♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It's good to have you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be here and I look forward to working with you all. Great. Thank you. Secondly, the Vice Mayor and I have been in conversation about having an ice storm update right here at the beginning of the meeting. So Commissioner Nancy Albright is going to give the update on the ice storm. And I do want to thank all the council members who sent questions. She will answer those in her presentation. And I know she probably will tell you that many of them were very similar. So she's going to run through a presentation as well as question answers. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Good to see you. Glad you all made it here. First, let me begin with what we've been doing since January 24th. Some of you may have heard this this morning. It's a little similar because not much has changed in the last six hours. But I want to just review what we've been doing for now, what is up to 12 days or so. In the last few days, we have used over 19,000 gallons of beet heat. We have used over 4,600 tons of salt. We have 70 city vehicles and about 150 city and contract employees working. We've worked about a total of 10,000 hours collectively, 2,000 of those on overtime. We have spent $200,000 on two contractors so far and counting. You may recall that last year's budget, we had budgeted $2 million. After the ice storm in January of 25, we added $2 million for additional equipment. This year in 26, we budgeted $3.5 million. As you know, most of our areas of concentration focus on high-priority major roads first. Now we have moved, we're still working on the areas of concern, even within those major corridors that some of you are all too familiar with, such as Man o' War, Broadway, and Alumni. We are still working on school bus routes as well as we help our partner agency get kids back in school. And we're working on the areas surrounding Rupp Arena because we got a couple of things going on this week. So we need to make sure that they can get there safely. Starting today, we have two additional contractors on board. We have an emergency response contractor actually bringing loaders, skid steers, dump trucks to us. They're working in areas that are high employment areas, such as corporate drive and perimeter drive. We have smaller streets that still have a lot of packed ice in it, in neighborhoods. So especially if they're a bus route, we're trying to make sure we can get there. And then we've found that using this construction equipment is much more effective on the packed hard ice, it's just slower. One of the things I'll mention before I get into the questions is just that we do plan to do a much deeper dive than we did after the January storm last year. If you remember, we did an after-action review along with the public safety group after last year's ice storm. That was very quick. And so we'd like to do a deeper database dive this year and see what we need to do and what changes we can implement that may take us a little longer than that. I'd like to thank you in advance for the 49 questions I received. As I said, there's a little duplication to ours. The mayor said so we will consolidate a couple of them where we can. So it may not read exactly the same, but hopefully your question is answered. Of course, Director Allen is here for the ones that are very specific. And then we'll take questions as well. One of the first questions was, do our plow trackers work? And if not, why not? And that question is kind of repeated through what we received a few different ways. Several of you probably remember we had a tracking system on our website that was based on GPS units in our vehicles. That system was sort of a system put together with duct tape and wire by our staff to see if we can make it work. It is not an off-the-shelf product where we can call the vendor for support. So what we eventually realized is it's not that accurate. We were seeing the site was going down a lot. It was losing connectivity. A lot of the trucks, you couldn't tell whether or not they were treating versus whether or not they'd just been there. So you might see people on Old Frankfort Pike 72 times while you didn't see anybody on Alexandria Drive. So that was not necessarily the effective message that we needed to share with our constituents. We have not found a replacement product so far. I'm sorry to share. Another question, has all the equipment we ordered after the snow event of 25 been received? Yes, it has. That equipment was in our force this past storm with the exception of one truck that was wrecked. So we are using the equipment that was purchased. Do we feel like we have enough trucks, machinery, manpower, and materials to adequately address the amount of snow and ice we've received in the last few years? Are we well prepared? That's a hard question to answer. We are prepared for what we have normally described as a typical event. And as you know, we have historically said two inches of snow in 24 hours in a manner that's at a temperature where our chemicals work. So that's 15 to 25 degrees. We understand and appreciate we have seen two of those that are way outside of normal in the last 13 months. What we'd like to figure out is do we have a new normal that we have to look at? And we looked at last year as part of our after action review, we looked at what the historical trends are in the weather data. But we'd like to go back and take another look at that and see what minor adjustments we may need to look at. One of our questions was have we looked at what Ann Arbor, Michigan does. And in a lot of ways we compare favorably with Ann Arbor. I don't know that we see the same weather that they do. They prepare for a different event than we do. So that's something of a policy decision I think we would have to make. There was a couple of questions about using things such as calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. That they're effective at lower temperatures. They're also more environmentally friendly at times, depending on how you use them. The question is, we have looked at that, and again, that is a decision that would have to be a bigger decision. Because those cost about seven times per gallon what bead heat costs. And bead heat costs about ten times per gallon what it costs us to make brine. So we can use it, but that would come at a price we would have to make sure we're comfortable with. And again, most places that I've known in my history with snow and ice removal is they use them in environmentally sensitive areas or on specific bridges that they have a concern about more than widespread use because of the cost. We had some staffing questions. How many employees have been involved and how many other departments have been involved? Again, we had 100 to 150 employees total. Almost every division within my department was working over the last week on snow and ice, plus parks, plus general services. So we had a very, very broad response to the event. What kind of training do our plow drivers receive? We have a mandatory one day training, refresher course for everybody in the fall. And then every week after that, they are required to practice their routes for at least eight hours, weather permitting. So we do, when there's a window of opportunity, they are expected to go run their routes every week all winter. So are we short staffed? We always have a certain amount of turnover that's been a conversation over the years. But I will say that we just continue to rehire and retrain as needed. Ideally, we'd love to have the same people do it for years on end, but I don't know that as a society that's something we expect anymore. So we just continue to rehire and retrain. Are the contractors we hired clearing streets as well? One of them was. One of the Red River Ranch, the one we've hired for the last couple of years in response to snow, worked on Man O' War and Polo Club. They did start having equipment failure issues in the sub-zero temperatures, or the single digit temperatures we received. And that really limited their effectiveness, and we had to come in and try and help them out. We had another contractor, Hare, that focused on opening up shoulders, parking areas, and sidewalk ramps. because again, that was one of the lessons we took from the January 25th storm, was we created a lot of piles of snow that made it impassable at times along the sidewalk in areas that were heavily used. And then we had a third, our landscaping contractor, that responded to our bid after last year's effort. We only had one contractor respond. They were on board. They focused first on making sure that our unhoused population, the intake center that we had set up with Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention, that that facility was accessible. Unfortunately, that contractor also started experiencing a lot of mechanical issues once the single digit temperatures hit. And their effectiveness became a lot more limited. And they also have other clients that they're trying to service. Some of the roads that are ranked are not cleared yet, especially around schools, what's being done. We had a lot of questions about the ranked versus unranked and the disparity potentially around the city. We're going to take a look at part of that as our deeper dive. If you have a specific area of concern that you would like to email me, I would love to get that specific street. I would love to be able to go back and look and see, as we do this deeper data dive on, were our trucks where we thought they were? Were they doing as frequently as we thought they should be? Not disblaming our staff for any of this, just saying, do we need to look at what we were doing and do it differently? I can do that better with the help of maybe some specific examples, rather than broadly speaking, what did one side of town look like versus the other side of town? One of the questions was about the bus routes