City Council - Regular Meeting

If everyone would stand, we will call this city council meeting to order. At this time, we will have a word of silence. Thank you. I will ask Councilman Michael Chris if he will lead us in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. You may be seated. I want to welcome each of you all here to the Georgetown City Council meeting for Monday, June the 8th, 2026. We're here to conduct business for the city of Georgetown. We will ask at this time Madam Clerk if you will call the roll. Here.

Mr. Chris. Here. Mrs. Hambrick. Present. Mr. Hampton. Here. Mr. Minkus.

Present.

Mrs. Leslie Mitchell. Here.

Mrs. Tingle Sykes. Here. Mr. Stone. Here.

Thank you very much. Next item, item three, which is the approval of the minutes at this time for June 1, 2026, special city council meeting. At this time, I will entertain a motion. Motion made by Mr. Hampton. Do I have a second? Second. Second made by Ms. Brandt. Other further questions and or comments? All those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say likewise or nay. Let the record reflect that the motion passed. Item number four, the receipt of the check register at this time. Counselor, you should have received it electronically. If you have received those, please, by show of hands, Let the record reflect that all council members received it. At this time, item number five, public comment. At this time, you will have four minutes in which to state your concern with city council. When you come to the podium, please introduce your name and so on so that for the record, we can have it. Madam Clerk, we'll time you for four minutes. At the end of three minutes, she will then let you know, and then at one more minute, then you will go from there. Mr. Darnell, you wanted to speak too? All right, just a minute. Okay, hang on just a minute. All right, if there's no other concern, Mr. Darnell, Christopher, our concerns in Boston. Okay?

Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for your time. Appreciate everything that you're doing. We have some issues going on in our neighborhood that I guess we done tried to do everything that we could to try to do something about it. That's what the homeless population that's subsiding in our neighborhood and giving us a health and all these type of crisis within our neighborhood. And, uh, I just wanted myself cause I, I'm specific specifically saying the, uh, gathering place, I just wonder, are they in the right vicinity? Are they supposed to be around neighborhoods, learning institutes? Because some of these people have real problems, and they have domestic affairs. They have pedophile stuff going on. Are they supposed to be right here? Are they getting the correct help that they need? Because what we see is we see that they get fed every day, but they're sleeping in our backyards, and they're causing all kind of havoc, bringing all kind of, paraphernalias, leaving needles. I had a lady come up to me the other day. She was nervous. She said it was in the back of her yard. She said, could I come and look at it? And I said, well, come check it out. And the police, they was down there, they was moving them out. And we've been seeing these people move from here to here to here to here. But it's all in the Boston neighborhood. And like I say, if they feed 80 people and you house 40, you got 40 people running in our backyards. I know it's not in y'all's backyards, but it's in our backyards. And when it comes to affecting the elders, it needs to be something said about it. And it was another lady said she was scared to come out on her back porch at night. And I'm like, well, this is enough because I've been to the mayor. I've been to the police department. I've been everywhere to see what we could do about this. Now, the Amen House, I know it's a need, and I'm not saying that shut it down. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it just needs to go somewhere else. And with the monies, and you can buy churches and houses. Our taxpayer dollars, it goes to the police and being down there all the time. Police reports of activities going on. We got code enforcement reports of stuff going on. We got enough stuff to say this is a hazard to our community. So I'm just saying I wish we could do something about it correctively before something bad happens or we just shut it down, period. Because I don't think this place is being ran right. And it'll take other different authorities to find that out. So let's come up with a common solution that we can do something with this problem. Because y'all wouldn't want them in y'all's backyard, would you? We don't either. We don't either. We don't either. And when it's affecting the elderly and the kids, it's time for somebody to say something. Okay? So that's the first issue with that. This is public health and safety thing going in our neighborhood. Drug needles, everything. One of them kids pick up One of them neaters has got some stuff on it. Now we've got a problem. So let's just try to do something about it before it happens. Where everybody can gain from it. Where nobody loses from it. And my other thing is because we went down here before with the church. First it was with the park. So now I'm back at the park. Here's where I'm going at. So I see in our park that we need We need some speed bumps in there where they're going, where the kids is, some big yellow stuff that says when you're coming from town, you see this big yellow sign that says slow down. Because you've got cars parking, you've got kids. That's four minutes. Four minutes? Wow.

All right.

Thank you. Okay.

Wow. All right. Next is Mr. Terry Thomas. Yes.

Hello to the council. Hello to everybody. Thank you all for these few minutes that I'm going to get to speak. And I want to just piggyback off of Darnell about some of the safety concerns that we're having over in Boston. I just want to say thank you. Thank you to this city. Thank you to the leadership. Thank you for all the things that's going in a positive direction out there. But there's still some things we just got to clear up. Either now or it's going to be too late. Coming off of Mark Street, I done talked to it to a few people, but when you come off of Mark Street, if a person parks his car too close to the, you know, on both sides of, it's parking there now, but it really be yellow on both sides so people can see. We done been there too many times and we done seen the car coming up the street too fast and the car pulling out and it sends it straight to the direction. of the playground. We really need to take a serious look at this. It's not going to be long before it's too late if we don't do something. We got to get it slowed down over there. Please take a really good serious look at that. One more thing, over to the park. Let's get the bathrooms open. Whatever we have to do, look. If I was to take a female to the park with me and the park's not open, she has to leave the park to use the bathroom and it's daytime, middle of the daytime. You know, we really, really need to work on this. I mean, take it in consideration. I know you're not there, but if you was there and you was there with a significant other and there's nowhere for her to use the bathroom, it just really, I just know us as a city, we can work on that. And I'm going to change gears a little bit. I want to ask if we're looking for a place, and I wanted to make it public, but if we're looking for a place to put the cabin, it's not the leech cabin, but it's the other cabin, the one that Mr. Hicks used to be in. We got the perfect spot over in Boston, right there where you pull up where everybody just says Sternown right in back of the Little Brick Church. And to have something like that over in Boston, but if you're looking for something to do, I really want this for you all to take it in consideration. We would love to have that to be a part of the addition of Boston and give some people some other things to see. Just take it in consideration. Right, and we appreciate y'all, and we do. Darnell and I, since we was over there and had a lot to do with the naming of the park and everything, we just think it's our responsibility to bring it back to you when things are not going, thank you, when things are not going so well. But we just want to thank you for everything that you're doing over there. It's appreciated. Thank you.

All right.

All right. Thank you. Next is item number six, is the Mayor comments. First item on there is KLC Insurance Services, recognition of Georgetown Police Department. Yes, please, thank you. And if you will give your name and everything for the record.

Hey, I'm Brian Nunn, and if you would, I don't really just want to say, hey, Chief Augut, here's a plaque, and I'm out the door. I think that you guys kind of need to know why I'm here. My name's Brian Nunn. I had the privilege of carrying a badge and a gun for 26 years. For the last decade, I've worked for the Kentucky League of Cities. Why do you care? Why should you care that I'm here tonight? Police are different. I'm not saying we're better than firemen. We're better than public works. We're just different. And the reason we're different is because of the amount of liability associated with that job. You know, we sometimes get shot at. Sometimes we have to shoot people. I think the public and you guys expect us, if there's been a rape or a robbery or a serious incident, you expect us to chase the perpetrators that have done that. Police chases.

Excuse me. Thank you, sir. Go ahead.

There's a lot of liability associated with police chases. Police officers have to take people's freedom, take people's property, unfortunately have to assist in taking people's children. And nobody wants to insure folks to do that. And I know absolutely nothing about insurance. The only reason I have a job is because I can speak cop and work well with cops because I did it for 26 years. So the League of Cities insures about 200 police departments in the state. As part of that, we provide firearms training if we're requested. We provide driving training. Most of the police department's policies are based on KLC model policies. We have a committee that drafts those. It's a soft audit. It's called a safety and liability review every three years. We have online training for police departments. My job is to do everything I can for those 200 police departments to keep them safe and keep them out of lawsuits. Probably the biggest thing we do is a review every three years of your police department. I come in, I look at the policy, I look at the training, I look at the classes that the leaders have taken in leadership. We look at their vehicles to make sure they're properly equipped with sharps containers, fire extinguishers, everything that they need to provide safety to the citizens. So that review, and it's 2026. Everybody knows that Mr. Green talks in 2026. Everybody is concerned. about money and how police departments can save the city money. The only two ways that a police department saves money through their insurance is to be accredited by the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police, KACP, Georgetown Police Department is, and to get above an 80 on that review that I've came and talked about. I sat down with Chief Allgood and his command staff for about two and a half hours, about a month, month and a half ago, and did that review. So they are well above an 80. So rest assured, as far as being fiscally responsible, your police department is doing everything they can to be fiscally responsible to you guys and the citizens of Georgetown. And I got a lot of departments that are above an 80. But you start getting into the 100% range, you're kind of getting into rare air. You're talking about, I come in and look at 60 different things. It's kind of hard to be 100. Georgetown's never been 100. I think the last few years, they didn't have body cameras. We are big fans of body cameras. You guys have allowed them to purchase body cameras, which is a huge... That's great for the citizens and great for the police. So I applaud you all for getting the police department body cameras. Another thing that they had been lacking on was the amount of hours that their SWAT or SRT team was training. They have fixed that in the last few years. So you start talking about departments that are 100 We insure about 200 police departments, maybe 24, 25 of them have reached that 100% status. So what's that, one out of every eight? That's a pretty big deal. So I think that when the department is taking the effort to get to 100, They need to be recognized for that. So that's why I'm here tonight. And Chief Allgood's not going to tell you, hey, this is about Darren Allgood. It's not. It's about him. It's about his command staff. It's about the officers that you all have out on the street. It's about you as council members supporting him. It's about the citizens of Georgetown supporting him. But I need you guys to know and rest assured you have an incredible police department here. I worked a full eight hours today. and thought it was worthy to come down here and let you guys know that. So I didn't want to just hand him a plaque, say thanks for letting me be here, and bolt out the door. I wanted you to know why I was here. So if you would, I'd like to bring Chief Auger with the plaque now. Thank you.

All right. Congratulations. Okay. Go now with City Hall update. I'm going to let Devin kick it off here. We've been close, so Devin, give us an update.

