City Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Here we are.

our work session. I have a motion to receive and file the call call letter. So move second.

Any discussion? All in favor say I. All oppose. All right. This is probably our best meetings that we have to get things done and um looking forward to this and let's just jump right into the work and we've got a lot to uh uh to do and to look at. I don't know if we'll get to all of it, but we'll give it our best shot. Um and we can jump around. Sure. You know, with this however we want to do it. Um but you know right at the top of the list we do have economic development. I think all of us agree that that's probably our our number one um task that we want to continue to to work on all this time. And so I believe that um we have our Eden going to give us the presentation if you like to start with that and then we'll start our discussion.

All right. I'm gonna kind of stand up and move away from here. So, hi everyone. Thank you for letting me come and talk during the work session. Um, I placed a folder beside everyone and if you want to open that folder up with me, I'm going to go through it really briefly. Um, it is yours to keep and if you have any questions, please feel free to follow up with me. Um, on the left side you will see a few documents. One being the city of Ashlin economic development flyers that kind of goes through you know what we do specifically to increase economic development activities for the city. And then if you go to the second one, it is the smart start business guide that is also available online. That specifically is more geared to small businesses and how they can kind of gravitate towards like permitting and business license, all of the things that they need to start their small business. And the final one in the back is actually a build with us flyer and that's specifically for developers and investors that are interested in creating and building new opportunities in Ashlin specifically probably geared towards um construction and things like that. Now to the to the fun part. If you want to look to the right side. Um the very first um information is just a little department update and briefly go through um hotel recruitment is definitely a top priority for us. Business retention and expansion. So that is more more aligned towards our businesses that are already here. Um, specifically the VRE survey that has been distributed annually will go out at the end of this month. Um, some fun details for restaurant and development updates. Um, Midtown, I know a lot of people are interested in that and the owner has showed it to a few potential

occupants and I've listed those there. Um, Seven Brew Jersey Mike's and of course everybody is interested in Drakes. And if you can see down at the bottom, it definitely says that there are no changes in their current plans and they are still moving forward at this location. I have weekly conversations with Bluegrass Hospitality Group and that is still the truth. Um, I definitely understand everyone's frustration on, you know, timelines and things like that for Drake's construction, but I can assure you that all of the conversations that I've had with them are extremely positive and I don't foresee any issues with them coming. Um, some other things is in like industrial projects. I know everybody is very interested in Cleveland cliffs and there is always ongoing discussions with them you know regarding pricing of that industrial site and the next steps for that site. Um there's also some residential development as in housing is very important and there are a few town home developments that are being discussed and real estate and workforce. Um, you know, I have weekly meetings with different real estate agents and kind of get a property update and the workforce development. You know, we have a great development team for ACTC and KDMC and Marathon. So, that's just a little update. Um there's also another document within this folder and it is more or less you know a kind of a strategic plan for economic development that goes over some visions some goals that I see for the department and then if it's kind of a long document so I won't go into the nitty-gritty as we have a very long agenda. Um but if you have any questions pertaining to that feel free to call me or come by my office and we can set up a one-on-one meeting to further discuss any of those. And then the very last document is a copy of the city of Ashlin business

survey. Like I said, I've done those, you know, since I started here and I'm going to continue to do those and those will go out at the end of February and they're out for about 10ish days and it's also available on the website and sent out electronically and I also print out paper copies as well. Um, and as soon as those come in, I will formulate a report for for you all to review and we can continue to move forward in the way that we're moving forward. I wanted this to be short and sweet, but also, you know, a little bit of positivity in the sense that, you know, there's a lot of negativity that comes on social media and you can't really fault people for not knowing. But, you know, as I stand here today, I can definitely say, you know, economic development is moving forward in this city. There's a lot of good things happening. Whether or not they're being posted about on Facebook, I can assure you that our department is working very very hard and we will continue to work very hard. And so that's a little

I understand you know there there's there's um you know mechanisms that are you know to keep everything quiet you know that everybody you know at Jersey Mike doesn't want everybody to know they're trying to do this or do that. Um, you know, but you know, the commission wants to be involved and I'd like to find a way that we can filter information to them so they don't feel like we're not doing anything. Absolutely.

You know, on Cleveland cliffs with the property or, you know, the vacant properties, you know, that's I think that's where we lose um information. And I understand we have to sign the agreement that we don't talk about it and uh and that kind of thing. Um but if we could figure out a way to do that just a short update somehow. I don't I'm not sure how we would do it.

No, I agree. I think communication between economic development professionals and commission and you know elected officials is really important. We just have to figure out what form of communication works best for this team. Well, I mean, I come and ask, you know, uh, what are we working on? What are we doing? Um, but it's hard for a lot of the commission to get to that point. So, I'd like to figure out a way to to feed them information without, you know, and I know they're not going to go on Facebook and start posting it on Facebook.

Facebook's the new topics. Mayor, we can do a better job of reaching out to each commissioner individually, maybe weekly to give an update on some things if that's if that's the desire.

I don't I don't think there's a need to individually uh contact us, but there is a a need to share more information with the board. And with the board, it's also with the public. And it's um I think the public has a right to know that that we're active in pursuit of businesses, that we're active in pursuit of jobs, and um you know, the only way we can show that is in public media. I mean, rumor is one thing, but we need public disclosure. I hate the word transparency. I don't use the word transparency. It's information disclosure that we need to be involved with the public and they have a right to know up to a limit. We know that there are things we can't share, but there are things we need to share and we need to kind of get that mindset. And I frankly in in the last this is is my last year on the on the board, but in the first year I you know I've I've heard a lot of things going on, but there hasn't been a lot of public discussion. I think we need to increase. That's just my opinion. Well, I think these these work sessions are great. I think we ought to have them like once a quarter.

Yeah, we for sure. I think that's great. Talked about that. Do you all like this uh data coming to you all maybe uh for each commission meeting? Well, you know, this emailing that you're doing of reports is wonderful and you know, we're getting a lot of information, but that's not public disclosure. Again, all that's what I'm saying. Would you prefer a staff or a team member to brief the board when you meet? So,

we used to do that. Yes. Um, Mr. City Manager, if you remember, there was always one department head that maybe spent 10 or 15 minutes kind of updating, you know, what's going on in their department. I think that's a good thing. Yes, sir. I like that. Yes, sir. This past year where you started doing that, we we've got good information on it.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, go ahead. You know, I have a question for economic development staff. Is there hurdles that are in place that this commission may be able to look at uh moving out of the way? You know, we want to be as business friendly as possible. You know, I've I've heard concerns as well as I know others on this board about code enforcement, you know, building restrictions. Uh we receive I honestly receive calls probably once every couple weeks uh about those concerns. Uh is there any hindrance that that you all may have been may be aware of from the public uh that may prevent a business from coming to our community?

Yeah, the biggest hurdle that we have when dealing with new businesses coming into the community is communication. If we can get with them early, and I think that is the message to encourage anyone who's interested in opening up a business in Ashland to get with Eden or myself as early as possible because there are a lot of permits and other things. they have licenses they have to navigate through and the sooner they can engage with us the easier we can sort of navigate them through that uh that maze because it is it's you know just by its nature you know you're talking about plan review pulling permits I mean it is an intense process but it is that way for a reason we have to guarantee public safety when we approve any construction

so I guess the message would be encourage them to get involved with us as soon as possible we can work This guide I think is excellent. I think she did a fantastic job. You know, this walks them right through it. Absolutely. But the sooner we can get engaged, the easier we can make it on them. What happens a lot of times is that the work happens. They're already halfway down the road where they've even contacted us about pulling permits. Well, then they have to back out of what we've already done because it doesn't code and that's when things get sticky. But what we found is first off the reviews we get from outside developers who aren't used to developing in Ashlin always very positive.

Uh but those are the ones who are typically they know they're coming they know the drill they're coming from the outside. They go to communities all the time. They know their first move is to contact their building inspector, their code enforcement uh and their plan reviewers to get going forward. But if they've only developed in Ashland, perhaps they don't have that sort of exposure. And that's really just getting that message out to get them as involved as they can be early so we can help them save. And what what's the most important thing to small businesses? Time and money. And that's what we can do. We can help them save both if we can get in early.

You know, I I my my goal as a city commissioner, as I'm sure it's as it it is for the rest of the board and the mayor, uh, you know, we want to roll out the red carpet to business and we want to be as business friendly as we can be. So whatever that may look at look like, you know, I think we need to uh come to a conclusion and move forward with that. Uh you know, I know previous commission has put an ear mark of $2 million for economic development. What does that look like? What does that earmark what does that $2 million, what will that do for economic development? Our

$2 million was a bold move and it's been sitting in a fund here at the city for a while and we've been very prudent with that money on how we're going to use it. We did dip into it one time for an incentive to bring uh local uh headquarters into Ashland. They needed some help with some parking. So, we did dip into it for that. It's not much, but we did dip in. As you know, I mean, we have the largest piece of industrial property in the city limits that is uh you know, I actually Why don't I do this right now? I I gave you an update handed out right before the meeting sort of where we are with the Coke plant property. Um, as you can see from that handout, it's titled milestone update former co plant February 5th. I talked to Jake Elder this morning with Cox Environmental. He's representing the company that was hired by Cleveland Cliffs to do all the environmental remediation for that property. Uh if we can skip down, we've been over everything through E already. Although you might want to note that the EPA, US EPA has approved the remediation completion report as of October 20th. Right now, the environmental covenant draft is in the hands of the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection for review. What they do is they review it informally. They provide notes back to the company. the company will then make those recommended changes and then that will be submitted for record. Um what you see in that requirement number two in that environmental covenant is a site management plan that is in progress right now and that is daily communication between Cox environmental and Cleveland cliffs and uh Kentucky department of environmental protection. Um but what environmental protection has already given them to go ahead to do is to file the consent decree determination

uh termination rather. So what that does why that's important is that termination of the consent decree then allows the oversight for the coke plant property to go from the federal EPA to the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection in perpetuity. So at that point, EPA's out of it. We're dealing with the folks we know in Frankfurt. And at long story short, back to your original question about the $2 million where we've sat in economic development. We've always kind of held that money close to us thinking that at some point we're going to need to dip into that or something on that property, whether it's acquisition, infrastructure improvements. We felt like that would be the most prudent use for those funds because it would probably lead to the most bang for our buck in return on uh new tax revenue in the form of payroll tax or or other utility cost coming into the city. So knowing we've got one shot with that 2 million, we've sort of been stingy with it. We're holding on to see what we can do with the co plant property.

I don't know if it's a oneshot deal or not. Maybe there's a four shot deal in there. I mean, it can be used whatever way is most appropriate in your department. I mean, it doesn't have to be reserved to one $2 million deal. I mean, that's just my thought. I think that's a commitment. Well, I mean, there's enough property there that it could be several different projects, but so the the ones that gave us the updates, the monthly updates, it's out of their hands now into the state, right? So, yes and no. uh they're still communicating with the state on the uh environmental covenant that has to be filed. So they're negotiating the terms of that covenant.

Okay. So they're still interacting with and this is the same company environmental who's also done the West Works property for uh for Cleveland as well. So anyway, back to your question, uh Commissioner Rhyr, that's sort of where we've always felt like that $2 million would be best spent. You're talking about it being used for property acquisition, acquisition, infrastructure upgrades. My guess is probably mostly acquisition if not all. Thank you for the update. You're welcome.

I will say 20 years ago, Ashlin was right or wrong was labeled as not businessfriendly. I mean, if I said a show of hands here, who who's heard that? Hell, everybody would raise their hand. I think it has improved and I appreciate that fact.

In fact, we can we can actually quantify that. Uh, one thing Eden's done since she started working here, thank you for that. Uh, Eden has put out surveys to our business community every year. And to be clear, it's our business community, the ones that we work with uh, on a daily basis and and that she interacts with at least a couple times a year. uh and the reviews through those surveys have been phenomenal and she's more than willing to share and in fact our our 2026 survey is is due to be released. Yeah. At the end of this month. So we'll share those results soon. There's a misconception I think uh public misconception versus the reality of what we hear from our business which is

well again communication. Yeah.

Disclosure. Well, I appreciate what you do and I appreciate your department. Your your door is always open and I hear good things. I'm in the mall every day. There's 65 businesses under one one roof and I hear, you know, aggressively recruiting people that are appropriate for the the space. I hear people good things downtown and in South Ashland. And I always hear your names, Katherine and Eden and you. And so I'm I'm pleased. Um but uh getting back to you know just every commission meeting maybe two or three minutes of a presentation of an update might be good you know just a just what you can share.

Sure. Some things you can't share. The only thing I'll say with that is that economic development is typically pretty slow moving. Yeah. So, uh, you know, for instance, a a retail project or a restaurant project, the life cycle of that is, granted, it's been moved a little bit quicker here recently with some of our backfield restaurants, but it's typically about 12 to 18 months. Yeah. Look at how Drake's has gone. So, a lot of the updates will probably be, you know, Well, that's okay. Public needs to hear that because I hear it on the phone. When's this coming? Well, well, you know, we're in the process and this is what it's going to take. might be months.

And what you said, I certainly appreciate the the support this commission shown our department, of course, our city manager, Tony Grub. Uh, and we we do appreciate that support. So, thank you. We we give support and we expect results. That's exactly what he should and I would say thank you to Chris and his team. But just to recap, uh, so we want someone, uh, from Chris's department at least once a month to come in and do an update. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, and I would just I'll let Miss V make a comment, a real quick comment. We had talked about the $2 million that is earmarked or legally restricted uh in the general fund fund balance. uh that is still restricted but I'll let her make a uh further comment on it.

