Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

All the details. The work that Thrive by Five is doing here at Active Imaginations Child Care Center and elsewhere is truly improving lives for kids, for families, and our entire city. It's also why I continue to support Thrive by Five through our city budget. And just recently, I proposed my city budget that Metro Council is currently considering, and it has a $3.5 million request for the city to continue to step up and be the lead investor in Thrive by Five Louisville.

It has been truly a blessing for us to be able to provide quality child care and kindergarten readiness for children three to five. We have been in the business for 13 years, and we have noticed a difference with kids who have been in child care in a quality program from pretty much birth until now. And it makes a difference. It totally makes a difference.

Hi, I'm Kayla with Louisville Water, and this is Made with Pure Tap, a special segment where we're highlighting some amazing local businesses using water to make their products. Here in Louisville, we're proud of our drinking water. It's so good, we even gave it a name, Louisville Pure Tap. Pure Tap has won national awards for quality and taste. But more than just drinking water, Pure Tap is an anchor for the community. Today, we're here at Black Coffee. Let's head inside and see how they're using Louisville Pure Tap to make their products.

Hi, my name is Ronielle Smith, and I'm the founder of Black Coffee. I started this venture as an answer to my own problem, which was there was no place west of 9th Street to get a cup of coffee, take a meeting, use the internet. We want to support other businesses and other entrepreneurs and use local products. So our beans are sourced locally. It's roasted locally. It only makes sense to use our local water, which is local pure tap water, the best in the country. And water is like one of the single most important ingredients in coffee and espresso. And we would not be able to make either of those things without Louisville's pure tap water. So if you want to drink like a local, come by and have a cup at Black Coffee.

We're actually the oldest animal welfare agency in the state. We've greatly outgrown the building that we're in. We've been in there since the 50s. It was a converted plant nursery and we have modified it. We are literally bursting at the seams, both in terms of animal capacity, staff capacity, and the services that we'd like to offer to the public. Our hope with this is to significantly expand our animal holding capacity. So that means that we're able to serve more animals in need of new homes within our community as well as across Kentucky. We're going to be able to provide better housing that reduces stress, which reduces their length of stay, reduces disease outbreak. We're going to be able to provide better accommodations for our teens so that they're able to work in a more pleasant environment. We will be greatly expanding the services that we offer to the community, including increasing the number of low-cost or free spay-neuter surgeries at our SNIP clinic, opening a new, much broader scope public veterinary clinic, expanding our pet retention services, including our pet food bank, which has been such a huge boon to the community, and expanding our ability to respond in times of disaster. We're so proud that we're going to have a building that reflects the caliber of the work that we do, as opposed to one that fights against us every single day.

Shawnee Park was built around 1900, and now the Outdoor Learning Center will welcome the next generation of children, families, and people in the Shawnee neighborhood and across our entire city.

This visionary piece that's being added is just extraordinary. I can't stop grinning about this. I'm very excited, and I'm delighted to see this happen.

Three, two, one.

I am so excited to be here. This is like Christmas to me. There's so many people that lent their hand to making this happen. But I want to say something about the people that are behind the scene that a lot of us don't realize is working hard. It was their passion that kept me on my toes and kept me begging for this and begging for this.

on come on come on i knew it was something that was needed in our community oh god and i hope every single one of these young men and women that are here take this discipline and use it in a way of positive situations in their lives so it started on the thursday we were so excited we thought it started on that tuesday we came to tuesday they wasn't here now we start right oh god he really enjoys it yeah

He's attended all the sessions so far. Constantly talking about programming and do we need another program, especially with the valets and everything? Yes, we do. Also, who has the program and who's facilitating the program truly matters, especially for a youth like my son. His legs hurt. So they work him out really good. His energy level, I can just tell with his energy level. I know the first day I was asking him, you know, we're coming back, and he was like, for sure. And so excited we end up bringing our cousin, too. He's excited and interested in boxing as well. I hope that the programs get support in order for it to continue.

This is a small piece of somebody taking their time, pouring into some youth that want to help make our community better.

We've invested in new engines, new trucks, and other improvements at firehouses across the entire city. And this budget that I've recently proposed replaces breathing gear that our fire department has been relying on for more than a decade, fast approaching the end of its useful life. We owe it to the men and women of Louisville Fire to provide them with the latest safety equipment.

We had two apparatus on order at that time, and through budget planning and sit-downs and talks with the chief staff, the mayor was able to get us now up to 10 apparatus on order, which is huge for us. We have three of those apparatus that are set to arrive this year, so I hope the mayor is ready to push a couple firetrucks. into the firehouse this year. So as we get that plan, but those units are going to be able to support our frontline directly and allow us to respond and get to the community safe.

Like long held public records, many have been maintained.

Some are intact, but most never really examined 1795.

As we begin to better understand the scope and historical significance of these materials, it became clear they deserve careful professional review, and long-term proper preservation. Some of these records reflect difficult and painful chapters of our past, including the era of enslavement. These aren't just historical artifacts. They represent real people, real families, and real experiences. that have shaped our community, our city, our state, and even our nation.

Over the next few months, the Filson project team will locate and inventory the wills, deeds, and other records in the possession of the county clerk's office. We'll work with preservation and digitization partners to ensure that both the original books are safe and stable and that people with roots in Jefferson County can access these materials wherever they are now. We'll build on the work of community archivists in the past to index these records and work to cross-reference them and build deeper context about the individuals and families caught in these legal webs of enslavement. The people in these documents had their homes, their identities, their spiritual belongings stolen from them by the transatlantic and domestic slave trade. They were stripped of name, of kin, of faith, of rights, and for far too many of them, these were unrecoverable in their lifetimes. As we work to recover the record of these Americans in our past, our primary mission is to connect their stories to the descendants who will be able to reach back into time and name their grandmothers and grandfathers. These records are not about the past. They're about helping claim space, place and belonging in our present. Through the leadership of the local, state and federal leaders with us here, we will ensure that these documents emerge from their shelves and can speak.

