... Lexington Host Committee has been formed to oversee what, um, the festivities that the city is going to be responsible for. Uh, the c- the committee intends to, and it states that we intend to have a 16-day festival. Um, it does state that we will cover, the committee, uh, will cover the costs of entertainment activities, of course, through raising sponsorship funds. And then it, it goes on to say that the foundation, um, would like to... we will provide them space, stage space, to do reenactment for meddling ceremonies. They will make that happen. They will also provide a large screen or a video board in order to have, um, a live telecast from the Horse Park so that we can have that downtown in the Courthouse plaza. It goes on to talk about banners and whose responsibility that, um, we have listed all of the streets that we have banner arms on, and we have agreed to put up World Game banners in addition to our festival banners. They will pay for their banners. We will pay for our banners. Um, if they want to put banners up on, uh, streets where there are no brackets, they have agreed to purchase the banner brackets and pay for the cost to have those installed. Um, when you get to number three, local contributors, use of the game trademarks, we have agreed and it is understood that the city festival will create its own logo and trademark, and that we will not use any of the, uh, Alltech/FEI World Games, you know, 2010 trademark or logo. Uh, uh, we have been given permission to use WEG, W-E-G, and 2010, and our logo, but we will create our own logo for our downtown festival, which will be separate, entirely separate from the World Games logo. Um, and then it goes on to talk about, um, local contributors and how that differs from official World Games sponsors and what type of recognition we can give our local contributors or c-contributors to the downtown festival. Um, and that, you know, we have no ability to give those folks recognition at the Horse Park, just as, you know, the official sponsors at the Horse Park for the World Equestrian Games do not have, unless of course they want to be sponsors for the downtown festival. You know, we don't provide them with any recognition downtown. We will provide recognition and banners for contributors to the downtown festival. So we're delineating responsibility here. Um, it tells, it goes on to s- say that, um, they will reserve X number of tickets for our contributors depending upon the size of the sponsorship. Um, number four, the anti-ambush campaign, which of course was in the newspaper this morning, um, basically I think is very... it's probably done in most cities where they have large events as the Super Bowl or the Olympics that this is done to protect the World Equestrian Games' official sponsors. And what we're saying is that when we're going to have remeddling activities in the plaza, the official World Equestrian Games sponsors will have front stage. When the remodeling activities are done, those banners and signs will come down, and then our sponsors, who are sponsoring the downtown festival, will be recognized in that staging area. Um, it also talks about, um, enacting an ordinance, creating an ordinance, that we'll have a four-mile radius in Fayette County of the Horse Park and down Newtown Pike to create that anti-ambush so that, that protects the World Equestrian Games sponsors from someone who would like to get in on the World Equestrian Games but has not gone, eh, you know, and, and committed to be a World Equestrian Games sponsor. Uh, so, you know, competitors are not, you know, will not be allowed to come in and, and advertise in that radius unless they're a, an official sponsor. And basically that's what that talks about. Thank you. Okay, I think that's good. A- and I agree, the sponsorships, you need to protect those. And I, I'm glad to see that. I guess one of the issues I have is, um, with the logo. So h- h- how are we coming with our own logo there? And so w- we're the same but different in a lot of ways. Well, e- e- we're going to be doing a festival in conjunction with the World Equestrian Games, and so we're gonna be connected because we're gonna be going on at the same time, but yes, we are going to be separate. And, um, John Long, um, at USEF, has kindly loaned us his marketing staff, and they're going to help us create a logo. And they've already, you know, given us a lot of ideas, and we're kind of going back and forth of, you know, what we like, what we'd like to include, and, um, basically the logo will feature Spotlight Lexington, which is the name of the downtown festival, and we will, as best we can, tie it into that it's happening at the same time, uh, that the World Equestrian Games are happening. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Counci- Councilman McCord? Just piggybacking off of Councilmember Ellinger about, about that logo, and m- my, my first knee-jerk reaction from a branding standpoint is, why do we always have to do something different, add another bit of confusion? Is there any, is there, is it a monetary reason too? Is it something that, uh, that there's, there's an issue there? I don't, I don't think it's monetary in terms for us. I do see that, you know, the, the Alltech/FEI World Equestrian Games logo is, has been created for that event and will, and b- and can be used by their official sponsors. We need to create our own logo for our downtown festival. Um, P- Penny, let me ask you, who, who decides what that looks like? You- The motto. You, you had mentioned that they're, they're lending staff and so forth like that, but who's, who's the body here that decides that's what the brand is? It will probably go to the Lexington Host Committee. Okay. And that body of folks, of course, who have been appointed by the mayor, will decide on the logo. All right, thank you. Council Member Beard, then Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, a, a couple of things. Might we have a copy, each of us have a copy of the agreement? Did you not receive that copy in your packet? I have not received it. But, but, oh, I'm sorry, it is in a packet? Hadn't gotten that far. Forgive me. Secondly, are there gonna be vendor booths- There will b- ... out on the site? Yes. There, there will be vendor booths at the H- Kentucky Horse Park, and you must go through the World Equestrian Games to get a booth. They're selling those, those spaces. Yeah. Uh, I under- understand. I just wonder w- if it's a, a broad array of vendor booths, is it gonna cut out local folks from, um, because of categories? Let's say, just something that I might be familiar with, banks. If the one bank is the bank of choice out there with an ATM or whatever, that, which they've done for some of the other, um, events out there, the Rolex, for instance, um, it kinda cuts the legs out from under any local banks- ... doing anything. Well, I think that, you know, that is probably a possibility, because not everyone will be able to afford, you know, either to be an official sponsor, to get into one of those sponsor categories, or to get, you know, pay the price to have a booth there. Um, you know, that's why we're looking to make the downtown festival as open to all of our local businesses as possible. Okay. And then, you were talking about re-medaling. Sounds funny. It does. Sounds like, that's what we're all doing to you right now, is medaling. Uh ... The re-medaling ceremony, the, it, and that is kind of a strange term, but basically, at the end of an event at the horse park, they will have a medaling ceremony for the athletes. And what they're agreeing to do is to get the athletes to come downtown, and in the evening, do the ceremony again, so that the community can be involved. I, well i- that's where I was headed. An- and that is, they're gonna ask them to come downtown, or is that gonna be part of the deal? 'Cause I ca- I can see some of 'em saying, "Heck, I, I wanna go to bed," or, "I want, you know, I wanna go out to dinner," or whatever, and, "I don't wanna m- mess with it. I've got my medal. Thank you very much." Right. Well, they have not stated that they will have every single ceremony redone downtown- Yeah. ... but they will strive to do as many as they can. But it may dilute the appeal of downtown, though, if we don't have, if we have a bunch of no-shows, is what b- bothers me or worries me. Well, I think that, that those ceremonies are just one element of what we're gonna offer downtown. We'll have m- m- many more things too going on that we hope will attract people to come downtown, in addition to those medal ceremonies. Well, it, it's, I just might caution you about that, 'cause I just, that, that bothers me, I think somewhat, that, uh, uh, if we have enough people that are no-shows, that people may s- get turned off to the idea, if that's what they're bringing their kids downtown to see, um ... Well, I think the intent is, yes, to get as many of those events at a medaling ceremony downtown as possible. And I don't think that we would even advertise that we would have a medaling ceremony unless it had already been agreed to. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Penny. Um, I just had a, really a comment, not a question, um, about the, really the branding or the, uh, local, um, logo. Mm-hmm. The, uh, equine task force brought a number of recommendations to the Budget and Finance Committee. Um, I don't remember what month it was. It was late in the year, uh, last year. And one of the things that we discussed was the branding and the blue horse. And, uh, there was quite a bit of comment at that time by council members, the Convention and Visitors Bureau's going ahead with that- Mm-hmm. ... and we had asked that LFUCG, um, consider, you know, parks branding with the blue horse, and any place that we can. And so, I would hope that that goes in the mix, because one of the council members commented that we may end up with several brands by the end of this. And I, I, I would hope that we wouldn't end up with several brands. But what I would like to put forth is that this festival is a festival that we hope to continue, that will be one of the legacies that we have. And so, if we continue it, it will not always be tied into the World Equestrian Games. So, you know, while a lot of the ideas that we've thrown out are, you know, the skyline of downtown, horses, um, you know, rolling blue hills, and, and things like that, and Spotlight Lexington, um, you know, it may or may not end up with a horse on it. Because it will be a continuing festival, and it will not always be connected to- ... the horse. But also to say is that we, we have a lot of ideas, and so all of that will go into the mix. Very good. Thank you. Thanks. Anybody else? Thanks, Penny. You're welcome. Thanks very much. Okay, I know Mr. Murphy has a