It is actually just restricted fund balance. There is no set aside actual cash for that because when they did it they set aside a portion of the fund balance and you have a fund with no liquidity. So there's not 2 million that is sitting there that would be available for use. meaning it's not growing because it's not set aside, right? It's it there's no cash set aside. So to give an incentive at this point, it would have to be buried funds. As we move through this though, I I do I just I see puzzle looks back there.

Yeah. So any comment? Okay. Is there is there a way do we have to go in and do something? Does this board have to make a decision? If you was to if you was to spend a portion of that fund balance if we had liquidity in it now, uh the board would have to go in and approve for us to to to actually expend it. Yes. Yes. Would there have to be a budget adjustment? You would have to do a budget adjustment. Yes. It's not there. liquidity in the in there never was. They never did say set set aside put $2 million in a separate account. When when was this done? I mean,

commissioner I I I think maybe three years ago 2021 2022 that longer. Yeah, it was it was during co something I'll present to you all later is I like to create a economic uh stabilization fund not an account but a fund that's separate that we'll start putting money in every quarterly to build up our fund balances to to to where we have liquidity. But I'll get to that when the appropriate time come.

All right. Um, let's move on. Anybody uh want to have one they want to uh go after. All right, let's just move down the line then. Um we do would love to have a final um downtown project cost and remaining issues or Yeah, I think it's not just the financial but right those actions that had to be taken beyond the you know the rewiring we just need a presentation.

Let me just give you a couple three numbers and then we'll have Barry come up and give you the I mean, I didn't necessarily mean today. I just No, no. We've actually got the stuff here for you. They've got it fair. The uh the actual project cost total was 9.2 million. The state gave us 7.95 and the city locally contributed 1.25 million. Do you have that in in documents? Uh sir, I can get it to you. That's just uh that's just my notes. So give me those numbers again if you would. Yes sir. 9.2 million total and then

7.95 million state local match 1.25 million. When this project was first thought of how much do they think it was going to cost? It ended up 9.2 million. Our portion was what? 400,000 to begin with. I I was going four to six. Okay. So, we went over 800,000. Yeah. The bids come in higher than they expected and then they did change orders. Was the original uh estimate 7 million? Barry might be able to speak with that. I just knew what I had to come up with.

Does that include the um what was the original cost estimate of the downtown project? The awardwinning downtown project? I'm not 100% for sure. I want to say whenever I first got here I think I somewhere like million7 million

does that include the legal fees didn't we have a legal bill that we had to pay that's for the conference center that that's all inclusive of engineering and um construction cost that's the number I gave earlier the 9.2 9.2 Would you like to take them through some of this? Yeah, please.

So, um, this project was funded through three different funding sources. We had KYTC, KYVA, and then the city level management. The project was broken up into multiple different sub projects in the project and they were all number coordinated between either 244, 307 or 3022 and basically whenever they first city first entered into these agreements with the state and with KYA um they broke down city streets into these individual projects and for the sake of funding these projects had I say projects it's all one project but all different contracts associated with it. Um they had different uh split allocations. So for instance like for 244 was 7th to 12th and then 18th to 21st. So this portion of the project was paid at an 8020 split 80% covered by KYA 20% covered by the city local match. And for 307 that's the downtown area uh 13 to 18. So portions of that were paid 80% by KYBA. other portions were paid 80% like KYTC and then the city provided the local match of 20%. And the same thing with with 302 I believe that was actually side streets like 15th and 16th from Winchester to Green Harbor. Um and the the three main costs that total up to that 19.2 million. So the main costs that we had were we had total construction cost, we had total construction administration and inspection cost and then we had design services cost. So for the total construction costs that was a little over 7.96 million and with that the state matched around or the state provided funding for a little over 6.92 million and the city local match was around 1.04. These are all round numbers or give or take you know a little bit one way or

another um for the construction inspection and administration services. So this was this was services that we paid at uh we paid Palmer for um construction admin that was uh 555,000 with a state local with a state match of $482,000 and a city local match of $73,000. Um and then the final one was the design services for the project. So this was done probably 20 22 or 23 um maybe before that. And um this totaled a little over $690,000 with the state uh providing $552,000 and the city local match was a little over $138,000. So it's all uh multiple contracts split up between multiple different funding sources that pay for the project.

Has there been a final acceptance of the project at this point? Essentially, yes. Yeah, that's there's nothing else that we've identified as anything else that's owed and there's nothing that we've identified that would be coming back in as a reimbursement due to the ongoing litigation. There were some documents that were requested from KYTC that uh I was not comfortable with Barry signing um and Blake Jones is working through us with that. Uh but essentially, yeah, there's nothing there's nothing further to to be done. State engineering group. No, no, that's with KY. That's KYTC. Yeah. So, again, we don't anticipate having to pay another dime for this.

Not that Not that we've been able to identify. No, there's no nothing hanging out there that we're aware of. So, who does it belong to? Do we do we own it or is it still underneath the state jurisdiction if we want to alter anything? My understanding is the roadway is still owned by the state. Is that your understanding, Mr. My understanding as well. Can we alter anything? Not without their approval. Is that your understanding as well, Mr. Atkins? That's correct. What about the landscaping?

Anything curb to curb is within state jurisdiction. You cannot alter anything without their approval. Anything from the curbs, that's different. that's within city ownership or city right away. Is that your understanding as well? My understanding. Yes. So, we can change that. What is it? We can alter that. You can alter anything outside the curbs without I mean you can alter anything within the area. It's just within the curb curb to curb you're going to have to the city would have to get state's permission. So, we can't alter the landscape. It depends on whether or not it's within the curve.

So if you're if you're going down Winchester, anything from this side of the curb to that side of the curb in the middle of the street, that's state and they have to give approval to say yes or no, you can do it or you can't do it. Anything outside that area on the sidewalks and the curb areas, not in the middle of the roadway, that's within our purview. And yes, at this point is the is Yes, we can because it's it's on the other side of the curve.

Well, it just it's it's specific on which part you're talking about. I mean, there's there's been discussions at some point about the median at at the intersection with Greenup and Winchester on uh the viuct. There's been discussions about uh you know sod and areas that are along Winchester. It it's just specific as to where it's it's actually located. Is it the grass you don't like? No, I hate that tumble weed. Whatever that looks like tumble weed. It looks like Death Valley coming through there at different times. It is our intention to change that out to It is your intention. Okay. That's what I want to hear. Yes, sir. I love it. Doesn't mean we can't change it. We just have to get approval before we change it. Is that kind

We have to get approval. That's our understanding, not the grass. that would include I mean there's been discussion about the idea of reversing the parking and having pull in instead of back in and making adjustments uh that would make that a possibility that would require state approval. That's our understanding. Yes. So you you you mentioned the um the medium there at Greenup Avenue where it goes on to Winchester near um down by the mall. So, will we make that um that request to them because I mean I think it looks awful at this point.

That's something that if if we want to have it changed, I believe it's in if if it's in between the curve. Yes, we would need to seek state. Yeah, it would it mean it's in it's the median. Yeah, it would require I mean it really is just to address it up is what we're doing. I don't think we're changing any part of the structure or anything. It's my understanding. It would still require approval. Correct. Touch it. That's correct. I mean, just simply put, it's not ours.

And just like they, you know, we wouldn't want them going into our areas of uh non-stateowned property or right away and changing stuff without our permission or approval. Uh, you know, from a legal standpoint, the only thing I can tell you is if it's not ours, we can't touch it without their approval. They got $7.9 million there. I guess I would be a little I just think it looks awful. I'd like to see a fixed. Yeah, I would too. Ever or how we do it. I mean, we'll just figure it out, I guess. I agree. Okay. All right. Um, thank you, Barry. Thanks, Barry.

Thanks, Mary. Um, we do have I know you all wanted some updates on the committees and with your commission we can move into the uh the homeless uh committee and kind of give you an update. We have some people here that um can give us a short presentation on some of the things that we're we're doing. But just briefly, um, we pulled together the committee and we have a a wide variety of of professionals that deal with the homeless all the time around the table. And with that said, um, they decided to help with the K count, which is a um, uh, state organized count of homeless. And matter of fact, that was just um they were going to do that. This committee was going to help uh and they had to redo that count and they're going to do it starting at 6 a.m. and it goes for like 12 or so hours or more. Um on February the 25th, just to update you on on that. Um they also want to do an additional count in the summer to give a better count um to see exactly where we're at and what we're what we're dealing with in in Ashlin. Um let's see. Uh consensus is is within the group that they want to attack the problem and keeping people from becoming homeless. and what can we do as a group to make that that work. Um, you know, for example, there are some people that they don't want the help. That's where they're at and they're fine with it. But, you know, when someone runs into difficulty, they lose uh their job, they lose their home, now they're homeless and how can we help and and stop that from from happening? Um, that's one of

the things that they've actually come up with. they want to uh to focus on. And we have some programs that I'll tell you about here in a second. Um some of the things that um they were talking about that um we haven't really focused on yet was a lot of the people, the individuals that are pushing the carts around, that's everything that they own. And you'll see them pushing them everywhere. And the reason is the professionals say is because they're afraid of losing that uh those possessions and they don't have anywhere to put those. So they don't go get um you know the necessary uh treatment that they need, medical treatment or something because they're afraid to lose their their stuff. So, we're looking at ways that we may be able to they may be able to lock those that stuff up and there were now they can go get uh they needed help that they need and possibly get them out of homelessness. Um we've looked at we've got individuals who have come in about storage containers, how we can work with them. Uh but the main project that we've um uh looking at is housing and helping those individuals that need the help that are on the on the street. One is um we would love to see another scope towers, a scope tower three uh developed. We have to figure out how to do that. Uh but that's that's one of the uh things we'd like to see an additional housing. But there the House of Grace has come to the uh committee or is actually part of the committee um to do a project. They're calling it the uh uh the dream uh center that was uh after a

u a project in California in Los Angeles. So, um, we do have Greg Tar here from the House of Grace to give us a little project with or outline of the project how we could uh how we can help with that. That when I say we, I'm talking about the committee. Um, but I think what is it's a it's another um homeless shelter, but what makes it unique is the programs that they are going to uh require out of those individuals staying there to help them not become homeless anymore. And I think that's a problem with what we want to look at. But Mr. Tar, if uh you would like to come forward and give us a presentation. was compatible with the presentation I've had. It's not compatible, but I can stand up and tell you about it. So, um, but my name is Brett Tar. I'm from the House of Grace and I'm the outreach coordinator and we began about four months ago as we joined the committee um looking at um how we can help this and it sort of took off. it just took off. Um, an incredible amount of support has come together and we've when we looked at what Pastor Gerardo Mahia and his wife Kathy, they're from California. Well, she's from here, but he's from California, but they were going to a church called Angela's Temple. And that was um they supported the and built the dream center out there and they saw how good that dream center was um with all the different programs they had for the homeless, for transitional housing. And that's where we got the idea to start moving forward with this because this is what they had envisioned when they first came here and started a church was not only so to, you know, love God and spread the gospel, but it was also to support the community. And they saw that as the way to do it here in this community when they began this church. So, we're located on 2413 Greenup Avenue and and it's right down in the area

where you see a lot of homeless people. It's about two blocks from the uh neighborhood. It's about four blocks from the the emergency shelter with the Salvation Army. So, we're centralized in a great location. What we're looking at doing is buying the property next door, which is the old AP building, and turn that into a transitional housing unit, but also a program attached to it based around case management. Case management is the key. And I think everybody in the committee and all the different agencies that we were talking to um began to say we've got to have wraparound services when they come in to this transitional housing unit have about hopefully we can get about 80 units in there. Um so it's a pretty good space. It's about 30,000 square feet. But what we want to do is not only wrap around services but also build it a structured program. Uh we just had a just very quickly we saw a huge difference in way we were running our our warming center. We had a during that storm this past week we had about a 10day nine-day operation. Opened up the church to everyone who who could come in and saw how it was unstructured. No rules just come in and sleep have some food. But then we saw how chaotic it can get. and very quickly with all the people with the different issues, mental health issues, um different u just disabilities um also if they're an addict active addiction. So we saw all these people coming together and you put a bunch of adults in that same room, it can be chaotic if you don't have rules. And so we developed rules. If I could interrupt just a minute, how many folks did did you

