Committee on Sustainability and Parks - Regular Meeting

But you need enough to be able to mix this around and dredge them.

And then this is just optional.

I've added this over the years. It's a little garlic powder and some paprika. It gives it a little kick. Stir that up. And we're just gonna simply dredge our slices. They have enough moisture to pick this up. You can, I've seen recipes where you can dip in milk or buttermilk first. My family just went straight to the dry cornmeal, you could almost call it a rub. So I'm gonna finish dredging all of these and then we're gonna take this to the stove and fry these babies up in some hot bacon grease. All right, we've got our bacon grease heated up to about 350. It's starting just to smoke. That's where you want it in this nice cast iron skillet. And we're just gonna add our slices one at a time. We're gonna let these fry up a couple of minutes. We just want them golden brown on each side. You wanna work in these small batches because you wanna give your slices some frying room. Whenever you're working with hot grease, I always think it's a good idea to use a shield. You want to check these. This has been on for about three minutes. I'm just going to check the color. And yes, I think that's a perfect golden brown color. So now I'll just turn all these over and we'll finish cooking. I think these turned out a beautiful golden brown, and I'm going to get these plated up, but I'm also going to whip up a little dipping sauce that Jessica gave me a recipe for, which we'll talk about later. But first, let's go watch her make a bourbon cocktail.

Today we're going to make a bit more of a fruit-forward cocktail than we usually do, because I think it'll pair really nicely with the fried green tomatoes. And I've dubbed this one the Louisville Belle. So we're going to use Kentucky bourbon, cranberry juice, fresh squeezed lemon juice, fresh squeezed lime juice, and one teaspoon of sugar. Alright, so I've already got ice in my cocktail shaker and I'm going to go ahead and pour in two ounces of the bourbon. Today we're using Jefferson's Reserve. I'm also going to use two ounces of the cranberry juice. And like we've said before, you're always gonna use a shaker when you're using fresh fruit juice. And I always say shake it to wake it is how you know if you wanna shake your cocktail. And here's my lemon and lime juice that I've already squeezed. And we're gonna go ahead and put in that teaspoon of sugar as well. And just give this a good shake. And we're just gonna serve this up in a martini glass. It's a nice pinkish red color, which is a little bit reminiscent of the paddle wheel on the Belle of Louisville. So that's how we kind of landed on this name. So there you have it, the Belle of Louisville.

Jessica, I think your sauce recipe really pairs nicely with this. And I didn't want to do the traditional remoulade since we just had that with the chicken livers that we did recently. I like the flavor of this.

Yeah, this pretty much goes with anything. And it's real simple. It's just mayo, cumin, chili powder, and I usually use Tabasco sauce, but any hot sauce. And this recipe actually kind of has a history with my family. We actually call it Jessica's Sauce because I've been making it since maybe I was like five. But it was based off of this recipe from a restaurant called My Reds that used to exist. Actually, two of my uncles worked there.

How cool.

But when they closed, they didn't have the recipe for this. So my mom and I and the family, we kind of just concocted what we thought was a close approximation. And so we've been making it ever since.

I love that. Finally, you have a touching family story.

Metro TV, 30 seconds. This is a regularly scheduled Parks and Sustainability Committee. Today is August 6th, correct? Yes, August 6th. Welcome back to ACPS students to school today. We have three items on the agenda. We are holding still item number one. We're gonna go ahead and start with Item number two, R-09-26, a resolution authorizing the mayor accepting a grant of $75,000 from Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Department for Environmental Protection for Iroquois Park playground rubber mulch project administered by the Department of Parks and Reservations. Is there anyone here to speak to that today? Motion. All right, there we go, we're moving.

All right, good afternoon, I'm Jason Canuel, the director at Louisville Parks and Recreation. This agenda item and resolution, this was a grant that we applied for. It's a state grant that utilizes Kentucky-sourced recycled rubber that we're gonna use in the Port-in-Place surface there at the Iroquois Park playground replacement project.

