 So I'll look at Pearson, think maybe I don't know. City Council meeting, the Durham City Council to order on at 7 o'clock on Monday night, April the 5th, and I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight. My dear council colleagues, our wonderful staff and all those people who are with us and online and so glad to have you. Friends as we meet tonight, I'm going to ask you to join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Councilmember Reese, will you please lead us in the Pledge to the Flag? I will. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and colleagues. Good evening to all the city staff and Durham residents watching at home. I will now say the Pledge of Allegiance. A Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much, Councilmember. All right, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl, here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, here. Councilmember Caballero, here. Councilmember Freelon, here. Councilmember Freeman, present. Councilmember Middleton, I'm here. Councilmember Reese, here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. We have really great ceremonial items tonight and I'm going to first call on Councilmember Middleton who will be doing the honors for National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week Proclamation and I believe that Randy Beaman is here. Madam Clerk, if you could make Mr. Beaman available to be seen at her, that would be great and I'll turn the floor over to Councilmember Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and good evening friends and all that are watching at home. Is Randy available? I don't see him. Is he? There he is. Good evening, Randy. Good evening. Absolutely. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for this great honor and privilege. I'm particularly grateful to be reading this proclamation. When I was elected I attempted to visit with every city department that we have and we have some incredibly impressive people working for us. I have to honestly say though, I don't think I was more impressed and moved by any other department than sitting with our emergency call takers. When people think of first responders, they tend to think of the flashy cars which are the lights and sirens, police, fire, EMS, but our real first responders are the folks who answer the phone. And the folks that are on the way to the emergencies have an idea of what they're heading to, but when those calls come in you never know what's going to be on the other end of that phone. And I sat through some actually heart wrenching and harrowing situations when I've listened to our call takers in the 911 call center. I look forward after we get through this period, Randy, of getting back and visiting with that incredible team you have. So I just want to thank you for the incredible work you do and I'm honored to read this proclamation to mark this important week. Proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week. Whereas emergencies can occur at any time that require police, fire, or emergency medical services. And whereas when an emergency occurs, the prompt response of police officers, paramedics, and firefighters is critical to the protection of life and preservation of property. And whereas the safety of our police officers, paramedics, and firefighters is dependent upon the quality and accuracy of information obtained from residents and visitors who telephone the Durham Emergency Communication Center. And whereas public safety communications officers and call takers are the first and most critical contact our residents and visitors have with emergency services. And whereas public safety communications officers and call takers are the single vital link for our police officers, firefighters, and paramedics by monitoring their activities by radio, providing them information and ensuring their safety. And whereas public safety communications officers and call takers of the Durham Emergency Communication Center have contributed substantially to the apprehension of criminals, suppression of fires, and treatment of patients. And whereas each dispatcher has exhibited compassion, understanding, and professionalism during the performance of their job in the past year. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Shule, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim the week of April 11th through the 17th, 2021 as National Public Safety 911 Communications Officer Week in Durham. And hereby urge all citizens to take special note of this observance in honor of the men and women whose diligence and professionalism keep our city safe. Witness my hand in the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the fifth day of April, 2021. Stephen M. Shule, Mayor, congratulations and thank you for the work you're doing in the entire department. Thank you, Councilman Middleton. Thank you. And if I may take a moment and have a comment. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, Madam Pro-TM, Council members, Madam Manager, City Executive staff. It is indeed a great opportunity and pleasure to recognize our workforce here in Durham Merch Communications Center and Councilman Middleton. I remember very well when you participated with us and that was a grand occasion for us. But I wanted to take a moment and put in perspective sometimes we don't realize behind the scenes the amount of calls and what goes on. So I want to take a perspective from the national to state and to local home right here in Durham. Nationally imagine for over 50 years now our public have been relying upon NOMON-1 as the vital link to public service and emergency services for the fire, EMS, and police. So 240 million calls annually NOMON-1 calls in our nation. North Carolina last year had 7.1 million NOMON-1 calls and right here in Durham 278,243 NOMON-1 calls alone and a total call volume for last year of over a half a million 507,856 calls. That's our staff, men and women behind the scenes every day, day in and day out, working. It is such a privilege and an honor to work with these professionals and also to honor them during this opportunity in April. April is a great time where we celebrate our communicators. So it is with great respect and appreciation from you and all and all the residents of Durham for recognizing the team and truly as you said councilmember Middleton, they are the first responders. Thank you very much with great gratitude and appreciation. