City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to Elizabeth Town City Council special meeting for April 13, 2026. I will now call the meeting to order and ask Council Member Lamar Jones if he'll lead us in the invocation. Please.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for just a beautiful day. Lord, we just thank the opportunity, Lord, to come here, Lord, and just seek your guidance and clarity decisions we make, Lord. We make decisions that pause. We thank you for the great employees we have, Lord. Be with our first responders. Lord, just watch over. We just can't thank you enough for our military. Lord, we just ask you be with them, especially those around right now. keep them all protected, healthy and safe. Again, thank you for the blessing you and thank you for giving us the opportunity.

And if you join me in the pledge of allege 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. Welcome back everyone. It's been a couple week hiatus. I hope everybody had a great spring break. At this time, I will ask Mrs. Graham if she would please call the role. Yes, sir. Council member Bishop, present. Council member Falerson, present. Council member Issacs, here. Jones,

here. Springsteen here. Tyler here. Mayor, you have a quum. Thank you, ma'am. First order of business is approval of minutes from April 3rd, 2026. If I can get a motion in a second. Some move. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. I do want to announce that I have signed a proclamation proclaiming fair housing month for April 20126 as we do every year. I'll spare you reading it. I know I do sometimes, but not this time. Okay.

And Judge Howard, if you are ready, we will start with municipal orders. Municipal order number 252026, accepting bid for Veterans Way Town Drive roundabout project. If I can get a motion and a second to read, please. Motion. Second. All in favor? I I seeing none. Motion carries. Judge Howard.

At a special meeting of the city council held on the date set out below. After first being read, a motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded, and approved. Whereas the area in the vicinity of the town mall was identified for potential redevelopment in the city's envision Elizabeth Town 2040 comprehensive plan to include the public right ofway. And whereas the city prepared bid documents and publicly advertised and received bids that were publicly opened on April the 3 of 2026 for the Veterans Way Town Drive roundabout project. And whereas the city wishes to continue to implement its safety action plan under the federal safe street and roads for all program by making improvements to its roadways in a safe manner through the utilization of highway work zones standards during construction. Now, be it ordered by the city council that the bid from Summit Civil LLC for the Veterans Way Town Drive roundabout project in an amount not to exceed $981,700 be accepted. And this will be contract number 14 of 2026. Be it further ordered that the mayor and/or designate is authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to perfect this order, including but not limited to signing all contracts, documents, obtaining the necessary permits, and approving change orders with the aggregate amount not to exceed $147,255. Uh be it further ordered that during the duration of this construction project, the procedures and regulations developed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for highway work zones be utilized,

including speed limit reduction. RED adopted and approved this 13th day of April. Discussion, comments, questions. Mayor, I'd like to ask Ed to come talk with us a little bit about this because this is something unusual for us to award almost a million dollar bid to a company that really hasn't been established in business for less than really a month where we are. But Ed,

it is a new company. Uh but the owner has been involved in um other companies, other uh that do similar type work in our community for a number of years. He's worked on in fact uh about four city projects. Uh Aaron Gatlin is the the gentleman who has started this company. um our consultants on the project, Palmer Engineering, uh checked with him and u a number of his suppliers, uh Scotty's is going to be doing his paving aspects for him. So, all folks that we're familiar with, uh, and under the city's um, bid process and then our contracting process, uh, we require performance and payment bonds for the city's protection. So, we'll have those in place, too.

Anybody else? The only other thing I want to point out to the council as Marty points that we've got a newer contractor, but we also put some language in this municipal order about the highway safety zones. Um the speeds along Veterans Way are uh it's a higher speed limit than most roads that we typically work on local streets. Um, so we're going to work with um the contractor and again our design engineers and Michael's staff through the engineering department to make sure that we have adequate signage along this area, especially because uh we will have uh the construction crews working right within the the pavement area and like I said, Veterans Way is a um people travel pretty fast along that section of roadway. way. So, just concern over the public safety and contractor safety that we're um going to implement that during construction also.

And I would add just like any other contract that we have on a capital project, there's a bid bond and a performance bond. So, we're protected legally. Anybody else? I will say the this is one of the better pl I mean for our first city funded roundabout. This is one of the better places um that we do need to put it in and I think there's a lot more support for this one than there has been for others. Hopefully that keeps up because it will be safer and more efficient. I concur. With that, do I have a motion and a second to adopt? I'll make a motion. Second. Got a first and a second. All in favor?

I I opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. Municipal order number 26, 2026, approving special inspections for the Freeman Lake Park North End parking lot project. If I can get a motion in a second to read, please. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I opposed. says Howard

at a special meeting of the city council held on the date set out below. After first being read, a motion to adopt the following municipal order was duly made, seconded and approved. Whereas the city has authorized an agreement with Cougheld Brothers construction for the Freeman Lake Park north end parking lot project by municipal order 132026. And whereas CMW architects and engineers, the city's project design professional, solicited proposals for special inspection services on behalf of the city and has recommended thoroughbred engineering to perform these services. And whereas the city now desires to engage thoroughbred engineering to perform special inspection services for soils testing and inspection during the duration of the construction of this project. Now be it ordered by the city approve the contract with thoroughbred engineering for professional special inspection services for this project in an amount not to exceed $12,000. These professional services shall include laboratory testing and inspection of soils. Be it further order that the mayor andor's designate is hereby authorized and directed to take all steps necessary to perfect this order including signing all agreements, contracts, documents and forms read, adopted and approved this 13th day of April.

