# Council Work Session - October 6, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · October 6, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6900 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6900?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-10-06 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: October 6, 2026 - **Length**: 13,193 words - **Speakers**: Mayor Gorton > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Full transcript Thank you for joining us for this session. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us for this session. Thank you for joining us for this session. Call to order the Lexington Fayette Urban County council work session. And today is October 6th, 2026. And the first item on the agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. And we have one person signed up. So the way this works is I'll call your name and you'll come to the podium. And you will need to restate your name, please, for the record, as well as your council district. And you'll have three minutes. So would Linda Froelich come, please? Welcome. Hi, my name is Linda Froelich. I'm from the 10th district. And I'm here today to give comment on drive-thru rules on behalf of Living Streets Lexington. Lexington, thanks to you all on council, is making strides towards becoming a safer community for people moving outside of cars. Adopting Vision Zero and Complete Streets are testimony to our progress in this direction. Thank you. As to drive-thrus, drive-thrus are businesses created exclusively to serve speed and convenience for people in cars. And there are many conflict points between drivers and pedestrians around drive-thrus. At the entrance, for example, drivers will turn right into the drive-thru lane, completely ignoring the fact that there might be pedestrians there that are being cut off. At the exits, drivers will block the passage of pedestrians as they're waiting to merge into traffic. And then, of course, the drive-thru lane itself, where drivers have no expectation of encountering pedestrians because, well, it's a drive-thru lane. So our division of planning and devising rules for drive-thrus commendably included a rule that would eliminate that last conflict point. I call this the common sense pedestrian safety rule. And you will see why it's common sense. I quote, a minimum of one direct pedestrian walkway, a minimum of five feet in width, shall be provided that allows pedestrians to access the building from the right-of-way without crossing drive-thru lanes. This small concession to the safety of pedestrians has been struck from the list of recommended rules, presumably because it makes developing drive-thrus more cumbersome and more expensive. Striking this rule continues to reinforce the imbalance at work in decision making, weighing the concerns of developers and commercial interests higher than the safety of pedestrians. Weighing speed and convenience for people moving in cars higher than the safety, speed, and convenience for anybody else. In poll after poll, on the table, engagement around the civic commons, Lexington residents express a desire for a more livable and walkable community. So why do we still have to debate the wisdom of such a rule, such a common sense rule? Let's make sure that Vision Zero and Complete Streets don't just remain policy declarations gathering dust on a shelf. But that our policies and rules and regulations honor the letter and the spirit of these initiatives. Reinstating the common sense pedestrian safety rule will be a strong positive signal that this council can and will prioritize the safety of its pedestrian community members. Please reinstate that rule. Thank you. Thank you. Next, excuse me, next on our agenda is the docket approval. I'll ask for a motion to approve. Motion approved. Second. Council Member Ellinger moves, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. And if you have an issue for the docket, if you'll log in please. Council Member Eblen. I move to place on the docket for the October 8th, 2026 council meeting without a public hearing item number 0847-26 an ordinance changing the zone from a professional office P1 zone to a downtown frame business B2A zone for 0.509 net 0.595 gross acres for property located at 512 and 518 East Main Street. All right, Vice Mayor Wu seconds. Are there any questions? All right, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that passes. Council Member Higgins-Ward. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place item number 2 under ordinances first reading a zone map amendment petition PLN MAR 2600012 for RAK properties Lexington LLC at 2501 Sir Barton Way on the docket with a public hearing to be held on November 17th, 2026 at 5 p.m. in the council chambers. All right, Council Member Morton seconded. Are there questions? Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. Can I get Ms. Wade or Mr. Crum to come and answer a couple questions for me real quick? Thank you. I understand that this particular zone change had to go through planning commission twice. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Can you walk me through a little bit of what happened the first time, particularly the things I would like to know is whether or not planning staff recommended approval or disapproval, and then what the vote was on planning commission for both those sessions. Okay. The planning staff did recommend disapproval of this request, and it was first docketed for a public hearing in August, and at the August planning commission meeting there was a tie. That resulted in per state law that the planning commission re-docket a zone change case one month later, and so that put it on the docket for late September, August 27th. Excuse me. They met in July and August, so they put it on the docket for the August 27th agenda. At that time additional members were present from the planning commission that had reviewed the record, and they voted 7-2 to approve the zone change. And at the August hearing, was planning staff's recommendation still disapproval? Yes. The recommendations did not change. Okay. And then on the July hearing, do you remember what the numbers were for the tie, how many for and against? It's okay if you don't. I do not. Okay. That's all right. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Some of my colleagues know that I have kind of a personal rule for myself that if planning staff and planning commission agree on an outcome, I am usually disinclined to have a hearing before the council. But if planning staff and planning commission disagree on their recommendations, or if the planning commission has a very close vote that is not supermajority or unanimous, I'm also inclined to have a hearing. So in this particular case, I will support the motion for a hearing. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have one more thing? Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to make a friendly amendment to change the time to 6 p.m. I think we've been moving towards a little bit of a later start time to give our residents and constituents a better opportunity to attend. So if I can make a friendly movement to change the time to 6 p.m. Thanks. Is there a second? Council Member Hale seconds. Is there a discussion of the time amendment? Anyone? If you'll show me your hand. All right. All those in favor of changing the time to 6 o'clock, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Now, is there anything else for the motion to put this on with a hearing at 6 o'clock on November 17th? Anybody else? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That passes. Council Member Boone, did you want to? Thank you, Mayor. I have two walk-ons. Okay. I move to place on the docket for the October 8th, 2026 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor, on behalf of the Urban County Government, to execute and submit a grant application to the Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Local Government to provide any additional information requested in connection with this grant application, and to accept this grant if awarded, which grant funds are in the amount of $250,000 under the Kentucky Recreational Trails Program for improvements at Kelly's Landing for the Division of Parks and Recreation, the acceptance which obligates the Urban County Government to a local match to be provided by the Bluegrass Community Foundation donors, and authorizing the Mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within that grant budget. Second. Council Member Morton seconded. Are there any questions, comments? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And then, did you have another one? Yes, ma'am. I move to place on the docket for the October 8th, 2026 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor, on behalf of the Urban County Government, to execute and submit a grant application to the Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Local Government to provide any additional information requested in connection with this grant application, and to accept this grant if awarded, which grant funds are in the amount of $1 million under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and are for improvements at Kelly's Landing, the acceptance of which obligates the Urban County Government to the expenditure of the local match to be provided by the Bluegrass Community Foundation donors, and authorizing the Mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget. Second. All right. Council Member Reynolds seconds. Are there any questions? Comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Anything else for the docket? All right. All those in favor of approving the docket as amended, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That passes. Thank you. Next up, we have the September 15, 2026 Council Work Session Table of Motions. Vice Mayor moves. Council Member Baxter seconds. Are there any corrections or additions? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Next, we have budget amendments. Could I have a motion, please? Moved. Second. Council Member Curtis, seconded by Council Member Savigny. And please log in if you have questions about the budget amendments. All right. All those in favor of approval, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? That motion passes. Next, we do have budget adjustments for your information only, and that brings us to new business. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Council Member Savigny moved. Vice Mayor Wu seconded. And please log in if you have questions about new business. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on Item J. I don't know if that is for Commissioner Horne. He's making his way. This is about a contract with Vulcan that the first part of the lease would be for 10 years. And this is in my district, and it's under basically all the LFUCG property off of old Frankfort Pike. Could you explain a little bit more about this for people that might not know about it? As you know, presently Vulcan has a mining operation kind of on the other side, and this would allow them to continue their operation just going under the property. So there's no actual construction above our property. It's all underground at a certain depth. And for the rights to do that over the first term of the lease is 10 years, and there's three possible 10-year renewals. They will pay us 5% of the royalties from the selling of the aggregate that they mine from that, from the mine. And it's estimated that if the entire length of that lease is used, it will result in tens of millions of dollars to the government generally. And at first, well, it would be $100,000 for the first two years. Correct. And then maybe up to $500,000 in the first few years. Right. The other profit we wouldn't see. It takes some time to rev up the business so that in the beginning when they won't even be mining over there, they're still paying a minimum amount to be there. And then also if the body in the future agrees to renewal, there's automatic payments just for the renewal each 10 years as well. So for my constituents that are concerned about this, they've been concerned about blasting for a long time. We can all feel it at our houses every day. What would you say to their concerns about going under city property, especially with public safety, for instance, being over there? There should be no impact on the property if that's what you're asking. At the depths that they are allowed to mine there, there should be no impact on any of the property. If there were, we wouldn't be forwarding this for consideration by the council. Just the blast every day that they're feeling. There really shouldn't be a change in what has been occurring there for decades. I know that may not be a comfort to many people, but they are moving further away from one area. Okay. Thank you very much. I just wanted to express that my constituents have some concerns about this. I've spoken to some of my colleagues, but thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have a question about Item J, but I do want to be marked as voting no on this item. I don't think we should be approving mining on publicly owned property. We talk a lot about protecting our prime farmland and our topsoil, but I believe all of our earth is important, and I don't think we would be asked to approve this item if it were in an ag zone. Moreover, should council approve this contract, I propose that for future budget cycles for council members that will be here after my term ends, that 100% of this revenue be allocated to the Energy Improvement Fund, sometimes called the EIF Fund, that supports our environmental sustainability projects within LFUCG property. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. I have questions about Item J as well. Maybe Charlie Martin. I have one for you. And while he's coming up, I know that Council Member Reynolds expressed some concerns with her district members already feeling the blasts that has been going on for a while, and I'm just kind of curious for anybody from Vulcan or that's representing, if you want to come up next and answer if there's going to be any community engagement to let any of the new neighbors know what may be coming their way. For you, I'm just curious about if we have any concerns with the infrastructure of the wastewater treatment plant and the blasting at this location. I don't, personally. I mean, I've felt the blast out there. I've worked here 27 years, and you can set your clock to it, 4 o'clock, it's going to go off. It's never damaged any of the infrastructure of the treatment plant, ever. Okay. And then, yes, that'd be great. And then, Mr. Barbary, I'll have a question for you, too. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Just curious about any community engagement on the extra activity, I guess. John Woodall on behalf of Vulcan Materials, and I have John Badgett and Jared Curry with me as well today. We actually had a neighborhood engagement meeting at Cardinal Valley Elementary School on Monday, September the 28th. The only folks that came to that meeting spoke in favor of the proposal. We've been working on this for a little over a year. This is not something that just came about. The current central quarry has existing reserves, but this is a move for the future, the future of Lexington. This is a move designed to ensure another 40 years of reserves. You know, limestone mining is very important to the growth of our community and sustained maintenance of our community, whether it be asphalt, concrete, things of that nature. Vulcan is one of the premier operators in this industry. Your legal staff and others in the administration did an incredible job in negotiating this particular lease. As far as the blasting, I happen to be an owner of property on Old Frankfort Pike. We feel it every day at 4 o'clock, and it's quick. We've never had any damage to our property at all. The city will notice no changes. No one will above ground. The only changes will be below ground, and the reason why we're a ramp-up, if you will, on the payment terms of the lease, starting with $100,000 with execution and then a minimum price, until we bridge over to that area and actually probably, I don't know what, John, year seven or eight possibly, when we're over there in full operations to where the other side of Old Frankfort Pike has ceased to be mined, that is when the city will start to see real hard dollar dividends from this, and the numbers are not inconsequential, thanks to your legal team. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And if there's any other questions about the mining operations, these are the guys to answer it. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Barbary, I just have a question about resale. If we were to ever sell any of that property, like, what amount of disclosure would, I mean, I'm not in the business of mineral rights, so. I don't think it would be required to disclose it, and the lease will end up being a public record anyway, but our understanding is it should not have any value, it shouldn't have any depreciation value on the property being sold or redeveloped in the future. Okay. Because of the debt that they're mining it. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. So, first off, I would just like to echo Council Member Sheehan's sentiments and ask to be marked as voting no on item J as well. Now, I have a couple of questions. Charlie Martin? I'm guessing you know what I'm going to ask you about. I and V. Yes, sir. No, neither of those have anything to do with odor control at West Hickman. They are the primary things that provide air and treat the waste. I know we've been having some issues out there. I was out of town this weekend, so I'll be out this week at night checking into it, but neither one of these business items have anything to do with the odor control system. Okay, wonderful. And could you speak to item Y as well? And so this is for the- That's the computer program that controls both plants and the pump stations and everything. That's how we are able to communicate remotely with the entire wastewater system to know whether or not a pump is running or is not running. You can't necessarily turn things on and off remotely. You can just tell or diagnose whether something's going right or wrong. We've had this system 20-plus years. Wonderful. And then I got one more for you just because anytime this wastewater treatment plant comes up on the docket, I'm going to get a question about it from a constituent, and I always appreciate having you and explaining it to them in layman's terms on the record. So if you could just speak to what item EE is. EE. This is our big grant-funded project from the Cleaner Water Kentucky program related to the ARPA funds, and we're wrapping this one up. This is changing over the disinfection process of both treatment plants from chlorine gas, which is hugely unsafe, to ultraviolet radiation, which is much safer. This is 100 percent grant-funded, and the change order you're seeing here is us trying to attempt to make sure that we capture 100 percent of that grant money. Thank you so much, and I appreciate all the work that you've put into solving those odor issues we've had over at West Hickman. So thank you so much, and thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Mayor. I also have questions regarding item J. I guess my question would be for Commissioner Barbary, specifically about the contract. Thank you, Commissioner. So the contract term is quite a bit long, which makes me a little uneasy. I'm a novice when it comes to these kind of contracts. So is a 10-year contract typical with renewal for three terms for this kind of contract? We went back and forth quite a bit about the length of this. They originally, I think, wanted 15 years, and we were working off of that. The reason it's 10 with a potential one-way renewal on their part is because they're going to make a decision, which they kind of explained earlier about year seven or eight, whether they're really going to go full bore on this or not. And so that's the point in time where they actually spend a lot of capital on this project. And in fairness to them, after talking to them, we didn't think it was right to have the term be shorter than that. But, yes, you would have the opportunity at years 20 or year 30 to get out of it. There's also an incentive to stay in it where you get paid a million dollars to go ahead and do the extension each time. But it's not atypical. I think you could have one of these leases. I've seen them where they're just 40 years. I mean, it's just a 40-year lease, you know, with no renewals or anything else. So, yeah. Thank you so much. And then my next question is for Mr. Woodall. My council district is right next door to Council Member Reynolds' council district. So did you do any community engagement to my district to neighbors that live close by? We sent notice letters to everyone we'd have to send them to for the Board of Adjustment condition of approval or conditional use permit. That's where we have to go next if you authorize the mayor to sign the lease. So we sent notice letters to everyone within that search ring. Okay. Yeah, we absolutely did. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Mayor. My question is on Item J2. And I might ask Commissioner Barbary. It's about, and it really also is about purchasing. Would you consider this a sole source contract? Or did you ever contemplate this as something that you needed to actually get competitive pricing on? We did not. It was a unique circumstance in the fact that they're literally right there. Yeah. And because it is a lease, you don't legally have to go through that process. I don't know that it would have made sense financially for someone else to do the same thing, because they'd have to also use our property to set up the area that you mine out of and run the trucks out of and everything else. So it just happened to be a unique set of circumstances where I guess that scene probably goes beyond New Circle Road. But, of course, they're not going to end up doing that. So, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't necessarily agree with that. I guess that general concept. But then I wanted to also ask you about, like, to me, this area in Lexington is so prime for redevelopment. Even though we own it, I think there's a lot of uses for this piece of property. And I have more of a concern. Like, Commissioner Martin basically said, hey, we haven't had a problem, you know, in the sewage treatment plant. But they're also not right under it, I don't think, currently. Right? They're whatever they are away from it. So, like, I'm a little bit concerned that we ‑‑ I just ‑‑ And they can explain the mining rules better than I can. But basically, like, the fire station is going to be the first piece of property there. Yeah. So they'll come out at our request to do an inspection of the fire station, you know, pre and post. And, you know, if something comes up, they're responsible for taking care of it. So in the lease terms, anything that's built up above a certain level, they're responsible? They're responsible for any damage they end up causing during the blast and stuff. And anything that we would be building there in the future as well? Yes, sir. That would be the same case. Okay. All right. And then will it go ‑‑ does it go beyond the term of their lease? So that if the thing develops in five years after the ‑‑ I don't ‑‑ Don't recall? No. It would not. Okay. It would be impossible to put it back in the same condition that it was in before. Yeah. So they're not required to do that. That's right. And then I didn't really understand. I'm not a mining engineer. But I'm kind of ‑‑ how deep are you actually going? I'm just kind of curious. I think that it's 225 and below. So the depth from the surface would be 225 feet and below that. Which I think is parallel to what they're doing now on their side of the street. And do we have environmental issues with any aquifers or anything? Well, there's a ‑‑ at some point, there's like a ‑‑ like some sort of sensitive property and they're responsible for monitoring that. And they have to monitor, like, methane levels and all that other kind of stuff anyway. And then would a ‑‑ if something happens, would someone sue the city? And then we would countersue Vulcan? I think what would happen is if something happened, I think the state would jump on Vulcan and they'd be the primary responsible party. And we may or may not get involved in that, depending on how it shook out. Okay. I appreciate it. I'm going to end up not voting for this as well. I just feel like ‑‑ I just have overall concerns about a variety of parts of this. I do applaud the concept of trying to make money off of our property, which I think that's a novel approach. I do ‑‑ I am concerned in general that we don't even know ‑‑ we've had an instance where we didn't really know if what we were getting for our property was of great value. And I don't ‑‑ I have nothing to compare this to. So I won't be approving it. Thank you. Council Member Moore. Thank you. And I just have, I guess, one question. Could someone share what do we realistically expect LFUCD to receive each year over the next ‑‑ well, over the next ten years, but then also if we go into another lease, what does that look like? So that we can kind of have an understanding of what this investment may entail. So we are going to ‑‑ we are entitled to get 5% of what they sell it for. All right? We wanted to have minimum backstops in here so that you knew that you were getting some minimum amount of money no matter what. So if they get approval ‑‑ if this is approved and they get approval to move forward from the Board of Adjustment, we would get $100,000 just for moving forward. The first two years we would be guaranteed at least $100,000. If they actually start mining on our property and making some money, we would get more than that because it would be based on the 5% and not the minimum. My sense is they probably won't be mining on our property the first year and a half or two years. So it would probably be year three or four before they're actually physically on our property, like, doing the mining. And so the way it works is they are ramping up towards, I think, like year 10. And year 10 they'll probably be at the maximum amount that they can pull out of there every year based on their productivity levels. So once you hit year 10, you're ‑‑ it's pretty much ‑‑ you'll still have those floors in place, but you're going to have ‑‑ it will basically be based on the 5%. And as the market goes up, we're going up with the market. And I think the numbers they showed us, I think historically it's been around 4% a year growth. A very conservative number over the entire life of the lease would be in excess of $60 million probably. And then you can do the math on just the minimum levels, even if they didn't mine for a couple years for whatever reason, your minimum levels are ramping up every year. So by the first extension period, year 11, you're making a million dollars a year no matter what. Even if they have some problem with machinery or whatever and they can't mine like they thought they were going to do, you would still make that million dollars that year. If they're mining at that point in time, it's probably going to be closer to $2 million a year than the million dollars a year. Okay. Thank you. And I'll just share, I guess, my concern just related to it. And I think it's more from a macro kind of lens that I think just whether it be this or Haley-Pike, that private developers reaping investment on public property, whether it be, like I said, this or Haley-Pike, we deserve to get a substantial return on investment that can go back into our community. And similar to what Council Member Sheehan had mentioned, go back towards similar missions, environmental missions. We have solarized leks. That's a big cost. And if something could be, if they could sustain funding for that, that would be cool. We have weatherization programs that we're working on rolling out that could be helpful. But just knowing that that's public property and we deserve and should demand a significant and substantial return on investment. But more specifically, you know, we have challenges. We have housing challenges. We have all these different things. And if we're going to be looking at using public land for said different developments and different things, we probably should look at using public land to build houses and do all these different things. So if that's the route we're going to use public land for said different projects, I think we should look innovatively really at our public land and look at our challenges that we have in front of us and move those routes. So that's what I have for Item J. I look forward to seeing what action comes for that. But then regarding Item DD, I don't have any questions, but a portion of this project is in my district, and I look forward to intentional community engagement and infrastructure improvements north of Main Street. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I have a number of questions, and I'm actually going to need several people down. Can I get Chief Wells, Mr. Woodall, Commissioner Horn, and Commissioner Barbary? And we'll go in order with whoever's up here. Yeah. It doesn't matter the order. Mr. Woodall, I can get with you first. Can you tell me a little bit about what the construction timeline looks like and what the construction impact will be in that block? In terms of bridging over to the LFUCG property? Yeah, so if this contract is signed to get the facility in the shape that you all can start mining. Make sure I don't misspeak. I'm going to get Jared Curry up here to make sure I don't misspeak. We execute the lease. We go to the Board of Adjustment. We obtain our conditional use permit. We obtain our state expansion permits, allowing us to extend over onto that property. And then we are in a position to where at the depth we're currently operating, we're now ready to bridge over. Now what? Yeah. When would that be exactly? First I just want the total timeline from the time a shovel hits the pavement to the time that the street. What I'm thinking about is community and resident impact in terms of traffic and flow and how people can go. How long is that process? There would be no impact to traffic flow. It would be the same standard of operation we're currently under. Everything is going to be underground. Nothing is going to be up on the surface. There's no impact to traffic. There's no increase in traffic, decrease in traffic. Nothing. Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that. Let me add to that, Vice Mayor, because Council Member Savigny asked about sole source. The reason why Vulcan approached you to do this is because no one else can do it. It would be impossible. Yeah. No one's going to be approved. I appreciate that, Mr. Wood. I'll let you answer Council Member Savigny if he comes back up. I do have several other questions. Chief Wells, if I can ask you, on that site, is it going to be the entirety of the area underneath where the fire training center is now? I don't know, Commissioner Barber. Commissioner Horner or somebody else knows. I believe it's both sides of the creek, which would cover that entire area. It would encompass it. Okay. I know we've had multiple conversations about the future of fire training and our need for a better training facility. And I know we've had conversations about relocating to a new place, potentially expanding into that back area. What impacts have you been told that this construction underground could potentially have if we decided to expand fire training on site? Well, as you know, I've advocated certainly for improvements on that site, and I think we're moving in a very positive direction that I'm excited about. So, as you can imagine, I had a ton of questions for Commissioner Barber. And he actually answered all of those questions to my satisfaction. So I feel certain that there will be inspections as soon as buildings are built and of current buildings. And I'm comfortable that anything happening underground will not affect us or impact us. Okay. I appreciate that. I'll start with Commissioner Barber. You might be able to answer both questions. Thinking about that site, too, the fact that we own it, if the fire department, the fire training moves from that site, for example, and relocates somewhere else, and we have the potential for future redevelopment, sale, what impacts would that have on any sort of development that may happen there? Well, we would disclose it, and the lease is disclosable anyway, but it shouldn't have any impact. Okay. Okay. And then my last question is, in the contract, do we have any protections, thinking about, I guess, environmental mitigation, and any sort of potential negative impacts that that site and that kind of work could have to the surrounding area? I don't know if I brought the whole lease up here. They're basically responsible for anything that is shown to be caused by them for making it right, basically. And they have a lot of compliance issues environmentally, where they have people from the state that come down there and make sure they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing, and it's not having a detrimental impact on the property or the surrounding property. Okay. Thank you for that. I've got two of my colleagues behind me. I think with all the discussion that we've had on this item, I'm going to wait until my colleagues speak, and then I'm going to make a motion to separate this item out of new business so we can vote on it separately. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And I guess my question is for ‑‑ I'll start with Commissioner Barbary. And I will say, before I start asking questions, I will thank Vulcan for being a good partner to the city. I know there's been several projects where they've donated limestone, I guess, for corridor welcome sign projects and various others. So just thank you for that. So who all worked on this negotiation? Was this all in-house, or did you seek expertise? I think so they approached Commissioner Horn, and we talked about whether or not, you know, we wanted to go forward at all internally. I think the decision was unless we thought this was a really good deal for us financially and otherwise, we weren't going to go forward with it. And so we actually hired Tim Wills, who is an attorney with the Sturgill firm. He has a specialty in mineral rights law so that we actually ‑‑ because we don't ‑‑ we've never seen, you know, negotiated one of these leases before. So he actually was very valuable because I think we started out at a much different spot financially and otherwise than with what they pushed across the table initially. So Tim has been involved in primarily being the negotiator back and forth the entire time. Okay. So I guess that answered my question, just to make sure that we had some expertise. Yeah, I mean, like, it started out at 4%. Now it's 5%. There were no backstops in here at all. There were no, like, no signing bonus kind of thing, nothing like that in here. And we were able to negotiate. After sitting down with them multiple times, we were able to negotiate all those things. And we feel like financially this is the best deal you could ever get on something like this. And is this the first time we've ever been in a relationship or a partnership with mining underneath our property in Fayette County? To my knowledge, yes. Okay. I don't want to get too far in the weeds. There's been a lot of questions about the impact to the surface from the mining underneath. And from your answers, it sounds like there's not going to be any impact to the surface. Well, and if there are, they're supposed to be responsible for making them whole. Whoever gets damaged is told for that. Okay. In your professional opinion, there's enough safeguards in this agreement that you feel like if things don't work out in our best interest, then we can cut bait and go a different direction? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Eblen. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for Commissioner Martin. In looking at the map of this property, a lot of it seems to be under the old landfill. Would mining be done then underneath the landfill? Right. Yeah. But it's a minimum depth of 225 feet. Right. Any concerns about, you know, leakage from the landfill into water tables? We're concerned about it, but then, you know, they have to monitor for any water that comes into it. So if they pick up leachate, then they'll have to deal with that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Were you up again? No. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Martin, could you come back here? It was brought up during the discussion about the paving and how this is important to the paving. What happens if this doesn't go through? What kind of impact does this have on the paving? I'm not so sure how much specifically paving, pretty much construction in general. If aggregate is not locally available, then your hauling costs are going to go up and all your construction costs will go up as well. I remember that. I was involved in it in the early conversations, and that was an important thing to consider, is that because they're centrally located here in Fayette County, it's easier for them to serve the clientele that they need to here as opposed to going to Georgetown or Scott County, I think, was the closest place after that. It's really a supply and demand type of thing as far as its proximity keeps costs low. Thank you. And could you comment on that too, if this doesn't go through, what your options then become? I'll give you a perfect example. Right now, everybody knows how much work is going on at the University of Kentucky, whether it's hospital expansion or whatever they're doing on campus. Because of the existence and the proximity of Central Quarry, the haul rate's about $3.50 a ton. If we had to bring that stone from Richmond Road or from Nicholasville, it doubles. It doubles to $7 a ton. That's just breaking it down for you per ton. Limestone is used in asphalt. It's used in concrete. It's used in residential, commercial, and industrial construction. Everything will go up simply because of where you have to haul that material from. It moves farther away. This particular deal not only makes the city a whole lot of money that it would not have otherwise been able to lay hands on, it also preserves our cost structure across all of these construction industries for the next 40 years, at least in terms of how far it is from point A to point B to move that stone. It's very important. So I think there was like a seven years and seven years. Would you all be out of potentially this and have to move on? Would you cap it then or you'd be done? Or is this the only option then going forward after that? That's a great question. The reason that this came about and the reason that we decided to be proactive about it before we got into a situation where we were in zero reserves was to plan for that over the next several years so that we don't have to go deeper and we can start bridging over to this particular property, which makes more efficient mining sense and it also opens up the gateway to the relationship with the city. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And once again, Councilman, as far as what you see on the surface, no change whatsoever. The only changes will be what you can't see underneath. That's it. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Mayor. I move to separate item J from new business and subject it to a Granicus vote. So moved. Council Member Curtis seconds. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you very much. Council Member Savigny. Yes. I have something on item J that I would. So because I think this item came to us pretty quickly and we were on break and we didn't have a lot of time to think about it. This is the type of thing that I think might do better in committee first before it came out, and it does not seem like there is a time limit that is really required. So I'm going to make, actually I'm going to put it in the EQBW committee since I'm the chair. I'm going to put it in the EQBW committee if we decide to do something with it at this thing we can, but I'm thinking that this item should be in EQBW. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else before we, anything for new business or the same item? Council Member Brown. Yeah, I'll just say for the item, I do agree with Council Member Savigny that there is a lot to consider. I wonder if taking a step back and putting it in committee would be the best thing, but I think a lot of folks here have made up their mind or at least are leaning a direction, so maybe a workshop on this would be more appropriate to hear more about the details, maybe answer some questions about the land use and what happens underground to ensure that nothing disturbs the surface. So I'm wondering if a workshop would be better. That way it keeps it in front of the full council as opposed to going to committee and then going through a longer process. Just a thought. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Mine's on a different topic. Can I talk on something else or do I have to? We've already separated out for vote and yes you may. All right. R please. And then Commissioner Ford. So it looks like we had a five-year lease and then we've got an option for three years, and after that and the three years, well, then they have to come back again. Is that how the contract was set up initially? I'll have to verify that, Council Member. I don't know if they are eligible for another three-year extension or if we'll have to rebuild. That's why I was curious if they have other options in there or if they have to come back. Yeah, I will verify that for you. I will say that we're very pleased with how this contract has performed at the Kentucky, but I'll follow up. And when you're doing that, could you also put in the dollar amounts that the gross receipts that we've received from them? Yes, sir, I can. I can share that. Okay. Just now. Because it looks like we get 5% and 10%, I think. Yes. I can verify. I'll let you know when they're eligible, and then I'll also report on the receipts. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Morton. So I guess I just had a question for Law related to kind of where we are. If Item J is being put in committee, is that still on the ñ is that taking off the new business item list? Is that still on the list? Where are we with that? I think you'd have to remove it. Don't you have to make a motion to remove it? They would have to. Why don't we wait and see what the vote is? I think that you all are teed up unless something else happens to go ahead and vote on it. I think that there is a scenario where it could end up in committee if that's what you all vote to do before you actually vote on the item. But if he just ñ if the chair of the committee just put it in committee. Well, it's on the new business item, so you all would have to vote collectively to go ahead and do that if that's what you wanted to do. It's not like you're voting. You're just putting it. So what you're saying is you need a motion to move this alpha new business into committee. So if someone made a motion to put it in the committee and that's what you all decided to do, it would be removed from the docket and put in that committee. Yeah. That has not been done yet. And that hasn't been done yet. The chair put it in committee, but okay. Any other questions before we vote on new business? All right. Oh, Council Member Reynolds. Yes. I make a motion to remove item J from our docket and put it in committee, in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. All right. Council Member Beasley seconded it. And is there any discussion? Vice Mayor? I don't know that this is super substantive, but just kind of a point of order. If we've removed item J from new business, we are currently still on the motion to approve new business, and item J is no longer in our current discussion. So I feel like, and I'll check with Parliamentarian or law, I feel like we need to finish discussing and then voting on new business minus item J, and then we have a separate motion to vote on item J. Is that correct? Or put it in committee before the vote. For Council Member Reynolds to do it after we vote on new business, I guess. Okay. Does that work? You want to remove your? Just making sure. I'll remove that motion at this time. Remove your second. All right. Thank you. Good point. All right. Any other discussion about new business? Minus J. Minus J, which is currently for a separate vote. All those in favor of all items except J, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you. Now we have item J, which already has been separated out for a vote. Council Member Reynolds. Yes. I move to place item J in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee and remove it from our docket. Is there a second? Council Member Beasley seconds. Is there any discussion? Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Mayor. Can anybody speak to whether or not this is a time-sensitive contract? Would you say whether this is a time-sensitive contract? Is that right? Yes. Go ahead, John. I guess is there an expiration on the lease? John Badgett with Volca Materials. The sensitivity is around several steps, you know, after this that we have to go through to procure, you know, the ability to bridge the reserves. As has been discussed, we are somewhere in the seven-year timeline of, you know, running out of reserves or having to make significant investments to figure out our pathway forward to continue to serve the community with construction aggregate. So the clock is ticking. I don't want to say that, you know, we have, you know, weeks, months, but it's not years. I don't have an exact timeline, but it's months as opposed to years if that's helpful. But there's not an expiration time on the lease agreement right now? No. Okay. There's no activation point or expiration point. Okay. Thank you for the information. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Chair Savigne, since it's going to be in your committee, we have an environmental quality meeting next week, so I assume it won't be in that one. Is it possible to get in the November one then? We've got four items in both October and November. So it's going to be next year then? Yep. It will be the new EQBW. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And that was Council Member Ellinger's question was my question. I wonder, I'd be interested in hearing this sooner. Not that there's a rush, but there's an elected body that this item is before and that maybe it might be good to go ahead and have this conversation sooner than later. I'm looking at faces and I don't think anybody wants to do anything. So I'll stop there. All right. All right. So right now we are in discussion on Council Member Reynolds' motion to pull item J off of new business and put it into the EQBW committee. Are there any other comments or questions on that motion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. All right. We have one no. So that item has been removed and put into EQBW committee. All right. And that resolves that issue. Next is communications from the mayor appointments. Can I get a motion, please? We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on appointments? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Next is communications from the mayor donations. Can I get a motion, please? We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on donations? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Next up is communications from the mayor procurements. Can I get a motion? Got a team going on over here. Any discussion on procurements? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Next up is continuing business and presentations. We have chair Sheehan's summary of the general government and planning committee meeting of September 8th, 2026. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The September 8th, 2026 general government and planning committee was called to order at 1 p.m. The committee unanimously approved the July 1st, 2026 meeting summary. Tracy Wade, planning services manager, presented proposed updates to drive through and drive up window regulations, including revised vehicle stacking requirements based on facility type and standards for circulation, parking access, and pedestrian access. Discussion focused on how the new requirements would apply to existing and redeveloped properties, how to manage vehicle queues, and how to balance pedestrian access with constraints on infill sites. Council member Baxter moved to approve the section 16-9 language as presented to the committee. That motion passed unanimously. On behalf of the committee, I move to place on the docket for first reading at the October 8th, 2026 council meeting an ordinance amending section 16-9 of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County zoning ordinance related to drive through facilities and drive up windows as approved at the September 8th, 2026 general government and planning committee meeting. Second. We have a motion and a second. Discussion on council member Sheehan's motion. All those in favor, please sit. Oh, sorry. Council member Baxter, my bad. Thank you, vice mayor. Since the committee approval, I was made aware by traffic engineering of an area that we need to amend. So I move to amend section 16-9A-6 of the zoning ordinance text amendment to instead read that for automatic car wash facilities, a minimum of six stacking spaces shall be provided per entrance gate or payment location. And before I make the motion, I want to say why. So this aligns with the regulations of quick service food and beverage services that do not have indoor service or seating. So there's just that realignment there. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on council member Baxter's amendment motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That passes. Council member Lynch. Thank you, vice mayor. I also have an amendment. I move to amend the proposed ordinance by adding section 16-9C-4 to read as follows, a minimum of one direct pedestrian walkway, a minimum of five feet in width shall be provided that allows pedestrians to access the building from the right of way without crossing drive-through lanes. And I'm adding, I'm reinstating the prior language that was presented in stricken at the September 8th GDP meeting. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on council member Lynch's motion? Council member Reynolds. Thank you, vice mayor. I have a question. Can you, can someone help remind me why it was stricken? Anyone that spoke to it, yeah. So in my, excuse me, in my conversations with the development community that represents drive-through businesses, there was a lot of conversation around with adding additional stacking spaces in the drive-through lines that on a lot of redevelopment properties in particular, the drive-through lines now go all the way around the building. And so every time that occurs, and if this was in place, they would have to request a waiver. So right now, if there's parking on the lot, there is pedestrian facilities that take a pedestrian from a parking spot to the building. And we just felt like it was not possible in all circumstances to have that pedestrian crossing from the right-of-way to the building without crossing a drive-through lane all the time. Another hindrance to that was that sometimes the right-of-way access is not owned by the parcel owner that they're putting the drive-through on. And so additional easements would have to be requested and granted to make that right-of-way connection. So it's just adding extra requirements and really just not making it super easy for them to exist. So if it's a new construction, the other requirements for corner lots and things like that and road frontage kind of solves that problem. But on the redevelopment of lots, it makes it way more difficult. So currently, with the stricken language, there still is a pedestrian path from the building to the parking. And so you're saying that what you're saying is there would be one that crosses the car line? It would go- So there's a McDonald's on Harrodsburg Road. And there's currently a sidewalk on Harrodsburg Road. There's a connection from that sidewalk into the property where the McDonald's is. That property crosses the drive-through line. I can think of that one, yeah. And so if this is in place, that McDonald's would have had to request a waiver to cross that drive-through line. So you're saying that then- We want to have pedestrian safety, that's fine, but- It would never cross. It would never be able to cross unless a waiver was granted. And the reason why I'm putting this amendment forward is because, one, we had a whole street safety task force that was partially about pedestrian safety. So if we, in my opinion, enact this ordinance as is without the amendment, we're just saying what they did was for naught regarding pedestrian safety. Number two is that we recently affirmed a complete streets manual. So this does not coincide with what we've approved of in the complete streets manual for pedestrian safety. I think that we don't need to contradict ourselves. Pedestrian safety, we've talked about on many occasions as being a priority for us. And that's why I think this is important that we do not strike this part, but we add it back in. And was it a recommendation for, like, in the complete streets? Was this specific thing a recommendation? The manual from what Council Member Baxter, when that question was asked of her at the September 8th General Government Plan Committee, she did not consult the complete streets team in drafting this ordinance. But was this specifically a recommendation, what you're adding back in? Do you know if it was a- I can't speak to a specific recommendation, but I think this is in line with the theme of our complete streets manual, the street safety task force work in providing safety for pedestrians as they're moving into and through throughout the city. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I am going to be supporting this motion, and I want to encourage my colleagues to do the same. This, for me, is a very personal issue. I think that, again, as Council Member Lynch said, we spent a lot, lot, lot of time on the street safety task force, rightfully emphasizing the need to build a city that is usable for all people, regardless of whether they are driving, using public transit, or cycling, or they're pedestrians. And every time we have an opportunity to make our city a little bit more safe for our pedestrians, folks who might not be utilizing these businesses because they don't have a car to begin with, and the ability to get safely from a parking spot to the business is not itself applicable to them. It's not inclusive of folks who rely on pedestrian travel as their primary means of getting from point A to point B. I think that we need to do everything in our power to protect our pedestrians. It is, as many of you know, candidly, the reason that I ran for this office to begin with, and I appreciate Council Member Baxter's intentions, and I understand the desires from the development community to not have the additional process of going through getting a waiver. But at the end of the day, they are still able to get a waiver. There is a process set up for that. And in my mind, it is important to prioritize those people who we were charged with keeping safe as part of the street safety task force. So I really, really want to encourage you all to vote in support of this motion to amend. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I guess a lot of my question was answered. So if the language got put back into this ordinance, they would just have to apply for a variance to be able to do something different other than what was stated in the manual. And I supported the red line version of this language just for the pure infield redevelopment portion of it. I know there's a lot of projects that developers or the development community work on to try to create opportunities going forward and just have some property or lot constraints that just might not be able to meet the requirement. So I thought giving them maximum flexibility in stating what the intent in regards to pedestrian safety was sufficient. But as long as there's a path for a variance or for projects to be able to move forward, I'm OK with that. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I made this original amendment in the GGP committee in September, so I will be supporting the amendment again. I do think we developers have the waiver process. I do think that this language is more consistent with what we have put into place with our complete streets policies and action plan and the conversations that we've had with the general community about street safety. We heard from the Living Streets Lexington group about this amendment today. I hear what you're saying, Council Member Baxter, with the parking, with the crosswalk to parking. But to me, similar to what Council Member Curtis said, that is for a person to get to a car. And so what we are asking for is for people that are not in that car-centric place or that don't own a car or choose to be a pedestrian for a variety of reasons to also have access independent of parking and car-centric design. So I will be supporting the motion. And again, like Council Member Brown said, the waiver process is there for the development community. And when it comes to redevelopment, I would rather see vacant properties or redeveloped properties be turned into something that's not a drive-thru. So for me, this is also about what types of development I would like to see in our community. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I do appreciate the sentiment of the amendment. Pedestrian safety is very important to me as well. I just know that we have such an emphasis in this community on redevelopment of vacant property that I am hesitant to add another restriction or another hurdle. Like Council Member Brown said, I want to make redevelopment as flexible as possible. I understand that there is the waiver process available, and if this passes, I'd be happy to kind of keep tabs on that and see if waivers are being filed in every instance of a redevelopment in this type of situation. But I just think that if we are encouraging redevelopment of either vacant, underutilized land, I think that we need to make it as flexible as possible and show businesses that we are, in fact, open for business. Thank you. Thank you. To add my two cents, I very much appreciate that sentiment, Council Member Baxter. We think about that a lot with housing, particularly how do we improve our approval and development processes, remove some of the barriers. But I think a lot of the times what we think of as potential barriers to development are also protections for our community, whether they're environmental, whether it's the number of trees that you have to have, or it's pedestrian safety. So I think we're always balancing those items. And how we pick and choose what things we're putting in this is a reflection of our stated values. And right now, our stated community values is centered around Vision Zero and complete streets. And I want to remind everybody, right now, actually, it is Week Without Driving, which is this national movement to kind of remind us about the fact that, for example, in our own community, a third of our community doesn't have access to cars. They're not necessarily even choosing to be pedestrians. They just don't have that access. So they have to take other modes of transportation. So we need to be thinking about them. I've done my share of walking this week, and it's given me a new appreciation about the shape of our sidewalks and the crosswalks, or lack thereof, when I'm traveling. And those are really important things. So I will certainly also support this motion. Are there any other comments to Council Member Lynch's motion? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. We have two noes. We've got those recorded. That motion passes. All right. We're back to Council Member Sheehan's original motion as amended. Any other comments or discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion passes. Next up is Council Reports. Hold on. One moment. I still have the rest of my report out. I'm sorry. Bump the gun. Iris Dooling, Senior Planner, presented an update on the Winchester Road Corridor Study. Community engagement identified transportation and pedestrian safety, multimodal connectivity, and improved bicycle and trail connections as key priorities. Phase two will use this feedback to develop and evaluate potential corridor recommendations. Lastly, Daniel Crum, Principal Planner, presented proposed data center regulations intended to modernize Lexington's zoning framework and address impacts related to energy and water use, noise, infrastructure, and surrounding communities. Discussion focused on appropriate regulatory thresholds, environmental and equity impacts, zoning and review options, and potential reporting requirements. No action was taken on that item. A special committee of the whole will be held on October 6th at 5.30 p.m. shortly after our meeting today to receive public input. The committee adjourned at 2.57 p.m. That concludes my report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you very much. I didn't mean to cut you off. I was trying to give us a little space, breathing room, before our data center meeting. Okay. Next up is Council Reports. Colleagues, please sign in. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think I have a photo, and I want to ask Director Monica Conrad to come to the podium. I wanted to let everyone know that Lexington Parks and Recreation has been awarded the prestigious National Gold Medal Award by the American Academy for Parks and Recreation Administration. This award is the highest honor that parks and recreation agencies can receive. This awards program honors communities throughout the country that demonstrate excellence in parks and recreation through long-range planning, resource management, volunteerism, environmental stewardship, program development, professional development, and agency recognition. So I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate you, Director, and your team for a job well done. Thank you for representing us so well. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. If I could say just a word. It's really a recognition of our entire community. It's a recognition of our mayor and all of our council members, our administration, and the support that we get to make our parks the most special places that they can be here in Lexington. It's for our community volunteers and our partners and, most of all, our employees who work the hours and the late nights and weekends and early mornings. And so thank you. We appreciate the recognition and look forward to celebrating with our staff. Awesome. Thank you. And then I have one more thing. Colleagues, you know that I currently have an item in SSPS regarding e-devices. And that work began with parks and law enforcement. And we have so far updated our parks policy as e-devices are concerned. So I wanted to give Director Conrad a moment to kind of give you an update on those changes. Yes, Council Member. So we have posted our shared use trail policy. It is on our website. Happy to share that with you as well. It addresses all of our shared use trails here in Lexington. And we worked with law, with bike ped, with parks advisory board, and closely with police on defining those different types of vehicles. It's very complicated, as you can imagine. Defining a speed limit. Updating all of our signage. So I think it will be a little more recognizable where they will be located on trails. And so those should be installing in the next couple of weeks. You can see the new policy and provide us any feedback that you would like. Thank you. I think it would be great if you could e-mail everybody a copy of that policy for us to share. And are we going to do any community engagement on letting the public know that that change has occurred? Yes, we will. Once we have that signage installed, we'll certainly be doing a large social media push, press release, all those good things to make sure that people are aware. Okay, great. Is my time up? I don't know what happened. My time is not up. I have a little bit more time. You're