# Environmental Quality & Public Works (EQPW) Committee - June 16, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · June 16, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6800 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6800?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-06-16 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: June 19, 2026 - **Length**: 11,150 words - **Speakers**: Chair, Council Member > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee met on June 16, 2026, at 1:00 PM, with D. Sevigny presiding. The meeting covered four agenda items in total, beginning with the approval of the May 12, 2026 Committee Summary. The remaining three items — the Complete Streets Design Manual, Empower Lexington/Solarize Lexington, and a Division of Water Quality Stormwater Projects Update — were informational in nature, serving as presentations or updates to the Committee rather than items requiring a vote. Over the course of the meeting, 2 votes were taken and 3 informational presentations were heard. No public comments were recorded during this meeting. ## Attendance The following members were present at the Committee meeting on June 16, 2026: - D. Sevigny - T. Morton - J. Brown - T. Eblen - E. Curtis - L. Sheehan - L. Higgins-Hord - J. Hale - A. Beasley - H. Boone All 10 members were in attendance. No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions Two motions were brought before the Committee at the June 16, 2026 meeting, both of which passed. - **Approval of the May 12, 2026 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 0:04]: A motion to approve the summary of the May 12, 2026 Committee meeting was made by T. Morton and seconded by L. Sheehan. The motion passed unanimously. No individual roll call votes were recorded. - **Approval of the Complete Streets Design Manual** [timestamp: 0:34]: A motion to approve the Complete Streets Design Manual and report it out to the full council was made by T. Morton. The motion passed on a voice vote. No second or individual roll call votes were recorded. ## Approval of May 12, 2026 Committee Summary [timestamp: 04:08] The committee took up the approval of the summary from its May 12, 2026 meeting. D. Sevigny was the key speaker on this agenda item. No concerns or substantive debate were noted regarding the contents of the summary. The committee approved the May 12, 2026 summary. ## Complete Streets Design Manual [timestamp: 05:13] Kenzie Gleason presented updates to the Complete Streets Design Manual during this agenda item. The presentation covered revisions that were made based on stakeholder feedback, as well as the integration of safety features into the manual. This item was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken by the Committee. ## Empower Lexington/Solarize Lexington [timestamp: 34:36] Jada Walker Griggs delivered a presentation providing an update on sustainability initiatives, with a focus on the Solarize Lexington program and broader regional sustainability efforts. The item was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken by the Committee. The structured data available for this agenda item does not include further detail on the specific content of the presentation, figures discussed, concerns raised, or questions from Committee members. Readers seeking the full substance of Walker Griggs's remarks are encouraged to consult the meeting video beginning at the 34:36 timestamp. ## Division of Water Quality Stormwater Projects Update [timestamp: 1:03:38] Chris, the stormwater manager, presented an update to the Committee on the Division of Water Quality's stormwater projects. The presentation covered completed projects, ongoing work, and maintenance activities within the division. No additional details regarding specific project names, locations, costs, or timelines were provided in the available meeting record. The item was informational in nature, and no votes or formal actions were taken as a result of the presentation. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of May 12, 2026 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve the Complete Streets Design Manual to be reported out to the full council --- ## Full transcript The Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Welcome everybody who's here. It is one o'clock on June 16th, 2026, and I will now call this meeting of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee to order. Thank you all so much for being here. The first item on the agenda is the approval of the May 12, 2026 committee summary. Are there any additions or corrections? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? This motion passes. All right, our first presentation today, we are waiting with bated breath for the Complete Streets Design Manual. And I want to thank Kenzie Gleason, the Manager of Outreach and Strategic Planning, in her presentation today. Thank you. All right, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I am happy to be with you here today as well. long time coming so we'll just jump right in our design consultants presented to you at your last meeting to let you know that we had released a public draft of the complete streets design manual and since then we've continued to work with both them and our engineering and traffic engineering department to make some revisions based on some feedback that we received from stakeholders and from the public and we also I want to mention Brandi Peacher from the mayor's office. Our complete streets coordinator was also very involved in that effort, but she can't be here with us today. I'm confused. Let me flip forward real quick. I guess the picture popped over to the next page. Just to provide a little bit of context and background, how we came to be here today. A lot of this started in 2022 when the council adopted a Complete Streets Design Policy that really was the manual, the how-to guide the Complete Streets Design Policy, which established that we should have safe and accessible streets for all members of our community, regardless of their age. So whether you are young or old, whether you are capable of driving or not, whether you can afford to own and operate a car or choose not to, you should have safe access to our public rights of way. And then an action plan in 2023 followed up the policy immediately, which had a specific recommendation that we needed to update our street design standards. And I apologize, the picture there was supposed to be on the prior slide, so it's covering some of the text. That's what threw me off. So shortly after that, in 2025, the council adopted a Vision Zero policy, which established a goal of working towards eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries. That was following many national, local, and state efforts to do the same. The Vision Zero really focuses around safer people and their behaviors, safer streets in terms of the facilities that they provide for everyone, safer speeds, such that when you do have collisions, they don't result in injury or death. and then vehicle safety as well. Following that, in 2025, the council established the Street Safety Task Force that many of you were members of. They framed their work similar to the safer people, safer streets, safer speeds themes, focused around engineering, enforcement, and education. That committee was aware that we were working on this manual at that time and that we would be bringing forward the engineering standards that would fit within this overall initiative. And so that group really focused on some of the more quick build, interim, short term efforts that could be done to support some of the recommendations that would be coming forward in the manual and to demonstrate those to the public, those new strategies like separated bike lanes, like traffic circles, so that they could experience them themselves, make them more familiar with these types of interventions. Is there a way to fix my slides? Okay. Okay. All right. Carrying on. So again, policy has directed us to review, refresh, and modernize our street design standards. Like any profession, engineering, planning, we evolve and learn as we go. Some of the lessons from the past was that some of our past