# Council Work Session - February 24, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · February 24, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6698 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6698?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-02-24 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 24, 2026 - **Length**: 11,956 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 held a Council meeting on February 24, 2026, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber at 200 E. Main St, Lexington, KY 40507. The meeting covered 3 agenda items, including the approval of a summary and two informational presentations on Neighborhood Development Funds and Lexington's Employment Trends & Occupational License Tax Forecast. Over the course of the meeting, 5 motions and votes were taken and 1 public comment was heard. The summary item was formally approved, while the remaining two items were presented for informational purposes only. ## Votes and Decisions All five items before the Council on February 24, 2026 passed by voice vote. No roll call votes were taken, so individual member tallies are not available. - **Ordinance 146-26** [timestamp: 0:06:06]: A rezoning ordinance changing the zone from single-family R1B to mixed low-density residential R2 for the property at 2914 Clay's Mill Road. Motioned by Council Member Savigny, seconded by Vice Mayor Wu. Passed by voice vote. - **Ordinance 147-26** [timestamp: 0:11:59]: A rezoning ordinance changing the zone from single-family residential R1E and planned neighborhood residential R3 to neighborhood business B1 for properties at 118 Mont Mullen Street, 121 and 123 Prowl Street, and portions of 545, 549, and 553 South Limestone Street. Motioned by Council Member Eblen, seconded by Vice Mayor Wu. Passed by voice vote. - **Work Session Table of Motions** [timestamp: 0:16:26]: Approval of the Council work session table of motions from February 17th. Motioned by Council Member Baxter, seconded by Council Member Sheehan. Passed by voice vote. - **Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 0:16:56]: Approval of budget amendments. Motioned by Council Member Reynolds, seconded by Council Member Curtis. Passed by voice vote. - **New Business Items** [timestamp: 0:17:26]: Approval of new business items. Motioned by Council Member Baxter, seconded by Vice Mayor Wu. Passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council approved several financial actions at the February 24, 2026 meeting, spanning contracts, purchases, and grants across multiple city departments. - **L0098-26** authorized the execution of a Ground Lease with **Social Impact Solar LLC** valued at **$30,345** for a solar photovoltaic project. - **L0122-26** authorized an annual agreement with **iconectiv, LLC** for **$6,000** to provide the Division of E911 with access to their database. - **L0132-26** authorized a Professional Services Agreement with **Taylor Martin** in the amount of **$96,667** for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner services. - **L0133-26** authorized the purchase of cardiac monitors from **ZOLL** at a cost of **$73,500**. - **L0135-26** authorized approval of a Stormwater Quality Projects Incentive Grant of **$211,155.49** awarded to **The Sanctuary Lexington LLC**. In total, these actions represent approximately **$417,677** in authorized expenditures and grants across public safety, emergency services, environmental infrastructure, and energy initiatives. ## Public Comment During the public comment period of the February 24, 2026 Council meeting, one member of the public had signed up to speak. [timestamp: 05:32] - **Angela Turner** had registered to address the Council on agenda issues but ultimately chose to pass on her opportunity to speak when called upon. No other public comments were submitted or delivered during this portion of the meeting. ## Contested Items **Ground Lease with Social Impact Solar LLC** Council members engaged in heated discussion over a proposed ground lease with Social Impact Solar LLC. The debate centered on the lease terms and an associated community benefits agreement, with council members raising concerns about whether the terms were sufficiently favorable and scrutinized. Members emphasized the importance of careful review, framing the item as an opportunity to set a standard for how similar projects would be evaluated in the future. The structured data does not identify specific council members by name, specify the outcome of the vote, or provide timestamps for this discussion. ## Approval of Summary [timestamp: 16:26] The Council took up agenda item 0156-26, the approval of the summary of motions from the Council Work Session held on February 17, 2026. No notable debate or concerns were raised during this agenda item, and no key speakers were recorded in connection with the discussion. The summary was approved by the Council. ## Neighborhood Development Funds **Agenda Item 0151-26** The Council received a presentation on the allocation of neighborhood development funds for various projects. This item was informational in nature, meaning no vote or formal action was taken at this meeting. No specific speakers, project details, funding amounts, or locations were recorded in the available meeting data for this agenda item. Similarly, no concerns, debates, or follow-up directives were captured in the structured record. Readers seeking additional detail on this item — including which neighborhoods or projects were discussed, the funding amounts under consideration, or any Council member comments — are encouraged to consult the full meeting minutes or video recording for the February 24, 2026 Council meeting. No transcript timestamp is available to direct viewers to the relevant portion of the meeting video. ## Lexington's Employment Trends & Occupational License Tax Forecast [timestamp: 33:10] Dr. Michael Clark from the University of Kentucky delivered a presentation to the Council on Lexington's employment trends and occupational license tax forecast. This item, listed as agenda item 0158-26, was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken. The presentation focused on current and projected employment conditions in Lexington and their implications for the city's occupational license tax revenue — a key source of local government funding tied directly to wages and employment levels in the area. No additional details regarding the specific data, projections, or findings presented by Dr. Clark are available in the provided record. The outcome of the agenda item was informational, indicating the Council received the presentation for awareness and context rather than to act on a specific proposal. --- ## Decisions - **146-26** — passed (0-0): Ordinance changing the zone from a single-family R1B zone to a mixed low-density residential R2 zone for a property located at 2914 Clay's Mill Road. - **147-26** — passed (0-0): Ordinance changing the zone from a single family residential R1E zone and planned neighborhood residential R3 to a neighborhood business B1 zone for property located at 118 Mont Mullen Street, 121 and 123 Prowl Street, and a portion of 545 and 549 and 553 South Limestone Street. - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the council work session table of motions from February 17th. - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of budget amendments. - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items. --- ## Full transcript 🅱🅴🅴🆂 🅱🅴🆂 🅱🅴🅴 🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂고 🇽🇽 🆃🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂� 🆂🅾🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂P 🆂🅾🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂 🆂🅾🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂ölll 🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️🕾️ 🆂🅾🆃🅾🆂🆂🆂 🆂🅾🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂🆂 It's 3 o'clock, so I'll go ahead and call to order the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Council Work Session. Today is February 24th, 2026. And the first item, we do have a quorum, so the first item on our agenda is issues that are on the agenda. And so I have two people signed up. And I might ask our... hang on one second, we may have a little technical issue. Okay, we do have two people signed up. And the way this works, one will be, let's see here, one is yielding time. Angela Turner, are you here? Angela Turner? Okay, and you're giving your three minutes to Rolanda Woolfolk? Okay, very good. So we have one person speaking, and she'll have six minutes. And I believe Rolanda. Rolanda, it's your... Pardon me? You're not speaking? Okay, well then I'll go back to Angela. Do you want your three minutes back? You don't have to speak if you don't want to. I'm just giving you your opportunity. Okay, you're going to pass. Okay, thank you very much. So we do not have speakers right now. And the next item on the agenda is the docket approval. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. And Council Member Curtis seconded. Are there any issues to bring to the docket? I'm so sorry, I'm having computer issues over here. Okay, Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the February 26, 2026 council meeting without a public hearing item 14626, an ordinance changing the zone from a single-family R1B zone to a mixed low-density residential R2 zone for 3.267 net, 3.488 gross acres for a property located at 2914 Clay's Mill Road. So moved. Second. All right, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Is there any discussion? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Council Member Boone. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the February 26, 2026 council meeting a resolution authorizing the Commissioner of Environmental Quality and Public Works, as Mayor's designee, to execute any and all future agreements with the homeowners associations and neighborhood associations to grant permission for volunteer snow and ice removal services on LFUCG streets in specified residential areas in exchange for a waiver and release relating to, thereto, no cost to the urban county government. So moved. All right, Council Member Curtis seconds. Any questions? Council Member Ellinger and then Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I guess ask law. Welcome. What kind of agreement will we have with the HOAs then and what kind of, if there's any issues, what kind of issues come back to us? So this is a release of liability on behalf of the government. So any kind of issues as far as any kind of- If anybody was injured or if there was any kind of, that they could hold us liable for anything? No, this is a release of liability specifically. And it's a volunteer basis and there is no cost to the city? Correct. Okay, thank you. All right, Council Member Reynolds, did you have a question? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Is there a precedence for doing this from other cities? Are there other cities that do these types of releases? If there is, I'm not aware of it. Okay, and then it could be an HOA or it could be a neighborhood association, correct? Yes. What if they want to use a type of chemical or salt mix or something that we don't use on our roads that could be problematic? Do they have to get that okayed through us before they use it? Well, the release specifically states that the HOA or the neighborhood association agrees to hire a qualified contractor. And any kind of injury that would happen to the pavement as a result thereof, they would remedy that injury to the pavement as a result of doing any kind of service related to removal of ice and snow. So if there is injury to the street that is caused by salt or anything like that, they would remedy that. Okay, they'd be responsible for that. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions to the motion? Council Member Sheehan? I think some of the, thank you, Mayor. I think some of the question around restriction on chemicals is because of an environmental impact. So is there any kind of consideration for that? So it's not just whether it might damage the actual pavement, but that also goes into our storm water system. So is there any consideration? We make considerations based on environmental impact on what we use. So is there anything that would be regulated here for contractors that come in in this way? That is not currently anticipated in this release, no. I think the release focuses on removal and not on treatment. That would be a different discussion. And I think we would make sure that in creating the final document that we address issues like that in there. Okay, thank you. And there's insurance. We were asking for insurance to be in place, that kind of stuff. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Council Member Ellinger? Thank you, Mayor. Sorry. So if we do this agreement, do we no longer have to do their streets going forward then? Are they off the list then if they were on the list? So it's my understanding that this would be the HOA or the Neighborhood Association would provide notice so that Environmental Quality and Public Works can coordinate that. Yes, that's correct. If they provide their own ice and snow removal services, we would not have to use government resources to redo that. And I guess this is just thinking, if they did it and they didn't do it at a level that somebody else, maybe we did, I know we're dealing with ice and snow and it's going to be slick out there, but if somebody has an issue, are we susceptible to anything because they didn't do a sufficient job? Well, no, because the release specifically releases any liability or damage related there to. Okay. Thank you. All right. Other questions? All right. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Council Member Eblen. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the February 26, 2026, council meeting without a public hearing item number 147-26, an ordinance changing the zone from a single family residential R1E zone and planned neighborhood residential R3 to a neighborhood business B1 zone for 0.51 net, for 0.61 gross acres for property located at 118 Mont Mullen Street, 121 and 123 Prowl Street, and a portion of 545 and 549 and 553 South Limestone Street. Second. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there questions? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. And I appreciate the e-mail that you sent because it was very informative. But I think just for the public, because this one has been kind of controversial with the neighbors and the developers, if we could have somebody that's the law come here and talk about what is going to be involved in this, because actually there was something in there that I've never seen with one is where there was kind of a cash payment that was going to be put towards the neighbors to re-enhance the neighborhood. Welcome, Commissioner. So one of the hot topics on this one was a community benefits agreement. And so we sat down with the attorneys on both sides, and we talked through what they would like to see in the ordinance to acknowledge this agreement. So in the ordinance itself, there's a separate section that acknowledges there's a voluntary agreement between those two parties respecting this agreement. I think a letter was introduced at the planning commission, so we have that as an attachment to the ordinance. So we've acknowledged the existence of this agreement, as well as the fact that we are willing to withhold some permits down the line if it's not complied with, which was one of the terms and conditions of that agreement. So we feel that that kind of put us in a good spot where you all are not making your decision based upon the existence of this community benefits agreement, but the parties have some assurance that it will actually get followed through on. So are they putting the money in a bond then? My assumption is it will be escrowed, but I don't know. In escrow? Yeah. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Any other questions about this item? Council Member Moore. So I don't have a question. I actually just have kind of a statement. I just wanted to begin by thanking the Prawl Town Neighbors, Water Community Attorney, Simpson Attorney, Nicholson Developer, Subtex. To me, this is what real community engagement looks like at its best. As you may know, the first proposal was directed about a year ago or two, but in response, the developer and his esteemed council returned to the table, worked in good faith, and addressed the community's concerns not just through dialogue, but by action and direct investment. Personally, I noticed, you know, even at Prawl Town last year, I noticed the developer attending Prawl Town Day this summer, showing a genuine effort to understand the history and the culture of the community, but also to recognize that Prawl Town may no longer be the same as it was in the past, and it may be a little bit different now, but its culture and historic ties to Lexington remain very real today. So like many historic African-American neighborhoods in Lexington, Prawl Town is and has faced pressures of growth. But today before us, I think, is a request consisting of a bold community benefits agreement, acknowledging the impacts of gentrification and directly investing in the community that have been underserved. So to me, this process reflects a strong community engagement, meaningful compromise, innovative solutions, tangible investments, and this is exactly what intentional and responsible community engagement and development looks like, to me at least. So growth, so that the growth does not erase the legacy, but it strengthens our community in multiple ways. So importantly, and most importantly, I think that it can set a precedent for how pressures of growth in our communities can be addressed in the future, intentionally and through innovative ways to address multiple challenges head on. So I just want to give my gratitude to all of those folks that were involved in this process. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to speak to the motion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Is there anything else for the docket? All right. All those in favor of approval as amended, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Next, we have the council work session table of motions from February 17th. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Second. Council Member Baxter, Council Member Sheehan, are there any corrections, additions? