discuss the things we need to vote on while we have a quorum. Gloria, I'll just say thank you. I'm going to be heading on out unless there's other questions. Ian, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you all. I appreciate it. If I can answer any questions, feel free to contact me. Heath, thank you also. Charlie, Ian, Heath, all of you. Thank you all. Thank you. Do you think before we take your report or mine or our board members that we ought to because Mary Quinn needs to leave. Yes. The bad thing is we definitely have to have eight. We only have seven. We definitely have to have eight authorized appraisals for those new federal-funded or the match-funded. Tracy is checking quickly if we have to have eight for the initial ranking. I can do the reports real quick while she checks that for us. Okay. Well, I can give mine quickly because we have had a lot of, and it's sort of a follow-up of what we're talking about. I have had a lot of small farm application calls because I said, okay, where are we? We haven't heard anything. Or a couple of them said Beth has been by, but we haven't heard any more. When are they coming to appraise our farm? So there is a little bit of confusion, which I think always happens when something new is getting off the ground. There would be a lot of questions. And I did tell you about our urban service, our rural service area tour with our council members. That was great. And I did tell you that I've been to the Mill Ridge Charette. And I did tell you about the Juneteenth celebration. The one thing that I didn't mention, when we did the council member tour, we did point out our African-American hamlets and actually drove into one to show one of the remaining, one of the few remaining little union buildings that is still there. And they are in the rural area, some of them still. And we do want to protect them. And when we do our update on our rural land management plan, we need to go into more depth about those hamlets because they are historically very significant to our rural area. Very few of them have enough acreage to qualify for the small farm program. But we want to make sure that we do cover those in the history part. Beth, what did you want to add? Okay, so I'll add mine. Report. Okay. So, Farm Force 2017, we had told you all about previously, that requested an STR. They filed an application with the Board of Adjustment. And their easement does not permit them to have an STR. That was heard at the June 9th Board of Adjustment hearing and resulted in a tie vote, which means the motion failed. So, the STR was not approved. The planning staff did recommend disapproval. And I was there to provide input on the easement and the language and the commentary we had received and the guidance from NRCS. And then next, so the Farm on Military Pike Farm 5-2006, where the Kentucky DOT wants to expand and it would take a large portion of the front of that farm and that also is not permitted by the easement and that is a federally funded easement. We sent a letter, I believe it was early May, to the Kentucky DOT, sharing our easement, telling them this is not allowed, copying NRCS and the landowner. We have not heard back, and to my knowledge, the landowner has not either. But there is a whole contingency of farm owners on Military Pike who have reached out to Gloria, me, and Council Member Boone this week asking for a meeting to discuss that because they are all concerned about the expansion but they recognize that things need done on Military Pike to improve the safety and have suggested a lot of ways that that could happen. And so the meeting is just not about the proposed changes and expansion onto the farm, it is about all of the safety issues they see and would like addressed in addition. So, Olivia, who is here today from Council Member Boone's office is coordinating that time for us and we think right now that's probably going to happen mid to late July. We'll keep you all posted because we'll probably have an update by our July 23rd meeting. But as you all saw on that map earlier, we have a huge contingency of PDR farms along Military Pike and most of those owners were part of this group that asked to meet as well as some that are not PDR that are also very concerned. So, we'll keep you all posted but that's the update so far on that. Our donation policy. So, the Board, we have we told you all last month we have a farm owner who has three adjacent tracts 160 acres, 50 acres, and 10 acres and they all operate as one farm. They want to donate those to us, which is great. And so Tracy and John Watts and I are reviewing I found the donation policy the Board adopted in 2003 but it still all looks good. I'm not sure yet that anything will need updated. What has changed dramatically since I think our last donation may have been around 2012 is the IRS rules. So, we are not as up on those. The Blue Grassland Conservancy is very up to date on those. And so, John and Tracy and I are reviewing our policy and this wonderful 40 page guide the Conservancy has on their website that tells a lot of that and we're having a meeting this Friday and then we're going to set up a meeting with the Conservancy and Margaret said they would share their easement template with us. One of the great things about this that we've seen in our research of the new IRS rules is the landowner has to pay for the appraisal and get it themselves but the easement has to close within 60 days of that appraisal date. Part of