Weed pooling, trail maintenance and more. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy shoes and work gloves. Volunteers should come to the Education Center at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 25th and stay as long as their schedule permits. Come out to Raven Run for their Stargazing Program. This free program will be held at 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 25th. Participants will enjoy an astronomy presentation presentation and view the night sky through telescopes provided by the Bluegrass Astronomy Club. Far from the city lights, Raven Run is an excellent place to see planets, galaxies, and the Milky Way. That's this week's Parks Minute. For more information, visit the Parks website at www.lexingtonky.gov. I'm Stacey Diamond and I'll see you next time. On the Meeting Rundown Week here at LFUCG, the City Council and other government agencies, As you view the schedule, don't forget to check out the city's website, lexingtonky.gov. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. So Park Master Plan. Good morning, everyone. I am Jerry Hancock, the Director of Parks. First, I want to thank you all sincerely for having a special meeting to cover these two issues. Parks very much appreciates the time you're spending. our citizens are vitally concerned about what happens in parks and here's an opportunity to talk about a template for us for the next 10 years so thank you for giving it the time I think it deserves. Thank you chair for letting us go first with the Isle Park master plan which I think is an exciting thing that all of our constituents are pleased with. If you can bring up that. We'll see how good we do at 9 o'clock in the morning here. The Heisel Park property was donated to the city, as you may know, in 1989 by a family who wanted to preserve the rural landscape in its current form. And we engaged Lowe's and associates to take a look at that 280 acre parcel to give us a framework for designing a plan for the future. We had a number of public meetings, two of which were held at Bryan Station High School. The first was a meeting exclusively for the immediately adjacent land owners and a second public meeting was held to allow the public to give us input on the potential best uses for that property. And a number of inputs were given to us from those meetings and we then took that input to the Parks Advisory Board and then revised it, and we then crafted this master plan for your consideration. Can't quite see this particularly, perhaps, but up here is the Heisel property in its relationship to downtown, and the green areas are park or preserved green spaces around the county. So this property serves the northeast corner of the county and its beautiful rolling property located at 3601 Briar Hill Road, 280 acres, divided as you'll see in a moment by a railroad bridge which was built in 1910. Again, the deed says that the property was donated to the government of the benefit of the public and its use, limited to recreational and open space purposes. Several buildings on the property which you'll see, there are eight ponds, and it is surrounded by a number of PDR-protected properties within the area and one large property immediately adjacent. There is electric and water, but no sewer immediately connected to the property. These brown areas, as you can see, are the PDR properties. If this S-shaped property is Heisel, immediately to the north and west is another property that is PDR. And of course, this is some of the most beautiful property in Fayette County, and we're lucky to have a large tract in the middle of that. This shows probably better for the folks at for the folks at home than us, but some of the buildings on the property. There's a two-story ranch house here that is now occupied by a Parks employee who adds eyes and ears and security to the property and also does fence repair and whatnot on an emergency basis. But this is the property, and it zigzags a little bit, as you can see. This is the railroad right-of-way trestle that goes across. This arrow is a high-tension electric wire, and there's an electric utility easement across the southern part of the property. This is Briar Hill Road, and if you drive out there, the Avon Golf Course is out here a couple of miles. Bryan Station Road is down here, and right at this corner is where the homeowner had their home site, and there are some barns and whatnot in this area. So the property is basically divided into two areas bisected by a single-lane railroad trestle bridge. This is perhaps a better shot of that. The bridge is across here. This shows the slope analysis. It's gently sloping territory. It's a little hillier out here and a little more open down here, but you can see the various ponds on the property. It's really a beautiful place. These are pictures of the existing structures, and this estimated to be 100-plus-year-old sycamore tree. This is just beautiful country, and we're really pleased to be able to present to you a plan that will continue to use the beauty of the property forever. There's a number of wetland areas that we're going to use for educational uses, as you'll see in a moment. In effect, our design inputs are these. The neighbors and the park staff and our consultants all agreed that preserving the farm character, putting non-motorized trails there, having equestrian activities, restoring some of the blue glass savanna, reforesting certain areas, birds, plants, educational opportunities were foremost in our minds in the plan that has evolved. We want to be able to expand our day camps. We're working with the state fish and wildlife. Got a call from the governor's office yesterday pledging their support to get fish and wildlife to assist us in creating an archery range out there that you'll see recommended and to assist us with biologic resources in evaluating how best to bring the ponds back to a more vibrant state than they are today. Multi-use fields, open spaces, no lights. This will be a daytime destination park for us, a specialty park where people will go to learn how to grow food, how to play, how to interact with animals and nature, and then come home. So there won't be lights that might otherwise have damaged in some ways the nature of the neighborhood. The neighbors did have concerns. They were concerned about it turning into a busy, lighted, heavy parking use area. There is concern about a railroad bridge that you'll see. It's 100 years old, looks every day of it, and it needs to be replaced. Noise, lights, vandalism, and long-term maintenance and funding were also issues brought to us by the neighbors. So what we have proposed here is a plan that has sort of three features to it. This area up here across the railroad bridge would be very low use. You'll see in a minute a number of trails throughout, and we intend that that would be an area where people would go in smaller numbers than in a medium-use area here, where we would have some equestrian riding program areas, a lesson area, and a heavier use area here on Briar Hill Road where there would be parking, an orchard, an archery area, a number of areas for community gardens, and that sort of thing. So we're envisioning three pieces here, low, medium, and light use in the north. This shows the vegetation area of the north, if you will. We envision a scout camping area up here, interpretive sites, bluegrass savanna in the middle, all surrounded by 10 miles of trails with a 25-foot vegetated buffer around to protect the neighbors. And this is the area where this 100-odd-year-old ash tree stands. This shows the southern portion, again, across the bridge, where we show some supplementary equestrian activities. By no means are we suggesting that any of the equestrian activities currently at Masterson would be moved. We are not recommending that. We are recommending that there's an area here with an adequate barn that could be used to add additional riding lesson opportunities for citizens. With fishing here, an archery course, and a number of other opportunities in here for the public to interact with a pavilion and a restroom, there would be parking here. We see cars and buses parking in this area and people walking out into the park to use its many activities. This will be largely a passive park, and again, as I say, would only be used during the day. There will not be lights out there. This shows the vegetation plan where there would be bluegrass savanna, there would be limited mow areas. primarily we're going to let this go back to nature in a more managed way than any of our parks are today. We're not going to turn this into a golf course look. We're going to allow this to become a natural area where citizens from the city can come out, commune with nature, learn about growing things, and they're going to see grasses growing perhaps up to their shoulders that they can't see in almost any other park that we own other than by default in some way. What we show here is five miles of secondary trails for walking. There's going to be an accessible trail here that will be asphalt for folks with mobility issues to use. There's going to be the main loop trail is going to be four miles with a lot of secondary trails totaling another five miles for a total of 10 miles of walking and hiking trails out there. In all candor, the only group that probably finds fault with this plan today are those folks that wanted to have mountain bike access here at Heisel Park. A lot of conversation took place at all the public meetings about the mixing of horses and mountain biking, and it was determined that we're not in favor of mixing those two elements. Horses don't react well to rapidly approaching objects on bicycles. We don't know how to mix the two, and we've decided that we'd rather err on the side of caution. We're going to put in mountain biking at Veterans Park. We're working on that right now. So the mountain biking people weren't satisfied with this, but virtually every other group that came to the table found this plan to be exactly compatible with all of their various needs and wishes. These are some depictions of what the trails would look like, giving us a guideline on their height and how they would relate to the surrounding vegetation. Suggestions from the consultant here for trailheads and what they would look like in this park as we develop it with various interpretive exhibits and protected areas to keep individuals from falling into the water, but nonetheless being able to get close to utilize the educational benefits that are there. The first-year plan is to take care of the fencing issues. There's a horse rescue operation that's been there as a tenant for a number of years. I've allowed them to close their operation over the next several months, and they'll be leaving about the first of June, I believe. And so that will give us an opportunity to begin taking down some of the interior fences, the state and the archery community. Archery in the Schools program is looking to get started on an archery program area here in a natural meadow that's maybe 15 or 20, 25 acres, something like that. We're going to start this summer working with the biologists to work on the condition of the ponds. and then we need to try and find some money to begin finding some off-road parking here. I'm eager to let the citizens begin to at least come and walk over this bridge perhaps, but not use vehicles. I'm interested in getting some bush hog quality trails on the ground right away so citizens can say, I've been hearing about this 280-acre park, what can I do? short of capital money that you'll see in a moment to do a great deal. I believe we can take down fences, put in some walking trails, and begin to work on the ponds and the archery. So the plan in the first year is to start working on these things. Absent serious capital money, I think there are a number of things we can do to allow citizens to come and at least begin to see where it's going to be. We can put up some kiosks to tell people what's coming. But short of several million dollars, I don't think we'll be able to finish this. in a meaningful way quickly. This is the long-term master plan, and I would ask that you go to the PDF 24 by 36 that shows this in a little better detail, if you will. So hopefully the folks at home can appreciate this. So this is it. We think this is a home run. We don't believe there's any groups out there that find fault with this plan. Certainly the neighbors in the immediately adjacent areas find this more than acceptable, probably greatly exceeded their expectations of what we might come up with. The parks people are happy with the opportunities to teach and use this as a variety of demonstration areas. Again, the mountain biking folks are disappointed that they're not going to be a part of this, but we're finding an area in veterans for them in an effort to keep bikes and horses away from one another. There are a number of people that live adjacent to this property that ride and have their own horses, and we're in discussions with them to find a way for them to perhaps come into the area. One of the things that's come up in the greater master plan that we'll talk about in a few minutes is an opportunity to sell a bridal tax, if you will, or a bridal fee in some way to begin to generate some revenue from the equestrian community that would go toward maintaining and upgrading equestrian facilities. So we're excited about this, and we hope that you are as well. We think this is one of the better pieces of land planning that we've done, and we certainly had a wonderful palette to start with that Mr. and Mrs. Heisel gave us in 1989. So having said that, I would urge you to ask any questions that you might have. We're eager to start doing some work out here this summer so that this fall or next spring we can have meaningful numbers of the public use of the park. Thank you. Any questions? Chair, thank you very much. Council members if you have questions please log in and first is Council Member Feigl well just a couple of questions right off the top of my head what will be the restroom facilities in that first year since you don't have sewer out there we're going to use port-a-johns that's what I was afraid of and the railroad bridge is it currently used It has been used by the tenant farmer. It's a single lane wooden bridge built in 1910. We have a structural engineer's report telling us it's unsafe. So we will not drive over it, which creates some meaningful problems for us. The railroad crossing is not at grade at that bridge. It's probably 20 feet above the tracks. and so we're going to have to find what's estimated to be $200,000 to replace that bridge or engage in conversations with the railroad company or others to help create an at-grade crossing for us. But that can be as expensive or more expensive and creates the problem of cars and people operating at the same level the train does. So it would be my recommendation that in next year's budget we ask for the funds to replace that single-lane bridge. At this point in time, we're advised not to use it. Okay, so you're looking at $200,000? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Jerry, thank you for bringing this to us today and kind of give us a quick overview. Can we get a copy of this last slide in color about all the things that are planned out there for our records? Whenever you get a chance, you can send it to us in our office mail. That would be great. I can. In your packet, I believe I've provided those, but I will make sure each one of you gets a note. And this is worth chewing on and worth looking at carefully. Yeah, they're just not color-coded. I'd like to have a color copy if you can because I think a lot of people would like to watch this progress as we go over the next couple years. Have you put together a financial package on how many dollars it's going to take to reach your ultimate goal? Yes. Actually, I have. This is going to be about, I don't want to say about. It's estimated that it will be $6.4 million. For everything? Yes, sir. And that's assuming today's dollars, right? That's today's dollars, which includes interpretive displays, overall site development, the archery range, fencing for the property, entrance drives, hitching posts, all the things that we'll need for the equestrian activity, pond restoration, the bridge, the corporate pavilion, demolition, storm drainage, and putting in the garden, $6.4 million. And is that all at once? Have we looked at breaking it up in stages based on our budget needs? I mean, are you going to be able to do it all at once, or are you going to ask for it in stages? It would always be my preference that we do it all at once. I mean, ideally, that's the way we would do it. But given the fact that that really happens. My experience tells me that we'll probably do it in stages. Yes, sir. So I assume you'll focus on the front end first, the restroom facilities. Yeah, getting people in in a safe way, finding places for them to get out of the weather, building some sort of restrooms on a septic system or whatever it is, allowing people to have a meaningful, pleasant experience, and then working our way out. Because over the next couple years, as we try to work this in a budget, it would be nice to have it three or four pieces or stages, however you can break it up, so we know what we're getting in terms of a package deal. Yes, sir. Being able to do it all at once is going to be tough. If we can get that to the council so we can figure that out in the budget, that would help us too. I'd like to do it over a short period of time. We tend to sometimes move on to other things, and it's difficult to go back, and sometimes there's not a lot of sizzle to going back to do the last 10%. So maybe we do this over a two- or a three-year period. That'd be great. That'd be great. And then parking, one last point on the parking, is it going to be gravel, or are we going to do paved parking? I would think that we would look to do perverse paving of some sort out there. It would not, I don't think, be inappropriate to have some parking on the grass. We don't see a whole lot. Now, part of this needs to be paved for ADA purposes, but there's going to be an area up here for trailers for horsemen. That might be very well suited to perverse paving. We're finding that purpose paving is a little more expensive, but it's also new. And as more communities demand those products, I think the prices will come down, and it may become relatively comparable to asphalt. Well, we don't want to increase our own stormwater fee that we have to pay ourselves. So anything you can do environmentally friendly on the paving would be helpful. Certainly in an area like this where it's all about the environment. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. Jerry, thanks so much for that report. It clearly is going to be a magnificent facility. But I've been thinking about how we pay for, not only for the improvements that we need to make at Heisel, other park needs as well. And I know you'll be getting to that in the second half, so to speak. it does seem to me that perhaps we need to revive the idea of a dedicated tax for our parks facilities. As the community grows, as the needs increase for recreation of all sorts, and of course we've talked about the all-purpose fields at Shillito, the improvements of veterans or Cardinal North and so on. And I wonder whether you've been daydreaming about such a possibility and reviving that idea. Thanks, Councilman Blues. In fact, it's a critical issue for parks, and I would like to speak to it when we talk about the greater master plan. But your interest in how we recreate parks, if you will, Councilman McCord has been a verbal advocate of modernizing our parks. They are, in fact, in many areas, very 60-ish and dated, and replacing things with modern facilities is terribly expensive. It's our point of view that going about it a million or two or three or four million dollars at a time and then dropping back as the general fund allows has in some ways exacerbated the look of our parks. Let me say, and then let's perhaps move toward the greater master plan, but when the master plan RFP was created, I specifically asked the consultants not to focus on updating their suggestion of 10 years ago, which was that parks had about $100 million worth of deferred maintenance. In the 10 years since they made that recommendation, we've perhaps spent $10 or $15 million, dollars, but haven't begun to make a dent in what is still needed to make our parks contemporary and exciting. I was not interested in updating that number. I don't care whether it's $120 million or $117 million or $142 million. It's a huge number. I'm much more interested in us engaging the council and the citizens in a conversation about how are we going to go about ensuring that our community has a park system that will attract and retain employers and enhance the quality of life. That requires some significant number of dollars that can come from a variety of sources, whether it's a tax per se or as many communities our size do. The citizens are asked in a referendum environment, are you willing to vote to pay a tax for the next seven years to build these 15 projects or 11 or whatever. Many communities do a revolving $25 million, $35 million bond every seven or eight years or so and ask the citizens if they're willing to participate in that. So you all have many choices, but I'm afraid that relying on the largesse of the general fund to fund 100 parks and 4,500 acres for a community that's growing in diversity and size, who are asking for and demanding greater different services, it is not the best way to end up with a park system we're all proud of. It's a conversation the community needs to have and I look forward to it. And I'll touch on it briefly when we go through the next part. Thank you very much. You know, as you say, it seems very clear that we're not going to really move, we're not going to transform our parks until we ask the citizens who are always very, very, very interested in our parks, in parks improvements, in using our parks until we're able to ask them to really get behind this necessary effort. Thanks again. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Chairperson. I do that all the time. Jerry, what about the staffing situation? You have some unique skills maybe here that you don't have in other places that you can move around. Are you going to have to add people who are conversant in archery or the riding and lessons, or do you outsource that, or how is that? Well, it's a good question, and we have a couple different options, the first of which would be to use seasonal part-time people as we roll out the equestrian riding lessons, The archery program based on state guidelines is really an unstaffed function, but there will be a need to have some level of attention on the park. Perhaps in the summer we do it with seasonal people initially in the first year or two. Perhaps we evolve. There's a home on the property, and that could evolve into a caretaker program manager person, could be the Heisel Park manager, if you will, there to give tours to school children. So that home is available. Initially, and I think it will take us 18 months to even begin to get trails around the facility that casual users could use. But in the two years and beyond, it's our intention at this point to have seasonal people manage the equestrian function. But there might well be a naturalist-like position that needs to be created to take care of the hopefully growing demand for interest in this area. It's not something for the 2010 budget, but for 2011 we're going to need to start thinking about how to staff it. So I don't have an answer to your question. I just know that the question needs to be answered. You know, as far as Raven Run is concerned, we have a model there with the friends of Raven Run. And would something like that fit this place also? I would hope so. I believe that the community there is sufficiently willing to engage in that conversation, that there might be some philanthropy available to endow some sort of interpretive positions seasonally to help do that. I'm hoping that you're quite correct. Having investigated that, though, we've been waiting to get this approved so that we can go back to the community and say, we're ready to start. Are you willing to help us? Well, it is, from what I can see so far anyway, it's a marvelous, marvelous thing. I think it's going to be exciting. I don't see any downside other than finding the money to make it happen. But I think, oddly enough, and I'm from a big city, there are a lot of folks here who don't know where food comes from. There are a lot of folks here in a relatively rural atmosphere who don't know about animals. This will help provide that educational peace as we continue to grow as a community. There aren't many of these 280-acre sites out there, and we're thrilled that this is going to be left rural, unlit, quiet, passive. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. Jerry, thank you for the presentation. this does look like a very exciting design and plan and very creative. So it's quite exciting to think about something like this happening. I know that many of the questions that I ask you, you probably have answers to, but I do want, as folks are watching, just to go on and get these out there. Capital, you mentioned capital would be about $6.4 million. Have we looked at, and I may have missed it, I streamed in a little bit late, Have we looked at partnerships with capital, with the actual capital, so folks that are involved in the equestrian industry that would be willing to go in on the front and maybe naming opportunities or sponsorship opportunities for the Heisel Park? I have not crossed that bridge because I wanted us, I wanted to be able to tell the giving community that this plant has been adopted. I want them to know that there is encouragement from you to participate. It's sometimes difficult to ask for help in a public way and then have that opportunity delayed. So I have not asked the inquestrian community if they're willing, haven't specifically asked, but I'm willing to do that as soon as I know that the council will adopt this and embrace it and encourage us to go forward. Okay. I'll go back to the adoption here in just a moment, but I will recommend that you, whether it comes out of committee today or not, I would encourage some conversation because you may have some folks that want to get in on the beginning stages that may not wait, that may say this is something we have to do, whether the government wants to do it or not. We need to do this, and we want to make sure that this opportunity is not missed. So I do encourage that, but I'll talk about the adoption of the plan in just a moment. You mentioned off-site parking would be needed. If I did, I misspoke. There's going to be trailer parking here and parking here. It's not off-site per se. The concern is getting people off of Briar Hill Road, which is a two-lane windy road. We're going to need to spend some money to open this up in some way. The same sorts of problems we had at Cardinal Run South, where you're cresting a hill, it's two lanes, and there's 400 minivans that want to turn left kind of thing. So we're going to have to spend some money to open this up and give people an opportunity to see in advance that they're needing to turn. But the parking is on-site. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mislead. How many total parking spaces? That's a good question, and I can't answer it. I think it says 45 standard green spaces. so there will be 45 parking spaces here and then there's parking up here for 36 trailers which this is a preliminary design the only one I had available to me today that's been changed to 45 so there's going to be 45 trailer spaces and at least 45 parking spaces here and there will be some parking on the grass or perverse pavers adjacent if we have a large school event for instance Okay. A couple of things. How do we know what parking would be adequate for this facility? How do we know the number of spaces that need to be available? And the second thing, if you want to answer at the same time, is I thought there was an ordinance against parking in grass. So are we going to look at bringing forward an ordinance that changes that for this particular site? Well, if there is an ordinance about parking on the grass, I'm blissfully unaware of it. It occasionally happens in some of our parks when there are significant events. Councilman, the parking recommendations were brought to us by Lowe's and Associates. I can't speak to the body of knowledge they used to come up with those numbers. They believe that they're adequate given the relatively low level of organized activities that we'll find here. I think as we have at most of our parks, we may find parking concerns over time. I'm comfortable that the two numbers they've given us here are adequate for us to begin, and it's kind of a high-class problem. If more and more people want to visit a passive park, that's a good thing, and we'll find parking solutions for them. But I can't speak to the veracity of where these numbers came from. I honestly can't. Okay. That may be something we need to look at as we move forward. We have other projects where parking has been brought up as an issue, and I think we need to make sure that it's adequate for all of our projects. And if LOS can give us some rationale as how they came up with that, that should be sufficient. But, you know, if this is beautiful, actually, as it looks on paper, this is going to be a place where folks really do want to come and attend, And so you may want to look at, based on each one of those activities going on, is how many folks. And you may have some use of the Arboretum and Raven Run to get some ideas of how many people come in there and whether parking is an issue there or not. You did mention annual, you mentioned operating costs would be something we wouldn't have to talk about until 2011. And so as I think about everything that's on this plan, is there going to be an adopted business plan for Hysel Park and how each one of these activities will generate some sort of revenue potentially to at least make it come out even? I know it's probably not the thought that it would make a profit, but how can we show that it will sustain itself and be able to fund itself? I don't know that it will. If we're taking school children from Fayette County Public Schools to learn about orcharding, and if we're allowing citizens to come and walk or hike, we don't have plans at this point to charge admission. We will charge for equestrian lessons, which ought to cover the out-of-pocket costs, at least, if not the capital costs of the horses and the tack and the barns and all that. But I don't believe this park in its passive nature, unregulated, open to the public during the day, is likely to pay for the costs for us to mow it, to maintain the barns, and certainly not to build the infrastructure. I don't believe this park will pay for itself because I don't visualize it as being one in which there's control of access or pay for use. Okay. I'm afraid this park will have a couple of elements that might pay for itself, like the archery, perhaps some fishing revenue, perhaps some equestrian revenue. But the vast majority of it, which we will mow and maintain and fix the fences and all that, I see as a cost to the government. Okay. Do you, at some point, see, do you know when you'll have that list of how much it will actually cost urban county government to do the things so mentioned? That'll take some time, but I would expect that by the next budget year, we would have firm costs for these things when I come back to you to ask for a piece of the capital to build it out. I'm prepared to do that. Okay. Let's see. I think that's all that I have at this point, and then I'll hold the rest of my questions for the master plan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilmember Lawless. I just wanted to mention I don't believe there is an ordinance against parking on the grass except you can't park on the grass in the front or side yard of a home. It has to be in public parks you can park in the grass. Thank you. We do that from time to time. Councilmember McCord. Thank you Madam Chair. Just real quickly Jerry one of the things I think this park offers us that some of our others don't is an opportunity to be fairly creative with those organizations and those groups who really want to preserve the farm character of Fayette County who have a desire to see you know that rural landscape protected Fayette Alliance and other places like that. I think there's an opportunity for a discussion and I just encourage us to have that discussion with them to show them what we want to do, what our plans are, and have their involvement to help fund some of these amenities because they are, in my opinion, this is a wonderful billboard for why you should preserve as much of what we have as possible. The other thing is that constantly we hear that we're on the most endangered land list from the World Monuments Fund. I think that would make a very good phone call to them to show them the types of things that we're doing, and it's one thing to show up in a report that always shows up every time we have a zone change. But I'd love to get those people involved in Lexington and see what kind of resources they can bring to bear to a community that's serious about trying to protect this, using city dollars in a place like this to educate younger people about why we should protect things and why our soil is so special. So just maybe taking a creative look at this. This is a park that, unlike our other parks, it may give us an opportunity to do that. Just a suggestion. This will be a true destination park of which we have very few. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Jerry, thank you for bringing this forward. I had a question. Do we have money set aside in this budget for the things we want to start this first year? I have in the proposed budget enough money to get us started making some bush hog trails and addressing the fencing issues. We won't have a finished product, but I have some repair and maintenance money that goes for projects as they come up after the budget is put in place, and I intend to dedicate some of that money to getting this open to the public. Thank you. At this time, although I'm a little concerned about the financial, because when we talk about $6.4 million, I think it was the final. But I'd like to make a motion that we, in concept, that we accept this, the Heisel Park Master Plan. We have a motion by Council Member Ellinger, second by Council Member Beard, to accept in concept the Heisel Park Master Plan. And would that give you the authority to start moving ahead and bringing us funding? Yes, if the full council will adopt the master plan, then I feel comfortable I can begin to make it available to the public. Okay, let's have some discussion on the motion. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing me another opportunity to speak. I thought of a question I wanted to ask you. I know when you and I talked about the parks in general, one of the things that you expressed as a need for the entire park system is more flatland to do, I guess, athletic fields. Are there any other parks in town where you have passive activities or even some equestrian activities that you could actually transfer over to this park to free up some flat land so that you might convert those to athletic fields? I believe that where we have flat space that's now used for athletic facilities, there are lines of groups wanting to use them. I don't – this property out here is rolling and doesn't lend itself well to the section. I'm not suggesting that this would be used for athletic fields. What I'm saying is that are there some other parks where you do have flat land that you're using for other things like passive parks or maybe even the equestrian activities that you have at other parks? And if those activities could be transferred to this park to free up flat land at other parks? I'm walking around the system in my head and can't think of functions, activities, or events that we could move here that are today have ownership of a flat space that could be used for fields elsewhere. I can't think of anything other than pieces of parks that are in trees or something that other interest groups might find objectionable to move. I don't think that's possible, but I'll continue to noodle on that. I think to do so would be to take away from current groups or current neighborhoods or communities to move things here. I don't think that's a high likelihood, but I'll continue to work on that. There may be, in fact, and I am certainly looking for flat space, so we're constantly looking. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Council Member Blues. Just a question. What does approving in concept mean? I think what it says is we have looked at the plan and we, in general, like the idea of the plan and would like to move the concept forward. Then it would be up to Parks as they're implementing pieces of it to bring those pieces before the council for funding or whatever. the need is. So this is... Except for the bush hogging, it sounds like you can go do that on a Saturday, Jerry. I'd be happy to. I mean, since the plan is a concept, are we sending it, is this a motion to send this to the full council for its endorsement, for its approval, and to have the director go forward with it. That would be my interpretation. Yes, the way we would interpret that, Councilman, would be that the Council as a whole, if it chooses, would adopt this plan to the exclusion of elements that aren't in it, like organized baseball or soccer or activities that aren't listed. Not to say where the fences would be or where the trail would be, but that in concept we We intend as a government to implement this plan as we can, but not to add extraneous or wildly different elements to it. We're agreeing that these are the activities in largely the scale that we intend to put in place. Good. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you. Jerry, you stated earlier that the consultant acknowledged $100 million in deferred park maintenance. Yes. How do we respond to our residents and constituents that say, why would we look at a $6.4 million green space for improvement if we have places that buildings or existing parks operations that need funding? And with approval of this, would that then move money or potentially take money away or shorten your pot or make your pot smaller for applying to some of the other places that have deferred maintenance or have existing plans? I would argue that the $100 million that was identified in 1998, much of which is still there, it has gotten bigger because roofs have failed and parking lots have failed. We have been given 280 acres here, and we're saying that this $6.4 million needs to be added to that list, not on top or in the middle or on the bottom. We're going to come back to you regularly, as often as you'll have us, and ask for money for parks improvements. I think this is simply in recognition of the fact that the needs of the community are growing and changing, and that $100 million is getting bigger all the time and we need to begin to think about how to address it. I don't think we should stop looking at new opportunities, which this clearly is, but neither are we saying we need to stop looking at what was on the list from day one. The list just gets bigger every day and sooner or later we need to address the value of parks to the community and where it needs to stand in terms of its funding priorities. So we're not taking away, heaven forbid, we're adding. And this is a good thing. Somebody gave us 280 acres, and we're going to repay that generosity with a wonderful facility, but it's going to cost some money to be able to enjoy it in a modern, pleasant way. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Cole, can I ask you a question? At this point, if someone were to come up and say, Commissioner Cole, I've got some property to give to you, knowing our economic status and our projects that are outstanding, how would you respond to that? At this point, we would take a look at it and see if it represented an opportunity that's currently not being met. But if it did not, I would not encourage, like Student Faith, Urban County Government, I wouldn't bring it to you with a recommendation that we take more property. This property was given to us, and we're already responsible for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member McCord. Just a real quick question, Council Member Ellinger. Do you see, with your motion, are we going to break these out as two separate things when we bring them to Council, that the motion is we approve Hysel and then we'll have a separate motion with regard to the Parks Master Plan? Probably. I would say this was separate, yeah. I just wanted some clarification as we went forward. Thank you. MS. Jerry, I had two questions. I think I don't see any other Councilmember questions. So bridal tax, have you gotten enough into the possibility of a bridal tax to know how much money that might bring in in revenue each year or is this still in a concept phase? We've talked about it at the advisory board level where I felt initially that the bridal tax might be a modest revenue generator, but the equestrian community countered that with strong feelings that it could be five figures on an annual basis. What the big master plan piece will speak to is a need for, I would like the council to give general services and the parks department the authority to act on fee increases or new fee considerations. And this would be one of them. I don't want to focus on the equestrian community and saying, you're getting a park, we're going to tax you. But I think there are a collection of opportunities for parks to raise fees that it doesn't currently have. And if we could take the politics out of that, if you will, it might be easier on the citizens to change those on a regular basis rather than having them sit and then come and then four years go by. So I think the bridal tax could be $10,000, $15,000, $20,000. But I don't want to focus on that to the exclusion of everything else. I don't want to focus on just that one. Right, and we're not there yet. Well, my other financing question is, do we already have, you mentioned, or maybe some council members mentioned a referendum. Do we already have the authority from the state legislature to put on the ballot a parks referendum, or would we have to get that authority first? because I don't remember if we can put that on the ballot or not. Does anybody know? We visited with the mayor in the previous administration, and it was my understanding that we had that opportunity and didn't choose to take it. Kevin, do you know specifically? Council Member Stenet was saying we do. It's one of the issues we're going to be bringing up here very soon in budget finance, but we're looking at all of our taxes and revenue streams on the ones we can and cannot change, But parks, we do have the ability to put on a property tax for a couple of different items. That could be one of them. So we don't have to go to the legislature for that. Not for that one. That was my understanding. But we're going to clarify that legally because the same reason is we may have the opportunity to lower a tax. Some people think we can't lower, but we can with our authority. We can always lower, right? There's an opinion out there