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. We do have budget amendments to approve. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Council Member Reynolds, second by Council Member Curtis. If you have a question about a budget amendment, please log in. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. For your information only, we have some budget adjustments, and that brings us to new business. Is there a motion? It's approved. Second. All right. Council Member Baxter, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Now, please log in if you have questions about new business. We're all red. It won't work? Okay. Let's do the old-fashioned. Raise your hands. We'll start down here. New business. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question about Item L, if Commissioner Ford is available. I'm happy to say, if we're talking about paving, you might see the light at the end of the tunnel. But could you tell me a little bit more about this additional design services as it pertains to the Shilto Park project? Yes, Council Member. First and foremost, I'd like to begin is that we're making great progress with the new Senior and Therapeutic Recreation Center. We hope to share additional updates as that goes along for you guys' benefit. We're on track to complete that project early fall, and it's well under budget. We have known we've needed road improvements in the Shilto Park area prior to starting construction. We made an intentional decision to slightly delay those plans for not to have a construction site on top of newly repaved roads. So what we're asking now is for EOP to help us with a current assessment of not only Shilto Park Road, but all the roads out in the Shilto Park area that serves various recreational concept areas in the park. They're going to look at the current road conditions to see if they actually need improvement, to what degree they need improvement. And then last but not least, and perhaps more importantly, they're going to also provide an assessment of the accessibility improvements that may be needed not only on just the roadside, but the various parking lots and other parking areas in the park. So that represents the change order that we're bringing forth today related to business item number L. When you say accessibility, that can mean a bunch of things. Do you mean like potential entrances into the park? Do you mean accessibility from the building into parking lot? Like what part of accessibility are you referring to? I think we're primarily looking at ground-level accessibility. I think that takes into account as well. But whether the paving is at the correct slope, things, et cetera, like that, the architecture firm can provide us that expertise. Not only this business item L, but the other business item that pertains to the soil, those are professional services. We're still under our budget for design services related to the original project scope. All right, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. We may have a few little technical gremlins, so I'm going to go by what I see on my screen, and then we'll catch up with others. Council Member Morton. Thank you. So I don't have any questions, but I just have a motion here. But I do want to emphasize, just for item A, that I would want to reemphasize that my hopes are that we'll get a council member on that negotiation team for that community benefits agreement. But I do have a motion that I'm going to make, and it's basically what the intent of this motion is, to make sure that that community benefits agreement, that negotiation comes back to council for approval before moving forward with this process. So I'll make a motion to amend item A in today's work session packet under new business to require any community benefits agreement drafted pursuant to the terms of the ground lease agreement to require a separate vote by the Urban County Council before being executed by the mayor or her designee. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Council Member Lynch seconded. Does anyone wish to speak? And you'll need to raise your hand, please. Anyone wish to speak to the motion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Okay. Next, I have Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on item O about the captioning services. Hello. You get to come to the other side of the wall. Does this include any language services, or is it just English closed captioning? Thank you for the question. At this time, it does not include any translation services. The company we're going with only has English. Okay. I know that's something that Louisville does, that they have that capability. And so I wondered if that's something that we could look into where you could select the language when you're watching it. For the cable or for the web stream? I guess for either or both, but yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. You're welcome. Now, let's see. I am working off of corrupted lists. We're still on here. We're having multiple computer issues up here. So I think I have Council Member Baxter next, or you're out. Council Member Brown. You didn't sign up even though you were on the list. Okay. Council Member Beasley. You didn't either. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to speak to item A. I appreciate the language changes that I have seen in the agreement so far. I do think that we've seen changes based on the questions that we've asked over the last couple work sessions. So I do appreciate that. I am of the opinion that the $85 an acre is still low, even for a brownfield. Maybe that's an acceptable rate, but 66% of this project is not on the landfill. I'm willing to let this move forward knowing that we will see the pilot agreement come to us and the community benefits plan later that Council Member Morton just made the motion for. And we will give those documents the same level of scrutiny that we have given this lease agreement. But I want to be clear about why the scrutiny matters. I understand that it's difficult having to answer for every detail and every line in the lease that we have been looking at. But it is our responsibility to ask these questions and to make decisions on full information and get the best deal for our community. But also, solar hasn't been done at a high rate on capped landfills. And I want to see it done more, particularly on brownfields like this, but I recognize that we are setting a standard here. And Mr. Edlin, this might be your first landfill project, but I expect and I hope that you will continue pursuing these projects in other municipalities across Kentucky and the nation. And so, while I want to see solar expand, I do feel the pressure that our public agreement is going to be used as a model that other municipalities will look to when negotiating their own projects. So when we are asking all of these questions, it is important to me because I think we are setting a standard and I want to make sure we are setting an appropriate standard, not only for our community members, but for all of these other later municipalities that might pursue projects like this. We have seen that even when we have been talking about our community benefits program. When we are looking at models across the country, and a lot of those aren't public, so we're having to kind of rely on what is public information, and ours is a public document. So that's why I think it's so important that we get every detail correct. And again, I do appreciate this project. I want to see more solar. I want to see more solar on brownfields, and I will support it at this point, and then we'll look at the other documents as they come forward. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. And I just wanted to kind of echo those same sentiments. I do appreciate all the work that our staff has done, the work that you've done going back and forth. I know it's not been the most, it's something that we've not done, so we want to just make sure things are as good as they can be. And while I wish the deal was overall a little bit better for the city, I do know that the opportunity cost of that land, there's very little value other than doing something cool like this project. So I look forward to seeing the remaining documents, and I hope that we have a long and prosperous future in renewable energy in Fayette County with this project. I'm glad to see something actually moving along. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to also echo my colleague's comments about item A. I think this deal can be better, but we need large scale solar. And to me, I think we're pushing so hard on this one because it is groundbreaking and precedent setting. And that's why we really, really want to get it right. And I think if we have one job up here, it really is to get the most benefit possible for the city writ large and for all of our communities. So I will, at this point, be supporting it. I also want to echo and kind of amplify some of the other comments about the community benefits agreement negotiations. I would really like to see specifically a council member from the solar working group in that group to have that conversation. And beyond that, when we start thinking about the negotiation for the pilot and the IRB, I would also love to see a little more solar expertise in that negotiating group from our end. And I'm sure we can find that from the solar working group. So, thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Does anyone else believe they signed up? I don't have anyone else, so. Okay, very good. All those in favor of new business, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. And the first item of communications from the mayor is appointments. If I could have a motion. Move to approve. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. And then Council Member Sheehan. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. We do not have donations. We do have communications from the mayor for procurements. Move to approve. Council Member Baxter, seconded by Council Member Curtis. Are there questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next, we have continuing business and presentations. I'll entertain a motion for approval of neighborhood development funds. So moved. Council Member Curtis, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Thank you. Next are council capital projects. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Council Member Reynolds. Is there a second? Second. Council Member Savigny. Any questions? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next, we are ready for our budget finance and economic development report from Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. The report out summer and motions, excuse me, from the Budget Finance and Economic Development Committee for January 27, 2026. The meeting began at 1 PM. The first item was the approval of the October 21, 2025 committee summary. The committee unanimously approved that summary. The next item on the agenda was the FY 26 quarter two financial update through December 31st, 2025 general fund revenues totaling $261.8 million and expenditures totaling $243 million with revenues running 3.2% above budget and 6.5% above last year. Payroll withholdings and property tax collections are performing strongly, while net profit collections reflect timing shifts related to the federal tax deadline and investment income is below projections. Expenditures are 6.5% below budget at mid-year, largely due to timing of planned public safety costs, with personnel expenses remaining within 2% of budget. The major funds are generally stable, but most showing expenditures below budget and favorable or manageable fund balance variances. No action was taken on this item. The next item was the annual comprehensive financial review. The committee received a FY 25 annual comprehensive financial review and audit report from Crosland certified public accountants. Auditors issued an unmodified opinion indicating a clean audit. There were no findings, no material weaknesses, and no significant deficiencies identified. Additionally, no audit adjustments were required as part of the review, and no action was taken on this item. The next item was the infrastructure funding plan. The committee received a presentation from Partners for Economic Solutions and Grisham Smith outlining the proposed infrastructure financing plan framework based on the urban growth master plan. Including capital cost estimates and an implementation timeline. The framework distinguishes between one time capital costs and ongoing operating and maintenance expenses with potential funding tools such as impact fees, development districts, special assessment user fees, and a proposed privileged fee structure. Under the privileged fee model, developers will construct oversized regional infrastructure to be reimbursed by future benefiting developments. With LFUCG overseeing identification, contracting, auditing, and repayment. The committee also discussed long term O&M funding options and next steps including drafting an ordinance, developing administrative tools, and evaluating staffing and software needs. No action was taken on this item, five items. The next item, five items were removed from the items referred to committee list. And then the meeting adjourned at 2.47 PM. That concludes my report. All right, thank you very much. Does anyone have a question for Council Member Brown? All right, thank you. Next, we are having our presentation on Lexington's employment trends and occupational license tax forecast. And we welcome Dr. Michael Clark from the University of Kentucky. Welcome. Thank you. You can adjust your mic if you need to. Yes. Is that better? Yes. Well, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to come talk with you all. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Mike Clark. I'm the director for UK Center for Business and Economic Research, or CBER for short. And we've been doing this forecast for, I think, maybe about 14 plus years. So each year we come, we talk a little bit about what's going on in terms of the economy. Fortunately, that's a very simple thing these days, right? So let's go ahead and get into kind of what we're going to talk about in terms of how the economy is doing. Because these trends are what's going to drive our forecast for the occupational license tax. Nationally, what we've seen over the past year, and what we kind of expect going into the 2026, is that inflationary pressures remain. Inflation is still higher than what we'd ideally like it to be. We think that's going to persist as we move into 2026. Employment has grown in 2025, but it's been growing at a much slower pace. And we also are seeing slower wage growth. The Lexington area, and Kentucky as well, seems to parallel this. We are seeing employment growth, but we've seen this slow in 2025, and we're expecting slower growth as we look towards particularly FY26 and FY27. And this is going to contribute to slower revenue growth. We do anticipate that the economy will continue to grow, but at a significantly slower pace than what we've seen in the past few years. I always go over a little bit of kind of the various economic statistics that we have that help us track the economy. One thing that I do want to mention is, as we move through the statistics, sometimes I'm going to be talking about Lexington, Fayette, MSA, which of course, as you probably all know, is Fayette County and all our surrounding counties except Madison. I'm not sure why Madison is not included, but for some reason it's not. It's certainly part of the local regional economy. Sometimes, however, I'm going to be talking about Fayette County. I move through these different geographic areas because of data availability. Sometimes data's available for Lexington MSA. Sometimes we're able to get data, certain types of data for Fayette County, which is going to be more relevant for our purposes today. For Lexington Fayette MSA, what we've actually seen in terms of our unemployment rate is that we have a very low unemployment rate here lately, 2.9%. I don't think that's the lowest it's ever been, but it's certainly low and lower than what we've seen over the last couple of years. We're seeing this at the state level as well. One of the things that we have to be careful about when we look at the unemployment rate is not to take it as just one measure of how the economy is doing, because it can actually be very leading. What it's basically indicating is when we think about the labor force, which is of our population, those who are working or those who are actively looking for work, that would be our labor force. What percentage of the people who are in the labor force are actually unemployed and actively looking? So if you're not actively looking, you're not considered to be unemployed in these numbers. So in times where we have a lot of discouraged workers because the economy has been growing slowly or contracting, we may have a lot of people who have stepped away from the labor market because they simply could not find a job. That is not a good reason for the unemployment rate to go down. The situation we have, we need to always look at the unemployment rate in the context of what's going on in terms of employment and what's going on in terms of the labor force size. Here what I'm showing you is the number of people employed. So these are people living in Fayette County, the residents of Fayette County. And it's the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates of the number of people who are actually employed for pay. And I benchmarked this to January 2020, and so we can see how we've compared relative to other MSAs in Kentucky. You can see generally we've had some pretty good growth, but if you focus on kind of what's going on in 2025, you'll see that's started to decline a little bit. Particularly from where the year started to where we are now, we saw some initial growth, and then we're seeing some declines here over the last few months in terms of the estimated number of people who are employed. We're seeing this in a lot of areas as well, though. We're seeing this in Cincinnati, northern Kentucky area. We're also seeing this in Jefferson County, and we're seeing it at the state level as well. When we look at the labor force, we see kind of a similar thing. We've been growing. Our labor force is larger than it was prior