# Police & Fire Pension Board Meeting - February 11, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Board · February 11, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6687 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6687?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-02-11 - **Body**: Board - **Last revised**: February 13, 2026 - **Length**: 13,248 words - **Speakers**: Mayor > ⚠️ **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 Government Police and Fire Retirement Pension Fund Board met on February 11, 2026, with Mayor Gorton presiding. The meeting covered three agenda items, all of which were informational in nature: the Calen Report, the Treasurer's Report, and Tributes. Across the course of the meeting, the Board took a total of 7 votes. No public comments were heard during the session. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the Board meeting held on February 11, 2026: - John Jackson - Jim O'Connor - Chief Wells - Commissioner Hensley - Lieutenant Abel - Officer Jennings - Officer Marlin - Major Swiderski - Chad - Susan **Absent:** Tommy No members were recorded as late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The Board took action on seven items at the February 11, 2026 meeting, all of which passed by voice vote. - **Treasurer's Report and Transfer Letter for Payroll** [timestamp: 40:25]: A motion to approve the Treasurer's Report and Transfer Letter for Payroll was made by a Commissioner and seconded by a Commissioner. The motion passed by voice vote. - **January Minutes** [timestamp: 40:55]: The January meeting minutes were approved by voice vote. No mover or seconder was recorded. - **Widow's Annuity for Linda Rourke and Teresa Walsh** [timestamp: 41:26]: Lieutenant Abel moved and Major Swiderski seconded approval of widow's annuities for Linda Rourke and Teresa Walsh. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Ghost Time Purchases for Shane Callahan, Ricky Euler, and Jeremiah Littrell** [timestamp: 41:57]: The Board approved ghost time purchases for Shane Callahan, Ricky Euler, and Jeremiah Littrell by voice vote. No mover or seconder was recorded. - **February Disbursements** [timestamp: 42:27]: Chief Wells moved and Commissioner Hensley seconded approval of disbursements for February. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Disabilities** [timestamp: 42:57]: The Board approved disabilities by voice vote. No mover or seconder was recorded. - **Return of Medical Report to Dr. Owen for Clarification** [timestamp: 42:57]: Officer Jennings moved and Officer Marlin seconded a motion to send a medical report back to Dr. Owen for clarification. The motion passed by voice vote. All seven motions were decided by voice vote; no roll call votes were taken, and no nays or abstentions were recorded for any item. ## Calen Report [timestamp: 03:00] John Jackson and Jim O'Connor presented the quarterly report on the performance of the Police and Fire Retirement Pension Fund, covering market trends and fund performance. This item was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken by the Board. No additional details regarding specific performance figures, market commentary, or concerns raised during the presentation are available in the meeting record. ## Treasurer's Report [timestamp: 38:24] The Treasurer, Chad, presented the financial status of the fund to the Board. The presentation covered the fund's current asset allocation and cash flow, as well as ongoing transitions between fund managers. This item was informational in nature, with no action or vote required from the Board. *Note: Additional details regarding specific figures, allocation percentages, manager names, or concerns raised during the discussion are not available in the source data for this meeting.* ## Tributes [timestamp: 43:27] The Board recognized several individuals who had passed away, acknowledging their service and contributions to the community. Tributes were presented by Chief Weathers and Chief Wells. The outcome of this agenda item was informational, with no action taken by the Board. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of Treasurer's Report and Transfer Letter for Payroll - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of January minutes - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of widow's annuity for Linda Rourke and Teresa Walsh - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of ghost time purchases for Shane Callahan, Ricky Euler, and Jeremiah Littrell - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of disbursements for February - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of disabilities - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Send medical report back to Dr. Owen for clarification --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ We have a quorum. And so I'll go ahead and call to order the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Government Police and Fire Retirement Pension Fund. And today is February 11th, 2026. And the first item on the agenda is our Calen report. And we have John Jackson and we have Jim O'Connor, its quarterly report. So welcome. Good morning. Hope everyone is doing well. A little bit of Chicago weather descended in Kentucky recently. I see you're rebounding so we brought the warmer weather with us. We're going to spend a few minutes today talking about the markets and the performance of the fund through the fourth quarter of 2025. I'm going to be reading from the book that's labeled Executive Summary. It's a white bound book. And I'll be advancing the slides. So let's move forward here. And go right to the overall market performance. And what we saw in the fourth quarter closed a year that was defined by a lot of volatility, policy shifting, geopolitical events, just to name a few. As the Fed has pursued its continued efforts to strike the balance between its dual mandate of full employment and stable pricing. Oftentimes these two goals may conflict in terms of a weakening labor market and an elevated inflation picture. So a challenging task to say the least. We saw that the equity markets really were quite resilient on the back of consumers. Corporate earnings have been strong. GDP, which is the measure of growth of the economy, continues to do well. In February they announced the fourth quarter estimate and it was up about 4.2%. So steady growth coming from the economy. Unemployment at 4.4% is stable. Inflation ticking down from 3% to 2.7% at year end. And the sentiment in terms of the consumer, we have a little bit of a shifting sentiment from enthusiasm to concern as we see it. In 2025 gold prices, which is perceived as a hedge, was up some 66%. So again, a lot of folks out there are looking at the events of the equity markets in the last three years. We had two 20 plus percent returns last year. The S&P 500 was up over 17%. So we have three consecutive years of very strong U.S. Equity markets. Valuations are elevated. Some would say price to perfection. So when you get to that level, and it was historically over that period been driven largely by the AI, artificial intelligence, anything linked with that, performed pretty well. We did see in the fourth quarter some broadening of the market. So we talked about the magnificent seven, which are, you know, the AI related information technology stocks were really driving the marketplace. While we saw over the 2025 actually only two of the seven outperformed the broad index. So again, we see that as a good thing. You know, it continues to be, equity markets continues to be concentrated in the top ten names, but representing 40% of the valuation of the S&P 500. But the fact that performance is broadening is a good thing. We've seen some interesting large cap stocks have continued outperform small cap stocks. And that's been a trend long-term. We expect small cap stocks to outperform, but in the short term, they have lagged pretty significantly, particularly over the last five years. We did see some change taking place in the month of October. For instance, if we look, I mean, January, as we see, the S&P 500 was up 1.4, and the small cap stocks were up over five. So again, 4% outperformance for small cap stocks in January as an illustration. So again, we're seeing some rotation in the markets. Concerns overall, the Fed did cut rates three times, twice in the last year. The Fed did cut rates three times, twice in the last, in 2025, two times in the last quarter. In January, they chose to hold rates steady. Chairman Powell said no immediate hurry to cut rates. Again, he is in the waning months of his term. President Trump has selected a new term, which is the interim term. So again, we're seeing some changes. We're seeing some changes. We're seeing some changes. We're seeing some changes. We're seeing some changes. We're seeing some changes. The Fed has chosen to hold rates steady. President Trump has selected his nomination for candidate to replace him. So his Powell's position as a Fed governor extends through 2028 but remains to be seen once he is his chairmanship expires, whether he's going to stay on in that position. So with that, if we look at the numbers here, the rates and dates, if you will, I'll call your