comment, uh, regarding this item. Oops, excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Uh, I'm here on behalf of Lamar Advertising, which is the, uh, largest billboard company here in Fayette County, and they asked me to come down today just to make a one-minute comment to you on the hosting, uh, agreement, which you just talked about. Uh, they read about it for the first time in the newspaper today and were a little concerned about the, uh, advertising zone, or lack of advertising zone, around Newtown Pike, and, um, 'cause nobody has ever contacted Lamar about that. And this agreement does obligate to you to pass an ordinance regulating advertising in that area. And Lamar supports the World Equestrian Games and Lamar does not wanna be a problem. Lamar wants to be part of the solution, and we would just ask that whatever goes on in this, that Lamar be kept in the loop and be able to participate, uh, with the people who come up with this advertising, because they are a local company which has a great stake in this. I know the main impact of this is a, is for people coming from out of town and trying to have a one-time, uh, benefit from this, but they are a local company in the advertising business. So, as I said, we don't wanna be a problem. We wanna be part of the solution, and to be part of the solution, we need to be engaged in the process, and we would ask you all and the people involved in the games to keep Lamar engaged in the process, because they do want to be involved in that. Thank you. Penny's in the... Oops. There we go. I said, Penny's in the back of the room, nodding her head up and down, so come on up and, Penny, thank you. Yes, sir, that will not be a problem. That, those are the types of issues and discussions that will happen when the ordinance is being drafted. So, absolutely not a problem. Thank you, Ma'am. Uh, Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Could you come back up, please? Yeah, I, I was, uh, just gonna ask, do you... Are you aware of any problems at this time regarding advertising for existing billboards or anything, or you just want to be in the pipeline as an abundance of caution so you can be involved with decisions- The latter. We wanna be empow- in- involved in the pipeline, in- in- involved in the system. Yes. All right, good. That's all I had. Thank you, sir. Okay, thank you. Good. Okay. Any, any other comments regarding item C, new business? Hearing none... Do we need a motion on this? There is a motion. Oh, sorry about that. So, we ready to vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Uh, uh, item six on our agenda is, uh, continuing business and presentations, and the first item is a report b- on budget and finance committee, uh, newly elected Chairman Stinnett. Thank you. Congratulations, by the way, Mister Stinnett. Thank you, sir. And also Vice-Chair Mister Lane. And Vice-Chair Mister Lane. If we could have the, the, the report out next Tuesday, I'll ask for, to postpone that so everyone has a hard copy in front of them. Due to the weather last week, we don't have that available, so if everyone could, could, uh, oblige us and postpone it til next Tuesday, uh, that would be more than helpful. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Mister Stinnett. Uh, next item is a, um, certainly a welcome presentation for many members of this council and our city. Um, the Friends of Raven Run have a presentation for us today, and to introduce that presentation is our Director of Parks and Recreation, Jerry Hancock. Jerry, will you take the podium? Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor, Council Members. This is a, an historic occasion and befitting the value of, of this contribution that we're about to announce. I'm gonna take a couple of minutes to read some background for those of you who may be new to the council or new to our community, but what we're about to describe for you in a couple of minutes has really gone on for more than a decade. But first off, this really is one of those special moments in government, I think, when, um, elected officials and those of us in government and the public all get to get together and enjoy something that is really very special, that makes our community a little bit more enjoyable, those moments when a public-private partnership really work, uh, when something extraordinary happens, which you're about to hear about. That's especially true when the effort benefits the entire community, as this does. Over a dozen years ago, a citizens non-profit group was founded to assist in the development of a plan to create a modern nature center at Raven Run. The Friends of Raven Run have worked tirelessly to raise money to help the city government build a suitable space where individuals can visit while hiking or looking for a respite from the world, or where school children can go for an educational purpose. Through land purchases and grants from the state, Raven Run has grown to over 700 acres and is the largest park in the county, and is dedicated to preserving the natural beauty of the historic River Palisades and early Kentucky history. ... board members of the Friends of Raven Run are here today to present the fruit of their efforts, providing the county with the funds necessary to build the Raven Run Tourist and Visitor Center. They've worked with Parks and Recreation through a long and difficult period of budget allocations, public bidding, th- that resulted in estimates above the available funds, more fundraising, more delays, cost increases, and rebidding. Over the last few months, they've helped us modify the project with the help of Gray Construction, for which I am sincerely grateful, by the way, to settle on a plan that while lacking funds for all of the amenities that we hope to have in place on opening day, we do have a plan and the resources that allows us to build the building from, um, the ground up starting in the next few weeks. The culmination of all the work will be a facility that matches the beauty and value that this wonderful place in our community deserves, and will be enjoyed by our community for years to come. The final bid for the project is in the amount of $1.8 million. The mayor and this council and previous administrations and councils have put a total of $1.3 million into a fund for the new facility. Now in an act of really extraordinary effort and civic generosity, the Friends of Raven Run are here to present us with a check in the amount of $500,000 to complete the funding for this project. This is truly one of the largest private cash donations the urban county government has ever received, and is greatly appreciated. Would you please join me in thanking the members of the Board of the Directors of the Friends of Raven Run, Louise Lorton, the chair, Jim Johnson, the secretary and vice chair, Phyllis Hasbrook, the treasurer, Colleen Quinn, Betsy Jacobs, Sue Wells, and Lucy Van Meter. Would you join me in thanking them please? And I think Lucy Van Meter would like to speak to you on behalf of the Friends of Raven Run. Lucy? Very briefly. Uh, the Friends of Raven Run, uh, would just like to thank several people for their efforts, um, that have helped make this visitor center a reality. Uh, first of all, many thanks go out to numerous people who've supported the Friends through donations, um, and their participation in some of the fundraisers that we've attempted. Um, we also really would like to thank Jim Gray and, uh, Neil Simone, who works for Gray Construction, for their help in the final weeks with, um, communication and working out some of the final issues with the plan. Um, without them, I, I'm not sure we'd be here today. Um, also, a huge thanks to Mike Lorton, who works for Parks and Recreation, and for his efforts over the last 15 years to stick with this project and encourage the friends to stick with it. And he's been the guy there making sure the tent gets up for the fundraiser, and he's just been a help in so many ways, uh, including dragging most of his family into this effort. So, um, we'd also like to thank the Raven Run Citizens Advisory Board and their president back here. Um, and it's just the greatest hope of the friends that, um, this project will continue to completion, um, with the level of communication that we've established now. And, uh, we'll be sitting back waiting and hoping and looking forward to the day it comes out of the ground. So- Thanks, Lucy. ... thank you. Thanks a bunch. You know, ha- have we got a photographer in here today? Oh, good. Thank you, sir. I- i- it's not often, like Jerry said, it ain't s- it ain't often we get a check like this, so can all the council members, y'all, is that okay? Can we get down here in the front with that big check? Let's do it then. After last week? Huh? Yeah, yeah. After last week, Linda said. Y'all come on up here. Y'all stand in the front. Oh, let's go around. Right there. Yeah. We actually don't have a picture of the whole council. Here you go. Here you go. Go. All right. All right, we're good to go. That's right. 500,000. 500,000. That's great. That's great. Let's go for two. Who knows? All right, we did it. Thanks to you all. Just for illustration and for those of you at home, Michael's gonna describe, in one minute, the parcel out there, the acres and the hours that we're open. Although we're closed right now because we had a storm event this week that has a lot of trees down. But when those are picked up again, we'll be open. Michael? Do you wanna show us something? Have y'all got pictures of the... Yeah. Great, great, great. I can just grab it out. Oh, we're currently open, uh, seven days a week from 9:00 to 5:00. Uh, like Jerry said, our trails are closed, uh, currently, but we hope to have those back open shortly. Um, we did, we were lucky that in 2003 we lost two trees. This time we weren't that lucky. Uh, we are not sure yet on the total number of trees lost, but we will get it cleaned up. Mother Nature's pretty good about fixing herself up. Some of the images you see are actually of the new nature center. This will go on, uh, not part of the original 270 acres, but it, the first edition. Uh, the most unique thing about this building is I believe it'll be the first green building built by the, by the government. Uh, we actually collect the rainwater. It's used to help flush toilets. Um, uh, it's a very open building. It's actually in two pieces. The reason it's in two pieces, we did have some, uh, when we did our design charrette, there were individuals who did not wanna be part of a large group, which, uh, is very understandable. So that's why you'll see this actually in two different pieces. There's a loud piece and a quiet piece. Uh, but again, by looking at some of these photos, you will see it's a very unique design. There's a lot of passive cooling and heating. Of course, there'll be geothermal with some radiant floor heat so when the kids come out, instead of us trying to hustle and bustle and get chairs and everything else, they can just sit on a warm concrete slab. Uh, which really for a lot of them is, will be better for us, uh, in the long run anyway. But I don't know what else. 736 Acres. Oh, 736 Acres. We will have our new trails open on our new property hopefully by 2010. Uh, so our trail system will go from probably little more than 10, 10 miles of hiking trails to about 14. So, you have to come out. Yeah. Could you, uh, tell how, how expensive it is to come visit? It's, it's really expensive, I have to admit. It's free. Uh, so, and all of our programs are free, so we offer around 160 programs a year to the public and then an additional, uh, probably, I'm guessing around 90 to schoolchildren. This past year was a record year. Uh, we had over 4,000 children come out and actually participate in environmental education programs. So we're- And over 450,000 lifetime? 