City Council - Regular Meeting

Amen. Thank you, sir. And if you join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madame clerk, if you would please call the role. Yes, sir. Council member Bishop here. Council member Fulkerson here. Council member Issacs here. Council member Jones here. Council member Springsteen

here. Council member Tyler here. We have a quorum. Thank you, ma'am. And we will start with the first order of business, approval of minutes from March 23rd, 2026. If I can move in a second. Second. Got a first and a second. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, motion carries. Judge Howard, are you ready?

Oh. Yeah, we're good. Okay. The reason that we're here, municipal order number 24,2026, approving agreement with Elizabethtown Tourism and Convention Bureau for the outdoor music venue oper operations. If I can get a motion in a second to read, please. So moved. Second. All in favor? I

opposed. Judge Howard.

At a special meeting of the city council held on the date set out below after first being read. A motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded, and approved. Whereas the city desires to work with community partners on projects that benefits the citizens and partnered with the Elizabeth Town Tourism and Convention Bureau to provide an outdoor music venue located at 600 Commerce Drive by entering into an interlocal agreement dated September 5 of 2025 addressing the land acquisition, design, engineering, financing, and construction of the venue. Now, be it ordered by the city council that the mayor is authorized to enter into an agreement with tourism for the establishment of an operations agreement for the venue per the attached exhibit A. Be it further ordered that the mayor and/or his designate is hereby authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to perfect this order, including signing the agreement and submitting said agreement to Department for Local Government for approval. RED adopted and approved the third day of April of 2026.

Discussion, questions, comments. I appreciated the fact that we had that other agreement attached to this. It allowed us to reference that back. Um I had had a question got it answered u because in this agreement there's if you look under financial responsibility has us and tourism both listed uh but that's in case one defaults uh and of course the bonds are in our name so that's why that was there but appreciated all the information. Anybody else? I knew this would be quick. I need a motion in a second to adopt. Please make a motion. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I

opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. Thank you all. And I will open the floor to public comments to the crowd.

And I don't see much of a crowd, so I think we're safe on that. Um, city council information items. Next meeting will be held on April 13, 2026. And I would be remiss if I did not recognize a very very special person to not only me but to all of us who I will not tell you the number but is having a birthday today. She is the best city clerk in the state of Kentucky. I wouldn't trade her for anybody. Matter of fact, she is a leader in her position across the state with other city clerks. They uh she sets the standard and we're very blessed and pleased to have her with the city of Elizabeth Town. And not only is she really good at her job, she's a special person, too, and a great friend. So, Jessica Graham, our city clerk, happy birthday.

Happy birthday. We will we'll spare you the song. We'll just Anybody else?

Two quick things. One is a comment to the council and to uh Chief Thompson. Um at Grace Heartland Church this week, we had a situation uh that involved trauma uh and we needed help. It was beyond what we could do uh and handle and reached out and Anisha came from the police department. Unbelievable. I cannot tell you how professional she was and great in handling that situation. Um we are so so blessed to have her. Uh she did an unbelievable job and brought Sophie and I didn't know we had uh I didn't know we had a therapy dog. Uh Sophie and I bonded. She helped me too. chief. But just to say to this council and to you, Chief, what a blessing she is. Uh we will cut every truck Dawn Hill ever needs to keep her. Okay, just so you know. Um the other thing would be to have a question. Um we've had some community rallies here and I know we have been having to provide police protection for those. Do we know what that's costing the taxpayers and how's that affecting your budget, Chief? It's uh it's draining our overtime budget considerably because these events that pop up are unplanned. When the city events are planned on the calendar, obviously we're aware of those. We u as we you all know we're preparing our current budget for next fiscal year. We take into account the planned city events and we factor in that overtime. Uh these events obviously aren't planned and for us it's beginning to drastically eat away at our overtime budget because we can't rely on the attitude that oh nothing will happen. We've seen around our country that things happen. Uh we could point to instance after instance where uh people maybe were reckless, naive, whatever you want to classify it, things happen, they weren't prepared and then people suffer for that. buildings, property, all of

the things that can happen. We prepare for that. And in doing so, that means people. That means paying additional people, specialty units that we'll have. I can't give you that number today, but in preparation for our budget, we are we are working on that and we're trying to get a cost drilled down for each event and then an average so that we can maybe factor in something moving forward because it has been a a definite something we've noticed and and felt for our overtime budget for a while. And honestly for us, we we certainly don't the content is neutral. Whatever people get out and want to talk about is whatever they want to talk about. So, it's not aimed at any particular group or groups. It's just a matter of us as a city and as a department being prepared for that and allowing them to have that demonstration, rally, whatever you want to call it, and do that safely because the rallies themselves are typically not problematic. You have to plan for the counter of whatever that cause is. And uh if we don't do that, again, I I think it's reckless on our part and we just don't want that look for our city. So hopefully in the next week or so, I can have that prepared for you all and get you an update on what those have cost us on average because again, that's something we're going to factor into the next fiscal year as as maybe putting a couple of those in and then if we have an event, then we're fiscally prepared for it and overtime. And then if we don't, we just we just don't. Chief, what's the process for is there a there's so this last protest did not have a they didn't have a permit or nobody reached out to you guys or what what's the process so that you can plan ahead for this?