we may not be able to on a couple, but I think we can. And that's why we're getting the legal opinion. So everyone up here is clear. So if there's that direction we want to go, we can. Okay. Council Member McCord has a question. Not really a question, just a comment to Council Member Stenet's point. I think, Jerry, you made a great point. And, you know, it's interesting to watch. I'm looking forward to Council Member Stenet bringing some of this stuff back because in all honesty, we've probably got our priorities all spun around in this town on how we take revenue in. And some of the most important things to our community, like public safety and parks, are out here vying for nickels and dimes, and there are other things that are a lot more specialized that have an ongoing revenue stream that goes up every year that your property goes up. And so I look forward to Council Member Stenet bringing that back and maybe looking at championing an effort to retool our priorities in this community. So I do appreciate all the work that you've done, and I think that we have to understand the lay of the land that people aren't interested in a new tax, a new tax, a new tax. And you can't, you can be blind to the fact, or you can choose to be blind to the fact, but people out there are tired of it. And so what I think needs to happen from a governmental side is that we need to start looking at real prioritization and what is it going to take to realign those priorities. So I think that's what you're going to start to see coming forth. But I appreciate you bringing that forward because these are important. And Council Member James brings up a great point. You know, you've got places that need improvement and need updating, and it's tough to look your constituents in the eye and say, you know, we just can't do that because we don't have any money. So I appreciate that. Okay, the motion on the floor is to accept in concept the Heisel Park Master Plan. And if there's no other discussion, all those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed? So that motion passes unanimously to go forward to the full council. And that will be reported out next week. Great. Thank you. James? Thank you. Beyond once it reports out to council, Jerry, what will be your next steps? Will we start seeing bits and pieces come forward on blue sheets? Or will you start working to compile a full plan? Are you going to look at a master plan, I mean a business plan? Are you going to look at personnel costs? What are you going to be thinking after it goes to Council? Once Council approves the Heisel Park master plan, I will put together a one-year plan for getting this thing open and finding the funds to make it available on a limited basis at least to the general public. So as I said, when we come forward with the 2011 budget, I'll be happy to put a business plan together that speaks to capital funding and one, two, and three year out revenue and expense streams. I'll be happy to put a plan together. It won't happen in this austere budget that we're all struggling with, but in 2011, hopefully things will be better and there will be the opportunity to fund at least a major step forward in bringing this to life. Can you also, as we talked a little bit earlier, can you also go ahead and reach out to the equine, equestrian, businesses, and industry to talk about the partnership? This is a clean palette here. There's nobody's sign out there, and I would like nothing better than supported in part by XYZ Corporation. There are some people here in town involved in the communities we're going to serve, and I'm hoping that Jay is right that there are people beyond our community as well that might want to participate with us. I know I personally would be looking forward to hearing how that conversation goes as you're talking with business, because we want to know, you know, is this something that's supported by the equine? We're going to need people to go out and do some of those volunteer things, to be the tour guides through the trails, to give the children riding lessons and to maintain and the volunteer cleanups that have to happen when you have natural spaces. We see a lot of volunteer opportunities here to teach kids how to fish and how to garden, how to grow stuff. Yes. What a 100-year-old tree really looks like. All that stuff is neat stuff, and I think we can find a lot of virtually free resources to help us. But some of this will take some serious dollars, and hopefully there are some deep-pocketed philanthropic organizations that will choose to step up and help us. Is it allowable in park public spaces to make money off of things? So say if you had an orchard, if you had trees that were made up in an orchard, can you sell product and that product go back to fund? I assume that we do because I don't know of any reason why this council could not make that possible, even if it is in some way restricted. We charge people who put on events now that charge. So we participate in free enterprise activities in our parks. I don't see where this would be any different. Perhaps somebody that wanted to support the orchard and give 20% of its proceeds or whatever to the school system, food program or something. I think we can work out a creative deal to allow a lot of people to step up and say, I want to be a part of this. Okay. Well, I look forward to those creative ideas coming forward in a business plan. Thank you. Jerry, it seems to me the equestrian community could partner just like Friends of the Dog Park has partnered with that public-private partnership. I think there's a lot of potential there. And I wondered, Councilmember James got me to thinking, does each park have a business plan? No. I didn't think so. I know there's an overall plan and you have your overall list of needs, capital needs. So this will add. One of the things that Councilman McCord has brought to our attention recently is the level to which we are self-supporting, the level to which we seek and receive external resources. And that's a presentation that I'd like to make to the Council because there's $300,000 or so of value we create each year that you don't know about. It's people bringing us resources and whatnot. And perhaps he and the rest of you can help contribute to making that list bigger. And I'd be happy to come back to you after the budget is all done and share with you how parks does self-supporting activities. And it's our intention, as you'll see in the next piece, to go from contributing about 10% or so of our subsidy from government to a higher national average of 30 or 35% and not all of that is through fees and charges for activities. Part of it indeed is through reaching out to the community for self-support. It looks like we have one more Heisel Park question or comment before we go into our big piece which is the parks master plan update. So Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of comments. One is that you probably should remember that for all the reasons that were tough times for us, tough times for these corporations out there to be able to pony up and start throwing money around for naming rights and things of that sort. So let's not get our expectations too high. And the second is when we reference the equestrian world out there, we look at this and what's being presented here and then we try to carry that over to the thoroughbred industry. It's like comparing a Ferrari to a moped. They're two very discreet different worlds. And there isn't a lot of money floating around in the smaller world. These are one-horse, two-horse operations, hunter-jumpers, things of that sort. And there's not a lot of revenue and a lot of money available out of that source anyway. so I didn't want everybody to think that there's this big pool of money that we could tap at some point because I just don't think that's going to be in the cards for us you never know well it never hurts to ask of course right and I think one of the things Friends of the Dog Park found out is people will do almost anything to promote dog amenities. It's kind of crazy in a way, but you never know. So we encourage you. It's like my dog. He's in charge of the house anyway. There you go. Jerry, will you go ahead then with our big issue? We have about 56 minutes left for the Parks Master Plan update. Yes, ma'am. In February, you all were given two presentations by Lowes and Associates, one in workshop and then subsequently down here in a work session that summarized the overall parks master plan for Lexington Parks and Recreation. This is a 10-year update. It's a process we go through to ensure that we're in touch with our community and their wants and needs with respect to recreational activities. It's also a part of our national accreditation, wherein we need to seek input from the political arm of government as well as the citizens as to what parks should look like in the future and get a report card, if you will, of what is happening in our parks from an outside source. This is a quick presentation summary of what you saw at work session. Back in 96, they got started on the first comprehensive master plan for parks, which you adopted in 98. We've made some great strides in adopting virtually all of the elements on that list, other than the funding and renovation. And then we began in July and August of 2008 to go through the process again with visits to parks and meetings with the public. What you asked in the workshop was what the vision was for parks and recreation. And a couple of slides here of modern recreational amenities around the country, I think better than any words we could use, summarizes what we would like to see on the ground in the future for the citizens of Fayette County. Beautiful new contemporary facilities that have the amenities, that bring people back, that allow them to recreate and enjoy their life, either passively or through organized sports. Miracle Fields is a great example where we have hit a home run here in the community with private and public funds and created a facility that's just outstanding. But many of the other images that you see here do not adequately reflect what is on the ground today in Lexington. And so to answer your question of what is our vision, these pictures show communities who have invested, and many of these are smaller than we are, in recreational amenities that speak to people's current needs, which are significantly different than they were 10 or 15 years ago. And we need to get to that place. And this master plan speaks to some of the tools we need to help us decide how to spend money and time and resources to get there. In effect, it was explained to you by Chris Camp that we have basically a 1960s model of a parks agency. And we need to not only change the way in which we gather and invest capital, but we also want to embrace a new way of managing parks, and we want to solicit your leadership in getting there. Here are the priorities for spending, which were developed by the consultants, and it speaks to Cardinal Run North, Heissel Farm. Master plans for some existing parks have not been implemented due to a lack of funding. We need to increase the speed with which we develop greenways. We need to do a lot of park maintenance and freshening of our park system in view of the 2010 games that are coming. We need a youth football complex. The list is long, but it's not insurmountable. What they have done for us in other documents is price all of this and to allow us to work through three tiers, the first tier being the first two years, the second being the third, fourth, and fifth year. and it speaks specifically to annual and periodic funding to invest in these facilities, to continue to survey our community, and to, oddly enough, those of you who have been here a long time, when I joined the government 10 years ago, we were all proud as a bear at our aquatic facilities, and they were new and spanking terrific and shiny and all that. And since then, surrounding counties on the north and south have built more modern, more complete aquatic facilities. And so our aquatic facilities today, which we still think are terrific, are 10 or 12 or 14 years old and need at a point in time to consider updating or replacing. So nothing stands static. And here are the five through 10-year plans with community centers and neighborhood parks, greenway development continuing. and then we'll begin replacing Cardinal Run South because it's already five or six or seven years old. So the plan here is to recommend to you a funding plan that might look like this, where we might invest $20 million in greenway development, $2 million a year for the next 10 years, A million dollars a year for the next 10 years for neighborhood parks, and a $50 million bond of some fashion that would fund community park developments and improvements, and then a $3 million bond in golf course facility improvements that could be funded by a separate revenue bond based on the revenue of the golf courses. So in summary, that was the plan that was brought to you by the consultants in February. So that was the summary of what the vision was all about. about. Several of you asked where are we going with all this because we sort of presented to you a number of findings without giving you that overview. So we put the overview together to help you do that. What we have in the master plan is a lot of detail, a lot of detail about these six areas that we asked them to speak to. And as I told Councilman James, we did not ask them to give us a park by park or district by district summary of how many dollars it would take to change Park A from looking like this to looking like something different. What we wanted them to focus on was our ability to deliver these new services and to speak to the issue of funding, to speak to the issue of park planning. So in effect, I'm going to go through this quickly because you've seen some of this. The point here is the city, the community is growing. It's going to grow another 10% by 2020. Interesting, here is the number of people in the baby boomer group that are going to grow substantially and their needs are changing. Today's active seniors have very different needs from the folks from several years ago. There are constraints here on car ownership that the community has. There are any number of changes that the community has recommended to us are largely based on both direct interviews and survey interviews that we've done over the last several years. These two lists of facilities and programs come out in all of the different surveys that we