attention to the S&P 500, which was up 2.7% for the quarter. Again, more of a modest increase. But over the one-year period, again, up 17.9%. In a departure from recent trends, we saw the non-U.S. equities outperforming U.S. equities. So over the one-year period, we see the broad all-country world index excluding U.S. stocks was up 31.8%. Emerging markets, up 33.6%. So again, that diversification that we see in the non-U.S. equity markets certainly come to the forefront in a period like 2025. But if you look over the five-year period, you still see the S&P 500 was up 14.4%. And if you look over the five-year period, you still see the S&P 500 was up 14.4%. And the world X U.S. was up 9.46%. So again, that leadership over the longer term in the U.S. equity markets, the exceptional returns. Longer term, as we look, Calen projects capital markets returns over the next decade. We see that U.S. and non-U.S. equity returns are roughly in line from our projection standpoint. Certainly helping the global equities or the non-U.S. equities has been the weakening of the dollar. Certainly it's been pretty flattish the last two quarters of the year. But for the first half, we saw a significant weakening in the dollar which is additive for U.S. investors investing abroad as those foreign currencies are repatriated back into the U.S. dollars. Real estate markets, we saw, again, a bottoming out over the one-year period. Real estate has generated a return of about 4.9%. So over the last three years, real estate still has that negative return overhang at about 1% negative. When we look at the NAE REIT, those are REIT stocks that are daily traded in the U.S. equity markets. It's correlated with U.S. equity. So we see that over the last three years, it's generated an annualized return of about 8.4%. Inflation, as we said, at 2.7%. It's elevated compared to the fed's target of two, but they see that coming down over the next few years. So that covers it from a top-down perspective. If we turn to page three, and I'll advance that, that last column shows the 2025 returns. And you see that in tangerine color, you see the 33.6% for emerging markets equities. We're leading the asset classes. But, again, if you look and scan across, the takeaway here is that you have a combination of colors. This is the top-down perspective. This is the bottom-down perspective. If you look and scan across, the takeaway here is that you have a combination of colors that vary, and that's the argument for diversification. As we've seen over the last three years, real estate towards the bottom have certainly struggled. But at certain periods, they are additive from an overall contribution of the portfolio in terms of return, but also as a diversifier. In other words, when they don't move in lockstep with the public equities, which we're trying to diversify from. We look, we see certainly the trend has been large-cap U.S. equities outperforming small-cap. And, again, the idea here is that we would look to reversion. Interesting phenomena where it's been a very challenging environment for small-cap managers to outperform the index. And because the drivers of the small-cap index have been the non-earners. So, again, those companies that are not earning cash, not having cash flow generated in a positive form, many of the active managers shy away from that as more speculative. And biopharma is an example where it was really driving the small-cap indexes, and we see that the small-cap active managers have really struggled in that environment. So performance mixed from those folks. Other things. We see that if we turn to the next page, I'm looking at, let's go to page 6. And we see within the growth, we see the Russell 1000 growth. So these are large-cap growth stocks over the one-year period. 18.6% versus 15.9 for value. But if you look over the quarter, you can see the value stocks were up 3.3%, and growth stocks were up 1.1. So when we think growth stocks, think AI, think information technology. So we did see some broadening and value-oriented stocks performing better in the quarter. So that takes care of that. If we turn to page 8, this just talks about the low-quality rally and what really has been successful in terms of the index in small-cap stocks. So we see in the, if you look to the chart in the top right corner, you can see the, in orange, these are the loss-making, and the blue are those that were generating positive returns. So when we see the profitable companies led in the first quarter of 2025, albeit negative, they were down 7% versus the non-profitable were down about 15.7%. But if you look at the second, third, and fourth quarters, you can see that the more, the loss-makers actually led the index. So the takeaway there is people perceive strength in the economy. They are looking for the most beaten-up stocks, and again, the most speculative outperforming. So again, price perfection, that really, anything to do with AI or biopharma was really successful in the small-cap, regardless of whether they were actually earning cash. So we don't see most active managers shy away from that type of theme where they're looking for the long-term, and they're looking for managers in stocks that will be generating positive cash flow, positive earnings over the long-term. So think of the dot-com bubble where we saw a similar picture, albeit different in terms of the dynamics, but the idea here is that how speculative is the market? Are they looking for the lowest-priced stocks at all costs? Non-U.S. markets, again, that was helped out by the weakening dollar. If we turn to U.S. fixed income, again, we saw a, there we go, we saw a 7% return from the fixed-income market. So again, this combination of strong equity markets, both U.S. and non-U.S., strong fixed-income markets, and then an additive allocation to real estate, the fund overall was up about 12.5%. So while trailing the relative index over the year at 12.5%, generating a return that exceeds your actuarial assumption of 7% by a large degree. Again, Jim is going to talk about the performance of the fund, but suffice to say, it was in the U.S. equity stocks that really contributed or detracted the most from the relative performance, albeit providing a strong absolute return. With that, I will be happy to entertain any questions that you might have about the markets before turning it over to Jim. Thank you very much, Mr. Jackson. Do we have some questions? Chief Wells. Thank you very much. And this is just a little bit for my information, I think. But as we go back to page 3 to your periodic table, 2025 appears to almost be a mirror image of 2017. And my question is, is there or have you noticed any correlation between the look of that periodic table, which returns seem to be strong and which seem to be weak, and the overall economy? So my question, I guess, is can we expect 2026 to look a lot like 2018? Or is there any correlation? I would say that looking at calendar year returns, there really is little correlation, particularly where, you know, the fact that there's a randomness that takes place here. I think one thing that would tell you is when the markets, when GDP is strong and the equity markets are going to participate in that growth, so companies are going to generate earnings, overall equities will increase. The challenge is that when you look at the markets, it's not only are they generating earnings, but are they generating earnings that are sufficient to meet the expectations of the marketplace? So we see that, you know, if you go back even to 1926 for the longest measure, the S&P 500 has averaged about 10%. Over the last three years, the S&P 500 has been up 23%. So there's a reversion to the mean that takes place where the U.S. valuations become very stretched. They're at the upper end. And people say, that's great. We think that the companies are going to continue to earn, but are they going to earn sufficient to justify the price that they're being traded at? And if they fall short of that, so that's when you get price for perfection. And the fact that we've had three consecutive years, at some point, there's going to be a disappointment. And we've seen that in the AI stocks selling off in the fourth quarter where people are like, okay, maybe we've gone too far. Are they generating enough earnings for what we paid for them? Some companies don't even have earnings, and they've been run up in prices. So, again, short answer, each calendar year is really the greater proximity, the more similar the influences. Reversion to the mean is a very powerful phenomenon. That's why some people feel that non-U.S. stocks are more attractive, because their value hasn't run up as much as U.S. equities. On the other hand, there's a lot of things going on in Europe. You've got multiple political systems that are participating. That also adds to that risk component with those markets. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Other questions? Anyone? All right. Thank you very much. Now we're ready for Mr. Jim O'Connor. Welcome. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to continue our conversation here and jump into the performance of your fund. I'm going to skip over here and turn to page 13 for those that are following in the hard copies. So this is a snapshot of the fund's asset allocation versus its policy target. So this is a chart that should be familiar to you all. So we're tracking the asset allocation, making sure it's closely tracking its long-term strategic asset allocation. And what I'll say here is given the strength of the performance in equity markets, you'll see that domestic equity and international equity were slightly above its long-term target. Particularly domestic equity continues to be a source of area to pay benefits. So as rebalancing occurs, we work closely with staff to ensure that that allocation, again, comes down a little bit, tracks its target, and continues to be a nice growth source for the fund, as well as the ability to pay benefits for your retirees. Correspondingly, we do have a little bit of an underweight to domestic fixed income by the tune of about $8 million. But, again, within its policy target ranges. Real estate continues to be slightly underweight as the plan continues to get redemptions from J.P. Morgan. And moving those assets to LaSalle will take a little bit of time, but ultimately working towards the long-term target there. And then real assets, as well, slightly underweight by about 1%. Cash is a little bit higher. But, again, those proceeds that we're getting from J.P. Morgan park there for a short period of time and will be moved into the LaSalle account as capital gets committed and ultimately called later this year. On slide 14, we have our cash flow page here. So this is a look at how the fund performed over the last quarter. So starting market value at the end of September was $1,054,000,000. As John mentioned in his remarks about the returns of the capital markets, investment returns were by and large positive across all asset classes, the one exception being in small cap, which we'll get to in just a little bit. That's Neuberger Berman. We saw the investment returns for that particular manager negative this quarter. But by and large, a pretty good quarter, all things considered, advancing the fund about $18.8, $18.9 million in investment returns. The net new investment column, so that tracks the transfers within the plan as well as transfers out of the plan. I mentioned benefit payments, domestic equity being the source of that. You can see transitions out of there to the tune of about $19 million. So in all, on a net basis, the net new investments were about $7.1 million. So roughly up $19 million. We had outflows of about $7 million. So the fund was in a better place at the end of the quarter and end of the year, up about approximately $11.7 million, bringing the grand total at the end of the year to, and I'm going to round up, $1,066,000,000 because the assets are a little bit higher today. Here we have a look at the performance of the asset classes. The market values, the ending weights, and then of course we have the total fund performance at the bottom. So last quarter, the fourth quarter rather, the total fund was up 1.87%. The total fund benchmark, which you can see in the footnote below there, below the table, was up about 2.35%. So a couple of the highlights here, from a relative perspective, domestic equity and international equity underperformed this quarter, and we'll get to that in just a little bit, as well as over the trailing year. Over the three and five-year periods, modest underperformance, at least over the five-year period on a gross-to-fee basis, but the attribution when you look into it, the active managers in the last quarter and last year in particular, underperformed in domestic and international equity. On slide 16, we'd like to see as a secondary benchmark how the funded relative to peers. So this is our peer group ranking chart. I mentioned that there was underperformance on a relative basis over the last quarter and year, but the absolute returns for the last year at least were up about 12.5%. A lot of that was driven by the strong performance of international equity. So we saw that for quite some time, U.S. equity outperforming international equity. That has certainly changed, at least in the last year. Peer rankings over those time periods in the 80th and 75th percentile, so below the median of other public funds. If you look at the three-year performance, while underperforming the benchmark on a total basis, did rank right around the median in the 52nd percentile. So peer group rankings can move a little bit throughout time. You can see there. But over the longer term, again, focusing on long-term results, over the ten-year period, outperforming the benchmark, ranking the top third of peers. And over the last 25 years, which is a very long period, up over 7%, which is the funds bogey assumed rate of return. So meeting that over a 25-year period and ranking in the top quartile of peers. So what happened in between those long-term periods, at least in the last decade? We have the calendar year results on 17. I mentioned 2025, at least on a relative basis, was a challenging time. But returns were pretty strong on an absolute basis. And if you look out over the last ten calendar periods, the fund has outperformed its benchmark eight of the last ten. So about an 800 batting average for those that are baseball fans here. I know I'm going a little bit quick through here, but please stop me if you have questions. I just want to touch on the performance highlights of the actively managed strategies in the last quarter. So for domestic equity, the composite did trail its target. So I just want to address the Neuberger-Berman, because that is the one that at least stands out to me on this page. So as John mentioned, small cap equities did have a good quarter and good year, up almost 13% last year. A lot of the more speculative themes came out and were successful in the calendar year. Neuberger-Berman tends to not hold these lower quality, unprofitable names that did particularly well. So they underweight those names, and really those securities will not fit their investment criteria. So they did lag by quite a bit. We saw anything associated with artificial intelligence kind of cool in the fourth quarter. But then what replaced that was a really strong performance from things like biotech and biopharma. And they don't hold those names. So that really drove a lot of the underperformance in the last quarter. You take biotech out of the return for the Russell 2000 Index, and you really have a flat return. So it spiked quite a bit, about 41%. So this market, again, is really littered with more unprofitable names, lower quality, that have done well. There's no question about that, but Neuberger-Berman is going to be one that's not going to hold those names. And when we see a rebound, at least in higher quality, more fundamentally driven names, that's an opportunity where Neuberger-Berman will at least historically bounce back. In the non-U.S. equity space, I'll just spend some time on Acadian. That was a bright spot, outperforming this quarter. And they really did it a couple ways through stock selection and their country allocation. Stock selection and financials were particularly strong, so foreign banks did well. A couple themes there, we had a weakening dollar, we had easing trade tensions, and really what the banks saw was a robust fee income increase for this quarter. Those names did well. Materials is a sector that also benefited quite a bit for Acadian. In domestic fixed income, again, this is a smaller portion of the portfolio, making up about 22% of total assets. Active management, by and large, for your fixed income managers was quite strong this quarter. Siegel, Bryant, Hamill, I'll just point them out, up about 1.24%. They had a modest overweight to investment grade credit. Investment grade credit did better relative to its treasury counterpart. So while it is a core fixed income option, it does tend to invest in some of those sectors that tend to be a little bit more core plus in nature. And then I just want to end with real assets. Again, smaller portion of the portfolio, but good diversification benefits, as these, at least in real estate, these assets generate income and appreciation. So both of your real estate managers, from an income perspective, generated over 1% of income to its total return and also saw appreciation within their portfolios. So both of them outperformed this quarter. And then PIMCO diversified real assets, which is more publicly traded securities. That's a diversified bucket of assets. TIPS, real estates, REITs, excuse me, publicly traded real estate trusts. Those did perform well, outperformed CPI and outperformed its custom benchmark. So good performance, I think, by and large, by the active managers within the portfolio. But there certainly was some underperformance in domestic and international equity over the near term. So I'll pause there to see if there are any questions on the performance of the managers. Are there questions for Mr. O'Connor? Yes, Commissioner Hensley. I just want to take a moment and thank Chad and your all's team. You all have been doing double time, and thank you to the ladies in the pension office for all the extra work you're doing to work with our new managers and transfer funds from our old