 One minute till air. Thank you, Beverly. You're welcome. What's up friends? Long time no see. 30 seconds. I'm going to wait a few minutes just to give folks a chance to sign in. I know the mayor's on the way. Sorry, everyone. We just. Got off of another meeting a few minutes ago. And so. It's taking a little time for people to sign back in. This meeting is being recorded. So I think we'll just wait a few minutes. All right. I think we have a quorum. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting of the, this work session of the Durham city council to order. It is June 10th, 2021 at one to one PM. And thank God the mayor's here. Take it over. Go for it. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam mayor hotel. And thank you for presiding earlier. I have a grand baby who I've now met. I know. Little Josephine. It's gorgeous and soft and. All, all the good things that grand babies are. So did you sniff, did you sniff her a little baby head? Everything I did at all. Yeah, it was pretty wonderful. Anyway, thank you all for, thank you for. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for. Letting me get away to do that. And I'll build myself in. I've just talked briefly to council member Caviar. She caught me up on a couple of things that, but I'll look forward to talking to you all and, and finding out more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are now going to move into our regular work session. And I guess I did. You already call us to order madam mayor pro tem. I did. Mr. Mayor. All right. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor shul. Here. Your pretend Johnson. Here. Council member Caballero. Here. Council member Freelon. Council member Freeman. Council member Middleton. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, you're on mute. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm now I ask if there are any announcements by members of the council. I know the council member Freelon has an announcement regarding. And a, one of our appointments. But we'll deal with that when he gets here. Council member Freeman and then mayor pro tem. Thank you. I just wanted to share a bit of an update. Just, just on the HB 324 letter or resolution. Just noting that our great and wonderful. DPS. Board member. Has taken a lead and crafted the actual resolution. And I'm just working with her to get some, get the bail down so that transfer over. She shared it. And I will share it with you all. Just as soon as possible. I know it's taken a little bit longer than I was hoping for, but I think it's important that the level of intensity of information that she added was, it should be incorporated what we do. So I just wanted to let note that I will, I will be sure to bring that forward. Can you remind me what HB 324 is? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just trying to, you know, exclude black history from our. Our schools. The critical race theory thing. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Also on the subject of resolutions, I wanted to introduce for my colleagues, consideration of resolution in support of the American jobs plan. The resolution was adopted by the Biden administration to invest $2 trillion over the next eight years in. In American jobs and infrastructure. I've emailed the resolution to everyone. I could read it for the benefit of folks who are watching. Since it's not in our agenda. And then at the appropriate time, Mr. Mayor would ask for. A comment on the agenda for Monday night meeting. Madam mayor pro tem. I don't know that you need to read it. Unless colleagues feels and feel necessary. It will be in our agenda packet for Monday night. But I'll defer to colleagues. Are you all okay? It's the resolution that madam mayor pro tem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Emailed us regarding the American rescue plan. Yeah, the American jobs act. I'm sorry. Great. Thank you. I will. Yeah, then just ask our clerk to add it to the agenda and also want to say a special thank you to the home care workers with the home care workers. At the capital, there were several elected officials present and we were all asked to do whatever we could to improve the lives of home care workers in our state. The people who spoke out at that event are extremely low paid despite the incredibly important and difficult work that they do. People make $10 an hour or less. They are subjected to really difficult working conditions. And they all love their work and see how important it is. And we, you know, there's a possibility for all of us if we're, if we're lucky to live long enough that we will one day need care as well. And want that care to be of high quality and for folks to be able to do those jobs with dignity. So I think the American jobs plan is a makes a great investment in, in care workers. And I'm excited to bring this resolution to y'all in solidarity with the fight for 15 care workers and with other, all the other workers who will benefit from this investment. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Madam mayor pro town. Councilmember Freeland. You, we had, we had a discussion. You and I, the clerk over email about the appointment situation. And I thought this might be a good time to go ahead and talk about that. Do you want to do that? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So colleagues, I emailed y'all a little bit before the meeting. I discovered that a miscommunication occurred between me and the city clerk prior to our May 20th work session, which resulted in a miscount in the citizens advisory committee nominees. And so after I'm adjusting for that error, the city clerk advised me to bring this up as an announcement. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. Thank you. So for that error, the city clerk advised me to bring this up as an announcement. Ask council to suspend the rules and acknowledge that there are actually two folks, two more folks with my votes that made it onto the citizens advisory committee. And instead of re-advertising three positions, we would only need to re-advertise one of the details of that are in your inbox, in your inbox, but for the benefit of the public, basically, I missed the deadline, the 12 p.m. deadline to submit my nominations via electronic ballot. And in the back and forth over email, there was just a miscommunication between me and the city clerk where she misunderstood how I was voting on that particular ballot. So yeah, please advise me on how to, yes, any questions or yeah, what do I do from here? I think you've done it. There were two people who you voted for would have had four votes. Yep, Shanuka, Bynum, and Donald Hughes. Yep. And so those people got enough votes and I think that's all we need to know. Great. Thank you very much for sharing that and thanks to the clerk. So Mr. Mayor, do we need to, she's actually suggested that we suspend the rules, explain what happened, and bring it up to the floor for a vote. Is that something we need to do now or yeah? Let me hear from the clerk. Do you agree, Mr. Bynum? Mr. Mayor, and yes, that could be voted on today and those two individuals get appointed because we missed the actual point. I'm sorry I have a little bit hard time hearing you. I think maybe Councilman, I think if you turn off your, if you mute yourself. Yeah, go ahead, Madam Clerk, say that one more time. Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers, these two individuals can be voted into their appointed positions today. They were not included on the the recent City Council agenda because of this and they weren't voted in on the 7th, so they can be voted in today. Gotcha. Okay, thank you. Right, because they were they were approved on our at our last council meeting and so Councilmember Freeland can you mention the names of the two people again? Sure, Shanika M. Bynum and Donald A. Hughes. Thank you very much. So Colleagues, we would need a motion to suspend the rules and vote on this. So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freeman, I think. Seconded by Councilmember Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Now we're acting like we were on Monday night and affirming these appointments as if they were being made in the previous work session. So now I'll accept the motion to appoint Ms. Edmonds. What's her name again? I'm sorry, apologize. Bynum, Mr. Mayor. Bynum and Mr. Hughes. Moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freelon, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, other announcements. I think Councilmember Caballero, I think I saw your hand for the announcements. Yes, I just had a quick announcement that our admin, the admin support person, Rachel Ruda-Boris, is coming back tomorrow after parental leave and I'm very excited about that. And when asking the clerk about we are supposed to be slated to come back in person sometime after the break, soon after the break I think. And so just asked her what what would our support folks be doing and when and if they would be in the office and she said that they will be rotating three days in and two days at home. And so if folks want to coordinate with their admin support person, I know I would benefit from being in person at the same time that Rachel is. I just wanted to bring that to the attention of my colleagues if that's happening so that people have the opportunity to coordinate with their support folks. Thank you very much Councilmember. All right, other announcements. I do have one just to let people know that the administration and the clerk's office have had some discussion about the boards and commissions coming back in person or in hybrid form. Mayor Pro Tem had a great suggestion that there be a survey of those and the clerk jumped right on it, that survey's out. They did that we will be discussing that very briefly when we get to the end of our agenda under other matters. So just we'll be staying for a minute on at the end to talk about that real quick. Okay, any other announcements? Okay, then we'll move to priority items. Madam, Madam Manager, any priority items today? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Durham City Council. I would first like to say that we do have a fairly lengthy agenda for you today. It is going to be the last the agenda for the last meeting of the Council and we're bringing to you some very important items but we apologize for the length in advance that also overflows into my priority item list. So I will begin with that at this time. So agenda item number 10, recovery and renewal task force funding request for convention center complex and attachment has been added number five. Agenda item number 11, recovery and renewal task force funding request for rediscovered Durham proposal. Attachment number five has been added. Agenda item number 12, commerce street apartments, residential development, revised and restated development loan commitment, Durham Housing Authority, downtown neighborhood plan. Attachment number one was updated. Conditional binding commitment to development ventures Inc. for the commerce street seniors development. Attachment number one was updated. Agenda item number 17, development loan to Elizabeth street apartments LLC. Attachment number three was updated. Agenda item number 25, resolution approving the sale of not to exceed $263 million, water and sewer utility system revenue refunding bonds series 2021. Attachment number two was updated. Agenda item number 40, comprehensive plan, community goals and objectives adoption. There will be a presentation made today and we are estimating about 30 minutes for that presentation. And agenda item number 46, economic development incentive agreement with Carson therapeutics limited attachment number one financial impacts section was updated. That is all I have on my priority list today. Thank you very much, Madam Manager. Colleagues, do we have a motion to accept the manager's priority items? So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freeman, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Madam Attorney, any priority items this afternoon? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. This is Senior Assistant City Attorney Fred Lamar standing in for the city attorney. And good afternoon, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, as well as council members of the City of Durham. There are no priority items today for the city attorney's office. Thank you, Mr. Lamar, and we're glad you're here with us. Colleagues, we'll now move to the City Clerk. Madam Clerk, any any priority items? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor, Pro Tem and council members. The City Clerk's office has no priority items today. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. All right, we'll now move over to the administrative consent items, and I'll read the items. City Clerk's office approval of city council minutes. Item two, audit services oversight committee appointment. Item three, Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board appointments. Item four, Durham Homeless Services Advisory Committee appointment. Item five, Durham Workers' Rights Commission appointments. Item six, Mayor Suspanic Latino Committee appointment. Item seven, workforce development board appointments. Under departmental items, budget management services department item eight, American Rescue Plan Act ARPA of 2021 grant project ordinance. Item non-fiscal year 21-22 budget and 22-27 capital improvement plan CIP and of course that item is the big item that will be on our our council meeting on the 21st. Item 10, Recovery Renewal Task Force RRTF funding request for convention center complex. Item 11, Recovery Renewal Task Force RRTF funding request for rediscovered Durham proposal. Under community development department, item 12, Commerce Street Apartments residential development, revised and restated development loan commitment, Durham Housing Authority, DHA, downtown Durham neighborhood plan. We pulled that item, Mr. Mayor. Item 12, Item 13, Conditional Binding Commitment to Development Ventures Inc. for the Commerce Street Seniors Development. Item 14, Contract with Durham County for the provision of housing opportunities for persons with HIV, AIDS, COVID-19, HOPWA, CV, short-term rent, mortgage and utility, STRMU assistance. Item 15, Contract with Matrix Health and Safety Consultants for Lead Hazard Control, Lead Inspection Risk Assessment, LIRA and Clearance Services. Item 16, Contract with the L Group Inc. for Lead Hazard Control, Lead Inspection Risk Assessment, LEERA and Clearance Services. Item 17, Development Loan to Elizabeth Street Apartments, LLC. Item 18, Grant Contract with Legal Aid of North Carolina, LANC to provide legal representation to City of Durham residents facing eviction. I don't want to pull it, I just want to comment about how excited I was to to read through that. Yes, thank you. Item 19, Loan Agreement with Maureen Road, LLC for Replacement of the Sanitary Lines at Maureen Road Apartments. I'd like to pull that. Item 19, Item 20, Under Transportation Department Interlocal Agreement for Review, Approval and Implementation of Transit Improvements. Department of Water Management, Item 21, North and South Durham Water Reclamation Facilities Process Improvements, Amendment Number 8 to Professional Engineering Services Contract. Item 22, South Durham Water Reclamation Facility Process Improvements, Phase 2, Construction Award TA Loving Company. Under the Finance Department, Bid Report, April 2021. Item 24, Letter of Credit, LOC and Guarantee Amendment Agreement for Durham City Transit Company, DCTC Insurance Large Deductible Program. I don't want to pull that, but I will say great work by our Finance Department. They're always looking for ways to improve our financial situation. Item 25, Resolution Approving the Sale of Not to Exceed, $263 million Water and Sewer Utility System Revenue Refunding Bond Series 2021. I'm going to disappoint Councilmember Rees. I'm not going to pull this, but I am going to say thank you for the inclusion of Luke to ensure the strong minority participation. Item 26, Resolution Authorizing to Virtual City Auction Under the Fire Department, Item 27, Hazards Materials Cost Recovery Under General Services Department, Item 28, Design Build Services Contract with Scantz USA Building for Major League Baseball Facilities Standard Upgrades at Durham Athletic Park. Item 29, Professional Engineering Design Services Contract Amendment with Kimley Horn Associates Inc. for the R. Kelly Bryant Bridge Trail Project, EB 5720. Under Item 30, Professional Engineering Design Services Contract Amendment with Kimley Horn and Associates Inc. for the 3rd, 4th Creek Phase 2 Trail Project, EB 5837. I'm going to pull this item. Under Neighborhood Improvement Services Department, Item 31, Housing Code Text Amendment due to NCGS Chapter 160D. I'm also going to pull Item 31. Item 32, Unsafe Building Code Text Amendment due to NCGS Chapter 160D. I'm also going to pull Item 32, Office of Economic and Workforce Development Contract with Infinity Bridges to Provide Economic Development Consulting Services. Item 34, Contract for Pre-Employment, Polygraph Examination of Police Applicants. Item 35, Under Public Works Contract Amendment to Number 10, Number 10 for ST 264C for Professional Services Related to Fanful Road Improvements. Under Solid Waste Management Department, Item 36, Subscription Service Agreement with Recolex Systems Inc. for Digital Waste Management and Software Solutions. I don't want to pull that up. I want to say that it was the first time I learned that we had a game on our website called Waste This Way and I want to say that I played the game and it's fabulous and I want to know how we promote it. It will tell you what you can recycle and what you can't in a really fun format. Councilmember Reese has already played and I suggest we promote it by him putting on his social media because he has a big reach there. But it is a fabulous, is it really wonderful? I'm always wondering exactly what I can recycle and this is a great way to know. Technology Solutions Department, Item 37, Contract with E-Plus Technology Inc. for Network Managed Services. Item 38, Contract with Presidio Network Solutions LLC for Voice Over Internet Protocol, VOIP Telephone System Managed Services. Under Presentations, Police Department, Item 39, Community Services Division, that's a Presentation Item. Under Public Hearing, City County Planning Department, Item 40, Comprehensive Plan, Community Goals and Objective Adoption. Is that Presentation today Madam Manager? Item 40. It is today. It is today. Thank you. Under Item 41, Consolidated Anxation, Birth of Gamble Residence. Item 42, Consolidated Anxation, Lumley Road Industrial. Item 43, Consolidated Anxation, 1051 Olive Branch Road. Item 44, Consolidated Anxation, Project Sweet, 1 Lithow Way. Under Finance Department, Item 45, Resolution Approving the Issues by the Public Finance Authority. Of its Educational Facilities Revenue Bond, Duke School Series 2021. Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Item 46, Economic Development, Set of Agreement with Karskin, Therapeutics, Inc. Citizens Matters to be Heard at 1 o'clock. Item 47, Gwendolyn Bookman. Item 48, Erica Shirts. And then I want to just remind you we will have a under, we will be meeting afterwards under Other Matters. So Madam Manager, what I have for the Polled Items are 12, 19, 30, 31, and 32. And for the Presentations Item 39 and 40. Is that what you have? That is what I have, sir. Thank you very much. This is my next project. You didn't say Item 17. I thought someone had already pulled it. We can pull Item 17. Okay, so Item 12, 17, 19, 30, 31, and 32. And 39 and 40 will be Presentation Items. But first we have Citizens Matters and we have two members of our community who would like to be heard and I'm going to ask first if the clerk could make Gwendolyn Bookman available to be heard. I am unmuted. Are you able to hear me? Yes, we are Ms. Bookman. Thank you for being here. We welcome you and you have three minutes. Alrighty. I want to first thank you for hearing me today. Before I begin specifics, I want to place myself in context. I am a native Durhamite born in 1947 in Lincoln Hospital in the historic Fetwell Street, Carter, where my concerns are situated. My father William Henry McLaughlin Jr. was the proprietor of Neighborhood Grocery Store at 1619 Fetwell Street, beginning in the 1940s. And my sister Beverly McLaughlin is preparing to open a coffee shop there soon. My brother William Henry McLaughlin III ran McLaughlin Medical Arts Pharmacy at 2520 Fetwell Street in the 1970s. My husband, Kenneth Lasseter, was there as Coco Jazz and Art Center most recently. And my son, Dobbin Bookman, is constructing a checkers there currently. I live on Otis Street and my mother who recently transitioned at 103 years of age was a longtime resident of Cecil Street. Both of these properties are part of this corridor. My interests in the issues I'm raising therefore are deep and personal. You have already received a heads up from Deputy Chief Joseph Kelly about my concerns and he is correct. I have no complaints that I want to specifically address with you today. Although there are serious problems within this corridor that should be addressed at some point. I am here instead to ask that you make sure that the historic Fetwell Street corridor is a priority for council as Durham continues to grow and as you continue to plan. There are residents, both residential and commercial, who want to be partners with you to ensure that the Fetwell Street corridor is a safe and healthy environment within which to invest, live and work. This corridor is a gateway for motorists and foot traffic and it has outstanding social and economic potential as a destination site for the city. As it stands today however that potential is not fully realized. I would like you to know that the group that Kelly references in his report to you is the Fetwell Street planning group who in 2005 about 16 years ago submitted to you a Fetwell Street neighborhood master plan with the aim to help preserve and improve our historic community. Their purpose as is mine today was to have a positive impact on planning and zoning policies for this area. So I resubmit to you the spirit of that plan and ask that you implement again one of the specific recommendations that was made and that was to have foot and or bicycle patrolling in this corridor to have officers develop a relationship with the residents not focused on crime but rather on public safety and crime deterrence. We do not have the answers we know you are the total solution. In the meantime we will continue to pick up the discarded needles condoms and trash that we find in the streets and to meet as concerned citizens to brainstorm recommendations to bring before you. I thank you for giving me an audience today. Ms. Bookman thank you so much for being with us and for your comments. They're important comments we really appreciate them and we would welcome hearing further from you about any recommendations that you have. And as you know we we you can reach us by email with that information and we are always happy to pass that on to our staff so we look forward to that. Thank you. I appreciate the time you've given me. Thank you so much. Councilmember Freeland. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I just also wanted to thank Ms. Bookman and offer my sincere condolences to the loss of your mother who or I guess not lost because I feel her presence daily. She was such an important your whole family really has been such an important part of this community in my life personally and I appreciate you continuing her legacy through the work that you're doing. I know she's smiling down on on the efforts you're galvanizing and not not in addition to the entrepreneurial work I mean you didn't mention the notebook store and the other aspects of your legacy when you spoke at the beginning but it's just been absolutely paramount so thank you. Thank you so much again. Thank you councilmember. Colleagues we are going to pull item eight there's a resident who would like to speak on that so add that Madam manager to our list of pulled items. Okay now we will hear from our other resident who has signed up to speak and that is Erica Shirts. Ms. Shirts welcome. Are you available to be heard? I am here. Can you hear me? Yes we can thank you for being here and you also have three minutes. Great. First thank you for setting time for me and for the responses that I've already received from city council and I want to give a shout out to Bo Ferguson for his responses and Mayor Schulz regarding the 9-1-1 emergency responder shortage. So mine is a story of success and excellent care by the 9-1-1 call center and EMS team. My husband was working out and suddenly had a cardiac arrest in our house. He was 30 years old and it was totally unexpected and I didn't know what was going on and called 9-1-1 and the responder successfully coached me through CPR and was able to get EMS teams to our house very quickly and he ended up being without a pulse for over 70 minutes but because of the quick response time he is alive and working as a data analyst again and is alive for our four-year-old who turns four tomorrow. So it's a success that only was possible because of the immediate response of the 9-1-1 callers and from what I understand the shortages have been addressed but I'm kind of getting a one side of the story for Mr. Ferguson that things are okay and then another side from local journalism that there are still issues with quick responses. So I just wanted to make sure that that we can I don't I don't know the process of making sure that we don't have shortages again but I want to make sure that everyone in the city at any time has the same excellent care that we received because without that immediate response there's there's no way he'd be alive. So that's that's all I wanted to say but I don't I don't know what can be put in place to make sure that those shortages don't happen again but it is it is definitely those you know couple minutes can make a life or death difference. Sure thank you for being with us today and uh I just want to tell you that we take these concerns extremely seriously we're so glad that your husband had the experience that he did with 9-1-1 and that your family did and that's just amazing and it's so you're so right it's so critical that these services be excellent and I just want you to know the council spends a lot of time on this we recently this morning we spent probably at least an hour talking with this and we've got an excellent update from our 9-1-1 folks and we are I will just say that I am and I believe that the council is very confident that we have the service that we need and that we are also moving to make sure that we have the staff that we need over time and that's I think very critical so I want to appreciate you I want to assure you that your concerns are ones that we share and that our administration shares and I feel like they're they're on it and we're in good shape and we're going to continue to be in good shape. We have like you yeah like you I've heard a couple of media reports you know where an individual was complained there you know we talked about some of those this morning some of those things are you know someone calls and claims that they got the email I mean they got a voicemail our 9-1-1 system does not have voicemail at all all calls are answered by an individual turns out that that person's call went to uh through their cell tower went to uh somehow they were routed to another 9-1-1 system in another city we've had other individual complaints that are tracked down every one and I'm again feeling very confident not that it's perfect but that we are we are at this point providing excellent service and we will continue to improve but much much appreciation for you for being here thank you can can you um address just quickly what happened in the recent past where there was a shortage and why that happened um and I can't miss shirts because we got a big agenda today well I see Mr. Ferguson came on and wanted to do it okay I'll let him I was going to move us along so let's do it Mr. Ferguson can you address miss short miss shirts sorry Mayor happy to follow your lead and also happy to address the question miss shirts again good to talk to you in person I appreciate the extreme that we've had the email just just briefly as we recap for the city council this morning um you know first of all it's our job to have these positions filled and so I think you know first and foremost I want to reiterate the commitment I've shared with you the council that that we have some very intentional and more aggressive tactics at this point to to fill the vacancies that we have but speaking to to how we got here the simple explanation I provided council earlier is one academy that was scheduled for 2020 did not happen as a result of COVID that put us four people behind in terms of filling vacancies and at the same time we experienced a higher number of departures than than was typical and those two factors then combined with some temporary staffing shortages as a result of COVID quarantines really resulted in some of the conditions that we've discussed um and to be clear you know we have made progress on that but I did not want to leave you with the impression that we are back to where we want to be it is correct that we still have vacancies we want to fill but as we reported to the council this morning we do feel like we're in good position to be answering 911 calls now 100 percent of their arms 911 calls and we'll continue to make progress and move ahead great thank you thank you mr Ferguson and thank you miss shirts thank you all right colleagues will now move to item eight which is an item that uh one our resident would like to speak on and that's mr donald hughes madam claire can you make mr hughes available to be heard good afternoon mr mayor and members of the mr hughes welcome you have three minutes thank you mr mayor and members of the council i'm here today to encourage you to consider using some of the 51 million that will come to the city of Durham through the american rescue plan to expand the Durham youth work summer job program american jobs are starting to come back but we know that youth employment is still unemployment is still high and many young people are postponing college and other training and educational programs why does this matter we know that young people across the country are falling behind because of the pandemic and they will feel the economic consequences long after the pandemic is over when we disaggregate the data we know that youth of color include an lgbtq youth of color are going to be hit even harder long after the worst of this pandemic is behind us young workers are disproportionately impacted in terms of job loss because they worked in industries that are overrepresented in lots of jobs such as hospitality and retail many young people who aren't already in the workforce are delaying their education because they can't spend the money on school and their families just simply can't afford it so what's at stake stephanie erinson of the brookens economic studies program says that young workers who have lost their jobs face increased debt burdens and housing insecurity and that those who are delaying education will inevitably fall behind on getting a foothold into their careers and those that are graduating into a pandemic economy may end up taking jobs at lower wages which can lead to delays and starting families and buying homes and this domino effect eventually will drag down millions of young people for several years including thousands of those in Durham have been supported a program in washington dc that provided 10 000 youth with summer job opportunities i'm happy to offer insights to city staff regarding scaling up the Durham youth works program even in a virtual space here's what we saw in dc when young people were given an opportunity and expectations were high they met those expectations working with federal partners in the private sector after the initial year in which the youth jobs were subsidized by the city government many of these organizations saw the impact that they had on the community and decided to cover the cost of employing youth during subsequent summers so i'm pleased to be able to offer again my assistance the insights and i'm also pleased that i read that you all are going to be focusing on community engagement throughout this process of deciding the city's priorities for the 51 million dollars i would encourage you not to just hear from those of us like myself who are vocal and who attend every virtual setting or every public hearing but to really find a way to use nontraditional outreach methods to hear those folks that are not going to be able to attend these meetings and sessions to offer their insights so thank you all again for the time and i appreciate your support for my service on the citizens advisory committee thank you mr. Hughes we appreciate you being with us today all right uh colleagues will now move to item 12 which was pulled by councilmember reese i believe commerce free department's residential development thank you mr. mayor appreciate that good afternoon mr. johnson great to be with you um we're going to spend a lot of time together you and me uh after a very long work session mr. johnson and i have two hours at the affordable housing implementation committee so we're just going to get comfy and and do the thing today speaking of which um so i understand the mechanics of what's happening with this agenda item in the next agenda item i get it and i understand the current kind of trends in the construction industry costs etc that are leading to that i guess what i don't understand is the this project item number 12 was one of the nine percent uh low-income housing tax credits that we kind of have lined up with this project no longer being that what happens to that nine percent tax credit do we have another project that's ready to go behind it um it's always been our practice to try to make sure this pipeline uh stays in effect we don't want to we want to make sure that derm gets it the one we get that we make sure we get it and my concern is this process which i again i totally understand makes all the sense in the world to me it's sad that it's more expensive but that is what it is right now um that we lose that derm lose the opportunity to compete and win the nine percent tax credit the one that we're allowed to have each year thanks uh thank you our council member reginald johnson director of the department of community development i'll be honest with you i had that same question when i found out the information and i asked that same question but fortunately we do have a backup in this instance we had submitted a tax credit application with our partners self-help in dhic for ashton place which is willett phase two uh so that that was the plan and so uh we understand the withdrawal of this nine percent we know that nine percent are important to our community and uh we know that we already only get one uh i will just share with you that while we do have that and we're confident about ashton place and our development team that we'll be able to secure the tax credit don't want to wish any bad will upon us but i'm i'm confident uh but we do have to really think about the next year which we already have started bad uh plans because what's going on with the housing authority we'll carry over into next year in all projects and uh related to this and so we're working on a plan for the subsequent year that's great mr johnson that's fantastic news um if there's a team uh in derm that i trust to to execute on nine percent housing loan come housing tax credit it's the team that brought out of the ground the little street apartments that are just extraordinary um really looking forward to seeing this project move forward as well um we had it in our back pocket now it's time to pull it out and use it um but as you said now our back pocket is kind of empty uh so trust you and your staff to come up with more stuff for our back pocket for the next time in case this happens uh but just wanted to get that clarity and appreciate you taking the time that's all i have thank you mr mayor thank you i think that that's a really important um point is we've always got to have we've always got to have the backup every year we have to have the backup and uh we did which is great and just this will be is my recollection uh mr johnson you can correct me but this is 55 units uh and it will be adjacent to the uh will's tree departments and the we already have the uh parking there for it right i think it's 51 units but we'll we'll uh confirm that but we're in the we're in the ballpark yeah great all right so uh colleagues thank you that was uh let me just also say while we're on this congratulations mr johnson to your department uh for all the items that you've got here today this is a huge lift i know on the part of your department to get all these all these financings ready uh and it's this is exciting i mean councilmember cavier has already mentioned the uh the eviction diversion funds but you know we're looking at just tremendous support for the Durham housing authority for all the work that they're doing and uh you know a few years from now we're going to have just amazing affordable housing uh not only coming out of the ground but completed and occupied because of this work so thank you so much thank you thank you members of council we appreciate it got bigger mr johnson yeah make it even bigger yeah all right now we'll move to item 17 mr johnson looks like you're still up and this is from councilmember freeman uh development along to elizabeth street apartments llc thank you mr mayor uh just a question regarding and i appreciate the item i just didn't hear any updates or any information around how the rad conversions coming along just noting the increasing uh cost of rentals i just wanted to make sure that they wasn't the need to to kind of allocate any additional funds to cover folks who have been unable to locate housing in Durham um just noting i've been hearing stories of folks not being able to find any housing to use their vouchers so to speak and so i was just trying to figure out if they were just noting that elizabeth street has four like larger apartment units and so there's a number of of actual like bedrooms and you know that's not not the norm and so you know the one and two bedrooms is a little bit easier it's still expensive but the three and four bedrooms um just trying to trying to just hear if there's any concern around that thank you for your question councilmember uh actually we have mr anthony scott the president ceo is on the call i think he will need to be elevated uh to be able to respond but i think the answer the response best comes from him to speak on on that thank you mr johnson i'm adam clark can you make mr anthony scott available to be heard mr mayor there's anthony snell i'm not certain if that's him no well that's not him my number anthony scott is but uh anthony snell may be able to um respond by mr scott this is on mr scott is on mr johnson yes let me let me check all righty we don't see him in the attendees list well let's do this um let's elevate mr snell and if he's able to respond let him respond if not we'll do on follow up that sounds great madam clark can you make anthony snell available to be heard he is good afternoon mr johnson the mayor i am here my name is anthony snell the director of development um councilmember freeman um i'm i i'm not sure if i can answer your your question directly um as far as rad is concerned yes the larger units are always a concern in preserving those as part of our development strategy is a priority for us um and certainly you know as mr johnson indicated earlier we are certainly challenged by cost issues in the current market but we are making every effort we can to ensure that we preserve all of the housing certainly you know under our rad strategy we are replacing every public housing unit um as part of that convergence so we are not losing any units and we're certainly always looking for strategies where we can expand upon the number of affordable units that we provide councilmember um specifically to to the point of the folks who have been moved out currently or is there any anyone tracking um whether or not they're having trouble finding units for their vouchers that they currently have before this project takes off i'm gonna have to respond to you offline on on that one we do we track every individual we are tracking our individuals and as far as individuals that are relocating as part of the strategy for the development we are ensuring that they are placed in similar housing to what they're located in now either some of those units some of those individuals as you know did transfer to the willow street uh apartments some of those individuals went to other public housing sites as part of the relocation strategy for the building of the Elizabeth street a little bit more detail follow-up thank you third thank you mr snail thank you for being here with us colleagues any other questions on this item all right thank you and mr johnson stay with us we our next item is also one of your items item 19 this is one agreement with marion road llc for replacement of the sedentary lines at marion road apartments and um i'm not sure i can't councilmember reese did you pull this word i apologize councilmember caviero yeah thank you and i'm not sure mr johnson will be able to answer it or not i just was curious um just a couple of things that surprised me was one you know marion road was built in 68 or thereabouts and so i'm just surprised that the sewer lines weren't checked before that level of an upgrade was made to plumbing and i was also surprised that you know because it was rad conversion they don't have a mechanism now dh doesn't have a mechanism to um to pay for this other than approaching the city and so i will i just want to flag that because we have other projects that are going to be doing the same thing and um i guess my hope is that folks will do a deeper dive on some of these older buildings so that we don't run into this again because i don't want another project with millions of dollars around sewage or other infrastructure things that should have been done earlier in the project uh thank you councilmember uh actually believe it or not i asked those same questions so uh i'm going to speak a little bit uh about it and uh mr. smell snail may feel in uh if i miss anything but i'll be short and brief and short when the project was scoped out uh it did not include replacing the sewer lines that's number one and they did add washer and dryer to individual units for this project they didn't realize that they had a problem until after the project had well it was loading up being occupied and then they realized and if they did not realize that this was the issue they had to work their way to that um so you raise a good point uh we've had that conversation with that with the housing authority about obviously the projects going forward um no there is not a mechanism uh without a pack impacting the the financing that they have in place and putting that in i would use the term jeopardy to make use the right term uh and so that's the reason we come to their assistance on them uh in this particular project uh of course i asked that question because i was uh surprised as well i'll i'll say that so know that you are definitely heard we definitely agree with you uh but one of the things that's important for us is that these are units that do need to be occupied and and we tried to structure it in a way that is favorable to them it's very well it's favorable to us uh and getting those units occupied as soon as possible uh with that i'll turn it over to mr snail uh i know you can't remember you have another question to follow up so yeah i just wanted to share that i i see the concern and i will be um supporting this i guess what i want to hear from dha is that there's just going to be more just reading through the memo adding that many washer and dryers and not having checked the sewer is kind of shocking and i and i don't know the building sciences that well but i know well enough that that should have been done and so i guess what i want to really be clear with as dha continues these types of projects is to do their due diligence on their part on the front end so that we are not being forced on this side where we know we have an affordability crisis in the city we know folks need to move into those apartments and so then the city is forced between a rock and a hard place of financing mistakes at dha's level because we don't have another choice because we know we need people in those units good afternoon again this is uh anthony snell the director of development uh and i want to respond to a couple of things here certainly when we go into these projects we do perform a physical needs assessment which gives us an idea of what the needs of the replacement needs of that property should be immediately and part of the process is to take a look at what those those needs are be over the next 20 year periods certainly a project uh with the age uh that we looked at with moraine road it is it certainly falls in the category to look at investment in this plummet we did make as part of the process there was a substantial investment in the plumbing there at the site but always with these projects we have constraints as we look at the resources that are available at the time when we are doing the investments we did replace some of the some of the sanitary lines within some of the units it was not an extensive it was not a 100 percent replacement and as mr johnson indicated as we occupy these units uh and especially with the addition of the washes which we didn't originally have in those units we discovered that we didn't have the capacity in our sanitary lines and we were uh experiencing failures as a result of the additional capacity that was required so as a process to fix this problem we have to now go in and do a 100 percent replacement of the sanitary lines at the site mr snow thank you um let me just say i think we all share the concern that councilmember carbillero expressed i know our community development department does as well um and uh i read in the memo your plans to try to use uh you know for dha to use more foresight uh with these older properties and i appreciate that and we'll be looking forward to that and i know you and community development will be monitoring that as well uh mr johnson yes sir absolutely all right thank you so much we appreciate you uh any other questions on number 19 all right thank you councilmember carbillero for raising those important concerns now we'll move to item 30 this is an item that i pulled uh and this item um is regarding the third four creek trail let me just say first of all is it awesome to have these two trail projects moving ahead um they do they both do have a financing gap uh my question is not about that gap um i have another question but i know that uh the council will have to figure out ways to fill that gap and uh the department the staff and then we'll help us do that but it's great to see them moving ahead um and for those of us who use our trail system a lot it's really wonderful to think of the link between the third four creek trail in the american tobacco trail that is just huge and i'm super excited but my question is hi miss camp good to see you uh who owns the wooded areas through which the third four creek trail will go uh and how will it i think you you've done a wonderful job using community input to change the routes of these trails both of them i was really impressed with that i think that they're going to make for much better trails uh in this case this is going through a wooded area which is wonderful how will that that land or an easement for that land be acquired can you talk to me about that good afternoon i'm jessica kemp with the general services department um mayor shul those are excellent questions um we were very pleased to have um been challenged to um engage with the residents differently on these projects and and really rethink the final trail alignments that we're going to serve the people best that live work and play in these corridors and so as we pulled the trail project away from weaver street away from the hillside neighborhood at a very strong resident request and through the wooded area to access bayetville and then connect the america to the american tobacco trail at bayetville as opposed to at otis street that had been identified during the planning process um we did we were able to offer more of a um recreational experience for people who were also able to activate um an opportunity for folks um living residing working playing in the weaver street residential area near the weaver street recreational center to very important grocery stores and community amenities that already exist on bayetville street so all that being said we are currently at about 35 design we are doing land survey work necessary to finalize land acquisition needed mayor shul for your question about what type of property is needed in that corridor the Durham housing authority owns a small piece of property on the east side of weaver street that has not been developed previously due partly to its floodplain proximity and so the trail would enter the area there it would also traverse across a tributary to third fork creek and third fork creek so we would have to have boardwalks in that area to raise above the wetlands and then it would come out along a mosques property near bayetville street and so it is a large area but it looks to be right now at preliminary design it looks to be about three or four parcels we would anticipate easements would suffice on the majority of those parcels however one of them might be a fee simple acquisition and if so depending on that land value council would see that again as an agenda item for approval later in the process that's fantastic that's great news thank you miss kent those are my questions i really appreciate it i cannot wait to get on that trail i hope i'm still alive when it's done so we're very excited thank you so get cracking because you see how old i am okay thank you miss camp looking forward to it all right uh we'll now move