Metro Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Councilman Kramer, just letting you know, we're going to be starting a few minutes late today.

Thank you, Sonia. Do you know what the deal is with the iPads? I can get, obviously I'm on, but I'm on with my phone and it keeps wanting me to download an app, a new WebEx app.

Let me have Robert from IT call you. Okay, give me one second.

That's fine, thanks.

He's calling you now, sir.

Bye.

Thank you.

Metro TV will start in 30 seconds. All right, this is the regular Metro Council meeting of August 13th, 2026. Will please come to order. The time is currently about 620. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This meeting is being held pursuant to KRS 61.826 and Council Rule 5A. Madam Clerk, calling the roll, please.

Council Member Hawkins. Present. Council Member Shanklin. Present. Council Member Parrish-Wright. Present. Council Member Herndon.

Present.

Council Member Purvis. Present. Council Member Leninger.

Present.

Council Member McCraney. Here. Council Member Reno-Weber. Council Member Owen.

Here.

Council Member Raymond. Here. Council Member Kramer.

Here.

Council Member Joseph? Here. Council Member Syme?

Here.

Council Member Bass? Here. Council Member Chappell? Here. Council Member Reed? Here. Council Member Winkler? Here. Council Member Parker? Here. Council Member Piagentini? Here. Council Member Benson? Present. Council Member Rui? Here. Council Member Bratcher? Here. Council Member Hudson? Here. Council Member Mulvaney-Woolridge? Here. Council Member Batshon?

Here.

President Akerson? Here. Present. Mr. President, you have 24 and a quorum.

And we've got an excused absence for Councilman Ben Reno over. All right. Councilman Bratcher, I believe you've got a group of special guests tonight. All right. You have the floor, sir.

Come on, Jeff. You come up here, too. Is this on? Yeah. Mr. President and Council, I introduce you to the world champion Babe Ruth softball girl. Woo! We're so proud of them, and Councilman Wooldridge will talk a minute, and Jeff Hudson, then I'll give the presentation. Go ahead, Jenny.

Well, I don't have much to say, but congratulations. So from this little town, a little area called Fern Creek that borders my district of 24, these girls from all areas, not just the Fern Creek, but border the areas of Fern Creek, came together and traveled near and far, but beat all over, traveled again. Where'd y'all travel to? Alabama. And who all draw play?

Puerto Rico, Mallory, they're from Loots.

Lots of places, huh? And who came out on top? Fern Creek. Fern Creek. All right, I don't have much to say except for we had to wear orange tonight. Because we're so proud. So we're just we're just proud of these team. We're proud of the coaches. Thank you coaches for all the hard work, the effort that you all put into these girls and the love and support that you poured into them. Again from a graduate from Fern Creek from a council person that borders this district. I just want to say thank you and congratulations girls.

Yeah, I would just like to add my congratulations to you. I want you to soak this in. I want you to look around at all of these people. They are so proud of you. Your parents are proud of you. The city of Louisville is proud of you. The state of Kentucky is proud of you. And having won this one, the world is proud of you. You have done more at your age than most people do in a lifetime. I want you to think about that for a minute. Where you are going, the trajectory that you are on, the sky is the limit for you. I look forward to seeing what you are going to accomplish in the years to come. So congratulations. Thank you for all you've done. You've made us all proud.

And before I give this proclamation, Coach, come on up here, Donnie. Say a few words about and show everybody this awesome trophy here.

Well, first of all, thanks for inviting us down. We really do appreciate it and getting the opportunity to showcase our girls. They definitely have put a lot of sweat and tears into getting ready to go to the World Series and represent our park. But then it got to a point where we started realizing we were representing more than just the park. We were representing the city of Louisville. And that was an awesome feat for these girls to get out there and do that. But I want to definitely thank my coaches because I couldn't do it without them, for sure. They always are there for me, right-hand mans and women. You know, the whole community really comes together at times like this, and it's always really neat to see when that happens.

We have Brent Sweeney.

We have Chad Ludwig. We also have Michael Krebs, who couldn't make it today, and his daughter Avery that's on the team as well. But they couldn't make it, unfortunately, today. So let me introduce the girls real quick. Is that OK? All right. First up, we have Haley. Raise your hand. We have Poppy. We have Lily. We have Romy. We have Laney. We have Sophie. We have Everly. We have Ella. We have Lindley. We have Cam. And we have Adeline. But again, thank you all for inviting us. We really do appreciate it.

Thank you, Coach.

Thank you.

I'll just quickly, the whereas is this is an awesome team. So therefore. What is his name again for the record, please?

My name, Donnie.

Donnie Shepard.

And grab that trophy before it falls off.

Okay. Now therefore it be resolved that the Louisville Metro Council hereby recognizes and honors the Fern Creek girls eight and up all-stars for their demonstrated teamwork, discipline, and sportsmanship serving as role models for Louisville youth. We hereby confer, and that's everybody in this council right here, we confer with this recognition with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities there unto appertaining, In testimony whereof, we have caused these letters to be made and the seal of Metro government to be here unto fixed. I signed it, Councilman Hudson signed it, and Councilman Wooldridge signed it. So thank you, girls, and here you go.

There we go. The photo will be over before you know it.

All right, we ready? Everybody look up here. One, two, three. Thank you.

Councilman Joseph, I believe you've got a page tonight.

Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, I would like to welcome Madeline Mads Michael. Madeline is a sophomore at Mercy Academy. She's an award-winning baker, a summer volunteer at Norton Children's Hospital, and a member of Incarnation Parish. At Mercy, Mads is involved in theater, art, Kentucky United Nations Assembly with Kuna, and will be joining the bowling team this year. In her free time, she likes to go to arcade, bake, remake clothes with an artistic twist, play laser tag, and travel. And Mads told me, council members, that she's interested in international affairs and law. If we know any programs, let me know so we can get it to her family. But she would be interested in getting some internships. We want to help her out. So please welcome Madeline Michael.

Councilwoman Chappell, I believe you've got a page.

Colt, we're on. You want to stand up? Cool. Colt has waited patiently to be a page, and I'm so excited that he's here with us tonight. He is a sixth grader at no middle school, so go Cougars. He's part of the Gifted and Talented Magnet Program, and his favorite subjects are math and social studies. When he grows up, he wants to be an architect. Colt loves playing baseball, fishing, playing video games with his friends, and spending time with his family. But honestly, I'm surprised at how short that hobby list was considering all of the things that I know that Colt gets into. He's a fantastic chess player, an actor, an artist, and also a magician. So he's a very talented young man, and I'm not just saying this because I'm his pseudo-aunt, and there's absolutely no bias in this, and shout out to one of my best friends, Sarah Brown, who's here in the audience tonight, his mother, but Colt is one of the most charismatic, dynamic, and kind young men that I have ever known, and so he's going places, folks, and I'm really glad he's here tonight as our page.

Madam Clerk, are there any addresses to the council? Yes, sir, there are. Let me remind those addressed in the council, there'll be a maximum of three persons speaking on any particular topic for or against. Madam Clerk, please call the first speaker. Gabriel Boulds.

Hello, good evening. I am a licensed massage therapist and employee at McCosch Holistic Massage. I work in District 8 and I live in District 9. I'm also a single mother. I wanna explain what a small business like McCosch has meant to someone like me because I think it's important to understand what is actually at risk when we talk about the impact of this ordinance. Massage therapy can be a difficult career to make sustainable. At a large franchise, I could expect to make somewhere around $35,000 a year. At McCosh, I will make over $50,000 as a second-year therapist. That difference matters to me and my daughter. It means being able to support my family doing the work I went to school for and am licensed by the state of Kentucky to perform. It means having the security of being an employee while still being paid like a skilled professional. Um, we are a small locally owned business with four treatment rooms. The profit margin that would go to a receptionist goes to me as I greet reschedule and process payments for my clients. This allows me to provide exceptional and informed care while making a better wage. We care about the work we do having a positive effect in our community, so we want to remain affordable. I want to work on the average busy professional and caretakers so that I can support them as they support their loved ones. That is something I think Louisville should want small businesses to do. But it's also what has made us especially vulnerable to this ordinance. We as a team at McCosh understood and cared about the intention of this ordinance from the beginning. And our owner even spoke here in favor of the ordinance in January. while asking for more time and resources. She overextended to comply and it is putting us at risk of closing. We ask that you amend this ordinance to better support small businesses. A large franchise has more locations, more employees, and more money to spread new costs across. If a new law requires adding additional staffing or administrative expenses, expenses, they have more room to absorb that as well. And if it's true that illicit businesses have large networks behind them, then so do they. For us, these requirements are not just paperwork. They have meant hiring additional staff and taking on over $6,000 a month in new fixed expenses just to keep the doors open. The ordinance may apply equally to every massage facility, but the burden is not equal. And if businesses like McCoche disappear, employees like me lose something too. I don't want my choices in this profession to eventually become working for a large franchise for significantly less money or leaving massage therapy altogether. Thank you, ma'am. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Richard Whitlock.

Good evening to both the President and other members of Metro Council. Did you all know that Louisville's experienced more murders in the first six years of 2020s than we have in any other decade? And from 2016 to 2025, it's been the most deadly 10-year span in the history of the city. with over 1,300 murders. My name is Richard Whitlock, Jr., and I'm a violence prevention pioneer, and that means I was doing the work before it was OSHA. I come before you today because we, the community, honestly believe that the people closest to this cultural challenge of community violence should have a real opportunity to play a more significant role in reducing community violence in 2027 and beyond. The Louisville Peace Project is a community-led public health and safety initiative focusing on the four zip codes historically most affected by community violence, which are 4203, 4210, 4211, and 4212. The Louisville Peace Project in its entirety will have over 20 trained peacemakers serving as violence interrupters. Five in each zip code, they could serve these large zones using the Cure Violence model of prevention, intervention of changing social norms. This project will also be connected to four community-led violence prevention youth programs, one in each zip code, with dedicated supervision, referrals from DJJ, and a focus on students at JCPS alternative schools who live in those four zip codes as well. Clearly law enforcement has the most significant role in public safety, but we also need to treat violence like a contagious disease or like a public health issue, which is now more paramount than ever. Recurrent incidents of violence on Boys Town Road, incidents at the waterfront, team takeovers, venue violence, and the spread of violence in zip codes four, two, 15, and 18 are just some primary examples of the spreading of cultural violence in this city. In closing, we really need to use a zip code-based prevention intervention model to reduce the spread of violence in this city. The Louisville Peace Project is about establishing something that's been a long time coming. I've been doing this for 17 years, and we still don't have any community-led infrastructure for peace in this city. We don't. We don't have any community-led infrastructure for peace in the city. I'm going to be 44 years old in a month, and I've been doing this since I was 27. I've never been funded by OSHA. I've never been funded by OVP. There's plenty of us that's never been funded. And I'm asking Metro Council, will you please... And this just ain't about me. This is about us. Y'all seen people over here over the last year, and they came up here, and they showed y'all that they not helping our community. That's why our kids are dying. I'm sorry for taking up too much time.

Thank you. Shay Newts. Shay Newts. Shay Newts.

Hello, my name is Shay Newts. I'm a Kentucky Board Certified Licensed Massage Therapist. My practice is located in Metro Council District 8, the Deer Park neighborhood of the Highlands. I occupy one of the five rooms in my building and share restrooms in a waiting area with three licensed clinical social workers, two psychologists, and a licensed professional clinical counselor. I love my space and I intentionally chose to build and nourish my practice in this healing environment. My always accommodating landlord is reasonably not okay with disregarding HIPAA protections and installing video cameras, recording people coming and going from their therapy appointments. I am hopeful that I and the many LMTs sharing space with and renting rooms from mental health care professionals will be exempt from this video surveillance requirement. As a solo practitioner, I do appreciate being exempt from the requirement to keep my office door unlocked, though I cannot forget the years I spent working as a subcontractor for another local LMT whose office was located in a large commercial building with many other businesses. Because this business owner did not employ a receptionist, I was able to take home a higher percentage of payment, have flexibility to create my own schedule, and receive a steady flow of clients as a newly licensed massage therapist, a true win for both me and the business owner. The access section of this ordinance would have made this mutually beneficial arrangement unsafe for both me and my clients. As licensed massage therapists, we're often working with clients whose boundaries have been violated, including those who have been sexually abused. We offer a safe space where touch can be experienced with care, with honor, and with respect. The wording in this ordinance creates yet another boundary violation in what is supposed to be a safe container for valuable repair work. The access section states that all doors be kept unlocked, while the inspection section states it will be unlawful for any licensee to fail to allow such inspection officer access to the premises or hinder in any manner. This catch them in the act method is not only disrespectful to massage therapists and potentially harmful to our clients, it's also not how Operation Deliver Justice was accomplished in May. Licensed massage therapists are your allies. Please respect us and work with us to amend this ordinance. Thank you all for your time and for your attention.

Thank you. Rex Davis. Rex Davis. Rex Davis. Laura Watkins.