If you spend any time walking around Louisville, you see names on parks, you see names on buildings, you see names on streets, and you might wonder, who are these people? Running between Shelby Park and the Smoketown neighborhood are a batch of streets that are tied to a family, the Caldwell family. William Shakespeare Caldwell was originally from Virginia, but he got involved in the natural gas business, and he bought a lot of land. Some of the land that he owned includes the land now that is seneca park bowman field and part of cherokee park as well but in this neighborhood between shelby park and smoke town they had a number of properties

A suburban form district usually is made up of single-family houses with garages that face the street and stores or offices that are built in separate areas away from the homes. In contrast, a traditional form district puts homes...

Thank you.

TODAY'S BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING. THIS MEETING IS BEING HELD PURSUIT TO KRS 61.826 AND COUNCIL RULE 5A. I'M JOINED IN CHAMBERS BY COUNCILMAN JOSEPH, COUNCILMAN PIAGENTINI, COUNCILMAN HERNDON, AND ONLINE BY COUNCILMAN WALRIDGE AND COUNCILMAN RENO WEBER. WE'VE GOT A COUPLE OF FOLKS THAT SHOULD BE JOINING US MOMENTARILY AND ANYBODY WHO'S NOT HERE, MADAM CLERK, IF YOU COULD NOTE THEM AS AN EXCUSED ABSENCE, I WOULD APPRECIATE IT. on quorum, thank you. All right, colleagues, the first order of business is a public hearing. Anytime that the Greater Louisville Management District presents its budget, they are required to have a public hearing first, and so I will open the public hearing to any speakers who would like to comment about their budget. Anyone wanna speak? Okay, going twice. Okay, I will conclude the public hearing. So that concludes the public hearing on the Greater Louisville Management Budget. on to the actual budget item. And I'm gonna take these out of order just because we were on the public hearing. So we're gonna skip to item four, which is the R044-26, a resolution approving the budget and economic improvement plan for the Greater Louisville Lodging Management District, DBA Louisville Hotel Partnership for the period July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Are there any speakers to speak to this item? Mr. O'Brien, if you could, yeah, sorry, I need a motion in a second, please. Motion by Councilman Piagentini, second by Councilman Joseph, or Councilman Herndon. Mr. O'Brien, the floor is yours if you could speak to this, and then just introduce yourself for the record, please.

Yes, thank you very much for having me here. Eamon O'Brien, I am the board chair of the Louisville Hotel Partnership, LHP, which is doing business as LHP, as the Greater Louisville Lodging Management District. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about our fiscal, budget for 2026-27. We've had a successful budget season and we believe we have executed our budget to the best of our ability in the last fiscal year. But as we round up this fiscal year, we want to talk about our increases for next year. We're presenting a budget that will be approximately $8 million of hotel occupancy stated forecast and our best known information as of today versus a budget of $7.7 million last fiscal year that will be ending June 30th of 2026. So the majority of those funds are used for proactive initiatives to bring new business to Jefferson County and to Louisville, Kentucky in an extremely competitive tourism landscape. Every one of our regional cities in close proximity, including in the Commonwealth of Kentucky as well as outside of the state, are getting more and more competitive and more and more aggressive, subsidizing groups, aggressively marketing to them, advertising to them, including some of our what we would call legacy accounts, people that have been in Louisville for multiple decades. Equip Expo is one of those examples. That has been stolen by Orlando every other year. And that's just one small example of people aggressively pursuing business that has been in this community providing a lot of revenue and economic impact into this community. So we are aggressively pursuing that in a proactive way. So of that $8 million, about $7.1 million is going to sales marketing initiatives, which I just talked about, advertising as well as proactive measures. And then smaller amounts, $389,000 for a management fee. And then future event commitments, including USA Gymnastics, which we just secured for 2028, will be part of those future that we're accruing for as well. So those are the broad strokes. I'm open to take any questions of past dollars that we have spent and or in the future for economic improvement. Just as a reminder, I know this council is familiar, but I know it is public hearing. Just wanted to make everyone aware, this costs Louisville Indians nothing in the sense of this is a self-assessment by the owners of the hotels. So it's a 1.5% assessment that is, passed through the guests that stay in our hotel community here. So it does not cost Louisville anything for this particular assessment of $8 million.

Thank you. First of all, Madam Clerk, if you could add me as a co-sponsor to this. I think it was just overlooked. I'm sure that Councilman Kramer will be fine. We usually co-sponsor all of these. We've also been joined by Councilwoman McCraney. Mr. O'Brien, the question that I would like to start with is, and I know this document doesn't have a whole lot of detail, and I think because you vote on the project sort of as they come to fruition, right? So you earmark the money for project support, but you don't necessarily know what those projects are at this point. Some of them I'm sure you do, but some of them you do not know yet. The mayor's budget proposal last year committed $400,000 from the TID to supporting the Kentucky Derby. Can you confirm that that is in this year's budget and will be in the budget going forward?

Yes, it is in our budget. It will be in the budget going forward. We are... I would say very, very close to the final red lines in terms of conditions. We are working very intently with the Mayor's Office, the Metro Council to do that. It's just some finite details about things that the hotel partnership is asking for in return for that level of investment for increased security and things of that nature for our groups. I'm happy to expand on what that money is for, what it's geared toward in the budget, if you like, for that. It's really geared toward 14 of what we call our legacy groups, which are defined in the statement are people Large conventions that make a material impact all over Jefferson County. So ideally not just one part of the city, but all corridors of the city. So there are 14 of those groups. I'll talk through that and then give you some caveats maybe at the end about what could happen to those groups. But they're defined as a large group of at least 30,000 attendees that come into our community meeting in Louisville for more than 10 years, generating 10,000 or more hotel room nights in Jefferson County. So we are asking for some enhanced service levels, safety and security, permitting, motor coach parking, things of that nature to make it easier to do business with for our clients that would need to incur that cost. So asking for some of that in return that we're working for, as well as the agreement is running for 10 years for that. The caveat would be, These 14 legacy groups are being pursued every day by other cities. We just said Equipex was one we have lost that has been here for a significant amount of decades in our community. Now they are going every other year in Louisville. They are going every other year in Orlando. We know with certainty Orlando is trying to pursue that every year. So that's one small example. So that $400,000 could fluctuate. If those groups grow in attendance, that could be larger. If they go away, that's going to shrink just as easily as well. If we go down to 13 or 12 legacy groups, that would go down if that answers your question or gives some clarity to it.