We took about 32 33 people over that 9-day period. It did we had about 17 to 20 maximum at one period of you know one point in time staying with us. Um we had on-site people cooking. We had volunt all volunteers cooking um three meals a day and so people could come in and sit down. We have people in cars with dogs and animals. So we house dogs and animals. Something that the Salvation Army can't do or won't do um is put put the pets up. Um we didn't see too many people with children. That's what I was expecting, but you did see people who living in their cars come in and get warm and use the facility. But it was a great outpouring of the community to support that. We had so much supplies and things coming in um just from people when we put it out on Facebook that uh we're doing this huge amount of support coming in left and right from different organizations. community kitchen donated food. There was just so much support. But we know that that needed a structured program. And so when we started looking at um the h the hand we call it the hands of grace um and this program it would also include um KDMC having medical personnel on the on board that needs assessment because we had a we had few medical incidents we need to take care of. We we didn't have we weren't trained, but we had a gentleman who overdosed and he was Narcan. A gentleman knew how to use Narcan. Got him back to life. He went to the hospital, came back the same day and um came back and said, "I'm going to long on long-term care because I need help and he wanted to thank us and he was crying thanking us to save his life because he knew that if we had he hadn't come to that open warm place where he could receive that service, he would have died. If he went to a McDonald's, anywhere else, he would have died that day. So, it's important to understand that we if you open your arms, you can help people. If you just be willing to open up your hands and say, "Come in,

we'll help you." And we did that and we saw the results. We sent six people just from the warming center. Six people went to recovery. One person went to a mental um mental facility to get mental health help. And we again it's just an incredible amount of outpouring of love over a nine-day period. And we see this as an example of what could be done over over at the hands of grace. Now the hands of grace, we've already formed kind of moving it forward. It started picking up speed pretty quickly. So we formed a a 501c3 that's been we have a board. We've met twice and as members of the community is KDMC. We have the Heidi Moore who's part of the homeless committee. She's the transition director of transitions at KDMC. We've got Ann Perkins. We got Mike on the on the board as well as representative from Regroup. And so those are all the people that would be inside our organization working with case managers from regroup and from pathways as well. I also have a board member from Pathways. So all those there to help those people with what they need with case management. is also getting them directed to the outside services. The structured program, the housing unit would be structured so that they learn discipline, learn living skills, things that they they don't know how to live in housing units when they get there. So, this would house people up to about two years. And that housing unit would be a continuous it wouldn't be like a lockdown program, but it's going to be a program that they have to have responsibilities. they'll learn the things that they need to do to be successful in the community and when they go back and integrate into scope three that's where you want them and um or into any kind of section 8 housing you want to be able to be successful at that. So many people that come off the street that go into housing they're not successful they're back out in the street. So this also incorporate people

coming out of uh re-entry into out of jail out of um different recovery centers. All those people have problems coming back out into uh into the into the street. Basically, they're putting them back in the street. They're just going to do the same thing unless they have a structured program. So, that's what we saw as what we could do. So, we move forward. We've got we've hired a um a basically a a um grant writer, a professional grant writer to help us build all the funding. We were working with Chris. He was started, you know, Chris said start in early, get him get talking to him. So, we we've been in the he's been a part of the committees. We've been talking to him trying to get all the things. We've talked to the developer. We've talked to we're getting ready to Savannah and Torp is going to be the attorneys that help us with the transaction. The church is approved at their last board meeting to go ahead and purchase the building, but they got to make a they got a lot there's a lot of contingencies in case the building is not the right building. So, we've started looking at other buildings potentially in case this building is not the right building for that project. Um what else we can do? Um so it's been a lot of things coming forward. Um to do the the environmental is one of the biggest pieces. We know that building has a lot of problems. Um we had that scheduled for January 19th, but when we talked to the realtor um he well she said that we needed to go ahead and make the offer first and then we could do the get inside and do the evaluation ESA phase one. So we've uh we've already scheduled the folks. We've contacted everybody to be part of this and uh everyone's on board and so we're moving forward. It's just it takes a little longer than you expect sometimes. We all have this enthusiasm to go forward, but that's what we're doing right now.

But I think what sets it apart is the participants are held accountable, you know, for what they're doing inside, you know, the the shelter. Yes. And and Mike's been very successful of of his program. it kind of models a little bit after what they do. Um, but the committee, uh, all those individuals will be able to be a part of that program to help them, you know, uh, provide all those services,

right? This takes them off the street. I think everyone sees them on the street. This is taking them off the street, putting them into housing so they can be successful um, up to up to two years. I want to say two-year program, but it's up to two years. and and each person's, you know, at different stages in their life, uh, st different stages of need. We're not a rehab program. We're not a mental health facility, but what we do is we connect them to the right people to get into those services that they need and because they have to conquer those things first. Those are the barriers and we're it's about eliminating the barriers and making sure they're going to be successful. But it's also going to create I think we're talking about economic development. We estimate about 15 to 20 jobs um over there plus a lot of volunteers inside the inside the program. We don't have regroup pathways and KDMC who have agreed. We've already got anou with

we all have been a part of that committee. Rick, I think it's really important you know uh what it sounds like what your organization may be doing and Mike's organization uh does hand ups are better than handouts. Unfortunately, you know, we have our community is a very caring and a very giving community. We have a lot of handouts, but we've got to start transitioning to hand ups because if we don't transition to hand ups, we're going to be stuck, you know, with with a large transit population. Uh, and you know, and I think for the most part, the transit population looks for hand ups. So, providing more hand ups is really key.

Now, we we doing just, you know, working I worked two years with Mike or two years for Mike and working over at the church. It's I've seen it. You know, you'll see people coming in looking for there's There's both. There's people looking for hand ups and then people need just a little push and man they take off because they want to make something out of their life and it's them it's getting them to want that and that's what the important piece is. It's the hardest piece is getting them to want something different from what their life is living

and but you got to put them in a program where they can see it work and see how people are being successful and moving out and getting a job. So there's there's going to be education there. There's going to be job training and there's going to be we've already talked to different organizations about coming in and doing job training especially for the restaurant industry. Um, so there's many things we're doing and we're planning and we we've just developed two committees or program side and basically a grant writing or fund writing fundraising side so we can get this thing going. So thanks for what you're doing. I appreciate you brea I appreciate your vision

and I think this is wonderful. if anything good happened out of this storm, it's it's your warming center and then how that how that played out that you see you saw the the need for it and you saw what people needed and so I I appreciate you. When the committee is meeting, are we giving the public notice of the Yes, it's been held just like our meeting. And uh secondly, did the did the committee meet during the the weather issue in terms of whether there were special things that needed to be done during that time frame? And it sounds like some of the folks addressed the things that

they coordinated that we didn't meet but they coordinated it. You know, you got the information out for housing grade.

You know, you mentioned the organization or the group that talked about um another scope towers or another, you know, lowinccome housing. I think low-inccome housing is good. But we've also got to look at work ready housing. You know, if we've got economic development coming into our community, whether it's Ashley, Wood County, C, Green County, Orange County, Ohio, folks need a place to live. You know, uh we have a lot of low-income housing here, but we we need more work ready housing. That way folks, you know, maybe nurses that move into our community, managers at restaurants, you know, if we get a manufacturing facility or small manufacturing, those folks, you know, we need to look at that. Michelle and I talked, I think last year when I got elected, we discussed about looking to see if there was a way we could do another pard project, something similar to Pard.

I think maybe when we have one of the work sessions in the quarter, we could actually invite Frontier Housing and see what kind of programs that they have to help Frontier Housing. part of our our committee. I mean there's um just for example there's CARES Remy Eastep uh the neighborhood um House of Grace um Hillrest Bruce L love well center uh KDMC welcome house um Salvation Army all of these people you know deal uh United Way uh ACTC um which you know we tap into all of that um those individuals to find out how to to take care of that. But I'd love to see the what's going on once what you just talked about our urban renewal really kicking them into gear. And I appreciate the proactive plan about looking at East Ashland uh zoning requirements on the lots. You know, a lot of those lots are shotgun style home lots, 50 by whatever, 50 by 100. We know that you can build a house uh on a 50 by100 lot, but but zoning doesn't zoning regulations don't allow that. So, we need to look at repealing those zoning regulations if possible.

Tiny home. Yeah. Or creating a special district or creating a special district. Yeah. I think we need to put Mike Miller on that committee because I talked to him about the scope and he's got another different idea about this. So, I need I think he needs to be included. Commissioner Dude, if I could Mike Miller has been very involved in conversations with the AU and the board. Okay. Doing some spot development and also they've discussed growth with both the board and Okay. He is pretty he's been involved in Okay.

All right. Any other questions? All right. Thanks, Greg, for coming. Um we want it small teams. Yeah. All you want to uh talk about the IT um the small teams that you developed. Yeah, sure. Um a lot of great savings here. I'd have to uh refer this to the resident expert here. I think maybe two of them. Uh Ryan Connley and Adam. Is Adam back here? Yes. If you two could come forward and give us a brief update, please. These two guys are like Steve Jobs. Yeah,

our mission was pretty easy. I was going to say Bill Gates, but that's probably not a popular choice right now. Not right now.

CM told us to streamline the process to reduce friction and eliminate and elevate the performance of the IT infrastructure. So coming in, that's what we that was our plan and that's what we've done. We consolidated a lot of things. Um, we've learned ways to basically take all the different departments, different IT structures, and merge them into one. And that brought us a lot of value because we could consolidate all those licenses into one, and then we're operating off of one system. Some of the stuff that Adam will talk about is a lot of the hardware. We know we know the initial uh cost that we were able to get down. Right now we are on pace because we're in the process of between 300 and 400,000 a reduction in annual recurring cost and that's from consolidating all the you know like our Outlook 365 a lot of our security systems uh softwares cloud systems and all that. So uh that's a really good savings for us as a bonus. Um parks department really saved the day. We were having trouble because we have to run wire with all this new stuff. Uh so we just had a lot of old equipment that couldn't run off of the current wiring. Uh oddly that's about $1,000 a drop when we got a bid. They've been helping us uh every day. There's a team of three of Jason, Caleb, and Mason who've been knocking it out for us. Uh and I mean we're talking about $185,000 savings just in what we will accomplish knowing how many drops we have to pull just by using our our team, our city team. And that's that's the labor part. Adam's doing most of the hard work with the equipment we throw in.

Yeah. So, uh, when we started this last year, this started off as, uh, basically getting internet to all of our city sites. And we plan to start out with 18 sites. Uh, currently, well, that has morphed into internet, access control, which is your key cards that get you in the building, and, uh, phone systems. So, now that we're doing everything, uh, currently we're at 15 sites completed. Got the major ones out of the way. City buildings, police department, fire department. Uh, I think we're actually going to finish at about 20 sites total. Uh, we're probably about five more to go. Uh, but that's getting in the infrastructure, the network, the backbone of everything that's going to run everything where, you know, we go from three to four vendors per site to just us.

Yes. So, for instance, we had over 15 vendors that we've already dealt with that we consolidated down to one. So, instead of paying 15 people, you know, we're paying one at a much reduced rate because we're doing most of the work on the once we get it set up. Um, another thing they had us look at with our our cellar bill. Um, it's pretty impressive. So, we were able to negotiate that down from devices for up to providing them to us for free to 90% savings. Uh we got the accounts down um over 100,000 just by consolidating that, changing services, having a bid process, and we and we've told them like we're going to competitively bid every two years. We want you in the game, but you know, let us know what it is. So, the good thing too that you may or may not know about is with our contracts, we were able to get with kind of a you've heard of FirstNet, I guess, but all these services now offer kind of a government service like that. And part of that contract that we're able to work in there is that they don't hold you to a one, two, fiveyear contract anymore. So when we negotiate these deals, that's why we we tell them up front, you can help us out with the equipment. That's great. We really appreciate it. Um, and that makes you more competitive, but we're not signing a contract. So we're trying to stay out of of that business if we can, you know, if we see that it benefits the city. And so far, it has dramatically benefited us. Um, phone system, Adam touched on that. We're that seems to be going pretty good. The biggest hurdle we're we're on right now is we're tackling our ISPs um our internet service provider. We're that's where we're struggling the most. Now that we have the equipment in place, we call it the backbone equipment, we can see. So once you once the internet comes in your building and then and then goes out, we can see where most of our issues are. And it's our internet. It's our it's our ISPs that are coming in. We're just some buildings don't have enough. Some buildings are running off of basically residential internet and we do

everything if you don't know with the internet. So, so, uh, we are currently, uh, evaluating that. We have some bids out now. Um, Kinetic is coming in strong. They've ran a new fiber backbone all the way through here. Spectrum's still strong. Uh, and and we're we're just seeing where they're at with it and who's going to and who's going to provide us the best deal for what we need at every city. So, or in every site. So basically we now with this backbone equipment that that Adams put in, we can see how much data they're using. So we don't buy too much or too little, right? We just we know exactly where it is. With our phone system, we can tell you who's getting how many calls, you know, do we have enough service reps there? You know, how long um are we staying on the call? Like one of our goals that we said is no one no one doesn't no one has to wait more than 60 seconds when the phone rings and they're knocking out of the park on that downstairs but they can see the metrics in real time so the supervisors can see it too and then it kind of does a roundroin on the on the phone call trees but this tech is really we're just trying to make the tech be its own team and work for the city the best we can. So when we give you all these decisions, we can say, well, it's because, you know, we're getting 600 calls and we used to get 300 calls, you know, that sort of thing. But, uh, along the way, we've just been doing what the city manager told us to do is to be more efficient. So,

well, it's I mean, not only efficient, I mean, but we're getting the job done inhouse and saving you from the contract that we had, you know, well, we paid over a million dollars. I don't know. We paid 1.1 million to VC3 with only negligible improvements. Uh the phone system alone, it was going to cost us every 5 years probably 175,000 just to update these things. I say they've saved us with their improvements and stuff. I say 900,000

in a million. And some of these gifts are going to keep on giving because they've took us out of the dark ages in some of these areas. and put we're actually got improved technology with these savings, new technology. Correct.

