Let's go ahead and call the work session to order, if we could please. The, uh, first item on the agenda is public comment for issues that are on today's agenda. Does anyone, uh, care to address the council? Seeing none, we'll move ahead. We have a docket to approve. Well, uh, I'm not sure we can do that just yet. Well, we don't need a quorum. Okay. Can't, can't do any motions. Dr. Steven's back there. We, we could issue some field commissions this afternoon. Um, we need one more, right? Here comes one. All right, now we're ready. Do I hear, hear a motion to approve, uh, the docket? So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Meyers, second by Council Member Ellinger. Any discussion? All in favor then approved- Yes, um, I- Council Member Me- ... need to, need to abstain from number one. Very well. On the ordinances? Number one under the ordinances? All right. The clerk will notice that. A- any further discussion? Then all in favor of approving the docket for May 7th, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We also have a summary to approve today, an April 28th summary. Is there a motion? So moved. I have a motion from Council Member Meyers. Do I hear a second? Second. Council Member Beard. Any discussion? Those in favor of approving the April 28th summary, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Uh, we also have some budget amendments today. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Council Member Stennett has moved to approve the budget amendments. Council Member Meyers has seconded that motion. Any discussion? Council Member M- Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple questions. Uh, the first one's on journal 32689-90, and that's a special projects fund. I was just curious if we could have a list of those organizations and businesses that have, uh, where we have received donations from them. If we can get a list to make up the $16,000 from, uh, your office. On page 12 of our packet. Thank you. Certainly. We'll be glad to provide that. Thank you. And then on journal entry 32635, there at the bottom, um, and it also, uh, carries over the next two on the f- on the following page, on page 13. This is taking money from our solid waste, uh, surplus fund, and, um, l- I just would like more explanation, um, especially since we're talking about why we're putting more money into our recycling center and we're s- seriously considering moving it. I mean, this is well over, almost $1.7 million and, uh, just w- I think we need more detail before we move this one on. I can, uh, provide you with a little detail about the recycling equipment. That is portable equipment, if you will. It is material that will enhance the exist- the capacity of the existing facility, but when a new one is built, it can be transferred to the new facility. So it is equipment that we can take advantage of now and, and move to another location later. Now, if you need particulars about the nature of the equipment and exactly what kind of, uh, uh, e- enhanced capacity it would have, I, I'd need to get Ms. Taylor or perhaps Mr. Feast here to discuss that in detail. I mean, I would feel more comfortable having a... I know there's a lot of other questions about that, and especially getting a current balance of that fund balance in solid waste because you're taking the money from that, as well as, you know, journal in the next one, 32637, um, uh, in regards to the labor shortage. That's 360,000. All right. Since they're not here, do you wanna take those three items? Move to amend it by taking those three items off? So moved. Yes, sir. Second. Second. All right. The motion is to amend the, uh, proposed budget amendments by deleting entries 32635, 32637, and 32638. Correct? Yes, sir. All right. Any, uh, discussion of that amendment? Those in favor then of deleting those three items, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now ready to vote on the budget amendments as now amended. And w- and we have a motion on the floor already to approve those. It's just count... All right. If there's no further discussion, we're ready to vote. All in favor of approving the budget amendments as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now ready for our new business items, number five. Move to approve. Second it. Have a motion by Council Member Beard and a second by Council Member Stennet to approve the new business items. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye then. Aye. All opposed, no? Motion carries. We have no, uh, presentations this afternoon, so we are ready for council reports. And Council Member Stennet, we'll let you go first. Thank, thank you, Mayor. Just a couple things. Uh, we wanna express the, uh, sympathy to a couple families in, in the Sixth District area. One, as many of you know, there was a, a terrible car crash, uh, on Russell K Road. And, uh, Nate Stuckey, we want... Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, uh, for their loss. Uh, he was a student at Brown's Station High School, as well as a three-year-old young man over off Wilderness Road that Council Member Crosby and I share in hi- his area there. Wilderness Road off Liberty, Tyler Ragsdale, our thoughts and prayers go to his family as well, uh, for these two children that, uh, um, gave their life early, uh, than they had to, but, uh, we all know there's a lot of positive things that, that they had impacted on people in our community, um, regardless of their age. And, and they'll be sorely missed, and our thoughts and prayers go out to them. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just a brief announcement that the, uh, South Nicklesville Road small area plan will host a, uh, public meeting, uh, tomorrow night from 6:30 to 8 at the Tates Creek Public Library. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, May 7th, council meeting a resolution accepting the recommendation of the Division of Traffic Engineering to reduce the speed limit to 35 miles an hour along Kiddville Lane from 55 miles an hour. That's in the southeastern part of Fayette County on a rural road. And we do have recommendation, as it says here, from Traffic Engineering. So move. Thank you. Uh, we have a motion by Council Member Lane and a second by Council Member Beard to add, uh, that resolution to the docket for this Thursday evening. Is there any discussion? I see none. Those in favor, then please vote aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor, that's it. Council Member Figal. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I would, uh, like to move to place on the docket for the council meeting on Thursday, May 7th, a resolution authorizing and directing the Division of Traffic Engineering pursuant to the Code of Ordinances Section 1886 to install a multi-way stop control at Providence Lane and Colony Boulevard. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Figal and a second by Council Member, uh, Crosby to add that resolution to Thursday night's docket. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor, that's it. Council Member Figal. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I would, uh, like to move to place on the docket for the council meeting on Thursday, May 7th, a resolution authorizing and directing the Division of Traffic Engineering pursuant to the Code of Ordinances Section 1886 to install a multi-way stop control at Providence Lane and Colony Boulevard. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Figal and a second by Council Member, uh, Crosby to add that resolution to Thursday night's docket. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Council Member Figal, any- anything further? Any... Do you have anything further? All right. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted... I've got one announcement. Um, there is a meeting next Tuesday at 7:00 at the Red Mile clubhouse, and this is regarding the, uh, proposed development of part of the Red Mile property. Thank you. I'm sorry, Council Member Henson, I, I was distracted there. Could you repeat what you just said, please? There is a community meeting at the Red Mile clubhouse next Tuesday, 7:00. And this is regarding the proposed development of part of the Red Mile property. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. The, uh, Woodward Heights Neighborhood Association meets tonight at 6:00 at the Community Action Building on West High Street. The, uh, the neighborhood, uh, will, will, uh, will greet its new officers and, uh, and begin discussing some of the, uh, some of the issues that, uh, that impinge on our downtown neighborhood. So I look forward to meeting with that group, and I hope the neighborhood turns out well this evening. Again, that's 6:00 at the Community Action Building on West High. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Wallace. Thank you, Mayor. Um, first of all, I wanna announce that there's an, uh, Ellsford Neighborhood Association meeting tonight at Woodland Christian Church. Um, and I also want to thank, uh, Vice Mayor Gray for s- maybe screeching or grandstanding or whatever it was you did, but thanks on behalf of downtown and my district that we got our sidewalks back at Center Point. And, um, appreciate that 'cause it's pretty scary walking in the street at night. Um, and I also had a question about, and I don't know if this is okay to ask now, but where the... how long the city auditors might take on the library audit? Do you have any idea? No, other than just as long as they deem is necessary. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, Council Member McCord. Uh, I apologize, Mayor, I forgot to, uh, make a motion to pass the NDF, uh, request this sh- this week. So moved. Have a motion by Council Member McCord and a second by Council Member Ellinger to approve the NDF. Any discussion? Council Member Stennet. I have a late addition that needs to be added to the NDF funds for $600 to be used for the Tates Creek Ballroom rental to benefit the Brown Station Alumni Association. So moved. Second. I have a motion to amend the NDF and a s- by Council Member Stennet and a second by Council Member McCord by adding a $600 item for rental of the Tates Creek Ballroom. Any discussion? Council Member Martin? Uh, Mayor, I have a question for Council Member Stennet. I- was the $500 for the, uh, Southland Group on the current NDF? Did that make it on there? I did, yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry, Council Member McCord. It's, uh, for the Garden Hill Park. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. All right, those in favor of council... If there's any further discussion on Council Member Stennet's amendment, we'll take that. Seeing none, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of Council Member Stennet's amendment to add that $600 item, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now ready to approve the NDF as amended. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Anything else, Council Member McCord? Council Member Martin? Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, May 7, a resolution authorizing and directing the Division of Traffic Engineering pursuant to Code of Ordinances Section 18-86 to install a multi-way stop controls at the intersection of Beaumont Center Lane at Roswell Drive and Malone Drive. Mayor, this is a, uh, pursuant to a March 23, 2009 study, um, from, uh, Brad Frazier of the Traffic Engineering Department, um, recommending strongly a, a, a new four-way stop at this intersection. Uh, we met with the, uh, uh, the neighborhood group, and frankly this is near my house, so everybody knows. Um, but, uh, uh, the, the neighborhood, uh, Beaumont Residential Association has submitted a letter supporting this four-way stop. It's just become a very busy intersection, and this is in accordance, uh, with the recommendation for the Division of Traffic Engineering. And as I understand, there's no budget impact in this. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Martin to add that item to the resol- uh, to the, uh, docket for Thursday evening. I heard a second from Council Member Crosby. Any discussion? All in favor then, uh, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I should earlier have, uh, have moved to approve the Capital Project Fund List. So moved. Second. Have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Um, Council Member Stennet, I understand Commissioner Taylor's here now and may wish to speak on the recycling items, if that's okay, Council Member Taylor. We'll ask you to step up to the podium and we'll discuss those items. I'm sorry. I think you had questions about those budget amendments. Y- yes, ma'am. I know, I know, uh, we corresponded briefly during the week and Steve Feast did get back to us, but I think there's a lot of other questions that the other council members did have. So it's, um, I think if you could just kind of give us an overview about w- the three different amendments and what we're paying for, as well as I know we could, if we buy the new recycling equipment, move it to a new center, but at what cost? If we could cover all those kind of things. Okay. Well, we have several things on, um, the list today. And so I'm sure there could be different questions about different ones. Uh, one of them, I believe, uh, the $500,000 is listed on their journal, 32638. Um, that's the expenditure that we had for cleaning up and for, um, getting the labor to help clean up the debris after the ice storm. That's what that one's about. That should be reimbursed by FEMA, but we have to pay in advance. So tha- those are funds that we would seek to have reimbursed. And that's coming from fund balance, correct? Yes. From your, the current solid waste fund balance? Mm-hmm. Um, let's see. The... then there's a request for $360,000. That is, again, to finish out the year for the contract labor that, uh, the contract that we have with Labor Works. Um, that, uh, is necessary because when we did the budget last year, we expected to get anywhere from six to eight inmates a day to help us at that facility. And unfortunately, there have not been any available most days, so we've had to supplement that with contract labor from Labor Works, and that's why there's an additional charge. And so this is not that we have additional recycling there or additional work. It's basically the work we budgeted that we just don't have enough to fill. Well, we do have, uh, right now, uh, there, there are peaks and valleys, but, but the majority of that is simply to cover for those eight daily positions that we don't have people to fill. So... Do we have a balance of that fund balance? The amount that we've sent for the whole year? Yes. Yes. Well, the amount, the balance of the fund balance. The whole amount- I don't have that with me now, but, um, we will have that, I can get that to you. Okay. Okay, then the biggest one is, um, what it tells you in the line there is provide additional funding for recycling equipment. Now, what, what we had planned to do, and we talked about this to some extent, and I'd be glad to cover any details that you want, but our existing recycling facility hasn't been upgraded equipment-wise, other than very minor things in about 20 years, since maybe 1990, '92, in that range. And the, the equipment that we use today takes about 32 people, um, all day long to sort through the material. We also, as you all know, uh, can't pick up glass with the rest of the recycling stream. It's a separate system that has to be handled separately. And so what we did, um, was research new equipment