Any discussion? Need a motion and a second to adopt, please. So moved. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. It will bring us to resolution number 120 26, emergency management mutual aid and assistance agreement. If I can get a motion in a second to read, please. Motion. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Judge Howard,

whereas the city provides emergency management through their police and fire departments, and whereas the city wishes to work with other cities throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky in responding to an emergency or disaster and recognizes the importance of having each local entity respond in a coordinated and efficient manner to restore the public safety, health, and welfare of a community stricken by an emergency or disaster. And whereas the Kentucky Emergency Management Agency has encouraged cities to become a part of a statewide mutual aid agreement to ensure the statewide availability of mutual aid and assistance to disaster or emergency impacted communities as quickly, efficiently, and effectively as possible. And whereas pursuant to Kentucky law, a local entity entering into a mutual aid and assistant agreement may include provisions for the furnishing and exchanging of supplies, equipments, facilities, personnel, and services. And whereas the city has chosen to become a party to this agreement and wishes to provide mutual aid and assistance to other communities in time of emergency or disaster. Now therefore, be it resolved by the city, enter into an agreement for emergency management, mutual aid, and assistance in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and agree to provide assistance as defined in the agreement which is attached to this resolution. Be it further resolved that the mayor is authorized to execute the agreement as the city's primary representative and that the city's emergency management coordinator shall serve as the city's alternate representative Dun's 13th day of April of 2026.

So, I'm sure you all understand what that is, but if you take, for example, when they had the tornadoes in Mayfield and Dawson Springs and some of the natural disasters that we had few years ago in the Commonwealth and multiple cities sent all kinds of resources, whether it be manpower or equipment or supplies to those locations, this is no different than than what what we did then. This just just kind of formalizes a little bit in a mutual aid agreement. So, any questions, comments? Need a motion and a second to adopt, please. So moved. Second. All in favor? I

opposed. Seeing none. Motion carries. Thank you all. That'll bring us to the presentation side of our council meeting tonight. And we are going to start with our finance director, Jeff Hawkins, who is going to give us an update on his department. I know I spoke with you back in November at the end of the calendar year, but Ed and I spoke and felt like it might be more beneficial to hear from you again right before budget time. So, that's what I'm doing here. And the first time I've been in this room speaking, so I feel like I'm right in the middle of everything. So, let's see. First thing I want to go over is the um cash balances. I didn't put all the funds on here, just the main ones so you can get an idea. Um, as you can see, they're all in good shape except for general fund. It's down a couple million dollars. Um, basically those are due to some of the bit larger purchases that we've made. Um, such as a Woodland Eye property and the I think it was a Hayden Farms out there by um the airport. And then of course we did y'all did authorize a um loan to the airport board. I think that was $600,000 and currently we've um given them $465. Um I'm hoping next time when they request money they request the rest of it instead of I get 15 here or 20 here. So make my life a little bit easier. Um sewer fund um they're up and so is gas fund. Um as you recall we did raise the rates last year um last year and a half or so for both of those. So we are seeing the effects of those right now. U we've also we haven't done some capital projects yet or we haven't finished them yet. So that's kind of curved with spending on that side. and restricted funds. Those are just uh oddball things such as the employee benefits trust, the insurance premiums, those kind of things, and they're basically flat. And the specific revenues, I didn't list them all here because we had a lot that were right on budget, but the ones I do

want to highlight, um occupational tax, that's our um the 1.95% on the the work working wages in the city, and the property tax. Both of those you can see are very strong. Uh we continue to maintain a strong healthy um employee base. Um restaurant and hotel tax, same story we've had last couple years. Both of those are down. I think the budget uh was a little a little aggressive on that. So I kind of want to work with tourism this year and maybe they'll curve back on what they think will be coming in. Uh the big one that's down is net profits tax. Um some of that's due to timing. Um April 15th is when they're when they're due. So we get a lot of people that file late. Um, we were considerably down as you can tell, but uh, we have seen a lot of mail come in so far this month. So, we're hoping those numbers come back up and we'll see them they'll still file up until May probably. So, we we should come close to the budget time. Um, and the R for alcoh alcohol regulatory. Um, a little bit down on the regulatory fees, but I think a lot of that's due to timing and Jessica can probably agree with me. Certain things come in quarterly, monthly, and some things just haven't come in yet. So, I feel like we're still in good shape. Uh if we look at some of the spending by area um you can see everybody's in good shape uh right now except for admin and fire and those are good reasons. Um as we spoke earlier we've had several large projects that we've done in admin side. So um that's definitely making it over budget such as certain things we didn't budget for. Um everything else is under budget primarily due to either staffing that we have in f positions or mainly capital. Um, in the case of fire, um, they look really bad. And I'm not picking on Mark or anything, but if you remember, we did buy a fire truck. Um, that's going to be moved. So, that's not going to stay. I think it was around a million three, I believe. Um, that will be moved to the bond. So, the bond's going to reimburse the general fund on that. If you remember, we had excess

money between the fire department, fire the rehab, and also the the fire station. So, we elected to use the bond funds to cover that. And we also have not moved the rest of the money from the insurance premiums um to cover back on the on the fire department funds. So that's going to come back in line. I' already got a question. Okay. Um well, if you remember, I think we did close to 11 million on the bonds and the bids came in around not quite 10. So we got the excess revenue and we just chose to use that. We we talked about that in the budget last year. Budget means Next thing we do, I'll nudge you or something like that.