450,000? Yeah. We've had, in the last 15 or so years, almost 500,000 people come out. So it is well-used, uh, and it, it is, uh, it's, it's a lot of things to a lot of people. And, and the best thing about it is we don't have to do very much. I mean, when it comes down to it, it's, some people it's a relaxed, relaxation, some people it's education. Uh, so it's, it's open to everybody. Thank you, all. Thanks. Um, once again, you, you know, I think just as a footnote- If you don't mind. Yes. Yes, sir. We'd like to raise check ups. Yeah. You, you- Nothing happens. Nothing happens to it. Well, and it's, it's my understanding that this project was initia... You may have said this and I missed it, Jerry. 10 years ago or better, is that right, Lucy? 12. 12 years ago. So the work has been underway. The architects that it was mentioned, Mike mentioned, the architects, uh, Graham Pole and his brother, uh, uh- Pole, Rosa Pole. ... Pole, Rosa Pole have done the work. It is LEED certified building, and the construction company I believe is, um- BCD Inc. Yeah. And they've done, they've done- Out of Bardstown. ... some work for us before. They have done some work in parts that we're very pleased with, so we have high confidence this contractor will be able to do as we've asked, uh, within the time period that's been forecast. And one last thing I might add. While this check and this donation and the other monies that the Irving County government's put together don't quite cover all of the amenities and fit-out that we'd like to have, we've taken those out for this project. Next Tuesday, you will see the first of what I hope is more than one grant proposal go forward for those dollars from state land and water and perhaps other organizations. So we're continuing to seek funding for those other fit-out issues that we haven't been able to complete yet. Thanks. Thanks, Jerry. Um, one other just as a footnote, I think that everyone on the council should be pleased that, uh, this project does reflect and represent one of our touchstone pillars, um, the pillar that we have two, actually, commitment to environmental sustainability and excellence there, as well as the commitment to... ... innovative and imaginative planning. And the, you know, the, the, the building itself and what it represents, uh, fits nicely into both of those commitments of the, of the, of the city. So again, thank you all so much for being here today. You don't have to hang around for the whole meeting. Thanks, thanks. Yeah. Okay, uh, next on our agenda, our council reports. Um, and we've already got a list. Yeah. Council member Gordon? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, I have, uh, several items. The first of which is I wanted to, um, just s- extend my sympathy to council member Andrea James and her husband, Rodney, who had a death in their family last week. And just to let Andrea know that, uh, I'm thinking of her and, um, of their entire family and we'll look forward to her return. Secondly, um, I wanted to just make an initial announcement of the, uh, annual Grandparents And Relatives Raising Children Conference. This occurs, it's a wonderful conference. Um, it's going to be March 19th at the Holiday Inn North. In our society now, we have many, many children who are not being raised by parents. They're being raised by other family members, and this conference, uh, they bring in, uh, legal folks, they bring in all sorts of resources. So if you are a person raising your grandchildren and you're, you're not their parent or you're a different relative, you can get information by calling 257-5582. That's the Fayette County Extension Office. And then I also wanted to make two motions, uh, relative to the ice storm. The first is... Well, one is relative to the ice storm. Uh, the first is that I move to place a discussion of the 2003 Ice Storm Task Force Report into services committee. I think it's time for us as a government to look at that task force, to look at its recommendations, see where we are on those, to work with Kentucky Utilities and with all of our government services and, and just go through that, evaluate, uh, what we can do now that we've had another ice storm. So I move that into services committee. There's a motion and a second to, uh, move the, um, 2003 report on public utilities into the, uh, services committee. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, uh, ready for a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, no? Motion carries. In relation to the ice storm, I do wanna thank... There, there have to be probably, if not hundreds, maybe into the thousands of people from utility folks to urban county government folks who worked all of last week and are now working again today in our city. And I especially, uh, appreciate their hard work. Uh, I know that some of the firefighters did double shifts and, um, there, there was just a lot of hard work going on, so I appreciate that on their part. Um, police were in intersections that didn't have lights, and it was just a, a multitude of hard work going on. Um, the Stormwater Fee Task Force didn't meet last week because of the storm, so the task force is meeting this Thursday, February 5th, from 9:00 to 11:00 o'clock in the morning in this council chamber. And the topic of discussion will be credits and incentives. So I invite all council members and members of the public who want to attend to please be here. We have lots of seats for everybody. And then, um, finally, I wanted to, um... The- there's been discussion over many years, uh, and, and, um, contacts from citizens who get private garbage collection about the difference in services between what LFUCG provides and what the private haulers provide, and I really think that it is time for us to have a discussion of how we can, um, help the private haulers to upgrade and to have the same standard and the same services provided, whether it'd be through private or through LFUCG. So my motion is to place into services committee, a discussion with some recommendations to come out of the discussion on the private garbage collection, um, and how we can bring it up to the level of services that LFUCG provides. And I realize these are private businesses, but if we're going to go garbage-free by 2020, we're gonna have to figure out how to do this. Second. Motion is second. Discussion. Council Member Crosby. Would you also be including, like, safety standards? 'Cause I know there's some differences between ... Okay, thanks. I think that should all be part of the discussion, don't you? Yes, thank you. Yes. Anyone else? Hearing none. If we're ready for a vote. Uh, Council Member Lane. Yeah. In the Mayor's, uh, state of the merged government address, he, you know, brought up the idea of also modifying the fees that we charge, you know, for solid waste collection, uh, in Fayette County. And, you know, perhaps that also is a budget and finance issue that would be involved too. Maybe those ... I don't know if we could work in tandem with the services on that. Uh, Chairman Stennet, you, you have a thought on that? That, that issue's actually already in budget and finance on our agenda. Separate. So this would be a separate issue. Separate issue. More on, uh, regulating private caller versus our fee. So even though it's similar industries, similar topic, but we already have that issue in the committee so ... All right. That sounds good then. Thank you. Ready for a vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. That completes my report. Thank you, Councilman Gordon. Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, I s- have several things on, on the list that they'll talk about, but I think we'll go ahead and hit the nail on the head on the first topic. I know we have a couple gentlemen here, uh, from Kentucky Utilities. I know they'd rather be out in the field getting the rest of our citizens power back on, but I wanna give them a couple of minutes briefly to give us an update if they would. Uh, I don't, you know, I don't necessarily wanna have a full-fledged discussion about everything because I know you all, you, your time is valuable in getting people's power back on, but if you could give us a quick update briefly, uh, as to where we stand today and, and we'll go from there. Council Member Stennet, thank you. Council, thank you all. I'm David Freiberg with Kentucky Utilities, and thank you for the opportunity to, to give you an update and to take advantage of, uh, your GTV3, um, means of communicating with our customers and your constituents, uh, the same information. Um, before I start, let me, let me say that, um, we are keenly aware of, of, um, the condition of, of the lives of those customers of ours that are not yet back in service. Most all of them are, but for those that are not, uh, it's a, it's a difficult time and for ... Even for those that have been on for a while, it has been difficult. We understand that it's a stressful, frustrating, scary, uh, time when your life is disrupted and, and, uh, ordinary things are, are hard to do. Um, as of this morning, we were at about 4900 customers of Lexington that, uh, still do not have service. That's down from over 41,000 at the peak. Uh, that is inside a, a broader context of about 198,000 KU customers who've been out, uh, at one point or other since last week, and another 205,000 LGD customers. Um, progress is coming, but, uh, everything is not done. Um, we hope to about 5 o'clock to be able to report a, a, a lower number yet, but we'll see. We are, as most of you all are ... Who were around in, in '03 know there's kind of a restoration protocol where you do the obvious things and we work with your, your emergency management folks to, to set that protocol and to, and to, to talk about critical customers and, and how we go