the donation policy requires that I do a presentation to you all on these farms and you all agree to accept them. So, we hope to have that at the July meeting and tell you all that we're all up to date on the rules and let you all accept that and then the landowner would be able to get the appraisals and hopefully would be closed in September or something. So, that's wonderful news. So, we will keep you all updated on that. And then my last... The property owner who has those three tracks have you given the information to the property owner? I have updated her some but I'm going to provide this latest that I just shared with you all. Because I know that was something that the person wanted to do immediately and it's been months. Yes, they do want to do that by the end of the year and so that will be good news for them that it has to close within 60 days of the appraisal. And then the last item is the monetary donation we talked about to the Fayette Conservation District that we were going to use part of our $10,000 in our American Farmland Trust grant and we noticed when we paid for our PDR signs that we still had nearly the entire $10,000 and the amount you all voted to give to the Conservation District was between $3,000 and $5,000 I believe. I forget the exact number but it was either $3,000 or $5,000 and so we have confirmed with the Conservation District that they were not paid. I looked through all my emails back from it was fall of 2023 and do not have an invoice from them and Phil received some invoices. I looked at all his emails. There were none from him so I don't think we were ever billed. So I ask Heather Silvanek who is the director there to please send us a new invoice so we are waiting that and we'll get that paid. We've got the money we just need the invoice so we can get it processed. And that is it for me if we want to do board member reports. Yes, I'll go quickly we're waiting because Margaret has said she's coming. Hannah, how about anything to add for board members report? No, I was also at that meeting about with Mill Ridge and found it very interesting and really grateful for the PDR program. Well, thank you for attending. It was long and thank you for going on Friday and giving me a report back since I could not go so thank you. My pleasure, my pleasure. Phil Hager. Nothing new to report. Thank you. Phil Meyer. Nothing new to report other than the Mill Ridge meeting it was interesting but certainly something I wouldn't want to see in Fayette County. But there were some middle market housing concepts that were in their development down near Atlanta that showed us that stuff like that needs to be incorporated in what we're doing within our urban service boundary already the missing middle housing. That's all I've got. Thank you for attending. Mary Quinn. Good afternoon everybody. Just a brief update to say that June has been come home month for the 250th birthday celebration of our fair city and there is so much fabulous stuff happening around Lexington and it's been a really good month also for visitors into our city both transient and group business and so I think we're going to be able to call June a huge success when it all wraps up. We still have a couple more days so I don't want to officially deem it over till it's over but really positive stuff and just tremendous compliments from folks visiting about how kind and friendly everyone is and how clean it is which is really lovely to hear. That's what I heard and I heard comments there's no graffiti and no trash in the streets so those are two very positive things and I do think that our Juneteenth celebration went really well. I know the unveiling of the statue downtown was a big hit. There was a great crowd of 500 people there. The governor was here and then it's black restaurant week so I would certainly encourage folks to get out there and we've got a lot of great black owned restaurants so do your part to support them. Thank you. Great. Robert. He's in his tractor by the way in case you all haven't figured that out. Yes so this is the second longest run of sunny days we've had during summer so I figured I'd get some work done. I did attend the charrette with Phil and Hannah and Gloria and it was very interesting to see develop I would say development plans thought out along those lines. I ultimately told them I was agnostic on it just as a neighbor I was not speaking for either this board or the Fayette County Farm Bureau. The Fayette County Farm Bureau recently has contributed to the Fayette County FFA's endowment goal the FFA here in town has been fundraising to meet a goal of $250,000 endowment to help cover student expenses going forward so they wouldn't have to worry about membership dues and maybe Cripston National Convention would be paid for or offset so they could see greater participation across all socioeconomic backgrounds in agriculture in our schools We at Farm Bureau were happy to contribute half basically half of their endowment goal so we contributed $125,000 to the FFA here in Fayette County to help our young people experience agriculture and maybe they will look for careers in ag-related fields going forward so that was a proud moment for us here at the Fayette County Farm Bureau personally as I said I'm here planting right now this is probably the latest I've ever planted first crop soybeans in June after our wet spring and I kind of wanted to flip the camera here and flip it around maybe there we go so this is rye cover