Good evening, council members. My name is Laura Watkins. I'm a resident of District 8, and I am the owner of Pure Salon Spa, a higher end salon spa located in District 22, Fern Creek. and I have been in Fern Creek for nearly two decades. I want to begin by saying I absolutely support the intent of this ordinance. My concern is with an unintended consequence for legitimate small businesses like mine. Pure employs one massage therapist. She is a licensed professional and a loyal, valued employee with a very dedicated client base who has worked for me for 17 years. Massage is not our primary business. It is one service offered within a full service salon and spa. Pure is already licensed and regulated as a business. We are licensed through the Kentucky State Board of Cosmetology and our facility is inspected annually. Our massage therapist is separately licensed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We are not an unregulated business asking to avoid oversight. Yet because I employ one massage therapist, this ordinance requires my business to obtain an additional license, pay additional fees, undergo fingerprinting and a criminal background check, undergo additional inspections, meet surveillance requirements, maintain additional employee and patron records, and verify government issued identification for massage guests. All of these requiring significant costs to become compliant and to stay compliant year after year. I employ one massage therapist. And I think that is an important distinction. Those costs are not gonna be divided among 10 or 20 massage therapists. They are the cost of continuing to employ one person. And this puts me in a position I never expected to face. I may have to consider eliminating massage from my business and letting go of a loyal employee, not because she has done anything wrong, but because the regulatory burden of offering one service may no longer make financial sense. I don't believe that is the outcome that this council intended. And I worry that Pure won't be the only salon or spa forced to make that decision. I respectfully ask the council to consider exemptions for already licensed and inspected salon and spa businesses where massage is an ancillary service provided by a small number of state licensed massage therapists. I'm not asking you to choose between fighting human trafficking and supporting small business. I believe we can do both. We can hold bad people accountable, protect vulnerable people, preserve legitimate jobs and ensure that regulation is proportional to the business being regulated. Thank you for your time and for considering the perspective of Louisville's small business community.

Thank you. Larry Mitchum.

Thank you all very much, and thank you for allowing me the time and your support over the last three years. I'm here representing the Celebrate Recovery Ministry out at Fairdale Christian Church, which you all have supported. For any of those that may not be familiar, Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered recovery program that was started out in California about 35 years ago. and is in about 30,000 churches, jails, prison institutions in the country. We've been, at the end of this month, Fairdale will be completing its ninth year as a Celebrate Recovery Ministry here in the community. And just thank you all for your support. When we first started, we said, what's gonna keep the men and women from coming out there? They said, well, mom and dad says I work, I gotta fix dinner. We said, okay, we'll have a meal. They said, well, we don't have anybody watch the kids, so we have some adult from church and some senior youth to watch the kids during the week. We don't have a way out there. We rent a bus and actually pick the men and women up from Healing Place to come out and see us along those lines. So it's just been amazing what we've seen. I did email you some information and hand it out. One of them is an attendance sheet, if you've seen that. We started in 2017 with 25 men from recent ministries. We're now working with probably 10 or 12 different recovery programs, probably half a dozen transition houses, and you've seen the chart flow. We started with 25. The chart shows that in 2026 we're working with about 219 people at our weekly meetings. But over the last month, that number has grown to about 250 men and women that are coming out each and every week for recovery programs. And we're seeing some amazing things with that. Like I said, We do a survey every couple years just to see what we can do better, how things are going. With that particular thing, 149 of the 150 that took the survey said they'd recommend to their friends. I've also included a sheet from the commission, Kentucky Opioid Commission, that recognized us as a grantee in their spotlight article in their second edition for the work that has been going on out there, and we're grateful for that. Because it's open to anybody on whatever your beliefs are with that. We're just glad to see you. And in that picture as well, you'll see where a daughter drove in from Kansas to present her dad his three-year clean token at one of our meetings, which is just awesome. You also see Dan Simon, who's been a big supporter of ours, a letter of support because we do collaborate with a number of other ministries and agencies in our community. We all don't have the dollars we need as nonprofits. We don't have the time and talent, so we collaborate, meet twice a year, how we can share with each other with the time, talent, and treasure. And also, whether you give or not, we would like to continue support, but there's some brochures and some QR codes in there on a card that will show you more videos of our meetings, testimonies, things like that. But thank you all for your support, and hopefully you can continue to support us in the coming year. All right?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lee Maddox.

I'm Lee Maddox. It's an honor to be here with you today. It's my first time in front of the council, but I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate this opportunity to speak my mind. I'm going to be speaking primarily my personal story, and I appreciate the opportunity. And thank you for everything you do in the community. I'm a rookie speaker, and in honor, similar to the girls that were here, you would call me a into the batting order speaker, but you will hear from other people with our group that will certainly speak well. Approximately 30 years ago, my mother died of diabetes complications. It was fortunate for me in that I was a newly married man. I had a one-month-old daughter, and life went ahead and moved pretty quickly. Fast forward about 28 years, and I was a... Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry about that. About 28 years, fast forward, I was at a regular... a doctor physical exam, and the doctor who is now retired said, Lee, you are, you're diabetic, your blood sugar's way high. And the same daughter that was a month old when my mother passed away was currently watching a lot of documentaries on health and wellness, including Forks Over Knives and the China Study. And she helped me to determine that we would go ahead and see if some lifestyle changes would make a difference. And so I am kind of a... two-year story, what I consider a success story. I started, you know, pricking the fingers, testing the blood sugar, and I had a new doctor at UofL, and she, after a year, I went in, and with the support of some of the people I have here today and some other people, My blood sugar came way down. My cholesterol went way down. Lots of health benefits that were a part of it. This was all done with no medicines, and I think from My point of view for your role is I hope that you will be advocates and endorse the plant-based treaty. I think eventually, like with the libraries, I love what you do with the libraries. I love what you've done with the tree planting. I love the parks. I think eventually our city will be looked at with Indianapolis, Nashville, and how we help to keep our residents healthy, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Danielle Ray. Danielle Ray. Sada Brown. Oh, is that you, Danielle? Yep.

Thank you, Jennifer Chappell, Shamika Parrish-Wright, and Tammy Hawkins for co-sponsoring this legislation, and thank you to my Councilwoman Paula McCraney for being open to meet and have honest discussion. Those of you who have long supported and stood for the people of Louisville, please know that it does not go unnoticed. For close to a year, Louisville's most educated, informed, and impacted constituents have spoken. The people of Louisville have taken time between work, and away from their families to research, write testimony, and attend meetings like these to educate elected officials like you. You each know without a doubt that the majority of Louisville does not approve of any hyperscale data center in our city. You know that data centers will further pollute our already alarmingly polluted air. You know the environmental racism that affects the west and southwest ends of Louisville, particularly Rubber Town where Steve Poe is building Louisville's first hyperscale data center. You know that a data center will negatively impact the quality and accessibility of our natural resources. There's certainly no way you are ignorant of the long-standing business relationship between developer Steve Poe and our elected Mayor Craig Greenberg. You also know that billions of dollars in data centers have been paused and canceled by people like us and politicians more courageous than most of you have shown yourselves to be. At this point, none of you can claim ignorance to the harm hyperscale data centers will do to Louisville. None of you can pretend that the people of Louisville don't have every right to be fighting to protect our city from Steve Poe's data center and any future data centers that our mayor decides to sell us out for. You cannot feign ignorance or pretend to be good people while doing the bidding of evil men destroying our communities. Not now that thousands of us have educated you, called, spoken, cried, yelled at you, have thrown your red lines back in your faces and said loudly and clearly that we do not want any hyperscale data centers in Louisville. We are here to make sure that you know that we know about the deceit and trickery that we know plans for performative meetings and strategic headlines intended for pacifying masses. We will not be pacified. This is your chance to show us that you are willing to do your job, which is to serve us. You work for us, not one Louisville, whose senior vice president will now be Andrew Owen. You work for us, not greedy developer Steve Poe, who sits on the board of directors for one Louisville. The more you ignore the concerns of the working class and the interests of corrupt politicians like Mayor Greenberg and deplorable developers like Steve Poe, the more of a force we will become. If you continue to ignore our demands, you are making an informed choice to harm the people of Louisville. If you ignore our demands and continue to commit violence against us, we will move to replace you. Take our comments seriously by doing the bare minimum and extend the moratorium to one year without loopholes and bring Kentucky Resource Council in for an advisement on how you can keep the people, plants, animals, air, and water of Louisville protected from being exploited by corporate greed. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Saouda Brown. First of all, I would like to thank Jennifer Chappell, Shamika Parrish-Wright, and Tammy Hawkins for co-sponsoring what brings me here today, the moratorium ordinance. It is unfortunate, however, that after almost a year of games played by other council members, we once again have the task of reminding some of you to properly carry out the duties of your office, duties which you have proven unable to complete. Whether this derives from unwillingness or incompetence is of little importance when the result is the same. The people's cries for a one-year moratorium are being drowned out by the clinking of coins in the ever-widening pockets of corrupt officials. Officials like you, Akerson, Owens, and the one Louisville cronies who want to turn this city into a tech Braula Gart playground. Only in this playground, the wealthy stand atop their swings and slides, watching the rest of us toil like insects in the dirt. Because of this council's fecklessness and inaction, an AI data center is unscheduled to be built in the heart of a predominantly black and working class community. More of the same classism and environmental racism that has long plagued this city. It's as if you all are unaware of the myriad gas facilities and processing plants that have already reduced life expectancy in Rubber Town by a decade. Or maybe you just don't care because you can't see the bloodstains when they're digital. But no more. We will not let you continue to rip this city apart and kill its residents because you think it's worth the bottom line. We will not waste away and scrounge in misery like bugs. We will not lay down and accept death as our role merely because it was assigned to us by someone with a thicker checkbook and no soul. We, the people of Louisville, will not stop fighting for the right to live long, comfortable lives. As our elected representatives, the embodiment of our demands and values, it is your constitutional duty to extend this moratorium. But more importantly, it's your moral duty as members of this community. Is watching your neighbors or even your family's health fail worth it? Is it worth the blood, the spot on your hand that cannot be washed away, not with money or the water too polluted to drink freely? Louisville's purest tap water ruined by Steve Poe and his band of goons like Greenberg. Now I know there are good people on Metro Council. In fact, I believe all of you are good at heart. But we are so very tired of the lies and deceptions, the shady partnerships and deals we have no say in. Deals that destroy this cherished, beautiful place we call home together. We the people have done our part. We come to your panels, we make our voices and demands loud and clear, and we vote for you, or not. when you continue to show your true colors. Yet most of you consistently fail to fulfill your end of the social contract. Will tonight be more of the same? Or will you finally gather the integrity to carry out the duties of your office and extend this moratorium?

Because the people demand it. Mr. President, that concludes the addresses to council.

Next, we have the approval of the council minutes for the regular council meeting of July 30th, 2026. Are there any corrections or deletions?

Second.

We have it properly moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposition? Hearing no opposition, the minutes are approved as written. Next, we have the approval of the following committee minutes, all in 2026. The Regular Committee of the Whole, July 30th. The Regular Planning and Zoning, August 4th. The Regular Public Works, August 4th. The Regular Government Accountability, August 4th. The Regular Appropriations, August 5th. Regular Public Safety, August 5th. Regular Parks and Sustainability, August 6th. Regular Budget, August 6th. And the Regular Committee on Committees, August 11th. Are there any corrections or deletions? Hearing none, do I have a motion? Motion. And a second?

Second.

That is proper for us. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposition? The minutes are approved as written. Madam Clerk, do we have any communications to the council?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir, we do. Please read those in the record. Dear President Ackerson, in accordance with the ordinance, I'm appointing the following to the Deputy Sheriff Merit Board. Danita Cheatham, a new appointment term expires June the 13th, 2027. Your prompt action on this appointment is most appreciated. Sincerely, Craig Greenberg, Mayor. Dear President Ackerson, in accordance with the Human Relations Advocacy Board ordinance, I'm appointing and reappointing the following. Renisha Martin, a new appointment term expires September the 30th, 2027. Yvonne Jones, a reappointment term expires September the 30th, 2029. Your prompt action on this appointment and reappointment is most appreciated. Sincerely, Craig Greenberg, Mayor. Dear President Ackerson, in accordance with the Kentuckiana Works Greater Louisville Workforce Development Board ordinance, I am appointing the following. Daniel Corey Schull, a new appointment term expires June the 30th, 2029. Your prompt action on this appointment is most appreciated. Sincerely, Craig Greenberg, Mayor. Dear President Ackerson, in accordance with the Louisville... Convention and Visitors Bureau ordinance, I am appointing the following, Dr. Keva Zamani, Monian, a new appointment term expires August 16th, 2029. Your prompt action on this appointment is most appreciated. Sincerely, Craig Greenberg, Mayor. To President Agersen, I am reappointing the belonging to the Metropolitan Business Development Corporation Board, Christopher Hatcher. A reappointment term expires July the 27th, 2029. Jennifer Johnson, a reappointment term expires July the 27th, 2029. This is to be read in the record only. Metro Council approval is not required. Sincerely, Craig Greenberg, Mayor. Reddenpool.

Those appointments needing council approval are going to be forwarded to the government oversight and audits committee. Our next order of business is the consent calendar. The consent calendar comprises of items 20 through 50. Are there any corrections or deletions?

