# Council Work Session - February 17, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · February 17, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6694 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6694?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-02-17 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 18, 2026 - **Length**: 8,801 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 Council held a meeting on February 17, 2026, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber in Lexington, KY, presided over by Mayor Linda Gorton. The meeting included 5 agenda items covering a range of procedural and substantive matters, including the approval of the February 10th work session table of motions, new business, a postponement of one new business item, and an informational report from the Social Services and Public Safety Committee. A total of 2 votes were taken during the meeting, with all action items receiving approval. No public comments were heard, and no presentations were recorded during the session. ## Attendance All 15 council members were present at the February 17, 2026 meeting. No members were recorded as absent or late. **Members Present:** Wu, Brown, Ellinger II, Morton, Lynch, Eblen, Curtis, Sheehan, Higgins-Hord, Hale, Beasley, Baxter, Sevigny, Reynolds, and Boone. ## Votes and Decisions Two motions were brought before the Council during the February 17, 2026 meeting, both passing by voice vote. - **Approval of the February 10th Work Session Table of Motions** [timestamp: 0:02]: Ellinger moved and Baxter seconded a motion to approve the table of motions from the February 10th work session. The motion passed by voice vote. No individual roll call tallies were recorded. - **Postponement of New Business Item A** [timestamp: 0:47]: Wu moved and Curtis seconded a motion to postpone Item A from new business to the February 24th work session. The motion passed by voice vote. No individual roll call tallies were recorded. Both votes were conducted as voice votes, so no individual ayes, nays, or abstentions were recorded for either motion. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council considered seven financial items at the February 17, 2026 meeting, ranging from grant applications to a major equipment purchase. - **Resolution 0098-26** authorizes execution of a Ground Lease with **Social Impact Solar LLC** valued at **$30,345** for a solar photovoltaic project. - **Resolution 0105-26** authorizes change order #3 with **Gresham Smith** in the amount of **$7,626.72** for the Kelley's Landing Phase 0 Project. - **Resolution 0107-26** authorizes the procurement of dumpster units from **Wastequip Manufacturing Company LLC** at a cost of **$33,845.66**. - **Resolution 0109-26** authorizes a purchase agreement with **Atlantic Emergency Solutions, Inc.** for **$1,960,731.00**, representing the largest single expenditure on the agenda. - **Resolution 0118-26** authorizes a first amendment to the existing agreement with **Arbor Youth Services, Inc.** in the amount of **$23,994**. - **Resolution 0119-26** authorizes submission of a grant application to the **Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection** for up to **$110,000** to fund a household hazardous waste collection event. - **Resolution 0123-26** authorizes acceptance of **$990,202** in additional federal funding through the **Kentucky Cleaner Water Round 2 Grant** for the East Hickman Pump Station Expansion project. In total, the Council acted on approximately **$3.16 million** in financial commitments and potential revenues, with the Atlantic Emergency Solutions purchase agreement and the Kentucky Cleaner Water grant acceptance accounting for the majority of that figure. ## Contested Items - **Solar Project at Haley Pike** — Council members engaged in heated discussion over the terms of a lease and community benefits agreement for a proposed solar project at Haley Pike. The disagreement centered on the financial terms of the arrangement and the scope of community benefits associated with the project. The extracted data does not specify which individual council members were involved in the dispute, nor does it record a final outcome or vote on the matter. ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 02:00] No public comments were made on issues on the agenda during this portion of the Council meeting. ## Approval of February 10th Work Session Table of Motions [timestamp: 02:30] The Council took up the approval of the table of motions from the February 10th work session. Ellinger and Baxter were the key speakers on this item. The Council approved the table of motions without noted opposition. ## New Business [timestamp: 03:01] The Council took up several new business items during this portion of the meeting, with discussion centered on a solar project at Haley Pike. Key speakers during this portion of the meeting included Reynolds, Baxter, and Ellinger. The available record indicates the Council engaged in discussion regarding the Haley Pike solar project, though the specific details of what was presented, any concerns raised, and the full scope of debate are not captured in the available record. The new business items were ultimately approved by the Council. *Note: Additional details about the specific terms of the approval, individual positions taken by Council members, and the full range of new business items discussed are not available in the provided record.* ## Postponement of Item A in New Business [timestamp: 47:21] The Council took up a resolution to postpone Item A under New Business to the February 24th work session. Key speakers on this item were Wu and Curtis. The resolution was approved. ## Social Services and Public Safety Committee Report [timestamp: 48:21] Council Member Reynolds presented the report from the Social Services and Public Safety Committee, summarizing the proceedings of the committee's January 13th meeting. The report covered two primary areas of discussion: - **Carbon monoxide detection requirements** — The committee received updates related to carbon monoxide detection standards or regulations, though specific details of any proposed changes or actions were not elaborated upon in the presentation. - **Street outreach** — The committee also received updates on street outreach efforts, reflecting the committee's ongoing attention to public safety and social services initiatives in the community. The presentation was informational in nature, and no votes or formal actions were taken by the full Council in response to the report. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of February 10th work session table of motions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Postpone item A in new business to February 24th work session --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'd like to go ahead and call to order the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council Work Session. Today's February 17th, 2026. And the first item on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. And it looks like we do not have anyone signed up. So there is no docket today. And that brings us to the February 10th work session table of motions. Motion approved. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger and seconded by Council Member Baxter. Are there any corrections or additions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. There are no budget amendments and there are no budget adjustments. So that brings us to new business. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds. Second. Council Member Baxter seconded. Please log in if you have questions. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Mine is going to be on the Haley Pike, which is the first one on A. And I think we have some negotiations. Could you go over what was sent to us here today on the red line? Yes. So based on the comments, Richard Dugas from the Environmental Quality and Public Works Commission. And so what we sent you was based on the comments and concerns that were expressed in work session last week as well as some follow-on comments we got. We went back and we worked with Edlin Renewables and their group. And so we have a few small changes to the documents. Exhibit C that's in your packet was just a typo was changed. Exhibit B is the memorandum of ground lease. And that is just a draft document that will not actually be completed and executed until the contract is completely signed and we actually go through the process of construction and build the fence. Because then at that point we'll know exactly what the limits of the ground lease will be. If you notice in the language of the lease, it does talk about approximately 357 acres. That's because we don't have a complete survey of the exact boundaries. So that's what Exhibit B will do. We'll update that. Version 10, the critical items that were updated in the lease, the construction period language. We changed the construction period language to allow for that period to change instead of having hard limits. In case there is anything at the federal legislation that changes that investment tax credit or those safe harbor dates, the vendor, the tenant would not be penalized if those change at the federal level. So the contract would allow those construction limits to change. Section 3, again, goes back to the vendor is not actually leasing all of Area B, which is the larger of the two capped sections. They're actually just going up to... So the north side of Area B is shaded and they're not leasing that. But when we look at what makes the most sense both for Edlin Renewables and for us as the landholder, it would not make sense for us to put a fence line across the capped landfill because then you have the issues with the penetrations. So basically we're going to fence the entire Area B all the way around so there'll be a portion within that Area B that is unleased space. And Edlin Renewables, just because once that fence line goes up, it becomes a power plant by definition of code. And so to avoid our mowers having to go in there, Edlin has accepted responsibility that they will actually mow approximately 40 acres that they wouldn't be leasing. So that language is in there to clarify that. That's what that item on the red line was. The Community Benefits Agreement section, that has gone up from $125 a megawatt D.C. to $250. But there is a caveat, and that is that if the Kentucky Division of Waste Management determines that the activities during the construction period require the environmental monitoring, the 30-year post-closure monitoring, if they require that to be extended, then there is the potential that the Community Benefits Agreement would then be reduced to pay for that extended monitoring because that is a requirement that we put in the contract so that LFUCG shouldn't have to pay for that extended monitoring based on activities of the vendor. But right now, the last conversations we had with the Division of Waste, since this will be the first solar plant on a landfill, is they're not even sure how they're going to enforce the regulations on that. So they don't think they're going to extend it, but we did put that in there as a backstop to make sure that the constituents don't get penalized for that. Section number 7, the taxes, the language on taxes. There were several questions about personnel taxes and all that. I'm not going to go into the details of it. If you need any more details, I'd ask Lawton and Evan to come on down, but that entire section has pretty much been rewritten to ensure that all of the concerns that Council expressed about the language on the taxes have been updated. And Section 11, the decommissioning bond, again, there was a couple concerns about the length of term. The original term was 12 months. There was multiple folks wanted that reduced down to six to match the draft ZOTA language that's moving forward, as well as there was some concern about the amount of the decommissioning bond. We went back and forth, and the language changed on the decommissioning bond. We did not put a hard dollar amount. What we did was we went out, we looked, we researched. Edlunds provided some documentation that shows that 45 cents per watt, correct me, 45 cents per watt is the typical amount that is put in the decommissioning bond. So we added that language in there so that whatever they actually, the capacity they build at, the decommissioning bond will match that, and those are at industry standards for the decommissioning bond. Also subject, and the language is still subject to the siting board, whatever limit they put on there. So if the siting board puts a higher limit on, they would have to abide by the higher limit Excuse me. Section 13, there was a number of questions about assignment. That language has been cleaned up, and again, if there's more detailed questions about that, I'm going to defer and ask Evan to come on down and answer those, but I believe all of the language in the assignment addressed all of the questions that were brought up. And section 27 deals with, we updated the language on here. Again, it didn't, there was a number of questions about the renewable energy credits and our right of first refusal, so we cleaned that language up to make sure that it was completely clear that the renewable energy credits will potentially be rebid about every seven years, which would be consistent with the power purchase agreement terms of seven years, and so the language shows that any time that those are rebid, whatever term they happen to be on, then LFUCG would have the right to purchase them at whatever the current market rate is. We don't get favorable, but we also don't get penalized. We always get the right of first refusal on those. And it also cleaned up a little bit of the time frame. We would have to act on a reasonable time frame so that they don't sit out there, so that Edelin can move forward. That's the key red lines. Well, my time is up, but I want to thank you all for your, obviously, hard work on listening to the council and making some changes that I think it makes it more palatable for everybody, so thank you all. Thank you, Mayor. I apologize for going over time. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. It looks like, as you already mentioned, the CBA has changed some at $250 per megawatt annually for 20 years, subject to reverting to $125 per megawatt minimum if additional landfill monitoring costs are required under Section 10B4. Can you talk about why the reverting language was added taking away from the CBA rather than just increasing the CBA in general? That has to do with Mr. Edelin has kind of said there's only so much money in the lease, so what we did to clean this up is we removed we put the benefit on LFUCG now, so in other words, if we're going to get the higher amount from day one, and then we only lose that additional amount of money to address any potential extended monitoring if the Kentucky Division of Waste requires it. If the Kentucky Division of Waste does not require that, then the $250 would continue on and also we negotiated that term going out to 20 years because, like most solar projects, the first seven or eight years, the cash flow is negative. You don't make money because it's all money up front and you've got to pay all that down, and so that's why when you start looking at the cash flow and the financial model, it's a little easier for Edelin Renewables to pay a little longer, a little less for a longer term than more up front for a shorter term, and that's just the financial model with a solar project. Okay. So, currently with the $250 per megawatt community benefits agreement, it equates to roughly about $16,000 annually. Right? That's correct. If the project achieves full success and we're looking about possible $8 million annual net profit, the CBA represents about only 0.2 percent of annual earnings over that year, that's if it reached that great success. Is that correct? No. Help me understand how you got to the $8 million net profit figure because that would be awesome. I got to that basically through email exchanges were saying annual net incomes, and it was roughly highlighted, you spoke about 10 percent on the last meeting of annual income, and then in the emails it highlights the, and it says that we don't know if you'll reach that much, but possibly once it gets to the time frame of the low cash flow income, that you could reach $5 million. I'd love to catch up. That's not remotely in the ballpark. Lord, I wish it were. So how much would you get net from selling energy based on the megawatts on the Haley Pike that you plan to put on the Haley Pike? Well, it very much depends upon I can't answer that question for you because we don't have land control yet because you haven't awarded it. When you award land control, I'll be able to go and do what's called a capacity study with LG and EKU so we can know precisely the amount of power that we'll produce on site. Once we have that, we'll be able to do site design which will help us layer in precisely what it's going to cost to build that. And then finally, when we're given clarity by the Public Service Commission on what we can sell, we'll be able to answer that question adequately, and I think you'll have the opportunity to answer it to your satisfaction when we come back and ask you for action on the industrial revenue bond and pilot agreement. That sounds good. So, just speaking, if, you know, I guess, if the project makes $5 million, even $5 million annually based on that net income, that still only represents, that $16,000 only represents .32% of earnings, so we still haven't even got to 1% of the annual net increase, which then brings me to the question to say did we look at tying the CBA to a percentage tied to cash flow, possibly? No, because at the end of the day, it is dramatically more expensive to build on a project if, I would never do it, but if you awarded us the opportunity to develop a horse farm somewhere, we could certainly have that conversation, because it's easy to build on agricultural farmland, and the reason we're here trying to advance this, and the reason the conversation we've had with the mayor has been so good for so long, is because this proves we can repurpose brownfields for renewable energy development. The consequence of that, Councilman, is it's much more expensive to do. That's why there are only a couple of landfill to solar projects around the country. I'm doing one in St. Louis. As of now, our Solarize Lex program budget is roughly about $400,000 annually. Almost what it looks like, it would take 20 years of this community benefits agreement to even fund that project for one year. I think that the community benefits agreement is just still minute. If this was passed and this is to law, if this lease is passed today, or passed on through the docket, is there an opportunity for negotiation tied to that CBA, and what does that process look like? Does it come back to the council? What does it look like? Councilmember, there's future room for the way the lease is drafted now, there's room for negotiation in the community benefits agreement going forward. We specifically provide it as a minimum. As it pertains to whether or not it goes back to council, I think that's largely up to the resolution that's passed by council as it pertains to this lease. Indeed. But as of now, if this lease is passed, it would not come back to council. This is the final, it would be an administration kind of negotiation. Is that correct? I think typically we anticipate future documents needing to be signed pertaining to a project. We typically provide in the resolution the authority for the mayor to sign or her designee to sign future agreements related to the project, but like I said, that's ultimately up to the council as to how they want to pass the resolution. My only suggestion and I think stance would be that council, and specifically someone from that solar working group, be a part of those negotiations when they take place. Thank you. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Dugas and the Edelin team for working on these changes for us. Mr. Dugas, in terms of the base rate, that $85 an acre, what was the original lease amount that was offered by Edelin in the RFP proposal? I believe $85. Was it $85? I believe it was $85. I'd have to go back and look. So they offered $85 and you all accepted $85? It's because that's why I created the chart. Let me bring the chart back up. Because of the complexities of how everything that's going on here with the ground lease, the water quality, again it kind of comes back to there's only so much money that the solar, that the tenant can pay to make it financially. So what I've tried to do here is show that there's certain things that are being paid on certain lines but ultimately that's why I kind of brought it down here to show you that the net benefit per acre on this lease is a total of about $342. Again, not trying to figure out exactly yes, the lease rate is a little lower than what we anticipated but when I did those studies back in 21 and 24 we kind of just lumped everything together. You didn't know how that broke out so understanding that we generally just used the term rent on those studies but it really should have been what the net benefit is and so the net benefit here is $342 per acre. Thank you for that. On section 11 and this is a follow up to Council Member Sheehan's question from last week regarding the installation again, you all have specified in this all improvements on the cap cells must utilize ballast or above grade spread footings so you address how this will be installed on the cap landfill part which is one third of the total land being considered right now but how the installation is going to happen on the non-cap ag land has not been addressed. Can I ask I don't know if this is an Elon question or a Mr. Dugas question can I ask why that wasn't explicitly addressed in here? Because the uncapped land, it really, there's typically only three methods that you're going to use you're either going to use a ballast or a footer system, you're going to do a screw system or you're going to use a pier system so on the uncapped areas, they're not environmentally sensitive like the capped areas so if they want to choose any one of those three methods it would be acceptable. Okay, so I mean in the conversations that we had last year over the solar ZOTA there was a lot of concern with not doing damage to our ag lands and that involved how they were going to be installed and how they're going to be removed so to me, I want a little more clarity addressing that. Sure Vice Mayor, that's a terrific question we intend to use a weighted ballast system on the entire site so we do not intend to drive given the system that's highly specific to this site that we've got to design we think it's more economical over the long term to use one solution rather than a hybrid solution so at present we do not intend to use a pylon system. Now that's to be determined, I mean we've got to once we have right of land control, we can begin to do the studies and take the other steps through our diligence that will help us determine that ultimately but I can tell you Vice Mayor, the goal right now is to not drive a pylon anywhere on that property. Can you describe to me using the ballast system on the entire project, can you describe to me what that entails and what the removal entails? So it would involve a whole lot of members of organized labor coming in and establishing pads across the site designed not to spread out the weight across the site in a way that doesn't upset subsurface or doesn't perforate the cap So what does it look like when it's removed? What does the original soil look like? I'm trying to have a vision of what the ag land and the soil looks like before you install and after you uninstall. So after reclamation it would look exactly like it looked before we developed. During the process there may be some places where we've got to add soil but I wouldn't expect it and we intend to minimize not only because it's the right thing to do, we intend to minimize disruption of the process. I mean this is the greatest farmland in the world. Vice Mayor, really quickly to answer the question, we also have an economic benefit to it because we want to do as little disturbance as possible so we don't have to pay this annual 50 grand-ish that we can make sure goes to the community rather than spending it in monitoring. I'll sign back in. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. So I appreciate Mr. Elon, your team, everyone being here answering our questions today and I hope that you all know that this is coming from a place of us wanting to see solar energy in Lexington and see it done right because this has been touted as a really innovative project, which I believe it is, and sort of the city's flagship solar project. So we're just trying to make sure that we've dotted all our I's and crossed all our T's. I've got a couple of questions that will relate to both the process of how we got to this point and some broader questions about how this project will benefit the community directly. So one thing that I want to be clear about going off of the Vice Mayor's line of questioning was that this does play pretty heavily into a lot of the conversations that were had last year when we were making our solar energy ZOTA and I don't think it's any secret to anybody in this room or anybody around this horseshoe that the most contentious piece of that was large-scale solar on land that was zoned agriculturally. I just want to make sure that I'm understanding everything correctly because even though this is not prime farmland, this is not the type of ag land that we set out to protect explicitly from being developed for solar energy and whatnot. This is technically speaking under the current zoning still a project that is two-thirds industrial solar on ag land, correct? That is correct, yes. The entire Haley Pike site is agriculturally zoned. I just want to make sure both for us here as we're talking about it and folks who are participating in this conversation, not necessarily in the room, that when we have our solar ZOTA working group talking about a specific percentage of our agriculturally zoned land being allowed to develop solar on it at the industrial level, this project will count towards that percentage should we approve a ZOTA that caps it? That's going to be a question I'm going to defer to law but I would believe that is correct. I think that would be largely up to the council whether or not it would count for that. Obviously this is a little bit different since it's owned by us. If you want to treat differently for that number then that's definitely in your prerogative. Okay. I appreciate that and I appreciate that clarity about the process of how we would count that because I do think that it's important for us to consider the precedence that we're setting with this project in that regard. Another question that I had and this is probably more of an question than it is for LFUCG or EQPW but have you all engaged with the SolarZOTA working group throughout this process at all as you've been discussing this project? No, council member. I think this project is such a one-off and one thing that I would make clear to the council you certainly have a sensitivity to establishing precedent. I appreciate that very much but this is an unprecedented project. This is a once in a