# Council Work Session - February 10, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · February 10, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6686 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6686?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-02-10 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 13, 2026 - **Length**: 12,366 words - **Speakers**: Mayor, Council Member > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council met on February 10, 2026, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber on the second floor of the Government Center, with Mayor Linda Gorton presiding. The meeting covered 9 agenda items, including rezonings, budget amendments, mayoral appointments and procurements, and an informational presentation on the Street Safety Task Force Final Report. Over the course of the meeting, the Council took 5 votes, with the majority of action items — including requested rezonings, budget amendments, new business, and communications from the Mayor regarding appointments and procurements — receiving approval. No public comments were heard during the public comment period for agenda items. The Street Safety Task Force Final Report and the Continuing Business/Presentations item were received as informational, requiring no formal vote. ## Attendance All 15 council members were present at the February 10, 2026 meeting. No members were absent or late. **Present:** Wu, Brown, Ellinger II, Morton, Lynch, Eblen, Curtis, Sheehan, Higgins-Hord, Hale, Beasley, Baxter, Sevigny, Reynolds, and Boone. ## Votes and Decisions All five votes at the February 10, 2026 Council meeting passed by voice vote. No roll call votes were taken, so individual member tallies are not available for any item. - **Approval of Docket** [timestamp: 0:05]: Moved by Council Member Baxter and seconded by Council Member Higgins-Horde. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Approval of February 3, 2026 Work Session Table of Motions** [timestamp: 0:06]: Moved by Council Member Curtis and seconded by Vice Mayor Wu. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Approval of Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 0:06]: Moved by Vice Mayor Wu and seconded by Council Member Curtis. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Approval of New Business** [timestamp: 0:07]: Moved by Council Member Baxter and seconded by Council Member Curtis. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Postponement of Solar Project Lease Item (Item D)** [timestamp: 0:49]: Moved by Council Member Savigny and seconded by Council Member Morton. The Council voted by voice to postpone Item D, concerning a solar project lease, to the February 17, 2026 work session. The motion passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council considered a range of contracts, grants, and payments at the February 10, 2026 meeting, spanning public health, environmental programs, and municipal services. **Contracts and Agreements** - **L0072-26**: A $50,000 purchase of service agreement with **A Caring Place** to support expansion of the Villages Model program. - **L0090-26**: A $5,000 Memorandum of Agreement with **Watershed Watch in Kentucky, Inc.** for watershed-related services. - **L0094-26**: A $25,300 agreement with **Rozzi's Inc.** for a fireworks display. - **L0098-26**: A $30,345 Ground Lease with **Social Impact Solar LLC** for a solar photovoltaic project. - **L0099-26**: An amended Flexible Spending Benefits Plan with **Chard, Snyder & Associates, Inc.**, noted as having no budgetary impact. - **L0100-26**: A $1,069,068 addendum to a Health Services Agreement with **Marathon**. - **L0996-25**: A $9,998 agreement with **Dr. Robert Gregory McMorrow** for the Community Paramedicine Program. **Grants** - **L0101-26**: A $500 Fire Fighting Support Grant award from **Kentucky American Water**. - **L0102-26**: Application and acceptance of a $100,000 Victims of Crime Act Grant from the **Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet**. **Payments** - **L0106-26**: Payments of **$32,000 each** to the **Kentucky State Treasurer** and the **U.S. Department of Justice** related to Sanitary Sewer Overflows. The largest single financial commitment was the $1,069,068 addendum to the Health Services Agreement with Marathon (L0100-26). Combined, the contracts, grants, and payments addressed a broad set of municipal priorities including public health, environmental compliance, renewable energy, and community services. ## Appointments The Council took action on appointments to various boards and commissions during the meeting. However, the available structured data does not include the specific names of individuals appointed or the particular boards and commissions to which they were assigned. For a complete list of appointees and their respective bodies or roles, please refer to the official meeting minutes or agenda documents for the February 10, 2026 Council meeting. ## Contested Items - **Solar Project Lease Agreement:** Council members engaged in heated discussion over a proposed solar project lease agreement during the February 10, 2026 meeting. The debate centered on concerns about the lease terms, the community benefits agreement associated with the project, and potential environmental impacts. The discussion did not result in a vote; instead, the Council decided to postpone the decision, allowing additional time to address the outstanding concerns. No specific council members are identified in the available data as having led or opposed the discussion. ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 04:51] No public comments were made on issues on the agenda. ## Requested Rezonings/Docket Approval [timestamp: 05:22] The Council took up the matter of requested rezonings and docket approval during this portion of the meeting. Council Member Baxter and Council Member Higgins-Horde were the key speakers on this item. The Council approved the docket, including any requested rezonings contained within it. *Note: The available meeting data does not include details on the specific rezonings considered, the substance of any debate or concerns raised, or the vote tally. Readers seeking additional detail are encouraged to consult the full meeting transcript or official docket documentation beginning at approximately the 5-minute, 22-second mark of the meeting recording.* ## Approval of Summary [timestamp: 06:01] The Council took up the approval of the summary from the February 3rd, 2026 work session. Council Member Curtis and Vice Mayor Wu were the key speakers on this item. No concerns or debate were noted in connection with the summary's content. The Council approved the summary. ## Budget Amendments [timestamp: 06:39] The Council took up a resolution on budget amendments during the February 10, 2026 meeting. Vice Mayor Wu and Council Member Curtis were the key speakers on this item. The resolution addressed various budget amendments, though the specific line items, dollar amounts, and departmental allocations discussed were not detailed in the available record. No specific concerns or points of debate are reflected in the available data for this item. The Council approved the budget amendments resolution. ## New Business [timestamp: 07:12] The Council took up New Business, during which members considered various contracts and agreements. Council Member Baxter and Council Member Curtis were the key speakers during this portion of the meeting. The Council approved the new business items presented. *Note: Specific details regarding the individual contracts and agreements, any debate or concerns raised, and the full scope of discussion are not available in the provided meeting data.* ## Communications From the Mayor – Appointments [timestamp: 51:15] The Council considered appointments to various boards and commissions as submitted by the Mayor. The item was brought forward for Council review and approval. Vice Mayor Wu and Council Member Reynolds were the key speakers during this portion of the meeting. The Council moved to approve the Mayor's appointments as presented. **Outcome:** The appointments were approved by the Council. --- *Note: Specific names of appointees, the boards and commissions involved, and details of any discussion or concerns raised are not available in the source data for this agenda item.* ## Communications From the Mayor – Procurements [timestamp: 51:47] The Council took up the Communications From the Mayor – Procurements agenda item, which contained procurement recommendations submitted for Council approval. Council Member Savigny and Council Member Curtis were the key speakers during this portion of the meeting. The Council considered the procurement recommendations as presented. The item was approved by the Council. *Note: The available record for this agenda item is limited. Specific details regarding the individual procurements discussed, any debate or concerns raised, and the precise nature of each recommendation are not available in the provided data. Readers seeking the full details of the procurement recommendations are encouraged to consult the official meeting minutes or view the meeting video beginning at timestamp 51:47.* ## Continuing Business/Presentations [timestamp: 52:18] The Council received two presentations during the Continuing Business/Presentations portion of the February 10, 2026 meeting. - **Council Capital Projects** and the **General Government and Planning Committee** were the subjects of the presentations delivered during this agenda item. - **Council Member Reynolds** and **Council Member Sheehan** were the key speakers for this portion of the meeting. The presentations were informational in nature, and no votes or formal actions were taken as a result of the discussion. *Note: Additional detail on the specific content of each presentation, concerns raised, or debate among council members is not available in the provided source material.