Madam Clerk, a second reading of those items. The following legislation was forwarded from the Appropriations Committee. Item 20, an ordinance appropriating $10,000 from District 4 neighborhood development funds through Brightside Inc. to 502 tree and landscape for tree maintenance in District 4. Item 21, an ordinance appropriating $20,000 from District 4 neighborhood development funds to Louisville Metro Parks and Recreation to fund the District 4 park activities account for community activities in District 4. Item 22, an ordinance appropriating $6,500 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $4,000 from District 10, $2,000 from District 8, and $500 from District 15 through the Office of Management and Budget to Louisville Nature Center Inc. for costs associated with boardwalk replacement in the Bluegrass Creek State Nature Reserve and surrounding forests. Item 23, an ordinance appropriating $19,250 from the neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $9,625 each from districts eight and nine to codes and regulations for graffiti removal as reported or identified by the Highland Commerce Guild. The following legislation was supported from the budget committee. Item 24, an ordinance amending ordinance number 100, no, 110 series 2026 relating to fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget by transferring $5,000 from Neighborhood Development Fund District 11 to the Louisville Metro Council General Operations District 11. Item 25, an ordinance amending ordinance number 110 series 2026 relating to fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget by transferring $20,000 from Neighborhood Development Fund District 7 to the Louisville Metro General Council Operations District 7. Item 26, an ordinance amending ordinance number 111, series 2026, and ordinance number 110, series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 26-27, or capital budget and fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget respectively by transferring $60,000 from the District 3 Capital Infrastructure Fund to the District 3 Neighborhood Development Fund. Item 27, resolution of official intent of the Louisville Jefferson County Metro government to finance the acquisition, construction, and renovation and improvement of certain capital projects of the Louisville Jefferson County Metro government and its agencies and departments from the proceeds of one or more proposed issues of general obligation bonds and general obligation notes. Item 28, a resolution authorizing the mayor to set up to $107,250,000 of funding from the Commonwealth of, except up to, I'm sorry, the Commonwealth of Kentucky through the Department of Local Government, DLG, authorizing the directing Louisville Metro Government to execute any documents which are deemed necessarily by DLG to carry out various projects and authorizing the Mayor to act as the authorized correspondent for these projects. The following legislation was forwarded from the Committee on Committee's Item 29, a resolution amending the Louisville Metro Council policies and procedures regarding image usage and approval of mailings. The following legislation was supported from the Government Oversight, Audit, and Appointments Committee. Item 30, appointment of Sarah Brady to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board. Term expires December 31st, 2028. Item 31, appointment of Marina Gonzalez to the Police Merit Board. Term expires June the 1st, 2028. Item 32, appointment of Matthew Beck to the Police Merit Board. Term expires June the 1st, 2029. Item 33, appointment of Robert Blair to the Air Pollution Control District Board. Term expires June the 30th, 2029. Item 34, reappointment of David Green to the Greater Louisville Lodging Management District Board. Term expires May 1st, 2027. Item 35, reappointment of Jamie Capasano to the Greater Louisville Lodging Management District Board. Term expires May 1st, 2029. Item 36, reappointment of Leslie Schaffer to the Louisville... the greater louisville lodging management district board term expires may 1st 2029 and 37 reappointment of sharon bond to the board of zoning adjustment term expires unit 30 of 2029 item 38 reappointment of marilyn lewis to the board of zoning adjustment term expires june the 30th 2029 item 39 reappointment of brian funk to the waste management district 109 board term expires june the 22nd 2028 item 40 reappointment of kevin gibson to the waste management district 109 board term expires june 22nd 2028 item 41 appointment of naderica tibet doe to the riverport authority board term expires july the 31st 2027 item 42 reappointment of michelle gardner to the anti-displacement commission term expires june the 26th 2029 item 43 reappointment of terrence elliott to the anti-displacement commission term expires june the 26th 2029 item 44 reappointment of andrew blyden to the Greater Louisville Lodging Management District Court term expires May 1st, 2029. The following legislation was courted from the Parks and Sustainability Committee. Item 45, a resolution authorizing the mayor to accept a grant award of $75,000 from Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet Department of Environmental Protection for the Iroquois Park Playground Rubber Mulch Project to be administered by the Department of Parks and Recreation. The following legislation was forwarded from the Planning and Zoning Committee. Item 46, an ordinance relating to the amendment to binding elements for property located at 908 South English Station Road containing approximately 12.5 acres and being a local metro. Case number 26, Admin 0002. Item 47, an ordinance relating to the closure of an unnamed alley near the intersection of West... Breckenridge Street and South 8th Street containing approximately 5,500 square feet and being a local metro case number 26th Street closure 0010. Item 48, an ordinance relating to the closure of Mermaid Lane containing approximately 1,165 and being a Louisville Metro case, number 26th Street, closure 0017. The following legislation was forwarded from the Public Safety Committee, item 49, an ordinance amending the Louisville Metro Code of Ordinances, LMCO, chapter 51, regarding licensing fees. The following legislation was forwarded from the Public Works Committee, item 50, a resolution authorizing the Office of Jefferson County Attorney to bring a condemnation action against the owner of certain property, parcel number 18 in Jefferson County connection with Crum's Lane sidewalk project credit.

The consent of the hour is probably before us. Madam Clerk, open the roll. One moment.

Council Member Kramer?

Yes.

Okay. Councilman Piagentini. Councilman Vincent.

Yes.

I can't vote. Okay. Got you. Yes, council's vote.

Yes, then.

And thus you are counted. Mr. President, you have 24 yes votes.

I'm sorry. You have 24 yes votes. Sorry. Consent calendar is approved. Madam Clerk, the next item is a reading of item number 51, please. Okay.

An ordinance authorizing Louisville Metro government to renew the gas franchise of Louisville Gas and Electric Company and sign a gas franchise agreement. Red and blue.

Folks, what we have here is someone to make a motion to return this to the table. Move to return to the table. Second. All right. We've got a motion to return to the table. Can we do that as a voice vote? Yes, sir.

All those in favor of returning item 51 to the table, say aye.

Aye. Any opposition? Aye. I hear one, and the opinion of the chair, it's returned to table. All right, so let's see here. This came out of Councilman Hudson. You're first on the floor here. This came out of your committee.

Thank you, Mr. President. So as everyone here knows, this was discussed at our last council meeting and put on the table. There were several questions brought up, several concerns over the past two weeks. Several of those have been addressed. I've had conversations with many of you, and most of those questions came from Councilman Cramer, and I would ask the President to recognize him, please.

Councilman Cramer, virtually, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Hudson. I will just share a little bit of history and then move on. Ten years ago, when we were looking at a franchise agreement and things had changed, we wrote an ordinance that allowed for us to create a franchise agreement that we could set the revenue from LG&E in one of a number of different ways. I believe there are four different ways. One of them, two of them would have included to call it a rent instead of a tariff, instead of doing an excess fee. So we took that to the Public Service Commission. We agreed what we wanted, took that to Public Service Commission and failed. What came back before us not too long ago was, an extension of that same franchise agreement. My concern was that language had been removed and that we would be stuck with the franchise agreement the way that we were in, right? I've spoken several times with the county attorney's office. I've spoken with Councilman Hudson, the franchise agreement before us is precisely the same franchise agreement that we entered into in 2016. And using that franchise agreement, we tried to go to the Public Service Commission and make changes. The Public Service Commission refused that. If we pass the franchise agreement that's before us tonight, we have an opportunity to do the same thing in the next six months, year that we tried to do 16 years ago or 10 years ago. If we don't pass the franchise agreement, then we don't have any framework to work from to move forward with any kind of an agreement. So we need a framework. We have one. I believe we have a really good framework. The challenge wasn't the framework. The problem was the Public Service Commission refused to hear our arguments. I still am hopeful that with the new Public Service Commission, we might have a better outcome. I've spoken with the county attorney's office. We're going to get together in the next month to take a look at what the current makeup of the Public Service Commission is and what we might do in order to revisit this as an idea at that level. But at our level, at the council level, what we have in front of us is ideal. It's just we need this as a jumping off point to the Public Service Commission. So I'm hopeful that I'm grateful, first of all, that my colleagues at the last council meeting we're willing to take a look at this and say, hold on, what are we doing here? I'm hopeful that that because we have the franchise language, the same franchise language, that means we do have an opportunity to go to the Public Service Commission. And I do think that's worth talking about. So I hope for tonight is that we will pass this relatively quickly and then we can get started on the work necessary to actually come up with a franchise agreement where LG&E will actually start paying us rent to be in our rights of way thank you and just so we're clear you're supportive of this ordinance tonight absolutely yes and i'm hopeful that everyone on the council votes yes so that we can get to the real work of trying to find a way to get lg e to actually um to actually compensate us for being in our right of way

Councilman Winkler, you're next to make you. Thank you, Mr. President. And I want to echo a lot of Councilman Kramer's questions, I think, you know, or comments. I think, you know, one of the things that's come out over the last two weeks, both in discussions two weeks ago and then subsequently tonight in Committee of the Whole and in our caucus meetings, there's lots of great ideas around this issue. I think they're very complicated, and I hope that, and thinking back five years ago, I think we had similar conversations, and then sort of everybody moves on with their lives, and nobody thinks about it again until four years, 11 months, and two weeks from now when it's on the agenda again. And so what I would encourage those that expressed lots of really good ideas around this to do is really dive into this, because I do think whether it's Certainly I think to Councilman Kramer's point, relitigating the rate case with the PSC, I think that's an action we should start to work on immediately. And then there were other discussions, whether it's municipalization, looking at another provider. I think those are all great ideas, But those are probably much longer term. They're not anything that's going to get resolved in a week or two or even a month or two. It's probably multiple years to lay the framework for that. And I hope that the people that were so passionate about this issue over the last two weeks will really dive into this and work on this. And let's have a solution that when the franchise agreement expires, that we've got a framework we can move forward and are ready to move forward with versus starting to talk about it five years from now. Thank you, Mr. President.

Councilman Owen.

Thank you, President Ackerson. So I think a couple of things. I won't be here, but I do encourage my colleagues to look at what our options are going forward. I agree with Councilman Kramer and Councilman Winkler that we don't really have time in the next two weeks to accomplish really much of anything. But we do have options. As a city, we have options. And just so everybody knows, in the 1990s, unlike the electrical side of utilities, which is a monopoly, basically, at LG&E, the gas side of the business is open for market competition. And so I don't see, while it's complicated, I think we as a city owe it to the constituents to bid our franchise agreement out and see if there's anybody that's willing and able to provide gas to us at rates that are cheaper than LG&E. So I would encourage you guys to look at that going forward. That's one option. The second option is, and this is true on the electrical side too, is in the state legislation, one of the things that we can do is to purchase the assets of our municipal of LG&E basically. And so while that would be incredibly expensive, LG&E currently is earning somewhere between nine and 11 cents return on equity, and the market is more like five or six cents. So it seems to me like there's room somewhere in there to either talk about whether we could do a leveraged buyout or do some sort of partial municipalization, but I encourage you guys to look at it because everybody in this room knows where utility costs are going. And it's something that I think, you know, again, I don't think we've got the time to deal with it here. In fact, you know, I really apologize for not getting out in front of this a little bit earlier. But I encourage you guys to take a really serious look at that over the next, you know, five years. Thank you.

Council Hawkins.

Thank you. I'm going to say this. LG&E has been pimping us for years. I think we should weigh our options. Other states have options. Meanwhile, we don't.

Councilman Leninger. Thank you, Mr. President. You have no idea how much it warms my heart to hear this chamber talking about municipalization of our utilities, which is our right under state law, where it is provided that we can use the infrastructure as the collateral. The bond structure is set by state law. We can take control of our energy future here in Louisville, not just to protect our ratepayers, but also the future of our planet. LG&E has said they will not get off of coal until 2065. That is too late. We must be exploring alternate energy. And the only way that's going to happen is if that's a decision not made for shareholder profits, but instead for the good of the community. So please, everyone in the audience, take that back to the people you know. The next thing I want to say is that LG&E is not a good corporate partner to the city of Louisville. I don't think that I have ever had a phone call from a constituent that said, I'm really happy with what they did to the trees. I'm really happy with how quickly our power was restored. I'm really happy of how quickly they answered the phone. I don't have a single constituent phone call like that. I get a lot of phone calls about what people are angry at LG&E about. And that is because they are not a local company. Louisville is in their name, but they are owned by a corporation in Pennsylvania, traded on Wall Street. When you pay your electric and gas bill, you are paying for shareholder profits on Wall Street. Instead of having a dividend to the water company that can be reinvested in our city, you're buying them yachts. I think we ought to change that. I think this is a great way to start that conversation. The last thing I want to say, is that Councilman Winkler made an impassioned plea at our Democratic caucus meeting that we should bring this off the table and we should instead have a vote to send it back to committee so we can invite the administration, the mayor's administration, to this conversation to see what we're going to change about the status quo of our city's relationship with LG&E and about our gas delivery. So I would like to make that motion as suggested by Councilman Winkler, who I'm sure will support it, that we send this back to committee. Second. Second.

We have a properly motioned before us and a second. I'm gonna yield the chair for a second, speak to this for a second, then I'll take the chair back.

Madam Clerk, can we debate this motion?

Well, do we have, is there any debate on the motion?

That's fine. Just hold on.

Does anyone want to talk about the... Yes. Okay. Councilman Piccinini, you've got the floor. Thank you.

