 partnership, January 2021 marks the 19th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, an annual campaign to focus attention on the need for quality consistent and competent mentors. And whereas a mentor is a caring, dependable, and authentic person that provides a consistent presence, guidance, and devotes time to a young person to help that youth discover personal strength to persevere and achieve their potential to a structured and trusting relationship. And whereas quality mentoring encourages and empowers youth to make positive choices, promote self-character development, support academic achievement, leadership, and professional development, career exploration, and introduce youth to new ideas. And whereas we recruit individuals to mentor, encourage organizations to engage and integrate quality mentoring into their efforts with a focus on academic support, life skills training, and career readiness and workforce preparation to motivate youth to excel. And whereas during the COVID-19 pandemic, mentoring programs are stepped up to fill gaps for youth and families, connecting them with resources and ensuring that mentoring relationships continue virtually to prevent social disconnection and mitigate learning loss. Whereas research shows that youth who meet regularly with their mentors are more than 52% less likely than their peers to skip the day of school. Youth who face an opportunity gap but have a mentor are 55% more likely to be enrolled in college than those who do not have a mentor. Youth who meet regularly with their mentors are 46% less likely than their peers to start using drugs and 27% less likely to start drinking. And whereas mentors serve a critical role in helping youth successfully complete high schools and gain admissions to skills and competencies they need to succeed in college and build new in-demand skills, prepare for the future of work, and succeed in an ever-changing workforce. And whereas National Mentoring Month is the time of year to celebrate, elevate, and encourage mentoring in the City of Durham. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Schulmeyer, the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim January 2021 as National Mentoring Month in the City of Durham and hereby call upon public officials, business, and community leaders and educators and encourage all citizens to observe this month with the appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs in order to recognize the many women who serve as staff and volunteers at quality mentoring programs, acknowledge that mentoring is beneficial because it facilitates healthy identity development, encourages educational achievement, reduces juvenile delinquency, expands career readiness, improves life outcome and strengthens communities, promote the creation, expansion, sustainability, and funding of quality mentoring programs across Durham, and support initiatives to close the academic achievement opportunity and mentoring gaps and promote critical mentoring to support boys of color with mentors who perceive and understand social, political, and economic racism and oppression and to take action against racism and oppressive elements of society. Witness my hand, the Corporate Seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the fourth day of January 2021. Again, I want to thank Mr. Langley for presenting this proclamation to us tonight. It's a very, very important subject and I'm really glad that he brought it to us. We'll now move by announcements to the by members of the council. I'm going to begin with an announcement just to let staff know, I know my colleagues are aware that there is an absolutely great article in southern cities this month, the league of the the magazine of the of the North Carolina League of Municipalities featuring none other than the extremely handsome Mark Anthony Middle, our colleague, not only sounds amazing and is amazing in this article, but also even though he's not presented in all his usual sartorial splendor, does us proud in every way. So council member Middleton is seriously it is a great article and it's a real, it was let's just say a win for the Bull City and I want to I want to commend the article to everybody that has not had the chance to read it. It really is a wonderful portrait of council member Middleton in his work. All right, other announcements by members of the council. All right colleagues, then we will move to our priority items by the city manager. Happy New Year. Good to see you. Happy New Year. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Durham City Council. Again, happy New Year to you all. I do have one priority item this evening and it is agenda item number 13. Durham City County Interlocal Agreement for Continuation of the Gang Reduction Strategy. Additional information has been provided in attachment number four. That is the only item I have for your consideration this evening. Thank you, Madam Manager. Madam Attorney, good evening. Happy New Year. Are there any priority items from the Attorney's Office tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Happy New Year. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council. It's good to see you all in 2021 finally. I do not have any priority items this evening. Thank you very much, Madam Attorney. Madam Clerk, happy New Year to you. Do you have any priority items tonight? Happy New Year. Yes, Mr. Mayor, I don't have a voting item tonight, but I did want to let everybody know item four, the rally during New Year to everybody. Madam Clerk, I am so sorry I could not understand that. Mr. Mayor, I don't have any items. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk. All right, now we're going to move to the consent agenda. Consent agenda consists of items previously worked on by the Council and could be approved by the single vote of the Council. Items pulled from the Consent Agenda by a member of the public or by a member of the Council are held until the end of the meeting. I'll now read the Consent Agenda. Item one approval of City Council Minutes. Item two, Durham Bicycle Pedestrian Advisor Commission Appointment. Item three, Durham City County Appearance Commission Appointment. Item six, Amendment to Youth Durham to Youth Initiatives Manager in a Local Agreement. Item eight, TIP number C5605E, Congestion Mitigation Air Quality CMAC Improvement Program, Bike Lane Supplemental Municipal Agreement. Item nine, TIP number C5605H, Downtown Durham Wayfinding Supplemental Municipal Agreement. Item 10, TIP number C56051, Neighborhood Bike Route Supplemental Municipal Agreement. Item 11, Bid Report November 2020. Item 12, City of Durham Employment and Training 2020-2022, Grant Project Ordnance Superciting Ordinance Number 15708. Item 13, Durham City County Interlocal Agreement for Continuation of the Gang Reduction Strategy. Item 14, Contract ST286 Petition Streets 2021. Item 15, Contract SW76C, Inspections and Nombudsman Services for Sidewalk Repair Projects. Item 16, Contract WS85 Sewer Extensional and Garrett Mamosa. And Ms. 17, Utility Extension Agreement with Merck Sharp and Dome Corporation of the County of Durham. Item 18, Soft Council member Caballero that we approve the Consent Agenda. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freeland. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember... Yes. Rhys. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously and the Consent Agenda is approved. We'll now move to our general business agenda of public hearings. We have we have four public hearings tonight. I'm sorry we have we have five public hearings tonight and I received a note from the clerk that her internet is very spotty and so Ashley Wyatt will be when necessary calling you all for us. Ms. Wyatt, I think you're you need to mute your your mic. Thank you. All right everybody, we'll now move to the public hearings. Item 22 FY 2021-22 annual action plan needs public hearing and I know that there are people here to speak on this item. The the the people that I have listed to speak are Larissa Seibel, Stella Adams, Angel Vic Lewis, Marie Faison. Is there anyone else here that would like to speak on this item? Just so we'll get we'll go to Mr. Johnson now but I just want to make sure that we we know who's here that would like to speak on this item. If I did not call your name and you were here to speak on this item if you could just make yourself known by raising your hand and raising your hand in the in the chat. Okay, Mr. Johnson welcome. Thank you Mr. Mayor, greetings members of council. Reginald Johnson, director of the Department of Community Development for the city of Durham. This agenda item is the first of needs public hearing for the annual action plan development. I will make some introductory comments and then I will turn it over to Ms. Wilma Conyas who will read the particulars that need to be into the read into the record before we begin the public hearing. We do have a sign language interpreter Ms. Monica McGeek who is will be offering sign language as part of the requirements for this public hearing. I would just like to begin by thanking which and everybody happy new year and say as we begin this new year we're beginning a process in developing our annual action plan. We did receive some very constructive comments from Ms. Stella Adams and I definitely want to thank her for those comments and we definitely are taking those into consideration. One of the comments suggested postponing this hearing but we are recommending that we proceed with this hearing because one of the requirements is that we have to have a public hearing at the beginning of the development of the process that is a requirement and so having a later public hearing will put us in a position that we would not want to be in. However we will have another public hearing at least one. There are no preventions to us having more public hearings are definitely engaging in alternative community engagement processes which is one of her suggestions and so I just wanted to share that and we will be receiving written comments over the next several not only just at this public hearing but also over the next several weeks and months as we have this development process and so just because we don't have public hearing this one is closed does that mean that we will not receive comments that can be part of the annual action plan process those will be ongoing and that part stays open for the next several months and so with those comments introductory comments Mr. Mayor I'll turn it over to Ms. Wilma Conyers to read some particulars into the record. Thank you Mr. Johnson welcome Ms. Conyers. You're muted. You're muted Ms. Conyers. Good evening Mayor Schull and members of council. I am Wilma Conyers the planning and performance administrator in the Department of Community Development. The purpose of this public hearing is to receive citizen comment on the community development needs in the Durham neighborhoods as it relates to the use and receipt of community development block grant known as CDBG home investment partnerships program known as home emergency solutions grant known as ESG and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS known as HOPWA funds for this upcoming fiscal year. This public hearing is a requirement for the preparation and submission of the city's 2021 2022 annual action plan to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Notice of this meeting was properly advertised in the Herald Sun and Kipasa newspapers as well as distributed via a general listserv and posted on the department's website. As a recipient of CDBG home ESG and HOPWA the city is required to hold at least two public hearings prior to the submission of its annual action plan. The first meeting must be held early in the developmental stages of the plan. We anticipate the second public hearing will be held in April or May of 2021. In addition the city is required to publish a copy of the draft annual action plan for citizen comment at least 30 days prior to its submission. The city's annual action plan must be submitted to HUD by May 15th or as applicable. HUD has not yet announced the FY 2021 entitlement allocations for planning purposes the city expects to receive approximately $2 million in CDBG funds, $1.1 million in home funds, $174,000 in ESG funds, and $483,000 in HOPWA funds. In closing, a summary of comments from this public hearing and written comments received from citizens during the development of the annual action plan will be incorporated into the final 2021-2022 annual action plan. Thank you. Thank you very much Ms. Conyers and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and we will first hear from members of the public we'll next hear from members of the public and then if there are any comments by members of the council we'll take them at that time. We'll first begin with Larisa Seibel, Ms. Seibel welcome and you have three minutes. Madam clerk can you make Ms. Seibel available to be heard? Hello can you hear me? Yes we can we're glad he's glad to have you glad to be here my name is Larisa Seibel I'm a member of the Durham People's Alliance Housing Action Team and I am speaking about the request to postpone this public hearing. I did hear Reginald Johnson speak to the opportunity to have additional hearing and other kinds of public engagement which I think community engagement is extremely important around the needs for housing and community development especially this year with COVID and so many people struggling to keep their homes and so I am encouraged that that is offered and I hope that that happens well before the second hearing in April or May but with enough time for you know people to really understand what are the things that we need in the community and to bring that information to the city council. I do want to talk a little bit about the other groups that might you know be engaged with also the CAC citizens advisory committee