Music Thank you. Thank you. I believe there is a quorum of the Intergovernmental Committee. The first item of business is the election of a chair. So I will ask for any nominations. Next, Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Schoeniger. I nominate Councilwoman Andrea James for the chair. So moved. Second. There is a nomination in the second. Any other nominations? With that, I'm going to – the nominations are closed. and would like to take a vote of the committee for the election of Council Member James as the chair of the committee. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Congratulations or condolence. Oh, thank you very much. It is my pleasure to chair Intergovernmental Committee again this session, and I'm pleased to accept that. I haven't spoken with anyone about being a co-chair. Council Member DeCamp was my co-chair last session, so I will be talking with you all. If there's anyone that has an interest in being a co-chair, please let me know. It will make that process easier. And I think I only missed one or two last session, maybe one, when I had laryngitis, which and Council Member DeCamp had to serve for me in my place at that time. Well, we will get started. We have two items on the agenda today. Both are, it looks like they're sponsored by Council Member Myers. The first being the Citizens Advocate Office Standards Policy and Procedures Manual, and the second being Boards and Commissions Reporting. And I see that our Citizens Advocate is here, and someone from the Law Department is here to speak on Citizens Advocate as well. Is there anyone else to speak on Citizens Advocate? You're just here in support today, Paula? Okay. Council Member Myers, did you want to say anything before Ms. Beck speaks? I'd just like to say that we had a really strong work group. Everybody worked together really well, and I'm very pleased with the product that we have. I know that we do have a way in our law review to make sure that it coincides with the charter and a couple of things like that. But other than that, we had a fantastic work group, and I appreciate everybody's participation. And now I'll turn the floor over to our citizens advocate, Ms. Beck. Thank you. Thank you so much. Late last year, the Citizens Advocate Working Group was established and met for conversation about the status, the form, and the function of the office. To give structure to the conversation, we used two model documents for guidance. The first document was Standards for Ombudsman Offices, and the second was the Citizens Advocate Office Draft Policy and Procedure Manual. The conversations went point by point through both of those documents as we examined what principles the Office should uphold or embody and how those principles should be transformed into action. The working group made many modifications to the models, adapting them to fit within the current structure with the statutory requirements of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the charter of the urban county government, the code of ordinances, and also to reflect the group's consensus on what the office ought to do and how it should be done. The result of those conversations is before you today. Now, these two documents do contain a few substantive changes from the existing guidelines that are contained in the appendix to the Council rules. These documents reflect the current position of this administration that the advocate is not required to submit open records requests to obtain information in conjunction with an investigation. That's one change that's incorporated in these documents. They also place a requirement on responding persons and agencies to respond to a request for information within three business days unless otherwise agreed to in the exercise of reason. And these documents also acknowledge that independent legal advice, either in-house or contracted, may be necessary in the discretion of the advocate. I expect that that will be the most controversial item and will explain the rationale for that position as you all deem appropriate. In my opinion, the adoption or acceptance of these two documents is very important to the future of this office, whether for me or for any other incumbent in the position. First, these documents memorialize the understanding of the working group of counsel about what the office is that I currently occupy. occupy. The standards document is a permanent reminder of the purpose and ideals of the office. It also contains a framework for creating a more accurate and adequate job description whenever the position is again advertised for filling. The procedure manual will be a much improved training aid for new occupants of this office and will provide a basis for setting setting performance objectives and performance reviews. Together these documents give the advocate guidance in the execution of the duties of the office and also serve to inform the council. And with those prefatory remarks, I am prepared to answer any questions or concerns that you might have about these documents and about the process. Thank you, Ms. Beck. I am hoping that our system is working appropriately. If there's anyone to speak, first of all, you want to make sure you're logged in, Vice Mayor Gray. If there's anyone that needs to speak, hit your speak button just so I can see if this is working effectively. Or just anybody hit so I can see. We don't know. It's not. So we'll just have to go by a visual at this time. So if there's anyone that would like to ask questions or give comment to Ms. Beck at this time, this would be the time to indicate that. Any questions? Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to add that the work group wanted to bring the document out and move it forward so that the full committee would have an opportunity to review. while we're waiting on the law department to do its review with respect to the charter and then how we would amend the council rules and procedures in order to adopt this document. So we know it's not going to move forward too quickly as yet, but I did want to get a heads up to the council committee so that they can begin to review the document at the same time the law is reviewing it. So if you could please do that. I also want to state that the document that we have before you was brought to you by unanimous of the work group. And that's it. Thank you. Ms. Beck, did you have a response or anything to that? No, not at all. I would, I'd like to let you know that yesterday I met with Ms. George from the law department. We had a brief but a really productive meeting on the mechanics of how to go forward. I think everybody's on the same page. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Beard? Quickly, and of course in the fall we had a flurry of Cal meetings and everything else. Did we not bring this to a Cal meeting at one point for, I don't know whether it was blessing or information or what exactly? I think it was brought to an intergov meeting. and I was out of town, so I wasn't at that meeting. And I think it actually didn't get reported out. Mr. Seanagarmay. The only thing that was done at a COW meeting, and correct if I'm wrong, Joan, the citizen's advocate is now coming to the COW on a quarterly basis to give your quarterly report. And I think at the last quarterly meeting, you indicated that was one of the recommendations from this work group. But that's the only recollection I have that it went to a COW. And that was the fourth quarter of 2008. I did my quarterly report there at the Cal meeting at that time. Did I answer your question? I think that's probably what I'm thinking of. But we activated that portion of it before it was actually approved, I guess. I mean, as we can, I guess. If you get invited somewhere, I'm sure you're going to say yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Baird. Council Member Henson? Thank you, Chair. Hi. I just wanted to say that I read through this thoroughly, both the professional standards and the policy procedure manual, and I was very impressed with the work that was done and want to thank everybody that was involved in this. I had one question, though, that you will be reporting out to Council, Joan, quarterly, correct? Correct. When will our next report be due? Ordinarily, it would be at the quarterly CAL meeting. Okay. The first quarter of this year, the CAL meeting was way early in the quarter. so I don't know if it will be appropriate to ask to be on another Cal agenda within the first quarter of this year or how we want to do that for the annual report that would entail all of 2008 but as soon as we're into this routine, then typically I would come to the quarterly CAL meeting and report on the activities of the office in the previous quarter. And you know, I don't believe that I've looked at the schedule of the CAL meetings for 2009 yet or if that's been published. I believe it has been published. So if you would… So I'll be sure to get those on my calendar and plan on doing my quarterly activity reports at those meetings as time allows on those agendas. Sure. If there is, I would actually suggest maybe I'm overstepping as chair, but if we don't have one within a timely for this quarter, since we've had the earlier already, you may want to just go ahead and submit whenever would fall in line with the rest of the Cal meetings. Go on and submit the first quarter. Do you all agree with that? Just by email or by hard copy, drop it to us. Okay. Do you have more questions, Commissioner Henson? I just have one other statement that I wanted to make sure that the public is aware that the Citizens Advocate Office is there to make government better and be an impartial, I don't know the word, but anyway, could you, I mean, just clarify that? Well, I read through it. I can't find the exact words that were written, But just to make sure everyone's aware of your. Sure. You know, the citizens advocate was created. I believe the language in the charter was to provide a venue through which citizens can seek redress of their grievances against with local government. So the citizen's advocate is independent of the administration of government, but provides oversight of the administrative function of government. And then it reports the findings that come from complaints or investigations, reports to council to bring to the council's attention items that may be of interest to you and recommendations that could improve the function of government so that it works better for all of the citizens of Lexington, Fayette County. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Any other questions or comments from committee members? Councilor Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Also, I'm kind of looking through here now. I remember we had some conversation about putting language in here that would ensure that you had a spot on GTV3. Do you recall if we actually put that in? That is in the memorandum from you to Councilmember James as one of the recommendations of the Working Group Committee that Citizens Advocate work with Government Communications to produce a periodic program to appear on GTV3. Yeah, I see it at number four. Okay. Right. And that would be a way, I think it's very important that you do have some time on there on a regular basis so that you can get the word out to the citizens of what your office does and availability of the times and the places and all those kinds of things. So I had forgotten that that was in there, that list of recommendations, as well as the two documents. Is that something that has to wait on this whole manual to be approved for her to have a GTV3 spot? No, it doesn't. We can bring that out as a motion and onto full council today even. Okay. Okay. Okay. Get that rotation started. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Beck. Thank you very much. Ms. George, would you like to, you know, have anything to say? Okay. So do we need a motion on, do we need a motion to bring forward or, because that report out report out actually won't happen until next week work session. Okay. I'm sorry. I move to bring recommendation number four. It's on the second page of the packet. Public awareness that the citizens advocate work with government communications to produce a periodic program to appear on GTB 3. I move that we bring that out today to the full council to discuss and pass. We've got a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member Beard that Citizens Advocate work with government communications to produce a periodic program to appear on GTV3. Any discussion? All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. And any opposed? None. That's unanimous. So we look forward to hearing back from you, Ms. Beck, on your conversation when your television productions will take place so we can start advertising that to our citizens. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, if I can make one more motion on the same page, number five, the case tracking, I move that the citizens advocate work with the CIO and council staff to review available software solutions for tracking of cases and recommend to the council a solution appropriate for the office, which could also be used by council members and staff. So moved. Second. Okay. The motion is the recommendation number five on the memorandum on the first page of your packet, and the motion is for the citizen advocate to work for the CIO and council staff. Okay. To review available software solutions and recommend to the council a solution appropriate for the Office of the Citizen's Advocate as well as use for council members and staff. Any discussion? Yes. Council Member Blues. I thought that usually the discussions are the cases would move forward in confidence. What would be the purpose of tracking a particular case publicly be? Would it be better for Ms. Beck to answer that, you think? Yes, I'll let her answer and then I can maybe speak to the council side of it. Okay. Ms. Beck? I believe what this recommendation is going to is the procurement and implementation of a software package that would improve everyone's ability to manage and control the documents and the data on a case-by-case basis. And I believe the idea in bringing the council in with it is that such a complaint management system would be a valuable tool for individual council members to track trends within their districts as well as a very useful tool for functions such as my office. What's there? Refresh my memory on this. Was this a proposed budget item for the 2009 fiscal year? I was not on that link, so maybe someone that was on the budget link may know. We did not propose it in last year's budget. We had proposed it several years prior without much success. Last year was a time to cut budgets and reduce budgets, and so we did not think it was the appropriate time then to propose adding a new expense. Do you remember the cost of such a software package? The last time I looked at it, depending on the number of users, the least expensive that I found was in the neighborhood of $7,000. This type of software can be, I haven't ever seen a top end. It can be very expensive if you want to go way over. But the minimum that I've seen the last time I looked was in the neighborhood of $7,000. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I have a little different view than opening this up to all the council members and or aides, but software that you would use internally within your office. I know I was on the link that was involved last year, And we were focusing on getting the funding squared away for the office in and of itself without adding anything to it, I think, at that point. So that's why it kind of lay dormant for a while. But I guess opening this up for all to view, I mean, it may be a situation where, in fact, we or our office might be under investigation. I don't think that's how it would work. I think that if we put together a site license for a software package, it would work similar to how the Microsoft software is procured for this government now. So we would all be able to use this software program, but I would have my data and you would have your data and you would each have your individual data sets. and they would not be... So it would be segmented and not... Right. Okay. Right. But to clarify one other point, the Citizens Advocate Office does not have jurisdiction to investigate the Council Office. So... What do we do when a citizen shows up and has a complaint? If they have a complaint about their Council Member, I would certainly put them in touch with their Council Member. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Blues. The only concern I have here is endorsing an item that's going to be costly, looking ahead, and seeming to anticipate a 2010 budget discussion. So it would seem to me that if this is something that the Citizens Advocate thinks is necessary, we could bring it forward for discussion in links and budget financing with the council itself. And I just want to clarify that it is to review available software. This is not asking for the funding. So the motion is just to review and seemingly to compile a list. Is that what your intent is? That is correct, and that's the clarification I was going to bring, is that we're not implying or suggesting that we're going to go forward with the expenditure, but we want her to work with the CIO and the council staff to see what software out there is available, what's appropriate, and then it would go into the budget cycle if we were going to discuss it. My only problem is that it seems to me that the citizen's advocate could do this on her own if she thinks that this is, you know, this is a technology that's important to her office and that she doesn't, on this particular item, need instruction from us. Well, the work group worked together with her office and thought it was appropriate for the council office. So, I mean, the only option is, I guess, to vote against it, but we think that this is something that should come out of a recommendation from this work group and then come through this committee. Okay. So there was a motion and a second. Any more discussion? All right, so we will take this time to vote. All in favor of the motion, say aye. And any opposed? Tom Blues, Council Member Blues opposed. Okay, so that passes. If you need any assistance, I guess, moving forward with that, let me know or let Council Member Myers know, and we'll look forward to hearing back from you. Thanks very much, and thanks again to the members of the working group. We put in a lot of hours on this project, but I think it was time very, very well spent. I really appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is the boards and commissions reporting. Council Member Myers is a sponsor for this as well. Any background information you want to put forward? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that we were ready to go on this before. In the previous session, one of the members in the discussion on bringing it forward thought that it might be appropriate to find out from the administration who exactly would be putting this information on the website. But my kind of view on that is that's really micromanaging in that we've had conversations with the CIO. They have the capability and the capacity to do this. and it's at his discretion or the administration's discretion who would actually do the work, so we're not really concerned with that part. So, again, this was a motion to require that all outside boards and commissions that the mayor has appointing privilege to would bring their annual reports, their final reports, if it was a sunset on the committee or board, or commission, I'm sorry, and they're also their monthly or quarterly, whatever they have, meeting minutes, that they would submit those to the administration, and the administration would put those on the website for LFCDG so that the public would have input to those documents in a timely fashion. So that's the crux of it, and I just move that we bring it forward. Okay. We've got a motion and a second to bring forward the recommendation to have the boards and commissions information put on the website. Is there any discussion from committee members first, and then we'll have an audience? Council Member Blues? I think this is really an important step here, not only for providing information to the public so that everybody has access to what's going on on these boards and commissions, but also for persons who might be interested in serving on a board. This would be useful information for them. And also it would provide us with some serious institutional memory. Many boards and commissions now operate without any record at all, and I think we've probably all served on some of those bodies. So I thank you for moving this forward. It really is an important step. Council Member Beard? I've got a question either for Shay or Ana concerning the detail we get from prospective board members or commission members the subject could come up once before concerning asking about their political affiliation is that still happening? I think we removed that from the form at the request of the council Okay. I kind of lost track of what actually happened with it, but I think that's a good idea. I would agree with that. The Ethics Commission has a requirement to have so many Republicans and Democrats, so that is one board that we do ask, but the form we have online and the one we mail out by request of citizens does not have it on there. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Any other committee questions regarding the motion? There are several in the audience, and are all three of you here to speak on this issue? We're here just to answer any questions. Oh, okay. Thank you. If there's no one else to speak, we will take a vote on the motion. All in favor, say aye. And are there any opposed? All right, and that passes unanimously. Council Member Crosby wanted to say something. I just had a question regarding boards and commissions to see if any of you all, I know we went through kind of a review process, and I don't recall hearing anything about the deteriorated properties. It's the vacant properties review commission. Can you all please check into that and maybe make it back to me and see if that commission, from what I can tell, I don't know if it's still inactive. Council Member James might be able to speak a little bit more to this, But I think what we found was, and correct me if I'm wrong, it is not currently active, but we did not abolish it when we went through and got rid of some that were inactive because some council members are currently working on reinstituting policies that would need that board. Yeah, Shay is correct. We found that the recommendation for the land bank needed the vacant properties review commission to administer that program. So what we're doing right now is just looking at how to make that a useful commission. We've done some research and talked to some folks that sat on the original to see what were their barriers before and what we need to do to make that productive. So it still is being worked on. I'd be happy to include you in on those meetings as we discuss. I think that there are some situations outside of the land bank where time is of the essence with certain properties in our community. For example, I've had one that's had two fires within like five or six weeks of each other, and our hands are tied because we do not have an active – we're not following our code of ordinances. This is supposed to be a commission that is currently in place, and it doesn't look like anybody has even been appointed since 2006. They're supposed to be meeting quarterly, and we have things happening all over our community, and we cannot enforce our own ordinances as we're reviewing a commission. So I think that outside of the land bank, which is very important, I think we also need to consider that there are situations that need to be handled immediately, and we can't do that because we don't have the ordinances required that this be in place, and since we don't have this in place, we can't enforce our own ordinances. I see. I would probably work with, talk to David Jarvis or someone in code enforcement. Oh, we have. We already have, and this is what needs to happen. So I would like to be able to possibly make a motion, maybe not to a