* ## Street Safety Task Force Final Report [timestamp: 54:28] The Council received a presentation on the Street Safety Task Force Final Report, delivered by Alyssa McKenzie and Sylvia Cassidy. The report outlined the task force's findings and presented recommendations aimed at improving street safety. The presentation was informational in nature, and no vote or formal action was taken by the Council at this time. Details of the specific recommendations, any concerns raised during discussion, and the full scope of the debate are not available in the provided record. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the February 12, 2026 Council Meeting Docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the February 3, 2026 Table of Motions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Budget Amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve New Business, as amended - **Motion** — passed (0-0): postpone Item d until the February 17, 2026 Council Work Session - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Communications from the Mayor- Appointments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Communications from the Mayor- Procurements - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve Council Capital Projects - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place ‘Experimental Engagement and Placemaking’ in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place ‘Complete Streets Education and Messaging’ in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn at 4:20 p.m --- ## Full transcript 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 Welcome everyone. I'd like to go ahead and call to order the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Council Work Session. Today is February 10th, 2026, and before we get to public comment, I wanted to give a 60-second update for the Council. We have started our internal after-action review, and it is being conducted by Director Rob Larkin of Division of Emergency Management. And so he will do that work, and he'll give us a report back. So I wanted you to know it's now ongoing. Thank you. Oh, yes, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Do we have a time frame on that? Not yet. He'll, you know, he's done many, many of these in the military and in fire, and so he'll let us know when he's finished. I don't expect it to take a long time. I just, when I, in the last meeting, I talked about trying to do something so we could be prepared for fiscal year 27 budget, so hopefully we'll have some input by then. Oh, yes. Okay, perfect. This after-action review will inform the next ICE strategic plan, ICE and SNOW, so it won't take a real long time. Well, if we could talk to Mother Nature and have days like this, then we'll be just fine. Could you take that on? I would love to. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Now we are at public comment for issues on the agenda, and we do not have anyone signed up yet. The deadline is 3.30, so we'll see how that goes. And next, we do have a docket, and I'll entertain a motion to approve. Second. Council Member Baxter and then Council Member Higgins-Horde seconded. Are there any additions, any motions for the zone changes, et cetera? Anything at all? All right. All those in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. The next item is the February 3rd, 2026 work session table of motions, and I'll entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Okay. Council Member Curtis moves, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there additions or corrections? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. We do have budget amendments, so I'll entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Vice Mayor Wu, seconded by Council Member Curtis. And please log in with your questions, if you have questions. All right. I see no questions. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And there are budget adjustments for your information only. And that brings us to new business. Is there a motion? Motion approved. Second. Thank you. Council Member Baxter, Council Member Curtis seconds. Please log in if you have questions. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question regarding item D, regarding the ground lease for the solar impact solar with social impact solar LLC. And my question is specifically around the community benefits agreement. So it appears to be still an outstanding item. It has not been resolved or has it been resolved? The ground lease has a community benefits agreement as a contingency, so it's required that it will be funded at at least $125 per megawatt DC. That's what's going to be associated with the ground lease portion. There are two other steps that will eventually come across the council's agenda, and that would be the any pilot agreement and or IRB. So the community benefits agreement may be part of those agreements, but those follow different procedural paths before they'll come before this party. So does the community benefits agreement in totality have to be solidified before contracts are signed and it can be moved forward? No, the terms that we put in here was we put a minimum required amount so that there would be a community benefits program associated with the lease. Anything in those others would potentially be added on to the top of this if those items are added at a later time. And so for the part of the agreement that's part of the lease portion, has that been finalized and everything? So is your question specifically where is that community benefits program? What is it going to do? No, that hasn't been. We just agreed on a funding amount, and then it does stipulate in the lease agreement, if you see in there, that it either has to be directly back with the nonprofit part of LFUCG or an approved vendor. I'm sorry, not vendor, but an approved nonprofit partner. So we would still have to approve that. And during the negotiations, Kentucky Association of Environmental Educators is who we recommended that if they move forward. And the reason we recommended that vendor is because that's the vendor that LFUCG has used for the majority of our environmental projects moving forward. They still are a current vendor, and so it's a value added. So if that agreement does end up being with an outside third party, we would recommend that vendor, because then you're value adding on to the money that we're already spending. So instead of then printing materials or setting up different events, you're not having to buy that whole event. That money would go in and would just add to the money that's already currently in our budget. So we felt that would be the best way to take a smaller amount of funds and get the most out of it by just adding to an existing program. But again, the community benefits program is not actually in here, and it is not signed. That would be the ground leases going forward, because as far as the timing on the contract that Avon Renewables needs to do, they've got to have the ground lease in hand so that they can move forward with their continued negotiations with the PSC, with their financial event, and all that. So that's why we've sort of broken this process into a couple steps. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. My question is on the same item, item D. So don't go anywhere. Following up on Council Member Lynch's question about the community benefits agreement, how did you all come to the, I guess, the floor of the 125 per megawatt? That was just over the, it was a portion of the negotiations. So the negotiating team worked with Avon Renewables' team, and we went back and forth, and we tried to determine what is feasible and what fits in the economic model. And so as we're moving forward, we tried to break what has to be in the ground lease, because timing-wise, you did the letter of intent previously, and this is the ground lease. So that is a piece that we basically sliced up and we said, okay, we know that we've got to have at least this much in order to move forward. And so that, if you take in the ground lease, you end up with $85 per acre is the lease rate, and $125 per acre is the community benefits plan, and then the water quality management fee is $122 per acre, which comes up to a total of $332 per acre. Now, that's like the water quality management fee is not part of the ground lease. The ground lease just specifically says that this development will be subject to that water quality management fee. So you get a sort of like a realized value per acre, but it's not actually the lease. So again, it's sort of like, here's how much of the value and revenue that's going to come back to LFUCG, but the rent is only this small piece of it because there's going to be several different pieces that make up that. Can I clarify with the community benefits agreement, that $125, it looks like it's $125 per megawatt and not $125 per acre? Yeah, I'm sorry. I apologize. I misspoke there. Yeah, it's the $125 per megawatt. Okay. So I just wanted to make sure we were kind of apples and oranges and not piling those numbers on top of each other. I added it to the wrong column on my chart. I apologize. Okay. I feel like I believe there's been a recommendation on that rate that was much higher, I think at $750 per megawatt. Why sort of the disparity between that number and this number? So there's sort of two reasons why there's this disparity. One, where that number came from, my understanding in talking to some of the members of the solar working group is that number was brought forth by a different vendor that was proposing a different project. So that's sort of an apples to oranges type of thing. The silicon ranch who came forward with that number of what they thought they could put into their project is based on developing on virgin farmland, which is a whole lot less expensive to develop on. So then there's a lot more money. It's going to generate a lot more money. So there's then a lot more money to come back out of the project. So that's sort of one component of why that number is lower. The other component that makes that lower is silicon ranch was going to be selling their power