Yeah, so you may have seen kind of the elephant in the room being addressed over the last week. So the nine windows that had been ordered in October were delivered on Friday the 29th, and that installation happened throughout the week last week. I walked through today and it appears to still be a little bit of trim work on the interior to finish those out, but they are all nine installed. So that was kind of that hold your breath point. So thankful that that's been completed. I've got a meeting on site Wednesday to ask for – updated dates on all final inspections all punch or the punch walk date and then any other items that remain as at the end of any project an ad here and a credit there just kind of is fluid so I've been asking for all of those updated numbers just to make sure we're square to clear out the project and then Some of the tertiary things, one of the main things that I've heard about is the parking lot paving and the timing there. Some of you may know that Hamilton Hinkle went through a complete upgrade of their local plant. So they've been offline for quite a while. So we're keeping regular tabs, Robert Bruin, Eddie Hightower, with Mark Reed and those folks, trying to make sure that we are front of the line so that we can communicate effectively with anybody impacted, including residents. you know, the farmer's market and other, other folks utilizing justice center, um, to get both the lot and then, um, North and West court streets will be completed as part of that. We hope, uh, those two would be completed with map funding, whereas the parking lot has been included as part of that, that credit back to, from the project that we removed from their scope and, the fiscal courts pavilion project scope will help contribute to that as well. So very hopeful we can get that scheduled, uh, but we're kind of at the mercy of that plant coming back online. Um, And then the only other larger thing that looms is the AV installation, which had to wait on some of the Council Chambers countertop items. That is scheduled for June 15. So our goal of holding that first meeting on July 13 in Council Chambers, that date holds. Mayor announced at the last meeting last Monday that July 13 is that target date for an open house. from 4 to 6 prior to the council meeting. So mayor's assistant has been working with Lori Saunders to kind of work through the details of that. So you can expect some public communication coming about that event in the near future. But like I said, got a meeting on site Wednesday. Hope to get those final dates and get an update in terms of when our folks are going to be sitting in chairs over there and serving the public from the building. So hope to provide a little more robust update. But I think that window installation is a pretty big one to provide tonight. So glad to answer any questions if I can.

Yeah, go ahead. Devin, the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, we probably had up to six inches here in Georgetown. How did the basement hold out?

The rain we had?

Yes.

The basement? Okay, so if you're facing the building, it abuts the building owned by... I'm blanking. The tenant in there is Brick House Real Estate, I believe. DH. Sorry, I blanked on his name. Abutting that building was part of where the moisture was happening. It's held up pretty well. I would be lying if I said there's zero water showing at all or zero indications of moisture. Aside from digging up the entire foundation of the building and pouring millions of dollars into that, It's never going to be perfect, but it held up fairly well. I'm glad to provide updates on that and provide some just kind of before and after photos. We did, when we did that initial, you'll remember that we obviously excavated in the front and we waterproofed from there, but then we did a solution that routes the water to the I'm not good with directions, that direction. And that largely covered the issue. But to say that there is zero indication of moisture, not accurate. We've already talked about a plan for dehumidifying and planning to accommodate that. But it is night and day in terms of the impact prior to that solution, yes. Mm-hmm.

All right. Devin, is everything on target to make sure that we get the historic tax credits turned in on time?

Yes. So thank you for asking that. And later in the meeting, we'll approve the selling those two stockyards, which ultimately that's something that is just an internal checkpoint that we have to complete before we submit that part three. and we get the paperwork back to actually sell them. So I think you'll remember on, well, you wouldn't remember this happened in the last council, finance committee recommended Stockyards Bank at that 88 cents on the dollar proposal for the tax credit purchase. Now that we're at that point, there are three parts of the tax credit application. Part three is when you're kind of, over the finish line and you can expect to actually enter into the transaction. So that's what you all will see later tonight. Lorac Sargent, the architects are handling that process for us, but that submittal is due July 1st. We believe they round based on the 36 month period of the project, which would really put us at the end of June. So we're clarifying. But they've said it's due July 1st. There is a small grace period, which I'm not fully understanding of, but I appreciate. There's a small grace period where we would have extra time to submit. But as of now, the application is prepared. They've got part three kind of in hand. The biggest part of that will be submitting all of the photographs at the end of the project. And ultimately, that will be a pretty extensive exercise that will happen as part of the punch walk, which is one of the dates that I'm going to be requesting this week.

Yes, go ahead.

Just out of curiosity, who is going to be doing the final punch list and be involved? Are we going to have electricians? Are we going to be having plumbers? Are we going to be having painters and contractors? Who does the final inspections?

Yeah, so the actual punch walk will be the architect of contract for the project. So that's Lord Ike Sargent. But in terms of all of those trades you just mentioned, those are kind of some of the inspections that I was talking about. So those final inspections from... Plumbing, elevator, HVAC, electrical, fire protection. So all of those inspections have to be checked off prior to certificate of occupancy. So punch walk is more walk through the building, determine, not to oversimplify, but, hey, you have a nick in that wall there. You need to fix that. It's not sufficient. Or this doesn't meet X code, so you need to decrease that lip by a quarter inch. So that will be by the architect of record for the project, but all those inspections will be completed as well.

So not just the people who did it will be doing the inspection?

No, no. The inspections, like their independent state level inspector for the building, for HVAC, all of those all of those jurisdictions over those trades will have to sign off.

But I'm even talking about the nicks in the wall and everything. I mean, surely we and somebody is going to be going along with them.

Yeah, we will, but ultimately on paper, you know, the architect is who has to sign off. They issue the certificate of substantial completion. They issue, you know, those final recommendations to the owner just by contract. They're our agent to complete that work because they understand the scope of work. They understand the codes. It's guaranteed. Yep.

one more follow-up so like when we built our house if the basement still leaked that was a problem I mean is there no guarantee on the front end of this process that there wouldn't be water in

I mean, there's not water. It's just you can visibly see just like discoloration. I'm glad to look further into that. I know the solution they proposed, I would say, substantially fixed the problem. The question of whether in a building of this age and whether you can completely eradicate that issue, I don't know the answer to that. I think that's something that will come up on the punch walk, though, if it doesn't meet that standard.

Maybe we can look at contractually if something was in there about that. I don't know. That seems concerning to me. Any moisture in your house can be a mold problem, and there we are again. So I don't know. It's just concerning to hear that.

All right, Mr. Chris. My question, Willow basically asked my question. I was going to ask about is there, would it be a local or state agency? Do they issue somewhat of a certificate of occupancy? But you already answered that question.

Yeah, the size of the building, it will be state-level jurisdiction in terms of those codes. You know the question about air quality and things like that I feel like we've been very I say we are our risk manager has been very on point with that issue throughout the project and he's already got air quality inspections test scheduled with. They're not state level agencies they're independent contractors so. Independent of this project, we've already determined that we want those air quality tests completed to make sure we're, you know, that was a large part of this project in the first place. So making sure those inspections are completed and our folks feel safe in the workplace is very important. So those are already on the books. I don't know if that also helps with that question because I certainly respect that concern.

On the basement comment, I share your concerns. That's definitely a big deal, and I'm reminded I've got some colleagues in real estate in the northern United States, and there's an old joke that they always tell me whenever I get to see them. There's two kinds of basements, those that leak and those that have yet to leak, but they're going to. So it's not comforting here to know that, but in general with an older building like that, this is probably something we might face for a long time too.

Like I said, we'll, we'll complete that testing, but also you know, if on that side, we're not abutting another building and that, that side of the building is not really an issue. It's mostly on, on this side here where we're joining a property owner. And I know that property owner has been very amenable to speaking with us. And if there are joint solutions and if they're, even with all the significant improvement with the efforts we've made, if there's any more room for improvement, confident we can continue to work through that.

Great.

All right. Thank you, Devin. All right. I think last week we talked about possibly some stop signs at Ganoe. I'll give you an update. I went there along with some of the staff, spent some time over there. I even went back this weekend on my own time to go look and stay there. You know, the thing I noticed that the street is wide, they do have sidewalks. And I'm in talking with chief all good and others. I've recommended that what we'll do is post more 25 Speed limit size on there because the only one you see is that the far end that and also The traffic unit will do more Actual patrolling in that area my fact they've been told to actually patrol some of those areas that was identified as high risk or speed so We'll look at that. We'll keep monitoring that. It don't change. And then, as you know, as part of our traffic study we did for calming, you know, we're looking at putting these speed humps, and Ganoe is one of those that's going to get those. And, you know, just frankly speaking is that, you know, stop signs, it's not always a guarantee that people are going to stop. OK? And I was looking for something for a long-term solution to this. So at this point in time, we're going to do that. And if why that process is getting played out, we'll deal with that. But if we get more issues with that, then we may have to come back and revisit that. OK. Next, I had also talked about the entry signs. We have been talking with the fiscal court as well as tourism, and we are going to identify a couple of locations which we are trying to get funding for, for all of us coming together. And once we get that done, we'll get a design together, and we will bring that to you all in the near future. But we are going to be addressing those sign issues as for that. All right. Next on the agenda is council committee reports. I don't believe that we have any tonight because we have... Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead.

We met and it was May 28th. And one of the main things was getting all of the apparatus in, and we're going to have that push-in date, as I mentioned briefly last time, June 15th. What time was it? Is it all right for him to say? 11 a.m. 11 a.m., that's what I thought it would be. And then Chief Johnson. Turn your mic on. Oh, sorry. Chief Johnson proposed some plans to refurbish truck number two, and that cost could potentially be offset through subsequent surplus sale of truck one. So we're hopeful for that. And he reviewed the timing of those actions and always keeping backup truck available in the department's fleet. So that is the plan there. And he reminded the committee that he has requested funds for a new engine which will operate in Fire Station 4 with lead times about 24 months. And purchasing that engine now will allow the engine's delivery to coincide with the estimated constructions completion of Station 4 because it takes a long time beginning to end with these orders. So we need to keep that fiscally in mind as we go forward. He also shared the update on the Station 1 updates. The IT equipment is delivered and installed and all administrative offices are going to be moved towards the end of this month. And the concrete work is ongoing on Station 2, and it should be completed very soon, mid-June. With the rain coming in, it might be set back a little bit. And Station 4 plans are already underway. Two meetings have been held with Branstetter Carol, and they're working to make sure the proposed layout will fit the needs of the department. And Branstetter Carol is going to present the designs as soon as they are developed. The gallery cancer screening has completed its fourth year. We can feel good about that. 17 retirees were also tested this year and their cost is 100% funded by the Georgetown Fire Department Cancer Foundation, often taken voluntarily out of various firemen's checks. So that's good. We're going to be dealing with a couple of grants tonight, so I won't go over those. One of the assistance to firefighters grant, the AFG, and the fire prevention and safety grant. Then the BCTC partnership is ongoing. It doesn't appear like we will be able to have both BCTC and Scott County Schools up and running for the next school year. We're looking for ways to begin a program outside of the school system, which may work best. So that would be a good thing for recruiting and lots of other reasons. Code enforcement is mostly parking and things being left in yards and in driveways and in roads that shouldn't be there, as well as unkept grass. And the Junior Fire Academy will be July 27th through the 31st. And it's a great recruiting tool, and we have several of our officers who were formerly in that program.