The gas department um they're under budget right now. When we budget the gas, a lot of their budget on the expense side and revenue side is based on what we think um how the weather's going to be, how many the MCF or whatever the unit is, um how how much we use, and we've also the the gas price. Uh when we buy the gas, it's probably coming a little bit lower. Uh we did just spend about $750,000 this past week, so that's going to take some of that money away. And that was for gas purses. Uh next slide shows the organization chart. Um, when I showed this back in November, I mentioned that we had a retirement coming up, David Evans. He did retire at the end of January. Uh, we had two people up there in blue, Kim Compton and, uh, Tim Reynolds, and both of those have announced their retirements, and their last work day will be in June at some point. Last official day will be at the end of July, last work day in June. Um, so to give you an idea of those three people, Kim, Tim, and David, that's over a hundred years of city experience that that have left us. So, it's a lot to lot to replace. Uh, we do have one more retirement coming up next year. Um, Cheryl Burr is going to retire next July. So, you'll see in budget I'm putting in. We have a position already, but I'm going to bump that up into a higher level position because I'd like to have have somebody hired and have plenty of time to train for her. Some of the current things we're working on budget as you all know um budget meetings with you all start in about a month and I've met with everybody so far except for admin um and I put on there you can see it's been an ambitious budget but it always is and I haven't met with the mayor yet so I don't know everybody else has one so I'm not sure what what his needs are so um we're expecting big things to come He didn't.

He comes to me ask forgiveness that kind of thing. So, so we're looking forward to a good productive budget session though. Um update on the banking services. As you all know, you all approved um swapping the bank service uh to Magnolia Bank and uh we've had met with them a few times and we've given them information and they're working on setting up accounts. So once we get the accounts set up, then we can meet with them and we can start transferring things over. Um it is going to be a long process as I told you, but we can start moving things over right away and start using the new banks, but it's going to take a while to officially close out everything else, but I think it's going to go smoothly. Um the website and online forums, um we've been promising it. Um there was something that came up with the general assembly at the state level this year that they were talking about doing a universal form um typically for net profits but also maybe for occupational collections. Uh we did put our project on hold because we didn't want to spend a lot of time if they were going to come back and change everything because they are going if they do this they are going to require everything to be online and you have to use their form you have to use a software that basically can do their form. So we didn't want to spend a whole lot of time on creating forms that we may not be using in a year or so. I think it's not going through yet, but it will eventually. It's just a matter of time. We still are working on alcohol forms, um, restaurant tax, those kind of things where people can use the online and use the credit cards. Um, last thing I'll talk about is our with some of these retirements, it's brought up the need that we know in our internal department, we have to have a form of succession planning, whatever that's going to look like. So, with Cheryl retiring, I want to look at somebody that's going to be able to replace her. And then down the road, however many years that may be eventually to replace me, when we backfield for that person in Cheryl's job, that person um might have that succession plan where we can hopefully set up for several years to come. Uh we

feel like we've got it in the gas department and utility office. Uh with the two big retirements, we had we have announced internal promotions. Um so we've got some money internally for both, which I think is great. I think anytime that we immediately go outside for any job, it's kind of a downer to our employees. They're like, why am I working here if I have no chance of moving up? So, I think being able to to announce that internal promotions is good for everybody. Um, in the gas, with the recent retirement announcements, we're going to try to use that as a way to kind of merge collectively, not only where we have a utility office, uh, customer service and meter readers and the actual gas department for Matthew, we want to blend it to where we're working together better. We've already had some of those discussions and I think we can see it. Um, we're going to be short-handed in the customer service side. So, we are going to definitely depend on Matthew's side and we want the office to be able to work with them. In the past, it's kind of been a my department, your department, their department. We want it to be one department. So, I think we're moving in that direction. Um, some of the challenges we're seeing are some hardware issues mainly. We found a lot of dead meters out there. So, we're working with the gas department to get those replaced and hopefully because we if a dead meter we're losing revenue. So, That's what we're working toward. So, as always, want to thank you for all your support. Just remember that I'm going to thank you again in a month. Hopefully, have a good week and I'll take any questions

on the online forums, I guess. Are we How long are we delaying those or that's not going to delay the whole website? It's just delaying that, right? Just the forums. We are working on the the restaurant, those kind of forms. Yeah, that really affects only the net profits and the occupational. Um, to my knowledge, they haven't approved it yet. Uh, because what they do is they're what the state is saying, we want you to use our forms and use it our way, our software, but we're not going to pay you to do it. We're not going to give you anything else. So, we just didn't want to do it like a create all these forms with a software with a website to turn around and have to change it. But, we are progressing with the other ones and we're hoping that they roll up with the website hopefully. Robert's already said so.

Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Jeeoff, I don't think that's that legislation is not going to pass because that's about the state wanting to collect is what that's about and keeping our money and then they'll give it to us whenever they feel like releasing and they're not going to do it for free. They're going to take a percentage of it. You're right. And so I don't that legislation is not going to pass. So I would not allow that to hold us up finishing what we need to do. We were waiting to see if it was going to pass and apparently if it's not then we can go on. But we don't want that either. I can understand for a smaller city it might be good or beneficial to have that but I think a city of our size and the staff that we have we can collect it better than they can. I don't think any city wants the state to control the revenue to getting it back because they'll take whatever percentage and

