# Council Planning Committee - April 21, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · April 21, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/869 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/869?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-04-21 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: June 17, 2026 - **Length**: 19,823 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Planning Committee convened on April 21, 2009, at 1:00 PM, with CM Gorton presiding over the session. The meeting addressed three agenda items — Inspector's Fee, Destination 2040, and Blue Horse Branding — all of which were approved by the committee. Over the course of the meeting, 4 motions and votes were taken and 1 public comment was heard. The committee's approval of all three items represented a fully productive session with no agenda items left unresolved. ## Attendance All ten council members were present at the April 21, 2009 meeting. No members were recorded as absent or late. **Present:** - Gorton - Blues - Gray - Ellinger - James - Lawless - Beard - Feigel - Stinnett - McChord ## Votes and Decisions Four votes were taken during the April 21, 2009 Council meeting. - **Electrical Inspection Contract Amendments and Base Fee** [timestamp: 00:26]: CM McChord moved, seconded by CM Lawless, to forward approval of proposed contract amendments and the base electrical inspection fee to the full council, to be implemented upon adoption of the 2008 code. The motion passed 7–3 on a roll call vote. Voting in favor: Gorton, Blues, Gray, Lawless, Beard, Feigel, and McChord. Voting against: Ellinger, James, and Stinnett. - **Adjustment of Inspector Numbers Based on Workload** [timestamp: 00:33]: CM McChord moved, seconded by CM Blue, to amend the electrical inspection contract to allow the number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect workload. The motion passed 7–3 on a roll call vote. Voting in favor: Gorton, Blues, Lawless, Beard, Feigel, McChord, and Blue. Voting against: Gray, James, and Stinnett. - **Resolution Supporting Destination 2040** [timestamp: 01:34]: CM James moved, seconded by VM Gray, to create a resolution acknowledging the work of the Destination 2040 project team and supporting the value statements. The motion passed unanimously 10–0 on a voice vote, with all members — Gorton, Blues, Gray, Ellinger, James, Lawless, Beard, Feigel, Stinnett, and McChord — voting in favor. - **Adoption of Blue Horse for Lexington Branding** [timestamp: 02:02]: CM Lawless moved to adopt the blue horse as part of Lexington branding and for use on wayfinding signs. The motion passed 9–1 on a voice vote. Voting in favor: Gorton, Blues, Gray, Ellinger, James, Lawless, Beard, Feigel, and McChord. Stinnett cast the sole dissenting vote. ## Public Comment One member of the public addressed the Council during the public comment period. [timestamp: 1:32:56] - **Eric** spoke regarding the **Destination 2040** initiative, raising concerns about community participation in the process. He noted that a large portion of the community had not yet engaged with the Destination 2040 initiative, suggesting that broader outreach or additional opportunities for public involvement may be needed to ensure the process reflects wider community input. ## Contested Items Two items generated notable disagreement during the April 21, 2009 Council meeting. **Electrical Inspection Fee Adjustment** A proposal to adjust electrical inspection fees and amend the related contract to reflect changes in workload drew opposition from some council members, resulting in split votes on the matter. The structured record does not detail the specific arguments made by individual members on either side, but the divided outcome indicates meaningful disagreement over the fee changes and contract amendment terms. **Blue Horse Branding** The proposed adoption of the Blue Horse as a visual brand for Lexington sparked heated discussion among council members. Concerns were raised about the image's association with the University of Kentucky, with some members questioning whether tying the city's identity too closely to a university symbol could create confusion or limit the brand's broader appeal. The debate also touched on the need for a clear and coherent branding strategy before formally committing to the Blue Horse as a civic identifier. The structured record does not specify the final outcome of this discussion or identify the individual council members who raised these concerns. ## Inspector's Fee [timestamp: 03:44] Dewey Crowe presented a proposal to adjust electrical inspection fees, citing increased inspection times and rising operational costs as the basis for the requested changes. The discussion centered on the implications of amending the existing contract to better reflect the current workload demands placed on inspectors. CM Feigel and CM Stinnett participated in the discussion, engaging with the details of the proposal as presented by Crowe. The committee considered how the proposed fee adjustments would account for the changes in inspection volume and the associated costs of carrying out those inspections. The item was approved by the Council. ## Destination 2040 [timestamp: 1:36:23] Shaye Rabold presented the Destination 2040 vision document to the Council, seeking the Council's support for this community-driven initiative. The presentation outlined the long-range vision developed through a community engagement process, with Rabold walking Council members through its key elements and implications. The discussion that followed involved Council Member James and Vice Mayor Gray, who engaged with questions and comments regarding the vision's implications and the Council's role in supporting it. The conversation centered on how the Council could appropriately endorse and advance the community-driven document going forward. The Council ultimately approved its support for the Destination 2040 vision document. ## Blue Horse Branding [timestamp: 1:35:09] The Council took up a discussion on adopting the Blue Horse as a visual brand for Lexington. CM Lawless introduced the proposal, which called for using the Blue Horse image on wayfinding signs and promotional materials throughout the city. During the discussion, the committee examined the broader implications of establishing the Blue Horse as an official visual identifier for Lexington. Key concerns raised during the debate centered on the potential for confusion with other existing branding efforts, suggesting that the city may already have competing or overlapping visual identity initiatives in place. CM Beard and CM James also participated in the discussion, weighing in on the proposal's merits and the questions it raised about how the Blue Horse branding would interact with or distinguish itself from other promotional efforts already underway. Following the debate, the Council approved the proposal to move forward with the Blue Horse as a visual brand for Lexington. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (7-3): Forward approval of the proposed contract amendments and the base electrical inspection fee to the full council to be implemented upon adoption of the 2008 code - **Motion** — passed (7-3): Amend the electrical inspection contract to allow the number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect workload - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Create a resolution to acknowledge the work of the Destination 2040 project team and support the value statements - **Motion** — passed (9-1): Adopt the blue horse as part of Lexington branding and use on wayfinding signs --- ## Full transcript ... i- if, uh, there's any pruning that needs to be done, or that the homeowner wants to have done. So it's not that we are, uh, against trees. We love trees. We lo- we love 'em if it's the right tree in the right place. Uh, and would love to nurture and, and move those, uh, kind of trees along, uh, to encourage consumers and customers to, uh, to plant trees. 'Cause it's a good part of the city, and it's a good part of the quality of life that we have here in Lexington and we hope that it stays that way for a long time. It's one o'clock on April 21st and we'll go ahead and ad- uh, start the planning committee meeting. And we have three issues on our agenda today. The first of which is the electrical inspector fees and I understand we have a, a mutually agreeable solution. Well, we, we hope so. Okay. We'll, uh, we'll see. Uh, I've got a l- got a PowerPoint and we'll go through that. And we also included copies of this in your packet as well. Just to kinda go back over where, where we are and how we got to this point. As you'll see, the Commonwealth Inspection Bureau currently holds the inspection contract for electric inspections in Fayette County. That contract was renewed in 2006 and will run through 2012. It basically is a one-year contract with five automatic renewals. They have requested an adjustment to the current fee schedule, and the last adjustment to that was in 2002. Here is what their current proposal is as far as a fee, uh, adjustment to the current schedule. It basically raises the, um, base fee by $10 and on apartments, it raises the unit fee by $3. That is the only proposal currently before you and that's what they are, their proposal that they're making at this time. That is the last one that was submitted and that we have been reviewing and discussing with them for the past, uh, few weeks. Are, are you saying that's the only recommendation? We're, we're getting- No. We're getting to that. Oh, okay. If you can go ahead with that, then. The justifications that have been put forth for the increase, um, are basically two-part. A, changes in the code, and in 2005, code was changed. Those, uh, changes basically added around 15 minutes to the average inspection time. ... and the 2008 code, which has not yet been adopted by the state, has been reviewed by, uh, Commonwealth Inspection, it has been reviewed by my office, and we believe that the changes that are coming in the 2008 code will probably increase inspection times by up to 30 minutes for each residential home on a new construction home project. And the other part of their justification is to re- is increases in the cost of operations, and fixed-cost items have gone up since this contract become effective, and those things need to be addressed. On this slide, you will see, based on their proposed fee increase and where they are currently, you'll see the first, the first, uh, shaded-in bar there. And this is a typical single-family home, as you'll see there, around 2,000 square feet, three bedroom, two bath, home with garage, mm, uh, minimum electrical service loads. Currently, the total electric inspection fee charge for that runs around $90.10. Once this, uh, base increase goes into effect, if it were to go into effect, would raise that to $110.10, basically a $20 increase per, uh, single-family home, new construction single-family home. We have kinda looked at the, how much, you know, the kind of revenues that would generate. Last year, we did, uh, permitted 768 single-family homes in Lexington, Fayette County. That would generate aro- around 15,000 in additional revenue for Commonwealth Inspection, uh, based on, uh, single-family home construction last year. That brings us then to their recommendation, to our recommendation. We propose that their current contract be amended to allow the number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect current workloads, and currently, their contract binds them to maintaining, uh, five full-time inspectors on board at all times. Obviously, as the economy moderated, housing construction dropped off, they certainly didn't need five inspectors on board, uh, for, certainly in the last year and probably over the last couple years. However, their contract allowed no room for them to adjust that, to decrease those staff numbers, to mitigate their expenses. So, uh, in essence, they were carrying, you know, one, two additional, uh, inspectors that they probably did not need and could have certainly, uh, had a savings there by allowing them to drop that staff off. The second part of the recommendation is that the current, that the fee proposed by the Commonwealth be accepted, and that is the increase of $10 on the base, um, inspection fee. And that is, uh, our n- recommendation, as far as the fee increase goes. And y- as I understand it, um, both parties have agreed to bring, bring this as... We, we have... I mean, you're bringing it as a recommendation, but it's been agreed upon. Both, uh, Commonwealth Inspection has reviewed this. We've been in several discussions with, uh, uh, Sandy Jones, the President of Commonwealth Inspection, and his attorney, Steven Vickroy. Uh, it is my understanding that they are in agreement with the proposed contract amendment as, obviously, and the, and the fee increase as well. Okay. I think Mr. Vickroy maybe wanted to say something. Well, uh, Madam Chair, if, uh, you want us to put that on the record, we will acknowledge that we are in agreement... Okay. ... with this proposal and the recommendation. Okay, I think that's helpful for council members before we start our discussion. So... Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Uh, Councilman Feigl? Um, thank you, Chair. Um, I just have a question about if you amend the contract to allow, um, the inspectors to be adjusted to reflect the workload, then how do we assure, um, how do we ensure that we are going to perform these inspections within a certain period of time rather than, you know, with fewer inspectors, rather than drawing it out over a longer period of time? Well, the contract sets a minimum response time. The contractor, Commonwealth would still be responsible for meeting those minimum inspection times that their contract calls for. This amendment would not alter any other provisions of that, other than it would let them decrease the number of vehicles they maintain, obviously in corresponding to the number of inspector they have on staff. But they would still be required to perform the inspections under the terms of the contract. Okay, thank you. Councilman Stennet? Thank you, Chair. Just a couple quick questions, Dewey. Uh, and I guess I'm a little bit puzzled. You know, we wake, we woke up, uh, I think it was Sunday morning, we said, y- you announced the first quarter was 40% jump in building inspection permits. And here today, we're talking about the workload is not there to justify our current contract. I, I just don't understand that. Help me understand that. Well, y- well, you're correct. Our figures did show over the first quarter of, uh, '09 versus the first quarter of '08, a approximately 40% increase in single-family home permits. Uh, we view that as very good news, and hope that trend will continue throughout this year and in the coming years. Uh, at the same time, there's no guarantees that that trend will continue. And over the last year, we have seen, uh, extreme decreases in the number of single-family homes. We went from a peak year of 2005 of around 2400 single-family homes being permitted in that year to 768 last year. That's a severe drop. ... and we all are aware of that and the consequences that have come about by that type of drop in the housing market here. And other , across the board, commercial and other types of permits dropped as well. Although, certainly not to the degree that single family homes have fallen during that time period. Um, we know that Commonwealth, throughout this past year, was obviously struggling with a excess amount of employees on staff, as well as increased expenses. They saw gas prices shoot up in, in the summer, as we did all, to $4 a gallon, and they had no mechanism whatsoever to compensate for that. Obviously, that took, took a toll on them. Th- although now, those prices have moderated somewhat. There's no guarantees they won't increase. There are other fixed costs that they have endured that have gone up that won't be coming back down, and this, uh, w- we view a fairly minor increase in fees as sufficient to compensate them for those type costs that have gone up. And certainly, as the housing market improves, uh, it will certainly allow them to, uh, not, maybe not take advantage of the staff reductions that the amendment would allow, and allow them to keep that staff on and employed as the workload comes back up. So, right now, they have five, and we wanna allow them to go down to what? Four? Three? The contract would allow them to reduce down to, uh, no lower than three. The amendment would, rather, and that would be based on corresponding reductions in the number of building permits, and obviously, right now, we're seen to be going the other direction instead of going down. But under the current numbers, they would have qualified under this amendment to reduce their staff by two. Ah, ah, again, I just think we're being reactionary to something that's already happened, and now we're on the uptick, and now we're being asked to re- to amend a contract that, that runs out when? Next year? End of next year? Have we ... Well, the con- this contract actually will run through 2012. It is a one-year, uh, contract. It o- operates. There initially were issued a contract in 2006. It ran for a year, and then it automatically renews for an additional five years, each year. At any, uh, one point with proper notice, either party can terminate this contract if they so desire. But the contract, if it were allowed to run its course, could ru- would run through the year 2012. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lawless? I'm just curious if maybe the 40% rise in building permits during the first quarter had anything to do with the ice storm and people's houses getting crushed by trees? Actually, we're only aware of a very few that we've had reports on that suffered damage from trees. There was some damage in that, but there ... This really didn't have anything, as far as we can tell, of, uh, homes being totally destroyed. We did issue some remodeling permits for repair work to homes that suffered some damage from tree limbs and, uh, that type of thing, and ice and roof damage, and those type of things. But, uh, best we can tell, there's is, uh, strictly new construction on new, uh, development homes that's driving this. So, so the 40% increase was all new homes or just ... It was all single family permits issued in the first quarter for any ty- ... If a permit was taken out for a, a new single family home to be built, it was included in that number, and that number rose by 40% over the same quarter in 2008. How many new family, single family home constructions were there compared to the first quarter of '08? I be- I believe there was 190 in this quarter, and I, I can't remember the number, but i- it was a 40% increase. We can kinda figure backwards into that, but it was, uh, it was 40% of an in- increase, and I don't remember what the number was in '08. Okay, but those are mixed. Those, the 40% includes n- new construction as well as- No, it's strictly new single family homes. Oh, okay. That's, that's what I was confused about. I stay confused sometimes. Thank you. Council Member Baird? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, do we ... What about through this downturn? Um, Are, are we seeing an increase in room additions and other remodeling? Um, other than ice storm types of things. I'm talking about just generally. Have we seen an increase? Yes, and we've, we have noted that before. Um, y- you typically get that if new home construction falls somewhat, you see a, a, although not a, a, a totally offsetting amount increase in single family, what's termed remodeling and additions and those type things, where you have homeowners that are st- choosing to stay in the home they have and do some modera- modifications to it. Yes, we have seen a, you know, a general increase across all those types of permits. And I would imagine also that that would, uh, require ins- uh, uh, electrical inspection. I ... People will be upgrading new kitchens. Uh ... Yes. Anytime you have any type of electrical work, it's mandated by law that that be inspected and approved. Yes. Um, and then one other comment. Uh, y- you mentioned a modest increase. It's a 22% increase, and I'm not sure that's very modest. Well, I- I looked at that as well. I ran that calculation, and if you spread that over the last, uh, since 2002 and the last increase, it's about a 3.6% average per year. Yeah, I understand that. I'm ... Would it be better to r- have the contract tied to a CPI and rounded to the nearest dollar or the next highest dollar or something of that sort, as opposed to big, big chunks at a time? That's cer- ... That would be certainly, uh, uh, another way to accomplish this was to include some type of built-in, um, fee increase in the current contract. That wasn't contemplated at the time, and, and- ... and hence, we're under a contract that doesn't include that. But yes, certainly, that would be a way to accomplish this. Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions? Dewey? Do you ha- One other thing. Okay. Uh, Council Member Feigl? Um, if you ... If we put in here that it's adjusted to reflect the workload, and the workload goes up because housing permits go up, does that also indicate that they would hire additional people? They have to maintain, uh, whatever the contract contract currently calls for them to maintain, five inspectors. As the workload goes up, if they have to add whatever ins- additional inspection force that they would need to fulfill the terms of the contract, in other words, respond within the time periods that the contract spells out. At ... Back in the peak periods, yes, they had more than five staff members on board. They had to have, just to keep up with the workload. Okay. Thank you. Council Member James? Dewey, I may be asking a question that's not appropriate to ask, but I think I do that all the time anyway, so. Um, is there ... Is the reason why this can, um, we can renegotiate this ... I'm ... I don't know how to ask this. I- obviously, they're in the business of trying to make money as well. They wanna make a profit. So do we ... Is that anything that we can give consideration to? Is there a certain amount of threshold of profit that, um, this company or any other company is trying to make that we make an agreement that they can make a certain amount over their expenses? Um, I'm, I'm ... It w- it just reminds me- We've We've not- ... of some other things where we talk about rates of things and then we ask, "Well, what's the, what's the profit that companies are making?" And should we increase rates to a certain point to where a company makes a certain amount of profit regardless of how much we're increasing rates? The current contract doesn't get into any of that or doesn't set any type of limitations or return on investments or any of that. It, uh, was specifically issued for service providing only. When the, when we originally looked at bidding this out, and that was back, I believe, in either '96 to '98 timeframe, they did not want to have a contract bid on price. Okay. So there was ... None of that was put in simply because we didn't want someone to essentially attempt to obtain the contract with low bids or underbid, uh, in other words, to secure the work. So we were looking for companies to bid strictly on service provided with knowing ... And without the ... Irwin County Government already had established the fee schedule that those companies would have to operate under. And that's what's been maintained through the various, uh, re-issuances of the contracts over the years. Have we had more than one company apply for this though? We have had other companies, uh, in the- Bid on it? ... bid process, bidding for this. Uh, commonwealth has been the successful bidder for the last several years. Based on? Based on- Not based, not based on fee, but based on quality of work? Quality work, services they were providing, uh, e- to meet the, what the RFP request of, or go above and beyond what the RFP was requesting. That is what the contract was awarded on, based on the quality of the bid submissions. Okay. Thank you. Are there other questions? Uh, Dewey, I have a technical question. Does, uh ... If a person wants to put a new roof on their house, do they have to get a building permit? If they are merely replacing shingles- Replacing an old ... Uh-huh. ... no building permit's required. If they are replacing what we consider structural materials, rafters, sheeting. In other words, if they're getting into the wood portion of the house, then that does trigger- Okay. ... a building permit requirement. All right. Are there any other questions or motions? Council Member McCord? Thank you, Madam Chair. I, I think that, uh, the way that I, I look at this in bringing this forward, there's r- there's really two recommendations here. And I th- I think we've got some issues, uh, council members have issues with both. So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna make a motion to kinda split these two out, uh, as, as to passing the recommendations along to the full council. So, uh, let me just start with the, with the fee increase that ... I, I move that we pass the, the second recommendation along, uh, to the full council, uh, to increase base fee, uh, for inspections as proposed. So moved. Do I hear a second? I second. Okay. Council Member McCord moved and Council Member Lawless seconded to forward approval of the base, um, inspection fee to the, the increase in the fee to the full council. Is there discussion? And I see David Barbary has a legal- I, I'd just like a ... No, I'd just like a clarification. My, my, my reading of the proposal is that it's contingent upon the 2008 code being implemented. I mean, is that what you all is understanding is? I don't think that's happened yet, so I'm just ge- trying to get clarification. If you all pass it, um, as soon as that happens, we would go directly to the council with the changes. Is that the idea? Because I think- I believe that's the idea because- ... we've ... I, I think our understanding is, which we, we can't control it, would be ... We're thinking it's possible it will be f- this fiscal year, but it may not be until early next fiscal year that the state gets around to actually implementing the 2008 code. Okay. And- But I just wanted to make sure that that's what you all would want us to do would be, we just go directly to council with the changes when the 2008 code was implemented. Hmm. Yeah. It ... Was that your intention? Yeah. Okay. I believe that's correct. Is there any comment on the motion? No. If n- did you have a comment, Commissioner Webb? I, if I may, I just have one comment about the contract amendment. Through this process, we presented that contract amendment prior to any fee increase, because we didn't have the information we needed at that time, uh, from Commonwealth Inspection, which we, we got and worked through what their cost increases were and so forth. And through this process, this contract hasn't, has an automatic renewal that either party can stop with 30 days' notice. And what we were trying to do, just so you understand, with this amendment, is allow for the contractor, through the end of this contract, to manage their business, understanding that if the work dropped way down for them, there was a mechanism in place that they could exercise to reduce their cost base without coming back here and saying, "There's not enough work out there. We need a, we need a cont- we need some additional money to survive." And just wanna make that real clear, it's not our intention, as the Department of Public Works and Development or Building Inspection, to mandate that you reduce your complement. We're trying to allow that contractor to manage their business through the end of this contract so we don't have to come before you. Okay. And, and that's why I kinda wanna split these two out 'cause I think there's- Yes. Um, so the motion on the floor is to, um, forward to the full council an increase in the base fee for inspections to be implemented after adoption of the 2008 code. Okay, I don't see any more comments. All those in favor, say, "Aye." Aye. Any opposed? No. So let's just do a hand count. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And all those opposed, please raise your hand. So we have Council members Ellinger, James, and Stennet who are opposed. So that passes. Okay. And then my second motion is to, um, for the first recommendation is to amend the contract to allow number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect workload, so moved, to be passed along to full council. So the motion, and is there a second? Is to amend the contract to allow the number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect the workload. Council member McCord moved and Council member Blue seconded. Now, discussion. Council member James. Um, this is for Mister, is it Vicroy? Vicroy. Um, do you have any a- apprentices that work with your company at all? No, they have to be fully qualified, uh, and licensed electrical inspector. Okay, thank you. Council member Baird. Yes, the wa- I guess the way this is worded, um, "to reflect the workload" is a little open-ended to me. If, uh, how, how do you, I mean, how d- how do you measure that? I mean, I understand where you are now and where you, where you'd like to be, but over time? The actual contract amendment itself, if I remember right, requires a 20% drop in the number of actual inspections done in, in a pri- prior period before the commonwealth is even eligible to come and ask the Irvin County Government to reduce its staffing. And the prior period b- would be a quarter or a year or a month? It- Dewey might- A- as written, it would be occurring within a six-month period, either a 20% drop in electrical inspections and/or building permits. Should that drop by 20% within a, uh, period of six months or more, then that would trigger their ability to reduce staffing. Okay, well, because you could, you could come into a b- a bad situation as far as weather is concerned and, and, and things slow down and then all the sudden, boom, you know, it, it's doubled. And, uh, to be able to, would this be like a m- rolling six-month period of time maybe? It, it would be any time, uh, any six-month period. It would be rolling. And again, it would be subject to, they would make the request to the Division of Building Inspection and e- and document what they feel has been a sufficient decrease in work or permit numbers to w- warrant that. We would then review that and make our own determination as to whether we felt the same way. Uh, obviously, it could lead to some discussions between us and the contractor as to, uh, where their numbers are versus where our numbers are. But their, that would be the second check, would be back to us. They could not automatically do it. They would have to ask for that ability to reduce that staff number, and we basically would have to agree, "Yes, we have seen that type of reduction, and we believe it is warranted." Okay, thank you very much. Council member Stennet? That's exactly what I was gonna clarify, is that what's the, what's the contract say? Is it arbitrary? They can just change it, or is it contractual, saying there has to be a drop in- Right. ... and, and that's gon- We have to actually apply for it, and it's not automatic. The reductions are not automatic, but the replacements are absolutely mandatory. Once those numbers go back up, we have to fill those positions. So I think you had that issue when you were first discussing that, and so that's why I wanted to come up because we, we don't automatically get to terminate an inspector just because our workload decreases. We actually have to come to the Irvin County Government to do so, but once they can then document... ... the increase in building permits and/or electrical inspections during that six-month period of time, we absolutely have to replace somebody, even if there's another drop as soon as we replace that person. So yes, it's, uh, um, not automatic when it comes to reductions, but it is mandatory when it comes to replacements. And so, hopefully, that addresses that issue for you. Okay. And then, Dewey, do, do we have this ability to be flexible on the number of inspectors or have we made adjustments in HVAC inspections, plumbing inspections, all those kind of things too? HVAC inspections are conducted by my division. Those are, those are government employees- But have you reduced, have you reduced inspectors based on the economy t- since we're suggesting to reduce their ability? Actually, my staff has gone down over the last couple of years due to attrition and our, our current hiring freeze, and I have actually had a reduction in number of, uh, inspectors on board. But we haven't made an adjustment, like, we're allowing these folks to do on the electric side, we're not looking at those options for HVAC or anything else? As far as I know, we're not looking at that type of option currently for government employees. What, what about the plumbing? 'Cause I know the state handles all the plumbing inspections. I'm not certain how the, how the state handles their, that- Well, in other words, you don't handle plumbing, your department doesn't- No, we do not handle plumbing. That's- A- any other th- contracts such as this that we have out there that we've seen a reduction in? This is the only contract- Okay. ... of this nature that we're responsible for in building inspection. But other than that, you've kept your current staffing levels except through attrition. That's the only thing you've lost, i- is through attrition. And, but I assume those are cut out in the FY2010 budget? Uh, yes, they were actually cut out, um, most of those were out in the '09 budget. Okay, then I'm sure the next one- And that will continue into the 2010 as well, yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Council member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Dewey, is there a certain response time for someone needs that electrical inspection that we're, is it... I don't have the contract in front of me and I apologize, I didn't bring it. Uh, I believe, uh, and I don't have the, the copy in front of me either, but I believe, if memory serves, it's a 24-hour response time and I can verify that with, uh, Mr. Jones back here. And that's consistent- I believe that's it. That's consistent with the way it has been and with what the expectations will be moving forward, even with the reduction in staff? A- absolutely. That is a contract requirement that is not being amended and the contractor is respected to respond within those same time frames as he has always. Thank you. Is there other discussion or questions? If not, um, we'll vote on the motion which is to amend the electrical inspector contract to allow the number of inspectors to be adjusted to reflect the workload. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. No. Okay, let's take a hand vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And those opposed. Um, Stennet, James, and Gray. Is your hand up, Chuck? Okay. Were opposed, for the record. Uh, now, here we go, here's David Barbary again. Would we take this forward at the same time as the other changes? That, my question is- A- ... just procedural again. Would we take this forward at the same time we take the other change forward? Or would, or is the desire to do it- I think that makes sense to take them forward together. Okay. I mean, is that the consensus of the committee? Is that the consensus of the committee? I see heads shaking yes. So we will if, if, if when, when, so w- it will be blue sheeted as one proposal when the state adopts the 2008 code? Well, now, it would be my... Okay, I see what you're saying, the blue sheet. The committee report out- Sure, you can go ahead and report it out, but my understanding is- ... will report this out and the council will vote on it. ... we wouldn't be actually voting on it as a council until the 2008 code changes. Yes. Okay. Well, the council would vote on it out of committee- Right. ... but it wouldn't be blue sheeted till the- Okay. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. Council member Stennet? So what we're saying, David, is, is if the adoption of the 2008 code doesn't change, then we don't adopt these two items? That's my understanding. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you all tell me otherwise, let me know, but- We have to... Yes. If for some reason there's a snafu with the state, I think- Right. ... there will be, uh, further contact with you all to see what the desire of the group is to do at that point in time. We have to have the code changes. Right. Yes. Okay. Does, does everybody understand that? It'll, we'll make it clear- We, we don't, I, there's, there's no, there, I think there's other issues with the code potentially that are not related to this and I do not know, there may be a delay in the normal approval time that you'd get for the code because of that, but my understanding is that these issues have nothing to do with whatever else the building code might be presenting to the group that, that, uh, adopts it at the state. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. All right, if there's no other comment about that, thank you very much, um, for all of those of you who were here for the electrical inspector fee and we'll move on to Destination 2040. And I think, uh, Shay Raybould is the presenter. I'm ready when, when you are, just let me know. Please, the floor is yours. Thank you. Um- I am happy to be here today on behalf of the mayor's office to talk about Destination 2040. The last time this issue was before the council, I believe, was January 13th of this year. Uh, Charlie Bolin made the presentation to you. Um, as you all know, Charlie was the lead on Destination 2040 from the mayor's office during the year-long, um, initiative, and then he retired. And unfortunately, he wasn't able to be here today, uh, but I did speak with him, uh, previous... or before this presentation, and, uh, w- he wanted me to let you all know that he's sorry he's not here, but if there are questions today that I'm not able to answer, or Marianne is not able to answer, we can get 'em from, from Charlie at a later date. Um, wanted to start off by saying that the, um, administration is looking for the council to, um, uh, support the Destination 2040 report. And whether that's by formal resolution or making a motion to adopt the report, or however you're comfortable doing, that's what we're looking for. Whether that happens today or at a later date, once you have all of your questions or concerns addressed, I just wanted on the front end to tell you that we are looking for the legislative body to say that they approve of the work of the community through Destination 2040. Um, as I mentioned, the last time we spoke about Destination 2040 was back in January. And so, I know this probably hasn't been, um, forefront on your minds. You have a lot of other things to think about. So, what I thought I would do quickly is just real quick go over kind of what Destination 2040 was again. I'll do a quick presentation, so we can have time for answers. Um, I thank Paul for putting, uh, the executive summary in the packet. You should've all received the po- report, the full report, which is about 53 pages, um, I think at the end of the year, and then we decided to have the presentation in January. If you don't have that report anymore, you can get it online, or you can let me know and I'll get you a hard copy or email it to you, whatever you prefer. I've passed out to you, or Marianne did actually, just a few moments ago, a few items. I know it's a lot of stuff. I don't expect you to read through it, but I thought it was some important things. I just wanna let you know what's in there. There's, uh, five items. The first... And all of this, by the way, is in your complete report. I just pulled out some of the highlights. Uh, the first are the people who were represented either, or participated either through the steering committee, the work groups, or the individual organizations that actually took part in the process. And you'll see there were, I think, about 140 different organizations that participated. Um, so you have a copy of that. You have a copy of chapter two of the report, which is the process, more or less, the civic engagement process, how we started, and how we got to where we are now. I know that's probably very important to many of you. Um, chapter three, if I can remember what chapter three is. Let's see here. Chapter three is the vision statements and, uh, kind of the top level where the work group came up with the various action items. And so, you can read through that at your op- at your convenience. And then I put in the, what I handed you, the January 13th presentation, which was a very long presentation, um, done by Charlie, just so you can, um, remind yourself of what you talked about that day. And then the last item was just the press release that was sent out from the mayor's office that day that, uh, summarizes what you heard at the work session, which I'm sure you don't remember in its entirety today. Having said all of that, that's what you have before you. Um, as I was reading through the report and kind of reminding myself why we did the Destination 2040 in the first place, we all remember that, uh, when we all got together in the beginning of January, one of the things the council and the administration wanted to do was, um, come up with a vision that could lead us into the future and wanted to engage the community in, in doing that. There are various communities that have done community-wide visions, and we wanted to embark on our own. And I put this, um, little excerpt, uh, on the screen and underlined the part that I thought was important, and that is that the vision c- uh, can serve as a collective compass that purposefully guides a community toward consciously chosen ambitions and dreams. I know today, earlier in the planning committee, you were talking about the Parks Master Plan and what that is, and I know that you're often asked to, um, adopt various reports. Uh, sometimes the recommendations are more specific than others, but what this Destination 2040 visioning exercise does is, uh, give our community a mutually agreed upon set of ambitions and dreams that we can pursue over the next 30 years. Um, after Mayor Newberry is no longer in office, after those of you around the horseshoe are no longer in office, there'll be others in our place. Um, not that I'm saying that's gonna happen anytime soon. Diane's looking at me funny. Oh, yeah. When Diane Lawless is president, this document will still be in place for those of, um, those people who will, will then be in Diane's shoes now, and it'll serve as a, a guideline, a, a compass, if you will, for the decisions that people make. And the purpose of it is not just for Urban County government to make decisions, but various organizations, whether it's the University of Kentucky or nonprofit