It does. Thank you. If I could... I'll ask about a specific project. If you can't comment on it, it's fine. But I know we lost the Ironman this year, I believe because of the I-65 construction, if I'm not mistaken. Can you speak, are there plans to pursue that again going forward? Do you think that's something that will come back to the community or is it too early to say?

I would say there's always plans to go after every piece of business that we lose. That's one person's opinion. Obviously, there's the real dollars that are associated with that and other things that you mentioned. I would never say never a pursuing business that's going to impact this community. We're at a 60% annual occupancy, which by definition means we're 40% empty. So I would say yes, we would definitely pursue that if it makes sense, if we want to do that. But again, that's very, very competitive, especially that event. I know they're presenting a little bit later, but right now, we would absolutely pursue that moving forward. But unfortunately, we have to call balls and strikes and acknowledge our losses, so yes.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Piagentini. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair. Did I just hear you correctly that we're currently at 40% empty? I'm assuming what you mean is like total room nights per year. Yes. 40% would be empty. Approximately, yes. Okay. I feel like we have a lot of hotels being proposed or built, right? We just approved a small change to one that'll be in Newloo that's being constructed right now. There's the proposal for the 1,000 unit Humana building. JW Marriott has proposed coming into town. That, just the three I just mentioned, it's gotta be 1,500 rooms or more of additional rooms. Talk to me about what that means, what's the outlook, and I'll sort of combine this with another thing. What's the outlook for the city look like? We're about to add a tremendous amount of hotelier space. That is supply. Where is the demand or how is the demand gonna follow that and is that gonna be a net benefit to us and how?

Sure. Yeah, the demand's gonna follow that through organizations like Louisville Tourism, the Louisville Sports Commission, and the Louisville Hotel Partnership aggressively pursuing with proactive dollars to go retain business and then steal and attract business from our competition that they are doing to Louisville every day. So I would say to fill those empty hotel rooms, that's what we need to do, new and existing. So we need to proactively pursue maintain our groups so that they can grow up into the right, and then get new groups that are currently in our competition, and pursue those and steal them and bring them into Louisville to build that occupancy at new and existing hotels.

Mr., I'm sorry, Council President, if I may jump in. Mr. Wright, if I may just expand on that. It's my understanding that particularly like 1,000 room, that that allows us to compete for conventions that we are unable to compete for today because large conventions might have to sign contracts with eight, 10, 15 different hotels versus in the future, they might be able then to do one or two. And so it creates new demand opportunities that don't exist today. So it's not just supply, it unlocks new demand, is my understanding, if you could comment.

That's absolutely accurate, and I think that would be a competitive disadvantage in the current state. To your point, if a group like Equip Expo needs to sign over 80 contracts with hotels in Jefferson County, that's $25 million. 35 in Orlando is probably closer to 20 or less based on the size of the man that they have down there. And obviously it's a different current hotel package, I would say.

Thank you. Thank you. So the sales, marketing, and programs, could you expound a little bit more? I mean, that's the bulk of it, which is good. That's where you want to see the money going. Can you expound a little bit more on broad brushstroke percentages? The majority goes to incentives. The majority goes to advertising. The majority goes to this. Can you talk a little bit more about how that money is spent more specifically? Sure.

Absolutely, so the vast majority is advertising to your point of telling our story about what makes you Louisville unique place to have a leisure customer But also a group in convention to come here So the vast majority is advertising over three million dollars three point three to be exact up that seven That's in the proactive effort. So that's the lion's share of it and then beyond that would be Trade show industry events are going to support going to the trade show floors in outbound cities to try to attract people and tell our story of Louisville specifically once we planted the seed with that three million dollars of advertising

Yeah, I think it's a fascinating thing. It's like we're advertising to the advertiser. It's this weird thing where our tourism group is going to other tourism groups and saying, come here. But I mean, I get how it works. It's just a fascinating dynamic. Last thing related to KIC. So we were talking just before the meeting started about, and this is more for, I want to get your take on this, and then I'll talk to Louisville Tourism here in a minute. Do we feel like... As I understand it right now, the state continues to operate KIC. Has your organization talked about the potential of the city taking it over? And the reason I'm asking, I've heard that from a couple private sector individuals in your industry. And then they pointed out that in other cities, when you have major cities like this that have a down, now we're not talking the Expo Center. I'm specifically talking about the International Convention Center downtown. that in almost all cases, those are then managed by the city, and then those cities do a better job of filling it, right, of keeping it more active because they're more incentivized to do so. I mean, I'm not saying the state doesn't want us to. I'm just saying there's more direct incentive for us to really kick butt there, whereas the state can focus on the Expo Center. Is that something your organization has taken a stance on or would like to see, or has there been any discussion around that?

Yeah, we have discussed it, and that's a huge topic of conversation collectively. We work with our partners at Kentucky Venues that represent both buildings every day, and I think we are always looking for ways to collectively be better. That's the hotel community, that's Kentucky Venues, that's anyone that touches tourism, the 72,000 jobs that we bring annually just in Jefferson County in our space. So yes is the short answer, we're having those conversations. We're open to anything that's gonna make us better. See above 60% occupancy, we need more. These new hotels coming, If we don't put more business in the Downtown Convention Center and KEC collectively as a community, it's not gonna work. So that's what we need to have. So there's definitely an appetite to evaluate all options. That's certainly an option that we've talked about. So we would absolutely be supportive of continuing the dialogue there. But we need to be more competitive collectively. And when you have more and more cities that are going that route, that already exist that way and are going that route, It just makes it more of a topic of a discussion that we need to evaluate on a consistent basis.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Hernan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, just a quick follow-up over here. I just, that one, is that, when they do it in other cities, is that, and I'm not arguing against it, is that set up a competition between the city and? and the state, or does the state just pull away from a downtown and say it's all yours, or does it cause an issue with competing for same dates of the same things in each other's facilities?