Look, I'm going to channel both Councilman Cramer and Councilman Winkler's comments into why this would be another performative, colossal waste of time. There is nothing... We delayed this for two weeks. I was not here two weeks ago. and we delayed this for two weeks. What exactly happened related to this ordinance in the two weeks since it was tabled here? Absolutely nothing except confirming information that we already knew to be true. And what will happen if we send it to a committee and we have a deadline of the end of this month to take action, Or if you want to see what really happens when this body doesn't do their job right on time. This is not a question of supporting many of the initiatives that Councilman Leninger said. It is a question of what can we get done in the next two weeks. And the answer is nothing. And everybody knows it. And you can play to an audience or you can play to a constituency all you want. But that does not change the reality and the facts that are on the table, which is in two weeks we will accomplish nothing except to waste another two weeks and lie to people and give them hope that we can accomplish something when we can't. I would join everybody on this council in immediately taking action to explore all of these ideas, to look at bidding this out, to bid this out, not looking at it, doing it, right? But that is a complicated process.

Thank you.

that if there's fault, we didn't start that four years ago and get that going, right? That's what we are at fault for. But delaying two weeks will accomplish nothing. I would encourage you, get this passed, and the sooner we do, we can actually get started on the real work that will make real change where we could make some transformative, get some transformative ideas on the table to take action when we have made, when we have gone through a proper process to vet those out. Thank you, Mr. President.

Let the floor reflect that I'm going to yield the chair for a second to speak to this.

I'm sorry, so noted.

Colleagues, it's not often I leave the chair to speak to something, but here's the reality that I feel that we're talking about. We're a day late and dollars short. of considering this. We are way behind the line. The complexities of what we're talking about here are tremendous. And the amount of time that we have to debate those issues and come to what's called a reasonable conclusion to those and then reasonable time to implement those things, this is nuts. Absolutely nuts that it's happening this late in the game. If you don't like it, at the end of the day, this is a poison pill you're just gonna have to swallow for the moment because of time, because of time. Well, to the folks out there, you know, who are brilliant business people, to say we're gonna change a massive corporate deal in two weeks, you have pipe dreams.

Hey, you will be escorted, stop. You will be escorted out.

And so it is foolish for anyone in this body to think in the next two weeks something's gonna change from this massive scale of this economic contractual situation that we're in. Silliness to say try at this point. It's late in the game. And you may not like what I've got to say, but it's the cold, hard truth. It's the facts. This is something you start a year out and you have meetings about. You don't start it two weeks out. And then short of that is you're a second grader in your mentality.

You're foolish. You got to respect. Listen, you have to respect the chamber. If you don't like what I have to say, don't vote for me. Well, then don't listen to it.

If you don't like what I have to say, don't vote for me. Don't listen to it. But my obligation is to speak the truth, whether you like it or don't. And so at the end of the day, there's a lot of opinions that I don't like either, but I listen to them. And I don't interrupt people. I don't disrespect people. So show respect. If you want to advocate for ideas, show the respect to listen to them, and then you can disagree with them at a later date. But second thing we've got here, this decision or this idea, this pipe dream that Louisville should somehow buy back LG&E. In my opinion, that's one of the silliest things I've heard. Government is one of the worst runners of business possible. The perfect example is we build sidewalks for $1,600 a sidewalk square. Whereas the average person could build it for $200. Not $1,600, $200. We pave roads for much higher than the average person paves roads for. I've learned it's frustrating as hell, but that's just government. In a way, you kind of just come to accept it. The government is the most inefficient runner of business in this world. Private industry, while it may have its greed, it may have its abuses, it may have its problems, government also has its problems. And I would take private industry any day of the week over government because when I compare those two problems, and I've seen them both, I'm the lesser of two evils. And so at the end of the day, folks I hear are laughing, and I get it. You know, you can interrupt. And again, when you want to speak your mind, what I call sometimes frivolous or goofy, I don't interrupt you. But nonetheless, that's the respect you have for the system. And clearly... Clearly, the system is not something you respect, but you want the system to respect you. I'm here. I'm speaking my mind. If anyone hears from the District 26 and you don't like what I have to say, don't vote for me. Plain and simple. At the end of the day, it's that. For the rest of you that aren't in District 26, show some respect and listen to some ideas. Madam, I'm going to relinquish and come back to the chair. Yes, I'll relinquish. Councilwoman Rui, you are next in my queue and you have the floor.

Thank you very much, President Ackerson. I'd like to say first of all that the fact that we are even having this discussion is an accomplishment because we could have very easily just said this is what we got and we're going to rubber stamp it and go on our way. But we're not doing that. We are having a thoughtful discussion. about what some alternatives could be. I am in agreement that I don't think there's much that can be accomplished in the one committee meeting between now and the next council meeting. So I am in support of going ahead and voting on this tonight. We will continue to have discussions. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. This is going to be years in the making. If you pay a lot of attention to corporate developments and things, they take years. So this is going to take some time. But I am... I'll get an LG&E bill just like you do. Thank you very much.

I agree that we have problems with our procurement process. These are not problems that are inherent to government. These are problems that are inherent to a bloated and inefficient system that has the momentum in the entirely wrong direction. We can fix our procurement system. We can take care of our constituents. We see an administration in New York City right now that is turning their delivery of service to their citizens completely around. Louisville can make that same sort of decision, and we can take care of people's needs. The problem is not government. It is that government is not listening to people, and we need to expand democracy in our lives.

I can't stand that. I mean, come on now. You're starting to talk about New York City for crying out loud? That's a joke. Number one, I can't even get something done out at some of the parks that have been budgeted for the last two years, and you're talking about the city of Louisville taking over a massive— undertaking like this, gas delivery, give me a break. Thank you.

I've got no one else in my queue. So I believe we have a motion to send this back to committee. Okay, this is a motion. That's what I have. On the table right now is I have a motion to send it back to committee. And this is a motion that would normally require a voice vote. However, knowing this is going to be contentious, Knowing that my ears, I probably deserve a little hearing aids. We're going to do a roll call just to make sure we're right. Madam Clerk, open the roll. A yes vote is to send it back to committee. A no vote is to keep it here on the floor and move it forward.

Council Member Cramer?

No.

Mr. President, you have eight yes votes, 16 no votes, and one present vote.

The motion to send it back to committee fails. The item is presently before us. Now, do we have any more speakers to the item that's before us? I'm looking in my queue. I do not see any. I'm looking around just to make sure that no one else. All right. We have the item before us. We're going to do a roll call vote on this item also. Madam Clerk, open the roll.

Councilman Kramer.

Yes.

Mr. President, you have 18 yes votes, three no votes, and four present votes.

The order is adopted. Madam Clerk, at reading by number 52.

An ordinance amending ordinance number 110, a series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget by reallocating funds between various departments as amended, read in full. But, Mr. President, one moment. Can you make a quick note that we made a technical correction to this? The title previously said fiscal year 2025-2026. It has been corrected to 2026-2027. Sorry.

Fantastic for that correction. I've got a motion. Do I have a second? Second. The items probably before us, this came out of budget. Councilman Kramer is not present. Do you want to speak to Councilman Kramer? Or do you want me to hand it off to Councilman Winkler?

I'll speak to it. What's that? OK. This is an ordinance that we pass every year just to allow money to be moved from one to another. We amended it in committee, and it's before us tonight because of that amendment. What we did is Councilwoman Hawkins had an item in last year's budget, a land item, to take care of some lawn maintenance issues in her district. The total amount of money that was allocated had not yet been spent. It is intended to be spent. And so what the amendment does is it allows the money from last year's budget to roll into this year's budget in order to take care of and finish that project. So it doesn't add anything to the budget, doesn't change anything. That amendment just allows, kind of like we would normally do with NDF funds, it allows the land item in last year's budget to go forward. The rest of the ordinance is simply moving things from one department to another department. We had asked during the budget process that council members would be more careful in the way that we were trying to allocate funds and because we did a much better job of describing where those funds were going the administration has since gone back and and reassigned those dollars to agencies that most appropriately match what we requested so initially the the mayor's office hearing us said they would do these things in these particular agencies. When they understood better what we wanted, they're now changing the different agencies. But it's really just making sure the money goes to the agency that can get that done. So it's a pretty straightforward ordinance that I'm asking for your support.

I've got no one else in my queue speaking to this. This is an ordinance that requires a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, open the roll.

Councilman Cramer.

Yes.

Mr. President, you have 25 yes votes. The ordinance is adopted.

Madam Clerk, reading by number 53, please.

An ordinance appropriating $4,250 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $3,000 from District 3, $1,000 from District 15, and $250 from District 24 through the Office of Management Budget to feed Louisville Inc. for costs associated with rent, personnel, and program materials. Right in full.

Motion to second.

Item is prop before us.

Councilman Joseph, this came out of your committee. You have the floor, sir.

Thank you, Mr. President. This originated from District 3, and I would like to turn it over to Councilwoman Parrish-Wright.

Councilman Parrish-Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a great opportunity to support Feed Louisville, and their original ask is $78,000 to help cover these costs. They are feeding so many people through other organizations, through programs, um getting food from restaurants and redistributing that out i do want to have the disclaimer i'm on the board i'm not in no paid role but it's something i've always supported because i believe in feeding people is the least we can do i'm asking for more support for them to carry out this amazing work. They are connected to so many restaurants and entities that are reducing food waste across our city. And as we are in an affordability crisis, it's so important that we support organizations that are able to feed people on a low barrier way. That means people don't have to qualify for income. I've been reached out to by pantries in St. Matthews and all over the county who said that they're running out of food. We do have a real crisis here, and this is one of the organizations that is helping to meet those needs. Thank you.

Councilwoman Rui, you're first in my queue. You have the floor, madam. $1,000 from D21. Councilman Herndon, you're next in my queue. You've had the floor, sir.

Yes, I said so. Thank you, Mr. President. I said so during committee. I'll repeat here today that I will not be adding money tonight, but through Bedell, a development agreement that I worked on, feed level will be getting $10,000.

Fantastic. Councilman Winkler, you're next in my queue. He said $500. $500 for 17, please. Councilwoman Shanklin.

Thank you, Mr. President. I, too, have a pantry, and I just did it Monday, and I had over 130 people that came to the pantry Monday, so I want to give $1,000. Thank you.

Councilman Hawkins.

Definitely feed 500.

Okay. Folks, I've got no one else in my queue.

District 13, 250, please.

When in doubt, always raise your finger. It works every time. Anyone else? Councilman Bass, you're not in my queue, but finger raise. 250 from 14. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, my queue's not working. Stuart, you've got the floor. Yeah, that's okay. $500 from District 20. Okay. I've got, now the queue's working. I've got Councilman Owen.

$1,000 from District 9.

Councilwoman Raymond. $500 from 10, please.

Okay. No one else on my visual queue? Any uh-uh-uhs? Motion to amend. All right. We have the order of business to amend this ordinance to the new level of donorship. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any in opposition? Any in opposition? Now we have the amended ordinance before us. It requires a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Council Member Cramer?

Yes.

Mr. President, you have 23 yes votes.

The ordinance is adopted. Madam Clerk, a reading of item number 54, please.

In ordinance appropriating $1,500 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner, $1,500 from District 9 through the Office of Management and Budget to Girl Scouts of Kentucky for venue rental and fencing calls for the Via Calore Festival to be held October 24th and 25th, 2026. Right in full. Motion. Motion.

I was probably before us. Councilman Joseph, this came out of your committee. You again have the floor, sir.

Thank you, Mr. President. Yes, this is an NDF that would benefit the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana, and it's led by Councilman Owen of District 9.

Thank you, Chair. So we've sponsored this for the last, I guess the whole time I've been here. Girl Scouts of Kentucky is still currently in District 9, although they're leaving us sometime soon. So this festival is a unique, family-friendly event. Via Calori will be held October 24th and 5th at Waterfront Parks, Big Four Bridge Lawn. Um, this festival has drawn tens of thousands since it came to Kentucky 19 years ago and 2026 will be girl Scouts of Kentucky. And as six sixth year as the events host and beneficiary, um, this funding will cover venue rental and fencing. So they, the ask was for 10,000. Uh, hopefully we can get them somewhere close to that. Appreciate your support.

Okay.

Again, my cue is not showing anyone over here. Uh, $1,000 from District 3, please.

Tap on item.

Again, my cue, Madam Clerk, my cue's not showing anything. We're going to go with the odds. Okay. Councilwoman Chappell.

It is crazy how we keep changing computer systems and they just keep not working. $300 from District 15.

Anyone else? I'm looking around. No hands in the air. Councilwoman Shanklin's got her hand in the air.

500. I'm sorry, you said 500? Yes. Thank you.

Anyone else? Hearing and seeing no one else, we now have the potential amended ordinance before us. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition?

Motion to amend.

Motion to amend and second. Everyone says aye. Aye. Okay, we now have the amended ordinance before us. Madam Clerk, open the roll call on this amended ordinance.

Council Member Cramer? Yes.

Mr. President, you have 23 yes votes. The ordinance is adopted. Madam Clerk, a reading of item number 55.