organizations, to look back to this document and say, "Where did the community in 2008, 2009 want to go, want to be in the next, over the next 30 years?" Um, as you've heard Charlie say before, and you probably remember, the process started with identifying a root question, which was, how will we protect all that we value while continuing to grow as a community? And that question was used for four areas: human needs, physical growth, economic expansion, and cultural crea-- creativity. I mentioned that, uh, in your packet that I handed out today, you have a list of the various groups and individuals that participated. But if you look up here on the screen now, you'll see that over the year, there were, were, um, thousands of people that were engaged and quite a few, uh, hours spent, uh, many of them volunteer hours spent on this, uh, very complicated, uh, uh, initiative. And I failed to mention that Marianne Blodgett's here with me. You all know Marianne. She was Charlie's right-hand person on this project, um, as, as they went through the year. And so, she's here to answer any questions as well. Um, the report that you received back in January, and that's online for those, the people at home, was separated into four areas: the broad vision, uh, the four aspects of community life, which I just went over, and the vision statements that correspond to those, um, and then some, in, uh, statements about how to move forward, and then the nuts and bolts of the action items that people could actually take. Those are the things that we want to really look at is, what, what can we do with this report? And then some implementation items about how to move forward, and part of that is getting the approval of the, um, the council on this report. Um, basically, I think what you probably remember from the January 13th, um, presentation was the word balance. And what we found when going out and talking to these 140 organizations, and the survey, the random sample, uh, survey we did, was people wanted to have balance in the community. They recognized that the, um, our urban areas are important and we need to focus on revitalizing our urban areas, but the, uh, rural landscape we have is something that makes Lexington unique from other cities our size. Um, so the, the team came up with a, a, an overarching vision which was simplified to, uh, actually, the, the main vision was simplified to a great city life in a productive rural paradise. And the overarching vision statement that they came up with was, "Lexington will be one of the world's great mid-sized cities by striking and sustaining a brilliant balance of dynamic urban living and a matchless rural setting." And I think we probably all agree with that, um, that balance. Um, and then the question is, okay, where do we go from here in the decisions we make? Um, I probably shouldn't spend a lot of time on all of these 'cause you do have a copy of this, um, before you, so I'm not gonna read all this to you. But for the human needs, for the physical growth, uh, for the economic expansion, and for the cultural creativity, there were also broad statements, uh, vision statements for each of those areas developed as well so that when people are looking to the recommendations that were made, you could refer back to these statements and understand what the community was saying, where they wanted to go, and what their thought process was. Um, and back to, uh, kind of where we want to go from here, what we want is for organizations, urban county government, for non-profits, for for-profits, for schools, for others to ask themselves, um, when they're making decisions that are, you know, pretty big decisions and where to put, spend funding and so forth to ask, "How will our activity or initiative support the vision?" Um, and I'll just simplify that a little bit. If we're gonna be investing in, uh, downtown Lexington, we'll ask ourselves, "Does this support the vision that was presented in Destination 2040?" And we might als- also ask, "How would, how should we balance an in- an initiative or activity?" And this is just my personal opinion, and one could say that we balance our, our investment in downtown Lexington with our investment we make in the PDR program. It's a balance, but we're putting dollars both places. And so, we want to encourage organizations to, to get used to, over the next 30 years more or less, this doesn't have to happen today, but really start to ask themself, "How can we support the community vision?" Um, a few ideas is to, um, have a network of people that could, could help implement this. And obviously, there have to be many people involved. Uh, most, maybe most importantly is there needs to be some type of, uh, quantitative report developed, um, on a regular basis that through the years, a report card, if you will, we can look back as a community and see how much progress we've made. Um, definitely need to celebrate the successes, whether it's government or businesses that are, or other entities that are honoring and, uh, pursuing our vision. Um, honor the commu- community partners that are involved, have been, and will be involved. Obviously, you know, whether there's awards or other kind of honors for them. Um, and I think that must be my last slide. So that's kind of a overarching review of kind of where we've been. I didn't want to get into the nuts and bolts of what every single recommendation was today, unless you want to talk about that, but I want to make two points that I think are, is important. One is, uh, a very large number, relatively speaking, of citizens actually participated in this. It was about 3,000, about 2,000 of which came from those 140 very diverse organizations. Uh, we called them naturally occ- occurring organizations where neighborhood associations or... ... University of Kentucky or whomever wanted to participate, if they're already planning on getting together to meet, they agreed to go through this, the, um, exercise, um, and that, I believe, reached a, a broad section of the community, but that was anecdotal, um, qualitative information that we received from the public participation on that front. So what we did was we engaged the matrix group to do a random sample survey of a thousand citizens in Lexington, which is a pretty big, uh, sample size for those of y'all who knows s- stuff about survey research, and found that the things that we are hearing in our more or less focus groups, one-on-one or in the small group settings, it was confirmed by the random sample. And so I know that when you hear 3,000 compared to the 250 some odd thousand we have, it seems like a small number, but when you think about the various groups that were reached out to and the random sample, uh, we feel pretty comfortable about the, the results we have here. And so I'll end it there and see what you might have on your minds. There are some questions. Thank you very much, Shea. Uh, Council Member Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Shea, if you... I don't know whether you have your pa- your packet there in front of you, but- I do. ... if you go to the participant groups. Uh-huh. Um, I guess my question is the individuals that were involved happen to be connected to these groups, can they speak for those groups? Can you restate your question? Well, an individual comes in and signs in and says, "I belong to the Alley Cats of Lexington." Okay, is he representing Alley, Alley Cats of Lexington or is he just happen to belong to the Alley Cats of Lexington and the rest of the people- Well- ... they might have the same opinions? Okay, let me try to answer that and Mary Ann can back me up here. I think the participant groups, this doesn't mean that they came to, um... We had, for example, we had I think two or three open community, um, at high school, uh, open meetings where anybody could come. What these groups represent are organizations that actually participated on their own time with m- with employees or board members or whomever, um, at a board meeting, for example. So if it's the, um, Alpha Phi Alpha organization, at one of their meetings where they're all members, they went through the exercise. They had a facilitator come in and that group ranked the issues they thought were important and participated. So when it says participating groups, it is that. It is representatives of those organizations that went through the process. Um, the, the numbers I'm talking about, the 2,000 participants are mixed up in these groups and, um, in the public large group settings and then the additional thousand is from the survey. Did I say that correctly? Well, I also wanted to mention that one of the things that Charlie did was err- very early on was to identify some cor- uh, some companies in town that have been here a long time, have a s- a, you know, great interest in the community or great stakeholders and he met with them, uh, for two reasons. One, to kind of formulate the tool that was gonna be used and to develop, you know, where the, what direction they were going, but also many of these companies agreed to be community partners and agreed as a company to allow, to give time for their employees to also be involved. So in some cases when they were community partners, um, you know, they, um, the individuals represent themselves, but they have the support of the company that they, that they actually work in. Okay. Okay, let me further my, my question. Um, down the middle of the pa- first column, you have an entity called Business Banking. Business Banking is an activity. It's not a entity of sorts, and it doesn't in- identify what bank. It's a, uh, you know, most, many banks have a department called Business Banking. Um, further down, Criminal Justice. That sounds like a value, not, not an entity. Um, University of Kentucky, Bob Wiseman is gonna speak for the administration or is he gonna speak for the students? Uh, it's a little fuzzy, I guess, uh, and i- it's all through here. Uh, it's just not real crisp in my mind who's representing who and, and, um, whether- Well- ... we're getting a, a, a complete crisp picture of, uh, of what these various entities... When you say... I don't mean to interrupt you, I apologize, but when you say Bob Wiseman, for example, because that's a obviously an individual's name, is that under the pers- participant groups or in the work group part? S- Pardon me? What- Did you see Bob's name under the participant groups? I just used, I used him because I know that, uh, he, he gets assignments from Dr. Todd to do things like this on occasion or Tom Harris might, but, uh, and I saw his name on the other sh- other, other sheet. Okay, well, I'll do two things. First of all, Business Banking and Criminal Justice, I personally don't know, um, if that was an actual group or if that's just a generalization from various business or criminal justice entities that participated. I'll have to find that information out for you. I mean, other, other groups are more clear than I would agree with you on that. Now Bob Wiseman participated on the, uh, I believe the, the work team, which was different than the participating groups. The structure was there was a project team obviously that was made up of Charlie and Lisa Higgings-Hord, Mary Ann, and then we engaged the professional, um, advice and guidance of uh, Robertson Kay. ... and then the matrix group. And they worked with a steering committee, which is on the th- front page there that you can see is a diverse representation of the community, um, young and, uh, not so young, and various races, a, um, and so forth. Uh, that group served, obviously, as the overall steering committee, and then the work team members took the results from the, uh, the sessions with the community and helped focus those, uh, um ... You know, you're getting a lot of different things, and so they helped con- consolidate it down for the second round, where then the community was asked again to rank from the previous meetings what people thought were important to narrow it down a little bit, so we have a more focused vision. So Bob was serving as an individual, but he happens to be from the University of Kentucky too. Okay. W- what about the h- the high schools? Uh, is that the administration of the high schools or are those the students? Did the students get involved? Yes. And that was, it was something we really wanted to do. Uh, Charlie met with every high school, even the private high schools. And many of the principals were very eager, as you can imagine, for their students to become involved, civically involved in this. And so they actually trained the students at the school as facilitators and facilitated meetings within their school. So you, they were right there, um, doing exactly what those of us outside of high school, barely, or d- uh, did with this project. Um, and, um, it was, I think, incredibly important since those are the young people that'll be leading at- Well, I do too. Yeah. And, and, and, uh, reason I went there was that, uh, Lafayette, Henry Clay, um, Dunbar- They were invited. All of them were invited. ... Bryan Station, all were involved. Lexington Catholic, Lexington Christian, and Sayre were not. Actually- At least, they're not on this list. ... Lexington Catholic should have been listed 'cause they were involved. Lexington Catholic was involved. Right. But everyone was invited. And also, we did a session with the, um, Leadership Lexington, the youth component, we did a session with them also. So, um, that represented a very active young, uh, group of folks. Well, maybe this list, just for future reference, could get scrubbed down and be- Right. ... uh ... And we can do that. Yeah. We can certainly do that. Okay. That's all I had, Chair. Thank you. Council member James. Thank you, Chair. Um, Shay, I- I'm actually ... I'm very impressed with the document. I mean, I, um ... The value statements really, I think, when I think about the things that I've experienced in the past couple years being on council, um, hearing that our citizens, 3,000 folks got together and determined that value statements were a place where all can thrive, um, that we're always in balance, that we're further filled of new opportunity and exploring artistic expression in all things, I think that's very creative. And it's, it's so ... We don't see that a lot in, in what we do on a daily because we're dealing with such, I don't know, different, from a different perspective. But I think it's veli- very telling of what our citizens are expecting of us. Right. And it's very much from a broad overall vision. I think we each day get so caught up in what we're doing right then and not necessarily look back at how it fits into the overall picture. Right. But I think this helps us get there. I think you're right. And I, I mean, I don't know ... I'm not as comfortable with the vision statement, um, with the ... Not the vision statement, but the vision, the great city life in a productive rural paradise. So there's some components of this that I'm a little, like paradise, I don't traditionally use that word, and I don't ... Uh, to me, that's a very subjective kind of term of a creation of a paradise. Um, it's just, it's so ... I don't know. I'd, I'd need more help with that. But the value statements are thing, values are things that are consistent and that everyone can kind of hold onto, and I would be willing to support the value statements coming out. But I really wanted to talk with you about do you know how many council members participated in any of the sessions? Do you know those numbers? I don't know that answer. I, I hope that we made it, um, open for everybody to participate. And I don't know, maybe you all know if you participated or not. Okay. If you could raise your ... If you're on this committee, not with the Charlie interview, because I think we all, most of us had that, but in one of the sessions where you were visioning with, um, with one of the groups listed here if you participated or the open forums. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good represent- Okay. Yes. And I will say that for, um, the high schools, my daughter participated with, um, I think it was Henry Clay, um, at that time she participated and was ... She was really impressed. She came home talking with me about that she was part of a visioning process and was telling me about 2040. Right. Um, and I thought that was very cool. But I guess what I'm ... You expressed that you'd like for council, and I know there's a thought and, and everybody wants council to be behind something before they move forward with something. It, it just seems right. But, again, I go back to the earlier meeting we had about parks master planning. What is our role? What do we need to do? And if it's really about being champions for the vi- the value statements and the vision, can we not give that responsibility to someone that's in a permanent position, such as the citizens of Lexington? And it- instill within our citizens that these are the value statements and hand back out to those groups that participated and say, "You need to carry this message through everything you do, from supporting things that are in the budget, to electing officials that believe in these things, um, and expressing to constituents." But I, I don't know what we can do, um, besides if things are ackno- if something comes forward to council and you acknowledge that this was part of the Destination 2040 and we already know we have a 3,000 people base, um, that this is something that they said... ... I'm not, w- w- I don't see the legislative process in, in what is presented to us today, and I need your help in getting there. Okay. Well, let me try to answer a few different things. Um, first of all, you're, you're right. I mean, there's no requirement that says that, like, the council has to adopt this report in order for, uh, um, Irving County Government, if you will, to collectively move forward with this, um, or oth- other organizations to get involved. But it certainly would be helpful if we go out to other organizations and ask their entities to embrace this and try to think about it going forward. They might want to go to their board. Now, I'm not saying that this is a board, but it's a similar, um, group that acts collectively, uh, to put their stamp of approval on it. And so, we certainly would love for the council to acknowledge the, the work and, and put the, um, stamp of approval on it, um, of this. It doesn't have to happen, but we'd like to have it. Um, let me say a- another word about, you know, I know you said you weren't crazy about the word paradise. Um, first of all, these words in here were not written... This is not, you know, out of the mouth of the mayor's office. Right. This is the, um, the work team, the steering committee, and the project team worked collectively to put this document together. So a lot of these words that were chosen and the ideas came from the 3,000 people that participated and then was, um, uh, con- consolidated down by the work team members and the steering committee. And so, I, I can guarantee you that e- if I look through here, there's gonna be something that I don't personally... I wouldn't have chosen to say it that way, but that... I'll go back to that guideline, you know, this is the overall guideline that we're trying to, to say, or the blueprint or, actually, the vision, um, that we're trying to, to move forward. So I don't know how much... I mean, I guess we could tweak language a little bit, but again, the document was put together by community representatives, and I, I'm open to suggestions about how you might want to... Let me say one other thing. Again, I said on the front end, you know, we're looking for the council to say, "Yeah, we're, we're glad the community supported this. We, we accept this and we, we, um, by resolution or by mo- just a simple motion, um, adopt the report." And we will try to implement the overarching vision here and the, uh, the... If you get into the nuts and bolts of it, it gives action steps and some of them have like timeframes of one to five years, some are one to 30. Obviously, we're not gonna get them all done overnight. So whether the adoption happens today or later or not at all, that's okay. I would recommend if w- we're not comfortable doing it today 'cause there's still questions that we might wanna have a sub-committee or a brown bag lunch or something, again, where we bring in people that actually participated and maybe helped, um, put this together besides just representatives of the mayor's office so you can hear a little bit more about why they chose the word paradise, for example. Well, and, and I appreciate all of your explanation and, uh, and I seriously do appreciate the work of the folks that have been engaged and involved. And at this point, I will... L- l- anyone watching, listening, move forward with your vision for Lexington. No matter what that is, if you have 3,000 people that are in support of what it is you wanna do, I encourage you, regardless, with or without government support, that you move forward because what I think... what I hear, um, is so many times things get held up in council committees and there's a perception within community that council holds up processes. And I wanna get away from that, and I think the way that we can get away from that is establishing what are we waiting on council to do. What is it that we need to do and le- be legislative about it, not our nitpick. I, I know it's nitpicking to think about the word paradise. It's not fair to hold up anything because one person has discomfort with one particular word. If there's 3,000 people, that's a phenomenal number to support something moving forward. You can get just about anything done in a city with 3,000 people. So I ask everyone, champion your causes. Go forward with these values and this vision and figure out what it is you'd like to pro- you know, move forward with community because a lot of these things don't take council to do. So you're waiting on council to support something that might not even need our input in the end. And, but implementation is key. If, if you can find and pull out of this document what it is that we need to do as a council, let's do that. Let's do that and bring that issue to committee, have that discussion, move forward, have the folks that have been involved in 2040 be those champions that crowd this room, get 3,000 people in this room to say, "We want a place where all people can thrive." What does that mean? If that means that we need to have minority inclusion when it comes to contracts, let's bring those people here. If we need to have quality of life and affordable housing, let's bring those people here. So that's what we need because the citizens drive, should drive the legislation, should encourage that. But this overall vision, I don't think is necessarily our responsibility as council. I participated in one of the breakout sessions. I participated as a citizen and I'll continue to advocate for the... Advocate for this vision as a citizen, but also need to know clearly as a legislator what my responsibilities are. And I can only do those things task at hand. Anything else is gonna get jarred in language like paradise that I have a difficult time supporting. Um, I understand. I hear what you're saying. Marianne wants to say something and then I'll have something to say too. And, and you're absolutely right. This has got to be carried out by the, the, the whole community, uh, absolutely depending on what their particular interests are in the world of, uh, Lexington. One of the things that I think... ... could, could be of value to council members or e- any of the groups listed here. If, if you wanted to support it and then have it, so when issues come before you here, and whether it be housing or, uh, parks or tourism or arts, it, you know... Perhaps one of you or a couple of you might look back and say, "You know, the community spoke that they really think this piece is really important, so let's help that maybe guide our thinking on a particular vote that you might have." Or something like that. I think if nothing else, it might help guide you in your thinking on some of the important decisions that come this way. And I think one of the things we talked about was, uh, when this be- would become available, uh, for, uh, community services groups, uh, you know. Any of those groups that they could also have this to guide their thinking when they make plans or strategic planning, you know, this could really guide their thinking also. But wouldn't it be great if we were all sort of looking at sort of the same road map and moving in some of the same directions, just supporting each other, uh, having a piece of that particular topic. So I think that's... And one of the statements in here I think is pretty critical, you know, this is whis- is not gonna be a top-down thing. You're right, it's an inside-out, uh, thing. And we should always keep it that way. I just wanted to just mention that. I ag- I agree with you. Thank you. I was just gonna say quickly, I think traditionally, um, the legislative body has passed resolutions to support one thing or another, um, or asked certain groups to, you know, pursue this or pursue that. Uh, it's not binding, but it's a, it's a collective, um, uh, statement of support. So, you know, I, I... Obviously there will be things that the administration comes to the council and says, "We're wanting to pursue this initiative or so, and by the way, it was part of Destination 2040 as well." I know that will be important for you all to know, but as we go forward into the community trying to, to push other groups and organizations or encourage them to, to, um, implement these initiatives or work with us, I think it would be helpful to say that Irving County Government being ever- you know, the legislative and the administrative, um, bodies support this. And I'm not saying that if you don't formally adopt this report, that that means you don't support it, but I think that that's traditionally been the way that, uh, we've, um, collectively said that we support something, whether it's, you know, a mas- parks master plan or whatever it might be. And I know there's some, some questions about what the council should do or has to do, and this is not a has-to-do. It is definitely something that would be helpful though. Um, you know, anybody... Sorry, I was gonna asking if anybody had any questions. There don't seem to be any more council members on the screen. Councilman Stennet. Oh, Councilman Stennet is now on. Thank you, Chair. Shay, the, the... You said the vision statements and the value statements and the overarching vision came from the steering committee. This is the first I've seen it. Wh- when did they put it together? 'Cause I didn't think it was in the presentation that Charlie gave us this clearly. 