Thank you. Item number eight, planning and zoning, zoning ordinance, overview proposed zoning ordinance text amendments. First one is A, ZOTA 2025-05, article four. Hold it. Okay.

So thank you again, Council, for letting me come and talk about our zoning ordinance. Later tonight, you'll take a second reading on the first two text amendments that were brought forward to you. This is prepping those next set of changes. As the mayor pointed out, the first one, ZOTA 2025-05, is a review of Article 4. Article 4 in our zoning ordinance is the section that basically has all of our various zoning districts and then lays out what the allowed uses are, what the conditional allowed uses are. Over time, as the zoning ordinance has kind of changed and progressed over time, what we've really seen is that's created a variety of different types in which the zoning ordinance can be written and has been written. What we're proposing with this particular amendment is to align the formatting between the various zones so that as a citizen or as a planner, you read it and you know that you're going to start with the title of the zone and you're going to get an intent statement. Then you're going to get the allowed uses, the conditional uses, the accessory uses. And it's going to go and be consistent between all of them. This means that when you're reading the ordinance going between the different zones, everything is consistent. So that's the primary change. And second one, a little less applicable to this body, but applicable to the county at large and could be something for you guys, is a reclassification of A5, which is our rural residential zone, into an RR, which is basically just recognizing that typically when somebody goes through and subdivides, does a major subdivision on an A1, which is an agricultural property, At the end of that process, it's no longer truly agricultural in use. It's residential in use. And so just reflecting that in our ordinance. That also makes future land use planning a little bit easier because now on the future land use map, you don't just have agricultural for everything. We're going to be able to dial in and say rural, residential, which is the thing that we used to do, and then agricultural for the rest. And then finally the last one is essentially creating these intent statements at the beginning of every zone. And the idea behind this, again, is what is the B5 zone versus the B2 zone? How are those different aside from just setbacks? And so that intent statement is basically staff's, as a reflection of the community, saying what's important for that zone and then can help kind of lead that conversation when somebody does come in for a zone change to talk again about what is the intent? How do we want to see this parcel used moving forward? And does it align? And so that's ZOTA 2025-05. Any questions for that? Understanding that if you looked at the packet, these two Zotas are pages 7 through pages 220 or something.

All right. Any questions? All right. I guess we don't need to do anything else. No questions?

Thank you. If I can just address 2025-06 next, just very briefly. This one is a little different in that most of what we've talked about up to this point has been our zoning ordinance. As you're probably well aware, we have a secondary document that's our subdivision development regulations. I guess last year, the state of Kentucky passed new legislation that says it's our job to review things against very specific standards ministerially. And so what we've done is we've gone through our subdivision regulations and tried to make it so that there's no, we've tried to get rid of the word may anywhere we can and replace it with the word shall. If there's a question or there's staff discretion, we've tried to remove staff discretion. And so that's why it's so long. The entire ordinance was affected by this change in language. And so anywhere where we've seen that we can make that change, we have. We've also tried to do a better job of consolidating where all the requirements are listed out. If somebody wants to do a subdivision, it's handy if all the requirements are not spread out across the 200-odd pages, but rather all in one spot. And so we've done that with this ODA as well. Any questions specific to the subdivision regulations?

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Item number nine, first reading of the budget amendment ordinance, fiscal year 2025-26, sponsors Tammy Lesby Mitchell and Greg Hampton.

Yes, good evening. This is our final budget amendment for this fiscal year. The majority of this is a cleanup amendment. You have a memo in your packet, but I'll briefly walk through that. As we've talked about with accounting standards constantly changing for leases, speedas, everything else, how we account for those things. So the first thing that this does is something that we also did in our budget for the upcoming year, which is instead of budgeting for our vehicle lease payments individually in each department, this moves them to the debt service payments. Because that's where they end up at the end of the audit anyway. We zero those expenses out of the vehicle accounts in the departments, and we put them in debt service to be reflective of that accounting. Also with that, the same thing on the fire engine lease payments, our newest tower ladder truck, we purchased with a lease through PNC Bank. So same thing, moving that from the fire engines account and fire to debt service. The next one is the new fire engine. You all had budgeted $1.2 million for the new fire engine for Fire Station 4. Expect that purchase to come to you at the next meeting or two for approval but We had that budgeted in fire engines in the fire department and what we want to do. I'm moving that to Transfer to capital projects fund and what that allows me to do is transfer that money at the end of this fiscal year it will be sitting in the capital projects fund and until that engine is delivered in a couple of years so that we'll go ahead and have that money set aside and reserved because that's such a large purchase. Then a couple of small requests from departments just to clean up a couple of line items. Police have requested to transfer $15,000 from equipment to building maintenance for some necessary HVAC work they had to have done. And fire has requested to transfer $8,000 from vehicle maintenance to professional services to cover the Cortico wellness app expenses that they had forgotten to budget for this year. both of those would trigger being above the approval limit that the mayor and I have. It would put those above 10,000. So that's why those requests are in here. Again, with some of the auditing items, the non-cash items, I went ahead and went through any enterprise vehicles that had been delivered since February, which is the last time we did this. And so any leased vehicles that have been delivered since February, I put the total cost of those vehicles as expense a capital capital item and a lease proceed revenue so it's a net zero effect but adding that in so that it'll match when I do my audit entries at the end of the year the same thing in the 9-1-1 dispatch fund we did the same thing for the enterprise lease payments and then they also had some HVAC repairs at a tower a radio tower that needed to be done and requested to move 7,000 From computers to that. So all of that is pretty much net zero. The only addition in this budget amendment is the last time we did a budget amendment, we had done construction administration services through May for City Hall. So this adds June. And that's $7,250. So that's the only increase in this budget amendment.

All right. question. Yes. Mr. Mankiw. Yeah.

Thank you, Mayor. So with the budget amendment, so being able to have available funds that are unspent from the current budget, being able to offset and pay for that, that's great. So my question is, for those accounts that we're taking money from, in the new budget, have we reduced that category by that amount since they didn't need it this year. Have we reduced that in the next year?

I know some departments did that in the development of their budget already. Like I said, these were just a couple of things that came up. Obviously, I know, for example, vehicle maintenance for fire. They greatly reduced that in the next new year budget because they saw how much less they had spent. They did a lot of repairs in the couple of prior fiscal years to some of those older engines that had driven up those costs. They budgeted high in the current year. I do know they lowered it for next year to account for that. Police for the equipment, that happened to be a very specific item that they had planned to purchase that the county ended up purchasing and they shared jointly. So it just happened to be an item that throughout the course of the fiscal year, that was a one-time expense, not a recurring expense. So that was taken care of as well. So that's where those came from.

Thank you. OK. Any other questions? Madam Clerk?

Ordinance amending the annual budget ordinance for fiscal year July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. Summary. General fund. Prior year revenues are increased by $7,250. Lease proceeds revenue is increased by $704,415. General government expenses are decreased by $16,025. Building inspections expenses are decreased by $22,505. Police expenses are decreased by $1,353,722. Fire expenses are decreased by $1,691,530. Code enforcement expenses are decreased by $17,700. Public work expenses are decreased by $97,000. Engineering expenses are decreased by $3,000. Transfers to other funds are increased by $1,207,250. Debt service expenses are increased by $2,000,000. $1,482. Capital outlay expenses are increased by $704,415. 9-1-1 dispatch fund. Dispatch expenses are decreased by $11,634.18. Debt service expenses are increased by $11,634.18. Capital projects fund. Transfers from other funds are increased by $1,207,250. Capital expenses are increased by $1,207,250. All ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict with this ordinance are hereby repealed. This ordinance shall take effect after its passage and publication according to law. The full text of this ordinance is available for examination in the city clerk's office 629 North Broadway, Georgetown, Kentucky 40324 or at www.georgetownky.gov. Publicly introduced and read for the first time June 8, 2026. All right.

Next, item number 10. These are second readings. And first is 10A, budget ordinance for the fiscal year 2026-27. Sponsors Tammy Lusby-Mitchell and Greg Hampton.

I'll let her read first, and then if there's any questions during, if it's answered.

An ordinance of the City of Georgetown, Kentucky adopting the annual budget for the fiscal year July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 by estimating revenues and resources and appropriating funds for the operation of city government. Summary. Section 1. Adopts by incorporated exhibit the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget of the City of Georgetown, Kentucky as follows. Governmental funds. Original budget. Prior year revenues $13,676,290. Revenues. Municipal taxation. 4,287,647. Licenses and permits, 38,234,674. Franchise fees, 2,399,000. Fines and forfeitures, 45,700. Intergovernmental revenues, 15,003,554. Charges for service, $1,944,189. Other revenue, $507,000. Other financing sources and transfers, $10,400,680. Total city revenue, $72,822,444. Expenditures, General Government, $3,729,553. City Council, $256,423. City Clerk, $407,457. Police, $15,877,000. Public Works 5,214,764 Stormwater 2,294,498 Fire 10,096,429 Code Enforcement 464,748 Building Inspection 866,719 Dispatch Telecommunications 4,930,193. Utilities, 1,012,060. Community services, 876,000. Interlocal, 9,826,811. Self-insured medical plan expenses, 5,361,622. Capital outlay, 16,144,702. Debt service $3,172,699. Transfers to other funds $5,966,834. Total city expenditures $86,498,734. Proprietary funds, original budget. Revenues. Sanitation, $3,012,000. Cemetery, $210,000. Intergovernmental revenue, $292,928. Other revenue, $6,000. Other financing sources transfers, $292,928. Total proprietary revenues $3,813,856. Expenditures. Sanitation $3,012,000. Cemetery $801,856. Total proprietary expenditures $3,813,856. Section 2 authorizes the mayor, except as provided in the Georgetown Purchasing Policy, adopted in Municipal Order 11-028 and amended in Municipal Order 2022-17 to enter into any contracts or agreements necessary to fulfill the operation of city government within the allocations listed in this ordinance. Section 3 provides that if any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this ordinance is for any reason held unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, such infirmity shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this ordinance. Section 4. provides that all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict with this ordinance are hereby repealed. The full text of this ordinance is available for examination in the City Clerk's Office, 629 North Broadway, Georgetown, Kentucky, 40324 or at www.georgetownky.gov. Publicly introduced and read for the first time June 1, 2026. Publicly read the second time June 8, 2026. All right.