And some of the savings, you know, they've let us they've let us reinvest back in the city. So, you know, you we're over at FD now putting in, you know, all all new stuff. Well, that's great. And new cameras and all that. And so, you know, it is a savings, but we're not just leaving it as savings. We're we're reinvesting into the equipment. So, that Well, for instance, your keys, right? you we we used to have to have I don't know chief how many keys do you have 200 keys I don't know how many he's got but now you have one you know and we can instantly turn it off and on by the employee whatever the situation may be you know we can add people as we go that stuff so we like she said we're that that reinvestment has really taken us further too because this is now we don't have to go around collecting key it's the little things right you don't have to go around changing locks because somebody lost a key it's just all these little things that that have really been adding up and we do an okay job at tracking it, but Adam's been moving so fast. Like we we we really we really are just plug when we get in the groove, we we just go for it. So, so far so good. I mean, it definitely comes with its risk, but we're trying to mitigate those as we go along. A lot of it is we've moved a lot of our hardware off premise. So, the servers and stuff that you're probably familiar with that we always have to invest in and those are, you know, sometimes 40 $50,000 a piece. A lot of this stuff we have moved on premise to to cloud storage so we can have a a very serious set of redundancy backup and stuff but most importantly for you all we're not buying them every few years you know we we're spreading that out and and by doing that we get the best and latest technology all the time so it's the fastest. So our, you know, our next big investment is is the internet. U we we've got to take that very seriously because we're using more cloud storage than we have, but it's a much smaller price to pay than hardware.

Chief, this also provides cyber security, correct? Yes. Yeah, we have multi-layers. We usually don't discuss it in the open meeting, but we have multiple layers of of that security. Uh I mean, as far as the branding and how we do it, but yes, thank you for pointing out that it's a big part of it. Uh there's some expense there, but again, what that's what uh Michelle's let us do is, you know, we we we ask, we show the savings, you know, we compare it to old, compare it to new, and say, "Hey, this would be really good." And she's uh you know, keeps us in check, but it's been green light all the way. So, they've uh they've helped us on our uh operational cost reduction. Um it's been significant. Great job.

Yeah, kudos to these two guys. Absolutely stellar job. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I appreciate it. Hope it seems going smooth, but so far it's going pretty good. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Might be good at some point, Tony, to to document what these savings are and what the change. We are we are working on the tab. Okay. I've got it in my um state of the city address. Okay.

That I'm going to send to you guys and you can look at it. Sounds good. um they gave me more information than I need. So I'm you right now going through it, but u I'll be able to talk about a lot of those savings and they they are significant. How much does that pull you away from your real job? Well, being a police officer get pulled away. I just have to work. I'd love to tell you I can move and you don't get overtime, right? Good. That's the main thing. That's another cost saver.

All right. Another thing that's on our mind is budget. I know we started early on it, but um we got on here about acceleration. Just off the top of my head, I think we're probably looking at April uh to start the budget work prog process and adopt. Michelle, maybe you can speak to some more detail. Um, we gave the budgets to the departments in October. They gave them back to finance in December. The city manager is going to provide you budgets in mid-Marchch and then we'll start budget work sessions in April. So, we've basically going to cut two months off the process. That's good.

Yeah. Great. Like to see that. Yes, sir. Um, do we want to talk about the line of credit? Uh, the line of credit financial performance. We're certainly able. Yes, sir.

In January when we took uh you took office, the city did not have sufficient cash flow to meet its obligations. So, as you know, we took immediate corrective action in establishing a lot of credit where we could uh pay our basic operation expense and prevent the disruption of city services. So, I think the city manager gave you all a goal that he wanted to be off the line of credit by uh December. I think our reliance on it um significantly reduced about September. The we implemented our expense reductions citywide and the expense reductions are most of it was in personnel cost. We did it. We yeah we'll also talk about later that we did some small teams in water. Um we've actually found additional revenue there. We basically we cut uh we stopped operational cost. We cut tribal training only to essential. We've uh not hired unless it's an essential position. These critical permanent expense reductions I think still need to be made. Um the city has no liquidity. Um it tightened back up in end of December as far as you know we were holding where we choosing where we paid to do something. I think we've made great strides, but I don't think we're done. And I want to tell you a little bit.

I think let let me back up if you don't care. I think what she's she was saying when she talked about holding, the city has a legal obligation to pay its vendor within 30 days. So, a lot of times instead of us sending out the check the first week, we would wait through the third week. So, we're trying to stagger these to keep us off the line of credit. If I can ask you any sense and I asked you this before an open meeting but I think it bears repeating had we not gone on line of credit what would your financial obligation what was your other avenue of what would have happened

we would have laid off and we would have disrupted city services that we provided we would have start cutting them and those layoffs would have been citywide right

it would just citywide and I I want to stress that the positions the 1.4 million that we cut out of payroll and payroll is 32.5 million of the city budget. It's our most significant expense um that we have is payroll and the benefits. We are a service industry. We provide service to our citizens and our utility customers. So most of our expense lies in payroll. Um, when we did that, we did we cut a lot of we cut three department head positions and you all chose a city manager who we have not filled his his role as chief financial officer. So, we're we have a $245,000 savings that were doing multiple jobs. And then we cut three department head positions that were um enacted by you know previous uh how we kind of got there with with payroll 2 is in the last seven years we added about 30 positions to the city's um authorized position list

in three years in seven seven 30 people 30 with a estimated cost of about 2.6 6 million. So, good. That's like, you know, some of the things how we got there. Um, we have we bought a parking garage and the operations of parking garage were like a $600,000 loss. The IT contract cost, you know, when I talk when they come up here and they have real savings, we paid out 1.1 million just to VC3. That doesn't even include the the phone savings that they've took over and cut down to nothing because and explain who who is VC3.

VC3 was an outside IT person that would we could call if we needed our password changed or need something updated. And in the three years that we had them, when I say they made they took us out of the dark ages to current technology, VC3 really there was negligible improvement into our IT system. Well, they weren't even here. How many times they were just monitoring emails? How many times did we have to pay a an additional subcontractor for IT work to come in? Oh yeah, we uh we paid while having VC3

constantly. Constantly because they were not here. We hired a local IT person that used to work for us. We paid him significant money and ironically when VC3 hired him, they sent us the bill. So every time they hired him to do work, we paid the bill for him also. And we also had to pay another local um company to upgrade our phone server. I just want to point out this was against my will or my better judgment just Yes. Um we had to pay an outf

because they could not fix our phones. So, we had to hire another local person in addition to BC3, the outside IT person, to actually fix our phones and keep our phone software and stuff updated, which was probably I did not I did not get a chance to look at that cost, but it w it it was probably 150,000 easily on top of what BC3 was. And now we have, you know, they've done an amazing job and they have spent so much time like fixing it, you know, and we hope once they get all the infrastructure in place, it'll make their lives easier and, you know, Mitch's easier. I think it needs to be said that the two guys are extremely well trained, too.

They are extremely well trained. They've uh I think they've both with the FBI and police training. We are very fortunate to have them. um getting a lot better service.

Yes. And we know they talked about the park guys. I think my favorite part of working here right now is the cohesive team, the parks, streets, different people. They work with other departments. We have the best of our best working together to achieve great results. So, um and they're also the park guys, as you notice, some of our city building improvements. They're they're in here uh after they do their shift and they're they've changed out lights. The whole first floor is into LED lighting. So, we now no longer have to pay it's cheaper on electricity and it's going to be cheaper and I don't have to change light bulbs out.

So, you mentioned the parking garage. Um is the parking garage in any greater use now that the city owns it than it was when the bank owns it? I think you can give a Did you give me a revenue number for a month? Oh, for a year was $14. We We brought in $14. Yeah. And I think I think the other year, sir, was like 400 something. Well, I appreciate whoever paid that $14. That was That was pretty big of Had they known, they probably wouldn't have done that. $14.

How much did we budget? Say we anticipated revenue from the parking garage. I would have to look, but I was we were conservative. I think we did like 10,000. But here's where we So, we thought we was going to get 10,000. We got 14. Yes.

Because we were supposed to implement a parking plan which would have charged people to park there. And they were going, the previous parking plan was to charge um $3 for every two hours downtown. While we're speaking of finances, um this was also a number that Mr. Grub and I didn't agree with, but for three different years, we never implemented the parking. We bought those quarter of a million dollars worth of machines. We never could make a decision what to go forward. Yet, we were budgeting $500,000 in the general fund every year and we were collecting zero. And

where did you make that money up at? I mean, you're not that's part of your liquidity problem. And and by the way, the machines that we purchased could not have been installed with the existing downtown electrical layout. The lack of that lack of No, sir. They could not have been installed and we've actually tried to sell them and nobody wants them. Imagine that. And that was verified through an electrical engineer, wasn't it, Barry? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. All right. So, who is here?

So, the the parking that's like $1.5 million that was taken out of fund balance because that kept getting budgeted every year. And Mr. Grub and I were always like, you know, we had this budgeted, when are we going to implement? And we it never got implemented. I I would ask the question, and maybe this is an appropriate time, so some somebody tell me this, but I mean, is there any way we can give the parking garage back? Is there a legal clause we can give it back? Well, that's a good question. I don't think they would want it back. Um, maybe they would have to take it back. I mean, I don't I don't I don't know that you could uh

uh I mean, the bank gets the benefit of it, uh of the of the drive-thru. We get the risk, we get the expense. How much tax base was pulled off the tax rolls? That was what I was probably about 15 grand. It was It wasn't a whole lot as far as like what they paid in the tax bill. Um but we're not receiving that. We're not receiving that. No. We got $14. Yeah. You know, in addition, serious question. I mean, I don't I don't

because we were in the later stages of the parking garage. It was like basically they already agreed to do it and had all the documents when we were sent it. We even Tony and I made a proposal. It'd be cheaper if we just purchased it. We actually had some rental income coming in. But there's no income coming in for 50 years. We're in charge of all the expenses and they get their what they have for free. Responsible for the maintenance of the entire garage and we gave them a 50-year lease in their current use without cost. Yes, sir. And gave up the tax that we were being paid when it was undetected. Plus, we signed something with the IRS to give them a big tax deduction for their donation.

Let's move on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I think we all want to uh discuss the uh the visit Ashlin and I know we have the team here to to um

before we get there just just let me make a comment. Uh that goes back to what I was talking about early some kind of stabilization fund that we create. I would I would respectfully ask this commission to set up some kind of a stabilization fund where the city either puts in x amount of dollars quarterly, monthly, something to build up the reserves. It's restricted uh meaning that it would take the board to move money out of it. And we are talking about cash like real money in the account. And it would also take if a board member uh would come up with an idea or whatever the board votes on it, you'd also have to have a mechanism to put money back into it over x amount of time. Um I would

Why don't you make that as part of your budget proposal? Yes, sir. Thank you. And Mr. Willer has drafted a draft ordinance for the the count or that's one of the things or you all can vote on it too. I mean this is nothing more than a rainy day fund an an old term a rainy day fund. Uh we could look at it in terms of the the the the amount how you want to do it. Uh you could do 25% of the prior year budgeted expenditures or we could uh we could come up and set up with a dollar amount. Uh but can we do that still be on a line of credit?

Uh that's going to be tough sir. I mean uh I had one more go ahead.

I have one more proposal and something that I think is very important for our future financial health. As I said, the 32.5 million is in our city budget of personnel cost. We have currently about 15 vacant positions that Mr. Grab is intentionally not filled. We would like to move forward to come up with a plan where we cut the city's workforce, um, put people in other jobs or cut our current authorized positions where we can save additional money where we'll never be on the line of credit again. We can save that money that we have to build up our fund balance and our liquidity.

Well, you know my position on this. As long as not one person loses their job, that's why he's kept he's kept 15 positions open. He's intentionally not filled them for we can take the city where it needs to be financially. You know, I think we need without them now. Well, I I think we need to look at that, but also I think we need to be cognizant of of the impact of city services. Oh, of course. Yeah. departmental services. I know there's some departments that are short now, you know, that are that are running tight,

but there's also some places that I believe or we believe that um somebody may not have a full-time role that some of this can could be combined into them doing more and us reducing the payroll expense. And I think I brought it up to you and Mr. Grub. Um, you know, some positions we may have vacant that are full-time. You know, they consist of your your salary and then your benefits. Are there some avenues where we may be able to shift those uh in the budget to part-time regular positions?

There there is, of course, and and something that we do and in finance and we've done and I think uh public works does also is we hire seasonal positions or people that are not full-time. And it's kind of it kind of works out well because you don't have to pay the benefits to start with and then these people eventually have taken full-time city jobs, but it is on the job um they're kind of like got on the job interview.

You kind of weed out people that are excellent you that are not so good and you you keep a lot of excellent staff when you have a full-time position open that you're going to fill but you save money in the long run. And something else that I' I've thought about and and I've voiced my concern on is, you know, u I think that, you know, it's very I think it's good for us to look at potential uh employee uh you know, cost of living adjustments and CPI,

but I want to know when we do that, why does the entire scale for an employee salary have to move? Only time that we've actually the reason that we move those is inflation.

We keep the persons they're not really getting a pay raise. They're buying power is just moving with the rate of inflation. They're not getting a pay raise. Their buying power their salaries no matter what level it is is moving up with inflation. So if you look at the market basket of goods that the employees buying be housing, uh milk, uh electricity, the amount that is going up by inflation, it keeps the employee at the same rate. Also, our personnel policy says that we should we have to do that every certain years and it keeps our compensation study relevant because like if outside market employees, you know, it goes up, it kind of keeps ours for the same jobs going up. I hope the next time we do a a study, we limit it to cities of the same size and economic condition as Ashlin as opposed to the general job market. I think uh we sometimes get things a little skewed in terms of governmental jobs versus the the market as a whole. um don't want to adversely affect our employees, but I want them to be in line with what other cities are being are paying their employees around the state.