that's available that we could replace certain sections of the line. And in doing that, we would reduce the amount of manual labor that we would need by about eight people a day, eight-plus people a day, and we would be able to single-stream glass. So you can actually, in your Rosie, you won't need that little extra insert anymore, which we're constantly replacing, but you can put the glass in the Rosie with the rest of the material. So by putting these pieces of equipment into the line, we'll be able to accept glass, reduce labor, and then even more importantly, that's gonna buy some time, because right now, we're only able to run about, um, eight tons an hour through the line. The new equipment will increase our capacity to 23 tons an hour. And at this point, unless we do something about that capacity, the only option that I have in that facility to increase capacity is to expand our operating hours. Right now, we're struggling a little bit with the operating hours, because we certainly are in- right next to a residential neighborhood, and we, uh, can't begin any operations till 5:30 in the morning by ordinance, and we run until in the afternoon, somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 PM on a daily basis. Uh, it kinda comes and goes with different cycles. You get a big peak right before Christmas, or right around Christmastime, and then we get big peaks again when students move in and out at UK. So in those kinds of periods, we're running about 13 hours a day, so it, it varies from 10 to 13 hours. Right now, we could, you know, the only non-capital solution I have to that is to r- run extra hours, or go in and start to replace equipment and increase capacity. So that's what we're proposing. Now, we know that as we're considering perhaps expanding the recycling center into the future, it may look like, "Well, why are we buying equipment now?" Well, we're looking at, at, you know, even in best case, probably a three-year window before we can get a new s- facility designed, you know, through public review, all the things that need to happen for people to be happy with it, and then to build it. This, we, um, priced this equipment, uh, with that in mind, and we've already got an estimate. So if we wanted to move that in the future, the estimate to move and reinstall that equipment would be about $658,000, but that would be, we anticipated, three to four years from now. So we would take the same line and relocate it. And depending on the size of the new facility that we would want to have, you could choose to add two lines, if, if we had enough material at that point to justify that cost. Otherwise, you could simply relocate that equipment and put it in a new location. So what would we do i- if we did go this route, build a new location? Would, would the recycling center be offline for a while, wh- moving this equipment? I mean, 'cause it- It's possible. It could be. Now, there's, we have, uh, th- when I s- came here over a year ago, uh, there was already some discussion about replacing some of that equipment, 'cause we were having significant breakdowns. Last summer, we had a breakdown three different times, and when that happens, we have a diversion, so we have to take all of the materials to a different location for a temporary period of time. And the backup plan always was if we had to replace a piece of equipment, we have a diversion plan. But, of course, we lose revenue, and it costs us money to do that. Now, if we have enough of a business case to justify this, we could potentially build a, the recycling center and install a first line and have it up and running and then shut the second line down and relocate it. But that's only if we have the volume to justify it. Right, and- So we're going to be looking at- ... yeah, my concern is, is not having that volume and then having to spend 50% of the cost of the original machine to move it and then be down two weeks, a month, I don't know, additional cost to us 'cause we're not able to recycle. So I mean, it's just, I know we have the fund balance there. I know it, it should be around 16, $17 million. I'm not sure what number you're gonna give us. I'm sorry. The tot- total machine cost is, uh, 3,516,000, and this, this is to cover- I'm talking about the cost of the amendment that you're asking, the additional- Yes. Well, I guess, I just wanted, the, the relocation money wouldn't be half of the cost of that machine, but it would be a significant chunk. I mean, it costs money certainly to relocate equipment. Thank you, Mayor. That's all the questions I have. Okay. Any other- Thank you. Councilmember Blues? All right. Councilmember Myers. Thank you, Mayor. When you talked about being able to separate out the glass and then that'll increase the amount of tons we can run per day, does that also necessitate the bond issue I think that we have, that we've seen to buy the new trucks that separate out glass? Well, um, the, I'm not sure whether the bond is the, is the best or the right approach. I think that's the suggested approach that we've been advised. But yes, the trucks, um, we, apparently, we've gone several years without replacing any equipment. Um, and one of the reasons for not replacing equipment is certainly you want to get as much life out of each truck as you can. Um, I think fleet typically likes to replace those trucks at about the eight to nine year mark, and we have some trucks that are significantly older than that. But the other reason was, if we could get the equipment in the, in the recycling facility to allow us to put the glass in, what that lets us do is buy one truck for all waste streams. Now we have trucks to pick up trash. We have trucks to pick up recycle, and in some cases, we have a second truck that has to come and pick up the glass separate from the recycle. So it depends on where you are, but we have several different types of vehicles, and we're making three loops through the same area to get the material. ... with allowing us to put the glass in, or what people call single streaming it, that lets us buy one vehicle that can do all those wastes. So one vehicle can pick up waste or, and the same vehicle could be diverted to pick up recycle. Right now, we have a problem, for example, if we don't have enough recycle vehicles available, we might have three or four trucks sitting idle, but they're waste trucks and they can't get the recycle. But this would standardize our truck. So from now on, it would be one truck, one type of truck, and it could pick up anything. Um, the other thing I like about it, um, we don't talk about this typically a lot in the cost piece, but m- we won't have people who will have to get out and lift and heave hoe that glass anymore. It'll let the truck do that. So, um, there are some potential reductions and injuries to employees that I'm very hopeful that we will see if we're allowed to put the glass in with the rest material. Okay. I guess you guys have done a cost-benefit analysis on the money that'll save to go to that one truck as opposed to having the three different types of trucks. Well, we're working on that. Um, there's a, there are a lot of areas in waste where we need to do cost-benefit analysis. And, and one area is certainly the truck. So we have an idea of what it costs us to maintain today. We have an idea of what it costs us for fuel today. The newer trucks would be more fuel efficient, so we would save some fuel. Um, certainly, we would save some time. Um, hopefully, we'd save some maintenance dollars and I don't have that number for you, but we're, we're collecting a lot of data in a lot of areas right now. So I can- Okay. ... hopefully get that to you soon. And then are you looking at all of those things in conjunction with what it would do if we bought a new facility online? Oh, you mean... Yes, the cost-benefit for the facility? Yeah. Um, we're actually, i- if you remember the group, I came in and gave you preliminary data on what we found in the trash. We've done a second dumpster dive. I guess, it's a city dumpster dive, that was completed, um, first week, I guess, we did our second round of collection and sorting the material. So very shortly we'll have a report. Um, by the end of May, I'll have a complete report on what's available in our current trash stream that we could recycle. And that's a critical piece of data for us to estimate how much can we generate as a community? How much could we recycle and what's the potential revenue? Um, I had a number here. I think this year, even with a really down market, the revenue was over two million dollars. Um, so, and that's with us not really pushing it or expanding the program very hard. Uh, we haven't pushed and expanded the program very hard, because if we did, I don't have anywhere to put it other than to just store it and process it with extended operating hours. Okay. So does it, does it make sense to go back to Councilman Stennit's point to hold off on this until you get more of an understanding of the big picture of where we want to go and if it's- ... a new facility and how big it needs to be, and then look at replacing all the trucks and the new equipment? Well, I think that- Or do you see enough- Whether- ... savings here now? ... whether we decided to even go forward with a new facility or not, this ought to happen. I think the only cost that you could incur by going forward with this today is ultimately if you chose to move the line, there would be costs in relocating equipment. That's the one cost that, um, that you couldn't avoid. But, but if we go ahead with single streaming the line right now and increasing the capacity right now, I know right now, for example, the $360,000 that I just had to ask for for labor works we wouldn't have needed because that pays for the number of people that I would be down by, for example. Um, so I have, I have a, a rough analysis of what that benefit's gonna be, but what I'm missing is the complete information about what potential recycling we have available, how much could we potentially make? And I don't know that answer just yet, because we're still analyzing the trash that we sorted. Okay. Thank you. How much does that answer your question? It does. It, it's very complicated and it, and it integrates. I mean, each decision sort of is, is the next stage is you have to make each decision in order to get to the next one. For me, I think fundamentally what we have is a facility that's on seven acres that we have badly outgrown that has almost 20 year old equipment that will not accept glass on the line and is highly labor-intensive. And by not moving forward with that change, we can't single our trucks, we can't standardize our trucks. We can't reduce our labor costs. I mean, we're kind of stuck- Mm-hmm. ... is the way it is. And even if we decided to go forward or not go forward with another MRF, all of those things need to happen now anyway. That's my opinion, but I can get you any other detail that you'd like, if that helps. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember Wayne. All right. I, I just have one, uh, f- short follow-up question. We've gotten some complaints, uh, about noise from the recycling plant. And so I, I think that if we can process this material faster, then it'll be operating less hours per day and that'll probably help that some. But I wonder 'cause have you looked at the possibility of some type of a wall or sound barrier that we could put between the plant and the neighborhood to help also reduce the sound? Have y'all- Yeah. We actually met yesterday. We have had some complaints about that. And like I say, the operation does start about 5:30 in the morning. Certain other operations don't start till after 7:00. But if we had that equipment and had faster processing, we would be able to stagger back the time. And, and hopefully we've already discussed changing the starting time in order to accommodate folks. And then we discussed fencing and b- and barriers that might help prevent the sound issue. Uh, we have a glass grinder there now. Glass is all separately managed. And, uh, we talked about relocating that and even enclosing that to try to reduce any sound impacts that we have, so. I- if you get the necessary approval today or at the next, wh- when, when the council votes on it at the council meeting, how many, uh, months or weeks will it take before the equipment you order will be able to be installed on the line? Approximately this fall, um, it would be, I'm trying to remember the order. We would have it online by the first of the year. That would be the target, and it may be slightly before that. We're a month or so behind getting this up to you than I should have been. So originally we were talking November, but now it's probably likely to be January. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just wanted to ask a few questions. O- obviously this is my first year on council, but it seems to me that if we were ever going to look at the possibility of contracting this service out, that this really might be a good time to do that. If, in fact, we've outgrown our space and our trucks are at a point where they need to be replaced, um, have you ever had an analysis done of contracting this service out? And I do know that you're making a profit, but there isn't any reason why you couldn't do a profit sharing with, uh, a contractor. Has this analysis ever been done? Not to my knowledge. Um, I don't know that it's never been considered before, but, um, we didn't analyze contracting out the entire recycling operation. Right now, I know the, um, the private haulers in Fayette County, a lot of them don't recycle, um, nearly the extent that we do. We provide, you know, everything from mattresses and white goods to electronics. Uh, we're expanding into pharmaceuticals and with this facility, uh, you know, we've even experimented with household hazardous waste and tires and those sorts of things. So we don't have one in Fayette County right now that offers those kinds of services at that level, but it's certainly something that could be done. Well, I just think that this might be an appropriate time to at least take a look at that before we, um, begin investing large sums of money to, to build a whole new recycling plant. Obviously, recycling is not going to slow down. It's probably going to increase, and, uh, I just would like for us to know what all, all of our options are. Uh, I don't know what I need to do to, to, you know, try to move this forward to take a look at some other options. Um, but that would be my suggestion. Any further questions for Commissioner Taylor? I, I guess I would be interested in some guidance about what additional information we need to generate in order to, to advance the budget amendments. Um, I, I know Council Member Feigl has talked about an alternative of, um, privatizing the recycling business. Is there any, any other particular item, Council Member Stennet? Just a, uh, analysis of the fund balance, how much went in there last year and what our current balance is 'cause all this money's coming out of that. Mm-hmm. 