Help me understand, you mean in the same community?

Yeah, if the city's running the KIC and the state's running that, as Councilman Piacentini suggested, does that set up a kind of an odd competition between the two, or do they work hand in glove pretty much, or do you know?

Well, if you talk about our industry in total, you'll probably see a lot of examples of every scenario, good, bad, and ugly, frankly, about what they, ideally, I think they would work together in tandem. So that meant that the city would oversee both entities or a combination where we could work together. to sell, meaning we need to sell Louisville as a community. So it's very hard to do that if you have a lot of these entities that are maybe having internal conflict, I think if I'm reading between the lines there, right? So open to what that would look like. One person's opinion, I would say as less people competing, so to speak, for that would be better. Less layers there would be better to make us more competitive and make decisions quicker. Because sometimes it's really the first person to get availability to a customer can win. We've got a great story, but frankly, there are a lot of destinations that have great stories. So we need just to be better at working together. So we would be open to that as well.

Just curious, I just was not aware of this scenario until you just mentioned it. My actual question was, do you spend any of your dollars in your pot for any surveys of constituents, visitors, or is that merely more of Louisville Tourism that does that separately?

Help me understand what you mean by surveys.

Do you spend any of your money to... If there's a survey of good, bad, and ugly that they get, do you use any of your funds from this pot to fix the negatives? Or is it you're mostly advertising and the other...

Generally advertising. So no, that would be primarily Louisville tourism. There's really two ways that we need to spend these dollars per the statute. So one is to drive incremental room nights or new business into the hotel rooms. And then two, there's tourism infrastructure would be, which is some of our budget items, which I could have done a better job of illuminating, is direct lift into SDF Airport, International Muhammad Ali, as well as our University of Louisville, a hospitality minor for workforce development as well. Very specific, targeted.

And you've been around for not that long. This fund has not been... It's not that old, is it?

Correct, I believe this is our third time presenting our budget, so. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please let the record reflect that we were joined quite some time ago by Councilman Parker and Councilman Chappell. Seeing no one else in queue, colleagues, is the resolution allowing for a voice vote? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it, and this moves to the consent calendar. Mr. O'Brien, thanks for coming.

Thank you very much.

The next item of business, going back to the agenda, is item 20-162-26, an ordinance approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget for Louisville tourism. May I have a motion and a second, please? Motion by Councilman Piagentini, second by Councilman Joseph. The item is before us. Is there any discussion? I believe we have a special guest, Mr. Battle. If you could introduce yourself for the record, and the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Cleo Battle, President and CEO of Louisville Tourism. I've got a couple brief remarks, and then I'll be happy just to answer your question. I also have some show and tell that I like to just show when I get to the end. Listen, it's been a good week for tourism. If you missed it last week, the governor announced... It makes the fourth consecutive year in a row that tourism has had a record year. I think what's important here, tourism is more than just welcoming visitors for Jefferson County. It's creating opportunity, new jobs, local businesses to grow, and small businesses to be created. Tourism brings energy and vitality to Jefferson County. Tourism drives investment, preserves our heritage, enhances our quality of life for residents and visitors alike. In other words, when tourism thrives, our community thrives. And as you heard from Amon a bit, the community is thriving. We have new distilleries and tasting rooms, growth in hotels, proposed new hotels, the expansion at the airport, and the expansion at the Expo Center. All of this shows the strength of tourism in Jefferson County. And all of this continues to elevate our national profile, which is exactly why USA Gymnastics chose our city for the Olympic trials in 2028. As it relates to our budget, Our budget that you have before you is made up of two funds, the general fund, which supports our day-to-day operation, and the debt service fund, which covers the bonds for the Kentucky International Convention Center. With our general fund, we project just over $31 million in total revenue for 26-27. The majority, 27 million, comes from the transient room tax, with the remaining four million from ARPA grants, matching funds, interest income, and other sources. We're also budgeting 31 million for our expenses and allocations for the year. Personnel costs are just over $11 million, or about a third of our budget, which was within our industry benchmark of 40%. The remaining 20 million goes to operations, primarily focused on sales, marketing, and programs. Key investments include advertising, industry sponsorships, and event hosting, travel and trade shows that we attend to attract conventions and visitors here. Lastly, moving to the debt service fund, this supports the series 2016 bonds issued for the downtown convention center renovation. This fund is backed by a dedicated 3% transient room tax projected to generate $18 million with total receipts of just over 20 million when you include investment income. These funds go to pay the principal interest and fees on the bonds and are restricted for that purpose, Louisville tourism is a sole backstop on these bonds. So that's a little bit about what's going on in tourism, a little bit about our budget. I wanted to, I know you all that are online can't necessarily see these and I apologize for that. But I just wanted to give you all some sense of when we're out of market, the type of advertising that folks out of market see. This happens to be the train station in Chicago. Once a year, we take over a train, the station itself, and we do marketing and advertising in Chicago. This is one of our ads, Napa But Neater. It's very popular and we've compared ourselves for years to wanting to be like Napa and Sonoma, but just as it relates to bourbon. This is one of our newest campaigns that we started last year. Thanks, Eamonn. that we started last year is New York City. We had not advertised in the New York City area, and now we've got multiple advertising. This is a tour bus in New York City that drives around, it does regular tours, but it has all of our information on it for the city. And then lastly, this is another one of our things. Another one of our general ads that we use. Bourbon is only the beginning. Something that we're pretty excited about. So just a little bit of show and tell just so you know what we're doing to represent this destination out of market. Happy to answer questions.