to item 31 which is also an item i pulled on housing code text amendment and i see miss gardener welcome miss gardener thank you mr mayor hello council i'm faith gardener assistant director with neighborhood improvement services i had a question my question i pulled about this and the next item but really my question is the same when i looked at the ordinances it really all it did in terms of the blue lining was just change the reference to different parts of the state code i guess what i'm wondering is that are there substantive changes that we need to be aware of in terms of for this item uh some of our housing enforcement or for the next item anything related to unsafe buildings are there changes that will make a difference in in policy and practice um thank you for your question mayor no there are not um we're um slated for review and assessment of uh our codes in the coming fiscal year um to look at substantive uh kinds of changes or their modifications that we make these two um ordinance requests are simply to get us aligned with the changes in the state statute and those references so that we can stay in business basically gotcha that's what i needed to know thank you so much i appreciate it miss gardener thank you all right colleagues will now move to our first presentation item which is item 39 and this is community services division uh of the police department a presentation on their programs and i see almost almost interim chief Montgomery i'm not sure exactly what's your date of the the date that you will be uh stepping in and i see our city manager manager would you like to introduce the item i would just like to welcome um interim chief sherry Montgomery who i do believe will start her service tomorrow is that correct yes ma'am and i i do not know if chief davis is still here but i i hadn't expected to have a few words for her if she is still here as i introduce uh chief Montgomery but when i look before i don't know if she's in the meeting at this time but uh we're very happy to have chief Montgomery be able to step up and um be the interim chief while we continue our search and look forward to seeing her presentation today good thank you madam manager and and and welcome chief Montgomery we're thrilled to have you with us and know that you can count on us that you please don't hesitate to call on us for what you need and for the support that you need um and now i'm going to turn it over to you for this report thank you uh good afternoon mayor shill mayor pertin johnson council members and city manager page i'm sherry Montgomery currently serving as the deputy chief over the investigative services bureau the department thank you for allowing us this time to highlight some of our community engagement activities that members of the dorm police department have participated in move to the next slide for me although the police department has had many citizen police academies in the past due to the pandemic we had to switch to a virtual platform during the months of February and March the department hosted its second virtual citizen police academy there were discussions regarding the actual name citizen police academy so in collaboration with staff and graduates of the academy the department has rebranded the academy as the new community police academy a formal announcement of the name change will be done at a later date by a public affairs unit and we would like to take a moment to thank our public affairs unit the executive command staff and the police department presenters as well as special guests for their continued contributions to the program and especially thank you to city manager page for speaking at the graduation we are currently working to host the next installment of the academy in September of 2021 next slide the police athletic league or piles has over 100 participants in the various programming offerings so far in 2021 these programs included golf basketball e-sports baseball and venturing activities we anticipate increased interest in our piles program for the remainder of the year and continue to explore opportunities to connect with the community next slide these are a few more pictures of our piles events and we are monitoring the ever-changing health and safety guidelines and we look forward to having the ability for increased participation in our various programs next slide in january also walko with piles started a venturing program to many young people in the Durham housing communities he started in the google terrace with just three youth they began with a goal to meet once a month online through zoom just to talk about how things are going and this has progressed into also doing one fun activity a month in february the venturing youth went on a hike to oakeny mountain in hillsboro along with a few of the piles explorers also walko shared some history about the park and guided the youth through a two-mile nature hike his venturing program has now expanded to the cornwallage road and oxford manner communities and has included up to 14 youth next slide in april the youth in the venturing program went fishing these are a few photos from their fishing trip and also in may the youth on the program went to the museum of license rights next slide next slide please during the past year the police explorers have been busy undertaking the innovation 4.0 curriculum as part of the national police athlete league grant this curriculum is a series of courses that teach lessons on empathy teamwork communication problem-solving and critical thinking the explorers also participated in various leadership exercises and community conversations that culminated into a presentation this past april to mayor shul city manager page and chief davis next slide in april the community resource unit conducted pop-up events in the community to engage residents and provide information about the department and information on available resources as well as provided safety tips next slide these are more photos from our wellans village pop-up events the community resource unit will continue to explore additional opportunities to engage the community as well as we recover from the pandemic next slide the crisis intervention team or cit unit continues to meet the high demand for services our cit clinician has responded to 333 of the 429 cases assigned to the unit during the last six months officers in the cit unit continue to engage with the homeless and unsheltered population through the empowerment jacket program in connection to the federal government stimulus programs next slide in march the community services division began producing monthly newsletters internally to provide dorm police department staff with awareness about community events in which they can attend or be a partner next slide our community engagement unit or ceu partnered with icna with the release during the pandemic ceu assisted in going door to door and Durham's most vulnerable neighborhoods with icna ceu delivered food cleaning supplies and other essential items to families together they stuffed and supplied book bags filled with school supplies and protective masks for hundreds of students the second Saturday of each month icna relief volunteers and ceu personnel served approximately 125 families at the Fayetteville street food pantry and provided food delivery to the homes of seniors at most risk for serious covid complications next slide next slide also partner with icna relief ceu works with keep Durham beautiful to clean up areas in our city where trash and debris were diminishing residents quality of life the event held in the Dawkins street and umsted street area and they even had mayor mayor shul stopped by to help in march ceu helped with a cleanup event at Burton park in the ta grady center with over 25 volunteers from the community these events are attended by the community engagement unit icna and keep Durham beautiful and many other community partners next slide in collaboration with Durham one call in duke energy the community resource unit provided assistance with removing shoes from other items from the power lines and telecommunication lines through the city this cleanup decreases the potential of interrupted utility service to residents next slide ceu has participated in three of the five bedbed builds with sleep and heavily peace has had so far in 2021 they helped with the bed builds delivery and assembly into homes for children in need of a bed next slide so far in 2021 sleep and heavily peace has constructed 105 beds where 59 have been provided to Durham residents in need next slide habitat for humanity partnered with nis community engagement and they invited dpd's community engagement unit to a collaborative event which welcomed new residents to Laurel avenue back in February we continue to work closely with nis community engagement on projects and events next slide the community engagement unit continues to attend events in partnership with the Durham housing communities pictured here is ceu officers helping with an easter egg content next slide community service division members engage in with community and supporting neighborhood improvement services we've partnered with them quite a bit recently thank you for allowing me the opportunity to highlight some of the many community engagement events participated in by members of the police department as our officers engage and interact with the community every day countless positive interactions take place and spontaneous and impromptu ways recently a gang unit officer on patrol was challenged to a push-up contest by children and officers from district one v squad responded to a disturbance involving young children playing basketball in the intersection after discussing safety concerns playing the streets officers joined in and played a couple of gangs with them that's one of the many many interactions that happen on a daily basis that's not captured by photo the department looks forward to continuing partnership for the community and fostering a strong community engagement that includes my presentation thank you we really appreciate you being here we really appreciate that presentation and i have seen the work of the police athletic league and so many other things that you all have done close up over the years and i really always enjoy being out there for those events and i'm really appreciative of them i just want to say for those colleagues that may not know icna is a um a muslim group that it's a it's a foundation that does a lot of good work in our community and i'm really appreciative of the connection that our police department has forged with this group i think it's just great all right colleagues comments or questions for chief montgomery councilmember meddleton thank you mr mayor first let me start with uh congratulations uh chief montgomery on the assumption well i guess tomorrow the assumption the interim chief position we've been a very uh less important in german during these interim periods to have excellent people uh serve as interim chief smith was an excellent interim chief and i know it'll be no different and let me just reiterate to mayor's uh commitment that if you need help from any of us please feel free i know these are these are challenging times but we know you're more than up to the job and we're in good hands so it's really good to see you here in this context first question who won that push-up contest the officer okay it's just just wanted to say i was going to say i had to consider if the officer didn't um i wanted to ask about the um first let me let me i'm glad to see that we have um uh established in our uh persisting with our pal uh uh efforts when when i was a kid um oftentimes i i participated in a lot of pl and i was in a very very tough area and police has athletically provided a lot of uh outlets and activities of the kid in my neighborhood red hook growing up during those days uh so i i'm glad to see that that's uh going on here uh in Durham could you tell me a little more about the the mentoring program and how many how many um if you know uh young people are involved in that and there's some stuff uh some details about the mentoring program the mcdougal terrace mentoring program absolutely the uh venturing program um it's the dumb housing authority um mentoring program short for venture or adventuring the goal of the program was to engage uh dha youth and provide opportunities that will take them out of the neighborhoods to just expose them to different things a side goal is to help create a pipeline for youth and dha to be able to participate in the explorers program which is a GPA requirement of 2.0 and so that's why some of the pals um attended the venturing groups with them so that they could learn their mentoring or kind of hone their mentoring abilities and just be kind of introduced to some older students in high school so maybe when these youth gets to high school they would be interested in joining the the explorers burning as well okay thanks for that i i wanted to ask about um some of your your visioning or your your conceptions firstly what's the percentage of our officers there to cit train now i think last i checked it was 50 percent i'm not sure if it's do you know off the top of my head i don't um i would definitely say we're over halfway there right um glad to hear that and do do you have any sense on how the these uh officers may uh could potentially interact with where you know when we have our pilot with unarmed mental health responders um perhaps being the officers of choice if those mental health responders should need uh to be paired or partnered uh with officers or if they should need to call the folk do you have any a vision of that of how the cit officers would interact or perhaps support um the fielding the uh the uh inevitable i shouldn't say inevitable the eventual fielding of uh mental health responders on our mental health responders any any thoughts on that i think that would be a great partnership as all of our uniform patrol officers are cit certified so may possibly some of our specialized units may not have it but the officers who are responding to 911 calls or that would be out there are cit certified okay all right that that's uh that's good to know and finally i wanted to ask about the um the uh community resource uh unit um that uh i believe that was launched in the google terrace was that is that correct and and i think there were plans to expand it or desire at least to expand it to some other communities that was the community engagement units i'm sorry c e i'm getting my my uh my uh initiatives mixed up that's what i wanted to ask about the community engagement unit your sense of uh potentiality of expansion of those type of uh initiatives in other communities we do have them in the cornwallis road area um just due to the number we don't have as much of a robust presence as we do in the google terrace but they do go to the cornwallis um road area and the oxford manner i asked because you you you're probably familiar that we we've uh committed a pretty significant investment to expanding the violence interrupters um in areas and where i've seen a violence interrupter model work in other cities not direct coordination with the police they're they're not officers now i want to make that very clear but um cities like boston and other cities where we've seen success chicago with the uh violence interrupter model there there there's at least been a strong community policing element or or a relationship kind of buttressing and reinforcing uh one another in those areas where the teams are deployed uh to kind of you know it's got kind of a cascading effect with all those things kind of working in tandem any sense um about uh uh the areas where violence interrupters will be expanded um i know it's early and this is this is you probably haven't even unpacked a box yet but i'm just wondering if it have you thought about any of this um well my understanding is mostly um a google terrace and definitely any of our other you know neighborhoods that um that could require the assistance or need the assistance cornwallish road auction manner the normal spots okay cool all right thank you i think that's it i i really appreciate uh you being with us today thank you for the presentation today and um again congratulations and best wishes to you whole city's got your back and it's pulling for you so thank you so much thank you thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember colleagues any other questions or comments for chief montgomery chief thank you for being with us today we look forward to see you again in the near future and uh we really appreciate you good luck starting tomorrow big job but i know you can do it thank you all right colleagues we have our next presentation which is item 40 um and item 40 is entitled comprehensive plan community goals and objectives adoption and i'm not sure who's presenting on this today good afternoon uh that'll be me carl colosna uh mr colosna welcome we're glad to have you thank you very much so good afternoon everybody um my name is carl colosna i'm a member of the derm city county planning department team working on the comprehensive plan we're excited to be sharing the background on how we've gotten to community goals and objectives that we will be presenting to you all the derm city council and residents at the public hearing next Tuesday on June 15th these goals and objectives are the culmination of a lot of input and work before we start we wanted to acknowledge the tremendous contribution from so many of the members of the derm community to make these goals and objectives what they are and in particularly uh thanking our engagement ambassadors members of the outreach team members of multiple boards commissions and committees including the planning commission the joint city county planning committee staff from a variety of city and county departments derm public schools and many many others for their contributions and collaboration so here's a brief overview of what we're planning to cover today today we'll be focusing on sharing the full process to date to get to these community goals and objectives and we'll be glad to answer questions and hear feedbacks or concern about any and all parts of this work in advance of the public hearing so as our work on the new comprehensive plan began the city's equitable community engagement blueprint was being developed and the city and county both were beginning to work towards more equitable engagement through early conversations with our colleagues in the neighborhood improvement services department we identified specific aspects of engagement that we would work to incorporate into our engagement for this plan based on the blueprint these have included working to provide information and engagement opportunities in accessible language and in both English and Spanish asking demographic questions as we engage to understand who we're hearing from through our different engagement methods letting that data guide where we invest resources and reaching folks to move towards more equitable engagement compensating residents for engagement and for engaging folks within their communities particularly through the creation of an engagement ambassador program and finally improving coordination across multiple projects and engagement efforts we have learned a lot about engagement and working towards equitable engagement in our work on this project but we know we still have a lot more to learn and a lot more work to do to improve how we work with residents and to build trust and relationships with the community this work has allowed us to hear from many residents who've been excluded from our work in the past and their voices have significantly shaped the work we're bringing to you today we're excited to share these goals and objectives that we believe accurate really and equitably reflect the needs and priorities of the Durham community so we began work on the new comprehensive plan in the summer of 2019 beginning with the recruitment for our resident outreach team and raising awareness of the upcoming work to create a new comprehensive plan for Durham engagement on this plan began in November 2019 with the listening and learning phase of engagement we began the project by asking big open-ended questions that were intended to find out what residents care about most and what they wanted to see in our community in the future through the listening and learning engagement efforts and next slide please over 1000 residents shared their needs and priorities for life in Durham now and into the future approximately 400 residents came to one of five community workshops more than 600 residents participated in a mini listening session hosted by one of 40 engagement ambassadors and 169 residents shared their perspective through the online survey the summary of this engagement is provided in attachment one of this agenda item beginning on page 10 so with all that input from residents our work started by organizing all of it our first step was to assign topics to each comment in order to get a big picture understanding of the topics that came up most this was an imperfect system but a good way to get a general sense before diving into more detailed data analysis these are the top 10 topics that were in the top 20 across all three engagement methods all of these topics were reflected through specific topical objectives and incorporated into multiple objectives and we'll share more on that later in this presentation because we began with big open-ended questions we heard input both on things directly impacted by land use planning and decisions and also input on things not as closely tied to land use planning the vast amount of input we received shows the ways in which planning and decision-making are completely intertwined with virtually every aspect of community life in Durham this information directly informed our approach to a drafting goals and objectives for this plan so in august through december of 2020 we drafted 33 draft objectives reflecting the needs and priorities we heard from residents through engagement we wanted to take a few minutes to share our process for drafting those objectives and Erin Parrish from the Office of Performance and Innovation shepherded us through this work by sharing her expertise and grounding us in an approach and perspective centered on residents in addition nicky mcdonald our first engaged Durham program assistant was invaluable in this work bringing her lived in community organizing experiencing experiences helping us stay true to resident perspectives experiences and voices the graphics attack created by staff to share this process with the community is part of attachment to beginning on page 46 so to begin uh we with the large rich listening and learning data set that allowed us to elevate the lived experience of residents listening to respecting and honoring the voice of residents who've been disinvested in and actively harmed by planning in the past we did this by filtering according to the kind of engagement that occurred and the demographics of the people who participated in that kind of engagement so then we started by sorting every quote that every resident said into coded topics there were about 70 topics in total so we created umbrella topics like housing transit and the environment for example there were about 15 or 20 topics that fit under housing like belonging gentrification and displacement growth and development homelessness and mcdogel terrace we took the quotes and observations coded under a larger number of housing related topics to find patterns and stories emerging from these voices beginning with what we heard through the engagement ambassador sessions so next we worked towards clarity in iterations by moving back and forth between the quotes and what was drafted to understand what people were saying we answered a series of structured questions what are residents saying and why is it important when we took an equity lens and then asked who benefits and who's being burdened by what we're seeing here and finally we asked how does this fit into a comp plan can we make policies about this once we answered all of those questions we were pretty close to maintaining their source material and resident quotes in a draft objective so then we wrote draft objectives we wrote all of these draft objectives in the voice of residents who we'd heard from through our engagement efforts so every draft objective starts with we need and last we revised the drafts to be sure we were saying what we meant and that we compared the drafts back with the resident quotes the objectives that came out of this process are stories for the kind of future that we want to build for Durham we believe these objectives and goals reflect our shared values as a community we want those values to come through in what we're doing in this comprehensive plan and how we're guiding our future together the community goals and objectives created through this process touch on all of the top 20 topics from each engagement method each engagement method that being our engagement ambassadors to workshops in the online survey many of the top topics led directly to a goal and group of objectives or two specific objectives the only topic