and whether or not we have been able to address those. If any bus routes that we learned of after last year's storm that were not already in our ranked system, which a lot of them were, but there were some that were not. Any of those are now in our system, and we are addressing those effectively now. So we've been working on those for the last several days, really. There's been some confusion, I think, about the description of routes versus rankings, and how we've made some changes to how our crews are working the system. So we do still use the rank one, two, three, four, and we've added a rank five. But everybody's routes are based on a little bit of each of those systems. So you may see some drivers that choose to run their entire route, and or there's not getting clear direction from supervisors, or from me. And so they may be running all four of their rankings, but not as often. And then you'll have some drivers that will stop after their rank one and two routes and start over again. And that may explain some of the disparity, but until we do a deeper dive into what were each of our trucks doing in the last two weeks, it'll be hard for me to comment on that very specifically. What is the difference between clearing roads for snow and clearing roads for ice? And to be honest, the processes are pretty similar as far as the materials that we use, the differences in the equipment. It is much harder to, you cannot just push ice, as we learned last year and we're unfortunately continuing to learn this year. The change we've made, and maybe we made it a little later than we should have, was employing more of this construction equipment, which is better at moving this very hard, heavy, packed ice. Let's see. Describe the process of preparing for a snow and ice before, from beginning to end. When do we start? Once snow accumulates, how do we shift? What do we use besides salt? Excuse me. We started the pre-treatment 72 hours before the event. That is pretty normal, as long as we don't have a lot of rain coming in. I think this last event, we had to wait for everything to clear off from the Martin Luther King event, and then we started again. In addition, we inspect all our vehicles to make sure everything is operational and anything else. We weren't sure if this, if you remember, we weren't sure how much ice we were getting versus snow at the beginning. So we also were spending time making sure all of our chainsaws and our knuckle booms were ready in case we had a lot of tree calls. Luckily for us, that didn't turn out to be the case. Once we started the actual event, we start with salting to make sure everything stays broken up and loose, and then we push it away. So the general way a plow would work is you break it all up by salting, and then you let traffic kind of break it up, and then you come through and you push it off the road, hopefully. That's, but with packed ice, that becomes a little harder to do. We are now nine days post storm, and some of our neighbors on ranked streets are contacting us to say their street is still covered in ice. During heavy snow and ice, if crews must address a rank one or two street multiple times, when do they move to lower rank roads? I would love to be able to give you a very concise answer, but that's going to be different for every storm. So I'm kind of hesitant to say after 24 hours or 36 hours, we will abandon Harrodsburg Road to make sure we clear Pasadena or something. It's just a balance every time in every part of town. As you hopefully remember, this storm, it didn't take very long. 10 or 20 miles made a significant difference in the type of weather we received. So what we received even on the north side of the county from the south side of the county may have been very different. So knowing when we can move into those rank three systems or rank four or rank five on one side of town may have been a little different than the other. I'm not saying that's definitely what happened this time, because again, I'd like to verify that, but that's just an example. Over the last several days, we've heard from a lot of constituents who have felt isolated. Can you speak to the ability to respond to calls from our folks who might need medical attention? I would say the best response that I know of is the sheriff's office. They have been very responsive, and we've actually reached out to them a couple of situations to make sure that an oxygen tank was delivered or something like that. We've been trying to work with them. What did we learn and why didn't it work? We plan to do a full review of this particular response to make sure what we know. I don't want to postulate up here before again I've had a chance to make sure that I'm speaking correctly, but we do plan to make sure that we've done that. I would like to take several weeks to do that this time rather than just a couple of days. As we partner with other divisions and community partners to address snow, did we communicate effectively with them? All of our partners were on board and reported for duty on Saturday the 24th. We were engaged with Water Quality, Public Safety, Fayette County Schools, UK, Lex Park, LX Tran, and Transportation Cabinet. I will say many of those folks, of course, had to address their own priorities first. But as you learned last week, we also were able to partner with a couple of them after the event was over. Parts, not Fayette County crew for Transportation Cabinet, but the crews where they got a different storm. And so they were done. They came and helped us out, which made a big difference. I had a couple of questions about using other abrasives, such as sand and cinders. Those are really more for traction. And again, that's something of a policy decision. Some of you may remember the year we used rock. And I see some reactions as I say that, just because those that remember know we spent all summer cleaning up rock. So things that are used for traction generally have to be picked up with a sweeper. And it's hard on our sweepers, and it gets us out of rotation for that other service that we tend to provide all summer long, because we have to make sure we've gone and cleaned up all the cinders or sand or rock. So it's not that we can't use it, but it comes with consequences, and we would want to make sure that that has been weighed before we make that decision. And most places that use it, again, my understanding is it's for traction more than melting. I had several questions about how to get multiple reports submitted. And while it's fine to email Director Allen or me, 311 is still our best resource. That automatically sets up a ticket in the Salesforce program, and feeds our administrative staff, who are the ones who collect all that information and provide it to the management to help set our priorities during the week. So as those reports, unfortunately someone may call repeatedly because they haven't seen a plow that is different than whether or not we got their report. So unfortunately, I don't know in the moment how to help their frustration with that. But we are getting those and we are prioritizing and ranking them and grouping them wherever we can using the 311 program. I have tried to explain the cost in being able to clear roads. How can we strike a better balance between cost and being prepared? Again, as part of our analysis, I would think we would do some cost benefit, and we would bring that information back as a part of a budget decision of how much do we want to spend to achieve a certain level of efficiency with our program. Why did Lexington fall so far behind neighboring communities in snow and ice removal? Lexington, again, had a lot more ice. If you went two counties to the south, they got more rain. If you went two counties to the north, it was almost entirely snow. So while I would love to explore people who got similar events and how they responded to it, I would also use caution that not everybody got what we got. Last January, this is the last one, Mayor. Last January, we experienced a winter storm and the city struggled to respond. We invested additional money at that time. When presented before council, we have described increasingly severe storms like this one as an aberration. And from my perspective, suggest maybe it was not a wise use of resources to anticipate these kinds of storms that occur more regularly. I may have botched that question a little bit. Do you still feel that way? And if not, why not? Again, we're going to go back and look at actual weather data over time, and we're going to see if our definition of normal needs to be changed. And then what would it cost us to respond to what we get these days instead of what we got ten years ago. With that, Mayor, I think that's most of the questions. All right, thank you very much. I suspect there could be another question or two. Council members, do you have another question? And I appreciate those of you who submitted questions, lots of them, because I think that helped the commissioner. Okay, the sign in doesn't look like it's working. So we'll do it the old fashioned way, and I'll start over here. And if you want to make a comment or ask a question, please raise your hand. Please raise your hand. Okay, so Council Member Boone, then Council Member Hale. All right. Yes, you kind of mentioned about going deeper dive. Do we have an internal way that we track these trucks around so that you have the data, not necessarily public facing, but you all can look at it? Yes, sir. We have a system on all of our trucks, and we try to make sure that that system is active all winter. So that's what we're going to use. It was the effort of trying to get that data into a public website where we couldn't make it work. Okay, thank you. What about trash trucks with plows on them? You kind of see them in other cities maybe. I don't know if it's feasible for us, or I'm sure you've looked into it, but I guess, can you speak to that at all? We can revisit. We've looked at that a time or two. We've never really done a deep review of what it would cost, and are our trucks capable of handling it, and our drivers? So we have looked at it, but it's been a while. If that's something we would like to pursue, we can definitely look at it. A lot of, I think a lot of communities who do that get more snow, so we just have to look again as part of that cost benefit. Okay, and I guess I noticed over the past weekend or whatever that you got the greater blades out there breaking up the ice. Is that kind of like a last resort option that we had to pull out, or? It is kind of something we don't want to do. The blade will damage the pavement sometimes, and it damages the grader. So we don't necessarily like to start with that, but we did find ourselves there. Right, okay, thank you ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, we'll go with Council Member Hale, and then the sign in is now working, if you want to log in. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to express my gratitude to you and your team, Commissioner, because I know you all have been out there working long hours. Just got a couple of questions. So, is there any update of what's actually happening today? Like, what are we doing right now? Is there plowing going on right now to remove some of that slush and stuff that's going on there? Yes, there is. We have crews out working until dark today, and getting ready for what we might get tonight. And has there been any coordination with even with Fayette County Public Schools to even help? because I think if they did any kind of help, like especially with the bus routes, they would get some of those roads that aren't ranked out per se, to get us out of some of these neighborhoods. I would love for that to be an option, and they might love it as well, I don't know. But we normally stop at the fact that they are constitutionally prohibited from working off of their property. Okay, and another question. Have we looked into other equipment, like ice breaker type equipment? Since we're, Lexington is getting into this, it's more so ice storms now that's becoming more frequent here in Lexington. So, any more equipment that can compete against this ice, like for example, there's a piece of equipment called the Reco Ice Breaker, and it kind of grinds up ice to make it easier to shovel away, or it also, and I'm not trying to promote this equipment, but what it also does, it grinds up the ice and it makes it so it's not as slick. So when it compacts back to the ground, it's not slick out there, so that can be something you should do a pass. I would like to look into that further. Okay, and can you just, I guess, give me just the rationale of, well, one thing we're dealing with, we'll see one lane cleared. And then it'll be a while, then the other lane will come. Could you give me a rationale of how that works? We'll do one lane in a few days, and the other lane, and then we're waiting probably until the sun comes out before we even get a turning lane. So what's the rationale? Well, it's not a perfect system, but to a certain extent, that is somewhat based on priorities of making sure we have one passable lane. And then go back and get more one passable lanes, and then go back and open everything up more. So it's kind of, it's not a one to one, but there is a logic to making sure we have a passable lane in a lot of places before we get two passable lanes in a lot of places. Okay, I don't want my time to run out. And this question is just for the public. How do we, constituents want to know, how do they get their roads right? Well, that's kind of tricky because it's usually on a community wide level based on traffic and what's on that route. So there's not necessarily a way you can petition to get your road ranked because it's kind of the nature of the road more than anything else. All right, and last, this is just some food for thought for council. Maybe something for us to consider for the future would be authorizing the council PIO to do some of the communication with the public on council's behalf, on weather events, it seems to me that this might be a good way to streamline the dissemination of accurate, transparent, and timely information while possibly decreasing the number of inquiries the folks actively involved in storm response are required to field. So thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. I also want to thank all personnel on the ground for their work responding to the recent snow and ice. I think that we can't sometimes, that the frustration tends to be seen by the folks that are working, and I don't think that that burden should be on the folks on the ground. That burden is on us as leaders in leadership, so I'll just leave it at that. So I just want to thank all of our city employees that are out there trying to clean up this ice and clean up this snow. But with that, you mentioned some areas like Rupp and some other business corridors. But for me, my main concern lies within neighborhood streets, especially those roads that are ranked four through five and some of those roads that are unranked, what is the operational plan to ensure that these roads are addressed and that the ice and snow is removed in the near future? And will contractors be used for neighborhoods specifically? They can be used for neighborhoods. We are looking at that, yes. We, I want to make sure I answer your question correctly, so. So the first one was more so, what is the operational plan for neighborhood roads specifically? Rank four, five, and some of those that are unranked, the more dangerous unranked roads? Right now, we are, if there's ranked roads that are not, that haven't been treated, at least. Then I need to know that immediately, and so does Director Allen. If there are unranked roads, what we tend to do is look at, is there a dangerous situation out there that we need to correct? We probably don't, we would have to make sure we want to spend the resources to go hit neighborhood roads all over town. But if there's a specific situation where we've got a snow pile, or we've got a trapped water situation from a storm drain, or something else that's on an unranked road, we would definitely want to go get that. So we are looking at them, and we'll receive them. We're doing them as we kind of figure out why, the logic of it. Okay, and then kind of tied to that, and this is, I know you may not have answered, but do you have an estimated timeline of when we expect to get a lot of this stuff cleaned up? No sir, I wish I did. We will keep working. Hopefully we don't have to start over again tonight. So then, what additional resources are needed to address neighborhood roads more quickly and effectively? Is there any further action needed from council, whether budgetary action or directive to help accelerate neighborhood road cleaning? I do feel like if we wanted to do that as a city, it would require a decision about our investment strategy. And how we would want to make changes potentially. That's a big lift. We looked at that in January of 25, as you may recall, and the dollars associated with buying enough trucks and hiring enough staff to be able to clear more roads faster is significant. Okay, but for like right now, like if we wanted to look to get into these neighborhoods, is that just based on priority as emphasizing neighborhoods first, or kind of what does that look like? Yes, it would be based on priority, if that's something we chose to do. Okay, cool, well with that, I'll just say something to my constituents. So to my constituents, I hear you loud and clear, looking towards the future. We must do more, we must do better. But right now, we're in the present, and I believe our immediate focus should be on getting the roads cleaned up safe and back to normal in the immediate future, specifically our neighborhood roads. My main priority right now is where we are today and how we respond in the hours and days ahead. Our goal should be to get the ice removed as quickly as possible so that life can return to normal, safe roadways, children back in school, reliable access to neighborhoods and businesses able to operate. So I'm committed to supporting whatever it takes today to get this ice removed. And I'm also committed to listening to your concerns and sharing with the administration, hoping that they will get addressed. So your concerns matter to me, and I will continue to work to ensure our community is safe, accessible, moving forward. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Commissioner Albright, for being here, for answering these dozens of questions that we've put forward for you. I have a couple of follow-ups. So when discussing the method for tracking what roads have and have not been cleared, one of those concerns has been availability and accessibility of that information to the public in something resembling real time. But I'm a little unclear on how it works internally. Is there an operational delay between when a road is cleared and when you all have information that it's been cleared? If you mean electronic information or just, because a lot of it is verbal and a lot of it is exchanges between the management, both divisions and the drivers. And so as that information flows back and forth, it's very much in the moment, but it's not something that is necessarily well tracked and kept and maintained of what everybody did today, unfortunately. Yeah, no, that sort of answers the question, because the concern that I hear from a lot of my constituents has been coming from a communication perspective from the city of not being able to say, where are we now on the ranking system? And I understand their frustration when we are simply saying to them, these are the ranked roads and this is the system and we're doing that, and they want to know where specifically in the response plan we are. So I hope that's something that when we're doing this deeper dive we can look into so that folks can understand where we are in the process. And additionally, I