Cleo, thanks for being here. I'll kick us off with a couple of questions. So first of all, I know a lot's been made in the news about the downturn in the distilling business and generally the production of bourbon. My question for you, and I can speak to this anecdotally, just having tried to book a bourbon tour, are you seeing any of that softness move into the bourbon tour side? Or my guess is, given my experience, tourism is still off the charts and it's more sort of the wholesale distribution where the softness is.

That is the answer to the question. Not on the tour side, the distilleries still, as I always tell folks, we're not a beach, so no one's here Saturday to Saturday, but Thursday through Sunday, you still see lines in front of some of the distilleries, and so it's much more about the selling of the bottles to the wholesalers.

Okay, perfect. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about sort of new frontiers for Louisville tourism, sheer amount of time, money, and energy that parents spend taking kids to weekend-long sporting events. Can you speak to where we sit in that market? I know we've got both some volleyball-focused and basketball-focused, but sort of where do you see us going in that front, particularly as it also relates to outdoors and sort of four-season sports? Can you speak to the strategy for Louisville Tourism and what we're missing in our market and plans to address any gaps?

Sure. The other one, cheerleading. So cheerleading, volleyball, and basketball, we're doing very well in. We need facilities for baseball. We need facilities, we need flat fields and we've talked about flat fields for a lot of years. I think I've got a study from 2016 regarding flat fields that we still haven't accomplished. Flat fields gives you flag football, field hockey, lacrosse, gives you a lot of sports. Soccer. Soccer, yeah. So I would say those are probably the two areas with the greatest opportunity for youth sports are baseball diamonds and flat fields.

Thank you. And then the last question I'll ask is sort of expanding beyond, I know you are Louisville tourism, not Kentucky tourism, but can you speak a little bit to sort of tourism infrastructure in the state and, you know, whatever the state's trying to do in terms of, you know, I know there's lots of development happening around Red River Gorge as an example, right, and trying to drive visitors there. But for, you know, a lot of the rest of Kentucky, we're still going to be the gateway for lots of those tourism entry points and potentially, you know, you... or in Louisville for the weekend, you do a bourbon tour, and then you go out to the gorge or whatever. Can you talk a little bit about what partnership looks like between Louisville tourism and Kentucky tourism and how those bonds maybe can be strengthened in a complementary way where we're going to market together to drive more and different tourism coming into the Commonwealth?

Well, if I'm... trying to read between your question, we have a fantastic relationship with Kentucky Tourism and we do a lot with Kentucky Tourism. I think when you begin to think about partnerships with other tourism agencies in the state, that's a different dynamic that it happens through Kentucky Tourism, but very rarely does it happen directly Because they're trying to market Bowling Green. We're trying to market Louisville. And so it becomes very difficult unless there's a unifying program through Kentucky tourism for us all to buy into.

Which I totally understand, right? Because it's sort of coopetition, right? So can you speak... Do you see a lot of that happening from the state tourism industry where they're trying to put packages to, like, where there is a strategy that these are markets we are trying to, and I don't necessarily mean markets as in Bowling Green or Pikeville or Louisville, right? I mean markets as in, you know, urban tourism, as in outdoor tourism, where somebody is convening, you know, these various tourism entities, you know, local tourism entities to try to put together like a cohesive strategy for a broader market? I mean, does that happen? Can you speak a little bit to that?

Yeah, state tourism, Kentucky Tourism of Industries, KTIA, Kentucky Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, there's a handful of organizations that come together to do exactly that. But yes, state tourism, they do a good job of bringing us together around programming.

Okay, awesome, thank you. Councilman Piagentini.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. You touched on related to things we could do with youth sports, and I agree. We need really just a plan for more flat fields and for baseball diamonds. Kind of getting our lunch eaten there a little bit. But if you were to take the top thing, more broadly, not just youth, sports, tourism, but just tourism in general, and that could end up being the answer. If we do that, we could see tourism boost by X percent. But is there something else? What is the big thing that we need to focus on over the next year, two years, three years, as a city, right, helping you out, so that if we can accomplish these things, or excuse me, this thing, then your job will be that much easier, we can see more activity. What's like the main thing that we as the local government agency need to be focusing on to help tourism?

Airport.

The airport, really? Direct flights, more direct flights?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and I think we've improved tremendously at the airport. But when you think about our competitive set, Indy, Nashville, Columbus, Cleveland, St. Louis, you know, they just have better lift. And I know you asked Amy the question about hotels, and Kelseyman answered it correctly. Columbus, Ohio has 34,000 hotel rooms in their market, in their metro area. We've got 23,000. So when you... are booking a convention nationally. I don't care what market, sports or trade business commercial, it requires more hotels. So we lose business for that reason. So you all are, I assume this council is supportive of the hotels coming on board, so that's a big piece. There's a number of different agencies that are leaning into the airport to try to drive more direct flights, but that would be, probably to two things from a council perspective, I could see would be beneficial for our community.

Yeah, no, that sounds good. And I know the state put several million dollars into incentives to more direct flights. There's a huge upgrade to the airport, which is sorely needed. I use the airport a lot and let's just say it's about time. But yeah, no, thank you for that. I was curious as to what it might be. I'm glad that bubbled up. So thank you for the clarity. There is a small, well, relative to your total budget, $1.5 million, $1.4 million reduction in revenue year over year. Can you talk about what that is? Last year, your agent, your...

Grants. Say again? Grants. Grants. Grants, yeah. We had ARPA fund grants have wound down. Gotcha. We received those, I believe, in 22... and three different buckets of grants, and they all had an expiration, and we're in the last bucket now that ends in December of 26. So our fund, it's coming down, but it's because of the grants. Gotcha, perfect, thank you.