I'm not sure that even got out of committee but you never know what they're going to tack on to something in the last two days. So it's probably best if we wait a week and see what happens. And they won't go after it like we do. I mean, we have people that know our businesses and they know they don't I don't say go after it like we're hardline, but um we pursue collections and we pursue the forms. They won't do that. They'll just take it and say whatever comes in comes in and then we're the ones that would be penalized for it. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Up next, our planning director, Aaron Hawkins, who is going to update you on the downtown master plan. Mr. Hawkins. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. So, Councilman Fulkerson had the privilege of sitting through the long version of this last week. So, I'll try to do the abbreviated version today to hopefully keep your interest a little more. So, the downtown master plan is a plan we've been working on in the planning department for about a year now. Um, we were charged by planning commission and then subsequently city council to uh to find a a consultant to help steer us and form and develop a a master plan for our downtown and for the development and the guidance of downtown. And so last year or about 12 or about 16 months ago, we started that RFP process and we got some really good uh proposals from a lot of qualified firms. Ultimately, we settled on Taylor Cifer Williams and Bronte with TSW is is here today to uh represent TSW. So, if I leave anything out or if you have any specific questions, she could probably answer those that I cannot. But um so yeah, so we did settle with TSW and we kicked off the master plan about a year ago uh around this time. So, um, uh, one of the biggest questions that we get typically when people talk about downtown, whether it be citizens or business owners or, uh, even even residents and and employees of the city, is what are the boundaries of downtown? And nobody really ever has had a good idea of what the boundaries of the true downtown Elizabeth Town are. So, one of the first things that we tried to do with this plan was to really define what the boundaries of downtown are that this plan will encompass and that this plan will help guide us through. So, uh, basically what we settled on through the process was, uh, looking at Mile Street, um, from the

northwest side of town, uh, all the way over to Popppler Street and then down Popppler, cuts over a little bit to Vega Alley and then down, um, to, uh, essentially just, um, a Central Avenue and then down Central to what we would consider uh, the uh, the western side of the railroad tracks. And then of course it cuts over across the railroad tracks um down to interestingly enough that based on the feedback that we got we did not include the cemetery property as part of downtown. So uh that was one of the more interesting things that came out of this plan. But essentially it stopped just uh on the the north side of the cemetery, but then also on the when you transition back to the other side of the railroad tracks, it goes down South Main Street and incorporate encompasses all of South Main Street essentially over to Valley Creek. So, um hopefully that gives you an idea of what we would and then up College Street. Um that gives you an idea of what we would consider true downtown to be in terms of this master plan. But in terms of the planning process, again, it's a standard plan. We had a lot of public involvement. We had a public meeting. We did a public survey, which we had uh quite a few um quite a few submissions on the survey, more than we thought we would have. Uh and we had good involvement with the public meeting, but uh the interesting thing about the public comments that we had in the public involvement was they all were saying the same thing, which is a bit odd when it comes to plans like this or public meetings. Typically, you get people all over the place and you're getting random information, but it really helped the consultants and it helped the city staff out because almost every comment we got all came back to the same ideas and same concept. So, that really helped us narrow in our concept on the downtown master plan. But if you look at the timeline, we started in May of last year and the hope was to finish and have this to council for adoption in February of this year. We're about two months, we were about two months behind, which in the world of

planning and plans, it's actually not too bad. So, I like to think we're actually ahead of schedule, but uh the downtown master plan essentially was broken up into two main concepts and two areas. One is the development toolkit and the other is the action plan. So, the toolkit uh for a quick synopsis essentially it provides guidance on specific strategies for design and development of downtown. Um it addresses areas within public realms such as streets and parks um while also providing broad design guidance and redevelopment strategies for properties. Um and then if you look at the action plan, the action plan is a series of 10 projects and then three programs uh that will guide the community in strategically implementing many of the ideas uh that are communicated in that toolkit. So essentially, you think about the toolkit, it's a set of tools that we have that can help us uh get to where we want to go as a community in terms of what we want our downtown to be. And then the action plan are kind of those big ideas and those big projects, even some of them are small projects. So just a set of projects that we can get to make downtown take that next step in our redevelopment uh of downtown. So quickly, I'll just go through a couple of the of the toolkits just to give you an idea of what those are. So one of those are public parking lots. So, it talks about uh how do we how do we address public parking? You know, we had a lot of we had a lot of comments that there's no parking downtown. We need more parking. We need more parking. Um staff has done over the last several years a few different times. We've done uh counts of all parking spaces that are both available and what's opened at different times. And needless to say, there was never more than probably 60% of the parking spaces that were taken at any one time. So, there there are parking spaces. you just have to walk a little bit whether it's couple blocks, maybe three or four blocks depending on where you're going. But, uh, there are parking, but the but the big question is is how do you make the parking stand out? How do you make people make it a

how do you make people aware of where that parking is and that those parking spaces are public? Because there are a few that are beside private parking lots and private parking spaces. So, how do we differentiate that? So, one of the ideas is to not only have signage, which we do have some signage, but make the signage match our signage profile that was adopted and and approved maybe two years ago, but also paint those the color of the fruit. So, all our parking lots are named after a fruit, whether it's Cherry Alley, Plum Alley, Quinc Alley, or so forth. So paint the parking spaces some type of emblem, whether it's a pee or actually the fruit itself, but paint those spaces with that color so it's clear that this is the strawberry parking lot. So it's things like that, tools that we have that we can implement and make downtown just an overall better place to be. But uh there is a list of those toolkits and again that's all 14 of them so we're not going to go through all of them but that was just an idea of kind of what the toolkit is. It gives us a concept and an idea and then it gives us some tools to accomplish and achieve that goal. Um so the next is the action plan. The action plan is really the the the big portion of the of the downtown master plan. Again it gives us those big projects. So there are three focus projects that are listed and that's probably that's what I'll concentrate most on today. And then there are lists of other programs and projects that are a little smaller in scope and nature. Um we'll briefly talk about those in general, but the the object or the the picture on the left of the screen kind of has all of the projects and folk and and um action plan projects that are listed on one screen and then the picture on the right gives you a different viewpoint of those and where those are in relation to other portions of downtown to give you an idea. Um the three that we're going to really concentrate on today are the square redesign, the flex street for or north