emphasis on moving cars as quickly as possible, with as little delay as possible, had some safety outcomes for other users. So, for instance, at faster speeds, your field of vision is narrowed. Your reaction time is slower in terms of responding to a hazard. The length of the stopping distance increases, as well as the likelihood of injury at higher speeds. So, for these reasons, the manual really focuses on moderate speeds, reducing conflicts, and doing so through various street design and intersection features. Oh, there we go. More specifically, what has changed between our old design manual, which was last updated in 2005, so 20 years ago, and the new one. This is sort of an overarching synopsis of that. Our prior manual really didn't provide a lot of alternatives or options or flexibility as it related to new street design, and it wasn't really responsive specifically to the surrounding land use. So what street elements are included and the widths to which they are built should be responsive to whether we're in a low-density environment, a high-density environment. For residential, for instance, are we in a mixed-use area? Are we adjacent to a school? Those sort of things matter when it comes to quality street design. Additionally, striped bike lanes were our prior standard. We're moving more towards a fully separated bikeway, both horizontally and vertically, so a bikeway at sidewalk level outside of the curb, which has really been shown to be much more comfortable for all skill levels of cyclists and ages. And for intersection design, this is where I think I'm very supportive of the concept of using or defaulting to looking at a circular intersection at any and all possible locations. So this includes in new development, traffic circles and roundabouts can be sized accordingly to what type of intersecting streets, how wide are those streets, how much volume do they have, and how much do they need to move through. So they go anywhere from a neighborhood traffic circle all the way up to a roundabout or a turbo roundabout if you have a multi-lane roadway. And they have a lot of benefits both to traffic flow and to safety. They're also very low cost to maintain over time. They self-enforce good, safe driving behaviors. You can't run a red light at a roundabout. And likewise, they reduce the likelihood of fatality by 90% and serious injuries by 75%. They can also increase traffic capacity anywhere from 30% to 50% depending on the particular application. And that also helps so that drivers are always in motion, not a lot of stop and go, which can lead to frustrations and some aggressive driving behaviors as well. so both with the circular intersections and with some other mid-block features we're looking to on new built streets try and integrate those traffic calming features from the get-go such that we don't receive calls after the fact asking us to make improvements to signalization or to provide traffic calming features along a neighborhood street we want to try and get it right from the first time and again all of those towards the aim of reducing injury and death. And sidewalk widths, again, that's just, we have made them more responsive to the surrounding land uses. The minimum ADA standard is five to four feet in certain circumstances. Our manual recommends six foot be our minimum sidewalk width for pedestrian comfort. Medians are recommended and required on major roadways That both reinforces slower speeds, it improves traffic flow through access management, and also can greatly improve pedestrian safety in that pedestrians only have to cross one direction of traffic at a time, and there's also a refuge at the center of the roadway for them to wait to cross the street. Street trees are very important to the pedestrian experience. They also are very effective at slowing driver speeds. so they shade our sidewalks, they cool our cities, and large trees are particularly well-suited to providing large space of shade. And our planting strip woods in our prior manual were only 5 1⁄2 feet wide, whereas the tree board and our own planting manual recommends that those planting strip woods should be a minimum of 7 feet to make sure that you can A, plant those large trees, and B, that all trees have the room that they need to grow and thrive. And how the manual will be implemented over time, it is an official engineering manual as defined by the Code of Ordinances. It's one of seven engineering manuals that govern the design and construction of public infrastructure, particularly that is built as part of new development and in some cases infill development, so streets that are built by the developers but then dedicated and owned and maintained by LFUCG for the future. And the manual would also apply to our city road improvement projects. You know, we're always typically in those situations working within some constraints. And the manual provides some guidance on how you consider those tradeoffs and make those decisions through the project development process in consultation with various stakeholders, including our maintenance and operations folks. We hope that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will also look to our local design guidelines for consideration when they're designing roadways in our projects or projects in our community. In particular, one of the things that we've really been emphasizing with them are slower design speeds. So for instance, on the New Circle Road Project, where we're doing a lot of different safety interventions, providing bike and pedestrian facilities, restricting some turning movements at intersections. We've also talked to them about trying to incorporate traffic calming features into the roadway. So in instances like that, we can't use vertical or even certain horizontal treatments, but they can't even do things like tapers and deflections in the roadway that can have an impact on speed. And they have built that into the current roadway design. So there are strategies for all different types of streets. They may just be different. Who provided input along the way? Again, this was consultant-led. We contracted with Tool Design. They're a national firm. They have extensive experience in urban street design, both in other cities, and they advise a lot of national organizations that provide guidance to organizations like the Federal Highway Administration and the Association of State Highway Traffic Transportation Officials, or AASHTO. planning and engineering and traffic were very in lockstep with this. There was a project team. Everyone provided input and reviewed each element of the manual along the way. We also consulted with all the other LFUC divisions, both at the outset and then with the draft at the conclusion of the project. We did have a lot of interface with the developers and the home builders and their engineers, as well as the roadway design engineers that work on a lot of our projects, the utility companies, and then other sort of general public stakeholder groups and individuals. So in terms of where we are today, we released a draft, not publicly, but to those major stakeholders in the early parts of April. We distributed that draft to an engineering list or a master list that engineering maintains of all engineers, home builders, developers, and utility companies in our area who have asked to be notified of any changes to the engineering manuals. As well as we issued an internal draft to all of our commissioners and directors for distribution to their divisions. We held a couple of stakeholder workshops with the development community where they could come and ask us questions and raise their concerns. We released a public draft shortly thereafter in May, which has been on the Engage Lexington page since May the 12th. We issued a revised and final draft also to this committee to that same mailing list and to the Engage Lexington page on June the 9th. We also offered another stakeholder workshop on the 12th. If there were any stakeholders that wanted to come and talk about or clarify, have any questions about changes that were made to the manual, we did provide a change log of all those changes so that they could quickly see what had been changed as opposed