Last thing is about KIC again. We just talked about it a second ago, but I want to ask you as well, and to put a little more context on it for everybody. I want to be careful here because I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But anecdotally, talking to business leaders in the hospitality industry, What I hear is that, again, the state, I'm not, again, don't read into, nobody read into what I'm about to say that the state doesn't care. That's not true. But there tends to be an over focus on the Expo Center because there's only so much time in everybody's day, right? That team and the state's team only has so much ability to focus, right? And so the question came up, OK, let's compare to what other cities are doing. And other major cities, and I think Indianapolis is one that was handed to me, that they own their downtown convention center. So the city is extremely motivated to get more activity and to hyperutilize that space. It doesn't mean that they're trying to bastardize or go after what's at the Expo Center. Just say, let's optimize this space that we have that's so critical to us. Has your organization had a conversation about this or have a stance at this point, or is this on the table related to a possible future move that you guys think could help?

Not on the table, not an official conversation, but plenty of conversation from my stakeholders, the hoteliers. just in terms of just needing more business downtown. And what's it gonna take to drive more business into the building downtown. Ideally for all of us, a piece of business that's out at the Expo Center and a piece of business that's at the Downtown Convention Center is ideal for filling up hotel rooms. And that doesn't happen as often as you would like to see. So there's opportunity there. My experience has been, and again, this is new conversation, but my experience has been that most cities that own the building, they bring in someone to manage the facility. Because there's a lot of organizations out there that, manage facilities on behalf of governments.

Yeah, what I think, what I have heard, and again, I'm just talking here, is that you don't want to lose exactly what you're talking about, filling everything, Expo Center kick, having the whole thing, you know, booked out. Those are the big things that we want to compete for, and it sounds like hotel space, direct flight, these all play into how we can help land those. It's more like sans the big deals, there are smaller deals that can help fill in the gap, right? That KIC would be a great opportunity for, and we may or may not have a structure right now that helps in the interim get a larger number of more mid-sized deals where KIC would be sufficient. So continue to go after the big game, but also hunt some medium-sized game that that would be applicable for and help fill rooms.

And Councilman, I... Kick is not chump change. It's a good-sized building. Oh, no, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I agree. It doesn't have to be mid-sized. I mean, I think, you know, we have 14 legacy events that use the Expo Center. So you're talking about... 14 to 18 weeks of use and there's 52 weeks in the year. So there's opportunity in both of those buildings. We all are actively involved in selling both of those buildings. Yeah, I think it's great.

I really do. Every time I go in, I'm impressed by it. You know, I would love to see it more utilized, you know, even if it's without the, I mean, again, I'm not discounting the Expo Center. I'm just saying, like, if we could get more stuff that would fill that as well. So, yeah, thank you very much.

I'm happy to have, you know, I wasn't aware this was an official conversation. I think we've, as an industry, have had some conversations some talks about that, but if the council and the administration's interested, I'm happy to provide more information related to what this could look like. I wouldn't quite call it official conversation.

I'm really just bringing it up because it came up recently in conversations, but yeah, there's no, I mean, I certainly am not speaking for the mayor's office. He has not brought this up with me, but I just wanted to sort of feel you guys out since we're having the discussion today on the budget.

And I just want you to know if this does become an official conversation, I'm happy to reach out to our industry and bring forth enough information to be able to make a sound decision about how to move forward. Yeah, that's great. That's perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Herndon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One question about, I'd like to dig down deeper. We've talked about that we need more flights and better fields and more other things, but I'd like to dig down further into infrastructure and conditions. Once they get here, once Mr. O'Brien's efforts and your efforts get them here, and they're on the street. Are there any things that you're hearing from your constituents that are negative experiences, like infrastructure conditions, access in public spaces, the real details of the everyday use? Are you getting any of that? Those are the kinds of things we can deal with with Public Works and other things to make sure that everything is just so once they get here and they maximize their enjoyment.

I think the only thing that I've heard regularly is at night about lighting. It doesn't come across as a complaint. It comes across as the city seems a little dark at night. And so I know there's been lots of conversations around how to improve some of the lighting around the downtown area. But honestly, Councilman, in the last few years we've had less and less on the street complaints from our visitors. And you asked, Damon, about surveys. We're doing the surveys, so we're seeing that in the surveys. And we've certainly, from a visitor perspective, we've improved. tremendously in terms of the experience of walking around downtown. So the only thing that really comes to mind is lighting.

Okay, and as you might be not surprised, I live next to downtown. I worked down here for 25 years, so those details are near and dear to my heart. One of the reasons I recently, and we're going to get this fixed, for example, the sidewalk on the west side of 4th from Main to the Galt House is thin-set pavers that were missing or loose and up that hill there, that's a detail, but it's how many hundreds of people a day walk up that terrible sidewalk. So we're gonna get that fixed. Little things like that that just are slight negatives that we just wanna wipe away all those things to make sure that their experience is as positive as possible. And if you guys see anything like that, even those small details, please let us know and we'll try to get those fixed. We'll do that. Thank you.

Seeing no one else in queue, This is an ordinance requiring a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please open the voting. Oh, and Madam Clerk, please let the record reflect that we were joined by Councilman Cramer some time ago.

Voting's open. Committee Member Reno-Wehmer?

Aye.

Committee Member Parker? Aye. Committee Member Mulvey-Worwich? Yes. Chair Cramer?

Yes.

Thank you. Voting's closing. Vice Chair Winkler, you have nine yes votes.

Thank you. The ordinance is adopted, and we'll move to the consent calendar. Mr. Battle, thanks for being here. Thank you, Council. Appreciate it. All right. The last item on the agenda is item 30-163-26, an ordinance approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget for the Transit Authority of the River City. Tark, may I have a motion and a second, please? Yes. Motion by Councilman Biagentini, second by Councilman Joseph. Is there anyone here to speak to this item? Anybody?

Can I make a motion? You can.

Madam Clerk, we've also been joined by Councilman Hawkins. You can make a motion.

I motion that we table this until representatives from TARC are able to join us.

Can I ask you to hold that for just one second? Because.

Are they supposed to come online?

I mean, I don't know. That's what we need to check because if we don't pass the TARC budget, they don't operate past July 1st. So hold please. Let's figure out why they're not here.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, maybe we just take a maybe motion recess into why we sort this out? Okay. I'm just saying we have other options. Let me try somebody else.