to the pandemic, but in recent months we've been seeing that contract. A number of things are going into that. It's a little bit difficult to tease it out at the local level in terms of what's really driving that. Some of the things that we're seeing nationally are issues in terms of immigration and stricter enforcement of immigration, but some of this is also just the general trends, the aging of the population. And then just kind of the usual things in terms of why we see the labor force moving. All right, now I'm going to move to employment. The previous numbers were talking about the number of people employed. We're coming from surveys that look at the number of people employed within a geographic area. So when we look at Lexington MSA, we're talking about people who are living in that area. Now what we're talking about is the number of jobs. These come from surveys and estimates from businesses. So businesses are telling us how many jobs they have. When we look at total non-farm employment, we look at Kentucky, what we've been seeing is that we saw some really strong growth as we were coming out of the pandemic. That has been slowing as we expected it would. And 2025 was pretty much in line with what we kind of were seeing in terms of the usual trends prior to the pandemic. So we were kind of expecting this, right? We had a lot of economic stimulus. We had a lot of growth coming out of the pandemic as we rebounded. Now we're in a year where it's been a little bit more normal in terms of our employment growth. We actually outperformed the U.S. in terms of our annual employment. We look at Fayette County, we did particularly well. So we grew at a rate of 1.2% from 2024 to 2025. However, I would caution that these are annual numbers. We take the monthly numbers that we get throughout the year, we take the average of that. And there's devil in the details, right? One of the things that we're seeing as we look at the employment numbers is that a lot of the growth that we saw was occurring in the early part of the year. Over the last few months, we've seen the growth in jobs has really slowed, particularly at the national level, at the state level. the last four months of 2025 had actually stalled. Our estimates are a little bit lower than they were before, but these may not be statistically significant. But it suggests that what we're seeing at the end of 2025 is a slowing economy. And this is going to play into our outlook for 2026. A couple of sectors that I just kind of want to point out, oftentimes we like to look at manufacturing. Kentucky, of course, has a disproportionate share of employment within manufacturing. We had anticipated that manufacturing employment would contract. Nationally, employment in manufacturing has been contracting, and that's been the general trend. Kentucky has generally beat that over the last couple of years. But the general trend has kind of contributed to us seeing some reduced growth. But in the Lexington MSA, and again, this is the MSA, not Fayette County. In the MSA, we actually saw some growth in terms of manufacturing employment. Our growth, this won't surprise anyone here, typically comes from education and healthcare. This is a sector that consistently grows, and we typically have strong growth here. It has slowed a bit in 2025 compared to the last few years. And one of the things you'll note is that while it's a particularly important sector for the state, the nation, and for the Lexington area, we actually have had growth, but we've had slower growth than we had at the national level in 2025. And a lot of this is driven by population, because as population grows, demand for healthcare and education services increase. Looking at, again, the Lexington MSA and looking at all the different sectors, those were just a few that I wanted to point out. What I'm showing you here, basically, as you look on the left-hand side, what you're going to see is the change in average employment from 24 to 25 by major sectors. So you can see the sectors where there was a lot of growth in terms of the number of jobs. And then on the right-hand side, you see that as a percentage, because some of these sectors are relatively small. And so what seems like a small change in terms of the number of jobs may be large in terms of the percentage. You can see that if we look at the Lexington MSA, kind of the four main sectors that we're seeing is education, health services, construction, leisure, hospitality, and government. Okay, so that was Lexington MSA. We also get some data on Fayette County. Now this data comes from a different source. It actually is very good, very strong, reliable data. The downside of it is it's collected quarterly. It comes from UI records, and it takes a long time for it to get to us. So the data is always lagging by about six months. The most recent data we have is through June of last year. But what I'm giving you here, basically, is kind of the general trends that we see, kind of the longer term trends we see in terms of Fayette County. Manufacturing, for example, has been on a long downward trend. Construction has really picked up. In fact, Kentucky and the Lexington area has actually seen some really strong employment growth in the construction sector. We've been doing really well in terms of financial activities the last couple of years and professional business services. And of course, education and healthcare, again, always been a strong growth sector for us. And the government sector, I want to take some care here when we think about the government sector. Some confusing issues in terms of what is being counted here. Government includes education and healthcare services for publicly owned institutions. So UK, UK healthcare, will typically show up in terms of government employment. Kind of a quirk of the way we collect and present the data, but that's one of the issues that we have there. So education, healthcare, that particular sector is probably looking at more private, whereas the public education healthcare is showing up in government. Okay, when we look at the sectors and how employment changed from FY24 to FY25, what you can see in terms of the actual growth is a lot of that growth came from education and health services and from government. So most of the employment growth came from government. Most of that is actually occurring within education and healthcare, and healthcare is really the bulk of this. Okay, so let's move on to the payroll taxes. So that's kind of how we're doing in terms of the economy. As we kind of look forward, one of the things I want to kind of do is set some benchmarks here in terms of how we've done in the past. Over the last four years, one of the issues we've had is because of the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic, the growth rates were unusual. And last year when I presented this, 2024 was particularly odd compared to what we've seen historically. So what I'm doing is I'm showing you how employment and how average wages and how payroll revenues have generally changed long term prior to the pandemic. And you can see employment grows about 1%, wages about 2.4%. If you add those two things up, you should get pretty close to your payroll taxes. In terms of 2025, what we saw is getting fairly similar to that compared to what we've seen the last time, but we saw relatively higher employment growth than what we've seen historically. Average wages also grew, and our payroll taxes grew up actually pretty close to what we've seen in the past. When we look at the payroll tax revenue for 2025, it's growing because we have more workers and because our workers are earning more. We've estimated that about 27% of the growth came from employment growth, and about 72% this year came from growth in wages. All right, so when I forecast this, one of the things that I try to do is forecast how is employment going to change and how are average weekly wages going to change. Employment, you can see our annual changes there. We're anticipating that employment growth is going to slow over the next two years. We anticipate 2026 growing by about half a percent, 2027 growing by about six-tenths of a percent. For average weekly wages, we're anticipating 2027 to be about 3.7%. They look like they're different. There's some rounding issues here. 2027 is coming in at about the same rate, just a hair less. What this means in terms of our payroll tax revenue, we are estimating that 2026, we'll collect about $293 million in payroll tax revenue for a growth rate of about 5.6%. We think this is going to be lower in 2027, with a growth rate of about 3.6%. Now our Lexington net profits tax is one that we really struggle to forecast. It's one that doesn't tend to follow the economic trends very well. So what tends to happen here is we tend to make our best guess given the trends that we're seeing, what we're understanding in terms of what's going on in terms of net profits nationally. But it's one that's really difficult for us to forecast because there's just a lot of noise in the data. We're anticipating that this is going to slow. We saw a decline in net profits in 2025. We're anticipating this is going to grow by 3.6% for this current fiscal year and slow to 1.2%. But again, I would caution that there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of volatility in this data series, and it's a very difficult one for us to forecast. So there's a large margin of error here. And that concludes my presentation, and I still have 20 seconds. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make that, thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Clark. And we will take questions. I think we'll have to raise hands. So does anyone have a question? Council Member Sheehan, then Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. And your time is up. I still got the horn. Any questions? So when we're looking at the model here for payroll tax or the next one for the net profits tax, and it makes sense to me how you would project fiscal year 2026 now, having a full year from 2025, but we're only halfway through our fiscal year for 2026. And we heard earlier today in our BFED meeting that the third quarter is one of the biggest areas of revenue. Could you tell me a little bit more how you predict 2027? So what we're doing is we're looking at the general trends, and we're extrapolating those out. We're looking for what's going on in the national economy to see what we think might be happening to our economy going forward. So we're looking at these trends by sector, and we start thinking, okay, well, how has manufacturing been changing over the last few years? Is there any reason to believe that manufacturing is going to pick up or do better than what it has in the last few years? Or do we think it's going to continue along that trend? So the national forecast helps us understand what we think might be going on nationally. Since we are part of the national economy, we will see some of the same types of influences. So if we think that the national economy is moving into a recession, we purchase a national forecast from Moody's Analytics. If we think the national economy is slowing down, we make adjustments in terms of our models. Our models will reflect that, and we look at it by sector. So what we're basically doing is we're just kind of extrapolating the trends that we see, making adjustments for what we think is going to happen in the national economy. And also, when we see money in the bank, because collections have been high, we incorporate that. We tend to see some movement between quarters. If money kind of slops over from one quarter to the next, it may be high in one quarter, but the quarter prior to that, it may be low because of processing issues or because of how people filed. We account for that through our models. So when we go out and we look at 2027, we're looking at, what are the general trends that we're seeing? What do we think is happening at the national level that might cause us to move away from those trends? And those flow into our actual revenue forecast. And does, for the, like say 2027, does that include any of our local data to date? Our local what data? Our data. Well, we're basing it off historic data for those trends. So we are looking at employment. We're looking at wages by sector. And we're looking at what you've actually collected in terms of your revenue. And what our models do, it looks for statistical relationships between all these types of things. So we use that to build what we think is going to happen over the next few quarters into 2027. Thank you, and I think I have a follow-up question. I don't know if it'll be for Commissioner or Director of Revenue, Director Holbrook. When we are looking at, then, these predictions, and knowing that we're trying to always predict the future from the past, and there is some discrepancy in that, right? There can be some difference there. How do you incorporate, when we're going into our budget season, how do you incorporate this prediction and then what we're seeing, say, in this quarter, in addition to this? Sorry, go ahead. Dr. Farley. Okay, so one of the things that we do, and whenever we provide data to Dr. Clark, is we provide him up through the end of December. So we close out December, and then he gets six months of the fiscal year. As we're going through the budget process, we're still collecting data and information for this third quarter that we talked about during budget and finance. And we get to a point where we have to make budget decisions based on the information that we have, which is a little bit further along than what he has. And we can't really provide a current enough, another quarter, because he looks at quarter slices in order to make a fully updated projection. And so we may use this as a jumping off point, but then we may make some adjustments based on some things that come in in the third quarter. Or maybe some one-time instances that we may be aware of, whether it's, I think in the past we've talked about, maybe large apartment sales have been one thing where you see these large, one-time purchases of property that then the entity has a very profitable year and then it's gone. Or a business may have layoffs or hiring or something like that that's of a pretty large scale. So we'll use this as a starting point, and then as we get a little bit more data, we may make some adjustments to it as we're going in and preparing our final revenue forecast for the budget. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Sorry if I went over time. It's kind of a wild west over here. You can't see any clock or anything. Timing is on my watch, so it could be accurate or not. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Dr. Clark, for your presentation. Going back a little bit to all the different employment categories, job categories. We see that government is a huge chunk of it, not only in proportion to all the jobs, but also the growth. And I appreciate your clarification that the universities are lumped in with government. In the overall numbers, what percentage would you say the universities are of this government number? And maybe specifically UK. In terms of the employment numbers, I think health, what I can say, I can't say anything specific about UK, we don't get UK numbers. What we get is this aggregated based on what I'm showing you. For government, in terms of the percentage of government jobs that are there, about 68%, I believe, are in education and healthcare. So that would be UK, that would be Fayette County Public Schools, that would be UK Healthcare, and possibly a number of other things that I haven't thought about. So this other number that says education and healthcare. That would be private. Okay, okay. I don't know if you can answer this, but why do we put the public education and healthcare into government? Why aren't those two separate categories? Well, I think what typically has happened is somebody years ago made decisions and it's kind of stuck. We can actually break it out differently, it's just I haven't done that yet. And in the future, I might do that, particularly since we're getting some additional questions. But again, I think in the years that I've been doing this, we've always kind of talked about how a lot of what's going on in terms of government is really the education and healthcare. But it is good for us to be able to see the distinction between when we're looking at education and healthcare, how much of that is in the public sector, how much of that is actually in the private sector. And so it's just a choice in terms of how we've aggregated it. And it actually might make more sense for us to, for presentation purposes, to pull that out and reclassify it. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think that would give me at least a little bit of clarity. Commissioner Hensley, if we can go to one of the last slides when we're looking at the forecast for 26-27. So we have these forecasts for the percentage change. And obviously, our budget is always a tension between revenue and expense, right? Do you have a sense, and are you able to forecast our expenses as they grow for the next couple fiscal years? Yeah, so this presents a challenge. This is the challenge that we made you all very aware of this year, and made our divisions very aware of. And we kind of knew we've been headed towards, headed back towards, especially coming off of kind of the COVID years, where this was, we were up in the plus tens. And so as we head back towards this, not only are we having to readjust our thinking and readjust what we've kind of gotten used to. We're having to readjust expectations across the board for our residents. Because there's been a massive shift, not just externally, but internally, as far as what the expectations are for our departmental budgets. And what we are expected to do, and what we are expected to have, to be able to do what we produce out in our city. And so yeah, this obviously is going to be a big difference. And how we are going to proceed, because as Dr. Clark mentioned, 26, we're rolling into 26 right now. We've been mentioning to you all every single month. I think last year my word was snug. This year we're snugger. We just keep getting a little more tight, and 27 looks the same way. 28 is probably trending that same direction. And we're not seeing that incline coming back in the near future. And so we're really going to have to be more efficient. We're really going to have to be more thoughtful with where those dollars go. And figure out what we can do as far as using technology to work smarter. I know it's a cliche, but work smarter, not harder. What can we do to create those efficiencies with what we've got? Because this is what we're facing. And it's not just the general fund, it's all of our funds. So we're going to have to really kind of hunker down and figure out how the best use of our dollars are going to be spent. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have a question? Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. And thanks so much for the presentation. I just have a few things. I think you were talking about both wage growth and payroll tax, and I'm just curious. In the data sets kind of that you're using, since baby boomers were slowly migrating out of the workforce, and we're probably at a high wage rate. Is that kind of taken into, is that effect taken into the model? Is that maybe why wages aren't growing so much, because the top and high end earners are dropping off? I mean, that could be contributing to some of it, and to some degree, as that has been happening historically, is a trend that shows up in the data and gets extended as we project into the future. We don't explicitly account for it. We're not looking at the distribution of workers by age or anything like that. Our models aren't that detailed. But certainly, to the extent that it is happening historically, it tends to show up. Usually what happens from one year to the next, it's not that dramatic. And it's other economic issues that are really playing the role. So, for example, when we go back and we look at what's going on 21, 2022, part of what was happening there, well, even if you look at it in the pandemic, it was these big pandemic issues that was affecting things. I remember when the pandemic first occurred and there was discussions of shutting things down, the concern about, well, how is this going to affect employment? How is this going to affect wages, and therefore the property tax? And it was these other larger macro issues that played into it because a lot of the job losses were in lower wage jobs. And so it didn't end up affecting total wages and payroll tax as much. As the economy came back, a lot of the job growth was in leisure and hospitality. And because they couldn't find workers, they started paying really high wages and started bidding wages up. And so we started seeing some really good growth in weekly wages as a result of that. The situation now is, as the economy is kind of leveling off, moving into this kind of slow growth situation. The issue is, to what extent does supply and demand for workers push wages around? Those tend to have more dominant effects right now than the issue of the aging of the population. Thank you. My next question might be for our team. So, and I don't know if you, I think you're using national numbers and then you're making projections. But my guess is when UK may have a facility or Central Baptist Health has a facility that comes online that we know is going to come online this year. It's 1,000 new employees. Are we, do we think of the one time things? Are we a small enough environment that that makes a big difference? Yeah, we actually have a lot of conversation about that. And- And I don't know if we poll, I don't know if we go out there and poll and ask Xerox slash Lexmark, are you contracting this year, are you expanding? Yeah, a couple things. We do get the letters when we have companies that close, and so we do kind of pay attention and we track those. And when we do have folks that come online, if we are not signing agreements with them as economic development incentives to kind of pay those back. We are potentially going to see those, but those are a little bit longer term effects. And a lot of what we've seen is a little bit more transference of those wages. Then a big boom. Our workforce is not necessarily expanding at the rate that those positions are. What we've really seen, particularly as we've grown some of our medical campuses and some of the things that we've seen grow in our area, is that those positions have kind of shifted around. And we're still trying to fill for vacancies and that kind of thing. So we really haven't seen the big pops that you might expect to see with some of these things opening. And then lastly, I would ask you, have we adapted to the concept, because I know in healthcare they're using a lot of contracted employees now. And my guess is those are kind of with major contractors who I would think file properly. But I'm just wondering the independent contractor concept. So one of the things that we've seen just in recent years, because we look at by payroll, using payroll withholdings as an example. By payroll withholdings payer, how do they compare with prior years in the same period? And what you can see pretty clearly is there are several healthcare specific entities that did not exist several years ago and have continued to grow and make up. They're not in our top ten employers, but they're in our top 100 or top 200 out of 12,000 that are paying payroll. So that's something that we can see pretty clearly, even though our healthcare entities are still one of our major growth areas for Lexington. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you. Does anyone else have a question for Dr. Clark or Commissioner Hensley? All right. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you, Dr. Clark. All right, now it is time for council reports, and I do not think you can log in. So we're going to do the old-fashioned hands, and we'll start right over here. Council Member Beasley, then Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to remind everybody that we have a tenant landlord's workshop tomorrow at the Tades Creek Community Center from six to eight. And normally, we'll have the from City Hall to Center Parkway on Wednesdays, and we're going to move that from the 1165-120 suite we are normally at to the community center, so we can be there with that workshop. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to place an item and complete streets manual update in the EQPW committee for review this calendar year. Thank you. Thank you. Any other council reports over here? Council Member Morton, and then Council Member Reynolds, and then Council Member Ellinger. Thank you. I think I have a couple photos. So this weekend, I had the honor of attending two meaningful Black History Month events in our community. The first at historic St. Paul AME, we celebrated an extraordinary milestone as the church received official designation from the National Park Service as a recognized site on the Underground Railroad to freedom. This recognition affirms what our community has always known, that this sacred space holds deep historical significance in the fight for freedom and justice. It was a powerful reminder that Lexington's story is directly connected to the courage and resilience of those who came before us. And then moving on, I also attended a special black history program at Shiloh Baptist Church, in partnership with the YMCA, focused on celebrating our history and reclaiming our future. The program highlighted not only the strength and perseverance of our ancestors, but also the responsibility we carry to continue building opportunity and equity for the next generation. Events like these ground us in our history while pushing us forward with purpose. And then lastly, last week I had the honor of being in the second district attending, being a judge at the STEAM Academy Professional Showcase. I want to commend the students for their preparation, professionalism, and creativity. It was clear they put in the work, and they represented themselves and their school exceptionally well. So thank you to the staff, educators, and all who continue to pour into these young leaders and create spaces for them to grow, present, and shine. The future is bright because of the investment being made in our youth today. So that's about it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you. I think I have a flyer that is going to go up. I wanted to highlight the summer youth job training program that Partners for Youth is doing. There we go. Every year, they employ youth, and they can hold up to 300 rising 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. From June 15th to July 25th, you see the QR code there. Everybody should have gotten this flyer in their email. If you could share it, there's still some availability, and those youth will work up to 20 hours a week for $15 an hour. So not too bad, and that is something that LFUCG gives money to Partners for Youth in order to be able to do. And it's been a really rich program for quite a few years now, so please share that. Over the weekend, there was a fire in an apartment complex in my district. And it was a very challenging thing to respond to, and I just want to thank all of our divisions that worked together to respond. I think we learned we have some kinks to work out, but a lot of folks spent a lot of time and are still working on housing people, figuring out what to do about the buildings. So there were four apartment buildings, and they all ended up being condemned due to utility issues. And that means it affected a lot of people, a lot of really vulnerable people. So I just want to thank public safety, everyone involved there. I want to thank housing, code enforcement, and all the folks at emergency management, everyone that tried to work together and is still working on that situation. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. During the budget finance, I asked Commissioner Hensley about with the report that I saw on the news that we spent 390,000 for our snow removal. And I know that was not an accurate number, just because I think that was just a date specific. But if you could talk about it, because we doubled the budget this past year and over $4 million, I think, is what we had in for snow removal. We just actually, I think, had this past council meeting, we added another 800,000. So where do we stand on that? I know we won't know all the numbers, because we'll do the after action, and we'll get back to that. But where do we stand, and how much salt do we have, and be prepared for if we do have anything going forward? I'm hoping spring's going to be coming soon. I hope it's here, but where do we stand right now, and what have we spent? Yes, sir. Thank you, yes. We have over 5,000 tons of salt. So we're not full, but we're in a much more comfortable space should we have more snow before April or whatever. Or Derby Day, I know that comes up every once in a while as a possible snow day. We are still collecting costs. That was an initial estimate very early in the storm, and that was, I think, focused a lot around our contractor support. We're still collecting payroll data and a lot of our other uses, how much salt we used. It was well over 3,000 tons, so we're still collecting all those tickets to make sure we have everything accounted for. We're actually working with emergency management to put together that whole package to see if we're going to be eligible for any kind of reimbursement. So I hesitate to give any more numbers, but we are actively working on that in addition to the RFP that went out yesterday. And could you talk about that RFP? I was going to ask that about that. I can give some vague information since it's actually an active RFP. But yes, we are seeking support for, very similar to the support we received from the local and regional contractors earlier during the storm, that we did all those through an emergency contract that we don't necessarily. Now that we know that those tools are available, we want to make that an official contract instead of doing it on an emergency basis again. So that contract will be to put those tools in place ahead of time, rather than trying to do it all in the moment. So if I know the numbers, and we don't know them yet, but we had about 4 million that we put in. We had 2 million to add another 2.2, I think, for this budget. And then we just add another 800,000, so does that mean we're probably going to spending over 4.8, would that be? I'd be hesitant to use a number right now, and Aaron might throw something at me, I'm not sure. But if we had to add the 800,000, does that mean we've used the 4 million? Well, a lot of that 4 million was payroll costs, salt costs, and purchase of new equipment that was one time additional and expansion of our fleet. So we are looking at additional tools that we may need, but we haven't made decisions about where we may spend those additional resources if the budget allows this year. And some of that will come out of the after action review as well. So we did use all of the tools that were provided with that budget last year, that adjustment for those additional trucks, those trucks were in place during the storm. Thank you, thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you. Now, does anyone have a report on this side? We'll go to Council Member Brown, Council Member Sheehan, Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor, and I appreciate Council Member Morton mentioning those events this weekend between Shiloh, St. Paul, and Consolidated Baptist Church, there was some great programming in our community. And Mayor, I know you were there at those events, and I think you gave a shout out to Sierra and her husband, the Johnsons, that emceed the event at Consolidated. They did a great job in representing their church and representing LFECG there as well. I just wanted to say thank you to, I know we had a presentation today from Visit Lex, but they have another arm of them called Film Lex, and they're taking advantage of the state incentive for films in the state. And last year here in Lexington, we had three black women-led projects that all created films. We had the one from Black Yarn, Resilience in the Red Line, Step by Step, had a documentary about their customers. And then Roots and Reels also had a project. So Visit Lex convened and brought those groups together. And what they're doing is they had a mixer last Wednesday called the Black Film Mixer, where they specifically invited folks, individuals of color to a mixer to create an opportunity for them to network, build a community, and look for, and to create a list. Because a lot of times, Lisa Brander runs Film Lexington, when projects come to our community, they ask for people that's in that industry to provide jobs and opportunities to. And she is looking to build that list. So I just wanted to say thank you to Film Lex and Visit Lex for investing in that community and that project and helping to build that community. It was the first of three events that they have planned this coming year. And then I also want to thank Haley and Neil and her team and Lex TV for helping to support that effort. I reached out to Haley to see if there was a way she could put together some of the information that they have to promote that event and share information at that, and Haley jumped right on it. So I just wanted to give some thank yous to folks that helped make that happen and create additional workforce opportunities in our community. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I have one quick announcement. The Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association is meeting tomorrow evening at 7 PM at the Cathedral of Christ the King. And it will be downstairs in rooms D and E. So please attend if you're in that area. Thank you, Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I have a few announcements for my district two neighbors. Don't forget this Saturday at 1.30 PM, we will be hosting their Black History Program. It's always a phenomenal event. The kids do a phenomenal job, and it's usually standing room only, so neighbors get there early so that you can get a seat, and that will be at the Black Williams Gymnasium this Saturday. Also, in partnership with our public safety division, I'm excited to host a district two public safety meeting for all of my neighbors. It'll be at the STEAM Academy on Thursday, March the 5th, from 6 PM to 7 PM. So neighbors, please come out. Thank you to Commissioner Armstrong for working with the council district office to get this arranged and scheduled. Neighbors, please bring all the questions you have under the sun. This is the time to come out and ask them. So come out on Thursday, March the 5th to the district two public safety meeting. Also happening in early March, Kentucky Black Pride is hosting their 10th annual Women's Health Summit. It's always a great event with lots of very informative speakers. It'll be happening at the Black Williams Gymnasium as well, and you do need to register for that in advance of attending. And lastly, neighbors, mark your calendars. Our next district wide meeting will be on Wednesday, April the 22nd. More information to come in the later months. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else have a council report? Anyone? All right, that brings us to public comment for issues not on the agenda. And we do not have anyone signed up, so I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you all for being here. All right, don't leave. You're just a new gear I threw away. When I look, look into your eyes. I can see the hurt, baby, that you feel inside. Although I've hurt you, baby, you never once complained. It makes me feel, sweet darling, that much more ashamed. Tears of guilt, tears of guilt running down my face. Tears that only you, baby, only you can erase it, darling. All, all I need is just to hear you say, you're the only one that I love. All I need is just to hear you say, you'll forgive me, forgive me, baby. All, all I need is to have you touch my hand, so you'll understand. Ooh. Ooh. Only you can hold me, and I, and I know I made a big mistake when all your love, darling, yes, I did forsake. It's on my mind, it's in my heart. You can't feel it tearing me apart. But every step I make, every step I take, I make it up to you. I make it up to you. I do the wrong I've done. I do the wrong I've done. I've been unfaithful, I know it's true. But I make it up to you, baby. All, all I need is just to hear you say, you'll forgive me, forgive me, baby. All, all I need is to have you touch my hand, so you'll understand, baby. All, all I need is just to hear you say, you'll forgive me, forgive me, baby.