I served on that when the city did small area plans and did revitalization plans a number of people participated in that committee at that time and I think it's also important to get input from the affordable housing implementation committee which has not yet met because they are advising you on the housing bonds and all of these federal funds and city funds and community input all works together and I think we really need to reach out. I do want to just state one priority that the people's alliance housing action team has already adopted and that is eviction prevention with people in COVID that saves lives when there was no eviction moratorium people got COVID and died and we really need to increase our funding for eviction legal aid to keep people in their homes and also for rent funds because we do want people to pay their rent and the landlords need to get their rent but we should be doing it in a better way instead of just sending people to court we really need to be mediating between landlords and tenants helping with communication and this goes across the board of public housing and private landlords so I really hope that we can do better. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Ms. Seibel. I said I would hold my comments but I do want to just reemphasize of what Mr. Johnson said and I spoke to Mr. Johnson about this today. We will be having another public hearing prior to the final one in April that should give people more time to make comments and that will be accompanied by some additional outreach so thank you for that Ms. Seibel. The second speaker is Stella Adams. Madam Clerk, could you please make Ms. Adams available to be heard? Good afternoon. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes Ms. Adams welcome and we're glad you have you with us and you also have three minutes. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Stella Adams. I'm a citizen of Durham residing at 4128 Cobblestone Place. I request that my previous written comments are entered into the record of this public hearing. I am officially requesting that an additional public hearing on needs be scheduled for March 1st to allow the community to have a reasonable opportunity to impact the development of the 2021-2022 annual action plan. While a minimum of two hearings must be healed there is nothing prohibiting a third hearing. As a citizen the city made promises related to the affordable housing bond. I am concerned and I want answers before the approval of the 2021-2022 annual action plan of how many projects related to the affordable housing bond and included in the related annual action plans have already been approved and led to developers without significant community input. I want to make sure that the emergency home repair program and the rental rehab programs are utilized to improve our affordable housing stock, protect our heritage neighborhoods and prevent gentrification. I want to ensure that small local business enterprises, section three and MWE businesses are the beneficiaries of contracts related to these programs. I have not had time to truly prepare for this hearing but I am aware of community needs expressed by others urging the city to make eviction prevention a budget priority through support of legal aid and the provision of direct rental assistance payments. I again am thankful to the council that there will be an additional hearing and I suggest the date of March 1st so that there is plenty of time for any proposals put forward by the community to be incorporated into the actual annual plan. And on a personal note I just want to give a shout out to council member Freelon for the accolades he's received today around his album debt. Thank you. Thank you very much Ms. Adams. I have not heard those accolades and I'm excited to hear them so maybe that'll be another discussion for the rest of the meeting. Thank you Ms. Adams for those comments. And now next is Angel Vic Lewis. I don't see Ms. Vic Lewis in attendance however Madam Clark do you? Mr. Mayor I cannot see Ms. Vic Lewis. All right. Okay then we will move to Marie Faizon. Madam Clark can you please make Ms. Faizon available to be heard. Ms. Faizon are you with us tonight? I am. Can you hear me? Yes we can. It's really good to have you and welcome and you also have three minutes. Oh thank you. It's really good to be here. I'm just speaking in behalf of Ms. Adams and I support what she's requesting to have an additional meeting action plan meeting scheduled for the public to have more input. I find that the public needs to even though there was some advertisement and I was unaware of a lot of things that pertaining to this this plan that people need to know about so that when it affects them that they can contribute their experiences to it. So I definitely support her and I support the eviction to support stop evictions too so we need to try and help people and I know we have all these rules and regulations and deadlines and but if it doesn't help the people it's not really going to work very well and that's what I'm saying as a person and we need more people that would be infected by these different plans of action that is not coming down to them and they're they're they're falling through the cracks and that's why I felt it was necessary for me to speak this evening. I appreciate the work that you are doing. I watch you all the time. Sometimes I try to speak and can't get through but I know you have a lot on your plate and I appreciate that but I still don't want you to forget the people that are suffering and that don't have a voice and I will try and speak as as much as I can to give them voice and I would appreciate if y'all would support those people the most vulnerable that are suffering and that would be the essential workers like myself people that are forgotten about so I thank you for your time this evening. Thank you Ms. Faizan it's always good to have you and appreciate that. All right this is a public hearing. Is there anyone else in attendance tonight who would like to be heard on this item? If so could you please raise your virtual hand? All right seeing none I'll there's no council action that is required for this tonight except to hear this but just want to know if there are any comments by members of the council before we move to the next item. Mr. Mayor. Yes sir Mr. Johnson. I need to check with Ms. Conyers to confirm that you don't need to receive the vote to receive the comments. Okay Ms. Conyers do we need a vote tonight? No we do not. Okay thank you Ms. Conyers. Thank you Ms. Conyers and thank you very much Mr. Johnson and colleague I think that we we heard Mr. Johnson about planning another intermediate public hearing and I'm glad that we're going to do that. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah I just wanted to thank you Mr. Mayor I just wanted to ask about that from an update from Mr. Johnson is what's the schedule now for the public hearings for this item? So as mentioned I'm so it's mentioned by Ms. Conyers the next public this the final public hearing is usually scheduled for April so what we have normally been doing is having two public hearings we are required to have one at the beginning of the process before we've done any work I had any discussions on what the annual action plan is that's the reason we want to have this one today. The next one has to occur at the presentation of the annual action plan and how your action plan has to be on development for 30 days prior to that public hearing. What we're suggesting is in the immediate middle of that as we're development is definitely okay for us to have an additional public hearing. The concern that we have and that we have to be sensitive to is that we have at the end of the day a March a May 15th statutory federal statutory deadline that we have to meet to submit the annual action plan and the last city council meeting before that meeting is May the third. Okay. And so that that that's the last council date of council action so we have to kind of back up from there and what that means is that in April we look like we have we as we traditionally have had had the plan and the final public hearing but keep in mind the annual action plan has to be on display and it's not just how we're going to spend money there's some other details that need to be included in that that we have to work on so the timeframe is actually tight. Okay. So I just want to offer that thank you for the question. Yeah thank you thank you that's helpful but so we don't need to all of the information that we need for the April hearing we don't need that in order to have another hearing in March right like we could just have another hearing like this where community members could come and get their thoughts. Okay. Yes we can provide additional information actually that's one of the suggestions that Ms. Adams put forward which we think is a good one and we're actually going to in future add put a link to where substantial information can be found in terms of historical information as well as figure out a way to have that information for people to consider and so but this process is one where this is the beginning and this is the place to make comments such as the one that all of our residents have made the day. Great thank you and thank you to Ms. Adams and Ms. Seibel for speaking tonight and for advocating for more community input we're always we're always happy to hear from community members and want to make sure that this process gets the input that is needed so I appreciate y'all being here and thank you Mr. Johnson for being responsive to the community and adding that extra public hearing and I look forward to hearing more about what folks want to see us spend our public money on so thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Temp, Council Member Freeman. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Just one additional clarification Mr. Johnson is the only way that folks can submit their comments at the meeting because I was under the impression there was a way to submit online or by email as well. Council Member as I shared once this process is open which it is open now in some respects it stays continuously open. We will receive written comments at any and all times for the next several weeks and months so an email a letter something that we can document and have recorded will be sufficient. And that letter would go to council or would it come directly to you? It can come to community development. Okay can you make sure that? Of course persons are welcome to send it to the council most definitely but I would also suggest sending it to me. Is there a specific like is there a community development at durhamnc.com.org or .gov? I'm sorry. Yes ma'am it is okay and I can email that out. Yes thank you. I think it would be great to make sure that that's readily available and on social media as well. Okay thank you. Thank you for that to do that. And also I wanted to thank Ms. Adams for bringing this bringing the suggestions to light and making the suggestions up front at work session and also Ms. Seibel and Ms. Spazan. Thank you. Thank you councilmember. Councilmember Caballero. This is more for the clerk. Can we can can we make sure we have interpretation Spanish interpretation for the next two ideally one day we'll get to more languages but for now if we can do it in Spanish that would be great. Yes we will. Thank you. Thank you councilmember. All right any other comments or questions? All right thank you colleagues. Thank you Mr. Johnson, Ms. Conyers and those who are here to speak on this item. We'll now move to item 23 our next public hearing. Can I just step in real quick? Yeah of course. You expressed earlier you weren't sure what the ruckus was about our colleague councilmember Freelon and I thought I'd let the folks who are listening we'll take a little interlude for some current events. At the end of July of last year 2020 our colleague Pierce Freelon then just a private resident in the city of Durham released a critically acclaimed album D.A.D. and that is that is actually I have actually really enjoyed it even though it's geared towards kids a little bit his daughter plays a starring role in the album and really sealed the show from Pierce to be totally honest with you just my opinion of course. And really is fantastic I highly recommend it first of all. Last month the recording academy released the Grammy nominations for the 2021 Grammy awards for best children's recording children's music recording and Pierce's album was not among the nominees in fact all five of the nominees were white artists or groups and very shortly after the the nominations were announced three of those white performing groups renounced their nominations asked to be removed from the ballot citing the fact that no black artists or artists of color were nominated in that category all three of those groups specifically identified Pierce Freelon's album D.A.D. as an album that really should have been recognized for the nomination and there was a bitter press today about that which I suspect is why it came to the attention of Miss Adams and I just wanted to say that Pierce is awesome even before he came on the city council he was awesome this album is really great encourage everyone to go out and check it out even if you don't have kids but your kids will also enjoy it so that's what I believe that's what Miss Adams was talking about thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you for those enlightening comments and I'll ask council member Freelon if he has any comments just thank you council member Reese thank you Stella that's all I'm blessing that's awesome I'm I feel bad that I'm so out of it that I hadn't heard that that's amazing that's fantastic that's really good and when we get together we'll play the music for our party definitely definitely I also recommend Daddy Daughter Day which features our mutual friend Joshua Gunn on