'Cause one thing I've been advocating and asking for, is what is our vision as a government? And I think that's our role as a, as a community leader is to find out what our vision is a- as a government and making sure that when we make decisions such as, uh, the Park Master Plan, the Lyric Theater, that it is fitting within our vision as a government and what we want in a community. And this is the first I've seen some of these statements. The value statements were excellent. Uh, you know, s- some of those were mentioned in the report, but Great City Life and Productive Rural Paradise I- Um, I respectfully disagree. Please do. And, um, on January 13th, the presentation was made to the work session. I don't know if... Maybe you weren't here that day. In the packet that I handed out today, there's this sheet that has it summarized or the trying to be green. I saw that. So on those slides, it has what I just said. Also, the report was given to you prior to that, and it's been on... I mean, I'm not trying to get into an argument. No. I'm just saying that I respectfully disagree. No, but I'll clarify you. I'll clarify it. Yeah. Show me in this where that says that's our values, that's our value statement. Where does it say it? All it says on there is Great City Life and Rural Paradise. It doesn't say, "That's gonna be... That's what we want council to adopt as our vision statement." It doesn't say that. Next it says vis- value statements. Okay. Doesn't say that. So I was here on that work session. I remember that presentation. But what I'm getting to is, we had... Are you telling us you want us to adopt that as our vision statement for government? That's what we're gonna put out there as our message? No. Our brand, part of our brand? No. Every time we make a decision we need to say, "Does it fit in Great City Life Rural Paradise? Does that fit?" Because that's what a ve- vision statement should be for. Well, here's the thing. I mean, w- we went to Austin last year. We all saw that, how they try to make their vision part of every decision. And that's what- Well, I don't think the, the local governments in Austin's vision or mission statement is Keep Austin Weird. They probably have something else. No, i- it was different. Slogan, Human Capital. That was their slogan. Right. But they did have a vision statement. Right. And so- Human Capital. I'm sorry? Human Capital. Okay, Human Capital. So, this is the community vision, not necessarily what Irving County Government's mission statement or vision statement is or will be. But when we, if we change our mission or vision statement for government, we should certainly think of a community visioning exercise. Irving County Government led this initiative, but this is not the government's vision. This is the community's vision. And so, what we're asking you to do is adopt the report more or less, or whatever else you're comfortable doing. Somehow show that you, uh... ... support and acknowledge and accept, whatever word you choose, the work of the Destination 2040 participants. And the vision statement that was selected is, um, great city life in a productive rural paradise, and then everything flows from that. Um, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question specifically. You, you, you are, and, and I think the, the work on the project, uh, was great. I, I think the participation was good. You know, I, I, I sort of disagree with what we're saying the- these are 3,000 people that agree with all this, 'cause not all 3,000 agree to this statement. I mean, let's be honest. Some of those probably disagreed to some of the things in here. But collectively, this is the report. Great work, and I think it gives us a step to, to determine what we wanna do next, and I, I do think we're lacking a vision, eh, for government. Um, and I do think this, that's one, either one of the spin-offs, or we need to adopt the community's vision as our vision, because we are elected by the community, and decisions we make affect the community. Right. And that's what I'm getting at. And so if you're, if you're saying we adopt this report, then we are collectively saying this should be our vision and vision statement and value statements, which we could or- agree or not agree with, so. And, you know, there are vision statements. There are value statements. They can be tweaked over the years, um, in terms of how we implement. If the government wants to adopt, um, its own vision statement, it doesn't have to be this language. Um, I think this is a good starting point and a place to gl- look back to. Of course, I mean, if you look at the steering committee, we've got people that are very strong, uh, you know, rural land preservationists compared to, you know, people that don't necessarily support 100% that, uh, you know, where we're gonna build, you know, the controversial questions that we face on a day-to-day basis. But I think that collectively, what we heard from all the participants was yes, we need balance. We all realize that Lexington's, what makes Lexington unique, part of what makes Lexington unique, is our rural landscape. But once you get outside of the rural landscape, we've got a city that is on the verge of being great. We're, you know, uh, urban setting that we've got the high tech, the healthcare industries, creative class, all the things we all know and embrace. And collectively, I think what this vision is saying is we want to make sure that the dev- decisions we make going forward honor that balance. And that, like I was saying on the front end, if we make decisions to invest in downtown, we need to also, at some point, make sure we're making investments to keep the, uh, or, or ... And when I say investment, it doesn't have to be financial, but are also recognizing the support that the, the rural landscape needs too, so we don't lose that. Um- Well, a- a- a- and, and not to cut you off, Shaye, but I think- Sure. ... that the point is here is we could spend a lot of time, um, a- as a lot of groups have come up with their own vision. I think the purpose of this exercise was to come up with a community vision. Correct. 'Cause right now, w- we have so many different groups out there doing their own thing. Right. We need something to pull everyone together, put a big hug around everyone, and say, "This is our community vision. Let's all work towards that vision." Right. We don't have that. And that's what the administration believes this document is. So you, you wanna- Eric's got, uh, laughing back here. Maybe you wanna ask his opinion, but. Uh, I, I'm sure he'll tell us later. So I, I, I'll let him have his, his time later, but ... And, and that's what I'm trying to get to is if you wanted us to adopt it, we need to be careful as a body about some of the statements in here. And, and some of us may not believe in those statements. And, and I'd hate to put forth as elected official, put effort behind something we don't believe in, and when we make decisions not to adhere by. You know, that's like the Downtown Master Plan. We adopted something or, or brought something in, and none of us ... We're not abiding by it half the time. I don't wanna see that happen to this. And, and I agree with what you're saying. I mean, I understand that we're never gonna agree on every single word, everything that's in a report. I do think we need to, to, you know, keep in mind that this was a community effort, um, best effort to get as many people involved as possible in a constructive way. Um, and, you know, certainly if you all or individually or collectively have ideas of how we need to improve this, if there needs to be an, another step taken, if you feel like groups haven't been engaged, um, you know, let's ... I mean, there's gotta be some way to have a community vision, an overall community vision. This was our best effort, and we feel pretty good about it. Um, you know, there's never gonna be a situation where we agree on everything. And, you know, I don't really know what more we could have done, but I'm very much open, I know Mayor Newberry is as well, to suggestions of improving this if you feel like it's not a fair representation of what the community, uh, collectively has in mind for where we go as a community. I, I don't ... I'm not being argumentative. I'm just saying I don't know of the f- of the, of what we, what the outcome c- could have been that would've been different that you may have, may be more comfortable with. And so I'm open to suggestions. Thank you, Shaye. Thank you. We have several more council members who wish to speak. Council member Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, y- you know, th- this has really been a good conversation. And there's a couple points that I'd like to make, and the context of those has to do with, forgive me, um, you know, I suffer with having worked on these sorts of things for about 25 years. So you'll just have to forgive me for having maybe some of that, uh, baggage or ... But as I listened to some of the comments today, the absence of enthusiasm ... ... is I would take that if I were a facilitator. The absence of enthusiasm from this group is an indicator, is an indicator of perhaps a bit of a problem. All right, now, why is that? Well, what I've observed in this MBO model, management by objectives, which has migrated into visioning and mission statement building and all of that, a couple of things. One, you can very easily migrate into process sclerosis, which is what you've kind of described, Shea, as the problem that we may be in right now. Another, another thing is that the expectation for a vision today is great. Any institutional environment, whether it's a private company, whether it's a government, whether it's a nation, whatever it is, there's a high expectation for something that's inspirational, okay? And often in this visioning stuff, in the written and academic, all of that environment that has taught us about this model, they all go back to a touchstone. All of them. And they talk about John F. Kennedy, 1960, saying, "Man on the moon by, in 10 years." Okay. And the way I'm translating right now, and my difficulty, personal difficulty with it, at least the vision part, and I actually agree with Council Member James on a lot of it, because I know there's a lot of heavy lifting, Mary Ann. You know, tons of it. But right now, Keep the Balance, is almost like instead of man on the moon, it's keep your feet on the ground. And there's anxiety in that because we recognize that I, in my own view, the Keep the Balance is a value statement. I actually thought it was being promoted as the vision statement, but today, the vision statement is, um, "Great city life in a productive rural paradise." And I, you know, I actually think that was pretty creative and pretty clever. Uh, it's prob- but each one of us, like Andrew said, you know, each one of us is going to want to tweak that maybe differently, but we're all really hanging on to it. I like the way what Council Member Stennet said. You know, we want to be able to embrace it and hug it. You know, Louisville, it's, it's very easy to remember now. Possibility City. Oh, gee, that's a big deal. You know, that says a lot and I think we are now competing for these kinds, I mean, it's, that's why it's a big deal and I think that's why the anxiety that we're probably sharing with you all today is we, we're not quite ready to hug this because we know it is, as you have said, it's a big deal. Now, I see in your face that you don't like hearing me say this. No, I- I hear what you're saying. I mean- But I'm having to express what I'm thinking here. I think there's a lot of heavy lifting been, in this. Two years ago, we warned about, you know, terminal democracy, process sclerosis, we had six pillars, we should lead from the front, not from the back, okay. Now we're at a point where we got to lead here again, I think. Right. But if we are, if we're expected to shoehorn this in, I think that's where you're seeing some reluctance or some anxiety about it, okay? Thank you. Uh, Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. Um, I'm not sure I can actually, um, verbalize what I'm thinking. I think Great City Life in a Rural Paradise basically says that the people in our community love Lexington the way that it is. They like the direction that it's, that the city's been taking over the last decade or so. Um, I think it says we don't want a lot of change. I think it says we don't want to be a New York City, but we also don't want to be, you know, podunk holler. We want to have a great city life, but we want to serve, we want to preserve what is beautiful about this area, what is unique about this area. And I think that statement says a lot. Um, you know, the City of Possibilities says to me that they're looking for change. And I'm not sure that's what our residents want. I think they basically said, "We like who we are." And that may be bad news, but that's the way that I interpret this message. Um, but I think the way that we accept this as a council is just to do that. We will receive this report and we will factor it in to our decision making in the future along with all the other things that we have to factor in. It's only one, one part of all the things that we have to put together in our decision making and so I don't feel like that we're voting now on step one, step two, step three, this is how we want our city to develop. That's not what this document is. I think this document is saying, "We, the people of Lexington, Fayette County, like who we are today." We don't want a lot of change. We wanna preserve what we have. We do want a vibrant down- downtown, but- but that's what we're doing. And I think they were approving of that. Um, so I don't- I don't see this as a same kind of a mission statement that you might get out of Austin, or you might get out of, um, Louisville, because our people are different. So that's my interpretation of it. May I- may I comment for a- a minute? Um- Yes. ... I- I hear what you're saying Vice Mayor Gray and, uh, uh, Council Member Feigl. You know, I think what I would say is we don't need to get too caught up in, um, the vision statement. I do think that... I understand what you mean, we need something that- that excites people more than what we have here, but what this is, is a vision document. And what I mean by that is, if you- if you read it, if you go through the 53 pages, there are actual recommendations that will make our city great. Things that, um, young professionals would like, as well as people who've lived here their whole lives and are retiring now. Um, there are things in here about celebrating our ar- arts and cultural, um, community. There are things in here about making sure our economy grows, and the healthcare and high tech areas. There are things in here about making sure that people on the, um, lower income levels have the support they need, social services. There are actual, you know, a visioning document about what kind of community we want. And so, I would say that this is a broad vision with actual action steps and goals. Um, where perhaps we can take this document as a starting point to work towards something that does excite people as a slogan or a logo, or work with Commerce Lexington, or the Convention and Visitor's Bureau. I know y'all are gonna be talking about branding, um, next on the agenda. You know, I think that this is... At the end of the day, there is gonna be change in Lexington. No doubt about it. Because we all want that. We want, you know, streetscape, we want new farmer's market, we want all those kind of things to make our city vibrant and make sure that people wanna s- to live here. But collectively, I don't think there's anybody that wants to pave over all of our rural "paradise." Because if we do that, we're anywhere, USA. And so, this vision document is telling us as leaders and as community members, what are the types of things we need to do to make sure we're addressing the physical needs, the economic needs, the, um, cultural needs, and the human needs of our community over the next 30 years. And like I said, we are very open to suggestions of improving this. If there are things that you feel like words, um, if you think that we need something else that says, uh, you know, if it's, if we're getting caught up over the vision