Okay, colleagues, I think there was a miscommunication on the start time that he was told 4.30, not 3.30. So he is on his way. If we could recess for 15 minutes, he will be here, okay? So motion to recess. We will reconvene right up four o'clock.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Bye. Thank you. Thank you.

Mmm. Thank you.

All right, colleagues, we will restart and... Okay. If you guys could turn your cameras on, it would be great. director uh so let me re we've already we'll recall the item just to clear it up uh item three is oh one six three dash two six an ordinance approving the fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven budget for the transit authority of the river city tarc and we have a motion on second motion by councilman piagentini second by councilman joseph um the item is before us uh director gives i apologize about the scheduling snafu appreciate you all rushing over here um you know catching your breath and being put on the spot. The floor is yours. If you could introduce yourself and then speak to the item, I would appreciate it.

There we go. Ozzie Gibson, Executive Director, TARC. So we're here today as normal to ask for your approval for our budget, which I believe the ordinance is going to read based on revenues, which would go into the Mass Transit Trust Fund, $73,533,420,000. Agency other receipts will show $30,958,000. $10 for a total of $110,491,430. So there again, we've worked very hard the last couple years. We've sent you all a cover letter basically saying we've found about savings of $27 million by doing what we've done. And the financial cliff that was pushed out to FY30 is now FY31. With that, I will answer any questions.

Sure. I'll start with a question. First of all, I want to compliment you on the work that you've done trying to pull things back off the ledge. Part of that is through changes in the route structure. I know that that's always a challenge for riders. The question I want to focus on is the cost structure related to TARC 3. Yeah. And sort of what do you see as the long term plans around, you know, our ability to provide adequate service for those dependent on TARC 3? You know, what are some of the trends in the market, you know, maybe that other cities are doing to address ridership in that specific segment? And if you just sort of speak to the fiscal state of TARC 3 specifically.

Yeah, absolutely. So that is something that every transportation across the country is struggling with right now, because it's growing, because we're an aging population. So we look to spend between $20 and $22 million on that. And that is a very large section of our budget. So some of the things that we are, we actually hired Liz Fust, who's an attorney, and she come on as a consultant to help us with this. And she's also disabled herself to study other cities. And first things that we hear out of the gate is you need to make sure you have a good recertification process. All right, and that happens every three years, and you have a process of how you vet people that come on it, and TARC has not done a very good job of that over the last 20 years.

And just for clarity, a recertification is where you're recertifying that the rider is eligible for TARC 3? Yes. Okay, thank you.

Yes, so we have over 8,000 people signed up, 3,200 regular users, That's one thing that was a recommendation that you should do. The other part is focused on whether you operate outside the three-quarter mile. Now, basically what that means, the federal guidelines state that if you run a fixed route like we do, you're required to provide paratransit inside that and three-quarter mile beyond it. From day one, TARC has never enforced that. Okay, so that probably could be anywhere between $5 and $7 million, all right? So you have to decide at some point, are you going to do that? Now, what I have promised people- Ozzie, I'm sorry.

Yes, sir. If I could just, again, just for folks watching that may not be so familiar, when you say TARC has never enforced that, you mean- whether you live within three quarters of a fixed route or not, we will pick you up if you live five miles from a fixed route, correct?

Yes, we take you anywhere you wanna go in Jefferson County.

Okay, but the federal requirement would only be, we'll pick you up or drop you off within three quarters of a mile of where the fixed route stop is? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir.

So some cities offer microtransit beyond that at different prices. I met a guy this past week that there's some cities that actually use Uber beyond that. And the reason you would use something like that is because right now, just one way... to take a person is costing us $47. And we charge 450 back. So you can clearly see we're out $85 taking you from one place. And when I came, I think I came over here a few months ago to talk about when we had the fare increase. And some of the numbers just kind of blew me away too. An example would be just right now at what it costs. A person that used us five days a week to and from work cost TARC $22,000. That's one person. Our contract, we just signed the last piece of the extension that will get us out to January of 29. If I rebid that today, All right, that $47 that I just mentioned is gonna start at 65 one way. And we're projecting it could be easily 70 one way, 140 bucks now to and from, and I get $9 back. That's 131 that we would be out. And based on our current ridership of averaging 30 to 32,000 people a month, that's a $7 million increase to our budget if we stayed as we were.

Let me ask a follow-up question to that, Ozzy. On the TARC3 network, and if you don't have this handy, it's fine. I'm just curious. What percentage of your TARC3 riders are, and if I use the wrong terminology, like group ridership versus individual point-to-point ridership?

That's a good question. There's not as, you know, the way this, like when you, you got to call in a day ahead and they put a manifest together. All right. And they will try to book people as close as they can in line with, and also depending on what time you want to be picked up. You know, it's not like I'm going to go there at eight, pick me up at nine. It could be pick me up at 12 because they're again, it depends on where they go. Now I will tell you, looking into this and hiring Bruce back here behind me, who has a lot of experience, he's my new COO, is that our software, we need new software. That's gonna save us some money and we're trying to get that going in the next four or five months to actually tighten it up a little bit. I've met with the Teamsters because they have members at numerous places here and already working on trying to put them in one vehicle. But to answer your question, how many out of every trip every day, that's something I'll have to research.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Biagentini.

I'm sorry, did I hear accurately that your, was it your average per directional rate for TARC 3 was $70?

That's what it could go, that's what we think it's going to go to. Because right now, it's $47 one way, and I bill the customer $4.50. That's one way. So then you're going to come back, right? So that's another $47 minus $4.50.

Let me put it to you this way. Do you know how far I could travel in Uber for that much money? I do.

I do.

Very, very, very far, very far. I could drive to Frankfurt almost. Yes, sir. For that much money. Yes. For $70 each way.

Yep.

Like, that's ridiculous.