very much appreciate the desire to go for a data driven approach to make sure that this That our response is keeping up with our changing climate. But I also do want to encourage y'all and your departments and us on council to consider whether or not we are going to. I'm trying to choose my words very carefully here. Whether it is these ice storms, whether it is tornadoes and flooding across the commonwealth. We know that we are experiencing more severe weather events more frequently. And while some folks would like to debate the cause of that, climate change, what have you. The reality is that it's our job to respond to them and we see them happening time and time again. And I don't think it is beneficial to us. I don't think it's beneficial to the residents of this city if we pretend that that's not the case. And so while I understand the desire to go based on here's what the data says, here's what the trends are, we are living through unprecedented times in that regard. And I hope that we can take that into consideration. And lastly, actually two more things. First off, I want to say thank you to you, to Director Allen, and especially to all of our crews, to the folks, the streets and roads team, our sanitation workers, and our contract workers, and everybody who's been out clearing the roads. And I want them to know that all of us on council in this body and in the administration, I assume, would appreciate their work. And that when we are getting into the weeds of what we can be doing better, it is not intended to be a criticism of their work, we are incredibly, incredibly grateful for them. And lastly, I just want to say something to my constituents in the fourth district, which is that I share your frustration. I personally had to have three people assist me to get my car out so that I could come to city hall. And when we have moments like this where folks are forced to choose between staying safe in their homes as the city has asked them to, and also being able to get to work when their employer is demanding them to be there. We are putting folks in a rock and a hard place, and speaking for myself and I believe speaking for everybody else sitting around this horseshoe, we are going to work as hard as we can to make sure that we don't put you all in that position again. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you, Director, for all the work that you all have been putting in, and certainly to your staff. As frustrated as some of our constituents might be, and some of us might be either from the horseshoe or from inside our houses, I can imagine the amount of frustration and labor of the rank and file on the streets, in the trucks, and going through it and fighting this ice. To follow on Council Member Curtis's question about the idea of the plow tracker, I feel like those are the kinds of things that would be very helpful to the public of feeling informed. because very often I think the frustration from constituents is that they just don't know what's happening. They don't know where they are on the street, when is it going to come to them. And I know every time we've had the storm, I re-download the KU app to be able to track outages. And our house was out for about an hour, and I got to watch it and see that it was being worked on. So I feel like there are tech solutions for this kind of problem that we can get out of this loop or cycle of, it's a game of informal telephone of how the information is being disseminated, I think there are ways for us to do this without adding on much more burden and work on the staff who should be focused on driving the trucks and doing the actual work. So I think there are possibilities and I think this council will certainly support that. I have a question also, you had mentioned the idea of construction equipment being much more effective at removing and pushing some of this ice and this heavier material, but to Council Member, I think Boone's question, you said that it also can potentially and does do damage to paving and to the equipment. How do you all put into your calculations or your thinking about using construction equipment that would be more effective in pushing this heavier material? But then the potential for more damage, especially to paving, that we still have to deal with after everything melts, now we have to pave over all these potholes and all these cracks. How are you kind of calculating the cost benefits there? Honestly, it kind of happens in the moment as we start to realize what we hoped to be able to do. We plan to do the least damaging parts first if we can. And then as we realize, although we did line up graders over the weekend as the snow was moving in, in case, because we had gotten a lot of reports that there might be a fair amount of ice. But we had hoped to avoid that because of the damage that they can be done to the pavement. In the end, that was not a decision, that decision got made for us kind of by Monday or Tuesday. We had to switch to something that was more effective. After last year's storm, do you have a number or a sense of how much we spent on repaving or filling potholes caused by that storm? I don't know if we have numbers from that storm. Not just a singular storm, we did over 9,000 potholes last year. Okay, and I can definitely imagine after this storm with freezing, thawing, freezing, thawing, we're going to run into that too. So that's another sort of piece of the consideration for me thinking about what kind of equipment to use. And I don't think, unfortunately, we might be in a situation where we have to solve today's problem today and try to solve tomorrow's problem tomorrow that was caused by today's solution, unfortunately. I really appreciate the way you all have been talking about kind of taking a little bit more time to do the after action and kind of strategize. I think we're at the point now where rare climate events are now common climate events. And we really can't solve tomorrow's storm with yesterday's plan. So I appreciate you all being open to kind of taking more time, really rethinking those strategies to really adapt to the changing climate. And I think realistically too, it's always going to be a matter of resource, right? If we wanted to create a winter response plan that could handle literally any situation ever, we could do it, but it may take the entirety of our city's budget to do it. And so we're always up here having to kind of make those decisions about what's going to get priority. So it's a zero-sum game when we play with dollars, and ultimately, I think we always have to do the best we can. And I think, honestly, as frustrating as it might have been for some of us, I do appreciate the public letting us know where we have fallen short. And as long as we have the willingness to continually do better, I think we're on the right track. So thank you all for your work. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all both for all of your hard work. And as a colleague said, the questions that we have today are in no way a reflection of the work that has been done by our employees. I saw a post on social media from one of our plow driver's wife who said, I haven't seen my husband in a week. And so I'm very thankful for all those individuals who have been out working day and night. Thank you for answering a lot of the questions, a lot of them were mine. So I appreciate that. I have submitted several 311 requests on behalf of constituents. But when I go back to look at it, it says things like open or assigned, like the status level of it, that's what it says. How do I explain to constituents what that means, each of those levels? If it's assigned, does that mean that it's been assigned to a route and somebody's going to be working on it soon? Or it just means it's been assigned to the division, essentially? It may well mean it's been assigned to the division. It could also mean that it's been assigned to a driver. So it means that it's at least in our system and it's been received. Whether or not it's made it all the way to a driver yet would be hard to say within the 311 ticket. And if a driver is receiving kind of those one-off requests, you know, or like a hill or something like that, how is that communicated to the driver? Like are they, is it a verbal? It is somewhat verbal, but they start each shift with here's what we need to work on. So the 311, and Rob, feel free to jump in. The 311 list gets printed off by his staff, and then they try to work to group things, and then they assign those out. Yep, so your call generates a ticket. It goes to the supervisor. The supervisor of that particular area then assigns it to a driver. The driver reports back to the supervisor, and the supervisor closes the ticket out once action has been taken. And we've been after them to provide more information other than just putting done. Some things like we salted, we added brine. So you can pass that information on, and the public can actually see a lot of that too. Yeah, no, I think that would be really helpful. As you are looking into this I think it would be really helpful for us as a city to look at our plan from top to bottom and think about things that we can do differently. I spent the majority of my weekend looking at other cities' snow plans because I'm a big nerd. But in that after action, I would like to see a full inventory of any damage to our equipment. I know that we maybe broke some stuff, and I'd like to know that. And then if we have other specific questions, is it best just to compile them all and send them to you for consideration during that process? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then the last thing I'll say, because I'm a mom of two school-age kids, I have several reports today of buses trying to run routes, and they're still not able to. So what do I need to do? Because these are roads that have been reported. I've had specific tickets filed for these roads. Please send that to me as soon as possible. You're going to have it in five seconds. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Director. And thank all the employees for the last 12 days who have been working around the clock. The first month I was on the Council in 2003, we had the ice storm. And I remember that. It was an awakening to be involved in the Council and people without electricity for two weeks. And then we've gone for the last 20 years, we've kind of up flows, but I think we have a new normal now. And we doubled our budget last year because of the issues we had last year. And it's obviously we're going to have to look at it again, and we're going to do this after action. And we have a budget process that we're going through right now. Will you be giving that after action budget request so we can be prepared for next year? I mean, we still have to get through this event, but we have to also plan in the future to not have to do this again, because I don't want to be critical, but we're all frustrated. The community is frustrated. We're literally holding the school at this point almost hostage because we can't get to the kids can't get to school, the businesses people can't get to work. And it's just real frustrating. We all feel that. As Council Member Morton said, it's the burdens on the leadership, and that's us up here. So we've got to do better. So with that, will you be bringing a budget request as we go through this process to possibly look at increasing what we're doing right now? Because we need to be prepared for this as being our new normal. I would be a little hesitant to ensure you that I can have it by the time the mayor gives her budget address in like, I don't know, three weeks or something. But we would definitely work to do it, but I don't want to try to do it so quickly that I don't do it well. So I'm going to have to try and strike a balance between how fast can I give it to my leadership, and then it be information that we feel very confident in. One thing I thought that was going to help was last year we added on contractors, and I thought when you're prepared for your average, and then when you have something that's exceptional, then you can call in your reinforcements to help out. And I was hoping that was going to be kind of the key, and it doesn't look like that has been a big help, and did we contact the contractors and get them on board right away? Do we not have enough of them to help out? And one thing that I've heard is that the governor said that they would help with state. Did we take them on when they invited that opportunity? We did. Yeah. And what did they do to help out in that? They sent 10 drivers and trucks to us last week for two days, and then they were worried about the snow coming back on Friday, so they had to go back to their home counties. But we had crews from Oldham County, Franklin County, and Laurel County come to Fayette County for two days last week. Thank you. And is money the big issue that we have to make sure we have more equipment? Do we need more employees? What do you see as where we're falling short right now? Again, I would hate to assume right now without kind of doing that look, but if we decide we need more equipment because we need to be in more places all at the same time, then yes, those vehicles would have to be driven by somebody. And you mentioned in your opening remarks in answering some construction equipment. What was where you're saying that? The graders, we've used loaders, and we've used skid steers. Those are all traditionally used in the construction process, not in street maintenance. So those are all pieces of equipment that we've brought onto the streets that are usually off-road. And this isn't just pushing snow, because with the ice, I mean, we all trying to just get our own driveways and sidewalks, and it's just it's not what a usual snowfall is when the ice came. So it is frustrating, but it is also something that we might have to be dealing with in the future, so we have to be prepared for it. And I guess when we get the after action, I would hope that we would have something so when we do do this process, though, that we'll have the policy and the resources for it going forward. I think that's all I have right now. I might come back. When we look at the to make sure that we have enough contractors, is there any way that we can have even more on board? I think you declared an emergency at some point. What does that mean when we do that? Can we dip into the contingency fund, then, if we have to, to make sure we have enough money? Does that fall within that or not? That is not my purview, so I'm not going to. If I could speak to that. What it does is it allows me to contract without going through the normal process for emergencies, to hire folks, to purchase equipment or whatever through the normal process. So that is how we hired these additional three contractors that we have in place today. One of them has been in place this entire storm. One has come on today and one comes on tomorrow. As regarding the other snow and ice contractors that we expanded last year, unfortunately, when we rebid the contract, the same one contractor for the heavy truck contract response is the only one we got. They added more trucks, but then a lot of their trucks were older and were not as effective in the single-digit temperatures. We only had one landscaping contractor respond. The first time, we actually bid that one twice. We bid it out the first time, and nobody responded. So we waited two or three months, and then we bid it again, and we had one contractor respond. And they did respond, but again, they started struggling to respond to us as well. Thank you. So they were not a silver bullet. Thank you, Mayor. My time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I think having lived here most of my life, one thing that we can agree upon with Kentucky weather is that it is always unpredictable. We have no idea what it's going to do. There have been ice storms that are terrible. There have been snow storms that are terrible. There have been winters when I made sure everyone in my house had winter gear, and there were no snow storms. So it's really, really hard to prepare as a city for these events when it might happen once a year, or it might not happen at all, or it might happen a few times a year. So it's super tricky, and I really want to empathize with you all on that and say that I really appreciate all of your hard work in taking our questions. You answered many of my questions, our emails, our phone calls, and I do appreciate it. I think what I'm seeing as I've gone all over town and in my neighborhoods is people have mostly, with some exceptions, they have not cleared their sidewalks, they have not cleared their driveways, they have not cleared their porches, I tried and I didn't get very far on mine. And so that's what we're dealing with is ice. I think that if it were easier to clear and this process were quicker, more people would have those things done because they usually do in snow storms. So my question that I think most of our constituents have, for the first few days everybody understands, is there a goal or a standard of how many days before we have cleared and gone through our plan because now we're nine days out and I'm getting texts constantly about people not being able to get out of their street. Is there a goal and we missed the goal? Is there no goal? There is a goal, but it is based on a regular storm. So the fact that we had a storm that was so unusual followed by such frigid temperatures and yes, to your point, even back in the 1978 storm, the big kicker was the temperatures. So the cold temperatures really hampered all of our effect. So we do have a goal of having everything on rank one and rank two streets cleared within 48 hours at the end of an event, but that's a typical event. So this event was not typical. So as we look to the future in the review, we will take into consideration lower temperatures. We will take into consideration ice as opposed to snow. Yes, ma'am. Okay, I appreciate that. And I wanted to echo what I've heard some of my colleagues say about tracking. That just seems to be really helpful that folks can look up some sort of a time frame of when the road's going to be clear. Or if it was supposed to have already been cleared. I can speak for myself, but speaking to the colleagues that I've spoken to is like, our phones and emails blew up with every type of request for every type of thing in terms of responding to the storm. And people feeling like they can't get out of their streets. So if there was something we could point them to, kind of like we did in the past, I do find that helpful. So I just wanted to mention that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Commissioner, Director Allen, for being available, being open, and answering our many, many questions. And being here today in our, I don't want to call it a firing squad, but it's tough to be at that podium and answer these tough questions. So I really am appreciative of both of you all, and to the employees and the contractors. Thank you all for working literally around the clock to get our city back up and running. So big thank you for all of that. Just a couple of things, if you had a few of my neighbors email and suggest that maybe that we benchmark some other cities. So as you all are doing your deep dive and analysis, maybe look at some other cities. I know every city has different climates and things like that. But there should be some cities that are similar to us, that may have different types of snow plans and ice plans, that maybe we can use them for benchmarking purposes as we devise a new plan for Lexington. And then, I wanted to ask your response report. Do you have in mind kind of a timeline when you think you would be able to come back to this body and share that report? Not yet, if I'm being honest. Okay, I just wanted to ask, but yeah. Thank you. We do definitely want to invite you back when the report is done to come back and report out to the full body. because we all definitely would love to hear your analysis and proposed solutions. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you both for being here and all the work that our city has done around the clock. Like, I truly mean that. I just have a couple quick things. So when we talk about you doing a deep dive into the process, is that going to be like you and your team, or we're going to have to get somebody outside to come in and see another traffic study or whatever it is that we do? I'm not opposed to the idea of hiring someone. I'd love to be able to do it myself, but everybody also has a full-time job right now. So balancing priorities is going to be a part of that conversation. And do I just have to hire somebody from the UK to help me with research? Okay, also, when I emailed and asked about where we were in the ranking, I didn't know that we had switched to a route system, and also didn't know what that was. Now luckily, Director Allen was nice enough to explain it to me like I was in kindergarten, because sometimes that's how I need you to talk to me. But if I didn't know, how did the public know that we have gone from the rank system to a route system, and that the route system was still the rank system, and we were clear on the street next to, as well as this one? Right, I think that is definitely something we need to improve, is how we communicate our plan to my neighbors or whomever. Okay, I have two more, sorry. So why did we clear Rep Arena and the business districts before we cleared more of the neighborhood streets? I remember you just said that they had stuff going on down there this weekend. That's a traffic based, usually, decision. When there's something going on at Rep Arena, all of a sudden there's 20,000 people within a one block area of downtown. And so how we move that 20,000 people all being in the same place at the same time, in and out, is part of a critical response. A neighborhood street doesn't have nearly that level of traffic, unfortunately, or fortunately. So that's part of that decision. But didn't we, by not clearing more of our neighborhood streets, keep the folks who needed to get to work stuck at home? I won't disagree with you. Okay. And then my last one is, did our snow response affect our emergency response at all, as far as our police fire? I don't know, and I don't know if they're in a position to respond to that. Okay. Commissioner Armstrong may know. We had direct response. Hang on one moment, please. We have a- I didn't mean to catch y'all all off guard. We have a podium. They were all feeling bad for me, and now, I'm so sorry. They're like, boy, I'm glad it's her and not us, now y'all. So if you want to speak, Commissioner, we know that our public safety, we're on 24-hour days, and if you will fill in the council a little bit. Thank you very much for the question. In my conversations with Chief Weathers, who unfortunately couldn't be here today because he's ill, and Chief Wells, obviously, any weather impact is going to delay somewhat of a response in regards to that. But in this situation, with us having advance notice, we made sure that we had extra personnel available to make sure that we covered the areas that we thought we would have issues with. So we were able to respond in a timely manner. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that there weren't incidences where a certain road may have delayed our response in some way. But with that being said, Streets and Roads did an excellent job of opening up the major thoroughfares, which gets us to the neighborhood in a timely manner, so we can then respond in a safe manner into the neighborhood itself. I have not been made aware of any concerns from the public that they had a significant delay in the response from police or fire. And Mayor, if you'd like me to, I could have Chief Wells and Commander Doan speak to that, if you'd like to, if we need to expand. Let's hear from Chief Wells and Commander Doan. Welcome. Thank you all very much, and I know we have a new council member. My name is Jason Wells, and I'm your fire chief. Thank you and welcome. Yeah, to reiterate what the commissioner said, I think it's really, really important to articulate how good or how responsive our team is here within the LFUCG. Commissioner Albright, Director Allen are always just a phone call away, whether it's helping us get out of fire stations or responding to a fire scene and providing salt because we're throwing water and creating a bigger hazard, so we're extremely grateful for that. So we respond in any kind of weather. We know that we face ice storms and snow storms and thunderstorms and wind storms, and we prepare for all of those contingencies. We did make some four-wheel drive smaller vehicles available. We were able to utilize our EMS supervisor's vehicle to transport a patient off of Jack's Creek Road, because that was a very difficult situation in the height of the storm. But we did not have a single fire that we were not able to fight, and we did not have a single patient out of the hundreds and hundreds of EMS calls that we could not access and transport. Thank you so much, Chief. Commander Jones, congratulations. Thank you, thank you, Mayor. Commander Jones, East Sector Patrol, as I can echo Chief Wells as well as Commissioner Armstrong, we as well were preparing for the ice storm. We expected more snow and got more ice, so we made those adjustments. We want to thank Streets and Roads. They were able to help with our parking lots to get the police vehicles out. We also had several officers who brought their own shovels from home, put them in the back of their car to help as many cars as they could. So we were very appreciative of a lot of the first few days of the storm of people staying off the roads. So we were able to help as many as we could, so. Very good, thank you. Anything else, Commissioner Armstrong? Anything else? No, ma'am, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to all my colleagues. I think, I'm not going to belabor this point. I think they made a lot of points and brought up a lot of things that need to be addressed that we've overheard. And Commissioner, thank you for standing, you and the director for standing and answering the questions and delivering. And then thank you to the folks at Streets and Roads and Water Quality and Parks that have been on the job since this event has began. We really appreciate their service, dedication, and work that they do. My concern, and I guess, Mayor, I just want to say, I appreciate you acknowledging that we haven't met everyone's expectations in this event. And committing to actually reviewing the plan and what we've done, whether it's going to be an after action review. What I'm hoping is that maybe you will, and this is probably not typical, but include some council members in that process. And I think we can potentially add some value to maybe asking some questions or get a better understanding of what the roles and the responsibilities are as we move forward. So I would encourage that as you go forward. I think what you heard today is council members exercising their right to oversee, create some accountability, and then also commit to providing resources to address these issues going forward. And then I have a question, and I don't know who's the most appropriate person to answer this. But what we have a plan for, and kind of what we have responded to, has been, I think we prepared for typical weather events. Once it landed, hit, and we went into a state of emergency, I think that changes and elevates maybe our response across the board. So has there been any conversation or any discussion about how we respond to typical weather events and what that protocol is in regards to maybe, once it gets deemed an emergency weather event, that our response may be different. Or another path gets taken because other things come into consideration. It all happens very in the moment. So I wouldn't say I'd know that there is a definite time when we said, okay, this is now transition to an emergency. And, but maybe that needs to be a part of a more deliberate conversation of a decision and a pivot next time. I see the chief of staff coming up behind you. Tyler Scott. Let me come in and yank her off, sorry. No, I think all options are on the table, council member. There probably is an elevated level of assets that need to be brought to this kind of response as it gets bigger. We ask a lot of these folks. They're out on the streets all summer, spring and fall. In the winter, we ask them to bring in a whole lot of other folks they're not with, all of them are not professional snow plow drivers. They cross train in a lot of different ways. I think we need to look at how we take off their plate, things like communication nonstop to the public and you all while we let them do their jobs that we're asking them to do here. We don't want to get caught in a failure of imagination scenario. We're not going to be able to talk about every bit of extreme rainfall we get, extreme wind and droughts and everything else. But we need to lay all those options on the table and look at what the right cost benefit analysis is for Washington and what you all want to set as expectations moving forward. We had two ice storms in a row. We haven't had anything close to it in probably over a decade. Will we hit another one next year or will it be another 20 years? We don't know, but we need to all sit together and have some skin in the game and talk about how we want to level these expectations. And how we can better assist them as they're the front line and we're providing greater assets to do their job. Yeah, I appreciate that answer that all things are on the table. I think you kind of summed it up. Once these events happen, we put a lot more on the divisions that are used to just doing this. You have to coordinate with the state, you're hearing from council members, you're hearing from constituents, you're hearing from other divisions. And coordinating all that together could be challenging. So maybe there's a different structure that we look at when we go forward with emergencies. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I too want to extend my thank yous to everyone who has been working on the response over this nine days. But one group that hasn't been mentioned yet that I want to add to the thank yous is our Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention and all of our service providers in the community who have expanded their capacity and their work to get people off the street and provide shelter and food for folks. I have, you answered my questions, I submitted them beforehand, so I don't have new questions for you. But I have been driving around my district, and I'm going to go check my school routes again today. Because when I was driving in some of those areas earlier today, like right around the schools, those roads were not clear. So I'm going to, right after we leave here, I'm going to go survey those one more time. And I'll, like some of the other council members, make sure you get those directly from me. I've been encouraging the public, and I have been submitting 311 tickets for my district because I do believe in the tracking. I think that's helpful for us, and particularly when you do these after action reviews to have things labeled and track through that system. So I will continue to do that. But for the particular on the schools, I will let you know that directly. Yes, ma'am. Thank you again, and thank you for being here and willing to take all the questions and have over an hour of discussion on this response, so again, thanks. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you so much for the presentation. I wrote you a bunch of questions, and I really do appreciate your team's hard work and efforts. Just one thing on the after action, I do want you to consider is that there's a total cost to these events. And there's many of the people that are kind of on the margins that can't get to their place of work are also kind of one paycheck from being in a really bad situation. So I just really want to make sure that when you're looking at that, that we're considering overall productivity. And the loss of employment, the loss of income to these people, as well as how that flows through the entire system. So it's just kind of, it's why people make, as a government, a somewhat larger investment, because they do realize that that investment actually does affect the marginalized quite a bit. So I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you very much. Are there other questions? All right, before you leave. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner, thank you very much. Director Allen, thank you very much to all the employees who, there are hundreds who've been involved in this. Just to put a fine point on what we're doing is once we are finished with this storm, which we know is probably coming back tonight or at least this week, and in between this and the next storm. What we're talking about is internally with those who've been involved, and I especially have talked with you about talking with our drivers to get their input in this review of what worked, what didn't work, what could we have done better. And then the second part is what I view as, I don't want to use the word scrapping, but it's what some of you have mentioned. We need to look at a totally different strategic plan for our weather response, because what we're seeing, and we've all noticed it, is these two in a row, ice storms are killers. They immobilize us. And we are not going to look for northern cities so much, because they mostly get snow. Somebody mentioned Buffalo, Buffalo doesn't get ice. We're going to look at storms that get weather like we do. And there are a lot of them around. We've had some really good conversations with Commissioner, and Chief of Staff, and Director Allen, because we want to bring you what we think is the best for Lexington. And it may cost a good bit more money, depending on what we think we need to be prepared for. And so I just appreciate everybody's patience, because a lot of people are not dug out yet. There's nothing dug out at my house. But it's easier to walk with snow on top than just pure ice. So anyway, I think we're on a good path forward for the public, because it has forced us to look at the plans that we currently have. And it's a good thing that we'll be doing as soon as we can get out of the storms. So again, I appreciate you all. I appreciate public safety. Everybody, it's been all in by our community, and thank you very much. Appreciate you. Thank you. Yep. All right. Now, let's go right ahead with our meeting. We do not have anyone signed up for public comment. So there is no docket. There is a table of motions for the January 27th, 2026 Council Work Session. I'll entertain a motion to approve. All right, Council Member Curtis and Council Member Savigny. Are there any questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. There are no budget amendments. There are no budget adjustments. There is a small amount of new business. If I could have a motion to approve. Council Member Savigny, Council Member Curtis. Are there any questions about new business? Log in, please. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Director Duncan, I wanted to have you just come speak briefly about the new business item D. This is the Winchester Road Corridor Study. And I know this touches multiple districts, but it's been one that's been in the works for a long while. And I know my residents are interested in it. So could you give us just a brief description of what this is going to be? Yes, thank you, Council Member. The Winchester Road Corridor Study has been identified in the comprehensive plan as one of our additional roads that we want to look at. Similar to how we reviewed Nicholasville Road about five years ago and New Circle Road about three years ago. So these corridor studies encompass a number of elements. In this case, we're looking at from Midland Avenue to Greenbrier neighborhood. So a long corridor with very different land use types in between that includes the older commercial industrial areas inside New Circle Road, as well as the newer Greenfield and newly developed areas outside of the interstate. And what we'll be doing with this study is looking at a variety of issues, mainly related to complete streets and Vision Zero for safety. Looking at access, looking at opportunities to enhance mobility along the corridor, and that would include looking at the land uses. Are there opportunities to build more housing? Are there some infill opportunities in the older parts? And are there ways to ensure that Winchester Road and the neighborhoods behind it are connected? So we'll be looking at the full gamut of opportunities for safety, connectivity, mobility, and infill and development along the corridor. We expect to get this started very soon, at the beginning of March, and will probably be about a 16 to 18 month study. Thank you, and I appreciate that you mentioned the Complete Street and Vision Zero programs and their consideration in this study, because I know we've had several collisions that have involved pedestrians along that area. I look forward to this moving forward, and I know it will involve some community engagement opportunities. So when those arise, I'd love for us to know about them so we can share them with our respective neighborhoods. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Any other questions about new business? All right, all those in favor of approving, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. As far as communications from the Mayor, there are no appointments, no donations, and no procurements. And so that brings us to continuing business, and we have the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee report, and I'll ask Council Member Savigny to give that. Starts on page eight. You know, Mayor, I had that with me. Now I've got it. This is my first time, so. Is that it? Yes. Just a summary. We just need a slight summary. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. Yeah, it's good enough. Chair, on November 18th, the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee met. Chair Hannon recalled the meeting to order at 1 PM, and members James Brown, Tyler Morton, Emma Curtis, Liz Sheehan, Lisa Higgins-Horde, Joseph Hale, Beasley, Savigny, Boone were present. Vice Mayor Dan Wu, Council Member Shayla Lynch, and Jennifer Reynolds were present as non-voting members. The approval of the October 7th, 2025 Committee Summary. We had the Water Quality Management Fee Incentive Grant Program discussed. Alyssa McKenzie presented recommendations from the Water Quality Management Incentive Grant Fund, established by ordinance in 2009, required at least 10% of annual WQMF revenue be allocated for grants for stormwater for quality improvements. Funding is distributed between A and B properties, with a majority allocated to larger commercial contributors. I'm going to skip down here. Key recommendations include improving accessibility and technical support through an online application system, office hours, application toolkits, enhancing outreach and storytelling through video signage and marketing materials, modernizing reporting and online reporting system, clear timelines and structured applicant feedback. The limitations of these improvements is planned for just 2026, coordination with the DES and Division of Water Quality. Motion by Savigny to approve accepting recommendations for the Water Quality Fee Management Program as presented. In the EQBW meeting, it is set forth by the committee, seconded by Curtis and passed unanimously. And then there was a motion to amend the deadline of storytelling as toolkits in the recommendations from June 26th to December. Seconded by Savigny. Motion passed unanimously. I so move these items. Is there a second? I heard several seconds. Council Member Curtis, are there any questions or comments about the motion? All right, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That motion passes. I'll be better prepared in the future, thank you. No worries, you're doing fine. Does that complete your report? Okay, thank you very much. All right, now let's move on to council reports. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to welcome our District 3 Council Member, Tom Eblen, to the horseshoe. And I am also assigning him to the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee and the Social Services and Public Safety Committee. Speaking of new folks, I also would like to introduce a new member of the LFUCG team. Dr. Basel Tushon is the new Executive Director of Global X. And I would invite you to come up and I'll give you the rest of my time to tell us a little bit about yourself. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Council Members. I'm excited to be here. My name is Basel Tushon, and I'm the new Executive Director of Global X. I love this city. I love this community. It's been my home for about a decade now. And when I first moved here, it was supposed to be only six months. I came out here. I got my citizenship here. I changed careers here. And a big part of it was how this community embraced me. And one of the first places in Lexington I engaged with was Global X back then through the on-the-table conversations that they used to have and all the great programs that they do. So this is such a full circle moment for me. I'm excited to be working alongside you all. We're here to support you. We're here to support your constituents. We're here to respond to any needs they or you all have. But we're also here to be brainstorming with you, supporting your constituents and all the initiatives you do. I'll be following up with an email later today, so you have my contact information. And looking forward to working with you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Tushon. I think in the very particular political climate that we're living in these days, I think an organization or division like Global X is more important than ever to help a lot of these communities. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Mayor. First, I'll tell you about the tenant and landlord's workshop that we're doing in the 8th district on Wednesday the 25th at the Tate's Creek Community Center from 6 to 8 PM. We'll be talking about that more. Another announcement we have is we are moving our office from City Hall to City of Parkway every Wednesday in February from 4 to 7. We'll be at 1165 Center Parkway, which is the Employment Solutions Building. You can either call the office and make an appointment. You can stop in down there, whatever makes your heart happy, but we'll be there from 4 to 7. Also, I would like to encourage my colleagues to come out to the Polar Bear Plunge on Saturday and support our Department of Corrections. It's at the Texas Roadhouse in Beaumont. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few announcements. Tomorrow evening from 5.30 to 7, I am hosting a Cardinal Valley meeting at the new neighborhood center in Valley Park. And that will be from 5.30 to 7, and we will have code enforcement, police, and traffic engineering there to answer questions. So hopefully the weather will be okay for that. That was rescheduled from last week. And then on Thursday night, there will be a meeting at Nathaniel Mission from 5.30 to 6.30, just to give an update on the temporary homeless shelter on Versailles Road. People can ask questions. We can talk about how it's been going, what's working and what's not working. Our Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention promised to do that update, so I'm thankful for that. And then on Saturday, if you all are going out to get your groceries, between about ten and five, you can go to a Kroger. And you can do shop and save, or shop, save, and share. And you can support domestic violence shelters. I'm on the board of Greenhouse 17, and so we are asking people to go to a Kroger. You will get a list of items that Greenhouse 17 needs. And while you're shopping, you can get those items and then drop them off at the end. And then our wonderful police department delivers those to the shelter. So shop on Saturday. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. I'll start off this week. The month of February, we recognize black history. While for many a celebrated year around, Black History Month reminds us that the challenging time we're in now, that we faced them before, and we can get through them again. So our communities have endured, resisted, and risen before, because progress has always been powered by courage, unity, and hope. As the Honorable John Lewis reminded us, never, ever be afraid to make some noise. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and let this month be more of that reflection. Let it be a call to action to stand on the right side of history by continuing the work for justice, equity, and opportunity for all. So, happy Black History Month for that. And then, moving on, I just wanted to thank Council Member Savigny for his trust and confidence in me to serve as the Vice Chair of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. I'm grateful for your leadership and your steady guidance as you bring us through this year and lead us with that committee's work. And it's an honor to step into this role, and I take the responsibility seriously. As we move forward, I want to center three key goals in my leadership. Transparency, ensuring that work remains open, accessible, and accountable to the public. Equitable lens, making sure every decision considers the needs of all neighborhoods and residents. And solution-driven collaboration, working alongside the administration, my colleagues on council, to deliver practical outcomes that make our community safer, healthier, and a better place to live. So, I look forward to taking this leadership position, and I wanted to thank Council Member Savigny for his trust in me in that position. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. First, I'd like to congratulate Council Member Eblen. I'm so excited to be able to work with you again. We worked together at the Carnegie Center, so I'm glad to continue to work with you. I enjoyed our working relationship, and I look forward to chatting with you more and working with you here at council. Thank you. Also, some updates for my neighbors. This weekend, my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, in partnership with the Lexington Senior Center and Greater Liberty Baptist Church is hosting its Heart Health Summit. It went successfully last year, so we decided to do it again. So, I just want to invite the community out to this free Heart Health Summit at the Senior Center from 1 PM to 4 PM, and at Greater Liberty Church from 5 PM to 8 PM. You'll be able to get your blood pressure checked, there'll be hands-only CPR training, heart health screening, kidney screening, vision and diabetes screening, as well as flu education prevention. So, please come out this weekend to get your health in check. Also, there's some awesome activities happening in the second district at the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. On February 9th from 6 PM to 730, there's going to be Valentine's Day bingo. It's free to all who come, and the prizes are really, really good. So, I encourage everyone to come out and have a good time on that day to celebrate Valentine's Day and play some bingo. And then on February 16th at 2 PM, and on February 18th at 5 PM, there'll be some movie screenings at the gymnasium at the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. On February 16th, the movie 42, starring Chadwick Boseman, it's a movie about Jackie Robinson, will be playing. And on the 18th, there'll be a Black History, a trivia game. So, please come out to the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. There's tons of events that happen every week there, and everything is free. Can't beat that with a stick. So, come on out to the second district and enjoy some of the awesome activities at the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I also just wanted to thank a few more folks that were involved in the response to the weather. And that's Ms. Wanda out at Fleet Services and then Kendra with 311. I know those folks were up and working and putting in a lot of hours just like everyone else. So, I just wanted to recognize them as well. And then I'll just say welcome to the new director of Global Lex, look forward to working with you. And also to our new colleague, Council Member Eblen, I've been a fan of yours, and I think you know this for a long time. Always enjoyed having conversations with you, and I think what you shared today at your press conference, you're swearing in about accountability, about being fair, and looking at things through a certain lens that's going to serve you well in this role. So, I look forward to working with you, and I'm glad to have you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Eblen. And I just wanted to say thank you everyone for a warm welcome, both on fellow council members and the city staff, the mayor's office. It's been a great first day. I feel like I've been drinking from a fire hose, but I also want to thank our city employees. I know this is a very difficult situation, and they are working so hard to try to get rid of all this snow and ice, and I know how difficult that is. Fell and sprained my ankle trying to clean off my ice, and so it's a tough job. And while we're all frustrated, I really appreciate the hard work they're doing. I look forward to being here. Thank you. Thank you. All right, there is no one signed up for public comments, so that brings us to the end of our agenda. Is there a motion to adjourn? Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all for attending.