to rereading a 220-page design manual. moving forward. We're hopeful that this committee will be comfortable with moving that forward to the full council. Perhaps it's your August 18th meeting. We'd be happy to present to the full council or answer any questions that may come up from the public as part of that approval process and public input process with the goal of having the manual adopted by late summer such that we can then initiate a subdivision regulation amendment that needs to follow this to bring our subdivision regulations in alignment with the design manual. There is some overlap there, which then also has to come back to the council after planning commission approval. So we're hoping to accomplish all that by the end of this calendar year. And I lost my question slide, but I think you know what comes next, as do I. Thank you so much for the presentation, colleagues. Please chime in if you have questions. Council Member Eblen. Ms. Glees, I just wanted to thank you all for your work on this. I think this is a really important step forward. In my four and a half months on council, I have received numerous request for traffic calming. I received one about 10 minutes before I walked in here. I have yet to receive one from anyone who wants cars to go faster through their neighborhood. So anyway, I just think this is a really important step to making things safer for everybody, not just motorists, but also pedestrians and cyclists and everything else. So I really congratulate you for your work. I don't really have any questions. We had talked earlier, but anyway, well done. Thank you. Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you for this and for everyone who's worked on this manual. I know it is a big undertaking, so I appreciate your continued work on our Complete Streets policy, including this manual. I have two questions. First, for the public, could you talk through any more significant revisions that you made more recently in response to stakeholder or public feedback? Let's see. I made myself a list anticipating that question might come. So traffic calming features, we have a table that talks about the different types of features that They're allowable for different types of roadways. We had someone really study that table and call out some adjustments that they felt we should make, which I agreed with, so those changes were made. Initially, we showed the bikeway at road level or sort of mid-grade between sidewalk level and road level with a curb barrier. Both the public and the development community had concerns for different reasons, but that's what resulted in us moving the bikeway to sidewalk level outside the curb. It had to do with the extra curbing and drainage that it might otherwise require. It had somebody pointed out that those can often create barriers, particularly for people who are disabled in some way. Being able to get directly to a transit stop in the sidewalk, the barrier-separated bike lanes present some challenges for that, whereas the sidewalk level bike lane solves that for that particular constituency. We did add sections. One of the critiques of our former manual is if you didn't want to include on-street parking, you still had to build the same street section, unless you requested a waiver or relief from that requirement. So we've added sections that show how the street can be reduced in width based on whether there really is a demand or need for on-street parking. So that's eliminating some unnecessary pavement and resulting maintenance requirements for that for the future. And then we also provided an option where if you are in a lower density or lower intensity land use environment, rather than having the bikeway and the sidewalk fully separated, you can merge that together into a shared use path because we don't expect quite as much activity on those stretches of roadway. We also checked turning movements for our fire department. They wanted to make sure that given the different dimensions of the streets and the intersections that their trucks could navigate those. So we have done that to their satisfaction. And then the general public, they really just expressed interest or support for circular intersections, the emphasis on slower speeds and traffic calming, the separated bikeways, that was really, I think, in terms of the feedback that we received, it was often just, yes, thank you, and those were the particular issues that they were most supportive of. Okay, thank you for that. And last time you presented to our committee, and then since then we've had a conversation about this too, One of my concerns is about what happens during the construction phases. And I know this manual primarily focuses on the design elements and what those look like. But in the design in the private spaces, on page 23, it does talk about construction, execution, and oversight. And it talks about the engineering manuals and inspection. And then on page 227, it talks about project delivery and construction in the public spaces, including expectations for work zone safety measures, maintaining pedestrian, bicycle, transit access, providing alternative access that doesn't compromise safety. So I appreciate the references to those pieces, but I would like to know what next steps we might take to make that type of information more publicly accessible so they don't have to dig into an engineering manual for those kinds of topics. Like I could see potentially on our Complete Streets page like a policy or a one-pager around this is what you should expect during construction and how to report it if that's not happening. So do you have any thoughts about that particular piece? I think that that's a good idea, and I think that's something we can help with. We do have a team that's been working together on a lot of messaging around Vision Zero and Complete Streets, and we're sort of doing some fact sheets. In fact, we're making some of those for some of the street safety task forces quick build demonstration projects, like what is a traffic circle, and why is it needed, and why is it helpful? So yes, I think in particular as of late, there have been a lot of concerns about that very issue. So I myself tried to call, and I was told, well, you've got to call the water company. Well, I went to the water company site, and there was no particular number for me to call, so I can appreciate that myself. So yes, that is a good suggestion. I did ask our consultants if they were aware of how other cities address that guidance or those requirements. It appeared we didn't find any that were specifically included in a complete streets design manual. They were often associated with the permitting process. Some cities actually have very extensive, robust manuals, almost as thick as this one. Just to address that specific issue, I'm not suggesting we need anything that extravagant, but there are examples that do exist where they talk about patching and expectations for a temporary patch versus a permanent patch versus whether it's going to be fully resurfaced. So I think that they have passed along some examples that we can lean into as we try and grapple with that issue in particular, which is also a recommendation of the Complete Streets Action Plan. Thank you for that. I'm over my time, so I'm going to turn it back over to the chair. Thank you. Next up we have Councilmember Curtis. Thank you Chair and thank you Ms. Gleason for being here today and for the work that you and your team have done on this. I share Councilmember Sheehan's concerns about the communication element with the construction phase. But she already kind of knocked that one out of the park. and I just wanted to take an opportunity to say thank you for doing this work because a lot of what we talk about up here sounds pretty flashy for folks and we try to communicate things in a way that our constituents can understand but we can't actually make these tangible improvements without the sort of deep dive in the weeds work that you and your team do to make our streets safer so I just wanted to acknowledge that and extend my appreciation and also my appreciation for our mutual affection for circular intersections. I will not stop on my part until