... rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partners said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest." He married Mary Todd. They had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858, Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for senate. He lost the election. But in debating with Douglas, he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for president in 1860. As president, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the Northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1st, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. You ain't been blue. No, no, no. You ain't been blue 'til you had that mood indigo. That old funky feeling goes steaming down to my shoes. While our eyes sit and sigh, go along blues. Always get that mood indigo since my baby said goodbye. In the evening, when lights are down low, I'm so lonesome I could cry. Anybody cares about me. I'm just so bluer than blue can be. When I get that mood indigo, I could lay me down and die. I say you, you ain't been blue, no. You ain't been blue 'til you've had a little touch of that new indigo. That old feeling sure goes steaming down to my shoes. While I sit and sigh. Gone on blue. And so our planning committee's going to go ahead and get started. We have a quorum, just barely. And so the first item on our agenda is the electrical inspector fee schedule update. And I believe that would be Commissioner Webb, who's going to give us an update. At, at the last meeting, we ended the meeting saying that, that our recommendation was that we do a contract amendment. Uh, it was felt that we were, uh, impacting our contractor, our electrical inspection contractor's ability to manage, uh, his workforce, a- and, uh, the compensation he receives, because we were, uh, telling him how many electrical inspectors he must keep on staff. He could not go below a minimum of five. And in going through, uh, going through the work over the last couple years, and, and the tool we used to evaluate, uh, the, the money that was generated through this contract, it was apparent that work was dropping off for the electrical inspectors and has sharply dropped off this year. So, what we had re- uh, what we had suggested is that an amendment to the contract, which would allow a process for reducing the number of electrical inspectors bef- below five whenever they were not necessary. Uh, what we have done, working with Dave Barberry and, and the legal department, Brian Markham, uh, and purchasing, Dewey, and myself have come up with a contract amendment, which we felt was appropriate, but one of the steps that we needed to go through was share that with our contractor to see whether it was acceptable to our contractor. Uh, we contacted them la- last week with our final draft and were advised that their attorney, uh, Vic Roy, would not be available to review this prior to, to the meeting today. So, what we'd like to do is just, uh, move this forward and allow us to have that meeting before we bring it to the committee. So, do you think you could be ready at the March planning meeting? We are, we are ready now. For helping- Okay. It just is a matter of them- Yes. ... reviewing and accepting, so I would say yes, that we could. Very good. Okay. Do... Are there any questions from council members? We'll, we'll see you then at the March planning committee meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. The next item on our agenda is the, uh, private retention, retention detention basin maintenance issue. And this item was a new business item in late January and was pulled off of, uh, new business and put into the planning committee, and is a requirement th- the requirement for the consent decree was that, um, our water quality folks brought us an ordinance. So, with that, I'll ask Charlie Martin to begin our presentation, and I suspect we'll have lots of questions and discussion. I suspect that we might. Um- Welcome. What we have done is that, that we've... In your packet, you'll see, beginning on page four is a copy of the ordinance that was proposed during the work session, and then on page 12, you will see the beginnings of a past information packet that was provided to previous council and prev- the, uh, previous mayor. Um, that's a big part of what my presentation's gonna be about is, is drawing the, the, or making the connection between what we're required to do because of the consent decree versus what we've been doing in the past, and what caused us to do that in the past. Um, Darryl Bennett is probably going to follow me, excuse me, and bring some greater clarity to the, uh, current policy we use on transferring private stormwater infrastructure to urban county government. That was one of the questions that was asked of, of me when I was at the podium here the last time. Um, there was some discussion about a particular example, and he's gonna have some information on that for the committee as well. And then lastly, we have Barry Tonning with the, uh, with Tetra Tech. Tetra Tech is our program manager for the implementation of the consent decree, and one of the council members had asked about what type of permitting issues that we get involved in if you're working in a stream or a creek, and if time permits, he can cover that. If not, well, we can save it for another time 'cause, uh, we tried to address the main questions that, that came out of, of the work session a couple a weeks ago. Um, w- why are we proposing this ordinance? As- as Madam Chair mentioned earlier, and I just did, it is a consent decree requirement. It's also a requirement of our pending KPDS discharge permit for the storm sewer system, uh, which we're having a public hearing on, or the state is hosting the public hearing here in Lexington tomorrow. But it's also been an ongoing concern for... since I've been here. I mean, I've heard about this during the course of the 10 years that I've been here. As I mentioned to several of you before, that's how I found out that I had one in my backyard because I unwittingly had no knowledge that I had one in... that was part of my backyard. So i- this is not something tha- tha- that's old news. The requirement that's in the... that's related to the consent decree, this is one of those performance standards that's required by the consent decree, and if we fail to do this, there will be stipulated penalties that Irby County Government will incur. So, uh, I see all of you reading that, and I'm- I'm just gonna paraphrase, is that we had to propose by January 31st of 2009 some type of ordinance that required proper maintenance of privately owned structures, which is what we did. And as I said here at the- at the podium a couple of weeks ago, the- the main thing that we were doing at that time was proposing that ordinance for this level of discussion, and we were able to meet that January 31st deadline. Um, that doesn't allow us to- to discuss, debate, and deliberate it indefinitely, because the consent decree requires that all of the ordinances that they are requiring us to update or review be done in a 15-month period of time. So we have time for- for careful deliberation, but there- there is a nes- necessity of having a swift deliberation as well. A little bit of history. I- in your packet, as I mentioned, on page f- twelfth is the proposal that was given to Irby County Council in October of 2001. And from what I understand is that this was brought forth by various neighborhoods, by residents. They were g- there was a- a huge concern that- that these basins were not being properly maintained, so they wanted information on how we would maintain these things and how people th- would hav- I guess essentially if someone would take the responsibility other than just neglecting them on both sides. Um, this proposal, based on my research, I could never find that it was formally adopted by the council, but it did become policy, and it's the policy that we've been operating since 2002. Um, we believe that this 2001 proposal, the details you see there mirrors what the proposed ordinance is, or at least that was what our intent was. And so when you look at the ordinance, you know, sometimes it seems to be lacking some of the meat that's there, that the meat, as far as we're concerned, really, is in that and also in some of the details that- that Daryl's gonna talk about here in a few minutes. You know, one of the things in reviewing and researching this is that we found is that- that there's... it's all over the place as far as who owns what or what the requirements are. It's really kind of based on a plat-by-plat situation. Some of the requirements kind of changed. And we recognize tha- that... Irby County Government recognized that at some point in time, they needed to get off of that- that treadmill. And so you'll see this note is that all new residential basins and ponds constructed since 2001 will be owned by LFUCG. So everything that we're- we're talking about today really predates 2001, because by making them ownership a- on a specific, dedicated lot for Irby County Government, kinda got out of this, "It's yours to maintain, it's mine to maintain. Oh wait, that's part of my backyard," some of the confusion that- that reigned prior to 2001. The program began in the Division of Engineering, and there's some deb- debate about when this all started, but according to the memo, th- they had been doing it for two years up till 2001, which was regular inspections of- of basins and ponds. You'll see, uh, a detail on one of the other consent decree requirements we have regarding frequency of inspection. But we've been d- doing some level of this for the last eight to n- ten years a- at some level, either inspecting them, maintaining an inventory, um, inspecting and documenting deficiencies, and in some cases, con- facilitating repairs where Irby County Government's responsible for the repair. Currently, the homeowners and the homeowner associations have expenses that- that, as a policy, that- that, uh, we have- have placed on them, and that's mowing of those basins, landscaping, control of algae. I included that picture of the assortment of photos I have. As you can see, the control of algae is not going very well in that particular basin. Uh, repair to liners, which typically are for those wet ponds or those retention basins that hold water all the time, and then the aesthetics, like the lighting, the fountains, and trails, and some of the other things that are not part of a stormwater flooding control. A- as you'll note at the bottom, the LFUCG takes care of the structural repairs of those homeowner or homeowner association-owned basins with very limited general fund allocations. Typically, it's been done through bonding, uh, more than anything else. Today, all this stuff, well, in 2007, it was moved to my division, so, uh, I've been kind of playing catch-up on trying to characterize what this is. The folks that came from engineering, the stormwater folks, they had a real good grasp on it. But one of the things that they lacked at that time, and we still lack to this day, is- is that we've got the engineering knowledge and capability to do it. What we don't have is the resources, and also financial, and also the physical resources, such as the trucks, the backhoes, the- the people who actually go out and do the work, is that we still had a professional staff that came to us, and not necessarily a maintenance-level staff. ... um, the program has some new specific regulatory requirements from the consent decree that I had mentioned earlier on, and I'll talk about those in just a second. The impact of this proposed ordinance, a- and this is, uh, my honest, sincere opinion, is essentially, there is no impact, is that all we're doing is codifying what's been the policy since 2001. Um, the homeowners are responsible for the light maintenance. As I said, I think here a couple of days ago that, that realizing that, you know, collecting trash and, and picking up small limbs and those kind of things like that, I mean, I, that's what I do in my basin. It's part of my backyard and I, I do that all the time. Now, big tree falls down or floats down the thing and ends up in my yard, that's gonna be a little bit beyond, uh, my capabilities and that, that, that's what we're proposing here is that on the, the residentially owned private basins, uh, detention basins, is that LIPCD take care of those, those heavy structural maintenance. Um, in that ordinance, you'll see that in commer- commercial and industrial owners, they're responsible for all maintenance, which is the policy that we've had since 2001. It's probably too small for anybody to read and plus our resolution's a little bit iffy, but you'll see that in your packet or that, that we, when we distribute this information, this i- is summary. You don't have this in your packet right now, but we will distribute this