# Committee of the Whole-Budget Meeting - April 28, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 28, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/881 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/881?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-04-28 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 13,551 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Committee of the Whole met on April 28, 2009, at 1:00 p.m., with Vice Mayor Gray presiding. The meeting focused on the debt and capital components of the Mayor's FY2010 proposed budget. Five agenda items were presented to the committee, all of which were informational in nature and addressed various aspects of capital planning and debt management, including a debt service capacity analysis, details on capital improvement projects and their oversight, future capital projects and the Government Center, and the Link Committee process for capital projects. The committee heard eight public comments during the meeting and took one motion to a vote. The session provided an overview of the city's proposed capital spending and debt obligations for the upcoming fiscal year. ## Attendance **Present:** - Vice Mayor Gray - CM Feigel - CM Martin - CM James - CM Lane - CM Stinnett - CM Lawless - CM Myers - CM Blues **Absent:** - CM Gorton - CM Beard **Late:** None reported ## Votes and Decisions **Motion to Adjourn** Vice Mayor Gray moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed by voice vote at [timestamp: 01:00:00]. No roll call vote was recorded for this motion. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed several significant financial appropriations and capital improvement initiatives: **Capital Improvement Project Bonds** The government approved $13,520,000 in 2009 CIP bonds designated for 2007 and 2008 capital improvement projects. Additionally, $24,830,000 in 10- and 20-year bonds were appropriated for the same fiscal years' CIP funding. **Pension Obligation Financing** A major appropriation of $70,000,000 was approved for 20-year Police and Fire pension obligation notes, representing a significant long-term commitment to public safety employee pension liabilities. **2010 Capital Improvement Planning** The 2010 CIP budget request totaled $99,000,000. However, proposed funding for 2010 CIP was set at $27,800,000, indicating a substantial gap between requested and available resources for the upcoming fiscal year's capital projects. **Additional Appropriations** The meeting included approval of $6,000,000 in Lyric funding carried forward from 2009. Furthermore, $4,000,000 was appropriated for study or plan analysis related to a new government center project. ## Public Comment Council members raised several questions regarding the city's debt service capacity and capital project planning during the meeting. CM Martin inquired about the debt service impact of issuing $60 million for a new government center, asking whether this would push debt service to 15% and requesting a review of appropriate debt service percentages for the city [timestamp: 00:25:45]. Later, CM Martin requested future presentations from rating agencies such as Moody's or S&P to better understand how debt levels affect credit ratings [timestamp: 00:54:09]. CM Stinnett noted that not funding pensions at higher levels offsets debt service costs and suggested that the true debt service burden is lower than projected [timestamp: 00:29:24]. CM Myers requested clarification on a $1.5 million solid waste office space expansion that appeared in Schedule B but was missing from Schedule C [timestamp: 00:33:53]. CM Feigel asked whether the city is nearing its debt service capacity limit by 2012 and whether new projects could push debt service over 10% or 12% [timestamp: 00:37:12]. CM Lane noted that the Fiscal Policy Task Force report, which includes debt service analysis, would be presented during a May 12 work session [timestamp: 00:40:00]. CM James emphasized that the link committee process is the appropriate forum for detailed discussion of capital projects with division directors [timestamp: 00:42:25]. CM Blues requested an electronic copy of the debt and capital projects presentation for council members [timestamp: 00:58:59]. ## Contested Items The April 28, 2009 meeting included two significant areas of disagreement among council members regarding the city's financial projections and debt capacity. **Debt Service Levels and City Capacity** Council members divided on the issue of projected debt service growth. The central concern was whether the city's debt obligations were approaching unsustainable levels. Specifically, members expressed worry that debt service was projected to rise from 7.38% to 15.8% by 2012. The disagreement centered on whether this trajectory represented an acceptable level of debt for the city or whether it indicated the city was exceeding or approaching sustainable debt limits. This matter resulted in a split vote among council members, indicating no consensus on the appropriate course of action regarding debt service management. **Inclusion of Government Center in Debt Projections** A heated discussion emerged regarding how to account for a proposed $60 million government center in the city's debt service analysis. Council members disagreed about whether this project should be factored into financial projections and debt calculations. Some members argued that including the government center would significantly impact the city's financial ratios and therefore should be incorporated into the analysis. Others apparently took a different position on its inclusion or treatment in the projections. This debate reflected broader disagreement about how to evaluate the city's true financial capacity and the appropriate scope of debt analysis. Both contested items reflected underlying tension about the city's financial health and the sustainability of proposed spending commitments during what appears to have been a period of fiscal concern. ## Presentation of Debt and Capital Projects in the Mayor's FY2010 Proposed Budget Acting Commissioner of Finance Bill O'Mara presented an overview of the debt and capital projects included in the Mayor's FY2010 proposed budget [timestamp: 00:07:00]. The presentation covered several key financial components, including general obligation bonds, capital improvement program (CIP) funding, debt service projections, and pension obligation notes. **Key Topics Presented** O'Mara detailed the proposed debt instruments and their intended uses within the capital projects framework. The presentation included information on general obligation bonds that would finance various city projects, as well as pension obligation notes and their role in the overall debt structure. Debt service projections were provided to illustrate the financial obligations the city would assume under the proposed budget. **Council Member Questions and Concerns** Council members engaged with the presentation by raising several substantive questions. These inquiries focused on: - Debt ratios and their implications for the city's financial health - Project delays and their impact on the capital improvement schedule - Future capital plans and long-term financial commitments The questions reflected council members' interest in understanding both the immediate fiscal impact and the longer-term financial trajectory of the proposed debt and capital spending. **Outcome** The agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. The presentation provided council members with detailed information necessary to evaluate the debt and capital project components of the Mayor's FY2010 proposed budget as they moved forward with their budget review process. ## Debt Service Capacity Analysis Bill O'Mara presented debt service projections during this discussion, which showed a significant increase in the city's debt service capacity ratio over a three-year period. [timestamp: 00:18:52] **Projections Presented** The analysis indicated that debt service would rise from 7.38% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2012. These projections were based on anticipated pension obligations and capital improvement program (CIP) bond issuances. **Council Concerns** Council members raised questions about the appropriateness of the projected debt levels. CM Martin, CM Feigel, and CM Lane participated in the discussion, expressing concerns about the trajectory of the city's debt obligations. The council members also questioned the potential impact of unanticipated projects on the debt service capacity, indicating concern that unforeseen expenditures could further strain the city's financial position beyond the presented projections. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. The presentation served to inform council members of the city's projected debt service obligations and the factors driving the increase in debt service capacity ratios over the planning period. ## Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) Details and Oversight [timestamp: 00:33:53] During this discussion, council members requested more detailed project breakdowns for several capital improvement initiatives. Specific projects of interest included the $1.5 million solid waste office expansion and the $75,000 police remodeling project. **Key Participants:** - Bill O'Mara - CM Myers - CM Lawless **Discussion Points:** Council members expressed a need for greater detail regarding how capital improvement funds were being allocated across specific projects. The requests focused on understanding the scope and justification for significant expenditures, particularly the solid waste office expansion and police remodeling work. **Outcome:** Bill O'Mara confirmed that link committees would be responsible for conducting detailed follow-up on capital improvement projects. This arrangement established a clear process for council members to obtain additional information and oversight of project implementation through the appropriate committee structure. The discussion resulted in an informational outcome, clarifying the oversight mechanism for capital improvement projects rather than making immediate decisions on the projects themselves. ## Future Capital Projects and Government Center Council members discussed the potential fiscal impact of a proposed $60 million government center during this agenda item. [timestamp: 00:25:45] **Key Discussion Points** Bill O'Mara addressed questions about how the government center project would affect the city's debt service obligations. O'Mara confirmed that the $60 million government center was not included in current financial projections. However, he noted that $4 million has been allocated for a study of the project. Council Members Martin and Stinnett participated in the discussion, raising questions about the project's financial implications for the city. **Fiscal Considerations** The council acknowledged that the fiscal policy task force was identified as the appropriate body to address capital project issues of this magnitude and their impact on the city's overall financial planning. **Outcome** This item was presented as informational, with no formal action taken. The discussion served to clarify the current status of planning for the government center and to establish that detailed fiscal analysis would be conducted through the appropriate task force channels. ## Link Committee Process for Capital Projects Council members discussed the appropriate venue for reviewing capital projects in depth. The discussion affirmed that the link committee process serves as the proper channel for detailed examination of capital projects, with division directors available to provide comprehensive responses to council questions. [timestamp: 00:41:11] Council Members James and Lawless participated in this discussion, which focused on confirming the role and effectiveness of the link committee structure in handling capital project oversight. The outcome of this agenda item was informational, with council members reaching consensus that the existing link committee process remains the suitable mechanism for conducting thorough reviews of capital projects. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are on now. All right. We now have electronic communications. For those in our viewing audience at GTV, this is a council committee of the whole meeting, and we are here today to hear about, to discuss our budget, and specifically debt and capital projects. Mr. Bill, Mr. O'Mara. Again for our viewing audience, Bill, you may want to introduce yourself and the importance of your role right now. My name is Bill O'Mara and I'm the Acting Commissioner of Finance and Administration today. And we have a low-tech presentation to give to you today to talk about debt and capital. I hope that each of you all have a copy there in front of you. And here is the same information projected up onto the screen. But today we're supposed to talk about the debt and capital projects. And the first thing I wanted to just define what general obligation bonds are, which is the next page. Municipal bonds backed by the credit and taxing power of the issuing jurisdiction, issued with the belief that a municipality will pay the obligation through taxation or revenue from projects, and no assets are used as collateral for these bonds. To give you a recap of where we were in 2009, no bonds had been issued since November of 2006. The implementation of PeopleSoft had come in, and we were behind in issuing comprehensive financial accounting reports. And during that period, no bonds were issued. So in FY 2009, we needed to issue bonds to finance the 2007 and 2008 capital improvement projects that had been approved and started based on the budget and authorization from council. But right before Kena Co., the then commissioner, was ready to go to market, or right when they were ready to go to market, there was a bit of some economic turmoil last September, and that pretty much put the bond market into a very uncertain situation. So the issuance of those bonds were delayed, and in December it was decided that the short-term bonds, there was a favorable market, and so we issued what's called the 2008A bonds. They were three- and five-year bonds for the 2008 CIP for a total of $13,520,000. Then after the first of the year, again, the bond market started to look more favorable, and the 10- and 20-year bonds from 2007 and 2008 CIP were issued, And that was for $24,830,000. And then in March, we went to market with $70 million of 20-year bonds, or actually it's police and fire pension obligation notes. And that's the first of a series that are planned to be issued in order to address the unfunded liability in that pension plan. So then we're looking at building the 2010 budget. So here are the assumptions or the ways that we went about in preparing the 2010 submission in the mayor's proposed budget. Since bonds had not been issued for 2009 capital improvement projects, we reviewed that list with the idea to delay or hold on any projects where possible. with the idea that we would try to delay issuing those bonds until the fall of 2009. And through that review, we have either identified savings or delayed about $12 million of what was on that shopping list. In addition, we reviewed the 2010 CIP list. Let me go back one, please. to see what to come forward. And this was, the starting point was the five-year capital improvement plan that I believe Commissioner Coe met with council last fall, maybe, and went over a five-year capital plan. And we looked at what was in the 2010 five-year capital plan as well as requests that came in. There was $99 million requested, and so again, that was reviewed, and we have come up with our proposed $27.8 million from 2010, plus the $6 million that was approved for the Lyric from 2009. So that brings us to where we are today, which I'm out of order. Somehow. Which we're talking about issuing the 2009 CIP bonds in the fall of 2009. What that will do is allow us to pay interest only in fiscal year 2010, and then the total debt service would roll into the 2011 budget. We have in our projections the issuance of the second series, the police and fire pension obligation notes at approximately $35 million to issue in spring 2010. where the debt service would be a 2011 obligation, and then we're looking to bond the 2010 CIP bonds in either summer or fall of 2011. Do we have questions at this point? Yes. The debt service for the 2009 CIP bonds plus the debt service for the police and fire pension obligation notes, all that debt service will be in 2011? All of it will. A portion of the 2009 interest only would need to be paid within the 2010 budget cycle. Okay. So we're looking at a 2010 budget where we have some increase in revenues. We're trying to keep a hold on all of the expense categories in the general fund, whether that be holding jobs open or unfunding or not funding some open positions in the personnel category. We ask each of the divisions to look at their operating, and so we are looking at how to manage a lowest possible debt service obligation for the community for 2010. Thank you. Okay, well, the next slide is referring to the handouts, which are also attached. The first one is a listing of the 2009 CIP that were proposed to be put on hold, and they're listed there, equals 6.455 million plus another 1.1 million that are related to stormwater. And I believe in each of these categories, the work had not begun yet or was able to be held back. So these funds basically have not been committed. The next schedule, and I will defer to my colleagues in budgeting to fully explain the difference, and you're not supposed to be able to read that from up there, but this is a listing of all of the capital improvements by fund, and the ones that appear and need to be financed through the general fund are labeled General Service District General Fund Total, which is the very first subtotal, and then the last subtotal on the page, which says 2010 bond fund total. Those are the general fund projects. If I could, I would point out one correction. If you saw the handout just before, in the 2009, listed on the hold was the salt barn for $2 million. dollars. Listed on this report is to bond the salt barn for two million dollars. That is an error because the salt barn was in, it was out, it was in, it was out. So it was already put into PeopleSoft even though the final recommendation is to hold on that salt barns, so that $2 million is not anticipated to be bonded. It is not anticipated to be bonded or built this year. The next schedule, which is a little easier to read, is what is called operating capital. And again, there are two numbers that come out of the general Fund, the very first subtotal is for $26,050, and that's General Service District General Fund total. And then if you go to the second page toward the bottom, again, the 2010 Bond Fund total is listing what is General Fund financed. I lost you? Okay. One moment, please. Thank you. toward the bottom with a subtotal titled FY 2010 bond fund total, those are the two categories that come out of the general fund. Okay. Is that it, Bill? Well, I can talk about debt service. Well, unless there are questions right now, why don't you go ahead? Do you want me to go ahead and talk debt service? Yes, sir. I'm curious about the ratios, too. I suppose everybody is. What's your projection is on the debt ratios? Okay. I prepared a debt service projection. It was based on the following issuing additional pension and fire pension obligation notes, and I've actually listed one too many years, the 20. We're issuing it in the spring. Excuse me, Bill. Do we not have this one, or do we? It's right before questions. Okay. Okay. Okay, the estimate is based on the following, that we would continue to issue for a total of four pension bond obligation notes. The first one was $70 million, then there would be three more at approximately $35 million each, and that additional CIP bonding would be approximately the 2010 level. So based on those assumptions, I have an accountant's spreadsheet because I inherited this from Kena, and so I tried to update it. And it actually lists on your left the actual bond notes that are issued and a slight description of what they're for, and it shows the actual payments that we're obligated to do through 2009 through 2015. It should be the one that says debt service capacity and it's got a little D up in the right-hand corner. It's the last page that we've given. It should be the last two. Right. And that leads us down. If you go over to read down the column that's entitled 2009, those are all of the debt service payments that will need to be spent or paid for in the FY 2009 year. Then you see that the new issuance, the last three that I talked about where we issued them, become due and have to be paid for in 2010. And then below that is projected debt service. And so there is the CIP anticipated note that would be done this fall where it would have an interest-only payment of $2,561,000. And then if you see in the out years, the full debt service payment would be due. And then it anticipates the issuance of the additional fire and police pension obligation notes as well as each year a CIP. Then if you go to the next page, Vice Mayor, I think what you're looking for is the total debt service obligation from the general fund, and then we've listed the anticipated