Sounds like a fabulous thing that we're gonna do to make it safe for kids on the playground. So, all in favor? Piagentini.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know, I'm curious. The primary sponsor isn't here. Should we continue with this or, no, I'm just kidding. It sounds great. Where's the grant from?

It's from the State Environmental Protection Cabinet.

How does that work? Like, what's the, can we use it for other parks? I mean, look, I'm proving this. I'm just saying, like, what's the extent that we can use that for other parks and things like that?

For other playgrounds that we have that utilize port in place rubber surfaces, this is applicable. It's a grant application. I'm not sure when the grant application's open again, but if we have a playground project that's in the pipeline that does utilize the port in place rubber surface, we are planning to apply for that grant in the future, yes. Thank you very much. Yes.

Thank you. I think what Councilman Piagetini was trying to say is how does he apply for a park in his district?

For long run, for example.

Exactly. Perfect. There we go. Councilwoman Murray.

Okay. Thank you very much. I just want clarification. So I've seen rubber mulch that's chopped up like wood chips, and then I've seen the mat. Is the mat what we're talking about here when you call it poured in place?

Neither. Neither. There's a third. Oh, okay. The poured in place rubber, it's almost like a system. So beneath what you see at Iroquois right now, the maroon color at the top, that's crumb rubber that's been colored, but that is on top of like a four or five inch layer of a head impact attenuation surface, or that's where the rubber comes in. It's basically glued together rubber surface underneath the color. So what this grant is gonna help us do is to apply for that poured in place rubber surface, the head impact attenuation surface underneath the color.

Did you say head impact?

Yes.

Okay, I know when that stuff is fresh and new, you can go bouncy, bouncy, bouncy on it.

Right, so we have ASTM standards that we have to meet. It's called head impact attenuation, and that's, comparable to a child falling off of the playground and hitting their head on the ground, and the head impact attenuation basically refers to that child not being injured with their head does impact the surface if they fall.

Okay, learned something new, thank you.

You're welcome. This recalls, roll call, or, yes, that's one of the words I was looking for. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? And it moves. Thank you. Thank you very much. One second. Item number three is a resolution 142-25, urging the implementation of a urban forest master plan strategies action to ensure local metro government tree canopy is resilient, protected, and sustainable. We're looking for, the motion is to return. And motion moves, all right. We have a crew here today from Trees Louisville and Parks. The financial impact statement has been released after a long waiting. And we'd like to see if Parks would like to discuss it for a quick moment.

We'll tag team this a bit, but Michelle King, I'm Executive Director of Louisville Parks and Recreation, and I have with me here Masude Azorikolu, who is Assistant Director of Urban Forestry at Louisville Parks and Recreation. I'll speak to this briefly and leave the detailed questions to Masude. But we were asked to provide a financial impact assessment for the implementation of the Urban Forestry Master Plan. The Urban Forestry Master Plan was a joint project between Louisville Parks and Recreation's Urban Forestry Division and Trees Louisville. and it created a document that included 10 strategies with 33 different actions amongst them. Many of those were not specific actions for Louisville Metro government to implement, so in this request we took a look at I believe we have seven of those actions that would directly require Louisville Metro government investment to undertake. And so that is what we included and then provided that to the Office of Internal Audit for their review and that is the memo that you all have been provided. We're happy to answer any questions that we can today or in future.

discussion.

Thank you. Just some initial questions because I think everybody, including Therese Louisville and us as members, have to digest this and what we should have. My estimation is a specific hearing on this, but I just want to put a few questions out there that you can absolutely answer after the fact or after this meeting and just bring to that discussion. I would like a little bit of a more detailed breakdown of The one-time costs, so you have, right now, just for the public, and this is all online, it says 5.4 million in initial equipment costs. Seems like a lot to me, but I'm not educated on this. 7.8 million in reoccurring annual costs, which assumes that we already have, as Europe estimated, 2.1 million in existing reoccurring costs that would just be baked into this. So in reality, it's 9.8 million. Am I doing this right? 9.9 million, but 2.1 is already in the budget. 7.8 would be new reoccurring costs, right? So really want to, we're going to want to understand that with some level of detail. I see some of what is in this report, but it'd be great if we could summarize this in a way that's digestible during a meeting, right? And I'm also interested in what I'll just call alternative ideas. I don't want to make this, if this is all or nothing, somebody tell me it's all or nothing. But a lot of times with policy, okay, we can't do all of this, but is there something else we can do that moves the ball down the court helps achieve some of the objectives, and maybe isn't $7.8 million in new reoccurring spending right out of the gate, right? So I would ask the department to think about, okay, if we couldn't do all of this, what are some other ideas that help achieve the objectives, particularly where there's the most need in the community? So thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, if you want to address a few things, that's fine.