or south south main flex street and then the valley creek boardwalk. Um those are the three big focus project that came out of this plan. The other project that I'll talk about because it's relevant to not only this body but all the city employees and the city in general is a city hall project. So those are probably the four biggest projects that came out of this plan. Uh the first one is the the square redesign. So the square as it is designed today is really more intended to get vehicular traffic in and out of downtown. So it's not really intended to get vehicular traffic and people to stay downtown. So what we want is we want a design of a square that's going to encourage you to stay and make it enticing for people to stay, not only for vehic vehicles but also pedestrians. There's a lot of residential development around the periphery of downtown. So, we not only want downtown for tourists, but we also want downtown to thrive for the residents, not just in the city, but also on the periphery of the city because those are the backbone of downtown businesses. Those are the people that's going to be there year round that's going to support these businesses. Um, so what came out of this plan was in conjunction with the square and the hotel on the square because that is under construction today. And if you noticed, they did change the traffic pattern uh just in the last day or two to take that and actually make that a true roundabout. So now you always have to yield to the left as you're entering into the square. You no longer have right away if you're on Dixie, whether that be east or west Dixie. So the first part of this is playing off of this redesign and the redevelopment of the square. So the thought and that we took to focus groups and that we took to the steering committee and also we asked the public in the surveys and at the public meeting was if you designed the square to where it had one lane of traffic and was a true roundabout, what does that do for the rest of the square? So the immediate thought was well you're going to have to take away the parking spaces around the square. So there are 27 parking spaces currently on the square.

Um and as we talked about previously, parking is not an issue. There are ample parking spaces on the periphery of downtown and throughout downtown. So there are places to go, but what will that do if you eliminate those? Well, it increases the pedestrian activity in the square by 47%. So it makes it basically uh it it it gives on all four quadrants of our square the ability to not only add public space and pedestrian space, but also add things like art quadrants or sculptures or fountains or landscaping, things to beautify the square. not only make it safer for pedestrians to walk throughout the businesses and around the square, but also just make it more enjoyable in general. So, the concept was to remove the parking spaces around uh the square and then instead of having and then of course you're going to increase the amount of open space, but then you're also going to have pulloff lanes on each quadrant to where you can drop somebody off, whether that's somebody who's ADA um and you need to give them accessibility to enter the square from inside the square or if you need to pick something up, you can pull off for a few minutes, run in, pick it up, and get back out and get on the It's also safer because you're pulling out onto parallel to the to the road as opposed to backing out like you currently have to do. Um, which backing out into traffic on the square can be a little dangerous, but um so that's that's the main concept of the downtown or the square redesign. Uh the other component is is pedestrian safety. So, what what is recommended with this plan are the crosswalks leading into the square on all four roads will be raised crosswalks. Not only will that make you slow down if you're in a car and you're coming into the square because it gives uh again if you're going to hit that going 40 mph, you're going to notice that in your vehicle. So, it makes you slow down. So, not only is it safer for

pedestrians, but also now that it will be uh as this proposes, a one-lane roundabout, it will slow traffic entering the roundabout, which is the intent of a true roundabout. And then it will also redesign the crosswalks internally on the square. Instead of coming in at the main road entrance, they're going to come in uh as you can see on the screen, two for each road on each side of the lane. So, uh there's more accessibility to get to the hotel and then also to get throughout the square. So, uh, the second one is the flex street. So, and then also, uh, we'll also look at the city hall redevelopment. So, on the left, uh, of the screen is the city hall redevelopment. Um, kind of where the blue buildings are. You know, with the property we own at the corner of South Main Street and Malberry, South Malberry Street. Um, it's about 5 acres in total, which is a large track when it comes to uh, downtown property. So there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to the design of that. Again, this design isn't anything that's being proposed. This is just in the concept of what can be done with this. So the thought is to have multi-buildings on the site with all your parking in the middle to hide the parking because what you don't want is you want to keep that urban feel where you have the buildings pushed out to the street and parking on the inside or behind the building. So what this does is it pushes a flex building out on Malberry Street with the actual city hall facing south Main Street. Um and then it also creates a pedestrian plaza on uh the city hall portion of the building um with a water feature that also uh features some public space. So everybody is always concerned about where will the Christmas tree go and do we have room for the Christmas tree. So this project and the open space there at city hall creates an area that can not only house a Christmas tree but also create a public plaza around that. So the the thought behind the flex street which is the previous image is how do we connect city hall to the square because we don't want to

