# Council Work Session - June 2, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · June 2, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/930 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/930?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-06-02 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: June 17, 2026 - **Length**: 29,065 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Council convened on June 2, 2009, with Mayor Newberry presiding. The meeting covered three agenda items, including one action item and two informational presentations. The Council approved a D-Day Proclamation and received informational updates on the LexTran budget and the 2009 ice storm recovery efforts. Over the course of the meeting, four votes were taken and two public comments were heard. ## Attendance All members of the Council were present at the June 2, 2009 meeting. The following 14 officials were in attendance: - Mayor Newberry - CM Blues - CM McChord - CM Beard - CM Gorton - CM Myers - CM Crosbie - CM Martin - CM Lawless - CM Henson - CM Feigel - CM James - CM Webb - CM Bennett No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions Four motions were brought to a vote during the June 2, 2009 Council meeting, all of which passed unanimously. - **Approval of the May 26, 2009 Summary:** Moved by CM Blues and seconded by CM McChord, the Council unanimously approved the summary of the May 26, 2009 meeting. [timestamp: 25:27] - **Approval of New Business Items A–G:** Moved by CM Beard and seconded by CM Gorton, the Council unanimously approved the slate of new business items A through G. [timestamp: 25:59] - **Referral of Shelters and Evacuation Plans to the Services Committee:** Moved by CM Myers and seconded by CM Crosbie, the Council unanimously voted to place the issue of shelters and evacuation plans into the Services Committee for further consideration. [timestamp: 37:38] - **Adjournment of Work Session:** Moved by CM Beard and seconded by CM Ellinger, the Council unanimously voted to adjourn the work session. No timestamp is available for this vote. No roll call votes were recorded; all four motions passed by unanimous consent. No nays or abstentions were noted for any item. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council considered seven financial items at the June 2, 2009 meeting, spanning contract amendments, grant acceptances, and new agreements across multiple city departments. - **Resolution 346-09** authorized an amendment to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Program Contract with the **Bluegrass Area Development District (BGADD)**. - **Resolution 352-09** approved acceptance of an award from the **US Department of Health and Human Services** related to the **Healthy Tomorrows Project** for FY2009. - **Resolution 363-09** approved an amendment to an existing agreement with the **Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC)** regarding the **Healthway Trail Project**. - **Resolution 359-09** authorized entering into an Engineering Services Agreement with **HW Lochner, Inc.** for right-of-way acquisition services related to the **Newtown Pike Extension Project — Phase I Mitigation Area**. - **Resolution 360-09** approved acceptance of an award from the **Kentucky Heritage Council** and a corresponding Letter of Agreement amendment on behalf of the **Division of Historic Preservation**. - **Resolution 361-09** amended **Resolution No. 122-2009** pertaining to the **Rural and Inner City Adopt-A-Spot Program** for FY2009. - **Resolution 364-09** approved a catering contract with **Hyatt Regency Lexington** on behalf of the **Department of Public Safety, Division of Police**, for the **2009 Police Awards Banquet**. No specific dollar amounts were recorded in the available data for any of these items. Readers seeking exact figures are encouraged to consult the full resolution texts or the meeting record directly. ## Public Comment Two residents addressed the Council during the public comment period. - **Lewis Cobb** [timestamp: 2:58:05] spoke on the themes of community involvement and the need for change. Cobb drew on his personal experiences to make his case and called for unity among different community groups. - **Nicole Dummitt** [timestamp: 3:00:14] raised concerns about proposed changes to LexTran services. Dummitt focused on the impact such changes would have on people with disabilities and advocated for continued support of existing services as well as further expansion of LexTran's offerings. ## Contested Items - **LexTran Paratransit Fare Increase:** The council engaged in heated discussion over a proposed fare increase for LexTran's paratransit services operating outside the fixed route area. The debate centered on concerns about the financial impact on people with disabilities who rely on paratransit transportation, as well as the extent to which the proposed increase was tied to recommendations from a federal audit. No additional details regarding the specific council members involved in the debate, the proposed fare amounts, or the final outcome of the vote are available in the provided record. ## D-Day Proclamation [timestamp: 06:01] Mayor Newberry presented a proclamation to three veterans — John Palumbo, Charles Gray, and Frank Cassidy — in honor of the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The proclamation was approved by the Council. ## LexTran Budget Discussion [timestamp: 2:11:40] The Council took up a discussion of the LexTran budget, with the conversation centering on two primary issues: a proposed fare increase for paratransit services operating outside the fixed route area, and the implications of recommendations stemming from a federal audit. Key speakers in the discussion included Rocky Burke, Jared Ford, and Dr. Kasarkis. The debate focused on the financial and practical consequences of adjusting fares for paratransit riders who fall outside the standard fixed route service area, a population that typically includes elderly and disabled residents who depend on door-to-door transit options. The federal audit recommendations also factored into the discussion, raising questions about compliance and the potential budgetary adjustments LexTran may need to make in response. No final action was taken during this session; the item was informational in nature, serving to brief the Council on the current state of the LexTran budget and the policy considerations under review. ## 2009 Ice Storm Update [timestamp: 1:00:32] Pat Dugger presented an update to the Council on the 2009 ice storm, covering the response efforts undertaken, challenges encountered during the event, and lessons learned that could be applied to future emergency management planning. The presentation was informational in nature, providing the Council with an overview of how the ice storm was handled and what improvements or considerations might be taken into account going forward. No vote or formal action was taken as a result of this agenda item. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the summary of 5/26/09 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items A-G - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Place issue of shelters and evacuation plans into the Services Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Adjourn work session --- ## Full transcript Burnt-out ends of smoky days. The stale, cold smell of morning. A streetlamp dies. Another night is over. Another day is dawning. Touch me. It's so easy to leave me. All alone with my memory. Of my days in the sun. If you touch me. You'll understand what happiness is. Look, a new day. Has begun. In about two or three more minutes, we're still have a few folks out of the room from the last committee meeting. I'd like to deviate from the agenda in a slight way this, uh, afternoon. Normally, um, this would be something we'd probably take up during a council meeting one evening, but, uh, due to the calendar, this is the last time we will convene as a group prior to, uh, the 65th anniversary of D-Day, which of course falls this Saturday. And so, in recognition of that, I'd like to start with, uh, a, a very short, uh, DVD that, uh, we'll play, and then I've got some very special introductions to make. Mayor, I could ask my nine-year-old to come join us. He might be able to get us- He's pretty good at these things. Yeah, we would probably have pretty good luck. But we'll get, we'll get it rolling here in a second, I expect. He had spent a sleepless night and had postponed D-Day for 24 hours. Steve, can we take it from the beginning? The message he had read to all his units resembled him. Nothing could stop the three million men destined for Operation Overlord except frightful weather conditions in the Channel. When Eisenhower joined the paratroops of the 101st Airborne, he had spent a sleepless night and had postponed D-Day for 24 hours. The message he had read to all his units resembled him: sober and trenchant. You are about to embark on a great crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you, and the hopes and prayers of all liberty-loving people go with you. The armada of 4,000 ships and barges that the postponement of D-Day brought back to the key side was, once more, to have to brave hours of rough sea in addition to the anxiety of coming under fire. The American and British paratroops were to be the first to go into action on the eastern and western flanks of the great settling of scores. More than half of them were already headed to their deaths under enemy fire or by drowning in the marshes of their drop zones. On the BBC airwaves, only one message really counted that evening. The five landing beaches, two of them American, two British, and one Canadian, were parceled up and deployed by their men. Thousands of tons of bombs accompanied a deluge of naval artillery fire. This was the inferno that preceded the arrival of the infantry. The first and 29th US divisions descended into hell when they arrived at Omaha. It was unbelievable. The preliminary bombardments had missed their targets. The mined obstacles invented by Rommel and the unexpected reinforcements from the 352nd Infantry Division did the rest. On Utah, the fourth US division was luckier, as it was behind schedule. Consequently, the men came ashore on the rising tide two kilometers to the south where the Atlantic Wall was very incomplete. By midday, 23,000 men had landed. Their objective? Cherbourg. I want to express my appreciation to, uh, council member Linda Gordon for making that DVD available to us today. That, um, was prepared in connection with the 60th anniversary of D-Day a few years ago, and it is a vivid reminder of, uh, the events that occurred on that French beach, uh, those French beaches in, uh, early June of 1944. As I said a, a few moments ago, um, June 6th will mark the 65th anniversary of D-Day, and we are truly honored to have with us three individuals who participated in the D-Day invasion. Now, I will, uh, emphasize on the front end, and probably again a little later on, all three of these individuals said they didn't want any special recognition for themselves because there were literally thousands of men and, and women involved in the D-Day invasion who deserved, uh, as much credit as they could receive. Were they here, we'd be glad to honor them. But in their absence, we're glad to have the three of you who are here with us today. I don't know how long I'll have the privilege of serving as mayor of Lexington, but one of the most memorable occasions I am confident I will ever en- experience in my lifetime will be the honor I had of, uh, going to see our sister city of Deauville in connection with the 50th anniversary of that sister city relationship. And the first thing we did when we arrived was pay a visit to the American cemetery at Normandy, and I was honored to be able to lay a wreath in memory of those, uh, individuals who gave their lives that day. I would also tell you that although I had had the pleasure of visiting France once or twice in the past, it was my first opportunity to visit the folks in Normandy, and I assure you, gentlemen, there is a deep and abiding fondness in the hearts of the people who live in Normandy for, um, our country and for those of you who represented us there some 65 years ago. They, um, are deeply appreciative to this day, to the point where the schoolchildren in the Normandy area raise flowers so that each year, they will make sure every grave at the American cemetery has at least one flower placed on it. ... and that is, I think, a, a fitting way for the French people to help continue the, the memory of, uh, D-Day and what was accomplished that day. So let me, uh, now take a moment to introduce three very, very special folks who are sitting here to, um, to my right. First is John Palumbo. John has lived in Lexington since 1941. He was a member of the First Division, the Big Red One, and he was part of the eighth wave on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Many of you are familiar with Mr. Palumbo as a result of his involvement in our business community over the years. And, um, we are pleased not only to have, uh, Mr. Palumbo, but his son, Joe, who many of you know here with us, here today. In addition to, uh, Mr. Palumbo, we have Charles Gray, right here. Uh, Mr. Gray was born in Mercer County. He lived in Lexington, um, now for more than 60 years. He served in the 299th Combat Engineers, which were the first boat that landed on Omaha Beach. He received a Purple Heart for injuries he received during the invasion, and they received the Presidential Unit Sanitation of Normandy. And then Frank Casty. Mr. Casty's sitting here across the aisle. Mr. Casty was born and raised in, uh, Lexington. He's lived here most all of his 86 years. He's owned a business here. He was a member of the Eighth Air Force, 95th Bomber Group, 336 Squadron. I understand you were a tail gunner, is that correct? Flew 35 missions over occupied Europe, including two missions on D-Day. One prior to the landing, and one over Sainte-Mère-Église that stopped the German tanks from rushing to the Normandy landing site. So, recognizing that there were many, many others involved that day, but being fortunate enough to, uh, have these three gentlemen with us today, I wanted to present each of them with a, uh, proclamation, which I will read here briefly. Whereas, June 6th, 2009 marks, marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, commencing the western-allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation. And whereas, the D-Day invasion was a daring and remarkable military feat that marked a turning point in the course of World War II. And whereas, on June 6th, 1944, hundreds of thousands of Americans took part in what was ultimately the largest military invasion in history. And whereas, we are proud that several Lexingtonians were among those who were involved in the mission. And whereas, the youngest D-Day veterans turn 82 this year. And whereas, we are forever grateful to our D-Day veterans and to all of those who have served, or are serving our country. They fought on our behalf to defend the freedoms we enjoy today. Now, therefore, I, Jim Newberry, Mayor of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, do hereby proclaim June 6th, 2009 as D-Day Remembrance Day. And I have one for each of our, uh, three guests who are here today, so let me call them to the podium one at a time. Mr. Palumbo, do you wanna come on up? Congratulations. Thank you, sir. ... Would you like to say anything? No, I'm ... Thank you very much. You're welcome. Say a word. I've always wanted the chance to talk in front of your group. And by golly, this is the first time I've got a chance to do it. And what I like to say about, I'll make it real quick, ah, Lexington reminds me of London, England during the World War years. There was, uh, excess of places where there was whole blocks where there were no buildings. And as I was walking down Main Street today, I felt this place in my heart. I must, it's this déjà vu. I'm back in London again. And so help me, gosh, fellas, that's all I wanted to say, and I thought- ... I couldn't get a better chance of doing it, could I? And Mr. Gray. I'm not even gonna say anything. Oh, okay. Easy. All right. ... Mr. Gray's opted not to say anything, but, um, I hope you'll join me in giving them all a warm welcome. Thank you all very much for being with us today. It's a privilege to meet you all, and, uh, you're welcome to stay as long as you wish, or if you need to head on home, we certainly understand. Thank you very much. Well, we're now ready to get on with the agenda, and I appreciate everybody's, uh, allowing us a little time to make those special recognitions. Is there anyone who wishes to comment on any matter that is on today's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move ahead. We have no docket to approve. We do have a summary to approve. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Council Member Blues has moved and Council Member McCord has seconded that motion that the, uh, summary be approved. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Those no, motion carries. There are no budget amendments. There are some new business items. Is there... Move approval. Second. Council Member Beard has moved the new business items be approved. Council Member Gordon has seconded that motion. Any discussion? Council Member James? Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Council Member McCord may be able to answer this, just regarding item C. do you have just an explanation as to the change of the termination date of that Health- Healthway trail? If it's more appropriate for me to ask somebody else, I will. I believe the- the ques- the, uh, it has been pushed back to June 30th, that we thought we were able to go in the spring, and there was a- a- a- an environmental document that- that has postponed it, I believe. Is that correct, Mayor? I'll have to defer to Commissioner Webb. If you could, uh, confirm that from the back, or come to the podium if some further explanation is needed. Maybe Keith Lovett. Keith, come on up as well, if you would. Did you hear the question? Right. We are still waiting on the review from the Kentucky Heritage Council. Okay. So the, um, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet gave us a few more days. Okay. Actually, it's supposed to be finished in March of 2010, and they've given us through June 30th, 2010. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Thank- thank you very much. Any further questions? Then those in favor of approving the new business items, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Those no? Motion carries. We're now ready for a report from the Quarters Committee. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, report was delayed a week, uh, so that the minutes of the meeting could be circulated, the m- uh, the May 12th minutes, and they have been circulated, and I presume that all council members have had an opportunity to, uh, to review them. The, uh, as I say, the meeting was held on Tuesday, May 12th, and the committee, uh, agreed to waive part of the Man-O-War Landscape Ordinance for the Brighton Shops property due to road widening, uh, projects at Liberty Todds and Man-O-War. The committee also continued to review and- and, uh, work on revisions of the Corridors Commission ordinance that should be coming to the council for consideration in the near future. I think we're very close to having a- a proposed ordinance that would codify the, uh, uh, the Quarters, uh, Committee, uh, as a commission. The committee then heard a report, uh, regarding the Versailles Road Transportation Enhancement Grant that- that bids came in approximately $20,000 under budget for landscaping, for fencing, and for banners. The committee agreed to allocate up to $7,500 to replace landscaping along Pace Creek Pike. Thank you, Mayor. That's, uh, that's our report. Thank you very much. Any questions for Council Member Blues? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Council Member Blues, the- the trees that are being replaced along Tates Creek, did we initially put those trees in through the Corridors Committee? I do not know for certain, but I think that we did. Yes. Do you know the story behind why- why we're replacing those, if we just recently planted those? The, uh, the- the trees that are being replaced were- were either dead or dying. Council Member James, the, um, the- the vendor, I believe, that we got a, uh, a poorer vendor, and we got some substandard trees in that area, and, um, uh, they had to go back and try to hold his feet to the fire. And if not, then, uh, also to, uh- ... and to get a substitute vendor to, to come and do that, uh, to replace those that were dying or, or had already died. Um, you know, we had a rough, uh, fall also that, uh, contributed to that. And, um, uh, just so very dry and, uh, probably could have been, uh, better off if they'd been planted, uh, maybe a little later in the, in the fall. But that was, that was what happened. Was there a warranty on those- I don't- ... initially- ... I really don't know. Okay. Uh, you know, a warranty is only as good as a warrantor. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Any further questions for Councilmember Blues? All right. I'd like to invite Rama Dewalraha to, uh, step to the pod- podium so that we can, uh, have the presentation on the Enterprise Solutions Division. Good afternoon. I guess this is a much overdue presentation, so, uh, I have a number of slides and I'll try to go through them in the 15 minutes. And, um, we have a lot of material to cover, so, uh... A brief introduction on, um, what we're gonna be talking about today, I'll give you an update. I know many of the council members here, at least four weren't here when, uh, the project was formally called STARS and when it was initiated back in 2006, 2007. In January of 2005, the city received its, uh, needs assessment report for enterprise resource planning from the Government Finance Officers Association. The document stated that government organizations throughout the United States are implementing new administrative systems to gain the benefits of information integration, timely data, and improved, more efficient processes, and that LFUCG was best positioned to adopt this. Additionally, the report goes on to state that the GFOA evaluation performed because LFUCG has outdated and overextended business systems that do not effectively support the city's needs for financial management, planning and analysis. The business case is then built around the idea of adopting best practices, eliminating single points of failure, and positioning the ERP solution within a government-wide technology plan. So in 2005, the needs assessment was completed and handed over to the city. Uh, a, an RFP was issued, a contract was awarded, and the implementation was started for PeopleSoft. Uh, the project was formally ca- uh, was called STARS and, um, the financials piece of that was set to go live in July of 2006. In 2006, the finance piece went live without, uh, much testing and it was a failed, uh, attempt at going live in finance. And in 2007, as many of you here found out, uh, you couldn't even get a financial statement out of the system, so there was a seven-month reimplementation process to correct all that and get it back on track. Uh, late 2007 we started implementation of EPM, which is the budget module, and in 2008 we started, um, in April we started the human resource component of that. Uh, the human resource piece of that was named Project Synergy. We decided to, uh, walk away from the name STARS forever because many of us had been seeing stars since we, we took it over. So let me get into a little bit of, uh, uh, what PeopleSoft's, uh, uh, strengths are on the human resource side and, uh, why it was chosen. Uh, it's a market leader in, uh, benefits, payroll, learning and, uh, talent management, employee manager and self services. So, as you can see. The finance, uh, suite com- uh, consisted of, uh, accounts receivable, accounts payable, general ledger, treasury, purchasing, uh, funds control, asset management. This is all what pe- uh, we have implemented here. Uh, projects, grants, and contracts is currently being worked on. Uh, the go live date for that is July 7th. And, uh, EPM was the budget module which implemented, went live in 2008 and the 2009 budget was established with that. Now this, uh, on the back end, this year we did some, uh, enhanced automation to make it a little more efficient. It's still not where it needs to be. We have a lot of work left in the EPM side to, uh, fully capture, uh, the return on investment we're looking for. So getting to Project Synergy, this is the piece, uh, most of you are concerned about today. Um, as you can see, there are a number of modules going live here. We s- we went with the first piece, which is Core HR and, uh, Talent Acquisition Candidate Gateway May 25th. Uh, the project itself, I think at, at this time, is probably about... ... um, 90% complete. We have go-live dates for each one of these in the next two weeks from now until, um, the 1st of August, payroll being the last of that. So project synergy timeline. As you can see, um, we started, uh, implementation April 2008. Uh, initially we wanted to go with a fast tracked implementation and go live in December. We thought we could save some money. Uh, ran into a number of issues where we had to audit internal systems and processes. Uh, obviously we didn't want a lot of customization, so we wanted to go with best practices that were established, which would help us save money in the future. So, eh, the new timeline as you can see is May through August. We've divided each one of the modules into, um, four core units, and it's a, uh, uh, spread out process of going live in that from May 25th to August 1st. A little bit about the Project Synergy team. Um, the finance, uh, commissioner and CIO positions were, uh, were in the executive steering committee. We brought an internal project manager to get, uh, to manage the project daily from, uh, uh, working with the vendors, to consultants, to bringing everybody in from externally and coordinating the project internally with our technical team and the subject matter experts in each one of the fields that we're involved in here. Eh, I mean, 10 different business units at least were involved internally, as far as the subject matter experts go. So at the end of the day, what is, uh, what are we shooting for here? I, I mean, we've spent a significant amount of money on this. Our return on, on our investment is, is what everybody, uh, at least from a legislative side is concerned about, and I'm gonna spend some time on this. Um, automation and best practice, uh, adoption was key moving forward. Um, we didn't wanna have a process and then have a manual process on the backend that would increase the time and also cost us more money. So there are some short-term gains we're looking at. Uh, we obviously consolidated a lot of technology. Um, groups that were spread out, we brought them together to work on this project. And finally, found out what our strategic goals were and aligned all the business process, uh, processes to meet those strategic goals. And, uh, we put some measurement processes in place along the way where we can, uh, see if the objectives are being met. Long-term goals. Um, fundamentally, uh, changing our organization, primarily dealing with the culture, uh, one to accountability and, uh, aligning the business processes with best practices. Uh, that was the key focus, which means we customize, uh, as little as possible. And, um, this is where the executive steering committee, I think, played a big role, uh, this time around, which was nonexistent during the STARS project. So there was a huge improvement in that. What have we achieved until today? I think, uh, long-term and short-term goals we put in place as far as return on investment. This is what you're looking at. Um, we are moving to a more accountable culture. Business processes have been turned around to best practices, and, uh, unless there is an exceptional case to customize to something LFUCG's doing, we're not doing that. Uh, we have certainly done more work with less people, as you can tell, a- as a result of many of the automated processes you're looking at. So, uh, technology has played a great role in that, and we've, uh, had many single points of failure due to the legacy systems we've had in place. So I think this system has eliminated a lot of that, and, um, thereby getting rid of all the risk that comes with one person handling most of the data and, and the legacy systems. Uh, there are two types of returns on investment we can talk about. I just explained the strategic portion of that. Now, getting into the tactical, uh, return on investment. This is where you get to measure things. Now, at LFUCG, we didn't have a lot of data where I could calculate this, so we went with national averages on what manual processes would cost, and then if you were to automate it and use, uh, the self-services where people do it themselves online, you can see a significant amount of savings in every, um, every business process you're looking at, whether it's for enrolling in benefits or changing your home address. And I can assure you that at LFUCG, we're pretty much above the ma- average that's nationally projected there, and, uh, I'm willing to bet the general fund on that. That's how confident I am that we're gonna be saving money. As part of that, uh, you know, um, I'm sure Cheryl probably enjoys this slide more than any one of us here. Uh, we have reduced the amount of paper we're gonna be using, and, uh, uh, we're using... The printer consolidation did certainly help. We put out kiosks where people don't have to print multiple, uh, pages of paper to get paperwork done, so... Um, this is where I think, uh, a significant amount of our resources are being spent now in terms of, um, automating time entry and moving towards, uh, online enrollment. E- everything from applying for a job is gonna move online, and it's gonna be paperless. Uh, the process is gonna be managed on the backend pretty seamlessly through HR generalists and the HR functions that are going in place. Once Project Synergy, um s-, Project Synergy comes to an end, what happens? That's what I'm here to discuss most today. Our current organization is set up in the following manner, a-as you can see there are a number of reporting levels with different people, and there is no matrix reporting system in place here that can help us. Even to do a simple test in the past when a module was brought online, we had to coordinate through 10 business units and could never get anybody on the same page. There was tremendous amount of difficulty and inefficiency to achieve basic patch updates and upgrades. So, we, we started looking at how can we become more efficient? Part of, um, every project by definition is, I mean, it comes to an end. What is the future state? How do we transition and maintain this investment that we've made? And this is where, what the future state looks like. Um, we are proposing, uh, the creation of the division of enterprise solutions. Uh, it'll be under the office of CIO. The existing executive steering committee will continue to be in place, and, um, the current positions in that are fundamentally to capture the efficiencies we're looking for that we've achieved today and how the future modules that are, modules that are gonna be implemented are gonna be planned and funded and coordinated across the other divisions. Uh, from an HR standpoint, what you're looking at there is an HR manager and finance, finance manager. One you don't see here is the budget piece. Uh, currently we would like that to be under the finance manager and, uh, as things get, um, as things progress and we add more modules at a later time when, uh, the money's available, perhaps an EPM manager would probably have to be, uh, put in place there to become more efficient. Most of these, uh, employees currently work at Synergy directly or indirectly, and, uh, some type of transition has to be put in place for the long term viability of the enterprise, uh, solutions that we're looking to put in place here. What are the future modules we have planned? HCM warehouse, which is, uh, gonna help us achieve position budgeting and, uh, real estate management are what we're looking for next year. Um, maintenance management and inventory are a must. I think we need to get control of, uh, what we have in this city. And IT asset management deals with all the IT components. That's just the financial piece of that. Enterprise learning management is an 011 project, and that is where internal employees, um, learn to how, learn to move on to positions that they aspire to achieve in the near future. So, it, it puts a plan in place how they can progress and move towards that. I wanna spend some time on the real estate management. The city has o- about 450 either properties or buildings in place. Currently, there is no software that integrates everything into the financial system. Uh, there are no, uh, central ma- place to manage the leases and, um, I, I think it's, it's crucial we take a look at, uh, implementing that next year. Uh, I did pass some information on what, uh, the modules are. Uh, it explains in more detail in the handouts, and I think the transition plan that I passed out along with this presentation also has a more detailed analysis of the positions and what the transition state is gonna look like in the future. I'll be glad to take any questions now. Does anyone have questions for Rama? Council Member Crosby. Rama, can you tell me how much money we've spent total to this point on- Sure. ... this whole process? The initial RFP that went out was for $10 million. That was, uh, what was, uh, when I referred to as stars. The second one, which you've en- encumbered is $5.5 million. So total of $15.5 million is what you've spent on this. And how much more money do you anticipate us having to spend to get this? For the real estate management and the, um... For the real estate management and HCM warehouse, which will help us with position budgeting, um, which is what we're recommending for next year, is $405,000. If you wanna include maintenance management and in- inventory just for real estate, then obviously that pushes the price tag up. We don't have, um, the division that's handling building maintenance all put together, so I think we should wait to implement that at a future time. Since myself and I know several others do not have the benefit of being on council when this was initially, uh, voted, voted into, uh, to spend these monies, what was the in- do you know what the initial cost was supposed to be and when it was supposed to be completed? What was the... Sure. It was supposed to be completed before you, I mean, I think before you came into office. That's, uh... And, uh, it was supposed to be completed before I got here, but we had a failed implementation. And I'm sorry? That's correct, but I think we'll get it done before 35 years, so... And, and what was the initial cost? Initial cost allocated was $10 million. So that was the, that's initially the only cost we were supposed to have associated for the implementation? That's correct. And- But initially you didn't, the scope of the project was also much smaller. It didn't have the additional modules that some of that we've included in the second phase. Uh, if you want- The human resource PeopleSoft? The human resource piece was in it, but- Okay. ... you, we've added number of, uh, modules in finance that have helped us achieve some more efficiencies as part of the project. So then what is your estima- I, I know you threw up some dates up there, but when, when do you think this will be completed? I mean. Well, the, it, it depends. I mean, it depends on what you want. If you want to, there are a number of modules we can get into in the future to attain, to achieve more, um, uh, efficiency. For example, we don't have- So I guess what you're saying is we don't know what we want, because you said it depends- No, we- ... on what we want or, I mean, I, I probably- I, I think, I think it would help if you'll allow him to finish his answer- Okay, I'm sorry. ... before we start another question. We, we're looking to get, we don't have anything to do inventory currently. It's all individually done in silos in each division. So the recommendation is to do the four that we talked about currently, which is inventory, asset, which will get all the assets in that, real estate management, HCM warehouse, and, uh, maintenance management. Those are the four, and if you're looking for an additional cost, I have for two of those at this point, which is what we're recommending in the upcoming year. It'll be a seven-year bond to get into more details, and you're looking at about $65,000 a year for that. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Uh, thank, thank you, Mayor. Um, I was interested in the real estate area in particular, because I was in our Links Committee, and we did recommend the acquisition of that software as part of the committee's, uh, recognition for fiscal year '10. Um, I, I don't think we even know, uh, and maybe Kimra could, uh, elaborate on this. I don't think we know how many square feet of, uh, buildings we have, uh, currently under the control of the Irvin County government, 'cause our, the information we have on real estate over the last couple of decades, uh, I guess, has really been undermanaged or mismanaged, and we don't really have, uh, even a, an inventory of our actual buildings. And in addition to that, we don't know what it costs to operate each individual building to determine if we have any inefficiencies in operations. Do you, could you hazard a guess, uh, Commissioner Cole, of how many square feet of office, y- you know, facilities we have, all the buildings? Do you have any idea of, uh, do you know how many properties we have, just the total number of properties, approximately? The, the total number of structures we have is close to 450. Um, the total number of properties we do, we're still working on compiling that information. And the total number of square footage, we're not even close to having that figure yet. Right. But we're working on it. Um, this, you know, I, I, while I'm up here, if I could quickly just put in a plug for the real estate management. What this would do is give us a tool to warehouse all of this information as we gather it, that would be integrated with our existing PeopleSoft financials, so that, um, it will much outlive this administration and the next administration that we'll actually have that data captured and will be usable data that we can use in making fu- uh, making future decisions about our assets. It is, um, you know, right now the information that we, that we have compiled is in a, is in a spreadsheet, and it's not useful and it's not going to, um, be easily passed on from administration to administration. I think it's very important that we have the tools to correctly manage our assets. Do you, uh, do you think that we have over a million square feet of building space? I mean, if we have 450 properties at 1,000 per, square feet per building, that'd be 450,000. Yeah, I have not looked at it, but I would say yes, we do. Okay. Well, see, this, this gets back... This, this is just a wild, uh, number that I'm throwing out here, but let's say that we have a million square feet of building, and it's probably more than that. Then the average cost to operate a building is five to $7 a square foot. That would include utilities, maintenance, insurance, taxes. We don't pay taxes, but, um, so it'd probably be on the low end of like $5. That means if we have a million square feet, we're spending about $5 million in operating the buildings, if we were running them really efficiently. But since we don't have any financial controls on the buildings, we're probably not doing that good of a job. If we saved 1% of five million, that's $50,000 a year. 2% is 100,000 a year. The cost of the software that we're talking about I believe will run s- about 65,000 a year when it's amortized over five years. So the potential, you know, return on our investment is, uh, good, short-term and long-term, and that's why I'm, you know, we felt like this was an important investment for, um, the government. So I hope, you know, I personally am supporting getting the software and, and I hope the council will too. Um, Rama, do you have anything you want to add to, um, um... Could, could you maybe s- say a little bit about what kind of information the software would provide? I mean, we have actual, you know, water bill, electric bill- Yeah. And, and I mean, you're not managing your leases currently. You don't know how many people are there or how many leases are out there. You don't know when it's due. This will automate everything. When the lease is up, you get a renewal notice, you know, if you set it up to come 30 days ahead, you know, 60 days. Right. ... and, uh, uh, on the back end, you inte- you integrate everything into finance. I mean, currently you're looking at spreadsheets. I can assure you you're gonna see a return on investment in less than a year. Absolutely, without a doubt. Well, um, one of the councilmen, I think Council Member James asked me, you know, "What, what's the benefit of having this software even if we're not renting out the space, we're giving it to somebody to use on a pro bono basis?" And it, it made me think of the time where we received a thousand dollar, uh, water bill for one month, and that's where a water pipe had burst, and because we had good accounting and we knew what our monthly charges normally were, we were able to identify that, uh, you know, the fact we had a utility problem. The way we're running the property now, we... if we get a... would we have a hard time tracking our operating expenses to see if some of the equipment or some of the utility lines were defective. So it seems to me the upside potential in this is very good as far as saving money for the government. And, and five million dollars is a lot of money. Uh, it's, you know, a significant part of our annual budget. Okay, I, I think that's all I have to say, uh, I yield, uh, thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor, and for clarification, I don't believe I asked Council Member Lane that. I think I was asking, um, regarding what would be our intention and rationale with our organizations that were in our buildings and what will we be leading to, but I am supportive of the software. I think it's a great idea. Saw Commissioner, um, talked to Commissioner Cole or saw her respond to, um, the information that was shared in Madison regarding, um, their asset management, th- system there that they use, and I do think that's positive. Um, Rama, my question's for you, and it's regarding, um, the implementation, or now we have the HR, this energy program in, I guess. It's... Is it pretty- 90% complete. 