general fund revenues, and then a debt service as a percent of total revenue. For 2009, it's projected at 7.38%. In 2010, it goes to 11.03%. It migrates up into 2012 to 15.8%, and then starts to go back down in the out years. One of the things I did want to just illustrate for you is if you looked at our debt service before the pension obligation notes, I then recalculated the debt service as a percent of projected total revenue, and it peaks at 11.87 in 2012 and then goes back down. Questions? Council Member James? Council Member James and then Council Member Martin. Did you want me to go first? Bill, on that last page where you have the percentage of debt service and then the percentage of revenues or the percentage of debt service related to revenue, how did you come to those revenue projections? I remember, Kena, talking about this when we had our discussion last year or the year before, whenever it was we talked about it, but I don't remember. your estimates. I prepared them. She had a schedule assuming a 4.9% growth in total revenues each year. For instance, the 2009 total revenue was at that time projected to be $273 million. If you look at our budget book, we're now estimating 2009 general fund revenue to be $270 million. So the base has changed because more information is now known and then last October or September, whenever it was, you all had your meeting. We are projecting a 3% growth in our 2010 budget, and then from then on I said 3.5% in 11%, 4% in 12%, and then 2013 to reach back to the 4.9%, which was a historical average, I believe, is what she may have used when she prepared that last fall. Okay. And you're comfortable with those numbers being in here as they are with us reviewing this document right now? Well, yes, ma'am. Every budget and every estimate is wrong as soon as you finish, complete it. So it was as ripe as rain last night when I completed it. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Martin. Bill, is the new City Hall in the projected numbers, I saw it on the previous schedule, but I'm looking at the last two pages in the debt service capacity analysis. Now, and is that projected to be in, for example, the GO Series 2011 projects, or where is that? It is not in the debt service projection. The assumptions I used for projecting out was to continue the series of pension obligations and the same level of CIP bonding as in the 2010 budget. The 2010 budget, however, to answer your question, yes, no, is it in there? There is $4 million for the study and plan analysis, I believe, but there's no $60 million or whatever the total might be projected to replace this building in 2010, nor in the debt service projections that I prepared here. So the question I think we ask is, given that our debt services or percentage of revenues is looking to double in the next couple of years, is that fair? From the 7.8 to the 15? Yes. Yes, sir. what is appropriate for a city to carry and how much is enough, how much is too much, and that kind of thing. And I can't answer that question. I ask our financial advisors a similar question. They could not be here. They're both flying from somewhere or from somewhere and are out of town today. The city had a guide of 10% for many, many years. I believe when you all met and discussed the five-year CIP, that it was acknowledged that that was no longer going to be able to support the plans that you all were considering, but that it was anticipated that it would go up and then go down. I can say that there is no fast percentage that Moody's or S&P uses. They look at the total. They look at your total assessment base, population, history. Actually, I don't know what they think because they ask you so many questions, you don't know where they're coming from at the time that they're asking you. But I've only been through one bond issue, so I don't have a lot of experience under my belt to give you a long answer. I think it's a fair question, though, to try to understand if we issue $60 million for a new city hall, what's that going to do to the 15.8 percent? I can answer that by putting something in, and we can assume what year that happens. Mr. Lane. If I could expand on that just a little bit, I think one of the factors on the debt service analysis is the fact that the bonding for the pension fund, the cost of that debt service is being offset by the fact we're not funding at as high a level in the pension fund. So it's sort of taking the money we're spending, we were currently spending to fund the pension funds and putting it into the bond. Since we put the money in in cash, we financed that through the bond program. So I think if you look at the number down, it says before pension funds, the percentages in the 10% and 11% would be a more accurate reflection of what our true debt service is on an apples-to-apples basis with the past practice. And compared to the past practice, yes, sir. Did I state that okay? I think so. Okay. I'm now following the electronic guidance device in front of me. Mr. Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And then Council Member Lawless. Bill, on the debt capacity screen under FY 2009, we have zero listed as projected debt service. I assume that's the $6.3 million that we had in there that we didn't issue the bonds for that we've used can offset other increases like in health insurance. Right. Last fall it was anticipated that all three of these debt issues that roll into 2010 would have actually occurred and there would have been debt service expense in 2009, which did not occur due to the delays in the market and the timing of the sale of the bonds. And that was about $6.3 million? Yes. That's what we talked about. That's zero. The other question was, and I don't know if we want to get into it today, the details of some of these projects. I know you don't have every detail of everything, but I assume, Vice Mayor, we're going to ask the Lynx to do that and to get into details and get back to this council because there's a lot of projects in here that could be questioned, and I guess we need more details. So I assume that the Lynx is one of the roles of the Lynx will be to dive into these numbers and get a little bit more detailed information and bring back the Cal next time we meet. And would you be able to give any suggestions or guidance on how the links might be able to do that efficiently and get it? Well, I think every link has a list of their capital projects on here. It's already broken out into the different funds. Okay. And just be able to answer the questions. Just make sure that, yeah. I know Mr. O'Mara doesn't have details of every department with them. Right. That's the only other comment. That's it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay. Council Member Lawless. I have a couple of questions. Is there a standard equipment retirement policy, like, say, a fire truck or a garbage truck? How is it decided when that kind of equipment is retired? Well, Commissioner Cole, Kimra Cole, should be the one that actually gives you the detailed answer. But I guess let me tell you what I've experienced during this budget cycle. There was policy as to when vehicles should rotate out, go to surplus, be sold. We have extended that and reduced the vehicle replacement package that is being proposed for 2010. Now, I didn't go through each vehicle. The acting director of fleet services did that and came back with a recommendation. But vehicle equipment packages have run $6 million, $10 million. This year we're at $2.6 million. They're extending how long between change of oil from 3,000 to 5,000 miles or something like that versus looking at just because it's X years old but it only has 30,000 miles, they'll continue to use it, or just because it has 100,000 miles on it but it's in good shape, they would continue to use it. So it has been reassessed this year from whatever past practice was. Okay. Okay, and I don't know if this is the proper time to ask this or not, but in the budget, do you know if there's any sale of LFUCG property? Sale of property? No. Surplus property? Yes. Like parking garages or? Not that I'm aware of. Not in the 2010 budget. Okay, thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. I have a question that's a little bit different than the one that Councilman Stenet asked about detail here. I know you don't have the answers to this, but this is the kind of detail that I hope that we can get to somehow. If you look at Schedule B, solid waste has office space expansion of $1.5 million. And I know that you probably don't know what that is for, but I'd like to know what that's for. And then, but the question I do have for you is, when you look at Schedule B and then you go back to Schedule C, that $1.5 million is missing, unless I can't interpret this correctly, on Schedule C. You've got a total of $13,466,000. It doesn't look like that $1.5 million is in there. These are two separate schedules that stand alone. So if you find it on the capital improvement list, you would not find it on the operating capital list. Okay. So C is the operating capital list? Yes, sir. Okay. So I guess we would just ask again for our links to get the detail on each one of these line items? The people that actually submitted those would have the detail of, for instance, the office space expansion. They would be able to address that. And then there's a police remodeling for $75,000 also I'd like to drill down into as well. And let me just point out one thing. On the CIP capital, so the spreadsheet that has the multiple years listing, for some of these, for many of the non-general fund issues, so like for sanitary sewers or urban, we have detail on those that the divisions have given us, and we can get that to you. We just may not have it on all of them, and we don't have that same kind of backup detail for the operating capital. The operating capital, we don't request that sort of information from them, so we may have a little more information than that spreadsheet gives you, but the CIP, we could certainly give you more helpful information, and we can get you what we've got, and then you can figure out what you still need. Okay. I have more questions about the CIP, so if you could, is that electronically? Most of them are Excel files, and we can get them into some manageable electronic version for you. Okay. If that's the way you prefer it. If not, we can do paper version. But they are electronically right now. Electronically, fine. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'll try to figure something out and get something to you. Okay. Thank you. That's my questions. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. In looking at the debt service capacity analysis, correct me if I misunderstood this, But if we look at kind of a recommended 10 percent debt versus revenue recommendation, then by 2012, we're really kind of maxed out in terms of capacity correctly. Is that correct? I mean, like if any new project came up that was unanticipated and it was not scheduled, then it might put us over that recommended capacity. The answer is yes, and it's the council who decides what that recommended capacity is. It's, as far as I know, there's nothing in writing anywhere. So that is for the council and the administration to recommend. Well, I thought I recalled Mary Pfister telling us it was about 10 percent, but that we might go up to 12 percent in this budget. Well, 2010, I've got projected at 11%. 2010? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, I see it. Okay. But in year 2012, then we kind of get into some people-called areas there if there's any anticipation. Right, and let me remind you on what Council Member James asked me is this is based on projected revenues. When last this was reviewed, our current year revenues were projected to be higher, which then means future revenues were projected to be higher. The other thing that I did in the projection is in 2012, I actually have two CIP bond issues hitting in that year because I didn't know whether the city would be able to manage the funding of the CIP until the fall of the following year that many years in a row. So at some time I'm anticipating we have to catch up from that. Would it be 12? Would it be 13? So that's part of your spike in the 2012 numbers. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you Vice Mayor. I might respond to Council Member Feigel's comment too. Is that our, I guess it was our fiscal policies task force, we just issued a report on this back in March. And I think Neil Hackbart will be coming before Council at our work session on maybe May 12th, subject to reconfirmation of his availability. But in that report, one of the issues that was addressed was the percentage of debt service relative to our revenues for the general fund and also our policy on how to spend that money and how to prioritize the expenditures. So that information, I think, will be helpful to the council when it comes out. I did have one quick question for you, though. Do you want to speak? Okay. All right. The other question I had was with regard to the estimated obligations that would be issued in fiscal years 12, 13, 14, 15, and so on Exhibit B. Those are fairly minimal estimates, and normally we probably would spend a little bit more money than that. And I did not base the debt service capacity on this listing. Okay. I based it on the same level that we're spending in 2010. Okay, good. That's why I just want to double check on that. That's very good. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lawless. So my understanding is that the links will go into these capital expenditures for the different departments, or is that part of the links process? The question was, would we be evaluating the capital improvement projects through the links? Correct. That is the routine approach. Right. So we would be bringing these up as they relate to each department that each of us is engaged with through the links. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anybody? Council Member James. I just wanted to add to that. I know last year in our link, I was on Public Works last year, and Waste Management did talk with us about what they were going to need based on the trends and the improvements that were needed at our waste treatment facility or waste management facilities and such. So for me, that was not, seeing this as not a shock, because I was on the link last year, but at that time we couldn't move forward with anything, and we felt like things needed to be in place. They needed to be some assessments done, and, you know, they weren't really ready to move forward with it, with anything major. So I think the links is a great place because you have the holistic conversation about, you know, building, personnel, et cetera. And that's important because if we all just see, if we just see this capital list, we can just start marking them off or base it on some consultant from somewhere else and their idea of what should be priority. When if you get to talk with your divisions of government, you'll find out how this helps or how their projects could help or hurt, you know, the whole full picture of our government. So I think the links is a great time to do that because you're one on one with the division directors or the commissioners. Thank you. Bill, I'd like to confirm on this schedule, this debt service capacity analysis, I think I heard you say, but I'm not quite sure. So I'd like to just confirm that on this schedule, what you're doing is taking all the currently committed, bonded projects, and you are rolling them out. But you are not adding any, for example, or are you adding? I am adding them, and I'm adding them under the bottom section of page one where it says projected debt service. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Page one. D. D. D. Okay, I'm looking at D now. And the ones that are italicized and they're in the bottom third are the projected debt service. But have you been selective about what's the criteria for including what you've included like in 2010 and 2011? The assumptions I used to build this were that we would continue doing the fire and police pension for a total of four issues. and that we would have an annual CIP bond issue at the same level as 2010. Okay, so you're not including, for example, Councilman Martin mentioned the government center. You've not included that. You've not included consent decree, sanitary or storm projects. This is only general fund. Okay, right, so if they're going to be set apart, right. Well, they would, and what effect would those have on our debt rating or our ratios? Wouldn't they be included or not included since they're special funds? They're assessed against the special fund, but then they also look at the total capacity of the total government from all funds. So it's my understanding, again, with one issue behind my belt only, that they would look at those two capacities. With which exception? Pardon me. I'm sorry, what was that? Those two capacities. Right. The underlying revenues for the revenue bonds, excuse me. Yeah, sorry. And then the total revenue from all sources and total debt of all sources of the urban county government. This analysis is general fund only. Okay. Just so we're clear on this, the question relates to, or my question relates to the extent to which we are migrating up in the ratio, the debt ratio, from 7.38, 8.93, 10.7, 11.87 percent, and those numbers do not include the anticipated sanitary or storm projects that would be bonded. And the reason for that is they would be in dedicated or special funds outside the general fund. That's correct. Okay. But having said that, we need to acknowledge and recognize that those costs or those bonds would influence the rating, the analysis by the rating's agencies. Sure. Sure. They look at the entire organization, but when they look at the specific bond issue, they look at what is supporting that specific bond issue. Okay, right, gotcha. Could I clarify something too? Yes, ma'am. But in looking at that, if you combine the stormwater bonds, you also have additional revenue that's not included in here too. That's correct. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Okay, so you clarified that and helped me because basically what you're saying is that whatever projects we engage through the special funds would be evaluated based on the capacity of those special funds outside of the general fund. So these numbers for the general fund are really more relevant for us as it relates to discretionary projects? That's correct. Okay. Council Member James. Bill, does that same idea go for the waste management projects as well? So do they look at that it's a separate tax for the general services fund as opposed to it being general fund dollars? I need to know what you mean by which tax base. The urban services, the 1115. The urban services is a dedicated fund that can only be used for dedicated things. And so if we wanted to bond something out of that fund and be supported by those revenues, that would be the analysis that they would do. Okay. Same thing with if it was the water quality or the sanitary sewer. They will also look at the total organization, all funds from all sources, as well as total debt dedicated to any and all sources. So they do both analysis. the dedicated fund as well as the total organization is my understanding. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Mr. Lane. Yeah, just another couple of thoughts that came to mind. For example, if we ended up doing a new government building, I think the studies have indicated that we would be saving a substantial amount of money in operating expenses and deferred maintenance, which is money we would not have to spend on the new building, which was money that we could then use to retire the debt service. So there's layers of nuance in the financial issues here. The other thing to keep in mind is that each year we're also retiring debt. So our capacity is being increased by the amount of debt we've retired, and that's an ongoing process too. So there are some positive things working out there also. Yes, sir. And that was trying to illustrate by listing the committed debt payments and where you see where they drop off is where we're out from under issue 99B and have that retired so that payment no longer needs to be made. Mr. Vice Mayor, can I ask a follow-up question? Yes, sir. Just for the general public and for my identification, too, there are bonds being issued to help fund the police and firefighters pension fund, which has a deficit in it. And you mentioned there will be four bonds issued over a period of time. Some of those have to be approved, I think, but we're assuming they're going to be issued. Could you give me a general idea, or do you have the exact amount of the total of the four bonds so we would know exactly how much money the urban county government would be putting into the Police and Firefighters Fund? Yes, sir. The idea is to, we issued the first one at $70 million, and then we would do three consecutive ones at $35 million for a total of $175 million. Okay, let's get them in better condition. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else? Mr. Stinnett. Just to clarify one point you made, are all of our urban district funds issuing revenue bonds, or are there some admission general obligation bonds, too, or a combination? I don't know the answer to that, but I know that when you go to market, you decide which is the most favorable and then make a decision on whether the general fund has the capacity and would have the better rating and have the lower debt service versus a dedicated revenue bond. So that's an analysis that would be done at the time that you are entertaining that issuance. And does, I assume, your department or Commissioner of Finance does that analysis? Commissioner of Finance as well as the financial advisors of the city. And also, though, the premiums you would pay on the revenue bonds or the reserves are a lot different than the general obligations, et cetera? All of those would go into considering what would be recommended as the best approach to finance that project. And in your analysis, we kept all the old stormwater bonds in your analysis throughout the next four of one until they're paid off, right? That's correct. So we're not commingling with the new bonds that could be issued if a water management fee is passed. What was the last part? I'm sorry. I said if a water management fee is passed and new bonds are issued, either probably revenue bonds in that case, you're keeping the old bonds that we've issued the last eight years in the general fund through your projections, right? You didn't pull those out. That is correct. Okay. That's about $2.5 million a year. It's largest in 2010, and then it drops off to $2.5 million, I think, for three or four years. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess to help me sort of get around the amount of debt that we're taking on, it would be helpful if someone could come at some future time and speak to us on the level of debt and the effect it might have on our ratings. Because that's obviously critical to the decisions we're making and would help us, I think, confirm that we're on the right course and doing the right thing and meeting some of these very chronic problems that the council's been trying to address. So that would just sort of help confirm that we're on sure footing. Thank you. That's a good idea. Actually, I was wondering, I know the folks from S&P, Moody's and S&P occasionally come into town. It might be helpful if we got them. Mr. Stinnett. I'm just saying, we had, I'll let Mr. O'Meara answer this, but we had this issue and discussed this in our meeting last year. we had our bond council there too who met with them with Commissioner Coe and discussed that very issue so we may just need to recap from that meeting about what our outlook would be if we changed certain percentages but that information was available at the time of course recognizing that we're always churning our council members it's a new education process continuously so that is the system to continuously educate Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And with what Council Member Stennett mentioned, we did have that conversation because as soon as we saw the percentage, we were all kind of like, whoa, is this typical because it shows this huge increase, and we were very concerned about that. And, you know, I don't know how much comfort everyone had after that, But based on the bond council and commissioner call at that time, I felt comfortable with the increase. Maybe things have changed economically now, and maybe they didn't forecast what has happened with the economy. But we did have a pretty lengthy conversation about that increase up to 15 percent and what would be comfortable and how it would affect our bond rating, and it was not going to have a negative impact at that time. But, yeah, it may be good to get the bond council in or whoever our rating agency is or whatever and have them, whoever is familiar with our trends, to come in and talk with us about that. Mr. Light. Just a follow-up comment. In that Fiscal Policy Task Force report, there is an analysis of what percentage of debt service other cities are expending on their bonds compared to their general fund revenue. I think that Professor Hackbar will be covering that at that meeting also. But if you're interested, you can go look at your copy of that report. When is that scheduled? It's tentatively scheduled for May 12th, subject to his availability. And I haven't heard that he's confirmed yet. Committee of the Hull? Committee of the Hull or what? Work session, okay. It will be at a work session. Yeah. I'm curious as it relates to this context, you know, with the turbulence in the markets in the last six months, these are certainly significant issues. I heard, for example, for the last couple of years that New York City was operating, and other major metropolitan, you know, big cities were operating up to 20%. And, of course, they've been hit the hardest with the economic conditions. And we've been operating at a much more modest level and have been hit at least, we're still speculating to some extent, but to a lesser extent. So we really are looking at all of this as investment in the future. And that's why these are good questions. How much can we invest? Right? Okay, any other questions or comments for Mr. O'Mara? Well, Bill, we... Oh, Mr. Blues. Thank you for remembering, Vice Mayor. Bill, could you just send us this presentation electronically? Would that be possible? Yes, I can. Okay, thank you so much. Okay. Well, we, if we're ready to close, then we want to thank you, Bill, Connie. Thank you all for joining us today. Thank you for the hard work behind these numbers. Appreciate it. And for being able to handle all these questions. Thank you, sir. Chair will entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. Move, second. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Meetings adjourned. Thank you. I'm out. Thank you. Come together fine, all we need is just a little patience I sit here from the stair Lexington 9-1-1, where is your emergency? Hi, welcome back to Safe and Secure. My name is David Jarvis. I'm the Director of Code Enforcement with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. Some of the issues that we'd like to talk about today are handrails and guardrails, where they're required, and proper gutter maintenance, especially with this time of the year with winter coming. These are very important issues. Under Under Chapter 12 of the Code of Ordinances and in the International Property Maintenance Code in Fayette County, handrails and guardrails are required on porches, landings, or stairs over 30 inches in height. Any stairway that has more than four risers is required to have a handrail. Handrails must be securely fastened to the building and must be capable of supporting the imposed loads. Handrails and guardrails must not be lower than 30 inches in height or higher than 42 inches in height. When dealing with historic properties, there are historic guidelines that deal with handrails and guardrails, and please check with the Division of Historic Preservation to find out those guidelines. Now we'd like to talk about rain gutters. Rain gutters are very important to a structure. They keep water away from the foundation. Water around the foundation can cause damage and cracking and over time erode the foundation of the property. This time of year, it's very important to keep your gutters clean and free of leaves. Normally what will happen, the gutters will fill up with water and create ice dams which can form underneath the shingles and the sheeting causing major damage to the property. This time of year also the gutters can fill up with water, become very heavy with ice and pull away from the structure causing damage to the fascia and the soffit. So it's very important to keep your gutters clean especially this time of year. Now we'd like to talk about water hoses. You should always disattach your water hose from the spigot on the outside of the property. What happens is the water hoses can freeze over time and that ice can follow the pipe back into the property and cause major water damage once those pipes freeze and burst. And I'm David Jarvis and we'll see you next time on Safe and Secure. Good morning. Hi, I'm Mayor Jim Newbeer, and I'd like to talk to you about some important telephone numbers. For fire, theft, and accidents, please call 911. 311 is the number you need to dial for all city services like garbage pickup, sanitary sewers, traffic, and much more. Calling 211 connects you to local health and human services provided through the United Way. Remember, 911 is for emergencies, 211 is for health and human services, and 311 is your connection to City Hall. Adult probation has been a part of Lexington Fayette Urban County government since the early 1970s. It was originally formed as an aid to district court, but also as an alternative to incarceration. Adult probation is strictly a misdemeanor probation agency. It's responsible for the supervision of all defendants granted probation at a district court. Currently, we have 900 people that are on supervised probation and another 600 that are on unsupervised probation. If those people had been given jail sentences instead of probation for just one day at $60 a day, it would have cost $90,000 to house them. Probation is a way to alleviate jail population, also the cost of incarceration, yet still maintain public safety. My name is Maria Ransdell. I'm the third division judge of the Fayette District Court. Fayette District Court handles misdemeanor criminal offenses, and we also do the preliminary hearings for felony offenses. And one of the best assets we have for our community here in Lexington is the Adult Probation Office, which is a part of the Division of Community Corrections. And this office provides just amazing support to the judges in their use of alternatives to detention. We don't want to use detention as a method of change for people. We want to use other means of rehabilitation. And the Probation Office gives us the staff to do that. The people that we work with are incredible. My probation officer, Shannon Taylor, is part of my team, and we go to court together. She's with me. She plays a role in the induction of a person into the probation, first of all. They are interviewed. They are thoroughly explained the probation process, and then she becomes their supervising officer. Lexington 911, where is your emergency? Lexington 9-1-1, where is your emergency? Music You was eyeballing. You can't get your mind on them weeds if you're eyeballing. You know, the easiest to kick me, boss. Welcome back to Safe and Secure. I'm Captain D. Kelly, Department of Community Corrections. This is Corporal D. Smith. He's our road crew supervisor. We're out today with the road crew and I'm going to ask Corporal Smith a few questions. Corporal Smith, what is the road crew? The road crew is a group of