Maybe a general response, and then... with the promise to come back with that more detailed walkthrough of what has been prepared for this. I'd say that if you asked 10 different urban forestry divisions how to implement this plan, you'd have 10 different answers. So there are a lot of places that there are options in this. This is what we felt like was a best practice approach based on our current plan and what it would take to grow those current operations to cover citywide. The majority of the costs that you see here by far are involved with the implementation of Action 1.3, which is Metro government takes over full care and management of street trees. So this represents what it would take to grow the current urban forestry division, which takes care of parks and parkway trees and has a division over street tree inspection and we do quite a bit of maintenance and planting there that is covered by a grant, the Louisville Equitable Forestry Initiative grant, as well as additional planting projects. But maintenance of street trees is currently, by ordinance, the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. So to switch that would require a great deal of investment in our urban forestry department. So that is the majority of that cost.

Just to give you a detailed information of that general cost, you have an attachment Excel sheet in that email. If you please just like look at that 1.3 tab, it does definitely show each detail for each combination of the program and divisions. personnel and equipment, so we really tried hard to put every single item specifically there, but if you still have additional questions, we're happy to provide further details.

Councilwoman Bast.

I have a few questions. So kind of going off of what Councilman Piagentini So the estimated total cost is 13.41 million with reoccurring cost of 7.82, initial equipment cost 5.44. That also includes another additional 2.1 million. And then we're looking at adding staffing. Is that in that cost, that staffing that you're asking to add, is that part of those numbers? Yes, that would be part of those.

Staff would be included in a recurring cost. Those initial costs are, for the most part, going to be the equipment needed for a full-fledged, if you looked at it all at once. So one of the options that Councilman Piagentini might be interested in would, what would it look like to see a phased growth of the Urban Forestry Division if that change in responsibility for street trees were to come about?

I'm just gonna be honest. We cannot maintain what we have now, whether it's street trees, park trees, golf trees. How is this gonna be sustainable? And I'm gonna just use something in my district as an example. The golf course at Sun Valley and Sun Valley Park has a lot of forestry that needs to be done and a lot of forestry that's been waiting to be done. I just don't see how this is sustainable. Can someone speak on how they expect this to be sustainable if we can't maintain what we already have?

I will say that is what the plan, why it requires so much growth in equipment and staff, would be to have to grow to the level to meet the need that would be presented in this case. We've prepared an estimate of what that would take.

that is because that- Wouldn't the additional staffing you're asking for be to take on the new load? The new load. So the old load we can't maintain with the staffing we have now. That's accurate.

I mean, we do, I think, a great job of maintaining trees now in parks. talked to our golf courses about using the resources available for those golf courses. But no, to grow the requirement for us to take on care and management of all street trees, that could not happen with current resources. So that was the recommendation in the plan. So that is what we prepared this response in accordance with.

Also, if I can please, the proposed plan is including additional personnel to the current forestry team. that is responsible for maintenance of parks trees. Well, that's kind of what I was asking.

The new staffing you are asking for will be to take on this. But the staffing we have now can't even maintain what we have currently in deferred maintenance and forestry. So that's why I was kind of, the new staffing is going to be just for this, which is a lot.

Current number of staff in forestry who's responsible for maintaining parks and parkway trees, 11. So we are also requesting five additional positions to be added to Forestry team to increase our workforce to meet with the workload that is currently out there. Yes, we are aware that we do have a lot of backlog, but we are trying to do our best with the resources we have.