generation. I'm the guy who invented coal to solar y'all. I put solar panels on top of mountains and put coal miners back to work. Repurposing a dump for a solar array is the exact opposite of traditional development. So the case that I would make to the council is that there is no precedent here because nobody else is going to come in and say, hey, let me take the other dump and do this. As I shared with you last week, people aren't lining up to spend $100 million on a landfill. Treat this like it is. I would encourage you to treat this like it is and this is a one-off. It's fundamentally different from any other solar project that I think you'll ever have the opportunity to assess in your capacity as a council member. Thank you and I appreciate that. I appreciate the work that you and Mr. Dugas and everybody has put into addressing the concerns presented to council and I also especially appreciate the commitment to utilizing our union workers in the process. So it's my time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say that I am in favor of this project. I think putting solar on Haley Pike is a great idea and a wise way to use the land. My question comes up and I think that of my colleagues as well is how we negotiate something like this. There's other agreements that we might have with private entities and I wonder who do we bring in to come up with these numbers? Who do we bring in to help negotiate what we should get as a city in this case? We used all our internal resources such as law, EQPW and our in-house folks. We did have two contracts with external consultants. CMTA engineers out of Louisville which is a nationally recognized firm for energy management and they actually are probably the number one firm in the state that does energy projects for schools. We brought them in as technical consultants and they also double checked all the financial models that came in and then we also consulted with an external legal partner to review the legal contracts and the legal aspects of it. We did have two external consultants that advised us on it. The external consultant from Louisville helped come up with these numbers so that when they were presented to us we knew if they were in ballpark of something that would make sense for us as a city. Yes. When the original proposal came through I basically ran an independent economic model and then CMTA ran an economic model and both of those models mine and CMTA's numbers came in almost on top of each other and then we received Edelman's and their numbers were a little different than ours but when we sat down on the next stage they explained why and again part of that is we don't know all the, I'm going to use the behind the curtain, we don't know their finances, their taxes, how they're doing some of that stuff and we don't know that. So the models that myself and CMTA came up with we used assumptions and so we don't know the exact finances and how they're going to take their tax credits for instance and how all that's going to do, what the actual term of their financing is going to be so yes we did double check their numbers internally and externally and CMTA's numbers lined up with what again within a reasonable distance. I think you know just speaking for myself and that of some of my colleagues we just want to make sure that we're getting the best deal that we can when we're going to do a project at this scale so that's the question so thank you. Thank you Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you Mayor. Thank you Richard for your work on this this week I do appreciate all the efforts that you've made and I do think the clarifications really did help so I appreciate your working on that with us. I just have a couple of questions myself can you confirm that the pilot agreement if used also gets approved by the council? I'm going to defer to law because I'm not the expert on pilot. Yes that will be that would be approved at the time that the potential industrial revenue bond will be going through council. But if they don't like this is kind of an interesting deal since it's already on government land so I'm wondering if if you and it looks like in our RFP response they said that they would be going for a pilot agreement I just don't know you don't technically have to do an IRB I don't think. Thank you. I can tell you at a career in business Council Member Savigny this project doesn't go without tax abatement the economics simply do not work and for the other members of the council in exchange for the county and the metro government here passing an industrial revenue bond it allows us to abate state based taxes. The result of that is we come back along and have to negotiate what's called a payment in lieu of taxes a pilot agreement which generally nets about 20 to 30 percent more revenue for the local community than if we didn't than if we chose not to execute that approach. So put another way the IRB and the pilot are designed as a financial instrument for economic development by the state whereby the state takes a hit to incent large scale capital investment and the local community see is more than made right. Thank you. And can you confirm Richard is there anything else that comes to the council for approval after this besides that IRB? The IRB I believe. The IRB and the pilot is that it? Does the community have a pilot agreement? Does it come to us ever or not? Just to confirm. Like I mentioned Council Member Morton I think that was similar to what his question was and I think it depends on how the resolution is passed from council. Okay. Thank you. And my last thing is in the typically in a lease like my guess is there's multiple ways if they are going to if SIS is going to go sell this project in one way or another I mean they can sell their entity they could have a change in ownership of their entity and did we I can't figure out in the lease if we because a lot of times that when you're making an agreement between businesses that triggers that triggers an event like a review or that nullifies the agreement and another one has to be signed or something like that. There's an assignment section of the lease which we went back and made some edits to since the last time we were here which goes from I think it was last week there was the provisions which automatically allowed them to assign it to certain groups mostly tied to their financing models sometimes assignments necessary as a part of a financing deal with their private financer but we went back and added the ability for LFECG to review for the creditworthiness of the entity who is going to get the lease to allow us to make sure it's that the new entity is at least as creditworthy as the old entity except as it pertains to certain financing parties Right, but what if the entity is still the same entity and it switched ownership? If it's the same entity then it would switch ownership