about this, where you start with, you know, public health and safety first. Hospitals, uh, police and fire, uh, ner- uh, water and sewage treatment plants, nursing homes, those things. And then you go down to, to major, uh, blocks of customers and, and it's, uh, pretty intuitive where you, you, you, you put your re- resources on the nose to get the biggest bang for your buck early on and work your way down to, to increasingly smaller and smaller blocks. And we've now reached a, a phase that's important, but it's also a, a tough phase. And that we've worked our way through most of those big chunks of customers. In a normal storm, 250 or 300 customers in one area, that would be an enormous storm for us. Enormous outage. Um, in this case, we didn't get to groups that size. They were not yet the next biggest item on the list for several days, and that's extraordinary for us. Um, but we are now in the phase where we're picking ... We're sending workers. There, there are still, in this area in Lexington and Fayette County, hundreds of lines that are still down. Uh, they've all been visited by, by our PSRTs, um, but they have not been put back up in the air. And so crews are now moving from, from area to area, doing the same kind of work and, and, uh, same kind of conditions and the same challenges, but each time they bring a new line back up, it is, it is for a handful of customers instead of hundreds or, or, uh, or 1000 customers. So it's a challenging time for customers' expectations and we understand that. Um, and, uh, but they are getting them back on every minute. Some have come back on while we've been sitting here, and they will continue to go until they get them all back on.Um, we have a bunch of folks in town. We have statewide helping us, we have 5500 ... Well, we have a total of 5500 people in the field. 4500 or so or more than 4000 outside folks, they have come to help us, uh, wrestle this, this problem down. Uh, and they are doing great things. I think if anybody's driven New Circle Road in, uh, your neck of the woods, Council Member Stennet, there's a ... The old Continental Inn has been a staging area for us. Kind of a trailer city where we're, we're feeding and showering and housing hundreds of those, those workers, and we're glad to have them. Um, we appreciate the coordination we've had with, with every level of city government from, uh, police and fire. The obvious ones, the mayor's office and emergency management, and a number of you all have communicated with us on critical customers that, uh, you want to make sure we know are, are out, or sometimes, uh, as the ice began to thaw, customers that we had back on that, that, uh, lost their power again. Um- ... it's, it's hard and we know it. Seven to ten days is a long time and that's why we, we, we share that information upfront with customers so they could, they could understand the severity of it and the position th- that, uh, they were gonna be in, or that some of 'em would be in. And some of those folks will be out nine or ten days. I mean, most of 'em got back in the third or fourth day, or more than halfway, way done. But, uh, that is a long time and we appreciate that and won't, and won't slow down until, until we're finished. Coming out of this, um, as, as you all would do as a, as a government body or in your businesses, we will have a chance to, to look back and reflect on our performance, things we did well, things we can improve on, as we did in 2003, and do a self-assessment. I expect that we'll have an opportunity to do a similar kind of review with, with, uh, the Public Service Commission, and would invite your, your input in those processes, as we did last time, and look forward to continuing to, to, uh, answer any questions we, we can for you all and, and, uh, gather any information that may be useful to you. Um, we have available, if you would like, uh, maps an-and tools we've, we've provided just to, to make available for customers so they can kinda get a sense of, of, uh, how things around them are, but I'll, I'll stop there, uh, in, in the interest of, of keeping this as brief as we can, and let you tell me what else you'd like to know. I'm glad you mentioned the contine- continental wind staging area, 'cause Butserian College is giving those guys free massages- ... on their students, so you know, just kinda helping the effort, everyone's pitching in. I'll yield any time, if anybody has any questions while he's at the mic, during my council report, I'll yield vice mayor time to anybody if they wanna ask a brief question. Count- Council Member, uh, Crosby and Council Member Hanson. Um, it might be helpful maybe if you could put out over GTV3, um, a customer service number where people can call. And, um, I'm not sure, I know you've been extremely helpful to our office personally. I know we've been able to get in contact with you, but I know some of, some of the frustration has come in with many people that they are unable to get a contact. Um, and they're getting recordings, like, call back on this date or whatever. So is there a way where they can physically talk to anybody through that customer service number? I think sometimes hearing a voice is- Since the, since the beginning of the storm, we've had 600,000 calls to our call center and, uh, and, um, the, the, the things the customers wanna know are, "Do you know I'm out?" Wanna make sure you, we know that they're out, and, "Do you have people working on it?" And, and third, and this is where we are now, is, "What kind of expectation do I have in terms of restoration?" And that's the challenge that we have had with the nature, the size and the nature of the storm where a, so much is down in so many places that it's not like, uh, a, a typical, uh, wind storm that we have in the, in the summertime, where we pretty much know how those behave and can look at a piece of work without even getting there and understand how long it's gonna take. Um, but, uh, that is not the case in this instance and we understand that that's the information the customers want and it's why Cliff Elpham and, and others have been taking advantage of every opportunity, uh, to talk to the, to the media, and through the media, to those customers. Um, and in normal cases that, that, our, our, uh, that outage reporting system can also give you feedback, um, on your outage and what our expectation is for the, for the, uh, for the return of service. That is not the case with the magnitude of this event and, uh, and that will c- surely be one of the, one of the many things we look at in terms of our post-mortem and how we might, how we might, uh, better work that. Yeah, I think, um, some of the frustration is coming in too where people may have been out of power since last week and then, where it's been worked on around them, and then they're getting, and this may not be true, but they're, if power... I, I have had calls where, on one street, there may be two houses that don't have power, where their whole street's restored and then the street, when they call in, it's saying instead of being out since last Tuesday, now they are s- reporting that they went out this past Monday. So then they're saying call back in four days to be restored, if that makes sense. So instead of th- them saying that they've been out since last week, they're now just saying that they've been out- I can, I can, I'm happy to talk to you about any specifics. Okay. I can tell you generally speaking that- I've had, like, four or five calls. Sure. Our, our, our facilities- Mm-hmm. ... weren't engineered and built to follow the city streets or, or, or geo-political boundaries. They're, they're laid out for a different purpose and two houses on one street may be fed by a different tap line than others. Mm-hmm. And, as, as I mentioned in the, in terms of the protocol we go through- Yeah. ... um, the smaller ones tend to, tend to come later in the, in the order and it's, and it's frustrating. And I guess post, uh, post, I almost said post-partum. I guess, um, I guess when you're looking at it after the fact, that that's probably gonna be a sense of frustration just because they can't talk to somebody live- And we understa- ... to say, "We've been out since the beginning." But you're saying, "We've only been out for a day." So thank you. Thank you. But we appreciate everything 'cause you all have been wonderful. Oh, thank you very much. Uh, on a, almost exclusively, people have been kind and, uh, and very thoughtful to our folks. Thank you. Yeah. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, I just, is it normally, um, procedure for the Public Service Commission to, if there's a huge outage crisis, for the Public Service Commission to investigate that utility? Or- I, I don't know. Um, if it's, if it's- 'Cause I know there was a report in 2003. I, I would expect that, that this would, that something of this magnitude, far, on a statewide basis, and for the Public Service Commission, it affected all the utilities they, they regulate, rather than just one or two or three or four here in the central Kentucky area. This was a statewide, it was a, shoot, it was a multi-state of- Right. There was- But I would expect they would, they would do a minimum of what they did last time and have a loo, have a, have a look at this and find out what worked and what didn't, and, and who can learn from whom, and what we can do, and, and, and all that. I would ex- certainly expect that. Okay. Well, I, I also want you to know that I appreciate very much the hard work dir- that- ... all the guys, and probably ladies too, that- There are some out there. ... during, uh, this, I've consider it a crisis. And, uh, it was a very bad situation, and probably still is to some- Absolutely. ... folks. But, so- For those folks that are still out, it certainly is still a- Yeah. ... crisis. But- And when the National Guard's in town, you know you've got a, you've got a, a crisis. A crisis. Okay. But thank you. Thank you for your kind words. Anybody else? Uh, David, one, uh, uh, just as a footnote to your comment about how courteous and appreciative and the citizens that you're dealing with and constituents have been, I can tell you one story of, I got a call from a, from a woman last night. I'd been talking with her and she said, "Oh, the KU truck's out in front right now, and all of my neighbors are bringing food out to the guys." So- Not about to let him leave, right? Good illustration. Well, thank you all very much. Yes, sir. Julian, yeah, Council Member Beard. Yeah, David, just a second. One s- one second. I ... I do, I do that about every th- three weeks. Um, w- what would you say the, um, the biggest culprit as far as, as your lines are concerned? Um, is it trees? Absolutely. The weight of the, weight of the ice in the trees breaking large