And ordinance appropriating $4,000 in neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $4,000 from District 6 through the Office of Management Budget to Bridge Kids International Inc. for costs associated with the African Heritage Festival will be held August 21st and 22nd, 2026, read in full. Second. Second.

The evidence property for us, Councilman Joseph, again, the floor is yours. Thank you, sir. This was an NDF that was brought to us by District 6 in regards of Bridge Kids International Inc., and I'm going to turn it over to Councilman Leninger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a really fantastic community event that's hosted in Ben Washer Park. Our office, working with our advisory council where we do all of our discretionary spending through, was really excited to help support this this year. It's a great event. It is going to be, for those of you that we talked about this in committee and you maybe heard it out in the crowd or watching on Metro TV. It's going to be postponed. It's now going to be in the middle of October. It's still going to be a fantastic time. This is a really great community event, highlighting a lot of great cultural heritage and community, and I would welcome some support. They're looking for $8,000, and our office has funded $4,000 of it.

All right. First in my queue is Councilman Parrish, right?

1,300 from District 3, please.

Councilwoman Rui.

750 from D21.

I've got no one else in my queue. I'm gonna look around. No hands in the air. All right, is there a motion to amend? And a second. Who's that? Councilwoman Shanklin. Before we have our motion to amend, let's backtrack for a second. Councilwoman Shanklin.

Sorry for being so slow. 500 for out of district two.

Gotcha. Anyone else? Now we have the potential. Second. All right. We have the potential amended ordinance before us. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposition? Hearing no opposition, let's move on to a roll call vote on the amended ordinance.

Council Member Kramer.

Yes.

Mr. President, you have 24 yes votes.

The ordinance is adopted. Madam Clerk, a reading of item number 56, please.

and on its appropriating. Oh sure.

Do you say oh sugar? What do we got? We're canceling the oh sugar.

So just for the record, Councilman Leninger on the last item mentioned that the dates had changed and that will be part of our amendment if we're all in, unless someone objects to that, that'll be part of our amendment that the date has changed. Okay, thank you so much. An ordinance appropriating $12,750 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $10,000 from District 13, $2,000 from District 14, $500 from District 12, and $250 from District 24 through the Office of Management and Budget to celebrate recovery, Fairdale Corporation, for the cost of meals, transportation, and program expenses for celebrate recovery as amended right in full.

Motion.

Second. The items brought before us, Councilman Joseph, it is your night. You have the floor.

Well, hello again. I don't know if it's my night. This is a NDF from District 13 in regards to celebrate recovery that I'm going to hand over to Councilman Simon.

Thank you, Mr. President. You heard from one of our speakers, Larry Mitchum, who runs Celebrate Recovery, who does not take a paycheck, I'd like to add. 250 addicts every Friday. They feed them. They bring their kids in. They go to Healing Place and other areas. A lot of them from each one of our districts come to this facility. And it's truly making a difference with these folks. I've been where these folks are years ago, and I wished I'd have had a place like this to help me, and I appreciate everything they're doing. I think our ask is 22 this year, and I think we're short about 90.

You're short 92.5.

And we need to make that up if it's possible, and I hope everybody will contribute a little bit. Thank you, sir.

Gotcha. Councilman Parker, you're first in my queue, and you have the floor.

Yes, 500 from D18.

Councilman Herndon.

Thank you, sir. 500 for District 4.

Councilman Piccantini.

Appreciate my colleagues' advocacy for this and calling to request additional assistance. Great idea. And District 19 will be in for 500, please.

Councilman Hawkins.

I definitely support further question. I'm going to say 2,000.

Councilman Parrish-Wright.

I would one-up her, but half the money's frozen. I will do $1,000 from District 3, please.

Councilman Winkler, $250, please.

I didn't share. Okay, Councilwoman Rui.

For all the good work that comes through this every year, I'm so happy to hear about it. $1,000 from D21. Councilman Batchon.

500 firm 25 please councilman reed 750 from district 16. where are we at madam clerk there's a balance of two thousand two hundred fifty dollars two thousand two hundred fifty left on this request councilman benson you're first in my queue now i'll make the rest two thousand whatever two thousand two hundred and fifty yeah we've reached maximum capacity on this so there is no more uh we have the The motion to amend the ordinance for the full amount. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any in doubt? Hearing no nays, we now have the amended ordinance before us. Madam Clerk, open the roll call, please.

Council Member Cramer.

Yes.

Council Member Hawkins. Mr. President, you have 25 yes votes. The order is adopted. The next item is item 57. A reading of that, Madam Clerk. Appropriating $1,250 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $750 from District 15 and $500 from District 21 through the Office of Management Budget to Family Scholar House for their 2026 Pack-a-Backpack Bash to be held on August the 3rd through the 7th, 2026, as amended right in full. Motion. Right in full. Items proper before us. Does anyone want to guess? Councilman Joseph.

Hey, there we go. This is my last hoorah. This is our NDF from District 15 with the Family Scholar House. I'd like to turn it over to Councilwoman Chappell. Councilwoman Chappell, you have the floor.

Sure, I think pretty straightforward. Family Scholar House operates with families in all 26 districts. Would love your support on this, but this was for their Pack a Backpack Bash that was held August 3rd through 7th at various locations, and they would love your support.

All right, the first in my queue is Councilwoman Parrish-Wright.

Yes, I would like to donate $750 from District 3. Councilwoman Jenny Mulvaney-Worridge.

500, District 24.

Councilman Owen. 250 from 9. I've got no one else in my queue, so I'll give it the look around just in case the queue. Kevin, you're up.

500 from 22.

Okay, anyone else? Nothing in the queue, nothing in the look around. We now have the potential amended ordinance before us. Is there a motion? Motion. The item's probably before us. All those in favor of the amended ordinance say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any in opposition? Any in opposition? Now we have the amended ordinance before us. Madam Clerk, open the roll. What's that? This one will be a voice vote? Okay, we'll do a voice vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any in opposition? Any in opposition? It passes.

Madam Clerk, a reading of item number 58, please. In ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on rezoning conditional use permits and plan certain category 2B and 3 development plan applications relating to telecommunications, hotel, and data centers pending a review and recommended changes by the Planning Commission as amended right in full. Thank you.

I'm sorry, before us, Councilman Owen, this came out of your committee. You have the floor, sir. Thank you, President Ackerson.

Gosh, I'm so far away from the microphone. So a couple of things here. This is Councilwoman Chappell's ordinance, so I'll turn it over to her in just a minute. I do want to remind people that since the Campground Road proposal came across our desks, that was about... I don't know, 11 months ago or so. No, it was longer ago than that. The first time we had a moratorium proposed was in September. And we've had what has proven to be a very effective administrative moratorium in place. I promise you it wasn't because there was no interest. There were a lot of people sniffing around. But for the last 11 months, we've had not a single data center application move forward. That was the point of the administrative moratorium, and it has worked. So that's for the past 11 months. If we move the ordinance that's before us forward as written, that will be another six months. So we will be 17 months. of moratorium into this very important public policy debate. And so all I would remind you is that this has been and will continue to be a very public and deliberate process. We've had 12 public meetings that have been hosted by the planning staff. We've had multiple recommendations come out of the planning staff and each time it has moved I think further restrictive of data centers in part from what we're hearing back from the community. And so the process is working well. So with all of that said, I also wanna remind people that this, we did take a vote on this at the Planning and Zoning Committee and it passed seven to one. And the last thing I'll say is there was one kind of a loophole that the planning staff brought to the attention of the county attorney's office where, the planning staff was reminded of it because of the most recent data center that was proposed in the last week and that data center would have gotten caught up in this moratorium but they saw that there was a potential loophole that another potential proposal wouldn't get caught up in the moratorium and so they brought that amendment to our attention and Councilwoman Chappell can speak to both the original and to that amendment. Councilwoman Chappell.

Oh, excuse me, personal privilege. I'd like to make an amendment, please.

Well, hold on. We're gonna let Councilman Chappell, the sponsor this week, and then you're gonna be next in my queue, because you're next in my queue, okay?

Sure, just to be clear, you have not made any amendments currently. Okay, so I can talk. All right, thank you. I believe my eye has stopped twitching from every time you've said administrative moratorium. It's taken a minute to get this out of committee, and I'm going to focus my energy on the gratitude for that, but instead of voicing my disappointment on why it took us so long to get here, I'm not going to make assumptions on the recent motivations for why this moratorium passed out of committee, and I'm just going to be glad that it now sits before our full council. I want to remind this body that this is the start in a long process of fights against hyperscale data centers and exposing our community to those hyperscale data centers. It's a fight that Louisville's residents clearly and resoundingly back. I won't spend a lot of time speaking tonight on the importance of this moratorium or the importance of protecting our neighbors, neighborhoods, and our natural world. With over 4,000 public comments and hours of meetings to watch through the planning commission, there's plenty of public sentiment to be absorbed. Now I believe that we are gonna make a couple of amendments and I will go ahead and make an amendment that we add to section two, an amendment that does close a loophole and I'm gonna ask County Attorney Laura Ferguson to explain it better than I could.

Yes, Laura Ferguson, Assistant County Attorney. So the application that arrived on Monday would be covered by Section 1. However, staff, in talking it through, realized there was a potential for a different kind of application that might slide under the radar and not be covered by Section 1. So the thought was to add an amendment. This would be a new section two, the existing section two would be renumbered section three, but the section two would read, there is hereby imposed a moratorium on the acceptance and further processing by Metro staff of any building permit application in connection with the repurposing of an existing structure for telecommunication hotels and or data centers as one or more of the proposed uses. The thought behind that more, this language was, if you're just repurposing a building with no new construction, you don't need any of the approvals in Section 1, you just apply for a building permit, and so this would close that potential loophole.

All right, we have the amendment before us. I've got a number of people in my queue. However, what we're now going to do is we're going to speak to the amendment versus what's in the queue. So at this point, we're going to go to the hand wave. Councilman Winkler, you're first in my hand wave to speak to the proposed amendment.

Thank you. First, I'd just like to note, and this is just a technical cleanup amendment, if you look in Section 1, After it says category 2B and three development plans are proposed, there's a typo that's one hotels. I think the one's not supposed to be there. So if we can just probably clean that up. That's just a technical change. The one question, and I talked to Brian Davis earlier today and Laura, I asked you this question. I just want to ask it on the record because I want to make sure that we're clear here. I think everybody agrees with the moratorium on telecommunications hotels and data centers, right? I want to make sure that we're not inadvertently doing is because the definition for telecommunications hotels moves all the way down to data closets and accessory structures for other businesses that aren't data centers. servers in their normal course of business, their Ford, their GE, their marketing company, whatever, and they have a data closet or cabinet or some sort of on-site server center that is also classified as a telecommunications hotel, but is not really the intended, what we're talking about here, right? And so I just want to make sure on the record that the moratorium doesn't basically apply to any application or building permit going forward where somebody has a telecommunications component to their building plan, be it a Ford that has to have servers that run the assembly line, as an example.

Right, so I mean most of these development plans that come through deal at a really high level for what's the use, a manufacturing plan, an office. They don't drill down into and you have like a certain number of servers existing within that overall use. So the plan would, I don't know how that would really come through in a plan in the first place to be flagged for your typical company that has like a small closet somewhere within that overall office structure, it's gonna come through as an office.

Yeah, it's the primary use of the plan is to be a telecommunications structure. And so then I'll ask my secondary question that I asked you outside, which relates to sort of core. And again, I'm not an expert on Spectrum or AT&T or T-Mobile or whatever, right? But I know where sort of this definition of telecommunication hotels came from originally is these nondescript structures that provide sort of basic infrastructure in our environment, right?

And to answer your question, utilities generally are dealt with through the CFR process under state law. They don't come through planning commission and all these approvals. They're covered by a separate process, separate state statute that this would not apply to.

Perfect, thank you very much.

Councilman Hawkins, you're next. Not in the queue, but on the queue for the amendment.

Right, I wanna say thank you to Vice Chair Jennifer Chappell for making this amendment, and to all my colleagues. for agreeing to this amendment for this loophole. And I think that this is just the start of so many other loopholes that we're going to find and collectively that we can work together. It just seems like the District one has became a target for data centers. So I hope everyone would take that into consideration. And again, I just want to say thank my colleague, all my colleagues, for even considering this amendment. Thank you.

Colleagues, regardless of the digital queue, this is the hand queue for the amendment. Does anyone else want to speak to the proposed amendment? I've got no one else wanting to speak to it. Therefore, we're going to go with a voice vote on this proposed amendment. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? We now have the amended ordinance before us with Councilwoman Chappell's amendment. And so my next in the queue is Councilwoman Hawkins.

All right, so are we... We're back to the regular queue. What's that? Don't we vote on her amendment first? We just did. Oh, okay, cool. Sorry about that. We're back to the regular queue, regular ordinance. Okay, um... So I want the community to know that I've heard you. I've gotten your emails. I've gotten your calls. And I stand with you. And I always have. So I am going to ask for an amendment to take this from revised Section 2 to change the moratorium from 180 days to 365 days.

We have a proposed amendment. Do we have a second?

Second.