managers. And I'm glad that Acadian is doing well, because they're going to get a different allocation. They are. What is the runway on that for the transfer from Bailey Gifford to the new managers? And how long do we think that that's going to take? It's in motion right now. I can make a comment, and when Chad comes up to give his report, can add any color that I missed. But the transition is occurring, so the new international equity managers are funded. The final, well, there's two things that are still occurring. The redemption, the full redemption from the emerging markets growth manager has concluded, and so those assets will be moving into fixed income. So we have fixed income as an asset class is increasing, equity is decreasing. So those proceeds are going to be deployed to the remaining two fixed income managers. And then the transition for Acadian, they're staying in place, but they are going to be moving to a slightly different strategy. That is going to be sort of the last step of the transition. So that has not occurred yet, but that will be the last one. So the runway, two weeks, that's what I was going to say. Thank you. About two weeks. Thank you all so much for all of your work on that. We really appreciate it. I know it's been a heavy lift. Thank you for that question. Other questions? Lieutenant Abel. On the Neuberger Berman, you seem to have a positive outlook that they can straighten that out. I mean, that's a pretty big slip for the last year, being negative 3.5%, I guess, against the 12.8%. I mean, you're confident that there's something going to be fixed there, I guess? Yes. I don't want to downplay it, but active managers in small cap have struggled significantly in 2025. Looking at some of the stats, this is a core mandate, but there's actively managed value strategies, core strategies, growth strategies, anywhere from 10% to 15% of managers outperformed during this time period. So only a handful of names outperformed the benchmark, and the ones that did outperform tended to be really diversified strategies that have a lot of securities that really had a higher beta or higher correlation to the index. Neuberger Berman is not one of those. They're going to be a little bit more concentrated. They're going to be fundamentally driven, so they're going to be looking for not owning the entire market or a big part of the market. They're going to pick and choose what securities they think are going to perform over the long term. And what we've seen, at least historically, when we've had a really narrow market or a market where these speculative names or more unprofitable names did well, John's mentioned this before, but we've seen reversion of the mean happen in small cap and happen pretty quickly. I'm not saying it's going to change next quarter, next year, but typically what we've seen is when these more speculative names come back down to earth, Neuberger Berman has been one that's benefited, at least historically, from their track record. So I think that answers your question, but if I didn't, let me know. No, it did. I just want to know that you guys have faith in that, that it's going to work out. I mean, if you look out over the 10 years, they haven't done us a bad job, per se. Slightly underperforming the benchmark in the five, leveled it up in the three, and then now we have some red numbers. Red numbers are bad. And so maybe not under my microscope. Tommy's not here. He'd probably be under his microscope. Yeah, thank you for stepping in for him, because I figured we'd get that question. So I wanted to address it head on. Yeah, certainly looking on a net-of-fee basis, we'd like to see that 10-year number eclipse the benchmark. But at this point, given the pretty significant underperformance in the near term, that's having a pretty big impact on the longer-term results. So I guess where we would feel uncomfortable is if Neuberger Berman did really well this quarter and year. That would give us a lot of pause, because that's not true to their style of investing. And given their underperformance, while we don't like to see it, it's not all that surprising or unusual. So something we're going to monitor closely. And I know this board has been very patient with them over the, gosh, 20 I'm rounding. I'll have to look. It's been a long time since this investment's been in the fund. Okay. Other questions? All right. Thank you. There don't seem to be any other questions. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. We really appreciate both of you and your report. And that brings us to our Treasurer's Report. And we have the Treasurer's Report and the Transfer Letter for Payroll. Welcome. Hello. Good morning. You should have in your packet all the various financial reports, including the bank statements and fund reconciliation activity. I would like to point you to your manager's mix, just so you can see. Chautauqua and Dimensional, as Jim said, are fully funded. Bailey is no more. So we're in the process. Today we have the cash available in emerging markets, which will be moved today over to McKay Shields and Siegel Bryant Hamels. So that will happen. The whole goal of this was to prevent the money from staying out of the market any longer than it needed to. And all of it was generally within one day we had stuff moved. So that's kind of what you want to try to do. And like Jim said, the next step is Acadian. We will be in the process of doing that one. That was a little trickier just because we are changing to a different strategy within that fund. But that involves a lot of levers and stuff within Northern Trust to do. The value of the plan as of yesterday morning was $1,099,432,231.67, which compares to last month of $1,081,547,888.54. It's moving in the right direction. Yes, this month it did. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a motion to accept the treasurer's report and approve the letter? Please. Thank you. Commissioner is there a second? And commissioner. Thank you very much. Are there any further questions for Chad? All right. Is there a motion to accept the treasurer's report? Say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. Thank you very much. That passes. All right. We have January minutes, which require approval. Could I hear a motion? Second. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. Are there questions, corrections, additions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. That motion passes. And we have some new business action items. I'll ask Susan to just roll us right through this. Yes, Mayor. Item number one, widow's annuity for Linda Rourke and Teresa Walsh. I need a motion to approve. Do I hear a motion? So moved. All right. I think we have Lieutenant Abel moved and Major Swiderski seconded. Is that? Yeah. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? Thank you. That passes. Item number two, ghost time purchases. Shane Callahan, Ricky Euler, and Jeremiah Littrell. I need a motion to approve. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That motion passes. Item number three is disbursements for February. They're listed on your agenda. I need a motion to approve. Do I hear a motion? So moved. Second. I think I heard Chief Wells and then Commissioner Hensley. Any questions about the disbursements? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Next on the agenda is disabilities. I need a motion to approve. Do I hear a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you. Next on the agenda is medical reports. I need a motion to approve. Do I hear a motion? Upon review of the doctor's notes and his final report, it appears that there are some inconsistencies that are a bit confusing. Therefore, I move that we send this report back to Dr. Owen for clarification, specifically for his remarks on his opinion. All right. Thank you. Officer Jennings, is there a second? Second. Okay. They're each giving it to the other ones. So we're going to say, Officer Marlin got that one. Okay. Now, are there we've had the motion to send this back to the physician with some questions. Are there any questions by the board members? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. Thank you. That passes. Next on the agenda are tributes. We have Thelma Wheeler, widow of Bobby Wheeler, division of fire, passed away on December 11th, 2025. Lawrence Walsh, division of police, passed away on January 15th, 2026. Gracie Freeman, widow of Robert Freeman, division of fire, passed away on January 16th, 2026. Rose Baucom, spouse of Ron Baucom, division of police, passed away on January 22nd, 2026. Ron Roark, division of fire, passed away on January 29th, 2026. All right. We have quite a few tributes. I'll pause and see if there are any comments. I want to send my condolences to the fire department on the loss of Ron Roark and deepest sympathies to his family and also to all the members of our extended families with police and fire on their losses. Also, in reference to Chief Larry Walsh, Chief Walsh brought a new level of professionalism and accountability to the Lexington Police Department, and his leadership laid the groundwork for the standards that we set today. I just want his family to know that we appreciate and value the legacy that he left us with, and we are truly grateful of that and send our deepest sympathies and our deepest condolences. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Chief Walsh. Thank you, Mayor. I echo Chief Weather's sentiments on this. Our condolences to all of the families who lost loved ones. Chief Walsh certainly represented a very important legacy within public safety in Lexington. We want to extend our deepest condolences to his family. Firefighter Ron Roark served the division of fire from October of 1978 until January of 2001 and served on multiple different companies, retiring off of Engine 19. We want to send our deepest condolences to his family and thank them for allowing him to serve with us. Thank you for that. Are there others? Other comments? I will add my voice to what both of the chiefs said. You know, these folks, whether they are the widows or spouses or the actual public servants, represent a lot of years of service to our community. When I first became a council member, Chief Larry Walsh was the chief. And I learned a lot about how he did exactly what you reflected, Chief Weathers. He set really high standards for police. And so I'm grateful for all these folks and the spouses and widows for their service to our city. That brings us to subcommittees. And we're missing our chair for continuing benefits and legislative. Does anyone have any of a report for any of those two? There's no update. No updates for benefits or legislative. Lieutenant Abel is here with us for the organizational subcommittee. Don't have much of an update. We're 13 minutes away from having a meeting. We made it just in time. Very good. Is there anything else for the good of the whole? Yes, Chief Wells. Thank you, Mayor. As we finish up today, I first want to recognize that the fire department lost a good friend in honorary Deputy Chief Donnie Ridley, who was a fixture at Station 5 for many, many years. And we will be forever grateful for having the opportunity to get to know and be friends with Chief Ridley. Additionally, February is a rough month for the Division of Fire. This February 13th will mark the 22nd anniversary of the line of duty death of Lieutenant Brenda Cowan. The 17th will mark the, believe it or not, 29th anniversary of the death of Firefighter Chuck Williams. And so our division is better because of those individuals, and their sacrifice will not be forgotten. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for those remarks. I will say, even though it has been so many years since the passing of Chuck Williams and Brenda Cowan, it seems like just yesterday in a way. It does. And I had the honor of serving with both of them. And it does seem like yesterday. Thank you. Yes. Any other comments for the good of the whole? Susan? Or first, let's go to the Commissioner first. Chief Wells, thank you very much for those words. As the Commissioner of Public Safety, one of my responsibilities is to make sure that the citizens and residents of Fayette County are aware of situations and circumstances that may provide or produce some kind of public safety concern. And as a public service announcement for all our residents, but especially the men, I just want to remind them that Saturday is February the 14th, also known as Valentine's Day. So I would just remind them to prepare for that situation in advance and not wait until the last minute. Thank you for that public service announcement. Commissioner Hensley. This is the retirement board, but I do know that there are a number of active members that may watch. For those of you that have heard that there is a no tax on overtime bill that came out and was passed, we have sent out information in PeopleSoft, in an email, and a number of different communications for our active members that may have an overtime situation. If you have not received that and you need that communication, please reach out to me or to payroll. W-2s were issued. And if you need additional information on how that bill may apply to you, please reach out to me or to payroll to receive additional information on that. Thank you. Very good. Thank you for that information. Anything else from the board members? All right. Susan. Well, I'm going to read from Rock since he is not here. Oh, he sent his comments. Thank you. He sent a lovely email, which Chief Wells has handled multiple items on this list. So thank you very much. Additionally, the consumer price index was reported on January 2026 to be 2.7%. So our retirees lost a little less money this time. Secondly, I would also like to point out that House Bill 406 would provide a 13th check to KERS and state police retirees. This bill is what I modeled my proposal on the 13th check to the Pension Board Legislative Subcommittee, and it was tabled. Thanks, Rock Vance. All right. Thank you for that. All right. With that, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. Second. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. We're adjourned. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Thank you. Thank you. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye. 0 Disease Disease Disease Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help Chrad Self-Help Self-Help Self-Help ♪ I'm a-walkin' in the rain. Tears are fallin' and I feel the pain. Of wishin' you were here by me, to end this misery. And I wonder, why, why, why, why, wonder, why. ♪ ♪ She ran away, and I wonder, where she will stay. My little runaway. Run, run, run, run, runaway. Run, run, run, run, runaway. Run, run, run, run, runaway. ♪ ♪ ♪ Goodbye, my life. Don't cry, won't you let it fly. Goodbye, my life. Don't cry, won't you let it fly. You can't see the morning, but I can see the light. Try, try, try to let it fly. ♪ ♪ Well, you've been out runnin', I've been waitin' half the night. Try, try, try to let it fly. And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? ♪ ♪ ♪ Please, my life is not complete, I'll never see you smile. Try, try, try to let it fly. Maybe you want the forgiving kind and that's just not my style. Try, try, try to let it fly. And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? ♪ And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? ♪ And would you cry, if I told you that lie? Then would you say goodbye, or would you let it ride? Or would you let it ride, would you let it ride? Or would you let it ride, would you let it ride? Would you let it ride? Try, try, try, let it ride Try, try, try, let it ride Try, try, try, let it ride Try, try, try, let it ride Try, try, try and let it ride Try, try, try and let it ride Try, try, try and let it ride Try, try, try and let it ride Try, try, try and let it ride Would you let it ride? Would you let it ride? Would you let it ride? On this edition of Lexington Now, a new council member is sworn in. Events at the Lyric and Founders Day at Hager. Music I'm Neal Noah and welcome to Lexington Now for the week of February 9th, 2026. A new council member has been sworn in by Mayor Gorton. Filling the vacancy in the 3rd District left by the departure of Hannah LaGrie. Here's the ceremony. Tom is well prepared to be the council member for the 3rd District. He's active in many local organizations and is well informed about the issues facing our community. Tom was Metro State columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader from 2008 to 2019, and the newspaper's managing editor from 1998 through 2008. He now works as a contract employee for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning on projects to promote Kentucky's literary arts, and he manages the Kentucky Writers' Hall of Fame process. Tom is chair of the Mary Todd Lincoln House Board and a member of the Kentucky Heritage Council and the University Press of Kentucky's editorial board. A ninth-generation Kentuckian, Eblen was born in the Third District at Good Samaritan Hospital and lived across the street until age seven, when his family moved to what was then rural Fayette County. He graduated from Lafayette High School and Western Kentucky University. Tom's hobbies include photography, cycling, and researching and writing about Lexington and Kentucky history. He was a contributing author of the book, Bluegrass Renaissance, the History and Culture of Central Kentucky, 1792 to 1852. Tom and his wife, Becky, are active members of Second Presbyterian Church. They have two adult daughters and two grandchildren who attend Fayette County Public Schools. And before we move on, I want to recognize, well, I thought I saw Rob Larkin here, but I think not. So Tom, we are very happy to have you here, and I'd like to invite you to the podium to tell us more about your interest in serving on the Council. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor Gordon. I spent 40 years covering and working with government as a newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist. I never expected to be on this side of the microphone, but when Mayor Gordon asked me to take this job, I knew it was a unique opportunity to learn more about my hometown, a place I truly love. I could not be more excited. I've always thought that one of Lexington's greatest strengths was its nonpartisan government structure. That frees leaders to focus more on problem solving than politics and partisan agendas. I'm honored to be a part of that process. I'm also honored to be filling the remaining 11 months of Hannah LaGree's term. Hannah was an outstanding Council member, following examples set by some of her third district predecessors, including my good friends Debra Hensley and the late Jake Gibbs. She will be a tough act to follow, both for me and for whomever is elected in November. As the Mayor said, I was born in the third district and lived there my first seven years, and I've lived there for the past 14 years. It's a district that includes much of our urban core and many great, vibrant neighborhoods, including the one where I've been a Neighborhood Association president and a board member for many years. The third district also includes the campus of the University of Kentucky, Lexington's largest employer and an intellectual engine that drives our creativity. One of my hobbies, as they said, is researching and writing about Lexington history. That history has a lot of greatness and shame, but that research makes me think that Lexington is better positioned for long-term success now than probably at any point in the past two centuries. As we pursue growth and success, we must be careful not to lose the things that make Lexington's and Fayette County special. The same values that guided me as a journalist will guide me as a council member – transparency, accountability, fairness, and fact-based analysis. Government's best decisions, I think, are made when leaders embrace such core values as justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Most important things every mayor can do right now, especially in these troubled times, I think are to participate in democracy and to help our neighbors – and I mean all of our neighbors. Over the next 11 months, I will work hard to represent my district and my city. I will be a good listener, try to be a good learner, and decision-maker. Look forward to working with Mayor Gorton, Vice Mayor Wu, my fellow council members, and our many dedicated, hard-working city employees to make Lexington a better place for everyone to live, work, and grow. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as you continue a citizen thereof, and that you will faithfully execute, to the best of your ability, the office of Council Member, Lexington, Fayette, Urban County Government, according to law? And do you further solemnly swear that since the adoption of the present Constitution, that you, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with a deadly weapon within this state, nor without it, nor have you sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have you acted as a second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person, thus offending, so help you God? I do. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In celebration of Black History Month, the Lyric Theater has a lineup of events. We caught up with Christian Adair to fill a set. The Lyric Theater Cultural Arts Center is an art venue. It's a place where the community gets to come in and showcase their skills or display art in our art gallery. We're almost four institutions in one. We have an art gallery where you can have your art set up for sale. We have different art shows. We are a community engagement space where you can rent to have your wedding, to have a non-profit event, to have a corporate event. A lot of times there's events going on here where, private events, but a lot of times it's about giving. Then we have a library, a brand new library we're going to be sharing with the community where you get to come in, just sit back and learn, have conversations, read books that you may not have access to. A lot of the material we have here are not in schools, so we're filling a gap in a sense of what's available in the public setting, in the school public setting. We're also, our crown jewel is the auditorium. The auditorium is where the shows take place. That auditorium is very historical significance. It hosted people like James Brown, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Count Basie, anybody that was trying to be famous and trying to, or a part of Chitlin Circuit, anyone, they came here to the Lyric to perform, to hone their skills. That was an exciting time because a lot of those performers who was not famous at the time became famous. They've influenced the entire world. Our very own Les McCann, who worked here as a kid, grew up two blocks from here. He went on to be a famous jazz musician, but he was also the most sampled hip hop artist of all time. In the hip hop industry, they use his original music to create hip hop music. That all started here at the Lyric. Again, we are an extension of LFUCG in the sense that we provide free access and opportunity through the arts to the community, through community engagement, and most of all, through love. At the Lyric, every Tuesday, we have a community night, and those nights are free. We have free Afrobeats dance classes, free Latino dance classes, free acting classes, free movies, and free yoga. Any Tuesday from 5 to 10, those classes are taking place. We want the community to come in without worrying about cost. We believe that we want to remove that barrier, and we do that through partnerships. We're like the facility, and we facilitate it, but our community partners provide the human capital and the content. However, being Black History Month, American History Month, a month where we celebrate little-known history facts, then we come back at the end of the month with a show that's amazing. It's called Showtime at the Lyric. Anyone can have joined to perform, but you can be booed. If you're not good enough, the audience is going to let you know. Last year, a little girl singing gospel got booed. The audience didn't think she was good enough. That's how tough this audience is, but we do have winners, and they win money. That event is, again, it's a community event. We're a platform, and it's a lot of laughing. There's a lot of excitement, and it's sold out. Last year, people couldn't get in. We only have 525 seats, and those who didn't get here early enough didn't get to sit down. Going into March, we're going to celebrate Her Story. That's Her Story Month, and we're going to have several events going on. We're going to have Paint and Sip. We're going to have book clubs. We're going to have readings, and authors come through to talk about books written by women, and that's free as well. Throughout the entire year, every time there's a theme for the month, the Lyric is going to do something that's going to make sure that the community has access and opportunity to either share their talent or to be involved and to participate. Unfortunately, a lot of people watch through the internet, watch through social media, and they're watching to see what's going on, but they're not participating. They're not seeing and being there live, and Lyric wants to make sure that people are here in person, can touch, can talk, and meet people they don't meet and interact with people they don't normally interact with. There's a few ways that the Lyric is able to do the free programming. We accept donations. We always are looking for sponsors to sponsor events. We look for people to volunteer, and we look for people to rent from us, to rent this beautiful space. You can find all that information on historiclyric.com, or if you're on Facebook or Instagram, our handle is historiclyric. We're always looking to join in partnership. If you have a great idea, a great concept, we're the facility. You got to come see it to understand the beauty of this place and the dynamics. If you have human capital, if you have human content, you have ideas, we want to see if we can partner and provide. As long as you're about love and not about hate, this is the place for you, and it's open to everyone. We want everyone to come here and to interact with each other. Our hours are from 10 to 5, Tuesday through Saturday. You can just stop through and come read a book, or come have coffee, or come have a conversation, or a small meeting, or just come through the art gallery and just look at the amazing art. Last month, we had an art gallery called Maven, which was 30 different women. They came and displayed their art. That's how you can partner with the Lyric. Come show your art, come partner with us, or just tell people about us. When we come back, Founder's Day at Haggard. Welcome back to Lexington Now. The Haggard Equine Medical Institute celebrated its 150th Founder's Day. Mayor Gorton and others joined the celebration. In 1974, the founders broke ground on this current facility where we are now, and we sit on 110 acres of prime bluegrass with about 110,000 square feet of building and barn space. In 2004, Haggard Davidson McGee Associates was reincorporated and formed what we know today as Haggard Equine Medical Institute to pay homage to our longstanding dedication to education and mentorship. At 150 years old, Haggard is an elite company. Enduring for 150 years puts us in the same category of business such as businesses like John Deere, Wells Fargo, and Anheuser-Busch. And interesting enough, you may see Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales walking through the facility a couple times a year to be treated by our veterinarians. As we embark on our 150th foaling season, the practice and I both share February as our founding month, with my birthday being February 13th. Dr. Edward Thomas Haggard was the first of a long line of veterinarians and physicians to immigrate to North America, specifically originally to Toronto. There he helped found the Ontario Veterinary College where he taught large animal surgery. Little did my great-great-grandfather know how impactful that decision would be and how many generations of the Haggard family would carry on the practice he would eventually found in Kentucky in February of 1876. The Kentucky Livestock Record on February 19th of 1876 printed the following announcement, and I will read a quote from it directly, quote, Dr. E.T. Haggard, this gentleman, a member of the Edinburgh Veterinary College from where he graduated in 1839, is located at Winchester and is prepared to treat diseases of horses and cattle. We hope and have every reason to believe that Dr. Haggard will fill a great want so much felt during the past few years. Being a member of the Edinburgh Veterinary College is of itself strongly in Dr. Haggard's favor, and we trust the owners of fine horses and cattle in this section will avail themselves of Dr. Haggard's services when needed, end quote. So that really kind of documents the first sort of broadcasting or advertisement that he was hanging his shingle out. Approximately 1% of the graduating veterinarians choose equine practice, and of that 1%, nearly 50% leave equine practice after the first five years of being out in the job market. College has recognized this crisis in our profession. We've established the E.T. Haggard 1876 Scholarship with the American Association of Equine Practitioners Foundation for the Horse. With that non-profit, it allows us a vehicle by which to help mitigate some of the educational debt load that many of these students have to, I guess, take on, you know, with close to $250,000 to $300,000 on average of graduate debt. While today is about honoring the past, it's also about securing the future. And we are thrilled that you have established this endowment for scholarships for the future through the Foundation for the Horse. This endowment is a fitting tribute to the generation of men and women who have dedicated their lives to the equine medicine here at Haggard. It ensures that their standard of care continues through the next century of practitioners. It is particularly meaningful that Haggard has chosen to take this leadership role. Now, the equine veterinary profession is currently facing a critical crossroads. The financial burden on aspiring veterinarians is staggering. The cost of a four-year veterinary school in the U.S. now ranges from $200,000 to $400,000 annually, excuse me, not annually, over the four-year period. Most graduates enter the field with over $175,000 in debt. The challenges we face are real, but they're not insurmountable. We are fortunate to have institutions like Haggard stepping up to ensure we have skilled hands needed to care for our horses in the future. We invite everyone to join us in supporting this vital mission. Please visit www.haggard150th.com backslash scholarship to learn more and contribute to this legacy. By honoring 150 years of history today, we are ensuring that the health of the horse for the next 150 years. This is a philanthropy which speaks to Haggard's core values of mentorship and education. It is critical that it be successful. We look forward to reaching our goal, which we've set fairly ambitiously of $1.5 million to raise over the next three years to help offset student debt. Next, I would like to announce that we are going to have a tangible way to honor this legacy, Elise, if you would help us here. We felt that in addition to the E.T. Haggard 1876 scholarship and the Haggard Alumni Global Continuing Education event, a tangible monument to honor this incredible legacy should be built on the Haggard Clinic's campus. I'd like to unveil a rendition of that monument now. Thank you, Elise. So this monument will be placed as you would have driven onto the campus. You would see where there's a painted horse about the driveway. That painted horse would be a part of the horse mania sculptures that would have been put around town over the last couple of decades. So we've had a couple of iterations of the painted horse and actually my mother, who was a local artist, she did both the horses that are here on campus. So that horse will be relocated up towards Madison and we look forward to having this monument placed and hopefully have it completed for a dedication and ribbon cutting for next February, 2027. Lexington is so proud to be the horse capital of the world and others may claim that, but we own the trademark, so we're the official ones. The equine industry, of course, draws thousands of people to Lexington every year to experience the magic of the bluegrass. And institutions like Haggard's help define what that legacy stands for. And I have enjoyed greatly learning about your history and it bears repeating some of it that's already been said and I didn't realize some of the history that was involved and what started as a small family operation has grown into one of the finest equine medicine institutes in the world. And it's right here. Since day one, Haggard's has continued to raise the bar, not just in Kentucky, but for the entire equine industry worldwide. And as a whole, Fayette County's agriculture sector contributes a total of $2.6 billion every year to our economy here. Lexington is a hub for organizations like Haggard. Institutions driven by innovation and defined by excellence. With the investment you're making today through the E.T. Haggard 1876 scholarship, you are really doubling down on Lexington's future also and investing in the next generation of veterinarians who will train here, work here, and, we hope, will call Lexington home forever. Our community has been shaped by the love of the horse since its founding 250 years ago. And that same passion is at the core of Haggard's mission. And I loved in the video how you also highlighted the people because the people here are so important. So to mark this special occasion, I would like to present a proclamation declaring Haggard Equine Medical Institute Day in Lexington. Whereas Haggard Equine Medical Institute was founded in 1876 by Dr. Edward Thomas, E.T., Haggard, and whereas in 1875 Dr. Haggard traveled to Winchester, Kentucky from Ontario, Canada to work on a short-horned bull named the 8th Duke of Geneva. And during that visit he fell at home, felt at home in central Kentucky. And whereas seeing a need for professional veterinarians, Dr. Haggard decided to relocate here and started Haggard and Sons Veterinary Hospital with his two sons in 1891. And whereas Dr. Haggard is commonly recognized as the first licensed veterinarian in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and whereas in the early days of his practice Dr. Haggard made all of his calls in a horse and buggy, sometimes traveling as much as 25 miles from home. And whereas today Medical Director Dr. Luke Haggard Fallon, DVM, represents the fifth generation of the family to be involved in this business. And whereas Haggard, which sits on 110 acres of prime bluegrass in the heart of the horse capital of the world, is home to nearly 60 veterinarians and more than 350 support staff. And whereas we thank the members of the Haggard family for making Lexington a part of their story as well as our story and for their many contributions to the equine industry in the bluegrass and around the world. Now therefore I, Linda Gorton, Mayor of Lexington, do hereby declare February 5th, 2026, Haggard Equine Medical Institute Day in Lexington. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm so happy to do this. I'm so proud of your work. Thank you. Congratulations. And now, Isabelle Ballard joins us with this weekend's events. Hey there. I'm Isabelle in the Council Office. Here's some upcoming events this weekend, February 14th. You can take a hike with a scavenger hunt at McConnell Springs Park Saturday morning at 930. Maps and compasses will be provided, but it will be up to you to learn to navigate the park and complete the scavenger hunt. Plan for a maximum of a mile hike around the park while we solve the scavenger hunt. Join us for Valentine's Day Twilight Hike at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary in the evening at 6 p.m. Take a winter evening hike to enjoy the sights and sounds of nature as the sun sets. Online registration and payment are required for all attending participants. The hike will be approximately 1.5 miles and will include easy to moderately rugged terrain with some uneven sections and elevation gains and losses. Dress for the weather and wear sturdy walking shoes or boots. Participants should be comfortable walking in low, light, semi-dark conditions. Please feel free to call ahead for further details about the route and or any accessibility concerns. The program is recommended for adults and children ages 12 plus. Please feel free to reach out to us at the Nature Center at 859-272-6105 if you have any questions. Come out to McConnell Springs to participate in the National Backyard Bird Count Sunday morning at 11 a.m. at McConnell Springs Park. Enjoy a self-guided hike and report bird sightings to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While this is self-guided, park staff will be available in the Education Center and around the park to assist with IDing. Need a walking stick for a new year of hiking? Come decorate a honeysuckle branch Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at McConnell Springs Park. The program is free but requires registration ages 18 plus please. I'm Isabel and that's just some of the things going on this weekend in Lexington and Fayette County. You may need to pre-register for some of these events. For more events and information be sure to visit LexingtonKY.gov and click the calendar tab at the top. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next week. Isabel also has a preview of this week's meeting coverage. Hi there, I'm Isabel from the Council Office. Here's our current live meeting schedule this week, February 9th, 2020-26 for LexTV. Remember, you can watch all our live meeting coverage on LexTV Channel 185 and always online at LexingtonKY.gov. Watch the General Government and Planning meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. followed by the Council Work Session at 3. On Wednesday the 11th in the morning at 9 a.m. it's the Police, Fire and Pension Board meeting. Later in the afternoon, watch the Mayor's Task Force to End Homelessness at 3.30. On Thursday afternoon, the 12th of February, watch the Planning Commission meeting regarding Subdivision Item 130 and the Council meeting that same night at 6. And wrapping up the week on Friday the 13th is the Opioid Abatement Commission meeting in the morning at 10. That's our current live meeting schedule for LexTV for the week of February 9th, 2026. Watch all of our live meeting coverage on LexTV Channel 185 or always online at LexingtonKY.gov and click the LexTV tab at the top. I'm Isabel and we'll see you next time. That's all for now, but as always, you can keep up with us on social media, check out the latest traffic updates on X at LexRex, or catch our live traffic cams on LexingtonKY.gov. For all of us at LexTV, I'm Neil Noah and that's it for now. 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Absolutely. Stand With Her Story is an initiative based upon the fact that women historically have been very underrepresented in history. And so we thought doing something that might over-represent us a little bit might be a really neat idea. So this is an all-call for stories about how women are making our society work. It could be everything from a six-year-old saying my mom is the best to someone who has an employee that just always lifts the morale, all the way up to Isabel Yates as an icon and everything in between. So it's a quantity versus quality type of an initiative. And all of the people who are submitted, their stories will live in a display here at the Lexington History Museum. So you can come and visit and type in the name and be able to see the impact that those women have made. Thank you. And so this started with the League of Women Voters of Lexington, but you are now partnering with the History Museum and we're in the Lexington History Museum right now. Mandy, tell us a little bit about this partnership, how it has evolved and what the History Museum's role is going to be. Yeah, so Liza came, Liza kind of cold called me, which was great. So instead I have this idea and I think the museum would be a great partner. And so we met at Martine's, somebody wants to nominate Martine's, that might be a great one. And had a conversation about the importance of what the work that we can do in uplifting women's stories. So the Lexington History Museum tells everybody in Lexington's stories. And we were immediately really intrigued with this idea of being a place where you could come to learn a little bit more about everyday Lexingtonians, as well as our most well-known folks. So we started talking about how we could do that, how we could honor women. It came to the conclusion that a permanent kiosk of nominated and self-nominated stories would allow us to do that. And then what's so exciting for us and for history lovers is that we're gonna get stories we never had before to understand Lexington. And so we're really excited to see who people nominate and what kind of stories we can tell that tell us a lot about the larger Fayette County over the course of its 250 years and how we're thinking about ourselves today. Yeah, and we're standing next to some, you know, great women of Lexington's history. Like we've got Isabel Yates here and Pam Miller here, among some other women that are highlighted. But this is a broader call, right? So we oftentimes think about like award winners or you have to do something grand, you know, to be nominated for an award. But this is broader than that. So it's not an award, but it's like a recognition of, of like you said, all the everyday people. So tell me a little bit more about the stories you'd like to share or some examples of who to nominate. You mentioned a couple before. Yeah, I mean, so for me, history is made by all of us, right? So any one of us are impacting the people around us every day. Those are the stories we want. The person who made sure that kids went to school with shoes every day, but we didn't know their name. Or the Fortune 500 banker who made sure that a small business got a loan, which led to the next thing. And we didn't know the banker's name, right? We only know about that business that took off. We want those stories because that tells us so much about who we are and who this community is and who it could be if we all knew all of these sorts of things. And we also want for individuals to realize their own power in this, right? That you, every day, are interacting with people that you are making a difference when you're doing that and you may not know it. So this is a chance for me to nominate a friend or a colleague who I see doing really incredible work. And for that to be recorded in history, and it doesn't just stop with me knowing they did it. Now everybody has a chance to know they did it. Yeah, and I think the stories can not only recognize someone whose work might have not gotten recognized in the past, but also can inspire others to do something that they might see as like a simple task, but really has an impact on someone else's life and the growth of Lexington overall. So tell me a little bit about how to nominate someone. We try to make it as easy as possible. We do have flyers that we're kind of placing around town with little QR codes, but you can go to the League's website which is lwvlexington.com and slash her story will get you right there. And so it's a short chat form that it'll ask for your name, your, the name of your nominee, a little bit, about 250 words, up to 250 words, doesn't have to be that long, about the person. We're also asking when this impact happened because maybe it was a grandmother that, you know, from several generations ago that made some sort of an impact and then you can upload pictures or a little video or whatever you'd like to, to be able to contribute to your story. Then we're excited that in March, we're gonna do a reading of all the names that have been submitted down at the stand. So everybody will be able to have their name publicly brought forward and then we're real excited about the opportunity to maybe get more people into the museum so that they could come in, type in Lee Sheehan and see the wonderful impact that you've made. Well, maybe. So tell us where the stand is too because not everyone might be familiar with that because that is also an achievement for our community. It really is. Very few monuments are made for women and Breaking the Bronze Ceiling was an organization really designed to make that happen here in Lexington. And so there is this gorgeous, like super tall statue of suffragettes that is on the backside of the blue building. So I believe that's on High Street. Yeah, so you can see that monument downtown but that's where the reading of the names for all of those in this project will be. So the call to action here is for you to think of one, two, three, five, 10 women whose stories that you want to recognize and then go to the League of Women Voters of Lexington's website and submit those stories so they can be preserved and everyone can know about all of the great things going on in Lexington. Thank you, everyone. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ On this edition of Lexington Now, a new council member is sworn in. Events at the Lyric and Founders Day at Haggard. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I'm Neal Noah and welcome to Lexington Now for the week of February 9th, 2026. A new council member has been sworn in by Mayor Gorton. Filling the vacancy in the 3rd District left by the departure of Hannah LaGrie. Here's the ceremony. Tom is well prepared to be the council member for the 3rd District. He's active in many local organizations and is well informed about the issues facing our community. Tom was Metro-Lexington.