take. People are looking for more independent, non-organized kinds of programming, more options for seniors and adults, more year-round programming, trails, greenways, biking, biking, walking trails. All these things are important in the eyes of many of our public survey documents. What I guess I would like to do is speak to the issue that's perhaps most important, and that is the challenges of getting to this vision. One of the major, and there are five or six improvements that are recommended, is this first one, which is we should plan our parks, not on a council district by council district or park by park basis, but on the basis of planning districts. What they're recommending here is that we have nine districts. The districts are of three types. District 1 is an urban core area. Number 2, 3, 4, and 5 are suburban parks where there's plenty of transportation and opportunity to get between the parks. And then these four rural districts around the outside. The idea is that if people can't drive very effectively in District 1, then District 1 needs to have almost all of the different kinds of parks available throughout the city because those folks have less ability to provide their own transportation. Whereas in the suburban areas, you could have a destination park in number 5, but nothing anywhere near like it in number 3 because people have the ability to move around. And here in the rural districts, those parks out there, like Heisel, can be and should be very different from anywhere else. They can be destinations. This is very different from the way we've been planning our parks today, where we say a community park here called Shilto needs to have the same kinds of things as a community park called Masterson. That's not necessarily the case. We need to start thinking in those terms, and that's very new. That's an item that's significantly different from the way we've participated in our planning in the past. There are specific organizational changes here that I won't talk about today, but we need to make some changes in the way the division is organized to be more efficient. We're recommending that we go from five superintendents reporting to me to three and a number of other changes like that that will save money and be more effective. And we can talk about that at another time, or perhaps there would be a subcommittee that would speak to that issue. There's a lot of minutiae on position changes that, in effect, would end up with fewer positions than we have today. The next area that the consultants spoke to was an assessment of our programming, where they specifically wanted us to strengthen programming in a number of areas. They felt we're not doing as much in the areas of health and wellness, active adults, extreme sports, and outdoor activities as we should. Those are valid criticisms, and we intend to accept that. There is a lot of detail here on specific programming assessments, and we embrace that and hope that you'll take a look at that in some detail. At this point, they begin to speak to the issue of funding, and in effect they took 2009 and compared our general fund per capita contributions to other communities that they're familiar with. In effect, they're saying that while that was perhaps a pretty good year, it's not necessarily indicative of the level of funding that's required to replace the park facilities that we have in place. What in effect they've said is that we need to look at supporting our own ability to fund parks programs programs by going from about 10% to about 30% to 35% of self-sustaining income production. We have, just as an aside, gone from $1.6 million a year in revenue in golf in 1999 to 10 years later where the number is 3.6 million. At the same time that the number of rounds has decreased from 200,000 rounds a year to $140,000 a year. So when I joined the organization, we were charging $8 to $10 to play golf, and today we're charging $32. So we have made major strides in increasing the participation of public shares in funding parks, but we still have a ways to go in order to meet a national average of 30% to 35%. That's in part fees and charges. It's also in part contributions from outside. So ESP is the true enterprise program as it says. What they're suggesting is that it's clear in order to keep the county on pace with other progressive cities and counties, we can't continue to hold the park system together with sporadic capital funding every couple of years. We've had that conversation. You're aware of that. So what I think we would like to do is I'd like to give you now a couple of issues that the master plan brings up that the public is involved in and we need to decide how to have the conversation about evaluating those recommendations. One of the things the plan recommends is that we sell alcohol at Tates Creek, Lakeside, and Athans and to hold that alcohol license in our own name and not use outside concessionaires. They recommend that the authority for approving fees and charges be given to the commissioner and or the director of parks in order to make decisions more quickly to establish golf as an enterprise program so that it would be responsible for its own revenue and expense and no longer be dependent on the general fund. fund. It recommends a reorganization in parks, which we're recommending to you as well. It recommends that you consider impact fees in lieu of land set-asides from developers. It recommends that you sell or reassign unused land parcels that parks sometimes inherits and is asked to mow and take care of that come from home sales in floodplains or something or something of that nature. It recommends that you charge the advisory board with primary responsibility for assisting in the development and acquisition of resources and fundraising for the division and evaluate outsourcing of special events support for events for over 500 people. They're recommending we find a contractor that would do the tents, tables and chairs and electric setup and whatnot that Parks now does. Parks, as you probably know, supports and provides support for about 150 events every year, some small, some large, at a considerable expense. Some events we charge for, they're recommending we get out of that business entirely for large public events and charge the event sponsor and pay a contractor to do that entirely, freeing up our labor to do other things. So there are a number of these recommendations inside the master plan that's probably too detailed for any of us to deal with all at once. What I would encourage you to do is to have a conversation about whether it is as a group, as a body, sufficient to make meaningful progress in parks. Can we go forward and begin to implement these where necessary, such as the creation or elimination of positions? by ordinance we would need to come back to you for those things. But there are a number of issues here that we would like to get started on. And I firmly believe that the master plan itself probably has too much minutiae in it to be adopted wholly by the entire group. There will always be some disagreement about some items. So I'm asking that you consider this as a body of work, as a guideline and a template for us to move forward over the next 10 years, given what it is based on what we asked them to do in the RFP from March of a year ago. So with that, I think I'll stop and entertain questions rather than go through it slide by slide, if that's okay. That's fine, Jerry. And as we go forward, we have several council members who have questions. Do you have one or two top priorities? You mentioned the whole list of alcohol sales, impact fees, et cetera. Just if you can think about that as we're going through our questions, I think it would help Council members in that regard. So first we'll call on Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just two or three, two questions and a comment. I know that our parks has the esteem of being an accredited organization, which I think is great. I think that's wonderful. And I'm wondering with that accreditation, is there a requirement for legislative approval of a master plan? Is there a requirement of a master plan, and is there a requirement of a legislative approval of a master plan? And I'll explain a little bit of my reasoning intent with that. I spoke a little bit to the administration this morning about how I'm wondering how this all plays down. When you read the master plan and you read the recommendation, it feels like the process of the small area plan process, which we just went through in two areas of my community. But the thing about that is none of those come to council. It goes through the planning commission. So those are kind of planning issues. And I know in a lot of municipalities, planning and parks are together. They see that combined. So I was trying to get my hands around what is our role in this? What is our role in the master plan? And I see that as a legislative role, but I feel as we read through it, it's more of a subjective, opinionated kind of thing. It could be taken as such. So I need your help with figuring out, does parks require the legislative approval? Does parks require a master plan? Or accreditation require a master plan? does that then require that it go through the legislative approval? And then what role do we have as council members based on those answers? And is it really just a determination of how we budget for that during our budget time? So does the links need to have the parks master plan in hand as they're deciding if there's something that's contradictory towards the master plan, but a subjective opinion of a council member on the link says, I think we should do it this way. Do economic times have to make that decision? Because I feel like there's kind of this mix of legislative and administrative that may, we may be crossing that boundary through this process. Okay, great question. Yes and yes. The accreditation process requires that a community applying for accreditation have a master plan and that it be adopted by the government. So we are... By the government or the legislative? The legislative body for the county or the agency or the city, whatever the agency happens to be. In our case, the Irving County Council needs to approve the master plan. With respect to master plans per se for parks, we bring those here. We ask for your approval when we do master plans. We don't take it to the planning commission or other groups. So we bring them here as we did with Hysel. So we would continue that process for individual parts for your review and comment, criticism and evaluation. With respect to budgeting, the master plan here is a catalog of recommendations, not all of which will we likely ever adopt, many of which we hope to adopt quickly. Many of those won't require any funding. Those that do will certainly come here for your approval. So the master plan, per se, is a set of guidelines for us to manage ourselves over the future, given the public and legislative input that we've had. So I don't see anything about adopting the overall master plan as conflicting or taking responsibility away from the links in the council with respect to approving expenditure requests. Okay. And you did mention that that's what you've done, is bring things forward. That's correct. So is it really by tradition, or is there an ordinance that requires for council to approve a master plan by ordinance? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. We are very consensus-driven here, as you know, and intend to continue to do so. I don't know what started the process. I'm not aware of any rules or ordinances that require us to do so, but we would be remiss if we stopped doing that. We couldn't get your support and therefore your funding to make it happen, I don't think, otherwise. Well, our funding happens annually through our budget. So we have plenty of things that come to us for budget approval that we don't have master plans on. And some of those are known ahead of time that either a majority of council approve of it, and sometimes it's not known and it's a topic of discussion, and we use this body to have those conversations about what it is, the intent is, and citizens have the opportunity to give input. We do it all the time. There are some smaller parks that don't have master plans. One of the criticisms of this master plan is that we need to do that for all of them. We often come to you for parks parity, for instance, to say we want to spend $50,000 to upgrade the playground at Park X. The master plan, if we have one for that park, doesn't say update it in 2010 or whenever. It says a playground should be here of approximately the size aimed at this age group of children. So there are a number of things that we do of a capital nature that aren't specifically spelled out in a master plan. But we would not come here to ask for money to do something that contradicts a master plan. But there are some parks that don't have master plans on them because we haven't taken the time and effort to do that. There's 100 parks we probably have master plans on, half of them. Okay. And here's where I'm going with that just a little bit. We recently had a director of a CDC in from Austin, Texas. And back, I don't know, nine, ten years ago, they had a plan for some development in the area, and it included parks and buildings and lots of different things. Well, as you evolve community, which is I would hope that Lexington would be a growing and evolving community, you start getting different people, different level of interest in things. People start wanting more High School Park type things as opposed to development of inner city parks or whatever the contradictory kind of thing would be in rural versus urban whatever, depending on the trends, depending on the news shows, depending on television, depending on what you hear about healthy ways of life. how do you, if we're budgeting annually for parks things, but we have a master plan, which is supposed to go over 10 years, I'm not sure how, 10 years, what is the process then besides just someone coming forward saying, hey, Jerry, I got some land for you. Yeah, I'd like for you to create an equine training facility or something. How do we then, if you're taking a 10-year master plan, which I don't have a problem with having a plan of what, you know, parks sees, but that's based on right now. That's based on the citizens that either talked right now about that or with the past couple of years, I think you said you've been taking input. But then, you know, as this council has talked about