We now have a second before us. We're going to, again, abandon the electronic queue. And we have the proposed amendment before us. Is there anyone who cares to speak to this? I'm going to say JP was Johnny in the spot, so he's first. Caswell and McCraney second. Picentini and then Parrish Wright, then Herndon.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Hawkins, for bringing this amendment forward. I was next in the queue with the same idea in mind. This is the single most unifying political question in the entirety of the United States right now. This chamber is filled with constituents in the city of Louisville who say, I don't want this in my city. They have different motivations. Some people are concerned about what's going to happen to their property values. That's a valid concern. Some people are concerned about what's going to happen to their health. That's a valid concern. Some people are concerned about what's going to happen to our environment and our energy use. Those are valid concerns. Here's another valid concern. These hyperscale data centers are being driven by the need to expand a surveillance state that keeps us all as permanent suspects in an investigation that will never end, where we will always be under suspicion for pre-crimes. There was an article that came out just this week of a man in Wisconsin who traveled to Michigan, a legal cannabis state, who was tracked in his motions through flock cameras. And so as soon as he crossed that state line back into Wisconsin, they arrested him. They were already tracking him before he bought the cannabis in Michigan. He was already a suspect of a crime he had not yet committed. This is an incredible erosion of civil liberties and these data centers make that possible. These are all valid concerns. Our community is concerned. They do not belong in Jefferson County. I will support this and whatever stricter moratorium this body will pass. Thank you. Councilman McCraney, you're next in my queue and you have the floor, madam.

Councilman McCraney, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I came prepared to ask for the moratorium to be extended from 180 days to 365. I posed this question in our earlier meeting. No one seemed to have wanted to support it. So I am going to speak on it in hopes that you do absolutely support this. And I appreciate the amendment coming forward. We need adequate time, not simply to pause development, but to learn, to listen, to investigate, and legislate responsibly. Council members and the broader community need a fuller understanding of the benefits, the potential consequences of data centers, and we need to understand the impact on our environment, energy, and water resources, infrastructure, neighborhoods, and the financial burden that could ultimately fall on our Louisville residents. The data center previously approved for Campground Road was unfortunately handled with far too little transparency and without Metro Council approval. Whatever one's position is on data centers, consequential developments of this magnitude should not move forward without openness, public awareness, and the oversight that the Metro Council can bring. Although I recognize that the Campground Road project may not be legally bound by these regulations adopted after its approval, I am hopeful that its owner will act responsibly and remain considerate of the residents who will be most directly affected. I'm also calling on the mayor's office and the data center owner to closely monitor every phase of this development and wherever possible, ensure that the project is built and operated as closely as possible to the stronger standards we ultimately hopefully adopt. Going forward, I am also calling on the Mayor to notify and engage at a minimum the Metro Council member whose district would be affected by a proposed data center before the project reaches the Planning Commission. Council members should not learn about a project of this magnitude after critical decisions have been made. I remain deeply concerned about the potential environmental infrastructure, utility, and financial impacts of a large data scale center. Louisville should embrace technological advancement and economic development. I support that, but not at the expense of transparency or the expense of Louisville residents. Until we have thorough studies given to us and until we have thoroughly studied these issues and we have strengthened our regulations or established meaningful safeguards, I will be a hard no on any additional data centers that come before Metro Council. I just want to, hold on, let her talk, let her talk. I want to end by saying the 365-day moratorium gives us the time to get this right. I hope my colleagues are listening and understand the importance of that time that we need. And moving too slowly, we can address that, but moving too fast could cause accidents. irreparable damage and I'm not willing to do that to the residents of Louisville. 365 day moratorium will be what we need to come together to talk about it and get this right again. So I thank you. I hope you consider this and I hope it passes. Councilman Piccinini, you're next in my queue and you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the many, many, many members of the public who have engaged in good faith in this process. The process is quite critical to get public input. The planning commission by themselves can't figure this all out. The planning department can't figure it all out. We gain great knowledge and great collaboration by going through that public process, which the city has been going through. And for those that approach that, in a good faith effort, to try to address the very serious concerns that many in the public have about this, I applaud. Environmental concerns, applaud. Air quality, water quality, applaud. Increasing energy costs, applaud. All good ideas, all have been captured in the latest updates, which I'm anxious to see the final proposals to come before us so we can debate them again in an open and public forum, as the administration has already done. What I'm not going to do is negotiate with a Marxist mob.

Come on, show them respect. They don't. Yeah, come on. We're still thin. We don't know how to respect the process.

I watched the latest Planning Commission meeting, and some people stood up and made great points, good for them. But some of them used the language of class warfare, of Marxism, of anti-business, of anti-Semitism, and ultimately it ended with a group of people standing up and throwing streamers at the Planning Commission. Make no mistake about what that means. That is not we're celebrating the Fourth of July or congratulations Planning Commission and thank you for your service. That is a warning that they could be throwing something else. This is classic. This is classic mob mentality that is right out of the Marxist textbook, and I reject it wholeheartedly. I applaud my colleague who freely admitted his goal is not a 12-month moratorium. His goal is to completely ban data centers, period, full stop. I applaud the people that don't like me right now to my right because they are honest on their T-shirts and on their AI-generated social media platforms running on data centers that say that they want to ban all data centers. We are trying to do the business of the people, which is to create reasonable restrictions done in good faith with people that have reasonable concerns. But why would I bother listening to somebody who's starting at the premise of I don't want this period full stop when we're trying to find that balance? Just be honest about it. If you're voting on, I believe that Councilwoman Hawkins has serious concerns for her district. I appreciate what she is attempting to do here. But if you are voting for this, be more honest, vote against the 12 month and make an amendment to amend this to be a full blown moratorium, cease all progress on this because even this amendment leaves in the clause that this moratorium will expire the moment we pass the new data center regulations and the land development code. I want to put the pressure on the administration to complete the work they've done. I want to put the pressure on us to complete this work. That is the only way we will actually be fair to everybody, is if we start to take votes and take positions on the things that matter to this community. We delay and we delay and we'll fight this and we'll move that and we're banning this. Well, what's next? Think of all the work, think of all the industries. My colleague who we share a border here, Ford Motor Company shares a border there, just bought up a bunch of housing to put up a paint plant. Are there no environmental concerns about wrecking a neighborhood housing development to put up a paint factory? Of course there is. Why aren't we banning that? Why not? If your concern is only for the environment and not for people's jobs, not for business being able to be welcome in this community, albeit with reasonable regulations on things that could harm the community. Why aren't we banning Ford's expansion? Again, if you're concerned about these issues, I agree with you. I'm gonna vote ultimately for this six month moratorium the way it's written with the amendment that came, which I think was very well done. I think this developer that tried to slide in, I hate that. They clearly see we're trying to get these regulations passed. I think that's shady, I think that's weird, and I think that should stop. So I will support and I call for everybody to support this moratorium is currently drafted. But to extend it or vote for this 12-month extension is not in good faith, because as my colleague freely admitted, his goal is not to, and others, not everybody's, but his goal and others is not to extend it 12 months. It is to eliminate this as an entire category of business in this community. Well, then, again, I compliment people for being honest. Then that should be the amendment. Don't waste our time with 12-month moratoriums. Make the amendment to ban them altogether. Have a vote on that. But if you're not going to do that, don't waste our time with 12-month amendments. I ask you to reject the 12-month amendment. Stick to the six-month. Let's hold the mayor's office accountable to get us these regulations, which I believe we will have shortly. Let's have that public debate about that, and let's have the vote on it in front of the people, and the people can give us input on that during that process as well. I welcome that process, and we should get that done before the end of the year as far as I'm concerned. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Councilman Shamika Parrish-Wright, you have the floor, madam.

Thank you, Mr. President. The irony of coming after the Marxist comment, and I'm called a communist, a Marxist, a socialist, and I just want people to live and be able to make decisions that matter to their community. I try not to do too much grandstanding here because I'm running for office and I'm running to be a better mayor. I want to make sure that I'm using this time when it's our turn to listen to the community, to listen to the people. And this has taken too long. We don't really have an administrative process. it has taken too long. If it was me, I would say five years, but it would be hard to get that passed. And so we are all making compromises here, but who needs to be applauded is the community who has fought and spoken out and reached out to us to say no more. Thank you.

Councilman Herndon, you're next in my queue.

Thank you, Mr. President. I don't know enough about a lot of things, and data centers is one of them. I look forward to a robust exchange of information so that we can learn together. And for me, six months isn't long enough, and I will support the extension to 12 months.

Councilman Chappell, you're next in my queue.

on the amendment. Thank you. You're asking us to trust an administration that's already rolled out the red carpet for Camp Crown Road. You're asking us to trust an administration that did not hold the planning commission that they appointed, and we approved, to provide the amendments, the draft amendments, in a timely manner, which was a large impetus for this moratorium. You are asking us to trust an administration who clearly has bought out this council and controls how it votes. So I would be remiss to not have a lot of trust in what you're asking us to do. And I don't see the reason that a 365-day moratorium would be a negative thing, considering that once we get the recommendations back, this council has the responsibility to thoughtfully look over them and make amendments to them. I don't think that that's something that we need to rush, and I don't want to have that timeline for us to do that. So I think that one year is more than amendable. If it wants to get to the point where we ban them all together, let's start with some regulation that was remiss to start with. Thank you.

Before we go on, because the next in my queue, because I've seen other hands, well, it's going to be, I'm not going by the computer. If you're going to be next, and you thought you were in there, this is on the amendment only, okay? Speaking. Do you want to speak to the amendment? Yes. Okay, so I'm going to have you next, then Pete Gentini after that, because you've already spoken. But I will respond to something here. The attitude of, I just heard the phrase, bought out this council. Let's hold off, folks, because I'm not speaking to you. I'm speaking to my colleague here. The end result is this. If you think that someone on this council has been bought out, I would say produce the evidence of such. And if you have evidence of such, if you've not filed an ethics complaint yet, then the ethics complaint should be brought against you for not proving something that is wrong. I find it offensive that you would imply that your colleagues have somehow been bought off. I find that very offensive. No, I'm not going to call. And you get back in my queue after the rest of them, then you can talk. Councilman Reed, you're next in the queue.

Yeah, I'm just kind of wondering, bought out? Really? I mean, if you know that I've been bought out, then show me that I've been bought out. Like President Ackerson said, prove it. I have a question for the county attorney. At the end of six months, can we then extend this ordinance another six months?

Absolutely. The language is currently written is that the ordinance shall take effect upon its passage in approval or otherwise becoming law and shall remain in effect for a period of 180 calendar days after its effective date unless repealed, extended, or this council takes final action on proposed changes to the land development code regarding data centers.

Thank you.

Here's where we're going to go. It's going to be Hawkins, Shanklin, Rui, and then we're going to come back.

What's that? Then fine, you can have this. Then it'll be Argentini, Hawkins. You may be in this queue, but as I told you, this queue right here is for the general legislation. Right now we're on the specific amendment. And so you gotta get my attention because I don't have multiple queues here, I have one queue. And so the moment we move for amendments, I have to look around and in my head, keep track of where everybody's at. Do you want in on the amendment? Okay, well then you're in the queue for the regular. Winkler.

Thank you. I would maybe just like to remind my colleagues to take the temperature down a little bit. It was only a few meetings ago that we passed, in fact, you walk by it on your way in, the dignity pledge, which one of the primary, I mean, one of the people casting accusations was a primary proponent of, and one of the things that it speaks on is don't question people's motivations for the positions that they have. And so I would just remind all of my colleagues of that as we get into this spirited debate, that you're allowed to disagree with people on their positions, but I don't think it's fair to question their motivations for making a decision. I think that is a fundamental premise. I think each of us represent the people and the positions that we represent because it's what we believe in, and i would just remind everybody of that and encourage us to keep that in our hearts and minds as we continue the discussion i also would say in terms of the timing of the um of the moratorium is more specifically passing the land development code it is my hope not that we spend the next year debating it, but that we have actionable recommendations from the Planning Commission that we can vote on before the end of the year. I'll remind everybody that we have elections in November. We may have a totally different council next January, and that might go a totally different direction. I, for one, would like to be here and vote on these recommendations. And so it's my hope that we do move forward this year and not that it takes another six months, another nine months, or another year to get recommendations from the Planning Commission that we're able to act on. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Councilman Peter T. You now have the floor.

I'm good. Thank you. Somebody addressed a concern that I had. Thank you.