completely isolate city hall from what people consider the historic core of downtown which is the square. So how do we connect that? So south main street is the logical connection point from from there. So the thought is is to create a flex street. So the idea of a flex street is a street that doesn't have curb and gutters. It has trench drains on each side of the road and then uh the sidewalks are flush with the street. So what you can do is you can um and if you think think of one that you're probably familiar with, Fourth Street in Louisville where Fourth Street Live is, they have ballards at night. They pull those up and all of a sudden vehicle traffic is cut off and it's a pedestrian area that's all pedestrian related and no vehicles go through. During the day, they take the ballards down, traffic goes through like any other time, any any other street in downtown Louisville. That's the idea of a flex street is it gives us flexibility. So if we have a festival and we want to move everything to away from Dixie where we don't have to have more police coordination, we don't have to have coordination with the with the KYTC, we can shut down South Main Street, never bother Dixie traffic and then we can uh you can have much more uh friendly pedestrian experience where you have no curbs you have to worry about. It's all flat. you can close off on street parking at any time to allow extended dining or extended pedestrian experience on the street. Um so it gives you a lot of flexibility with different designs. Um and again that's that connection point of city hall and uh the down the newly redesigned uh square and that's the typical of of what it would look like if you did a flex street just on the right side. it. Um, and then the other big one is the the the main project is the Valley Creek boardwalk. So, uh, when we first started this project, we did not anticipate something like this coming out of the plan and out of the public process, but we had a lot of we had a lot of, uh, comments that we

need to uh, make Valley Creek um, active and we need to figure out a way to get Valley Creek involved because most cities have some type of water feature when it comes to their downtown. And while we're not on a lake or a river or the ocean, we do have a creek that runs through and it's a it's a good stream that runs through. So, how do we how do we activate that stream to make this a part of downtown? So the concept and the thought is to create a boardwalk of sorts along Valley Creek that not only has an active portion down below right off the creek where you can you can funnel hikers and bikers and and walkers through, but also a second tier on the back sides of buildings that creates more of a pedestrian plaza type area where the businesses can utilize that to have storefronts along the boardwalk and the creek, not just storefrs on the road. So, it gives property owners flexibility in terms of how they want to utilize their businesses and their buildings. Um, and then it also just creates a pleasant experience and a and a way for citizens and tourists alike to access the creek. Um, and they've also built in different parts. It's hard to read, but there are access points to the creek. As anybody who grew up at University Park in this community, the creek is filled with kids throughout the year, throughout the summer while their brothers are playing baseball or their families at the at the park. So, uh, myself included, I spent many hours inside that creek, uh, Shaw Creek. So, the thought is, how do you get kids to to enjoy the creek? So, the there are different areas where it would make sense to create access points where you can actually get down into the creek and kids can play. If it's a hot day, the parents can go out, if there's a coffee shop on the back side of that, grab a coffee, sit there, and let their kids go out and play in the creek. Um the challenge with this project is it has to get approved by division of water. So um with any project along a creek, you have to make sure that you don't impede storm water. Uh so this would have to be

designed to allow during flooding stages creek to flow like normal and then recede and then it would still operate. So you can't have things that will either come undone and then become dis or lodged somewhere and then block up the the flow of the of the creek. So that is a that is that's a concern that we have to we have to work through and it's just it's any project that you're dealing with a creek you do have to to work through that. But that is one of the the roadblocks um that we will try to work through. But this was one of the more interesting concepts that came out of it. Um again there are some smaller ones. I'm not going to go through that for for time but uh finding more open space. That was another big big request of the citizens in the public comments was we need more green space. We need more open space downtown. So there are some logical spots to create that open space in those parks or those green spaces. So that was one of the ideas was to to come up with pocket parks or some small little parks. Not only that, but maybe there's a way that you could use public art and entertainment for kids at the same time. So if it's public art, maybe it's art that you can climb on and play on. So it acts as a playground as well as art. Um so those are the kinds of ideas that um that came out of this. Other things are activation of alleys. So we have a lot of alleys. How do we what do we do to those alleys to make them appealing for people to walk through at all times of the day? And then also create spots that people just want to be. That was uh another big comment we had is is sometimes people just want to go downtown and just sit there and enjoy downtown. And there's really nowhere for them to do that currently. So, how do we create these uh these opportunities to do that? So, Walker Square, how do we redesign Walker Square to do that? Um we talked about City Hall. Um I won't go more into that but um and then some of the smaller ones like speaker installation we already have the speakers the challenge is is how do we put the speakers on on buildings which are owned by private individuals. Um so we are working

through that but there are some small projects that we can implement within a year and have some momentum going to try to get to some of the larger projects. in terms of those larger projects. I did put a paper at your uh at your at your seat, but uh it did give us an action plan phasing strategy that that tells us basically how far out we need to look for these specific plans. So, some of the larger ones obviously you're being pushed out to uh you know 2035 and and beyond. Um, and then in terms of um, who does those plans and then costs. So, are they staff plans only or is that something that we're going to have to hire consultants and contractors on? It helps us break that down to give us an idea of when to start looking at these projects. And then lastly, money, which is always the big thing. So, how do we fund these projects? There are some funding mechanisms that it that it recommends. And then also, it gives us these aren't true dollars. These are just estimates of what it would cost for something in general like this, but it gives us an idea of, you know, this is a million dollar plus project. This is something we're going to have to really push down the road to or take this at an incremental pace. And then, uh, some of these are even less than $50,000. So, these are things that we could we could ask for in the next budget and try to tackle those immediately. So, it does give us those um those phasing plan that we can look at. So, um, yeah, and that's that's all I have. So, any questions? I'd be happy to answer.

Are we sure the speakers still work? I mean, we've had those six years. I'm just joking. Ed's a rule follower. He wouldn't let me install them on poles that we didn't own. It wasn't Ed. It was KU wouldn't let us install them on the poles or we'd already had them up.