'Cause I know we had talked about, as, I, I thought you were doing an analysis on our recycling in order to move it. We're not, we're not already doing that? I thought you were looking at solid waste as a whole too, to see what we need going forward, so we can get a- Well, we are, but I guess the, the, even if we decide to move forward, and even if we've got a good business case to argue that we move forward or that we build a new facility or whatever, we've still got a few, three to four years before we could even get there. So right now we're blowing the sides off the building is the way I would describe it. If you go over there, eh, we have a lot more material coming in. Um, you know, w- recycling, for the long haul, I think is gonna become more of a way of life. W- that we have, for the first time, over 70 schools in Fayette County are recycling now, and only a handful were three years ago. So we're getting waste from 70 schools, hospitals. We have 170 Waste Buster members now from apartment buildings. So we're starting to get more and more material and having more and more difficulty managing it at the site that we're at with the rates that we can run through the line. So I feel like there's a short-term decision and then there's a longer term decision. In my opinion, the short-term decision is we're gonna have to address our problems today. And those problems, if we could get increased capacity, single stream the glass, go ahead and standardize our truck, reduce the labor and energy, uh, excuse me, injury, uh, energy too hopefully, then that would be the right decision to make for the next several years. The secondary decision would then be, okay, do we have enough to justify expanding recycling and making a bigger facility that could perhaps serve a regional function? Um, a lot of the counties around us have approached us either by c- you know, city or county and ask about recycling specifically with Lexington because they can't afford to do some of those things on their own if they have to haul 'em too far. But if we provided a regional facility, they might wanna do that. So that's sort of the second decision in my mind. The first decision is we're having trouble managing what we have right now, and that's why we want to go ahead and update that equipment, recognizing there is a risk that if we relocate that same equipment to a different building in the future, it, there will be a cost involved in relocating, so. Right, but I, but once again, we're taking money from a fund balance that was created by a property tax for the whole system, and I thought- Yes. ... we were looking at the whole system, everything, both garbage and recycling, to see how we could do better or at least measure what we currently have. So are we charging the taxpayers the correct tax? I know the mayor's called that- Well, we, and we are measuring what we're doing, and that's still, the data's been collected but not completely analyzed. The other thing that we're working on right now and in the process of selecting and recommending to the council is an entirely different system for routing. Uh- ... uh, the trucks that we have today, um, more or less go out on routes that are figured out on spreadsheets with pencils. And, you know, we pick up 180,000 pickup points a week, 180,000 service points a week with very outdated, actually zero technology, and, and very outdated addresses. You know, we only get address updates about once a year, so we're depending on drivers to remember where new people are. Those are the kinds of things that have made for a very inefficient process. The software that we're looking at would include pre- and post-trip inspection of all vehicles, which would ensure safety, reduce incidents, and also reduce breakdowns. It would help us designate routes for each truck that would maximize right turns, eliminate... Same thing FedEx and UPS have been doing for quite a while. But it help reduce the cost of operating. If we can send a truck out that we don't have to go separately with glass, one truck can make one route and be much more efficient, uh, in getting that done probably- But- ... in a tighter timeline. ... as long as you're looking at all of it holistically, because it, you know, we're taking, again, money from a fund balance- Right. ... to pay for these things. We need to make sure- Well- ... we're running an efficient system and... Mayor, I'll make a motion to remove off the table, uh, journal six or 32637 and 32638 to get started. Well, the... Technically, they were never put on the table. They were just taken off the list earlier and were not approved. I'll put them back on the list. Okay. So motion is, motion is to approve those three budget items. Second. And I have a second by Council Member Myer. Two. Two budget items. I'm sorry. There were three, but he's only on two. Right. I missed that. So which two? 32637 and 32638. All right. So the motion is to approve, uh, budget amendments 32637 and 32638. Yes, sir. Any discussion? Okay. Um, um, we needed to wait. Those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And now with respect to the equipment purchase, we have the issue raised by Council Member Feigl, and you wanted the information about the fund balance, Council Member Stennet. Is there anything else that we need to do in order to be prepared to address that with folks? All right. Thank you very much. Uh, Council Member Blutes, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, in, in response to Council Member Stennet's, uh, uh, I think appropriate suggestion that we look at the, at the whole waste stream system holistically, I think that recycling is a, a critical part of that holistic system. Uh, the more that we can productively recycle, the less we take expensively, uh, and at the, at, at the expense as well of the environment to, to the landfill. I don't know exactly what the, what the savings there amount to, uh, year by year, but I think, Commissioner, it's true that the, that the more we can, we can recover from the waste stream and we know from, at least from the, uh, from the, uh, ass- assessment that I looked at back several months ago in the mud, in the middle of winter, on that snowy day, and all of that- Get out there. ... stuff. There is so much that could be recycled that is now at great expense going to the landfill. Uh, and I wonder, can you comment on that, on that saving? Well, I don't have the data from the second waste stream, and I didn't bring everything with me. But if you'll recall, when we took a look at what we did the first time we did the, the garbage sort, we found about two thirds of that was recyclable materials and systems that we could use today. Um, we found everything from leaves to plastic to all kinds of things in there. All of that stuff now is taken to the landfill. Now, Kentucky is notoriously cheap landfill cost, but even there, it's $23 a ton approximately for us to put that in the landfill. And then there's transfer. We have to pick it up in the separate system, we have to transfer that, and then that has to be taken out to the landfill. So there's costs in transportation and that sort of thing as well that I don't have with me. But to dump the material is $23 a ton. And it's material that we pay a lot of money as a community to collect and then throw away. I mean, it's resource potential. Um, so one resource potential for that material is to recycle it with some revenue. Now, you don't get a lot of money for the material sometimes because the market fluctuates, but we've had pretty steady markets for things like plastics, cardboard, corrugated cardboard, and aluminum have stayed fairly strong, metals, even through a down period economically. So the analysis we're trying to do right now is based on one of the worst economic periods we've had in a while. So I can tell you, not only would you not be paying the $23 a ton plus the transfer cost, but you would be getting some revenue back for that, uh, by taking it to the recycling station. So that's certainly an opportunity. I mean, other opportunities we're looking at are opportunities, for example, to use waste to make, uh, something else, uh, you know, a fuel or whatever, ethanol. We're looking at... Those are a little farther out. When you talk about the holistic view, there are a lot of opportunities and we're trying to sort out what makes economic sense and what's viable. And, and it's, it's a challenge. We haven't had a long history of good data. ... and we are trying very hard to get exceptionally good data. We're participating in the measurement, um, ICMA measurement, trying to compare ourselves to other cities. And then we've come up with a set of measures that we'd like to apply to the waste so that we can start to get a grip on, you know, what are we trending? What can we make? And kind of put a business sense around the whole thing. But right now, you know, we are paying a lot of money to collect things that we then bury in the ground and waste. That's what we're doing with it now. So. Well, thank you, and I, uh, you know, just like to say that I, that I, that I think under your leadership, we're, you know, we're moving toward, uh, you know, toward a system that, that, that really sets a benchmark for, you know, for the, for the state, uh, and is, is gonna be very significant for our community. So I, I'm, I'm hoping that as soon as possible we can, you can provide this data that, uh, that has been requested, that the council can, can look at it, and we can make a decision on, on, on moving forward because we are at a critical juncture. Mm-hmm. Uh, the, the present location for the recycling center is untenable as we, as we all know, and, and that if we're going to really make this thing work, we've got to move forward with all, you know, with all well-considerated and deliberate speed. Thanks so much. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Um, yes, I just, uh, well, first I just wanna clarify, I don't think that anybody up here is really disagreeing that recycling is the way we wanna go and that we wanna have a top, top of the line recycling, uh, center and, and all the good things that come with that. But I just wanna clarify with council member, uh, Council Member Crosby, with Council Member Stennet, um, you're, you're just wanting basically to get an idea of where the fund balance stands, correct, before we move forward? That's it. Cor- That's, that's my opinion. That would be my opinion too, since this is a fee generating, um, fund that we have, um, I think the responsible thing to do would probably get an idea of where we stand with that fund balance before we move forward. I just wanted to clarify that. And then also I wanted to see, 'cause I didn't hear if you put a timeline on that, when we could expect to possibly get some kind of idea of where we stand with this fund balance. Did you... No, I mean, anyone can bring it off the table today. I mean, or put it on there today. I mean, doesn't have to be me. Okay. So there, there, it's up to the council. I guess my main concern though is, w- can we pay for this from operating funds? I mean, we receive X amount of dollars every year from the property tax. Why do we need to dip into the fund balance? Can't we absorb 1.3 million when we have a generated fund balance, I think of 08 was six million dollars. So is there not a way to pay for that money without taking it from fund balance? Well, I'll, I'll get back to you on that. And we, we can get that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's all I had. Okay. Council Member McCord. I, I just wanna kind of reiterate and, and, uh, without getting too far up on the grandstand, Council Member Stennet. . Uh, let l- you know, I appreciate all that you're doing and I think th- the statement that you said earlier that we as a council probably need to absorb and, and people watching is, every decision you make, you know, leads you to all these other decisions and it's, nothing happens in a vacuum. I think the sentiment from up here is move post haste on giving us a, a clear picture of what our finances look like, of what the revenue streams are, um, because this presents the best opportunity for this government to, uh, generate income and, and new revenues without raising taxes. In fact, potentially lowering taxes. And I, I think that if we could wa- if I could wave a magic wand over it today, it would be, let's go build a new recycling center and, and really crank this thing up. But I'm just gonna reiterate that in, uh, two weeks, the Chamber of Commerce is gonna take a leadership trip to the number one recycling city in America in Madison, Wisconsin, and there's gonna be 200 plus leaders of this city that all of a sudden are gonna come back with a whole new view of recycling. So I think anything that you can do recognizing that there's gonna be this, uh, growing tide of, of enthusiasm and people wanting to see us, uh, do something. So I, I appreciate all you're doing, but I just wanna let you know that in a good way, pressure is really gonna start to ratchet up on this. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Wayne. Uh, Commissioner, I, yeah, I'd just like to add a thought too. Mm-hmm. Is I believe that our council's aware that our accounting system for 20 years has not been that good, and I know we're working to get better and better costing information. But I think that even though you may not have real finite data, if you could even bring, um, you know, a proposal to us that says maybe we could generate from two to four million or two to three million or some kind of range in revenues from recycled materials and we can probably save eight people, you know, per shift or per day on the, uh, recycling line and sort of rough, you know, even give us a rough estimate of what the economic benefit to the taxpayers would be, I think that would be very helpful. As we get more and more data, then perhaps you can start tweaking the number and making it closer and closer. But, you know, just on the surface, it appears there's a great opportunity to generate more revenue by recycling more materials and by putting in, um, a higher technology recycling line to reduce labor and to accelerate the, uh, you know, production or recycling, uh, process. So that's, that would be my suggestion. I would hope too that you could bring that to us as soon as possible, because, you know, I would be encouraged to go forward with that as soon as possible. Okay. May I ask one other follow-up question? Sure. When we, uh, do landfill, could you tell, uh, the audience where our landfill's located and how the materials receiv- are reached there and give them a little bit of background on that? Well, basically the material, um, goes to a transfer station, uh, which is on Old Frankfurt Pike, and then it's, um, redirected. Most of our material either goes to a landfill in Mount Sterling or in Grant County. So there's two landfills that we use currently. The only landfill that we operate that's active in Fayette County is a construction and demolition debris landfill at Haley Pike, and that's really the only thing that we landfill in Fayette County. If we, uh, accelerate our, our recycling, we would have to pay much less hauling charges to haul the garbage that we have to the landfills, which are in counties outside. One's in Mount Sterling, one's in Grant County. So we would save the hauling charge, and then we have to pay- To, to, the tipping fees- ... so much to put into the landfills. So we- ... that's about $23 a ton. We would be gaining more revenue and hopefully reducing our transportation- Mm-hmm. ... and landfill costs. So there may be some other numbers you could guesstimate what we could save there too. Yeah, I have some of those, but I'll go back and try to refine that a little bit for you and then send something out either later today or in the morning, and you can take a look at it and see if that's helpful. Thank you very much. Okay. Coun- Council Member Crosby. Um, one follow-up question. Uh, about how long do you think it would take for you to do a report, uh, regarding the fund balance and some of the other issues that have come up? Hopefully not long. We had actually, um, uh, brought i- an employee in to help, a temp employee, and she was redirected to help with the budget process. So we just got her back this week. Um, hopefully this week, we could get you something as soon as possible. Okay. I'll, I'll check. I would, I would add to that, I think the fund balance issue's fairly straightforward, but making some analysis of the feasibility of, uh, privatizing our recycling program- Yeah, I'm just... ... is much more involved. I'm strictly talking about, uh, fund balance report. Okay. Yeah. I'll get that- By next Tuesday? Oh, yeah. I'm sure- Okay. ... we can get that to you. So I wouldn't need to make a formal motion. We could have it by next Tuesday? Prior to next Tuesday so that we can get that to you? Thank you. All right. Anything further for Commissioner Taylor? Okay, that... We are at the end of council reports. I don't have a mayor's report, uh, today other than to say I followed up on Vice Mayor Gray's request that, uh, uh, Mr. Webb come and talk about the, uh, CenterPoint project. He's here today, and I suggested the public comment section would be an appropriate time for him to, to speak. Um, so unless there's some objection, we'll go to public comment. Mr. Webb, you'll, you'll have, uh, three minutes. Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of the council, thank you for inviting me here. I, I think it's an ideal opportunity to come and speak. Uh, Woodford is passing out a, a, uh, copy of the prepared statement that I'm making as well as an exhibit I think you'll find very interesting. But, um, and the, the press, the bloggers, certain members of the council, in particular, the Herald-Leader continued to criticize this project, revisiting the clearing of the block, distorting factually that the buildings were designated as historic, that the Marriott Corporation is no longer interested in a downtown hotel, that there is no demand for condominiums, and that there is not now nor has there ever been financing available for such a development. Free speech protections appear to provide the opportunity for people to say what they want without fear or reprisal. Those same protections are provided to citizens who do not want to say anything nor is there any obligation to respond to such critics. During the test, past 12 months, the Herald-Leader has targeted CenterPoint for major stories some 292 times. None of the stories supported the project. None of the stories were totally accurate. Most targeted the Webb family in a negative way. This became a cause celebre for editorial writers, columnists, bloggers, public officials, rumor mongers, and others. We know of no other individuals or business people in this community or in any area of any other project that has been targeted for destruction. We do not intend to continue to respond to the negativism, negativism either now or periodically. Attempts to clarify matters or issue corrections have only fueled the fires of speculation and criticism. This is the very reason for this written statement today and my limiting my responses to questions to those that we are required to make. Do not forget that this is a private business venture or privately owned property and there's been no request for public dollars to be a part of this project. There is no obligation, legal or otherwise, that we must discuss with the public or anyone else the financing plan or the source of the proposed funding for this project. There was no unlawful taking or condemnation in the peaceful assemblage of these properties, and this was done entirely without governmental support or intervention. All laws and ordinances were complied with. It was clear that the buildings were functionally and economically obsolete. There were no credit cards misused in this assemblage. It was a private deal, no different than the demolition of the old Sonya Rally building, or the construction of the new school, or the assemblage of the old buildings in the Iris Town area for the, where the district, uh, distillery district will be. It is a private deal not unlike that being proposed by Trammel Crow Company for air rights, development above the transit center, which has no... it's just taken longer to get it going than everyone thought. It is also not unlike the Blackhorse Loft Condominiums that were to be c- in a competing project in which reportedly one of the council was involved. This was announced, the sites were cleared, the buildings torn down, but the project is now on hold with no explanation. Mr. Webb, if I could interrupt. Your time is expired by the council member . Uh, Mayor, I think we should allow Mr. Webb, uh, more time. How much do you need, uh, to finish? Oh, 10 minutes. I'm sorry. I didn't know there were time constraints. I thought- We, we usually give pre- presentations 15 minutes. I think this is very important to this community so I, I don't see why we shouldn't, um, extend that and allow him more time. I second that. Have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Meyers to extend the time to 15 minutes, which would give you an additional 12 minutes. So, uh, any discussion? All in favor of extending the time, please say aye. Aye. Oppose no? Motion carries. Mr. Webb? Thank you. My point here that nobody is framing about those projects and that they are not yet proceeding as scheduled af- after they were announced. The reason being that most reasonable people understand that unfortunate and unfavor-- unforeseeable things do happen in this business, and they often take time to resolve. But this doesn't make the sponsors to be villains or charlatans, as many have suggested in our case. In our case, there are also other private parties involved, including investors, potential tenants and condo purchasers, and one of the nation's leading hotel companies. These private parties wish to remain that way, private, for whatever reason, and that is their right and privilege. Very recently in a meeting of this council, members discussed this fact that Marriott was no longer interested in operating a J.W. Marriott Hotel in downtown Lexington, as there was no need for additional hotel rooms. Antagonists have previously on many occasions contacted the Marriott home office advising them that Lexington did not want a J.W. Marriott Hotel and asked that they stay away from Centre Point. Oftentimes, blatantly, blatant fabrications, four-letter words, and personal insults became the order of the day in this discourse. The good news from all of this is that Marriott Corporation is still the major player in the world hospitality and travel market, and they still believe in the future of Lexington. Attached to this statement is, is a letter from a senior vice president of hotel development for Marriott, which I received this week in response to a request that he clarify the interest of his company in this project. You can read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Now let us turn to the development project itself. We will not revisit the history of the demolition of the buildings except to remind everyone that none of these structures was on the National Registry of Historic Places, and a study a few years ago, uh, that reviewed the historic buildings in downtown placed none of them on any such list. Ultimately, the Courthouse Design Review Board determined that a restoration of these buildings was not economically viable or feasible. This was not surprising since the Rosenberg family and the Gray Construction Group had teamed with the Kentucky Science and Technology Center back in 2005 to try to rehab the old Woolworth's building, also situated within that block. Unfortunately, they too found that the economics simply didn't work for them either, even with the new market tax credits that were then available. That building was then demolished, and now the other buildings are also gone, so further discussion about them would be moot. Development is, by its nature, an optimistic business. Developers look at the potential of projects regularly. The great majority of them are not pursued. The location, the economics, the design, the market, the results, the financing, the profit, and other factors help make these decisions. Sometimes there are factors that influence these decisions. With all the development projects, Centre Point has been an evolving project. Developers do not simply decide what they will do and then build it. Since the Centre Point project began, there have been many influencing factors involved in this process. Participants, both as owners and financiers, have changed. As early partici- an early participant and a lender that was involved decided not to participate because they did not want to be bogged down in an unusual process where an officia- officious public servant that has a large view of himself is dictating what a private development is going to look like. Other participants then stepped up. To avoid such dictates, it went from a debt project that was de- dependent upon TIF to financing o- of an all-equity project that did not. We reviewed the business and financing plan that was being offered to us with proper persons and advisors, and they determined that it was real. Agreements were reached on the participation and they were executed. We moved on with the optimism that developers always have about such projects. Most people were excited about it. The naysayers who wanted to control the private project in its design and otherwise without any financial risk sprang foul and made every effort to stop the project, including going to court. Don't you believe for a moment that these antics were, were ignored. We made every effort to appease when we could without impairing the project. Every time we thought the path was clear, some other tactic to stop the project would be tried. But changes in direction are not unusual in such an effort. Development is also an evolving process. Each day brings different solutio- sit- situations and conditions, and plans are offered to, altered to meet these plans. We have made, we have met these challenges and will continue to do so in the future with this site and this project. With the financing agreements executed and in place, subject to the same confidentiality restrictions that are still in place today, the project moved forward. However, in the world of human mortality, timing can be critical, uh, a critical matter. None of us are immune from death. It was unfortunate one of the participating entities lost a major player who happened to be an international. Not only, uh, is this death unfortunate, but the resulting impacting foreign laws and regulations became a major factor also. So the situation has created some delay at a critical time for us. In an effort to be as open as we could be under the restrictions of our agreements, we asked Richard Crane, the omnibus trustee for this transaction and all the parties involved, and a very reputable Los Angeles attorney to act in his capacity as trustee and give a letter to all of you to confirm his involvement and the reason for the delay. Interestingly enough, one of Mr. Crane's law partners is the father of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all the Gates family are good friends of his to this day, and these are substantial people and not figments of someone's imagination. Mr. Crane furnished this letter to you in good faith, acting not only in behalf of his law firm, not as, uh, uh, in behalf of his law firm, but as a reputable attorney in a private business arrangement. The response was a criticism of his letterhead, and one of the council people stated that he thought it was a hoax. Be assured that Mr. Crane's background and reputation as an attorney, he does not deal in hoaxes. In fact, Mr. Crane is also one of the most respected and recognized attorney in the country, having served as former head of the Federal Strike Force on Organized Crime, and who is today representing ma- many of the major corporations and wealthy individuals of the world, including one of those that committed the funding for this project. Unfortunately, good faith was once again met with the same negativism from the same group of naysayers. I have been criticized for being optimistic about Centre Point. We have been as open and as frank with you and the public as we could be under the circumstances and within our business judgment. "... if a timeframe is given and for some time r- some reason if it's not met then so be it. I assure you that when pressed for such timetables, we do our best to respond and as honestly as we know at the time. But things do change, so we are always torn between not giving an opinion or giving an honest opinion. One thing is for sure here though, and that we have never undertaken a project that we did not finish, and we do not intend to do so starting with this one. In closing, let me say that although we still, that we still believe a viable financing plan is in place that will allow CentrePointe to be constructed in the near, in the near future. This would r- require 60 to 90 days for the trustee to work through the legal and business process and at which time we could then hope for construction to begin. That is all we have to say about that today, except that we've already posted the bonds repor- uh, required by the Kentucky Department of Transportation and have lifted the encroachment permits by which we are allowed to close certain traffic lanes so as to allow our contractors to stage their proceed. As to the Vice Mayor's request that we spend 300,000 or more to fill and seed that site now when construction h- is projected to begin very soon, with all due respect, we feel that this, that w- to do so at this time would be a waste. The site has been fenced within the rules, that the sidewalks around the site have been temporarily reopened, and we have otherwise complied with the law. We believe that the same rules that apply to everybody else should apply to us, no more or lo- no less. We've asked that the seeding of the site be deferred for this short period, but we will leave that to the regulatory authorities. Be assured though that we will do whatever the authorities require of us and do within the law, and we trust that good judgment will be used in such decisions rather than punitive resolutions that some of our naysaying friends would like to, for the authorities to impose. As for 2010, we will not become involved in a debate over what will be done at that time and since there are no other steps yet to be taken. However, you can be assured that we have every intention, uh, uh, of this site not being an eyesore for our citizens or our visitors to the World Equestrian Games and we will work with the government as well as the organizers and sponsors of the games toward that end. We are certainly optimists. Our record of development in Fayette County and other places has been criticized and distorted on the internet and in the newspaper. While there are a few projects that b- we wish we had not done for one reason or another, there are several dozens of others that u- we are proud to have been involved with. Suffice it to say that we are certainly not embarrassed in the last 25 years we have developed world-class projects in Fayette County that contain millions of square feet, including hotels, retail centers, office buildings, warehouses, residential condominiums, and