work session, that we recommend that the mayor's staff, it's very clear in the ordinance who the appointments need to be from, which groups they need to be from, and where they could at least start the process of collecting names. That may not change too much. It's like a few mortgage bankers. I think LBAR has to recommend some people. The neighborhood associations need to recommend a few people and at least start the process. We can work together with the mayor's office if you'd like to, because I know that we actually the makeup of that may change a little bit because of the way that it functioned previously. But, Shay? I'm happy to do whatever you would like. I'm not familiar with this board in particular. And it appears that it hasn't functioned, so maybe if we follow the guidelines and get the people who are on there who should be on there, the board will function like it should. Maybe, maybe not. Okay, thank you very much. I want to ask a question about the motion that just passed to put things on the website. That will be up to the mayor's office to take care of all of that as far as setting it up on IT and the new website and all that. Yes, we've had conversations with the CIO, and it's not a problem at all. And I also want to take this time to say that he has been fantastic to work with as well as the rest of the administration on this issue. So we appreciate their cooperation. Wonderful. Good. Well, moving on, the next item is just an update on the committee items. Does anyone have anything to offer as far as the items here? Let's see. Any updates? Anything we need to remove? All right. I'm hearing nothing. Can I get a motion? I could have said anything there. We've got a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sisters, one, two, three, and five, you'll find what you've been looking for right here in this day. Landed here and you'll see, when it comes to me, nobody knows it's better than me. I was so old that I knew it only here, but like the shoes of you on the way to heavenly place. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the spirit's in the end, the love of the brain, I can talk to you. Thank you. What will my claw? I'll reach you, open up the book All the while I take a look And then I'll start telling everyone just how to do, yeah Start telling everyone just what's true, yeah Since the revolution becomes a shaman and a jubbing Cause she feels the spirit The congregation's stopping his feet And everybody's moving out of the seat We're really gonna get this meeting on And praise the Lord of the Lord Yeah, and I'll reach you, spread it hurt Is it the greatest word ever true? When he said, I'm calling sin, it's right now. You hear, I'm calling sin, it's right to me. When a safety grab is so, it takes a lot to put in, break is hard. So why is it? You gotta listen mostly. To me, you gotta listen closely. There's a devil catching up in my mind. Keep the vision every minute of the devil. We're going to teach a lot. What's up? How you act is to stretch your feet. Back to back, if anyone can't stop him, I can't. And that's why I'm the preacher man. We hear the word. We hear your voice. We know there really isn't any other choice. I'm a baby. We're on the gospel train. We can show you the way. Relieve all strength. Think as in words. Have the moves. Dodge that devil who's my fancy quote. Come get a ball. He's done got a face. Hear the word of the Lord. We'll save your place. Save your soul, I can't. I'm a silver man. Get on as fast as you can I got some pain We need more strength We need more I blow through here And the music goes down and round Ho ho ho ho Ho ho and comes on here Press the first valve down And the music goes down and round Ho ho ho ho Ho ho and comes on here Press the middle valve down And the music goes down and round Be-doh, be-doh, be-doh Ho-ho-ho-ho Listen to the jazz, come on Press the other bell down And the music goes down and round Ho-ho-ho-ho Oh, when it comes out here And it comes out here Comes out here I press the middle valve down And the music goes down and round Below, below, below Oh, ho, ho Listen to the jazz come out And I press the other bell down And the music goes down and round Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh And it comes out here And it comes out here And it comes out here And it comes out here They call the lady Louisville Lou And what that vamping baby can't do Well, she's the most heartbreakin' The shimmy-shakin'est Gal you ever knew She's got the kind of lovin' that holds em' Big brown eyes and she rolls her hot lips That are pips And a normal conscience and a snake has hips And when she shakes her feathers and plumes The porters drop their mops and their brooms Why you can see him trailing her, inhaling her perfumes And even Deacon Jones, who was old and bent Sold his crutches just to pay her rent So buddy, here's my warning to you Stay away from Louisville Lou No more conscience and a snake has hit And when she shakes the feathers and flutes The potters drop their mops and their brooms Why you can see them trailing her Inhaling her perfumes And even Deegan Jones who was old and bent Sold his crutches just to pay her rent So buddy here's my warning to you Stay away from Louisville I mean Louisville Louie de Louie Here's a little song, here's a new down on the bayou. Thank you. Grandpa's on the porch wing, Grandma by his side. Me and the boys are playing guitars and the kids are all inside. Brodads in the steamer, greens on the table. Sweet potato pie and stuff that's too tight, baby. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In the morning time For the private history The private history Everything gonna be alright In the morning time Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. I'm sorry. . ¶¶ Oh, I hate to see, see that evening sun go down. Oh, I hate to see, see the evening sun go down. Cause my baby, she done gone left this town And if I'm feeling tomorrow, anywhere like I feel today Oh, should I be feeling tomorrow, anywhere like I feel today I'm going to pack my trunk And make my getaway I'll make