into the pgm market versus edlin renewables will be selling to ku through a different market. And the price per megawatt hour is significantly different. The pgm rate is roughly $70 per megawatt hour versus the rate going through ku. It works out to be about $50 per megawatt hour. So, again, you take those two different items of, one, it's cheaper to build on virgin farmland, so there's more revenue to share, plus there would be selling to a market that is at a higher rate. So you take those two numbers and you add it together. That's why there was a larger number on what was being proposed early on by silicon ranch on, again, a different project. Okay. So and then my other question is kind of similarly getting to this kind of apples and oranges conversation, thinking about the actual lease amount itself, the 85 an acre, versus that previous proposal that we had gotten a few years ago that was quite a bit higher. Are you saying those same sort of considerations are at play for that fairly big difference in price? Yeah. So, vice mayor, if you're referring to the study, which was not actually an offer, the study, again, was based on a desktop study. So, in other words, we just kind of went out and said, what do we think it would cost? So the numbers that we have now, so that's where those numbers came before where we were talking about a $400 or $500 per acre revenue to lfucg. Now that edlin renewables has actually looked at the actual land and said, this is what it's going to cost them, and they've financially modeled that out. The revenue is a lot less, projected a lot less than what our desktop study came out. So that's, again, that's part of it is once they started looking at how dense they can put the solar panels, as well as what's the additional costs of building on the capped landfills. Again, it's sort of that the it's significantly more expensive to build on the capped landfills because you have to use a ballasted system as opposed to the piles that just drive into the ground. Now, this project will be blended. There will be a portion that does use the piles driven into the ground on the borrow areas. So that's kind of why the number has come down. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Savigny. Thank you, mayor. And thank you, Richard. I've got the same, got a lot of questions on this myself. So I didn't necessarily, I saw snippets of the lease, so I've just got some questions. First of all, can the lease be assigned to another party? So if something happens, Edlin sells it, what's the process for that? Section 13 of the lease outlines assignment. It's an entire section that was written by our legal team. So I'm not going to get into the legal team, legalese, but yes, it can be assigned, but it has to be prior approval of Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, and there's a certain number of conditions in there. So I think I've answered your question. Yes, it can be, but the backstop is that we have sole discretion on that assignment, on approving that assignment. Okay. And I appreciate Vice Mayor Wu's questions. I had the mistake in the math that you kind of, you provided me some math, like it's substantial. So I see that the community, first of all, it's kind of a lower lease than we were expecting, and the community benefit agreement, if it's written in the lease as per megawatt, so that would only be about $8,000 or $9,000 at $125,000, not the number that you had provided, which is kind of closer to the expected number, which would be about $50,000. Yeah, correct. You are correct. My spreadsheet there that I answered your question is incorrect. I don't know if, here's my question is, if we're approving this lease and it says something differently, something that we're not, we weren't planning on, like $8,000 or $9,000 in a community benefit agreement, would we disapprove the lease, or would, how would we manage that? My response to you is not the language that's in the lease. The language that's in the lease does say $125 per megawatt hour. Megawatt DC does not say per acre. Okay. So basically we're looking at something that's a scale of probably less than 25% of what we were thinking a community benefit agreement would generate? That's approximately right. Okay. That kind of creates some issues, but we'll see how this rolls out. Then we talked a little bit about the stormwater fee is already, if I recall, in our task force meeting, we talked to the guys about the stormwater fee, and I feel like that's been calculated based on the actual coverage and what they were planning and the type of panels. Is that correct? Yes. So to clarify the water quality management fee, we reviewed that with legal and the folks over at water quality that do that, and they have determined that any large scale solar development would be considered developed land, which then kicks in the water quality management fee. So that is a why the water quality management fee, and because that would be a class B, if I corrected, is it a class B? It would be rated at a class B, which basically means you take the total amount of impervious surface and you divide that out, and it becomes a total number of ERUs, residential equipment units. And so essentially then the way they did that for solar, because this project will be using some fixed panels and some tilting panels, and so they provided a mathematical calculation where they basically said if the panel is flat, roughly a panel when it sits flat is about 15 square feet, but these panels won't be flat. So they'll be at roughly about 11, 18, you can correct me? 40 to 30 degree angle. So they did a little trigonometry, and they said, okay, if you had 15 square feet at this, you do the trigonometry, it is an amount less. And so they basically, it's a very solid mathematical calculation as to where they came up with their square footage, and then we took that amount of square footage, and that's how the water quality management fee. And that's why we won't know that exact amount until the array is actually built and we know the total number of panels it's actually built. Thank you. I've got 30 seconds left. There's, in the lease, there's also a mention of no other taxes. And so I really don't know what they're going to, like, I know the IRB is on the table, but I still thought they were subject to net profits tax. So what we've done, again, try to explain, in order to try to hit the investment tax credit deadlines that Edlin Renewables needs to do, they've got certain items that they have to do. So in order to do that, we broke the lease out, that's why we came before the body before, and we asked for the letter of intent. That opened up a few doors, let them start some conversations. The ground lease is the next step in that. It ties them in, now they have a ground lease at a set rate. And then the other items would be the pilot, which would be payment in lieu of taxes with the other taxes that you're referring to, and the IRB. Both of those follow additional steps through the Economic Development Board. And so those steps would follow on, and if for some reason Edlin Renewables project, they're depending on IRB, and if the Economic Development Board turned that down, then the project would not move forward. So again, it's going to come back across this body again when the IRB moves forward. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. So to follow up on Council Member Savigny's question, so the pilot agreement would include negotiation around the net profits tax? I'm going to ask one of the legal folks that's more. No, sorry. The legal in the back is shaking their head. No, it just relates to property tax. Okay, that's what I thought. But in the lease on page 10, it also says the tenant shall not be responsible for payment of any municipal, state, or federal income, income profits, or revenue tax. So does that mean they will not pay a net profit tax? I think we'll have to look into that. Okay, it's in section, it's page 10, section 7 under taxes, and it's like the third line down. The other thing I wanted to ask about is on page 19 of the lease, it says that the environmental attributes and tax benefits belong solely to the tenant. And some of the environmental attributes are around renewable energy credits. And we had talked about LFUCG being able to negotiate renewable energy credits. So where would that be in this process? So we retain the RFP document is incorporated by reference. And we negotiated that we would have the right of first refusal for any renewable energy credits. At this particular time, looking forward, looking at where we're at as far as our environmental policy and our 2045, imagine Lexington, if I've got that correctly, our reduction of greenhouse gases. I don't think we're where we need to be. So the best thing we basically thought was we can reserve that. So the renewable energy credits are going to go to the developer. That's going to be in any large-scale solar development. So we'll be able to buy them in the future if we want at market rate. We would be first at the table, but we would still have to pay market rate if we decide to buy those in the future. But I don't see that anywhere in a contract. It might be in the RFP, but the RFP isn't the actual agreement. The RFP is incorporated into the agreement by reference. That it's exhibit B or D. Okay, so then we would, but would that come to us later as another? It should have been an attachment on the file. No, the exhibits were, yes. The exhibits are there. I understand what you're saying there. But then buying those credits, is that going to come to us? Correct, yes. If it came across as a budget, assuming the dollar value was at an amount that needed council approval, then yes. Okay. And then on page 18, it talks about on the capped cells that they will utilize ballast or above-grade footing. But I don't, only a third of this project is on the capped landfill. So two-thirds of it are not. So what is the installation method? I don't see the installation method or any kind of guidelines around that in this lease for the uncapped areas. It would be, they would, again, it's incorporated by the reference, their proposal. It's part D, exhibit D. And they would be using piles, which is the standard for a large-scale solar. But why is one portion written into the lease, but the other is not? Because the landfill is really the sensitive thing. So we wanted to highlight and make sure that everybody is clear multiple times that this is all that's allowed on the landfill piece. Well, we have had extensive discussions around our solar zoda around the types of installation and how harmful certain types of installation can be for the environment. And so this is a piece that's important to me. So I understand why it might be here for the capped cells. But I do think it is important to spell it out in the lease agreement for the uncapped areas. And then I do have concerns about the rates and the lease rate at 85. And in this agreement, it doesn't say that the community benefit rate is minimum. It says the plan will be funded per annuum at a rate of 125 per megawatt DC. So this language in here does not indicate that it's a minimum. It says the community benefit agreement still has to be established and maintained. But the rate is spelled out in here as an exact rate. It's not a minimum. So I've run out of time. I'll sign back in. Okay, I believe it's in a different point where it says those are contingencies. Those items that that section spells it out, those are required items of the tenant. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Just for the record, regarding the, I guess we had talked about that $750 zoda language. That was not from silicon. Silicon didn't provide any numbers tied to CBA. So I just want to put that on the record. So the first question. The primary return on investment for the city appears to be the community benefits agreements and the lease agreements. Given that the lease revenue is required to go in the landfill fund and not the general fund, is it correct that the only direct and tangible benefit to the community and financial benefit to the community comes through the community benefits agreement? The total financial benefit that's going to come is, would be the rent. Because the rent's going to go into the landfill fund. The landfill fund is used to pay for things that are needed at the landfill. So if the landfill fund didn't exist, those expenses would be paid for by some other fund. So those funds are going to go to maintaining items out at Haley Pike Landfill. So the $30,000, roughly $30,000 in landfill fees that would go, that's going back to the landfill fund because that's where the money was generated from. And that's consistent with the Creech lease. We have another lease out there right now with Creech. And that's been in place for 25 years. And those funds go into the landfill fund. And then they're expended out there. So like if the tipping station that's out there now needs a new roof, then we would reach into the landfill fund and we would spend that $20,000 that we get from the Creech lease to pay for that. And that's money that doesn't have to come out of the general fund because it's taking care of an activity that's specifically on the landfill. Those restricted funds are being used exactly what they're restricted to, which is activities on the landfill. Right, so the lease is restricted to the landfill. Can't be used in general fund. The lease could be used on the landfill funds anywhere. The 4121 funds would be, which is supporting landfill activities. I'm not saying that they can only be spent on the landfill. I'll defer to legal to explain where any landfill funds are. But we'd use landfill funds associated with those activities that are outlined in that restricted fund. Right, right. So yeah, I think we're kind of saying the similar thing. Then the water quality management funds that would be generated by this would go back into, again, that larger water quality management fund and then those funds are used to maintain the stormwater system countywide. Thank you. I've got just a little bit of time and I kind of want to get through these. So just to be clear, the lease goes to the landfill fund. The community benefits agreement can go to a wider, whatever we see so fit, benefit. But that thing, the lease is locked into the landfill fund, undiscretionary. So the proposed lease rate at $30,000, 345 annually, calculated about $85 per acre. That's what it is. However, the Haley Pike Landfill potential reuse for utility scale solar economic analysis, the initial interest was 500 per acre. What does that initial interest mean? What did it mean when it said initial interest? The initial estimate from the, I believe the term was the initial estimate from the 2024 desktop study. So I'm referring to, I think, the 2021 first study where it says it reads the initial interest is $500 per acre. What did that mean by initial interest? So the 2021 study, I actually did that myself. Again, that was just an internal desktop study. And if the word interest is in there, then I can't recall why I used that specific word. But no, in 2021, we received a number of solicitation, not calls, I don't want to say solicitations. We received a number of calls from developers, and that was due to the fact that the United States EPA listed both of our landfills on the ReEmpower website. Which is basically, they put up a website of all these closed landfills and said, if you want to develop, here's some good land that might match solar development. So we did a desktop study then, and again, that was just a number to see. That's the number we came up with. It was only good for right when I did that. And what, if anything, has changed regarding the land value during this time frame? Anything? That number is not necessarily, there's a lot of numbers that go into the cost per acre of revenue that you would generate. It's not just the lease rate. There's the tariff that changes anytime Kentucky Utilities wants, or PJM. So there's a lot of different factors that go into what would make up that revenue. So the $500 that was in the study in 2021 was actually based off, and again, I'll say this was an error from being a rookie at that time. It was actually based off from Annapolis, Maryland's project, which is in a completely different electric market. So that's where that $500 came from. It basically, I extrapolated numbers out of the Annapolis, Maryland project, which is similar to this, a redevelopment on a closed landfill. So that's where that $500 per acre came from. Thank you. All right, thank you. I'm going to skip to the council members who haven't spoken yet. Council Member Boone. Thank you, Mayor. Obviously we're having a lot of discussions about solar. As far as what we've learned, maybe not in all projects, but there's a battery storage facility that's incorporated in some other project. Does this project have a battery storage facility? The initial proposal does not have a significant battery energy storage facility. I can let one of the, is it Chad? One of them explain, but the lease does allow for some battery energy storage systems. Welcome. I'm David Absher. I lead development for Edlin Renewables. At the moment, we are prohibited by statute of connecting battery storage at the transmission level. And so there's really not an opportunity or a demand market or a capacity market that we can avail ourselves of due to the statutes and what's been approved by the Public Service Commission. We have an interest and if things progress and it becomes viable, we may be able to follow up at the site. There's adequate space and we will already have the primary infrastructure in place to be able to maybe follow up on that at some point if the statutes change within the state. Actually, if the statutes change within Kentucky Utilities territory. That's great, thank you. And I have one more kind of follow up. It might be a law question, I guess, but this whole CBA agreement I think is appealing to a lot of people. But the only way we can really make it work on our end, it's kind of a transparency thing, is because we own the land and it's a lease agreement that we can actually charge a fee to use our land just as any other lease. But I just want to make it clear that that's kind of how this is structured, I guess. Yeah, basically the Community Benefits Program, we're basically saying if we wanted to, we could take that out and just raise the rent by that same amount of money because that would be what the project cash flows. But we wanted to keep it in there, again, because we felt from the ZOTA and from working with the Solar Work Group that that was something that was very important to many of the members of the body here, that having some in there. And so we put in as much as would cash flow at this point in the process. That's great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right, thank you. Now we'll go to a second round here. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I would like an affirmation from law that having the RFP, the proposal in the exhibit, is binding. Thank you. It's incorporated by reference into the agreement, so to the extent it doesn't contradict something that's in the lease, it would be binding. Okay. I have another question. You mentioned that there were offers on this land back in 2021. And I know of at least one proposal that was presented to government. So I don't think this is a question that you need to answer on the mic now, but I do want information from probably the law department about why, if we had to RFP it out now when we had an unsolicited proposal, why we didn't have to RFP it out when we had at least one proposal before. So to clarify, Council Member, we didn't receive any actual proposals. We got a lot of interest into that. Or I'm not aware of us actually receiving an unsolicited proposal. We got a lot of calls to see whether or not we had interest in developing it, but nothing that I was aware of that went to the proposal level. I think I have been given some conflicting information regarding that, so that there was a presentation to this government on a proposal. I feel like I have raised some questions today that I, like the net profits tax, the systems that will be used for installation, and I understand the RFP proposal piece that you're talking about, but I still have credit questions. I think we're undervaluing this land, and so I am hesitant to vote yes to move this forward at this moment until the rest of my questions are answered. I do support solar installation here, and I do support brownfield installation in particularly, but I feel like this is moving very fast, which I understand the timelines, but I still have questions, and I feel like with those questions remaining that I can say yes to this today. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Dugas, can you clarify for me, we heard one-third and two-third, but I wouldn't mind some solid numbers. Of the 357 acres, how many acres are landfill, and how many acres are AR land? Take me a second to find out. Exactly the total amount that is on Area A, they're proposing to develop 53 out of the 53 acres, so Area A would be, and out of Area B, they're proposing to put solar on 70 of the 105 acres is what is in their proposal, and the RFP went out, and I believe the RFP asked for a minimum of 33% of the capped landfill to be used, and they've greatly exceeded that amount that we put was the minimum. Okay, so 50? 53. 53 acres is landfill? And 70 is 123 out of 350. Say that again, 123 out of? The 123 out of 357. So about a third is landfill? Right. Of that, okay. I shared Council Member Sheehan's concern when these numbers kind of came up about the installation. Obviously, like we have said in detail in the lease about how the installation will work on the capped land, but not on the uncapped, not on the ag land, so I think I would love to see some detail in here as well because there are some environmental concerns there. I share a lot of the concerns of my colleagues, and in particular, I would love to see us have the community benefits agreement solidified as a part or a prerequisite to this lease going through. Right now, it does feel like there are a number of unanswered questions and concerns, particularly around some of these rates, so thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. We can ask for clarification. Would you like just the funding for the community benefits or the actual program? Because we don't know, because it could take months to work out it, so if we could work on a minimum funding level, that's the higher priority, correct? I agree with you. I think the funding level is something that could be locked down earlier, and we can work out the details of what that benefit looks like, but I think the rate is something that's important, and there's obviously some disparity between our recommended or proposed rates versus what's in here, so I'd like to see it locked down, not just a minimum, because a minimum could be, I mean, if it's 125, it could remain at 125, and I think that's concerning for some of us. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. So based on the highlighted $125 per megawatt and just tied to that CBA that we've been discussing, what is the estimated annual total community benefits payment annually? I believe it's around $8,125 times $357. Sorry, I don't have that number memorized off the top of my head. Okay, so roughly $8,000, and if we go for 15 years, so currently just about $120,000 for 15 years. So what then, the next follow-up, if the project is 100% successful, what is the full return on investment for the developer, for the solar project? That would be a question for Mr. Edelman. Good question. It's one my financiers often ask. The reason nobody responded to the RFP for this project is because people aren't lining up councilmen to spend $85 million on a dump. This project is 30%—we are able to price the power at 30% less than market rate. So for instance, my Martin County project where we sold to Toyota, that was at an elevated level because that's the private company we're working with. Because in Kentucky, we have to hit the levelized cost of energy as not to negatively or adversely impact the ratepayer—yours and mine—we are 30% lower than what we would normally charge for the price of power. At the same time, we have a very difficult project to build on here. This is a dump. It is a landfill. It has legacy environmental liabilities that we have to make sure are protected, not just through our financier who wants to see liability limited, not just through the insurance companies who want to see their liability limited, but the net result is you have a project that is 40% more expensive to build than if I build it on a horse pasture somewhere. So councilman, the net result is I have a project here that will not yield even a 10% rate of return for the developer. That is generally not acceptable in the finance community in my space. And the reason that the developers are willing to do this for me is because I am passionate about this project, because Kentucky is getting left behind in terms of being a pioneer in the green energy space, and if Lexington doesn't lead, who will? Okay, thank you. I've got a lot—I don't have much time and it's my last time speaking, but I guess—so you said 10% and you're— Oh, not even. We won't approach 10%. We hope to be in the ballpark, but this isn't a project that anybody does that makes economic sense. Thank you. And the reason the numbers are low is because the math doesn't math. Thank you. Currently, there are existing parcels on the landfill currently zoned agricultural, right? That is correct. They are. They are. And under the current ZOTA, the adopted solar ZOTA, that is not allowed, correct? That would not be allowed if it wasn't LFUCG, but since this is LFUCG, by statute, we don't have to adhere to our own zoning. Thank you. Can you talk about the studies conducted—I mean, you mentioned the 2021 study—you talked about that study and then what other studies after that was supposed to take place and if they're going to take place or not and why not. So the 2001 study, again, was a desktop study that was based solely on the number of calls the mayor's office was receiving at that time. And the reason we didn't move forward in 2021 was the fact that we had some notice of violations for some leachates. The EPA had just changed some regulations and some contaminant levels. So we basically said we at this position, at that time, we were not going to move forward. So that's why everything stopped right then, because we were not going to develop on a landfill that currently had notices of violation. So then in 2024, if this body approved, we completed those leachate improvements. They just finished. And that's when we started the desktop feasibility study to line up with those leachate studies, those leachate improvements being completed. So we did that desktop study. And then we went—last spring, we asked for additional money through the budget process because we knew that desktop study was not a complete—we knew that, again, it just gave us, is it worth spending any more money to move forward to see if this project. So we were approved through this body for $250,000 to do the next phase of the study. And we had planned on doing that next phase of the study, but right as we were getting ready to put the RFP for that out, we received an unsolicited proposal from Edlin Renewables. That basically triggered some state statutes, the P3 statutes that basically said we had to address that unsolicited proposal. And so we moved forward, addressing that unsolicited proposal, and we said—so we have paused. If for some reason this project does not move forward, those funds that were approved by this board, the majority of them remain unspent, and those would be potentially used to complete that phase 2 study, or we would revisit whether to do that phase 2 study, because the ITC, the sunsetting of the tax credit, essentially changes the numbers. So if this project doesn't move forward on this timeline, it is unlikely that we would do that study, because we already know, based on the work we've done in the last few months, that the project's not going to cost. It's not going to cost out without the tax credit. For short, your expert opinion is we don't need the studies then? I'm sorry, I couldn't quite understand you. For short, your expert opinion is essentially we don't need those other studies now, being that we have a lease agreement in front of us? It would be unlikely that we would need to do the phase 2 study, but again, that's a decision that we would make—again, I'm not making that decision right now. That's a decision that the administration would make based on whatever the outcome of this proposal is. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. It looks like I'm the last one signed up. First of all, I just want to tell you, I can speak for myself. I definitely want solar in all places that it can go. And I do really appreciate the Eland Associates for putting together a project that they're trying to make work. I truly appreciate it. I think what you heard today was that it will be hard for us to approve lease language that isn't actually correct. Like you've got actually some mistakes in there. And then I think there's a bunch of people that probably would rather have a 30-minute conversation with you directly about different parts of the lease to understand it better. Because I believe if we approve it, it's done. And there's no other bite at the apple. There's no other correction. And I want that for Eland Associates. I want it to be done. I'm hoping, I'm going to make a motion to table for one week. And I'm hoping that that one week allows you enough time to clean up the language the way it should be. And then have people more satisfied so that I would rather it be a very large yes vote than a split vote at this point. So with that, I'm going to make the motion that we table item D for one week to the 2-17 work session. So moved. Second. All right. So that's February 17th. That's fine. All right. Now, point of order. It should be, I think, postponed to a certain date. Yes, tabled to a time certain. Well, or postponed. Postponed to a time. I think is the word. I'll use whatever verbiage is parliamentary and whichever is correct. Postponed to a date certain. Yes. Thank you. Postponed until 2-17 work session. And we had a second. Who seconded? I'll second. Okay. Council Member Morton seconded. A motion to postpone is debatable. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to ask the applicant, will a week make a difference on this if we? Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to the motion to postpone? All right. All those in favor of postponing until February 17th work session, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dugas. We are still on new business, folks. So is there anything else? Any other questions about new business? All right. All those in favor of approval, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. We do have some communications from the mayor. First is appointments. Could I have a motion? So moved. Second. Vice Mayor Wu. Second by Council Member Reynolds. Are there questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? To recuse the rest of the item because I'm on it. Oh, okay. Yes, you are on it. So we have one recusal, Council Member Ellinger. That motion passes. We do not have donations. We do have communications from the mayor on procurements. Could I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Council Member Savigny. Second by Council Member Curtis. Any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. That brings us to continuing business presentations. I'll entertain a motion to approve Council Capital Projects. So moved. Second. Council Member Reynolds. Second by Vice Mayor Wu. Are there any questions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And next up, we have General Gov and Planning Committee. So I'll ask Council Member Sheehan if she will give us that report. Thank you, Mayor. The January 20th, 2026 General Government and Planning Committee was called to order at 1 p.m. The December 2nd, 2025 summary was unanimously approved. The committee received an update on the Downtown Area Master Plan, a year-long data-driven effort launched in July 2025 to guide the future of downtown Lexington through community input and market analysis. Boyd Seway, Principal Planner in Long Range Planning, reported strong engagement, including a community event with more than 200 participants and an online survey. Public priorities focused on affordable housing, neighborhood character, walkability, safety, transit, and green infrastructure. Seway outlined a framework to define downtown, distinguishing the central business district, downtown core, and a surrounding area of influence. Council discussion addressed affordability, safety, equity, potential street conversions, multi-displacement strategies, and possible future implementation tools as analysis continues. For the second presentation, Council Member Lynch introduced rural settlements. Jim Duncan, Director of Planning, summarized Fayette County's 16 rural settlements and reviewed prior studies, including the 1971 Rural Settlement Survey, the 1999 Rural Land Management Plan, and a 2006 University of Kentucky Partnership Study with continued relevance through the 2023 Urban Service Area Discussions. Council discussion focused on implementation, property rights, concerns about historic overlays, the importance of owner-supported approaches, and the need to document community history. Lynch concluded by announcing plans to convene a diverse working group to develop settlement-specific recommendations. During the annual review of committee items, three items were removed. The meeting adjourned at 2.13 p.m., and that concludes my report. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Members, do you have any questions for Council Member Sheehan? All right, thank you. The next is the Street Safety Task Force Final Report, and I believe that two of the Council Aides, Alyssa McKenzie and Sylvia Cassidy, will make this presentation. Welcome. Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council Members, Alyssa McKenzie, 10th District Legislative Aid, and I'm with Sylvia Cassidy, the 5th District Legislative Aid today. And last October, we shared a partial report out of the Street Safety Task Force's work through September and 12 recommendations created throughout the year. Today we'll share the final report of the task force and what's happened since October, and the action plan developed that will guide the implementation of those 12 recommendations. Some of this will be familiar information, and some of this will be new information. To start out, we're going to do a quick recap. The task force was formed at the beginning of 2025 to address the public's demand for safer streets for all modes of transportation, and it focused on short-term, high-impact projects that could be replicable throughout all districts. And the goal of the task force was to create these recommendations, but also to create a living document, a matrix and action plan to guide the implementation of the recommendations in a timely, collaborative manner, similar to the Complete Streets Action Plan. In October, Council Members submitted a fund balance request for five out of the 12 recommendations presented, and in November and December, the group began work on the how and who of the recommendation implementation, creating the action plan and matrix to execute those items. The task force met for its last meeting in December, and in January, members of the task force, community advocates, presented at the Kentuckians for Better Transportation Conference. They shared how the work of local government, community advocates, and elected officials can help improve street safety. And now we have our final report, and throughout this year, components of the action plan will be implemented. The group met monthly, had three subgroups, and there were two council members who worked on each subgroup, and many of the task force members will continue to be involved in the implementation of the action plan, those who are already doing this work, as well as council members who expressed interest in particular items and recommendations from the partial report out. In October, we emphasized that this is an emergency, and that has not changed. Before getting into the how-to of implementing the recommendations, we want to focus on the who, the actual individuals who are impacted. Because of mode, street safety affects every resident and their overall quality of life. And we have the 20 to 2025 numbers, but we want to look specifically at 2025. So last year, there were 1,752 collisions with injuries, and one car on this slide equals 24 collisions. There were 99 serious injuries, 41 collisions with fatalities, 15 pedestrian fatalities, and one bicycle fatality. So this is just reported numbers. This doesn't include unreported crashes or near misses. And as we continue this presentation, we want to keep in mind that these aren't just numbers. These are individuals whose lives and health and families have been affected by completely preventable crashes. Continuing to center people who are impacted, public engagement was prioritized throughout the year. That didn't stop in October. And in addition to the task force being shared at neighborhood meetings, newsletters, and social media, the Submit a Traffic Complaint site that we talked about in October, it was developed by the Lexington Police Department's PIO office, continued to receive submissions, and they received 569 since last summer. That includes complaints that had multiple entries or multiple issues cited. After the recommendations were presented, there was a recommendation feedback survey created on Engage Lexington, and that was a way for community members to share which recommendations they felt would make the greatest difference. The top three items were a roundabout study, no parking in bike lane ordinance, and automated enforcement. And finally, we have the mapping tool that we mentioned in October, and it has updated numbers. This was the map where people could drop a pin at a location that they felt was safe or unsafe. And there were four comments. The bike lane obstruction, bike infrastructure, and pedestrian crossing were the top comments. There were 250 total responses, 61 participants, and you can see the map on the right side is a breakdown of where respondents live, not where they dropped pins. And so these tools, along with the previous slide, highlight the importance of including the community in the conversation throughout and really centering who is impacted. And that brings us to our recommendations. So these are the 12 that you saw in October, and after the presentation, council members on the task force connected with council members who expressed interest in working on specific recommendations and leading them forward. Fund balance allocations meant that some items could move forward to the appropriate divisions, some were entered into committee, and some are in the early stages of gathering information or data. And the council members who are guiding or leading this work are listed here in the right column. And the idea was to ensure continuity and sustainability by having a mix of council members who were and were not on the task force with divisions and staff listed in more detail in the action plan and matrix to continue the work beyond today and beyond this year. So with that, I'll hand it over to Sylvia, who will talk more about what these recommendations look like through the lens of the action plan. All right, thank you, Alyssa. Again, my name is Sylvia Cassidy, and I am the legislative aide for the 5th district. I would like to remind council members that there is a copy of the street safety task force action plan in today's packet. This document is an addendum to