good. Thank you. And I just wanted to give everybody else an update on the remainder of the e-device policy. It's a lot. It's a lot to take on. Unfortunately, we don't have any agenda time in SSPS for the remainder of the year. So I just want to let the community know that we are not sitting on our laurels. We hear you. We understand that it is a big concern and an issue. We've talked to a lot of state legislators to try to get the state to actually incorporate some definitions into statute. So just know that I'm working on it, and we'll hear it. Hopefully, we'll hear it. Hopefully, if I'm here, we'll hear it next year. So thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Even though council has been observing fall recess, my District 2 neighbors have not. They are can't stop, won't stop, always doing, which I love. So just some reminders, neighbors. The district-wide District 2 meeting is on October 26th, which is a Monday at 6 p.m., and we'll be convening at STEAM Academy. So please join us there. Also, there are several activities going on at the Black and White Neighborhood Center. Let's Move Line Dancing is on Mondays at 6.30 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Also, there are senior fitness classes that happen on Tuesdays at 9.30 a.m., which is also free and open to the public. And then happening this Friday, Fayette County Public Schools is having their classroom on wheels come to the Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. Awesome opportunity to engage our youngest District 2 neighbors in some awesome activities with our school system. And that will be this Friday, October 9th at 10.30 a.m. Also happening on Friday, I love it, Freaky Flicks at Matching Station Park is happening on Friday at 6.30 p.m. The movie will begin at dusk. Bring your lawn chairs, your blankets. It's always lots of fun for the whole family. So come on out this Friday. And then lastly, happening on Saturday, October the 10th at 1 p.m., is Period Out Loud. This is a partnership with Black Soil and Intimacy Out Loud. And the goal of this event is to talk about Period Action Day and to end period stigma and provide products and promote period wellness, which is something that we all, as women, need in our community. This is another free event that is open to the community. So please come out to the Black Soil Pharmacy Market on Florence for this event as well. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The last couple of weeks have been pretty big in Woodhill. We had opportunities to celebrate the renovation of the basketball court at our community celebration on Tuesday, September 22nd, and the ribbon cutting on Wednesday, September 30th. Those celebrations were about more than just the renovation of a court. They were about what happens when we choose to invest in our neighborhoods. I'm grateful to Council Members Brown and Ellinger and Vice Mayor Wu for their contributions and capital funds to this project. By combining our seven district capital funds with their support, we turn a shared vision into reality. I also appreciate Council Members Brown and Morton for coming to the community celebration, as we were honored and able to join Mayor Gordon and Parks and Recreation staff who worked so hard on this project and the ribbon cutting. Again, I just want to thank everyone for coming out and celebrating with the community with me and with District 7. So let us continue to build this momentum together. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Exciting news. If you have been traveling on Leestown Road, the new double diamond crossover is ready and open. I know that residents up and down Leestown Road and people that work up and down Leestown Road have really been struggling the past two years. So I am excited that it is open. It looks like the continuation of that project will finish by the end of the year as new circle widening will continue. Just be mindful of the new traffic pattern and feel free to go to www.drivinglexingtonprogress.org for more navigation updates. Exciting news this year, Tree Week is kicking off at Davis Park in the 11th district. And that will be October 9th from 5.30 to 7.30 PM. So come on out for giveaways and tree planting, live music, food trucks, and more. I hope to see everybody there. I also wanted to extend a congratulations to Parks and Recreation for their hard work in earning such a wonderful recognition. And then I was out of town and I was sad that I was not able to attend Chief Well's announcement. But I really wanted to say thank you for your years of service, many, many years of service to Lexington. And as fire chief, I know that that has been a really difficult job. And we always have a lot going on in this city. And I'm sure you have felt under recognized at times. And I just want you to know that we appreciate you and your leadership. So thank you and happy soon retirement. All right, that is all. Thank you. I'll second Council Member Reynolds' excitement about the Leestown interchange. If any of you all have lived through the before and after of the Harrisburg Road-New Circle interchange, you know how much of a game changer night and day difference that is. So I hope for all of our residents that it will have been worth the pain. And I also want to second the congratulations and happy trails to Chief Wells. It's been really, really inspiring and phenomenal to see your leadership with that department doing some innovative, progressive things that I think about this sometimes when I think about being a small business owner and a restaurant owner and the ethos, the conventional wisdom is that the customer is always right and the customer comes first. And I put a lot of focus on my employees because I knew that investment would turn into great customer service. And I think Chief Wells has exemplified that by putting so much focus and energy and resource behind his people and the staff. And that really does translate to better services for our community. So appreciate all you do, and you have some pretty big boots to fill. We are on to public comment for issues not on the agenda. We have one person signed up. Chris S., if you will join us at the podium and give your name and council district again for the record. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Chris Neely. I'm with Council District 7. I'm here to talk about the Flock Safety Program today. I just wanted to open up that I do live here, I work here, my kids are still all here, and I work for safety for our neighborhoods. I support providing Lexington Police Department the effective tools to keep our community safe while operating under proper safeguards and oversight. I personally have worked for three different organizations that utilize or have utilized the Flock system, so I'm quite versed on its capabilities and what it can and cannot do. You know, the real question we have to face is whether or not technology is good or bad, but whether it is used properly. The technology is only responsible as the policies, oversights, auditing, and accountability governing its use. Why should we trust Lexington's program? Lexington Police has policies governing its use. It conducts audits and provides public accountability. It is one of the more transparent programs in the nation, and citizens can review the policies, the audit reports, the camera locations, frequently asked questions, use cases, and success stories themselves on the police department's website. Misconceptions that are out there, there's much discussion based on the misunderstandings about what the system can and cannot do. Decisions should be based on facts rather than assumptions, and we need to evaluate the system based on how it's actually operated in Lexington. As we all know, there's many investigative benefits. It helps identify vehicles associated with criminal activity. It helps locate stolen vehicles, wanted persons, missing persons, and endangered persons. It provides investigative leads that may not otherwise exist, and it helps law enforcement make better use of limited resources. Some often missed benefits is the technology does not just help identify suspects, it can also eliminate innocent people and vehicles from an investigation. It can demonstrate that a vehicle was not in an area at a particular time. It can help investigators quickly rule out leads and avoid unnecessary stops or investigative efforts on people not involved. Modern policing, criminals use technology every day. Law enforcement should have the access to lawful, accountable, modern tools. Technology should support professional judgment, not replace it. I challenge the council to review the policies, review the audits, review the Lexington Police Department's publicly available information, and spend time with officers and analysts to use the system. Observe the technology firsthand before making a decision. Once again, I support scrutiny and oversight. After seeing this technology used by multiple organizations and reviewing Lexington's safeguards, I believe the continued use of this technology is in the best interest for public safety and our community. Thank you. Thank you. We've reached the end of our agenda, so we are adjourned. We'll see you all back here at 530. Thank you.