before, binding future council and binding future things. So in 2011, when there will be a new council here and something comes forward, and you give reference to the parks master plan, it's based on not their input, not the input of the constituents that are in residence at this moment. So that is the crossover between the legislative and the administrative. And if we've adopted that by legislation saying, yes, we're good to go with it, that I think is where the conflict begins. However, I have no problem with the administration having master plan of how to proceed and bringing those individual items to council as necessary. I'm looking for clarity, and I'm still not clear besides we've just always done it that way. I'm even wondering if the 10 years is adequate, you know, if we're talking about a growing population and things changing and development of our city. So I'm not real clear on that, and you've already answered it. And I'm cool with that response, except for that we probably need to look at really what is the whole flow chart of a master plan and how do we see that falling out and what is really our role besides giving our opinion and our constituents hopefully were involved in the master planning process and so to me that would be between administration and our constituency. Several different issues if I can interrupt. Let me just say as a personal aside, at my home I have three rain barrels. I didn't know what a rain barrel was last year. And so as time goes on and Hysel parks are created and trails are created, I think our spending priorities change. I would charge you all with trying to assist us in implementing the plan before it can change so that we begin to bring high-priority items on stream so that as new ideas come along, there's room to get them in the next funding cycle. Having a 10-year master plan is wonderful, but if you only capital budget every year, There's a bunch of stuff that's never going to get done. And so we can stand here and either say, here's what we want to do next year and there is no future, or we can say, this is really what we would like to happen because that's what the world is telling us they want, and let's struggle to find funding for it. Otherwise, it's going to continue to change. And I hope somebody will show up tomorrow and give us another 280 acres and we can put it on the list. But I think it's incumbent on all of us to try and find ways to execute the plan. Yes, and that's, sorry to interrupt, but that's my key, is a master plan and concept is wonderful. The implementation and designating council or private citizens or whomever would be responsible for implementation of each one of the recommendations and showing that plan is exactly what I could get behind as a council member, because then I know if there's an ordinance that's going to be needed, if there's a building that's going to be eliminated or built, then we know kind of as we're looking forward and planning for the future, we know where it's headed, and we can connect those dots. But individual things coming forward to us, like, you know, a Heisel Park coming separate and that sort of thing, without the full scope of a master plan, which would be the eyes of the administration and the Division of Parks, or whatever division wants to create that master plan, that would be what I'd be looking for. It's got to be a bird's eye view, and then there's got to be tasks assigned specifically to those that have that responsibility of fulfilling that task. So that's what I'm looking for beyond this large document is just this flat-out implementation of what council's responsibilities are. And I think at the workshop we talked about that. What would we need to do as a council? What ordinances do we need to bring forward? What do we need to know when we're looking at the budget? because if someone looks at the budget and they say, oh, no, this is not, we can't spend any money on this, if they don't read this document, they don't know how this falls into what the constituents said at the public input and such. And I know other people want to speak, so I'll go to my next question. Some of the, how much of what's in the master plan has already been included in the FY 10 budget? Is there quite a bit of it in here? I don't think any of it. There's nothing, so there's no... There may be a few items that we were planning to do anyway. For the most part, no. These are new ideas that we've not implemented, in part because you haven't adopted it. And it would be perhaps foolish of us to go forward on some of these things. And we don't have the... I don't have the authority to do the administrative pieces or to do the funding pieces or to change ordinances about alcohol and those kinds of things. So I guess I'm talking about personnel. Some of the personnel, the org chart, none of that. You've not done any funding changes based on that? That's correct. None of that has taken place. You would all have to act on those personnel issues to make it legal. Okay. And my next is I really liked in the master plan how they talked about the power of kind of marketing and advertising and such. And so I think as I go forward and I look at some of the numbers, specifically our pools and such, I think if we really do hone in on that marketing and advertising, we can maybe get those numbers up a little bit. And also making sure that our equine, equestrian events, and things that traditionally have been very, well, have not been diverse, inclusive of all community, that we make sure that we're marketing to all aggressively, you know, marketing to all so that we all can be a part of everything positive as, you know, as we're growing. The equine industry as a whole does not have a huge percentage of black participation or minority participation when it comes to recreation. So I'm looking at some really creative ways, and I really do support that marketing and advertising position, especially up front as we look at increasing revenues or increasing, I don't know, favorability of certain programs within Lexington. So I do want to thank you for your work, and I know a lot, and thanks for your inclusion of so many people in on the process, because I think this has been a very inclusive process. Now the follow-through of how do we move forward with what those folks said is going to be key, and I'm willing to work with you on that and looking forward to it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think, Jerry, you said a couple of key things that I'm going to kind of hone in on. And I think your rain barrels example is a great idea. I mean, a great example of who knew a year ago. I think from a funding standpoint, who knew 18 months ago the economy would be looking like it does and so forth. But I think that's where I've been vocal and I continue to be vocal about disappointment with this document and how I felt like it fell short of being that vision document in that it was very, very heavy on the org chart changes, which I know there's certainly a reconfiguration to get to where we need to go. So but I had said from the very start that when we were picking our consultant to do this, that what I was looking for and that I would be very vocal if it wasn't included in was where, you know, things such as multi-use fields, how we fundraise, how we gather money in our current environment. Sure, we need to bond $50 million and we need to have a dedicated revenue stream. But given our current circumstances, what are other cities doing? And, you know, I just sort of roll down this list and I start looking at ESP as being a place where we make money, but yet Fayette County Schools get involved in this. And Stu is a master at this. He did it. He started it in Owensboro. That potentially puts us in a strange spot because we use their buildings for our ESP program. You know, golf, we've had at InterGov, you've had Warren Rogers come forward with a group saying, you know, they're starting to take a look at the golf situation and privatizing pieces and parts of it, create parity and taking all of golf up in Fayette County. You know, what are other cities doing with regard to those types of things? You know, how do we take in money from a grant standpoint, from marketing, from advertising standpoint? You know, we don't have a good way if someone walked in here tomorrow and said, I want to give you $10 million and I want you to name every park after me. we don't have a good way to take that in or a system to really say, yeah, we can do that or we can't do that and so forth. Same thing for volunteers. If we marshaled an army of 4,000 people that wanted to go out and build a dog park or three dog parks over a weekend, we really don't have a system in place to do that. And that's where I feel like in this document that I have some serious issues in approving and so forth. But one thing, there's one specific thing I want to leave you with, and I guess a 30,000-foot thing I'd like to leave. One thing that I would like included in this, and it's a rain barrel example, Jerry, it wasn't around necessarily. It wasn't being talked about when Chris and the guys were in here, is this new thing that our police folks are involved with and a number of our home builders are involved with called Safe by Design. We have an international expert that lives in our community that was homegrown, Dr. Derek Paulson. He is a professor of criminal justice at EKU, teaches all over the world for the State Department. But he is one of the foremost authorities on Safe by Design. How do you build things safely for not only residential but parks and so forth? And I believe that there would be an opportunity, much like LEED certification or the accreditation process, where our parks could start to look at becoming safe by design parks. And that's always something you hear with trails, is every time you build a trail, there's always a group that feels that that isn't safe and so forth. This is something we could incorporate, and it's a rain barrel. It wasn't there six months ago, so I don't fault anybody for missing it, but I would love to put you in contact with Dr. Paulson. The last thing I leave at a 30,000-foot view is something Council Member James said, And I think it's a real key, key point is this community wants to see implementation. And I think that from where I stand, I believe parks doesn't receive the priority that it should. And I think that's, as we said earlier, a little bit of the way we have chosen to do funding and dedicated streams and all that. And I'm committed to changing that. So I want you to know that I am firmly committed, as long as I sit in this seat, to seeing us maybe rework our priorities as this community. But I think that implementation is a very key, key piece. So everything that we do needs to have a how-to plan to it. So as we flesh this out or as this goes forward, I would say, how do we or how do other cities in current circumstances take in money that we're not taking advantage of? so that this council can help you get there. Because until, I mean, you know, changing the tax code and writing a $50 million bond, it's not going to happen in the next six months. So what could we do right now? That's what I'm really interested in. And I think you've got a lot of support in the community for those types of things. So just even though I may sound very disappointed or I may say things that come off as I'm not a big fan of the work that's been done, I am a big fan of parks and I'm a huge fan of what parks means to our community. And I think it's the most underutilized PR tool that we have. I think we have a tremendous opportunity to leverage what you do and how we do it to a much bigger degree. And I'm certainly willing to use whatever influence or connection or pressure I can apply to making it more excellent. So, again, I appreciate everything you all do, and I don't want that to sound as a comment against any one person or any group of people. I just want to aim a little higher. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up on Councilmember James and McCord's remarks, with regard to, I think it's a really good question of what is the Council's responsibility with reference to the master plan, with reference to our parks accreditation, the Council's main responsibility here in endorsing and approving the HIZO plan, this master plan update, is funding. Without providing an adequate funding base, everything fragments. And we move ahead by piecemeal, by scratching, by catch as catch can. And I agree with Councilmember McCord to emphasize now and to work on marketing, on branding, on sponsoring, finding these funds where we can. The main thing we can do within this current environment is to change it. And I'm convinced that we have to change this funding environment. That's our responsibility, and that's our community's responsibility. The whole community wants parks. It wants recreation. It wants the facilities. And each member of this community, I think, ultimately is going to have, in order to get a lot, is going to have to pay a little. And so I think the challenge for us as a council of going forward with these master plans and the endorsements of them is to work on changing the environment, on finding the dedicated funding, on promoting it, on involving it. That's the key community involvement is helping us pay for what, as a total community, we want. So I'm sorry. I just meant to make a little comment here and launched into a sermon. You're ready to roll, it sounds like. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been having a couple of sidebar conversations and listening to Councilmember McCord and Councilmember Blues. And I think there's we have agreement on several things. And, you know, based on the fact that, you know, I've been to my son, as you all probably remember from the council meeting, my son is a very avid football player and my daughter is a basketball player. and we've traveled all over with AAU and Parks and Rec and all kinds of teams and been to some cities where recreation is probably just as important as it is here in Lexington, but it's obvious. I mean, it's like, you know, you're there, and when you're there, you're meeting people that are at the mall, and we have that here at Fayette Mall. If you ever go out there on a Saturday, you'll see all the teams that are there that are playing at Shiltoe, that are playing at KVA and other places, we really need to, as a community, come together and figure out and understand and acknowledge that recreation is very important to us here in Lexington. And as Council Member Blue said, funding is something that council members, that's our active role. It's great to have an opinion of what we think should happen, but our ultimate goal is the passing of that budget so that everything that's been recommended by our citizens can be implemented, that the money is at least there for it to be implemented. So I'm going to make a motion that, and there's some question as to whether Councilmember or Chair, Madam Chair, will appoint this ad hoc or whether it's some other, or whether it's Vice Mayor or who. But I will make a motion to establish an ad hoc committee to work on the economic – help me with the language here – various funding mechanisms for parks-related projects and activities. Do I hear a second? Second. We have a motion on the floor to form an ad hoc committee to work on various funding mechanisms for parks and a second by Council Member Feigl. So is there discussion? It's a good thing when there's not discussion. Council Member Blues. And the committee is going to be, if this motion passes, would be assigned by you? Well, I think what I heard you say is if I have the authority to do it, I'll do it. If not, it will have to be vice mayor. The vice mayor. I'm not sure about that point. And report back to the planning committee by X date? Well, one of the things is we're in the middle of the budget, so I know that we could probably not even really aggressively, with any amount of attention needed, really devote a lot of time to this within the next month. So could we, if it's okay, could we, if this motion passes, establish a timeline and report back to the planning committee of the timeline that the ad hoc committee feels would be appropriate and get approval at that time. Is that okay? Sounds like a good plan. So, Council Member Blues, did your question get asked, I mean answered? Okay, Council Member Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Does this, Council Member James, include in your mind dedicated tax as a funding source or are these other types of activities? It's everything from people standing on corners with cans for change. I don't know. I think we're totally open. We'll probably have to look at all different possibilities for funding. I just didn't know whether the tax situation might more appropriately be in budget and finance as opposed to these other activities, which are somewhat unidentified at this point, but multiplicity, I'm sure. I know for me and other people can comment if they feel. I feel like the committee could research possibilities and then place in we could work with other committees to have to see how that rolls out. So we we will rely on the expertise of all the council committees and the ad hoc members as well and their entities to try to figure out how things roll out. I don't really care personally. I just want to be sure that we're on the right track from a legal point of view as to who's supposed to be doing what. I think what might work and see what the committee thinks is the ad hoc could come back with maybe a couple, however many recommendations that could then go to budget and finance. So that the maybe the ad hoc could do the legwork and the study and the recommendations could go forward to budget and finance. That's just one possibility. Okay. Fine. Thank you. Councilmember Blues. And I think as well as we're reporting back and then getting with budget and finance, we need to have that connection going forward because as Councilmember Stenet said, you He will be bringing out some ideas on revenues. So I probably want to appoint him to this committee as well. That would establish that connection. It would. Council Member Feigl. It's my impression that the function of this committee would be to focus exclusively on parks and how we might fund parks. and then budget and finance would then have to take that and take those recommendations and then put them in the context of the broader budget. But this would be simply just to come up with a mechanism for raising funds for parks. Are there other comments or discussion about the motion? If not, the motion is to form an ad hoc committee to work on various funding mechanisms for parks to bring back that report to Council, I mean to the Council Planning Committee. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, we will move that forward in next week's report out. Anything else from Jerry or Council Members? Do you have, you mentioned along the way a possible subcommittee that you had thought about for the administrative part. That's something that I don't know that the entire group needs to handle, but there are several personnel recommendations that would help streamline parks operations at the senior level. I would welcome a subcommittee to address that with it. we can then come back to to potentially change the way that parks is managed. Councilmember James. With that, I have a question. Have you, with the parks master plan, have you sat down with the directors of the different facilities or the different areas of parks to just say, how do you see this rolling out or explain to them about how it will roll out and how this will affect their division so that they could share with you their ideas of organization? In all candor, we spent more time on our organizational piece, perhaps, than any of the other pieces that are involved in this book. And my superintendents and I met weekly on that, and they went back to their staffs and brought information back. In fact, we had quite a series of conversations with the consultant that resulted in what you see. So we've been heavily involved in this, and we believe this is more effective than what we have now and highly workable. So it was overall a consensus with your superintendents and the directors? Yes. Okay. Thank you. It wasn't the perfect piece, but we're operating now with some vacancies and some people who have retired. We've got holes in our organization, and we see going to this as our best chance of being more effectively managed and the way we are now with vacancies and that sort of thing. We're in favor of it. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Is there a sense from committee members that you want to establish a subcommittee to work with? I would presume it would be an understanding about the administrative piece, the reorganization. Yes, that's correct. What would your goal be for the, what would the goal be if we did establish a subcommittee to look at that? My goal would be so that you'd have a greater understanding that somebody's not just coming in with an organization saying, give me this, there might be questions that you might have, and those questions might be better asked and answered outside of the larger forum. Do you want to speak to that? Commissioner. And another option might be to ask the LINCS Committee to look at this. We did not put forward in this budget this organization, but it could be, the budget could be adjusted to reflect the new organization at this time with an effective date with the new budget. But we didn't want to be presumptuous in putting that forward before the council got to hear the recommendations. I think that's a terrific recommendation. Would a committee member want to move that we ask that link, the general services link, who chairs that? Ed Lane. Ed Lane, to look at that administrative piece. Is there a sense that we... Okay. Councilmember Blues moved and Councilmember McCord seconded that we ask the general services link To look at the one piece of the administrative Reorganization for parks and to come back with any recommendations or and That would go through the links process at comments Councilmember Feigl So I guess I'm assuming from what you said then that when you presented your parks budget to go through the budget process, that it did not incorporate those organizational changes. That's correct. Okay. So that's maybe an amendment we need to take a look at. Yeah. The budget went forward with the old organization. The timing of preparing the budget and when these recommendations came forward to the council in the presentation from Lowe's and Associates was just such that we had to make a call and we stayed with the old organization. So the packets for the LINCS committee that have been distributed will get some updated information to you prior to our LINCS meeting. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Council Member James. My only caution to this motion, to acceptance of this motion, is that if there are recommendations that come that are a change in the organizational structure, that many times with an employee or personnel change, there are, of course, costs associated with that if the grade is different, and also equipment and space and lots of ancillary costs associated with that. If those get into the master plan and things that have to change based on the master plan with the in addition to the reward, if it's just like I think there was one that was like cultural, cultural arts or something. If that is just a name change and it doesn't really require any additional space, equipment, a vehicle or anything like that, that's good to go. But if there are additional costs that start getting into, well, we are paying for them to be able to do this, and it's in the master plan, so we then have to adopt what happens. Do you see where I'm going? I'm not saying it very well. Yes. Let me explain it if I can. The organizational changes in summary are that there would be 12 positions eliminated in parks, eight positions that would be created, and I'm guessing here, 15 or so positions that would need to be reclassified to make them more specific. Some of these changes can be done quickly because we have vacant positions. Some would take a little more time. I see this based on my arithmetic that there would be a savings because there would be a net fewer positions in the end than there are now. Now, some of those positions aren't funded, so it's not fair to say that we'll bring out the new org chart and we save a quarter of a million dollars. Those positions aren't funded, but they could be funded in the future. So it's not a static, easy picture to take, but we'll never get there if we don't start. And we're going to do the easy pieces first where there are vacant positions. We simply need to recognize what is now. Because we have vacant positions, people are reporting around vacant positions and whatnot. We need to get back to where people have supervisors and that sort of thing. So we're not looking to eliminate individuals. We're not looking to add overhead costs. We're looking to basically recognize the way the organization is today with all the holes in it. Sure. I just wanted to throw that little bit of caution out. Thank you. It seems to me this is very similar to what has been done and is being done in water quality, where there's been a reorganization and we see these positions come forward. So there's a motion on the floor, and the motion is to ask the General Services Link to look at the Parks Master Plan recommendation of administrative reorganization. If there's no further discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Jerry, thank you very much. Just to review, we have three motions that will come out. the motion to accept the concept of the Heisel Park Master Plan, the motion to form an ad hoc committee to work on various funding mechanisms for parks, and if you would like to serve on that ad hoc committee, please let me know, and I'll work with the vice mayor to get that cranked out. And the third motion is to ask General Services Link to look at the Parks Master Plan recommendation of administrative reorganization. And it's 11 o'clock almost, and I thank you very much, Jerry. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Second? All those in favor, say aye. Thank you for your dedication, and we'll see you at 1 o'clock. Thank you. Thank you. Means a chapter in your life is due But we'll keep you close as always If only even seen you've gone Cause our hearts in big and small ways We'll keep the love that keeps us strong And friends are friends forever If the Lord's the Lord of them And a friend will not say never Cause the welcome will not end Though it's hard to let you go In the Father's sins we know That a lifetime's not too long To live as friends And with the faith in love God's given Springing from the hope We know We will pray the joy you live in Is the strength that now you show We'll keep you close as always If only the... I'm Councilmember Linda Gordon, And I want to ask you a question. Does your life ever feel like a balancing act? I know mine does. And we are really fortunate today to have as our guest Jim Clark, who is the president and CEO of LexArts. And he's going to tell us about another balancing act. So welcome, Jim. It's wonderful to have you. Thank you. It's nice to be here. Yes. Tell us about balancing act. What is it and how does it fit into art in Lexington? Well, Balancing Act is a temporary outdoor sculpture exhibit. We have several sculptors represented here from all over Kentucky who are part of this exhibit. And the works are placed all along Vine Street in downtown Lexington. And what we're trying to do is get people thinking about how public art can fit into the environment. And recently there's been a lot of talk about the downtown master plan. Yes. Also the idea that there might be a linear park on Vine Street. So what we wanted to do was have the artist's voice here of interjecting how art could be a part of this transformation of downtown. And that's why we decided to make it a temporary exhibit so that it stirs up the pot. It gets people thinking about what's possible and how different sculptures fit into the environment in different ways. Some are more monumental, others are more quiet and sort of... Subtle. Subtle, yes. So we wanted to show that range through this exhibit. Well, we're standing here on Vine Street, and I know you mentioned they're all up and down Vine Street, and I know there's some works of art in Triangle Park also. Yes. And then how far down Vine Street does this exhibit go? To Limestone. So it's right at the corner of Limestone and Vine Street. Okay. Now, behind us is a bright, I guess this is orange, isn't it? A bright orange piece of art. Tell us just a little bit about this. Well, the piece is called Connect, and it's by Erica Strecker. Okay. And she and her partner, Tony Higdon, had their studio right at 3rd Street and Newtown, right where there's the switching lines on the railroad for CSX and R.J. Corman. Yes. And that's the