Councilman Hawkins, you now have my floor. Thank you. I understand that it's election time. But anybody that knows me knows that I've always went against the grain and I've always really fought for the district that I was voted in to serve. It's funny how eager so many council members are. that now say that they were going to speak on this amendment, yet not a single one picked up the phone and called me and asked me what I thought about not only the data center that is already gonna be on Campground Road, but the one that is coming down the pipeline. I wanna make this clear. It's been a lot of misinformation about this data center. I'm still learning, I'm still growing every day. I wanna say there was never a closed session. for people who said it was a closed session. And if it was, Councilwoman Hawkins was not present. I want to say that this data center was never brought in front of Metro Council. Because if it was, it would have followed the same process that this one that I was able to step in front of. But the grandstanding that some of my colleagues is doing that didn't pick up the phone one time for the person that represents the district to say, how about making an amendment? So I want to say thank you to the community. There is no way that we can move this city forward without being able to talk to one another. Instead of waiting, you know, you all don't get to see what goes on behind closed doors, right? But we have to work together collectively as a team, because there is no way that we can run a city, right? Because people say the mayor runs the city, but really all 26 districts do. We hold the keys to the city. And if we can't work together as colleagues, if we can't talk and pick up the phone, how dare us grandstand for the public? Because it's not a show. This is serious. You know, and if we don't get serious, how can we ever lead a city? The grandstanding? I wake up every day me. I'm not bought. Ain't nobody telling me how to vote, but the people that I serve. So the grandstanding, all the nonsayers, all the misinformation. Everybody. I think has the same level of understanding on how their constituents would feel if a data center came to their district. I'm going to tell everybody, don't wait until it get in your district. The phone calls, the emails, people knocking on my door. Y'all, this is serious. This is affecting the community, the city. And we can't even pick up the phone between one another and talk about it. But we can get everybody to show up, but we can't even talk to each other. Nobody called me Councilwoman Shanklin. And Andrew Owens, the ones that everybody want to say he's bald, but he picked up the phone and said, how do you feel? How do your constituents feel? That matters to me. Metro Council is about building relationships. You'll never get nothing done. So I want to say let's start here, guys. Let's start working together collectively before we use this platform just to grandstand for the people that's here. Because that doesn't get anything done. So I want to say thank you to all my colleagues that did call me. And I just wanted to clear that up. Hopefully we can get this amendment. Those that support me, I appreciate it. And those that don't, you know. it is what it is. You know, it doesn't, you know, it's going to affect the city. So thank you.

Councilman Shanklin, you're next to my cue, and you have the floor, madam.

I'm almost afraid to say anything. There's so much going on. I just want to say that we all get one vote. Everybody gets one vote. And so we have to respect that. but to everybody and we shouldn't be doing any name calling or anything because you had a right. I earned opportunity. I ran I don't know how many times to get that opportunity to look out for my district. And I get that one vote. I don't appreciate being called out or being called names or whatever. So with my one vote, I had decided long before now that I think that we need a little bit longer time to look into this, and so I will be voting for 12 months. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Rui, you're next in my queue, and you have the floor. Councilman Chapman, you'll be next.

Thank you very much. Initially, I thought I was not going to support a 12-month moratorium, but as I've thought about this, I think the year and a half that we're going to have as it stands now is enough time to develop, to consider regs and making something very thoughtful. But as I consider the idea of extending it, I realize that we did not get any support from our state legislature. It was never fully heard and voted on. But if we extend it to 12 months, we will have time for the state legislature to come through as they're feeling the same pressure we are. to bring regulations into effect and some constraints on the data center industry that way also. So I will be in support of this extended moratorium with the promise that I will work with my state legislatures to see if we can get support from them as well for everyone across the state. Thank you. Councilman Chappell, you're next in the queue and you have the floor.

I violated the dignity pledge. I also lodged a baseless claim. I also assumed that the public wasn't more knowledgeable than they are. I should have known that they probably know that they can also go to the Kentucky Registration of Finance, Election Finance, and find this information on their own. So for all of that, I apologize.

Anyone else in the queue by raising the hand on this amended potential amendment? Councilman Parker, do you wanna get in on this amendment? Yeah, if no one else is in the queue with a hand raised on the proposed amendment, we now have the amendment before us that will take this from six months to one year, okay? And normally this would be a voice vote. However, I believe that it would be a close call. And I don't want to be the person to make that close call. So the easiest thing, Councilwoman Purvis.

I don't want to speak on this amendment, but something I want to ask is in regards to this amendment.

Well, if you want to ask something in regards to the amendment, then you are speaking to the amendment.

And as such, ask away, Madam. I'd like to ask the county attorney's office, can I amend this amendment on the floor or do I have to do a new amendment?

An amendment to amendment. Why don't you let this see if this one passes and then from there you could offer a different amendment. Keep it a little cleaner.

The better practice is to take a vote on this amendment and then you can make another amendment.

I would have done it. It's nice and clean. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else have a comment? Councilman Parker, now you want to talk about it.

It's very quick.

Okay. I just wanted to recap. The administration already had 11 months moratorium. Okay. And then we just heard from the county attorney, if we pass the six-month moratorium, we can always come back and do another six months if we need it, if we don't get the information and the data, no pun intended, that we need. So I just wanted to remind everybody that we can still do six months, and then if we need to, we can do another six months. Thank you.

Anyone else? I'm looking for hands raised on the proposed amendment to take it from six months to 12 months. I'm not seeing anyone. So at this point, what we're gonna do is we're gonna open it up for a roll call vote. A yes vote takes this moratorium from six months to 12 months. A no vote keeps it at the six month moratorium. Madam Clerk, open the roll.

Council Member Kramer.

No.

Mr. President, you have 10 yes votes.

15 no votes. You may shame all you want when the meeting's over, OK? For the moment, let us continue forward business. The proposed amendment to take it from six months to 12 months fails. We now have the present amended ordinance before us, which would include Councilman Chappell's amendment, closing the loopholes that she talked about, OK? So I'm going to go back to my queue now on that. Proposed ordinance with Councilman Chappell's amendment moving forward. Councilman Leonard, you're first in my queue and you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. The first thing I want to make is an aside that we seem to be very concerned about decorum in certain directions. But when someone's speech before this body as a duly elected member is called a joke, we don't hear a lot about that. There's no gaveling.

Sir, we're talking about the ordinance. If you want to prophesize about something else, prophesize all you want at a later time. Speak to the ordinance.

There were many comments made about decorum before I spoke.

Me? Speak to the ordinance, sir. That's Richard the Q4.

And now I will. I think it's unfortunate that we did not continue forward with a year moratorium. I'd make no apologies. that I would happily support an indefinite moratorium where members of this body needed to take an affirmative vote before the constituents in this chamber and without it to say, I want data centers in Jefferson County and I want to put your families at risk of the involvement of our county with that. I would be happy to support that. I'm not going to waste the body's time tonight. We just rejected a year. We're not going to get an indefinite moratorium vote that passes. So while I do sometimes enjoy putting you on the record, I will skip that motion tonight. But no. I don't make any apologies about that and I'm not ashamed to say I think it's a mistake to put Jefferson County at risk with these data centers. Just like I think it's a mistake that we allow EPA sacrifice zones within Jefferson County, we are a densely populated urban center and these do not have a place here. But like I said, this is the most unifying political question in the United States right now. People agree more about this than they do about Christmas.

Councilman Leninger, I'm going to interrupt you. Are you speaking in favor of the six-month moratorium with Councilwoman Chappell's amendment, or are you speaking against it? Because otherwise, you're not speaking to the issue before us, and I would ask you then to yield the floor to the next speaker.

I'm speaking in favor of, if you'll allow me to finish.

Well, I've been waiting for you to get back on topic, because you're clearly off topic.

I also believe that we are correct to be concerned about the regulations coming forward in a timely manner from the administration. I think the regulations that the community has already seen are a farce. That they regulate 1% of all data centers in the United States and do not cover the concerns. I will be voting in favor of this moratorium because this is what we can get. But we as a chamber are failing in our duty to our constituents, and I hope they are taking notice. Thank you. Councilman Parrish-Wright, you were next to my key when you hit the floor, madam.

Thank you, Mr. President. I first want to say that my family, myself, has been a victim of the environmental injustices in the West End. I was a longtime District 1 resident and saw what it did to my heart, to the breeding conditions of my newborns, and more. And this is a chance for us to get ahead of these terrible decisions that were made before us. Life thrives around water. I agree with councilwoman Hawkins that it seems like district one has been targeted, but I also know that it's important that we speak out and we do what we need to do for our community while it's our turn. I don't take any of this lightly. I am highly disappointed that we couldn't get one year. I said before, I would have wanted five years. I don't think we're ready to make this decision. I don't think we have enough information, even the financial impact, or I'm not even thinking about financial benefits. We have enough in those communities that have already suffered from financial decisions. Data centers touch every aspect of foundational quality of life, especially in urban settings, close to residential areas, that's near our water. And as we see the crisis that is plaguing our country, we cannot take our water for granted. And given the significant weight of this issue, I didn't think a six month moratorium was long enough, or a year. But I am supporting this moratorium because it is what we have before us. And I want the community to know that we hear them and we're trying to do something. But we're not done. And we're not done with Steve Poles either. You all have to fight every level of this. We are now the guinea pig. Cities will be looking at us to see how we react and how data centers affect things in real time. We need to stand up in this moment and do all we can to protect the quality life of all citizens of Jefferson County. We need an advisory council of qualified citizens and experts to help the Office of Planning make sure all aspects of data center impact are covered. They need help. I don't always agree with Councilman P. Argentini, but one of the things he mentioned is that they do need help. Clearly they do because they were late in giving us what they gave us and it's still not enough. We need a moratorium long enough to collect the the and discern the data from all geographic locations. The data centers will affect so that the broader section of citizens and government come together to make comprehensive controls data centers and ones that promote and advance in the quality of life of this county you all know that's not going to happen in six months one year two months five years an advisory council to be formed of qual of qualified citizens and experts to assist the office of planning is a must and i'm hoping as we continue we'll pull that out of here with decision making ability to at least make sure that we're doing what's best for the community the collection of enough actual data to make an informed decision needs to happen. Comprehensive regulations to be developed by a broader base of community input is what we need because we are here and we're even talking about this because of the community feedback and the input. So I am supporting this as six months, but I am definitely looking for us to do more and we're not giving up on stopping what's happening now. Thank you.

Thank you, madam. Councilman Shanklin, you're next to my cue. You have the floor, madam.

I really didn't want to speak again, but I will be supporting the six months. I would have loved to have it a lot longer, give them more opportunities to work on it, because it may be in District 1 right now, but it won't be long before it'll be in District 2, and I know that. So that's all I have to say.

Councilman Purvis, you're next in my queue, and you have the floor, madam. Thank you, Mr. President. I haven't said a lot this evening, but I've said a lot throughout the last few months in my district. I know we are focusing on District 1 being targeted, but to be honest with you, the whole West End and the Southwest neighborhoods have been targeted. And for these colleagues of mine that voted not to extend it to 12 months, it was some of you all that live in the neighborhoods that said you didn't want it. And now we have it. and if i had it my way i would ban i would ban all the data centers period um we have enough going on on campground road rubber town and all the other districts including the southwest districts border all of this dangerous development we have a lot of environmental injustice going on in that part of town And so it's easy to say we won't extend it to 12 months. It's easy to say we won't ban data centers because you have already spoken that you don't want it in your neighborhood. And like I tell people, watch out for the people that say they don't want it because you know where they're getting ready to come to next. They're getting ready to come to our neighborhoods. Thank you.

Councilman Parker, you're next in my queue and you have the floor, madam.

Yes, thank you. I will say, and you can ask my colleagues, that at first I was concerned, several concerns about the data centers. One, AI on the bad side of it kind of concerns me because I feel like there's an Orwellian component to it. On the environmental side, though, We, the regs that we got, LG&E cannot raise our rates. We also heard from the water company that we have a huge water supply. We have the Ohio River and we have some of the cleanest, most purest water in the country. We have also heard that the energy usage will be that, I think Councilman Hudson brought this to our attention, the size of a new neighborhood. So, and to- Hold on folks.

To speak to- Again, quiet please.

holding our data, if every city and area in the United States banned data centers, what would we do? Where would our data be stored? China, do you really want China holding your data? Hey! Thirdly.

Quiet, please.

If you don't like data, collection or holding, then you need to get rid of your cell phone, you need to get rid of your smart TV, you need to get rid of your laptop, your iPad, and every electronic device that you have. Because we live in 2026, these things are here, and we're not gonna go back to the Stone Ages. Thank you.

I've got no one else in my queue at the moment. Is there anyone else that wants to speak to the present amended ordinance before us? I'm looking around for anyone who cares to speak. Stewart? This is the final version of the moratorium before us. Stewart, do you care to speak to this? Yes. No. Okay. No, Stuart, this is going to be the vote to decide if it passes or doesn't pass. So you would like to speak to it?

To the moratorium?

Yes.

Yes, I would.