statement, being locked into that, uh, let's have a conversation about it. But I want us to make sure we look at this document holistically, particularly the recommendations that were made by the community and not get so caught up around just the one statement. But I understand why you would be- ... because that says a lot as well. Council Member James. Thank you Madam Chair. Um, yeah, I don't wanna get caught up or locked into anything either, but I think I found some things that we could agree on. Um, and there is some agreement around council, I believe, on a- a couple of things, so I do have a motion to bring forward. I make a motion that the council create a resolution to acknowledge the work of the Destination 2040 project team, steering committee, work team, participant groups, and individuals. The resolution should also include a statement that the council supports and adopts the value statements derived from the work of the 2040 visioning process. The value statements are as follows, a place where all people can thrive, a place where it's always in balance, a fertile field of new opportunity, and exploring artistic expression in all things. That's my motion. Do I hear a second? Second. We have several seconds. And, um, Vicky, I'll be sure you get a copy of that motion. She's happy. If- if you will share that. Um, okay. Discussion about the motion on the floor. And Vice Mayor Gray. Um, I- I was prepared to go on and make a motion to, uh, adopt it with the, you know, we've had good conversation about it. I think we need to keep having the conversation and- Absolutely. ... a framework for doing that. But I'll go along... I will, i- it seems like that the direction is to support this motion, so I'll support this motion. Council Member Beard? Thank you, chair. Um, I too will support the motion. I'm not as happy with the, uh, vision or the overarching vis- vision statement as I am with the, uh, all four of those, uh, uh, additional statements, which, uh, in and of themselves, uh, it's motherhood and apple pie. Um, the overarching visi- vision statement is just loaded with adjectives. Uh, to be one of the world's great mid-sized cities sustaining a brilliant balance of dynamic urban living and a matchless rural setting. Well, if we achieve all that, we won't be one of the world's best, we will be the best. And I hope we do. Uh, and that- there's nothing wrong with... There's nothing wrong with that, but some people may scratch their heads and say, well, you know, we got a few intermediate steps to take before we- ... before we get there, but as, uh, as I say, I, uh, support this, uh, because, uh, it's, if nothing else, it's, it's, it's common sense. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Are there other council comments on the motion? Do we have, uh, any comments from the public on the motion? No? If so- If so, beat it to the podium, please. Beat it. Because we still have one more issue on our docket. Yeah. I'll go real fast. Uh, thank you for the mo- the motion. So I was, I think, the lead facilitator on this. Uh, I think I did about 100 people. 1,000 were by phone, so that's 2,000 total, about 100 facilitators, it was about 20 average. I think I did about 100. Uh, two things I would like to say. Like, have you ever made Amish bread before? Like, where you had that little bag of the yeast? Like, in my opinion, doing this on the inside, I did at Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association, I did at Green Space, I did Pres- First Presbyterian Church, Common Grounds, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, neighborhood associations. From my opinion, there is so much energy, people want to be engaged, yet even though we claim this to be a, uh, shared community vision, you have 98 point something percent of people who did not participate. My experience is that about 65, 70% haven't even heard of this yet. And so, I would say this is more like that yeast in the Amish bread, take it as far as a good idea, as far as engaging our community, which is by far step one, and then let it go from there. And then you guys can flesh out all your questions and we can find out what the real vision is, because there is so much intellectual capital in this city that even though this was our best effort, I know for a fact that we can do a lot better just with a different skill set of learning how to communicate and collaborate with people, which government does not know how to do, in my opinion. So I think it's a great start, it's a great idea, but I think we have a such a long ways to go, in my opinion. Thank you. Other comments on the motion? And I am not going to repeat it word for word. But I've, uh, I believe... Yes, do you wanna read it one more time and- I'd be happy to. Um, I make a motion that the council create a resolution to acknowledge the work of the Destination 2040 project team, steering committee, work team, participant groups, and individuals. The resolution should also include the statement that the council supports and adopts the value statements derived from the work of the 2040 visioning process. And then they are as follows, "A place where all people can thrive, always in balance, a fertile field of new opportunity, and exploring artistic expression in all things." We're ready to vote, I believe. Um, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, well, this is a first good step, I think. Thank you so much for bringing this- Thank you. ... and we appreciate all your hard work. And I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of Charlie Bolin, who obviously worked a lot harder on this than I did, and all the community people who supported this. And I do agree that this is just a first step, we have a long way to go. Remember that it's Destination 2040, that's 30 years from now, a little more than 30 years from now. So this is going to be fleshed out over, over the years, and I think this is a good first step. So thank you. Thank you so much. Mm-hmm. Now, we'll go to our third issue, which is the blue horse, uh, branding. And Council Member Lawless put this into committee, and this is the first time this has been heard. So, did you wanna start us out? I've passed... With the help of my assistant, Council Member Stennett, I've passed out a, um, booklet that was put together by the Visitors and Convention Bureau. It also includes the, uh, pentagram report on the wayfinding signs. And I'll tell you how I got interested in the blue horse. I was at the airport, and I was racing to the restroom as usual. And, uh, there was a kiosk with visitor information. And what caught my eye was this book, and it drew me to it, with a bunch of pretty mundane but informative brochures. I think this is really exciting. If you'll look through their, uh, through this, it's like, what do you remember? Um, here are some logos from some cities, Waco, Texas, Jefferson County. They're blah. Nobody sees those, nobody remembers those. But this is whimsical and it's fun, and a lot's gone into it. And there are all kinds of, uh, promotional things that they're selling and that they're giving away. Ball cap with a big blue horse, which I would like to present to Julien Beard- ... as a special g-gift. Um, but I think we're in a, a time in our economy where things don't always look bright. Um, this is whimsical, it's fun, and anybody that comes to Lexington and sees this, and then they see you anywhere else in the United States or the world, and you have on a T-shirt that has a big blue horse on it, you know what they're gonna say? "You've been to Lexington, Kentucky." Um, more and more of our citizens, I think, are gonna be spending their vacation dollars, they call it now stay-cations because people are staying in their home communities. Uh, there are a lot of different, uh, promotional ideas they have about- ... touring Lexington and, uh, finding out more about our home community, and we need something whimsical and fun, something to wrap our arms around. And a lot went into this, and we have an opportunity right now to brand ourselves with something that is fun, that is unforgettable, that says who we are and how we are and how we like to play, as well as our rural landscape. The wayfinding signs are incredible, and they're toward the back, I think, hoping, with the blue horse on 'em. Um, if you'll look back here, toward the back, um, they have hoof- hoofsteps that will take you- lead you to different places, horseshoe. Um, so I'm hoping that we can think forward, think fun, think embracing, think Lexington, think memorable, 'cause this sure is memorable, and adopt this and join our Visitors and Convention Bureau as adopting this as part of our branding, and embrace it and promote it, use it on our wayfinding signs, which have fallen by the wayside, and, um, use it to get people excited about not only being from here, but visiting here and taking something home with a big blue horse on it. And I think people will. They're looking at writing a children's book about the big blue horse, um, and Julian, you look great in the hat. Um, so I guess, uh, I'm a little brain-dead now 'cause we've been in planning meetings since 9:00 this morning. Um, David Lord and Ellen Gregory, uh, couldn't be here today, and they s- they apologized. I also have a, um, media kit disc. If anybody wants to look at that, you're welcome to. Uh, I have extra stickers, and you can get those at the Visitors and Convention Bureau, but everywhere I go and I'm wearing a blue horse, people ask me for some. I could probably give out 50 a day when I wear my blue horse. People are excited about it. So, I'd like for the council and the city to get excited about it and, um, adopt this as part of our branding and move forward with placing this, um, out there for folks and getting these books out to people. And if anybody in the audience didn't get a blue horse sticker or postcard, I got plenty up here. So, I would like to make a motion, I suppose. I would like to move that, uh, this committee, um, recommends to the full council that we adopt the big blue horse as part of our Lexington branding and join the Visitors and Convention Bureau in, um, placing this on our wayfinding signs and, um, as part of our promotion of Lexington, Kentucky. Second. May I? We have a motion and a second, and I have a question for you. Yes, ma'am. Um, this did not come to the committee as the big blue horse. It came as the blue horse. Oh, I just call it the big blue horse. Is there a reason we need to call it big? No, I'm sorry. That's my faux pas. Okay. I just thinking big today. I just was- wanted to be sure, um, that it's the blue horse. It's the- it's the blue horse, not the- Okay. ... big blue horse. I apologize. So we'll have some discussion on the motion that the council adopt the blue horse as its logo, uh, and- The- as our logo and branding and on our wayfinding signs. Now, this is a visual, not a- not a verbal brand. It is a visual. S- because we've- Yes, ma'am. ... had a ... And the reason I'm asking is we actually had a wonderfully productive meeting last week. Uh, Vice Mayor Gray and I attended with about maybe 20 interested citizens, um, about branding, and we were particularly talking about the possibility city and that sort of- No, this is strictly a visual brand. It is not- Uh-huh. ... a logo. Uh-huh. Now, we have some council members with questions and comments. Council Member Beard? Thank you, Chair. Is there any surprise that I was first? Um, I'd like to clarify something. I- I was at- Mm-hmm. ... the, uh, visitors', uh, Convention and Visitor Bureau when they rolled this out. Uh, I brought the same point up. I'm gonna bring up again. I have nothing, no problem at all, with a blue horse. My problem has been all along that the blue horse is Lexington, and I think it minimalizes that horse, who was a very, very famous sire, a, um, fixation sire in the- in the- in the term, uh, that, uh, horse breeders use. Um, the- the fallback position was, well, it's bluegrass around here. Well, no. I've lived here for 71 years, and I've never seen bluegrass, and I've probably- Uh, I'm probably, um, the oldest person at this, uh, uh, the oldest, uh, uh, person, uh, at this, uh, uh, horseshoe, anyway. Um, well, the oldest person, the oldest person that's lived here for 71 years, let's put it that way, uh, Council Member Blues. Um, it, it, it's, it's the tie-in to, uh, the Horse Lexington that bothers me. And, and all of the materials here, for instance, this, uh, this piece right here, uh, g- goes into all that. We could have a blue horse, it's just a question of insulting the, one of the greatest sires of all time by painting him blue, and I am always feared that, uh, uh, the folks from elsewhere will think that, uh, th- it's blue because, uh, we're such fanatic, uh, n- nuts for the University of Kentucky sports activities. And, uh, that's why we painted it blue 'cause they can't see blue grass either. Um, thank you very much, uh, Chair. Council Member James. Thanks for the hat, by the way. Council Member James? Thank you, Madam Chair. My question's for Council Member Lawless. Um, you said way finding, logos, what, what else? The, the way finder signs that we've been working on for a long time in the city. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know if it's- The ones that are in the packet? Yeah. Okay. Um, do we have... We've been working on that? Do you know, wh- have you had the conversation with the folks that are working on that to find out, is this something they can adapt to that signage? Oh, a- yes. They can. What division is that, that's working on the way finding? Well, I don't know that any division's working on it right now, but, um, Pentagram is the one that designed the way finder signs with the blue horse on them. And I think they were presented to council before I was on there. They'd been talking about having way finder signs in Lexington for many years. Not quite as long as Newtownpike, but a long time. And, um, UK is already started putting their way finder signs up. So do we have... I guess what I'm asking is, budgeting-wise, I mean, ev- is that in our street scapes budget? Is that the way finding there? Um. I'm trying to figure out what it is. My understanding on the way finder signs is they were part of the capital projects budget for FY08 or '09. '08. Okay. '09. And that that money is still there, if we choose to go forward with them. And sh- if Shay's here, she can probably speak to that better than I can. But they were adopted by council as part of the capital fund projects for FY09. Okay, Shay, th- can you speak on that on behalf of the administration, if you know the status of way finding signage and the design for those, and the funding? I can try. I, I do think it's correct that there was funding in the 2008 Capital Improvement Plan. Um, it was part of a bond that was already sold. Okay. Um, the only knowledge I have is that, uh, way finding signs, in general, um, the work has been done by Kevin Wente, in Public Works and Development. And what he has done thus far is work with the state on getting, uh, the permits that would be necessary to put up way finding signs. And of course, it all depends on how much we want to, uh, to fund. We could have a bunch or we could have a few. Um, the original plan, th- the CIP plan was to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in '09, '10, and '11, for many years. Right now, the only thing that has gone forward is the bond, um, in 2008. Hm. Um, the mayor has recommended in the current budget that was presented last week that we, uh, delay doing any additional, or not move forward with any additional way finding sign funding. Um, we reduced, or recommended about, you know, 50-, about 50% of the projects that were on the five-year plan, that we not move forward at this time. Okay. So that's his recommendation. But to answer your question about who's doing it, it, it was Kevin Wente. He has been working on everything that can happen, short of the artwork. Okay. Um, so he's your contact on that. Okay. And the artwork was done by Pentagram, which is a world-class graphic design, I mean, group. Branding group. Really spectacular. So. So once we pass this out of committee and then it goes to council, then the next step is then Kevin Wente partners with Pentagram and then they start utilizing some of the bond proceeds to pay for- Well, I th- uh, what I'm saying is, if the way finder signs are used, I move that we have the blue horse on them. Okay. And they are as Pentagram designed them. But it's not committing us to- Okay. ... those. Thank you. It's just ad- adopting the blue horse as our visual logo. For wherever the way finding signs would be? Well, for Lexington. And if they would be. And Lexington, promoting Lexington, and a visual logo. Okay. Thank you. Does that make sense? Yeah, thanks. Council Member Blues? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to s- to, uh, to speak in support of the, uh, of the, of the motion. That, uh, I don't think that the, that the blue horse, that's, despite the fact that it is a- ... a colored inversion of, of, of the famous portrait of Lexington is meant as a, as an insult, or that it i- that it in any way is a pejorative comment on our historical heritage. I agree with, uh, with, with, with, uh, Council Member Lawless, that it is whimsical and it's fun. Uh, it shows that we can, uh, that w- that we can sort of, uh, laugh at ourselves. Uh, we can be playful about, about horses. All of our images about horses, we take ourselves so seriously as a, you know, as the horse capital of the world, and, um, and have all of these sort of, uh, stylized portraits of horses. This is just a little bit, you know, a little bit funny, a little bit crazy. Uh, and I, I, I think it's a great idea to, uh, you know, to go light here. We just passed a, a resolution in favor of, uh, of vanilla. Now let's have one in favor of blue. Okay. Vice Mayor Gray. Well, I, I don't think I could do any better than that. And uh, we're running out of time here, so, uh, I'd like... Uh, you know, is a couple things that I think are important here. One is that what Council Member Lawless mentioned earlier, pentagram really, pentagrams work i- is recognized universally pretty much all over the world. And, um, and, and our opportunity is this clock is telling us 521 days. Um, not much time to get a really essential piece, uh, in the ground. And that is this, this way finding, uh, system. Uh, I, we've already funded it. We funded it the first year, at least I was on the council. And so I think that was in '08, wasn't it? Yep. Okay. I'll yield to whoever else is up. Council Member Ehlinger. Council Member Ehlinger. Thank you, Chair. I got a couple questions. Are we calling it the Blue Horse or Big Lex, or were they kind of both? No. No. ............................ You ran those. It's the Blue Horse. The Blue Horse? Okay. 'Cause I've, this l- The portrait is of Lex. Okay. Lexi- the horse, Lexington, is that famous portrait, and they s- with permission. Well, they just have it in the back of this thing, they call it Big Lex, so I don't, I just wanna... I, I think it's important when you brand, and I guess, that's what I wanna... Shae, is Shae still here? Okay. I just wanted to ask her, 'cause when you start branding, I think you wanna keep it as simple, so people don't get confused. And, and we're starting to find ourselves, and just from my standpoint, when you, when you brand, you see Statue of Liberty, you know what that is. You see the Eiffel Tower, you know where you've been. And with Lexington, if you now have the Blue Horse, you know where you've been. Now, we've got the FEI Games, and we've had that logo. And I understand that's different, 'cause that's gonna be a one-time event. Now, we just came up with Spotlight Lexington, is that... I'm, I'm trying to figure out, is that's for downtown, and now we've got the Blue Horse. And I, I'm trying to be able to tie all this stuff together. Is there... I, I guess it's probably putting a, this might be, um, putting the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse, however you wanna look at it, um, at this point. But, is there any way... 'Cause when we did the Spotlight Lexington, and we had somebody come in here from New York who, w- w- we paid a lot of money, I'm sure, and they've got a, a good reputation. But we really didn't use what they kind of gave us on this. And, and when we look at their report, their report says, "The last thing you want to do is put, like, you're Anytown, USA, and you've got our downtown little skyline on there." And I don't know, is, do we, do we, do we think about trying to put the Blue Horse into that, and trying to make that to try to keep tying everything together? I know we talked about this before, and I never really got that feel of what ever happened with that. Um, well, first of all, I'm, I'm not here to speak on behalf of the Blue Horse, so I'm just gonna try to answer your question. Um, I think we have several different things going on in our community that is good and creative. We have the, uh, Convention and Visitors Bureau, who have been pursuing the Blue Horse, and they're already implementing that, as we can see on their, um, visitors' guide, on their logos and letterhead, and all that kind of stuff. Um, so that's going on. The Spotlight Lexington, it's actually Spotlight Downtown Lexington, is the official name. Um, that is for a 16-day special event. It is not necessarily the brand of Lexington. It's to promote an event, but it's called Spotlight Lexington. Just like there's the Role- Rolex 3-Day Event, there's Mayfest. That's what Spotlight Lexington is. And so that's what the logo for Spotlight Downtown Lexington is for, it is actually downtown, promoting downtown and what Lexington has to provide. That this- Can I ask a question with that? Sure. I hate to interrupt you, but it's my understanding that it's, it is for a one-time, it is for the 16, but I thought it was gonna be a annual kind of thing, that we wanted to continue with the S- Spotlight Downtown. So it wouldn't m- just be 16 days, but it would be something that we would continue to do. And I guess that's where I'm trying to get this branding. I, I don't want, you don't wanna confuse your customers, you know? You keep it simple, and you want them to be able to... I agree w- I understand with what you're saying, and Spotlight Lexington is something that can be done on an annual basis, or it can, the model that we're gonna use can be, um, used if we ever do have another, you know, NCAA, uh, Final Four here again, or other things that we need to pull the community together, we can spotlight Lexington. And so, I don't think it has to compete with the Blue Horse that's being pushed by Convention and Visitors Bureau. It doesn't have to compete with the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games logo. I think there's, uh, enough... ... distinction between the two. I don't think it has to be part of the Spotlight Lexington logo. And the Spotlight Lexington logo was selected with, um, the help of the, the Lexington's Host Committee, which is, you know, dozens of people that represent the community. So again, community input. And right now, the blue horse is not part of that event logo. Doesn't mean that the blue horse from CVB can't be a part of various things throughout the 60 days. But if we dec- if we decide this motion passed, then it becomes kind of part of not just Convention Visitor Bureau, but something that we as a council, I think, as a government's deciding that that's how we want it to be branded. Is that not true? So it's gonna be just not the CVB, but the government too. So I think we wanna make that connection. I don't wanna beat this dead horse, but I just wanna continue. Well- And I see we're running out of time, so I will yield to the next one here. I just, I just wanna say something. You know, I, again, we're not, I'm not here, I wasn't prepared to come and speak on behalf of the administration for or against the, the blue horse. Um, and so I would just ask, and Rama would ask, that when, if the council wants to act collectively to, um, to promote the blue horse as presented by CVB, that, uh, we might need to get into some real specifics about how it's gonna be used. Um, what, you might be able to help me here. But, but it's gonna be logo on- For, and, and we also need to remember that there's various versions of the blue horse. Um, I mean, there's the one like that, and then there's the one that's just the blue horse on the white background. So you start getting into some of the, the logistical, who's gonna make those decisions stuff. I'm not trying to make it more complicated, but, but I think it would be helpful if, if the legislative body does wanna adopt the blue horse and have us use it as our brand, how does that relate to the various materials? And is that our logo? Uh, there's just a lot of, I think there's some more discussion. I'm not trying to say you can't do it, I'm just saying there might be some more questions, and Rama might have some as well. And I would also- If- ... add one more thing. It does cost a lot of money to change letterhead and brochures. And so we'd probably wanna have a, a timeline for how we would implement such a proposal. Thank you. We have about five minutes, and we have several more council members. Council Member Feigl. Um, I, I, I just, uh, kind of reiterate something that, uh, Council Member Ehlinger said. I think, you know, one of the things you don't wanna do is confuse people. And I think, I mean, as soon as I looked at, uh, the blue horse, I immediately thought of the University of Kentucky. So that association is going to be made, and if we don't want it made , then we've got to take some steps to prevent that from happening. And I don't have the benefit of having been through the evolution of this whole, um, proposal, as many of you have had, um, so I'm not so sure. I don't know why blue was chosen as opposed to green or, you know, any other color. But, uh, if this is going to be the city's logo from, from now forward, I think that be, we really need to be very clear about, um, um, how we feel about it. And at this point, I think it's a real cute little horse. I really do. I think it's a, it's a very whimsical thing, but I'm just not convinced yet that this is what I wanna see as the city's logo. Council Member Lawler. Uh, the city has an official seal that's very serious. Um, it's 521 days until the Equestrian Games, and we as a city have nothing that says, "Hey, here we are. Remember us? Blue horse." You can't forget a purple cow. You can't forget a blue horse. And, um, I'm not suggesting that we spend money changing our stationary or any of those things, but I think that this is something that we need to get going. It's 521 days. Do we wanna spend another three or $400,000 to another group to come up with a logo at the last minute? We have something fun that people can take home with them, and in 2040, they may not be using the blue horse. But I really think we just need to get something moving, and I think this, we, they did the work, they did the legwork. It's not costing us anything, but I think we can join them in promoting the blue horse. It's whimsical, it's fun, and it's time for us to smile and, what was it? Be happy and prosperous in paradise. Council Member Baird. Well, just, if in fact we are gonna use this as our logo, uh, we need to register this service mark, which will cost us some money, but it, it, it, it needs to happen, because, uh, obviously somebody else might say, "That's a pretty good idea. Let's me have one too." And, uh, uh, I don't think we want that because they might, the, the, the, the memorable situation might, uh, s- switch to a, a quarter horse down in Texas or something. Uh, so anyway, uh, j- just, uh, get our law department involved in, in getting that done. Thank you. S- so, um, Council Member Lawless. It, it has been copyrighted, and what I'm asking, I guess, is I'm making a motion that we recommend to the council that we join the Lexington Visitors and Convention Bureau in using the blue horse... -- as a visual logo and representation of the whimsical, wonderful place Lexington is while we still have 521 days before the world descends. U-, unfortunately, we're out of time, so, um, I believe your initial motion was to adopt as the visual logo the blue horse to be incorporated into Lexington signage, including wayfinding signs, as well as other areas. Yes. So... Well, it will be to take it to council. It'll be reported out next week. So a- Yes, that's exactly it thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. We have one opposed. So that motion passes. Thank you very much. Um, motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.