It said we didn't own those. That's what I was trying to say. So, I was involved in the downtown master plan and I think both entities, the city staff and the consulting company did a great job on making sure that they really grasp the ideas from not just the business owners, but the citizens on kind of what they would like to see downtown. Um, I know there were some questions on the parking and removing parking and and they really did reach out to those entities um to kind of get their feedback and like Amina shared some of the answers that people got or that they got back. It was kind of surprising but the first the green space thing and people wanting you know like he said like something for their kids to do something they can go downtown to do that didn't necessarily mean they were spending money. I think that was a big um factor that really from all the meetings. Um so good job. Thank you all. I appreciate it. Um

I think what excites me the most is getting the opportunity to watch Aaron play in the creek. I mean maybe I'll be the first one in. So anybody else? Great job, Aaron. Appreciate it. Good work. Okay, up next we will open the meeting up for public comments. Anybody that would like to speak. I see Mrs. Macy heading this way. If you don't mind, state your name and address. Okay.

Karen Macy at 1020 1028 Pawn Drive. And I have my neighbors back here if you all could stand. Okay. Thank you. And I've got Dear mayor and city council members, we the residents of Pawne Drive in Indian Hills are writing to you as a unified group to formally request the city's support and funding for the installation of a comprehensive tree buffer and/or soundproof wall along the property line of P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P Pawny Drive and 3027 Ring Road, owned by Owens Family LLC in our community. The area in question, specifically bordering a new development zone commercial. Currently, as of November of 2025, lacks adequate green space along the easement that is leading to noise pollution, lack of privacy, erosion, and aesthetic concerns. We believe that planting a row of native evergreen trees in the easement and another row for the 20 to 30 foot buffer that is required when a commercial development that backs up to a residential neighborhood would act as an effective sound and visual barrier. A robust tree buffer in this location would provide significant long-term benefits to the community and align with the city's goal for green

space and environmental stewardship. The benefits of this project would include improved air quality and environmental health. Trees are essential for filtering air air pollutants and contributing to a healthier local environment. The noise reduction. A dense vegetative buffer would help mitigate noise from Ring Road, the new hotel, the Buffalo Ridge Apartments, and Window World, Matthews Aurora Casket Company, and improve the quality of life for nearby residents. Enhanced public safety and aesthetics. A well-maintained buffer enhances the visual appeal of the neighborhood and will improve pedestrian safety by clearly defining public and private spaces. It would also protect our property values. Storm water management. The root the trees root system will help manage storm water runoff and reduce erosion. Increase community value. Investing in green space infrastructure increases property values and fosters a sense of pride and community well-being. To visual to help visualize the changes, we have included photos of the property site both before and after the trees were removed. You should have three pictures in your in your packet. In the the first picture, you can see that it was it's an aerial view of um of my house and and that was before where where we had most of the year we had a um a real a real good um buffer. The second the second one it was taken I think it was November 1st and you know it's real real pretty trees with beautiful color.

And then you can see the third one where now we see the the warehouse, the the hotel up on the hill, we see the apartments, we see the trash bins, and we see the the the truck that sits there all night long running. We we are requesting that the relevant city departments inspect the site and consider allocating the necessary resources. We believe this is a coste effective investment in our community's future and sustainability. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. We eagerly await your response and look forward to collaborating collaborating to create a greener, healthier, and more beautiful city for all residents. And you can see that we all we all sign the ones that are affected. And uh and the the five families that have signed have lived there for a combined 202 years. Thank you.

So, hang on just a minute if you don't mind. I got just a couple questions. First one, Aaron, I don't know if you know off the top of your head or Ed, was there any buffering requirements on Mr. Owen's property when he cleared that or for any development that he's going to do there? Do you know?

Yeah. So, the only time there would be a buffering requirement is when he comes in with an actual plan for development. So when he does or whoever develops that property before they can do any construction they would have to get that approval to planning commission and approved by planning commission which would inquire require um and I want to say the minimum is 20 ft but if you can't provide 20 ft you have to uh it's basically you have to add on extra landscaping uh to account for that closer buffer but yes once they do uh come in with a development plan screening and buffering will be a requirement. And that could be anything from native screening to fence. Um, but before we get a plan for development, we don't have any regulations that say we we force him to come in and plant anything.

From what the the guy that was there today working, he said that he they were going to be uh planting instead of like a um oh, what what is it? Um, they're going to be planting some vines. Okay. And that could be, you know, come come up in our property as an invasion into our properties uh where where they've had to, you know, dig up instead of putting a retaining wall that he said they're going to be putting vine.

So my next question would be, do you have any idea, Miss Macy or Martin or Mr. Deoff, how long a run of buffering you all would need that would encompass all those properties? just a guesstimate. Well, like I said, we'd like to have two rows, you know, one in the easement and then another one so they they would be staggered so that we don't see any of that. I was just curious if y'all had any idea about how long that is. No, no. Okay, that that's okay. We can we can figure that out. And the other question was what you just addressed. Who who whose property do you put that those trees on? bureaus on the

I'm going to put some on my side, but they, you know, they need to be on their side because when when there is a a development, they would have to um they would have to, you know, do the buffer then, but we don't know when that's going to happen. That's why we're asking. And then maybe you all could recoup the money from the the developer at that time.

Very good. Thank you. Do you all have questions, comments? This seems to happen fairly often and Erin, I know we don't have much control until there's a development plan. Um, it just there's three or four sites that I can think of off the top of my head where people who own the property are clearing them down to the dirt and we don't seem to have any. And I know it's their land, it's their property. Um, but it's this keeps happening. It just seems like we need to look at some sort of but I don't know what we could even do at this point except replant some trees. Um vines are not the answer. We don't need right vines taking over going to be invasive into our properties.