limbs, break, knocking whole trees over into the lines. In the western part of the state where they had, I don't know, I was there for half a day on, last week in Madisonville, and my, my experience, my personal best in terms of ice was, was the 2003 ice storm here. And I figured that was a 10 on a scale of 10. It was not. Um, from, from Madisonville and west, it's, it's a whole nother world. It's like stepping through a door and it's another world altogether. And the ice was easily twice as thick as we had here in 2003. And, uh, in that case, that ice was heavy enough to pull down our facilities, um, and big glass towers were twisted and were laying, you know, the metal towers, laying on the ground, not from wind, but from the weight of the ice. Um, and that was not the case here. I'm sure there were some structure failures because of the wa- the ice, but for the most part, it was, uh, trees falling in the lines, um, and taking those lines down. I know in 2003, after, uh, all the dust had settled, if there was any dust involved, I don't know whether it was you or Cliff, or ... S- someone came and, um, enumerated how many poles, how many, uh, miles were walked, how many insulators and on and on and on. We're tracking that and, and I don't have it by, uh, but we can certainly get you that same kind of information both for a Lexington area basis and just for kind of a, a context and a gee whiz thing, uh, we can give it to you for the entire state. There's over tw- over 20,000 individual wires down. That includes LG&E's territory, but almost 10,000, uh, in KU service territory. And then there's poles and, and, and all of that. Yes. We've, we're tracking all that as well. Uh, that's, that's interesting. I think it probably will be interested, interesting to the public also. And I, I was v- quite happy to see, um, trucks on my street Sunday afternoon after coming out of a, a movie and seeing that a- for in a two-hour period of time, all the ice had melted, uh, which I was quite happy with. But more happy when I walked up to the pickup truck and introduced myself and, uh, the gentleman said, "We're getting ready to bring everything from New Circle Road to Glen Dover Drive hot right now." And, um, I happen to live in that little piece of, of, uh, the district and, um, I was able to go up and my garage door opened and it all, ev- it was like, uh, the sun came up again. So thank you all very much. I'll pass it along. Thank you, sir. Council, Council Member Feagle. Thank you, mayor, uh, vice mayor. Um, David, thank you so much for coming and, and talking to, uh, to us today. Um, and thank you for all the work that you guys have done in our community. I know- Thank you. ... not everybody is still happy. Sure. But, uh, but we do thank you very much. One of the things that I'd like for you to talk just a little bit about, if you've got some time, is what is your tree trimming procedure like? How long does it last? Um, and, uh, you know, how can we keep these trees trimmed so that we don't constantly have these outages every time we get a storm? Let, let me do two things, if it's, if it's okay with you. First is to beg off on specific information until I can go get it. I don't have it. Um, but, uh, but, uh, let me, if that's okay, and promise to bring it back. But second, let me say that af- a- coming out of the, the 2003 storm, and every year since then, we have ... and all over the state, not just Lexington, we have, uh, undertaken a much more aggressive, uh, tree trimming program. We've, we ... I don't ... I'll have to get First Circuit how many year cycles we're on for different, uh, voltage lines. It, it differs, but I'll, I'll bring all that to you if you'd like. Um, but we have been much more aggressive. And there was a window of opportunity for us and for our tree trimming efforts for most of a year after the 2003 storm where people were, if not glad to see us on their property cutting their trees, at least more willing to let us get in there and cut as much as we needed. And, uh, and we had, on a number of occasions, help from, from, uh, governmental bodies here and elsewhere that, that, that, that knew the importance of keeping those line clearances in terms of higher reliability, fewer outages, shorter outages. Uh, and I'll bring you the information, and I would also ask again for, for your help when we have, uh, trouble, uh, getting some of the, the, the trimming done that we'd like to do. Okay. And just one other really quick question. Yes, ma'am. Um, I know that you trim trees on the right of ways right next to the street. Do you go on the back property lines as well and trim, uh, like vines that are growing up on the, on the wires and, and trees that are growing along fence lines? Again, I don't know the specific policies, but I know in, for example, an area like the, uh, the Reynolds Road area behind, uh- ... Fayette Mall and Shillito Park. We did get in, in the last couple of years and do more clearing of that, that, not to disparage it, but, but kind of junk rather than big, beautiful trees and cleaned a lot of that out. And suddenly, a lot of people could see the railroad tracks so we get some feedback, positive and negative, on those things. And, and, but, yes, we do. But again, I don't know, I didn't come prepared to talk about, you know, our, our guidelines and, and how we're, how we're, uh, we're led. But I'd be glad to. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, all. Mr. McCord. Just very quickly, David, the, um, uh, has, has the governor or even, uh, uh, has the president, I guess, declared Kentucky a state of emergency or some sort of- I believe that late last week, I'm not sure which day, but, uh, the governor, excuse me, the, um, the president signed the governor's petition. I'm not sure how all that works, but what it did for us in a, in a number of ways, uh, was it freed up some of the normal, not barriers, but the procedures you have to go through when you bring in crews and equipment and material from out of the state. It really helped us and it was a, it was a critical first step from a, from a state and federal government perspective to help us get these folks and these materials where they needed to go. I, I think one of the lessons learned from '03 was a missed opportunity, uh, that this government had. And I would just make sure that my colleagues have heard this, as, as well as the administration, and that is, uh, if we do qualify for FEMA reimbursement money, uh, if there is, is, uh, disaster money, uh, for Lexington specific, um, you have a wonderful opportunity to bury power lines with that money. Um, this is a big time problem because we have so many exposed hanging wires. We know it's four times the cost to bury them and so forth. Uh, but I would say that as a, as a government and working with you as our partner, uh, if there is a situation where we do have FEMA money, uh, I would like to pursue a very aggressive plan on, uh, finding some of these areas where we, we might be able to use that and, and bury power lines. We'd be happy to talk to you about it- Okay. ... and work with you on it. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you again, David. Clift, thank you for coming too. Yeah. Councilman Stanton. I'll finish up the report. David Clift, thank you again for coming. I, I know, uh, you, you've been very responsive to, to the folks in my district. I know they don't, they doesn't always like your answer or what you told them, but I think m- for the most part, you were right on cue whether it was a week or tomorrow, uh, you all usually hit the nail on the head. And I app- I appreciate your efforts in trying. While, you know, no one's going to be perfect in any type of situation like this, um, I, I do appreciate you coming here today because it, it really is hard for people to fathom that you literally have to walk line by line, foot by foot to make sure it's up and going. And, and that takes a long time. And for you to have done what you've done so far has been, been remarkable. But once again, it is hard to understand that when your power's not on, I know several council members didn't have power, our commissioners didn't have power, a lot of people, it touched a lot of people in our community. Thank you all, and we look forward to d- debriefing in another 30 days. Uh, a couple of other things. One, uh, I know, uh, even though we've been talking about keynote electric, there's been a lot of other issues that we've all dealt with. Street cleaning, snow removal, things like that. This has been a, obviously another storm that will go down the record books as it's being pretty severe for our community to handle, if not the, maybe one of the worst ever. I know Commissioner Webb, you, you've been baptized by fire on this one and, um, so has our streets and roads director, uh, Sam Williams. I know it's been a, a tough challenge, but, uh, I appreciate the work you all have done. And, uh, even though, you know, again, we haven't been perfect as a government, we have some things we need to work through after this. I do appreciate the work our public safety folks and your public works folks did because everyone did end up pulling together. And, uh, hopefully we'll learn a lot from this and, and be able to debrief here again in another 30 days and learn a lot of lessons because I think the big problem here is communication and how we're getting that information out to people, including our EOCs, our 311 call centers. And hopefully we'll be able to work through a lot of that. But thank you to the administration and everyone for pulling together, the council members for sharing information amongst ourselves. And, uh, hopefully we'll be better off and stronger next time. Also, uh, earlier today we talked about the World Equestrian Games and, and the new contract with our community with the, the federation. There is one item that I will, will be bringing to council, we'll be putting it in your mailbox. It's a new resolution, um, in regards to advertising for those people who are sponsors of the World Equestrian Games. Our current sign ordinance does not allow, uh, on advertise on private property outside of a normal 30 day temporary sign. So for those individuals who wish to display some type of official signage or have some type of official sponsorship with the World Equestrian Games, uh, and can fall within our sign guidelines that we currently use downtown for our downtown festivals. Um, we're going to bring forth a resolution so we can honor the World Equestrian Games celebration, allow those entities to recognize their signage on their private property. Um, th- this is in lieu of changing our entire sign ordinance, which many of you have been on council have worked on, and that we know it needs work on. But to change it permanently for a once in a lifetime event probably wouldn't be the prudent thing to do. So I'll be bringing forth a resolution, you can look at it, give me your feedback and hopefully we'll get that on the book sooner than later so we can a- allow people to start recognizing this special event coming to our community. And then the last two announcements I have, uh, one, that my annual president's meeting for the sixth district that was canceled last week due to weather has been rescheduled for February the 23rd, uh, at 6:30, at Spencerian College for all the annual presidents, um, or the presidents for the annual meeting h- there in the sixth district. And then next Tuesday night, uh, I'll be having the Liberty Park, uh, planning meeting for the community out in the Hamburg area, Liberty Road corridor. Uh, getting input on the new Liberty Park and what that park will look like going forward, what type of, uh, amenities we want to see in that park. That'll be at 6:30 on February the 10th, again, next Tuesday at Eastland Church of God, uh, there off of Liberty Road. So hopefully everyone in that community, uh, that lives in that area can come and attend and give us your input on the new Liberty Park. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, thank you, Councilman Stanton. Councilman McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, uh, again, my, uh, appreciation goes out to, uh- ... KU, but also to all of our employees, uh, that, that have done, uh, a lot of work. And I know it's very, um, difficult circumstances, but I just wanted to, uh, say how much I appreciate all that the LFUCG employees are doing, uh, to, to try and get... uh, restore some sort of normalcy, uh, to our citizens. Um, couple of announcements. Uh, this weekend, Lexington is, is hosting, again, the, um, uh, the wheelchair basketball, uh, tournament at the University of Kentucky Seton Center, uh, bo- on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And, um, this is a truly remarkable event. Uh, we've been fortunate to host the national championships, uh, in wheelchair basketball, uh, over the last, uh, couple of years, and we'll do that again. And, uh, uh, this is something I'd certainly like to invite everyone in our community to come out and see, uh, some very... uh, some phenomenal athletes, uh, and, and some real inspiration, uh, from, from that event. Um, also wanna make council members aware that on, uh, February 17th at 11:30, uh, we're having a Parks Master Plan workshop, uh, the opportunity to... for the consultants to sit down and explain what they've, uh, what, what they are bringing back to us, uh, with regard to our tenure master plan. And we definitely need to, to make sure that, that you are present at that meeting. Um, finally, I just wanna say thank you to, uh, some folks in the Ninth District, uh, who are taking care of their neighbors in this situation. Um, I've, I've been getting a number of stories of, uh, neighbors taking care of neighbors that are probably as heartwarming as anything. And, um, you know, sometimes- Mm-hmm. ... you don't even know your neighbors, and, uh, I just wanna thank, uh, the constituents o- of, of my district that are opening up their homes, making sure that older folks, uh, are attended to, making phone calls on their behalf. Uh, and I, I think there'll be a number of really good stories that come out of this a very, um, um, trying time. So Vice Mayor, uh, that ends my report. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman McCord. Councilmember Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to report, uh, because I announced it at the last meeting, that the Chevy Chase neighborhood... excuse me, Merchants Association. I keep calling 'em the Neighborhood Association. But the Merchants Associan- Association met last night with Gary Means from the Parking Authority, and Councilmember Lawless and I were both there. We had about 20 merchants, and, uh, they, uh, have decided to do, uh, an ongoing project with the... an ongoing study of the parking needs, as well as the new parking system, uh, in the Chevy Chase area, uh, to address al- also insufficient parking, because this is a very busy, bustling neighborhood. And wh- as it has grown, there has not been sufficient parking. So I just wanted to announce that. And we did have that meeting last night, and there will be some, uh, further information coming. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Councilmember Ehlinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Is Commissioner Webb here? He was, but- Oh, he just left? ... I think so. Okay. He knew. He saw me on the list, huh? I never... didn't see him run out of here. Who... I need to talk to somebody about the debris pickup. I guess he would probably be the- I'm still The debris pickup. I left that up there. I guess we can come back, Vice Mayor, if we can get Commissioner Webb back in here. Thank you. You wanna... Oh, okay. That's it. Okay. You wanna... You got anything else? No. You wanna... Okay. W- we'll come back then, once, uh, Commissioner Webb gets back. Councilmember Henson. Oh, you wanna do the same thing, huh? Well, uh, w- well, does anybody else on the... I've got something. Can I do something? Okay, well, while we're waiting on... Um, of course, the... I've got an issue that I'd like to introduce, uh, while we've been, um... seems like the weather has eclipsed the other issues. Some of them are important, and sometimes that's, um, convenient or inconvenient. But the, um, the issues at the airport, of course, are still present with us, and we should be expecting the auditor's report to us in the next, I think she said a matter of weeks instead of months, so that should be soon. Uh, what I'd like to do is ask a... no, is, um, initiate an open records request, um, asking for the information that Herald-Leader has, uh, requested. That would be a- that would a- allow us, as councilmembers, to be, uh, better prepared and informed, uh, once the audit results are available. Um, I'm happy to put that in the form of a motion, uh, if that's... uh, would be, I mean, if the other councilmembers would be amenable to it. Um, uh, this is sort of consistent with what you were asking for and saying, Cheryl. Yes, that'd be a motion to, to request the, um... to, uh, r- request to the, uh, airport board, uh, pursuant to the Kentucky Open Records Act, I think it's KRS61.878, that, um, we would, uh, request the same documents that the Herald-Leader has requested, all the records provided to the Herald-Leader, um, from, or, or during the time that they have been requesting. Second. There's a motion and a second to... Am I... Is it okay for me to p- to do this piece, parliamentarian? Since... All right. Motion, there's a second, uh, discussion. Councilmember Lane. Yeah, uh, I'm, I'm just curious as what are we gonna do with this information? I mean, are we gonna do an audit ourselves too or... I mean, I do- I don't understand the benefit- Um- ... if the H- if The Herald-Leader sorry, reported on it, and we're getting the state auditor to come in. Just seems like it's redundant effort. Is there something I'm missing? Could you explain why we wanna go another step on this? Um, the way that I would characterize it is that this allows us to be better informed as elected officials on the issue of substantial merit to the community and not entirely reliant on the news media. So that, that would be, that's the reason. Is there any... Council Member Crosby. Um, yes, I just wanted to clarify. Uh, since you's, uh, cited the statute that you're making, you'll make this request in writing. Uh, I believe that has to be requested in writing. Yes. Thank you. Would be. Council Man McCord. I'm just curious, do we, do we have to make a motion to do this? I mean, can't this be something that... I mean, if, if somebody wants this. Yeah, an individual can do it. I'm just thinking that it would be... That th- the benefit of it would be to the full council. Um, it's true that any individual in the city can make that request. W- well, I guess that's my point is a- again, we've got a political football here, and you know, if it's something that any individual can do or an individual up here can do and request and share with colleagues- Yeah. ... I don't know necessarily why we have to go and pass a resolution or, or make policy to go do that. Um, I'm, I'm as interested as anybody to know what's going on and, and where we are and so forth. I don't have any problem with the open records request. I, I guess my problem is very similar to, to the motion that we made to, uh, ask the auditor co- to come in, because that was something that was, uh, really an unnecessary motion. It certainly looks good to people watching and everything, and, uh, but a- again, I, I guess my point of clarity is anybody can make this motion. I mean, anybody can, can make that request. Uh, and again, anybody on this body could do that and share it with each, each other. But for us to go and pass a resolution and have a couple of readings on it, um, again, I, it doesn't really sit well with me, um, uh, because it, it looks a little political. Uh, no, it looks a lot political actually. So anyway, I, I just want to clarify that that's not something that requires council to do this. Any further discussion? Council Member Lane. Yeah, I, I mean, I have no idea how many documents are involved. I mean, they may have caseloads of documents, and if we bring them all over here, you know, who's, who's going to go through them and look at them? And I, you know, I, I'm, I'm just seeing this as a redundant effort. Wh- if this had been your interest earlier, I would have recommended we ask our internal audit department to do it. But, but since the state auditor's already doing it, I mean, I think, you know, they're going to be more thorough than anybody else that I could imagine. I think we gotta rely on their report. To go and redo their re- their a- audit over internally over here just doesn't make sense to me. And, and I'm, and, and there's also a cost incurred here, because, uh, if you request documents, somebody's got to copy them. Somebody's got to store them. Somebody's got to review them. Um, so you, you know, you're, you're, you're running up costs in addition. And when we already have that information, we already have the state auditor doing a report, I don't see that it would be, uh, beneficial. And I, and, you know, serving on the board, I know they've had auditors over there. You know, they've been working for weeks, uh, doing the audit, and, uh, th- I think there's been six or eight of them working at the, uh, airport. So I, I'm just asking. You know, this does sound sort of political to me also, and I don't know that the cost is worth the, um, you know, the effort of getting all the documents and having us review them too. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, I don't necessarily think this is a, a, a political gesture, but I, but I do wonder whether, um, it, it might be appropriate to wait until we've, we've heard the auditor's report and, um, and consider whether there are still issues that we might want to, um, mi- might want to inquire into and have the kind of information that The, Uh, Herald-Leader does, does already have. Council Member File. Um, thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm sorry. I didn't hear Council Member Blue's comments. I was trying to work my screen here. So I may be repeating him. Do we have any idea when that audit report might be done? I think all that we have heard is what has been reported by the news, which, and which is what, um, um, Auditor Llewelyn had said maybe two weeks ago, that it would be weeks rather than months. So if we, if we can expect it, I'd say, within the next couple of weeks, it might be worthwhile to, um, to wait for that report. And then if we have additional questions or concerns, then we might, um, ask for the, the public records. But, um, I was thinking that if we did get the information, I'm not sure who would take a look at it. It might go into the inter-governmental committee maybe to look at and I don't think they meet for another couple of weeks. Is that right? So... They, they meet, meet next week, right. Council Member Crosby. Um, I would, I bel- believe, um, that you, there's a time frame, and I know that we have somebody, I believe Mr. Garner from Wallis here, I believe, somewhere, but, um- ... that they-- they would have a certain amount of time that they would have to get this information back to us, so if we did decide to put it-- put it back in committee, I don't believe that we would certainly be able to get all this documentation. I-- I'm not sure what the time frame is, but they have a certain amount of time that they're allowed to have to get us back this information through the open records request and then it would have to go through ever what process we determine as a council whether-- whether it's intergovernmental. So obviously nothing's gonna happen about next week, but going back to some of the other comments made, I think that this is a very unique situation that we're in and, um, you know, uh, I-- I don't believe that it's political at all. I think we're just trying to get all the information as possible and maybe if we had some more information up front, we wouldn't find ourself in the situation of trying to-- to-- to look at these types of expenses and find out what happened, so I fully support your motion and I-- I think that we need to do what's in the best interest of the situation. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody el-- Council Member Beard? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, you know, I can see both sides of the-- this issue. I personally am tired of having to rely upon reading or hearing through the media what's going on out at the airport and obviously, due to the fact that they're under an audit, w- we aren't gonna hear anything specifically from the board itself, so the public is looking toward us for answers, um, and it-- it leaves us somewhat exposed by the fact that, um, th- that w- we're not informed. It's my belief that we're gonna find out significantly more things th- from the audit, I just don't know how... I'll have to agree, I don't know how we're gonna be able to manage going through that much data in any kind of reasonable, uh, time frame. So I think we have the right to do this, I think it's okay, but I'm-- I-- I just really question whether we can, uh, can get it done and, um, and- and how- how to prioritize the information and it- it can't all come at the same time, I'm sure, and, uh, uh, who- who is actually gonna do the work and do we want to take, uh, Bruce Solly and his, uh, his team away from doing what they're doing internally to, uh, to review this? So, uh, again I'm, when it comes time to vote I'm not sure what- which way I'll go, but, uh, I support the thought anyway. Okay. Anybody else? Council Member Flores? Remember to punch my button. Um, I fully support this, I don't see it as political. I feel like as a new council member, um, it's been very difficult to read what's going on in the- from the newspaper and not have any communication or, uh, information and I get questions about it all the time, so as far as the practicality of getting all the documents, um, I don't know about that and I'm sure it would take quite a while because it's, I'm sure, boxes and boxes, but if it were available to us, then we could choose to- to look at whatever we wanted to, but I certainly, for me, and I don't believe for anybody else, it's political, it is about us as a political body trying to be transparent and protect the community. Council Member Lane? All right. Um, first let me say I totally agree, I'm- I'm, uh, against, um, abuse of government money and mismanagement of money and government inefficiency, but, you know, we have asked the state auditor, I mean, based on what I've been told, uh, and I was at a board meeting just last week, the auditors have been over there working, there's been six or eight of them at a time, the cost of the audit is probably gonna be over $50,000 and so you can... If that many auditors are doing the work and they're going over it document by document, uh, I believe that it would, it doesn't make sense to me that we should try to do another audit and if we don't do it every, if we don't do a complete audit then just piecemealing, uh, information that's sent over here I think would not be of service to the council or to our community. I would prefer to see that maybe the auditor would give the council members an advanced copy of the report, like three or four days before they come to the council meeting so we could review it and then we'd be in a good position to ask questions. After we do the review, if there are other questions then we can ask for specific documentation, but to just ask for everything, um, I- I- I see that as a futile effort. Okay, um, I- I'll just say in closing before we vote, unless anybody else has something to say, that I would, um, uh, I would endorse what the comments that, um, Council Member Beard had in terms of being more informed rather than less informed, being less surprised rather than more surprised when the auditor makes the report and that's the, um, that's the motivation and the intention of the request on my part in any event. I would also, I think it's worthwhile to remind the council that it was this council's initiative to call the auditor in which created the internal investigation at the airport and had we not done that, then what was going on is very likely to have been, would have been continued. So endorsing this, our- ... initiatives and continuing to act responsibly as a council is a commendable thing and worth praise in my view. Councilme- Co- Councilmember Ehlinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Could you just restate your motion? What actually are we asking for for the open records request? What would- The, um, it's, we would be asking for the open records request from the Lex- Lexington Herald-Leader to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport Board and all records provided by the airport board in response to these requests during the time period of May 1, 2008 to the present. In other words, the whole time, the, the records that the Heralds asked for, we'd be asking for. That's it. Councilmember- Did that cover you, Councilmember Lane? Did that answer your question? I mean, Councilmember Ehlinger, did that cover your- Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. And for the record, the parliamentarian, uh, this is something that, uh, doesn't require a council vote, could be done by any citizen, any member of this group. It doesn't require a vote to actually, uh, uh, acquire these documents, correct? Doesn't have to have a motion, no. Doesn't have to have a motion. Thank you. There is a motion and it has been seconded. Is there any further discussion? But you can, right? Yeah, you can. Doesn't have to. Okay. Ready to vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And vote electronically. We'll do it that way. All opposed, please vote no. Two, two, two, one, two. We can't see it, can we? Three, four, five. Motion passes, seven-to-five. All right. Uh, we do have Mr. Webb back with us. Thank you. Councilmember Ehlinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Webb, I think this would probably fall under your purview. We're getting to the point where hopefully we're gonna have the electricity turned on and we've had some, had a nice day, uh, yesterday, and then today it's back to snowing again. And I know I was in my yard cleaning up and putting debris out, and that's gonna be, I think, when we finally get our electricity on and people are able to get out and start cleaning up the debris, what's the process about cleanup? I know in 2003, we actually, I think, um, instituted private, um, help in getting it cleaned up. We, are we gonna be using trucks? Are we gonna be using chippers? What's the size? How, five feet, does it have to be bailed? It doesn't have to be. Could you go through that process 'cause I think that's what the constituents need to know to get it cleaned up. Actually, as I was slipping out the door there, I thought I was probably done. I was going to attend a meeting that's going on between Solid Waste and, and Streets, Roads, and Forestry, where we're, we're talking about the, these, uh, coordinating our plans to make sure we don't overlap. Uh, what, what the Department of Public Works has been, has been planning for is debris removal, tree debris removal in, uh, the private pickup areas, where we went in and cut trees on the right of way and piled them up, moving all, moving all that debris out. Uh, the waste management folks in the Department of Environmental Quality will take care of those folks that have public pick... uh, that LFUG- LFUCG employees pick up theirs. So, uh, what we're doing right now, we actually tried some equipment, uh, yesterday and about a half day today, but because of the snow, we had, we had to pull back. And we are, we're working with Bryan Marcum right now to bid some, some of three different types of equipment, trucks with chippers, uh, a piece of equipment called a Versa Loader along with box trucks that that Versa Loader would load, and I think those are 40 cubic yard boxes. Uh, and also, a piece of equipment called a knuckle boom truck. It's a, it has a boom mounted on it that it can load the truck itself. We think we have situations where each of those pieces of equipment would be the best piece of equipment for that area 'cause we had, we have whole neighborhoods