other special projects that have generated over a billion dollars of new tax base for this community. This was the same optimism and enthusiasm for this community that led to our other downtown projects, including the Lexington Financial Center, the Trade Center, the Downtown Hilton, Victorian Square, the Marketplace, First Federal, Merrill-Lynn, it's the Chamber Building, BB&T Building in the Woodlands. This was also the same optimism and enthusiasm that led to other projects in the suburbs like the Corporate Center, Palomar Center, Lexington Green, Tates Creek Center, Tates Creek South Perimeter Center, Lexington Business Center, Melbourne Distribution Center, Newtown Distribution Center, Georgetown Distribution Center, Leestown Distribution Center, and so forth. Like these or not, they are still contributing to the tax base and the social fabric of this community. Some people even think that we have been responsible citizens, developers and have done a good job on most of these projects. To them th- all we can say is we tried and we've always d- done our best that we could. Lexington deserves nothing less. Attached is also a letter from, um, Tom Papillion, Senior Vice President of Hotel Development that I thought you might find interesting. It was, uh, dated May 4th, "Dear Mr. Webb, Marriott International is pleased to be working with you on the development of the CentrePointe in Downtown Lexington, Kentucky. We continue to dedicate time, expertise, and resources as a key member of your development and management team, and we are pleased with the progress of the project. We are supportive of your endeavors and we are excited about the development of JW Marriott Hotel as a key component of this nish- mixed-use development. As planned, CentrePointe will represent a state-of-the-art project that we believe is well-suited for the market area. Lexington continues to grow and truly represents an international city. Marriott International and the JW Marriott Hotel in particular will help to further establish CentrePointe in the City of Lexington as a world-class destination among international business travelers as well as the leisure and conventional travel markets. In addition, we fully expect the project will be embraced with great enthusiasm by the local and regional community. We are fully- pleased to continue our relationship with your organization and we look forward to the succ- successful completion of our CentrePointe and the JW Marriott Hotel. Sincerely, Tom Papillion, Senior Vice President of Hotel Development, Marriott." At this time, I guess I'm available to answer questions of, of the group. All right, Council Member Stennet. All right. Any member of the council have a question? Okay, Council Member Blues. Mr. Webb, thank you for, for being here and, and for, uh, and for this update. Um, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about the, about the status of the, of the funding, uh, for the, for the project. Earlier on, uh, you know, uh, we were told that the funding is in place. You say this afternoon that you still believe that a viable financing plan is in place, uh, and, and I wonder if you could elaborate on that, uh, that a bit. Well, I w- I would elaborate. I would say that it's not only a financing alternative that is in place, it is probably the only financing alternative that is in place. As you know, and Mr. Gray knows, and others involved in development or, or construction, virtually every major mixed-use or commercial project in the world is on hold right now. We were fortunate in that we signed these agreements on June the 9th of last year. This was before the major catastrophic collapse of the financial markets that occurred back in September, October. So we were fortunately -- fortunate there that we were under the gun and -- and got this in place. Uh, we dealt with an American partner of the international investor who was also involved who passed away. That was unfortunate, because of the fact that, uh, as there's been lots of concern and criticism expressed about the fact that this man died without a will. In Europe, most of these countries do not -- that is not a common practice to have a will. There is automatic succession in those -- in those countries, and that means, literally, that if you have sons or daughters and you're heirs, they automatically take, uh, the r- take your rights to your estate, subject to its liabilities. In this case, one of the liabilities is obviously a $250 million commitment that was made to Lexington, Kentucky. Uh, those commitments were unconditional. These documents were unconditonal- unconditional. They were prepared by, uh, the -- one of the largest law firms in Los Angeles, who specialize in – in – in such transactions. So on June the 9th of last year, that was concluded. And everything was proceeding according to plan. The -- we were assured and as, uh, I think the last time on September the 5th, that the money was escrowed in a Swiss bank and that it was there and available for us whe- if and when the project was, uh, began construction. The first of those draws was to occur in September of last year. Unfortunately, on September the 29th, we were notified of the death of this person. And unfortunately, uh, to our surprise, uh, the heirs were not signatories on those bank accounts. So consequently, under very strict banking laws that are in place, and very stringent, and all of you are pretty well-aware of that, that, uh, without any -- without court approval or probate -- or, uh, probate order or what over there a judge is called a notary. The notary, without his approval and, uh, a public hearing process, those heirs are not empowered to sign those accounts to disburse our funds. So consequently, we have been trying diligently during the period since to get that done. There was a hearing that was conducted in December, and that basically, uh, allowed the heirs to come in and submit their position. It, uh, it gave the public an opportunity to lodge any, uh, any obligations or whatever against the -- w- would be claims against the estate, and it also allowed the notary to itemize the assets of the estate. That was done. That process then requires 90 days in which for the public to react. That, I understood, uh, occurred on April the 13th. Then after that, once the notary publishes his hearings, then after that, there is a, uh, 30-day comment period in which anybody that has an adverse or hostile interest against the estate can react. Uh, that is supposed to come the next couple weeks. That basically is gonna determine where we are, and allow the heirs to do what they have to do, including accepting the estate. I was in S- in Switzerland meeting with those folks last week. Uh, the trustee was there. Uh, all of the parties to these agreements, and there are other interests that also have projects that are affected by this, are most anxious to get this behind them, and we still think that that can be done in the next 60 to 90 days at most. So we're asking that everyone be patient, to stand by. We were as disappointed and surprised by this as everyone else. Obviously, we -- a lot of work on this has been done. A lot of expense has been gone to to get this -- this block in a position to go. We live here. We -- we are -- we have major investments in downtown. We are equally as concerned as all of you about the appearance of downtown, particularly in light of the upcoming games. So consequently, all we're saying is, that let's see what happens, and then we can talk about, Vice Mayor, as to whether or not we sod the block, seed the block, straw the block, backfill the block, or do whatever. But it would be a major waste to go in there and spend $300,000 in the next couple of months here, and then turn around and take it right back out. And, uh, so consequently, as far as we know, everything else is in place. The permits, as I told you, have been lifted. The, uh, the architects are ready to go. They have submitted the plans for the, uh, building inspection and enforcement people up here to begin a review process for the plans. And it would be our intent that soon as we get this first draw is to go ahead and start digging that hole and come out of the ground. And it's gonna be 24 months to build it. That's just the reality of it. Now, there's been concern expressed about, what's the impact of that on the games? Our commitment is to this community that we will minimize that impact, if any. Uh, it will be a construction project, but this construction project could not come at a better time for this region, from the standpoint of what's now the situation in terms of the economy here. You're talking about 1,200 construction jobs, another 1,200 permanent jobs ongoing, major property taxes for the benefit of the community, and a major, uh, we think, landmark for this community. So again, uh, that's the status. You know what I know. Um, Woodford's been there. He met the same people, the heirs and so forth, and they have pledged their cooperation at this point. So, uh, we're as optimistic as ever. It's just that we've got to go down this course, because if there were other financing alternatives out there, we'd have already been there. But as most of you know, the banks have, uh, pretty well closed their doors, the equity markets are tighter than ever, and it would be really tough to do a major project in today's marketplace. And that's been proven throughout the world. Just a -- a quick follow-up. Is -- is, uh, am I right then, from what you've -- what you've just said, that essentially wh- what has happened since the ori- original, uh, commitment was made and s- and -- and -- and that that person, uh, that person died, that, uh, you know, the city's not going to lose this? ... essentially since then, it's been a legal process, but not a process in, that could, you know, leave it open to a change of mind on the part of the heirs or ... ? The commitments that were made in the agreements, in June 9, 19, uh, last year, were unconditional. They absolutely provided that they, that these funds would be available. Uh, there was evidence given to us, uh, in September that there was approximately $500 million then in the bank for our project and another. And that, um, that was done by the partner of this gentleman who passed away. Unfortunately, that partner was not a signatory on the account either, or we'd gone straight on through. So this came as a surprise to a lot of people. Thank you. Yes, sir. Council Member Lawless. First of all, thanks for moving the fence and giving us the sidewalks back. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, that, that was a misunderstanding. Uh, we moved it once, and we were told that we couldn't expose all of the sidewalk because of safety concerns. So we didn't, and then we came back and did it, and it appears to be okay. So, it's great. Yeah. I'll, I'll take my chances tripping on the sidewalk over getting hit by a car. I, I would too. I'm s- I'm, I'm equally concerned about it. So thank you. Um, the thing that, uh, I guess, concerns me is ... the, uh, the information from you or that I've gotten from Harold Tate at the Downtown Development Authority, uh, and probably more from him than from you, um, is m- not accurate. I mean, you know, when's, when, when are they gonna start building? Uh, you know, we're waiting for a permit from the state to open the lane of traffic, and I understand that. But it just kept s- it seemed like it took a really long time because usually those things don't. So I guess one question I have for you is, you know, when did you all know that this gentleman had died and the money was gonna be tied up for a lengthy period of time, and when did the DDA know? Well, uh, I will tell you this, that, uh, on Sept- September the 29th, I received an email and then a phone call from the partner of this gentleman who passed away. And basically, from then through December the 15th, it was, he was repeatedly assuring us that the, it was a simple certificate of inheritance process where you go to the notary, they take the testimony, and then it, um, and then they, they respond. The complicating factor here was this gentleman was an international, he was multi-citizen. He was a, uh, special resident of the country of Switzerland, but he was also a resident of other countries as well. His family lived in other countries, which really complicated it because the heirs then had to come in and go through a special dispensation to get this done. So throughout this whole process, we were being reassured that be patient, it's coming, it's coming. We were told in early December that the certificate of inheritance, which is the key document that they need to go to the bank, would be coming, uh, within 30 days of December the 15th. Well, it didn't come. So I, we flew over there, the whole group gathered, uh, uh, to meet with them and, and their bankers. We, uh, we were assured basically that everything was moving forward and that we, they would get to it as soon as possible. In February, it didn't come. In March, Woodford and I both went back, and then last week, I went back again to try to figure out where it was. Now during that period of time in the last two weeks, the certificate of inheritance has been issued. The heirs have not yet accepted the estate, mainly both out of concern they want to be sure that they have the money to fund this project before they accept it as a, an, the asset as well as the liability. And so consequently, uh, they're in the process of doing that right now. So our attorneys in Europe as well as our attorneys on the West Coast are meeting, uh, are talking to these people daily to try to get this thing unstuck. We think we've arrived at a mechanism to do that, and we're still optimistic that, uh, this thing's gonna happen. So when was the DDA informed of this, I guess? I don't know that the DDA was informed of this. I, I personally didn't relay, relay it to Harold, except to say, "Hey, it's coming. We're gonna get there. We're gonna get there." Because Harold would call from time to time and say, you know, "Harold, we're coming. We need to get going." And, and nobody was under greater pressure in this deal than we were, and still are. But, uh- Um- And, and let me give an example of what's frustrating about this exercise, is last week, uh, there was an article in The Herald-Leader that said, that quoted the lady from the Highway Department as saying that we had not yet lifted the permit. I received the letter that day telling us to bring the bond. The next day, we took the bond out there and lifted the permit. We, we gotta be reasonable about this exercise, and we're doing all that we can. And I want you all to understand that. We, we were born up in Hot Spot, Kentucky, but not yesterday. We've been through this before, and, and we think we'll get through this one. But this is a big undertaking that will be very important to the life's blood of this city for years to come, and I, I share your all's vision and your concerns that this is the center point of Lexington. We have differing opinions with the vice mayor and others about what it should look like or how tall it should be, but we still think that it's gonna be an important addition and one that, uh, Marriott is very excited about, as are the condo owners. We keep hearing that there's no condo market here. You know, the, our, our prospects are the horse farmers from Ireland, the, from the wine country in California, from, from the Middle East. The, these are the people that are