Lexington is the roundabout capital of America. Carmel, Indiana, we're coming for you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to speak since I do not serve on this committee. and thank you, Ms. Gleason, for your hard work and everyone's hard work. This has been such a big lift over many years, and I am really grateful for everything that everyone has done to get us to this point. It's exciting. I am looking forward to having safer roadways for everyone moving forward. I had asked you these questions previously, so hopefully they're not a surprise, but I'm asking them for the public. Like, first of all, I'm so happy to have more street trees. I love trees. But I have mentioned that for some of my constituents, it's really been challenging to maintain the street trees and the sidewalks due to root systems. And I know you mentioned that the larger space should be big enough for that. I didn't know. It doesn't look like we have an arborist here, and I don't know if Director Carey can speak to this or not. But I was curious if anyone could speak to what type of tree would go in there that would be helpful and large enough, but also would not get under the any, you know, cement or anything on either side. I can tell you that we consulted with the urban forester and the division of environmental quality. I believe we referenced the planting manual for guidance on that within the streets design manual. We were told seven foot should be adequate for any street tree type and that somebody would have to consult the manual to determine what species, for instance, are allowed. I'm not sure if they get into precise spacing. We do plan to talk about spacing some when we do the land subdivision regulation amendment because that is where some of those regulations are currently included in terms of how often you have to place a tree and at what spacing requirements. Okay, thank you. I see Director Carrie behind you. I was just going to say that was excellent. Okay, thank you. I know we've had issues in my district with trees placed in the wrong place, and we've also had issues, like I said, with roots disrupting things, so I just wanted to make sure. And then about the curbs, did we figure out who was going to be in charge of maintaining the curbs? Right now it is the adjacent property owner. That was raised by another council member that I spoke with recently. I do think that we will probably need to look at the code of ordinances to see what it says. For instance, I don't think it addresses separated bikeways at all. I think those should be, in my opinion, the responsibility of the government to maintain, but it's kind of a gray area. Likewise, the planting strip between the sidewalk and the bikeway, that is presumably still the homeowner's responsibility, the street tree within it, the replacement and repairs of sidewalks, but then we have a bikeway and a small buffer of a foot and a half to three feet, will it be clear to a property owner and or to the city who's responsible for maintaining that strip? So I think those are valid questions and things that we should work to address immediately following this to see if there's any changes or guidance we need to issue to homeowners or our own maintenance staff. Thank you. Yes, I think it would be good to define that so that it's really clear. I still get a lot of questions about the curb and the sidewalk, and so just moving forward, making it clear whose responsibility is who. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. There's no other questions, but I'll just make a few comments. First, it's great that we're at this point. And from the Street Safety Task Force standpoint, I think we learned a lot that really 90% of the issues are engineering issues. And if we design properly and we implement properly, the rest of the things really fall out really well. So I do appreciate the efforts that have been made on this manual. I think it's great. I think we're working towards a city that supports great daily life, comfortable, dependable, and safe. So I really do appreciate that. I'm going to kind of ask for an action item here, should this body as a committee adopt this to forward to council for adoption? Is there an actual action that should take place? because that I'm trying to figure out. Do you need it that way? That's really, I think, a question for law. I know they did contact me recently and said they were working on a resolution of some sort. Should council? I'm just going to back away. There he is. Good afternoon. I think what you would do is, as a committee, you all can approve the manual, the adoption of the manual as presented to you today. And then when you report it out, it would generate, I believe, an ordinance basically, since we're talking about implementing this as an engineering manual, to amend like Chapter 16 and Chapter 17 of the code to make sure that how we define engineering manual includes this manual as we administer these ordinances. So the short answer is you can approve it as a committee today, report it out at your next meeting on schedule and then we'll prepare an ordinance based on your report out. Alright. Do my colleagues have any questions on that? Would one of my esteemed colleagues like to make that motion? Council Member Morton? So I'll just make a motion to approve the recommendations that are presented to be reported out at the next report out. So moved. Second. Second. Got a report out, or a second, a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Next up on the agenda is an update to Empower Lexington. The Empower Lexington plan is Lexington guide for a sustainable, resilient future. and we have Jada Griggs, our sustainability program manager, here to provide this update. Thank you so much and thank you for, we've switched a few things around in the timing and you were willing to come forward, which I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and committee members. It's my pleasure to be here today to present to you what sustainability has been doing the past year. As mentioned, I'm Jada Walker-Griggs. I'm the Sustainability Program Manager within the Division of Environmental Services. So just to give you an overview of sustainability, the majority of you have seen this before, but this quote is from the Empire Lexington Plan. So basically for sustainability in Lexington, that means that we meet the need of our generation while ensuring future generations are able to enjoy the things that we enjoy. For us, it's a holistic approach. It involves three main areas. The environment, so we're protecting our natural resources, reducing pollution, doing things to help keep our planet healthy. The people work to ensure fair and equitable treatment of all individuals and improving quality of life. And then our economy, creating robust economic systems that we can support ongoing growth without depleting our resources. This approach helps us strengthen our community. It also enables us to be leaders in these efforts. and it shows how we can all work together to make our future better. On this timeline, I'm just going to hit some of this because I could spend quite a lot of time on this, but I will say that the original Empire Lexington plan was passed by resolution in May of 2012. Then you see this gap of nine years. It's at that point, I believe there were community members instrumental in that first plan who came to the city advocating for a sustainability position, someone who could dedicate their time to sustainability. It was included in the FY22 budget. I was hired at the end of February as that program manager senior for sustainability. and I immediately went to work on updating the Empire Lexington plan. A couple of things happened then. We wanted to align that plan with Leads for City, so that's leadership and environment and energy design. They had a program through Leads for City. I was then approved to be included as a cohort for that program. When I went to my first summit, I started writing down names of individuals that were instrumental in the first Empire Lexington plan. When I was participating on the table, things through the comp plan, I would see people like, that's one, you know, that's one. They