about five, maybe six of our minimum custody inmates. They're carefully screened for charges and everything. They come out here and pick up the trash that we find along the side of the road. It's a way for them to give back to the community, pay back for having been in custody. and it also makes the city look better. How often do you all go out with the road crew and clean up the areas of Lexington? We go out as much as we can any day that's nice. If it's raining, we don't go out. If it's 30 degrees or below, we generally don't go out, although we can. We do have some cold weather here that we can use if there's a need to go out and play a particular area. How much trash do you pick up, or have you picked up since you've been doing this? Since the program started in March of 2007, they picked up over 2,600 bags of trash, which totals about 72,000, 73,000 pounds. As an everyday citizen, how would I go about alerting your department as to areas of Lexington that need to be cleaned? The primary way would be to call LexCol. They have a list that if you call in and tell a location that we can access the list and we'll know what we need cleaned up and when. Another way to do it is to contact your county councilman and let them know. They can also notify us. And if we take care of everything that's on the list, which occasionally happens, we'll just come back out to one of the main thoroughfares like Manowar where we know there's a lot of trash that gets left over time. and we'll come back out and clean this up on an occasional basis. As an everyday citizen of Lexington, if I were to see my neighbor's yard, for instance, they weren't keeping it clean, could I call LexCol and have your crew come out and clean my neighbor's yard? No, we don't do private property. All we do is the public right-of-way on the sides of the streets and highways around the county. After your road crew has picked up all this trash, where does it all go? Well, we pick it all up. If we put it up, right now we're putting it on a particular street corner and I call solid waste. We have a partnership with them. They'll come out and pick our trash up. We're also developing a program with recycling so we can separate all the recyclable material out from the trash itself, therefore less in the landfill and better for us. Better for the environment. That's great. Better for us. That's great. Well, thanks for joining us today. I appreciate you letting us come out with your road crew and seeing what all you do. Thanks for coming out. All right. Don't you ever talk that way to me. Never! Never! What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you, man. I saw the photograph He blew his mind out in a car He didn't notice that the lights had changed A crowd of people stood in the stands. They'd seen his face before. Nobody was really sure he was on the house of love. Welcome back to Safe and Secure. I'm Battalion Chief Marshall Griggs with the Lexington Fire Department. And today we want to take an opportunity to show you some of the fire training that your fire and emergency services folks go through to help keep you safe. And today we're going to be looking at extrication training. Now when I say extrication, what I'm referring to there is most folks are familiar with the expression, the jaws of life. We're talking about being able to extricate or remove someone from a vehicle when they've been in an auto accident. So that's what we're going to be doing today. And hopefully you'll get to see a little bit more about how that works and it'll make you feel better about the unfortunate event that you're in an accident, that you're going to get the best care possible. Here we have firefighters getting instruction before we begin. These firefighters are, of course, line firefighters, and we're having all our firefighters come through this training. We do in-service training on a monthly basis so that everyone is up to date on the latest tools and techniques. These Hamaltrow tools that we're going to be using today are the latest generation that the Lexington Fire Department has, so we're making sure all our people are completely familiar and comfortable using them so that in an emergency situation we're ready to go. These are some of the basic components of our extrication tools. Initially here, this is our power unit. This is what gets things started. It's totally portable. If you notice how small it is. They've reduced dramatically in size from what we used to have to deal with. This is small enough that one firefighter can carry it easily and that allows us to work on vehicles that might be very far away from an incident. Also if you notice we've got two different lines coming off here. Each one of these lines represents a different tool that can be used to help extricate a victim. Come on around here and I'll show you these other tools. This tool here is called our spreaders. This is traditionally what people think of when they think of the jaws of life. These two arms here are able to go into a vehicle or an opening and spread it open, which obviously would assist us in getting someone out of an incident. Over here we've got our cutting tools. This is a cutter. As you can notice, it's shaped like so and they close together and it gives us an incredible amount of cutting power when it's necessary to cut through various aspects of a vehicle. What we have here is a ram. It's a telescoping ram that extends out. So this helps us in spreading situations that are greater than the jaws or the arms of the spreaders. This allows us to spread large areas open to make for easy access so we can get to the patient in a safe manner. In the unfortunate event that someone's involved in an auto accident, chances are they're injured and they're entrapped in this vehicle. So even though our initial reaction is to immediately get in there to them, sometimes the best thing for them is to stabilize the vehicle so that the vehicle doesn't move unnecessarily while we're extricating them. So the first thing we do is stabilize and we do that by various cribbing and step chalks. This is called a step chalk. We slide it up under the vehicle and then that stabilizes the vehicle so that the shock absorbing abilities of the vehicle are minimized and it keeps the vehicle from moving. So we would do this. We would use these. Sometimes we also use various sizes of timber that we can stack. It's called cribbing and that supports the vehicle and minimizes movement which helps to keep the patient safe until we're able to extricate them. The tool he's using is a windshield saw. It's designed specifically for this purpose. It allows him to make a purchase point with one end and then to use the saw blade to take it out. You can also do that same skill with a fire axe. It's just a little bit of a newer tool, a newer technology that makes the job a little easier. A windshield is made of double laminate glass. It's actually two pieces of glass with a laminate or plastic in between, which are very tough, which is a good thing, but when it comes to extricating someone, it causes complications as well. Once they remove the glass, they'll put it in a safe place so that it doesn't cause hazards for the rescuers or for the patients. These spreaders have a force, a maximum force of nearly 50,000 PSI or pounds per square inch. Incredibly powerful. By doing this they're pulling the door away from the patient and often times it will break away from the nadir pin and allow the door to open up easy. And again, although it may seem obvious, we would never do this on a vehicle unless it was necessary, unless the doors were jammed and we couldn't open them in a traditional manner. those spreaders to open up the side of that door so that they can get to the nader pin, which is one of the toughest metals in the vehicle. And once we get that opened up, then that door will open up much easier and come off much easier. So now you see they've gotten this door completely off except for the wiring. They'll cut through that with the cutters, and then this door can be moved to be safely out of the way. And if you notice now how much more open that is for us to have access to that patient. Our rule of thumb when we're working on a vehicle, as long as we can stabilize the health of that patient, we want to, rather than take the patient from the vehicle, we want to take the vehicle from the patient. We want to move as much as possible from them so that we don't have to manipulate their spine, as small amount as possible. Next we're going to start working on these posts, A posts. Those are the posts that support the roof, hold the roof up. Many of those posts now have airbag systems in them. They also have that micro alloy or that stronger metal. So that really makes it a challenge to cut through them. And that's why these new cutters are so good, so powerful. Older extrication tools simply couldn't do what that tool just did right there. The average age of a vehicle on the road now is five years old. So basically what that means is essentially everything that you deal with, we have to count on them having airbag or restraint systems. So that absolutely complicates our job. It's safer for the patient, but it can complicate things and make it a little harder to extricate them, more challenging to extricate them. It just means we have to be more aware of the types of vehicles we're working on. Next, they're going to be cutting this firewall, and basically that gives us some relief there so that we've got a place we can spread, begin to spread or push that dash off of the patient. The last tool that they're going to demonstrate here That's our RAM, the telescoping RAM that we looked at earlier. Yeah, where that 45 is. That won't bend. There we go. See, it already started moving. We gained several inches there of patient access. So that would allow us to free someone's legs if need be. All right, thank you. So what you've had here is just a glimpse of the challenges and the equipment that's involved in an extrication process. We hope you never have to experience this or to even see this firsthand. But if you do, it is nice to know that the equipment's there, that the training is being done to do everything that we can to make sure that you have a safe and secure day. Hi, welcome back to Safe and Secure. My name is David Jarvis, and I'm the Director of Code Enforcement with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government within the Department of Public Safety. Today we want to talk about filing an appeal to a code enforcement action. Today with me I have COEI Parks. Cooey is our Administrative Appeals Coordinator within the Division of Code Enforcement. Cooey, let's go over some