as, as summary documents, uh, with the next minutes. But, uh, this pretty much describes what the obligations are under general conditions is that we're gonna just ensure that stormwater drainage doesn't threaten the public health, safety and environment. But we'll assist with that light maintenance, I had mentioned before. When you get all the way down to the bottom of them, you see ele- the property owner's obligations for private owner who owns a swale pond or structure and that LFUCG does not have an easement that we would expect them to maintain that structurally. Now, we would like to figure out a way to be able for them to give us an easement to be able to access that, but our ability to access it without an easement puts us in a very difficult legal and liability issue. And so access and easement to me is a lot of cases a real, real deal killer when it comes to looking at the transfer of these properties. As I said, we've got some additional regulatory responsibilities. A year from now, approximately, we've got to develop and commence the implementation of a program that require private owners of stormwater controls to conduct that necessary maintenance, cleaning and repairs. So what you see right now is, is the one that places the obligation on, but we have to d- develop and implement a program that requires that. So the details associated with this particular ordinance is the next thing coming. Clearly, we don't want to propose an ordinance that they're incapable of meeting and so thus, back to what I said earlier about what our preference, or at least my personal preference would be is, is that, that we do the heavy lifting associated with these basins provided that we have an accessibility to be able to conduct that. That was what our intent was. The last two bullets talks where our, our inspections is that we're required to inspect at least 90% of publicly and privately owned detention basins at least two times a year. Um, also where the, we have to conduct ni- inspect 90% of publicly and privately owned retention ponds at least once a month. The increase in frequency on the retention ponds is, is probably more as much of a public, uh, safety issue as it is anything else. But all three of those things are requirements of the consent decree and if we don't do them, we're gonna face stipulated penalties. Now, we can go out there and inspect them, but if we don't do anything related to the first one, it will be, I think in my mind, considered to be a broad failure to implement the consent decree, which would be make us subject to further penalties. Wanted to walk you through the, uh, the ordinance a little bit in, in, I guess in an overview standpoint is that, that section one of the, of the proposed ordinance is really just a definition of terms and it was necessary in order to be able to make the following parts of it make sense. But they, these, these definitions weren't something that staff came up, they were derived from the consent decree and the Storm Water Quality Management Program, which is Appendix D of the consent decree. So we didn't, we didn't start from scratch on that. Essentially, we were bringing forth definitions that existed previously and the purpose of them is to clarify text that's in the subsequent sections. Beginning at the bottom of page 16 in your packet, you see the stormwater control devices in residential areas. That whole section 1687 covers what we're talking about for residential areas. Section 1688, which is on the next note, it's on page 18, starting in the middle of, that's for the commercial and industrial areas. Let's get into it a little bit more into detail. Whoops. There we go. On 87, as I said, uh, I guess I'm probably repeating myself here, but in section 1687, the real crux of it is whether or not there's an easement. 'Cause if there's an easement, 1687 A and B apply. It essentially says that we're going to do, they're going to do the light maintenance and we're going to do the heavy maintenance. If no, w- ... C applies. In a residential area where no public easement exists, the property owner's responsible for non-structural maintenance and also for the structural maintenance, because we don't have the ability, legally or physically to be able to get in and do anything. In all circumstances, whether or not it is, um, an easement exists or not, within 1687, D through I apply. As I said earlier that, that this ordinance for the commercial and industrial areas w- what's been practiced for 10 years is that there are no issues with those, is that that is the property owner's responsibility to do light and heavy maintenance on those. Now to kind of bring that in con- the, the ordinance in contrast with what was in the 2001 report that's in your packet- ... you'll n- on page four of that document, you'll see that ownership and maintenance responsibilities among facilities are not consistent and sometimes maintenance notes on plats are confusing. That was the fact then and it still is a fact now for all those basins that were prior to 2001. What we're suggesting in this ordinance is that we feel like this is fair and consistent irregardless of what those notes are, is that if there's an easement there and it's a detention basin is that we will come in and do the heavy maintenance and the property owner will do the light, because we feel like it's a pretty good middle ground and it w- that, that we're not going to be placing any more responsibility on the property owners than already exists from their existing plats. Maybe in some cases, we're actually gonna be taking more responsibility than what the plat requires us to take. Because in some cases, the plat language goes way beyond light maintenance. Also on page four, you'll see that, um, a comment where all retention basins or retention ponds are considered amenity ponds and the permanent water volume does not provide any flood control benefit. Um, as I said here at the podium f- uh, couple of weeks ago is that, that it's the area above the normal water pool is what is a d- the detention part of this system, that the water body itself, although it arguably may or may not do something for water quality, Urban County Government never required them to put a pond in there. That was a choice on the part of the developer or the development plan to have an amenity pond for the benefit of those property owners. And it's our recommendation to the council and to the administration that we not take on any more liability than is absolutely necessary associated with those retention ponds. Um, if, if there are structural parts of the dam that are within the, um, the right of way or within Urban County Government's responsibility, we will help. Well, that's our responsibility 'cause it's on our property. But otherwise, all we're going to do is provide, um, uh, advice to those property owners because it's not our pond, it's not our dam. And so, you know, the regulatory aspects associated with those kind of things are, can be quite severe. Um, also on page four, because the permanent water pools are not... Oh, I just said that, never mind. I'm getting ahead of myself. At the top of page five, um, it, uh, lists what at the time were the five proposed conditions for successful transfer of a basin or a pond for ownership and maintenance on the part of Urban County Government. Um, I'm gonna let Darrell get into that a l- a little bit more detail because after I finished this, um, this presentation, I found that there was actually a more formal document that the Division of Engineering had prepared in order to be able to, um, share information with, uh, prospective, um, uh, transferees. But, uh, you'll note on page five is that it's not our intention to, to own or maintain someone's yard and i- so there's a 50-foot rule. Uh, I don't know, I didn't get a chance to talk to Darrell before this to find out if that actually made it to the, um, to what we're using right now. I know in my case is that w- essentially to the concrete channel, it's about 50 feet from the back of my house. And so how Urban County Government would ever be able to own the detention basin without owning all the way up to the edge of my deck, I don't see how that is even possible. So, uh, the likelihood of us being responsible for that over the long term at my house is pretty good. Um, commercial and industrial detention basins or retention ponds were not included in the program. So even back to 2001, that has been a common theme is that we don't do commercial and we don't do indurs- industrial detention or retention ponds. That was part of the price of being able to develop that property for those purposes. Drawing some more parallels to the 2001 report, table three, it lists the maintenance responsibility for the dry detention basins owned by residential property owners or homeowners associations at that time. And I think if you look, scan through that table, you will see that what was put out in 2001 mirrors what we're talking about now, is that the homeowner or the homeowners association was responsible for the light stuff and we're responsible for the heavy stuff. Table four lists the maintenance responsibility for wet retention bonds owned by residential property owners or homeowners associations. So I'll, I'll refer you to table four. I think, again, that represents consistent with what we're proposing here in this ordinance. And it's a practice that's been in place for nearly eight years. I guess, eh, eh, what I want to make sure that, that, that everyone understands is that, that I keep repeating myself over and over. This is, these are fundamental issues that have been around for a long time, and this is the practice that we've, have implemented over the last eight to 10 years. Um, all we're doing is, is codifying what has been the past practice. Um, you know, clearly it's the, uh, if the council wants to, uh, to choose a different approach, we'll do that. I mean, it, there's, there's always the cost associated with doing business. We feel like that, that, over the last eight to 10 years, that everybody's pretty much landed with this and that they're comfortable with it. I haven't gotten a, a lot of, of angst about it. Maybe in some cases on the retention basins that there has been some of that. But, um, see that's a decision that we're gonna have to make as a government as far as the, the, our willingness to be able to, to, uh, take on that liability. But at some point in time, irregardless how it is, how this turns out, is that we have to take this on. Uh, that second bullet was, to me, is pretty important, is that, that EPA and State of Kentucky made this an ongoing issue about maintaining our stuff in Fayette County, whether it's ours or private property. But they thought this was significant enough to make four of these issues related to this an enforceable component of the consent decree. And I, I felt like that was very significant. The perception on the part of the, of the state and the federal government is that we're not doing a good job in maintaining our stormwater control structures. And so the issue really is, is that if it's privately owned, we have to, we have to make the people who are responsible for maintaining their stuff, maintain their stuff. And I don't think that's an unreasonable, uh, expectation. One thing I will point out, and this is really not a conclusion, I guess, but it's a point, is that water... I noticed that water quality retrofits to private basins and ponds was not something that was, was in the 2001 memos. But I think it is a strong option for the stormwater quality management fee, is that, uh, water quality ret- retrofits a- as a incentive type of thing to help people not only as far as from the amenity of the, of the facility, but also to improve water quality by helping remove some of the trash or some of the debris or silt that gets in there, I think that would be a good option as far as a win-win situation through an incentive program. And with that, I will stop and entertain any questions unless you want Daryl to keep rolling on, on the transfer part of it. Uh, council members, if you have questions, will you please log in on your screen. And Charlie, if, could, could you email your presentation to Paul Schoeninger and he'll distribute it to planning committee? Would that- Yeah. Uh, yeah. ... work? I apologize. I was actually working on it yesterday, so it's, you know, you know how it is- ... these ov- committees over and over again every week. Well, we, uh, we had a good amount of information in our packets, so if you can just email that to Paul, he'll see that our committee gets that. And I don't see any questions from council members, so Daryl, we'll just ask you to go ahead with your part. Mr. Bennett. The, uh, packet that Tim's giving you, uh, has this as the first page. There's two pa- there's two packets actually. Th- uh, one of them has this as