where plum trees came down, for instance, where we have brush. It looks like brush now. It's been all cut up that may be all across the property line out front and maybe, uh, from house to house. One piece of equipment would work very well there, where another one, it would take a lot of time. So, we are right now working with Bryan Marcum to, to put out an RFP for those pieces of equipment based on cubic yard of material removed. And that's, we are using the FEMA guidelines for how we bid these contracts out so that the work will be reimbursable. So, I'm not sure, uh, 'cause I'm not in that meeting right now, how long that will take. I think we can get a really quick turnaround. We've had a lot of contractors contact us already about cleanup. Uh, we plan on, whenever these contractors are ready to go, we plan on sharing the same type of information we did with tree cutting. Uh, we'll use that same type of map. It'll have the, the streets with private garbage collection marked on there within a geographic zone. And we'll be able to tell our citizens, "We'll be in this area. Whenever we finish this area," or, "We'll be in several areas at maybe one time." Uh, have not worked out just exactly how we'll move through it yet, but we alv- already have those tools available to us to work through it. And we, we have a really good idea of where our debris are heaviest also. Could you possibly by next Tuesday then have a -- a pretty good roadmap of where we're heading, maybe come back and t- and illuminate to the council after you go to this meeting and come back and let us know exactly what's going to happen? And- We certainly will- ... and Commissioner Taylor, you too, you all could work together to, to know exactly what- And I would add that, uh, the streets, roads, and forestry folks will also be out working as we're available. As you can see today, we don't have anybody available and depending on the weather, not sure how many folks we'll have available. But that's, that's where we are right now. We're working with Brian, and yes, I'd be more than happy to come back next Tuesday with what we have, uh, and hope that we can get started. Right. Uh, now that, that is where there's, uh, private pickup and you may want to speak- And now with- ... with Cheryl Taylor about the public area. And Commissioner Taylor, y- yeah, about the public? And what's the responsibility of the landowner on getting it and the way cutting and all that? I think it's five feet? Yeah. And- Um, actually those knuckle boom trucks can handle a log up to 20 feet. So those are pretty handy pieces of equipment, but we've been using those in situations where we're blocking roads or causing that kind of a disruption. Um, some cases we have a, a situation where it's a hardship and we've got to do something to get a log out of the way. So that's what the knuckle booms have been used for in our area. We actually own a couple of those and we've rented a third one, uh, and have access for a couple more depending on what we need. And then the regular, um, pickup in the, uh, urban service area, the plan started yesterday. We began to pick up debris. There's quite a bit of it, but we're following the route, um, the same quadrant route that we do when we do regular, uh, trash and recycle pickup. So if you're a Monday pickup person, then you're quadrant A. And as the drivers go through, they are, um, we have crew going behind them with a, a, a loader, an open-end truck in the back that can handle logs up to five feet long. Uh, we've suspended any of the requirements for bundling that we normally have when you pick up debris. So people c- if they can just kind of get it toward the front there, we will get it and put it on the truck. Now it's a little bit of slow going and Steve estimated based on what had happened by the end of last week, it could take us, uh, almost five weeks to get all of it picked up using our LFUCG crews. Uh, but it would be every Monday we'd start those quadrants, every Tuesday those quadrants. So every quadrant that gets service would get debris service. It's just a matter of working through that quadrant until we get it all picked up. But if we have situations where again, there's a hardship, there's a problem, maybe there's more debris, um, that then people can't get to their house or their driveway, you know, we can adjust that to address those issues. We were trying to do that systematically so we could get done quicker. So. Okay, thank you. Okay. Council Member Henson. Commissioner Taylor. I, I just, so I think you answered the question I had. If a person has a lot of brush or, you know, debris, on the regular pickup day, it will just automatically be picked up? It, it should be, but what'll happen is we have crews following behind the trash, the trash and the recycle. Right. And we're going to go as far as we can get in that day and then come back at the next and pick up where we left off. So it's going to take... We won't get everything on the first day. Might take more than one swoop to get through. But then as people continue to bring stuff to the curb, we'll continue to route through every time their quadrant gets serviced, identify where the brush is laying and then, and send a truck to pick it up right behind the trash truck. Okay, so they shouldn't need to call for a special pickup or- They should not. Uh, you know, if someone's uncomfortable, if you hear where, you know, if something's been there and they've had their trash service twice and it's still there, you can certainly let us know about that. But the plan was to go through methodically in each quadrant and get it pi- as much picked up each time as we could do and then pick up where we left off in the next routing. Okay. And then go back to the start again, so. And what if they have private pickup? That might be a question for... Right now in the private areas, what we are planning is to just go through a, a single time and pick up whatever's out on the curb. So you'll just do a sweep through all the neighborhoods or won't be any need to call- Y- Actually, it'll, it'll be very similar to what we did through the tree cutting. We, once we outline that geographic area and send it out with a crew or the National Guard with a support person from LFUCG, they went street by street and trimmed what, trimmed or cut what was ever laying out in the road. And that's what we'll have to do when we go back. Uh, now we do have good ideas where it's heavier than others, but we'll go street by street in each one of those geographic areas and we'll be able to show that, uh, through a press conference or GTV3. We'll make that public, where we are right now and where we intend to go next. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Taylor, I got one question. Are we going to be just putting in trucks or are we going to be getting chippers then and, and doing it on the street there or just... 'Cause I know last time- We are planning to take it. We already have, of course, under contract out at Haley Pike, we already have a compost field and they had four, uh, grinders and we've actually located grinding behind the canine center. So the trucks are gonna take the debris over there and we're gonna have it ground up at that point and then taken out to the compost field. But it needs to be, well both, in both situations it needs to be cut up in five foot, um- And the reason is- So the, the, the privates, the private doesn't have to be the, but the public does. Is that correct? Well, the public we ask five feet or smaller in length because that's what'll fit into the back of the trucks that we have. Right. But if we have circumstances... ... that are difficult, you know, we can try to work around that. Like the knuckle boom truck. I mean, I know personally I put mine out there, but I still haven't cut it into five foot. But I don't have anything at this point to cut it in five foot, so I'm trying to locate a chainsaw. I'm gonna have to... 'Cause it's too th- it's too big of branches that I had that I can do with a handsaw. So I'm gonna have to somehow get it done, 'cause I got some big limbs. And I know there's gonna be other people too, and if we require that, then we have to... Some... It's up to the individual to do that, then, to put it in the five foot? Well, that's what we're asking. Now, if we have circumstances where someone can't do that, you know, we'll try to work around that. That's what the knuckle boom truck's for. It's not the... The five feet is just a physical limit of what'll fit in the back of the trucks that we own. It'll go in the back with a five-foot length. But if, if we had a situation where we had something that was unusual, someone couldn't address that, we could use a knuckle boom truck and send it on its- So they'll drive by and come back possibly that way, then later with a different kind of apparatus, or? It, it's a possibility, yes. We do have that apparatus. It's just, what we were trying to do was move through as methodically and quickly as we could. And I, and I wasn't... I was a citizen in 2003, not a government employee, and, and I h- I've heard, you know, lots of people that were here in 2003 were very sensitive to, "We must do better than that. We have to get faster than that." So I know there's a strong sensitivity to trying to be very methodical. Right. Well, last time, and because I was here in 2003, I just had just came on board, and I know it was a big issue, because we talked about six months at one point before it was all gonna get picked up. And we actually, I think, went to, to we started getting private, helping us out because it was gonna take so long. And I think FEMA was supposed to reimburse us on that too, and we were able- They are. And we're tracking everything we're doing. And, and the estimate that we made, as of late last week, was it would take five weeks using our own resources now. We may get out and be quite surprised. And if that w- if that happens, we'll reassess, and if necessary, we'll go ahead and pull in private. We may work with, uh, Mike to do some joint effort there. But at this point, we're trying to do it with our own crews. Okay. But if that's not gonna be fast enough, we can adjust that. Thank you. Okay. Peggy, do you have anything else? Council Member Hanson, is that it? Good? All right. Council Member Stennett you look like... No? You had that urge of indication, I think. Is that it? Anybody? That's it, thanks. Thank y'all. Thanks so much. Um, next on the agenda is mayor report, mayor's report, and shows that there is none today. And finally, uh, public comment, uh, is there anyone wishes to... Nobody signed up. So- Second. ... take a motion to adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn and a second. All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. We are adjourned.