I'm I think any time I'm not sure if anything is in the lease necessarily as it pertains to that situation because the entity would stay the same but if it changed to an entity that wasn't in the provisions where it allowed for what I'd call a semi-automatic assignment it gives us the discretion to do it so if it's not in the semi-automatic section of that lease then it would be something that's more up to our discretion Thank you. I'm out of time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beasley Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Eaton, when we first started this project I asked you if you'd use union labor when you built this and you said yes I would just like to acknowledge that not only are we going to use union labor but it'll be local union labor which is our laborers, our operating engineers the carpenters as well as some of our school kids I see in this paperwork that we're going to try and work with Fayette County Public Schools with Locust Trace and The Hill, is that correct? Hello, everyone. I'm Brad Clark I'm the Vice President of Social Impact at Eaglin Renewables We've been working with a small group of students right now that is going to expand to help design out what our community benefit planning process looks like We're taking their input and they're co-designing it with us and so one of the components of the community benefit plan will be a workforce development strategy working in concert with our secondary, post-secondary institutions in the area as well as our labor partners. Thank you. I appreciate the information. Again, I just like to say that I'm appreciative that it's local union labor and I would like to also echo Council Member Morton about having a council member on the negotiation team I prefer it be somebody from the ZOTA but I think that the council should have a voice at that table. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to Council Member Hale next Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to just, I'm just going to do this just for public transparency because I've heard this this site being described as a dump on several occasions and I just want to just give the definition between a landfill and a dump so landfills are highly engineered, regulated and sanitary sites designed to safely isolate waste from the environment using liners and daily soil coverings minimizing pollution and controlling methanes whereas dumps are unregulated, informal and illegal disposal sites that pose significant environmental hazards like groundwater contamination and air pollution so I wanted to just give that for public transparency so the public knows that we're not doing this on a dump but we're doing it on a regulated site. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Alright, Council Member Morton. Thank you. So as a stand we're set to receive an annual payment with the $750 per megawatt about $16,000 Our ZOTA suggests and it's adopted policy that this council adopted suggests $750 per megawatt which is roughly only $50,000 annually in this case still modest ask and during our solar working group it was stated by some folks that have been working on CBAs across the state that the suggested amount is modest and they felt that well in certain other cases that more has been asked and that a minimum of $1,000 per megawatt could be a good start so I think my main emphasis has always been tied to the direct benefit that our constituents can receive off of this and I know that today and in the past we've talked about cash flow. Well we don't know if we're going to make much money we don't know how it's going to play out you know when we're looking at investments and investors coming into it, if you're going to put $85 million up front I'm thinking and you're going into the project, you have to be able to have some understanding at the modest at the least of what you're going to make so I guess my question is if the question is tied to cash flow and that's up in the air and we don't know why can't the CBA be tied to cash flow at a percentage? So I'm going to walk you through what are the basics of solar finance and I think how about one minute can you do it in one minute? Sure, but it's a very complicated question so a net profit is what you take home, what the company realizes after you pay back investors you pay back maintenance you finance the debt, you cover the construction you pay the insurance, the lawyers the accountants and all the reporting systems that are required and so I think I think it's important to understand with great respect to the ZOTA process that contemplated a fundamentally different development approach, Councilman Morton than does this on a brownfield project there are reasons why there are hundreds of thousands of acres across this country of prime farmland that are covered by solar panels, there's also a reason why there are only a handful of landfills that have solar on them because the math doesn't math and so the only other thing that I would say in addition to the chart that you have in front of you is that doesn't contemplate the pilot payment that my firm will make to this city for 15 years and that's 500, that we propose $500 a megawatt and you'll have an opportunity to come back and look at that but I only ask that you pull out and look at this in the context of totality of investment, this is an $85 million dollar minimum private capital investment in this county it will be one of the largest that happen that year, the economic effects that come from that are significant the people in organized labor who are going to make a living wage doing this work also matters, it's not just about the check that is written for a community benefit plan, it is about a massive private capital investment happening on a landfill, on property that couldn't otherwise be utilized, Councilman Thank you, thank you, I think that brings a good point, actually in that community benefit agreement conversation, in the ZOTA conversation we directly emphasize our labor unions and making sure that the workforce is local, so I actually appreciate that I agree, that is a part of community benefit but in this case, where we can require community benefit on our land, in the case where the lease dollars are only being directly to the landfill fund and not to our general fund I think it's pertinent that we look at that so coming to these discussions, both regarding the landfill and large scale solar in our agriculture area, my key emphasis has always been on how do our constituents directly benefit, I've explored whether the project will decrease their electric bills or provide any tangible direct benefits from a micro lens there, simply there isn't much the only way to get a tangible micro direct benefit is through CBA and on private property we all know that that cannot be required, on public property, on our property, it can from