of the things about filing an appeal within the division. How do you file an appeal? Well, what the property owner would need to do is, in writing, state that they want to file an appeal on their property and for a housing notice it would be they have 20 days plus three days for mail to do so. If it's a nuisance notice, then they have 10 days plus three days for mail to do. And I guess they do that in writing in the division. They must fill out a form that we have there and drop it off in our division. Correct. We don't accept faxes and we don't accept e-mails, right? Correct. Okay. Once a hearing is, we receive that appeal, what are the steps after that? What I would do is send the property owner notice three weeks in advance of the hearing date, and they would have to come down to our division at 101 East Bond Street for the appeal hearing. I guess our hearing officers, we have five hearing officers, and they're all volunteers, and they're appointed by the mayor. They're not connected with code enforcement in any way. I guess once the hearing is set, code enforcement presents their side and then the property owner presents their side of the case and the hearing officer makes a decision. If the property owner doesn't agree with the decision that's made, they can appeal it to district court. Is that right? Yes, they have seven days to appeal the decision to district court. Some of the things that people can appeal I guess would be a housing notice or a nuisance notice whether it be trash and debris, junk vehicles, that sort of thing, or even a sidewalk notice if their property owner is cited for a sidewalk notice. Some of the things that they can appeal would be abatements. If we come out and clean up the property and have already sent the invoice, it's too late to appeal. So if we have to clean up the property and bill the owner for the cleanup, that is not an appealable issue. All right. Great. Well, thanks. And thanks for watching another episode of Safe and Secure. He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody. NamUs.gov. It's a new website. It's not your ordinary new website. It's not glamorous. It's a very serious website, and today we have with us Dr. Emily Craig, the Kentucky State Forensic Anthropologist, and she's going to discuss today about the importance of this new website because we need you, the public's help. Dr. Emily Craig, could you please tell our audience why this website came to be? Well, this was an effort of the federal government to get a centralized listing place for missing and unidentified. It had existed within law enforcement for years, but the computer just couldn't do what human eyes and brains could do, so they decided to give it to the public. So for the first time ever, we've got data on missing persons and unidentified victims on a web-based browser. So when the public goes to the NamUs.gov, then they link into these two separate databases? Yes, they can search either one. They're not linked at this point, but I want to emphasize you don't have to log in. Go straight to search and you can bring it up by county, by state, by age, race, sex, whatever. But like I said, it's publicly accessible. And before too long, they'll be linked by computer, but right now it takes someone to look at both sides of the equation. And could you tell our audience, I mean, this is such a tool for the forensic anthropologists, the medical examiners, law enforcement, and people, I don't think, realize the magnitude of this, and it's just been out since January 2009. That's right. And hopefully it's going to put an end to this nation's silent mass disaster, because there are over 100,000 missing persons on any given day. And the problem that we've had so far is we've created our own monster. So now we've got 5,000 unidentified victims, well over 1,000 missing persons. And people don't have time to keep up. People are sending me e-mails, you know, match this one to this one. Maybe this one's this one. It's like, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? And I think thanks to you and the Citizens Police Academy, we've kind of figured out what to do. And that is to recruit members of the academy to help do our searches. Because my biggest fear is to have someone send me a possible match and miss it because I'm out in the field working a case or, you know, involved in one autopsy right after another. So this is the searches and the follow-ups are kind of an add-on to normal duties. So without the Citizens Police Academy, I'm really not sure what we'd do. Dr. Craig, the Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association, we are very honored that you have chosen us to be involved in this pilot program. And with this program, Susan Zagafuse, she will be the chairperson and the coordinator over the Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association members. and to be a member of the NamUs committee what is involved with that so everyone who's a member of the NamUs committee is a citizens police Academy alum everyone's trained on the NamUs website and how to filter and organize these cases and help dr. Craig with responding to the overload of emails that she might receive from the public. Yes, and we hope from people watching this show that they are on their computers right now, on the website, going to it, because it is, like Dr. Craig said, it's very serious, it's very important. And exactly why are we doing this? Well, I think the problem is just overwhelming. Like, most people don't realize that on any given day there's 100,000 missing persons in the United States. 100,000! And of unidentified victims, there's probably 40,000. And we know the interest is out there, but exactly how for people to interact with this. This is just the first time we've ever tried it. And like I said, it became overwhelming pretty quickly. And that's why we need the Citizens Police Academy to be my watchdogs. These are the super sleuths, people that anybody that's interested in CSI and law and order and those kind of things can actually get involved. And what about the interest of cases that we hear on the news? Oh, the interest we know is there, because if you think about Natalie Holloway and Stacey Peterson, Chandra Levy, when those women went missing, it was like the whole world was involved. And you multiply that by tens of thousands. So we know the interest is there. And this is, like I said, kind of our first attempt at getting people involved because the computer will never be able to do what people do. The best computer in the world is right here, right between your ears. And your people have got it in spades. We thank both of you. I know the program, it's going to be so successful. and also the public that's viewing today, we need their involvement. Yeah, and if you're searching and you have information or tips, just make sure to contact the case manager that's listed for that particular case. Like Dr. Craig said, it's really easy to log on and search. And there's a user guide actually on the website. Yeah, there's a user guide and search tips to help you navigate those websites. And it's not just for Kentucky. There's cases out there that are from all over the country. We would like to thank both of you for being here today. Susan Zagafus, who is the chair of the NamUs Committee for the Lexington Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association, and also Dr. Emily Craig, who is a Kentucky State Forensic Anthropologist, and she is one of only 40 people in the United States that performs the type of job that she does. And we are so proud of you that you're here with us today and you represent Kentucky so well. So thank you, Dr. Craig. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you. Squalls out on the Gulf Stream. Big storm's coming soon. I passed out in my hammond. Got a slip till we passed noon. Stood up and tried. Hi, I'm Pat Duggar, the Director of Emergency Management, and today I'd like to talk with you about a couple spring and summer severe weather hazards. And lightning is the first thing we're going to talk about. I'm going to give you a few lightning facts, and then we'll talk about some lightning safety, some places not to be during lightning, and some safe places where you can go. Just a little bit all about lightning. These facts tend to kind of enlighten and also just amaze some people. Lightning, number one, is at 54,000 degrees hot. If you think about pulling something out of the oven that's 350 to 450 degrees and how that can burn you, just imagine what it would be like to be struck by something that's 54,000 degrees. Another thing that's interesting about lightning is that it is, can be anywhere from 6 miles to 10 miles long, and that's kind of like from the ground to the air. So just think of 6 to 10 miles, if you drive that distance, how long that is and how long a bolt of lightning can be. And then also it can be, it travels at a speed of 60,000 miles per second. So lightning is extremely fast. And as you know, lightning is made out of electricity from the clouds. Another interesting fact about lightning is that it initially and usually starts from the air up here and comes down, but it doesn't usually go all the way to a ground. There's another charge of electricity that actually starts at the ground and works its way up, and then these two bolts of electricity actually meet in the middle, and that's what you see. And that's why sometimes you may see a little hesitation or some crooked line. It's the electricity trying to find each other, and that's what makes some of the wavy lines in electricity. And also, you can see lightning, or lightning can occur six to ten miles away from a storm. So if you hear thunder, you know that lightning is usually with it. Don't wait for the rain to actually occur before you start to take shelter. So if you hear thunder, that's your key to also take cover and take shelter because lightning is not far behind, and it can actually be six to ten miles in advance of the actual rainstorm itself. Okay, now where are some places that lightning tends to like to hit? One, it likes to hit things that are very tall, such as trees or flagpoles or towers. It also likes metal, so you don't want to be on aluminum or metal benches. It also likes open areas, so if you're at a ballpark or just an open field park, you know, those are the types of places that you want to get into shelter and take cover. Also, you would not think, well, if I'm at the ball field, if I go in the dugout, that might be a good place to be. Well, actually, that's not the case. Dugouts have a very open area, and so you want to actually take shelter in a regular building with four walls and a roof. So don't use picnic shelters or dugouts or little sheds or tents or anything like that to take cover in during a thunderstorm. You want to actually make sure to get in secure cover. If you are out somewhere like an open field or a park and you have no regular building to get into, your car or vehicle will actually offer more shelter than being in a dugout or a picnic shed or something like that. So you have your vehicle and then you have a fixed building that you want to get into. So just remember, lightning is one of our underrated hazards. It really is very dangerous. It's very fast. It's very hot. It can strike quickly, and it's an advance of the thunderstorm. There are places you don't want to be, and if you are there, then you want to immediately, when you hear thunder, take shelter. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about tornadoes and tornado safety. Tornadoes are very prevalent in Kentucky, and they can happen anywhere from, let's say the prominent time is, from April to November. Although tornadoes can occur and have occurred year-round. But we see them more commonly in the spring and then in the summertime. We want to make sure that there's two things you want to know about a tornado. One is a tornado watch. And if the National Weather Service issues a tornado watch, that means that all of the conditions atmospherically are right for a tornado to occur, but one has not been seen yet. But you do want to start watching the weather and maybe think about the activities you're going to take if you do intend to go outside. A tornado warning means that a tornado has actually been sighted and that you need to take shelter immediately. A lot of the same principles apply to a tornado as they do to lightning. If you see a tornado or if you have a tornado warning, you want to get out of all those unprotected areas and you want to take shelter in a building. And you want to go to the lowest level of that building and usually weather comes in in this type of the country, and in Lexington especially, usually comes from the south-southwest. You want to stay away from windows, and you want to protect your head. A lot of damage and injuries in a tornado come from flying debris. And so if you protect your head and the rest of your body, you know, with a mattress or a blanket or even your arms, it's better to have a broken arm than have some injury to your head. So you do want to protect your head. So we want to remember the basics about a tornado. A watch is that conditions are right, and you want to start watching the weather and watching the skies, and a warning means that a tornado has been sighted. So if you want more information on severe weather, tornadoes, lightning, or any other kind of severe weather, you can look at our website, lexingtonky.gov slash EM, or you can call our office at 258-3784. Thank you. My name is James Wharton and I'm a treatment plant operator at West Hickman Wastewater Treatment Plant. I grew up on Ash Grove Pike and West Tickman Treatment Plant was originally built out here in 1972. Since then it's had one, two, three, three expansions and it's going through a phase now of redesigning some of the tanks and operation of the plant. West Hickman is a 33.8 million gallon a day plant with a peak design flow of 64 million gallons a day. It receives sewage from about 150,000 residents in Fayette County and some in northern Jessamine County. If you look at a map of Lexington, on the north end of town, Wes Tickman received sewage from Paris Pike on the north end of town, around New Circle Road to Hamburg, Richmond Road, Tace Creek, and on around to about Parker's Mill on the south end. Most of that's outside of New Circle. I think we have a small portion in the Richmond Road, Idliar area. West Hickman treatment plant is 269 acres. When it was originally built here, you know, the location was picked because it was a good spot for a sewer plant, but also it was a good spot with the 269 acres that we could land farm a lot of the sludge we put out. Well, as things progressed, you know, the EPA said you can't land farm anymore, so we went to other means of disposing of the waste. Now the main plant probably encompasses about 50 acres, 60 acres. And the rest of the place we really don't use for anything. We do raise soybeans, though, and do a little farming. We have a lot of wildlife. We have a, at one time, and I guess we still are, it was a bird sanctuary. We have a lot of bird watchers, people who come out and they come out and count the ducks and geese and everything, and we have a very large population of deer. In fact, Tuesday night I think I counted 11 of them over here all together, you know, at one time in one group and I have some others around other parts of the plant. The process, we're called an activated sludge wastewater system with our main focus on ammonia removal and phosphorus removal. We have a system, we have our influent pumps pump our flow in and then from there it drains to a biological phosphorus removal area where we change the chemical makeup of the phosphorus so that the bugs in the rest of the plant will consume our phosphorus along with our ammonia and nitro fires and hopefully it will go be pumped out to our presses and go to a landfill and you'll have clean water going to the creek. You might look at a wastewater treatment plant as basically everything comes in, settles out, and is pumped out. But activated sludge wastewater plant uses microorganisms. You have nitrosomonas, nitrovactor bacteria that takes care of ammonia and nitrates and nitrites. And then you have phosphorus consuming microorganisms that eat the phosphorus. And then their waste and those microorganisms dying, they settle to the bottom of the tanks and we pump that out, and we take it out of tractor trailers to landfill. And hopefully you don't have it going to the creek. Because our main focus is phosphorus removal, and there's only two ways to get rid of phosphorus. That is, either you take it out in a tractor trailer, or you take it out through the creek, and we don't want it going to the creek. Our permit right now is one milligram per liter of phosphorus going to the creek, where our design coming into the plant is about seven milligrams of phosphorus coming in. So we remove, you know, four to five milligrams per liter of phosphorus before it's put back in West Hickman Creek. Our waste goes to thickeners and we thicken it and then we put it on through presses and finally it's put in tractor trailers and sent to a landfill. The landfill uses it as a cover. What they do is they mix it with their soil and everything as they're covering the landfills and they put it back in. The sludge from a wastewater treatment plant isn't the easiest thing in the world to get rid of because like most landfills, they want a certain percentage. Like if you send one tractor trailer load of sludge, they want five tractor trailer loads of garbage to go with it because as time goes on, it's going to be harder and harder to dispose of it. West Tickman consists of, we're here 24-7, 365 days a year. We have three shifts. We have a shift that starts at midnight, runs to 8 a.m., 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and 4 p.m. to 12. We have one operator that operates the plant during those times. They basically, we monitor the, we do, they do two rounds of the plant each. Along with other points of the plant, they will check three, chlorine and feed rates and stuff, they'll check three times a shift. And final clarifiers, they'll check four times a shift. We also have on staff, we have electricians, maintenance mechanics. We have two electricians, nine maintenance mechanics, ten operators, and we run different shifts. We have people that come in here on a daily basis from 6 in the morning until midnight, depending on what their shift is. A typical day starts out, you basically walk the plant and check your equipment and change your feed rates on chemicals, adjust your finals to keep the blankets even, and you clean rags as they come in off the bar racks and stuff like that. We do much of our own maintenance. We have some contracting stuff. We do have a good fabricator and everything welding. We build, if it can be made out of stainless steel, aluminum or steel, we can build it here. And we do that for other parts of the city too. We have two really well experienced welders. And then also our maintenance mechanics and electricians can go about any place in the city if they're called to. Frank, come here. Ever get one of those big fat checks in the mail? What you got? A check for $20,000. $20,000? Cash advance? Home equity? We could use the money, right? Yeah, we could always use the money, but 20, that's not sure what the next. Oh, definitely. Looks like a legitimate check. All you have to do is sign, and your money troubles are over. Looks like all I have to do is sign it. Don't, or you could lose your home. Don't borrow trouble. Call 1-866-830-7868. We have been removing our older Influent screw pumps. They were put in in 1990, and they had reached their life, you know. And we started removing them and we've installed a different type Wimco hydrostol pump. It pumps half of what the screw pump pumps, but we're able to put two pumps in the same pit. And what they have, I think, you know, at this time, we might not be seeing the effect from them. I think in the future we will, that they're going to be much more efficient on electricity. And also there's going to be a large improvement over odor control because it's a closed system where the screw pump has open vents and hopefully it will help our odor control system and our odors for our neighbors. Like the Wimco pumps, that was an improvement. And that was 1990s when the screw pumps were put in. we put in these Wimco pumps in 2006 and 2008. And we're slowly beginning to, we put in, in the late 90s, we put in different type of air diffusers in our aeration tanks that are more efficient. And we are slowly going through the plant and changing VFDs that were put it in 1980, changing them to what it is in 2009, which is much more efficient operating. It operates much cooler. It operates with less electricity, and we're slowly beginning to turn and change that. We'd like to change our blowers and go to a more efficient blowers, but that may be off in the next four to five years. A VFD is a variable phase controller for your pump, and you can run it a couple of different ways. You can run it in auto, and it will ramp up and start the pump, where if you don't have a VFD, when a pump comes on, it comes on at 100% speed, pulling all of your electric With the BFD, you can start it out slow and bring it up slowly and it doesn't use it.