At this time, I will entertain a motion. Motion, Mayor. Motion made by Mr. Hampton. Do I have a second? Second. Second made by Ms. Mitchell. Are there further questions and or comments?

Just one quick question. So I noticed in the memorandum we have an intern that was removed from that. What area is that intern in?

We have three in the city hall. They're used between legal, HR, and engineering. But we've only had one of those recently filled. So we've never really quite had three full. So in speaking with Megan when we were looking for funds to take care of the fire truck lease payments that had been omitted. She had said, we've not had that third position filled in quite some time. So we unfunded it, didn't remove it from the ordinance. It could be funded again in a future budget.

Any other questions? At this time, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Mrs. Wilkins-Brent?

Yes.

Mr. Chris? Yes. Mrs. Hampert? Yes. Mr. Hampton?

Yes.

Mr. Minke?

Yes.

Mrs. Lesby-Mitchell?

Yes.

Mrs. Tingle-Saints?

Yes.

Mr. Stone? Yes.

All right. Let the record reflect that it was an 8-0 vote. Item 10B, amendment to the personnel ordinance, sponsors Todd Stone and Sonya Wilkins-Brent.

An ordinance amending section 2-60 of the code of ordinances regarding personnel. Summary, one, amends exhibit B of section 2-60 subsection C of the code of ordinances to add three positions of police officer within the Georgetown Police Department and two positions of maintenance workers within the Public Works Department. Create one position of Assistant Finance Director at Grade 118 within General Government and change one position of Code Enforcement Administrative Assistant from part-time to full-time. 2. Provides for repeal of inconsistent ordinances, severability of provisions, and an effective date upon passage and publication. The full text of this ordinance is available for examination of City Clerk's Office, 629 North Broadway, Georgetown, Kentucky, 40324 or at www.georgetownky.gov. Introduced and publicly read for the first time, June 1st, 2026. Publicly read the second time, June 8th, 2026.

You have read the ordinance. At this time, Council, I will entertain a motion. All right, motion made by Ms. Hambrick, second by Ms. Brent. Are there further questions and or comments? Madam Clerk.

Mr. Stone.

Yes.

Mrs. Tingle-Sames. Yes. Mrs. Lesby-Mitchell.

Yes.

Mr. Meekin.

Yes.

Mr. Hampton.

Yes.

Mrs. Hambrick. Yes. Mr. Christ. Yes. Mrs. Wilkins-Brent.

Yes. Thank you all.

All right.

Thank you.

Item 10C, ZOTA, 2025-01, sponsors Kim Minke and Michael Crisp. At this time, I will entertain a motion.

Motion. Want me to read it?

Well, yeah, go ahead. Let's go ahead and read it. Then we do a motion. How about that?

An ordinance amending Article 2, Section 2.1, definitions and Section 2.5 specific use regulations of the Georgetown-Scott County Zoning Ordinance as recommended by the Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission. Summary. 1. Amend Georgetown-Scott County Zoning Ordinance Article 2, Section 2.1 Definitions to consolidate definitions in one location and renumber items. 2. Amend Zoning Ordinance Article 2, Section 2.5 Specific Use Regulations to restructure sections to meet updated use regulations and accommodate expansion. 3. Provides for repealed and consistent ordinances, servability of provisions, and an effective date upon passage and publication. The full text of this ordinance is available for examination in the City Clerk's Office, 629 North Broadway, Georgetown, Kentucky, 40324, or at www.georgetownky.gov. Introduced in public array the first time, June 1, 2026. Public array the second time, June 8, 2026.

All right. Now, at this time, I will entertain a motion. Motion made by Mr. Mickey, second by Mr. Crisp. Now, are there further questions and or comments? Madam Clerk.

Mr. Hampton.

Yes.

Mrs. Hambrick. Yes. Mr. Crisp. Yes. Mrs. Wilkins-Brown.

Yes.

Mr. Stone.

Yes.

Mrs. Tingle-Saenz. Yes. Mrs. Lesby-Mitchell?

Yes.

Mr. Minky?

Yes. All right. Item 10D, ZOTA-202503, sponsors Kim Minky and Chris Michael. Chris?

ordinance amending the georgetown scott county zoning ordinance to align with state law krs 100.275 dash ministerial review and to reorganize the structure to create a more expandable framework for future use regulations as recommended by the georgetown scott county planning commission summary one amends the Georgetown-Scott County zoning ordinance to incorporate changes following a comprehensive review of the language and format of the document for compliance with PRS 100.275 regarding the administration of land use regulations. This amendment also includes changes to Section 2.1 to consolidate definitions to one location and renumber items accordingly, and changes to the entire document to relocate and renumber existing section items to facilitate recent use regulations and allow for expansion as needed. Provides for repeal of inconsistent ordinances, severability of provisions, and an effective date upon passage and publication. The full text of this ordinance is available for examination in the City Clerk's Office, 629 North Broadway, Georgetown, Kentucky, 40324, or at www.georgetownky.gov. Introduced and publicly read for the first time June 1, 2026. Publicly read the second time June 8, 2026.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. At this time, I will entertain a motion. Motion by Mr. Chris. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Second by Ms. Brandt. Are there further questions and or comments?

I have a comment, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you for all the work on this. I think it's been like nine months since you first brought this up, so we're finally birthing that baby that you brought to us. And I appreciate it. I know it was a lot of detail, and I really appreciate that you – You gave us the intent, which you're including in your zoning ordinance. You made it easy for us to understand, and I know that that was a lot of work, and I appreciate it.

All right. Any other comments? At this time, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Mrs. Wilkins-Brent? Yes. Mr. Crick? Yes. Mrs. Hamper? Yes. Mr. Hampton?

Yes.

Mr. Mickey? Yes. Mrs. Leslie Mitchell?

Yes.

Mrs. Tingle Sings? Yes. Mr. Stein?

Thank you. All right. Next is item number 11, which is GMWSS. First one is a physical year, 2027 annual operating and capital budget.

Mayor, if you would allow me to have some flexibility, if we could do item B first. That's the next video we have in our series about what we do at Georgetown Municipal. This is on wastewater treatment, and I think it'll tee up our budget discussion very nicely.

OK, go ahead. We'll make that change. We're going to do item B.

Provide, even though most people never see it happening. Every time someone flushes the toilet, takes a shower, washes dishes, or does laundry, that water has to go somewhere. Across Georgetown and Scott County, wastewater travels through the sewer collection system to one of Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service's three wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plant number one is located in downtown Georgetown and is currently being expanded and upgraded. Wastewater treatment plant number three serves the stamping ground area. Plants number one and number three operate together under one department. Wastewater treatment plant number two is located near Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky and helps treat both domestic and industrial wastewater. Plant number two operates as its own department. Even though each plant has some differences, they all follow the same overall treatment approach. The treatment process begins with pretreatment. Wastewater first passes through screening equipment that removes debris like wipes, rags, and trash that could damage pumps and equipment. Next, grit removal systems separate heavier materials like sand, gravel, and other dense materials that can wear down infrastructure over time. After pretreatment, the wastewater moves into the biological treatment process. Inside large aeration basins, air is added to support naturally occurring microorganisms that break down organic waste in the water. After aeration, the wastewater moves to clarifiers. Here, biological solids settle to the bottom while cleaner water rises to the top. Some of the settled material is returned back into the process to support continued treatment. The remaining solids are removed for further processing and disposal. The treated water then moves through ultraviolet disinfection before being safely discharged back into the environment in accordance with strict environmental permit requirements. Before discharge, oxygen is also reintroduced into the water to help support aquatic life in the receiving stream. Because this process is biological and constantly changing, operators closely monitor it throughout the day. Staff routinely walk the plants using mobile tablets and monitoring systems to track equipment, process conditions, alarms, oxygen levels, flows, and solids in real time. Operators also perform sludge judging and visual process monitoring to help evaluate biological health and settling performance within the treatment system. Each wastewater treatment plant also includes an effluent discharge point, which is where treated water leaves the facility after completing the treatment process and meeting permit requirements. At wastewater treatment plant number two, treated effluent is also reused through a nearby golf course connection. The golf course can pull treated effluent from the plant to help supply and maintain its ponds, allowing beneficial reuse of highly treated water while reducing demand on other water sources. At plant number two, additional treatment processes are used to help manage industrial wastewater associated with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky. This includes specialized resin treatment systems and other additional treatment processes. All three plants perform routine process testing and monitoring throughout the day. Plant No. 2 also operates a full laboratory staffed by a dedicated laboratory analyst who performs expanded testing to help monitor treatment performance and maintain compliance with state and federal regulations. In addition to operating the existing facilities, Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service is also bringing a new sequential batch reactor online. The sequential batch reactor, also known as an SBR, is being brought online at wastewater treatment plant number one. The sequential batch reactor uses the same overall biological treatment principles, but instead of each treatment step occurring in separate basins. The process happens within the same basin in a controlled sequence. The basin fills with wastewater, aeration occurs, and solids settle within the same reactor. Treated water is then decanted from the top of the basin. The sequential batch reactor is already actively treating wastewater, while the existing plant remains operational during startup and transition efforts. Once complete, the upgraded facility will increase treatment capacity and help support the continued growth of Georgetown and Scott County. Wastewater treatment is highly technical and highly regulated work. It requires continuous monitoring, preventative maintenance, laboratory testing, and licensed operators working around the clock behind the scenes. Most people never see this process happening, but it plays a critical role in protecting public health, protecting local waterways, and supporting our community every day. At Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service, we are proud of the work our wastewater treatment team does every day.

Thank you, Mayor.