a macro perspective, the need for green energy and sustainability is clear, but the case in front of us, we are being asked to allow a private entity to develop on public property, on the landfill at little to no cost, with only a very small CBA when it has been highlighted that it is well within our authority to require and set a CBA so yes, some may say, well, it's just a dump but it's a dump that will generate money, that will generate profit, that will generate millions for a private entity, so it sounds like a pretty good dump to me, so the bottom line to me this decision, I don't think I think this decision is political in front of us, because of other conversations that we've had, and moving forward without a solid CBA in place, to me we are putting politics over people when we should always put people over politics thank you. Council Member Savigny Thank you Mayor I just wanted to say, I just wanted to have you recognize that the council is making a decision that could be up to a 28 year, I guess, decision or something like that, so there are councils down the road that are going to say, these guys were idiots, they let this pass or my god, they were geniuses so that's why we've been given very little time to kind of react to each thing as it comes so that's why we're just trying to make sure that we're making the best decision we can for the community and to also live up be good stewards to the people that follow us so they we try to do the best we can, but I do appreciate all the work you guys have put into it thank you. Council Member Lynch Thank you Mayor and I would like to just emphasize again what both my colleagues have said is that I think there needs to be a council member as part of the negotiation team should this move forward we had council members as part of the negotiation team for the new city hall so we can have council members on the negotiation team for this contract so I hope we do. Thank you Mayor Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu Thank you Mayor Mr. Elan, to follow up on our conversation about the installation will you commit in writing in section 11 to include language covering the non infill ag land right now it only mentions the process with cap cells. Will you include language? Because I think from your answer to my question earlier you're doing one method of installation for the whole thing, right? So I just want more explicit language saying that that is the case for both the cap landfill and the non Vice Mayor we're certainly open to that and if legal would propose it we'd respond Okay Will you further commit in writing to essentially leave the land and soil as you found it that was also part of your answer from before The honest answer is I don't know leaving the soil as we found it on the entirety of the site may or may not I mean for instance if we built an access road Vice Mayor would that violate the spirit or the technical you know agreement that we come to sometimes the honest answer is I don't know and certainly we would agree to language where we would minimize impact to the surface soil there but it's for a broad prohibition Vice Mayor I just don't ever want to lie to you and I don't want to get into a situation where you feel like I did I just want to line up what we have in writing to I think the spirit of what your answers were I appreciate the spirit of it One more question for you following up on Council Member Morton's conversation about the CBA If given time would Edelin be open to coming closer to that 750 number recommended for CBA in our solar Zoda So Vice Mayor we would I would be open as the CEO of this Lexington company that employs a bunch of Lexingtonians who all live here I would certainly be open to that and I would certainly be open to the current funding level of the CBA being treated as a floor rather than as a ceiling I have an excellent reputation in all the communities the largest taxpayer in Martin County is a solar array that I advanced I'm sorry to cut you off so the answer is yes I appreciate that I just want to be clear for my position I am for large scale solar, that's the way I voted, that's the way I spoke when we were talking about the solar Zoda I think this particular project is really really important and potentially transformative and because it is such a precedent setting project is why I and my colleagues I think want to really make sure we get it right and the core goal I think the through line in all of this conversation is that we want to get the best deal possible for the city and we want to get the most benefit for the city so I'm going to propose one more week postponement because we don't have a council meeting this Thursday it actually doesn't change our timeline at all so if we address this and put this from new business onto the docket next Tuesday it will still get first reading next Thursday so I move to postpone item A in new business to our work session on February 24th second council member Curtis seconds is there any discussion all those in favor say aye aye is anyone opposed alright that motion passes thank you Mr. Dugas is there any other comment on new business alright all those in favor of approving new business with the postponement of item I believe it's A please say aye is anyone opposed alright that motion passes as far as communications from the mayor we have no appointments no donations and no procurements so I'll entertain a motion to approve the council capital projects all those in favor say aye aye is anyone opposed alright that motion passes and at this time we have social services and public safety and I'll turn it over to council member Reynolds thank you mayor the January 13th 2026 meeting of social services and public safety committee was called to order at 1pm followed by unanimous approval of the October 13th 2025 committee meeting summary following a fatal carbon monoxide incident in Lexington a cross department working group reviewed regulatory gaps while CO detectors have been required in new construction since 2011 older buildings are not covered for this reason two ordinance were presented the creation of section 9-2.1 requires CO detection in existing commercial structures the amendment of section 12-1C requires CO detection in existing single family and two family dwellings the goal is to close a safety gap in older buildings and align with the international fire code standards colleagues I explained during the committee meeting this afternoon I have a non-material correction to state for the record under PM-705.1 in section 12-1C the law department wanted to clarify that the Kentucky residential code establishes building code requirements for single family and two family dwelling units in Kentucky to avoid confusion the unnecessary reference to the international residential code was removed. For your information one pager will be distributed soon that you can