90% in. Um, we have an issue in intergovernmental, um, that per my notes says was awaiting, um, finance and HR to, to get in and, and be running and had to do with compensation, and I just wonder if you have... have you been in communication with anybody regarding what phase that new compensation system, um- Oh. ... may be in now that we've, are rolling with HR? July 27th, we roll payroll out and compensation. I think everything will be tied in by then, it's safe to say at this point. Between now and then, there are a number of risks that we have to deal with to make sure all this goes smoothly. These dates are not set in stone because we go through a conversion process. There is parallel systems running. There are interfaces we're creating and conditions on the project on a day-to-day basis kinda dictate how we go live with certain modules. Okay. So, uh, I think, you know, we've completed 90%. We've broken the project down now to where we can, uh, take it live in a systematic and, uh, a lower risk manner as possible at this point. Um, and again, to, um, answer to, um, Council Member Crosby's question, you know, we, we have a budget situation we're watching and controlling and making sure we're within that money that's allocated. Okay. But we should have it done by July 27th. And there's a compensation manager that's being hired. I think that will play a big role in straightening everything out. Oh, that would be helpful. Yeah. You know when that... Um, I hope- Is it out right now, being advertised? It's been advertised and I think we're already taking applications, so... Okay. All right. Great. So that will help tremendously. And, and all of that comes into the HR manager on the Division of Enterprise Solutions side who'll be coordinating all that, so... Okay. Thank you. Bill, do you agree with that? I saw you getting up. You can just do a thumbs up if you want to. Oh, and he's coming forward. You said okay, so I'm good. But, but what I wanted to add, that we've already made the offer and we're waiting for the employee to start work. So, that's where we are in the position. That's great. That's two thumbs up. Thanks. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Bill. I, I didn't know we were that far along, so thanks. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Rama, for the presentation. I just wanna speak in favor of this program. And, you know, earlier we talked about different policies that the council will be looking at, and one of the things that Commissioner Helms was talking about was our partner agencies and, and who are in our different buildings and whether they're under a PSA or not, but some of 'em aren't paying utilities or not paying, uh, maintenance or any kind of costs like that. They're not even paying rent. But this software will help us manage that whole process and understand what it is the breadth of in-kind services we're providing to these different agencies and other, other groups as well and then how we wanna manage that moving forward. So, I appreciate you, um, presenting this and hopefully we can move forward with it today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions for Rama? Thank you very much. We're now ready for the update on the ice storm. Pat Dugger, if you'll step to the podium. Good afternoon. I just wanna run through real quickly kinda what the su- summary of the situation was. And then, what we did is we, both within our software system of WebEOC, and then, um, with several meetings, all agencies and, and folks that participated in the ice storm situation were encouraged and asked to submit, um, after-action reports based on their operational unit. And so I've tried to, to s- highlight some of the more specific ones of those for you for discussion. As you can see, I think we all know, in, in January 26, there, the mayor declared a stage one snow emergency. Shortly after that, on Tuesday, when all the weather started to hit, we started conducting a localized damage assessment to determine how widespread the area was, how significant the damage was, and, um, so that we could start looking at resources for response and recovery and prioritization of those resources. In January 28, the EOC was la- was activated locally. At that time, there were approximately 50,000 residents without electricity. There were numerous traffic signals out throughout the community, and the roads were still very icy and hazardous. At that time, the, the governor and the mayor conducted a press briefing on both the state and the local conditions. We also were starting to begin to see, um, streets covered with debris from road, from trees and other things from the falling ice and from the ice being so heavy on the trees and things, that that was st- starting to come down. At that time, we determined that we, since we had people without electricity and i- it was unknown at that time what the restoration period would be, that we would need to open some shelters, and a lot of that was based on also from our experiences in 2003. So we opened both what we call a normal general shelter, and then a special medical needs shelter, and these were both opened at, um, Dunbar High School. The next day, th- the power outages continued. The streets, w- as you know, we had some, a little bit of warmer temperature, and then some very, very cold temperatures, and a little bit of snow, so we had a mix of, of ice, warm weather, m- melting, and then snow again. So we had several, uh, road conditions that made keeping the roads safe, um, kind of a, um, a challenge. The Salvation Army also has a mobile kitchen. Some of you might have remind- remember that dedication we had last year sometime. It's a, it's a great new asset that they have. And they actually opened and spread that mobile kitchen around to about 14 or 15 locations. We also requested assistance from the National Guard to help with debris removal, um, removal from the streets and roadways, and also, um, with gathering some of it up for disposal. The Sheriff's Department and Human Services also coordinated together through the EOC to begin doing welfare checks in the community, um, to try to determine, for those people who were home-bound or elderly and didn't have family, what ki- what help and assistance they would need. The 30th and the thirty- 31st, things kinda continued along that path, doing welfare checks. Um, the power restoration was at that time being done by all three utilities that we have that service folks in Fayette County. Streets and roads, continued road salting and debris clearance, and we continued sheltering, mobile feeding, and welfare checks. February 1st, it was determined that the situation was to the point where we could close the Emergency Operations Center. Most of the utility services were restored by that time. Not everyone had power, but most folks had been restored here in Fayette County. Most of the streets were open and most of the traffic signals had had power restored to them, and the shelters, because school was going to start that next week, we did close the shelter at Dunbar High School, and moved the, the remaining folks that were still in the shelters t- to Centenary United Methodist Church. Some of the things that were more in the recovery phase, and this is a lot where, um, FEMA and FEMA reimbursement gets involved, that kinda was happening, um, for several months after this, was removal of debris from the roadways, roadways within the urban service area, removal of debris from the roadways outside the urban service area. And one reason that is split like it is, is that internally, with internal divisions, they did the, the roadways within the urban service area for the most part, and then the outside the urban service area was done by contracting. We also had a fair amount of, uh, debris, um, damage to the parks, and so there was a lot of debris removal from urban county government property, and then we also had the issue of the disposal of all debris, which is really a separate, um, contract that was, was happening. Building inspection in that initial recovery phrase also extended their weekend hours, because a lot of people with the electricity out needed to get permits, building, I mean, electrical permits or electrical inspections. So in order to facilitate that could be done more quickly so people were not without power any longer than they had to be, they, they extended their hours for that. Purchased, quickly developed, and let bids for debris removal and disposal under the emergency declaration process, and then we began the arduous task of working with FEMA for the reimbursement, and, and that's always a challenge, um, when you start working with, with federal governments to try to get money back. Some of the mutual aid support that we did is, the Fayette County Health Department did provide mutual aid adjustment in Boyle Counties by sending supplies. As you know, one of the, the huge lessons learned that we had in 2003 was the tremendous need that we had in this community, and also regionally, to have a specific shelter f- with people with medical needs. And so since we had, um, acquired the capability to have a, about a 350-bed shelter for people with medical needs, we had more assets than we were needing here locally, so we shared some of those supplies and assets with some other counties so they could help take care of, of their citizens. Traffic Engineering had two employees, um, that went to Versailles to help with their traffic signals. The American Red Cross, um, because we had we in through some other grant funding methods, had been able to, um, increase their capacity of cots, sent some cots to Madison and Garrard County. So we not only h- w- we're helping people here in Fayette County, but we were also helping our neighbors as well. Some of the issues that were identified in the after action, and, and what I tried to do is capture the issues for you in this report that were actually mentioned several times. So if it was a single issue in one person's after action, unless it was extremely significant, I didn't bring it, but it is listed in the written summary that you have. Um, but the, the ones for the PowerPoint in the presentation today were the ones that were actually discussed in several different after action reports. And the one is to set a daily schedule for internal briefings with executive leadership. That would have been extremely helpful, um, in order to do that so that we could kind of all stay on the same page and, and make some priority decisions. KU recognized, we did meet with them after the, um, report, and they will provide us something at some point in time. We've, we've had several discussions with them, and they're, they're acknowledgable of some of the issues that didn't work well, and also willing to work with us on other issues, but they haven't provided us anything on paper yet because they're waiting for the Public Service Commission to finish reviewing the report that they have submitted to them. And then at that time, they'll be happy to share all of their other findings with, uh, us actually on paper. But they did recognize that their call system failed, and they're working to try to address this. And there's some other things that we may be able to do in that scenario to help them. And because we are all in different locations, the EOC is in our offices up at the corner of Martin Luther King and Corral, 311 is here in the government center, 911 is, is across the street. There is some difficulty in coordination when you're all three in different locations. So I guess I'm gonna take this opportunity to plug, if you get an opportunity to talk about the PSOC in future meetings for the new building, it, it really would operationally, um, be a great value to have that building so that we could all be in one place and, and make coordination, um, much, much more efficient. The lack of a plan to shelter animals. Um, that was identified in 2003, and it was identified again. We really need to work on some means, and we've tried different avenues, and we haven't been successful yet, but we will continue to try to find a means to develop a plan to be able to shelter animals for folks in this community, 'cause once again, many people said they would not leave their home without their pets. And, uh, you know, I can understand that. So, um, we will, we will continue to work that. WebEOC is a new tool for us. It worked well, but we definitely f- saw that there is a need for more training and more people to be aware of it. If any of you all would like to be able to know, get into WebEOC and see what's going, because it really gives you a good snapshot of what's happening with the incident, you're all set up in there as users. We just would like the opportunity to train you. But it's a good tool. It's web based. Um, it, you can, any, if you have a computer and internet, you can get into it and kind of see what's happening, um, around the community and, and what's going on. So it is a good tool for, um, knowing what's going on. Need better information flow from administration to operational units. That was a lot of the comments in the AAR that, um, folks, there was just not a lot of information between the two units, and we need to tie those things together better. I think WebEOC will help if we can get more people logged in and more operational units as well as the administration in there. But just sharing of what's going on so that, again, we're all on the same page. I think sometimes that we need to do a better job, and hopefully with your assistance, of, of giving the public a realistic expectation of what they may expect service-wide in emergency situation. Um, that does change the capability and what we're able to do for folks. And I think we just need to, to be able to, um, share that with them and, and let them know that in advance so that they have realistic expectations of what can happen, um, i- in an emergency situation. We need better restoration information from KU. It was difficult to get, um, times of restoration outages, where they were working, and some other things. So we have met with them on three occasions to try to better explain what information we need. We've taken some tours of, of their situation. We've actually got a lot more familiar with how their restoration process works, what they internally have the ability to tell us, and what actually their system cannot provide, so there's no way they can give us that information. So we're making strides there, and we're gonna hope to make that better, um, as we go along. I think all of us, because we have gotten so lean across the urban county government, um, that we've lost a lot of people, um, that had a lot of experience and knowledge in what their roles and things were to do in a disaster and emergency. And I think that we need to, to do some more cross-training across, within divisions and across divisions so that more people, um, understand roles and responsibilities, and that what you do on an everyday basis may change dramatically during an emergency situation. ... we suggested, and purchasing certainly agrees, and so do, do public works folks, we need to develop rental and operational contracts in advance. Makes it a lot easier in the FEMA process. It also allows you to pull the trigger to get contractual help working for you and doing the chores, rather than having to go through that whole developing the bid specs, putting them out, and that kinda process. You can lose some really important time. So, I know that that's one thing that, um, we're going to be looking at doing, um, as we go along. With your assistance, you know, that will go a lot smoother in the future. Need a better method to power dark traffic signals. Um, we did, we did get creative. We had some light towers that have generators on them, and we did plug those up to some of the lights, the traffic lights, so that we wouldn't have to man those. But, um, we did have a few, uh, f- folks in the community who w- wanted to drive away with those for their own purpose. So, um, I think police and some other folks, they're w- they're working with traffic engineering to come up with some other creative ways that, maybe with some grant dollars or other things that we can use to, to, to better do that. So more traffic lights will be working when we're out without electricity, plus it won't be as, as labor-intensive for the police department. Another issue is, um, we all know that there's a human resources policy on 80-hour comp time, and if you go over that, you just... you just don't get accrued comp time. That's a real difficult thing, um, during declared emergencies. I know that there were several divisions who actually had people who were not willing to work because if they worked, they were gonna be working for free, because they were already over their 80 hours, and they weren't willing to do that. So, if there's a group that maybe could address, look at that issue that at least during declared emergencies, that if you're, uh, you're limited comp time, that you could have an exception for that to go over for emergencies and have some sort of process in place, that you had a certain amount of time to use that. Just wanna kind of share with you, too, the process of what happens, um, with a- any exercise that we do, or any real event, we do have an a- an, a after-action report. And that report is, is captured and then put together, and we actually put it into a spreadsheet and assign those issues to other divisions, or to the commissioner of the administration, or, or someone, and ask all of the issues to try to be worked through and come to some resolve. Either it's not a resolvable issue, or we need to purchase equipment, we need a different policy. So, we really try not to let things, lessons learned, um, go for nothing. And that's a real challenge in the emergency management field, because a lot of times, that happens real frequently. Pat, you've got about 10 seconds left here. Okay. So, if you could wrap it up. Because we did that in the ice storm, basically, um, we, we were much, much better prepared in 2009 than we were in 2003. If we hadn't have done lessons learned, um, we would, woulda had a lot more issues. And that's all I have. Thank you. Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Mayor. Pat, thank you for, uh, bringing us the updated information. I know, uh, with the hot weather outside, a lot of us aren't thinking about ice storms right now, but, uh, uh, no time is better than any to, to, to start learning our lessons from this past, uh, ice storm, as well as two thousan- 2003, um, to better prepare ourselves. I guess, m- my first question is, what do we do now? I mean, what would your department be recommending to us to... Us, I know the issues, but what specifically will... steps will we be taking? Will, will we be following your lead? Will your department be coming forward with recommendations on how to better the communication? Will you be the one developing that, that communication grid? And who gets copies of it, and when we get copies? Where do we go from that, from here? Anything that, that is an administrative a- issue, yes, we will develop a, a recommendation and submit that to Commissioner Bennett and let him bring that forward to the administration in that way. If it's a divisional issue or an outside agency, then we'll work with them to do that. But for the comp time issue, as just an example, you know, we'll make a recommendation and give that to Commissioner Bennett and ask that... and, and also to Director Michael Allen and say, "Is, is there something that we can look at" at that. And I'm sure that they would bring, if they feel so, would bring that to, to the council for some sort of approval. Do you have a timeline as to w- when, uh, you're gonna address each of the issues? And, and whose role it is to address that issue, whether it be your department or KU and when they're gonna get back to us? 'Cause, uh, you know, I don't want this to wait a year from now and we're still working on it. I mean, there, there should be a reasonable enough expectations that we have something later on this year to be able to digest and, and, and approve and move forward with, so we all are clear on what we're gonna do to change it. I honestly do not have a timeline. We're, we're trying to put that, as I said, all of this into the spreadsheet to, to put all that together, and put some at least projected timelines together. Um, but we're, we're pretty strapped for folks too, and I, I think we talked about that in the length a little bit. Have lots of, lots of other things happening, still trying to, to watch and manage the flu issue. So, but we will get something back to you as, as quickly as we possibly can. And, and then, the software issue, will you be a- working with Lexcall to address th- the software issue between... I think you purchased the system, what, a year ago or two years ago? That is different from the system they take calls on. How are we gonna resolve that issue? Are we gonna allow them access to it and- They do have access. L- Lexcall currently, and they have been trained on our software situation. It was just some, some... I think part of it was the newness and when do you stop putting it into Lexcall and when does it flip to the emergency, was, was one of the issues. The, the 911 dispatchers have been trained in it as well. So, we, we certainly want them on board, and I think they're on board. It's just trying to work out some of the bugs on when do you put it into which system. But, you know, that certainly is, is a concern for, for Pat. I know we've had conversations about having to do your daily job as Lexcall, and put it into one system, and then s- the next phone call is the emergency situation and having to put it into another call. So, um- ... but we will work those issues and, and try to get it resolved. Well, if, and, and one of the other confusing points for the public is the number they dial. Most people are starting to dial 3-1-1 for everything, but when we start putting out a 2-5-8 number, they're not gonna remember that one during an emergency a- as easy as 3-1-1. So whatever we can do to facilitate that. The last question, I know there's several other council members, um, wh- who declares the emergency? Is it your department's recommendation on when we declare it? 'Cause it, I, my feeling was that a lot of people, we, we waited too long to declare the emergency this year. Wh- whose role is that, and responsibility? I do make recommendations to the mayor. The mayor can certainly do that without my recommendation. He, he is the ultimate one that de- that makes the declaration of the emergency, but it typically has been our role in the past to make recommendations of when that is prudent to the administration. I mean, do you all meet? I mean, h- how does it logistically work? Or we just wake up and say, "Hey, this, this is an emergency"? No, actually, fr- from our office perspective, we do a lot of damage assessment, for one. We work with, this, in this case, Streets and Loads, LexCall, and the two dispatchers to determine call volume. Um, there's, there's several factors that go into when we recommend making an emergency decision. So it's a group decision. I assume you're gathering information. And how, how quickly do we move? As quickly as we can. Ah, I mean- And, and l- let me elaborate. There are two different emergency orders that were initiated. The first one was on Monday evening before the weather actually hit. That was the emergency order that restricted traffic, uh, actually it didn't restrict traffic, it restricted parking on the snow emergency routes. Right. That was done, as I recall, on Monday evening before the weather hit- Sure. ... sometime around midnight or something Tuesday morning. Then the second issue wh- is when do we open the emergency operations center? Right. And that is, um, uh, the process that Pat was describing just a moment ago, where there is sort of a feedback from a number of different agencies. And in my, by my way of thinking, when the coordination efforts become more complicated than usual, then that's the time to pull the trigger and, and incur the, the expense and effort associated with the opening of the EOC. And that's just kind of a judgment call. This particular instance, it went to, um, I, I remember we were, we were having significant snowfall on Wednesday morning, and that's, was on top of some ice that we had Wednesday morning, I think. And, um, as the power lines started coming down, that's when we triggered the, the EOC being opened. Yeah, we had actually, the mayor had actually declared a state of an emergency even at, separate from the snow emergency, but it, we did not, at that same time, activate the EOC. So they can be done separately or they can be done jointly. Okay. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor. Um, just to put a little bit of perspective of how things used to be, some of you may remember, but last night I was looking through some pictures that my father-in-law has and he worked for solid waste back in '60s and '70s, and he had pictures of the solid waste guys actually out on Main Street with shovels. Um, and he said they would throw the salt from the back of the garbage trucks. Um, so we've come a long way. Um, but my questions, uh, I have a couple of questions. The first one deals with the disabled community, or, um, special needs, uh, community. I don't know how many folks are aware, but we do have a special needs registry form, and I learned this through our commission, um, for citizens with disabilities. Are council members aware of this registry form? Um, and what this allows, it, it gets personal information, data, medical information, um, emergency physician, um, some real important data, medical equipment, oxygen and use, that sort of thing. And it gets this information, supposed to get this information to first responders or emergency folks, and our commission had a discussion about in the event of a disaster or an emergency, um, is that being utilized the way that it should be? Is it as widespread and how can we market this a little bit more and get the word out that this registry exists? And then listening to Council Member Stennet's question to you about the sys- the phone systems, can we make sure that this data gets into our LexCall system and to our emergency, um, s- our emergency system software as well? How does that, how does our registry form work right now? Cur- currently, we only, unfortunately only have three people in the database, so it is- Oh. Sad. ... we haven't been able to get people to, to, to market it well and, and to get people to actually fill it out. There's two, two reasons for, for the information. One is pre-planning. The more that we know about what our citizens need, the better we can equip ourselves to have, have that stuff to t- help take care of them. And then the second issue is, is so that we can proactively, um, do welfare checks and other things at the time of the emergency to see if they're okay or if they need transportation or those types of things. So yes, if we had more information and more data, it would be being used more, but right now we only have three folks in the, in the system. Is there a place for that in our, which system, when you say this system, which one are you thinking of? We have a, a specialized, because of the, some of the HIPAA laws and some of the other things and the privacy data of the medical information, we have it in a secure database. So, you know, I, I'm s- sure that we can share it, but we need to, to look at those issues, um, as we share it because of the medical and the privacy issue. Um- Okay. So that, but the database is available to us in the emergency operations center so that, again, we could say, "We know we have six people on this street, so, you know, sheriff and, and human services, health department, could you create your team and go out here and check on these people?" So we ha- we do have a plan in place to utilize the information a- as we gather it. But we don't have a plan to market it right now? We have not had a successful plan. We've had meetings with service organizations. We've had meetings with, um, church-based agencies and, and those we've had several issues. And right now, I actually have a student from UK whose sole project is to help develop a marketing plan for that form. When that marketing plan is complete, is that something you could bring forward to a setting such as this so that we can make sure we get it out to as many people that are watching and maybe a GTV3 special or something that gets the word out? And if you get that on disk, we can pass that around to different organizations and pass it around to folks. It is on the web- our website as well. Okay. It is. Now, sadly enough, a lot of people don't have internet access still. I agree. Um, thank you on that. And then, also, I'm, I'm wondering at the neighborhood levels what you can help us, what we can help you to do in an emergency situation. So as we talk to our neighborhood associations, what kind of plan can we put in place and is there a kit or something that we can start passing out to folks to teach them, okay, can you establish your own kind of emergency operation center or mini that you can report back to the main operation system? Because I know for me, during the disaster, I was getting calls at home, I was getting calls on my cell phone, I was getting calls at my office, and basically what I was doing was calling the same people that everybody else was calling, so I wasn't really getting any answers any faster than anyone else. We actually have two programs. One is the community emergency response teams, and we try to, it's a 40-hour class that people can take and we try to, to do that as a neighborhood if we can so that we have some people trained in that scenario to, to work as a, as a group in a neighborhood. The second program we ha- we have is called the Neighborhood Emergency Network. And basically, it's a system of what you're saying, it is putting, working with a neighborhood to put a plan together to i- identify capabilities, um, to help the information pieces and information communicators, so and I've, I've, we've done several of those lately to try to, to get some more neighborhoods interested in that. So those two programs really dial directly into the neighborhood level. Okay, and to find out more information about that, those two programs, who should they contact? They should call our office at 258-3784 and talk to Shelly Bendle. Okay. Thank you, Pat. Mm-hmm. Thanks, Ma'am. Thank you. Council member Crosby. Thank you, Ma'am. Uh, thank you, Ms. Dugger for your presentation, I appreciate it. Uh, one thing that you mentioned, um, during your discussion was the issue with the, some of the radio communication between, uh, various divisions, uh, within government and I'd just like to once again reiterate or ask the administration if it's possible, we've asked, um, during our, uh, council public safety link report out and again this morning for, uh, update on the EOC during the budget process because as many of you all know, there's, um, kind of $10 million sitting out there that we have to decide if we're gonna make a recommendation on or not, and we're in the middle of the budget process now and so, um, I guess, Commissioner Bennett, I'm not sure if this is something that we might, we could... We've clearly stated that this is going to affect our recommendation on what we hear based on, um, this report and we also had heard that the administration had been meeting with various council members, but it had not been brought to the public safety link, and so it's difficult for us to make any recommendations. S- so would it be possible for us to get some sort of, um, report out in front of the whole council so that everybody's on the same page and so that we can make a recommendation for the budget? That is our plan. I will remind you though that regardless of the recommendation you may make this year on the radio project, we don't anticipate it having any impact on the FY-10 budget because of the timing of when the debt would be issued and when the project would be done even if you authorized it. Yeah, we understand that, but we also understand too that if it's something we might be doing in a year or two down the road that it may be something we decide to hold up because of the technology and also some other issues that we discussed during that link meeting. Correct. So if you're gonna do it, it's, we'll hear it at that time. Yeah. We plan to do it. David Lucas right now is in the process, particularly on the radio project of trying to get finalized accurate numbers from, from the two vendors that are involved. So we wanna make sure we have accurate information to give you rather than estimates which we know we've gotten in trouble with in the past. And we think we'll be able to get that done in the next few weeks- Yes. ... before? Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Council member Gordon. Thank you, Pat. Thank you very much. Um, you're getting to be a pro at these ice storms. Um, I have one question. Um, it seems to me if my memory serves me right about the 2003 ice storm, uh, the KU Call, uh, Center was also on the list of problem areas and now it's back again. And, um, you mentioned that, um, on the after action report and the lessons learned, we've learned a lot and so my question is when do you expect the, uh, Public Service Commission to return KU's report and what kinds of proactive things can we do to be sure that that isn't on the next ice storm report? Um, you're correct that it was an issue in 2003 and actually this is a totally new call system that they had actually implemented since 2003. So even though it's the same issue, it's not the same call system, so they, they did attempt to, to make changes and fix it. Um, from talking to David Guy with KU, actually he sent me an email this morning, they're hoping to have the review back from the S- Public Service Commission by the fall. ... and then, um, will be able to -- to give us a more specific report outs as what they're going to do to change some of their systems. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Pat, um, s- somewhat familiar with what you went through, we all went through in relationship to '03 and getting money back from FEMA. Um- Mm-hmm. What does the timeline look like now and what is the amount- We do. ... estimated amount or, uh, l- long shot amount, whatever it might be? Bill O'Mara may know the amount better because he has been... Eh, eh, all the money dollar things have been, have been s- sent to him. Um, the timeline, you know, that's really a $64 question with FEMA. Um, they say it's quicker but this has been a pretty long drawn-out process, um, with them. The other interesting thing is with every disaster I've worked, which unfortunately there's been several, the process change, how they do things change, so, um, but we are trying to file and get our paperwork submitted as timely as we possibly can so that they can, they can begin the reimbursement. They wanted to know the total dollars so far for FEMA for next year. Um, I signed about 50 applications at the end of last week for FEMA, and I think we're finished, and I think the amount is in the $2.5 million range. And I would remind you that we still haven't gotten paid for our 2003 ice storm applications. Th- that's what I was referencing, Bill. Um, do we book that as a, an asset or receivable or is it just everything's totally on a cash basis, we'll get it when we get it, huh? That, that's the wonderful thing about government accounting. If it's not in the bank, usually we don't recognize it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. I, uh, thank you Mr. ... ... for coming today and thank you for your presentation. You mentioned in your presentation that, um, in 2003 and in 2009, the issue of a pet evacuation plan and a pet eva- evacuation shelter came up. I think federal law requires that we have both of those. Can you speak to where we're at and how we can make sure that at the next ice storm, we're not talking about it in terms of a need, but how successful it was? Um, you're correct. The federal law does require since 2007 that we have... It wasn't required in 2003, but after Katrina, there was some federal legislation that was passed that does require us to have that. Um, we had had some money in our budget to actually hire a, a contractor to help develop the, the pet and disaster plan, and unfortunately there was a freeze put on professional services and we weren't able to, to go forward with that. So we are continuing to meet with, um, the, the humane societies, um, some dog groups, some veterinary associations and try to work forward towards that. We have, um, found some locations in town that will house people that will also allow us to put animals at their location outside so that we can have the, the, the family together, so to speak, with the people with special medical needs, the pets and the, and the regular family. We have been able to, with some grant dollars, procure some equipment for sheltering, some cages and other things. So we're making tiny steps, but, um, again, we truly... If there's any, any groups out there, I wanna say that publicly, if there's any groups out there that wanna come forward and take the lead and let us work with them to train them to, to basically be the ones to run the pet shelter, we could certainly use that. Um, but we, we need some help in tying all the parts and pieces together and get it all put together as a plan. Will that include horses and all different types of animals as far as the federal legislation goes or... The, the horses we're actually trying to do something totally different with, with livestock and one of the reasons we're trying to do something a little differently is because of our relationship with Madison County and the, the nerve agent there. So that if, if folks did bring farm animals or other things, it's a little different managing bulls and horses than it is to dogs, cats and, and other things. So we're, we're, we are truly trying to separate out those two issues, but we are trying to address both of them. So I guess I would ask, in terms of the administration, what are we doing to make sure that we're in compliance with the federal law? I mean, I know that you put out a clarion call to agencies out there that wanna take the lead on that, but I think the federal government's requiring that local governments take the lead on that. Is that... We're, we're trying to put things together. So, um, I guess I'm looking for a little more concrete than that. I- in other words when, what are we doing to become compliant with the federal law? Like I said, we are, we are trying to procure- What is our plan? ... equipment. We're trying to find locations to house it. We're trying to, um, put together volunteer vet agencies and some other folks to try to put the whole plan together. Okay. I guess, I would move to put that into, um... I'm not sure which committee we want to put that in, Services, Energov? It, it... Energov? You don't want it in Services? Sorry. The chair of Energov's not listening- So maybe we'll put it in there. Um, eh, I think there's two things there. One obviously is the shelter but the other one is the plan. And the plan is something that, that we certainly need to be working on so that we get the animals located and to where they need to go for the shelter. So I think I, I just move to put that issue, both the shelter and the evacuation plan into Services. So moved. And with the Chair of Services and the Co-Chair, I got one vote for putting it in there. Is- Councilmember Meyers has moved, and Councilmember, uh, Crosby has seconded the motion to the effect that, uh, the issue of the evacuation plan and, um- Shelter. ... shelter for, uh, pets be, um, put into the Services Committee. Any discussion? All in favor say, "Aye." Aye. Oppose, no. Oppose, no. Motion carries. O-K- And, and one question I would ask when that, that goes in, one of the first piece of information is if that money is still in your budget and whether or not that can still be used for what you intended to use it for in terms of were you gonna hire a consultant? Okay. So can you bring that w- at the first meeting that we put it on? Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Feigel. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Pat, you were actually in my council report to give you great kudos for your presentation at the Neighborhood Association meeting- Thank you. ... the other night. She did a fantastic, um, presentation. And I think this is, this is a good way to market, um, the, the information that you want to get out is to have these presentations at, um, at neighborhood association meetings, and also to provide that information for their neighborhood newsletters. A lot of them do newsletters and, and would, would welcome that information. Uh, also wanted to ask you, uh, relative to the Pet Disaster Program and that you were going to hire someone to come in and help you develop that, do you remember how much, um, that was going to cost? The, the amount in our budget was $5,000. $5,000. That sounds pretty reasonable. Um, also, um, in terms of registering for the special needs, uh, folks, um, prior to a storm, uh, is there a way that they can do that online? They can do that online if they go to our website. Uh, they just fill out the form there on the led- website, and when they s- click Save, it sends it, sends it to us in- via e- e- email, or they can print it out and fax it in or mail it in. Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just real briefly to, um, uh, Commissioner O'Mara and, and, uh, to the administration, when we had the issue in 2003 with FEMA not bringing money in and so forth, uh, we started looking into it, and it'd gotten stuck in a bureaucratic swirl between Washington and Frankfurt. And what I'd encourage you to do that didn't seem to get done at all and under the prior administration was to work directly with, uh, Senators McConnell, Bunning, uh, uh, Congressman Chandler, and, and get some of that, um, logjam. Because, uh, you can sit there forever having that stuff bounce back and forth, and it's not acceptable to say, "Well, it just takes five years." So I would encourage Ned and some others to, uh, to be on that, uh, as soon as those applications get sent out. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further for Ms. Dugger? Thanks, Pat. Thank you, Mayor. You may recall at our last meeting, a request was made that folks from, um, LexTran visit with Councilmember Hinson and Councilmember Beard about some budget issues that we discussed. Councilmember Hinson, you want to give us a, a real quick rundown on how that progressed? And then, um, we have some representatives here from LexTran if any of you have particular questions. Well a- as you know, last, um, Tuesday, we had quite a debate on the LexTran budget, and, um, Rocky Burk with LexTran and board members were not available to be here. So on Thursday morning, Julian Beard, Councilmember, and I met with Rocky and another board member to address some of the issues that I had brought up to the council. Um, so I, I think Rocky wants an opportunity now to address the council. Thank you. All right. Mr. Burk, step forward please. Thank you, Mayor Newberry and Councilmember Hinson. Yeah, there were several issues. I had the opportunity to, uh, review the, uh, the last week's, uh, work session, and, uh, I guess I just kind of will take them one at a time, if that's, that's all right, and briefly explain it. I know Councilmember Lawless had a question about the, uh, $27,000 that Red Cross had asked for. And just briefly to explain that, uh, probably back in December, uh, Red Cross did come to, to LexTran to ask for that, it s- it was a local match for buses that they wanted to buy, and, uh, that was about three months prior to, um, their contract expiring. We don't own those buses, the, and LexTran, or Red Cross gets a federal grant to buy those vehicles, so we didn't think it was a good business decision to, to give them the local match knowing that in three months they potentially would not have the contract, and the state or the federal government could reassign those buses some place and we would have not had $27,000 invested in really anything. So any rate, at the time, I told Mr. Burkhart, their CEO, to make sure that in his pricing proposal for his new contract that he include that $27,000, and he said he would do that. Um, so when the, the bids were all in and we ultimately awarded the contract to, uh, Red Cross, uh, it's a $460,000 increase, 14% increase, so I've got to assume the money is in there. So I, I don't know exactly where he was, what he was asking for $27,000 more for. I don't... I can't answer that question, but I can tell you that, you know, he asked it for us. We denied that request, but, but I asked him to make sure that it was in his pricing proposal. So again, it was... Their new contract's 460,000 more than last year, so I've got to believe it's in there some place. So that's the one issue on that. The other issues that, that Councilmember Hinson had specifically were addressing the, um, the, uh, specifically the need for, uh- ... um, an eligibility office, uh, an assessment office, I should say, which determines someone's el- eligibility for, for ADA service. And as I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, the reason we did this, we had a, a federal audit, uh, by the Federal Transit Administration. It wasn't some outside agency, and it wasn't a financial audit. It was purely a, a program process procedures type audit. And in that, they found that we weren't in compliance with the ADA, and that is, we were accepting physicians', uh, notes and correspondence as sufficience- sufficient documentation for paratransit service. And they told us that wasn't sufficient, so therefore we did an RFP and awarded a contract to Cardinal Hill to provide this assessment office where they... People come in and describe their disabilities and those sorts of things, and they make a determination. As a follow on to that, they also said we didn't have an appeals process. So we're in the process of developing that right now, so that if someone is denied service, they can take it to an appeals board and state their case, and it will be reheard again. And depending on what the appeals committee says, that's the final decision. So that, in is a s- in essence the, the issue over the assessments that being done, and then I think the third thing that people were concerned about, everyone was concerned about, is the fact that, you know, we're charging $3 for someone that, that chooses to live outside our service area or take a trip outside our service area. And again, we're doing that, that was again a recommendation from the, from the auditor. And the reason that he, that he asked us to do that or suggested that, was the fact that when they did the audit, one of the things that they did, they came in and looked at all of the performance activity for, for Red Cross. For example, you know, was someone ever denied a trip when they wanted it? Uh, were the phone lines busy from time to time? And those are two examples, and if the answer to those questions were yes, then he made the determination that the system was essentially overburdened. And he said, "Well, why is that?" So he goes and looks further, and we're providing service to everybody in the county, which is even outside our service area of the 3/4 mile. So he said, "For you guys to, to comply with the ADA and truly take care of those folks that are within the 3/4 mile, you need to, to, to at least, um, create this eligibility office that we talked about so that we could be sure that those people who are getting service are eligible for that." And he made the comment that those that live outside that 3/4 mile, it's not considered ADA service because it's, it's outside the service area, which only is 3/4 of a mile. So he made the determination that he said, "You can clearly not provide that service or if you're going to do that, you can charge this, a, a premium fee." So rather than eliminate that service totally for these folks, we agreed to, to, uh, charge a slightly higher fare of, of $3. So that's, I think, in short summary, the, some of the, the major issues that, that everyone had, but also I remember someone saying that we were cutting back on service and those sorts of things. And please understand, like I said, w- we added 14% more to that, to that line item in our budget, almost $460,000. And with that, uh, Red Cross is getting day-to-day oversight of LexTran. Um, with that money, they told us they were going to buy enhanced software so that they could improve their scheduling, uh, be able to answer the phones, uh, when people call in, buy those buses that we were talking about. So it's not like we've cut the service. We just are trying to comply with the federal audit, and that's, that's it in a nutshell. Thank you. Unless, Council Member Hinson, you've got something else, we'll just take questions from, from the council or... Rocky, could you, um, tell me again how many, um, riders live outside that 3/4 mile? What I can tell you right now, for example, we're starting to get, uh, lots of s- statistics reported to us from, from Red Cross so that we can better understand what it is that they do. And for example, uh, last month, uh, they had about 400 trips, um, that were outside this 3/4 mile, which is about 3%, I think, of the, the total trips we provided for one month. So about 3 to 4% of the trips are outside that 3/4 mile area. Okay. Or at least that's, that's what we know for one month, which I think is going to be honestly a pretty good representation of what we see. So I, I guess my point is, it's not a huge impact. No, no, ma'am. It is not. Dollar wise, it is not a huge impact. Okay. And what percent of your total budget does the, um, Paratransit? It's about 17% of our budget and about 5% of our ridership. 70%. Se- 17. Oh, I'm like, "Okay." No ma'am, 17%. 17%. And have you ever estimated the cost of a ride, like, the amount that you bring in from l- uh, LexTrans riders divided by the trips? I'm sorry, ask that question again. Like, I would like to know what the cost of a trip on a fixed route is. I'm sure we have that information. Nikki, do you know what that is? Does anybody with my staff know what the cost per trip is? Oh, it, uh... I know it. I'm sure we can get that for you, Miss Hinson. Okay. Yes, ma'am. We have that and we can compare that to what it costs for the, for the paratransit service as well. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Just don't have it with me. So, all right. Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor. Um, thanks, Rocky, for being here. Explain, um... Explain how you come up with fixed route, because that seems to be ... That seems to be the basis of, if things are being based off of three-quarters of a mile of the fixed route, explain how you come to that conclusion. And number two, see if you can explain, um, if someone were to ask a question, if everybody who's a property owner pays for service, why wouldn't we extend all the way to the boundaries? I, I think the, uh, the, uh, the fixed route service that I keep talking about, that's simply been an evolutionary process from when, from when the, the bus system was formed. Uh, for example, every year, um, we continue to expand our bus service whether it's east, west, north, or south. But, but clearly with th- with the way the tax reference was passed, you know, we can provide service county wide, but to do that, obviously it would be very, very, very expensive to do that. So therefore, you know, we have these comprehensive analysis of our bus systems and those sorts of things to establish the routes that we currently have. We know where the demand is. We know where the businesses are. We know where the subdivisions are growing, so that's where we continually grow to. So, the, the Paratransit service is based upon that. It's called Complementary Paratransit Service, which means that we have to provide the exact same thing as we do for fixed route. In other words, the same service hours, and we can go three-quarters of a mile beyond that. That's what the AD- ADA says. So that's how we established these, these corridors and this three-quarter mile rule that we have. But, but yes, technically, you know, because it is a, you know, a property tax, um, we could go any place in the county, but, but the reason that I keep talking about the three-quarter mile is because the fixed-route service doesn't go every place. So truly, what Complementary Paratransit Service is for those folks who live and want those trips that were just within that three-quarters of a mile of a fixed route or the same hours. And how often does the fixed route change? Well, you know, the fixed route service area typically is, you know, we, we come before this, this body here every year and talk about new service changes. So literally it's once a year where we make significant changes and, and add routes and, and go other places, but, but even at that, throughout the year, you know, we, we will have public hearings on various issues and we expand service throughout the year, but traditionally, it's, it's once a year where we, you know, come and, and put a chunk of money and add, add additional service. Okay. And did you by chance bring the FTA language that talks about three-quarters of a mile, and do you have that language that you are willing to share or can share with the council members today? It would probably take me a little bit t- to find it. Okay. So I, I guess to answer the question is if you want to look through my papers, I can probably find that. Well, and I know that Council Member Hinson had emailed to council members, but I don't, I don't know if council members ... You know, sometimes we get emails and don't necessarily print them off for reference and such. But I wanted just to give clarification, get clarification of the wording about whether it's, whether you're mandated to only do a certain thing, whether you are obliged to extend this, you know, beyond a certain ... Well, f- for example, one of the things, I have it in front of me, it's the, um, it's actually the workbook that the ADA or the, uh, Federal Transit Administration auditor uses when he comes out. And one of the questions that I ask, you know, it's, it talks about, it says, "Is the service area within three-quarters of my corridors of fixed route and the core area? Is service provided beyond the three-quarter mile corridors and core area?" So that's the question that he asks and when you find out the answer that it's more than that, then he says, "Well, why are you doing that?" So it clearly talks about that and here's one of his checklist items where he looks at the three-quarter mile, which is what I just was reading from. It's the ADA section of their, their, um, audit- Okay. ... workbook that they use. That's all I have, Mayor. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Go- Just a point of clarification. Um, I just wanna make sure I understood. Oh, sorry, I wrote my note. Uh, based on the federal audit that you had, did you s- did you state that it was either an additional $3, um, or no service at all? Those were the only alternatives you had. Those were the only two options that you looked at? W- what, what the auditor suggested to us is that we strictly follow the, the ADA, um, which, which means that you don't have to provide service to anyone that lives outside that three-quarter mile. And he was suggesting that, but he said, "If you choose to do that, then you need to charge a premium fare because it's no longer Paratransit service. It's outside your service area." So in some emails that he had, uh, he had even suggested that $5 would be a fair, fair fare for that. And of course we said, you know, that's ... We think that's not reasonable either, so that's when our board decided that $3 was, was fair and equ- Typically, in most paratransit sy- or most bus systems, paratransit fare is twice what it is for regular fare. So that, if we did that, you know, a, a, a regular ADA trip would be $2. It's only a $1.60 now. So we chose the $3 amount. And I don't mean to interrupt. Are you done with your- Pardon? I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And, um, then as a follow-up to that question, Ben, did you, um, a- and I think I've asked this before, but just again to clarify, I think what we're hearing is that many people who are in this situation can't afford the increase. Um, so did you all take into consideration those types of situations and then any type of, um, financial aid programs or anything that would assist these people who could truly prove that they can, that this is too much of a burden on their family to be able to pay this amount? ... of money? No, Ma'am, our -- our board did not take up that -- that issue that I -- I can recall. Er, it was just one of those things, again, th- there's that, you know, we felt $5 was -- was too much and $3 was something that, with the time, um, serve the -- the, uh, FTA auditor's suggestion and so that's why we chose the three. And then based on, um, uh, the FTA, uh, review, I guess, and -- and questions asked, are all of our, um, services that we operate routinely within the boundaries, are all of those accessible to these people as far as do they all have lifts, is there ways for them to get on and off if they chose to try and get within the service boundary? Yes, Ma'am. Every -- every fixed route bus that we have has a wheelchair lift on it so if they choose to use fixed route, they can do that and all of the -- the buses that, uh, Red Cross has are all wheelchair lift equipped, so yes, they --they could access the service. Okay, thank you. Yes, Ma'am. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you for coming in and -- and answering these questions. I -- I've got a couple I don't quite understand, a couple of things that you said. Okay. This three-quarter mile service area, you've -- you've made a couple of statements that you said, comply with federal audit and you made another statement, you said, follow the ADA. Um, when you say follow the ADA, what do you mean by that? Well, as far as the, uh, transit service, as the -- as the part of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it talks about complementary -- complementary paratransit service and when they talk about that, that's where they reference the three-quarter mile, is that we are required by law to provide service to those people with disabilities and this paratransit service, it has to be complementary. Again, which is same hours of service and within that three-quarter mile of our fixed route service. Okay. So that's the -- that's the law on ADA? Yes. That's the minimum that you have to do? That's the minimum, yes. Required by law? Yes. Under ADA? It's part of Code of Federal Regulations, I believe Part 37 and what the FTA does is it takes those laws and distills it for its grantees in the forms of documents and circulars and then we're required to follow those. But it's based off of the federal laws and they quant- they quantify it into -- into documents and so when they come to review, that's when they're trying to review every three years, they kinda look at how you following these laws. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this is the minimum that that federal law requires you to provide? That's correct. Okay, so when they audit you, they're looking at making sure you're in compliance with the minimum- Yes, sir. ... of the federal law? Yes, sir. Okay. When you say comply with the federal audit, what -- what specifically did you mean by that statement? Every three years, um, the Federal Transit Administration, uh, audits all of its grantees so it was our time to have that done, so they contract with -- with an audit firm to come in to -- to ensure that we're following all the process, procedure and programs that the FTA funds. For example, they -- they pay for our buses and all of our capital projects, some capital maintenance and those sorts of things and as a part of that, ensure that we're following the rules and regulations that govern this complementary paratransit service. So as he went through those questions, as I mentioned, in this workbook, uh, not only did he audit the Red Cross and the paratransit function, but everything that we do, all of our programs, maintenance- Sure. ... and all those. So those were just some of the findings and of course with the finding he makes a recommendation, so that's what we're trying to follow. Okay. So when he makes a m- when an auditor maker makes a recommendation, um, again, that auditor is looking at the minimum requirement in compliance with the ADA. Correct. So when you say comply with the federal audit, did the audit then say that you cannot provide additional service or above and beyond the bare minimum that the federal law requires? No, he said we could do that. That's where he suggested that we charge a premium fare for doing that. Okay. Because it -- because it was no longer, uh, complementary paratransit service, it was outside our service area, even outside where we -- where we run our fixed route buses. And of course, and the reason that he made that determination is because when he looked at the minimums, as we talked about before, he found that, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes people weren't, uh, uh, weren't -- weren't granted trips at the exact time that they wanted them. Uh, phones weren't being answered because they were always busy, so he determined that that was an overcapacity situation. So that's when he d- just, you know, look -- look deeper and saw that we prov- we were providing service over and above the minimum and he was asking the question, why? So that's when part of these recommendations were make sure that those people who are getting service are truly eligible for the service, so you need to create the appeals process, you need to create the assessment office and do assessments and those things. What I'm trying to understand is, it- it sounds like that the -- the person that did the audit doesn't want you to do above and beyond. They want you to do the bare minimum and that's all. I see. That sounds like that's what you're saying or that's what they are recommending. Well, the- the auditor obviously has to make sure that we comply with -- with -- with laws and that's essentially what he was asking us to do and then he con- continued on that if -- if we choose to do that, then here is how you should do these things. Okay. That's where I'm trying to drill down and understand. I understand complying with the minimum. I don't understand if they're saying you can't do above and beyond. So if when you go above and beyond, if he makes a recommendation or she makes a recommendation that you charge this fee to go above and beyond, are they saying then that in order to be in compliance with their audit and the federal law, you are forced to charge somebody more if you want to do more? You wanna try to take that question? Sure. This is, by the way, this is Jared Ford. He's my assistant general manager in case you- Thank you for coming, Jared. ... just for the record. Thank you. Uh, basically, and I believe you have the document, what the, the main issue was and what we did in trying to still cover beyond the service areas was we, we were concerned about the issue that we were just cutting the service off. But ultimately the issue is that all those things he mentioned, um, is in, is in greater detail in the report that we are not, that we are not, again, for example, uh, uh, we got a email the other day from someone complaining, uh, a complaint about wheels. In that complaint they're talking about that they, they tried to schedule a trip, um, when I was gonna, for my appointment, but they went and scheduled the trip for when I went to be picked up. The ADA law says that I, you have to schedule a trip based on the time I want to be picked up and you have a plus or minus hour window above and beyond. If you go beyond that, it's called a trip denial. Those type of, those type of things are, and, and another one that was in that complaint was the phone call. If you're on the phone too long, that is a capacity constraint. There's an issue because you should, should be able to schedule, get call, schedule your appointment, and schedule a certain period of time. So all those different issues they are looking at. And so, what we are e- required to do is make sure that we are reviewing all those things and making sure those who are ADL eligible, we are covering those issues for them. And so, that, that's the main issue and that's the main issue we're supposed to do. And what he told us, if we do go premium, you do that, it was what called a space available basis, which means if we have room in the system after the people who are in the ADA area are served, then you serve them. And so we have to make sure that we give the priority service to those who are in the ADA service area. We have to make sure that they have the appointment time, the best appointment times, make sure that they, when we, they call in, we, we, we get to them on time. Um, a- and also one thing we're learning, for example, there's three areas of eligibility that we're supposed to look at. Two of 'em are conditional and one is unconditional. Unconditional means I, I cannot access fixed route whatsoever. Conditional is, for example, if I live on, I've lived somewhere downtown, I have a sidewalk, I'm in a wheelchair, um, I can access fixed route. Um, and it only costs me 50 cents 'cause I'm a disa- s- because that's the fare that's available for you if you're disabled. But if I lived somewhere on the Tate Street area or somewhere on New Circle Road where I don't have a sidewalk, I can't get there on a wheelchair. So then if for that particular area, I would be eligible for ADA services. And you have to look at that as well before. And so we weren't doing that. So people who would call in, if they said that they could ride AD- uh, LexTran buses, they were denied. And then they had no way of appealing that process as well. So we, we don't even know the full demand of the, the people inside the core area because of the way that we were running the system before. So we've made all these changes to make sure that we're in compliance, that we give those who live in the core area the best service they can possibly get. And as we shared in the past, that once we get a, a good handle on that, good handle on the numbers of people who are being served, then once we know that we're giving them the best service, we have all the documentation so when the FTA comes back again, we can pull all the reports and say, "This is what we're doing," then we can fully go out and really expand our services because then we know we're doing the core, the basics. And so that's, that's basically what he was, they were coming in and they looked at it and they identified all these and several other areas and said, "You, because you have these capacity constraints, because you're not doing proper compliance, you're not doing proper monitoring, monitoring of the, of your grante- of th- your subcontractor, you're out of compliance and you, this is what you need to do to get it in order." And so again, what we did was we, we were sensitive to the issue of cutting everything off. So we were trying to show good faith and showing, and listening to the recommendations, the requirements and the recommendations that the auditor said and trying to do a balancing act. But regardless, whatever we do, we still have to give priority to those who are in the ADA area. Now also, I want you to know that the three-quarter miles also includes areas inside. So we might have a route go this way and a route go this way inside of the city of Lexington, which is not, it's beyond three-quarters of miles, but the law requires you to cover those areas as well. So the whole corridor a- around and in between, we have to cover those ar- areas as well by the law. So they necessarily weren't being insensitive saying, "We don't want you to do this." They're saying, "What we want you to do is give the proper service to those who are you're supposed to give it to." And once you do that, they have no problem of you expanding. It says that in the law. It said if you have these issues that show constraints and show that you're not ab- and denies that you're not able to meet the core service, then they look at the three-quarter mile area. And that's where we were found negligent. If we hadn't been serving those, serving those well, that issue would not have come up. As that, that's where we find ourselves today. Okay. You s- you said a whole lot that I want to- ... reflect here. The first thing is, I was gonna say something about the need for sidewalks on Tates Creek, but you actually elaborated on that enough that I think we all need, we all know now that we need to put the sidewalks in on Tates Creek. Um, but a few things. How many calls did you have last year for ADA service? We don't know, um, because they didn't have a, a good record of tracking. See, that's, that's one of the things that's part of this new contract with Red Cross is- Okay. Okay. ... we put these performance measures in to make sure that we have that information so we can better understand what it is that they're doing. Okay. How many runs did you make for ADA? Again, don't know. Okay. That's fine. Only thing we can do is, they, they used to tell us how many trips that they made. Okay. And- The reason I was asking that was because I'm... What the auditor hasn't made clear is that the reasons that you were on the phone too long or, or those things that the auditor said were due to overcapacity of the system. They haven't, I don't think they substantiated that. No. They, they just, you know, when they did their, their, their walk around and their audit- They were able to determine those things were happening. And, of course, like Jared mentioned, with these, this oversight that we're providing, you know, we're, we're mandating we get phone records. Ho-how long does it take you to answer a phone? Right. How many dropped calls do you have? How many kinds, and how many trip denials do you have? And, and those, those sorts of things, so when he comes back again, we have these answers and, uh, hopefully, we'll address them all so that we can expand the service. Okay, so let's go back full circle to where I started and one thing she said was that this is what, that the auditor said, "This is what you have to do to get it back in order." You did go back then and say that you have to give proper service to those that are in the boundary first. So, a-again, I'm still trying to understand, is the auditor saying to you that you can't provide this other service, or if you do, you must charge that premium to do it? He, he told us that, that you can provide additional service outside the three-quarter mile, but to do that, you must first give those folks within the three-quarter mile priority service. Okay. They get- That's fair. ... they get, and so the other folks are space available and there should be a premium fare associated with that. Okay, but he doesn't have the authority to make you charge that premium fare, right? Uh, I, what I'm trying to understand is that, is that a recommendation or- He did not, he did not specifically say, "You must charge five dollars or three dollars." Or whatever the case may be. In his report and in his correspondence to us, he suggested a fare of five dollars. Okay. I'm going somewhere with this, and this is where. Th- I know what you guys are like, "But..." This community, I think, when they voted to give you that tax, is, is who needs to determine what fare is. I- if this auditor doesn't by law have the ability to tell you that if you're going to provide above and beyond the bare minimum that law requires at the federal level, that you're gonna have to charge to do that, then this community oughta be the one to make that decision. And so, that's why I was trying to get at that, at that question. So, to me it seems like that if, um, and as one of the council members said, if the property tax is being assessed to provide this service, this community that's being taxed oughta be able to provide some input as to the scope of service that it wants or deems, um, minimum. If you wanna put it that way. And so, what I wanna see is this service provided for those who need it, regardless if we're inside or outside that three-quarter mile radius that the federal government cares about, and I wanna see us provide the service to those that are inside that boundary because they do get priority. I understand that because that's the federal law. Mm-hmm. But the federal law doesn't determine how we spend our tax money. That doesn't come from them, even though that does come from them, it comes from us too. Um, but the tax at the below, we levied at a local level, we oughta be able to say that we want part of that tax money to provide paratransit service at the same cost, whether they're inside that three-quarter mile radius or outside that three-quarter mile radius. That, I think, is where I wanna see things go. It sounds like you've got some database collection, some data collection that you're gonna have to do to determine what the need is inside that boundary and what you need to provide that service adequately to satisfy the federal government and then bevo- above and beyond that, what the need is and then what you need to satisfy that. I'm not sure how you get there in this budget cycle, but I think that the majority of people on this council and in this community wanna see paratransit service provided at a reasonable cost to all those who need it. And so, it might be that we start with making sure that the people that you're providing it for, whether inside or outside that three-quarter, are eligible, like they talked about. Mm-hmm. If you're taking doctor's excuses or notes or whatever, all these other things that may not be legitimate, if we eliminate those that aren't legitimate, then that too is gonna free up resources- True. ... to provide services. Yes. So, I don't know the answer, but what I'd like you to look at is how you can do that in this budget cycle so that this year that fee doesn't go up for the people outside that three-quarter mile and that we can still do what we need to do to satisfy the federal regulations. Thank you. I, I know that this is a subject of our discussions, this evening at our work session, my board's work session, and I, so I'm sure we'll be discussing those things. Do you have a way, um, do you have any ideas on how to figure out what you need to be able to do that? What? I, I don't know. I, I can't speak for the board at this time, so I don't- Okay. ... know what they would want to do with regard to the, to the fare issues, and, and as we said, right now, we're, we're just in the beginning stages of this new, this new contract with Red Cross, so we have very little information to do just what we're talking about, determine, you know, how many phone calls are missed and how many people aren't, don't get trips when they want them. Okay. Those kinds of things. I understand that you have to, you don't want to have an audit come out the way this one did. I understand that part of it, and I agree with you on that part. But do you have the money in your budget to be able to per- and I know you don't know how many runs you made last year, but is it possible that you have enough money in your budget this coming year to be able to continue to provide that service outside the three-quarter mile without increasing the fee? Take i- w- take into consideration that we're gonna get in compliance with the federal folks so that your calls aren't too long, you're not, you're not having busy signals and all those other things, and the service is provided at the level that it's supposed to be for those inside the boundary. Do you have the money? I really don't know how to answer the question, but all I can tell you is we only have one month, for example, worth of information. And as I mentioned, it was about 4% of the trips were outside that three-quarter mile. Now, as we, as the, as the year progresses, you know, that could be more, it could be less. But, but if that would be the trend, then I think that our budget would probably support, if not three dollars, something less possibly, but I, I, I don't know how to answer the question because- ... you know, this is, like I said, we just started this new- Let me, let me ask you this. Yes. I didn't mean to cut you off, but let me ask you this. Um, will your board consider, and I'm not sure if any of these folks out here are on your board or not, but w- will you ask your board to consider not raising the fee this year for the first six months of the year? And then, as you move into that fourth, fifth and sixth month, look at what it's costing you to do that. And then see if you can get to the end of the year without that increase and still meet the compliance levels that you need to meet for the federal government. Can you, can you ask the board to do that? I will ask the board that, that question. Yes, sir. Okay. And will you report back to us? Yes, sir. Okay. When is your next board meeting? Our actual work session is this evening. This evening? Ah, great. Can you ask the board members tonight? They're here and I will ask them. Yes, sir. I'm not, I'm not asking them to come and answer tonight, but can you ask them tonight and then- Yes, sir. Okay. Could you maybe report back to us next Tuesday? I can. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I'll make this quick, Rocky. Uh, exactly how many trips, paratransit tri- trips do y'all make in a day, week, month period of time? So I can do the multiplication real quickly. 12,000 a month. 12,000 trips a month. 12,000? Okay. Yes. Um, th- that's about all the information I need. I know y'all have a meeting that starts at six o'clock and, uh, there's still a few speakers ahead of me. I do th- appreciate, uh, Council Member Myers' comments about the, uh, sidewalks. Als- also on Richmond Road, Winchester Road, Leestown Road, Versailles Road, Harrisburg Road, they all are without sidewalks too. Thank you. Council Member Stinnet. Thank you, Mayor. With respect to time, Rocky, I just have a couple of comments for you and, and one question if you could follow up with us on it. There was a task force put together back in '03 and '04 to discuss the proposed, uh, property tax and they also, uh, said in support of that property tax, task force would like to see the following recommendations implemented. And several of those recommendations, to my knowledge, have not been touched. Do you have that list by chance? Have you seen that recommendation list? Um, a- and only one I know of that's even been worked on is the trolleys. But one major one is to get rid of the current system and go to a grid system. And I don't even think that's even been explored to, to this body's knowledge. Without going in depth and all that, can you please pull that out, dust it off, take a look at what those recommendations were? 'Cause part of the, the, the, the rationale of getting that tax proposed and getting it on the ballot was the, a trade-off and, and to improve the system. And going from 37 buses to 43 buses and tripling the budget dollars doesn't equal improvement th- in my book and where my, my, the people I represent see it. So can we look at the overall system and those recommendations to see why we have or have not rec-, um, implemented any of those going forward? Yes, sir. I will find that report and look at that. And, and at the same time, I'm sure sometime in the very near future, I will come back to the, to the council and talk to you about the comprehensive operational analysis that was just completed and- Good. ... what changes we'll be making as well. Yes, sir. Very good. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I may have missed this when I was talking to my assistant, but I wondered, Rocky, if your board, um, if... I see your board members here today, is there anybody that you think would be willing to come forward and talk about what your board talked about when this, um, issue came forward at that time? Is there anybody that would want to come speak to... Anybody itching, itching to come talk about what, what kind of conversation transpired between the board and how you came to agreement to do the increased fee for the outside the fixed route? It looks like Dr. Kasarkis, our board chair, has, uh, stepped forward and- Thank you, Doctor. Thanks very much. Maybe you could rephrase your question about the deliberations that we had. Sure. Just wondered the kind of conversation that went around your board. Did you have similar conversations and comments that you're hearing around the horseshoe here today? And w- how did you come to agreement or consensus that you would do a higher fee for around... Because you're a board, you know, so you're to be representative of the community. Correct. So what'd you talk about? What were your concerns? W- we, we covered, uh, many of these issues that have been discussed here tonight. I mean, I think first and foremost, uh, defining the, uh, extent of what the law required, uh, the implications of non-compliance with the FTA audit, uh, and, uh, going through issues like that. The business of, um, uh, how many trips, all these actuarial sort of questions that are extremely important are really unknown, uh, for, for the reasons that, uh, that you've heard. Uh, we have, uh, gross estimates about what those trips entail, who these people are, who the, uh, disabled community is. Uh, we had members of the disabled community, uh, discuss this with us at the work session. I believe we had several multiple public hearings. Uh, I, I think it was five, uh, five public hearings dealing with, uh, with fees. Um, you know, the, the issue of, uh, providing service outside of the three-quarter mile, uh, interval, uh, is important. And I'm sensitive to the issues that were brought forward with regard to, uh, uh, citizens paying taxes and not having, uh, uh, access to paratransit service. I mean, they have access to paratransit service. It's an issue of, uh, compared to what? Uh, compared to hopping on a cab if you lived in the extremities of Fayette County would be extraordinarily expensive. Uh, the, the issues that were not discussed or were discussed, but not discussed with you tonight- ... is I believe that the ADA requires curb to curb service. And prior to the... Prior to this, we've, uh, provided door-to-door service and that's remained. And so the, the, the provision of service to the boundaries of Fayette County is intact. The business of curb to curb service is intact. The accountability piece of, of Red Cross, uh, is now intact. Uh, the certification process is intact. All these issues were discussed and, and the issue of how much to charge, I guess, is what, what most of the last hour's conversation is. And, um, you know, the, the only suggestion of guidance was from the FTA audit, which you heard Mr. Burke, uh, mention as a five dollar figure. That's not scientifically derived, that was the auditor's opinion. The board heard that, the board heard what we are required to charge a premium fare for all the reasons Jared mentioned. And, um, the consensus of the board was three dollars would be reasonable. Uh, obviously, people will argue on both sides of that issue, but, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a figure to work from. Okay. What does, what does the three dollars pay for? So if, if you weren't charging the three dollars, what would happen? Uh, in the minds of the auditors, I don't know what would happen. I mean, obviously, the, uh, para transit service is extraordinarily expensive to run. It is for every public transit service. Uh, we, we do not make any money on, on, on that at all. I believe... What is it? 20$ a, a trip or something like that. One of the things that my staff provided- Yeah. ... for example, you know, the cost of a trip on the regular fixed route service is two dollars and ninety cents. Red Cross is twenty four dollars and ninety two cents. So, so it's, it's an expensive service to run and, you know, three dollars a trip each way is not even gonna scratch the surface of that. So you're saying the passenger, by paying three dollars per trip, basically it's offsetting the money that we're paying WILLS, or goes towards the money that we pay WILLS for the contract? I'm not sure exactly where that three dollars goes. The, the three dollars... The way the contract with, with Red Cross is set up, they charge us so much per trip. So, in other words, every month we look at the, um, th- their statistics and they charge us based upon the number of trips that they provide. Okay. And that's how we came up with, for example, the, the bu- budget line item for para transit service. Any, any fares that they collect, they reimburse LexTran for that. So, for example, if we went from four dollars to... Or three dollars to two dollars or something like that, that would simply be the, the reduction in, in money that we would receive on a monthly basis from Red Cross. So in other words, all fares that they collect from people paying, that's paid to us. And the way Red Cross gets paid is simply, in their contract pricing proposal, it was so much per trip. So, you know, if they provide 12,000 trips, it's X number of dollars per trip and, you know, we've been, in the past, writing them a check for that. But now, as I mentioned, it's a performance-based contract, so there are lots of things that go in there so they can get more or less depending on how well that they do. But the three dollar fare that they collect, all fares that they collect, whether it's the $1.60 or the three dollars, it all comes back to LexTran. Does it directly- I'll set the cost. Well, I was gonna say it doesn't directly come back to you, it's just deducted from the amount that you would owe- Red Cross. ... per the price contract? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, ma'am. All right. Did you have any more to add? Okay, I didn't have any more questions. Thank you, Dr. K. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Council member Henson. I, I just wanted to make a final comment, Rocky. I, I... This, um... The para transit service, border to border, is a service that's always been provided. Um, and I guess I just have a problem with now that we have a dedicated tax, that, you know, the fee's going up, remain border to border, little restriction, you know, as far as the three-quarter mile thing. Um, and, and I think when you look at the number of folks that are affected outside that three-quarter mile, I don't really think it would hurt LexTran financially that much. I don't know that we have those numbers. I guess we don't. But I was thinking at one point someone only said like 87 people, but I may be wrong. Um, do you have any idea, Ed? No? Okay. But, um, just, you know, the... If we didn't have the dedi- dedicated tax, I know we did it without the dedicated tax, so why now? Why is it happening now? Um, and I would be for increasing the service, you know, help with the phone lines, help with whatever, you know, because the individuals in Fayette County that have disabilities are human beings too and deserve services. Um, and if they de- deserve... In my opi- opinion, they, they even deserve additional services. But I won't say anything else, so thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Thank you, ma'am. Council member Crosby. Uh, yes, thank you. I have a question for Mr. Eskey, please. Yes, ma'am. Okay. My question is fairly quick. Um, can we amend their budget? Yes. And if we don't, um, if we don't make an amendment and we don't move their budget forward, do they just go under last year's budget until they get a budget approved? Well, actually they won't receive any- Und- ... tax revenue for July one forward. Okay. So we either have to make a decision to accept their budget or amend their budget based on our discussions today, which we do have the authority to amend. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, Councilman Craig, I don't know that you gotta do it today, but you would- Before. ... have to do it, you need to do it before the end of this fiscal year. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Does any member of the council have any further questions? Council Member Beard. Logan. Sorry. Do they receive monies ... Do we meter the mon- the monies out to them on a monthly or quarterly basis, or do they wait until September and get, start getting their, uh, property tax the same way we do? I'm not, I'm not sure exactly how that works. It's my understanding that the sheriff will collect the taxes, and I believe that, uh, that our commissioner of finance actually has to authorize the release of monies to LexTran. Here, here he comes. Here. Checking the head. I believe LexTran board can correct me if I'm wrong, but the, the sheriff is the collector of the- Yeah. ... county taxes and they remit the 10th of the following month whatever they collected for the previous month. So in e- in essence what- Correctly- ... we're talking about is on, on July 1st, they probably wouldn't get any money anyway. Well, it's a low income month. Yes. I would think so. And as would, would August be. Yeah. Okay. I ... So there, there's a stick if somebody was thinking about looking for one, uh, that we don't have. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Does any council member have any further questions for Mr. Burke or others with LexTran? Council Member Gordon. I just have a quick comment. I would hope that the council would attend to this so that we do not get to July 1st and not have a budget for LexTran. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Um, this question is for the board for LexTran. I asked that at your meeting tonight that you, director, um, ask if you would consider not raising that rate for the first six months and then see where you are in terms of your budget. Um, what are your thou- ... Is anybody on the board that wants to speak to what their thoughts are on that? We heard your comments, and, uh, I ... We will have on our agenda the discussion of, uh, the budget. And, uh, obviously we will have to receive some feedback, uh, from the City Council, I guess besides your own, um, in how to proceed. Um, the, the issue of the budget, I think has been carefully discussed, as I responded to Council Person James. And, um, you know, I think we're, um, you know, we're prepared to receive feedback, uh, from the City Council at large. I think there's been a productive discussion, uh, and hopefully we've clarified a few points. Um, you know, I'm not prepared to speak for the entire board and make any promises about how we're going to come out on our discussions, except that in 25 minutes we'll start our, our work session and this is one of many topics, including the, uh, comprehensive operation analysis for, uh, for, uh, this, uh, last four years, which was, uh, referenced by another, uh, council member. So we will, uh, we will discuss all these issues. Okay. Thank you. I, I guess from my colleagues, I would say that we could- I'm sorry. Yes, sir. I'm on the board also, if I may. Um, I've been listening to the conversation. I've, I've been, um, a little bit concerned about it because this is a board that has, I think, uh, conducted itself with, um, all due, uh, proper procedure in conducting and construction of this budget, and you're asking us to take a very small piece and consider it independent of the entire budget that we have generated. I don't think this council would do that for its own budget. So I have a question, actually, if, if it's appropriate. I've heard from a few people on council. I'd like to hear whether this is a sentiment that's generally shared by council, that we should go back and look at an issue at this point in our budget, or if there are a few people on council. And, uh, it makes a difference. Um, at, at one point, um, I think, um, Mr. Myers you said that you thought there was a majority on council and a majority of the community that wanted this. If that were true, that would make a difference in my consideration of what we ought to do about it. And the other- Let me ... That's a legitimate point to raise. And let me just let you know so that, uh, you and the other members of the board might be aware, the issue of approving the LexTran budget came up last week, and that motion was rejected by a majority of the council because of this issue. So I think it's fair to say that a majority of the council does view this as being a matter of some consequence as a result of that action last week. Um, okay. If I may follow up, um- Sometimes a vote suggests that people would like to have more information about an issue, not that they have made up their minds about whether to vote yes or no on it. So I, my interpretation, fair or not, of the vote last week was there were enough people on council who felt this was an issue that needed more airing, whether they thought that they ought to vote yes or no on the actual approval of the budget. And that's the, that's why I raised this question. Uh, and I, I would add one other thing. As a board member, my understanding about the force of the audit recommendation was that it was not just about the ADA compliance. It was about the impact of that, of the kind of service we were providing on the entire budget. So, the question of whether we want to provide more service for people outside the boundary is not an issue in and of itself, as far as I'm concerned. It's tied into the way in which we construct our whole budget. And if there are people outside the service boundary who are, um, for whatever reason, um, um, kinda tied to the L- to the wheel system, it raises a question about service for other folks out there as well. Wh- I mean, so it, it's not a question that is just about ADA and just about the people who live outside the area. So, as a board member, I think my responsibility is to consider this question in the context of the entire budget, and not as a single piece that can be decided by itself. Uh, so... Thanks. If I can respond, just for a second. One of the things that you said, y- you misinterpreted what I said. What I said was that this body and this community needs to be the one to decide the level of service that LexTran provides. And the reason I asked all the questions that I asked was to try to ascertain whether or not that auditor was telling you you couldn't do something, or recommending that you do something different than what you were doing. That's what I was trying to get at. And so what I was trying to get at was, if the auditor's talking about the federal dollars and the federal law, that's one thing. But when this community voted on that referendum, then this community needs to decide how it wants its tax dollars spent. And I think that's what Councilman Stinnitt was talking about, was along with that referendum, was a list of things that LexTran was supposed to do to improve the service. And those are the issues that we have. Okay. So i- if I may respond. My understanding, when this issue was discussed by the board, was that that recommendation from the auditor was something that we could not ignore without jeopardizing federal funding. That it was not, it was not just a by-the-way comment. There were a few things that they thought we were doing that were not consistent with good practice for transit systems within the, within the country. And so, we could ignore that only at our own peril. Oh, okay. Now you raise a whole different issue, and that's why I asked all the questions preliminary that I asked. Because it sounds like, to me, that you may be misinterpreting things. Because what it sounds like, to me, the auditor was concerned about was your compliance with ADA, not whether you provided an extra and above level of service. And that's why I asked, was he saying, "If you're gonna do this, do you have to charge the $5." And because the $5 can come from the tax money that's being levied on these citizens, not those federal dollars. I understand that that would put in jeopardy your funding from the federal government if you weren't doing the bare minimum to satisfy the federal government's requirements on those folks inside that boundary. But that's why I asked the question of, in order to do that, does that mean you can't spend any more money to do above and beyond what they're asking you to do? Okay, so right now I don't know what the real answer is. I only know the impression I had, was that we should not ignore that recommendation. And that, and that if we did, then we, next time they audit us, they're going to have th- these red flags and there's gonna be a concern. About, about- When you say recommendation, which- ... the recommendation to either eliminate the service, which was one of the recommendat- the recommendation had two parts. You could either eliminate that service, because you don't have to provide it and it's not good practice, or you can provide that service, but charge a fee so that at least you're recouping some of the cost. Now, I don't know what force that has. My understanding was that it had a lot of force. I may be wrong. Well, when I asked the question, that's not what your director articulated. He did not say- I understand. ... that at all. You're the only person- So- ... that's come up here and said that today. ... s- I don't know what the real story is. I, I, and that's what we... At l- at the very least, we need to discuss that and get, you know, an understanding. M- one, one thing I, I want to, I just wanna s- establish is, because we receive federal dollars, we are audited, uh, uh, they review 23 areas of funding. It has nothing to do with where the source of money comes to pay for the para-transit. It's the fact that we receive federal dollars that mandates we're audited in that program. So that's one thing I wanted to make sure was clear. It doesn't matter if we take $5 from this fund and this fund and this fund. The fact of the matter is that we are, because we are regulated by the federal government, and that's one of the areas they regulate, that's one of the areas they look at. So that's one thing I just want to make clear. And that's why I started out all my questions asking about those exact questions. But I, I don't think that, that the federal government... Eh, what you're saying is different than what the director said earlier, and I don't think... What it sounds like you're saying now is that the federal government could say, "We're not gonna give you funding if you choose to spend these other dollars from another pot of money to do something that we don't think you should do." I don't think that's the case. If, if we, the only time that will come into place is if we did not, if they came in and said, 'cause we've gotten, we've had auditors- If you didn't comply with their bare minimum. Right. If, if the, if they came in, the questionnaire on ADA and they look at those areas and you, we haven't complied, and this would be the third... If we did, don't comply, this would be the third time we didn't comply. At that time, they would look at starting to say issues about your funding. I agree with that. And that's why- And it's, go ahead, yeah. ... I was trying to establish that separation and then everything I prefaced on was that you would get to meeting their requirements and doing the things that they ask you to do, in terms of providing priority service for those folks inside that three-quarter mile. So I agree with you 100% on that. Thank you. We have several council members with remaining questions. Council Member Henson. Council Member Henson. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to clarify that when Rocky and I met, and, and, um, Council Member Beard, we did decide that they would discuss all this in their work session on Tuesday, and then they would come back to the council with their recommendation. So, um, just to clarify that I, um, I maybe I failed to mention that. But I didn't, I didn't think we expected to get an answer tonight from you and the board. Um, but, uh, also would like to address the fact that, you know, everyone seems to think this is a very small thing, and I guess to me, to the people that it affects, it is not a very small thing. It's, it's a small thing to LexTran's budget, it's a small thing maybe to Will's. To the city of a whole, it's a very small thing, but to those individuals with disabilities, it's a big thing. So, just so I've made myself clear, thank you. Council Member Baird. Thank you, uh, temporary Chairperson, I guess. Um, actually this is not addressed at you, Rocky, I, um, you know, it, when we met, um, when Council Member Henson and, and you and George Miller and myself met, uh, we agreed that you all would, uh, discuss this this evening. Obviously, you'll have a little tough time doing it if we keep hold you here, uh, for the rest of the evening, and I don't intend on sitting here that long. Um, if this level of concern exists on this body, this is not the place nor the time to, uh, address it. This rises to the need or requirement for a task force to be appointed or something, working group of some kind who can sit down with, uh, the LexTran folks and work through this thing, but not to hold anybody's budgeted h-hostage, uh, so that we can at the 11th hour and 30 minutes, uh, uh, get an answer that we like. Uh, just not the way to do business, folks. Thank you, Mayor. Do you, uh, intend to entertain a motion to refer it to a committee? I would most definitely do so. Uh, appointed by the, by the mayor? Uh, yes, appointed by the mayor. All right. Is there a second? I heard a second from Council Member Henson. The motion is to refer this issue to a committee of, uh, th- the council appointed by the mayor for purposes of, uh, bringing a recommendation to the council. Council Member Gordon and Wallace and Council Member James. Well, I appreciate your intent, but I'm going to vote no, because I would like to hear back from LexTran as to what they decide at their six o'clock meeting. Council Member Wallace. I, I would vote no also, because that's what the LexTran board is. And certainly there are a lot of other boards we could have a committee for. Um, and I feel like my answers, my questions were answered, and I think that there are a lot of programs out there to provide for people who can't afford that transportation to get some kind of assistance and, you know, if not, maybe that can be looked at, but... Th- the floor's open for discussion on the motion to refer. Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor. I will vote no as well. I do think the LexTran board was appointed by the mayor, um, confirmed by us, um, given that authority to give advice to us and give advisory, um, decisions to us, and I will expect to hear back from the board. Thanks, Mayor. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I also am gonna vote no. I think we've beat this horse to death, and, uh, I think th- folks on the council, uh, sound like they're like mind, the entire LexTran board was here, I think they've heard us loud and clear. Uh, if there's a way to extend service without violating your f- uh, and jeopardizing your federal funds, I'm sure they're gonna find a way. And 'cause they gotta come right back here to get their budget done. And so that's the qu- that's the partnership that we have underneath the, uh, under the, the tax system tha- that's been set up. So I'm confident that, uh, we're gonna get this worked out soon. Thank you, Mayor. Any more discussion on the motion to refer to a committee? All in favor of referring to a committee, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? No. Motion carries. All right. Uh, the motion fails. Uh, we're back to, uh, the speaker list. Council Member Wallace. Uh, that's all I had to say was that my answers, my questions had been answered. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Okay, yes, um, thank you. Uh, on the federal audit, how many recommendations did the auditor make, or did the audit make? Uh, ma'am, I- I'm not sure. There were several. S- with regards to the ADA area? No. How many total recommendations did the auditor make? Is, is, you're talking about the whole entire audit? The whole entire audit. How many recommendations were made? There were, were, they found deficient in about five areas and, but we were able to make corrections to those, including the recommendations. We told them we would, the response we told them we would do in regards to ADA. I don't know if Mr. Burk's trying to find, find it or not, before I ask my next question. Yes, there was, uh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight areas, nine areas. That was a big difference. I'm sorry, eight areas. So were there... Y- y- y- I guess, were there, um, eight areas where there were various recommendations made within those areas or just eight different recommendations? There were... Those were eight deficiencies and with each deficiency, they made a corrective action. And then, so there were several. There's multiple within each of those areas. They, they suggested ways we could fix each of the deficiencies. And not all of those have budgetary impact, correct? That is correct. And so I would assume that in all those eight areas and all those recommendations that were made by federal auditor, all those have been accepted? Yes. They gave us a timeline and asked us how we would do that. We responded back as how we were going to address each of those issues and they're satisfied with our responses. Thank you. We got the letter October 2nd, 2008. Is that all, Council Member Croza? Oh yeah, thank you. I'm sorry, Council Member Hinson. I just, uh, wanted to announce to the council that earlier, well, later, latter part of last week, I sent an email that had all of the ADA requirements, the FTA requirements, and the audit. So if you would, you know, take the time to read it, you'll see that the FTA and the ADA have no mandates on the issues. They have no requirements. It's, uh, optional, may, if, so forth. Thank you. Thank you. I don't have any other individuals indicating a desire to speak. There's nothing further. We'll move along to council reports. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. The Southland Jamboree starts tonight in one hour at 7:00 on Lexington's Music Row, Southland Drive, outside of the Southland bowling lanes. Come on out and kick off the start of summer with some toe-tapping, foot-stomping bluegrass music and some good food and good times. The Southland Association is still looking for some sponsors. Events will run on Tuesday evenings at each week at 7:00 PM throughout the summer. You can get more information at www.southlandassociation.com. Also, this Saturday, June 6th, from 8:00 AM till noon, the Firebrook Association will hold its annual neighborhood garage sale at the Firebrook Clubhouse. And finally, the Hillandale Association will hold its annual picnic this Sunday, June 7th, at the Hillandale Park from 2:30 to 4:30 PM in the afternoon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you also for joining me last Friday for there, our, our trip out to Leestown Corridor to look at, uh, a number of greenways. Thanks also to Keith Lovin who, who joined us and proved to be an able guide, uh. I think as we all saw, we, we, we have um, a, a wonderful opportunity to, to connect several greenways to the Town Branch Trail and to, and, and to bring a, a, a vital environmental network to, uh, uh, to Northwest Lexington. So, um, I think it was a good afternoon and, and I appreciate your taking the time out of your schedule to, uh, to join me in that, uh, uh, on that tour. My pleasure. It was enjoyable. Thanks. It was indeed. Uh, one, one announcement. In 10 minutes, the Historic Woodward Heights Neighborhood Association, uh, will, will meet at the Community Action Building on, uh, on West High at, at Moreno. This is, uh, uh, an opportunity for residents to, uh, uh, to get an update on phase four of the, uh, New Town Pike Extension. Andrew Grunewald, the project engineer, will, uh, will bring the residents up to date on the, uh, on, on the road project. So, uh, drop your knives and forks and, uh, and, and come out to the meeting. As I say, it starts in now eight minutes. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just, uh, very quickly, move to approve the NDF funds this week. Do I hear a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Secondly, uh, you had mentioned that June 6th obviously is the 65th anniversary of, of D-Day and, and uh, it is also, uh, coincidentally the, uh, the National Trail Day. Uh, so it's an observance of, of, uh, this new way of moving around our country and certainly want to draw attention to that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hinson. I'm sorry, Council Member Lawless. I'm not sure. Um, yes, I just wanted to remind people that this Sunday, um, RJ Corman is going to be repairing the railroad tracks on Walton Avenue at Winchester Road, and so the road will be closed for part of the day. And I wanna thank them for getting that done. And also, I wanted to check back in. I hate to keep asking about this, but, um- When we might get the report on what the city's anticipating budget-wise and fundraising-wise for the World Equestrian Games 'cause it's still on my nervous list. Um, well, the estimate on Spotlight Lexington particularly, they got a high, medium and low budget. The medium, the low number is 900,000 approximately, high number is a million five. We announced the first sponsor last week, St. Joe Hospital for 250,000 in cash plus some additional, um, in-kind contributions. So that's an excellent start. To the degree you want particulars about that, I would encourage you to visit with Krista Greathouse, I think she's in the process of getting a presentation scheduled, but in the meantime feel free to give her a call. Okay. Thanks. Council member Hinson. Thank you, Mayor. I've just got a couple of announcements. Um, Cardinal Valley Neighborhood Association meeting is tonight at seven o'clock, Faith Baptist Church, 125 Garrett Avenue. And tomorrow evening is Pine Meadows Neighborhood Association. And it, well, it's now Pine Meadows, Cardinal Hill and, um, Wolf Run, but at the Pimlico Club House, and that's also at seven o'clock. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just wanted to announce to everyone that, uh, the Kenwick Neighborhood Association bungalow tour will be this, um, Sunday. And, uh, tickets are available, um, at, on location. You can go to, I don't remember the name of the church, but it's on Victory Avenue, I'm sure it will be easy to find. So I would encourage everybody to go out and, uh, and take a look at that, uh, Kenwick area, where they have, uh, redone so many of the old, uh, bungalows. Also wanted to thank the mayor and, um, all the, uh, council member Gordon and counci- council member Elliger and Jerry Hancock, Pat Dugger and Harold Tate for attending our neighborhood, um, association workshop, or excuse me, conference at, um, Spencerian College. It was a wonderful, um, i- uh, presentation by the city, uh, employees. They did a fantastic job talking about the, the issues that, uh, they have some expertise in, and the feedback was just wonderful. So we hope to do that again, um, probably in about six months, and just wanted to let people know that, uh, uh, look out for this because it's well worth your time to come. And thanks again to, um, the council members and the mayor for attending. Thank you. Council member, uh, James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, council members, you should have in front of you, um, a motion that I've passed around regarding a grant, um, from Easterseals, and I, and I feel like I, I need to explain a little bit to you what's happened. It's a little bit off, um, protocol, but I have to make you aware of what went on. I am a member of the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities, as you're aware. Last year the commission submitted a grant, um, to Easterseals, and this is a transportation institute that's held annually in Washington, um, and last year the commission was not granted. This year the commission applied, or chair applied on our behalf, and we got accepted. Um, and there are three areas, three categories, um, that we're dealing with, and you'll be pleased to know that one of those is complimentary paratransit service. Um, the second has to do with effective communication, um, and the third has to do with funding and finance, um, of transportation, specifically dealing with, um, those that are in need of accessible community. Um, we made this grant application and received this grant and did not ask in advance for permission to send the grant, to apply for the grant. But we were accepted, and, um, have talked with the law department, and before you is the motion, um, which would allow for acceptance of this grant. But I felt like I needed to come let you know that it wasn't done on purpose, um, however, complete transparency, it is here now, and, um, would ask that you would allow for acceptance of this grant, and be happy to explain more in detail about this. Um, it would be myself, members of lex, or, uh, there are some employees of Lexitran that will attend, um, Wills I think may, or someone that deals with paratransit will also be, um, there. Um, another member of our commission and another Irving County Government, um, commission member, um, and our goal would be to work on these challenge areas and get solutions. We'd have a work plan and we would take a year to en- to implement, um, the solutions for these challenge areas. Um, one of the goals, and, uh, one of the reasons I believe that w- the grant was accepted is because we're gonna be, w- we'll have a international community here for the 2010 games, um, as well as we already have an international community here already. And one of the, um, issues is communication with international audience, um, when it comes to transportation. So how do you, how do you deal with accessibility and transportation when there's a language barrier, um, or a disability, or a physical disability? So, I make a motion, um, to place on the docket for June 11, 2009 council meeting a resolution authorizing the acceptance of a grant from Easterseals to the Irving County Government for the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities to cover the cost of attending the Accessible Community Transportation Institute in Washington DC. Second. We have a motion by Council Member James, second by Council Member Gorton. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have. Thanks, Council. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I just, uh, have one thing. Today, we had, in our services committee, a, a, a great long discussion on the animal cruelty ordinance. And since the report ou- I think that there may have been a misunderstanding based on, uh, a question that I asked towards the end of the meeting, as to whether or not I would be moving this into tr- trying to move this back into committee, the tethering portion of, um, the discussion today. And I believe what I will do is hold off til next week, til the report out, and also, give council members some time. Because obviously, the, our committee was just the one that was here, but that might give them some time after they hear the report out to determine. But I just wanted to clarify that I'm not prepared to do that today, for people who were in attendance who may have thought that I was going to do that. Thank you. Thank you. And does any other member have a report? Seeing none. We'll proceed. I have none. That takes us down to public comment on issues not on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the Council? I have, uh, Mr. Cobb on the list. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, first, giving honor to the most high, to the whole council. A lot of people doing a lot of good work, and I congratulate y'all on that. I wanna thank everybody who's helped me over the last, uh, few years. We got a lot more work to do. We gotta change the mindsets of people. I actually saved a man's life last night, who hated me. And now, he loves me. Things like that is gonna start happening. Lexington's future is in the hands of people who y'all probably don't even speak to, who you walk by every day. Lexington's future is in the hands of people, different, that look different from you and look different from me. But they got power, they got gifts. So we gotta open our eyes up to the new things that's coming to Lexington. The good old boy network is over. No matter how long it's been going on, it's not gonna last, 'cause no lie can live forever. We gotta look at the University of Kentucky Basketball, what they doing. They bringing thoroughbreds in. Youth. We gotta look to our youth to save us. Somebody wanna help me, I don't care what color you are. It's gonna take everybody for us to be able to survive. I got jobs, I got ideas. I need the Council's help to bring my vision into reality. I got a job based on population. And I wanna thank y'all who've helped me, like Chuck, Ed Lane, all the council who's helped me. Please continue to pray for me. We got some critical issues, and we don't have no time to point, blame at nobody. I'm gonna see what I can do to help. Thank you. Thank you. Ma'am, if you'll step to the podium, and give us your, uh, name and address. You'll have three minutes. Thank you. I actually have come... My name is Nicole Dummit, and my address is 4424 Walnut Creek Drive. I'm in, uh, your district. Um- Sorry, ma'am, I didn't catch your name. Nicole? Nicole Dummit. Okay. Thanks. Um, I actually have comments about LexTran. Sorry, guys. I, I didn't, failed to put my name on the list earlier to speak when it was- That's all right. ... hotly debated, and sadly, the triumphant exodus. No, you're back. Thank goodness. Okay. Um, I work with an organization called Employment Solutions, and, um, my CEO, Rick Christman was a former board member of LexTran. Um, our organization was, uh, very, very happy to be helping with the, um, referendum, the, the, to try to get the referendum passed. Um, forgive me, I'm not a pub- public speaker, as you can tell. That's all right. Um, but, uh, the organization and then individuals like myself and other staff members within that organization, um, put a lot of effort and energy into trying to put a face on the very people that this tax referendum would help. And I fear that today, some of that, those faces were really largely absent. And, um, so I'm, I'm really here to sort of represent them. Um, our organization helps people with disabilities get jobs, among other things. Um, and the division of the company that I run does that exact thing. And without entities like LexTran and Wheels, we could not do that job by any means, and I applaud the board and, and the leadership of LexTran through the years and moving forward for those efforts. Having said that, I have a lot of concerns about the changes that are, um, being proposed or have been proposed about the fare increases and the, the parameters of service throughout Fayette County. And, um, I just wanna make sure that I speak for the hundreds of people, literally, that we serve every single year. I work with Peggy Hanson. Um, and, uh, these are the very people that we, um, that Employment Solutions tried to bring to council chambers, um, so that people with disabilities would be an actual face in the room when you all were making decisions about whether to even put the referendum, um, in, on the, on the agenda. Um, we, I believe, were really the only agency in the, in the entire Fayette County, which is very disappointing, uh, 'cause there are many, many of us, um, that actually tried to help make sure that people with disabilities were, um, you know, uh, writing letters, and, you know, had a kind of a unified message. Um, I was, um, a member of the Citizens for LexTran. Basically, we, we kind of started the Citizens Connecting Our Community. It's a group that, sort of a spin-off of LexTran employees, board members, citizens in the community, um, service organizations like myself. We were, you know, kind of getting our efforts together. I have lost all my time. If you- Um, I urge you to just take a look at what Peggy Hanson has sent you, because it is not... A lot of the information that you've been given today are not mandates. They're suggestions. And I would... Sorry to take more time, but if there is a willingness on the part of LexTran and Wheels to provide extended services to the service area that we've served for years, if there is a willingness, it's clear to me that the voters in the community have absolutely backed that up. Non-riders have said that they would absolutely pay for those services. Thank you, Ms.- And there are not... Sorry, there are not fundings, ex- extra funding the people can get to get those services. Thank you, Ms. Dummit. Does anyone else wish to address the Council, or do I hear a motion we adjourn? Move to adjourn. Can I close session, Mayor? That's right. Um, I'm sorry. The closed session has been postponed. Oh, it... Oh, okay. No. Yeah. So, uh, I have a motion to adjourn. Do I hear a second? Second. Council Member Beard. So, uh, all in favor of adjourning, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Postpone... Uh, oppose- Oppose. No. Meeting is adjourned.