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Beaman. Thank you councilmember Middleton. We have another great proclamation tonight and this proclamation, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson is going to do the honors and this is the proclamation for national community development week and Mr. Reginald Johnson is here and I see him on screen. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you Reginald for joining us tonight. I'm honored to present this proclamation for community development week. National community development week is designed to focus on local as well as national, focus local as well as national attention on the CDBG and home programs which are which provide $1,200 and I'm sorry $1,200 grants to state and local governments to improve neighborhoods and communities for low and moderate income people. That's the CDBG program and the home program provides an additional 600 grants to participating jurisdictions to provide decent safe and affordable housing for low-income households and these programs have been instrumental in Durham's affordable housing work that they have allowed the city to successfully redevelop the south side community filled with deaths in apartments which are primarily for homeless veterans, the widow departments for low income seniors and also improved pedestrian signaling along a number of streets in the city. So we are very appreciative of this federal money that allows us to do so much for our community and I'll go ahead and read our proclamation. Whereas the week of April 5th through April 9th 2021 was designated as national community development week by the national community development association to celebrate the community development block grant CDBG program and the home partnerships home program and whereas since 1975 the CDBG program has provided annual funding and flexibility for local communities to provide decent safe and affordable housing suitable living environment and economic opportunities for low and moderate income people and whereas since 1992 the home program has provided funding for local communities to create decent safe and affordable housing opportunities for low-income persons with over one million units of affordable housing has been successfully national use of home funds and whereas over the past five years the city of Durham has received a total of 9,653,930 funds and 5,030,898 dollars of home funds and whereas the city of Durham has used CDBG and home funds directly or in partnerships to address issues surrounding homelessness including better homelessness to promote home ownership opportunities for low and moderate-income households to develop hundreds of affordable rightful units for low and very low-income households to provide repairs to homes of very low-income seniors to help revitalize neighborhoods and to leverage millions of dollars in additional public and private investments within Durham neighborhoods now therefore I may Steven and Shul mayor of the city of Durham with their alignment the earbuds were claimed they grew fit through April 9th 2021 as national community development week in Durham and supported these two value programs that have made a tremendous contribution to the vitality of the city's housing staff infrastructure public services and the economic vitality of our community with its nine-hand equivalence to the city of Durham, Carolina, the fifth day of April 2021. Thank you everyone and Mr. Nassar if you'd like to stay if you want to please feel free. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem, Mr. Mayor, members of council, we definitely thank you for reading the proclamation for community development week. I accept this proclamation on behalf of the members of the staff of the community development department but more importantly I also accept it on behalf of the citizens advisory committee whom you and the county commission appoint to advise us on these types of programs. We have our chair LeVon Barnes, our vice chair Brian Langlos, Janice Washington serves as the secretary and the very able council member Pierce Freelon serves as our liaison and we also thank all of the other members of the citizens advisory committee as the Mayor Pro Tem outlined this program with funding has provided a valuable help to our community. Our goal is to make sure and ensure that it continues to do so and we thank you for the recognition that you have provided for community development week for the home program and the community development block grant program. Thank you all so much. Thank you very much Mr. Johnson. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem and those were some great ceremonial items tonight. All right we're now going to move on to announcements by members of the council. Announcements colleagues, council member Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening colleagues. It's great to see you all again. I had two announcements tonight. The first is a little bit fun and the second is a little more serious. First I want to congratulate Durham resident Hubert Davis being hired today as coach of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then it's basketball program. He lives directly adjacent to the city limits in the county but he is still a Durham resident. We will claim him. I will claim him. It is a personal story in addition to being my wife's college classmate and sitting about 10 seats away from him when he when he graduated she did so she has always been very partial to coach Davis. For a time we sent our children to the same school that Coach Davis and his wife do and I will tell you that occasionally in the drop-off line in the morning I got to exchange a few words with Coach Davis about how the team was doing. I tried to import some wisdom around the college basketball front. Luckily he never listened to me because the team has done really really well and so I missed those opportunities to to really kind of float about two inches off the ground because that's that's how excited I was to see him every day. In any event Coach Davis we wish you the best of luck coaching the very best college basketball team in the country and certainly in North Carolina. So that's number one. So secondly we could go today I had the opportunity to visit a brand new community that was recently completed here in Durham called the Willow Tree Apartments. This is an 82 apartment building directly adjacent to Durham Station and very close to Durham's Amtrak Station. This is a community of 82 apartments that are affordable to low-income families. That is all the units are affordable. The family is making less than 60 percent of area median income and a quarter of the units are reserved for those folks making less than 30 percent of area median income and all 82 units are eligible for housing choice voucher holders. So many residents who use those vouchers won't pay anything out of pocket. The the apartments themselves are extraordinary. I defy anyone who visited them and I think most of us had a chance to do that last week to go across the street to the market rate apartments they just finished building and tell me the difference. And I was lucky enough to see a couple of the families moving in yesterday. Yes I did drive by to see if I could see some families moving in and they were I didn't impose myself on them but I did want to mark the occasion some way because this is very personally meaningful to me and I know for none of my colleagues this is an outstanding opportunity for the city of Durham to show people both here in Durham across North Carolina across the country what affordable housing can actually look like. You know when we were when this council before I was even a member of this council when this council was talking about the possibility of building affordable housing on this piece of property there were folks in this city who were concerned about doing that because they were afraid it would somehow concentrate poverty in a way that wouldn't look good. I think anyone who takes a look at these apartments will see that they are incredible the natural light is extraordinary they have some of the best views of the city of Durham I've ever seen and they are they are a truly great expression of what is possible when people of good will work together to find a way to make our city affordable for working families. I was especially excited to see that the developers of this project are two great non-profit developers partners DHIC and Durham's own self-help commissioned an artist to do a mural on the outside of the building and the artists who were unsuccessfully getting hired who applied but didn't get hired they asked them to produce art for the common hallways throughout the property and one of the first sets of paintings I saw was by a local artist in Darius Quarles full disclosure I own at Darius Quarles it's in my city hall office and you can come by and see anytime you want it's small but that's okay and there are a pair of pictures there one portraits by him one of Ann Atwater and one of Phil Freelon and it was just such a great opportunity to see some of our Durham's best portrayed and focused and prominently displayed in this in this particular location I did want to say a few thanks about this because it truly takes a village to build this kind of project first and foremost I reviewed the record the legislative record and let it let me be clear that in an August work session in the hot summer of 2015 then council member Stephen Shull brought to the council the possibility of partnering with self-help to build 82 units of affordable housing next to the bus station the issue was quickly taken up during the ongoing city council elections at that time my friend Jillian Johnson I know was a big proponent of that project in parallel to the work of the electoral side the organizing and community organizing side one of our great community organizations Durham can was a huge supporter of this idea much of their organizing was led by my friend now colleague council member Mark Anthony Middleton all of which is to say that it didn't take it took more than one person with a good idea it took organizing a community in support of the idea that downtown should be for everyone and not just the wealthy it took electoral success it took votes and it took the willingness to spend money and to donate land to do it that is a recipe for success for this project and for other projects as well that I look forward to seeing come down the pike and we're getting a great update from our community development department this week about all the amazing work that's happening last thing I wanted to say about this and then I'll be done Mr. Mayor our former colleague in the previous mayor pro tem coracle McFadden used to like to tell me that building buildings is great but that's not why we do it we do it because the building serve a purpose for our community and they improve the lives of real people and when I think about the Willard Street apartments I think about a line from the Hamilton musical what is a legacy a legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see you know families are moving into