from the top 10 list that didn't result in a topic specific goaler objective was infrastructure resident perspectives under the infrastructure topic were heavily focused on aspects of our street and those needs have been brought to the transportation goal and objective as well as being brought into other objectives as relevant we expect infrastructure topics to come through in our policy work in more detail as well so once we had drafted objectives that we felt were really focused on reflecting back what we heard as the needs and priorities of our residents we brought those draft objectives out back to residents to ground truth them to see how well they reflected resident perspectives and hear how to improve them before beginning to share those out more publicly we worked closely with the outreach team over a series of four meetings to talk in detail about each one of the drafted objectives their early feedback gave us an opportunity to make some edits to provide clearer drafts for the community to review the outreach team members have been great collaborators and their perspective and experience has been really really essential in this work early on we also shared our group out groups of objectives with relevant staff to hear concerns or questions or feedback before the objectives were shared with the community as the listening and learning phase of engagement our focus in engagement was making sure to hear from folks who've been left out or excluded from these processes in the past we also continued to focus on reaching young people Hispanic and Latino residents and rural residents since we know we still need to do better at reaching these community members our second engaged program assistant Ami Mejia has been hugely impactful in connecting with both Hispanic and Latino residents and young people particularly through focus group discussions we're really excited to continue to improve our connections with these residents with Ami's guidance and assistance through our engagement efforts from November of last year to this February approximately 850 residents provided input on the draft community goals and objectives we've were able to have in-depth discussions on objectives with eight focus groups including about 55 residents and we heard from a total of 174 residents during the fall engagement ambassador sessions for the nine housing and transportation objectives and 469 residents during the winter sessions to review the remaining 24 objectives including topics on things like the environment schools jobs sense of place community relationships and health and well-being we had great leadership from ideal RTS for the engagement ambassador program during this time who managed this program for both the transit plan and the comprehensive plan so and through our online engagement social pinpoint we were able to engage 152 residents on all 33 draft objectives the summary of engagement on the draft community goals and objectives provides additional information on how we engaged what we heard and the demographic details of those we heard from that summary in English is attachment three in your packet and in Spanish is attachment 10 for this agenda item so we wanted to share some high level information about what residents said about the objectives in this phase of engagement across all of the objectives we received a lot of positive feedback with at least 77 percent of respondents noting that they agree or strongly agreed when asked does this objective feel true for you and your community the combined disagree and strongly disagree responses was 8 percent or less for each objective we use this information and an understanding of the kind of open-ended input on each objective to prioritize which objectives needed the most revision work as we set out to incorporate what we'd heard so through the various ways we've engaged residents on the draft goals and objectives we heard where the drafts resonated with folks and also where we needed to make changes to better align with resident needs and to clarify the language that we used this input came from the fall and winter engagement ambassador sessions focus group discussions online engagement along with input from the outreach team a staff technical team and other community or neighborhood groups who sent comments by email just as some examples include the inter-neighborhood council the environmental affairs board preservation Durham the appearance commission and the people's alliance environmental justice and climate justice group as the engagement period was coming to a close we focused on organizing all of this input to be able to work through the revisions engagement ambassador session and small group engagement input was prioritized as we began revising the draft community goals and objectives staff developed insight statements for all input focused on recommended changes to each objective the insight statements and resident quotes informed changes to clarify the intent and update the language of the objectives we work to make revisions without significantly changing the content across all of the objectives since so much of the feedback of the drafts was generally supportive so we've provided several ways to review the revised objectives in advance of this hearing we're including a marked up copy in the agenda as attachment four where words removed are struck through and new words are underlined in English in attachment five and in Spanish in attachment 11 we provided a clean copy of the revised document that was shared for the planning commission public hearing on April 27th we have also drafted a few edits to this document specifically based on feedback heard at that public hearing which can be viewed in attachment seven with planning commissioner comments themselves in attachment six we've also posted on the engage Durham website in English and in Spanish the PDFs showing the initial drafts alongside the versions considered at the April public hearing to easily compare between the two hoping that this is a little more accessible for residents we wanted to note some of the high level changes that we made from the initial drafts to those shared at the public hearing in April we worked to revise our goal statements to better reflect that these are aspirational and describe a desired future in Durham reflecting feedback from the outreach team and engagement ambassadors for all the objectives staff clarified language and wording to try to improve accessibility and consistency we included language emphasizing the need for better land use and transportation coordination within our mixed use neighborhoods resources for thriving lives objective and the intentional and coordinated transportation and land use objective as these are really important planning tools to manage how our community changes we focused the innovative housing objective on providing affordable housing to residents now called creative and varied housing solutions we addressed the contradiction between the formally titled integrated housing objective which is now called multi-generational diverse resilient and inclusive neighborhoods and rooted and connected communities and removed language from the latter objective that caused concerns from residents that integration of neighborhoods might be forcing or lead to displacement we also work to highlight the need for a growth management strategy and the need for sustainability and resiliency across all of the objectives so in addition to that we wanted to highlight particularly some of the edits that we drafted in response to comments at the april public hearing shown in hatchment seven in addition to minor wordsmithing spelling and punctuation corrections we addressed the following items so on page one we added the name of each objective nested under each goal in the table of contents to allow an at a glance understanding of everything included in the full goals and objectives on page three we made edits to the guiding value statement to address two concerns raised by the commission first that our statement around equity was not specific or strong enough and second to clearly indicate the needed shift towards residents having a greater say in what development happens in our community on page seven in sense of place goal we've reworded that to more accurately state our goal around telling our history but also acknowledging that we are never done telling that story and then there is no single definitive version of history after reviewing the document for direction about growth management we added some language on page 13 under the intentional planning and decision making objective making the current lack of growth management clearer we also identified places where growth management is discussed under the harmonious and respectful development and resilient carbon neutral and generationally oriented objectives on page 14 revising the name for mixed use neighborhood resources for thriving lives to complete neighborhoods resources for thriving lives we heard feedback that mixed use was not an accessible term and could sometimes mean something different than what the objective is describing we also added complete neighborhoods as a term to the glossary after revising the objectives to include it that's on page 50 for the glossary page 16 we had under creative and varied housing solutions adding back an explicit reference to changing development regulations while not limiting our solutions just to regulation changes and also adding cooperative housing into the list of options mentioned in the objectives on page 18 column we called the tension specifically to the combined cost of housing and transportation as a component of addressing affordability overall on page 22 we had intentional and equitable transportation investment make an explicit reference to transportation not only within Durham but also to surrounding communities and finally on page 26 we made that same edit about transportation to surrounding communities to the connectivity objective in addition to calling out block length as a barrier to connectivity particularly for non-driving modes of transportation so I'm going to hand things over to my colleague Lisa Miller to close out the presentation thank you thank you Carl and good afternoon everyone I wanted to start by just going over the contents for the overall community goals and objectives document it includes an introductory what is a comprehensive plan section and then a guiding values section that includes our local government commitment to uphold the values that we heard residents care most about including equity accountability accessibility and the well-being of residents it then includes an introduction to the goals and objectives the next section of the document can contains the goals and objectives themselves in that section each topical goal statement is followed by corresponding objectives the objective which you can see an example of on the right side of the slide here includes multiple parts a title that identifies the overall topic and values an initial objective paragraph a supporting background paragraph providing context based on residents current experiences a final objective paragraph and then a group of resident quotes that were used to help draft the objective all of these parts make up the overall objective and are important to understanding the objective in its entirety we don't have the revised objectives in the form shown on the slide yet but they'll be formatted in a similar form once they're adopted the final section of this document contains the glossary of terms found within the goals and objectives we worked to use accessible language but where we did use terms that residents may find unfamiliar we've provided a short description of their meaning so the revised goals and objectives reflect what we heard were important needs and priorities for Durham residents and we want to make sure that all of those needs and priorities are highlighted and addressed so while some of these topics have very direct land use connections and are typically found in comprehensive plans other of the objectives do not have as direct of ties to land use to think through implementation of the objectives that have a less direct connection to land use we've created a few classifications to help categorize the objectives the icons on the right there the first one looks like a gear and that indicates that the objective can be directly impacted by work in the planning department the second icon with a circle of people indicates that the planning department needs partnerships and coordination with other city and county departments and agencies to implement the objective and finally the communication bubbles icon indicates that the planning department will share the goals and objectives and resident input data with agencies who have the greatest impact on those goals and objectives and discuss with them ways to support and share out their work since our initial draft of these we've revised the classifications primarily to better reflect the importance of collaboration across most of these objectives we want to note that each objective is important to Durham residents and that the icon next to it doesn't determine its level of importance but only the way in which it might be best implemented so we'll go through quickly the next few slides showing the list of objectives and go back one slide please and their classifications to help show how we're sorting them and how much additional coordination we think will be necessary for implementation so it'll be important to maintain strong partnerships and coordination with other city and county departments to implement many of these objectives and our team has identified that all of the objectives under sense of place community relationships and housing and neighborhoods goals will require significant interdepartmental coordination next slide the objectives here will depend on coordination with city and county transportation staff with go triangle the metropolitan planning organization and also with our city and county sustainability and open space staff next slide the jobs and trainings objectives are going to require coordination with the city's office of economic and workforce development the county's economic development office and as well as with local employers and institutions and the public spaces and recreation objectives will require continued coordination with the Durham parks and recreation department and with cultural institutions in Durham the education goal and objectives will require coordination with Durham public schools as well as the groups and institutions that support our local school communities and the health and well-being goal and objectives will require coordination with the Durham county department of public health and with the staff responsible for the county's master aging plan and the office on youth youth listening project we also wanted to highlight today two main ways that the community goals and objectives will be used once they're adopted the goals and objectives will be used as the foundation for the remaining work on the new comprehensive plan developing policy recommendations as well as a new future land use map that are working to help achieve the community goals and objectives in addition the goals and objectives will begin being used to review land use cases like zoning map changes and annexation requests as soon as they are adopted we're currently working with our colleagues on the land use team in the department to determine the processes by which this review will be done and reflected in staff reports that come forward to you all created for new cases the next couple of slides gives a preview a brief overview of continued work towards a new comprehensive plan we'll be developing a place type guide that replaces our current future land use categories that we've been using as part of the 2005 comprehensive plan they'll include more information than our current land use designations describing attributes of desired land use and including things like building character replacement parking and street design and open spaces we'll then be creating a new future land use plan in the form of a map that assigns future place types to each parcel in the city and county the policies and implementation strategies will be ways to implement the goals and objectives through legislative processes department procedures as well as unified development ordinance text amendments through our engagement so far we've received a lot of input on policy recommendations and our work will begin with that input this work will be focused on how we can achieve the community goals and objectives and finally we'll need measures for how Durham is doing at implementing the community goals and objectives through the report card so the adoption process for the community goals and objectives began with the public hearing on April 27th with the planning commission in addition to this presentation today we presented this background information to the board of county commissioners at their work session on Monday and then we'll come before you all and the county commissioners for your joint public hearing on June 15th next Tuesday with adoption by the council anticipated on June 21st and by the commissioners on June 28th as a reminder today we're interested in hearing any questions concerns and feedback that you have prior to the joint public hearing on the 15th in that public hearing the focus will be sharing this presentation with residents hearing comments from residents through the public hearing and for the two elected boards to jointly discuss this work and try to come to consensus around potential adoption of the community goals and objectives thank you so much for your patients listening to this it's been a lot of work and with that we're available and glad to answer questions and hear feedback or other concerns you'd like to share on this work thank you so much Ms Miller and Mr Kalasna wow what a fabulous presentation on a huge body of work wow I mean I'm blown away I knew I would be and I feel like I got a lot of reading to do before uh Tuesday not uh before the 15th is that Tuesday whatever night that is um let me just ask your expectations of that meeting I know that I'll be co-chairing that with uh commissioner howerton I believe she's chairing the first part of the meeting then listening to the public and I'll be chairing the second part I believe and can you just talk a little bit about your your expectations for that meeting I heard what you said just now Ms Miller about you're hoping that the two boards will come together on a consensus we have them we have these objectives on our agendas for the 21st for us the 28th for them any any more that you want to add about that any any thoughts about that meeting or that public hearing rather sure I would say if you all can part of what we are hoping from the presentation today is to get a preview of any concerns or potential issues that you'd like us to have ideas around how we might address in hand when we come to the conversation on Tuesday evening obviously there may be residents who are present there who haven't come to a previous public hearing so there may be new information we're prepared to do what we can to turn things around quickly as needed to be responsive but if there's anything that we can hear from you all today we did we did ask in the similar presentation to the commissioners on Monday for feedback we generally heard positive feedback and just a couple of questions asking for understanding and clarification around some of the planning commissioner comments and so we wanted to have the same opportunity with you all and just get anything out of the way that we can in order to try and help this move towards adoption if at all possible thank you all right colleagues comments and questions for our presenters councilmember freelon thank you mr mayor i just have some brief affirmations it was an excellent presentation very thorough very comprehensive and really building on the foundation of what we saw with the office on youth youth listening project presentation it's just exceptional community engagement work and i want to acknowledge that you didn't mention that we've earned like national praise though as seattle wants to know what these other cities want to know what we're doing here in Durham with regard to our community engagement and you mentioned the name that i wanted just to put a pin in which is ideal or tease who's a tribe member of spirit house who's been absolutely instrumental both with the youth listening project and with our overall community engagement strategy she's an she's an innovator and and it's part of a tribe of black women organizers who have been doing work in Durham for two decades and so i just wanted to to lift that up and lift her up specifically in her tribe up um steven charlie missed this at the end of our last morning session um i've mentioned that i wanted to talk about we are the ones again this budget cycle so i think we're going to tap it on to the end of our meeting today but um as you were talking about her i was just thinking about you know she's also the administrator who is who is uh has launched we are the ones with the private funding that they've already raised so i just want to but anyway that's kind of a side note but i just wanted to praise you all for the work that you've done and uh i'm really excited about adopting this and and teaching our neighbors and our peers and other cities around the country how how the dumb do you know that's that's really great so thank you for your work yeah amen council member i i i was impressed that uh the 77 tell us about that 77 figure again mr colasna uh yeah i believe um i think it was a little higher uh maybe sorry i need to look at it 77 yeah the the general response overall to the goals and objectives in our first round of engagement when we were sharing them with engagement ambassadors and other members of the community was overall very positive um we had some very good specific um a couple of the objectives and i think we pointed out one of them a concern that in particular the objective talking about integration that that integration would come along with displacement or people being forced out of places where they'd been so uh making clarifications to that what was some of the specific changes that we made but generally overall we we heard broad pretty consistent support for all of the goals and objectives and we hope they have improved even since then great i really thought i mean one of the things i like about this is this is way more than what we normally think about we think about a comprehensive plan you are you're taking a whole community you're creating a whole community vision with the support of the community and so i think that's one of the really great aspects of it. Colleagues questions uh council member Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor uh Mr. Colosna as Miller um i just want to say i've seen in my six years on the council i've seen a lot of work i've seen a lot of projects a lot of deliverables uh put for the council for our consideration i don't know that i've ever seen one that was more impressive than this uh this is 52 pages of and chock full of a sort of distilled love for our city and our county the time and passion that are that ordinary residents put in to engaging with us the hard work the blood sweat and tears that our staff our engagement ambassadors all the folks that have helped us collect that that input draw out drug have driven multiple engagement processes to try to get us to this point and the the way that the document addresses itself squarely to the needs of the community without regard to limitation so much of what we do in local government is in the is in the is in the shadow of all the things we wish we could do if only we could do them under state and federal law this document is different this document says this these are the needs this is how we ought to meet them and then it leaves it for the rest of us figure out how to get there um and i and that's fantastic i specifically want to say how much i appreciate the edits that were made since the public hearing of the planning commission um and i want to identify two okay three things i really appreciate about that first and foremost the reaffirmation of equity in the uh and this is all from the planning guide values on page three the reaffirmation of equity as a central component to sort of an animating of value of why we're doing this entire thing specifically um investing and it's shifting resources that's the word that you shifting resources parts of the community that have been neglected in the past especially particularly black and brown residents and low wealth residents that is just incredibly powerful important to have right at the front of this document and drive will drive every decision that's made by the by what happens after we we approve this document the second thing is around accountability i was really impressed and inspired frankly by commissioner millers words about what a comprehensive plan is and who it belongs to a comprehensive plan has to be used by planning staff elected officials real estate developers who want to do a