that track as well really it's awesome so okay I'm done now thank you Mr. Mayor back to you thank you very much for that important interlude all right we're now on item 23 item 23 is a public hearing item economic development incentive with Bookman commercial holdings LLC and we'll let's see who is here from the staff for this item Mr. Mayor this is Andre Pettigrew director of the Office of Economic Workforce Development Chris Dickey is the staff resource person on this one and he's prepared to lead the discussion thank you Mr. Pettigrew and happy new year to you Mr. Dickey are you with us and can you be heard? Can you hear me? Yes we can welcome Mr. Dickey good to have you with us now you're muted Mr. Dickey but if you unmute there you go okay yeah okay okay Mayor Shul and members of council my name is Chris Dickey with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development before use an item to consider or approve a proposed agreement between the City of Durham and Bookman Commercial Holdings LLC. Bookman Holdings LLC has applied to OEWD the Office of Economic Workforce Development for a neighborhood revitalization grant incentive in the amount of $140,000 and they proposed to demolish an underutilized building and replace it with a checkers franchise retail location. The Durham 2520 checkers economic development project being proposed will be a quick serve serve food and beverage restaurant. The checkers retail location will offer walk-up drive-up and outdoor seating. The facility will occupy 954 square feet of retail space at 2520 Fayetteville Street which is located along an OEWD targeted commercial corridor. Currently there is not a national franchise restaurant along the more southern section of the Fayetteville Target corridor that offers a combined drive-up and outdoor dining option. The project will incomplete it will stimulate new business development provide job opportunities for local residents and for NCCU students and will likely increase the likely of walkability in this neighborhood. The proposed project total cost is one point approximately one point four million dollars the public cost would be $140,000. Staff endorses this project which would be an asset in promoting the continued revitalization, vitality and minority business ownership along the Fayetteville Street commercial corridor. A major goal of the City of Durham's FY 2019-21 strategic plan is shared economic prosperity. One of OEW's shared economic developments project initiative is Durham African American Legacy Pilot Program which will lead to building of a Durham community ecosystem of strategies and initiatives that support business stabilization, business succession planning and supports the growth and expansion of minority legacy businesses. That's it. Thank you so much Mr. Dickey. Colleagues you've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and we have I believe one person signed up to speak on this item and that is Dobbin Bookman. Is Dobbin Bookman with us and can you be heard? I am here. Good evening. Great. Mr. Bookman thank you for being with us. You have three minutes. Well thank you. Firstly, thank you Mayor Schul, members of the council. Thank you Chris Dickey for your wonderful summary of the project and thank you Andre Pettigrew for your support and I'm not sharing along the way as well. I am excited to present this opportunity, this development project along the Spamfield Street corridor. It is in addition to all the things that Chris just described in terms of the benefit to the community. It also has just personal legacy significance to me and to my family who have operated business along this very corridor for seven decades and we've been blessed to really service this community with North Carolina Central University at the core of that and this is just an opportunity to take what I'm just honored and proud to build upon from my grandfather and my grandmother who is still alive 103 years old. The flag that they that they both planted at this particular location back you know 42 years ago almost to the day and so I'm excited to be able to to recycle this this property and to bring something new and nice to this community that will stimulate not only sort of economic excitement just along this corridor but jobs. The particular development will employ 30 will create 30 jobs. It will they will pay living wages to full-time management and to team members and we're looking to partner with institutions in that community schools North Carolina Central and just members of the community in the way that my family has for for over 70 years. Mr. Buckman thank you so much for being with us tonight. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone else who is with us tonight that would like to be heard on this matter? If so you could if you could raise your virtual hand. I see Ms. Adams. Ms. Adams would you like to speak on this item? Could we make Ms. Stella Adams available to be heard please? Ms. Adams I think if you unmute you can be heard. Ms. Adams if there we go. Hello. Well I had not come to speak on this issue this is one of the this is a heritage business and a heritage community and we need to support this incentive and I strongly urge you these 30 jobs are impactful in this neighborhood and I understand this legacy and heritage business has been in our community for over 70 years. There won't be a sign a placard there but a business there and a continuation of that long-term legacy. Those 30 jobs will be entry level. They will pay a living wage. If there's a new reason to provide an incentive this is certainly what should be done to bring a racial equity to our business practices so I encourage you to support this incentive. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Adams. Is there anyone else here present who would like to be heard on this item? If so could you raise your virtual hand? All right. Colleagues questions or comments at this time for Mr. Dickey or for Mr. Bookman. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I sent a couple of questions for well for both of them but I'll start with Mr. Bookman. Thank you for being here tonight and for your proposal and appreciate especially your commitment to living wages as we know most food service businesses do not pay living wages. We have a few in the city that do and we appreciate it. It's one of our goals as a council to encourage more businesses to do that so thank you for for studying that example. I just had a couple of other questions related to workplace benefits and practices. Over the last year dealing with the COVID pandemic it's become clear how important health insurance and paid sick leave are for workers in our community and just wanted to ask you about those benefits for your employees as well as any other workplace safety plans that you might have to make sure that folks are staying safe as we I hope that your restaurant will open after the COVID pandemic has ended. I hope we're not dealing with it for for that much longer but I think it's you know it just highlighted the need for for some of these health related benefits and wanted to get your your plans on that. Thanks. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Bookman can you comment on that? If we make Mr. Bookman available to be heard please. There we go thank you. So thank you so much for raising those very important questions and they are questions and items that are at the forefront of the checkers operation. There are absolute benefits health benefits to the staff and members of the team at checkers that is tiered at different levels as you might expect depending on you know sort of where the person is in the organization from the general manager down to the team level. As far as COVID protocol and procedure you know as far as the QSR or quick serve restaurant space the checker system has really led the path in this and a lot of it has been because of the head start that we've just naturally had and that we don't have in internal dining it's a closed kitchen that's been the concept since the 80s and so we've had an opportunity to what we've come to call you know really really pandemic proof the business from the standpoint of just not just the operations but the safety of the people in the operation and so it's extremely efficient we're very conscientious about that from a human capital and human safety standpoint and we're committed to it so I appreciate you for for raising it then it is something that will mark the way we operate. Great thank you thank you so much. If I'm looking at the map correctly is this the building that used to house the no bookstore? Exactly it is. Yeah I remember getting some really good fried chicken back in the day. We'll just be able to get some really good fried chicken from checkers actually that's one of the new items. I'm the department at all and if not I would love to get more I would love to move that forward before we see another round of economic development incentives come before us. Yeah. I see Mr. Pedderer jumping in too. Yeah just on me yeah but Andre. Yeah thank you councilmember Johnson for the question again the department in actually all of these incentive agreements that come before you we have spent a lot of time really focusing in on a number of the issues that you've raised again quality of jobs you know diversity and inclusion programs and activities and so in evaluating these programs these are issues that we have raised with the companies that you have spoken with and obviously the larger companies there's a different set of questions that we raise versus some of these smaller independent businesses and so there is a sort of punch card that we've been using but I agree we need to maybe formalize it and present it to you and council in a much more formal way. That would be great thank you and that's all I got thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mr. Peddergrove. Councilmember Freelon. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you for the presentation I just wanted to kind of echo some of the sentiments that were shared by Miss Adams about the importance of doing economic development in this area right across from St. Joseph's right there by this historic shopping center we have sweet smoothies we have other kind of black owned businesses this is one of the ways that we deal with violence in the communities by providing jobs and by building businesses and that space has been vacant for a while I grew up in and in and around that building I think a couple meetings ago the name somebody mentioned our local centurion Mozilla McLaughlin 104 years old yeah you know they've they've been the owners of that property for a long time and and I'm so delighted to see that that something is coming into that space and you know just wholeheartedly see the connection between you know jobs economic development and not just the prosperity that that brings to the neighborhoods and communities where you plant those seeds and make those investments but also the ways in which that impacts things like violence in the community you know when you have businesses and you have places to eat and you have these types of establishments in the heart of the black community and Miss Stella you said something so poignant it's not a placard it's not a sign saying black folks we're here right you know we are here and and and we are thriving and we are you know building on a legacy through jobs and and development so I just wanted to underscore that and the next piece too I know we'll be talking about Andrew Avenue next really really really really very important so I appreciate you bringing it and yeah that's it and I see Mr. Pettigrew thank you council member thank you so much thank you mayor council member Freelon again I just want to use this as an opportunity to share with council that the Fayetteville corridor as well as the Andrew driver quarter are areas that we have set as a priority and what you'll see is a consistent effort to identify new business opportunities along the quarter but also to try to support the existing businesses who are remaining in the quarter again much of our work is around individual businesses like Mr. Bookman but truth be told we're trying to create a synergy that activates these targeted areas and again these investments that you're hearing along these quarters is really a part of our strategic approach we think it really is an important next step in terms of local economic development in these communities council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor good evening everyone happy new year and thank all my colleagues for their comments and input on this uh on this matter Mr. Bookman good to see you glad you're here I'm excited about supporting this economic development incentive um you can't really have a serious conversation about black wealth and the the impact of of black business ownership and during without the Middleton family coming up they are iconic um and they are are nationally known for their exploit I think I think they had a car it was a car dealership back in the day um as well they were known for their for their auto exploits if I recall correctly so just really really excited about their continued footprint in the area um yes Mayor Pro Tem the fried chicken at the notebook store you you couldn't go to the notebook store and not have anybody know that you were in the notebook store because when you left you had this wonderful aroma all in your clothes and I used to go there and get whole bean pods and I would try and avoid Bruce bridges sometimes because if Bruce bridges saw you you were going to leave purchasing much more than you had anticipated buying and you were going to get into a debate about something so a 15 minute visit would turn us one hour and I have visited easily wonderful um memories uh and Mr. Bookman just using that as an on ramp um the know wasn't just about economic power it was also cultural