Posts

Code for America

Recently Mayor Gray welcomed three Code for America Fellows to Lexington to start a ten month partnership.  You can read the press release here.  Code for America is a non-profit that places technology developers, designers, and researchers from major technology companies within local governments t…

Good News for Lexington in the Bike/Ped World

Each year the U.S. Census Bureau collects information from a sample population of the United States through the American Community Survey.    In 2012, it studied cities with a population of 65,000 and greater.  The League of American Bicyclists then analyzes this data to assess the state of bicycli…

Local Food Coordinator Position Created

At its meeting on Thursday, January 29, 2014, Urban County Council approved acceptance of a sub-grant from  the Blue Grass Community Foundation that provides major funding, along with support from LFUCG, for creation ofa position of Local Food Coordinator within the Office of Economic Development o…

State of the City

For those of you who may have missed it, here is a brief summary of some of the areas Mayor Gray highlighted in his 2014 State of the City address.In the area of employment:Employment is increasing, unemployment is decreasing, and our economy is out-performing those of most similar size cities.  Th…

Bicycle-Pedestrian Safety

I recently filmed a Council Comments on bicycle and pedestrian safety with Scott Thompson, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the LFUCG and the Metropolitan Planning Organization.  You can see the Council Comments here.We met at the Legacy Trail trailhead at the North Lexington YMCA. The Le…

Times Change: Council Approves Domestic Partner Benefits

On November 21, 2013,  Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council unanimously approved a resolution extending benefits to what are commonly referred to as “domestic partners” of our employees.  (More on that terminology below.)  After the vote, one council member, who might at one time might have found…

Lean Urbanism and Gentrification

A recent article by Robert Steuteville raises significant questions about the ways we have come to think about revitalization of neighborhoods.  The article has direct relevance to Lexington, particularly the North Side.  While I do not agree with all the details in the article, and might quibble w…

Design Excellence Task Force seeks public input

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council’s Design Excellence Task Force has completed a draft of Design Standards and Guidelines for Lexington’s downtown area.  The Task Force has scheduled a public meeting to gather public input on the draft from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, November 14, in the third f…

Qualified Adult Benefits

Yesterday the General Government Committee approved an ordinance allowing the extension of benefits to the qualified adult dependents of LFUCG employees.  (For legal reasons, the phrase “qualified adult dependents” is used in place of the more common phrase “domestic partners”.) The action will be …

Details of Fund Balance Allocations

To follow up on my previous post, here are the details of council’s recent decisions regarding allocation of the FY13 fund balance.FY 13 Fund Balance Allocations SummaryBeginning Fund Balance: $ 14,976,300Allocations:Additional Economic Contingency Fund Allocation $ 1 ,500,000Facilities HVAC Projec…