Well, then you have the floor, sir.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You're welcome. The other day, I'm trying not to be too long here, that there was a slow news day, because I never get anybody to quote me, that we voted seven to one on a moratorium. And I said, you know what? All the information I know about, I think it's a good thing. And they quoted me. But that was the only thing I ever heard. I've been in office for 23 years. And just to let you all know, my wife said, you know how much money you spent on campaigns since you've been elected? I said, yeah, I think so. She said, 200,000. I said, no, no, no. It's not more than 125. of my money that I spent, because I don't ask people to donate to me, because I don't have that many friends, so I don't want them to give me money. So I pay it myself. I got a credit card and I can pay it out. And so I don't really, nobody buys me. Councilman? Are you gonna speak to the moratorium? You're building up to it, I guess. I wanted to tell people why I come up to the decision and how I come to voting. But you can take it, and I'll just vote no like I'm planning on doing. For example, a lot of people don't realize that that one on Campground Road is supposed to be $44,000 that the Jefferson County Public Schools gets. But they don't really need it because they don't know how to spend. 44 million, yeah. 44 million because they spend everything they get and more. They're in debt. And then the PRP fire department is supposed to get 16 million. And I don't know if they need it or not. But the thing for me, and I don't know how much everybody knows about electricity. When the storm comes off and knocks out lines and we don't have any electricity, that's because you can't communicate. You know, if you're running your computer and somebody pulls the cord, whatever data you have right then is lost. Now, one of the things people don't realize about data centers, that they gotta have clean electricity. They're gonna use more electricity than our city uses. So they gotta have their own electrical system plus another one. They cannot have a glitch. They gotta be able to have clean electricity and to run the data centers. And what people don't realize is when you make, you're probably right. the data centers, you gotta have clean electricity and they can't make just enough, they gotta make more. And when they make more, where does it go? If they're hooked to our grid, it goes into our grid and we get cheap electricity. So LG and E might don't want it because I'm listening. OK. They probably don't want it. And so I think if we could vote, if we could have voted and stop it for a year, I think we might have already done it with the six months. They won't come. When you spend a billion or $2 billion on a data center, and they don't usually know how to make money, and they find out that nobody wants them, They know they're gonna give taxes to the people and they're gonna be able to have, be in our grid that we can have more electricity when we have a problem. Then. Hey, let's show a little respect to the man, okay? Hey, that's okay. He's earned the right to speak in this chamber. You have not. There's not probably anybody in District 20. Not probably in District 20.

There we go. How about, what was that again? And there's 10 speakers get to sign up to speak. But other than that, that's where you're right to stop. And again, if you live in District 6, 26, don't vote for me, okay? You have that opinion. You're interrupting this meeting. You interrupted one more time, you're out of here, mister. One more time, and you're out of here. He's out of here.

We're moving out of here. You're out of here.

It really don't bother me. I really like people to give me information. In the last 23 years, I've knocked on over 40,000 houses. And nobody knows the neighborhood like the people in the neighborhood. And I like it. I like people to tell me what they're thinking. And me, my closest election I ever had was my first, and I didn't do that well. I just won by 2,000 votes. And so you all think that you all have the monopoly, and that's OK. I like people to say, but you ought to go with facts. You ought to go with facts. Is electricity a danger? is electricity, and we got electricity right now. Man, this is gonna hurt us. We're probably getting bombarded by neutrons or something, and we use our computer, we get hurt. The data center, I don't know if they're gonna use three-phase or single-phase electricity, but that coming in, it goes to the computer, it doesn't really cause any problem. Now, JP knows that electricity's bad, and I don't know what he's dealing with, but I've never seen electricity being bad. And so. Are you speaking, you're speaking, I presume, against the moratorium, but we gotta wrap this up, because it's sort of, I don't think you're on time. You're right, you're right, you're right. With all due respect. You know, ever since I've been in office, one of the things we've learned to do is crisis management. What we do, we don't wait. We wait until there's a traffic situation and nobody can go anywhere or somebody gets killed. Then we'll fix the road and somebody will hold their chest down and say, look what I did. And I think, why don't we fix it first? Stuart, I'm going to stop you at this one. I apologize. But you're done on this topic. I apologize. Hey, I've got motion.

Next in my queue is Councilman Hawkins, and it's to be Councilman Berger. I messed up. That's okay.

Can we call the question, please?

Well, there's no second to call the question. Second. It's going to take a roll call vote. It's going to take 18 votes to call the question.

Madam Clerk, open the roll for calling the questions.

I don't.

Councilmember Kramer.

No.

One second.

There you go. Sorry.

Council Manager, you're going to be up.

Thank you, Mr. President. A quick note on decorum. We should generally address the chair in the legislative chamber and not speak directly to council members, even if we disagree with them or find them to be a joke or to think that they have bad ideas about electricity. We should always direct our comments towards the chair. This is a pretty basic decorum item in a legislative chamber.

Forgive me for I know not what I've done.

Thank you, Stewart.

The chair's got thick skin, I can take the criticism.

Yeah. I do want to make it clear on the record, there will not be an excess electrical capacity. at a hyperscale data center. Instead, when they have concerns about the power going off, yes, they will continue to run, and it will be by diesel generator in these neighborhoods. An unbelievable amount. of diesel fuel consumed and pumped into your environment is going to be the result any time that there's a power outage, and as we know, LG&E doesn't keep the power on, and we should maybe think about what we're gonna do to change that. Thank you, that's all I wanted to add to the record.

All right, I've got no one else in my queue. So now we have the final amended version, which was the original with Councilwoman Chappell's amendment to close the loopholes, before us. At this point, we're gonna go for a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, open the roll.

Councilmember Cramer?

Yes.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said.

Yes.

Mr. President, you have 24 yes votes and one no vote.

The ordinance is adopted. The next item of business is new business. As you leave the chambers, please do so quietly so the clerk may read the new business into the record. Those council members wishing to speak, stick around and you'll be called on to speak.

The following legislation was assigned to appropriation. The following legislation was assigned to Appropriations Committee. Item 59, an ordinance appropriating $40,000 from District 16 Neighborhood Development Funds through the Office of Management and Budget to the City of Prospect for the construction of a boardwalk around the perimeter of Putney Pond. Item 60, an ordinance appropriating $10,000 from Neighborhood Development Funds in the following manner. $3,000 each from Districts 3 and 21. $2,000 from District 15. $750 from District 4. $500 each from Districts 9 and 24 and $250 from District 17 through the Office of Management and Budget to South Louisville Community Ministries Inc. for sponsorship of the Taste of South Louisville fundraiser event to be held August 22nd, 2026. Item 61, an ordinance appropriating $10,000 from District 6 neighborhood development funds through the Office of Management and Budget to Central Louisville Community Ministries Inc. for its low-income LG&E bill assistance program, item 62, an ordinance appropriating $5,440 from District 2 neighborhood development funds through Brightside Inc. to Levitt Landscaping for costs associated with landscaping maintenance and beautification of three rights-of-way at the intersection of Shepherdsville Road and Newburgh Road. Item 63, an ordinance appropriating $6,580 from District 15, neighborhood development funds through Brightside Inc. to live at landscaping for costs associated with landscaping, maintenance, and beautification of five medians in District 15. Item 64, an ordinance appropriating $2,000 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $2,000 from District 14 through the Office of Management and Budget to the Southwest Community Festival and Parade Committee Inc. for costs associated with the Southwest Community Festival to be held October 10, 2026. item 65 an ordinance appropriating seven thousand four hundred ten dollars from district 23 neighborhood development funds through the office management budget to high view business owners association inc for costs associated with the high view fall festival and parade on october 10th the high view holiday fest on december 4th 2026 and website maintenance item 66 into ordinance appropriating $9,000 from neighborhood development funds in the following manner. $3,000 from District 13 and $1,500 each from Districts 14, 19, 20, and 24 through the Office of Management and Budget to the Louisville Metro Police Foundation for the Boots, Badges, and Bids event to be held August 15, 2026. Item 67, an ordinance amending Ordinance Number 110, Series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget by transferring $35,000 from the Neighborhood Development Fund District 3 to the Louisville Metro General Louisville Metro Council General Operations District 3. Item 68, an ordinance amending ordinance number 163 series 2022 and ordinance number 111 series 2026 relating to fiscal year 2026-2027 capital budget by transferring $163,336.49 from the unallocated bipartisan infrastructure law grants project to emergency services for the USDA stream bank stabilization project. Item 69, an ordinance amending ordinance number 126 series 2007 relating to the fiscal year 2007-2008 capital budget. Ordinance number 090 series 2009 relating to the fiscal year 2009-2010 capital budget. Ordinance number 119 series 2012 relating to the fiscal year 2012-2013 capital budget. Ordinance number 088 series 2021 relating to the fiscal year 2021-2022 capital budget. Ordinance number 111, series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026-2027, capital budget by transferring and consolidating funds between projects within various loan funds to facilitate more efficient project administration. Item 70, an ordinance amending ordinance number 084 series 2022 relating to fiscal year 2022-2023 capital budget. Ordinance number 092 series 2025 relating to the fiscal year 2025-2026 capital budget. And ordinance number 111 series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026-2027 capital budget by transferring $83,555.70 from two existing projects and establishing two new district 15 projects item 71 in ordinance amending ordinance number 111 series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026 2027 capital budget by changing the names of three capital project titles item 72 and ordinance amending ordinance number 111 series 2026 and ordinance number 110 series 2026 by relating to the fiscal year 2026 2027 capital budget and the fiscal year 2026 2027 operating budget respectively by transferring $70,000 from the District 9 Capital Infrastructure Fund to the District 9 Neighborhood Development Fund. Item 73, an ordinance amending ordinance number 110 series 2026 relating to the fiscal year 2026-2027 operating budget by transferring $50,000 from the Neighborhood Development Fund District 9 to the Louisville Metro Council General Operations District 9. Item 74, a resolution authorizing the mayor to accept up to $13,470,000 of funding through the HR, 6938 the commerce justice science energy and water development and interior and environment appropriations act hr 7148 the consolidated appropriations act 2026 and hr 4366 the consolidated appropriations act 2024 authorizing and directing louisville metro government to execute any documents which are deemed necessary by hr to carry out various projects and authorizing the mayor to act as the authorized correspondent for these projects. The following legislation is assigned to Labor and Economic Development Committee, a resolution pursuant to the capital and operating budget ordinances approving the Appropriation to fund the following non-competitively negotiated professional service contract for Louisville Metro Police Department concerning the forensic medical services for abused and neglected children, Community Medical Associates Inc., doing business as children's medical group, $200,000. Item 76, a resolution pursuant to the capital and operating budget ordinances, approving the appropriation to fund the following non-competitively negotiated professional service contract for Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness. concerning wastewater monitoring university of louisville research foundation inc 150 000 item 77 a resolution approving the granting of a local incentives to kpff inc and any subsequent assignees or approved affiliates thereof pursuant to krs chapter 154 sub chapter 32 item 78 a resolution authorizing the mayor and the department of economic development to request a kentucky product development initiative grant from the kentucky economic development finance authority for the benefit of the louisville report authority and the amount of $1,178,295 to accept said grant if awarded and to provide local match funds if said grant is awarded. The following legislation is assigned to Planning and Zoning Committee. Item 79, an ordinance relating to the detailed district development plan for property located at 8803, 8805, and 8807 Old Bardstown Road containing approximately 7.02 acres and being in Louisville Metro. Case number... 26 DDP 0005, item 80, an ordinance amending the Louisville Metro Land Development Code regarding packaged liquor stores, case number 26, LDC 0003. The following legislation is assigned to Public Works Committee. Item 81, a resolution determining a portion of real property located at 3705 Stone Lake Drive as surplus and not needed for the governmental purposes of Metro government and authorizing its transfer, read in full.

Thank you. Well, you just saw some good decision-making tonight, and I am excited to tell you all that District 3 will be getting a new councilwoman, but that isn't until next year. You can still join District 3 in our decision-making by coming to our district advisory board meetings. unfortunately we had to cancel last month in July but we will be meeting Tuesday August 18th right here in City Hall 601 West Jefferson on the third floor at 6 p.m. all are welcome you can live in any neighborhood in or near district 3 and attend there we make decisions we do planning we talk about summer events we we talk about it all and we really need your support we love to co-govern So please come to that meeting. The next thing is we have been trying to support a lot of youth initiatives this summer. And so one of those youth initiatives is a soccer tournament that is happening in our district. We're excited that this soccer tournament is happening. It's a great opportunity to connect with the youth, and it is put on by More Than a Smile and other community people. It's the mini soccer tournament. All youth are invited. It's from 1 to 6.30 p.m. It's August 15th, and it's happening at one of our metro-owned parks, William Harrison Park. That is located at 3232 Oleander Avenue in District 3. Ages 5-14 are welcome. There's two different divisions, 5-10, 11-14, and we're excited to be supporting this soccer tournament. If you have any questions or need more information or want to show up and give the youth some school supplies or any items, please contact Amina Shell, 502-956-1414. That is the mini soccer tournament happening August 15th from 1 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. William Harrison Park we look forward to seeing you there and last but not least we're still doing our year-long campaign of donating gently used clothes or new clothes to people who are experiencing poverty or being released from jails and prisons you can bring that right here to City Hall 601 West Jefferson on the first floor near the They have a bin out and a poster with my picture on it. Please drop your used items off. The jail picks them up and other groups share those so that people can get what they need. Thank you.

Are there any other announcements?

Yes, I wanted to make sure people knew that this week District 10 was launching the first ever Metro Council coloring book. It's called A Kid's Day in Louisville, How the Metro Council Supports the City. And it's not about just our area or about me. It's really about the city services that the Metro Council makes possible through passing the city budget. So we're having some events at our local library soon, Bonaire, Newburgh, and Mid-City Mall. I've given all of my colleagues a set of these, and they would make a perfect addition to your school classroom or to a scout troop visit from your Metro Council person to talk about what the Metro Council does and how kids can get involved and make a difference in their community. There's discussion questions for adults. We hear a lot about the president and what's going on in Washington, D.C., but we know it's the decisions made here city hall that are impacting people's lives we worked with an artist for more than a year on this it we have permission for all the images the county attorney reviewed it so this is a nonpartisan free educational coloring book that we want to make sure kids all across the city can get and learn from thank you okay without objection we are adjourned

As always, the Louisville...