So to further... Just to clarify that, if you look at that tab 1.3 in that spreadsheet, that does include current staffing, and that does also include our division that takes care of parks, parkway trees, and the landscape areas that are under Urban Forestry's responsibility as well, and then adds in what would be needed to fully take care of those, plus the addition of street tree maintenance and responsibility.

Okay. Yeah, I haven't got the, we just got that this week, and it's a lot to try to go through. So, okay, thank you for that.

Council Member Rowe is in the queue, but I'm going to ask one question. How far behind are we on deferred maintenance dollar-wise?

For trees or for? Parks in general. Because that is a different.

I understand. I'm just trying to.

Jason, you have a good number off the top of your head for parks, amenities, deferred maintenance? 179 million.

Thank you. Councilwoman Ruby.

Okay, thank you very much, and thank you to Parks and to Trees Louisville for putting this, doing this study and getting this information before us. That is a lot of money, understood, and I don't see it happening in one fell swoop. So if we do this as a phased approach, what would you want to focus on first?

I think we can give you a top of our head response, but I do think that that would be the kind of information that would be helpful in a second discussion, as Councilman Piagentini suggested.

Like Michelle mentioned at the beginning, so you can have 100 different responses to this request if you ask several different people. So this proposal was based on our experience. and institutional knowledge, it is not a perfect and ideal approach, but it's not bare minimum either. So we can absolutely take different approaches. So to start conversation about how, I think the first item is the ordinance and possible change in ordinance as we talk about public trees to be taken care of by metro government. So if that is the case, we can absolutely start with prioritizing the work, starting instead of like three different regions and total of six teams making 30 additional staff for street tree program, we can consider forming one crew to start with high priority and high risk trees along streets if we were to take over the responsibility of maintenance and grow from there. The numbers would be absolutely much lower. But I'm a little bit worried about conflicting issues as partially maintaining those trees, how we are gonna prioritize it, how we are gonna respond to those calls. That would be my concern. If it's up to urban forestry expertise prioritizing those high-risk trees, one crew can start working on those. That would be my approach.

Okay, thank you very much. As far as the 30 recommendations that were on there, where are we on the ones that are basically low-hanging fruit, low-cost ones? Because I understand quite a few of those we're already working on.

I think we can speak to the ones that are underway within our department, and then I would also welcome input from Trees Louisville for community-based recommendations, but do you want to speak to the street tree inventory?

Sure. One of the items included in this plan is conducting a street tree inventory. Actually, all parks and street tree inventory We have already started that inventory and then we are almost like 70% done about to finish this winter. So it is all already working in progress. So there are some low hanging items outside of Metro government and I would like Cindy to speak about those items that she is collecting information on what the process is about those.

Hello, everyone. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I have actually the... Your name and everything for the record. Oh, I'm sorry. Cynthia H. Sullivan. Nobody knows me by that name, right?

No one knows you by that name.

I'm Cindy Sullivan. I am the president and CEO of Trees Louisville. And again, happy to have you. Happy to be here. So I have these. This is a one-page... document that shows the findings from the urban forest master plan as well as the strategies thank you very much crystal i'm sorry councilwoman best on on the back side the highlighted items are 18 different items that are already in progress out of the 33 so we are well over halfway through the implementation of the urban force master plan and these 18 items are being completed or being worked on by various organizations soil and water conservation district thank you very much for fully funding them is working on invasive species and Trees Louisville is working on a financial assistance program for tree care on private property. and a few other items. Our website, the website for the Urban Forest Master Plan is louisviltreeplan.org. And we are inputting right now a progress report on who is doing what and how far everything is going. So this is not just about Louisville Metro, this is about our entire community. And in my mind, it seems that for you guys to advance this resolution to continue to do this work would is sort of an easy decision we don't necessarily need to spend millions of dollars right away on street trees but we need very much to advance this plan and the implementation because we said from the beginning that that this was not a plan that was going to sit on a shelf. This is a plan that is going to be implemented by many different organizations. Question?