particular thing and have to follow these rules um there are processes there for developers to try to get the things that they want if they're not allowed under current policies or practices but ultimately a comprehensive plan it belongs to the people of dirt it is their document it is to meet their needs not the needs of developers not the not the desires of of elected officials who may have certain agendas it is about the people of Durham but city in the county and the additions that were made the not not a huge addition to the to the accountability section of the guiding values document just talks about how we have to empower residents in in the planning and development process and specifically in the next in the third section specific references called out to shifting influence and power to the community so the people to whom this document belongs and for whose benefit it exists in the first place and so i i'm just amazed that we have a document that is now calling that out publicly and not just buried in a footnote or in the glossary section or the definitions it is on the it is on the third page of the document where we talk about these are the values that guide what you're about to read it's extraordinary and i know it didn't happen from the two of you sitting down at the typewriter or sorry computer and banging it out this is as i said before a the distillation of so many people in Durham and their love for our place and our people and a vision for who we can be if only we can break through the barriers that limit us between from where we want to be and where we can go together and so i've got i'll probably have some specific thoughts that i'd like to send y'all offline yes yes councilmember freeland i said typewriter i'm old old and i know i have a lot to say at the public hearing after we hear from our residents but for these purposes for the purpose of this meeting i just wanted to express my profound gratitude for the incredible work and work product that you've presented us today it's a testament to a commitment on the part of our entire city administration to go so far above and beyond what is normally done when you draft a new comprehensive plan to really rethink what it means to for a government to go to its residents and say what do you want this community to look like and i'll have to say from the very very beginning the very first listening session that i went to that i was struck by how broad a mandate our staff and volunteers were asking for at those meetings it wasn't what kind of housing type do you think is best in this type of neighborhood it was what do you want our city to be who is it for what is the purpose of a city how can we better achieve those goals together and that's the only way you're going to get something like these 52 pages and so i'm just i'm amazed i'm totally impressed obviously it made a huge impression on me and i just wanted to say to my colleagues you know this is this is what our people have told us we ought to be doing is trying to live these values and to put in place policies that drive that are driven by these values if we can't do it because of some kind of law passed by other people who don't live here let's figure out a way to change it work around it or accomplish the goals some other way that's that's the work ahead of us and that's the last thing i want to say about this is that it's great it's amazing work and i've said i've gushed about it but ultimately it's only as good as the things we do with it as a council and as county commission it's only as good as the work we do after this to breathe life into this in in flesh and blood but also in um in pavement and brick and mortar um and the and the work the world that the built environment that we live in our city and all the different pieces of the concert comprehensive plan and objectives so that's probably enough for me today about this um i will again i'm going through the document very closely and as i have specific suggestions i'll be sure to reach out the staff about that um and really looking forward to tuesday's event i think it'll be our first joint event with the county commission um with with us coming together in a joint meeting which is pretty exciting and very fitting for the work of this importance um yeah that's it thanks everybody thanks mr rair thank you council member for those eloquent comments uh before we move on further i want to ask all council members who've ever used a typewriter to please raise your hand i had to do my college uh entrance essay on a typewriter i had to type my phd dissertation on a typewriter after i'm having internet i'm having internet problems uh yeah it's hard to reach the sixties it's hard to reach the sixties yeah there was a typewriter in my mom's closet in the back on the floor and when i was a kid i would go in and bang on it but i had no idea what it was for okay just check it uh okay um other questions and comments uh for mr calosna or miss miller uh mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of how impressive this work is um and how well it reflects the commitment to equitable community engagement that uh that the council and that the city have continued to um put forward over the last couple of years uh it's when i was going through it i was having just i mean it's such an incredible resource for the city and then i was like how do we translate this into a comp plan you know like the actual words on the page of how we do development and that that feels like a huge task that is now before y'all to take this this huge broad like incredible set of community input that is so valuable to then translate that into like well what can we actually do in this space that we're in and the thing that we're talking about so i look forward to you know to that process and figuring out how we do that um we are we're kind of blazing this trail with the community engagement um work like we have we've set some really uh high goals and high standards for how we do for how we do engagement and y'all have more than met them um but now we have to figure out what to do with it all so um it's exciting i feel like we're um we're doing some new some new things that that seem really useful and really valuable for how we do governance in this community um and i think that this project is going to really be a model for how you can engage community around these really important issues um so yeah thanks y'all this is really incredible work and looking forward to continuing the process councilmember cabillaro and then councilmember middleton thank you uh good afternoon this is excellent carl presented at dost in some format recently and he also did an incredible job there so uh kudos lisa i think you present several times either jcc pc or other places um y'all do a really great job shepherding us through these um presentations and with you know often limited background knowledge um i also appreciated all those Spanish documents i did not get through all of them but i did get through many of them um so i thought that was a pretty interesting addition to our packet um this is amazing um you know it is way beyond a comprehensive plan it is basically a visionary blueprint for Durham what we want to see in so many different ways and uh i look forward to the process i unfortunately will not be at the meeting on Tuesday i have had long long plans to be out of town and um while very important my family is more important and so i will miss uh the meeting on Tuesday evening but look forward to watching the recording after the fact um i guess some of the questions i do have is how are we going to communicate and i've shared this with with farah young before just being really clear to Durham residents of what is actually achievable and what is not um part of being in a democracy is we need to do a better job as a government being more transparent and communicating and then residents have to do their job of really understanding the structures and the limitations that we are operating under uh so as we move forward with this process i hope that both things are communicated very effectively and transparently because what i don't want to do is oversold to residents who think that they're hearing a thing and then and i would too right this is just human nature then on the other side being like oh we did all this together and really it's it's not possible or i thought we were going to get a thing and and now we're not getting it and so um i i don't want to be a cynic but i do want to name that um and i look to you all and the excellent work you've all done and um and how we communicate with that with residents and then how do we achieve what we've got laid out in front of us thank you so much thank you council member i can't remember who i call on next i apologize who's it mean mr mayor i'm sorry yeah thank you i really don't have anything to add or any questions lisa or call you're you're both young so uh i don't think this is your magnum opus yet because i'm sure you've got pretty uh a whole bunch of outputs still left in you but this certainly i think will make the list of some of your greatest work when you look back over your career uh when that time comes so i just want to thank you you know they say the the perfect way to mess up a sunset is to talk about it so i'm not going to talk about it everything that charlie said ditto uh and my colleagues are so thank you magnificent thank you colleagues any other questions or comments okay great i i did uh want to mention um i'm glad that calcine recovery out i mentioned the spanish language documents i think that was the first time i've ever seen a spanish language document in our attachments and uh so that was really exciting and cool so thank you for that all righty i think we've done it um mr colasnam is miller we appreciate you we'll see you on tuesday night uh and i'm looking forward to a good session then and uh for us to uh pass this on the uh 21st which i'm sure we will thank you all so much thank you thank you all right colleagues it looks like we're finished but we know we're not uh we have a few things more to do i'm going to actually add one to our agenda that councilmember freeman i've been discussing here offline um i believe that what we have left in addition to the normal uh you know the appointments and the settling the agenda and so forth we have some leftover items from this morning uh that you all discussed at the end of the meeting which i was not present for uh we have councilmember freeman has a resolution that she discussed earlier she would like us to try to take up before the break so i'd like to discuss that and then i have two other things one of them um excuse me one second let me get back to that but one of them is the is the issue of committees and boards and committees and commission meetings so what i think i would like to do and i'll i'll ask mayor pro tem johnson if she would consent to this is i would like to take up first the items uh that i have for other items and then i'll share that part of the meeting and then mayor pro tem maybe you could take over and share the items that you led the discussion of this morning would you be amenable sure that sounds fine mr mayor thank you um so let's begin with the discussion and colleagues how does this sound i will go through these other items that i have for other matters first and then we'll including a couple more that uh a couple short items and then go to um the items you all discussed this morning i just want to make sure everybody's good everybody okay um so to begin with for the other matters that i have first the boards and commissions um any comments or thoughts that anyone wants to offer our clerks or our administration in terms of thoughts that you might have about boards and commissions coming back in person or in hybrid form uh as i said there's a survey out now but i know the colleagues may have a some some questions concerns or ideas councilmember caviar caviar yeah i'm glad that the survey is out um i just i would like a little bit better understanding of what it's going to look like for council when we come back before we jump in so if there can be a delay between when we come back and we can kind of get that piece sorted out so that we aren't overwhelming staff and we have a clear you know way to evaluate if it's moving smoothly or not and then i think as long as it's offered hybrid think for some folks the virtual option has been good and i don't know if i really want to take that away from residents but eager to hear what my colleagues have to say if i understood you i think what you said was it did you mean we would come back and then there would be a little break in time before the other time so they we'd be able to learn from that yeah i think that one of the issues and i know that i know this is one of the issues for staff is that for there's a big technology lift uh with a lot of behind the scenes stuff necessary to do a hybrid meeting for us i think there's a lot of concern about being able to do something similar for boards and commissions we wouldn't be able to staff that up and so i i believe we'll probably have to make some sort of choice uh but our i know our administration will will help guide us you know i'm not sure i'm right about that but i know that's an issue what other comments uh or concerns do people want to raise before we um anything else that you want to just raise a flag for our clerk or for our for our administration oh council member reese thank you mr mayor i guess the i had an issue come up um this week yesterday morning i guess at the at our npo meeting which are still virtual um but we typically meet in our committee room at city hall on the second floor and um they as we as that group tries to move back to in-person meetings they weren't really sure kind of what the protocols were in the building yet um or what they might be uh after august we we made a decision that our next in-person meet are their next meeting of the npo will be virtual again uh in august but thereafter i know there is some desire to move back to in-person meetings if it can be done safely and if city hall can accommodate those meetings so just wanted to kind of surface that in addition to some of the other stuff thank you and i see our city manager has jumped on it may have some comments yes my comments will be brief but i did want to state um for you all that the meetings the the meetings that we're working on because of as mayor shul has said some of the technology lift to have a hybrid meeting that we will be just using the council chamber for all meetings when we start back in august so that would include the uh we won't be using the committee room for those meetings initially and we are working we work every week on the steps that we're taking this is all new territory as everyone knows about how we how we have hybrid activities how we integrate the public on all the different floors that we have in city hall so as those plans progress we will certainly bring them to you and provide information to you as it relates to you know your your connectivity to those plans but i think that that you know we we intend to have the council chamber itself ready by the end of july for your work session but that is all that we actually are working on right now for any type of hybrid meetings thank you very much madam manager and i think that uh what council member calviado said is smart i think that you know we'll we'll learn from what we do and i think this will help inform um our council our board can boards and commissions so to me that says for i mean we're coming back july 22nd then we're meeting in the early august you know time frame for our council meeting so i think that for those of you all who are dealing with boards and commissions i just think you need to let them know it's it's not going to be before then and uh you know in terms of coming back in person uh it will be sometime in late august or early september or sometime where we can really have a chance to learn do you all agree with that colleagues okay anything else for our staff all right thank you very much i did i'm sorry there was one other thing okay go ahead council member sorry thank you mr mayor um it's my understanding that the clerk is going to continue to have or it's going to have her staff rotate through city hall um on a on a kind of two-day maybe two days in the office three days remote or something in that neighborhood and i'm wondering if that has implications for how the seven of us ought to be rotating through city hall uh just it um council member cabillera mentioned that to me a couple days ago and i had been thinking on it a little bit and just didn't know how we i mean our situation is a little bit different because each of us can go in an office and close the door so maybe we don't need to worry about it but a lot of interesting thank you yes she raised this earlier and so i think that coordinating that will be important uh and so i think for those who for example um uh if mr ruda borys is the year the person that supports you it will be good to for the for the council members who are supported by her to be in contact with her and to work out some sort of coordination i agree all right uh my next topic uh is in in other matters um i had uh drafted a letter regarding the uh well let me go back we had a discussion at a council work session um recently about the defund sign that was on main painted on main street uh council member millton uh at that time i said he really thought the council needed to make a decision on this uh we i i asked uh to appoint a committee which i did at that time which was myself council member millton and council member freeline a kind of ad hoc group to discuss this we discussed this i wrote a draft statement uh they uh redrafted it and uh we had some really good discussions we involved staff it was good we had a three of us reached a consensus i've sent the the statement out and i've heard back from some of you all that there's some edits that you would like to see on that statement let me suggest instead another uh course of action only because i am i feel like i'm i'm worn out with trying to draft and redraft it and i don't think that's that the actual words of that statement are the important thing i think the important thing is what is the decision that we are going to i had this i even with the comments uh all the comments there was a clear direction from all seven of my colleagues myself in the six of the six of you that we ask our administration to take up the defund sign uh within a month after june the 25th and that we ask our public art committee to commission a mural commemorating the important events following the murder of george floyd uh and that those were the two things those were the really the two actions that were in the statement and so what i would like to suggest colleagues is we decide that today uh we give uh our administration that direction and that we can all make you know if the press calls us we can all make individual statements but i think that would that's this that's the point i think that um is most important is that we have agreement on those things um and so i'll i'll now just ask for your thoughts on that um as a course of action to take today i know that our administration is very is ready to have direction from us and i'd like to go ahead and try to give it councilmember middleton thank you mr marron thank you for your your leadership in uh meaning the working group and getting back to the council i haven't had the benefit of seeing my colleagues uh comments or editorial but i agree with you that the the end result the the the end of this all is is direction um so i guess the word smithing on the on the document the secondary that's your direction i i agree with what you just said if seven of us are in agreeance on the end result then i'm more than comfortable with signing off on what you just said within a month of the date whatever the day against june 25th for them to proceed and uh i'm comfortable with that particularly all seven of us kind of are at that point thank you i think that we are thank you councilmember other colleagues uh what is your are you all comfortable with that as well as a course of action i got some thumbs up for councilmember freeland from councilmember carriotto from councilmember freeman from councilmember reese madam air pro tem okay thank you so madame manager um that is the direction of the council which i will uh restate briefly which is within a month of june 25th to please take up the defund sign uh and that we uh also will ask our public committee and which councilmember freeland is our liaison to uh to uh commission of public mural uh related to the events is that all you need ma'am i clarify some that that includes the fund sign as well and yes it does yes it does all right thank you yeah yeah thank you colleagues appreciate it all right the third thing before we move into the items from this morning councilmember freeman um has uh she discussed at the beginning of the meeting um a resolution uh so let me see if i can briefly summarize and then councilmember rum will turn over to you and if i'm incorrectly summarize you let me know uh that um you all know that uh there that that uh our state legislature has decided that they don't like uh critical race theory and they are trying to pass legislation that would prohibit certain uh you know important teachings about race in our public schools and um councilmember freeman uh has uh would like us to pass a resolution um supporting our school board uh in um opposing this this legislation and also uh it is timely and so she would like us to go ahead and take it up um i'm trying to get as much as possible on consent for monday night we've got a lot of public hearings and we got a budget to pass hopefully that will be on consent too but since it's our last meeting and so what i'd like to do is now is is councilmember if you wanted to talk a little bit about it share it uh with our colleagues and we can talk about it now uh i know that's an exceptional course of action but let's do it and then we'll if we can put it on consent uh for monday night that would be great thank you mr mayor i i apologize i know there's been so much going on in the last couple but uh i did want to say that i'm open and amenable to whether we just uh support the resolution that dps put forward or if we include the resolution because i've tried to adjust it to just the city of derby's knowledge that we just went through this full race equity process that allowed us to to kind of internalize a lot of that critical race theory and come up with um a whole list of recommendations and so i just tried to change a few like incorporate all of what dps has put forward and then incorporate the parts around how as a city we've also been incorporating and learning so not just in the schools but also in our community we're working to try and figure out how race equity matters in a way that that does come across in like a you know a comprehensive plan and so i i'm open to either just want to make consent and whichever way it's on council member one possibility uh you you've emailed that to us yes and so um with one possibility is we could all just look at it now for a few minutes another is that you could read it uh would you do you have a preference i can read it okay why don't you do that give it two seconds yeah while you're doing that i'm going to go get my my typewriter my carbon paper bring me some whiteout back to and whiteout credit card machine the old one right hey i was a teacher when they had those like purple things that you you know there's things you went around like that and it had that purple ink and stuff that you got on there mimeograph machines yeah yeah it was before jillian was born i can tell you that right now i had those at elementary school all right good before pierce i was gonna think of i was saying that correction paper yeah exactly that's correction paper on your on your typewriter that you dropped in yeah so i have the resolution and it's a resolution of the city of Durham opposing house bill 324 whereas house bill 324 ensuring dignity and non-discrimination in schools states that public schools shall not promote the belief that the united states is a met i hate this for you meritocracy is an inherently racist and sexist belief or that the united states was created by members of particular race or sex for purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex and whereas house bill 324 is enacted as it is enacted it would prohibit educators from discussing the full facts of american history when several constitutional amendments were created to redress racist and sexist beliefs as policies in the original constitution for the purpose of restoring the rights of previous oppressed members of any race or sex and whereas hb 324 asserts that the united states was and was not created by members of a particular race for the or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of any race however the 13th amendment which abolished slavery in 1865 and which members of a particular race had in fact oppressed members of another race and whereas hb 324 asserts that the united states was not created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race