Willard Street apartments right now that we will never meet never know we won't know their stories but they will by virtue of the fact that these apartments are affordable to working families have the kind of stability that many of us listening to this right now take for granted the housing stability that that we all take for granted what will these families do with that stability that's what I think about when I think about this project and the hundreds of other projects that we can get done together in the years to come that's what we talk about that's what we're talking about when we say affordable housing and that's why I'm really excited for all the families that I saw moving in this weekend at Willard Street apartments we're going to do a great public ribbon cutting probably in August and invite our friends at the press to come and show Durham and North Carolina in the world what you can accomplish when a community comes together that's all I had to say tonight Mr. Mayor thank you thank you very much councilmember councilmember Freelon yes brother Reese that was you said everything um very eloquently I just have some very small things to add first of all Charlie texted me and was like oh make sure you book your tour he didn't tell me about the mural and when I came off the elevator and saw this you know huge mural mural of my father I just broke into tears it was so beautiful and moving and it made me think about something that my dad said it was really important to him that everyone be able to experience beauty in their environment and that's definitely what I felt when I was touring the building and you talked about Charlie about the views you know when you go to those corner apartments on the top floor and look down you know on one side of the building it's the mutual life building and that wonderful legacy of Black Wall Street you know is there kind of showing that important legacy and on the other side is the bus station which my dad frequently talked about being one of his favorite designs for the for the very same reasons that Charlie described it's important when I got to the Willard Street appointment I accidentally went into the market rate building not realizing the difference that's how similar they are and and when I was overlooking the bus station from a bird's eye view that was the first time I'd seen the bus station with all the kind of angular you know architectural dimensions that it has from that particular viewpoint and it was breathtaking to look at and so I just wanted to echo everything Charlie said and I told the folks that gave us the wonderful tour that my dad would have been really proud to have his portrait in that building next to Ann Outwater and I was just so thrilled to be in service when this opened up so just yeah I wanted to really echo everything you said Councilmember Reese thank you for encouraging me to go on the tour and not not blowing the surprise because it really caught me off-guard thank you Mr. Mayor thank you Councilmember and that is a fantastic family legacy colleagues other announcements Councilmember Middleton thank you Mr. Marin again good evening colleagues and everyone watching let me express my hopes that all of our observant Jewish brothers and sisters had a good Passover celebration until our all of our observant Christian brothers and sisters have you had a wonderful Easter weekend as well and good evening good to see you all Mr. Mayor just a just a couple of things maybe two or three three things very quickly firstly I want to publicly acknowledge the great work of our city manager and her staff some watchers and and regular viewers about eight of them of city council meetings will recall me from time to time putting a query about some money that we had set aside for our built-to-last initiative for our shared economic prosperity plan and the development of a not-for-profit I want to thank our city manager Wanda Page for doing such an excellent job in addressing those questions that I had about the use of that money and I look forward to a robust presentation about our shared economic prosperity plan I will not go into the specifics but suffice it to say it was a detailed thorough comprehensive explanation of a query that I put on public records so I want to say publicly on record that those those queries were addressed and I look forward to having a fuller readout of what our plans are moving forward in light of my query and a lot of my not just mine but but our interest in our shared economic prosperity initiative specifically built to last I think it's going to be critical and Mr. Marion you entombed this wonderfully in in state of the city addresses that you've done in the past when you pointed out how well Durham is doing but also acknowledging that not all are participating in that wealth and prosperity of Durham and I think our shared economic prosperity plan is going to be an important part of our roadmap to making sure folk to the best of our ability make sure that folk participate in their prosperity so my thanks to City Manager and her staff. Secondly I want to say Mr. Mayor that it is no secret that we have had a very violent weekend in our city this past weekend and that shootings in our city have been an alarming rate actually relative to where we were last year this time we are we are on pace to either tie or or I'll do what we did last year what happened last year in terms of shootings which is particularly disturbing because last year we were on lockdown we were in the throes of lockdown we were had stay-at-home orders as the weather improves and as folk are becoming more emboldened because of vaccinations and as restrictions are being lifted I think that that creates an atmosphere where we know that we've got to be vigilant about shooting in our city so I'm I'm not debilitated with my concern but I am concerned about the summer