Councilman Piagentini.

Yeah, exactly why I think we need to come back, have a dedicated, I would encourage the chair, we'll schedule a specific meeting where this is what we'll talk about. This will take up most of the meeting. We'll give Cindy, I had no idea your whole name was all that. Cynthia H., right, yeah, Sullivan. But also the department, right, and that was exactly, and actually Councilman Chappell and I were side-barring about that exact thing and she was updating me on it. So I think the other thing that was dawning on me as we were talking about this is this is a resolution Maybe we could improve the verbiage of it or clarify exactly what you're talking about. It is not an ordinance that says, like, if we don't spend this, whatever, it's not a budget ordinance. So I think, but at the same time, I do want to be fair to everyone. We have done ordinance, excuse me, resolutions before saying, hey, we want to do this, but we didn't have any thought behind it, plan behind it, any concept where it was going, and frankly, we're nowhere near doing half of them. So I don't want to do that again. Right, but yeah, I think, I'm gonna ask the table it so we can schedule this meeting, really talk about it, because I agree. I think if we could get more clarity, right, about what we're really talking about here, because we're not talking about dropping $7 million on the table and saying that's it, right, and that's the whole plan. This is much more nuanced, there's much more information to put down, and maybe that ends up with clarifying the language and the resolution and moving forward, right? Because I agree that what you said was very helpful, but I think we need everybody to come with, hey, this is what we're really saying, right? And I think that would be helpful, because I don't think what we're saying is just, hey, here's a financial impact statement, go pass this thing. Right, I think.

Oh, yeah, no, absolutely not. Because we're already working on so many things.

Exactly, exactly. So with that, I'll motion to table, Mr. Chair.

Second, and we are tabled. Thank you. Sorry, we need a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? and it looks like it passes aren't we our table thank you and i will get with um everybody involved to work on getting a um a time and with that being said that adjourns our meeting of the parks and sustainability committee meeting today thank you all for joining have a good day

having someone to respond when someone's in crisis. That has included having someone to talk to through 988 or the call crisis line. We now answer over 6,000 calls a month from people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. We also have a mobile crisis team that's deployed from the 988 number if someone is in need of having A licensed clinician come to them and perform a response. We now have around 30 calls a month that come in for that. And then we also have a new crisis center that will be opening the end of this month beginning of next month. We're in construction right now. We've just hired staff and begun training. And that is only due to the support from Louisville Metro Council as well as the mayor's office in helping us provide some funding in order to create the crisis center that will be available. here at 914 East Broadway. We will have an adult crisis centers as well as a center that will focus on youth. And we are hopeful because the national data says that the answer to people in mental health crisis is having a full continuum with all options available in a community. And that's what we've been focused on bolstering and building. So I look forward to our discussion today.

An electrical inspection is part of the electrical permit process, which is usually required for new construction projects, major renovations, and service upgrades or when adding things like circuits, panels, or large electrical equipment. An inspection may also be needed when changing the layout of your electrical system or installing solar panels or replacing outdated wiring. Inspections help make sure everything is safe, up to code and ready for use before power is turned on. All electrical inspections must be performed by a certified inspector who will verify the circuits are protected from overload, fire or electrocution and that systems are properly and safely grounded.

I take this very seriously and I take making sure that everybody and particularly black people feel like they can trust the police. The police are on their side and they're there to take care of them. You know, and I've said this before. I think one of the things that we can all as police officers attempt to appreciate more is how it feels even when an officer is right to have stuff taken out of your pockets and to be searched. Um, it's not a feeling that everyone has had in their civilian life. Um, but I've been on the receiving end of that and no matter how many times the officer told me, um, that it was okay, it's, it's still felt like a violation. And so I think we can do a better job of understanding that feeling and having some sympathy for, uh, being on the receiving end of that. And I also know that I've had friends and family members have been on the receiving end of violent crime as well. And I need officers out there to make sure that there are fewer grieving moms and brothers and sisters and friends that are showing up to funerals and hospital rooms. And so there is a balance that we have to strike. And I expect