however education would be prohibited from prohibited to debate or consider teaching about gem crow era and where a series of laws prevented african americans from voting or holding office and whereas hb 324 asserts that the united states was not created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex however the education would prohibit or to prohibit to debate or consider teaching women that were not granted the right until 1920 under the 19th amendment or even then african american women were still denied their rights their voting rights and whereas as sound education including accurate facts about all aspects of american history including systemic racism and discrimination is guaranteed for every north carolina student in our state's constitution and whereas in 2018 the city of derm commissioned a racial equity task force based on the governmental lines for racial equity to analyze our cities our city with a racial equity framework based on three objectives to educate our community research policy and identify recommendations and whereas in 2021 the city of derm's racial equity task force returned with recommendations for the city and the city and the county of derm along with derm public schools to support ensuring equity regardless of race and ethnicity academic gender whereas in 2019 and whereas in 2019 the north carolina state board of education adopted a strategic plan was defined equity as an essential guiding principle and whereas in 2020 the north carolina state board of education passed a resolution to support equity and excellence in north carolina's public education and whereas that resolution that state the that stated that the board the state board will review and appropriately revise its policies through an equity lens and commit to the work with the superintendent and the department of public instruction to create and maintain an equity officer to ensure consistency and continuity with the essential guiding principles inside and outside the agency and whereas in February 2021 the north carolina state board of education approved the new social study standards which were developed by educators to ensure that the more comprehensive accurate and honest history were taught to all students including teaching on racism identity and discrimination and whereas critical race theory is a discipline that seeks to understand how racism has shaped us laws and how those laws have continued to impact the lives of non-white people and whereas in education including critical race theory does not attach individual students for their privilege but rather it makes them aware of how different systems in united states discriminate against others and whereas more than 65 years after the supreme court ruling of brown versus the board that said the board segregated schooling is particularly profound and timely this demonstration of the ongoing persistence of systemic racism and whereas the house of representatives and north carolina general assembly recently voted along party lines to advance house bill 324 and whereas the house house bill hb 324 approved by the senate and signed by the governor north carolina would be the seventh state to ban critical race theory and whereas these bills are partisan divisive and are the result of coordinated work by the american legislative exchange council alex and the heritage foundation and whereas hb 324 would effectively restrict and prohibit honest conversations about race conflict but race conflict with existing state and local education standards and infringed on the free speech rights of students educators with existing state and local education standards and infringed on the free speeches the speech free speech rights of students educators and staff and whereas in Durham our Durham public schools curriculum and training include a race equity lens as we work together to dismantle racism and work together towards a more just future therefore be it resolved that Durham city council urges members of the north carolina general assembly to vote no on hb 324 and if necessary the board urges governor couvert a veto hb 324 and be it further resolved that the Durham city council urges members of the north carolina assembly to focus on developing a robust public education budget with an equity toolkit that fully supports students in north carolina and be it further resolved that the Durham city council urges members of the north carolina assembly to focus on the following recommendations from the from the 2021 from our 2021 2020-2021 legislative agenda to address statewide equity concerns including but not limited to fund dedicated equity directors for every local education authority to develop and share best practices statewide to adopt comprehensive anti-racism inclusive curriculum for every school three incentivize funding for professional development that includes diversity equity and inclusion culturally competent and anti-racism training for expand on the north carolina teaching fellows program especially at hbc use and to increase representation of teachers of color five expand state protections of lg t bq plus students and staff and six expand title six protections to protect students against sexual assault i hope i didn't lose you all i think we all had these discussions in the past and i know that we all support students teachers and and faculty across our school system and it's important that uh that we at least you know submit the resolution so that so that the house and senate can hear our voice here in Durham not only concerned about it's not long enough i will say i want to make sure that i give proper credit because i have been like max trying to get summer camp and everything else going um and our like i said uh school board member and was taking me and pushing and pushing putting in the time to put this together it's really important it wouldn't happen without that and i am happy that i'm happy to bring it over to our thank you i'm i'm very supportive i would like it to i i feel like um it needs a little uh wordsmithing which i'm happy to work with you on if you'd like to do that it just there are a few things in there as i was reading it i didn't quite wasn't weren't quite clear to me but um we could do that prior to the upcoming meeting council member middleton thank you mr mayor and thank you uh council freeman council member freeman for bringing this forward and i uh you know there's such a this so voluminous and such a great amount of work has been put into us and i want to i want to honor the authorship of the uh of the resolution you know we could exercise the option as a council particularly since this is so squarely in the wheelhouse of another uh board so to speak by virtue of its subject matter we could pass a statement of affirmation and association um and just kind of attach it to the the resolution and we send it to the legislature we can read it into our record or make it part of our record and rather than craft a whole another statement or you know take out board of education and put Durham city council when we didn't actually write it we could just pass a statement of affirmation and and association with the resolution and attach append the resolution to it and send it to the legislature just to kind of but that's just a well i think that was one of the options that council member freeman mentioned so that's certainly something we could do okay sorry i missed it yep uh colleagues any other uh comments anyone else uh council member freeman how do you feel about council member middleton suggestion that's fine okay i've already look i've already read it into the record here and you sure have i know and wonderfully i might have and wonderfully it didn't take long now it didn't all seven minutes okay all right i think that's a great idea um let me just uh work with our agenda coordinator uh i'll work with miss Wallace to get it on and with you council member uh as as a as as a um supporting the school board resolution everybody good good got all thumbs thank you so much council member lets you and me talk about that uh in the next day or so i'll reach out to you tomorrow okay good thank you because i want to see those pictures too yeah i'll send you one in a minute at the meeting zone um so uh now mayor pro tem i'm going to hand the the gavel to you i know that we have a couple items and you uh you're you're up thank you mr mayor we just had two things that we held over the first was uh continuing discussion about the city council salary um council member freelon proposed that we change our original initial direction to staff to that we wanted to increase council member salaries in january of 2023 i believe was our initial um guidance was that right no 2024 we run in 2023 so yeah in january of 2024 and move that up to be uh instead to increase the salary in january of 2022 which would have an impact on um this fiscal year's budget we had a little bit of conversation about it um there was not a consensus and i didn't feel comfortable giving guidance to staff without hearing from the um two council members who weren't present um so we just wanted to have a little bit more discussion about it and then um decide what we want to do so let's do that um council member caviero and there was just the open open legal question about could it be staggered or not or did everyone's have to come right at the same time right so yeah the city attorney um christa cucaro said that she would find someone in the attorney's office to research that and let us know we couldn't give guidance to staff pending legal confirmation that it's allowed um or that won't be necessary if we decide not to do it council member freeman just noted i think we did have consensus around uh 2024 my understanding was that council member freeland and caviero were interested in doing it in 2022 if it was legal and that council member freeman and council member middleton were interested in doing it in 2024 and i didn't say anything because i don't know and so i wanted to hear from charlie and steve really about what y'all think council member reese thank you madam mayor pro tem colleagues appreciate uh you carrying this conversation over for us um i was comfortable i am comfortable with where we left conversation at our previous uh budget work session can't remember when we talked about this but we had a good conversation about it uh triggered by council member felon's raising the issue initially um i think on the merits it makes all the sense in the world for members of the city council and the mayor to make at least the germ living wage which would be whatever our germ hourly living wage number is times 2080 hours um and i know that we've got that that number somewhere um somewhere in the neighborhood of like 35 000 years that sounds directionally correct yeah um on the merits that makes all the sense in the world to me um my concern now is that it's been some weeks since we had that previous conversation and now after the public hearings on the budget um at the end uh in a morning budget work session and now at the end of a long afternoon work session we're going we're we're considering changing the budget recommendation uh to include additional pay for each of us that doesn't seem like a good idea to me um and uh i uh and i think you know we had good reasons for leaving at the where where we did um i understand exactly the issue that council member felon is raising today the one that he raised in his email to us there are certainly folks in Durham who um cannot afford to to serve on the city council um under the current uh salary type situation assuming it is salary but yeah under the current salary um it's just not not okay and not allowed but that is a significant equity issue no doubt about it but given where we are in the process today um i am unwilling to to make that additional um spending commitment um especially as it relates to our own compensation obviously earlier today we all decided to spend many millions of extra dollars from our fund balance and from the federal relief funds that we're going to receive um after the public hearing so it's so there are certainly um situations where i think that's fine uh but where as it relates to our um our compensation the seven of us i just i'm not sure it's uh appropriate or a good idea to do it in this setting um had we not i contrast the the the process that that we're attempting that's being proposed to us today with the process that the city of charlotte and their city council underwent over the last i think two years um multiple public meetings where the issue was discussed at length many of their residents weighed in uh both in favor of additional compensation for the charlotte city council members and against it and they came to a decision a couple months ago to include significant salary increases for themselves in their budget and that that will be part of their budget we have not done that um and i think in order to keep faith with our constituents um and given the way we are in the process that i would not support a change in the budget uh in that way today so that's where i'm at thank you mr. mayor thank you council member uh council member middleton thank you madam mayor pro tem i appreciate everything uh that that councilor reese uh just said in in many ways i associate myself with it um i guess for the solace that i take or the comfort that i take is that um and the only way i would support it is if it kicked in in 2024 um that it would it would not affect and the seventh of us for me is not a personal moniker it's an institutional the seven of us may very well be different a seven of us when this when this kicks in you know so so for me this is i'm attaching this to the office um not me personally i would not support it if this and whether even if it's legal i just don't i'm not comfortable with having a tiered kind of salary system even if it's just for one cycle where three folk or however many folk are making one salary and the other would have for making another salary i'd rather just be kind of a clean integration where everybody starts at the same place at the same time which is why i would support the 2024 i think the the and i i deeply resonate with what councilor reese is saying but the comfort that i take is that we'd be doing something that wouldn't even kick in until 2024 if we do it that way every one of us can be fired every one of us can incur the wrath and we can revisit the issue as well um and i think that so i i think that helps me deal with um councilor reese is very salient i think in an on point uh admonitions and critique but i also want to keep faith with i think the important equity issue that council Freelon has raised as well um you know we are privileged to be able to do this because we can do this and our lives are configured in such a way that allow us to do it and i think it's important that we do um send the signal that we're serious uh about it but also leave some space for revisitation and for it not to appear i would not be comfortable having you know uh uh three of us making one thing and four of us making another whatever the split is so i'm in favor of you know giving council Freelon's advocacy to codify this um i i do not i'm not in favor of doing it in 2022 whenever yeah i would i would be in favor of it kicking in after the three at large both have gone through an election cycle and and having it happen then so for whatever that's worth thank you ma'am madam erperton thank you councilmember councilmember reese just wanted to clarify that's exactly where i am that's where we left it a couple weeks ago and i'm right there with absolutely thank you uh mr mayor do you have thoughts you'd like to share a rather list of other people have thoughts uh let's go to councilmember cabillero and then councilmember freelon then um i'm comfortable i think as long as there's a maybe and i don't know how we would do this procedurally but just a commitment by this council to say that on january first 2024 council pay will match you know a living wage i just feel like there needs to be some kind of we're going to keep talking about it and then there is no what does that mean right i feel like we have two election cycles between now and when we're saying we want to bring pay up i'll just be honest with you all it isn't actually sustainable for me the likelihood of myself running again in 23 is is not very high exactly because the salary is so low um it has been a huge financial cost to my family and actually just long term this is for everyone your wages affect your social security the decision to run or not run does have a long term consequence because if you're making that low pay for a sustained amount of years it does apply to other things financially so i do want to name that um i think i hear what all of my colleagues are saying i think that it is um important to just if we're gonna if we're gonna say you know we don't make a living wage if we as we added up our hours i doubt any of us are making over $15 an hour and some of us can vary you know can carry that and some of us can't i certainly can't i hear what folks are saying i don't think you know i i get the improving which is why i think originally i was like okay well i can go through an election or choose not to in 23 and and folks can decide whether they agree with that sentiment or not but i do feel like there needs to be some kind of commitment from council about um about council pay yeah i mean i think uh Javier you you just nailed it i mean we might be losing a colleague because of this equity issue and i'm also concerned about the potential colleagues that will lose in the next cycle i mean i i appreciate the sentiment and observation of what our colleagues did in charlotte but we're also not we're not talking about a robust public hearing between now and you know 2024 we're talking about agreeing to codify it today for 2024 without that public hearing because you don't need a public hearing to determine whether something's right or wrong it's just i think we all agree that that it's not good that it's not equitable that it's not sustainable and so for i mean to me it's almost like we're willing to say like bless you Javier you're great but if you can't afford to be here uh then you can't run until 2024 not for you individually but for anyone who might be interested in a seat of work 123 or for mayor um and i just uh you know i realized that that there are kind of political consequences of looking bad and i'm standing from a place of luxury is someone who's not running for reelection but i think you know particularly for me and the mayor uh that all the more important for us to get in front of this uh and absorb the blows that might come towards the council for accusations of trying to fill our own pockets and say we have no skin in the game whatsoever this is about equity and we're not going to delay equity by three years when we have an opportunity to do it you know in 2022 so that's what i would ask for you to consider uh mr mayor as you're weighing the pros and cons um yeah i think we can take that blow back uh and take the heat off of our peers who might uh be absorbing some negative criticism for this choice thank you council member council member freeman thank you i'm just trying to get some clarity is the expectation of that i'm supposed to quit my job to be on council is that what there this is the conversation we're having is that i'm not supposed to have another job is i'm a little bit confused because based on what council member freeman mentioned this would be my full time like i'm i'm a little bit perplexed on that i answer that mayor perforate i don't know if this would be a staff question but uh i forget who mentioned that uh steve charlie you are here when we have the conversation earlier this morning but uh someone mentioned that uh and some of the municipalities they force you to quit your other job in order to assume the city council role full time that's not what i'm suggesting at all i'm just suggesting that we pay folks a living wage if folks want to supplement that income with additional work that to me is a very personal choice um but the city um for our part should do uh you know the should live into the values of equity that we uh profess council member freeman i was the one who mentioned it because pittsburgh is a strong mayor system so it's a completely different process than ours it was just to make the point that i was surprised that that that's how other cities operate it is not to force anyone to quit their job even if we did pay a living wage we figured it's $35,000 a year based on the current cost of living in Durham my guess is a lot of folks who still have to work part-time yeah i think a living wage is still a bare minimum to survive it's not you know it's not enough to afford for example rent in Durham um council member middleton um i just want to say very quickly and i really appreciate the spirit of this discussion um i know a lot of people for that you know would be wonderful i think council members that $35,000 a year would be a significant bump in their increase it would almost be like a starting position somewhere for many of them you know they work every day in our communities they're they're doing stuff they're activists so you know it's all relative so what may seem you know not enough for one person that would represent actually a real salary for many people for the first time in their lives with benefits as well doing meaningful work for their city so uh just want this one to put that out that all of these levels are relative so thank you madam mayor perten thank you council member um i'm torn i agree with everything everyone has said me too that's what i was gonna say i was gonna use the words i'm torn i mean i was very taken by i think that that uh what council member reese said about you know doing this with no public input right prior to the budget is troubling because it is about our pay that does worry me a lot um but i also hear the equity concerns and agree that they're completely real um i get why council members also don't want to you know i i can tell you if i was running for re-election there's no way i would vote right now to raise my own pay i can tell you that for a natural fact although as council member freeland went out i'm not uh and so that does give me that luxury and i appreciate that uh distinction uh what i'm saying is that uh i'm not really sure and uh mayor pro tem do you have any wisdom no no i mean i'm the same i'm i'm i'm not sure and yeah i think it's well i feel that it is i mean like what you said mr mayor that if you were running for election you wouldn't vote to raise your own pay well like on the one hand that's responding to you know how the community is going to react and that's real on the other hand should we be more concerned about protecting our positions than we are about paving the road for people to do this job who wouldn't be able to do the job otherwise and that's i i am concerned about the the transparency issue doing this so close to the budget adoption um i do think that sooner i also think that sooner is better than later um i don't know i don't know what to do we we pass a budget in a week and a half and that's not really a lot of time to do the kind of engagement that um that i think folks feel this issue warrants maybe this is something that we could put an option in for a mid-year adjustment and do community engagement through the end of 2021 um and then have the funds available depending on how that engagement goes um and vote at the end of the calendar year whether we want the additional my funds in the budget it's not going to be that much money i love that idea thank you yeah so i was going to suggest this is what appropriations not authorized is designed for you take 80k and you you put it away for ideas that are not completely fleshed out and and then you decide you can make the decision later and if you feel more comfortable later in the the current fiscal year to do that then you activate the money for f y 22 thank you so much uh let's go to councilmember cabrera and then marcial yeah i just want to apologize because i felt like i wasn't clear i was okay with the original date i like your ideas that's great the original date to me is january 1st 2024 i just wanted a verbal commitment from council at this point to say by then we will raise council pay to a living wage and then that way the community at large had plenty of time to comment and everyone who is wanting to run again in this group would have that opportunity um but i did want to at least have that communicated and folks to say verbally whether they agree with that or not but i also like your idea thank you councilmember mr mayor well i thought i was convinced that that what mr allure what you'd said mayor pro tem was the best idea and then i heard councilmember cabrera and then i'm back to where i'm sorry i'm so undecided but let's do uh councilmember reese and councilmember middleton thank you madam mayor pro tem i'm going to call this your idea since you just came up with it and mr allure said that's something we could do so let's let's go with that for now is it your idea that this that the council's consideration of whether or not to