that's approaching in our city and what we are seeing now I want to acknowledge victims and and folk who are concerned about the level of gunfire in our city particularly in our neighborhoods many of us will know that a 13 year old girl lying in her bed was shot because of gunfire outside her home she there's no evidence yet that she was directly involved this particularly struck home because the house directly next door to the house that was struck by gunfire is occupied by two parishioners of my church they were startled out of their sleep by gunfire and they immediately took up defensive positions they scurried around they hit the floor while gunfire rang out outside their home one of them were one of the several calls that were placed to 911 in this particular case for responders to come and respond to the shooting so I want to send our prayers out to for a quick and speedy recovery to that 13 year old to the victims from this past weekend I think it's important to keep realizing that with all that's going on in our Durham and in Durham and there are wonderful things downtown and Google coming that we still have a gunfire problem in America no doubt America is Washington guns but we have I'm a Durham elected official our specific iteration of the problem here in Durham I think should be should remind us and call our full attention and focus as a government I want to you know send a challenge out to all that are listening whatever your station is in our community whether you're a political person or community person my my brothers and sisters in the clergy um that this is time for all hands on deck um I also want to challenge those that enter into this space enter into this debate space who who want to make prescriptions or recommendations is what we should be doing at the policy level I think it's important for every player in this city every organization to issue a statement of recognizing and showing solidarity with the thousands of people in our city that hear gunfire every night that's not reported um and I think it's important that we have a comprehensive conversation but there are little boys and girls who have integrated that into their world view that this is just what it's like in our neighborhood um if you're serious about this conversation about reform be it police reform or criminal justice reform come on into the conversation but silence about what we should be doing or recommendations about what we should be doing in the immediate tactical short term sense about women women and men and boys and girls in this city that experience gunfire every night um what's our plan on that and what are we going to do on that with all the other things we're fixing and tweaking and all the changes when we want to make the systems and structures and departments what is our statement about the immediate short term right now concerned about little boys and girls being trained to jump in bathtubs and jump off their bikes and duck and cover like soldiers behind garbage cans when gunfire goes off we can't talk about the other stuff and not talk about that as well we can't come up with prescriptions and ideas about retooling and reforming other things without talking about that as well all of it needs to be talked about i'm with you but we've got to talk about that as well and i think some more voices while we're issuing statements on other things need to be issuing statements about what we're going to do tonight about the boys and girls who will be ducking and covering not just the parishioners of my church but but people like them all around the city who will be ducking and covering the gunfire our prayers go out once again to those that have been affected and and i just challenge us to bring the full weight the ingenuity the creativity the resources of our government to bear on this issue uh while we celebrate downtown there are many outside of the downtown corridor that will be going to sleep tonight in a virtual war zone so thank you for that and finally charlie reese as usual nailed everything i wanted to say about willard street apartments they're absolutely beautiful i have nothing to add to what he would say except that i want to thank you mr mayor because i remember when the prospect of using city land to do affordable housing was put the council members into you uh you didn't balk you didn't flinch you didn't go down the litany of of usual excuses about you know well you can get more money for we had a robust conversation i remember your willingness to shepherd that and to carry that forward on the electoral side so i want to thank you publicly for your willingness charlie's right there are so many people who had their hands in this and so many voices and so many players uh but in Durham fashion we we shifted a paradigm um and as i walked through that building i was just um just overtaken um i was just overcome with the beauty of it uh charlie mentioned the light the vistas of our city i too could not distinguish and i deliberately looked across the street to the market rate apartments and then at that building couldn't make a distinction and and i want to challenge uh you know our community development department and all our partners and anytime anybody talks about building affordable housing anywhere in the city that we require them i don't know if we can do this statutorily we require them to go take a view uh take a tour of willard street apartments because they are absolutely beautiful and i want to thank our partners the self-help and and the hic for the wonderful work they've done and for this council for for the willingness to see it through it was not easy it was expensive um there are other things we could have done with the land but but when your values guide your votes and guide your policy this is what it looks like uh when when values rule the day and electoral politics so congratulations