See those people in the video, that's really the core of what we do as our operators. And I think that As we talk about the budget, it's important that through the budgeting process that I give them tools they need to do this important work. That's what our budget process is about. So Jeff and I, Jeff Nutter's here. You all know him. He's our finance director. We also have Commissioner Gibson joining us tonight. We appreciate his support. And I can just say that we're very excited to present this budget. We're excited about kind of the direction, the themes that are throughout this budget. And starting in January of every year, we dedicate a significant amount of time to develop the budget, starting in January and bringing that forward to board approval in May and a council consideration in June. So I'll say that kind of something that was a little bit different this year is I hope you noticed it and I hope you liked it in your board packet. Instead of kind of our two-page cover that's a lot of chalk full, a lot of numbers that is no offense to Jeff, or Stacy, that's a lot of accountant speak. We tried to transition that more to a lay person's narrative of what we want to do this year, what goals we have in the budget. So if you haven't had a chance, I strongly recommend you give that a read. We're happy and we feel like that tells the story that we want to hit in this year's budget. So if we can go to our next slide. We'll go ahead and go one more. So as usual, we'll start things off with just kind of a quick review of the rate structure, where we are through the rate ordinance. We'll touch on a little bit on how we go about developing our budget. We'll hit on the assumptions and really the projections we have on where revenue will be, which will dictate what we can do within the budget. We'll cover some of the major components. And as we said, we can discuss as we go. Or if you have any questions, we certainly are prepared to answer anything as best we can through the budget. So next slide, please. Any questions before we get started? Jump in.

Okay.

This budget is built from our rate structure, which was adopted in March of 2023 via Ordinance 2023-01 in the Georgetown Code of Ordinances. The rates for water and sanitary sewer, they are as follows. We have our fixed rate for water is currently As of March of this year, $22.90 for your first 2,000 gallons purchased. That's the minimum bill. And then the variable rate is $12.36 per thousand thereafter. Our fixed rate for sanitary sewer is $21.09 for the first 2,000 gallons and $13.38 for every thousand thereafter. Those are the current rates implemented. As I said, March 1st of this year. And then they will change in March of 2027. They will go to water will go to $24.28 for the first $2,000 with variable rate changing to $13.10 every $1,000 thereafter. And then sanitary sewer, the fixed rate changes to $22.35 for the first $2,000 and $14.18 for every $1,000 thereafter. That is what is in the approved rate ordinance and that change takes place March 1st of 2027. Any questions on the rate ordinance?

Okay.

Next slide, please. So as I mentioned, our budget, we start in January. That's when Jeff and I start kind of really talking about what are our goals for the next year. Jeff sends out budget worksheets similar to how the city does with its department heads. And we have our supervisors complete those budget worksheets, talking about what are their needs department by department. And then they submit those back to us sometime in February. And that's when Jeff starts to compile things. We really start to drill down on what's going to be in the budget and what's not going to be in the budget. I may we're ready to present that to the the Board of Commissioners. We did that. They have approved this budget. Now it's here for you for your consideration. And we'll we'll run through it as as as we go tonight. So next slide. So this is kind of really what the budget is built on. What's in this slide right here? This is all of our assumptions we make going into the budget. And what are the projections for the coming year? So we start with connection fees. For a number of years, we have budgeted 150 connection fees for both water. That's new connection fees for both water and sewer. We've exceeded those projections over the last seven years. So even though that is a conservative projection and we still feel like we're being conservative, we have decided to bump those projections to 200 each for both water and sanitary sewer. And I'll give you some background on why we chose to do that this year. As I said, We've outperformed that projection for seven years, so we feel pretty safe. But the board has us do this in a very conservative manner. And we feel like even if we don't hit that projection just on the numbers, getting to 200, we do know that there's already some commercial developments that are approved under construction that they will be connecting to the water and sewer system sometime in this fiscal year. And they will get into using connections that it's a higher fee for the larger commercial connections. So even if we don't hit these on number, we do feel very confident with what we think will be coming online. We will hit this just on revenue. Any questions on connections?

So, Chase, you don't budget commercial connections?

We just budget connections based on a number, and the budget is based on the equivalent residential unit connection, which is three-quarter inch by five-eighths.

So equivalents? Yes. So it's equivalent, okay.

I don't, but I can get that. I can send that out.

You don't have to. I'm just wondering, you said you went conservative and you went up, but I'm wondering if you are still below what the actual was.

Let me get that and I'll send it out tomorrow. Jeff might know off the top of his head then.

Well, the middle column there where it says FY2026 pace, that's what we're pacing to finish this year. So 209 water and 305 sewer connections. That's what we're on pace to do this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff. Other questions on that part? All right, moving along. Regarding wages, I'm recommending an increase of wages in two parts for our organization. First is a 2.8% increase to employees based on the consumer price index. And then second, a 1.2% increase based on merit as determined by each individual's performance evaluation. So they have the potential to be up to a 4% raise if they hit all the highest marks on the performance evaluation. Retirement contributions, that's set by the state through CERS, and we have been given that number as a decrease of 6.39%. And then our group health insurance, we offer two plans to employees, a high deductible plan and a PPO plan both had a increase of 7% this year, which our insurance broker told us was outstanding for what they're seeing amongst other utilities and other public agencies that they're looking at. We think that we've done some good things with handling and minimizing our claims. And so we were actually very, very pleased to see a number of in the single digits, but that 7% for both plans. We're very happy with that. And no increases, no changes to dental or vision. Any questions there? Next slide, please. So I'm going to get into kind of what I think is the most important part of this budget cycle for us, and that relates to staffing level headcount. I know the city faces these same issues with police, fire, public works. We currently have 65 budgeted positions that serve 15,424 water customers and 16,356 sewer customers as of the end of April. Over the last 30 years, we've tried to keep our headcount as stable as it can because we all know that headcount is where you get a large part of your expense in your budget. So I wanted to show you here on this chart, this graph, the purple line across the bottom going from right to left. We start in 1995 and we go through what we're projecting in this budget in 2027. So that purple line shows employee headcount, and that line is relatively flat. We've had some here and there we increase our headcount, our staffing level. But in 1995, we had 44 employees. Today we have 65 budgeted positions, 65 employees. The red line shows our increase in water customers. In 1995, we had just over 6,000 water customers. Today in 2026, as I just said, 15,424 customers. The green line shows our increase in sanitary sewer customers. In 1995, we had just over 4,000. Today, we're at 16,356. The blue line shows that's just another ratio there. That is our staff-to-customer ratio. That's more for internal use for our analysis, but it is on the chart. But the main thing that I want to show is that customer growth is far outpaced. over the last 30 years how we've grown as far as staffing level. And to say that it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain our level of service at the current staffing level, that would just be an understatement. It's increasingly difficult to maintain a level of service that we want for our customers. Years past, I think the most I've ever requested in a budget cycle is two additional staff, and this year I'm recommending four. I'd like to be recommending 12, but I think four is realistic for what we can budget for and what I feel like is the minimum that I feel like we can get by with at this point. So headcount is what we're kind of going to go into. I want to justify those four new headcounts. and answer any questions you have about why we're including those positions in the budget. So we can go to the next slide. Our first new position, it'll be an additional operations position within our sewer collections department. And I want to justify this with metrics as best I can. I don't know that there's just a perfect way, but I've done the best I can with it and had good support from Jeff and our collection supervisor. But we currently have eight operators in sewer collections Eight operators, 40 hours a week. We've got 320 staff hours to get everything done in collections. 304 of those hours, as we look at our routine tasks that have to be done every week, that takes up 304 hours. And that includes pump station rounds at 49 pump stations. That's CCTV inspection of sewers, sewer cleaning, responding to call-outs, anything we've got to fix. That's just right off the bat, 304 hours that are committed every week. That doesn't leave a lot of time when things go wrong, when things come up that are not expected. So what's the result? Well, despite collections' best efforts, when they're falling behind, where do we rob the time? It's preventative maintenance. And when you aren't doing your preventative maintenance, cleaning, inspection, fats, oils, and grease inspections, valve maintenance, that's when your big costs hit you. So if you cut back on preventative maintenance, you get more things breaking and at a higher cost to repair. So if we cut back on cleaning and inspection, when we get clogs in the lines and we've got to do digs or go clear those through some kind of cleaning, that's a costly endeavor. If you're not keeping up with your fog inspections, fat soil and grease, you get clogs and blockages, and that's when you get building backups. And we've got to go into people's private property, do restoration for sewage backups in a building. That's very costly. If you're not completing your preventative maintenance on valves when something goes wrong in the middle of the night and that valve that you need to isolate a section of line won't turn, you've got an even bigger problem because you can't shut the flow off. So, um, any number of things related to, uh, what goes wrong when you cut back on preventative maintenance, that's what we're trying to avoid. And with the numbers that we have and just, uh, we're constantly adding, uh, segments of pipe and manholes and pump stations to the sewer system every day. It's time for an additional head count. It'll be a collections operator trainee that will, um, work to get his or her license over time and become a licensed wastewater operator. Any questions on this position? Next slide. This next position is likely long overdue. And while we have a current employee that splits her time between human resources and safety and risk management, We need somebody, we are of the size now, we need somebody full-time that's doing safety and risk management, similar to what the city did a few years ago with Patrick. Our current staff in HR slash risk management, our field ops manager, all of our supervisors, down to our employees that are on the safety team, feel like they're doing the best they can. but they have reached their ceiling. It is time for us with the number of employees, the complexity of our work. We've got to have somebody that is the resident expert that's only focused on keeping our people safe. Um, we're just, we can't take that next step in our safety culture until we create this position where it can be this person's sole focus. Um, we work in confined spaces, trenches, excavations, We have exposure to chemicals, electrical, traffic, and biological hazards every day. Having somebody that's qualified that can stay up to date on the OSHA compliance, that's a job right there. And right now, with the person that's doing that being a split position, anytime she gets pulled into HR duties, whether it's discipline, interviews, working on our health insurance renewal, safety, It just goes to the supervisors, it goes to the field ops manager, and that's just not enough. So this position is highly recommended by our insurance carrier for property casualty liability. It's highly recommended by OSHA. It is also recommended by Kentucky League of Cities. We've talked to KLC about trying to find some funding, at least for the first few years, to fund part of this position's cost. We haven't been successful there yet, but we will keep seeking that should it be approved. We just feel like we are well past time to establish this position at Georgetown Municipal. Questions? Okay, our next slide. So, as I described in your budget memo, We believe FY27 is the perfect time to make some much-needed updates within our customer service department. We've been talking about these changes for a number of months, and with our implementation of advanced metering infrastructure and all that we've been doing to try to help make better this situation that I know you all have had calls on, related to usage and customer service issues. We feel like it is the time to do some reorganization in customer service. This is part of our plan to help these problems go away and get better service to our customers. So currently what we have is one customer service supervisor with five customer service representatives. We also have one person that's in the field that is a field customer service rep. He does face-to-face things in the field, but this is the staff that serves all of the walk-up window at our admin building, all the phone calls, all the emails, the drive-through. That is the staff that's handling this traffic, and it's time that we do some updates. So just to give you just a – if we can go to the next slide. It's just a very brief overview. I can't tell you what all they do because we don't have enough time tonight, but just think about all the new accounts they've got to set up, finalize accounts that are closed out every month. They're handling all the dispute resolution. They are generating all of our monthly statements for our customers. They coordinate a number of tasks. In other departments, they issue work orders for other departments. So when a customer comes in and has an issue, they're issuing the work order to the field staff to know where to go and what they need to be looking at. So they do hundreds of tasks. But right now, we are not keeping up. I will say that we're not keeping up. I've got some numbers on that for here in a bit. But point out that also we're, just as a point of pride, we're one of the only utility services that still has a brick and mortar store that you can come talk to somebody. Whether you like their answers or not, you can come talk to somebody face to face. I don't know of any others. Utility wise, including telecommunications power, I don't know of any others that you can still go and do that. So what we'd like to do is reorganize. If we go back a slide, instead of just having the customer service, we'd like to have two distinct groups in the new fiscal year. So first, we would have our customer service supervisor would become our customer accounts manager. And then she would oversee two distinct departments that are doing their own thing. Customer service would stay the traditional customer facing unit that deals with those issues that we were just talking about. But then we would have a separate metering department that is only dealing with metering, billing, and issuing those statements, and focusing on work orders. So we feel like this is, in talking to all of our customer service staff, this is a separation that they need to see. And if we're going to do this, we've got to have a few more headcounts. So what we'd like to do for this is have one additional customer service rep. And as I said, right now we have one operator that is a distribution operator. He works, only does customer service call outs. We need another person in the field to go meet with customers. So if we go to the next slide. I've kind of gotten off here, but that's what we're going for is, that's the first part, the customer service representative. For about the previous 20 years, it might have even back when you were with us, we had four customer service reps. And the only time we've increased that was when we, just a few years back, we took on the billing responsibility for 911 fee and solid waste. With the city funding part of a position, we added that fifth customer service rep. It is time that we have somebody else in the office helping on the customer service team. So that is position number three. If we go to the next slide. As I said, the other is that public service worker. So this is somebody that will be hopefully a licensed water or sewer or both an operator, but can go to the field and help customers in the field. I pulled these numbers with the help of Jeff and our customer service staff. In April, we had 709 work orders that were issued by customer service staff. our one public service worker was able to respond to 392 of those work orders. He couldn't get to any more, so those 256 had to go to our distribution and collections department, which means I'd have supervisors pulling staff from their operations jobs and going and doing customer service stuff. From a communication standpoint, when we're selecting a random operator to go meet with customers, That doesn't work very well. The communication doesn't always work the best there. What would be best is if the customer service customer accounts manager has that extra staff member and she can directly tell those people where they need to be going through the day and who they need to be meeting with, what problems they need to resolve. That's where we feel like we'll find efficiency. I'll also say that our operators are very good, but when those 256 work orders get assigned to an operator, operators are not always customer service reps. They're good at what they do, but probably there's times when I, in all honesty, don't need them out meeting with customers. I need them doing what they do. I feel like this is, again, the reorg, adding those two positions for one in the office, one in the field, it's going to increase our efficiency, and it's probably... long overdue. So I'll stop there. Any questions on any of the four new positions?