the complete streets action plan, and it outlines how LFUCG will implement the recommendations the street safety task force presented during our partial report out last October. The street action plan is not a static document, but a working plan for how to address immediate safety concerns on our transportation network. Please expect the council sponsors to provide updates on the status of these recommendations as they move forward. Today I will be giving a more high-level overview of how the street safety action plan and cover major items that we expect to be underway by the end of 2026. So I'll start with the engineering subgroup, who examined how the physical design of our streets and roads impacts our safety. Their recommendations included a combination of feasibility studies, as well as testing and building the city's quick build infrastructure, or the low-cost, rapidly implemented and scalable infrastructure improvements like the high street bike lane. Council funded three engineering recommendations during fund balance discussions. The roundabout feasibility study and quick build pilot are using data to determine which sites to evaluate. The two studies are relying on consultants to conduct their analyses, and the quick build program is completing its structure and implementation plan and will determine funding and staffing needs for future implementation of quick builds in Fayette County. Thank you to council members Curtis, Brown, Sheehan, Reynolds, and Hale for your sponsorship of engineering's recommendations. The education and engagement subgroup looked at how the community can create and sustain a culture that supports street safety. Their recommendations clarify who is responsible for different Complete Streets initiatives within LFUCG and how to expand this work. It will also develop resources so that internal and external parties, such as contractors, consultants and designers, have a firm grasp of Complete Streets principles. Finally, it will create a framework to empower community members to be involved in the rollout of the Complete Streets projects and better advocate for safe roadways in their neighborhoods. Much of this work builds off of each other, and I look forward to seeing Vice Mayor Wu, Council Members Morton, and Hale's leadership on the education and engagement items. Lastly, enforcement, they examined the ways we can encourage behavior that promotes multimodal transportation and curbs high-risk driving habits. Their recommendations included data-driven evaluation of interventions at high-risk intersections, strengthening law enforcement's ability to penalize traffic infractions, and passing new legislation to prohibit unwanted behaviors. Already two items are in the SSPS Committee. Teams are engaged in cross-municipal coalition building, and preliminary data is being collected to test signage as a means of enforcement. Thank you to Council Members Savigny, Curtis, Lynch, and Baxter for your sponsorship of these items. So next steps. The establishment of the Street Safety Task Force shows that Lexington is committed to implementing Complete Streets policy throughout our city. Many of these recommendations will take years to implement, and I encourage Council Members to remain grounded in the community advocacy that brought us here today. We realize that budgets are tight and funding must go where it is needed most. As Alyssa said before, Lexington is still in a street safety crisis, and the work to make our roads safer and implement the Complete Streets plan will require sustained support and action. To see how the Task Force has planned for these next steps, we have a QR code which will direct you to the Street Safety Task Force Action Plan here on the screen, and Alyssa and I are happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. Council Members, do you have questions? Log in please if you do. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you Ms. McKenzie and Ms. Cassidy for your, not just this presentation, but the work that we've been doing in this past year. I don't have much to add to this report. I think we've done a very productive year of work and policy recommendations. I want to kind of tie it to more current conversations we've been having relating to snow removal and the weather that we've had. As we are moving towards an after action plan and hopefully looking at new strategies to kind of tackle all the different types of weather that we're getting, one of the things that we did get a lot of from constituents was not only talking about our streets plowed, but a lot of folks talked about pedestrian, cyclist, and other accessibility issues of not being able to get around, not even talking about cars. So I would love for us as we move forward, re-evaluate, and strategize with a better winter response plan that we do kind of think holistically, that we think about these recommendations that we put forth, that we think about the complete streets concept, and really obviously need to focus on our streets and roads, but also think about our sidewalks, think about our accessibility, think about our public transit, things like that. So thank you all very much. Thank you Mayor. Thank you. I'll pass it over to Diane. Thank you, Mayor. I want to just extend my thanks briefly to everyone who served on the task force, certainly our legislative staff that helped so much on this, and particularly you two for the work that you've done on putting together the action plan and the presentations that you've done to Council to keep us informed. I also want to thank the community members who have all engaged throughout this process by attending our task force meetings, going on Engage Lexington, giving us comments, talking to us at neighborhood meetings and in the community. I was just talking about the results of this task force at a neighborhood meeting last night, and there seems to be really good public interest in the work that we're doing. And I also want to thank all of the Council members who were not only involved in the task force, but that now have also agreed to see our recommendations along, so that is a significant portion of Council now, and I appreciate the work that you have already done and will continue to do to make sure that we see these items through. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. And first off, thanks, Alyssa and Sylvia, for wrapping up so much work that went into such great detail in such a distinct and digestible way for folks. We are so appreciative of you and the rest of our staff who have put so much effort into all of this. I really don't have questions for you, to be honest, but I do want to take a second and speak about my experience on this task force, because this is ultimately, this is why I ran for office to begin with, was the belief that in local government, we have the ability to tackle these sorts of granular issues that have a tangible impact in our community in a way that is more direct. So often, when I was just a resident of the city of Lexington, and you start talking about things that we can do to make our roads less terrible, the immediate response is that it's impossible or it's too gargantuan a task, that these types of projects are going to take forever to do anything to make any progress. And I think that the amount of progress we've made within the scope of this task force over the past year has been extraordinary. And as far as issues impacting my constituents go, and issues impacting all Lexingtonians, transportation is the biggest issue, as far as I'm concerned. I know I have been a broken record about this, and I promise you I will continue to be a broken record about this, because it is the only issue, it impacts every single Lexingtonian. It is a public safety issue, it is an issue of resources, and as we have seen with this winter weather emergency, when we do not have safe and efficient means to get from point A to point B, whether that is as a driver, as somebody who's utilizing public transit, as a pedestrian, as somebody who's riding a bike, whatever mode of transportation you use, you have to have access to it. Even if you are a complete shut-in and you never leave your house, if you are going to have resources that you need to stay alive, people need to be able to access effective and safe streets. And so, I am so excited about the items that I've sponsored and that my colleagues have sponsored, and I genuinely am so, so proud of the work that we've done, and I'm especially appreciative of Councilmember Savigny, and of Councilmember Sheehan, who I was lucky enough to co-chair the engineering subgroup with for both just the intense amount of work that they put in, and for the kindness and mentorship that they've shown me throughout the process. I could not be more grateful, I could not be more proud of the work that everyone has done, and I'm looking forward to being a broken record about how we can fix our roads in the months and years to come. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Savigny. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this presentation. It was great, just like I knew it would be, so I do appreciate the work that you did on it. I also wanted to thank the task force. If you're a task force member, can you raise your hand, or if you have ever presented to us in the task force? Jeff, I think you were there once. Anyway, I want to, I think the coolest piece of this experience was some of the things that we discovered. One agency of government not knowing that the other, left hand not knowing exactly what the right hand was doing, especially when it came to traffic analytics and the information that these guys had at the tip of their fingers. And police was like, wow, we didn't know we had that tool. So I think that was kind of the exciting piece for me. It's great to break down silos in government and have people all working on one thing. So I truly enjoyed it, and I really appreciate the task force members showing up. We had great attendance. We had probably 95% attendance every meeting. So I do appreciate that, and I look forward to where this is going. So, and I do appreciate the council members who have stepped up with some sort of interest on items. It's, and if you, there's still time to say that you are interested in one, and there might be something in your district that is actually, is something that's a known problem. It is kind of fun to work on a specific problem in a very positive way. So, thank you, thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Any other questions? All right, thank you so much for your presentation. All right, that brings us to council reports. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Thank, well, also, I didn't say it during that presentation, but I also wanted to thank both Sylvia and Alyssa for their presentation, that was great. And then also thank all the members that took part on the task force for their great work, and I look forward to working on some of those initiatives. So with that, I'll just make a motion to place experimental engagement and placemaking in the Environmental Quality Public Works Committee, so moved. All right, is there a second? Second. Council Member Savigny. Any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Thank you. And then lastly, I just wanted to shout out. So our office has this initiative that we're doing for Black History Month. We're rolling out a Black History Calendar, and it's actually going to roll out tomorrow. And what that's going to look like is pretty much a public-facing calendar where community members can go look at the calendar and attend any Black History Month event throughout Lexington that they like. So what that will consist of is pretty much a name of the event, a date and time, and then a short description. So if there's any folks that have any Black History Month that they would like added to that calendar, please send it to our office at district1 at lexingtonky.gov. And if you're looking to attend some Black History Month events, just hit my council website page, and you'll see that lovely calendar. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I, too, want to thank my colleagues who worked on the Street Safety Task Force and all their hard work, really impressed with their work, so thank you. And I just had one announcement. I wanted to say happy birthday to Kendra Thompson. She is in our council core staff, and she's been around here for a long time, and she has to be here on her birthday. And she does so much work in the background. I'm so appreciative of her with social services and public safety, staffing that committee, and she puts up with all of us, which is a big task, so happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to echo everyone and just thank everyone for their work that they've done on the Street Safety Task Force. Thank you, Sylvia and Alyssa, for your presentation. And building upon the efforts of the Street Safety Task Force and following discussions with Vice Mayor Wu, we'll be combining items 2.3 and 2.4 of the task force's education and engagement recommendations. Accordingly, I move to place complete streets in education and messaging in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee with Council Member Morton and myself as co-sponsors, so move. Second. All right, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there any questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Anything else? Okay, all right. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I have just a few announcements for my district two neighbors. The Black Williams Neighborhood Center will be hosting some Black History events that are open to the whole community. One being on February 16th at 2.30 PM, they'll be showing a movie for Black History Month. And then on February 18th from 5 to 7 PM, there will be a trivia night at the Black Williams Gymnasium, so please come out. Those are free activities for the community. Also this weekend, Council Member Beasley and I will be speaking at a Black History Month program. It'll be taking place, I'm sorry, at 9.30 AM. It's actually an all day conference. And it will be at the Fayette County Extension Office Held Back of Hall. So it's a free, I think it's free, community event open to the whole public. So please come out this weekend, not only to hear us speak, but to hear some other dynamic speakers from the community that will be participating in this program. Also, this month, WSEP, which is a youth community program that is housed at the Black Williams Neighborhood Center will be having their annual Black History program. If you've ever attended a WSEP event, you know you need to get there early in order to get a seat, because it packs out. And so their event will be on February 28th, which is a Saturday. The doors open at 1.30 PM, and the program starts at 2 PM. It's always a fantastic event. The youth put on a phenomenal show. So I encourage everyone to come out to the WSEP Black History Month program at the end of the month. And then lastly, the Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association will be having their Valentine's Day party this Saturday, starting at 7 PM. You are required to be ages 50 and up to attend. They will be checking IDs. So make sure that you are the right age to come and party this Saturday. There'll be light refreshments, music, and opportunities with a photographer. So I invite all my district neighbors and district one neighbors to come out to this Valentine's Day event, which is always a fun time on this Saturday. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to remind all of our neighbors that tomorrow is our city hall to center parkway. So from four to seven, we'll be at 1165 Center Parkway. You do not need an appointment to see us. You can just come down there and see us. I will be late, but my legislative aide, Maxine Sims, will be there at four. We have the homelessness task force meeting, and I'll be there as soon as that's over. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few items to enter into committee. I'd like to enter the item engineering manual updates into the EQBW committee with an update scheduled for March 3rd. And I would like to enter the item safe streets update into EQBW committee, which will include updates on action items from the street safety task force, the complete streets, and vision zero. That's all I have. Thank you very much. He is the chair, so he can just do it. Isn't it nice that I get to not have to be seconded? That's right. But see, you have support anyway. It's nice. All right. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to echo all the thanks for the street safety task force, particularly our co-chairs, Council Member Sheehan and Savigny, and Council Members Curtis, Baxter, former Council Member Legree, as well as our staff, Tori, Sylvia, Alyssa, and others, for all the work that you all have done. Also, a huge shout out to both the staff, but also the task force members inside and outside our government who have made the work of this task force possible and who are all continuing to create safer and more accessible streets in their day-to-day work. So after today's final report, I, as Vice Mayor, am officially disbanding the street safety task force. Thank you all again for your work. One other thing. This past weekend, I had the honor of speaking to over 100 members of the African community at St. Luke's Church. Here in Lexington, we have a vibrant African community encompassing a diverse array of nations, languages, and cultures. It was a terrific conversation, and I got to hear a lot about the concerns and challenges for these communities. Thank you to Serge Kalinde for coming out and for organizing and inviting me to this event. Some of you all might remember a year ago, he sang Amazing Grace for us at our swearing in ceremony beautifully. I also wanted to thank all the community and government leaders who showed up, including our new director of Global Lex, Basel Touchan. Communities like these make our city richer, and I really look forward to continuing these conversations and connections in order to better support all of our immigrant and refugee communities. So, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. That brings us to public comment for issues not on the agenda, and we do not have anyone signed up. So, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. There were several. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much for coming. I would say, now the old king's dead, long live the king. One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me. And I discovered that my castle stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand. I hear Jefferson bells are ringing, Roman cavalry choirs are singing. Me, my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field. For some reason I can't explain, once you've gone there was never, never an honest word. That was when I moved on. It was the wicked and wild wind, blew down the doors to let me in. Shattered windows and the sound of drums, people couldn't believe what I'd become. Revolutionaries wait for my hand on a silver plate, just a puppet on a lonely string. Who would ever want to be king? I hear Jefferson bells are ringing, Roman cavalry choirs are singing. Me, my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field. For some reason I can't explain, I know St. Peter won't call my name, never an honest word. But that was when I ruled the world. I hear Jefferson bells are ringing, Roman cavalry choirs are singing. Me, my mirror, my sword and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field. For some reason I can't explain, I know St. Peter won't call my name, never an honest word. But that was when I ruled the world. Mmmm... Mmmmm... Mmm!.. There is a fire starting in my heart... Reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out the dark... Finally I can see you crystal clear... Go ahead and tell me out and I'll lay your shit bare... See how I'll leave with every piece of you... Daughter...