You know, I also think we need to look at, you know, new positions coming in, not so much created new positions, but new employees to new jobs. You know, we've got folks here making a significant amount of money. Uh uh and and I'm not talking about directly impacting the folks that we have here now. Now, I mean, we've got a great work workforce, but you bring somebody in off the street for a for a job such as, you know, even a secretarial job making, you know, $25$28 an hour. I mean, that's just that's private sector uh uh job rates. And, you know, we're running off taxpayer dollar. I would submit to you that's above private data that I have uh that it's above

and the comp study was not all went on the recommendations of the people it it was I think it was changed a lot by the person in the job massage some yes you know we we these are legacy costs you create these jobs you have these legacy costs until you take those jobs out of the budget so you know that's something that we need to look at through maybe through attrition and different in different avenues, but I think some of our pay scale needs to be adjusted for new hires coming in. I'd like a note of that, sir.

You know, when we we did something else we did with the compensation study, I think the reason a lot of these that you know, and Tony mentioned that they're outside the scale for, you know, even public and private industry is it got compressed so much. You literally have supervisors and employees in the same grading scale that they wanted to compress it into like 18 different little scales. So it it gave people I think higher pays than it should have because of the compression of the scales. But I also think too, you know, if you got an employee that's been in a position that's a labor position for 30 30 years and their supervisor walks off the street, I don't see why a supervisor would be making 15 to 20% more than that person that's, you know, put in their blood, sweat, and tears for 30 years or so. But I I I understand that there should be a difference between supervisor employee, but you know, I don't I don't think there should be a significant difference. And I think that we have a lot of supervision here and moving forward we need to look at potentially scaling some of that back and actually have more folks on the ground doing the daily task the daily duties to serve the city.

We we some of our initial cuts was around and and that that was great because we've we've eventually we've not filled four department head positions.

Um Mr. Murray took on two roles. Uh Tony took on two roles. I mean and then we just eliminated some and you know people took pieces and parts of it but they they created so many department heads. I mean used to make back here there wasn't a place to sit. We we rightsized that. I mean we when we made the recommendations to you all when we changed them that was rightsized them. And we also when we made the changes too, we we looked at long-term um especially in the Department of Public Services, we we took some employees. We did not create a position, but we did like a 5% increase to make them an entry frontline supervisor. So when we lose people to retirement or somewhere else, we have someone trained to supervise or if the superintendent is gone, we have someone that can step up to that position. So we're we also looked at the changes for long-term not to leave the city in a void for someone that does not know how to run the department of the division.

Well, as you mentioned, I think we continue to consolidate as much as we can. Yes. you know, if we can save in in decisions, that's where we need to do it.

So, we we will move forward with that. So, when we go into the 2027 budget, the 2027 budget will be with less personnel cost, which gives us more money to fix our liquidity. It keeps us off the line of credit, and it actually allows you all to put money on the street to do things for the citizens, be it paving, sidewalks, or different work. Okay, very good. Uh let's move on this to uh the visit AKY. Um I think you have some material. Yes.

I was not expecting to come today. I thought it was next Thursday and then I I was like I'm I'm coming. Here I come. So here I am guys. Which way is the easiest? This way. Where are we going to say? That's fine. You're good. That's fine.

We give them We give a 35. So there is I can memorize this. Okay. We'll take a break. I need a donut. I'm ready to Okay. All right, Miss All right. Well,

what are we What are we looking at here? So, what you're looking at here is an event budget breakdown between last year and then the cost of the events this year. I don't know if you guys know, but of course the tourism commission is over touristic events, but they've also been overseeing community events for the last few years with the help of Ashlin in Motion, which is a separate nonprofit. Um, we've had a loss of $150,000 in ARPA funding that that grant had come right after COVID. So, we're working on a an increased deficit as well as decreased um sponsorships, you know, the economic climate, the fact that people aren't giving as much as as they had been. But looking at it from the perspective of how much it cost last year versus how much it's going to cost us this year to be able to do the same things and add a few things. I mean there's a few things that are in here that are are a a great hope for me. Um like the infinity con, but part of the increases on stuff that you guys are used to having like our first Fridays. our first Friday's increased from the 18,000 that it had been what it usually costs to be able to do the entertainment, the inflatables, the cost of insurance, things like that. Um, it's going to cost us a little bit more now with the the presence of police officers and making sure it's safe and making sure everything is where it needs to be. So, it's going to take it from being $3,000 each time to 5,000. So, and with inflation, just like anything else, sometimes the the cost of entertainment, the cost of inflatables, the cost of insurance, those kinds of things increase as we go. Um, the Ashlin in motion events are the first Fridays um Birkinfest and Gravy Bowl. Those are

tip fair Ashlin in motion who subcontract visit Ashlin. The others are visit Ashlin events that we would like to do that will bring in also community and tourism like having the sunset scenes where we have the movies down on the riverfront. Um but we do need help um with that loss of funding and the loss of the ARPA funding. We're I run that up $150,000 less than than Brandy did before and that's just because of having the money after co. So what this is is showing you a breakdown of all the events that we are planning to have and there's some that pop in on us too um in this year the 2026 into 2020 the first of 2027 and how much it costs. I broke it down into how much it costs from like a perspective of materials, marketing, and I also added a payroll implement on that. But that I separated in the very end. So you can see the difference between what it costs to just have the event from like so if we just did a basis of events, it would cost us $143,70. And with payroll, the amount of time that we spend on it formulating is about $27,000. Our budget at visit AKY is $220,000. So with $220,000 come from transient tax, which is tax from the hotel. Um, for the people who don't know that that's how we get our funding. Um, we are supposed to do all of our brochures, sell the city at trade shows, go to busing conventions, try to come up with tour bus things for the area to to get kids involved or get, you know, elderly involved to do their tour bus stops

here. Um, and that doesn't leave much money left. So the hope is that with I'm I'm going to do a PowerPoint presentation for you guys too. That was something that's the whole reason I thought it was next Thursday so that you could see the breakdown of what it is that we are doing and how we've been doing it and what KTIA which is the Kentucky um travel industry association what they they want me to do from my position and from what a community standpoint. So we don't drop anything. We want to make sure that everything stays elevated and it stays moving forward. Um, Yep. That's pretty much what I Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah.

Like on first Fridays here. Yes. Are you requesting two police officers or are you told you need two police officers? It's just going form. It's in the form that I fill out. So that's how I help me equate that. So when I send in my form um to do events, we have to send in an a form and they approved or denied and then they send it back. It just shows me what the estimation is for what I'm needing. So like if I if first Friday to keep it safe, we probably do need two police officers per hour and four monitors if the EDC is activated. Who pays those police officers? Um that's going to be us.

You do you pay them individually or do you pay the city? So, this is the first time that I've ever had this. You want to chime in, chief?

Hi, Chief. schedule it. And uh the original plan was for it to be reimbursed uh from the organization and uh in the past that was basically bypassed and now reevaluating and everything charged per officer that time that we get reimbured. The cost you see there what it is just actual employee cost. Does it cost for the cruiser? Does it cost for uh back over time or anything like that? That's what it cost city to somebody out there.

Chief, I think the question is the city been bearing the cost? Yes. Okay. That was the question really. So the the city's been bearing the cost out of just out of your budget. There been no reimbursement. Yeah. Is this considered a city sponsored event? First Friday. It has the last well the years. I would think if it was a city sponsored event, we shouldn't charge. Or you could actually do an inind contribution for the police to be there for the streets to be there. Or there's a there's one here. It says $10,000. Now that is actually police and the barricades.

Yeah. That's for infinitely. That's that's a would be a touristic event. That's the video game conference. That would be different and we would want Are we playing or are we just absorbing absorbing? You've been Yeah. It just hasn't came from visit AKY. That's that's pretty much the difference. And now that looking at it from a sales perspective and and my background is regional sales and looking at it return on investment, how much money we have versus how much money we can spend. And I'm like, oh well, that puts us in in negative. So we we don't want to do that. We want to continue to move forward or look at it from a budget perspective so that whenever I sit down and come up with what we can do, I'm able to do it from a realistic perspective.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If we're going to I think my recommendation would be we do it in kind. It's about $35,000 for these events. I mean, I know I don't get the vote. That's just my opinion. Well, I mean, that's what I was going to suggest. That's why I brought it up and I'm sure Commissioner Renfro as well. So with with these votes it's with her estimates it's 34860 I think that was quick on my phone of inind contributions and you all are also doing in kind contributions. We do let them use the Ashlin train station without charging.

Do we maintain any record of of what we're um spending in kind on these events? We do not with her because we've never really tracked it. The chief may have tracked it, but on the financials I think we have for like summer motion and poke landing, but we have never for these smaller events. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But I can of course keep track of that because each month that I have events, I have to do a breakdown of what we have. I have to know what our budget is. I have to know how much money we have in the bank, how much has been spent on what. So, I can always put that as a thing. If if you guys are so kind to do that, then I'll make sure that it's it's a piece in there that you see that it come back in kind. That way, at the end of the year when you do finances, you're able to say, "Okay, well, we gave back this much in an inind." And that helps tremendously. I mean, honestly, at this point, every little bit is a is a big bit, you know, in in the world we live in. And being in that kind of a deficit and and being new in the office, you just kind of go, uhoh, what do we do here? And I'm I'm very grateful that you guys are taking the time out of your day to listen and

Okay. Your relationship with uh actually a motion. You said you subcontract. They subcontract us. those events belong to them. I guess they they're who started them. So Ashlin in Motion is a nonprofit that's separate than Visit AKY and they began I guess they started out as Main Street years ago, right?

Um and then evolved into Ashlin in Motion and they have subcontracted Visit Ashland to help them put these on. So basically the money that had been coming in from the city was to pay um an employee to be able to do them because it does take a lot of time when you break it down on how long it takes to do that. It does take some time. What other funding sources does Ashlin Emotion have? Uh I think it's just that's it's because they I think there used to be other sources. I don't think there are any.

They don't. I mean, I've asked for sponsorships this year as a partnership thing for us to have um to add Ashlin in motion and visit Ashlin together to to help that. But I mean, that's the only thing like last year Bergenfest made $87 as its um as a fundraiser

and it made more than us relocate the perfect place in the parking garage. So, you know, looking at it from th that perspective and and what it is that we have, I I just want to make sure that the partnership continues and that the community events stay going the same way that they have been and and no one knows anything but wiser, that everything's just moving the way it always has been. It's just hard to do when you're looking at numbers and you're like, eventually then we're not going to exist if we keep spending more money than we bring in. It seems to me there ought to be an annual review of the event

in terms of whether to continue with the event or to say, you know, this was a good and lively event at one point. It's not anymore. Maybe we need to move on to something else or apply, you know, the money that's been spent on that event to the other event. True. I mean, just because we've done it in the past doesn't mean we need to continue. If, for instance, ends up with a$87 deal, right? And that doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Ashlin in motion. I I asked them to send us They've requested 70,000 this year, not 35. We've been funding them at 35. There was some years they didn't request

35 for 25 years or longer. They're wanting the 35 back, I guess, where they didn't request it in a year. So, they're and they they've put on their request that there only will be two first Fridays if we don't, I guess, fund the 70 or depending on what you all fund. So, Ames income is $2,000 they have from fundraising and 35,000 from the city of Ashland. You know, I think going forward, uh, organizations that, you know, seek donations from the city, you know, I think it would be very advantageous for this board and the community to to have a representative from them come and speak like you're doing now, like Mike does, you know,

did that on an annual basis. We did. I think that it be a requirement and then they provide all your money and then they provide a summary of how the the monies were spent. I mean, I don't understand, and maybe I should. Excuse me. I mean, why do we fund AIM? I mean, why I mean, why would we not just Well, that's that's what I was getting at where she said they're they're subcontracted. So, we're giving money to AIM so they can turn them around and give money to visit a settle and we're paying for AIM to have an accountant at $1,200. We're paying for them to have insurance at a,000 and all they do is give money to her. Can we just give the money directly to is it a

Well, there used to be, you know, there used to be an executive director that was kind of the downtown guy. I mean, it was originally Main Street was to promote downtown. Yes. You know, they didn't want to continue it because there were requirements, you know, for the membership, a lot of things that had to be done to be a Main Street representative community. So they dropped out of Main Street. Uh but I think even when the last person I remember being in Main Street and then in AIM was Danny Craig. Danny Craig.

And I I can't tell you after that where the thing has gone. But 35,000 a year was what we were routinely budgeting that that organization. I've been just trying to wrap my head around why we would it was a town at that time and she can't move forward until she knows if AI's going to give her money I to to create a budget.

It's something we need to resolve. And I think that what AIM had has expressed to me is that the the reason that they still exist is just in case something were to happen with visit Ashland or you know something were to happen that Boyd and Ashlin would become again and nothing would happen on Main Street. Those community events would sometime somehow dissolve. Well, if we give money to visit Ashlin and it's a sanctioned Ashlin event, wouldn't it be covered under our insurance? No, I don't think so. No, I usually have to keep advent insurance on every I think you have to. Yeah, I mean it's it's under the special event. I mean, it's not a routine city function.

Yeah, because if they did something, you know, outlandish, it would be under their insurance and not our got. Okay. Yeah. And when we have event season, our event insurance goes up just because we have to make sure that whatever it is that we're covered under and that the city also knows. So I send Amber a list of like every event that we have and then that it's covered on our insurance so that it's shown that it's covered on our insurance in the event something were to happen. I do want you to come back with your presentation. Yes. At one of next board meeting or the board meeting after that. I plan on coming. So your PowerPoint I do want to see.