If I'm reading your budget right, it says your overtime is increased by 8%, 8.5%. Will having these four positions decrease that? Or have you considered that in the budget?

I think there's still things that we have to do it off hours, so I don't think it's going to decrease it to zero, but I do think it will decrease it some. Jeff, would you look at that at all?

Yeah, a lot of that comes from our water treatment plant where we run three shifts, occasionally on weekends and on holidays. Overtime's just unavoidable there, and we realized that we were running over a little bit. None of these positions are really going to help that issue, and we noticed we were running over a bit when we sat down to do our budgets and we sat down with each department, so we did put a little bit extra in there. over and above what these four positions will help us with.

Thank you. That overtime does factor in that we have to run an on-call schedule. People are on call 24-7, so that naturally has some...

I didn't know if that first position, that trainee, would help eliminate some of that.

It should in that one department.

Okay.

There's no other questions. I'm going to sit down and let Jeff get into some of the other financials. Then I'll come back up in a few and wrap things up.

Thank you all. Now for the fun part, we'll get into the numbers. And as hot as it is in here, this really may cause drowsiness when we get into this portion of the budget. So next slide, please. I'll take you through revenue and expenditures. Our Fund 1 revenue is increasing to $24,410,072. That's an increase of almost 1.7 million, or 7.39%, from FY 2026. excuse me, our fund to revenue for FY 2027 is at $2.682 million. That's an increase of $53,000, which is slightly over 2% from FY 2026 and our total revenue for FY 27 is just under $27.1 million and that's an increase of $1.7 million, 6.83% from FY 2026. Earlier when Chase mentioned that March 1st of 2026, our rates went up. If you remember, we had a six year plan and there were three 17% increases followed by three 6% increases. March 1st of 2026 was the first of three 6% increases. March 1st of 2027 will be the second of the three 6% increases. And then March 1st of 2028 will be the last, uh, increase again, 6%, but it will be the last increase on the 2023 rate ordinance. Uh, so that's why you see fund run revenue going up a little bit more than 6%. Remember we told you about the connection fees increasing that accounts for that other 1.4%, but the main driver in fund one is the 6% increase to our rate revenues. questions there before we go on. Okay, next slide please. This is revenue by category and it probably comes as no surprise at all that the overwhelming driver of our revenues is our rate revenues. You see on the left side the magenta-colored piece of the pie, that's our sewer revenue. On the right side is our water revenues. that giant blue piece of pie. We have some small, much smaller categories of revenue like interest income, connection fees that make up the remainder, but 87% of our revenue comes from our rate revenues. Next slide, please. Expenditures. Our fund one expenditures for FY27 are at $19.8 million. That's an increase of almost $2.1 million or 11.6% from FY2026's numbers. Some of the highlights of some of the big drivers of those increases, wages in FICA are up about $451,000. That's a function of the 4% increase, the four new positions. Our board recently approved us to increase our minimum pay from $15 per hour to $18 per hour. That's reflected in that wages and FICA number as well.

Question.

Yes, ma'am.

Your four new positions, what will that increase if we just had the four new positions?

The four new positions, I'm going from memory here, that's probably half of that.

Okay.

Yeah. Group insurance. Again, those are the 7% increases. Also, what impacts group insurance for us is the mix of plans. If we have folks moving off a single plan to a family plan, that of course makes our cost more expensive. But the main driver of that is our 7% increases. Depreciation expense is our main driver of cost increases this year. That's because we expect to finish the Plant 1 expansion project this year. The South Scott County storage tank, excuse me. There are some big projects we plan to put online this year and can start depreciating. So that's why that expenditure is up so much. We have a meter audit that is in the budget for FY27. There's going to be an expense and a capital component of that project. We will be buying some meters likely to replace meters that we find during the audit that are no longer functioning correctly. But this is the expense portion of that project, the $107,000. Supplies chemicals are up $80,000. 50 of that is at the water treatment plant. We're trying to bake in some expenditures for carbon for PFAS treatment that we think will begin at some point in FY27. Electric and gas utilities, this is almost solely this increase of $215,000. It's almost solely at plant one. We're already seeing run rates now with the plant not yet being fully online. We're already seeing run rates increasing for electric and gas for the new plants. So we have put additional funds in for that. And out of an abundance of caution, Chase mentioned, we tend to lean very conservative in our budget. We have added $185,000 into water purchases. just in case for any time during FY27 we would have to shut the water treatment plant down and buy all of our water. We have some additional funds in there in that eventuality.

Question on that too. I'm looking at your breakdown on your budget. Your water purchase for Frankfort It has increased, but it seems pretty reasonable for the most part. But the water purchase from Kentucky American is a huge increase. So do you have to buy from Kentucky American? How much of a percentage are you—I mean, I can tell you're not going to buy as much, but what times do you have to buy from Kentucky American?

Usually we only buy from Kentucky American. It's kind of our— last resort purchases. In FY26, we shut the plant down for a month to do basin cleaning and some other repairs. So the plant was shut down for a month. We bought all of our water, and we kind of equally split that between Frankfort Plant Board and Kentucky American. So what we did for FY27 is we never took out, we didn't take out any of the increase to Kentucky American, and we added another $185,000.

the eventuality that we would have to shut down the plant again for any length of time i think that we will do uh additional maintenance operations at the plant in fy27 similar to what we just did in march where it will require hopefully not a month-long shutdown but um there is any we need to plan for that again we've not done a lot of maintenance at the water treatment plant a number of years so we try to package some different things together so we're not shutting down multiple times do it all at once i think we'll have that happen again also not only are we going to be keeping that volume up we also have to account for their rate increase that they did in december of 25 as they've just filed another rate increase that will hit sometime, and if approved by the Public Service Commission, will hit in FY27 as well.

Go ahead.

Highlight for me, if you will, I know a few months ago we were talking about the forever chemicals. How is that reflected in the budget, and what's it doing to the budget?

Can I get to that? I've got a slide for that later in the presentation.

All right, great. So, Chase, or... Either one. So is there a minimum buy, though, from Kentucky American to be able to maintain the contract?

There is with Frankfort Plant Board, but not Kentucky American.

It's just a sell for resale rate. Other questions on the Plant 1 expenditures? Anything else? Okay, fund two for FY27, these are expenditures at plant two, which are partially reimbursed by Toyota. Those expenditures are at $3.6 million for FY27, and that's an increase of $175,000, about 5.1% higher than our FY2026 budget. Any other questions there on expenditures? If not, we'll go to the next slide. This is expenditures by category, and there are a lot more pieces of pie here. Two that I wanted to specifically call out for you to pay attention to. There's a piece on the right side, a blue piece, for $5,005,777. That is our debt service for FY27. If you recall, we now just have two pieces of debt, the 2025 A-bonds, and the KIA loan for the South Seward Extension. That is principal and interest for FY27 for that debt. On the left-hand side, the big, I guess it's an orange piece of pie there on the left, for $7.8 million, that is our depreciation. That's our biggest expenditure, but... Well, our board hates depreciation, but what I like about depreciation is it's not a cash expense. We don't write a check to anybody for depreciation. So while that is a large expense, cash is not going out the door for those expenditures.