definitely were still very active in the community. And so they became our core group for the updated plan. That updated plan, then we began in 2023. And at the end of 2023, we hired Chrissy Balding, who is the Environmental Initiative Specialist. So for a year and a half, basically, it was just me working on sustainability. We updated the plan, and that plan was presented in 2023. Then there's a lot of moving parts here. So update the plan. That was the basis for sustainability. That became the basis for my job. In doing so, we realized that the greenhouse gas emissions inventory was quite outdated, so we worked to update that as well. That way we got to see where our data was, where our issues were, where we needed to do more help and have more efforts toward that. That then became the emissions reduction plan. Council did pass a resolution in August of 2018 to approve the Empire Lexington plan and also supporting our efforts throughout the community. I will note that that Empire Lexington plan, a plan for a resilient community, is our community-wide plan. It is not just an LFUCG municipal government plan. Leads for city in November 2024, and then we worked to become GOAD certified for SoSmart. So here are our three plans. Because we are known as the worst capital of the world, this is our trifecta. So updated greenhouse gas emissions inventory. It also included municipal greenhouse gas emissions report. As I mentioned, the Empire Lexington plan. and then the Race to Net Zero, which was a reduction plan to help guide me and our efforts in the community and what things we could do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and become a net zero community by 2050. So in doing that, part of what we do, or a lot of what we do, is come up with initiatives to help with that. You know, we have to have mindful work toward this critical issue. And so this leads us to some of the initiatives that we have been working on and continue to work toward. In 2023, we kicked off the first Solarize Lexington program, which is a very popular program. So in 2023 and 2024, we partnered with the Kentucky Solar Energy Society to vet our installers. So this process was important, so we were able to let our community members know that if you go with this installer, they've been vetted, you can trust them through this process. We did that for them because many of you may realize that there are scammers going on. There's still scamming going on, people knocking door to door. We even had some groups saying if they went with them, they could get a grant through the city. So we're very careful about this, and we take it very seriously. So a group buying effort to help us promote solar, and it was open to only Lexington Fed residents, small businesses, nonprofits, and places of worship. During 2022 and 23, we also approved for $1 million grants for both years for low to moderate income households. During that time, we had a total of 128 residential installs. And although, as you can see on the slide, it is open to other areas, all of our installs have been for residential. In 84, those were grants. The funding at the bottom, you see, that was through our ARPA. It ended up coming from the ARPA money. The additional funding that was there was distributed to other programs through that funding process. And so that leads us to today. Most recently, last week on June the 10th, we launched the 2026 campaign. We're managing that ourselves. It was restructured to expand to the six counties in our Lexington and Fayette metropolitan statistical area, which includes Bourbon, Clark, Jasmine, Scott, and Wilford counties. That is part of a bigger program that we're doing regionally through a grant from EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. and again this year our installer, Solar Energy Solutions. Green Check is another initiative. It's been around since 2016. When Chrissy Balding came on board, we brought that program in-house. It's a free certification program for businesses, nonprofits, and places of worship to help them become more sustainable and to actually see where they are. We've had over 80 businesses who have successfully completed this program. It's based on a scorecard, but every year we review that scorecard and get input to make changes. So there are four levels. You can be a member, bronze, silver, or gold. I'm happy to report for the first time since 2016, LFUCG has a property that is gold and that is Raven Run. This certification is valid for three years. And right now we have six new businesses and 14 recertifications. From this initiative, we have a spinoff called Green Cup. This is a partnership with local coffee shops to encourage their customers to bring reusable cups and then they get a discount for bringing their own reusable cup or mug. Common Threads, Lex. You may know that this is a kickoff that we did officially this year. Since I began in this position, I was meeting with UK Sustainability and Fayette County Public Schools Sustainability. But we wanted to make it official. We wanted to be able to show the community that we are touching all across Fayette County. Our first kickoff was a movie screening of microplastic madness. and we had over 100 attendees for that. Part of that was tabling from environmental groups so those attending were able to ask questions of other environmental groups and there was also a reusable item swap and we hope to hold two to three events per year, something that we continue to work on. Beat the Heat is another initiative. We launched that in 2025, partnered with our own internal divisions of emergency management, the senior center, fire and emergency service in the offices of homelessness intervention and prevention. The cooling kits, I won't bother to read everything that was contained there, but you can see what we have. It's a way for us to help with public health issues during extreme heat. Also, that card you see there was also done in English and Spanish as well. And we will do that again this year. These are ongoing initiatives. Some of our initiatives, you know, we do and we kind of hand off to other people, like this initiative, Pickleball Recycling. It was launched in 2024, partnering with Sustainability, Parks, and Recreation in the Kentucky Pickleball Association. We started out with bins at Shelltoe Park. This year we're adding some to Kirk Levington. And then you see there that we've kept more than 69 pounds of plastic out of the landfill. Those pickleballs are collected through the Kentucky Pickleball Association and then returned to PC Cares. So I mentioned briefly about the grant through EPA. This is a regional planning. We work through these communities. This is the last year, our final deliverable for that, so that we go through and see what implementation we've done. With Lexington being the largest municipality, we have been the lead in those efforts, and then we have also been working to do some really those initiatives that are ready to go that someone or some other community could just take as their own and do in their community. So we'll be taking a look this next year about that. We'll be updating our greenhouse gas emissions inventory through this as well, and that is the link to the webpage for that plan. We were very conscious of not making it a Fayette County Regional Plan. We looked closely at each individual community, and you will see in that on the website the work that was done in all those communities. So we've also done some internal initiatives. As you may know, my position was mostly outward facing, but as we lead by example, we have been working on initiatives here internally. and I'm not going to bother to read all those but I will say the environmental book club is going to meet on July the 15th and we are going to discuss the it's a thousand year plan for I want to find it because I want to be true to it here The next meeting, July 15th, the book is Troublesome Rising, A Thousand-Year Flood in Eastern Kentucky. So early on I was told, you know, you should tell council all the outreach you've been doing so that they see all the work you're doing, right? So this year we put together this, and I only have a few seconds, but I am just going