Durham um i too am excited about the families that are moving in i know some of them personally and i could not be more happy for them i'm a bit jealous because they got this cool downtown address now and i'm still schlepping it in from the suburbs but i could not be more happy uh for the residents of willard street apartments god bless our city god bless and protect our city thank you very much mr mayor thank you all thank you councilmember are there announcements colleagues councilmember freyman thank you mr mayor it's always a pleasure to follow the gentleman on our council and um here all their their announcements uh beforehand it's help it's help i had to make a few notes and just just um i i really wanted to to shift the dialogue but i'll start with the willard street apartments i just wanted to make sure that we tackle that i didn't leave it hanging that um folks actually with the subsidy for housing choice vouchers actually do pay rent and so it's dependent on their income and just noting that i didn't want to leave us leave this conversation without noting that but they may have to pay out of pocket um and i do want to note that uh in my tour i was really trying to get to what the maintenance plan will look like because i live across the street from calvary apartments and franklin street and east main street which are all apartment complexes that were built as affordable housing and currently have maintenance issues that will need to be addressed um as they figure out whether or not they're going back to derm house and authority or not and so just acknowledging that this conversation is not ending it's that we're at the beginning even though the the the first phase of the housing has been built the second phase will need to be done and then there also needs to be a plan around maintenance and just acknowledging that the rents may not cover that and uh in that this setup um other than that i really appreciated the opportunity to be there and to see the that the work of what we all have been pushing for in our community um i know myself as a resident and others as well um prior to this this this coming together um all we're we're excited about it and i i just want to echo a few times how the mayor has encouraged us to figure out what it's going to look like because these were these were very expensive apartments to to actually build and so what it's going to look like sustainably will be important over the next um few years i i did want to circle back to the covid conversation acknowledging that folks are still passing i think there's been um so you know that tenseness of trying to get out has created um a space where people are trying to figure out what's next and how they can move forward and i want to encourage folks to continue to wear their masks socially distance and to wash their hands as frequently as possible because covid is still with us and people are still losing their family members and it's important to keep that at the forefront i did want to note that uh communities in partnership along with uh peach uh partnership effort for the advancement of children's health held a vaccine event at the impact team building and vaccinated over 270 residents here in derm that were over 75 black and latin x i will also note that uh war for life has actually implemented a putting a local bus school uh a local public transportation bus to work as a mobile vaccine unit they're working to figure out how to align the vaccines in a mobile way for folks not just here in derm but across the state and so they are actually looking to do um covid uh related education and vaccines and testing all in in a mobile um bus vehicle and i thought that that was a phenomenal idea that jason williams with war for life pulled together with his team of uh folks like donald hues and jessica hope and a few others um just to make sure that they were covering some of the issues that kept coming up in our conversations at the covid task force meetings for the african-american community and i would like to note that they did they were trying to make sure that they were readily available for both english and spanish speakers i also want to note that the derm together for resilient youth has been actively working with community health workers to try and make sure that people around the community continuing to have the conversations where they are as trusted resources um and i i just don't want us to turn our eyes away from covid and and and to drop you know the ball i appreciate councilmember cabrera keeping that sign up in the background so that so that folks know it that it's our focus i i i really really am excited about this google conversation and the jobs that they will bring it was even more exciting to hear one of their representatives talking about how they would love to have the north carolina central derm tech and duke all involved in making sure that they're developing programming or certificates or you know coursework that would align what i was concerned about is how dps was not included in that conversation i would like to figure out how we can support as a city through our workforce development department acknowledging that we're you know talking about summer youth programs this would be a great opportunity to get some of those youth lined up for some of that i am i mean i'm more than excited i i think there's there's opportunity where all these challenges lies i had the unfortunate opportunity to spend the early part of the afternoon with the family who uh had experienced that loss in and um emory woods estates and just acknowledging that this this is the neighborhood who who express very um kind of off-puttingly how they were concerned about the new townhomes coming into their neighborhood and not having more crime in their community and trying to like trying to trying to actually navigate you know what it means for