the first page, and the second one is the actual finished policy that became effective July 1, 2002. The, or the second, the rest of it, not the second one, the rest of it. And this first page is, is simply the outline of, of the items that are covered in that policy from, uh, 2002. And I'll go over it with you. Uh, the background of this, which is on pages two and three, uh, Charlie was, was referencing the earlier draft document and this, of course, is the final. The, uh, the background is, came effective o- uh, 2002. It, um, it was meant to cre- uh, to answer, uh, citizens' concerns about, uh, basins and ponds. The, uh, document distinguishes very clearly between dry detention basins and wet retention ponds. And, um, it was created to allow the LFUCG to take ownership of some basins. The criteria for accepting it is there's, um, no permanent pool of water. Uh, a detention basin does, does not have a permanent pool of water. It must be in a resident- residential area, uh, single family, duplex, town ho- houses, condominiums, may not be a commercial property. It was designed, uh, to and functions as a control, to control flooding or improve water quality. Uh, it must be bigger than an acre. There is sufficient access for maintenance, and that, that's pretty key. If we can't get in there and work on it, it's, uh, it would be difficult for the Irvin County government to take over. It, and, and this goes back to the 50-foot rule that Charlie mentioned, is... ... it -- the basin may not be part of a backyard or side yard. Uh, it does not say 50 feet in the policy, but I think that is a generally good, good rule we're using. All the land that the basin is in must be deeded to the LFUCG. And all the property owners must acknowledge that we'll perform certain minimum maintenance. If a neighborhood wishes to transfer a basin, they mutt- it i- the burden is on them to ensure, to ensure that the criteria, um, that's on page four of the document, um, it's eligible under that criteria. If the Division of Water Quality concurs, that neighborhood must have a formal meeting of the HOA or its council or board and approve it, and then submit a written request to us. And if everything meets that criteria, the Department of Law schedules the transfer, and then we will coordinate with the Division of Parks and Recreation for maintenance. That's all I have on this part. I see no questions- All right. ... so go ahead and proceed. Okay. Uh, if we can move on to the, to the second PowerPoint. Okay, this came out of a, th- this is, is kind of a, a, a related issue, and it came out of a question about some property ownership issues in the, um, the Bold Bitter. Uh, the, the street on the, on the right as you're looking at the, uh, the photo is Bold Bitter. Um- Get that thing right there. Oh, we got there. Oh, okay. Th- thank you. Yes, this is Bold Bitter, Beulah Park, Center Parkway, and I'm hitting two buttons at once. I apologize. Um, the blue area is the properties that are affected that we're going to talk about, uh, very quickly here. And, um, this is the s- the, the history o- of the area. There are two plats that are involved here. Uh, Southeast Hills Unit 5 and 6A, and it, they were platted in the mid-1970s. Both plats have a reference as, to an open space dedicated to public use. And I think one of 'em actually has the word park in it. In 1983, the Urban County Council passed a resolution, uh, to, to consolidate the open spaces to the adjoining parcels. And, th- th- that was a result of, uh, their conclusion that the land was unsuitable for development as a park and is not needed for any other public purpose. That's a quote from the, uh, resolution. Also a quote was the property owners in the area had submitted petitions expressing an interest in acquiring these parcels. And there was a, a memorandum in the resolution attached to the resolution from the Commissioner of Public Works that said, "The owners of the adjacent properties have agreed to the methodology of allocating, or allocation methodology." They have also prepared all necessary deeds and plats, which th- they actually hired the engineer and the land surveyor to, to create a consolidation plat. Uh, the, uh, the plat was signed by the mayor, a- on, in, in May, and then the Secretary of the Planning Commission in July of 1983. Quitclaim deeds were sent to the 55 property owners referenced in the ordinance, and, uh, right now, we have, we have found about 70% of those deeds. I don't have a belief that, a lot of belief that there's more of them that have, were, uh, actually filed in the county clerk. The plat shows, uh, and easements for, 30-foot wide easements to protect drainage ways, and no, uh, detention or retention easements are shown on the plats. And I'm gonna review th- this is one of the beginning plats. This is Unit 5. The, uh, note about the, uh, open space is here, and it's this large parcel. Unfortunately, this, this is not oriented with north to the top, so it's, uh, it doesn't match very well the next plat. But the area we're talking about is this area with the note. And these two are the, are the properties that, that was an issue. So the first one was, uh, was filed in '73, and the second one in, this one in '75, and in 1983, this is the contiguous property that the, the dark line that was transferred to the property owners. And the list of properties is here, and, and that was actually filed in the county clerk's office. And, uh, here's the mayor, mayor's signature at this point. This is just a history of the area, and I want, uh, it, it, the questions have been brought about it, and I wanted to bring it, just, just to review the issues with you. Are, are you using this as an example in relation to the ordinance, Daryl? Is that why it's in here? Or Charlie? For two reasons. One of them is that I wanted... Th- th- there was some speculation, I guess, on the part of, of the dialogue, 'cause I wasn't sure what was going on out there. And, and so I really wanted to make sure that we saw how it transpired, because it was like, it, it was almost like it just recently happened and blah, blah, blah. And, like, and I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that. This was originally dedicated as a park. And at some point in time, 25 years ago, elected officials decided there's not a need for it, and that certain property owners wanted the property, and so they transferred it to 'em. And so, you know, I, I... ... there, there may be some folks out there that feel like that they got s- something they didn't necessarily want. I think the issue really has to be about that drainage way that's in the middle of it, 'cause he pointed out there's still a 30-foot drainage way in the middle of it. And I'll point you to the top of page six, no, no, p- uh, page seven, excuse me, on your packet, where it defines, "A storm water control device, means any detention basin, detention pond, drainage way." Which is the drainy way, drainage way is still there and provided that there is an easement and an easement that allows us to ac- access it, it would be our intention through this ordinance and through the funding provided by the storm water management fee is that we would do the heavy maintenance associated with those. As you, some of you who have been following the storm water, uh, management fee issue, you notice I, I've had money in there for stream maintenance, you know, to, to try to correct problems that have caused from erosion and some other channelization issues that have gone on. Um, so when we, we carefully worded this to deal with storm water control device, because that means a lot of different things. And, and it's the, the issue is, is as far as the what is light maintenance versus heavy maintenance along with whether it's residential and commercial and whether we have the legal authority via acci- easement or ownership to do what we need to do. So a situation like this could be handled under the rules- Potentially, yes. ... the pr- the proposed ordinance? That's how I view it. Okay. I have, uh, Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you, Charlie, for your explanation and, and Mr. Bennett. Um, I guess I wanna start by saying that I acknowledge your description of how this transfer of property took place, but would like to add a little bit of clarity to it. And for full disclosure, I will say, uh, that my, my father, my parents own one of the properties in question and that's one reason why I know so much about it. The history that you received that you presented today, I presume is from the minutes from the meetings. What those minutes don't show, however, is that what initiated this property transfer is not that the council decided this wasn't deemed useful for development and that it wasn't gonna work for a park. What initiated it was the property owners back there were upset with the city because the city wouldn't cut the grass. It, it was designated a park, but the city would not maintain the property, so the property owners had to do it for the city. So they kept complaining and kept complaining and kept complaining and then the council decided that the most prudent thing to do, because it couldn't be developed and as far as a park goes, there's really not a lot of use for it, is the easiest thing to do is to deed it off to the property owners. That's why they didn't have to pay for it also. They did pay $30 to get the legal work done, but that was all they paid, so the city actually gave them the land. So the question that I had about this, and I'm glad that you said that, that this document will main- will take care of this issue, but you said potentially. Um, section 116, w- uh, section 1 number 16 determines what or clarifies what storm water control device is. And the last part of that statement says, "A catch basin or any other structure or equipment designed to control storm water quality or improve storm water quality, quantity or quality." And down below there in Section 16-87A, the first line says, "In a residential area where a public easement or a storm water control device exists, the private property owner is responsible for nonstructural maintenance of any detention basin," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it sounds like that what you're saying this storm water fee and when I spoke to you back there earlier, you talked about... What I wanted you to do for the record was give a distinction between the heavy lifting and the light lifting that you talked about. Okay. Um, what I, uh, what I would characterize as being the light lifting is, um, is in a mowing the area, including any embankment, removing algae and all debris that accumulates in the basin, including litter and tree limbs. That one's the tough one, because if it's... I- it's kind of like what we're going through right now with the debris removal. You know, being able to pick up a few loose limbs in my yard and throw it in the back of my truck, that's pretty easy. I've got a big, you know, tree laying in my yard. And so I think there's a certain amount of judgment there is that, that, you know, you, we all have to look at these like, "If I'm the property owner there, do I have the ability to do this?" And if I, in my judgment or in, or in the, our manager's judgment, they're not, provided that we are successful in our storm water management fee and we have the resources to do it, we'll send the backhoe and the truck out there and make it happen. Because at the end of the day is that if it doesn't happen, my view of it is, is that we are then exposing ourselves to further penalties because we didn't maintain the stuff that we're supposed to maintain. Which I have said all along is the crux of our consent decree is we didn't take care of the stuff that we had- Right. ... in the way that we should have. A- and that's a long answer to that, but like I said, I think that we will err on the side of customer service. I think that's kind of tried to be the history of the div- my division is that we, we mak- try to make sure we put our customer first. I mean, if somebody's calling us out there to pick up a, a branch, that's gonna be a problem, you know? Right. And, uh, uh, we'll, we'll have to say, "Listen, we need to manage our resources properly." But, you know, a whole tree falls down into the stream or the, the whole thing is silted up such as that there's just a big hole with water in it and it's, and water quality's going, you know, in the you know what- ... we're gonna do something about that, provided that, that we have the easement that's necessary and the appropriate permits, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes- Okay. ... in order to be able to facilitate the work. Okay, let me hit on two, two aspects there, 'cause you've got a tree falling and you've got a situation where the ditch is silted up. This particular ditch is silted up, and the residents that were