power it was also part of the identity of the neighborhood and I want you to talk just a little bit um to allay concerns because when we use word walkability and and business development certain neighborhoods walkability and and business stimulus we've seen it play out in other neighborhoods it brings other businesses it brings also increased tax revenue it brings other walkers if you will uh to the neighborhood um and while the business like no was not the notebook store was not just an economic engine it was also a cultural engine an identity marker of the neighborhood um and some folk may be concerned about a national franchise while it may drive economic development uh may not be necessarily uh something that retains the cultural fingerprint of the neighborhood so just talk a little bit about your your company your family the family's um commitment to not only um bringing the dollars uh but keeping the sense ability of the neighborhood intact as well um as as you continue to do great work in the neighborhood thank you uh so much uh mark anthony and and pierce as well i'm going to come back to you in a moment pierce um and also before I forget thank you miss adams if you're still listening for your support kicking this off that was fantastic and um hopefully I will meet you at some point I'm sure I will have an opportunity to do that back to your your question and and again thank you for raising such just critically important points to me and to my family just personally I mean um we we are foundational around education um a key part of my strategy in building uh this checkers location is its proximity to uh north carolina central its proximity to hillside high school uh I like uh pierce and others uh used to ride my bicycle up and down the front of this very location um and so and and very uh sensitized to what it means to be part of this community uh you know we've spent a lot of time with the family thinking about you know how to you know best leverage this space uh and and keep it from being what you described as just a plaque uh in a memory and and we we frankly went through a lot of iterations a lot of ideas about things that we could do here and uh one of the things that makes this so exciting for for me and and for my family is is my capacity at this point in my life uh I affectionately my wife and I call it our chapter three uh to to really put our hands on this business in a meaningful way I mean uh I could easily uh you know open and probably will open more than just this location but this is I mean the fact of the matter is uh my interest is is first in building uh the legacy that I described at the beginning of this and checkers is a vehicle by which I'm doing that and we're doing that as a family uh but but don't let's just not just to be very clear the the the first item the paramount item on the agenda here is the community and preserving the legacy and becoming uh uh and continuing to be a part of the DNA and fabric of this community uh and and just you know checkers just happens to be the vehicle for that it is a national uh brand I think that's a wonderful lever for the community I think you know there's a lot we can uh build and and bring from that I think it's it's going to be balanced by you know my and my family uh and our legacies history and interest and uh making sure that this is you know not just a business at 2520 so you don't have to worry about that for sure absolutely and and and let me be clear I'm not worried and you know anybody who listens to me knows that I'm a huge proponent of the accumulation of black wealth but we also know historically uh in our country we've often times had to choose between the pursuit of wealth and the retention of our our fingerprint as it were and I have all all confidence I mean I'm I'm I'm familiar with your your stop uh that that is for uh four uh in the four of your mind but I just wanted you to have an opportunity to say that out loud to those in the community who who may not be as vocal but are concerned about excited about the the economic impact but you know we've been burned before in some other areas also concerned about what the the community will look like as more national businesses come in as opposed to that local economic flavor you know exactly what I'm talking about absolutely very eloquently so so I appreciate you man best wishes to you thank you so much and and if I can just very very quickly in the interest of time and uh you know and and at the risk of embarrassing Pierce I'm going to take it way way way back I probably know and and have known Pierce longer than anybody on this screen uh and the reality is that 104 year old Miss McLaughlin used to babysit Pierce and I'm only a few years older than Pierce and I used to run around Pierce and his dad Phil and his mom Nina's house and his sisters on Kent Street where my aunt still lives he still owns that house and so that's how far we go back and I'm super proud of you man seeing you as an adult and hearing all the things that you're doing and it's just it's just wonderful to see you and to see you here so I'm excited to get back on the block and continue to be you know part of building what I know is just going to be a great uh next several decades thank you brother kudos to you kudos to you love you man love you too love your family too thank y'all thank you mr mayor thank you council members and mr bookman other comments or questions colleagues council member freeman thank you I appreciate my colleagues for highlighting all of the points and acknowledging this is a phenomenal project I just want to note for uh mr pedigree that when you do bring forward the presentation on the rubric or punch card or what have you scorecard whatever you call it it would be great to actually add the examples of what you've been doing because I think the uh shared uh equity and economic development project is starting to bear fruit and I know I've been a very harsh critic about this in the past and I'll continue to be hopeful that this will continue to be built on because the funding has to be available for us to be able to do that and so just noting this year is a little bit harder it's going to be important to make sure that we continue to build on on the economic development side of this conversation and noting that we build the jobs in and folks have a chance to go back to work you know we build the the development in and there's a tax base that's being built as well and so just noting that this is a phenomenal tool and the project is working and I just want to make sure that you highlight that as well as possible thank you uh thank you uh comment council member Freeman um again yeah staff has worked very hard uh and is absolutely committed to following the direction of council and the leadership in this area um again uh I'm encouraged by these types of investments and commitments that you're here today uh as uh that's sort of the beginning of a new momentum in spite of COVID uh