spend the appropriation not authorized whatever it's called i probably got it wrong would come in uh sort of late december say it rolls through our second work session um and then uh i guess our first work session that rolls into our second money not meeting december and that we would then take a vote at that time about whether or not to go ahead and authorize the expenditure that was put in the budget as a contingency to increase council salary to whatever number we've decided is okay um and that and then and if that's right then we would have the the work session time the interim between the work session and the meeting and then the monday night meeting folks could pull the item and have and speak on it at our council meeting pro con um before the council vote is that kind of what you had in mind there thank you i i don't know i mean i kind of just thought of that thing so i didn't i didn't think through the details so much yet but i think it would make sense to do it before the new council that's sworn in um so what's that december first meeting in december whatever that first monday is so that we're not asking a brand new person to take that vote that we're taking it um so before that i guess it depends on how quickly we could do the sort of engagement that people that would make people feel comfortable with taking the vote like could we do a public hearing in the fall you know it's just part of one of our regular meetings do we need to do a town hall meeting um some sort of you know doing enough engagement to make people feel like this is something that's happening in the public that it's been vetted and had the opportunity to be commented on by community instead of happening kind of at the last minute um during this budget councilmember middleton thank you madam mayor for tim yeah i i i love your idea i still uh i still support the 2024 date but i think your idea allows us to address councilmember reese's concerns about transparency and public buy-in and having an opportunity to kind of you know weigh in and rip it up i want to in this selfish i want to be part of the council that makes this right that goes down in history saying that we have brought equity to pay for the council untethered from my benefiting when i'm not i think about this as the institution not us personally but the office the institution i i want to cast that vote to make it you know a living wage for council members and i think your idea of kind of whatever you said mid-year whatever having the opportunity to have this vetted i mean we can we can in concept devote that you know commit that we will be the council that does this but i think the council reese's point councilmember reese's point we don't have to do it now for this budget um vote coming up next week but if we want to take the time to allow the public to weigh in and talk about it in debate and then move forward from there but i'm still i still like the 2024 date uh whenever we codify it or bring it on i'm still uncomfortable with half the council making one thing and the other half making another um you know and i still think it's important for all of us to have the chance to get fired after this thing is codified then it comes online um so i like your idea but i and i still like the 2024 date uh to get a you know community input on this i think that's all i'll say about it thank you thank you um all right so can i try to sum up kind of where i think we're at um that we would reserve uh some amount of money in the budget to be determined by our budget staff that would allow us to raise the salaries of the mayor and the ward council members in january of 2022 pending legal guidance from the city attorney that that is legal and then we would hold community engagement outreach public hearings et cetera between now and november to engage the community around that idea and then we would vote prior to the new council taking office whether or not to raise the salaries of the folks in the ward seats and the mayor in january of 2022 or whether we wanted to do that in 2024 and appropriate future funds for that pierce here yeah go for it yeah i think there was uh what you just stated didn't acknowledge some of the discomfort i heard from some of my colleagues including council member middleton that there might be with what you described there would be a period during which some people would get raises and others wouldn't regardless of whether or not that's legal there was discomfort is that correct there's discomfort there at all just in a clean slate which i mean you know javier i thought that was a great idea to to stagger it but uh i'm fine making it a clean slate like i think that what's most important is the equity issue um so i'm not sure that that quite addressed what uh every nuance of what everyone was discussing yeah that's that's a good point thank you and i think i'm not trying to do that i'm trying to leave i'm trying to kick the can down the road a little bit on that conversation so so that's something so we would discuss that as as part of our conversation we would discuss whether we wanted to do that we could appropriate enough funding um we could authorize enough funding to raise everybody to a living wage in january of 2022 and then we could decide at that point do we want to raise everybody in 22 do we want to raise everybody in 24 do we want to raise just the word seats in the mayor in 22 those would be kind of the and then we could and we could do community engagement on each of those options and just sort of leave the door open for future decision on it thank you john for saving me again and and i just wanted to add and yes we will put an amount in place that accommodates whatever decision you you make but there will be for the for will you know you read the analysis so you know what the $80,000 number is thank you councilmember middleton thank you i think i think you're getting clarity now so i think your your some your summation is on point i i will not support 2022 i do support the community engagement with an eye towards 2024 that makes any sense so but i think it should be 2024 everybody starting at the same position so even if legally we can do it i'm not going to support funds for 2022 or raises in 2022 but i will support 2024 so thank you for the summation thank you um should i say that again or do we feel good charlie you don't seem good it always looks that way yeah pretty much um i mean here's my here's my issue here's where i'm at um it's difficult for me it's difficult for me to imagine a scenario under which i would vote to raise my own salary without going to the voters to defend that first and so that's neither here nor there to some of the rest of y'all that's just where i'm at but does that mean i should vote against a plan that would put that vote in front of me in let's say late november of 2021 and allow the rest of y'all who are still here and are i guess all of us that would allow us to cast that vote then one way or the other no i don't think i would oppose that no as long as y'all know that's kind of i'm pretty sure i know what i'm going to do uh but you know that's why we're going to talk to folks about it um which is my which is my main objection to voting for it today so could i yes i can support the idea that we would set aside the money necessary to raise council salary to a living wage beginning january 1st 2022 for all seven members the mayor and six members of council and and that we would vote on that as a council in late november we don't do any business on our organizing meeting until after the new members are sworn in i believe so that doing it on december 6th doesn't accomplish our goal november 15th is the meeting um and that in the interim well you know i suspect that this question will be very salient in the upcoming municipal elections which i will not be involved as a candidate but i you know we will all be paying attention to kind of what folks are saying about it and i do think we probably ought to have a public hearing on it before then but yeah i can support the plan to reserve the money have the vote in late november and in the meantime we talk to folks to learn about how they want us compensated and uh i suspect you know the result of that that engagement will be some people like the audience that people don't but but you know i think at least folks have have the have the right to be able to weigh in so yeah i can do that sure thank you council member i see some thumbs are we do we have consensus on this path forward no we do not yeah charlie go for it you know i think the other thing we could decide on november 15th 2021 is that we don't think we ought to raise all of our salaries on january 1st 2022 and that we'd rather either never raise them just scrap the ideal together or we could decide that we want to direct staff in the one in the fiscal 2023-24 budget to to include in the manager's proposed budget um the funds necessary to pay all council members of the mayor living wage and obviously future councils will then have the decision about whether or not to give the opposite guidance to the city manager at that time city manager can propose our own budget um but at least we will have done that part of what we can do as as today's council as this iteration of the council um and that'll be a conversation we have in late november if everybody agrees so yeah that's kind of how see it working yeah thank you yeah i see we have several options at that point one do nothing to raise salaries immediately three raise salaries for half of us immediately four raise salaries for all of us in 24 and probably there's other things that could happen but right we would we're we're leaving the possibility open to have some conversations and then make a decision later and who knows what'll happen at those at those public hearings everybody might be really excited about you giving yourself a raise in advance of the next election we i mean i think there are good arguments for for that we are being paid subliving wages and that's not something that we if it's not something we're willing to see happen in our community it's something we shouldn't be willing to do to ourselves either um of course there's political considerations that we all have to deal with mr mayor i think people want to give differential raises to different ones of us and i'm looking forward to hear it who wants to give a raise pay for performance based on whether we like your vote or not i'm going to a lot of owing people money not a manager there is a differential and you all probably read about that as we continue the conversation and that uh conversation around the minimum livable wage would be the same for everyone and currently there's a difference between city council members and the mayor's salary so while it's a small number as we are providing john and his team kind of the the number to put in the budget if we were to use um the authorized but but not approved i'm probably saying it wrong myself now uh but that number would be the you know what we would put in the 2022 budget so um madam manager that would so that would be it would be council members would all make the city minimum and then the mayor would make that plus whatever the percentage differential is currently that is what is in the current analysis yes okay great thank you so i'll make about a little i think a little over 29 thousand now rolling in dough rolling in dough uh council member reese i think that's probably the easiest most defensible way to handle it um the way it's in the document so that's fine with me the other thing i wanted to say is though if people are good if the people of this city are going to decide whether or not they think council raises are a good idea based on whether or not they think i ought to get a raise i'm sorry but y'all again uh that's just a straight fact we all know it so okay that's i'm i've said way too much about this that's what i think i think it's it's a good idea to give the council a vote on it um and we can uh move from there thanks y'all um so are we are we good thumbs all right i see six thumbs and that's going to have to work um our our last item uh was something that council member freelon brought up um at our morning meeting um was an update from staff on that we are the ones funding do we do we have that update hi john um good afternoon council members mayor mayor pro tem um i cannot give much more than an update than what council member freelon gave over the lunch hour in fact that's what i was going to update on was really talk about what is budget related and and the available funding and and that uh there was a decision to to wait to provide further funding depending on what the county was going to do so that's where we sit right now there's a little over $60,000 in the fy 22 budget for the we are the ones program and we the decision at i believe it was the council retreats was when we heard more and from when council heard more information from the county to possibly um readdress additional funding either through arp funds or possibly fund balance there's a number of options thank you um council member freelon did you could you clarify a little bit what you want us to talk about right now sure yeah and i apologize bringing this up at the late hour it was really um probably something i should have brought up around the same time i brought up the other issue or sooner um but yeah just thinking about the the feedback that we've gotten so far from folks during the budget healing event the budget hearing before um there's been a call for more resources to go into uh violence prevention youth programming wraparound services that's something we've heard again and again uh throughout the budget hearing process and uh we actually have a uh violence prevention fund that we're funding to the tune of 60k um that we're waiting on the other 190 on what the county's doing and the county is in a really unique situation with everything going on there um and haven't gotten back to us with what they're gonna do yet and i kind of feel like similar to how we felt with violence interruption where uh you know we just said look we're gonna stick our foot in this the county uh you know put our million up um regardless of what the county decides to do or not do and to supplement the work that that's already being done so uh in your email inbox there's a link to some grant uh proposal kind of a fill-in sheet that kind of showcases that we are the ones has you know they did 250 000 plus in their own private funding which was part of their commitment they wanted 250 from city county and private and they've decided not to wait to do the work that we want them to do around violence prevention and it would be my strong preference to uh accept the fact that you know due to extenuating circumstances and changes and leadership on the county side that are beyond all of our control it just hasn't made it onto an agenda and uh i don't want that to stop us especially going into the summer we talked about summer where the Middleton brought it up with Shotspotter you know the these next couple summers five weeks rather when we're going to be on a vacation the violence will not subside and we are the ones are some of the only folks uh you know kind of not some of the only folks but they're funding a lot of the folks who are doing work on the ground in the community to heard that violence and i want to uh underwrite that with city resources and then lean on while leaning on the county to to match uh you know after we we jump in first so again apologize for the late hour of bringing this up first budget cycle rookie error on my part but really this is very much in response to what i've heard through the budget hearings that we've done so far so just wanted to put that out there thank you councilmember um so if i'm understanding you correctly you're asking that we fund $250,000 for we are the ones in this budget instead of the 60 or so that we currently have okay okay um let's let's hear some comments on that councilmember freeman did you have your hand raised yes i just wanted to hear from staff if it was if it was possible to include it in the america the american recipe funds um as in relation to covid the cities have been um in their homes all year long and you know trying to get folks out safely uh if there's a possibility that that would be included in those funds good afternoon bertha johnson director of budget and management services currently deputy interim city manager the question about the american rescue funds first i want to say um that the recommendation for the staff was also based on uh the proposal not been built out with metrics and there were some other concerns about the proposal so that was it was not just that the county had not committed the funding um but to your point uh the american rescue plane funds could be a source of funding for this um the process by which we are using now is to uh accept proposals um from internal departments again as well as our community groups as well as individuals um on our uh page that i shared at the budget healing on tuesday night there's a link for um residents groups anyone to submit proposals but it was um what we proposed to this council is that you wait until you receive all of the proposals for that funding um outside of the premium pay which is a recommended uh use of funds and make decisions about which organizations which projects which initiatives you fund by using a matrix to compare them to each other so the short answer is yes it could be but our process that we share with y'all did not was not designed for us to you know one-off uh fund proposals from from that funding source thank you i appreciate that i would i would just note that just acknowledging that this was a proposal that came forward and i think we were mostly in agreement on it that it probably aligns more with the paper performance proposal than with just community proposals coming in it's something we've all kind of voted on as a way to move forward so i'm i'm mindful that um you know this is late in the process but i do think that it's worth you know hearing from each of us you know whether or not we are supportive of it moving forward um just acknowledge this summer is here already and i'm afraid so i'm i'm going to turn it over to mayor pro tem thank you councilmember councilmember middleton thank you madam mayor pro tem uh this Johnson good to see you um did did i i guess because i'm going to make sure i characterize this or don't don't mischaracterize it did i hear you say that the the county's um i don't know reticent or inaction was based upon not having enough metrics on the program was no what i said was that um when the recommendation the analysis that came from the analyst on the city the city analyst there were other concerns about the building out of the programs in terms of the outcomes and the metrics and so the recommendation was that we uh wait until we have that and the staff that we recommend it we're going to be in a position to do some of that work so that's off the top of my head i'm sure lindsay is here to get more specifics my point was that it wasn't just that we were waiting for the county there was some other concerns um in terms of you know uh funding the full proposal but we also knew that they had said that they had planned to go to the county and ask for funding um i'm not sure why the county has not funded it but i did confirm with claudia hager today that they are not going to fund it and it wasn't that she said it's because they couldn't get it on the agenda i don't have any more specifics god is this is this an appropriate form to discuss specifically what those concerns were that you that you're alluding to um i can pull up i think lindsay is on the recommendation from the staff if she can remind us of what that was i just recall there were some other concerns in the staff analysis and i it's been a while so some of those may have been rectified by the organization but you know it's it's the last analysis that we actually did hi lindsay hi uh lindsay bino city of turham budget department the concerns were mostly along the timeline um the reason that we recommended funding the ambassadors first was primarily because that was the information gathering stage at which point future projects would be predicated on what those ambassadors found as community needs in different neighborhoods the initial recommendation was to find well the one of the possible options was to fund specific components and that seemed like the most developed part of the proposal um and so that was the recommendation okay i um that's helpful thanks i'll just say at least for me my my agreeance and excitement about using the fed funds for our bolstering bonuses and and pay for performance what we're using money for was not based upon me having an understanding that we had a rubric that would allow for that and it was undeveloped for everything else my understanding was that we really hadn't decided how we're going to spend this money yet and we hadn't fully fleshed out the rules and we just thought that was a neat idea to use some of it for for the for the you know staff and employees but that still support so you know for me it's not separated or kind of neatly put well we we established rules for this one but not the other one it's all one big pot for me i um i resonate you know deeply with with what uh councilmember freelon has said about you know what i believe is is a de facto state of emergency that our young people are in uh the city um you know i'm not going to advocate for one thing on one end and not advocate for something else on the other that i think could potentially save lives so i i would you know um this summer is going to be a tough time this this is going to be a challenging period for us and um if if we are the ones can post some numbers and and do some you know some activity to save uh uh our young people's lives our elders lives are you know our residents and citizens lives then i would i would be very open to using some of that federal money uh to to bulk that up um you know anything that of course with our due diligence in place and of course but you know i don't have a problem with spending two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to do something i i trust councilmember freelon's leadership if he if he i i think he takes seriously his fiduciary responsibilities um we're not looking to squander anything if if if he believes that this is something uh that could potentially save lives um then i think we ought uh lean in and do the due diligence and i i'd be open uh to supporting it uh with funds from the american rescue act so that's all i want to say thank you mr mayor thank you madam ever thank you councilmember other thoughts friends mr mayor thank you i um i actually have a high level of discomfort about funding this the american rescue plan money because i do think that we need to hear what that is if we want to fund it from our own money that's different i'm i'm i think that's for me that's something that i would certainly consider i don't think but i'd i'd rather really rather hear from this thing we're gonna get so many amazing fantastic things that come to us for the american rescue plan money and we've told the community i think that we're gonna be listening to them about that for this i'll tell you what my my thoughts are they're i'm sorry i've been trying to pull up the the we are the ones um i can't quite locate it in my email um but i will tell you that i had two very distinct um but i had two two very different reactions to the different parts of the plan and i still have those same reactions one is um favorably disposed towards the mini grants and not favorably disposed towards the uh the kind of community centers with the medical help and those kinds of things and again i'm sorry i don't have it in front of me but because i had no sense that the groups involved would actually be able to pull it off uh and that and i really don't feel that now with the summer upon us um to me that was that was you know if we were going to do that and get that going we should have got that going um so i would say you know i'm interested in supporting part of it because i do think that the you know this is exactly the time when i think mini grants could be very useful um but i think the idea of you know rushing trying to set up community centers you know with and and i you know i will again you know i i had when i saw what the community centers were about and needed to be able to do i did not have confidence that the groups involved had that expertise um if it's expertise in you know working with young people yes but there was a lot of there were a lot of other things involved as well and i didn't feel that then and i don't know so i think at the time i expressed my my doubts about that part of it um and so yeah those are my thoughts thank you mr mayor councilmember cutie oh sorry um manager you jump in i just want to jump in very quickly i do i do want to talk about a little bit about us looking back at the original proposal because the original proposal was built around $750,000 because it was 250 from us 250 from the county and uh 250 from the private sector councilmember freeland had said the private a