But would it not be the higher your depreciation, the sooner you have to replace it or not?

Not necessarily. A lot of it's driven by the wastewater treatment plant expansion. It's $64 million. So that's going to cause that to increase, even though we'll depreciate that over 40 years. It's still going to cause that to be a really big number. Any other questions on the expenditures by category? Okay. Next slide, please. I'm going to start the discussion on capital expenditures, and then I'll turn it over to Chase, and he'll talk to you a little bit about some of our bigger projects. These are some of our smaller projects. And I keep forgetting, it's very small print down there, but the page in your budget packet that you can turn to to kind of follow along, in this case it's on page nine of your packet, should be a capital expenditures worksheet if you want to follow along there. Our first item here on Fund 1 for FY27 is our departmental capital projects. This is not one single big project. This is a recurring amount of capital expenditure we do every year, cured and placed pipe that we're replacing throughout the city and county, pump station rehab, things like that that we do every year. That isn't always one big project, but lots of little projects that we do. At any rate, those budgeted expenditures for FY27 are $2.2 million. For fund two, those are expenditures, capital expenditures reimbursed by Toyota. Those expenditures for FY27 are $2,780,000. And then we have vehicle replacements. I think, as Chase has appeared before you guys in the past, Told you that we are very behind on our vehicle replacements. There are five in this budget for $50,000 each, so a total of $250,000. And I should clarify that buried in that Fund 2 amount of $2.78 million, there's a vehicle in there too for Fund 2. So six vehicles total are included in the FY27 budget. Questions on those items before I turn it back over to Chase?

Okay.

Thank you all.

We can go to the next slide, please. So we're always going to have ongoing capital improvements. We do run what I feel is an aggressive capital improvements program. That will continue in FY27. I want to run you through some of the highlights because I don't like coming up here midway through the year and say we're paying for something or we're bidding something. and you all don't know about it and you don't remember it from the budget. Every once in a while I'll say this isn't budgeted, and that is what it is if something comes up. But this is what I like to be able to point back to. So wastewater treatment plant number one, upgrade and expansion. I hope that we will be finishing that project up and closing it out this calendar year. Final completion is December of 2026, so that will be in FY27. We've got just a little bit under $7 million to go on that project to get it to finish and close out. Deshaies and Water Street sewer interceptor That is our sewer down here on Water Street, one through Royal Spring Park. That is the replacement of one of the oldest sewers in our system. And just as a reminder, that's partially funded through our rate revenue, but also funded through, this was ARPA round two of funding through the Cleaner Water Program, and I've got the breakdowns there. And we are spending that ARPA money down first before we touch our rate revenue. And that ARPA money, it actually has to be spent by, November of this year with the last invoice that they'll accept, the last payout, I think is the October payout. But Karen Leverins helps us make sure we're on pace for that, and the contractor has been absolutely flying on the work. So we don't have any worry that we won't be able to spend that money down. We also have our south side tank where we've got a typo there. South side tank should be south side tank. water storage tank and distribution system improvements. That is a project to get another elevated storage tank in the southern part of the city and county. That is partially funded through rate revenue, partially funded through actually multiple grants, a state and a federal grant. So that is underway. That's kind of in the planning stages. We're talking to property owners. We really need to find a tank location before we can go too much further into that. So we are into that process. Pump station, 20 improvements. That's underway. That's on the southern side. That's the sewer upgrade of the system that will serve the Georgetown Commons project. We partnered with the developer there with a cost share on that project. It's underway in construction. We also have already kicked off our advanced metering infrastructure project, as well as our PFAS mitigation, which Council Member Hambrick, you asked about. So the funding for that one, we have received $2,075,000 in funding. That was state-level funding through a state allocation. That gets us started. That'll go in planning and engineering and hopefully into construction. We also have taken part in the class actions lawsuits against the manufacturers of the Um, the so-called forever chemicals, the PFAS chemicals, and we have received payments. I can send you those where we are and, uh, the total settlement amount that will be added with that two, uh, 2 million 75,000. Um, so we have funding there to start that. We don't know where that's going to land as far as total project costs, but we've at least got the funding to get it started. And that has a current compliance deadline of 2029, which we will meet. However, at the EPA level, they are talking about extending that deadline to 2031 because it's still new for everybody. Just the alternatives analysis alone, it's very complex to figure out what's actually going to work to remove these chemicals. from the natural environment specific to waterways, but we're gonna try to hit the 2029 deadline regardless. That's our schedule and we're gonna, I don't see any reason to change that, delay that, but we'll see how that process goes. So we've started on those first two. All of these projects are underway and we're making progress on each one of them. If we go to the next slide. This is just a list, and this is within your budget memo of all the projects that we have received a portion of funding on, whether they're fully funded or partially funded. This is every project that has some piece of grant funding attached to it. So we've been very aggressive in our pursuit of funding, and I think we've done very well in that we've funded at least part of all of these projects without a rating rate impact to the customer. So we will continue to do that. Um, uh, I got a question earlier that, uh, that's kind of what, uh, one of the city employees, the grants administrator, her, her role, she helps us with everything from pay apps to letting us know when a funding opportunity is available for water or sewer. So we're, we're grateful for that, uh, good working relationship with Karen and, and she helps us, uh, manage a good number of these. So, These are additional things that we'll be working on as we can get to them, really. There's only so many projects that we can manage at one time, and as we get to them, we will knock these off the list. And I'll just add here that this budget, this isn't a slide, but it is just, I think, a really good talking point that this budget, it does allow us to continue to add money to A SINKING FUND FOR SPECIFIC ITEMS SO WHEN THAT NEXT PLAN EXPANSION OR THAT NEXT BIG PROJECT COMES ALONG, WE'RE NOT STARTING FROM SCRATCH ON FUNDING. WE ARE PUTTING MONEY INTO JUST A SINKING FUND FOR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS We are putting money into, we don't know when it will happen, but eventually we will do an expansion of plant two. And we're putting money away monthly for that project. It's not going to pay for all of that, but it is a good starting place. Jeff already mentioned we're saving for vehicle replacement better than we ever have. We were a few years ago, our average age of our fleet was eight to nine years old. And our board, one of which is Mr. Gibson, has said he wants that number lowered for average age of our fleet. And he's given me that nudge to go ahead and do that. We'd also like to see, we think, the implementation, that comprehensive implementation of advanced metering infrastructure. That's a multi-year effort. If we can do more in a faster manner as far as rollout, we'd like to see that adopted system-wide sooner. So we're going to try to have some additional money than what we've planned on to be able to allocate to that, make that happen sooner. And I think what's probably most important to the board, important to me and Jeff as well, is that he mentioned those two sources of debt that we have with wastewater treatment plant one bond and the KIA loan with South sewer extension we always would and have a goal of an accelerated pay down of those debts on the principal so we can save money through getting that principal paid down sooner and we'll do that through this budget and future budgets questions Is that it?

That's it. All right. Okay. All right. I guess we need a motion here.

Motion, Mayor. All right.

Motion made by Ms. Hambrick, second by Mr. Minky. All right. For the fiscal year 2027 annual operating budget and capital. Any other questions, any comments?

Chase, can you send us your summary slides? Yes, sir.

One question.

Chase, on the rate structure, the new rate going into effect March of 27, can you at some point tell us where that is going to land us as far as percentile of other communities?

Yes, I can. The ad districts do those comparisons, and they are just behind this year. I like to have those prepared at budget time in case people want to see them. As soon as those are prepared, I can get those sent out, but they just don't have them yet.

Okay, thank you.

There's also, the last few years, there's a consulting firm that has done those comparisons statewide instead of just ad district, and I haven't seen that this year, but at least the ad district one we will have.

Any other questions or no comments? All those in favor of this motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay.

Nay.

All right. And this, Madam Clerk, is seven to one. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. All right, next, item 12, City Engineer. We have several items here. We have item A, Municipal Order to Contract for Old Oxford Bridge Design, Palmer Engineering.

Thank you, Mayor. So this first one, the Old Oxford Bridge design, that is a project that we received a grant from KYTC to do a repair to the bridge on Old Oxford Road over Lanes Run Creek. We took competitive proposals from engineering firms and Palmer Engineers received the highest score. So I asked for approval so we can move forward with the design work and then move into construction after that design work is complete.

All righty. You have heard the request. At this time, I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion.

Motion made by Ms. Brent. Do I have a second? Second. Second made by Mr. Hampton. Are there further questions in or comments? Yes, Mr. Mackey.

So this particular bid was not the low bid, correct?

I beg your pardon?

Was not the low bid?

No, it was in the middle of the bids. It wasn't the lowest. It was in the middle.

Yeah.

Can you hear me OK?

Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, it's not, right.

Yes.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions? All right. All those in favor of this municipal order, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay.

Nay.

Seven to one. Mr. Mickey ascending item B municipal order contract for clubhouse bridge construction, Hinkle construction.

So this, um, this project is a construction project that was competitively bid. Uh, we received one bid from Hinkle construction company and is for the, uh, also a grant project through KYTC. We received a bridge grant to do repair work on that bridge going into Cherry Blossom neighborhood. And we asked for approval of the construction bid for Hinkle Construction Services.

You heard the request. At this time, I will entertain a motion.

Motion moved.

Motion made by Mr. Mitchell. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Mr. Menke. Are there further questions and or comments? All those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Let the record reflect that it passed. Item C, municipal order, design contract amendment, main street sidewalk rehabilitation project.

Yes, this is the ongoing work that we have on the bricks downtown. And we did not have included in Bell Engineering's contract any dollars, any money for construction services. We've been doing it in-house, but it would be helpful to have some help on that. And it's an hourly rate contract, so they will only be used as needed on call. And as for an amendment. to their contract in the amount of $5,000 to cover that work.

What was that number again?

$5,000. $5,000.

Thank you. All right, you heard the request. At this time, I entertain a motion.

Motion.

Motion made by Ms. Sames. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Ms. Hambrick. Are there further questions or comments? All those in favor of this motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Item D, municipal order, design contract amendment, Indian Hills stormwater work plan project.

Yes, this is an ongoing project we've talked about to do much needed maintenance in Indian Hills on stormwater. Again, the contract did not provide for any construction services. We're getting ready to start that process on that work out there. Most of it will be done in-house. but we're going to need from time to time some of the technical assistance from the design engineer. And so I asked for an approval of amendment for $7,500 to assist with that effort.

All right. You heard the request. At this time, I entertain a motion.