there to actually be a shooting in a neighborhood where they haven't had one in over 20 or 30 years and i am i am more than um it's been an emotional afternoon and i just want to note that to council member middleton's point it is going to really be important to figure out what we are going to do next because it is not something um that both city united it's going to be able to do without us and it's not something that the police department's going to be able to do without us it's got to be something that we're all working together on inside i know we're talking about the you know the united the universal basic income i talked about how that pilot would be phenomenal it would be great to have but it would not be enough and we need to find a way to make that sustainable and so i i think that these the ideas are here and the the effort is here but we've got to figure out ways to make that make it work and so i am just mindful just coming back with with all of those thoughts so thank you for allowing me to share them council member our colleagues further announcements all right i have a couple of announcements one is our usually we have a proclamation for the mayor's challenge for water conservation but instead of a proclamation this evening the water management department asked me to just say a few words about the mayor's challenge as my colleagues know the mayor's challenge for water conservation is sponsored by the wildland foundation usually when we make this proclamation wane drop is with us but unfortunately we won't be able to see wane drop tonight but hopefully next year this is the 10th annual challenge and the challenge is a friendly competition between cities across the country and so what we're doing is just encouraging residents to make a series of simple online commitments to reduce water waste pollution and explore ways to improve the health of the Durham community taking the mayor's water challenge is free only takes about two minutes and participants can win eco-friendly prizes the challenge is available for the full month of april and i urge everyone in Durham to take the pledge at mywaterpledge.com let me just say that uh usually Durham is among the cities that does the best in this challenge we uh our residents commit to various specific actions to save a whole lot of water and uh we're that's very important so check it out at mywaterpledge.com and then another uh announcement that i want to make i was uh i was the folks who have in public health uh duke and in Durham county public health have asked me to give a shout out to Durham parks and rec for working so closely with them on getting the wheels vaccination site set up as you all know southern high school was no longer available when school started uh and so the um can i use the word pivot uh we pivoted to um the most over your i think that'll be word of the year for the pandemic uh we we uh the the folks who are working on this pivoted we moved the site to wheels and and i was asked to give a public shout out to Durham parks and rec for the great work that they did to help make that happen so shout out to parks and rec all right uh council member reeves feels like unprecedented it might be the word of the year and we'll we'll see all right colleagues uh we'll now move to uh priority items by our city manager madame manager good evening mr mayor madame pro tem members of the Durham city council i do not have any priority items for you this evening thank you madame manager madame attorney good evening mr mayor madame mayor pro 10 members of the city council it's good to see you i also do not have any priority items tonight thank you very much madame attorney madame clerk good evening mr mayor and madame mayor pro tem and council members i do have one item it does not require a vote uh just to let you know that the february 18th 2021 strapped minutes were revised and then reposted and that is my priority item this evening thank you very much madame clerk welcome colleagues will now move to the consent agenda the consent agenda is made up of items that the council has considered and worked on previously it could be approved by a single vote of the council items can be pulled from the consent agenda by a member of the council or member of the public in which case the item will be held for consideration at the end under the consent agenda agenda item one approval of city council minutes item two during bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission appointment item three procurement card performance audit dated february 2021 item four selection of the external auditor item five 2020 f y 2021 22 budget development guidelines item six big bid report february 2021 item seven change order seven with with lachace construction services llc for the city hall hvac an electrical renovation project item eight city code revisions for work conducted in the right of way item non-contract amendment number two to contract st 301 c paving services 2020 item 10 contract amendment number one to contract ws 86d professional services for water and sewer extension item 11 triangle region solid waste consortium memorandum of agreement colleagues you have now heard the consent agenda and i will accept a motion for their approval so moved second moved by council member freeland seconded by council member reese madam clerk will you please call the roll mere shul i mere pro tem johnson thank you council member caballero i and some member freeland i and some member freeman i and some member middleton i will die this member reese i thank you colleagues that concludes our agenda for tonight i'm afraid that next meeting will not be this brief so let's enjoy this one thank you all so much thanks to our staff we will see you all at thursday on the at the work session and i'm now going to declare this meeting adjourned at 745 yeah good night everybody good night