share with your constituents and others about updating the code and how to place carbon monoxide detectors. Persuasive to the actions of the committee on January 13th 2026 I move to amend the docket for the February 26th 2026 council meeting an ordinance creating section 9-2.1 and amending section 12-1C of the Lexington urban county government code of ordinances effective 180 days after passage of the council. On behalf of the committee I so move. Council member Morton seconds are there any questions? All those in favor say aye Aye. Is anyone opposed? Alright that motion passes. Next we received an update on street outreach and the response to homelessness encampments street outreach is a core component of effective homeless response systems providing mobile trauma informed engagement to connect unsheltered individuals with shelter, health care and other basic needs particularly for those least likely to seek help independently. Since August 1, 2023 the Hope Center has made over 800 unique contacts with nearly 30% resulting in positive housing outcomes and 63% of intensive case management participants exited to permanent housing future considerations include expanding downtown coverage and potential 24-7 outreach. No action was taken. Finally we received an overview from the Audrey Gravey Center a public school treatment and education program serving justice involved youth ages 12-18 or up to 21 for qualifying services the program combines academics with trauma-informed therapeutic services and community partnerships. Highlights include a reduction in discipline incidents academic growth in reading and math and successful transitions back to district schools. No action was taken. The meeting was adjourned at 2.14pm and that concludes my report out. Thank you Mayor Thank you. Are there any questions for Council Member Reynolds? Alright thank you very much Council reports Vice Mayor Wu Thank you Mayor To translate I want to wish everybody a very happy Lunar New Year A lot of folks think of it as Chinese New Year but Lunar New Year is actually celebrated by dozens of Asian countries. This is the year of the horse, specifically the fire horse and that energy is all about passion and rebelliousness courage and decisive action and I hope that inspires not only this council but everyone else This past weekend I had the pleasure of celebrating Lunar New Year with a couple of different events with the Chinese American community. Here at the Lyric Theater, Shuling Studios put on a really terrific series of dance performances you'll see in the next couple of slides from both young and not so young a lot of different dances from different ethnic groups in the Chinese diaspora and then the Kentucky Chinese American Association had their annual celebration singing music, great food and it was a great event overall. I got to hear Golden performed as a dance in both of these events so K-Pop Demon Hunters was a really big influence this year apparently. There's also a community celebration at the Central Library this Saturday at 2 p.m. Lastly, Ramadan Mubarak and Happy Mardi Gras to those who celebrate. Thank you, Council Member Beasley Thank you, Mayor. First I'd like to thank all of our union leaders for being here today to hear about our Zeta. We appreciate y'all showing up I'd also like to thank Kapow for having Council Member Lynch and I out there for their Civic Panel this weekend. It was a good time. We had a great time out there with those folks There are many noteworthy days in our history and today I'd like to acknowledge one I'd like to say Happy Birthday to my favorite Marine Today is Chief Scott Colvin's birthday Happy Birthday, Chief Thank you, Mayor Thank you, Council Member Morton I will echo those birthday remarks. Happy Birthday Chief Colvin Last week I had the opportunity with Council Member Higgins-Horne to attend to be a judge for the amazing shake competition at the Hill for Crawford Middle School's Leadership Academy It's always energizing to engage with our young leaders and see their confidence, professionalism and preparation on display Competitions like this build more skills but they also build character in our future leaders and I'm so proud of these students and grateful to the educators investing in them and I want to give a good good luck to the three that get to go to Atlanta to the national competition So then moving on I also had the privilege and opportunity to speak with a career readiness class for social work and criminal justice majors at the University of Kentucky Having an honest conversation with students who are preparing to step into service-oriented careers is always meaningful to me. So thank you to Dr. Bell for the invitation and for creating a space for dialogue about public service, policy and community impact. We need passionate prepared professionals entering these fields and I'm encouraged by what I saw in that room And then lastly this morning It started a little early than usual but I wouldn't have wanted any other way I spent my time with kindergartners at Maxwell Elementary in honor of Black History Month reading Let the Children March by Monica Clark Robinson. Moments like that today remind me why representation, history and storytelling matters. When we pour into our children early, we're shaping how we see them, excuse me we're shaping how they see themselves and the place they are in this world So it was a great way to start the day and investing in our next generation is always on my heart and I look forward to connecting with more students soon. Thank you Thank you. Council Member Brown Thank you Mayor and happy birthday Chief Colvin I was contacted by Mary Quinn Raymer and Visit Lex They are working on a tourism improvement district so I'm going to add that to the Budget Finance and Economic Development Committee. They want to come make a presentation to that committee soon That's all I have. Thank you Mayor Thank you. Council Member Hale Thank you Mayor and also happy birthday Chief I just want to just take this time out and give an announcement that today that we found out that one of our civil rights activists, one of America's civil rights activists, Jesse Jackson passed away today and if you didn't know he was a politician and ordained Baptist minister a protege of Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel during the civil rights movement He became one of the most prominent civil rights leaders of the late 20 and 21st centuries and I just wanted to take this time if we could just take a moment of silence for the late Reverend Jesse Jackson Thank you. Thank you Mayor Thank you. Alright Council that brings us to public comment for issues not on the agenda and there's no one signed up. So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn All those in favor say aye All right we are adjourned. Thank you all for coming music music music music