to click through here so that you can see this is a very comprehensive list. It is probably not an exhausted list, but very comprehensive nonetheless. So we're proud of the work we're doing because we know that this is not just an internal issue. This is a community-wide. But we are all in this together. So you will see some connections outside of Lexington, Fayette County, outside of Kentucky even, as we all work together to try to meet our goals of net zero by 2050. And so I thank you for your time today, and I'm ready for your questions. Thank you so much for the presentation. Colleagues, please log in if you would like to ask a question. Councilmember Brown Thank you Thank you Chair and thank you for the presentation and if I'm correct you said all the awardees of the grant program have been residential no small business. So the grant program is only for residential so only homeowners here in Fayette County although we did branch out to other communities this year. The grants that we had in the past even then were only for residential and Fayette County residents and we actually do not have a grant this time but we were given $460,000 to clear a wait list that we had since 2024. And that's all that allocation is going to do? It's going to clear the wait list? It's not going to be able to take any new applications? It's not, no. We're hopeful that that That funding will clear the 18th waitlisted, but I will say I've already started a new waitlist. They keep calling, right, which is wonderful. It's a very popular program, and it helps our, you know, like we said, our people, right, and it also helps us overall for our goals. Okay. Okay. The other thing, and I don't know if there's any counseling or if this is just a myth, but I think I've heard from folks that are in the market to either sell their house or buy their house, that they have concerns about the solar panels, whether the aged, older solar panels devaluing their property. Have you heard anything about that? Is there anything with the application process about the value add not only to the utility bill, but to the value of the property going forward and resale? Yes, thank you. So what we have seen, and this is across the board, that solar panels add to the value of the home. So they don't typically would take away, they add value because then the new person that's coming on is going to reap the benefits of a reduced utility bill. Okay. No, I've heard that, and it's kind of a hard answer to reply to, but I just know that that is out there a little bit. So, no, I just want to thank you for your work, this program, and the benefit that it gives to homeowners and addresses environmental sustainability issues. I know your position and this program was a big passion for former Vice Mayor Steve Kay. And I know he's at home jumping for joy that it's going strong. I'm sure he is. Let me say that during this presentation, I do not address home value. But we do solar 101 trainings. And in that training, we do talk about that. Okay. Yeah, and I think it's important. And I know the reasoning and the impetus for this program isn't to increase home value and that sort of thing. But I wouldn't want that to be a barrier or a reason somebody wouldn't sign up for this program is because of those questions. So I may follow up with you offline to try to get a better answer for when I hear those concerns about property value. Absolutely. I can get that to you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next up, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Griggs, and thank you to your team for all the work that you have been doing. I feel like I've seen measurable steps since I've been on council and since you're hiring, so I really appreciate that. I also appreciate the regional approach because I think when we're talking about sustainability when we're talking about climate change when we're talking about impacts of waste or air quality or water quality or energy use those don't end at the borders of a county a stream doesn't just stop so I do think a regional approach is appropriate when we're talking about the environment and sustainability So I like that we're moving in that direction and having clear collaboration. So thank you for all of that work. I want to touch back again on the solar. I know for Solarize Lexington, it has been a popular program. And in the first two years, in 2023, 2024, when we had the interest forms come in, there were 822 interest forms, right? And we had 128 installations. So I would love to see rooftop solar all over the place, but that's about 15% conversion. So what do you think are the major barriers there? Why don't you think we see a higher percentage being installed? I believe the major barrier is the upfront cost for solar. It's not cheap. It does pay for itself in the long run. So the life cycle, it pays for itself. But it's hard for someone to maybe commit to $20,000, $30,000 up front. And so when we're thinking about solar, you know, our residents, they put solar on for different reasons. And so we have some that have put solar on. There's one individual last year that put solar on, and her offset was 30%. To me, when I'm evaluating, I would rank that as poor because it's only 30%. You pay $15,000, $16,000, and you get an offset. So an offset is what the solar panels actually handle from the energy usage that you need. They evaluate your Kentucky utility bills, and they say, okay, this is how much you need, how many kilowatt hours you would need the solar panels to produce. Hertz was 30%, and I said, let me just say that anything that we can do, any solar that we can put on there or initiatives we can do to green the grid is a benefit to us. 30% is a benefit to Lexington and Fayette County. But I wanted to be clear with her that she was only going to see about a 30% offset for her upfront costs. And she said, yes, I do know, but you know, I have the money and I believe in doing something for the environment and I want to do this. So we have people out there doing that, but the majority of it is the upfront cost. It is just not feasible for some homeowners or even business owners to be able to get rooftops over. Yeah, and when we've done the $1 million for the low to moderate income grants, that's been 42 rooftops. 42, yes. I think that it's great that we've been able to offer that program and that we were able to, during our fund balance conversation, to put some more money towards this to clear the wait list. And I hope that, Council, honestly, during our future fund balance conversations, as we have monies available, that we would continue to invest in this program because it is so important and it has direct impact, particularly for our low-income households. when you can put solar on a home and the home is solar ready, because that's another piece of this is can you put the solar panels on top of a particular house? But I think it really does make an impact on their utility bills, right? And so it's helping in many different ways, not only our energy offset and greening our grid, but it also helps with that person's particular utility costs. Yes. So I thank you for your work, and I'm always interested to hear your presentations, not only here, but I know you've given several conference presentations that I've attended. You always do a great job, and I appreciate the direction that we've been heading in and what you have done to contribute to that, so thank you. It's my pleasure, and Chrissy and I are glad to be able to do this work. We are both passionate about it. And I can say that we're already working on initiatives for 2027. New initiatives. Thank you so much. I've just got a few questions for just... We're in the work session. We're basically getting at something for the new City Hall. We're kind of getting an update on the new City Hall. Do you feel like that project, have you been working on it at all to try to get it to some point where it might win an award? So I will say that I have internally, we've discussed things in our division. I have not been privy to any meetings for City Hall. I believe my colleague James Bush early on did. and I know that he relayed our thoughts and desires for City Hall. I would