"Testing. Awesome. I think we are about to get started here," CivicLex Deputy Director Kit Anderson began the "Behind the Ballot" event.
Tuesday night, her group hosted a reunion of sorts for some of the community members who took part in a seven-session Civic Assembly earlier this year, one that lasted around 33 hours in total. The goal of Tuesday's event was to give members of the public a glimpse behind the scenes of the lengthy process, which had its genesis around four years ago.
Haley Wartell, director of communications for CivicLex, said the end product is three amendments to Lexington's charter — think of it as the city's constitution — all set to appear on all Fayette County ballots.
"We think it's really cool because they were created by 30 randomly-selected Lexington residents," she said.
The amendment likely to draw the most attention is a pay raise for city councilmembers, adjusting their annual compensation to $59,987, or the average annual wage in Lexington. If approved, it would not take effect until 2031. Working in tandem with that amendment is another that would require council members to create publicly viewable attendance and accountability standards. The third would initiate a review of the city's charter every eight years.
"We're just really interested to see like how voters vote on these things," Wartell added. "The idea of a Civic Assembly is to kind of create a mini-Lexington in one room. And so we had a variety of different perspectives and opinions that closely reflected the demographics of Lexington."
The amendments will take a simple majority to pass on Election Day.
For a full rundown of the proposed charter changes, head to lex.vote.