gonna buy these condos. They aren't here now. How, how many of the condos do you have contracts on? We have 64 units committed, or that we've done handshake deals on. We can't sign contracts on any of these units until the plans are finalized. Okay. Legally, we can't do that. And-- Diane, we did this before. We did 40 on top of the Radisson. And believe me, wh- by the time we turned the first page, there was a waiting list. And that we think the same thing's gonna be true here. Well, um, if, I certainly hope so, 'cause I'd hate to have a lot of really expensive empty condos. But maybe then I could afford one of them. So, um, if this project, and Mayor, this might be a question for you and the administration. If, for some reason, this project does not go forward, what happens with the TIFF? And where is the TIFF at this point? The TIFF is, uh, under review at the state level. It has not been given final approval. It has received preliminary approval. I anticipate sometime within the next couple of months, Mr. Kelly, I think, would confirm that's approximate timeframe, that we would get final approval from the state. When that happens, then the clock will start ticking. Um, if I recall correctly, we have 30 years, uh, 20? I'm- Oh, I mean- Maybe, maybe Mr. Kelly's the best person to answer these questions 'cause he's been working with it more directly than have I. But the point is, the TIFF is not contingent upon anything in particular happening at this location. So if there is, um, um, you know, a Hilton that gets built there or, um, there's an office building that gets built there- But it is contingent on something getting built there. R- right. Right. Or, or, th- it is contingent upon there being incremental tax revenue. Mm-hmm. So presumably, that means something being built there. Mr. Kelly, could you just elaborate a little bit on the status of the TIFF? Actually, what the mayor shared with you is accurate. Uh, the TIFF, uh, is under review. Both, both of our TIFFs are under review. Um, from the time the, um, consultant was given the go-ahead by the state, they said it would take them about eight weeks. We're probably about five weeks into that process. Um, once they return their report, t- to the state, then at that time, they will take that report to the, uh, KIFA board, and we expect that the board will approve the project. Um, from the time the project is approved, you have two years to initiate the project. Um, and, and again, what the mayor shared with you about, um, it not being contingent absolutely on this particular project, but obviously, to generate incremental revenue, you need, uh, y- you need, uh, incremental revenue. Well, it- it's, it's, uh, because of the kind of TIFF it is, it's contingent on a project of a certain dollar amount. That is correct. So- But you, you could have a, technically speaking, you could have a TIFF that is a, a local only if you wanted to, based upon the approval of, of the state. But you're, you're right. It's a signature TIFF. Right. 200 million plus. So, okay, thank you very much. Sure. Appreciate it. Yep. Vice Mayor Gray. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, early on in our adm- in this administration and our tenure as council members, I remember saying that, uh, we should take our jobs seriously, but not ourselves. And in that spirit, um, I wanna present a little bit of a re-gifted, uh, presentation. Uh, Councilmember Beard, you need to look up here because I'm presenting your re-gifting. Uh, Dudley, uh, Councilmember, Councilmember Beard presented this, uh, package of Scotts Turf Builder grass seed. It will cover 750 square feet. Now, you'll need about 100 more of these bags, though. So here you go, buddy. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. I'll let you have this, or you can leave it up here if you want to. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Yeah. But I do ha- I do have some questions. All right. Um, I think, Dudley, that, I think, um, if we look back at the chronology of this project, almost, uh, more than a year now, all along, representations were made to the city, to the courthouse area design overlay board, to the court, to this council, as we deliberated over the TIFF, that the funding for this project was unconditionally committed, that it was here. I don't think anybody realized that it was so fragile, but as you've described today, now some of us did warn and say, "Don't start the train because the bridge may be out." We've got a hell of a storm coming. The world financial markets are collapsing. And it's highly speculative, a project like this. So those warnings were made often, regularly, and they were met with the confirmation regularly that our funding is here, all equity. And we relied on that. The city relied on it. The Courthouse Area Design Overlay Board relied on it. ... all along. So now we are at a point, well, let's back up a little bit more. Back in September, the project was on a fast track. October, after the mystery investor is deceased now, the project's still on a fast track, we're told, and we're gonna come out of the ground with footers in December. In January, February, it's gonna start in two weeks. Now here we are, in May, and we still really don't know. But we know, what you've told us today is that it's a hairline of a stream of possibility in terms of the financing, that nowhere else in the world is a project being done like this. That's pretty significant. But really, my questions have to do with the technical side of the project as it is today. I'd like to know because I appreciate what you said about developers dealing in optimism. And I think as a city and as a council, we have to deal in realism as well as optimism. So my questions have to do with where the project is today in terms of its design. Can you tell us the status of the design, that is the drawings, the specifications, the documents that are required to build this project? Are they 50% complete? 60% complete? Where do they stand? Jim, I can't tell you as, as a percentage. I can tell you that, uh, substantial work has been done. Stacks of documents this tall probably have been done. Uh, we have went, we went through the design review process with Marriott. They gave all their input that they needed, all the technical advice and, and requirements that they had. Uh, the next step is that there'll be another meeting in Atlanta with the Marriott people and the interior design team to go ahead and try to finalize those drawings. Let me, let me make a point. You're being disingenuous if you stand here and tell this group that you knew in August that the world markets, the world economic markets were gonna collapse in October. There's no way anybody knew that. That took us all by surprise. So don't perceive as if you have a crystal ball that enables you to see something we didn't. Oh, no I just read the newspapers. When I made the statement, when I made the statement last March at the announcement of this project, first of all, uh, I advised the mayor that we were gonna be able to do something on this block look like, that we got in the last piece of land assembled in early, uh, in early 2008. And he said, "Well, fine. Let us know and we'll be cooperative in any way we can." So it was at that point in time that I called back and I said, "We're ready to do an announcement." And, and he ge- he was excited. Everybody in the community was excited about it. I made the statement at that point in time, assuming that there were no obstructionists, that there were no lawsuits, that nothing else was gonna be done to stop us, that we thought we could have this project complete by the 2010 games. I said that. That would have required us to get approvals in, four months for a design to five months in design, which would have been March through July. Then another 90 to 120 days to dig the hole, and then that would enable us to start footers in December of last year. Not, that's when I said that, last March. Nothing was said after that about starting in two weeks. We're, we gotta remobilize this thing and what happened was, unfortunately, some friends of yours filed a lawsuit against us, stopped this project dead, and we were not authorized to proceed to get title insurance on this project until January the 4th of this year. So we couldn't have started. So now we have to remobilize. We have to start over. It takes four months to five months for the plans again, which puts us, uh, again in July, and then another 90 to 120 days to, to dig the hole and then trying to come out of the ground in late December probably. Okay I'm- So you know where we are. I don't... I think that there are many people that won't agree with your characterization of the facts or of that timetable. I certainly won't, because I know that the, that, that the objections that were made and the filings that were made and were made consistent with the laws, and that was done and you were demolishing the block in August. And after that time was when Darby Turner stood right there and said, and in the TIFF meetings, we are going to... This project is on a fast track and we will be coming out of the ground with footers. Now my questions, and I would like the answers to the questions, please. Have you... Do you have a structural engineer and what is the name of the structural engineer? Jim, you have it. You attended the meeting with him at the offices of Scherman Carter Barnhart. So Scherman Carter Barnhart- It's a New York firm. ... is the structural... Okay. No. The, the last name is Thomas Eddie Woodford. So I don't recall- The reason for these questions is they were trying to find out what's realistic in terms of when the project may start. Okay. Do you have any idea whether the column reactions, the loads have been calculated? That depends on how tall the building is and the structural engineer is responsible for that. Have you any idea of whether or not that work has been engaged and the documents and the plans have been delivered to our planning and zoning, to our planning department for review? Jim, I have no idea. All I can tell you is that there are... The architects have been up here 10 times at least. They met with all the staff people, the department heads wi- within the city government, and they're, everybody was pleased with what they saw and they're ready to go onto the next phase. Do you know, Dudley- You can't build them up. There's no reason to proceed right now- Mm-hmm. ... until we see where we are. Do you know whether a, an official, an official- ... a building permit application has been... have you en-... ha- has that been applied for? You know whether or not- Well, my- ... an official building, uh, it's called a permit, an application for building? I assume not. It, it... I can help you with that one, I think, because I called earlier and it has not. A building permit application has not been made. And the reason I'm asking these questions is, even on a s- much, much smaller project, the typical time period is six months for this procedure in Lexington to be engaged. So if we look from here forward, and we're talking about perhaps best case, you get the right reading, best case, we're talking six months from now in getting the project started. That's probably true. Okay. Now started. Uh, I'm not talking about the excavation and so forth. We have to go down through 15 feet of solid limestone to get down to where we can do subterranean parking. You know that. Woodford is just pointing out- Okay. ... so I, I, I'm not un- unders- exactly sure where you're going with this. What we're trying to find out is when on the best case condition that we might have the center of our town back in some form that's not an eyesore. Well, all I can tell you is this, that we presented a timeframe both to the courthouse overlay folks and I think probably to the court. I wasn't there, so I wasn't part of that. But that basically gave a sliding timetable for this project. It was a fast track schedule. Now, we lost the fast track when we were stopped because of the lawsuit that would not enable us to complete this in time for the games. So then it became a much more relaxed type approach. And we just... what we have done since is try to be sure that we had everything in... our ducks in a row. The architects have worked very strenuously to get this thing in, in, under control and done. And they've been working with the city and the permits and the... and so forth, I'm assuming are in place. Uh, the permit that we're required right now to do is the excavation permit. And that's the one that would be moving toward next. And that is to dig the hole. You've used the word disingenuous twice today. You've tried to scapegoat others continuously. The only thing that is disingenuous is what repeatedly the representations that have been made on this project. In my view, it is unconscionable and regrettable, but our city has been hoodwinked all along. If you believe that, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor. If you believe that, I'm sorry. You know better. I've known you too long. I met with you 10 times, 10 times la- early last year, trying to get this thing unstuck to where we can accommodate all the parties. And the one time I had a meeting with you and Holly Weidemann. You said, "Whatever Holly comes up with, we'll be satisfied with." Holly comes back with a compromise to save the Pasado and the Rosenberg Building. Next day in The Herald-Leader it says, "Jim Gray says that that is a token gesture." So how do we possibly hit a moving target like this? We have tried every way in the world to get this thing done. We have made major commitments to get this loan in place, or this funding in place, and it's ready to move forward. So, but yet you call us disingenuous and that you've been hoodwinked. Let me tell you, you knew everything we knew the whole step of the way, the whole course, because I told you. I told you. I've known you for 20 years- Once again, once again... it's remarkable how, what you can say in a public forum, even Dudley. Yeah. Uh, I'm finished with my questions. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just have a couple quick questions for you, Mr. Webb. Sure. I think you stated it earlier, but did you guys assemble this land legally? Absolutely. Is this a private sector development? Absolutely. My question for everybody in the room is, what right do we have to be asking and grilling this developer, this private citizen, the questions that have been asked to him today? And that's the rhetorical question, anybody can get in. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Vice... uh, thank you, Mayor. And I've said often that, um, we as a body and, and we as a... a- as elected representatives have, um, the duty to ask hard questions and to look very carefully at, at, um, uh, at things that are in the public's interest. But what we don't do from this dais is we don't pick an individual, um, and, and do what we're doing today. Now, people can feel any way you want to feel about these individuals or any other individual. Uh, we've had many, many hot contested issues up here, and we've been called a lot of things and we can be called anything and we have to take it. Uh, at the end of the day though, um, I, I think that we need to be very cautious, very cautious, Vice Mayor, when, when we're doing what we're doing today with talking to people directly like we're doing. With that said, I want to just reiterate what Council Member Myers said. You can feel however you want to feel about this issue and, and that is perfectly within your purview. It's, it is a private project assembled with their money. Uh, the city has not tied up the money. Yes, it is in the middle of the city and downtown is everybody's neighborhood and all of those things, and it doesn't match up with the master plan, but the... that is a function... ... of us. We've made the mistake with that. We never adopted the downtown master plan as a master plan. Now, that is our own fault. We don't need to look at it outta here. That is our doing. And if we're gonna sit here and throw stones at people who don't follow the master plan, then we need to be very cautious about that and I'm talking about us up here. And so at the end of the day, I wanna ask all of us, what other person or persons or developers do we do this with? And, and folks out here, you know, I, I've seen a lot of development plans, and I've seen a lot of things just in five years sitting up here, and we, we're not... We don't do this with other folks. Um, we don't sit there and ask about exactly where the financing is, and who said this and who did that. Now, uh, at the end of the day, people, again, it is perfectly within all of our rights to feel any way we want to feel about this and any way we want to feel about certain folks. But we as a body need to be very careful where we tread, um, because we are stepping over into things that are not protocol, uh, and, and are not what this body should be doing as a body. Um, and I, I get gravely concerned that, uh, that we are, are, um, in a situation where we are taking cer- certain factors that we feel very strongly about, and we are applying, we're not applying a, a, um, a standard across the board. And if that's the case, people in the audience and people up here, then you need to be prepared, we need to be prepared to ask it of everyone. We need to be prepared to ask it of everybody. We got two TIFF projects going on right now. And one of 'em has been beat all to pieces. The other one, everybody loves it. Hey, it's the number one project on the stimuluswatch.com. And what's interesting is, and folks in this audience know I've said this, that, that project doesn't make a bit of sense on paper, but somehow, some way, we're gonna find a way to make that work, because there's a community that wants to see that and so forth. But at the end of the day, we're not asking the same questions of that developer. We're not asking what their record is and how they gonna get financing and who's behind that. And so we need to be really, really careful as a community what we're doing. And that's all I'm saying to that is, um, a word of caution to all of us- Yeah. ... as we move forward. Can I make a, an observation here. I, I, I just keep a timeline basically of this project. On, um, August 19th, 2006, Vice Mayor, you and I met at Star- at Starbucks to talk about this project. I also had telephone conferences at your recommendation to Foster Pettit and Tim, Tim Kelly, to talk about what we were proposing and what could be in that block. At that time, Tim Kelly's the publisher of the newspaper. Tim made the comment when I described what we saw there and what we were gonna try to do there, he described it as the most important project in the history of Lexington. Within six months, the vice mayor had turned on us, the newspaper had turned on us, and the... When I called Tim Kelly to say, "What happened?" He said, "I can't control what they write." Now, how fair is that? I mean, we go out there and hang our neck in the noose and spend a substantial amount of money to go in and buy out leaseholds, existing businesses, and I assure you, Vice Mayor, that nobody good hood- probably got hoodwinked in this deal but us. Everybody that was in that block, all the tenants, all the businesses, all walked away with a check. All did. And everybody was happy until you started talking about the socioeconomic fabric of the block, whatever that meant, or the beautiful historic buildings that were down there. And every... Believe me, the experts came in and spent weeks looking at these things and said they cannot be rehabbed. And so consequently, the decision was made to tear 'em down. That was an issue. It's one issue to take down the buildings. It was a second issue about whether or not our proposed building was gonna be impro- approved. That was a design issue. So don't, don't, don't talk about one with the other. We had every right to take those buildings down because they were functionally and economically obsolete, and we did that. The second thing is we had a right to come in there and make a proposal, and once again, the Design Review Board approved that, that design. You may not like it, the dean at the UK Architecture might not like it, or the other naysayers in the community may not like it, but it was approved. We jumped through every hoop that we could possibly do. Be fair here. You're, you know, all of a sudden because it's politically popular and you're obviously intending to have greater political aspirations, you've jumped on this bandwagon. I've known you for 20 years. I never had a crossed word with you. You've done projects for us, but I just don't understand. It, it's beyond- Mayor, I'd like to call a point of order, please. Council member Feigl. Uh, I've tried this once before and this is not an item that is on the agenda. And, you know, many council members are taking this opportunity to ask questions, but for us to do this legitimately, it is supposed to be on the agenda. Um, this citizen has come to comment on issues not on the agenda, and there really is not supposed to be interchange between the council and, and people speaking on issues not on the agenda. Um, I think your point's well taken. Uh, Mayor. And I'll rule that- Mayor. Uh, Council Member Lane. Yeah, I just wanna say, it's, the horse is out of the barn. We're already talking about it. All right. If there are other council members who want to speak, I think it's unfair at this time to close discussion of this item. Well, let me outline a process here. Um, point of order having been raised, it's my responsibility as chair to deal with it. Uh, I think Council Member Feigl's, uh, point of order is well taken, and therefore I would agree that, that this comment is out of order. Having said that, I recognize the right of the, uh, body to come to a different conclusion about that, and it would be appropriate if people feel as though that ruling is, um, incorrect for you to appeal the decision of the chair- That motion, if carried by a majority, would result in the debate continuing. So... Okay, Mayor. Feel free to- I so move to appeal the, uh, motion of the chair. And, and there's no... Th- there's no offense taken with that at all. Is there a second? Have a second. The decision of the chair has been, uh, appealed. It's non-debatable. Those in favor of sustaining the decision of the chair, which is to, uh, terminate debate, please let it be known by voting, uh, "Aye," and those in favor of reversing the chair, vote "No." And I can't get the, uh, machine to work. Can you please repeat the question? Yes. If you, if you're voting in favor of sustaining the chair, vote "Aye." If you're voting to overturn the chair, vote "No." Everybody with me? Sure. The chair has ruled. Th- the chair ruled that the debate should be terminated, so if you support that, you should vote aye. If you think debate should continue, you should vote no. Everybody with me? I can't get the electronic screen to work. Those in favor of, uh, con- of sustaining the chair and terminating debate, please raise your hand. I see three in favor. Those opposed? The debate will continue. Um, and I think Mr. Webb had the floor when, um, debate was terminated. All right. I- I'm looking at my timer. On March the 28th last year, Vice Mayor, you wrote me an email that said, "I know you really want to do what's best for the city. I know that, and thank you for all you've done." And I appreciated that. At that time, we were having serious dialogue and discourse about what could be for this community, what would be best for this community. The next day, I went to the public hearing that was held up at the theater. Diane, you were there, and others. And we went to listen. I wanted to hear what people were saying about this project 'cause we wanted the best of what it could be. But then, we got off on this tangent about design competitions and inviting international, uh, architects to come in here and so forth and so on, and Marriott said, "No," unequivocally no. They have five pre-approved designers for their hotel properties. We had one of 'em, and that was, that conversation was over. And then, uh, after that, Vice Mayor Gray and, and, um, Michael Speaks and so forth, they had their own design competition, and we saw the results of that. But in any event, we didn't hoodwink anybody. Each step of the way throughout this process, we believed everything that we've told you. We were maybe too honest, too open. But in any event, it is what it is. We are where we are today. We are prepared to move forward. We are still trying to, to go ahead and get this deal put to bed like we had planned, and then if that doesn't happen, then we will address that issue about what happens when. But, uh, as you know, we live here, we have an unequivocal commitment to this community, and that we are prepared to do what's right. Council Member Martin? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Webb, for stepping into the lion's den here today and to update us on this, this important project. It, it's easy to take shots at the Webbs, but folks forget frequently that the Webb, much of Lexington as we know it, particularly Downtown Lexington, have been built by the Webbs. Uh, they have built our town, literally. The economic impact of what they've done here, the positive economic impact, is, is just very hard to imagine. If we, as a community, don't like what they're building, we should change the rules. We should adopt new rules that conform to our expectations. We have design standards, review boards, zoning rules, and all types of rules that govern these types of projects and other types of projects. If we don't want tall buildings, we should pass a rule n- not having tall buildings. If we want street level retail, we should pass a rule adopting street level retail. But we will have to live with the economic impact of the decisions that we make. I believe that we, as a council, must continue to m- monitor Center Point to assume, to assure ourselves that we will have a project to pay for our TIF project. Our TIF project, that is our b- business. And we need to watch this because that's public funds. We, as a council, must also ask for what we want. If we want design standards for projects, we should adopt them. We want height restrictions, we should adopt height restrictions. What we should not do is criticize projects that have followed the rules that we of a, as a council have adopted. We set the, the game, we set the board, the developers follow our rules. And if the Webbs are not following our rules, then they need to be held accountable. But if they are, and we don't like it, we need to change our rules. I have one question for Mr. Kelley. Mr. Kelley, at what point does the city become obligated on the TIF bonds? And if Center Point, worst case,- Yeah. ... should not be built, what is the, the financial risk to the city? There is no financial risk to the city at this point. Uh, the council would have to approve the sale of any bonds to finance the, uh, the projects that are included in the TIF district plan. Um, the council could choose to accumulate revenue that would be generated from the TIF and pay cash if they so chose, so there's no risk at this point. And so the, the city, the Urban County Council- ... we can vote not to build the TIFF projects. Yes, sir. And so, eh, at this point, is there a, a, one dime of city money at risk at this point? Um, our time and some, uh, uh, some legal expenses, uh, associated with the state approval process. But there's no cash been, uh, outlaid. But this is, this is the important thing. We have to watch and, and monitor this so that we, as a council, are, are good stewards of the TIFF money. And to make sure that we don't get too far ahead of the project. And that when it comes time to approve these things, that we, you know, the, the, that we have a good basis to do so. Yes, sir. Mr. Webb, thank you, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Lane. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And thank you council for allowing everybody to speak on this. Um, I, I moved to Lexington, uh, about 28 years ago. Prior to that, I worked for, uh, Long John Silver Seafood Shops in their commercial real estate department, so I traveled up here frequently. The block on which Center Point is located, in my judgment, has been blighted every single day that I lived here. And when the issue came up to tear it down, um, you know, I felt that was the appropriate thing to do. You know, I drive downtown today, and even though it's just a, you know, raw site ready for development, I think our downtown looks better having those blighted buildings out of the heart of downtown. And even if it's sitting there when the World Games comes, the idea that we've got a project that's on the burner that will be coming out of the ground, I think is better than having the blighted buildings there. Uh, secondly, uh, as you've gathered, I've been in commercial real estate a long time, and it's been my experience that real estate deals have problems. Uh, you can't count on whether somebody's gonna die. You don't know whether you have soil conditions. There may be a title issue that comes up there. In the, in the, the time I've been in the business, every single real estate deal I've had has had some glitch come up. It's just part of the business, and I'm disappointed 'cause I like to see your project start as soon as possible, but I'm also understanding. And, uh, with respect to the vice mayor, you know, he's been in the business a long time, and with all due respect, Vice Mayor Gray, I think you gave Mr. Webb some grass seed, but also think you gave him a little bit of manure to go with it. Okay, thank you. Council member Lawless. I'll make this brief. Um, this is what I've been saying for years. You said that you had never seen anything so contentious about a development, but we, in this community, have been fighting one building at a time, one block at a time. The Ben Snyder block, uh, the old train station on South Broadway, the Phoenix Hotel, and we haven't had the political will to do just what you said, council member Martin, is to have an overall development plan in statute, in ordinance to guide our city and to protect our community. And so, I think it's time for us to move forward. We're talking about form-based guidelines, et cetera, in the, um, infill and redevelopment. But cities have a plan. Successful cities have a plan, and we didn't ha-... Our master plan was just a good idea. It was never adopted in ordinance. And so we, as a community, have not protected ourselves from what we may or may not like, or dislike, or whatever, but have guidelines. So I'll get off that soapbox, and also, I think the city let that block down as it has many other, uh, structures in our downtown and in our neighborhoods with, um, demolition by neglect. And that also is the city's responsibility. So with that said, I say let's move forward, let's get things in place, and not allow