Music Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, everyone. It's 3 o'clock, and I'll go ahead and call to order the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council's work session of August 18, 2026. And before we start on our public comment, all of our council members and many of you are aware of the terrible tragedy that happened Saturday in Charles Young Park, one of our wonderful, vibrant public parks. and I would ask that we have just a moment of silence for the young man who was killed and the four victims who were injured. If we could do that now, please. Thank you. The first item on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda and we have many folks signed up. And the way this works is when I call your name, if you will please come to the podium and For the record, you need to restate your name as well as your council district. And instead of a buzzer going off when your three minutes is over, we have a little dinger bell today. We're having some technical problems, so we're going old school. And so when you hear the little bell, your time will be over. and also the council does have a rule that up to two people can give their time to a third person for a total of nine minutes so i know a couple of you have signed up to do that and we'll make that clear as we go on so i'll call two or three names at once so you can queue up and be ready. And the first is Kelly Carmine followed by Loran Williams. Loraine, excuse me if I do not say your name correctly. Welcome. Welcome. Hello everyone. I'm Kelly Carmine. I am in Council District 3. I love our rural rural lands, and we stand at an energy crossroads. Current research demonstrates that solar is compatible with certain kinds of farming and livestock. It is now yes and yes, no longer either or. I have long supported Fayette Alliance, but they no longer represent my view because they hold too fast to the outdated either or model. Yes, I have reached out to them. New thinking must prevail. I ride my horse through many southern Fayette County cornfields that cannot be seen from any paved road. I have ridden there many years and never, never has their crop succeeded. Every year it languishes, dry and unharvested. As we ride past, shaking our heads, we ask one another how many other such failing farms are out there, producing nothing. An anecdote, certainly, but that farmer, how many others could use some options? I urge this elected body to allow large-scale solar on no more than 1% of our agriculturally zoned land and to include protections for soil and farmland. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Loran Williams followed by Bob Corney. Welcome. And you can adjust the mic however you want it. My name is Loran L. Williams and I'm from District 6. Lexington reminds me of people who smoke to lose weight. Someone says, you know, that stuff can kill you, and they go, yeah, but don't I look good now? Panels and turbines make people feel good until the bill comes due. Net zero emissions were approved, but please postpone approving solar farms until every pro and con are examined, justified, or proven wrong. I supported solar, but after I researched for this meeting, I just can't. China and other countries are curtailing the use of solar. Some countries use batteries for storage, knowing the batteries will end up in landfills. Others reverted back to coal and oil. China is upping their coal usage. A staggering 69 million metric tons of panels and turbines are estimated to be in landfills by 2050, just from the current systems in place. No widespread recycling method has been developed for these items. That's not a good legacy. New panels begin at only 70% efficiency. Dirty solar panels can lose an additional 40% if not cleaned. Agrovolterics do not restore the soil condition. Sheep produce methane. To maintain efficient panels, they have to be cleaned every two to three months. The cleaning solution runoff absorbed in the soil, it doesn't protect the soil. That's four strikes already before the forever panels end up in a landfill. Not one part of a solar panel's life is truly green. Manufactured using coal, transporting, installing, transmission line development, cleaning, removal, and thrown away. My small support for solar panels is limited to developed areas such as an underutilized parking lot and buildings, or change the bluegrass industrial complex into a partial solar plant. A green solution already exists, the street tree program. Trees absorb up to 100 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. Street trees won't knock down the electrical lines, and they provide shade. Every home and business needs one tree. Use the codes for sidewalk repair to maintain the street trees the same way. Don't cover Lexington with heat retraining, retaining but low usage parking lots or sidewalks. We have a sidewalk on Newtown Pike now. Who's got to walk there? The Citation sidewalk isn't used. The Polo Club sidewalk isn't used. Lexington has close to 1,300 homes for sale and over 1,700 rentals, including surrounding counties that have over 5,400 homes for sale right now and rentals. Those numbers keep increasing. Will a housing bust be the only way to stop this growth? Thank you so much. Thank you. Next is Bob Corney. And then before he speaks, I would like to ask if Angela Ray is here. And are you yielding your time to Don Amant? Okay, thank you. All right, go ahead. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here again and to speak with you about the solar Zoda. I want to first thank the mayor and the council for your thorough process and thoughtful work on the original Zoda. The inclusion of limited large-scale solar development balances the interests of this community, providing real environmental benefits, real economic benefits to the county, and maintains lands in agricultural production. I hate to disagree with the previous speaker, but we graze thousands of sheep under our panels every year. And it is very safe, and it does help with the soil health and the ecosystem restoration. It's called rotational grazing, which is, if you look into regenerative agriculture, It is one of the top things that you can do to help restore soils in the health of an ecosystem and an environment. It really is a choice and energy and agriculture because of the requirements you've included in the original Zoda. I want to also say that in addition to your work, we continue to be committed to the project that we propose. I want to also point out that we use 100% American-made solar panels that are tested rigorously. Like I said earlier, we graze thousands of sheep under our panels. Our regenerative ranchers live on the solar farms where they work, and we know that they are safe for sheep, they are safe for our workers, and they are safe for the community and the environment. We urge you to continue forward to include large-scale solar in the final ZODA, and thank you so much for your time. Will you please state your name for the record? Bob Corney with Silicon Ranch from Nashville, Tennessee. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next is Don Amont. And you'll be followed by Jeremy Jenkins, who will be followed by Robert James. So, Don, you'll have six minutes. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Don Amont. I'm in the 5th District. and thank you Angela Ray for rearranging your world today to loan me three minutes of your voice. I wish to speak in favor of the large-scale rural solar initiative by relating a personal anecdote. Twenty years ago I had an opportunity to make aerial photographs of active mountaintop removal coal mining operations in eastern Kentucky. Kentucky. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth flew several Kentucky artists and writers over those operations in small airplanes and then we would write or create art about what we saw. For the next few years exhibiting at art fairs across the country, I replaced several of my normally displayed landscape photographs with empty art images that I had made on that excursion, which was not the best-selling decision perhaps, but the many questions I got made it totally worth it. And I can summarize those questions with one question, what am I looking at here? And I would say, yeah, indeed, well, those questions led to some great conversations where I was able to explain to people exactly what they were looking at and exactly how their electricity was made, at least the digging coal out of the ground part, it was eye opening and distressing for many. But I will say that whole experience gave me some insight into how certain things are sometimes related in ways that you wouldn't normally think about. And one thing that I came to realize is how electricity and sausage are related. Because a lot of people like electricity and a lot of people like sausage, but nobody wants to know how either one of those is made. We can have a better way to make electricity here in Fayette County. I do fully realize that putting solar panels on a maximum 1% of Fayette County land is hardly going to get us to net carbon neutral by 2050, but it is a step. And as a homeowner with a solar array on my own roof, I am definitely aware of the Kentucky legislature's and the power company's continued efforts to chip away at the net metering rates we earn from the power we send up to the grid. Going solar is not easy in Kentucky. Very interesting to hear the gentleman from Silicon Ranch just speak because they're the ones that want to build it here, and I'm sure you have investigated them as I have. I wonder, have you actually gone down to look at their operations and have you talked to the sheep farmer who's down there or the neighbors? You could do that, and I can't as a normal citizen. I can just see their presentations. But if you're on the fence about supporting this proposal and everybody's on the fence, call them. The man's right here. Go down and take a look at their setup. The land stewardship is impressive. The shepherd down there, Daniel Bell, he's the owner of the farm next door. He saw when they were putting these solar panels in, he went over there to check it out. Well, that was a few years ago, and now he grazes his sheep on their land, and he has tripled the size of his flock, and he has tripled the size of his income. And how many farmers are saying that these days? He has hired both of his sons full time, and one of them had been scraping jobs together, and preparing coal mining equipment. The meat his farm produces is processed locally. It helps to stabilize and expand ag business in the area. Here's what Daniel says. He says, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. People want to be farmers, but it's very hard to be profitable. I always had the dream of being a full-time farmer, and I wanted that opportunity for my kids, and now they have it. I say we can do that here. I wrote some of that before the weekend, and then I wasn't sure what I wanted to say after the weekend. Yesterday I had an idea that popped into my head, and I'm glad Councilmember Brown and Councilmember Morton are here today because I had this idea, and it's just an idea. But if this thing passes, what if you and Councilmember Brown got together and you went to all the fourth grade teachers in your district and you said, you know, we've got something happening out there on a farm out there. We're not quite sure what it is. We think it's pretty cool. But we would like to take all of our fourth graders out there and look at this thing and and show them something that is the future, and show them that there are other things that they haven't been able to see in this world, or maybe where they live, or none of us, how many of us have seen a solar farm with a bunch of sheep grazing around? But those kids, they need some different viewpoints of their future. They need to be able to look out into this world and say, okay, you know, there's, I might be living in, maybe not the greatest, but there are opportunities. You get a hold of Silicon Ranch, man's right here, he was, tell him we want to do this. And Tyler, you have to run this because Council Member Brown will not be able to keep up with you. I can just tell. I love watching you. I've been paying a lot more attention to my council lately. That's all I wanted to say. just put an idea out there, show these kids a new future, and that might be the most important thing about this whole deal. Thank you. Next is Jeremy Jenkins, followed by Robert James and then Deborah Girth. Welcome. Good to see you all again. My name is Jeremy Jenkins, District 3. It's a good afternoon. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I'm here to speak in favor of the original Solar Zota, which included requirements that would allow for dual-use farming activity along with environmental guard drills. With the recent approval of the Haley Pike project, which was a very good decision, there will soon be solar panels installed on that property. Not far from there, another property owned by Eastern Kentucky Power has already begun clearing land and will soon be installing its own solar panels. That leaves the property in between the two projects. The property currently being considered by Silicon Ranch, and I believe their plan is a good option. It combines farming activity with clean energy generation while being the least disruptive compared to the way the property is currently being used. In fact, I believe their plan could improve that property. Right now the land is being operated as a sod farm, and if you know what that means, you know that that process involves stripping away vegetation, planting new grasses, new grasses, using chemicals to control weed growth, and then, when the grass is ready to harvest, ripping it up, along with a layer of topsoil, rolling it up and shipping it away. Silicon Ranch's plan would allow sheep to graze underneath and around the solar panels. That could give natural vegetation an opportunity to regrow while the sheep provide much-needed biomass and nutrients back into the soil. That's why I support the original solar Zoda, along with many of my members and the community at large, rather than the recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission. If their version is approved, it would essentially prevent this plan from happening. Then that property could be sold to Eastern Kentucky Power, and your constituents would still get solar panels, just without the same environmental guardrails, dual use requirements, or public input. And the reason I know that to be true is because we're actually helping with the Kentucky Power Project. It's going up now. You're going to see solar panels. I also want to address something I continue to hear as a construction worker, and I've said this a few times here. These are not just temporary jobs. Anyone who calls a construction career temporary simply doesn't understand how this industry works. Yes, individual projects are temporary, but the skills, training, and knowledge we gain on each project carry over to the next project and stay with us for a lifetime. We may start an apprentice on one project, but over the course of our careers, that person may help build hundreds of schools, hospitals, solar fields, or even new city halls. Those skills create opportunities. They allow men and women in this industry to become valuable members, not only for our unions, but for our communities. The project may end. The career does not. So please consider proving the original solar data is the right thing for the environment, for job creation, and for Fayette County residents. and continued prayer for the city. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Robert James followed by Deborah Gerth and then Henry Jackson. Welcome. Hello, Mayor, Council. I'm Robert James from the 12th District. It's good to see you all again. I'm president of the Fayette County Farm Bureau, and we are in favor of the Planning Commission's version of the proposed solar zoning ordinance text amendment. In 2025, the Planning Commission and its staff both found industrial-scale solar development to be incompatible with the character of the rural service area. They have once again reaffirmed that decision. The proposed ZODA does not allow large-scale ground-mounted solar in the rural service area, which would be an industrial use outside of the urban services boundary. While agrivoltaics allow for some type of limited agricultural use beneath the panels. These solar arrays are first and foremost in industrial use, regardless of what is being grazed or grown under them. Just as sheep grazing around a data center would not make that data center into an agricultural use, a moderate livestock presence does not make a solar array into a farm. Furthermore, no industrial-scale solar project has been decommissioned and returned to active and productive farmland. Rural Kentucky is littered with the detritus of industries that promise to be good neighbors and then failed to clean up at the end of their economic lives. Once our farmland is gone, it is gone forever. In the recently adopted comprehensive plan, Lexington committed to a net zero goal by 2050. This commitment has occasionally been used to justify large scale solar in the rural zones. During the Planning Commission Solar Work Group meeting, The city's program manager for sustainability stated that ground-mounted solar in the rural service area is not required to meet our net zero goal. This means that that goal is not in tension with theme E of the comprehensive plan that preserves Lexington's unique farmland, which has been the cornerstone of city planning for nearly 70 years and the linchpin of Lexington Fayette County's global brand identity. The Planning Commission language honors both of those goals from the comprehensive plan. It is how we get to yes, yes. Yes to clean energy. Yes to preserving our farmland. Allowing large-scale ground-mounted solar in the rural zones would be a huge step backwards, and contrary to the long history of responsible urban planning, where Lexington Fayette County has been held up as a national model. We urge the council to not allow a de facto ad hoc expansion of the urban services boundary by allowing industrial solar in the rural service area, and we urge you to adopt the Planning Commission's version of the proposed solar ordinance. Thank you all. Thank you. Deborah Gerth, followed by Henry Jackson, and then Judith Humble. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Deborah Gerth. I live in the First Council District. I'm speaking in support of the Council's version of the solar zoda. Many others will speak today about technical features of this amendment, but I want to focus on the power relations that were revealed through this process. I attended the Planning Commission meeting for this amendment and was completely confused by its last minute substitute version. I have followed this issue as a well-informed civilian, and I was not prepared for the changes that were happening. Even the city's own environmental commissioners were scrambling to catch up. When we lined up to speak, people like me were told to sit down. When the paid lobbyist was called to speak, she was apologetically asked how much time she wanted. I left feeling like a bamboozled worm, a feeling that was perhaps not unintended. That meeting made clear that the Planning Commission was listening to only one community interest, one supported by the power of organized money, and following only one goal of the comprehensive plan valuing the aesthetics of our rural lands and horse industry branding. These are indeed important and valuable interests in Lexington, but they are not the only interests. Lexington residents look to you all to fairly represent all the interests of the community, not just rural landowners who can afford a lobbyist. That includes our neighbors who are struggling to pay utility bills. And it includes all of us who want to be able to survive the summer and winter here in 2030 and 2050 when even more extreme weather from climate change will be our new normal. The Council ZODA has robust protections for rural land and ag soils. It is allowing a very small project. The risks have been well mitigated by your thoughtful work. Please ensure that the totality of community interests and comprehensive plan goals are respected in your decision. Please reject the Planning Commission amendment and vote yes on your own solar zota. Thank you. Next is Henry Jackson followed by Judith Humble and then Lane Boldman. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Henry Jackson, 7th District. As a longtime supporter of both the Purchase Development Rights Program and the Fayette Alliance, I urge adoption of the proposed Council Committee's Solar Zoning Ordinance. And as I explained in my Herald Leader Sunday op-ed, the proposed maximum 1% limit of land for larger scale solar is more than reasonable and fair in its comprehensive set of regulations. However, I'd also add that while the proposed solar farm zoning is principally a contribution in developing a nationwide, quote, smart grid, this new power source would also be counted toward the county's carbon neutral goal by the year 2050, generating about 70 megawatts of power or roughly power for 10,000 homes. This would be a huge step in achieving the city's carbon neutral goal. In the final analysis, we need to balance the competing needs of ag preservation and the imminent threat of weather crisis on our ag lands and livestock. And on a larger scale, as I've explained in another HL op-ed last year, May 25th, and I've also left an additional copy of that op-ed, I think now more than ever that Lexington will likely prove to be a climate haven. And for that reason, we ought to prepare a climate vulnerability assessment and a corresponding plan. With that in mind, and as the flagship Ag County in Kentucky, and a leader in land preservation and sustainability, the city should adopt the Council Committee March proposal. It serves both the urgent clean energy needs and Ag preservation goals of the city's Com Plan and the city's Empowered Lexington plans. Thank you, and I'll try to answer any questions. Thank you. Judith Humble, followed by Lane Boldman, and then we'll have Reva Russell English. Welcome. Good afternoon, Council Work Group. I'm Judith Humble. I'm speaking today on behalf of the Bluegrass Climate Action Team and the Bluegrass Sierra Club. The Sierra Club has members in all of your districts, so it's pretty widely distributed. We are here today to support the council version of the solar soda, which allows limited amounts of solar development on a small amount of agricultural land. Sometimes this conversation includes comments that suggest that all agricultural land is at risk because of this soda. I did a study in proportionality because I wondered how it would look if we made it a mathematical illustration. It's the size of a postage stamp on this envelope. So that's how much we're talking about at this moment, and it is very well protected by the current ZODA. I think one of the strongest protections for farmland in the current ZODA is the mandate for an agrovoltaic model. I think you heard a very strong testimony for the gentleman who spoke earlier. I have spoken to other practitioners. I have done widespread research on what's happening at the national level, what national environmental organizations are saying about this, And there are lots and lots of successful models out there to demonstrate that agrivoltaic solar maintains the farmland, maintains soil quality, sometimes improves soil quality, and provides a steady income for our farmers. And that's important at this time. Multiple environmental organizations support agrivoltaic solar, and that includes the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy. So we have lots of evidence that this model works, and what it brings us is renewable energy with agriculture, and that to me is extremely exciting. This ZODA, this version of the ZODA, is strongly supported by our comprehensive plan. The net zero emissions goal set to achieve by 2050 is intended to protect our natural environment, our public health, and our economy from the continuing impacts of fossil fuel energy and extreme weather events. It should be the overarching guide for all of our decisions about community development. And if we fail at this, we are likely to fail at other goals in our comp plan, including the protection of our prime farmlands. Finally, as someone mentioned earlier, if this soda is quashed, there will be no policy protections in place for this piece of land if the utility companies come along and develop it, and that will be our worst-case scenario. So I ask that the Council support your original version of the soda and help us make a giant step forward in our renewable energy profile. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Lane Boldman, followed by Reva Russell-English. and then Andrew Russell English. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Lane Boldman. I'm in District 11. I work for an environmental nonprofit that also wrestles with a lot of these same issues. We have constituents that are pro-solar. We also have constituents that are pro-farmland. And so I'm sympathetic to your choices, but this should be easy. we take even though we give general guidance on these policies we take them on a case by case basis too and look at the specifics and the specifics of this to me present a win win situation where you have the opportunity to preserve the farmland integrate solar and then protect this land from development that may not be as favorable as people have said very likely if it doesn't have these protections from the workgroup's ZODA, it's subject to less constraints if the utility wants to take over this property and develop it. And I would much prefer the plans I am seeing from Silicon Ranch. The revised ZODA has a clear 1% limit on the amount of land that can be used for large-scale solar. I like that very much. Requires solar projects incorporate agrivoltaic methods. I think this is a win-win. I believe this plan adequately constrains projects in a way that will not exceed the 1% limit and sends a clear message that preserving farmland is a key priority. What people have been saying about energy on farmland is an industrial use. I want to point out that dual use of farmland for energy production is not a new thing and is not limited to solar. Farmland is often used for converting biofuel feedstocks, growing corn ethanol. Farmers are increasingly integrated in solar energy. They have anaerobic digesters. They use their corn and soybean fields for oil and gas well drilling as well. They do this to supplement their income and help their fields become as productive as possible while maintaining their agricultural use. So this is not a new concept. There are many common misconceptions that we regularly hear, such as the leaching of metals from the panels into groundwater. That claim has not been supported by scientific evidence. The materials are tightly sealed between layers of tempered glass, and we do recommend that the panels first be recycled, because they do have use afterwards, rather than landfilled, but I don't see the risk of huge contamination from this. I've also heard about concerns such as impacts to birds. The National Audubon Society disagrees. They support solar PV projects because reducing carbon emissions is the greater threat, and I hope the council takes that into consideration as well. This work group can provide a clear message. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now I'd like to take a moment and ask if Lucy Foster is here. Lucy, and are you yielding your time to Logan? All right, thank you. And is Laura Proctor here? She'll need to come in if she wants to yield her time. Thank you for letting me know. Okay, are you going to yield your time to Logan Foster? There is a seat up here if you'd like to join us. Thank you. Okay, so we have Reva Russell-English followed by Andrew Russell-English. You will each have three minutes, and then Logan Foster, you will have nine minutes. All right, welcome. Yeah, thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Reva Russell English. I live in the 1st District and I farm and forage in the 12th. I want to make note, first of all, that I am not a rich horse farmer. I'm also not a solar company representative or contractor. I still stand, however, to gain or lose based on what you choose here today because we all do. I've emailed all of you. I've called some of you. My reasons for asking you to keep industrial-scale solar out of our ag zone are many. It will harm soil. We don't have good disposal and recycling plans. Maybe Silicon Ranch will always use US-based panels, but what about other companies that might come in? These are deep concerns that I have about that. But I want to talk to you mostly today about what the land we have here is like. The land that is our neighbor. The land that is the source of our and everything's life. Globally, and here in the US, soil degradation and topsoil loss is rampant. As a species, we can't produce as much food as we used to, and it's getting worse and going to keep getting worse. We've just developed too much. We've done too much harm. We've bombed and poisoned and destroyed too much. Here in Fayette County, the soil is exceptional. It's alive. It's storing carbon. It's producing food and medicine. However, it can't give public comment. It can't vote. It can't tell you of its intelligence. It can't tell you of its life, of the as many as 10 billion organisms per teaspoon that live and breathe and metabolize, reproduce, and create fertility? It's true that farmers need options. It really is a hard business, but you could change that in other ways, too. You could subsidize and incentivize local food systems. The thing is, is most farmers don't want to farm metal. And we might want to run sheep on land with panels now, but what about when those panels get damaged by extreme weather or just the ravages of time? What about when they need to be disposed of? What then? Will we run our sheep on them then? Please take the Planning Commission's recommendation as is. Industrial solar doesn't belong in the Ag Zone. Thank you. Andrew Russell English, followed by Logan Foster. Welcome. Thanks. I'm going to echo some of what Reva said. Also live in the 1st District. Just came from the farmland that we leased in the 12th District. I want to talk about our agricultural area as not just an aesthetic resource, but as a literal resource. Folks have talked about solar as a solution because old ways of generating power are no longer working. I've seen that old ways of generating food are also no longer working for us, like trucking 80% of our food from California here, where the soils and the climate are no longer anywhere near as supportive of growing food and holding water as they used to. So when I look at that farmland that's a bunch of horse farms, I think that is an amazing resource. And although I'm not rich and have not seen or touched a horse in a while, I eat every day, just like everybody here. And how I get my food 20 years from now is going to depend almost entirely on the health of the community that I live in. So I have a bizarre dream that we will start growing vegetables and medicine on that horse farmland. If you see beautiful grass, it means it can grow a beautiful crop of basically whatever you want. So one thing that Reva didn't mention that's a fun fact that I like to always remember is that it takes 100 years to build an inch of topsoil. So that's what we're getting rid of when we do things like Silicon Ranch did in Georgia three years ago. They mass graded 1,000 acres next to another farm and ruined that farm ecologically and economically. And then they paid, because the farm lawyered up, $135 million to those people. If they offered us right now, a postage stamp that you saw on that envelope is just the imprint of the area where the solar panels are going to be. If I remember correctly, it's near the headwaters of the Elkhorn Creek, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with. we're talking about everywhere from winchester all the way to frankfurt where it empties into the kentucky river so one of the reasons kentucky's amazing tons of water tons of watersheds so think about that entire watershed what happens is water runs downhill um that's about it thanks i hope you all support the planning zoda thank you thank you next is Logan Foster. You will have nine minutes. And then we have, let's see, is Ethan Wallace here in the room? Are you yielding your time to Aaron? Okay. And so Logan Foster and then Aaron McHale. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Logan Foster. I live at 3120 Clintonville, Road in Winchester. I'm not a voter in Fayette County. Probably would be for Hill, but we are taxpayers in Fayette County. My wife's land, literally one point of it is the juncture of Fayette, Clark, and Bourbon County. And we've got a Kentucky Blue Post on that point the land. We will live about a mile at most from where this project will be. My background, I've farmed since I was 11 years old. My wife's family, the Graves family, has farmed in that area since the mid-17, or late 1700s. I'm also in the investment business and have been for years. One point I want to make is this is the bluegrass of central Kentucky. It is an extremely unique area. There's not many areas like it in this country. Middle Tennessee has an area similar to this with the limestone basin. This is not just like any other area of the country. and you know this is about an industrial use on farmland and the land right next to this where they're wanting to do this and the land where the city dump was that was active working farmland striving to make a profit every year and most years it is profitable. I'm in the cattle business. We make money almost every single year because we work at it on things. So one point I wanted to bring up, and one of the ladies that spoke before me brought up, was the degradation of the efficiency of solar panels over time. How much power they absorb and convert degrades over time. And the reason I'm bringing this up is I want to speak quickly to the pace of technological change out there. SpaceX is something that's been in the news here lately. That's Elon Musk's spaceship company. His current rocket is called the Falcon 9. They launch one of those about every other day. It's mainstream. These are reusable rockets. They're putting Starlink satellites in orbit all the time. In development right now and is launched is their Starship rocket, which is going to have about 9 to 10 times the payload capacity of the Falcon 9 rocket. What does Elon Musk want to put in space? Solar arrays. There are raids for data centers, other things. My point is, this is talking about taking about 700 to 800 acres of prime bluegrass land out of production, putting solar panels on it, for a technology that can be obsolete very quickly. Those solar panels that you see from the Eastern Kentucky Power Project, they are right off Interstate 64, those are already obsolete. They're already obsolete. So my point is this is a very unique resource that we have. This is the bluegrass of central Kentucky, which is very unique in this nation. And I would urge you to support what the working group came up with at the last session session and not to allow industrial solar development and industrial usage on prime agricultural land in Fayette County. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next we have Aaron McKell and you will have six minutes and you will be followed by Andrew McDonald. Welcome. Thank you My name is Aaron Michael. I'm a resident of District 10. I work for and support the Fade Alliance. I'd first like to thank all of you for your work on this and your careful consideration. I know it's been a long road, two years now. I think we'll get to a decision today. I would like to open my comments by stating that I wholeheartedly believe that global warming and climate change are real issues and that we are experiencing those effects every single day. I believe we should trust science, I believe we should trust research, and I believe we should trust nationwide best practices, which suggest not locating industrial solar farms on prime soils. This new council proposed ZODA requires six-month decommissioning deadline, recycling of materials, and soil renewal. I get it. That sounds great on paper. But I'm concerned that we're treating decommissioning as if it guarantees restoration, and it most certainly does not. Essentially, these decommissioning plans are requirements for a redevelopment plan. This is an attempt to write a blueprint for how to redevelop a 900-acre industrial-use complex back into prime farmland. To think we can easily restore an industrial use site back into a diverse and complex ecosystem seems unrealistic. And logistically, are we confident that there will be someone willing to even farm a repurposed industrial site? I think we know how challenging it's been redeveloping our urban core. And today, we're being asked to accept that redeveloping our farmland is just that easy. I'd hate to see this soda pass because we think these decommissioning requirements are foolproof. Decommissioning a solar facility is one thing. Restoring 900 acres of prime farmland is completely different. Next, I'd like to speak on the 1% cap that has been proposed. Frankly, I don't think it holds much weight. I'm concerned that we are putting a number on something that could be very difficult to control once we open the door to private, for-profit development of our farmland. What happens when we reach the 1%, which will happen quickly if we accept this? Do we really believe that future councils will never face this pressure again? Because once we establish the precedent that industrial solar is an appropriate use of our agricultural land, I don't think we can safely assume that 1% will remain 1%. Today, it's 1%. Tomorrow, it's 2%. In five years, it's 3%. Let's just not go there. Let's not set the precedent. And today, you have an option to make that choice. I do believe that every community across the country needs to do its part in helping lower our CO2 emissions. And unfortunately, I know it has been suggested that maybe Lexington's rural community isn't doing enough. Between public utilities and the Haley Pike Landfill Project, there are 800 acres of industrial-scale solar facilities in development. That means the rural area will eventually help power thousands of homes with industrial solar. And that's on top of the natural carbon sequestration that we know farmland provides for our community. To say the rural area is not doing its part is just simply not true, and it's not fair. If you say yes to this vote today because you believe the rural area isn't doing enough to mitigate climate change, I think your vote would be based on a misconception. I know the decision you have today is a tough one. I also care about the environment very much just as I know you do. I found it tough to make a decision when I started thinking about this two years ago. It's a topic that unfortunately pits environmentalists versus environmentalists. I know it sounds simple. I know it sounds cliche but I made a pros and cons list and when I did that I found very quickly that in the case of allowing privately developed industrial solar facilities on our farmland, the cons significantly outweigh the pros. Please support the recommendations provided by both planning staff and the planning commission. And let's finally, after two years, start working on building out the right kind of solar solutions for Lexington. Thank you all. Thank you. Next is Andrew McDonald. Welcome. Andrew McDonald, welcome. Andrew McDonald, Good afternoon. My name is Andrew McDonald. I'm a resident of Frankfort. I'm the director of Apogee Climate and Energy Transitions and the chair of the Kentucky Solar Energy Society. Although I live and work in Franklin County, our organization has many supporters who are Fayette County residents. We are very grateful to the City of Lexington for your longstanding support for solar energy and sustainability through programs such as Solarize Lexington and many other initiatives. I urge you to support a zoning ordinance text amendment that will allow large-scale solar to be built in the agricultural zones of Fayette County. The council has been presented with a false choice between your clean energy goals and the preservation of agricultural land. These are not mutually exclusive goals. The company seeking to build the 70 megawatt solar project here, Silicon Ranch, has pioneered the integration of agriculture with solar energy production on the same land. Grazing sheep among their solar fields is central to their business model, as is the ownership of the land where they operate, which illustrates their long-term commitment to stewardship. The proposed text amendment would require agriculture to continue on the solar project site throughout the life of the project, and this is entirely compatible with Silicon Ranch's From my perspective, Lexington is being offered not only a local source of clean energy, but a new community member who will be invested in the life of the agricultural community. In Garrard County, where Silicon Ranch has previously developed a solar project in Kentucky, they have provided a local farmer with the opportunity to expand their sheep operation through access to hundreds of acres of fenced land, along with new farm income from maintaining the site with the sheep. Calling this industrial solar is a misnomer that evokes fears about the loss of farmland, but the truth is that a well-managed solar project can be an asset to the agricultural community and beneficial to the soils and local environment. Please support the zoning amendment that will allow large-scale solar to be developed in Fayette County's agricultural zones with reasonable regulations to ensure agriculture is maintained and the land protected. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, at this time, I'd like to ask if Laura Anderson is here. And are you yielding your time to Brittany Rothmeier? What about Margaret Graves? Are you yielding your time? All right. All right. So next, we'll have Brittany Rothmeier, who will have nine minutes, followed by Tom Poskin, followed by Alma Farrier. Thank you Mayor, Councilmembers. I'll try to keep it more brief. You all have heard a lot about the solar zota over the past two years and I've certainly been up here my fair share number of times to talk about it. We really significantly appreciate at Fayette Alliance everyone who's taken the time to consider the research and the recommendations that really get into the weeds as we've talked about the solar zota. They've been made with care for Fayette County, for trust in our planning principles and the hours that we and you all and all the other community members here have devoted to the forming of our comp plan and the policies that guide us. What has changed over the last two years is that this ZODA has gone through the legislative process twice in fact. It's been evaluated by the planning commission twice, the planning staff multiple times, the rural land management board twice, all bodies who are charged with ensuring policies comply with our comp plan and with our rural land management plan and other policies that this community has established. Consistently, unanimously, and repeatedly, these bodies have been clear. Solar is an important part of Lexington's future, but in our community, it's not appropriate at a large scale in agricultural zones. I shared a video with all of you prior to this meeting. It's a short two-minute video of the Planning Commission meeting from just a month ago, and that just recaps Planning Commission members explaining why they were supporting planning staff's recommendations, which they voted for unanimously for the second time just over a month ago. Our comp plan, adopted just a couple of years ago, does not talk about large-scale solar and ag zones, but it does provide a broad list of other initiatives that we should pursue to reduce carbon emissions, many of which we have not even moved forward with yet. At the same time we did that plan, we expanded the urban service boundary nearly 3,000 acres without talking about the increased carbon emissions of that type of development. And now we're contemplating nearly 2,000 more acres, but this time justified by reducing carbon emissions. Without making plans to ensure the other 3,000 acres, we are going to develop our energy efficient. We have plans and policies in place for a reason, and following them and upholding the principles of them ensures the public trust in the policies that the city makes and that we enforce. The language proposed by the Solar Work Group to allow solar on farmland doesn't give Lexington the protection that we deserve. It caters to a specific company. Typically, conditional uses evaluated by the Board of Adjustment, like this one would be if it's approved, have a maximum of 10,000 square feet. If permitted, this would be more like 39 million square feet. The proposed development resulting from this policy would be bigger than UK's campus. It would be bigger than Central Park in New York. But what it doesn't do is benefit thousands of Lexington residents in the long term. Solar can be located in a lot of different places. We've seen examples here, locally, across the country, and frankly across the world. Agricultural industries cannot be located in a lot of different places. They rely entirely on the land and the land is available for them to utilize. We're not asking for a vote against solar. We support solar. The people in this room support solar. We're asking you to uphold the planning staff and the Commission's policy recommendations specifically. We are clearly supportive of solar. We've got nearly 750 acres of land in the rural service area already being developed for solar and on rooftops and brownfields throughout the city. We're making strides. We're asking council members today, don't allow any more farmland to be used for solar. The long term challenge that we face is not just preserving acreage on paper. It's actually maintaining a land base that can support agricultural production. As ag faces rising costs, tighter margins, and increasing competition from non-farm uses just like this one, decisions that we make will shape whether the next generation of farmers can enter and expand and keep working the land that we depend on. Solar development is an industrial use. A requirement for a dual use without any enforceable way to measure it does not make it appropriate. It's not a conditional use, it's in essence a zone change. And the regulations that you all will be considering don't follow best practices even for those communities that have permitted solar on farmland, avoid prime farmland and prioritize other areas. Even the Kentucky Resources Council model ordinance has a specific paragraph specifically dedicated to farmland protection. That was not included in the solar workgroup's draft. American Farmland Trust, the Kentucky Conservation Committee, the Nature Conservancy, the United States Department of Ag, all said the same thing. Avoid land designated as prime farmland or land of statewide importance. It's not just us talking about how valuable this land is. The solar work group's proposed language does not do this. We don't want to see more farmland turned into industrial, but we do want to see Fayette County land protected as it should be, and there are other important provisions that deserve attention. In addition to the planning staff's recommendations to prohibit solar and ag zones, Fayette Alliance recommends consideration of the following. These were included in the position statement that we provided that hopefully a lot of people in this room, including you all, have had a chance to see, but are summarized here. Number one, clarify the definition of a solar development and its footprint to include the entire parcel. Two, protect hundreds of neighbors to these developments with greater buffers and setbacks. Three, increase ground cover and require native Kentucky plants. Four, reduce the percentage of acreage available for ground-mounted solar in the rural area as guidance to the Public Service Commission. Five, update our stormwater regulations to accommodate for solar. Six, strengthen decommissioning requirements and enforcement provisions. These are the only way to protect the Lexington of the future and hold solar developers accountable. And seven, add recommended language from Kentucky Resources Council to protect our best soils. The really good news is that renewable energy isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. We can support renewable energy while also keeping our ag land and agriculture and not undermining the intent of our agricultural zone. Say yes to solar, but say no to more solar on our farmland, because once it's gone, it's gone. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Tom Poskin, followed by Alma Farrier, and then Matt Partymiller. Welcome. Hey, welcome, everybody. Hi. Brittany said I could use her extra minutes. Well, that's not exactly how it works. Okay. Sorry. Then we won't do it that way. I am here to tell you I am opposed to the industrial solar facilities on Agland. And will you state your name again for the record? And your district. Liz Sheehan's fifth district. Sorry. I am here to oppose the development of industrial solar facilities on lag land and would encourage you to approve the ZOTA language recommended unanimously by the Planning Commission. When the decision was made to consolidate city and county governments, council members accepted the responsibility to be stewards of our farmland. The unassailable trend globally, nationally, and locally is for populations to multiply as farmland subtracts. This is not sustainable and climate change has accelerated the problem and the problem is evident today in beef cattle. We're the largest beef cattle producing state on this side of the Mississippi. It's a major product for us and it's a problem. And basically beef cattle prices and herds are diminished. There is less pasturable land, which is what we're talking about here. Processors are closing plants and prices are soaring. Go buy a steak at a nice restaurant. Fayette County comprises the rarest naturally fertile soil types, which is roughly only 10% of the earth's total land that is farmable and arable, and we represent a very small portion of what that is. You know, with respect to the summations made by the Planning Commission, vote no to the industrial development. What I would tell you is from 1950 till today, we have lost 27% of our farmland in the United States. During the same time, our cattle crop has diminished by 20%. It's accelerating at a pace because of climate change, whether you agree with it or not. We are the baby stock producers. We're the ground floor in the cattle business. Every acreage we lose is a cow-calf operation that raises a calf that goes into a feedlot that will feed us. If we don't have the ground floor plant to grow more cattle, the price will only continue to go up. will continue to go out of business, and we'll start to suddenly realize the cost of bad decisions on preserving farmland. And I realize it's just a small spot here, but it's just one more spot. And I have a farm. I also have a farm near a solar place in Illinois. It got hailed on years ago, and they have not done a thing. been left vacant for years. Thank you. Next we have Alma Ferrier followed by Matt Partey-Miller and then Melanie Graves. Welcome. Hi, thank you. My name is Alma Ferrier. I am from district 12, resident in district 12. And I do believe in solar, but I believe where it's placed is the most important consideration as has been pointed out all afternoon here. I believe in our comprehensive plan, and I don't believe allowing more solar on farmland meets the principles of that plan. We already have developed solar in rural areas. We owe it to our community members and our vital agricultural industry not to allow more farmland be used for solar than already is in the works. Let's support responsible solar and prohibit solar on our best soils. Once we develop them, as you heard, we cannot replace them, and our industry, economy, and identity rely on all of them. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next is Matt Partymiller, followed by Melanie Graves. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Matt Partymiller. I'm resident of District 7. I appreciate your time, again, speaking about this issue. First, I want to mention land rights. The transaction that's occurring here is between a willing buyer and seller, and it's often a transaction that's occurring with the idea of preserving ag land. So these sellers are thinking how do they, in many instances, they're leasing the land, and they're thinking how do they keep ownership of that property long term. So I think that's an important thing to mention that I haven't heard yet today. And then I want to speak about economic value. So renewables are obviously part of the comprehensive plan here, but I think part of that plan is also to continue to deliver low-cost power and energy to residents of Fayette County. And in the 20 years I've been installing solar, I've seen it go from a high cost of power to the lowest cost. Development of solar at this time offers a great advantage as we see power demand increase nationally. The more capacity we have in this county, I think the more insulated our residents will be from future hikes and energy rates, and we should be seriously considering that as we look at all these data centers coming in with our high power and energy demands. Also want to mention the environmental benefits, so we've heard a little bit about that, and I obviously appreciate folks on both sides of this debate. The reason solar renewables are in the comprehensive plan is because we have concerns about global warming. And those are universal. And those are the reason I got into this industry, the reason many of us are probably here today. And the way we address that is not by saying, well, in Fayette County, we won't develop renewables. We'll leave it up to others. The way we address it is by participating in the solution, and that's what this development would do. That's what allowing the council's original ZODA would do. So I hope you'll take that into consideration. Solar, as planned here, we're talking galvanized steel, solar modules, electrical wiring, electrical infrastructure. We're not talking about an industrial development in the classical sense of industrial factory. It's a very different thing. I think many of you have now seen that and experienced what these arrays look like. And then I want to conclude by coming back to, I think, the most pressing point, which is that achievement of the comprehensive plan requires that Fayette County invests in renewables. And this is a way to do that. I see no other way that you get to your goals without starting. And that's what this is. So thank you for your time. I appreciate the time again. Thank you. Our final speaker is Melanie Graves. Is Melanie here? She's not. Okay, thank you. So that completes our public comment. And, Council, we have no docket today. We do have a table of motions for the August 11, 2026 work session, if I could have a motion to approve. Second. Vice Mayor, second by Council Member Ellinger. Are there any corrections or additions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Thank you. There are no budget amendments, no informational budget adjustments. We do have new business. Second. Council Member Sevigny moved. Council Member Baxter seconded. Please log in if you have a question. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question about item J. I think this is Director Dr. Tushan. If you can come and tell us a little bit about this partnership with the University of Kentucky Clinical Education Agreement, College of Nursing, and Global X. Absolutely. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the question, Vice Mayor Wu. It's a pretty small partnership to become a clinical site, to be partners with the College of Nursing. This would allow us to have some of the nursing students at UK support some of our programming. We oftentimes have a captive audience that a lot of partners are looking for. Recently, we had the Bluegrass Community Health Center come and provide health screening to some of our English language classes for some of our residents. So this way, the nursing students would potentially be able to provide health education, would be able to provide screening services like that. It would also provide an opportunity for training and exposure for those students as well as they're working with populations that are going to be encountering out in the field when they're working. So we're hoping to start with a small pilot program, potentially having a couple of UK nursing students be at Global X to support some of our programming over a period of seven weeks period and then continue building from that. Can you speak a little bit to sort of the idea behind it in terms of thinking about both language access and also cultural competency? Absolutely. I think there's those two components that you mentioned. We have a growing portion of our population that sometimes there's a language barrier for them when they go to receive services in healthcare facilities and other different types of facilities. And then sometimes there's a cultural competency component with certain things that sometimes providers may just assume that the residents or the general population are aware of. Sometimes even using certain expressions that when you translate literally may land differently with the population. So especially for healthcare providers, this is a life and death example. Oftentimes for trainings for medical interpreters, they actually use an example of an instance where a term was translated in a way that was very similar to the other term that was used, but then it led to a misdiagnosis that led to a fatality, actually. And so this type of trainings would be able to both provide that health education component to the residents themselves, but then also a lot of trainings for those providers who are going to be working with many residents in their daily practices. Yeah, thank you for that explanation. I always believe no matter how good our programs or resources are in this community, that if not everybody can access them for whatever reason, then we're not doing our job. So I really appreciate this pilot and hope to see it succeed and grow. Thank you. Thank you so much for your questions. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Vice Mayor Wu, for taking one of my questions. I'm not going to ask you further questions, but thank you very much for sharing. I have something on item H. I think that is Commissioner Martin. I just wanted to clarify some more information about the urban service change process and the public hearing. Welcome. Yes. Yes. Could you clarify the date and specifics for that, please? Yes. The synopsis is incorrect. The date is correct. It is November the 10th, but November the 10th is a Tuesday, not a Wednesday. The memo and the schedule that's in the packet, pages 11 and 12, are correct. It says the synopsis has the wrong day. Okay. So it should be Tuesday, not Wednesday. day, November the 10th, correct. Yes, thank you. Okay, and then I think that a notification has to go out about that, so it'll go out with the correct date. I'll work with the law department to make sure that we get it corrected. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Sevigny. Thank you, Mayor. My questions are on K&L, Commissioner Hensley. And while you're coming up, This, I believe, is our total bond issue for the year, and I think a majority of it is for paving. Is that correct? Yes, it's all for paving. Okay, all right. And I've asked you this question already, and I just want to, kind of just for the record, The real difference between, so that you're, we're looking at going out for a bond of $9.74 million. $1.423 million would be payments that we would basically make in this fiscal year. So if we had $8.3 million right now to our disposal, we probably could, we could probably not go for a bond issue. So we'll need the whole amount. We actually budgeted for $10 million of bonding this year. The bond is a little bit less the last couple of years because of our credit rating and because of when we've gone to market, we've actually had a little bit better return. So we've issued it a premium, and we've actually been able to borrow for a little bit less than that full $10 million. So that's why we're anticipating this 9.7. We typically bring it back to you all with the actual amount once we've issued, And so you will see that come through as budget amendments when we actually complete the sale. And is there, this year, is there a timing issue with this money? Is there a reason do we need it now more than we would need it later? And is there, with the, how does politics usually enter into something like this? Yeah, so the last couple of years, we've actually had quite a bit more cash flow on hand with a variety of different federal programs that have been able to kind of help us offset some of the general fund revenues that we've got flowing through. So that has been able to help us push our bond sales into spring or even summer. So we've been able to kind of cash flow those purchases ourselves until a later issuance. As we have drawn down all of those federal dollars and we're back to kind of our more standard operating and cash flow, and specifically since this is paving and we're in paving season, we go ahead and expend those dollars right now. That's why we would be looking at an earlier issuance. The other thing is our election cycle that would happen on kind of a national level. That does tend to create some instability in the market. And so we do try to time our market sales at the bond market to where we're trying to be the most stable as possible to get the best interest rates for the government. Okay. And then we've also, I've chatted with you separately about when do you, what's our situation currently with fund balance? And when do you feel like you might know that number? Yeah, so fund balance is typically brought at the budget and finance meeting that's in October. It tends to fall right around the end of October. So I anticipate that that will happen again this year. A lot of times we've been able to kind of have that number before we have this conversation. So if there's a different decision that we want to make, that has been able to play in. So I think one of the years we decided to do $2 million out of fund balance and offset some of that bonding. And so this timing would not necessarily allow for that because I don't know that we'll be able to. We have a couple of new staff. Our director of accounting is new, and our deputy director is new in that role this year. And so I think we will not be ahead of the game necessarily to be able to provide that information early this year. We want to be able to give them and our auditors the amount of time that's appropriate to bring those numbers in October. But, you know, I do think that as we have done in the last several years with the capital reserve, anytime we allocate funds to the capital reserve, that definitely goes to offset some of our large capital expenses that would have otherwise been bonded during the bonding process or the capital cycle that we are trying to make those decisions in the budget. So all of that decision-making at fund balance time goes to kind of help these decisions as we're making those recommendations. Thank you. I'm okay with moving this forward now, but I would like to have a conversation between now and the second reading on September 10th to see if there's an alternative way to do this bond. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. First off, I have a question on item A, which I believe will be Commissioner Martin. So my constituents have a vested interest, as you well know, in the operations of the West Hickman Wastewater Treatment Plant. So I was just hoping that you could inform them about what this item is, why it's necessary, and functionally just what it does. We have a phosphorus limit on the discharge at West Heckman, which is unique compared to Town Branch. And this is an inline analyzer that's testing that phosphorus level so we can make adjustments as the influent level rises or lowers. It doesn't have anything to do with odor. It has everything to do with the discharge. Thank you so much. I just know that I will be getting some questions about that, and I appreciate having that for the record. And then secondly, I have a question about item I. So that's Commissioner Lanter. So while you're making your way up to the podium, this is related to NAMI Lexington and the operation of the Fayette County Mental Health Court. This is something that I've sponsored in committee and I'm very proud of. And I was wondering if you could just speak to the importance of funding that program. Yeah, the Mental Health Treatment Court, we've funded and operated, well, NAMI has operated, we have funded since about 2015. It was one of the first projects that came out of the Office of Homelessness when it was originally created, and then it has migrated and now is a permanent situation through the general fund. So this is just the contract for the general fund for the general operations of the court, which is a treatment court. Folks go through, and once they graduate, if they have completed all the requirements, then their charges are dismissed. And it has been a great tool for our Office of Homelessness in helping folks who have severe mental illness overcome those challenges. Thank you. I just wanted to highlight that because I think it's a particularly good piece of work that we do here. And I have no further questions. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch? Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Hensley, I have a couple questions about items K and L, please. Thank you. My first question, Council Member Savigny already asked it. So then I was curious about the projects that were tied to this money. And so it's all paving? It is. Okay. And the support of documentation, it also refers to public art and beautification projects. So it's just paving. That is off the table. We do add the percent for art at the end of that once we figure out what our total issuance is. But the bond proper that you all have approved is just paving. Okay. And then my second question is, from my knowledge, can you explain the difference between items K and L? Yes. So we have an advertisement that we have to do, and you all have to approve that separately than the actual issuance. Those are two different documents, two different legal pieces that have to go through our bond council. And so you have two different pieces that you have to approve separately. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Brown. I'm sorry, I skipped you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. F as in farm. Commissioner Lanter, or Mr. Heron. This one's a little unique in that when you look at the timing of it, because we're in fiscal year 27, We're requesting money in 26, and we're going to get it in 28. Could you kind of explain how that works because we're dealing with the federal government and the way their fiscal year falls? Yes. So the HUD fiscal year does not align with our fiscal year. To further complicate things, the COC planning grant that we would potentially receive through this runs on a calendar year. So it overlaps half of our fiscal year from July to December. and then rolls over into the following year. So we have to go ahead and just look ahead. This would actually not be a budget request that I could make this fiscal year. It would have to be for next because we would not enter this term until January 1 of 28. All right. I just, it's kind of a unique situation. I just wanted to let everybody know because when you start seeing the fiscal years, you think maybe there's a misprint or something, but it's just the way that we have our physical years. We typically are about a year and a half behind the actual award. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. All right. Council members, the motion on the floor is to approve new business. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. Thank you. That passes. As far as communications from the mayor, we have no appointments, no donations, and no procurements. this meeting. So that brings us to continuing business. And the first item is council capital projects. Council member Reynolds, second by council member Curtis. Yes. Okay. Council member Brown. All right. Thank you, mayor. I think there's one item on there and I want to make an amendment to I move to amend the amount from $500 to $825. So move. Second. Vice Mayor Wu seconds that. Are there any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Are there any other amendments or questions about council capital projects? All right. All those in favor of the amended motion, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. At this time, it is time for the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee report. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. The June 16, 2026 Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee meeting was called to order at 1.02 p.m. The committee unanimously approved the May 12, 2026 meeting summary before receiving three presentations. The committee received updates on Empower Lexington, highlighting sustainability initiatives, including Solarize Lexington and regional climate planning efforts, and on the Division of Water Quality Stormwater Program, including completed flood mitigation projects, ongoing infrastructure improvements, and continued maintenance efforts to reduce localized flooding. The committee also unanimously recommended adopting Complete Streets Design Manual, which establishes new engineering standards that prioritize safety, accessibility, and mobility for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and motorists. So pursuant to the actions of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee at its meeting on June 16, 2026, I move to place on the docket for the August 27, 2026 Council meeting an ordinance amending chapters 16 and 17 of the Code of Ordinances to adopt and incorporate the Complete Streets Design Manual as an engineering manual for infrastructure in Lexington-Fayette County. So moved. Second. I think Council Member Curtis seconds that motion. Are there questions? All right, all those in. Council Member Morton, did you have a question? I don't have a question. I just have a couple of amendments. Okay. And I have six amendments. Okay, let's hear them. One at a time. Of course. And I think this is just to, and actually I'll let Council Member Sivikmi speak to why these amendments are coming forward. Yes. So from the time between the meeting and the review, there was a variety of comment and corrections to different pages in the manual. And these are just some basic corrections to pages in the manual. Okay. Thank you for that. All right. Ready? Okay. So I move to amend section 3.1.1 in the Complete Streets Design Manual, consistent with the first page of the Complete Streets Design Manual, final revision document provided in this meeting, so moved. Second. Council Member Curtis seconded. Are there questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. I move to amend section 4.2.3.1 in the Complete Streets Design Manual, consistent with the first page of the Complete Streets Design Manual, final revision document provided in this meeting, so moved. Second. Vice Mayor Wu seconded. Are there questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. I move to amend section 5.1.2 in the Complete Streets Design Manual, consistent with the first page of the Complete Streets Design Manual final revision document providing in this meeting. So moved. Second. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Are there questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. I move to amend section 3.1.2 in the Complete Streets Design Manual, consistent with the second page of the Complete Streets Design Manual final revision document provided in this meeting. So moved. Second. Council Member Curtis seconds. Are there questions on this one? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? Thank you. That passes. I move to amend section 3.1.2 in the Complete Streets Design Manual, consistent with the third page of the Complete Streets Design Manual final revision document provided in this meeting. So moved. Second. Council Member Curtis seconds. Are there questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That passes. And this is the last one. I move to amend section 3.1.4 and section 3.1.5 in the complete streets design manual, consistent with the fourth page of the complete streets design manual final revision document provided in this meeting. So move to second. Thank you. Council Member Curtis seconds. Are there questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. Is there anything else about this motion? All right. We have a motion on the floor that's been amended. All those in favor of the amended motion, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. And that's the end of my report. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you. Does anyone have any further questions for Councilmember Civigni? All right. Thank you very much. That brings us to an ordinance amending Article 31 of the Zoning Ordinance to address large-scale solar energy systems in the agricultural zones, establish provisions relating to brownfield development, and create additional criteria for the review of solar energy systems. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. Colleagues, I would like to first thank everyone who showed up today and who has engaged on this issue over the last two years. So I really appreciate the time and energy that everyone has put into this, no matter your position on the issue. I know that there's been a lot of effort. I would also like to thank all of my colleagues for your thoughtfulness and attention on this issue and our planning staff and council staff who have supported this work. Many of you have put years into this issue and have carefully considered how we can appropriately balance the need for renewable energy and climate goals with the conservation of our rural areas. When we initiated this ZODA, our goal was to seek input from both the public and individuals with technical expertise. We made a good faith effort to hear from everyone involved on all sides of the issue. It's clear that we want a sustainable future for Lexington, but we can't just get there by saying not here, not now. I accept the majority of the recommendations from the Planning Commission. I also support preservation of our ag spaces, and I would not support solar without concurrent protections for our land. The proposal we brought forward for solar that requires co-location with ag production does both. Along with the language, the Planning Commission affirmed that with the 1% cap and the 85% vegetative cover, this language has also been supported by our Environmental Commission, and you received an official letter from them over email. So I would like to move to reinstate the language that we had put in to the ZODA that we published. I'm going to send a copy around on paper for you all of exactly which pieces that I'm talking about. And we have a copy to display on the document camera. But you'll see, I move to amend the ZODA from the Planning Commission to reinstate the language to allow for intermediate and large-scale solar in our AR and AU zones for ground-mounted solar, which is the table for Section 3-1-4 at the top of the document, along with the safeguards in Sections 31-6 and 31-7 to require ag production and other protections such as a land management plan and a stormwater management plan. The full language is there before you for the amendment. This is not new language. This was from the recent ZODA, so you've had this for months. This was also the language we sent to the Planning Commission, the Environmental Commission, the Rural Lane Management Board, and we published it on Engage Lexington. So you have already seen it. But I move to reinstate all of this language here to allow for large scale in our ag zones for AR and AU with the conditional use with the protections on this page. So moved. Is there a second? Council Member Sevigny seconds. All right, if you wish to speak to the motion, please log in. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to thank everybody that came out to speak today on both sides of this issue. But I especially want to acknowledge just some of the organizations that have lent their voices in support for the council's original ZODA. They include Kentuckians for Energy Democracy, Northside Neighborhood Association, Kentucky Conservation Committee, Apogee Climate and Energy Transitions, Kentucky Solar Energy Society, Bluegrass Sierra Club, the Environmental Commission, LiUNA Local 189, Bluegrass Climate Action Team, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Four Hills Farms, which is a lamb and sheep farm in Versailles, and residents from all over Fayette County that care about climate change and energy resilience. Today, I also heard from speakers who oppose solar development on ag land talk about the climate impacts to both agriculture and our communities. And so on this concern, we do agree. We agree that the climate crisis is not an abstract concept. It is here in Kentucky in the form of extreme weather like record-breaking heat, flash flooding, tornadoes, ice storms, and the like, all of which causes property damage, costs us money, and costs us human lives. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables is no longer an option. It is essential. I also want to tie this to another conversation that we're having in the community right now, and that's data centers. Many community members opposed to hyperscale data centers, including myself, are concerned about energy usage and the impact on both our electrical grid and our utility bills. So this conversation to me is inextricably tied to our need for large-scale solar development in Lexington because large-scale solar increases energy capacity and large-scale solar increases grid resiliency. Grid resiliency means diversification, having options beyond fossil fuels. This means renewable energies like solar. So if we are worried, and I think rightfully so, about the energy impacts of hyperscale data centers, then we absolutely have to support creating renewable energies like solar, period. This is why I am voting for the council's original Zoda and Council Member Sheehan's amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to thank everyone for their public comments made today and prior to today. Thank you for your emails with detached documents for council to review. I truly appreciate your thoughtful insights regarding the ZODA that is before us today. Colleagues, in June, the city's own environmental commission sent us a white paper analyzing the ZODA and providing recommendations. The commission is comprised of our neighbors who we directly approved by vote to serve on the Environmental Commission. By ordinance, at least one person must serve on the commission representing each council district. So we and our neighbors are benefiting by having a council district environmental ambassador on the Environmental Commission. The white paper sent to us in June was approved by unanimous vote by the members of the Environmental Commission. If you read the white paper, you know that it presents a very balanced opinion based on research and evidence, realizing that clean energy is vital to Lexington's health, just as the preservation of agricultural land is vital to our economy. I'm not going to regurgitate the full paper, because I know you have read it, but it draws attention to the fact that state laws are highly restrictive regarding rooftop solar and can create a high energy burden on our low-income neighbors. Allowing restricted large-scale solar energy systems on 1% of Fayette County's land is a simple win-win for all who have welcomed themselves to this table for discussion. To quote the Environmental Commission, This ZODA establishes essential limits on large-scale solar while ensuring projects are integrated with soil, water, and farm protections, aligning with the imagined Lexington Plan. But I don't need to sell you on this anymore because I'm sure you've read that white paper. Council set a net zero goal. 2050 will be here sooner than we realize. So we must make good on our promise to our neighbors. And the changes proposed today for this SOTA are a step in the right direction. Let us not all forget that our net zero goal is a community goal, not a governmental goal. So we are all, everybody in this room and everybody watching this stream, are responsible for taking intentional steps to create a more sustainable Lexington for our families and our neighbors. Clean energy is one way that we will get there. So I support Council Member Sheehan's motion as presented. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. And I would also like to thank everybody who came out to speak on this today, coming to City Hall. In the middle of the day to speak on a zoning ordinance text amendment is not exactly a fun thing. And I admire every single person's commitment to showing up and making sure that we hear from you directly. When I was sworn in, I did not expect to have learned so much about the implementation of large-scale solar projects. This was not on my bingo card for being one of the most controversial issues to come across our desk, to be honest with you. And it's been heartbreaking to watch the conversation unfold because I understand the perspectives that everybody's coming from. I grew up on my family's farm, and the preservation of our farmland is deeply personal to me. At the same time, I also came up through climate activism and the Sunrise Movement and recognized that the decisions that previous generations made for my generation have left us with a world that is candidly burning. and we see the impacts of climate change here in Fayette County on a consistent basis, whether it's just the flooding that we've recently experienced, whether it was the ice storm that we experienced this past winter. And I do believe that we have an obligation as a local government to do everything in our power to mitigate the impact of the climate crisis. And I know that most of you all do too. But at the end of the day, this is a question that has been presented with a lot of conflicting information. So I want to clarify a couple of things. We've heard lots of comments about Silicon Ranch. This is not the ZODA that was initiated by Silicon Ranch. We went through an entire process with that ZODA and ultimately adopted one. This is a council-initiated ZODA based on the findings of the solar work group. That is something that I think has been a little bit lost in translation, and I want to make sure that folks are clear on that. The vote that we take today is not a vote to approve the proposal that Silicon Ranch has brought. That is something that will have to go before the Board of Adjustments for them to approve within the guidelines that we give them. Secondly, I'd also like to say that I agree that I would prefer to see rooftop solar first. I want to see solar built out in all of these areas, but we also can't rely on the goodwill of corporations who are disinterested in preserving our planet for generations like mine and for generations to come. They're just not doing it. And at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to those future generations to make the best choices we can right now. I also want to acknowledge that rural solar on an industrial scale, on a large scale, is already happening in Fayette County. It is happening in these areas, and many of the people who are opposed to this Zota language were also here to speak in favor of the Haley Pike solar project, which, though part of the project is on a landfill, part of it is also in a rural zone. That is an industrial-scale rural solar project. And it will count towards that 1% cap. So, when I'm looking at what is presented before us, colleagues, I am looking at a carefully crafted zoning ordinance text amendment that provides us a say in how these projects that are already happening and will continue to happen will be implemented. the public utilities and the public services commission, they're not bringing in CBAs to the discussion. They're not bringing in all of the same environmental protections that we're bringing in with this ZODA. So as presented, even though I very much understand both sides of this issue, I am going to support this because I believe it is the right decision to make for future generations. I was left a worse world by previous generations, and I will not leave a worse world for future generations. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I want to also thank all of you who have shown up, and I was at the Planning Commission meeting, and you showed up there as well. And that's the best part about public comment. You get to provide your views, and people do, every time I hear something, Even though I may not agree with it, there's some pieces of it that really do make sense to me, so I do appreciate it. I think we should absolutely put solar on parking lots and brownfields and rooftops and every disturbed piece of land that we can. But if we're serious about confronting the climate crisis and if we're serious about addressing the net zero goal that the council made unanimously several years ago, I think we need to think a little bit bigger. A typical rooftop project is tens of thousands of dollars, and our state laws on net metering no longer really help that homeowner. They don't give them adequate reimbursement for energy that they're producing. But local ordinance, like the ones that we're talking about, put community benefits agreements in place that can help the scale and efficiency of utility-based solar. simply cannot be matched by putting a whole bunch of solar panels on rooftops. Large-scale agri-solar combining agriculture and solar energy on the same land can produce enormous amounts of clean energy while keeping land definitely in agricultural production. This isn't an either-or proposition. We need rooftops. We need parking lots. We need brownfields, all of which are proposed by the ZODA, all which were in a race to net zero plan. But we also need responsible, well-designed agri-solar projects versus just public utility projects based on providing some sort of electricity and stripping our land for what it could actually provide. In the last year, we've also seen unprecedented demand for power increase, and the data center conversation is just about ready to happen here. This is also a national conversation. It's huge. Louisville, just with their new data center that they're looking at, it's about 30% of their energy use. The need for energy is big. And I don't necessarily think that we want to put in gas or coal power plants to do that. If we want to make a meaningful difference on climate, we just can't think about where solar is convenient. We have to think about where solar can make the biggest difference. And that is simply what we are trying to create. We're trying to create a small pathway forward tonight. I urge this council to approve the amended ZODA language to create a chance for us to make carbon neutrality, the goal that we created several years ago, a reality. So let's pass the original version of the ZODA. Thank you. Council Member Boone. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you all to my colleagues on council and to everybody who continuously shows up and shows their support for or against. I know it's been a road, and hopefully we can come to some compromise. I have a couple motions. First, I move to amend Section 31-6 to provide that no more than 1% of the land in the rural service area, as of the date of the Urban County Council's passage of this amendment, can be used for large-scale ground-mounted solar energy systems. And that the moment of the land utilization shall include the total number of acres within all property boundaries in the rural service area on which the SES is developed. Second. Council member Hales seconds. Is there conversation about the amendment? And you'll need to raise your hands. Okay. Go ahead and log in. Council member Civigni. Yeah, could you just explain what you, Are you saying 1% of the land in the rural service area, so 1% of the current 120,000 acres? Because there's 181,000 acres in Fayette County. Right, yes. The point kind of there is with the rural service area kind of taking the brunt of all the solar energy systems, it would be kind of a common denominator to use that as the starting point. Are there other questions? Council Member Reynolds? Can you further explain your amendment? So originally it was 1% of the whole county. And what I'm proposing is 1% of the rural service area because that's kind of what's being affected with the 1% rule. Okay, thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Boone, I was wondering if you happen to have that acreage number on hand for comparison between what it would currently allow and what you're proposing. It's 180,000 total in the full county. I think it's roughly 128,000 in the rural surface area. And when it comes to the rural solar projects that already exist, that already have been approved or are being built, do you know how much of whether those would all fit within the proposed number you're giving us? Yeah, I believe it's close to 800 or 900 of what's already been approved. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to the amendment? Yes, ma'am. Council Member Brown? Yes, ma'am. Just to clarify, so the amendment is to the language proposed by Council Member Sheehan? That's what the amendment is to? Correct. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. I just want to clarify. All right. Anyone else? Council Member Sheehan? I think the language, the amendment would actually be to the Planning Commission's language, because the 1% language is in the Planning Commission's report, not in this. So I think it would amend the Planning Commission's language with the 1%. Is Council Member Boone, is your motion? But we have the motion, the ZODA that we have before us is the Planning Commission recommended language, not the original Council language. so we are amending the planning commission recommended language so we would need to amend their language for the 1%. Yeah, I see what she said. Yeah, James. So that was the basis of my question because the motion that's on the floor is the amendment that Council Member Sheehan made so I just assumed that that amendment was to the language that we're going to consider for the amendment So I think we just need some clarity on how to move forward. The 1% requirement is already part of Article 31. So there's no amendment to that section that's proposed except in the Planning Commission option, which you did not make a motion about. You made a motion about the council version. That's not what my motion said. I said I accept the Planning Commission recommended language with the reintroduction of this language that I passed around. I don't have that language, so I don't know. So this is an amendment to the Planning Commission recommended language. So your motion, so everybody received this chart. your motion was to reinstate this language into the Planning Commission ZODA. Recommended ZODA, yes. So the change the Planning Commission recommended was just a label that said maximum land utilization, and the requirement is actually exactly the same as currently in our text. So is the no more than 1% of the land in the rural area as of the date, et cetera, of the current motion, is that in the Planning Commission motion? It's of the urban, it's of the county total. So it's different. Yes. You're making an amendment. Yes. So your motion, as stated, is different from what's in the Planning Commission. So it would, presumably, if you want to make it, it would stand. Correct. Correct? But I don't think it's a, it's not, I think our process is for an amendment. If we're doing my amendment, his amendment would amend the original language, not my language. So I think they have to be separate. Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah. So your, Council Member Boone, your amendment could come later. Yes. Yeah, because what we have before us, if I understand, is the Planning Commission's ZODA, which you've made a motion to amend according to this chart. With this language, yes. Yeah, okay. Does that work? Yes, ma'am. Sounds good. Thank you. All right, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. So just to clarify then, with your amendment to the Planning Commission, the 1% is in there or not in there? It is in there. So we would vote on your amendment, and then if we want to support Councilman Boone, then he has to make the amendment after we vote on that. Thank you. And I guess just to go, since we are still on your amendment, even though it's kind of not germane to this amendment, when we're looking at what yours asks is 128,000, which would be 1,280, less the 8 to 900. So you're saying an additional 4 to 500 would fall for yours. And instead of the 1,800, that would be probably less 600 acres. Is that about right on the numbers? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So we do have a motion and a second on the floor. So do you want to withdraw your motion? I'll withdraw it. House Member Hale, do you want to withdraw your second? So that takes care of that motion. It's gone. Now, is there anything else to the motion on the floor to reinstate the language for the permitted uses, accessory, and conditional? Council Member Ellinger, did you want to speak to that? Okay, Council Member Sheehan, that is your motion. Yes, I just, I want to, obviously I support the motion because I'm making it, But I do want to add to the discussion that we have been discussing regionalism for a while with regard to economic development and housing. But we are just starting to discuss regionalism for our environment and sustainability. Currently, we ship our trash to a landfill in another county. We ship our recycling elsewhere. And because we sit on top of a hill, our pollution and our stormwater and our streams is carried out to other counties. Is this to your direct motion? And the changes in the accessory use, the conditional use? Okay. We often discuss partnerships with other counties, but we're not being a good partner when it comes to the environment. Energy use is regional. The grid doesn't stop at a county line, and we have an opportunity here to positively contribute to the region with clean energy in a way that also supports our land. for many reasons, not just this regionalism reason. I support the amendment that I propose because we have heard from farmers, energy experts, solar experts, and community environmentalists, including our own environmental commission, that this is a responsible step forward. And we should listen to those voices. In thinking about some of the public comment we heard today, I also want to add that there was discussion of cattle. Cattle is actually being co-located with solar now, so we don't have to give up cattle grazing land because solar works with cattle. We also have a precedent to set density requirements like the 1% cap that we've been discussing because the short-term rental ordinance does just that for short-term rentals in residential areas. I understand that we may, some of us, take a position that is different with what the Planning Commission originally proposed, but there are times where we don't agree. A lot of times we do. The majority of the times we accept what the Planning Commission has sent us on zone changes and on ordinances, but there are exceptions where we disagree, and I think this is one of those for some of this. So I am obviously supporting the motion, but I did want to give some of my reasoning behind that. Would you please, for the public who don't have these documents, say the differences in the chart, which is what your motion is about? So this motion for section 31.4 for ground-mounted solar energy systems reestablishes a conditional use permit for some of our put it down for the yeah some of our agricultural zones, so the A, B, A, N zones, agricultural buffer and agricultural natural zones, it would allow for a conditional use permit for intermediate scale. For the AR and AU zones, it would allow for a conditional use permit for intermediate and large scale solar. With that, the restrictions in section 31-6 would also would apply to those conditional use permits for large scale. And the section in 31-7 that's at the bottom of this document applies for the conditional use process for restrictions for the conditional use in large scale within the ag zones. So in the chart, so everybody's clear, the main differences seem to be intermediate and scale and large scale were not permitted in the Planning Commission ZODA. In this ZODA, they would be permitted with a conditional use permit. Correct. And then the intermediate, excuse me, the small scale would be simply accessory, not requiring conditional use permit, which was in the Planning Commission. Okay, thank you for clarifying that. Anybody else have questions? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Duncan, could you come here real quick? I just have to ask a brief question. Could you remind me what the vote was for the Planning Commission when they sent the Zota back to us? Yes. The Planning Commission voted unanimously 9-0 in favor of their version. That's what I thought. Thank you. All right. Any other comments on the motion? to accept Councilmember Sheehan's reinstatement of the language. All right. Do you have the ability today to do the digital voting? All right. When you're ready, if you'll just go ahead and call the roll. So you can see, whoever's in the chamber can see the vote. The public can't really see the vote. But the vote is 7 nay, 8 yay. So that passes. Anything else? Any other amendments? Yes, Mayor. Council Member Boone. Sorry about the confusion there, but we're back at it. I move to amend section 31-6 to provide that no more than 1% of the land in the rural service area, as of the date of the Urban County Council's passage of this amendment, can be used for large scale ground-mounted solar energy systems. And that the amount of land utilization shall include the total number of acres within all the property boundaries in the rural service area on which the energy system is developed. Second. All right, Council Member Hale seconded. Would anyone like to speak to this motion? Council Member Sheehan? On face value, I'm not in support of the motion because I do agree with the original 1% calculation. But is it possible for you to display that? We haven't seen this motion at all. I believe they haven't. Yes. Is that item three? Yes, ma'am. I'm still in my time, correct? Yes. Yes. So I would like to hear what other folks think about this motion, but I am not supportive of that as the date of the Urban County Council's passage of this text amendment. That's only because the rural service area has potential to change over time, so it's really just solidifying the number at that date. Okay. I think I can support that because if we... Okay. And then I think the footprint for calculation has already been defined in the ordinance. So can you tell me what you're saying here about the amount of land utilization for the total number of acres within the entire property boundaries? Is that the same way that the footprint is calculated in the ZODA? I have a motion for the footprint also. But in the footprint part, it doesn't include the infrastructure and or it's only encapsulating the equipment, I suppose. Yeah, and the reason that I don't think I can support the total, including the total number of acres within the entire property is because some of that property will maintain a rural set and green space. So I do think the 1% should be calculated based on the footprint as we've defined it in the ZODA. And I can support putting in the infrastructure in that 1% and the footprint language, but I can't support including the total acres of the entire property because we know all of that acreage will not be under panels. So I'll stop there and let other folks speak, but I'll log back in if I feel like I need to. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Can I get maybe somebody from planning, whether it's Director Duncan or Ms. Wade, I just want to put some numbers out here so that both for myself and the public knows. I would like to know the total acreage of the county, which is the original number that we're using to calculate from the planning commission's um, version that they brought back to us and then also the total acreage of our rural service area. Vice Mayor, I did not bring those numbers with me, but as I recall, the total square, uh, the total square miles of the square acre, acres of the county is 188,000. Uh, the urban service area now is approximately 57,500, leaving around 130,500. Vice mayor, I qualify that by saying I believe GIS should verify what those numbers are for us. Sure. And that's fine. I don't need an exact figure down to the acre. So I'm going to just do some back of the amendment math here. So originally we're calculating from 188,000, that's 1,880 acres is the 1%. And then if we're looking at just a rural service area, that's 130,000, which gives us to about 1,300. The difference there being the practical difference of how much land can be used for large scale solar is about 580. And also I I would say ballpark, it reduces the original amount by about 50%, if that makes sense for everybody. So, okay. And then I think, I can't remember if it was Council Member Curtis or Civigni that asked the question about whether or not the existing projects like Haley Pike would count towards that number. I believe the answer was yes, right? Director Duncan or anyone else, what's the total acreage on the Haley Pike project? Vice Mayor, say again. What is the total acreage right now on the proposed Haley Pike project? For the county? I'm sorry. For the Haley Pike. Haley Pike. I'm sorry. I'm happy to intervene there. Sure. Thank you. 357. Okay, 357. I didn't understand. I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. Okay, no problem. That's okay. Okay, so if we're looking at this correctly, Basically based on Councilmember Boone's amendment, we have a total of about 1300 acres that's allowable for large scale solar. You subtract 357 from Haley Pike and we're looking at a little bit under 1000 acres remaining. What's that? Yeah. I'm going to let you speak to that. I'm just thinking about it in terms of pure numbers. The fact that we put this 1% in was a guardrail and a preservation because I think there's a lot of conversation about we don't want to destroy the farmland. We don't want to destroy all of this agricultural land. And I think by no calculation is 1% a destruction of our either farmland, agricultural land, or our identity. I am very comfortable with the original 1% number. This would knock it down significantly by 50%. So I would not support this amendment. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank you, Council Member Boone, for proposing the amendment. I do wish I had had it to at least review and think about prior to this. I do know that a year ago when we were doing this, we were contemplating a 2% of the rural area. And then, honestly, that was difficult. I think that since the rural area size changes, some things are not considered RSA. And I don't know exactly how we consider land that's owned by the utilities. or land that's owned by UK or land that's owned by the city. I think Council Member Hale did a great job a year ago with the recommendation of 1% of all Fayette County, which seemed to be a pretty easily understood number versus this. So my general recommendation is if you have a number in mind, I would probably rather, I think it would be easier to make a decision based on you saying three-quarters of a percent of land or two-thirds of a percent of all of Fayette County than this. But I still think one percent of the entire community of Fayette County is a good amount. So I won't be supporting yours. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I'm inclined to support Council Member Boone's motion. My only concern is that if there's other motions to follow, I would be interested in seeing those motions. We've also been sitting here for two hours and ten minutes straight. So I want to make a motion to take a ten-minute bathroom break, and maybe we can get a copy of those motions and consider them as well. But I guess I'm looking at, yeah, so moved. Second. All right. I need an answer from either our parliamentarian or law that we're in the middle of considering a motion. Can we consider a motion for a brief recess in the middle of that? Is that a thumbs up? Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Barber says yes. Okay. So then the motion on for consideration right now is Council Member Brown's motion for what? Ten minutes. Ten minute recess. do I have a second? Yes, I second. Okay, second from Council Member Baxter. Any discussion on recess? Hands? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, we'll be back according to that clock at 521. Thank you all. Thank you. 21, we're going to come back into session. Everybody can take a seat. I'm going to continue on with the council members who have signed up to speak in the order that we left it. So it's Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. We may have cleared some of this up in our little recess there, But speaking to the 1% of the land of the rural service area, I can agree with that because the original 1% based on the entire footprint of Fayette County was essentially, I'm trying to think of how I want to say this, sorry. um we're essentially applying a restriction to one area of our community but basing that on a calculation of our entire footprint of the county and so this one percent of the rural service area rationale makes sense to me because we are only utilizing the footprint of the area that is in debate currently. So I will support this motion. I think it's a good compromise. And I think it is, you know, in better interest of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I too will support this amendment for the same reasons. And I also think that when we talk about are we going to support something from the planning commission or are we not you know some of us look at that on a you know base basis depending on what it is but when we say that we for zoning issues we're going to support what they say and then we say for something else we're not. I just think that there's a lot of inconsistency. And so I think it's important that we look at the whole picture and we take everything on a case-by-case basis. But I do think that this is a compromise, and so I will be supporting it. Thank you. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question, and I don't know who can answer it. So when Mr. Jenkins from the 189 spoke, he said that Eastern Kentucky Power has already said that if Silicon Ranch doesn't build theirs, they're going to build there. If we pass Council Member Boone's amendment, would it, one, limit Silicon Ranch from not being able to build there, and two, if it does, would it matter, does Eastern Kentucky Power have to abide by anything that we pass? Does that make sense? So a PSC regulated utility does not, in terms of producing power or transporting gas or any of those things that are service related, they do not have to follow the zoning ordinance. So if the PSC gives them permission to build 800 acres, they have permission. They give them permission to build in 1,600 acres. They have permission. That 1% would not apply to a utility that is regulated by the PSC. The 1% does apply to a private entity that needs a board of adjustment approval. And is the 1% that Council Member Boone proposed, is it big enough for Silicon Ranch to build theirs or not? I don't know because Silicon Ranch has never given the Division of Planning a map and a specific number of acres that they wish to move forward on. We've always been concentrating on the policy decision related to the ZODA. So they would have to answer that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. There were some questions about existing proposals because if we're changing our 1%, then it does change how much solar we can have in our county. So I did try to verify some of the questions we had about existing proposals, so I just want to say these out loud. The Haley Pike project is verified as 357 acres. The Eastern Kentucky Power Project on their website says it's 387 acres. That is a total of 744 acres. Just to clarify the information publicly. I'm not going to support this amendment because I do want to see more large scale solar. We do not have any other approved projects. So any other project goes through the Board of Adjustment process and with the conditional use permit. So I want to allow for more for solar to move forward. So I'm not going to support the amendment because I think it shrinks the amount of solar that we can get, even though we have already restricted it in a major way. I don't want to further restrict that. So I support the planning commission language as it came to us. I will not support this amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the spirit in which this amendment was brought, but I also don't think it is appropriate for us to be doing this much math on the fly for a piece of legislation this significant. We already have had extensive discussions about the current 1% as it stands. I do think that is a significant restriction, and I don't see the need to change it based on numbers that we are throwing around up here right now without having previously confirmed them. So I'm not going to support it, but I do appreciate the spirit in which it was brought. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Savigny. Thank you. And I think we're just focused on the third thing listed up there. That's the motion on the right. I just want to make sure. Okay. I guess I'm wondering, I'm not going to support this, and it's mostly because Council Member Boone, Council Member Sheehan, Council Member Morton, and myself were all part of a work group. This was not brought up. It was never mentioned by Council Member Boone in our work group. It was never discussed as something that, hey, how does this look? So I kind of feel like this is just a play to shrink the possibility. And I already think the possibility in the current ZOTA that's in place is already 1% of all land. in Fayette County, so I wouldn't move to change that. So that's it, thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, Chair. I just want to speak to a few of my colleagues' points that they just made. We do math on the fly like this all the time, but it's not an abundance of calculation. It's changing 1% of one land area to another land area. And we should not be considering anything else other than what we've already approved to be considered towards that 1% because everything else is hypothetical at this moment. And the reason that this change was never previously discussed is because we were up here still fighting tooth and nail to not have any large scale in the agricultural area. So right now, we are trying to still fight for a community that has been very vocal. And so we're just trying to do anything that we can do at this moment in time to make it hurt a little less. So I would encourage my colleagues to consider the amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion on Council Member Boone's amendment? All right, can we bring up Granicus for a vote, please? It looks like it's 7 yeas, 8 nays, so that motion fails. Let me make sure my count is correct. Yes. All right. Any other motions? Councilmember Boone. Yes, Chair, thank you. I move to amend section 31-2 of zoning ordinance that the footprints of the solar energy systems includes any fencing and visual buffers and transmission infrastructure, except in the case of large scale ground-mounted solar energy systems, a footprint of which shall be calculated using the boundary line of the property on which the solar development intends to install its solar energy system. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All right, second from Council Member Morton. For discussion, colleagues, please sign in. Council Member Sheehan. Council Member Boone, can you explain how this, for the public, how this would be different from the way the footprint would currently be calculated? Right, so instead of the footprint to only be calculated from the start of the first panel, it would start at the property line just as you would categorize or any kind of development project. It was, the land's basically going to be used for solar. So there wouldn't be a way to like split off part of it. So I think it all kind of is compromised more or less to be a solar energy system. I believe that we already have language around this that has gone through multiple iterations. So I'm not going to support this amendment, but I appreciate you bringing it forward. I know you're advocating for your community. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member, I was just wondering if you could elaborate on your desire to make the distinction in the definition of footprint between the different scales. Well, I think we're mainly talking about large scale because it's the most impactful on the community. I think not using the property line as the numerical, the quantifiable number, it kind of gets into this gray area. If a panel gets moved later on or they add a battery storage thing down the road, I mean, it's very clean this way to say the property is the boundary. I think I'm a little uncomfortable moving forward with this, though. I understand that distinction, and I think that distinction is an appropriate one, but I don't think that this is as an amendment. I'm just not comfortable supporting it, but thank you. Thank you. Council Member Boone, if I'm a property owner that has 400 acres and I allow for development of large-scale solar on 200 of those acres, by this, is my entire property of 400 acres counted in the footprint? By definition, yeah, I think so. Okay. I'm not sure where that would be, but yeah. I mean, I think the transmission lines is one of the major concerns as far as they haven't really been addressed as far as the footprint, even though they're very much there. So yeah, that's kind of the nature of it. Okay. I appreciate your motivation for keeping it clean, but I think clean isn't always accurate. And so if I were either that property owner or that developer of saying, hey, I've got 400 acres, I'm going to use 200 acres of it, but you're counting my footprint as the entire 400, doesn't matter what I'm doing with the other 200, and then it's going to count against the total acreage. And I can see, obviously, the intention of all three of these amendments is to kind of get that acreage down. So I don't think it's a fair way to assess it. I think the first part of it, talking about the footprint, including fencing, visual buffers, transmission infrastructure, all of that stuff makes sense to me because those are all things that are being used for solar development. So it feels like for small scale and mid scale, that's a fair way to calculate. And then for large scale, suddenly we're doing this whole other different kind of math. So I will not be supporting this either. council member baxter thank you chair may i ask a planning staff question when um a new solar new ses comes on board or they're they're putting an application to the board of adjustment for the conditional use permit do they have to submit some type of development plan that shows the overall footprint of the property so to vice mayor's point if it's a a 400 acre farm and 200 is going to be utilized for the SES, is there some type of footprint that shows exactly how many acres they'll be utilizing for service roads and transmission lines and all that stuff? Council member, Board of Adjustment Applications includes something similar to a development plan, but it's called a site plan. It's less detailed and it's more focused on the part of the property that's being considered for the conditional use. It's looking for where the buildings are located, where access is, or anything else that may need to support that conditional use. And on that site plan, is there acreage included? Yes. I would like to make an amendment to your amendment, sir, that the footprint would be defined as the area utilized in the site plan. So moved. We have a second. Second. All right, we have an amendment and a second by Council Member Reynolds. So the discussion is now on Council Member Baxter's amendment to Council Member Boone's amendment. Since we still have people signed in on the original amendment, I'll take hands for discussion on this one. Council Member Civigni. Yeah, I'm generally going to be non-supportive of the amendment and the original amendment. And if Council Member Boone decides to move on number two, that amendment, mostly because I feel like our landfill probably breaks all of these rules. And I'm not going to pass a set of rules for somebody else that I don't pass for our own install. So that's just my general thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Other discussion on Council Member Baxter's amendment? amendment. All right. Council Member Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to support the amendment. I think if we can define the footprint that's going to be more relevant to the land that's really being used for the solar energy system, then I think that could be helpful in addressing the concerns being raised and the desire to try to make this something more of a compromise to the folks that don't want it. My question then is to the motion somewhat. So when the footprint is being proposed, I guess in the site plan, it may actually change from the real development. So is there a mechanism in place that actually we can enforce or know that the distances are really kept? And I guess it might be to Director Duncan or not. Because I think the site plan is just a proposal of what it's going to be, but the actual may be different. So what mechanisms are in place to make sure they adhere to? Council member, the government would expect that the applicant would develop their site in accordance with their site plan. So they would need to be within the bounds of the site plan. They would need to generally have their structures where they say they're going to be and all that sort of thing. If they don't, zoning enforcement would investigate and would issue a citation, that sort of thing. Okay. Yeah, so no, I appreciate that. And then, yeah, so I'm going to support the amendment. Thank you. Anyone else on Council Member Morton? Yes, I just have, my question is, without either of the motions, how is it currently defined? How are we coming up with the acreage? And that's the planning. Sorry, all the way through. So the very top of the page here is what the Planning Commission sent to the council. So what's currently in front of you is an amendment to Section C, which is the definition of footprint. So currently footprint does include the equipment, like the panels, but also transformers, inverters, and battery storage, but does not include the fencing, visual buffers, transmission lines. So Council Member Boone is asking that those other elements be included. And I think Council Member Baxter is saying if it's on the site and being used for the SES, it should be included. So maybe not the buffers? Is that on the site plan? Well, yes. So yes. Do you mean can someone propose multiple conditional uses on a property? Yes, both. So you might have a farm where the site plan affects half of the property, as Vice Mayor Wu mentioned, for the conditional use, but the rest of your property you're using for a cattle farm. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Respectfully, I'm not going to support the amendment. I do think the site plan includes an entirety of the property, and you can have multiple uses on a property. So I think this should be restricted to the footprint definition we already have that includes the part of the property that is solar. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion on Council Member Baxter's amendment? Council Member Baxter, before we vote on it, will you restate your amendment, please? I moved to redefine footprint of solar energy systems to include the structures and infrastructure that's included on the site plan. And then also just for clarity, because it's an amendment to Council Member Boone's amendment, his has two different definitions essentially for footprint. one that affects small and mid-scale, and then except in cases of large scale, it's calculated a different way. Is your intention for your amendment, for your way of calculating, to apply to all three levels of solar? Okay. All right. Everybody fairly clear on the amendment? Okay. Let's bring up Grandicus and vote unless there's any other discussion. All right, that's six yeas, nine no's, so that motion fails. We are back to discussion of Council Member Boone's original motion, which is number one on that list of three. Council members, sign in if you have more discussion on it. Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and bring up Granicus, and we'll vote on Council Member Boone. It's number one, I believe. Yeah, so that's number one with no amendments to Council Member Boone's motion. It's as written. Looks like eight yeses and seven noes, so that motion passes. Okay, all right, Council Member Boone? Yes, thank you Chair. Move to amend section 316C1 and C2 to provide that all ground-mounted solar energy systems shall be located at least 1500 feet from an adjoining property regardless of zone. And this setback shall be measured from the property to the nearest piece of equipment necessary for the SES to function. All ground men of the SCS shall be located at least 500 feet from a river or stream and disallow the granting of variances for these setbacks. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All right, Council Member Brown seconds. For discussion, please sign in. Council Member Boone, in speaking with planning staff, since the first motion has passed, which defines the footprint, the second motion there might be a slight conflict or some confusion because now the footprint at least for large scale is going to include the entire boundary line and so if you have a setback from adjoining property at 1,500 feet but then the ground mounted SES footprint is the entire boundary line we might need to add or I would suggest adding some language that all ground mounted SES equipment, looking at planning staff, if you want to have a setback as far as where the first piece of equipment would be located from the adjoining property. Does that make sense? Yes, ma'am. I guess when it says setback should be measured from the proper line to the nearest piece of equipment. Because we've just passed a motion saying the footprint will be the entire boundary line for the property for large scale, but then we have another motion to make the setback 1,500 feet from the adjoining property, but we've already said the entire property line is the footprint. So that might cause a little bit of confusion. So we might need to add language regarding what you want the setback to start from with the SES. Does that? Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, the idea is to keep the panels off of some neighbor's house. Okay. In rudimentary words. I assume you mean from the equipment, but that's why I brought that up. I guess I'm confused about I understand that it's all being the whole property is the footprint, but we're just talking about the equipment. Because I assume that, well, because in that case, if the whole property is the footprint, then reading this there isn't anything to set back because the entire boundary line is the SES when they're calculating the setback. Does that make sense? So if you're wanting the setback to be from a particular structure with the SES. So should it be the setback from the footprint? Property line to the... You're wanting the setback to be from the particular solar panel structures, from the joining property, correct? Correct. Okay. So then we might need to add language into one and two to distinguish that all ground mounted SES that's why I said equipment, because I assume that's what you meant. Right. Yes. She'll be located at least 1,500 feet from the joining property line. Okay. Because that would still apply regardless of how we measured the footprint. Does that make sense? Yes. Can we add language? Anything you want to add to that, Tracy? Does that make sense, Tracy? Yes. Okay. Would this be considered a friendly amendment or does it require a motion to amend? I think a friendly amendment would be fine. Okay. I don't know how you want to phrase that. I'm suggesting that you use equipment, but it's your motion. Right. Equipment seems like it would work. Okay. Okay. Okay. So looking at this language, can you clarify what change we're making if you are Council Member Boone? And can we do a live red line if possible? All SES equipment shall be located at least from the property line or from the river. All right, so we're adding the word equipment after SES in those two specific sentences. Is that correct? Okay. So, Council Member Boone, you want to make that as a friendly amendment. Council Member Brown is the seconder. Are you good with these changes? Yes. Okay, thank you. All right, so discussion on this amendment. Council Member Savigny. Thank you. I won't be supporting this amendment because I do think we have an issue with our own property. We are allowing something on our own property. We are not following this at all. I think this is, I just don't think it's right. And I think rivers and streams, I mean, we can call any moving piece of water a stream. And I just think it starts creating a lot more problems than it's worth. And I don't think we're doing it ourselves. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I am in agreement with Council Member Civigni. I'm not comfortable with suggesting that all equipment needs to be at least a quarter of a mile away from any adjoining property. That's not the standard that we've set with our practices. And I happen to believe that as a government, we should practice what we preach. And if this is how we're going to go about it, I just can't do it. I can't support that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will not be supporting this motion. The language that is in the ZODA already that was approved by the Planning Commission is taken from the Kentucky Resources Council model language. And that ordinance has been referenced by community members today on all sides of this issue. So I'm in support of the current language. I think they also have to have a stormwater plan, a water quality plan, a land conservation plan. We're already doing a lot to make sure that we're preserving and protecting the land and the waterways. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question is for planning, and I guess it's to the restrictions that are already in the ordinance. If this motion, if this amendment doesn't pass, I guess is there enough guidance? I guess my question is, is there enough guidance that you feel comfortable that the Board of Adjustments can make decisions based on the buffering and the distance from the streams and the rivers? Well, what's currently in the ZODA? Somebody. So the current regulations do provide setbacks from the property line and also from a nearby residence. There's nothing specifically in here about a distance from a creek or a river, But we do, as a government, have other regulations that require setbacks from our waterways in terms of vegetative buffers. So I do believe those other regulations would still apply even here, or the board could impose them on an agricultural tract being proposed for solar. So that's my question. If this didn't pass, do you feel like there's enough guidance already in policy that the Board of Adjustments can lean on in regards to setbacks and then also distance from rivers and streams? Probably more so the distance from rivers and streams. We're pretty solid on that. The distances from the property line and another residence, it varies quite a bit from zone to zone based on the use. Okay. The Board could increase it, of course. this is kind of a minimum. But if there was evidence in a hearing to suggest a larger distance was necessary, they could impose that. Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I did vote yes on that first amendment because I do believe if a private entity is going to purchase five, six, seven, 800 acres of land for solar that all should be counted as the footprint, because they know good and very well the reason for purchasing that land. I would not support this second, because I think when I added that 1% originally, It was to protect overall, and it was to, and with these added, with what Councilmember Sheehan and Councilmember Sevigny worked on these parameters. This with the 1%, also counting this as the footprint as the total land use. I think we've done enough with this, and I'm just ready to just move forward. So I won't be supporting this and keep beating this dead horse. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to ask for an amendment to this language. I am not going to support the underlying motion, but if it does move forward, because we've had a lot of split votes, I do want us to consider taking out the third point to disallow the granting of variances for these setbacks. That is not our standard practice, and the variances can be asked for and evaluated by the Board of Adjustment. That is one of their main jobs, and so I'm not going to, so my amendment is to remove and three to disallow the granting of variances for these setbacks. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. The discussion is now on Council Member Sheehan's motion to strike essentially that last half a sentence. starting with and um council members discussion sign in please all right let's bring up granicus we are voting on council member sheehan's amendment to strike that half a sentence all right missing one oh council member reynolds is gone so it is 12 to 2 that motion passes we're back on council member boone's original motion as amended any other discussion please sign in okay seeing none let's go ahead and bring granicus back up and we'll take a vote on council member boone's motion as amended all right one two three four six looks like eight to six that motion fails All right. Anything else? Council Member Sheehan. Sorry, I have so many documents open over here. Kentucky Resources Council Planning Commission. I move to place the amended ZODA on the August 27th council meeting docket for first reading. So moved. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. And I believe we are done with this item. We're moving to council reports. Council members, please sign in. Council member Baxter. thank you chair um first uh i i wanted to start by saying um sorry i'm trying to switch gears um i just want to send my sincere condolences to the families that were affected at the event that occurred this weekend i can't imagine what you all are going through and i'm just so very sorry i also want to thank our sorry i want to thank all of our public safety partners for their efforts at that event and our one lexington team for their rapid response as well chief colvin can you please come to the podium On a much, much brighter note, sorry, I'm trying to pull it up, it went away. Our dear Chief Colvin was recently admitted into the, or inducted into the Veterans Hall of Fame. I was. and I just wanted to say thank you for all of the service to our city and our state and our nation you have really covered the bases and we are so proud to call you ours and just congratulations big time you deserve it and I can't think of a better inductee so thank you for all that you do for us and for everyone Thank you. I love my country. I love this city. So it's an honor to serve. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lunch. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a few announcements. Happy Black Soil Kentucky Week to everyone. Black Soil Kentucky is nine years old. this week. So thank you, Black Soil, for serving Kentucky black farmers, Kentucky black chefs, and makers through your mission of reconnecting black Kentuckians and their heritage and legacy in agriculture. So excited for Black Soil to celebrate their ninth birthday this week. They have several activities going on around the city, so please check their website for more details. I also want to remind my neighbors that But on Thursday, the Parks and Recreation team will be at the Arrear Center in Douglas Park, talk about the Parks Master Plan. So please come out to that. Session begins at 5.30 p.m. on this Thursday, so please come out. A few other District 2 announcements. There's going to be an estate planning workshop at the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center that's coming up on Friday, August the 21st from 1 to 6 p.m. They are taking appointments, so please visit the website or my social media page to see additional details. I think this is a great opportunity for folks that need to work on their wills and estate planning to get access to these services for free. The second, the next announcement is Myra McConnell's Trace Neighbors. Your end of summer neighborhood party is coming up on Thursday from 5 to 8 PM at the clubhouse. So please come out for lots of food and fun and entertainment and fellowship with your neighbors on Thursday. And then also to my neighbors, do not forget that in the second district we have the benefit of having a free dental clinic. That is open every Saturday at the Share Center. You have to call to get an appointment, but they are changing lives every weekend. So please make use of this awesome resource that is offered by the Share Center Kentucky. And then lastly, I just want to say that now is a great time for community to come together and be the true community. Change can happen, I'm optimistic and realistic that way, if we are the true community. So we need to get out of our offices and our homes and go into these schools and be the community that these kids need to see every day. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I just want to say congratulations to Tracy Jones and Ms. Betty Kerr on their retirements. They've served and have worked at the city for years, and I just wish them the best in their next chapter. And then I'd also just like to continue to send out thoughts and prayers to the families involved in the incident that happened this weekend. And, you know, there's a lot of people taking responsibility for it. and from the individuals I've talked to, I think it's just an unfortunate incident. Just some people in the wrong place, wrong time, and I think somebody just made a very bad decision. I don't want that to be a reflection on that community, our city, and our community, because I think we are making a lot of positive steps in regards to violence prevention and intervention and our response in public safety. I think we just have to continue to build relationships, to continue to work to make our public spaces safer. We have to continue to work to build relationships with our public safety partners. And the folks in the East End have been doing that for years. And I say across all our communities have been doing it for years and been doing a good job of it. And so don't take this as we're not meeting the need. But what the incident did do is it did tell us that we just have more work to do, that we have to work harder to address these things. And I felt some solace and some relief when I went to church on Sunday. That's what the pastor said. He said, we're going to, the church can do more. We're going to get out and do more. So I guess I put that charge on all of us in this community is to look for opportunities to do more. Don't say that this doesn't happen in my neighborhood, this doesn't happen in my community. What happens in one neighborhood in this community affects the whole entire city, state, the world. So there's ways you can help and get involved. And now we just have to put a focus on supporting our families going forward. There's mentorship opportunities. And I can say this for, I think for my colleagues, is that we're all still committed to doing more and making this city safer and better. I would like to give a shout out to Council Member Morton, Council Member Ford, for being present after the event. One Lexington was on the scene doing their job working to do violence and interventions even before the event happened. Our police department was engaged. They were on the scene at the time. First responders were on it. But then there were also a lot of people in the community that jumped into action. I heard about former firefighters that have retired that were on the scene. And I heard stories of them just jumping into action like they still had their uniforms on. So that just goes to show the resilience, the sense of community that already exists and is there and that we just have to build on it as we go forward. So I'll stop there. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to first start by congratulating our Department of Corrections on winning the truck pull for Special Olympics this past weekend. Congratulations, Chief. And then I just want to let everybody know that the 8th District Youth Council, the 8th District Office, Partners for Youth and SWAG is putting on a youth summit. So if you have any kind of youth organization, any kind of youth-led group, have them reach out to our office. We're going to do that in September, but we're trying to get a head council. We can find space to hold that. Council members, if you all know of any youth organizations, if you want to send those to our office, we sent that flyer out on Friday. and by yesterday we had almost 100 people signed up. So just make sure that y'all are sharing that. If we have to interrupt, that's what we'll do. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. So I also wanted to share some remarks related to the incident that occurred over the past weekend. So my heart is broken for the family. I'm sorry. Let's go upstairs. Let's come back to Council Member Morton. Let's get my hand. Council Member Hale. Let's go upstairs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I completely understand the emotions of Council Member Morton. But I just want to just give my deepest condolences to the family of the child that was lost during that event. And my prayers also go out to everyone that was wounded and that was traumatized in that event. East End is an area that I grew up in. I was literally just in that area or at East End Day. And we were talking with Councilmember Brown, we were just there. And when I left, a little bit after I left, that's when the incident happened. But I would say to the community to not to let this incident discourage you from coming out to future events. There's a lot of talk in that they want to discredit that community, but that community is a very tight knit community. And that is something that was very unfortunate. It's something that we don't condone and that we do not want to happen. Even though I don't represent that district now, but I am going to continue to partner with Councilmember Morton in doing something for our youth, for our communities to prevent these type of things even going forward. So I just want to just give my condolences to the family. And again, my prayers go out to the whole community and everyone that was affected about this incident. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next up is public comment. We don't have anybody signed up, so with that we are adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.