Yes ma'am. Um but hopefully we can figure something out. So that would be great. You know, I would I would just think that that maybe um you know, if they have to give us the 20 to 30 feet as a buffer, you know, instead of clearing all the land, keep that. You know, keep the mature trees that have been there for years. So, do you have any idea who it was you talked to that were putting the vines down? Did you get his name or his last name is Tol T A L. And and who does he work for? Do you know? Uh Dirt Works. For Dirt Works. Okay.

Mhm. Yes. And that's what he told me today. And he says right now, all they're going to do is is put the top soil down and grass seed. He's they're not putting a road in, but he's got it kind of ready for a road. Yes. Okay. We can check on that. Okay. Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. Deoff.

Yeah. I'm Phil Deoff. I live on 1100 Pony Drive. The immediate question I have is storm water drainage that flows into that property. And uh it was I guess last week when u the uh city had drained they drained out the fire faucets or fire hydrants and the water that rushed in there continued the eroding and all they did in the construction that they're doing is just to pile more dirt on there. Now, before a development plan is sent to the council or or to the city, is there any control that they have over that storm water drainage that's going half of Pony half a Pawn Drive actually drains down through that onto that property.

So, you're talking about disturbed property that they have where water is draining in there and it's eroding that property. Yes, it's eroding our property working up that way. So, I haven't spoken with our storm water department to see if they have gone out to see that. I know you said that's happened in the last week or so, but that's definitely something that they can go out and look at and and and address with the developer. I think that'd be impeded consideration. Did you say that they just they took a scoop of dirt and they just put it up in there just to clog it up like it was going to stay forever? Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, we we'll definitely check on that. Mayor, we we had the same situations, Billy, with the the VA development where that developer ordered all those trees to be torn down and and they're going to be required to put a buffer back in. Meanwhile, you sit there as a resident and and so we have to look at some kind of option that we have to try to prevent these things from happening. Well, that's a perfect example because there was several old growth trees there that were right on that property line that I mean, I'm not secondguessing the developer of the VA or that property, but I didn't really understand why they tore those out if they're going to have to put buffering back in anyway. That was a natural barrier. So, I I understand exactly what she's saying and we'll we'll go look at it.

Do do we we have since there is that easement part there, would we have the legal right to put trees there? It's not our property, but

I think it depends whether you're talking about a setback or an easement. We'd have to look at the plans and and particularly on, you know, Pony is an older subdivision. Uh I don't know if we have an easement back there or if there's just a setback. It's it's likely to be a setback. if you don't mind come up and state your name and address. Sorry. Judy Elmore and I attend Rock Church on 612 East Dixie, but uh I was uh wondering if the city council would uh consider a a preventative measure. um like uh establishing an ordinance or something for business owners and property owners to know ahead of time what the the rules are for easement to pre prevent I mean this is a remedial situation where it could have been prevented and the expense of the remedy could have been prevented if the Um, uh, if there had been something in place to let the purchaser of the property know ahead of time that this 20 to 34 e uh, foot easement is required so that they would not just go in and tear down established trees and this would be avoided and the residents would be avoided all the stress as well. So to answer your question, they do know well they don't know that necessarily that it's going to be buffering that's

required. That has to come from the planning commission and when they approve development plans and and different things like that, but they know that's a possibility. But when somebody owns a piece of property, if they want to tear down the trees, unfortunately they're allowed to tear down the trees. Now, they may be forced to put some back to which is I think what your point is, but it's it's that that's kind of what Julia is talking about. I think is Yeah, it's kind of like um putting the back of the horse before the front of the horse kind of thing.

Got it. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, we have some city council information items. The next meeting will be held on April 20th, 2026. We do have two very special dates this week. Tomorrow is Tim Isaac's 39th birthday.

So, I want to wish him happy birthday, Councilman Isaac's, and Wednesday is Councilman Lamar Jones's 38th birthday. So, he's just a year younger than Tim from what I understand. So, we want to wish both of them happy birthday and I hope you both know how much we appreciate you and the work you do for the city of Elizabeth Town. Anybody else have anything they want to add?

Mayor, I have one thing. On uh March 9th, there was a municipal order that came before this body regarding reservicing the tennis courts uh for the city of Elizabeth Town. At that time, I voted against it and stated why. While the city had had a great relationship with Tennis Technology over the years, I was involved in a situation where Tennis Technologies had done some work on a tennis court for Winchester Park. And for two years, we have been trying to get issues resolved. And we had no remedy to that. So, I voted against it. But I believe if you criticize someone, you also ought to appraise them when things are done right. And last week, Jeff Henderson, who owns tennis technology, came looked at the tennis court, and they have began work on that, and he offered apology to all the residents of Winchester Park. And as I told Ed and told the mayor this story, I I want to thank them for that. They responded to an issue, apologized for the ball being dropped, and that makes you feel good about doing businesses with uh business that care. And so, there was an issue of communication when the ball got dropped, but they have made it right. So, I want to publicly thank them and appreciate them taking care of it.

You don't want to revisit the vote? No, I think I'm already recorded just anybody else. Okay. With that, we will go close meeting pursuant to KS 61.810 810 section 1 as designated by motion to conduct deliberation on future acquisition or sale of real property by the city to discuss the general nature of existing and possible litigation by the city and to discuss specific economic development proposals. If I can get a motion in a second, please motion. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I

opposed. Seeing none, motion carries. We will go close session and we will not have any action coming out. Thank you all. Good to see everybody.