Well, fortunately most of the incidents that we've had recently we've had notice uh the organizers have let us know they're going to do it that they have actually said we our intent is to be peaceful which is always good to hear. Uh again it's the counter side of that but we really don't have a permitting mechanism. That may be something for the council to consider moving forward where we could all get together and see what we want that to look like. But from a permitting perspective, the way these are done, if people are just walking up and down the sidewalks, you know, that's that's just something that they have the ability to do. Now, there are now if it's a parade, if it's a a 5K event, if there's road closures or something along those lines, but the events that we've specifically had are just uh the guidelines have been given to each organizer. We got to leave the sidewalks available for for egress for people that want to walk and um stay out of the roadways, utilize crosswalks. And we've we've really not had a lot of problems, but a lot of that is because I I feel strongly that we have communication from beginning and to end with the organizers. And then we have a strong presence out there. Not an overbearing presence, but a presence nonetheless. Um, but that presence is in addition to patrol because patrol have responsibilities to answer calls. If they're on a call and they can't be dedicated to downtown or wherever that event is, that could be problematic. So, it's a a dedicated response to that area, wherever that is. There is some legislation that had passed that's going to prevent people from standing on state rideways uh standing and protesting at these intersections. One of the ones that we were really concerned with recently was at Ring and Dixie, and that's the busiest intersection in the entire county. There's just the less distractions we have there. It's the most wrecked interstate or uh

intersection, I'm sorry, in the county. We don't need additional distractions, especially there when they're downtown. Again, not necessarily ideal, but less traffic flow. But that Ring and Dixie location is problematic to say the least. Right. I've seen those statistics. Um, so how much notice would you guys need? I guess since we don't have a permitting process, maybe we'll consider it, but how much notice would you need for something like this? And to be clear, I didn't have anything to do with this. I'm just asking.

Sure. No, no, that's it's fine. And it's a fair question. Again, this this conversation we've been having at the PD because sometimes we have a week or two, sometimes we have a month. The the last couple have been part of the No Kings National Movement. So because it's a national movement and you see that all over social media, it gives us a little more time to prepare for it. But the reality is these things can happen in a day or two and then it's leaves us scrambling. We can prepare for something like this in a matter of hours. It's just it's more intrusive on schedules because our officers that are going to have to do this that aren't scheduled to work, well, they have lives as well. So who's available? We have a crowd management team. We have a special response team. They do different things, but to get all of those people on a moment's notice requires effort. Uh, and sometimes it's easier, well, all the times it's easier with notice. U, but it can be done. It's just more problematic with less notice. I think ideally having two weeks to prepare is really good for us because that allows everybody for child care issues, you know, spouses that work different shifts, making making those arrangements is super helpful. I think logistics, to answer your question a little bit, is is important, no doubt. And he's addressed that. But the bigger issue, I think, is he just doesn't have enough overtime budget for the number of different demonstrations, rallies, whatever you want to call them. And that's a lot of that's dictated by the national political climate. As everybody knows, there's no sense in beating around the bush.

And so maybe just in May when we go in, we need to take that into consideration when we when we develop their overtime budget and add a little bit to it. But yeah, it's it's cost more money because we've had several rallies here in this fiscal year than I think any of us anticipated.

And it requires communication not just with the police department. You know, we talk with fire um Beth Piles, her her state theaters across the street and um that's kind of a backup location. So, we reached out to her on this recent one and she said, "Oh, please don't let anybody park over there. We have an event." So, we have to check for city events that would conflict this. Uh, Staff Sergeant Pennington's funeral, as tragic as that was for our community, there was talk that that could be on the same day. That was going to be very problematic, that we would have supporters of that funeral procession and then protesters for something completely different, but trying to occupy the same real estate was going to be problematic. So all of these things allow us with notice allow us to talk to the organizers and say, "Hey, we're here to help you accomplish what you want to do safely, but but some give and take that allows us that that ability." So yeah, I would uh hope that maybe we could try and figure out the best way moving forward. We've even talked with uh Ken Howard, our city attorney, because the old courthouse square was a popular spot back in 2020, 2021. That's now private property. However, there's sidewalks around it. Who owns those sidewalks? Are those city sidewalks? And that was always a place that people just assumed that we can go there. So, we were trying to let people know, hey, this is not a suitable location anymore because it's private property. Just some things we had to plan for. comfortably that would be worse than Ring and Dixie. Also,

it it can be, but with enough people on the sidewalks when when one group was inside of that perimeter, then it it actually isolated the the one group, whatever that group is, so that it's a blessing and a curse. My my question was was content neutral, too. I I was worried about the the financial thing and I'm not so sure that I wouldn't be in favor of across the board establishing a cost to help reimburse uh for for the police coverage that has to happen. But I mean that's something we can look at.