love for it to be a place that our community can look at as this is how you can do it and do well. I will say that because of all the negotiations, I am not certain what is being done, But I do continue to read that sustainability is a part of that. And so I'm hopeful for that. And if there's any way we can contribute to making it more sustainable, we will look for those opportunities, even once we're already in the building. Great. And then kind of another question, kind of along the same lines as Councilmember Sheehan. Do you, I mean, are there any communities that are going at solar, instead of basically saying, hey, we're going to put solar on your roof, have they looked at using city land to basically use that money to install kind of land-based solar and then work with the utility company to basically mitigate an energy bill for a particular customer? Because it seems like scale matters, and it seems like something that we might be able to do. I'm just curious. I know Cincinnati announced recently that they're putting solar on a landfill. So let me just say, for Kentucky, it makes it a bit difficult for us to do, which I believe you are referring to community solar. I'm not certain that's something that we are actually able to do here because of our utilities. We are not able in Kentucky to produce energy to distribute to other people. That would make us, in the eyes of our regulators and our utility companies, as becoming a utility company, and we're not allowed to do that. So that kind of hurts us when it comes to some things that we could possibly do through community solar efforts. Thank you. and no one else has signed up. So thank you so much. We really do appreciate the presentation and all of your work that you are doing. Thank you. My pleasure. All right, colleagues, next up, last but not least, we have Division of Water Quality Stormwater Projects Update. We've got Chris Dent, the software manager, and this is one of our annual updates, and I think this is your first time doing this. Yes, it is. Well, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. As you can see, I'm not Mark Sanders today. He's taking care of some other business today, legal business that he got pulled into. So I think I got the easier job on this one. But I'd like to thank you all for letting me take some time just to highlight some of the things that we do over in water quality in our stormwater section. And just wanted to make sure that the coordination between our divisions, as Jada said, I mean, book reading, I mean, sorry, a book club of having the thousand year flood in eastern Kentucky. I mean, it hits right at home with what we do and what we look at and some of the issues that we have to deal with. So I'm going to learn how to use this today. So a few things we want to hit on just briefly are going to be some of our priority list and how we deal with some of the projects as they go from inception through to completion. our capital projects that have completed over the last year. Is there any way you can turn off the timing on it? The completed projects over the last year, some of the capital construction projects that are under construction currently, the design work, and then as well our capital maintenance work program that we've got through our division. Oops. I think there were some timings on it and I noticed it over the weekend and wasn't able to get it changed before today. So the first thing I'm going to talk about when it comes back up is going to be our priority list. We currently have a priority list. We all have it. If we go to our workstations, you can all pull up his presentation as well. Thank you. There we go. So our stormwater priority list, here is sort of the severity score. When we get a project or get an idea or something comes in as an issue from the community, we take it and we go through this flow chart. And this is one of them that I believe is online that we can go through and see if it actually warrants us as the government going out and dealing with it and then making it a capital project. as always anyone who lives in the community who calls in and asks us to take a look at something we always put that and assume that it's going to be a priority for anybody so as you all are fully aware each person's issue is a priority to them so we'll go through this severity score process and then what we end up getting out of that we take a look at those and we look for a couple of key issues One is their structure flooding. And that's our definition of that is going to be surface water. And unfortunately with Lexington, we do have a lot of karst and we do have a lot of groundwater. But structure flooding for us is water that enters the building through the surface. So doors, windows, things like that. And then as well street flooding if it is over a foot within the roadway or if the crown of the road is covered up. This is where you can find our priority list in the stormwater section page over in the water quality. Left that up there for reference so that way you all can get to it if you need to. And then as well, any citizens that are watching it, they can go in and look at it and see if there's anything in their neighborhood or anything in their area. So because I'm giving this presentation, we sort of got moved around a little bit. This is usually given a little bit later in the year, so we're going to have a little bit of an abbreviated year. but we still had a couple of projects that completed since the last update. One of them is the Joyland area stormwater project. This went in through two phases. The basins phase, I think, was completed last time you talked about, but then the infrastructure that went in was able to be completed within the last couple of months as well. We did get a FEMA grant for a portion of this, so it was something that we do try to go out and reach out and find other funding sources if possible, if it makes sense and be able to utilize that. You can see here that we have a couple of things. We had box culverts, we have pipes, we deal with drainage ditches and basins. But here's a few photos to be able to look at to take a look at what we did on Council District 6. Another one is the Cooper Drive Stormwater Project. This one we had some undersized infrastructure out there, but we were able to replace some infrastructure out there and upsize some lines, reroute it a little bit. This area, I know we are, I have this under the completed projects because I think there's one final punch list item that's out there, but otherwise this one will be and then completed out and we'll be able to give you instead of the bid cost, the total cost if anybody's interested with that later. but as we go in we also clean up the areas because we were digging the streets here the streets got all new pavement so it was something to be able to work out with other utilities they were able to come out come in and get some work done as well so we were able to work together and coordinate through this type of project. Some of the active construction projects that we've got going on right now, this one's on the other end of it. Our bid's open this week on this project, so I've got it listed as an active one, but this is Mentel Park. We've got this split into two phases. Had some coordination as well where we've met out and talked about some of the, as you can see, the school that's there right off of Kramer Avenue, and there's some other issues that we met out on site to be able to discuss trying to work things out with other Lexington entities with bikes and PEDS and making sure that we've got traffic flow and coordinating with Fayette County Schools on this as well. But some undersized infrastructure, we're trying to get it routed and upsized so that way it can handle some of the storms that we're getting. Some of the design projects that we've got going on, As well, this is the part two of the Mantel Park. This one, we've got undersized infrastructure as well, but this is one that's going through some backyards as opposed to the roadways, so it's a little bit more difficult. We do have a couple of options on projects like this where we can actually take a look and say, do we want to replace the