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Wilmore’s City Council meeting on Monday, June 19 focused on giving the 2023 – 2024 fiscal year budget ordinances a second reading so that the upcoming fiscal year budget may soon be finalized.

The Council also heard a presentation regarding the downtown Wilmore renovation project.

Ordinances

The Council approved the following ordinances on their second reading:

• Ordinance 2023-1 An Ordinance of the city of Wilmore, Kentucky, Adopting the annual budget for the fiscal period July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, by estimating revenues and resources and appropriating funds for the operation of city government.
• Ordinance 2023-2 An Ordinance of the city of Wilmore, Kentucky, Relating to the amending of the fiscal year July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023.
• Ordinance 2023-3 An Ordinance increasing water and wastewater rates.
• Ordinance 2023-4 An Ordinance increasing High Bridge water rates.
• Ordinance 2023-5 An Ordinance increasing Southeast County water rates.
• Ordinance 2023-7 Compensation and pay plan.

Lori Vahle, Wilmore’s financial director told the Council that the last four ordinances have already been applied in the 2023 -2024 fiscal year budget.

Two weeks ago, the Council discussed garbage rates. According to the Council, these rates were not discussed at this meeting by the Public Works Director of Wilmore, Dave Carlstedt, until he and the Council have more information on future garbage rates and contracts. 

City projects

The Council heard a presentation from Banks Engineering on its early plans for downtown Wilmore. 

As reported by the Journal in December 2022, the Wilmore city council allocated $250,000 to fund improvements to Main Street. In March of this year, the Council approved a project committee’s recommendation to contract the project to Banks Engineering. 

During the meeting – engineers and designers presented early plans for revitalizing Wilmore’s Main Street. These changes include:

• Differently patterned pavement at intersections to us as a unifying element of downtown that will “break up the concrete” and indicate to vehicles that pedestrians will be crossing in those areas. 
• Less parallel parking with wider sidewalks.
• Possibly adding street trees on these wider sidewalks. (Because the previous street trees were too close to buildings to thrive.)
• Creating small “pocket parks” by eliminating or decreasing the size of vehicular access points between Subway and the bank and other areas. This would also make getting around easier for pedestrians. 
• For Rice Street and its traffic and parking issues, one designer said they could just add parking spots to Drinkling’s parking lot.

Main Street and Lexington Avenue are both state roads, so Banks Engineering will have to approve any final plans with the Kentucky State Highway Department. 

The Banks Engineering group made it clear that these were just ideas and that they would appreciate more input from the Council as to what downtown and residents need.

Council members were appreciative of the ideas and but the body was also concerned about the need for lighting. 

The Banks Engineering representatives said they would look into the Council’s suggestions and create a new design for its consideration. 

Once the Council has more of a consensus on this revitalization plan, it will allow public input on the design.