fundraising has already raised the 250 so whatever our contribution would be it would involve our our staff um going back to the organization sort of restoping the services that could be provided based upon a reduction if Durham county has said that they're not gonna they're not going to be a part of it so i say that sort of in response to what the mayor said in terms of picking out the different components of it the whole proposal was a $750,000 proposal so it would need additional work anyway um based upon what we're talking about today thank you uh councilmember cutie arrow yeah just i didn't have the clarifying question out of that 750,000 it was like close to 60 that we funded the ambassador's piece so this is just out of the 250 that would be our portion is the difference of that am i not am i right on that okay i just want to make sure i remembered because i remembered in that budget process our council priorities it it did get funded through that and i just wanted to make sure um and at the time even that it was it was it was looking at one third one third one third so it was it was not it was not now that we know what the total or we know at least what the private sector is according to councilmember freeland it would be building up you know a scope of work that could be delivered with the funding that we already have plus what would be made available here today if we went beyond the 60 the i think it's 62 that's there for the for the ambassadors thank you councilmember um thank you madame manager other thoughts councilmember freeland thank you i just wanted to note that i think that it's important to understand that the organizations that are closest to folks in the community are not likely to have a city track record and so just noting that they've been doing this work and so acknowledging i hear mayor sure when he says he doesn't know that they can do it but i think i want to speak up and say that i know that they can and this is why i think councilmember freeland mentioned that they're already doing it i think it's just important to make sure that we do support the work that they are putting forward acknowledging again as councilmember militant mentioned this summer's been a part and as much as possible acknowledging just how hard covid has been for folks in our communities especially those who experience so much gun violence um the opportunity to you know support this acknowledging we've been supportive thus far um and i think this is just taking the step to make sure that i think also noting that the i'm confident that our staff in addition to councilmember freeland's leadership as councilmember militant mentioned will do the assessment i'm not thinking it's just going to be dollars to just go out i know they'll do the assessment and acknowledge where where the areas are that we think we can support where we can't so 109,000 from the american rescue fund doesn't seem like a heavy burden of 51 million dollars so i just want to to note that and i do acknowledge that there are a lot of projects that will come forward and there will be phenomenal projects but not very many of them will be addressing gun violence and in this way and so it's an opportunity to to allow them to move forward today and getting started knowing that they'll have city support um i'm just noting that for the rest of the college thank you councilmember just to clarify i think what the staff just said was that they had looked at the proposal and had done that vetting and had approved the had suggested that we fund just the 62,000 that now so what we're trying what we're deciding now is whether we want to accept that recommendation from the staff or whether we want to fund all of the program instead of taking that recommendation and i feel like we're pretty divided on it so i'm not sure where to go um councilmembers yeah so um i guess i'm a little confused about what we're talking about doing we're there's a number of different numbers being passed around and i don't know exactly what the money is going to be spent for so maybe i'll just ask councilmember freelon if the if the council were to vote today to allocate 190,000 dollars from the American Rescue Fund in the manner that you proposed what does that mean what who gets that money what is it doing in our community because i i don't know where we are today versus where we were the first time we saw this proposal on what's changed since then and why we are all talking about doing something different today so that would be helpful yes well uh you know i got some new information today as well with the update that the county is not going to be involved that was not something that was communicated as far as i know to the we are the one staff so um i think what what city manager page said would be the next step um we've already decided collectively before i brought this up to commit 62 400 to a portion of we are the ones i want to scale that portion by 190 thousand dollars to meet the 250 thousand dollar commitment that they asked of the city to do some portion of the overall scope of work that they talked about and and that portion would be determined by the uh staff and the we are the ones team as they reassess what a 500 thousand dollar version of what they originally proposed to look like uh you know and and the email that i sent shortly before the meeting you can see the types of things the micro grants that steve is a fan of are already underway maybe it's more micro grants you know maybe it's two thirds of the proposal the ambassadors and the micro grants and they don't do the mutual aid centers i think that what's clear is that there were three tiers of work the scope was 750 now as 15 minutes ago we know it's actually 500 is what you know is what's possible if we step up to fulfill our commitment and determining what parts of that uh are subsumed under what we're able to commit uh i think would require some conversation with staff but we can make a decision now to to pour into the work that's already happening moving into the summer and i think that's really important timely urgent uh yeah thank you council member um council member middleton thank you madam mayor pro tem is it possible to um perhaps uh and i think john alluded to this earlier kind of earmarked the 250 grand and it would be subject to a drawdown situation and consultation with the staff or or coming back to us um we put a million dollars aside for a wellness and safety task force that hadn't even met yet we put a million dollars aside in anticipation of what might be produced by them in order to fund them this is a present a clear and present danger right now i think the things that that pierce attorney pierce is trying to address in our community i i think council recess question queries about what exactly is going to be used for is is is is valid and it's important and as they and i remember the original kind of overall proposal and things that they they propose but if if we want to put in the ability to kind of scrutinize what the money's being used for along the way then can we not just identify or say we're going to earmark 250 or whatever the amount is and subject to approval by the staff and conversations with the staff and if we needed to do it piecemeal as a council i'm willing to do that but um you know we've crossed the threshold already of putting money aside for stuff we didn't know what it's going to look like yet we didn't know what the outcome was going to be so that precedent's been established this is far more important to me just from a timing point of view because it is summer now there's gunfire going off now i think that you know we ought to view this as as an emergency appropriation appropriation i'm i admittedly i'm deferring a great deal uh the council freelance leadership and vision on this i mean i've read uh the proposal we are the one from the beginning i think you know you know we're fiduciary so we have to do our due diligence but the notion of identifying a pool of money for potentialities is something that we've already done and i think this that this work is just as important that these grassroots organizations are doing in our city who many of them are closest to those that are most affected you know do they have all of the you know stuff we we sometimes see in other organizations maybe maybe not but with their experts at their experts at and um you know and if we need to help them build capacity to address this issue of gun violence and dealing with our youth then maybe we need a new department for it but but we we we you know we we should commit ourselves to doing it so um i'm prepared to to identify our earmarked this amount of money and if the staff needs to do a piece mail if we need to do a piece mail uh as the program rolls out beyond what the ambassadors bring back i think that would be a potential pass for it precedent already being established thank you madam mayor pretend thank you council member mr allure can we do that can we appropriate not authorize and in whatever 250 000 minus 62 400 dollars is where we are the ones um yes you you we can do that okay um seven thousand six hundred thank you um okay so that's the that's the proposal on the table how do people feel about that council member cabillera i'm just confused because i thought some of it was urgency so i don't understand what i mean my understanding i don't even know if we even if we funded it today based on how we have to route things i don't even know if this would hit in the community at the point we need it to just things you know contracts and we'll use whatever needs to happen those things around slowly um maybe it could be expedited by by staff uh that would be you know so that's one question i have and then if we're appropriating it for a later time and that doesn't meet the urgency that i'm hearing from my colleagues which i i completely understand so i'm just a little bit of a loss i i'm looking at the proposal right now we funded the it basically has four prongs to it it's the ambassadors which we've already funded it's the mutual aid centers which i i agree with the mayor it's not even about expertise or not expertise i just don't know based this was presented to us much earlier in the pandemic um and then the other two pieces the emergency relief and micro grants the emergency relief also we have but we're just later in the pandemic we have close to $50 million of federal money that is emergency relief and what we don't know yet is what the community at large is going to decide to do with that so that's what was presented um and then just my question around if we're not saying yes right now then i don't know how that winds up with the timeline manager so if we earmark funding in this year's budget um it the funding itself is only you know it's only unauthorized until until we come back and get it authorized with the contract so on july 1 the money is included in the city's budget uh if it you know if that is where you place it uh today so it's not it's not like deferring it way down the road the deferral is more around the you know the comfort of what the scope of work and the contracting process would take with the nonprofit that we execute the agreement with which is similar to what we do well it's what we do in every contract that we that we execute what you're discussing today is how much would you want to be included in that scope of work that we execute with a very specific nonprofit organization just just realizing that we it wouldn't be what you're looking at there because from our understanding the total funding package is not there thank you miss matter manager um council member have a year did you have so the funding when we're available is not available till july july 1 if it's in this budget then no it wouldn't be available till july 1 okay uh council i'm sorry go ahead i was just gonna say you know it doesn't it doesn't that doesn't mean that you know we don't we couldn't be working with the you know having conversations uh with the parties it just means the execution um you know would would have to go along with the funding source um council member Freeman thank you i just wanted to note that um just being in a nonprofit organization just having the allocation noted for approval allows you to at least get up and run and so what you might i mean the way that our government runs is not the similar way that the nonprofit sector sector runs and so just noting that this coordination is already occurring and these funds will just allow them to go further into you know what they had already planned to do so right now they're cut back to nothing i mean cut back to just what they received in the private sector and then allowing these funds to move forward would allow them to move forward a little bit more robustly into into each of the areas each of those four prongs um even if it is just two thirds it still makes a huge difference i can tell you um with dci doing summer lunch or summer camps um the funds that are available today um it not is not necessarily enough to get the job done but we're conscious that we're going to continue to keep fundraising we're going to continue to keep doing the work to make sure that the funds are online or available so we can continue to do what needs to be done to make sure that who is available in the community or make sure the camp services are available to you in a similar fashion the projects that they're talking about they're already doing and so what we would be initially saying is they could add two more you know two more interns or three more painters or whatever the project is however its structure you can make do with with 50 cents um you know versus 75 cents and or 75 cents versus a whole dollar it just depends on whether or not we are supportive today so that's just my two cents thank you councilmember um so i have some thoughts that i'll share i um i support this program i think it's a great idea i'm concerned about the county not being willing to participate and what that means for the scope of the project and how the project might have to change based on um based on only having two-thirds of the funding um that has been that was requested i'm also concerned about um not having a clear sense from the proposal about all of the pieces um i feel comfortable with appropriating the funding for future use similar to what we did for the race equity task force or for um participatory budgeting where we've decided okay we're gonna earmark this much money for this purpose and we'll come back we'll do some more vetting and come back with contracts um i'm not comfortable with earmarking with with right now designating this funding for this program without further review um but i would be comfortable with uh with putting 250 in the budget that's available um and we then can continue talking with the nonprofits and talking with staff about exactly what the program looks like with the changes that we no need to happen in place mr mayor thank you um yeah so i think that if we if we what we want to do is we want to get money on the street to people who are doing the work at the grassroots this summer then i think that many grants make sense i don't think that we have anywhere near enough information or i think around the community center stuff councilmember caviero pointed out times have changed so much since that came forward that um that and as i say you know at the time i express and i continue to feel that a lot of the things that are are supposed to happen through those community centers i don't feel confident about and so i guess i have another proposal which is to take the part of this that i think could have an immediate impact and just vote to fund so i'll i'll just put that forward that i would support in this budget a hundred thousand dollar allocation for many grants if we did that that would allow the organization to go ahead and begin to plan for that and advertise for it the i'm not sure if it's the cypress fund that's actually doing that administration but if what we're talking about is trying to do something that's going to be impactful now and and doing it through grassroots organizations in our community awesome thank you let it and uh making a and and doing it a way that we can get the money you know quickly to people who are doing the work on the ground then that's a way i don't see the other part of it being that way and i don't have a lot of confidence in the other part so like i say i would i would support a not not a i wouldn't do it like unauthorized you know authorized but not can't remember the term uh i would just budget it now put a hundred thousand dollars in addition to that sixty thousand dollars put a hundred thousand dollars into the grants it's organizations through these mini grants because we know they're out there doing great stuff they can use the support to you know hire people to do the youth you know work with our young people and all the things that we know are important for the summer so yeah thank you i would not advocate as uh mr. lower put in the budget i would i would not do this is appropriations not authorized i would just appropriate and my number is a hundred thousand dollars and uh i i take that number because uh it's close to what the original proposal thought about mr. mayor do you mean a hundred thousand dollars in addition to the sixty two four or a hundred thousand total okay hundred thousand more okay that'd be my that'd be my that's that's what i would support i might support something you all might think some other things i could support but that's what i think i would be happy supporting thank you mr. mayor and councilman barice thank you madam mayor pro temp mr. mayor are you so would the hundred would this be a hundred thousand dollars subject to um you know uh the staff working with the folks that we are the ones to sketch out the parameters the mini grant program then come back to us at some later date for approval or is this direction to staff to give we are the ones one hundred thousand dollars as soon as possible so they can design and implement or fund additionally the already ongoing a mini grant program which is i understand it again they've already done a good amount of fundraising for and is in and is in the works is that the first one the second one second one great sounds great sorry council member council member middleton thank you madam mayor pro temp i like the mayor's idea but i'm i'm still comfortable with it at a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar level um i i think i think the the problem is that serious uh and that uh significant so i agree totally with the mayor said but i i think um obviously the more money you have the more grants you can do um i think the the the size of what we're facing warranted so i i i support that but at at at least a two hundred thousand dollar level or two hundred and fifty thousand dollar level thanks thank you um council member freeland and then does somebody maybe want to make a motion and we can see what we have support for sure um i'll make my motion with this comment i agree with uh council member middleton wholeheartedly about the amount and the gravity of the situation um i mean i'm just remembering how much we spent you know repairing the lights at d-pack and you know black folks particularly black women organizers who spent the day praising for their community engagement work are asking for what is essentially crumbs let's be honest as far as our city budget is concerned and just having to to scratch and claw for the bare minimum is is upsetting but i understand the concerns so i also want to be empathetic with the legit concerns that folks have raised but uh i do have a motion uh i move that we support uh we are the ones for an additional what was it 187.8 a thousand dollars whatever is going to round us out to 250 thousand dollars along the lines that the mayor was comfortable supporting the mini grants i think that's a fine if that's a fine place to focus our efforts that will get our collective support i think that's a good place to to put it if we can get that support from one more of our colleagues so that's my motion second 187.6 point six thank you john pierce are you is your motion that that money would be used for mini grants and not for the other pieces of the program that were proposed yes okay um moved by councilmember freeland seconded by councilmember freeman madame clerk could you call the roll please mayor shul no mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeland hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i will die councilmember reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk um so the motion passes uh six to one we will be asking our staff to include the additional funding in our budget on monday so so one uh one clarification we as we talked about what we're gonna um the amount and and and the scope uh we didn't i guess get complete confirmation about the source um you know to be included in in this budget that we're approving it would be a city source it would not be aren't necessarily um and i wanted just probably what john was going to say that's just a clarification for us and as you know we do have fund balance there there there are sources of funding that we have that we can um you know certainly include this in the budget thank you yeah sorry go ahead that's all i was going to clarify is keeping separate when we'd have an arc discussion versus an annual budget discussion and this this sounds to me like one time fund balance i think that yeah we we we trust your your judgment on that thank you um mr mayor can i turn the meeting over to you i think all we have to do is yeah but i need to um shuttle my kid to a activity in about five minutes yes you may and maybe we'll be done in five minutes thank you thank you for chairing madam mayor pro tem so ably colleagues uh we'll now we'll now hear from our uh city clerk about the appointments right uh let's go through starting with the first one council has nominated matthew ruda borys to fill the vacancy on the audit services oversight committee representing cpa katie barnhill dilling has been nominated to fill the vacancy on the city county environmental affairs board and the category of solid waste and wafa h kaleel was nominated to re to be reappointed to the water resources seat angela vick lewis has been nominated to fill the Durham homeless services advisory committee to represent the category of formerly homeless person for the Durham workers rights commission with its three appointments to represent the category of diverse background council has nominated relezna azor lisa pratt and valerie jay thielen in regard to the low wage industry position there was not consensus on the single applicant robert c pickett received three votes and there were four votes to re advertise the vacancy i wasn't sure how you wanted to address that let's re advertise everyone good with that okay um merriam valet or valleye has been nominated to fill the vacancy on the mayor's hispanic latino committee and lastly related to the workforce development board appointments kevin griffin and leslie elaine madison were nominated to fill the two of the three vacancies the third position mark e atkinson received three votes two council members have requested the position be re advertised and two members did not vote so yeah i was one of the folks i think he probably said re advertise and i'm fine with that fourth vote going to the person okay all right thank you and that's it thank you madam clerk we appreciate it okay um finally uh madam manager are we ready to settle we are for um the june 21st city council meeting we have for the consent agenda items one through 38 for gba public hearings items 40 through 46 thank you madam manager you all have heard the manager's motion to settle the agenda can i have a motion to approve so moved second second moved by council member re second about council member caballero madam clerk will you please call the roll mere shul ah near pro tem johnson hi since member caballero hi since a member freelon hi since a member freeman hi since a member middleton i vote i since member race hi thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion is passed and the uh the agenda is settled i do want to ask the manager one more question madam manager um i believe and i just want to confirm with you we have done everything we need to do on our budget uh we there are no loose ends that you all have is that correct now we have everything that we need okay great all right colleagues thank you all for a long day i'm sorry that council member re says in the two hour meeting um the uh the um rest of us however we do also have a i think probably can expect a pretty long public hearing on uh the comp plan coming up next week um and so uh just uh yeah be ready for that have a good dinner and i think that's all uh unless there's any other business to come before this body i'm going to declare this meeting a oh council member re sorry colleagues i just it's right i it's difficult for me to remember a meeting where i felt better about the things we did so thanks a lot everybody agreed great meeting i think we did a lot of good things yeah uh i'll declare this meeting adjourned at four fifty nine p.m. bye everybody thank you