inspiration of this. It's sort of like the big switch that gets the trains to pull off on the different lines. So if we pull down on this, it won't do any switching. I think we would end up being switched a little bit if we tried to pull that down. But also, you know, a lot of people have referred to this as a tuning fork. Yes. And, you know, that's sort of the beauty of this is that, you know, it's something as mundane as a switch on a railroad line can become this work of art. Yes. And get people thinking about what it is and what it stands for. And so that's why we wanted to have this art out in the public realm. Well, earlier, as you know, I stood here and looked to the top of it, and then my eye took me up to the top of the building. And it's actually kind of an awesome view if you come down and see how it fits in. It leads your eye upward. Yes. How did the whole balancing act idea, the idea of balancing act and what it means, who came up with that and how did it come about? Well, we knew that we wanted to do something with public art. Yes. but we also know that it's important that when you do something out in the public realm that it's framed in a way that, you know, either through a theme or through materials so that people can identify with the project and understand what we were trying to do. And what, in this case, as I mentioned earlier, we had talked about the downtown master plan ideas for Vine Street, But in that, there's also this issue of the balance of growth in Lexington. A huge issue. And how do we encourage more growth in the downtown area so that we protect the bluegrass? Yes. And so there's always this, you know, what makes this place special is the balance that's achieved here. It is. And also, even right after we came up with this idea, that's when people started talking about the center point development. Yes. And issues of balance there. So it's something that I think is, you know, thematically is a large part of people's consciousness of Lexington. And this way, you know, we interjected some art to sort of provoke that issue. All the works here have some element of balance in them. And, of course, with sculpture, especially sculptures on pedestal, balance is a very important formal issue. It needs to be able to stay in its place. So that's where we came with this idea of looking at balance from a very formal aesthetic idea, but also balance as a philosophical idea for Lexington. Speaking of all of this, it's been a really big year for LexArts. I know that we've had the public mural project, and now we have Balancing Act, and there's a lot going on, isn't there? Well, we want people to see the different ways in which public art can be integrated into their neighborhoods or into the downtown area. And the murals certainly show what you can do within a community context. Up at 6th and Limestone, on Al's Bar, we have one mural that deals with the jazz and music history of the north side of Lexington. And on Southland Drive, we have another mural that focuses on the farmer's market and the Bluegrass Heritage and all the fact that there's so many music shops on Southland. They're wonderful. It's great to drive past and see those. So just real quickly, if I want to buy this, is it for sale? Actually, all the works are available for purchase. Okay. And we'd love it if people would buy them and put them out in public where people could see them. Great. Okay. Well, thank you very much for being here. Hi, Mayor. Good morning. Hi, I'm Mayor Jim Newbeer, and I'd like to talk to you about some important telephone numbers. For fire, theft, and accidents, please call 911. 311 is the number you need to dial for all city services like garbage pickups, sanitary sewers, traffic, and much more. Calling 211 connects you to local health and human services provided through the United Way. Remember, 911 is for emergencies, 211 is for health and human services, and 311 is your connection to City Hall. We are now in front of a different piece of artwork and I have with me Nathan Zameron, who is the Community Arts Manager for LexArts. Welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to have you here in front of one of my favorite pieces of art in this exhibit, chairs, which are balanced. Tell us a little bit about the whole project and who the artists are. Well, we actually, in Balancing Act, have 10 artworks by nine regional artists representing both Tennessee and Kentucky, all across the states. Now, really amazing, several of the artists are from Lexington, and this was a call that went out all across the region. We had several artists respond and selected 10 works to install along Vine Street. This is a really neat exhibit that is, of course, contemporary sculptures like this one we see here. look at this so badly. It's wonderful. This, for me, just epitomizes balancing act because chairs don't normally balance on each other. So tell me a little bit about this piece of work. This artwork is a work by an artist named Jonathan Auger, and it is steel. It's called Who We Are or Want to Be. A pretty interesting piece that depicts chairs that have been stacked in this way to kind of rise into the sky. It's a pretty interesting work that definitely talks about the topic of balance. Yes. Now, did you say this artist is a local artist? Yes, he's from Kentucky in the surrounding area. Who are some of the other local artists that people might know? We also have James Wade, Michael Russell, Tony Higdon, Jeff Smith, Erica Strecker, Esther Randall, Samuel Burns and Dave Potter. Now in this exhibit are there some community sponsors who have helped put this on? There are. You want to tell us? You've got a whole list of them here. Let's tell who some of them are. Central Bank, the Downtown Lexington Corporation, First Federal Bank, Langley Properties, Lexington downtown development authority, Lexington Center Corporation, of course the LFUCD, Renee Jackson and the web companies were all community sponsors. We also worked with Cloud Concrete to create these pedestals and they were wonderful to help provide engineers to figure out how much weight we needed for the bases of the pedestals. And one of the interesting things about these pedestals is they're actually movable. So of course this being a temporary exhibition, we are going to be able to relocate these and reuse them on different spots around the city. Now why is the exhibition temporary? Why don't we leave it here forever? That's a good question. It's one way that we can help make the public art here in Lexington exciting, always fresh, by unveiling new exhibits. And it's a way that we can start to introduce public art here to the community in a less intrusive way. So maybe you'll see a piece, And whether we like it or not, it's a piece that we're going to live with only for a short period. And then we'll get a chance for another work to come in. Something new and different. I think a lot of people, you know, art has a different meaning to different people. And a lot of these pieces of work in this exhibit allow people to think about, you know, what does it mean? What is it? And, of course, that's the beauty of art is you might see something different than I see. And Lexingtonians loved the Horsemania project, which was in the public, and we all loved the doors, the dynamic doors. And I think those were really the beginning of a real public art program for Lexington. We'd really not had anything much before. So it's exciting to know that there's this project, the Balancing Act. Do you have anything in the future that you're thinking about? We actually do. And you're right, having projects that help get people out walking around town. There is another exhibit that we're working on in collaboration with the UK Art Museum Museum and the UK School of Fine Art, as well as South Hill Group that is going to utilize these same pedestals and is going to be kind of connect the downtown area to UK's campus. Oh, wonderful. And so this will be an exciting exhibit that will be unveiled at some point in summer of 2009. Okay, so this year. Yep. So do you dare say any more about that? Will we be able to walk? Like we can walk, people can walk Vine Street and go down to the corner of Main and Mill and go to Triangle Park and actually see these pieces. Will this be another walkable exhibit? That's one of the great things about an outdoor public art exhibit is it helps stimulate that activity. Here on Vine Street, we actually have a sign down near in Triangle Park that you can get to see the actual whole map of all of the artworks. There's brochures available that you can pick up at that location and actually do the walkable tour. Okay, very good. Now, how long will this exhibit be here? It's going to be up through April 30th, and you can find out more information on our website at www.lexarts.org. And is this piece for sale? It is. I love this. I think it's wonderful. So if someone wanted to buy one of these pieces of art, would they go on the website? Is that how one could do that? Yes, they can find out the price listing on the website as well as in the brochure in Triangle Park. Okay, very good. Well, Fayette County Public Schools will be getting ready to go on spring break toward the end of March, beginning of April. It would be a great time for families to go out as a group and just take half the day and maybe go down Vine Street and be in Triangle Park and see what's here and then stop for lunch at one of our great restaurants and introduce children to public art because a lot of children don't know about what public art can be. So I think it's terrific, and I really applaud LexArts for doing this and for elevating public art for Lexington and folks in Lexington. So if you want to find out more, please go to the LexArts website and say it again. www.lexarts.org Okay. And you can find out about this exhibit. It will be going on all through April of this year. It will be springtime. People can get out and walk it and see all the wonderful pieces. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Linda. I'm out. We gotta go, yo, my, oh We gotta go for the hero down the bar, oh Five on the sweetest one, yo, my, oh Son of a gun gonna have fun on the bar, oh Well, jambalas and a four-piece pie, a big-a-gumbo Cause tonight I'm gonna see my Michelmio Mickey Tops, you're a good job, and Miguel Son of a gun gonna have me fun all about Hi, I'm Jennifer Ebert from the American Heart Association. Now that the weather is starting to warm up, it's a great time to get more physically active, and there are two great ways in April to do this with the American Heart Association. On April 8th, take a stand against heart disease by participating in National Start Walking Day. Get your company signed up and celebrate by walking 30 minutes on this special day. It's a great way to promote healthy living and build co-worker relationships. On April 25th, bring your family and co-workers to the Central Kentucky Start Heart Walk. It's a great way to help fund and support the life-saving mission of the American Heart Association. The Heart Walk is the largest fundraiser and funds local education, advocacy, and research, including millions of dollars of research happening right here in Central Kentucky. To get more involved or for more information, please contact the American Heart Association at 859-278-1632 or by visiting our Central KY Start Heart Walk Facebook page. Thank you, and I hope to see you at the Heart Walk. Hi, everybody. I'm David Sullivan. The Lexington Fayette Urban County government is working to make your access to government information better, faster, and more efficient. Watch closely because things are changing for the better here at your city government. You're watching Government Channel 3, your award-winning link to the Lexington Bay of Urban County Government. Watch us online at lexingtonky.gov. Here's a broad idea. Install a rain barrel and go green while saving some green. It's an easy and excellent way to help the environment and conserve one of our most precious resources, water. They help prevent water pollution and flooding by directing stormwater from your roof into the rain barrel. When you use a rain barrel, you are also helping save water when your plants and lawn need nourishment. So visit RainBarrelGuide.com to learn about this easy way to go green. This bright idea about going green is brought to you by the Department of Environmental Quality and the Division of Water and Air. Green, green, green. It's your home, it's your dream. Radon tests to keep it healthy and clean. Make it green, green, green. Making it green is making sure the air in your home is healthy for your family to breathe. Make sure you test your home for the presence of radon. It's easy. To learn more, call 866-730-GREEN. Preserve your family's health and well-being. Get your home tested. Now that's living healthy and green. Green, green, green. It's your home, it's your dream. Radon testing, keep it healthy and clean. Make it green, green, green. To learn more, call 866-730-GREEN. We'll be right back. We were here. Thank you. Thank you. Rock about my Sarah Jane Rock about my Sarah Jane Nothing to do but sit down and sing Rock about my Sarah Jane Nothing to do but sit down and sing Rock about my Sarah Jane Thank you. the gallery which features local and regional artists. For you theater goers, you can find the Actors Guild here at the Downtown Arts Center or for something more exotic, head over to Natasha's Bistro to experience contemporary dining with theater and music. I'm Jim Clark, here at the Black Box Theater at the Downtown Arts Center, inviting you to make downtown your destination for the arts. Entertainment, shopping, and the many new developments invite you to experience downtown Lexington. Downtown Lexington is a safe, low-crime area for singles, couples, and families to enjoy all it has to offer. At the start of 2008, Lexington experienced its lowest crime rate in 34 years, even though our city continues to grow, drawing new residents who recognize what a safe place Lexington is to live, work, and raise families. We invite you to come play, shop, dine, live, or stay downtown. And don't forget to say hello to all of your friends in blue. Goodbye Joe, you gotta go, you know my old You gotta go for the hero down the bar Life on sweetest one, you know my old Son of a gun, gonna have the fun on the bar Well, Jambalaya and a horsey pie, big a gumbo Cause tonight I'm gonna see my Michelangelo Picky-tops with your John and Miguel Son of a gun gonna have me one whole about Every time