this kind of controversy to have to come up again. Thank you. Council member- I'd like to make a comment, if I could, about that. Yes, sir. Um, we went through the same exercise with Victorian Square, when we were approached by the city fathers and historic folks and asked us if we would get involved, and we did that. Uh, we spent about $20 million down there restoring that. And at that point in time, it was obvious that this city needs to pick its battles. The historic people need to pick their battles. We need to identify what is worthy of preservation and what isn't, and then kinda stick with that. But on this particular pro- project, in 1983, a decision was n- made not to put this on the historic register, so that block was in play. The Rosenberg family then assembled the block and they put short term tenants in there, many of the, the bars and college, uh, scene places and so forth. And, and, and were merely, uh, the, in fact, they wrote into all the leases that they, for early termination privileges, because they knew this project, this block was gonna be developed at some point in time. But my only point is that we need to be pulling in tandem. I mean, there's people in this community that wanna help, but, I mean, this process beats you to death. I mean, we've gone through this thing for a year now, and it's everyday in the paper. My children are features on, featured on bulldozers that are plowing up the site and everything else. And, and I, I don't think that's fair. I thi- I think this was, we did everything the rules allowed, we proved to the, uh, proper board that we had the right to tear down the projects, that they weren't worthy of economic, uh, feasibility in, in terms of preservation, and we proceeded. So after that happened, in August, or July, Vice Mayor, when the court had the hearing about whether or not there should be an injunctive relief issued or whatever, that financing was in place. I mean, the lawyers, I mean, everybody was involved in it, saw the financing, the commitments. The people are real. These are the heavyweights of the world. ... but yet you think we've been hoodwinked. And I'm sorry for that. I don't know what I can do to convince you, but... And I'm sorry that we did not let you dictate the design of the project. That- that shouldn't be your role, I don't think, as a l- as a... in a legislative capacity. And so consequently, we did the best that we could and we are here today. So, we are where we are. I'm sorry, Mr. Webb, my comment, my comments weren't directed about you. It was about this body and our community as a whole. I appreciate that and I- I- I agree with you to a great degree. Thank you. And let me just add, Council Member Wallace, I mentioned, I think, a week ago, maybe, uh, a little earlier, that on May 12th, um, Betty Kerr and folks with Historic Preservation Commission are going to be meeting in the basement of the downtown library to discuss their recent review of all the historic buildings downtown with a view towards trying to get at some of the issues you raised, and, um, I would encourage anybody that's interested to participate in that. She, she did that at my request earlier this year and I think you'll find the results to be interesting. Council Member Beer. Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, I- I didn't like what I've seen today. I'll be perfectly honest with you. Um, to have you down here, um, as a whipping boy, it just doesn't, doesn't suit me, to be perfectly honest, Dudley. Um, I'm embarrassed about that. I do wanna say, however, that, um, the three-pound sack of, uh, grass seed that I, uh, gave to the Vice Mayor, I was hoping I would be able to observe him out in the, uh, the middle of the block sowing the seed himself. I didn't know he was gonna give it back to you. The... I'm gonna have to agree. Uh, I've been around again, I've, I've mentioned this on several occasions, but I've been around to see that block since 1956 when I started my career at the First National Bank and it was a mess then. And that's a long time ago. That's over 50 years. W- we don't... The things that we hold dear to ourselves, we don't seem to take care of. And this has been the case, uh, as, uh, Council Member Wallace has mentioned, for years and years and years. I can remember the, um, Dunn Drug Store situation at the corner of Maxwell and Limestone, and in the eleventh hour and thirty minutes, the wrecking ball was there and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come the people with the signs, were trying to stop that building from being demolished. Um, if, in fact, we value these buildings, we need to, and happily we are, uh, inventorying those and, uh, uh, hopefully in the future we can, uh, we can take care of 'em and h- and have some of them, but not all of 'em. There's some that just can't be fixed and, um, I will have to agree with, uh, uh, Council Member Lane, as far as I'm concerned, what we have down there right now is a lot better than what we did have. Um, I'm confident, um, in what- what you've said and what you've shown us as far as this is concerned. Something may happen again that none of us can, uh, anticipate, you can't anticipate, uh, that this project may be, won't go through, but I personally don't think that's gonna happen. I think we'll all be pleased with what we have. It may not be a year and a half, two years, four years, it may be five years from now, but at the same time, we will have it then and, um, we'll be lucky that we do. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Does any other member of the council have questions for Mr. Webb? All right. Uh, Council Member Lane. Uh, I'd just like to thank you for coming down today. Um, just a personal comment, uh, I think it was good to air this out and your- your being here was a good thing. Thank you. I appreciate it and it's... Uh, believe me, I have no reservations about coming here and facing each of you and looking you in the eye and tell you that everything here has been done in good faith. We didn't try to hide anything. Uh, contrary to the opinions of some of the community, this is nothing sinister, um, no shysters involved, no h- no h- hoodwinking as- as some have said. But, uh, interestingly enough, I did get a call yesterday from, uh, one of the local landscape companies that said they would hydroseed it for free . And I said, "Go down there and look at it," but it's- it's pretty much ground up rock, I think, that, uh, the person that did too much, too good a job on- on grinding up that stuff, but, uh, believe me, we'll do whatever's in the best interest of the community and whatever we can do to help. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gore. Uh, I also thank Mr. Webb for coming today and I'd like to encourage maybe a two-week update. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, my only comment to that would be, if you got a question, call me. If you want the sidewalks opened, call me. Y- you're- you're always here for me. I- I think that this... I think that the- the... It's been demonstrated today that the interest of the entire community is really associated with this project and linked to the project and that's the reason for the suggestion, Dudley. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Are- are you talking about having Mr. Webb here personally to have this kind of discussion every two weeks? Whatever way is appropriate, maybe through the administration, through Joe Kelly in some way, that we get an update. Um, you know, if you wish to make- What I said was, I think, an- an update through the administration, through the... Through your office, through the- ... um, through the DDA, but, you know, if we're looking at the project and we're being realistic, we're now six month behin- six months behind what was originally scheduled. Now I know that's- that's not, that's inconvenient news for perhaps some, but if we're looking at the future and the city's interests, then that's what we would be asking for. So I don't, you know, how we get there, um, I'm fine with any suggestions on how we get there. Thank you. Well, this is a private project as has been pointed out earlier. And the information that I think you're interested in receiving is information that would need to come from the Webbs. So, you know, as best I'm understanding what you want is for the Webbs to come back in a couple weeks or give us an update. Could I propose this, that perhaps we continue to communicate through Joe and, and let him relay to you, u- unless there's something that's newsworthy, I, I don't think there'd be any reason to be here. All right. If you will- Thank you. ... just pass along to Mr. Kelly whatever, um, uh, information you think is appropriate and do that in writing, then we'll be in a position to relay that to the council members. Would be happy to do that. Great. You want the rest of the day back? Is that what- Unless, uh... I've got, got a couple more folks. Okay, sorry. Councilmember Meyers and Councilmember Crosby. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Webb, I would say that today has been an embarrassment. You don't owe us. We don't need a two-week update on this project. When the project moves forward and you have something that is newsworthy that you wanna bring forward, I would recommend that you do that. Until such time, just keep doing what you're doing, is my opinion. And, you know, I think if you want a two-week update, I think we need to make a motion and vote that in, because I think that's ridiculous, actually. We don't ask these questions of any other developer in any other business in town. If Toyota was trying to build a factory here, and the economy changed and they had to put the project on hold, would we be grilling Toyota in here like this? Would we be asking Toyota for a two-week update and all these things? I think not. I think we need to let them go on back and focus on doing their project and continue on with the legal process. They're doing everything by the book, everything by the book of law, and they just need to keep doing what they're doing and forget the two-week update. Thank you. Councilmember Meyers, I agree that a motion would be appropriate if, if that's the route we want to go. Um, I think where it got left right now is Mr. Webb has voluntarily agreed to send us a note whenever something of note happens. And, um, we'll pass that along to the council without editing, just relay it to the council. I- if I could follow up, I would just say the last time that something sort of like this happened, people came back and said that you voluntarily said you'd pay for the, for the, the funding for the TIF, uh, application process. And so things get distorted. A- again, I go back to, we don't ask this of any other developer that comes in here, so we shouldn't set precedents like this and require it of them. That's why I said it should be a motion, not that I'm in favor of that motion- Understood. ... but what I'm saying is, if the person that wants that two-week update can't get the information from Mr. Webb as he agreed to provide it, um, privately or whatever, then ask for a motion or make a motion and get the vote to back it up. All right. Councilmember Crosby. I was, I was, I was going to somewhat mirror what Councilmember Meyers said, that maybe it should be a formal mo- motion if we were gonna ask for an update, but I thought that maybe two weeks seemed a little, um, quick since this has been a two-hour, um, Q&A, uh, with Mr. Webb. I just thought that maybe four, four weeks might be a little more reasonable, or eight weeks or something. 'Cause I, I don't necessarily foresee that they're gonna nec- have much more information for us in two weeks. Um, so maybe if- That's- And I know I'm all in favor of them just voluntarily being able to give us updates as needed- There's- ... through Mr. Kelly if, if that's what they're willing to do. Thank you. And thank you for being here. Vice Mayor Gray, are you- Okay. Uh, Councilmember McCourt. I- I just wanna reiterate again what Councilmember Meyers said, that, uh, it, you look at what we're doing here and, and, uh, I would say that, you know, Vice Mayor, you would probably need some of the same, um, enthusiasm for our own internal projects. Um, you and I have talked at great length, um, and I would accept that what we're doing is we're crossing over into what we aren't. We aren't in charge of private development and two-week schedules and so forth. We've got a Newtown Pike that has been going on for 50 years. We've got a Clays Mill Road that's been going on for 30 years. Um, we, we don't deliver our own projects on time or under budget. I, I, I've been here for five years and I've very seldomly seen one that we've actually done right. And, you know, citizens are tired. We need to mind our own shop. And at the end of the day, you know, we need to think about what we are in charge of and what we aren't in charge of. And again, ask, a, a private developer to give us a two-week update, um, is, is in my mind, missing the point as to what we're up here to do. Uh, we manage a, a half a billion dollar budget and, you know, we've got all kinds of problems all over the place. And so I, I think we ought to spend our time worrying about our own shop and, and expecting more of ourselves. Thank you, Mayor. I don't see anyone else indicating a desire to speak, so Mr. Webb, thank you for- Thank you. ... being with us today. Um, returning to the agenda, my, um, notes reflect that we're now to the point at which we need to elicit any other public comment for the council on issues not on the agenda. Mr. Cobb? Mr. Cobb? If you'll step to the podium, you'll have three minutes. Peace and love, first given unto the most high. Thank you Mayor once again for another opportunity. I wanna give everybody a word of encouragement. It's beautiful just to be alive today. Purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. We all striving for the same thing. Just wanna, um, thank Councilman Stennet, Councilman Lane, all the councilmen, council ladies, y'all doing a wonderful job. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Mr. Cobb. Does anyone else wish to address the council? All right. I believe we have a closed session motion. Mr. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we go into closed sec- session pursuant to KRS 61.810 Section 1, Subsection M to discuss plans related to the security of the government center, and pursuant to KRS 61.810 Sec- Section 1, Subsection F for a discussion that may lead to the discipline or dismissal of an employee. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Beard and second by Council Member Ellinger to go into closed session. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion, motion carries. ... family, single-family home constructions were there compared to the first quarter of '08? I bel- I believe there was 190 in this quarter, and I, I can't remember the number, but it, 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 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 Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, do a... What about through this downturn? Um, are we, 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, you, you typically get that if new home construction falls somewhat, you see a, a... Although not 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 moderat- 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 inspe- uh, electrical inspection. 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. Uh...