existing infrastructure, which that might have a lot of impact on some of the particular property owners, or do we look at possibly trying to go out into the Richmond Road area on this one and look at dealing with and coordinating with Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, which also has its pros and cons. There's a lot more people who drive on Richmond Road than some of these back roads, but as well, each property owner is a priority to us as well on this, so we want to make sure and balance that. So this one's forthcoming. Once we get part of the Mentel Park North done, we'll take a look at this southern project on it and figure out what is our best option as we move forward through that. The Eidlauer Stormwater Project, this one is currently in design. We're still doing some infrastructure analysis and taking a look at some of the existing conditions. As we try to have the best knowledge of our system, there are some things that are always a little bit unique because things were put in prior to our tenure. Some of this stuff goes back to almost 100 years old. So we have to take and deal with the cards that we're dealt. And so we're going out here on this one trying to figure some things out, and then we'll be able to have a good design on this one to alleviate some flooding. And our capital maintenance work that we do, these are a little bit smaller projects that are not necessarily on the priority list. So not all of our projects have to have that priority list. we do go out and deal with smaller issues on a day-to-day basis, and as well, not just the very small nuisance things, but as well moving up into the cleaning and repair, and then as well some of the larger repair projects that might actually require engineering design, and then moving forward and actually seeing it publicly bid. So over the last year, you can see we've had a couple of projects in different districts. We don't look at necessarily one area. We've got multiple watersheds through Lexington, and so streams go everywhere. So we've got issues because of development, because of infrastructure that's aging out, because of all different issues. We've got a lot of things out there. So as you can see, we've got a lot of stuff that's in the process that we've been able to complete. We've still got stuff that's on our list that we've come up with that didn't quite make it to the priority list, but we're still trying to take care of those issues as we move forward on a day-to-day basis. Some of the things they do, you can take a look here. With every storm, you get debris. That causes problems. You get erosion. That causes problems. Aging infrastructure and then dealing with other utilities. Unfortunately, everybody has to play nice in the same sand lot. So when we have other utilities come into play, sometimes they hit our stuff and sometimes we accidentally hit theirs as well. And we have to be able to work together and with each other and get all that through. So just some situations that we've got here that we're able to show you a couple of pictures of. A couple more pictures. And so out of the smaller projects, we've got three full-time employees that work on the maintenance-type projects. As you can sort of see, you can follow through the years on some of the work orders that they've done. These three individuals work very hard. They try to make sure and find solutions as opposed to excuses on things, and so that's why they're out there working as hard as they can. We do have a contractor that's on call that we have to be able to go out and do this type of work. And as well, you can see some of the work orders that come through. And I'd be remiss to say that our sewer line maintenance folks as well work hand in hand with us. Even though their stuff is not necessarily represented in here, they do a phenomenal job going out and being part of the front line on some of this stuff and unclogging things. Streets and Roads does the same thing for us. So I want to make sure and mention them as another groups that we coordinate with that do a great job. So I've got a couple minutes left, but I'll try to keep it brief in regard to everybody's time. And if you've got any questions. Thank you so much. Council members, log in if you'd like to ask some questions. They're all jumping. Nobody has many questions for you, but I've got actually a few. Excellent. I do tend to get a fair amount of those phone calls about, it's kind of like one thing leads to another typically with stormwater. So, and it seems like we may be changing our policies a wee bit. So if there's a, if there's say a, what do we call them, BMPs, There's some sort of place in someone's backyard that is supposed to get drained via something that might be three houses down or something like that. What's the best way to manage those? And if it's all on private property, do we engage there? Do we not engage there? I'll preface this with I'm fairly new in this position. I've only been here a couple of months. I do know that there has been some talk internally about following more of what our ordinances and our policies have. I know in the past there have been some things that we as the government, it's been easier for us to just take care of and get it out of the way. And I think that that is going to be changing a little bit. I see the commissioner coming down. He may be waiting for you to hang yourself. If you would like to talk, you can. But it's one of those where we anticipate this question, and yes, there are a few things. My recommendation is if neighbors can get along, that's one of our key issues, is making sure that if neighbors can get along and work together on things, that makes our job a whole lot easier, and then it keeps everything flowing smoothly. Yeah. Commissioner, do you want to add something? I came to help you out. You did a good job with that. He's still new in the position. You know, the thing that's unique about stormwater is a lot of this stuff got put in without easements, without right-of-way and stuff, especially in the old county areas, pre-merger. I think typically what we try to do is we try to engage the neighbors and try to find a solution. But sometimes the people who are part of the solution don't have a problem, so they aren't real welcoming to this. And you've experienced this as well. But I think the starting point with them is to go and evaluate the situation, show genuine concern about the problem they're having because it's private property, and see whether or not there are solutions where the neighbors can work together. And if that's the case, we've got the resources to be able to do that. Great. Does a neighbor typically do – would they typically – like I get emails quite a bit on this. But would they typically do a 311, and do you guys manage those that way? Yes. If anybody in town has an issue, whether they're a Lexington resident or not, if they see flooding on the roadways, they can call 311. Those issues get logged, and then they come to us to where we can see them. Okay. All right. Because typically they seem to know what the issue is because they'll see there's some sort of obstruction or there's something going on. Okay. Great. I don't have any other questions and I don't see anybody else. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so, so much for your presentation. And thank you for being willing to move up because we did have to swizzle a few around. So I do appreciate that. No problem. All right. Thank you. Colleagues, I don't really have anything else except if you have any additions or changes to the list of things that we're working on. I do have the next CQBW meeting is August 18th. We're planning to discuss annual urban forestry, street presentation, neighborhood traffic management program, quick build projects, and the coordination of maintenance projects. We actually have four items for next month, which is kind of tight. So we will start on time. Does anybody have any updates to their items? Okay. We don't have to have a motion. I'm going to move to, you can move to adjourn, but I'm just gonna adjourn us. Seeing nothing else on our schedule, this meeting stands adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.