there, that lived along there, were concerned about the quality of the water, because it's now backing up- Ah- ... going back into the hole. The Health Department came out and tested the water and found several water quality issues. I'll put it that way. Um, what I want to ensure out of this today is that moving forward, part of the stormwater fee is dedicated to making sure that these kinds of things get mitigated. Because e- everything that you say is preferenced in whether or not we have the funding to do it. I, I do understand, you've run an excellent program, and I, I appreciate that and all the work that you have done over the years. There's no question about that. But the problem has been funding. So when some of these issues come to the forefront, the city has wanted to do that with respect to customer service, but hasn't had the means to do it. So what I want to do is make sure that part of the sto- stormwater fee goes to making sure that these things are mitigated. When you bring up the tree falling, we had that issue over on Green Tree. And we had an elderly couple, fixed income, a tree fell down across the, the creek, and it cost $2,000 to remove the tree. And between the mayor's office and my office, we scrambled and we finally got some people to come out and remove the tree, but the property owner just did not have the funding to do that. Um, so again, my goal here is, is not to hold up the ordinance. It's not to, um, muddy the waters, if you will, no pun intended. But it's to ensure that part of this fee, if we're gonna collect the fee, that we use part of that fee to protect the citizens and make sure that we have the money needed to mitigate the issues like these that you're saying would be heavy listing that should fall on LFUCG's responsibilities. So, I guess my question to you now is, it, it sounds like that's the direction that you want to go. How do we, one, make sure that you have enough money in the right line item to mitigate these issues, and number two, how do we educate the public on the need and the process for ensuring that the city has the proper easement to be able to do that work? On the, uh, uh, on the stormwater management fee, I mean, I think we're, we're, we're working on that diligently already. I mean, we meet every week about it. The, the public is invited. The minutes are available through the website, either through the council's link or also through the Division of Water Quality's link. Um, I'm doing this off memory, but if I remember correctly, there's a half a million dollars a year that is devoted to stream maintenance. There's a quarter of a million dollars devoted to litter. There's, uh, $750,000 a year that is devoted to small capital. All of which kinda take care of some of those issues that you're just talking about there. And so, this is supposed to b- is proposed to be a dedicated fund in, in a ma- format similar to what the sanitary sewer fund is right now. And the, the, off the top of my head, like I said, there's a million and a half dollars a year devoted to capital. Now, can I ask you, um, the different line items that you named there w- was, uh, creek banks, those kind of things. The storm ditch is one that you didn't name. And that's one that I presume, I, I would suspect we have more of those issues than we do creek bed issues. I, I guess I lump those into one and the same. I mean, if it's got water flowing through it, it's, it's, um, more than, uh, a certain time of the year, I think that the Corps considers it to be a regulatory stream to start with. Okay. You know, what, what is a regulatory stream, we'll let Barry cover that here probably in a few minutes, but the, uh, um, I, I, I lump those things together. Either it's an open channel or it's a closed pipe. Okay. Do you think- Part of the MS4, which is the munic- municipal separate storm sewer system. And we have to maintain the MS4 in order to maintain our compliance. Okay. Do you have any idea on the condition of these, whether it be, um, the MS4? Do we have an idea of what needs to be, um, maintenanced now, if you will? What I'm getting at is, do you think that million dollars is gonna cover it? No. No? No, I don't. I mean, it's an ongoing battle. How much money... Depends on how fast you want it fixed. You said a million dollars a year, right? The, um, I, when I did the first presentation regarding the stormwater fee, uh, I asked staff for photos to help augment my con- my, uh, presentation. It was overwhelming the number of pictures that I got from different folks about problems that are out there. I mean, it's, it's, ah, and I hate to seem like I'm chastising here, but you know, we can't neglect the system for decades and then, and then be able to fix it overnight. It's, we're gonna have to work through it slowly but surely. What we feel like we've proposed is that we've done an adequate level of maintenance dollars and capital dollars, leveraging those with outside resources, with the existing limited staff that we have right now. And also providing incentive programs to help people do things themselves, for things that are really part of their backyards. Um, I mean, you know, say we... Can we go faster with more money? Potentially, although I'd be concerned whether or not I've got enough resources on staff to be able to manage that sort of thing. What we've proposed right now is we feel like is a reasonable cost to begin to, to aggressively take care of the problem. And I use the term aggressively, 'cause it's not hard to be aggressive when you haven't done much of anything before. Okay, and you said that's a million dollars a year for this fund, right? ... is that -- the overall, uh, what we're proposing- I mean, I'm not, I'm not talking about fixing the whole system that the consent decree's talking about. I'm talking about the stream banks and the ditches like this that need to be maintained. Yeah. Or, or made as of now and then maintained after that. Um, what I've pr- what I proposed in, in, what I proposed for the purposes of maintenance and small capital repair, yeah, I think that it's adequate. Okay. That, that was the question, not whether a million dollars would take care of the entire problem. Okay. Okay. I think that's it for now. Council member Feigl. Uh, thank you Madam Chairman. Um, I cons- uh, continue to be concerned about, um, section, uh, 16.87 item number C. And that's where there is no public easement and the responsibilities of the owners, uh, seem to be the heavy lifting sort. And I just wondered if we have an inventory of those areas that we define as a retention or detention area within the city. Uh, my, my concern is that there may be some out there that either home ow- neighborhood associations aren't aware of and they just see it as a, um, as a, an amenity to their property. Uh, but I, you know, my, my question is do we have an inventory of those facilities? We, we believe we have a 100% inventory of all the facilities. And I was looking back at my, my associates back here, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, if I remember correctly from our previous meetings, there was only one that we had that had essentially no way to access it, a detention basin off of Liberty Road. Mm-hmm. Off Liberty Road? Yes. Okay. Well, my, my next question then is what do we need to do to alert, um, the folks in the city that have these detention basins or retention basins to let them know that this is being considered and that it might be prudent for them to, um, grant an easement to the city? W- uh, beyond what we're doing right now, I don't know if I've really got a recommendation for you. I th- I, I, and I'm, w- keep looking over my shoulder to see if my colleagues feel like th- that they've had a lot of adequate dialogue with property owners out there as well. I don't know whether they have or haven't. Um, the, um, you know, I, I probably interaction with organized, um, neighborhood associations to be able to get them clued in with what's going on, which I believe has already happened. I'm looking at Paul. I think that that was mailed out to all of those folks, and there may be other folks that we've mailed this out to as well. Um, we could do something on GTV3, we could, uh, try to get The Herald-Leader to cover it as well. I mean, it's always the, the age-old challenge of how you communicate well- Right. ... with, with the constituents to make sure they know what's going on before the fact instead of after the fact. Right, right. And I guess my concern is, is if they, um, if they do have an opportunity to grant that easement so that LFUCG can take care of the property, uh, they certainly would probably want to do that before there was a problem rather than after a problem was identified. That's always the best way to do it, yeah. I ans- and especially when they grant that easement, I mean, that's the, this is the heavy lifting stuff. Right. And so, you know, hopefully there's not any more catastrophic events that we're gonna have, l- in light of what we've had with wind and ice over the last several, last month or so, um, that's creating problems, but, um, yes. I mean, like I said, it, I, I preferably would like to find a way that we can be able to give those folks some assurance that we will be there in order to be able to do that heavy lifting. I mean, as, I, I look at it as a property owner, I would want the same thing. Right. So you feel comfortable though that this information has been communicated? Well, I think we'll have, I'll have to talk to Paul about that and, and, and see if there are other mechanisms that we can, uh, we can determine. I mean, you know, that is, like I said, it's always the age-old problem is you think you've got it out there and, uh, or not. Um, I guess, um, we'll have to talk to Michelle or some other folks to see if there's other opportunities to be able to get some, a broader coverage to, to make sure we've thrown our net out as far as we can. Well, and then that's why I was interested in whether or not we have an inventory, so that, um, you know, these people could actually check the inventory, make sure they're, make sure they aren't listed or, or find out that they are listed. Yeah, well, as you can see at tables three and four, I mean, that was the inventory that was from, uh, eight years ago. And so, uh, like I said, if we're required to inspect 90% on some frequency, believe me, we're pretty certain we've got the right inventory, because if we leave something off and we at, we're at 89, we got a problem. Right. Okay, thank you. Inventory is critical. And Charlie, w- I, I thought that was a very good question. If, if this moves forward, um, it seems to me that would be the time to alert neighborhoods that it is happening and ask them if they want to give an easement so that we can get in there to work. Okay. We'll, we'll just, we'll have to look. I need to caucus with my folks- Yes. ... 'cause they, the, the, of what ones fall into that category, I'm not so sure there are a lot of them that have no easement. There was one that had a picture up there and I chose that picture because I thought that it didn't have an easement. Um, but I, I need to be sure before I say somebody does or doesn't here publicly and mislead someone. We'll make sure the list is right. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one qui- quick, um, comment. As y- y- you are moving forward with this and as stormwater fee moves forward and everything is -- terminology is very important. And to get as lay as we can get as we're speaking about the issue I think is important because we've used... We've talked about basins today, but we've also used the term creek, um, ditch, um, many other, many other things are used. And I think we've got to find some way to educate the public that if they've been told for years that there's a creek that runs behind your house, or there's a creek that runs beside your house, that they understand whether that's a wet or dry or basin or whatever it is. But we've got to do something in our, in our education to the public before fees are implemented, or before we talk about maintenance being the responsibility of whomever. And I'm not sure how to make that happen, um, but I do know that even within this setting, we've used like four different terms to explain the same space. So if, if someone sends a letter out to a neighborhood association and says, "We'd like to talk with you about if you're interested in retention basin maintenance," I wouldn't know what that was if I were just a layperson who had never sat on city council before. I don't think I have any of those in my yard. Um, so but if you tell me there's a creek, then I could tell you there's Hollow Creek, you know, that's not near my house, but I'm familiar with what Hollow Creek is. Um, if you talk about, is there an easement? I wouldn't know whether really what an easement was. So we've got to talk about real lay terms and not real high tech terms when we talk about something that could end up being, um, an additional cost to a property owner. And I'd, I'd seek your guidance in seeing if we can make that happen through all of our marketing. Thank you. Well, we, we will try to do that. I mean, the difficulty is, is getting, you know, I don't mean to sound mean about it, but is getting people to pay attention to things that are going on for them b- in advance. I mean, you see it all the time and we get a lot of complaints about the odor from this, this facility that's on the other side of their fence because somebody didn't bother to inform them that that was a wastewater treatment plant, uh, before they bought the property. So it's, it's an ongoing problem. And particularly in the stormwater thing, when I, when I was doing the sanitary part of it exclusively, it was so much easier because we owned the whole system. We owned the pipes, we owned the manholes, we have easements all the way through that. In the stormwater program, it is not like that. It switches between public infrastructure to private infrastruct- back into public. A- a- and it's difficult. It's one of the reasons why this program has been slow lo- so long... so slow to come along since the 90s is it's a mixture of public and private property. In, in the long term as we implement this, I think we continue to need to look at ways to try to get this to model the sanitary part of it to where Irvin County Government has that level of responsibility all the way through because I think that that's what the government, I mean, what the, the people's, um, expectation is going to be, is that somebody else's stormwater is all running through my backyard and dumping all this stuff or eroding my, the, my bank to where my tree falls into my creek, why am I supposed to do something about it? I think that's the average person's expectation. And I think Councilman Stennett has, has been trying to further that as well as far as this property transfer situation to where ultimately the government has the ability to go in and provide action. It's... but it's going to be... Whether we're going to get everybody to understand that before all these things are due, because EPA's expectations were a much faster pace I think that most people would have preferred, but they are what they are. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and there are some people that are tickled pink about it, like the folks in Green Acres who for years and years and years complained about flooding problems. They were trying to be proactive, but were given that responsibility that that's, you know, that's... "You all have to deal with this. This is it. We're giving the property to you." That sort of thing. So I think to, um, where it is the responsibility of residents to be as proactive, we've got to really be all of us very astute to... if someone's having an issue like that, that we try to be as creative and proactive ourselves as government elected officials and employees, staff, and the people that are having that face to face contact saying, "Let's see what we can do, because we are having water quality issues and this could be affecting all of our water quality instead of passing the buck." So yeah, I do appreciate that, and, and I look forward to working together with you and other staff to make sure that we're including as many residents as possible, um, and on any proactive measures that we can do. Thank you. Were you finished? Your name just popped up again. Are you... Okay. And Charlie, when you, uh, get with your... I forget what you called them, your... Associates. Associates. Your group, uh, will you remember that, um, the Fayette County Neighborhood Council has anywhere from 50 to 75 neighborhood leaders who attend every month, and they're a good umbrella for getting... you know, to add them into the mix, because they have a lot of people who are a captive audience there, pre- neighborhood presidents, et cetera. Yeah, I've, I've spoken with them before. You're, you're absolutely correct. Great. I will utilize that. Okay. Um, did you want to enter back in? Oh, okay. Was there any other council member who hasn't spoken before I call on Council Member Meyers? Okay. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Charlie, you, you talked about the inventory that's in... ... these three or four tables? Mm-hmm. The creeks, this has more to do with detention and retention basins and ponds, right? Right. That's what we were talking about when I referenced these is, is do we, are we sure we have an inventory of the detention and retention basins? And I pointed out that we're required to inspect 90%, at least twice a year on detention basins. Yeah. And 90% once a month on retention basins. We are not required to- But didn't you say 95? ... inspect drainage ways. But what I was pointing out is that stormwater control is, includes- Isn't that seven? ... all of these things, whether it's privately or publicly owned. And it, it is somewhat of a departure from what ... I'll, I'll, I'll go back and, and point out some of our misdeeds of the past. I mean, we didn't have any money to maintain the basins. We certainly didn't have the money to maintain the creeks. Right. So there wasn't even any sense of going there at that time in 2001. Okay. So the, the budget that you have that you're looking at, um, is more centered around what's in these tables? No. No? No. And I'm, I'm- Why not? ... not really prepared to talk about the, the stormwater management fee stuff 'cause I don't have my notes with me, but when I put that together, it was more than just basins and ponds. It was realizing those basins and ponds connect to something else, which connects to something else. I, when I put that budget together, I thought about it as the, the aggregate storm sewer system, all the way from the drainage inlet that's on the corner of your street all the way to where it discharges into the waters of the commonwealth. That was my intention. Okay. Um, the decresic- the, uh, consent decree requires that we have inspection on these 90% a year, et cetera, et cetera, and I'm sure that it has a timeline from when these have to be mitigated. It, um, the one bullet that I had is that it says that we have to have a, implement a plan for maintaining them, is that, uh, that there's not a deadline that says that, "If you find a deficiency, you must correct it in 15 days." It doesn't say that. It says that you gotta come up with a plan that's reasonable that says that if I find problems that I maintain those problems in a, in a reasonable and orderly fashion based on prioritization, like you do with anything, you know, is that, that if you have a problem that is, is, is X, that you would schedule that to be repaired through the course of the construction season. You may have another problem that's Y that's creating imminent, you know, failure of property or damage to, uh, uh, private property. You're gonna get out there and take care of that right away. I'll use the beaver dam example. You know, there's a beaver dam in the middle of this, this drainage way that we're talking about. I mean, if it's such as it is gonna create a high water level the next time it rains and floods people's houses, we're gonna get on that. I mean, if there's a, a, a, a tree that's down on the bank of it and that it, it, it's gonna obviously create a problem later on, we may not necessarily get out there and take care of that right away. We'll schedule it appropriately. Okay. The, um, in other cases, there's some things that we're gonna have to have that is gonna be a regular preventive maintenance aspect. Um, uh, Councilperson James mentioned some of the work that we're doing out in the, in the Green Acres area via a grant. One of the things that we'll be putting out there is inserts into the, uh, catch basins that will collect pollutants. Clearly, we're gonna have to get out and maintain those things on a regular basis 'cause essentially they're a glorified filter, and that if we don't remove that debris out of there, it's gonna back up real fast. So as you're working to put together what we're gonna need for this fee and what the fee is gonna cover and what the outcomes are gonna be for the citizens, at what point will, and, and maybe we're premature, but at what point do you plan on talking to the citizens about, like, when will they see their dollars at work? For example, um, I've got a couple other creeks in the district that have banks that have trees falling and trees growing sort of into 'em, and I've had people ask me why the city won't come out and clean that up, and we've had obvious answers for that. We didn't have the money to do that, resources, a lot of different things. But because we're gonna assess a fee or a tax on people, they're gonna wanna see that these things get fixed. So, at what point will we talk about what they're gonna get for their money? I think it's gonna obviously be sometime after the, the, uh, the council sees their way to approve the, uh, stormwater management fee because I don't know what I could tell them without knowing where we're going to land. And, and you all will be telling me that. There will be a period of time from the time that you vote yes or no to the time that we actually start collecting a fee provided that it passes, there's a whole lot of background information that needs to go on in order to start collecting this as far as who's collecting it, um, the, the billing mechanisms, all these other things that need to go on. I'm a little bit outside my comfort level. This would be a Bill O'Mara and GIS l- discussion, but I just know that they're concerned a, a great deal is that as we continue to have the dialogue that they're not making any headway of getting these other support mechanisms in place to actually start bringing in revenue. But if I had to guess it, I'd say it'd probably be six months after the time that you, um, um, the, that by the time the council passes a stormwater management fee before you'd start seeing dollars. Right. I understand that part. My question wasn't when we start seeing dollars. It's, it's, what are we gonna be able to tell the citizens is gonna be the result of their fee? ... sometime after six months. I don't really know what else should... okay. So basically what you're saying is we're gonna... you want the council to vote on a fee before we tell the citizens what the fee's gonna pay for? No. I mean, I've already done that, and that -- that is in the minutes of that as far as the... If you want specific itemized projects right up front, we're not... I'm not in a position to do that today, nor have I done any work on that 'cause no one's asked me to do it. What I've done is I've put together a -- a cost model based on s- certain categories, whether it be personnel, operating, capital maintenance, and small maintenance. Um, you know, if -if you wanna have a detailed list associated with that, I'll look at the chair for that task force and for guidance on that, 'cause we haven't done that at this point in time. Okay. Well, I'd like to... W- what I'd like to ask for is - is to get some information that moves in that direction that says when you look at these tables, when you look at these other streams that need to be fixed, when that's gonna begin to take place, when that can get done, in terms of being able to inform the citizens that if we exact this fee on you, then this will be the result, and this is some type of ballpark on when these results will start to happen. May I jump in? We're -we're... These are some of the things we're discussing in the Stormwater Fee Task Force, and one of the things we need to do through the task force is have a public meeting and put this information out to the public. And then what I'm asking for is for him to start compiling that information so it can be put out to the public. What- All I can do is try, but I doubt very seriously if I'm going to come up with a very comprehensive list, um, a-anytime soon. I mean I can... I- I... We'll take what we have to work with and we'll go from there, but, um, I'm -I'm kinda sitting here, standing here looking befuddled, because I can just tell you is that we've got millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of deficiencies out there. I mean, I just know it without picking out particular ones or pointing out particular ones. I- if, if... I don't know if you got a chance to see the first, um, presentation I had regarding the stormwater fee. I mentioned it earlier. I tried to put as many of the horror photos as I could. I had so many of them; I couldn't even find them all in the, in the presentation. And I don't say that to be condescending or anything, I just... You know, to try to say that we're going to come up with a priority list first and then enact the fee, that isn't gonna help us with our compliance issues. What- what we've tried to propose is, is that there's these categories that are going to be for stream restoration and this for small capital repair of where the head wall has fallen into the creek or the pipe is dropped and the joints are separated, and here is this -this category of money, regular every year money coming, being generated by the stormwater fee to be able to do those things. And we'd begin to -to, I guess, start prioritizing once those things were in place. That was what my proposal was. 