I don't think you're chilling free speech. I think you are saying you can have free speech but in order for us to provide safety that you have to I don't know. I don't know what that would look like. I'll certainly be at the table with you all to provide our input from our side. I think that's that's more a question for our our legal counsel and this body here. Um ours was just to to your point uh Councilman Ferguson is we know it it has hit us hard on our overtime budget fiscally and we just have to do a better job preparing moving forward for something that is unplanned and that's the difficult side of it is what the what is that going to look like? And they may stop, they may get worse. I I don't know, but we can't assume that our overtime budget is sufficient enough to get us in this next fiscal year. So, we're going to get a number together. We'll have that number uh added to the budget hopefully. So, when you all see those presentations, but again, knowing full well that that's a contingency based on unplanned events. And if we don't have unplanned events, that money won't get touched.

That's our hopes. Did you say cars? Was there an S? To Councilman Fulkerson, we never want to buy a car. We want cars plural. To Councilman Fulkerson's point, you know, we we we could have these different groups communicate with you. And I don't think communication's been a problem if if I'm correct. Thus far, we've we've done very well with

and Chief Thompson could look at him and say, "Hey, yeah, you you can have your event. I mean, obviously we can't keep you from doing it because of free speech and we'll run whoever we got available past you and hope everything works out, but that's irresponsible and we're just not going to operate that way because we don't want to be on the national news and have anything happen in our city and get that reputation. So, they've done an excellent job of making sure that those things don't happen and they've doubled down on manpower and we're going to continue to do that. We just need to figure out what that's going to look like and make sure that we have the appropriate money and the overtime budget for them to do that. But yeah, it we've had more than we usually have over the years here lately and it's it's digging into us a little bit financially.

I use the analogy when we prepare for these that nobody in the midst of a weather pattern wants to see Jim Canour come to their city and we don't want Fox, CNN, and all of the big national media come to our city after one of these events or during one of these events. We much prefer the feel-good stories where they come in because something good happened. we have a a new K9 or something like that. That's the kind of stories we want, not the negative uh type stuff that just gets you in a jackpot of a prize you don't want to win. So, you heard Councilman Fulkerson's comments on Anisha. If you would address a little bit about what she does and what she's meant to the department since we've had her, if you don't mind, while you're up here.

Sure. Absolutely. Uh and and his compliments were not the first. I actually received uh three three messages myself on that event and that's outside the traditional job that she does because the victim centric position that she holds is based on crime. You know, the the victims of of crime and we've actually because we do have more crime than one person can provide victim services for. We we have a a pretty narrow path of what we typically utilize our services for, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't jump outside that box. And to uh Councilman Folk's point and come when needed and when those instances happen, and they happen often, she's there. Sophie's, you know, the most popular uh employee that doesn't get paid uh at the police department. Um, so it's been a home run and when we were selected for that grant through the IECP grant to hire that position and then they refunded that again for a second year. You all committed to hiring her position full-time when that so she's about to start her third year and the city's getting ready to finally actually have to, you know, foot that side of the bill. But more importantly, we've recognized the need beyond what Anisha is able to do. And Anisha being Anisha has applied for a second grant to provide a second victim service specialist to help where she's unable to because again she's one person and she does a phenomenal job, but we're limited to when she's available for that. And everybody, every cup has a capacity and we've already got her at her capacity. So hopefully she has successfully submitted a grant that gets uh accepted and we can add that position, but we would then bring that to you all with the same ask that beyond that grant, is this something that we can fulfill? We

don't want to bring somebody in for a one-term one and done. So we'll we'll talk about those things, but she continues to provide great victim services um traditionally and non-traditionally. She has background in grant writing. she has successfully written half a dozen grants uh local and others that we've been successful on receiving additional funds to help our community. So, if I have failed over the last seven years I've been here, that is at least one thing I will say that we did. We hired the right person. Um because she and our intel analyst, if everybody else were bad hires, they've been home runs, both of them.

Anybody else? Thank you, sir. Uh, I think her age is 42, by the way. 42. 42. See, he thinks a lot of you too, Jessica. Trying to get brownie point.

Anybody else have any comments they'd like to make before we adjourn? Seeing none, I will take a motion and a second to adjurnn then, please. Got a first and a second. And before we do adjurnn, I do want to thank you all for coming in on a short notice and handling this. You all are a great team. I appreciate you very much and uh I won't do this to you very often. I promise. And if I hit you with the prayer there and you weren't prepared, you did a good job. So we have a first and a second to adjurnn. All in favor? Opposed? Seeing none, motion carries. We are adjourned. Thank you all.