Celeste, do you know uh not to cut you off, I'm sorry. Do you know if in the past uh this board of commission the board of commission uh may have had a represent a representative on your board on the board of visit AKY? Um I'm pretty sure yes Amanda Clark that's on the board. So she was a commissioner at the time. Was it Commissioner Rammer? It's a statutory board. So the mayor appoints all the members to her visit. That's the tourism. Yep. 100% on that. I got and also too guys like if I'm open book I will be completely transparent. I mean I will send

you money like the word trans. I thought I'll find another word. I just don't know what it is. We we had her do the budget breakdown because I told her that you all made decisions based on data and that if you all were going to fund something, you all want to know where the money went. So that's why she did the budget breakdown for you guys because you all just do not give blank checks. You all even ask of us lots of questions before we spend city money. Well, I I think you know this commission I mean obviously we want to support, you know, we want to make sure that that that happens and I'm sure this this board will do that. We're just trying to figure out how do we do it, you know. Um

me too. Well, I mean, you know, what I was getting at earlier with with the AIM, you know, is that just the middleman, you know, um why we have that? Well, let me ask you this. So, your your event budget breakdown, does that include what you would need uh to run all the events as you already do, but basically without Ames? With or without Ames money? Yes. Okay. So we broke it down that way to make sure that everything continued. Even my board as board knows that I was submitted budget just so that we continue to to move everything forward. You shared this with aware of what your budget is.

Yeah. Yeah. Um that's I'm trying to be the best community partner that I possibly can be. Sure. and and make sure that everybody who's worked really hard to create what they've created stays involved and and and elevated too. But I have to be able to con, you know, make a budget for the year and know what to tell everybody is that's going on and being able to look at it from, okay, well, here's the events, but now I have to look at tourism. Let's go at where am I going to go to get the trade shows and to to sell Ashland and when's that going to happen? So that helps me build out the entirety of the year and know what buckets of money go to what.

And I have to say, and that's broken down every single month in the way that I do finances. I run reports. I look at reports. I look at how much we've spent versus this time last year. And and and I looked at the inflation and the different things that's going on in in the world. And and of course making sure that everything's safe. Like having the police presence is important. these people have to be safe coming to anything that visit Ashlin has. So like that's that's imperative. That's not a that's a no-brainer to me. But yeah, I really appreciate you guys. Can you take just a couple of minutes? I'll let you go. Yeah. Infinity Con's got a $75,000. It does.

Would you like to tell us a little bit about that because it seems like to me that's a pretty big deal here.

I moved it to the end of the year into October hopefully. Infinity Con is a video game conference that would happen on Winchester and it would turn the streets of Ashlin into Fallout the video game and there would be um like it's kind of like a Comic-Con but only for video games. So you'd have different vendors and different things for for video games, video game um uh competitions. And to elevate it, we did we talked to the people who create it and which is their actual hub is in Gainesville, Florida. They would create it to make sure that say that you're playing the game on your phone and you're you're playing along and you start to lose power. Well, you can go into Kales and have a burger and you power up. So, it's being able to take the businesses and make it an immersive event for them to be there. It cost $45,000 for the intellectual property, which is them to create the game, all of that, and the layout, design, and everything, and give us marketing and also someone to help us with um budgeting and making sure everything is done. But then I also have to pay for special effects because if we do it, we need to make sure people want to be there. Um, but we can recoup that back because that's the only cost there is and we're allowed to sell tickets at it. So, it can become a fundraiser. It can become one that at least recoups the funds and breaks even and becomes a true touristic event. Because when you're looking at something like Infinity Con, you have people who fly from all over the place to play video games or to be in an immersive situation. So it becomes less not in exclusively to community. Now it becomes something that people from three hours away will come in for.

How many other cities have it?

We're the only one that they're asking to do the breakout. Um I am gracious that I knew the guy who is over their marketing department and they had been talking about doing a world because the one they have in Gainesville and Tallahassee has seven worlds. But this would be able to take one of their worlds and put it into Ashland. And they were talking about the convention center and how it can like eventually move its way into that. We need to have the city and move it into the convention as well. And they were like, well, you know, I don't want to lose it. I don't want them to go on to any other city. So, I'm I'm keeping them, but I have to know if I can afford them. That's the biggest thing. And that's a big that's a big risk. and being here talking to you guys about money and then being like, "Hey, I want to spend $75,000 on video game people. But I really truly feel in my heart that there is a there is a niche of people that will follow that and it'll be very impactful secondarily to the economy here. We'll have people spending the nights. We'll have people coming in from Florida designing things, special effects, and hopefully, you know,

have you got much preliminary feedback on this? So, my board is on totally on board with it. We just want to make sure that financially we know what the year is going to look like event costwise and what we have coming in so that I can say, "Okay, we know we have it. Let's go. Let's go try it." Um because it's a big trial. It's a big Have you got people from outside Ashland saying, "Hey, what when is this and how Okay." Yeah. Every Well, most of the people that I've told about, they get really excited about it. Um and especially if that's their thing.

So, you know, and talking at it from a mother's perspective, I have three boys that are really counting down days to that their friends can go play on the street and they're they're bringing their video games and their real life in together. So it gets them out of the house, but it also gets Sounds like an updated Pokemon a little bit. It is other than, you know, it's just going to write Ashlin into it. And Fallout the Video Game Pokemon is Fallout the Video Game. What is your funding from your tax? How much uh money are you getting? So we average about $12,000 a month from 122,000 a month.

Yeah. From transient tax. So that's what we get. I mean there's some that are great. There's some months that we have rock the countries and those kinds of things that are coming in and we have an $18,000 month and then we have the next month we might have a 12. So it might be somewhere near 14. Depends on occupancy and a little bit closer. Off top my head I was thinking 14 to 15. 14. Yeah. Because not not having my numbers in front of me but just thinking about it from a financial perspective probably closer to 14 is the average. Um, other than us, is that your only source of funding and sponsorships? Sponsorship. Yeah.

Um, and we were we were really down in sponsorship last year, but I'm new, so that's it's a learning curve and being able to get in front of who I need to get in front of. And, you know, we've been talking about different facets and avenues and ways to to bring income in. In Infinity Con, we can sell tickets, too. So if we sold tickets to it, we can recoup the funds and maybe even more then, which is the the great hope, but at least making back what we spent in when it comes to that because the secondary economic impact on that is really the goal for it. Like what do we have coming in from outside?

So that's pretty much infinity fund. I'm I'm really excited about it. I don't know if you can tell that, but just a little bit. So let's thanks for your presentation. Thank you very much%. Thank you guys for listening. Thanks for letting me guys. Would you like to take a 10 minute break? Sure. Sure. Sure.

All right. 10 minutes. We'll get right back at it. Hey, hey, hey.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Here we

Heat up here. Heat. Heat.

Hey, hey, hey.

Who's the Temp's basketball team started. All right, let's uh let's move into our public works building. Mr. City Manager, you want to update us on that beach? I'm sorry. Public works. Uh public works building.

Uh yeah, on the public works uh building, we created another small team. uh to discuss the completion of the new public works building to replace the current dilapidated central garage building. I think we talked about this earlier at some point in time about it. I mean it floods uh when it rains these guys are working and flooded floors and electrical cords. you know, uh, you know, we've all talked about this is their number one priority to keep, you know, our employees safe and give them a safer work environment.

Yes. Uh, and so we're also looking and this is tentative. I don't know if we can do it, but uh the reason I'm not calling it a central garage, it's called a public works. It would uh consist of streets, central garage, sanitation. Uh this is a long overdue replacement. Uh the project will be funded with the bond issue and reduction in other budgeted operational expenses. Uh just one second.

Yes, that's about all I have. Yeah, putting them together, they would probably be able to work more cohesively together. I mean, I would think, you know, having them all right there. Uh yes. Uh would you want to talk about Mr. Corbett or Barry? I think both of both of these guys are uh taking the lead. I'll be glad to uh just I would not disclose where we're talking about or the location.

Yeah, I I wrote up a summary because hearing is ready to go. We we've uh looked at four different properties including existing property made the layout signs and uh combined both the streets and and central spot. Some of the properties we already eliminated is the original property we eliminated really because it floods every time it rains. The buildings you can't get a fire truck in there and open.

Why would you build on something that's not working now? So anyway, we're ready to proceed once committee gives us authority. We haven't looked at we have not looked at the probability of selling the abandoned properties to build. So that's

and we made some estimates that we haven't included cost of demolition. Bottom line is engineering is ready to go. garage need is really bad and we the properties and streets. We met the streets department. We met people interview Jim Whe superintendent up there lots of facts and drawings ready to go on. Well, let's go to Miss Beach. How we pay for this? Um, we would have,

as I said earlier, we're looking at a bond issue. It's 65,000 approximately per 1 million of debt service. Um, so he's estimated around what? 5 to seven in that range. Yes. Probably. Do we have really high figures for building when you're saying 5 to 7? 500 to 700,000. 5 to 7 million in terms of building. Yes. Yes. I I thought about property access or property acquisition. Well, hopefully the much cheaper. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Uh the one of the locations that uh they've identified as being very viable, is currently under appraisal and hopefully we'll have that uh to share with you all in an executive session at an upcoming meeting. Um, and just for public disclosure, that's the typical way that we do that is, uh, when there's a a property that's been identified as a appropriate use, it's appraised. Uh, we then bring it to the commission in executive session to discuss uh because you don't want to reveal the price obviously because that that could impact significantly the cost. So,

what's the age of the current facility there? I know it's, you know, it's a hodgepodge. There's a new building on one side there. Yeah. I mean, it was overund years old. It was Ashley's vocational school at one point. I never knew that below the street. And you're 5 to 7 million. Does that include any new equipment? I mean, we're not going to drag all the old equipment, put in a new building, are we going to try to get some new stuff? We have an advantage there. I think that some of the stuff when it's used for the Ashlin bus system, I will be able to maybe utilize our FTA pen for some of it.

We would transfer the lift and stuff is new and use but this that cost did not include any major I would hate to drag all the old cruddy stuff down and put in a new building. No, I don't anticipate doing that. That would not be my plan. If you recall, Mr. What was the cost of the uh water distribution and sewer uh um building collection building up? No, it was I was thinking three to four. I thought it was 1.7. Michelle's memory is better than mine at this.

I think it's well below. Uh she's saying three to four. It's a nice building. It is. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So, we'll look forward to to hearing from the uh and and in addition at the same time, we do have certain other Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Barry. Infrastructure in the city that needs addressed. One of them being this building.

We we thought about tackling the heating and air in this building. Um because we have mold. It need replaced for years. When we go out and do the bond issue, we we intend on looking at the assets citywide to see what else needs fixed. We're not going to go into this and like do this and borrow money and then something needs fixed later. We're evaluating all city assets. I think it's a good idea. I mean, I know these windows, there's a window back there. It's cracked or was cracked.

Winds in uh I don't know what you want to call it. Road dust used to be cold dust coming in and stuff. uh in particularly on the first floor the the HVAC system uh we had a professional company come in some guys with PhDs and I think there was some more identified is that correct? Yes. But between the windows and the heating and air I think our health insurance cost would reduce something you right there straight to the health insurance. Yeah. All right. Let's u what about water line? Um

uh Davy Chappelle actually made us a list of the priorities.

Thank you. Where's this point at? You got another one of those? Oh, I'm sorry, sir. Thank you.

Oh, okay. I got you. Okay. We have the uh the blue water um report that was done back in 2018. Uh 17 or 18.

Well, it was published December of 2018. Uh I I think what we've looked at and perhaps Mark can correct me if I'm wrong, but uh some of that is still dated right now. Some of the recommendations was put into place. Uh we're currently funding utility line of replacement at $1 million per year. We are that was one of the question. We have dedicated every single year since then 1 million. Uh we we certainly use more.

Are we still averaging uh 240 uh breaks even more? We're I just calculated before we're we're we were about uh well I did breaks per 100 miles which is one of the standards in there they use we were at 85 breaks per miles of what was what were the number of breaks we had last year

the uh about 260 somewhere in there. Well, you would think if we're spending a million dollars a year that we ought to be starting to make some kind of impact on I would you know over five years at least of a million dollar. So the original report there talks about at the time uh they proposed 20 years right to be able to bend the curve to move it below right I think 30 30 breaks per

30 brakes is what they thought for 100 miles apart and we're at 85 um and at the time that cost it was a significant cost we understand that how much it was yeah, it was significantly more than a million a year,

$3.2 million in 20 in 2022 to replace six miles of pipe, which would it would require that for 20 years. And then just to put that in terms of um in in the document that you have there, Commissioner Martin, I think it's on page 30 36 that you have the document there. It has some cost estimates there.

And just for just for comparison, just for this one project, the second project from the bottom there, it says Unre Street, right? The estimated cost at this time when this was developed in that document says 75,735 bucks for us to do that project. Right.

We just completed that last year. We just completed that project and our cost with our people what we what it cost us for us to do with our people including the patch was about $235,000. So that gives you an idea of of the cost how some of these projects especially if we have to use the contractor which wasn't a contractor project but like the O road project um in here was around $800,000 is what they proposed it would cost at this time when this document was made. Now we're talking $5 million.

Yeah. So, it's just a we're still getting a a significant bang for our buck when we do these projects with our crews. I do get a lot of stuff done, but the money is just it's just gone crazy with inflation with the cost of the materials. Well, another thing that was suggested was that we do a search similar to what we've done in our treatment. Let me throw this out as a as a means of of payment over a 20-year period.