'Cause I felt like trying to do it the other way would be really difficult. Now to maybe try to meet you halfway on that, uh, Councilman Myers, is that I can take some of those horror story examples that I have and try to try to -to characterize them in a- in a- in a more pointed or poignant fashion that says these are the kind of things that you get for this category of money. I think I could probably do that. But to come up with a comprehensive list, it- it's overwhelming. Well, I think if you did that, but I think if you would also... if you could kind of speak to how many of those are out there, the- the scope of the issue, the scope of the problem would help. Thank you. And isn't that also one of the requirements of the consent decree is to come up with the list, to do a new list, Charlie? Well, it is, and when it- it is regarding the flooding project- Yes. ... a- which is even another ca- uh, capital category aside from the maintenance. As you recall, you know, I've tried to make sure that we separate capital flooding problems with the ongoing maintenance of where leaves and all the other things that end up in catch basins and whatnot that end up creating problems for property owners. Well, is it required that you come up with a list for water quality as well as for flooding? Nah, that... The flooding one is... has to do with the supplemental environmental project that we agreed to as part of our, um, um, waiving of the civil penalty. There's not a requirement of coming up with a list for water quality. I- I- it's... I- I'm gonna paraphrase here, but I think that it- it... the consent decree or the program management... I'm sorry, the Stormwater Quality Management Program broadly says to take advantage of water quality opportunities as they present themselves in doing retrofits. Um, you know, back to the stream or the drainage way type of issue, um, you know, one of the things that to me has been a real key point of being able to move forward with this- this stormwater management fee is that what... we have to make sure that we leverage our dollars not only for water quality and quantity, but it's also got, in my mind, be a visual quality of life thing, because the average person can't see water quality. I can't. I mean, you look... Unless it's really bad. I mean, you know, if there's little bacteria in there or not, I mean, you can't really see that. And so if we don't do things that ha- enhance w- the- the quality of life for folks, which is one of the reasons I'm a big proponent of litter and- and putting money in there for litter, because the average person can see litter. They can't necessarily see micro-invertebrates in the water. Thank you. Um, Charlie, was there m-more presentation? We have another council member, and we may have some members of the public. I don't know if anyone here wants to- It, it, it, it's- ... make comments. ... up to you if you wanna hear about the, um, uh, about 15 minutes about some of the permitting issues. If not, I know you've got a lot of stuff on your agenda. We can do that for another day. I mean, uh, Councilman Feigl had asked, or Councilperson Feigl had asked about that. We can do it. It's your pleasure. What, what's the sense of the committee members? Do you want to hear permitting issues now or at a later date? Later, I hear later. Okay. Does that suit? So, uh, we wanna remember that piece at some point and hear permitting issues. My question would be this, is that where do we go from here? Yeah. And I guess we'll wait for direction on that, because, eh, you know, we're in committee now. And just, just to remind you is that, that at some point in time, we'll, you know, we'll be facing another deadline of coming out. As I mentioned in the water resources meeting this morning, there are more ordinances coming, 'cause there are several different ones that we have to address, so. I think we have a motion today coming, but I, we may have some... Are there any members of the public or anyone else who wants to speak? Uh, Councilmember Gray, Vice Mayor Gray, excuse me. That's quite all right. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Um, I move that we, um, move this back to the, um, council and put it on the docket. Second. Uh, Councilmember, Vice Mayor Gray moved this ordinance back to the docket. Would this come back to, just straight to, uh, new business, or would it come back to, okay, where it started, to new business? And Councilmember Beard seconded. Discussion. You have to go, what? Is there more discussion? Uh, will those in favor say aye? And those opposed, nay? Okay, that issue then will move, be moved back to the council, and it will actually be reported out next week as part of the planning report. And, uh, Charlie Martin, if I could look at you a second. The vote is to move it back to the council as a new business item, so I don't know if you need to re-blue-sheet it or not, but it will also be coming as a motion from the planning committee during my planning report. So whatever works. We, w- w- we will work on that. I, I see that I have some homework to do as well as far- Yes. ... as the PR issues, getting the packet out. I appreciate that. Okay. Okay, okay, very good. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is the Newtown Pike status. We usually have, we have these three major road projects, which the planning committee has been following, and we're going to hear a project update from Andrew Grunwald, and then, uh, Liberty Road, there were some questions on that, so we'll hear from Bob Baird on that. And the Louden Avenue project is in your packet. There's a brief update for your information, and if there's a question on that, we'll take that too. Welcome, Andrew. Thank you very much. Um, good afternoon. I prepared a, a, about a 30-slide presentation. In lieu of the time constraints, I will skip through a, a, a good deal of this. Um, I'm sure, uh, for instance, the project history and some of the other things th- I think is a little bit redundant. Um, there are some things that I do, uh, feel it's pertinent to talk about today. Um, for instance, I'm gonna d- uh, tell you about the phase one, the temporary housing area, that's the, where we've placed the manufactured homes. I'm also gonna talk about phase four of the project, from Main Street to Versailles. And then I'm also gonna touch on a, um, another issue, um, the name of Newtown Pike Extension. Um, we, um, we have run into, um, some, some problems with that name, and I'll, I'll elaborate on those in a little bit. Um, y- everybody, I believe, is, uh, fairly aware of the route of the Newtown Pike Extension. I'll only briefly mention it here. Um, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing with... There we go. Um, it runs from Main Street, crosses Manchester Street at a lighted intersection, comes back up, crosses Versailles Road, comes to the Patterson Street, Scott Street intersection, continues over to South, um, um, uh, uh, South Broadway, and then Scott Street continues on and connects up with South Limestone. And that's just kind of a very quick rough overview of the, of the alignment that was selected by the environmental impact statement. Um, of course, we have divided the project up into four phases. I will briefly touch on them here. Phase one is the housing area in what will be the community land trust. Phase two is to go from Versailles Road to South Broadway and fill in a good portion of the community land trust, including the commercial area, um, the relocation of the Nathaniel Mission and the park. Phase three was to be the Scott Street connector with a bridge over South Broadway and the redesign of the intersection at South Lime. And phase four was to be the connection from Versailles Road to Main Street. With that said, we are going to construct phase four first that will run simultaneously with what was phase one. Um, let me go straight into the, um, to the phase one of temporary housing construction. We began construction in November of 2007. Um, we moved a considerable amount of earth, about 21,000 cubic yards. We actually had to have put, install about 850 linear feet of sanitary sewer, uh, electric lines, water lines. Ess- essentially what we had to do was to build this temporary housing area, we had to, we had to build a neighborhood. Um, we, uh, agreed that we would, um, we would take it through our planning and permitting process. We actually took it to, um, to the, uh, planning commission. We got approval to build, um, the temporary housing area. It is a, um, manufactured home site. It is temporary. Um, but we, we tried to follow every rule that is, if we were a developer, um, that we would have to follow. Um, we installed 16 manufactured homes. Um, now this took us about, um, approximately a year from the time construction started. Um, let me go to this one real quick. Um, we did have some delays in the construction, um, for instance, we had one of the wettest winters on record. From December of 2007 til April of 2008, this was the fourth wettest winter period since 1901. Um, during that time period, we received about 10.6 inches above our, our average. Um, essentially what that did to us, we were, at that point in time, we were, we were excavating a lot of dirt, moving a lot of soil. Um, it shut our contractors down. They could, they couldn't get into the site and work. It was, um, it was, uh, quite, quite messy. Um, during construction, we also encountered, um, uh, given this wet weather, we found a, we found a stream . Um, a considerable stream that had to be rerouted under the site and put into the, uh, to the lower town branch box culvert. And, um, last summer, um, the, uh, the leak into the town branch, um, from the sanitary sewer was actually, um, located. It was right in the middle of our site. Um, we had a convenient work space. Uh, we, we kind of shut down and allowed sanitary sewers to come in and dig up the line and, and, and do all the work that they had to do to repair that leak. Um, but with all of that said, we, we did, um, actually complete and move residents in, uh, before December of, of last year. We, we got 14 residents moved in before Christmas. Uh, essentially this is the area. We have placed 16 manufactured homes. Um, the street name, um, is, um, is Wittmar Way. Um, we have two remaining and we are going to add two additional manufactured homes located right here and here, um, for the remainder of the, of the folks who live in the phase one area. Now, those remaining people are what we call owner occupied. The people that we have relocated were essentially renters in the area who wanted to stay. Um, owner occupied people, uh, they're, they're, um, their acquisition or relocation of their property will be a little bit more difficult and I'm gonna kind of go over that right now. Um, the acquisition in, in, in this, in this area was accelerated to move the existing residents, um, who were renters into the temporary housing area as quickly as possible. Um, this was accomplished kind of outside of the normal channels. Um, it was a collaboration between the, um, between private consultants, between the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet as well as the Lexington-Fetterbury County government. We had to have deed research performed by our independent consultants, and this deed research was given to the transportation cabinet. The transportation cabinet then in-house, um, hired out appraisers to appraise the property and then they provided all this information back to us. We then prepared offers to all of, to all of the owners. Um, to date, 12 of these offers have been made, um, and hopefully we're gonna close on those offers within the, uh, next week or so. We went ahead and moved the residents who were living in the houses into the manufactured homes, even before the offers were made. Um, this adds a little bit more paperwork on our end, but we felt it was better that, that individuals actually get relocated. Um, the relocation benefits were calculated, um, by independent consultants and they were also approved by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Now, these relocation benefits, they'll be, um, they were presented to each homeowner, or I'm sorry, to each household, to each one of the residents. And we did this in a private consultation. And we explained, um, basically we explained every, every condition