that we seeded we actually spread it over the soybeans in the field so when we harvested the soybeans there was already sort of a carpet of green covering the ground and so as we are this year planting it basically reached maturity and so I'm planting through just this beautiful stand of rye it's almost a shame to plant through it but I want to get these beans in and the market for rye straw is not as great as wheat straw in this area most of the horse industry prefers wheat straw for bedding in the stalls so I'll take a picture and send it to Charlie because without his guidance 15 years ago or even 20 years ago now at this point we would not be farming at this level watching after our soil health so fantastic there we go that's all I have Margaret is trying to come on too yes she is on I don't see them but I can tell they're there I was going to ask Christine if she had anything she wanted to report her name is on but not camera right now I don't see Margaret either do you oh there's Christine Christine did you have anything you wanted to report no okay now that Margaret is here we'll have enough people to vote if we see her I'm trying to get it set up for you okay thanks I'll go ahead and tell everybody remember when we go into closed session that nothing we discuss in there is ever supposed to be made public that is very important that we keep these things because we are dealing with property values and individual properties until after we have closed on these or if we've made the offer and they tend to tell people that's fine but until then until we've closed on these nothing is ever posted in the courthouse records so we do not want any of these things to be discussed in public until after we have voted on those in public and they've been recorded and I still see Christine but I don't see Margaret can we go ahead and vote to go into closed session is Tracy checking I'm gonna hang up and try to rejoin and see if that works okay sorry you can go into closed session with 7 but you can't approve the appraisals okay well I Christine is here we can see Christine and Margaret's trying to phone in again another way so we can see her so thank you Tracy I'm gonna announce the time it's a 4-10 and I'll call for a motion to enter closed session pursuant to KRS 618101B in order to discuss the potential acquisition of a real property interest the public discussion of which might affect the value do I see a motion so moved and Allison you'll have to leave us thank you for coming and please come as much as you can because we frequently will have some questions for you thank you thanks I'll second the motion alright that motion has been made and seconded show of hands from everybody who made that motion Gloria Rob or Philmeyer okay and the second was Robert okay and we now have Margaret and I've lost Christine alright okay so 7-0 right now okay alright alright LexTV if you could take us off the air please okay one moment please okay thank you okay alright thank you made and seconded show of hands okay there we all are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and if we had Mary Quinn we could vote on let's see if we can get her hmm well while we are waiting I will remind you all that the next month there are 5 Wednesdays in July and we meet on the 4th so we'll be meeting on July the 23rd which is the 4th Wednesday rather than the 30th so mark your calendars to make sure hope everybody has a happy 4th of July celebration and again I want to thank those of you who did come today because it's so important this means so much money to so many people and so much to our program so thank you all for coming um did you have any luck getting Mary Quinn no I bet she's driving I know she was going somewhere she didn't answer me either yeah we may just have to we can give her another minute or two um so we need 8 votes to authorize an appraisal yes and we are going to give a deadline is that correct do we need to vote on that for they have until July the 11th to appeal their ranking is that correct Tracy said we need to have a deadline I think it was 2 weeks right Beth yes so that's is that I mean yes we could say the 11th if we when will they get the information by tomorrow and Friday the 11th would be 2 weeks yes so I think we need a motion that we will allow until July the 11th for them to appeal their ranking do I have a motion to that effect so moved and Phil raised his hand so we have to have Christine back again I have 7 is she still on or no no she is on but not her camera her camera has to be on this makes our meetings go much longer when we don't have the quorum because we have to adjust there she is we had the motion made and seconded to extend the deadline to July the 11th to allow those who don't like their rankings to appeal the motion has been made and seconded and we need a show of hands ok good but we still can't vote for the two appraisals right Beth right and we haven't heard from Mary Quinn so I think we can just ok I know she had to be at another event let me have the time and a motion to adjourn the motion is 453 and somebody want to make a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll move it all right motion has been made and is there a second and a second to the motion all in favor signify by show of hands ok great thank you all and Christine thank you so much I know you are at work trying to do this back and forth Margaret thank you sure Margaret driving Robert thank you all Tracy thank you happy 4th