It is. Now, there's some federal red tape around all that because I have to make sure whether you need a wheelchair or not, which now removes you from that. And also, Uber, I don't think they take cash. That's what I was told two days ago. They don't. And that's another problem because... Everything with paratransit has to mirror the fixed route. So I can't go cashless on my fixed route. I'd love to, because it slows us down, everybody putting quarters and nickels in. So a person that would use Uber right now, the way the law is written at the feds, would have to sign off. They agreed to go cash.

I'm saying it only in the context of I almost thought I heard you wrong. I didn't hear you wrong. You didn't. I mean, $140 round trip. What this will ultimately look like is bizarro land.

Can't happen.

Yeah, and I'm just glad you're looking at... it sounds like unique opportunities to do something that's better. Uber did a couple of things, and I'm picking Uber. Rideshare as a broad category did a lot of things. It brings down DUI deaths in your city. It also initially, I know that it was very widely used, by people with disabilities because of the on-demand nature of it and the high reliance on tech to monitor what they were doing and all that stuff. So yeah, whatever you can do to sort of innovate around that idea and find something better than that

Absolutely. I mean, I even went as far as to work with Liz with UofL to see what our population is going to look like in 2030. Yeah. Because we know the silver tsunami. And, you know, the way the numbers look, you know, in 2020, we had just in Jefferson County, there was like 131,000 people 65 or older. All right. Just in Jefferson County. Well, in 2030, it's going to jump to 160.

Yeah.

So we're going to gain 30,000 people, you know, 65 and older. So we're trying to plan on. what percent increase of ridership could be, so.

Yeah, good point. All right. I am curious, thank you for saying about the quote, the fiscal cliff, it's moved out a year, it's 2031, but can you talk about where we are? I mean, what does the long-term prognosis look like at this point, right? The changes that you've made, which I think are all necessary, what does the next five years look like now that get us to 2031, and what else needs to be done to get us beyond that and create a more sustainable network?

I think that when it all comes down, you know, we're doing this network redesign at August 2nd. We need to let that go and see where we're not going, where we get either complaints or we have high usage. Because it's really high usage. Because when I took over TARC, Just a step on that bus, the ratio was 23 bucks.

That's bad.

With all these cuts, it's down to 13. What you want is a single digit number. That makes it more useful and it's more easier to swallow. It just really depends on how far we want to go and how often and what the need is. Because I asked them to pull me some numbers together. I said, look, if somebody come to me, maybe you and said, Ozzie, I need you to go another mile out this way. Can you do that? I would tell you, if you want me to do it 19 hours a day, coming through there every 15 minutes, just one mile, that's 1.5 million extra every year. And it cuts in half if you only went 30. So when I look across the country, Again, I've talked about this before. Every place is cutting their public transportation. It just is. A lot of federal dollars have dried up. The ridership has kind of gone down. So my board has asked me, Ozzie, what's the strategic plan looking like? I'm like, well, I don't know. Because if we only have 500,000 riders a month and we're getting by and there's no large corporations complaining, then I would be crazy to come over and say, hey, I need $30 million, right? And I can't do that. So it's one of these deals. We just have to see how this goes.

Right. So really what's happening here is August implementation, we let this play out for a period of time. We're here next year talking about what it looks like. Yes. And then so over the next five years, it's how do we stabilize that? And then we can have a conversation about what you're saying.

100%. Because I don't know what this paratransit thing is going to look like, you know, because I – depending on whether we charge to go out there, whether we go to Uber and we save money, that could push that financial cliff out even further. And one of the things I've learned at TARC is they weren't always willing to partner and work with businesses that needed transportation. I don't know why. I can't explain that. But I got hired a new marketing director that's going to be out here talking to businesses because But it's like that everywhere. So somewhere along the line there in 2014, somebody should have said, wait a minute, are we not marketing right? Are not people right? But we can't keep putting a service out there.

Right. Well, and let me ask a weird question. Do you have a background in public transportation?

No. I do now. That's dang right you do. Trial by fire, nonetheless.

The reason I'm saying that is as a compliment to your leadership and as to debunk what I think is a nonsense idea that somehow the city bought into over the last several years, which was nobody can operate these things unless you've done 30 years in that business. And what we're actually finding is somebody with fresh ideas, somebody that is implementing what I would call standard common sense, that any part of this city would need to think about. If I got ridership down, ask why. Ask how we show value to places that need ridership, and then increase ridership, and then reevaluate over time the routes. That might have made sense 20 years ago. It doesn't make sense today. Why? Businesses moved, people moved, et cetera. So, you know, just applying these very common sense questions and very common sense solutions, I feel like we finally have the adults in the room here with TARC, including you, including the rest of your leadership team. I just can't tell you how much I appreciate it. And I'm saying all that because I know that there's many organizations that have come to us. They want us to throw millions and millions of dollars to public transportation. And until you finish what you are doing, Because exactly your point that I have seen in the past, I'm not saying this current leadership, but in the past, I was not going to throw a red cent of more public dollars at an organization that wasn't proving that they were working through these things and being serious about it. And I think once you get to stability over the next, it's probably going to take a year or two of managing through that, then this community can have a real honest conversation about what's next, right? And what's next for TARC. So appreciate that. Good luck with your implementation. Good luck over the next year or so. And thank you very much for what you guys are doing.

Yeah, thank you, sir.

Thank you, Councilman Piaget. And Ozzie, we've got a whole list of other departments and ancillary agencies for you to run next. So, you know. Councilwoman Hawkins. Councilwoman, you're on mute. Hold on, the clerk's gonna see if they can unmute you.

You better pull over talking like that.

Hold on, Councilwoman.

Yeah, Councilman, we cannot hear you.

Okay, I think you're waving us off. Okay, there is nobody else in queue. I think we're good. All right, colleagues with no one else in queue, this is an ordinance requiring a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please open the voting.

Council Member Parker? Council Member Mulvey-Woolridge? Yes. Voting's closing. Vice Chair Winkler, you have seven yes votes.

Thank you. The ordinance is adopted and we'll go to the consent calendar. Colleagues, that's the last order of business. And without objection, we stand adjourned.

We can't do other things that we hope and want to do without safety, without