Let me uh let me throw this out at you. Um if if if the board would be okay if you're all if you all and I think we myself Mark if we want to accelerate this and invest more money uh I think some options would be uh from the savings of the water loss team that we created we could bond x amount of dollars and the service the debt service would come from that savings. I think that's an excellent

uh if you'll and if I uh be so bold if you all could skip over to Michelle. Do they have a copy of what I have? Your notes answer. Uh well, not my notes, but item water.

Yeah. Water loss team accomplishments. If if you all don't, Michelle's going to speak on it just a little bit. uh where we've looked at these excuse me water loss and changed out meters we are realizing uh quite large savings it my notes here is 500 to 600,000 that's a very conservative number I I think it's more in the neighborhood of 750 to 800,000 so my proposal would be whatever I I don't know the I don't know what the bond rate is right right now off the top of my head 4%.

4%. So whatever whatever that we'll say the low end 600,000 with support in debt service is what we would bond to accelerate. Uh that would be 10 million. Yeah. Uh us putting that level of pipe in the ground faster I think for itself. I mean,

it does, you know, and Mark's team has done an excellent job with the water loss. We've um the meters, they've done 13 out of 20 and they haven't even got Cantonsburg yet because they're waiting on Cantonsburg to fix something. And his staff is already starting residential. It's been what 15 years since we've done the residential and we've changed them out. So, we're even starting um getting the residential meters changed out. Well, the meters the meters were part a significant part of the water loss that we believe we were experiencing 15% or or more. That is correct. And I still think there's more to be gained.

Right. But we are even with the leaks, we are losing a lot of water just in the in the repair of of these of these leaks

240 260 a year. It's it's something that we um we started out with the millions that we did not may not help us the brakes per mile but it helped us with redundancy and we we started the big lines. We did the big lines first. So when we had the deour heel um tank repair, you know how we didn't lose water and it happens to be because we replaced the lines and it made it our system more redundant. The majority of our leaks are occurring in two to six inch lines. Yes. Is that is that not right? Yeah. I mean, it isn't in the big lines that we're really losing or experiencing the least.

We have a handful of the larger lines. Well, like the one up at Marathon. Well, I mean, Oak Roads is 29 Street. We have some other larger lines that we want to do. But also to touch on what Michelle said, that's part of the bigger the bigger idea of redundancy when what she's talking about. You remember we did a a a line up Simpson Road up to the war tank. We did one Belmont.

We did a portion up 29th Street and just think in terms of the main thoroughares, you can roughly think that there's main water lines running through there. So one of the other projects we want to do is Oak Road. We did Dixon Street which connects Pard and Blackburn and then u finishing up the portion of 29th Street that we have it done. So those are the are the ones that are supplying the redundancy and like she said we we expected to have 10,000 people out of water when we turned that when we went to make that repair and little we were we were definitely surprised. division of water was surprised. Anybody that was involved in this was surprised that we were able to maintain

and service throughout the system when we turned to board. And Erica has also done a grant for a federal appropriation for um Oak View and 29th Street. She's applied for it's about 5 million to help do those lines with. Right. So we are we're not only you know using our utility revenues we're seeking grant money to uh do those

in terms of this the u uh cso that we have or the uh sir charge that we have on the cso on the on the sewer deal. Now that we have bonded the resulting or the additional costs to do the wastewater treatment building, are we going to continue with the with the search charge? The search charge will be in effect for another 20 years until the debt service paid off of the bond issue. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes, it it's written the ordinance is written when the last debt service payment is paid off that will be taken off.

Can I comment on the some more on beering too? One of the things that we've done is we we with we sat down with five we created a project. We're trying to get funding for for water loss issues. I think we I'd have to forget the exact details might get it to you guys, but we were looking at doing about 3,000 I think 3,000 residential meters. So, think of the big meters are obviously making a difference. But each one of those each one of those individual meters that we're reading, they're off a few%. even you know even just a 10% you get a stacking of of those meters together and you start having

you know they start making up significant significant loss and we noticed we had an administrative error the numbers that utilities were using and the numbers that billing staff were using had different dates. So when we aligned those dates together um it took what 4% for water loss yeah it went down 4% just with that. So what they would call a billing date, it was slightly different date for the consumption date that we were using. So when we matched them back up, we got a little bit better figures than what we had.

In terms of the charges that we have on our on our water service, we used to have an annual uh CPI or whatever adjustment on water and sewer. We took that off. But we put it back on. Yeah, it is back on. Yes, sir. Mark, on those meters, when the meter goes bad, let's say, who's the victim? I mean, usually we are. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Almost always. Okay.

And he's not only he's replaced ultrasonic meters with compound meters. The compound meter only like some of those only measured when 400 gallons went through a minute. Yeah. an ultrasonic meter measures it all. And keep in mind when we put those in, they were the technology that we needed at the time, you know. So now that we're installing this, you know, you're picking up it's almost like the water could be turned on at a certain level and it's not being me.

It just the meter's so large there has to be so much water to move through it. And I'm not a water meter expert on what the guys tell me. the ultrasonic. I do have a background from when I was at the wastewater plant, different types of meters, but still ultrasonics and that uh environment are are definitely desired, too. But the ultrasonic is more sensitive to be able to pick up those low flows and and more accurate and precise overall. and and the water loss team chose um Catixburg and the industrial park areas because we can actually look at how much is produced in those areas and um through in-house engineering because we uh previously were actually engineering outside Barry and his team engineered the first Catwixburg project saved us 50,000 on engineering cost so we we did that inhouse and we're also fixing another problem. We for years have not been able to fix Catixburg's um fire hydrants. Like somebody hit it with a car and it never was replaced and so they were think they were down like 10. So in this one area we're fixing four and adding four.

The the reason behind that is this division of water requires you to put actual hydrants on 6 in lines. Correct. Yeah. So when they have a 4 in line up there and something happens to the hydrant, there's no way to go replace it legally and say, "Here's your fire hydrant." Are we out from under the 2018 consent agreement that we had on the agreed order? Yes. Yes, sir. When did that end? Um, it's been a few years. I'd have to look at the details exactly, but yes, we were able to to negotiate that completely. When was our last race stud?

Um, it went on for the last We haven't done one in two years, two and a half years, but the rate study went on for like six years. We We could not get Six years. Yes. Is that correct? We could not get the rates increased. We It was It was a challenge and we finally got them increased. We we talked um city management into doing a little bit at a time until the rate study was finished, but they were going to wait till it was finished. So, we did a 10 10 and five and they finished the rate study about two and a half years ago. I have a in my budget preparation

to calculate for I think we were preparing for FY28 for another study. I'd have to go back and look at the exact year, but we have it worked out based on the requirements for public service and and that was part of the problem with utility fund. We had the inflationary increases in pipe and um paving and stuff and we we kept putting off, you know, increasing the rates. The water study wanted a 20-year plan. We don't have a 20-year plan in place, obviously. No, we do not. Um, but

and I I and this is a very progressive state or step to take depending on how quickly we perform these. Um,

we we could we could bond and um the water loss team could come together with a plan. It could be even, you know, hiring more distribution crew and doing it oursel cheaper. Um but getting these in place and from the outcomes of you know I hope Erica's grant is um appropriation you know um Mr. Rice she applied for their money that it's successful and if it is we could knock a lot of these off the list with the $10 million bond issue.

We have I could we do have that on the capital projects committee the the uh document that we work off of monthly. We have you can go back to normally we don't look at that every month the projects that we've completed just by doing what our crews have been able to do over the years and the handful of projects that we've contracted out the list is really starting to be paired down for the existing plans that we have. I mean over four or five years I mean it it doesn't seem like you're doing a whole lot. So when you do three or four projects, five projects possibly during the year you gradually start chipping away at this list. So we have done that. Obviously we would love to have been able to do more but we have uh we we've made a difference. Maybe it's not a measurable difference but with with terms of of number of leaks but I do believe like It's for certain we made a difference with resiliency.

So what would we use the bond for? Or the if we if our crews are going to do as much of the work as possible, we would just use the bond for buying pipe material piping pipe um the paving and there is some where our crews couldn't do. So we obviously would hire contractors for those. Um I the big ones I would continue to pursue grant funding for but I think we could actually knock a lot off the list and we could possibly you know Mark and Davey be an eternal thing with them but possibly we could hire a crew to my question do we are we staffed to do this? Yeah. I mean, many years ago, they hired a fifth.

We created a team. We created a a fifth crew, but hiring another crew would make them where they could do it more consistently.

Yeah. And and that's just not, you know, that's that's great if we can find I mean, I do believe we can get the people and we can train the crew up, but there's also equipment and all like that's not super cheap to do that, but in the long run, it's probably still more cost effective than contractors. It is like in pard um Mr. Cole was he actually bid that out to hire a contractor. And the whole point that started out with Pard was we were going to do storm sewers where we could change out the water lines and the sewer lines because HUD wouldn't let pay to do that, but HUD would pay to do the storm sewer and then HUD would pay to pave it back which was too expensive cost. And our crew did it for 167,000 because that was the thing. We have talented staff with the highest water licenses you can get in the state of Kentucky. So, we used our people to do it. Tony and I had to I think um we had to fight to use our crew because it was three times the cost to hire a contractor that it was for our guys to do it.

We There's no doubt we have as far as like the talent to do it. There's no doubt in my mind our guys can do any of this stuff. when you get to the size of like a 16inch man or something like that, you got to go. It gets a little bit more difficult. So there'd be some valuation there, but I think we could get a lot accomplished off the list with the bond issue. And when I asked if we had staff wasn't talking about their expertise, talk about what you were talking about. Yeah, I knew what you're talking about. I was just trying to stress the the confidence that we have in it's not it's not the fact that they can't do the work. is physically not having enough people to to actually go around.

All right. Some of these things uh moving on probably really quickly we can do that like the wastewater treatment plant groundbreaking. We're now shooting for the 24th. I think uh we had a breakdown between state and federal officials being here. So, we're now shooting for the 24th and we haven't come up with a plan. No, I think Eric and I Erica and I discussed this and we were going to reach out to the representative office and basically we're going to where tell us the time you can be avail If you can do it on that day, we'll make it happen.

So, I mean, you all just Commissioner Martin and Mark and Hall, you all let us know you work it out. Very good. Excellent. Okay. Uh, and I assume you we're still talking the same venue, same thing. Change of date. Okay. Uh, let's see. Public communication method. what that one is. I think maybe corporation council could address his concerns about that. That's where

um one of the ideas that that uh we've kicked around with the IT team is possibly coming up with a city app that kind of points and and backbones off of um the city's website. Uh there are other cities that do that. I could send to you all to check out. Uh but basically it runs very interconnectedly with the the city's website and you can do push updates uh push notifications. Uh it essentially you wouldn't have to go to a third party uh group. You could actually anybody on their phone or computer could go to the city's own application and everything would be right there. They get real-time updates. uh you know it could be linked in with social media if you wanted it to be but uh could give you some real-time feedback real-time communication method to and from uh commission staff uh directors um it's just an idea that uh we might be able to present to you if that's something you might be interested in and it would not be at a significant cost basically like I said already it would work off the already existing website and kind of direct to and from Okay.

Wouldn't be a major change just to face forward facing

conference center update. I mean just um we'll hit that briefly but let everybody know that uh we're planning on a um a business after hours on the 26th of this month. Um and it'll be at Paramount and uh we're working out details. Uh Mr. Wheeler and I are with um uh Venue Works. There'll be kind of an introduction of venue works. Um of course they're going to do their own uh catering there uh in food service. So that'll be available and during that time they're going to have they were going to put up the

the renderings renderings conference center. So it'll be kind of a joint deal with uh this business after hours and we've already secured the date through the chamber. Is that from 5 to 7? Yes. The typical business after hours. Okay. Deal.

And they're passed uh on schematic design. They've passed the 75% threshold. Venuez is uh my understanding is they're heavily involved in finalizing and finishing out the actual operational and functionality uh with uh AP3 and Brand Center Carroll and the design team. Uh still still scheduled to open in fall 2027. Yeah, they're getting ready to I think they're going to start fencing off the the parking lot after this uh business after hours and to begin demolation of those uh attached buildings. When when will that start? You say after the business after hours. Business after hours. Okay.

And then there'll be some utilities that'll need to be moved from and some other uh you know more structural type components. And then once the building starts going up, it's apparently going to go up relatively quick is what they're saying. Can we segue into the lighting of the Paramount parking lot? I think it's already been done in it, Barry. Uh we director Atkins got with a uh has already got that hand. You go ahead and Barry explain.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um we already got that completed a little pause here if anyone's interested in what exactly we did. So, um, we installed five 124 watt LED flood lights. So, my parking lot had one flood light over there closer to the dance studio. So, we wanted to brighten up, you know, for safety purposes and other things. So, it it looks it looks good and had some issues in the parking lot and a couple of police responses. So, it's hopefully it'll be helpful with that. will also be helpful for when construction starts

and protection of assets and equipment. Uh uh Ryan Connley and uh and his IT team, they're also working on uh updated surveillance and and tech that eventually will be working seamlessly with the Paramount and the conference center. So they're they're looped in with that. When do you look for construction to start on the conference center? Uh, I mean I think well I mean they'll you'll start seeing people there after the after after after the business after the business after hours and I think it'll just be kind of a fluid fencing it off. You'll know what's going on. It it'll be pretty fluid after that. It's just it'll take some time to get it going with the utilities and and okay,

you know, there's electric and water and gas and everything underneath might have to be done.