Motion.

Motion made by Ms. Mitchell. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second made by Ms. Hamrick. Are there further questions? Any comments? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Thank you. Thank you. Item 13, fire resolution assistance to firefighters grant AFG application.

Good evening mayor. Good evening council. Yes. Thank you for your time tonight. I'm here to discuss two of the FEMA grants that are usually released in the spring. Uh, these just got released about two weeks ago. So the first one there, item a assistance to firefighters grant, we'd like to apply for 49 self contained breathing apparatus. These are not cheap items. So it is, it does require a match. It's a 10% match. We're looking not to exceed $585,000. The match would be $53,190.

Motion made by Ms. Sims.

I'll second.

Second made by Ms. Brent. Are there further questions and or comments? All those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay. Item B resolution fire prevention and safety FP and S grant application.

Yes, sir. This is also another FEMA grant. This requires a 5% match. We're looking at requesting not to exceed $25,000 for the purchase of 400 smoke detectors. 100 carbon monoxide detectors, and 12 bed shaking detector alarms for the hard of hearing and deaf people in our community. This grant would not exceed. The 5% match would be $1,190.48.

Motion made by Ms. Sainz, second by Ms. Mitchell. Are there further questions or comments? All those in favor of this motion, say the file by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. Thank you. Item 14, finance. Municipal aid, municipal order, historic tax credits, Stockyard Banks and Trust Company.

Yes. As Devin mentioned previously, we submitted our Parts 1 and 2, or Lord Act Sergeant on our behalf submitted Parts 1 and 2 of our tax credit application back in 2023. sorry 2023 and we received that approval in june of 2023 we are about to submit parts three and four and wanted to memorialize finance committee's recommendation to council of stockyards bank they have dealt with this extensively with multiple municipalities throughout the state but we did directly solicit several of our local financial institutions had to actually submit proposals for the purchase one at 70 cents on the dollar, and Stockyards was the highest at 88 cents on the dollar. And this would approve them as our purchaser of our tax credits, and then that would authorize the mayor to complete any transfers of credits or agreements that need to be executed to complete that sale.

All right. You have heard the request.

Motion, Mayor.

A motion made by Ms. Mitchell. Second. Second made by Mr. Chris. Other further questions and or comments? All in favor of this motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Nay. Item B, resolution 2027, HB 900 appropriation, legacy run commerce and park roadway improvements.

Yes, this resolution is to accept, I'm sorry.

Mr. Mayor, I need to recuse myself in this instance regarding Legacy Run. Okay, all right. You may be excused.

All righty.

We received a Senate appropriation of $3 million for the infrastructure roadway improvements related to the Legacy Run Commerce Park project. So this resolution would approve accepting those funds and allowing the mayor to execute an MOA with the state for that.

All right. You heard the request. At this time, I will entertain a motion.

Motion.

Motion made by Ms. Hambrick. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Menke. Are there further questions and or comments? All those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Thank you all.

If you will go retrieve Mr. Crisp. And we will wait. Do item 15. All right, Mr. Chris, now that you're back with us. Item 15, Public Works, Municipal Order for Reverse Salt Auction.

Mayor, Council, we did the reverse salt auction on May 20th. The low bidder was Morton Salt again, and it was $128.53 per ton. So I'm asking approval for 1,200 tons, up to 1,200 tons.

You have heard the request. May at this time I would entertain a motion. I'll make a motion there. Motion made by Ms. Brent, second by Mr. Minky. Are there further questions and or comments?

Hope we don't have to use it.

You and me both. All right. If no further comments or questions, all those in favor of this motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Thank you. All right. Item 16, council discussion, old business. Item B, new business.

One of the things we need to look at, because the city of Lexington didn't find out about it until it was done, is data centers. news article popped up on Channel 27 just a little while ago.

Okay.

They had no idea it was happening until Lexmark property was sold to them. Now it's in their city and they cannot do anything about it. So we need to jump ahead of this.

All right.

Thank you.

All right. Any other new business?

Mayor, twice. While I'm driving around, I have seen people fishing off of the bridge there that's by Arby's. And I can't think of a more dangerous... There was two gentlemen and, you know, just casting. I mean, there's only that much concrete between where they're standing and the road on that bridge. Maybe we need to have no fishing signs on that bridge. Might be a good idea. Well, I think we need to appeal for it or something.

Can we put a sign in the grass close to it?

We'll look into that.

It's very dangerous.

I'll have staff work with me to look into that.

I have one other question for Chase.

Chase, if you mind.

I'm very much in favor of all of the construction that's going on with the wastewater treatment on Water Street, but they're still booming and having lots of noise upwards to 9 p.m., even 9.30 at night. Is that normal?

No, that shouldn't be happening. I don't know.

It's really happening.

I will look into that immediately.

Okay, thanks.

That should not be happening.

Okay.

All righty.

Yes. Oh, any other? Okay. Council comments. Item number 17. Okay. Mr. Stone?

Number one is the welcome sign at Wendy's. There's a lot of people still upset at that, and something needs to be done with that.

We're working on that.

Okay. Thank you. The second thing is the stop signs on Ganoe. It's a simple fix, minor cost. What was your thinking behind that?

Well, to be consistent with everybody else we've done with this, and whenever we get a complaint on our speeding, what we do, we go through a procedure where we get the police involved, where we go and do traffic monitoring. observations, we also put a monitor up, and we did this in every one of those locations. So I want to make sure we stay consistent with that. And I understand some people, everybody wants a sign, but we'll be putting up signs everywhere. But we want this process that we have established, we have done, and also we have spent about, correct me if I'm wrong, about $30,000 for this common study. And one of the issues I think this council, and even last council, brought that Speeding was an issue, and they wanted to do something other than stop signs, and we're looking at a Tier 1, excuse me, Tier 2 approach. So that's what we're doing with it. We will continue to monitor that, and we'll go from there.

With that logic, should we start looking at removing stop signs in the necessary locations? Possibly. So I'll bring that up next traffic committee meeting. Thank you.

All right, any other? Ms. Mitchell.

I just wanted to take this time to say that this earlier when Mr. Christopher and Thomas spoke about the gathering place and some of the things that were happening in in their neighborhood, that that isn't the first that I've heard of that. And I don't know what the answer is, but it is something that somehow we need to look at possibly I don't even know what we have the power to do in that situation, but it isn't the first that I've heard of that. And so whatever we can do to explore that situation, I think we should do.

Mr. Hampton.

Uh, yeah, a couple of things. First of all, as far as the budget is concerned, I want to, um, thank you and Stacy and the staff for, for the, you know, the budget. And, and, uh, I think it's a, it's a good budget and a real, I'm, I'm very confident we can, we can, uh, come out with a surplus next year. So, um, secondly, the back on city hall, um, with the basement, I sit here during a council meeting and thought just a little bit. I'd like some clarification. I don't know if it's in the contract or scope of work or what we need to look at, but what were the expectations of the water mitigation? You know, I was, you know, I understand, yes, water takes the path of least resistance, and it's very hard to control. But I'd just like to understand because, you know, I think every one of us is going to get asked about this. And I'd like to be able to answer it, you know, with some knowledge of what happened and what's going on. So if we could just get some clarification on the contract language, about what the expectations were and what was expected. I think that would help out a lot. All right. Okay. Thank you.

All right.

Ms. Grant?

I don't have anything but just back to Mr. Christopher and the speed bumps or whatever in Boston. Is that traffic committee?

Yep.

Okay. Go to them first. Okay. We'll get that addressed with the traffic committee also. Thank you.

All right.

Commendations to the police department, that's a fantastic award. I'm proud of that. Congratulations. Obviously, I too have concerns about the presence of moisture or water or however you want to define it. And if it's not in the contract, expectation then i think we need to know what the mitigation would be to keep the water out because one of the main reasons that we felt like we had to do major renovations for city hall was water and so i i'm concerned about that Okay.

I want to go back. You were talking about speed hunts. That would be a tier two. That's a tier two. So that would be something that we would look at. But you can talk to traffic committee about like signs or something of that nature. But a tier two would have to come to council. Okay. Mr. Mickey.

Just two quick points. So this last week, KLC did their summer summit. A few of us were able to attend there. There is a packet, and I'll shoot that to you so you can get the slides and all that from that. The major topics there was a legislative update. There was also a day on ABC regulations, but the first day was economic development, and there was a significant portion in there on data centers, and there was a good discussion about that in terms of things to look for and all those kinds of things. So I think that's a place for us to start with data centers. And so I will send that on out. Perhaps on the park at Boston, maybe one of the things that we can start with there is what are the standards for of use for the park and refreshing that with everyone so that if there are then violations of that standard it's very obvious and that can very quickly be remy remedied Uh, the, the other is, uh, I know the bath area, bath house area. I, I raised that as well with Ed. Um, and that's linked to the operation of the center. Uh, so, you know, being able to take a quick look at that again, I think would be helpful.

Okay. Ms. Sames.

I had a call a couple days ago, but I had a correspondence with a gentleman that lives on Harmony Ridge, and he is talking about the Anderson property behind him, about mowing, and then Michael had said that he had contacted your office. Well, after he and I talked today, he said they came through and they mowed a swath of it, but they don't ever weed it down around the fence until the city has to come back on them again because every year almost every year i've been on council and anderson has been there i've dealt with this as some citizen across there so they did come by did a swap and knocked it down but they have trees that grow in the fence line and weeds are growing in the fence line so if you could ask code enforcement to take a look at it to do a more efficient job with it than what they have, Anderson has done thus far for that. And then just want to comment on the mural that's being down here. It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Really very nice.

All right. Mr. Chris. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A couple quick things. First off, to piggyback on the data center discussion, I'm sorry I should have asked Holden when he was here, but I was going to ask him if any of the upcoming zoning amendments would help regulate large-scale technology facilities, which is, I guess, some sort of terminology which could maybe facilitate a data center. So, Todd, I love your idea. I love everyone. You know, we have big concerns about that, so that's something that we do need to examine. And then finally, on a little bit of a lighter note, had the privilege of listening to the mayor speak today, revisiting the Japanese sister city partnership that we have, and you did a great job today, Mr. Mayor, at the uh chamber of commerce luncheon i know you don't like getting compliments but you sure did a good job today so thank you for that and it it reinvigorated uh my interest in that program and i think it's such a great thing and so it's always nice whenever you can keep that at top of mind all right uh thank you council thank you everyone if no other uh business will be bought for this council this meeting is adjourned