or every situation that that one individual would be presented with. Um, for instance, they could, they could take their money now and relocate outside of this area. They could take this money, put it in escrow, live within the manufactured homes. We went over what we call the Occupancy Agreement. Um, we went over the rules of, of what would be expected of them as they lived here. And each one of those meetings took approximately one hour, and we answered any questions that they had. Um, they were offered, uh, uh, legal, uh, consultation, if they wanted an attorney, um, we actually provided a pro bono attorney for them. Surprisingly, all 12 of the people that we met with decided they would stay, um, in the temporary housing area. We did give them that choice. Um, they could have taken that money and left, but they chose to stay and be part of the Lexington Community Land Trust. Um, what this means for us is, um, we take their relocation benefits, um, and we escrow them. Each individual, um, was eligible to receive a certain amount of money. Um, and it was a substantial amount of money. That money will be escrowed and at a later time, they will be asked to put that money into a new house. Um, they will then, at that time, be asked again whether they want to commit to the new house or take their escrowed relocation money and move elsewhere. So they still, they still can make a choice. Um, and again, we, we did get all 14 of these individuals moved in before, um, before Christmas. Um, this is just some of the pictures of the site. Um, looking down Wittmer Way. Um, we're looking at the front door of, of one of the, uh, manufactured homes. This is kind of in the bend, around the side. Um, we did make all of them, um, ADA accessible, um, ADA accessible showers, as well as, um, kitchen features. Um, and it, it's, um, it's been fairly amazing. They, uh, they have kind of made it through, um, uh, uh, two pretty rough, uh, natural situations. One, we had that ice storm, and I thought I was gonna be inundated with frozen pipe calls and , um, but remarkably enough, I think only one or two fixtures had failed. Uh, they lost power from Tuesday night until Saturday afternoon, um, a- with only minor damage to the, to the manufactured homes. Um, they also seemed to, to do fairly well in the, the windstorm that we recently had. Um, only minor damage to some of the screen doors. Um, so we, we built fairly substantial foundations, and they were anchored very well. Um, but to move on to phase four, this is the section from Main Street, um, to Versailles. I'm gonna discuss the right of way and utility relocations, as well as a little bit on the construction schedule, and then, uh, describe a little bit on the, um, on the Signature Bridge. Um, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is handling the right of way and they're also providing the relocation services for this phase of the project. Um, they are in the process of hopefully making three offers, um, and also working with remaining, uh, property owners. Up until October, we were handling a lot of requests from different owners, um, in the area. Um, for instance, "Can you tweak the plans this way? Can you tweak the plans that way? Can you add this? Can you add that?" Um, at some point, um, the project team felt we had to stop changing the plans. Um, the Transportation Cabinet is a very departmental agency. Um, design plans must be cleared before they can be given to the right of way section for appraisals to be done and for offers to be made. We informed a lot of the property owners that we were doing this, and that didn't mean that we were gonna ignore any requests that they wanted to make, but we had to draw a line to stop changing the design plans... ... actually have the transportation cabinet produce an offer, and then allow them to come back formally in a written response and make any final requests. Um, had we not done that, we would still be changing the design plans to this day. Um, we at the LFUCG, we are gonna handle the utility relocation. Um, we have been working with, uh, KU Transmission, uh, to raise the lines in the current area. Um, they, as well as American Water, Kentucky American Water, are probably, um, they will have the largest, uh, utility impact due to this portion of the project. Um, Columbia Gas also has a fairly large line that runs down Manchester, as does sanitary sewers. Um, but their impacts will not be as, as significant as, um, Kentucky Utilities, their transmission department, and Columbia Gas. Um, now for the construction schedule. We have sent the bridge plans to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Bridge Department for review. Um, essentially this was that, kinda that magic October date that I told everybody we had locked the plans and said, "We're not, we're not making adjustments to 'em anymore." Um, we have not heard any feedback, um, as of yet. Uh, this is a good thing. Essentially means that they don't see any major, um, problems with the design. Um, some of the, uh, things that we, we were able to do is, um, we were able to use a lot of, uh, uh, preapproved materials. Um, the transportation cabinet, for instance, has preapproved I-beam, concrete I-beam girders. Um, and essentially, as long as you use one of these girders, you don't have to resubmit all of your calculations and it would take them a year to review them and to come back and say, "Yes, we approve that," or, "No, we do not." So, we were able to use a lot of the, um, preapproved material. Um, we, um, we did meet, uh, this summer with a group of people, um, uh, and it consisted of, uh, basically what we considered stakeholders, anybody's property who touched that bridge, and we gathered a great deal of, uh, of input from, from these individuals. And it was, it was kind of a give and take. You had all of us engineers on one side and you had everybody else on the other, and, uh, we were fighting back and forth. Um, but we, we, we came to a compromise and, and, uh, and I think everybody was, was fairly happy, um, with the results. Um, now we, we will see some minor changes, probably to the bridge as well as to some of the right of way after we have made these offers. Um, but I don't think those changes will be, um, hopefully they won't be showstoppers. Um, the, um, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is going to, um, oversee construction of, of this portion of the project. Um, they have a little bit more teeth than we do. Um, they, uh, they have a larger construction section and they can actually do a little bit better job on imposing, um, uh, you know, things like, uh, i- overruns in schedule and, and hopefully they w- they would have a better chance of, uh, of getting the project moving under construction and completed. Um, we still are hoping for a summer 2009 letting. Um, a lot of this has to do with, uh, funding as well as right of way. Um, uh, i- if we do not have the right of way, um, this letting date would get pushed back. Um, the, uh, Signature Bridge is essentially, this is the plan and profile, it is a concrete structure with two spans, a middle pier. The, the group that we met with, um, very heavily weighted with, um, with, uh, architects. Um, were okay with solid masses of concrete at both ends. Now they did ask us to do board forming and some other, um, architectural treatments. Uh, for instance they wanted us to batter, um, the slopes, and then they wanted us to raise the, the center pier as well as the end abutments, uh, approximately 15 feet above the driving surface. And all of these were concessions that we engineers were, "Concrete? Yeah, oh, yeah. We can, we can do with that." Um, this is a section thr- uh, view through the first, the first abutment. Underneath the bridge, we were assuming that these large panels could be utilized, um, for public artwork- There will be, let me jump back right here. There will be a bike path which runs underneath the bridge here. Basically, right there. And our thought was that each one of the tops of these pedestals, you can actually install some type of sculpture. They will essentially be strong enough to re-, uh, to support, um, anything that could be sculpted and set up there with a crane. Uh, no doubt you could put something that weighed 20 tons, but, you know, that... This is a section view through the, uh, middle with both piers. And this is a view of the railing. Um, railings have undergone a, a, a significant change over the past couple years. For instance, what you see down here on the Martin Luther King, um, Viaduct, can no longer be constructed. The Transportation Cabinet will not allow you to, uh, to construct such a railing. It, it must actually come up to a certain height and actually be over, um, over the, the ability of somebody to throw something over the side. Um, so this was a point of contingency with m- many of the, um, um, the architects that were with us. Our, our idea of railing was that chain-link fence. They didn't like that. Um, the, um, the current name of Newtown Pike Extension, um, has brought up some questions, uh, primarily with the, um, the enhanced 911 division. Um, if you look at the way the city of Lexington names streets, um, we currently have North and South, which is, um, is divided by Main Street. Um, we originally, when we started this project, or when it was started, uh, back in the '70s, uh, this was not a concern. The name Newtown Pike Extension had always just carried forward. Um, this was brought up when we were in the middle of trying to draft the environmental impact statement. Um, at that time, we did not wanna change or even bring up the question of changing the roads, 'cause we didn't wanna confuse everybody who had read the environmental impact statement, that had gone to numerous, uh, Federal Highway Administration, um, offices. If we changed the name right in the middle of it, nobody'd know what road you're talking about. Um, but, um, as pointed out by our 911 department, w- we're gonna have to call it something else. Um, it, uh, we, we have looked at different things, uh, different ideas, maybe having, um, some type of public, um, uh, configuration, you know, uh, name the new road or, or something, um, to that effect. But we haven't really decided on any definite way of doing it yet. Um, if we did call it Newtown Pike Extension, um, essentially now you'd have North Newtown Pike and South Newtown Pike. And I didn't necessarily wanna call up Lexmark and tell them to change all of their letterhead. Um, so that's just, uh, something to think about. There'll be more on that to come at a, at a later date. But if anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to, to answer them. Andrew, thank you very much. We have a couple minutes left before our next two items, and I know Council Member Feigl has a question. Uh, thank you, Chair. I'm just curious with all of the ice storms we've had lately, why these utilities a- apparently were not placed underground if, um, they did lose power, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? I'm just con- concerned that we aren't moving toward placing more of our utilities underground. The utilities in our temporary housing area or the utilities on the project as a whole? Well, I, uh, I guess, okay, that w- oh, you answered my question, so that's temporary housing. Um, what about along the, uh, Newtown Pike Extension? Are we planning to, to bury the electrical lines? Um, well, uh, two-part question. I'll, I'll answer both those real quickly. Uh, for our temporary housing area, we did put them underground. Um, the problem was the primary circuit, I think that entire section of downtown went down. So e- everything, um, all the way around that area went down. Um, as far as utilities for, uh, the extension itself, typically what we do is we allow the utility companies to make that call for themself. Um, and with that said, depending on where the lines are located, um, if they are located outside of our utilities, if they have a- an easement, we have to bear the cost of, of whatever they, um, whatever they design. If, um, and for instance, one of the, uh, one of the utilities I'm dealing with is with KU, uh, they have a massive transmission line that runs down through there. The cost difference to take that and put it underground could be triple what it would cost simply to raise it up. Um, I probably can't make that judgment call to tell Kentucky Utilities to go ahead and plan on putting that underground, um- ... um, and if we, the government, were to tell them to put it underground, we would have to come up with the money for that. So then, now you're, you're talking about adding money onto projects and just sending them on out. Um... I would just- Good question, but a little bit, probably above what I can answer. I would suggest that now's the best time to do it. You know, while all the construction is going on and I think, you know, it's, uh, it's too bad we didn't, uh, build that into the price of the project. I... Well... I, I can understand that. Count- Does that finish your questions? Council Member Blues? Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, Andrew, is any of the, uh, of the infrastructure for the temporary housing gonna be usable for the permanent, uh, emplacement? Uh, no, sir. The temporary housing area is located in what will be the, the new South End Park. Right. Um- But I, I just wondered whether any of the sewer lines th- that were, that were put in or the water lines would be some way usable. The water line could potentially be useful to the structures built in the water park or continued on over for Kentucky-American Dub- to kind of help with their loops within their system, but the sanitary sewer line will probably be abandoned in place and filled in. Um. Thank you. As we had to build that area, we had to meet all state regulations. Mm-hmm. When, when you build a sanitary sewer, you can't... Theoretically, you can't just build a temporary one out of weaker materials. I, I don't even think Charlie Martin would have accepted it at that point. Thank you. Yes, sir. We don't have any more questions. So Andrew, thank you very much for your presentation and update. Yes, ma'am. And we have our next two items, the Liberty Roads Project status and the Louden Avenue Project status. Council members, you have a brief update on each of those, and I think there's maybe one quick question on Louden Avenue. Um, after we do these two project updates, we will go through our list of items in committee. And so Bob Baird is here to answer any questions about Louden Avenue, and do I see anyone who has question? Do you have a question? Okay. And if you have a question, just log in and I'll get you. Council Member Stinnet. Thank you, Chair. Bob, can you just kind of publicly tell us where we're at on Phase 1B and, and Phase 1A for that matter? Are we done with Phase 1A, and are we on schedule to start in March of Phase 1B? Um, Phase 1A, they're... We're down to some final surfacing. And of course, the state is overseeing the construction of that project. Um, there is some final surfacing that needs to be done. O- Once that's done, then the final striping will need, need to go on that. Um, Old Liberty Road will... Needs to be addressed. Um, the... I think the plan for that is to give it a resurfacing, and then give it over to the city. We, on the other hand, are... Um, because we have a sewer project in there, the Cadent Town Sewer Project, we're... That's caused that resurfacing of Old Liberty to, to have to wait until we get out of there. Um, th- that's, that's about it on 1A. On 1B, we're, we're down to five parcels of right of way that we need to acquire. Uh, three of those we're handling. Two of those, the state is handling. They're, the, the two state ones are kind of at the imminent domain stage. They, they think they're gonna be able to settle or work through with at least one of those two property owners. Um, as far as the construction letting, it is shown it, it won't be in March. We're... June is the, the new mid-date. June 12th, I think, is the state's letting date. And that is, um, slated for, um, letting by the state rather than us. Yeah. When did, when did you change the letting date from March to, to June? The... It, it's kind of slipped because of these, the right of way acquisition. Um- Will we have ours wrapped up in the next 30 days, the three that we're working on? I understand that two of the state are going to combination, but even with those, you can proceed with the project while they're in litigation. The... There is a mechanism for right of entry on those. Um, we are... We think we're close on the three that we're working on where we won't need to, to get into the eminent domain process. Um- So if you could email me an update of where we're at on, on specific what the properties are and where we're at on those three- Okay. ... and, and that would, that would be fine. Thank you, Chair. Can do. Chair. Um, did you have a question about this project? It's just a comment. It's not a question. Mm-hmm. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to let, um, any folks traveling along Louden Avenue know what's going on with the, the gas work that's going on. You see some crews there. Um, that is some, some work that Columbia Gas is taking care of. Um, it's an upgrade to that natural gas, um, infrastructure there, um, as well as moving some, um, inside meters outside along the way. Um, a lot of folks have wondered what's going on. Did somebody do something wrong? And it's just, it's just some, some stuff that Columbia Gas is working on at this point. And there is a new light. Um, there's not a sign that notifies that there's a new light, but there's a new signal traffic light at Eastland and Louden Avenue. So, um, be careful as you roll through that beautiful corridor, um, to not be going too fast because you may hit that red light that's there. Um, and, um, thank you for the updates. I know that you and I stay in contact with... our office stays in contact. Bill Bowie, you all are ve- very helpful and we appreciate the constant updates, um, and the interaction with community and the residents in that area. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Baird, you're also the point person for the Loudoun Av-, I mean, the Liberty Road, both Loudoun and Liberty Road. So, um, if there are no further questions, um, thank you very much for being here. Thank you. And council members, if you would please turn to page 44 in your packet. Uh, we have 10 minutes to go through these items, and there are some which we may want to take out of committee. Um, and so I'd just like to go through those with you to see what your desire is about the issues. The top three, Liberty Road, Newtown, and Loudoun, will all stay in committee until they're finished. Um, buffering in the ED zone is being reviewed by Fed Alliance. Um, development plan adherence. I believe that is... Where is that? Do you know, Mr. Shawniger? It's- Yes. We're supposed to be having a presentation on it in the spring, and the land bank will, um, be coming back. Yes, Council Member James. Something that came up, um, during the land bank that was a, kind of an incidental finding or, um, a, a tool or mechanism that's used with the land bank was the Vacant Property Review Commission. And I wanted, um, Council Member Gor- or Crosby had asked for Vice Mayor to start a, begin a task force on that. And I wanted to let committee members know I meant to get it, to have it available to you, but I have just a brief syno- not, not a brief synopsis, it's a, it's a packet of information regarding everything that we found out regarding the Vacant Property Review Commission. Set state, statutes, local ordinances, law, legal opinions. There's some information. I'm going to be distributing that to all council members so that whomever is on that task force will have all of the information about a year's worth of work that we've done, incidental to land bank, but very much a part of it that I will pass on. And do you see the work of that task force as different from this issue to the land bank issue? Um, I don't, but others do. Um, so that's why I thought I would just give the information. If that task force wants whatever they choose to do- Okay. ... they will at least have the work that we found, that we've uncovered. Okay. Thank you very much. On the land bank issue, we are expecting the interlocal agreement to come by blue sheet to the council as soon as it's finished. The student housing issues, that, uh, task force will probably be ready in March. Um, Council Member Blues, uh, we're on to fence regulations. Do you, um... What, what shall we look toward as a timeframe? I, I don't know what we should look for as a- Maybe summer? ... timeframe, I'm hoping. Uh, actually, I've, I've, I've asked Paul if, if, if he would also look into some v- very related issues and that's sight lines, uh, because in many cases we do not, as a, as a government, control, uh, sight lines at corners or obstructions caused by fences, trees, other kinds of, of barriers. So, while I hate to add on to this, uh, it may be that as we take up fence height issues, we need to include that as well. Okay. So- So, I'm afraid I can't be very encouraging in terms of getting this off of the, uh, table. May- maybe by summer? Maybe by summer. Okay. So we'll keep that in committee. Um, mobile home trailer park quality of life issues. Council Member James. Um, it's sor- it's sort of on hold at this time. Um, I don't at this time have a time when it will come forward back to committee. Um, maybe once we are able to pass on the, um, Vacant Property Revie- Review Commission, then I'll have more time to work on that. So, but we're waiting for... We're waiting on, um, information of con- we're talking about conversion. So, conversion of mobile home parks, um, to permanent housing. So we're- So w- ... we're just, um, pursuing that angle. Okay. So we'll keep that in committee. Thank you. Um, Vice Mayor Gray, Infill Redevelopment Committee recommendations. Um, do you have any update on that? Um, the committee, the task force continues to meet and, uh, administration is, uh, assisting with implementation of the recommendation. So we're- So we'll keep- We are active, yeah. ... keep that in committee. Um, tree protection ordinance. Council Member James, is there anything that the council needs to do with, the committee needs to do with this issue? The tree board is working on that, and you should see something come forward very soon. Um, there are a lot of angles that have to be dealt with, so I'd say keep it in, please. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And our streetscape plan, um, it continues to be worked on. Downtown Master Plan. Uh, Council Member DeCamp was kind of... Turns out he's not here. Was kind of the point person on that, and probably... Let's see. Would you like to take that over? Council Member, um, Lawless. Then we'll list you as the point person on the Downtown Master Plan. We're working on our inspector fees, electrical inspector fees. Council Member Crosby's chairing a committee on the audit recommendations. Um, Council Member Stevens had put into committee the family care center audit. My question is, do we need to remove tha- remove that or keep that in committee? D- do you think we can maybe, uh, confer with Commissioner Helm to find out status of that, um, before we do anything with it? Will you- That'd be easy enough. ... do that, Paul? Madam Chair? Yes? Could that be resolved under the management office recommendations? Well... ... recommendations? But the audit has been done, and it's a separate... I- I think he intended for us to- to be on point with the audit itself, not- not the management audit, but the audit of the family care center. Wh- is there a council member who would like to take that over since Council Member Stevens had that in committee? You may wanna wait until after the separate terms. Okay. Because- We'll wait until Paul finds out, uh, what the commissioner has to say. Um, I've talked with Council Member Henson about the next three items, and they'll be coming to committee. And special districts, I don't know... Does anyone know the status on that? Or zoning violation fines, I'll check with Council Member Meyers on that. Day treatment facility, Council Member Stinnet, do you- Oh, motion to remove from committee. Motion to remove. Do I hear a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say, "Aye." Anyone opposed? So we're removing that item from committee. We have the Newtown Pike design ordinance, which we heard once, and Chris King will be bringing back more information on that. Um, Council Member Blevens had put backyard setbacks into committee. Is there anyone who wants to keep that in committee who knows about that issue? That's fine by me. Do I hear a motion to take it out? I make a motion to remove. Second. Motion and a second to remove backyard setbacks. Those in favor, say, "Aye." Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? So we remove that. Uh, courthouse area design review recommendations. Would someone like to take that over from Council Member Stevens- Um, I would just- ... as a sponsor? Council Member Lawless? Yeah. Well, it seems like it goes with the downtown master plan, and it is in my district, so for those reasons- Okay. We'll put Council Member Lawless on that. ...actually come up to speed on the rest of it. Okay. And we have our new items that w- were added to committee in January of '09, the Destination 2040 Visioning, and the private retention detention basin maintenance, which was moved out of committee today. So, if there's no other question, do I hear a motion to adjourn? I move. Second. All those in favor, say, "Aye." Aye. Thank you very much.