What about the Paramount Capital and Premers? Howard Harrison and uh AP3 are discussing what types of items really need to be dealt with. Uh we certainly know the boilers will need to be addressed uh sometime soon and we're also working on a couple different funding ideas for that. Uh so hopefully we'll have one uh one of the possible funding opportunities may be opening up soon that we might be apply able to apply for. I'll get with Erica and Michelle about that and then uh we may have a couple other funding ideas. So,

did you get that boiler company that I sent to you? I I did. Okay. Yeah, we're working on a couple of different paths with that. Uh and I've got a couple other ones too that I can forward to you. It It's not been as smooth as what it otherwise could have been. and um you know appreciate uh uh Venue Works and Matt Hammond uh HR Cook and those guys for bearing with us over the last month.

But just FYI talking about the lighting, Mr. Atkins and I've been working on u getting some string lights across Winchester Avenue. He's dealing with uh a to make that happen. Which blocks? What's that? Which blocks? Uh the downtown blocks that are 1500 on that area. My idea was to, you know, we've got the cabling when we put up the Christmas lights, right?

To put them all right back up there, but it's evidently more of a big deal than I thought. So, Barry's working through it. Uh let's go back up to the top here and go down the our health insurance committee. Uh, we have an update on that or I'm here for just a bit.

We can absolutely form a new one. It's been a while since we've had a meeting the last administration. There was some discrepancy, if you will, on who and when to meet. Typically, in the past, prior to I'll just let you know what has happened in the past. We would meet. There would be a department head from each department, finance, legal, myself, union representative, and we would meet when necessary. It wasn't like a a definite thing. It was if we had a formal appeal that was filed and we needed to make a decision, I would bring it before the board and discuss whether or not to allow to pay the claim moving forward on that particular claim to give information and then annually for renewals to provide the renewal numbers any additions any changes modifications that we would want to do at that time we would do those for annual renewals and

why did the committee go away the past administration oh Oh, okay. Um, simple answer to one of the questions. So, what do we need to do, Mr. Wheeler, to enact that again? Uh, maybe it's already done. My my understanding there wasn't a formal ordinance that established the committee before. Um, I think it was just a motion. Yeah, probably probably we could do something similar. May maybe uh maybe allow us to come up with the structure of that and maybe a meeting time frame and come back to you maybe at the next meeting and uh it could be by motion or resolution. I don't think it needs to be a formal ordinance for something like that.

And any recommendation in the past there have been a commissioner set on the committee and there's been times when there was no commissioner. So we just it's fluid. We can absolutely However, I was on there for about six years and never remember a commissioner sitting on me. Resolved a lot of issues. Yes. Yeah. Okay. That'll be good. All right. What is a property or property violation? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We can go down that list if you want. The first one you listed was the AP building on the corner 17th and central as far as code enforcement and fire is concerned. We've pretty much exhausted all the all the bullets in our chamber to where we are citing them. Uh we've done the the four times property tax that was approved at the last code enforcement board meeting. That information has been sent to finance and the PVA. We are sort of just stuck in that cycle. There's not a lot more we can do from code enforcement except to have him barricaded, which he's done, but that, you know, that's breached almost weekly. Uh, I will say this.

Yeah. So, we've been working with Andrew Wheeler in City of Ashton's legal department, and I know he's been working tirelessly trying to find a resolution. I think he has a way forward. I'm not sure that's ready to be discussed in public. Uh, we we can't talk about it. I mean, I it's I can probably brief you on an executive session on it, but from a Okay. But you're we can't talk about it publicly. What about the Steckler's

Steckler's building? The the price was just dropped. It's listed with Missy Atkins at Ross Realy. They had an offer and acceptance as recently as three weeks ago. The offer fell through at the end, I think, after they did their due diligence and walked through and realized what the actual cost of renovating that building would be. Um, so as it stands right now, it's again in our in our code enforcement cycle, notice of violation citation hearing in front of the code. Is there is there a lawsuit pending in it? That that suit was resolved. The it was a foreclosure. There is not now.

There is not currently one. No. and our our code enforcement uh taxes are paid up at at last check and our code enforcement uh fines are I mean they're not really significant enough that that litigation would likely resolve it. Basically the same for the Corby's building. It's a little different case in that you had an owner Corby Stall who passed away and it's a little complicated by the ownership and probate dynamics of of his death but it is also listed through Missy Atkins at Ross Realy also in the code enforcement cycle notice violation citation and hearing

I guess Jean Jackson is a little bit may may have something to present to you all within the next 30 60 days, hopefully quicker, but that's good. Okay. Okay. Employee structure. What about the parking adjustments? We talked about that. Okay. Um I'm thinking, guys, maybe we uh we go for a few more minutes. 3:00. That's three hours. We also have Wait a What?

Yes, we do. Um, all right. Uh, let's see. Major utility projects update. Do you need me to try to tackle that along with the quarterly thing? Isn't there a Barry has a spreadsheet too? Yeah, he Okay. Yeah, Mary. Yeah. Yeah. Me and Mark here with handful of projects. All these projects are projects that we're doing within the city that are over a half a million dollars.

Okay. So um we have the start date, anticipated completion date, the current cost, the funding source and then we have comments but the comments are just very you know for public very generic this is the basic purpose of the project. This is what we're doing. So the first one that we have is Florida Street August drive and Johnson for boot for pump station upgrade. So this started in September of 2024 and anticipated completion is in fall 2026 this year. Uh the cost is a little over $2.7 million and it's funded through ARPA funds. And just to give a broad overview what the project is, it's to install 140 GPM rated booster compensation for chlorine feed system at Johnson Court, a 22 UPM booster compensation at Water Drive and 122 UPM booster station. And the basic uh purpose of this project is to increase water pressure. Um, another one is uh Log Town Rehab. So, we actually just recently did this project out. Um, just voted on it, I believe, a couple meeting ago for approval to the contractor. So, we anticipate that start the spring. So where this is an interior and an exterior we have a tank has some paint be applied and for correct paint temperature and condition we need to wait for the spring to allow the time to set up. Um the cost on this one is $52,170 and it's being paid through utility capital. Um another one of the bigger projects that we have going on right now is our sewer lining project. So this project started back in March of 25 and we anticipate that it will be completed in March of 26. Um the cost of this project is a little under $2.3 million and it is also being

paid for by AR funds. Um the basis of this project is uh we're installing cured in place pipe to approximately a little over 11,000 linear feet of sewer lines in city of Ashe. Um, and that's from pipe ranging anywhere from 8 in to 24 in. And it's worth mentioning noting that the cost for for lining the sewer line is much much cheaper than what it is to open trench replaces. Um, another project is uh polar mills phase 4. So this project started in January of 25 and anticipated completion in spring 26. The current cost is $924,000 and it is funded through our funding and general fund. Um the scope of this is ak project include installation of concrete gutters, curb, sidewalls, retaining walls and that project has been delayed a handful of times for really causes that are outside of our hands. But um they they've been up and rolling and doing well on it. Cold weather has slowed them down a little bit. The concrete private.

Yeah. First I'll talk about the lead service line identification project. Um, as you guys know, this is something that's required by EPA. This is not something that's an EPA requirement. We started in June 24, June 2024. Um, this is kind of a perpetual project for many many years, but this phase of project roughly will be finished in the winter of 2028. Uh, the the cost the cost $542,880 at this current phase. Um, it's important to mention that we have a forgivable loan that's 100% forgivable loan that's uh I don't have the exact I think it's $837,000. It's $800 and some thousand so that it will cover the the balance of this whole project. Ultimately, EPA is requiring to go in us to go in and identify the service line material on both the city's side of the meter and also the uh customer side of the meter. So, that's what this project does. Just to give an idea of where we are at this point, we're still in identification phase. We actually need to go out and we've been doing this through citizens are probably aware of they've seen the door knocking campaign that we had who had help with EPA.

We got phone calls from some of them

sending contractors in to help us do that at no cost. And uh basically the way this is set right now once we identify about 800 more services visually by inspecting them they can use that data and plug it into a machine learning tool like an AI tool basically and it will it will populate our system say you know lead here non lead here whatever and then at that point we will go in and do be required follow up test block like 800 to make sure that it's correct. So there is things in place that doesn't require us to go in and necessarily identify each and every one visually. This is approved by division large. So it'll help cut down on cost. Um another thing to touch on is a pretty big project that's nearly complete. Um, Robert Stump Station Bar stream started in April 20, 2025 and January 2026 is actually what we have as completion date. We are down to the point of troubleshooting like HVAC, that type of stuff, creating a punch list of doing a final walk through and creating the punch list. But we're down to, you know, putting checking paint, things like that. So this project is effectively for all practical purposes completed. Um other than you know doing the final pay apps and all that stuff. It's went great. Um I should have mentioned the first project. It was funded with utility capital but reimbured through that loan. This is an AR project. Rob was an AR project. Uh $2.9 million for this project. And uh the bar streams themselves, what

it does is is it replaces a set of manual screens that required uh employees to enter into a confined space daily and sometimes more than more than once a day uh to go in and physically remove the debris, cut down on overtime, safety concerns, all those types of things. But like I said, that that project's basically effectively over and just just to mention that's also the same contractor that's doing that project is doing Johnson for and also the treatment plant. The last thing is the treatment plant wastewater treatment plant or WRF start date was December 2025 anticipated completion of June 2029 um 99.782 million funding sources CSO KIA are. But anything else, Michelle, there's a couple of

be a bond issue. Stag grant and bond issue.

Bond issue. And as for the stag grant will be for the engineering. The contractors are currently on site. They do a lot of uh site preparation. They're currently in the process of preparing um the footings basically or the the the locations for the buildings for the blower building, the dewatering building and the admin building including installation of what they call ram aggregate peers and basically rammed aggregate peers. Basically they the the the ground is not the greatest hard structure there. little something that they're using to be able to drive these just continue to drive pilings down into the ground basically to be able to surprise.

All right. Spend a lot of money. Yes. All right. Uh well time so I one more. Can I Sorry. I just want to tag on to this real quick on the capital projects. Uh-huh. Uh we currently have two members of the commission meeting each month. Correct. And I was wondering uh if we could do this on a quarterly have a quarterly capital project meeting with the entire elected body which I think would be much more

well I would love to have you know like the top five you know or you know whatever we want to call it you know just an update uh so the general public and our commission meetings can hear what's going on there. I mean that's a lot of money but they just you know it's uh I mean it's pretty time consuming if you go I mean if you really want to understand capital projects right yeah maybe once a month just a brief similar u overview if we did in you know detailed that's my my point I was actually going to bring up would you know maybe do it once a quarter quarter rather once a month six weeks

so instead of us having the monthly meeting. We have a quarterly meeting with all five of you. Well, just city meeting. City meeting. Okay. So, we do away with the Yeah. capital projects 15 15 minute discussion in a in a meeting. That Okay. I just just I mean that would probably add on. Would it be fair to say an hour to the meeting if we went through it in the level of detail that we do in in the capital meeting? Yes. Well, but if you went through in the detail you guys did any questions. Okay. Probably half hour 40 minutes.

Yeah, because uh city manager normally we cover projects that are might even be $50,000 like sometimes we do a pump or something like that. That's right. Yeah. Wouldn't be even though it's a lot of money, it wouldn't be at the level. So, are we talking once a quarter or Well, that's what we're Okay. discussing I think and if you wanted to you could even do it at the end of the you know after your new business then go into it so that the folks that are interested in it can stay or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. I mean if there's a desire to special meeting you know it's always your guys choice for us to cover special. Okay I got you. Thank you.

Does that cover what you want to Yeah. And then one more thing. The joint work session with the county. Yeah. We just need to come up with a date. If you allow me or one of you all other, we'll just work and arrange it. And I think we in my opinion leave it up to you. Maybe we would invite Catholics. Well, it was joint. It's joint, you know. Yeah. But I can work that out. No problem. The what I would have a question though was the structure of it. That may be that I get with Mr. Wheeler on how we do that and have a joint meeting. Do we but I'll have to get with you to understand how we can stop. Yeah, we have the fire station.

All right. Can I have one question? Um, as we start the budget process, I've had some people reach out um when do they people need to come if they're in the like the gifts and contributions. I had somebody reach out when when do I need to be here to pitch my thing on this on my organization.

There is no gifts and contributions anymore. Now the CDBG committee meets Tuesday. Maybe I I needed to pay more attention to Jacob. The organizations then could pitch for the CDBG money. The only other thing that we already agreed to fund is we fund summer motion and we fund Pogue every year. Well, this this specifically with was Summer Motion that reached out to me and said, "When do I need to be at?" It would be the with the budget hearings. They've asked for more money. Yeah. Um because it's America 250 and they want to do extra stuff. She's already made a contribution. So, it'll be part of your budget packets. Yeah. Those ladies not been sent yet.

Not been set yet, but probably they were worried that they needed to be here today. Probably April. No. No. Okay. Yeah. And just to talk about 250, I did give you a list of what we um are facilitating, not doing, but we're facilitating these events. Um so this is a list of them. If you got questions, just ask me and I'll probably talk to you individually to what we're we're doing. And we should have a bus app this month. What's that? We should have a bus app this month. Yeah. I'm excited about that, too. what the bus app that will where they can tell you where the bus is tell where they're at and all that.

All right. Uh entertain a motion to go into executive session discuss individual personnel matter. Second and and one potential litigation. Oh, okay. All right. One. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Yeah. And we probably won't do any business when we come back. So, let's go back in the journey.

activity. Hey Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. action and we stand a journal. Do they need to come or not? No, they don't need to come.

You get that? He's on he's on it. Turn the meeting.