that investment is continuing in our community and it's continuing with an emphasis uh on equity and inclusion uh consistent with our original strategic plan um again I appreciate the acknowledgement and again we have a lot more work to do thank you council member thank you mr pettigrew yes thank you mr pettigrew any other comments colleagues all right I'll just make the comment that apparently I was the only one that actually bought books at the no bookstore um not sure why that was but um glad to uh glad to glad to know there were other things other people were buying okay I bought a book once when I came in for fried chicken I bought a probably a book probably a book I required for my class and that was the only reason you bought it but okay all right colleagues um thank you all for your comments thank you very much mr bookman for being here uh I'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matter is now before the council uh we need a single motion to approve this item which will be to authorize the city manager execute an economic development incentive agreement with bookman commercial holdings LLC in an amount not to exceed a hundred and forty thousand dollars so moved second moved by council member freelon seconded by council member freeman that we approve the motion um um our our uh deputy clerk will be calling the roll Ms. Wyatt Mayor Schultz I'm here Mayor Pro Tem Johnson I council member Caballero I council member freelon I council member freeman I council member Middleton I will die council member Reese I thank you thank you so much Ms. Wyatt the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously thank you for being with us mr bookman and we all look forward to eating at checkers and and to the good work that you'll be doing thank you so much all right colleague will now be moving to item 24 the economic development incentive with ideal sandwich shop LLC and I believe mr. Dickie will be presenting to us again yes uh can you hear me yes we can okay Mayor Schultz and members of council again my name is Chris Dickie with the office of economic and workforce development before you as an item to consider approval a proposed agreement between the city of Durham and ideal sandwich shop LLC ideal sandwich shop LLC has applied to OEWD for neighborhood advisory and grant incentive in the amount of a hundred and two thousand dollars and they propose to renovate and underutilize and lighted building at 2108 Andrew Avenue which is located on a target commercial corridor in northeast central Durham the plan is to renovate this blighted building 930 square feet and transform it into a sandwich shop the project when completed will support the continued new business development along this corridor provide jobs needed food service and promote the increased likelihood of walkability in this neighborhood the total project is 335 thousand dollars and the public cost to be a hundred and two thousand dollars a major priority of the city is increasing strengthening the economic stability of the city this project when completed will be a key step in implementing the neighborhood assessment plan that was approved by city council this calls for a renovation of blighted and underutilized commercial underutilized commercial building as a means of attracting private capital investments to promote business development in this targeted area in northeast central Durham the project will serve as a catalyst project can continue to track business development opportunities to this area staff endorses this project which will be an asset in promoting the continued revitalization and vitality of the Andrew driver commercial corridor and its surrounding neighborhoods that's it mayor Schoen thank you very much Mr. Dickey colleagues you have heard the report from staff I'm now going to clear this public hearing open and I believe that to be heard on this item is Ian Bracken Mr. Bracken before you speak though I do want to recognize DeWarn Langley for being with us tonight Mr. Langley we earlier did the proclamation that you brought to us and I and I commented then about my appreciation for the work that you do in this area and for bringing up this proclamation so I'm sorry you missed that part of the meeting but I do want you to know that we did read the proclamation and that we did name this a national mentoring month and much appreciate you bringing that to us all right now Mr. Bracken are you available to be heard can you hear me yes we can thank you and you have three minutes absolutely good evening Mayor Schuyl and members of the City Council thank you so much for having us here tonight special shout out to Chris Dickey and Andre Pettigrew for making this possible my name is Ian Bracken I'm the owner of 2108 Andrew Avenue and I deal sandwich LLC I have with me my business partner Paul Treco we're excited and grateful to the opportunity to be here especially under such circumstances that we're in 2108 Andrew Avenue has a long-standing history in East Durham originally it was owned by the Andrews family with the building being a food establishment since the 1940s and we'd like to continue that history our plan is to open the santo chop with a small grocery in Delhi our plans for the building are to keep the facade as similar to the original as possible the brick the windows the large sign all of it represents an almost lost architecture and beauty that we'd like to do our best to preserve we also plan to replace the awning that was once there to accentuate that beauty and provide some shelter with the elements to our guests and anyone walking by the inside however needs complete renovation and in order to be brought up to Durham City Code we need your help since purchasing the building in May of 2020 I've been building relationships with the community many are just as excited as we are to open with some of the community members already interested in joining our team as our first employees we want ideals to accommodate the community as best we can rather than the community accommodating us we want to serve foods that are otherwise not available in eastern and be able to bring more foot traffic into the area and increase commerce we have letters of support of this project from multiple members of the community including Russell's pharmacy Joe's hot dogs and Samuel and son's barbershop we've discussed community outreach programs with the Durham Children's Initiative located just across the street from us we plan to grow some vegetables on the roof of our building that we can use to teach some young members of the community about the importance of growing fresh food as well as the ease in which you can grow it we plan to function through the ongoing pandemic with a to-go menu offering groceries and taken bake items to make home cooking easier for our customers we'll offer specialty Italian items that are otherwise unavailable in the triangle which will encourage people to travel to eastern we hope to eventually offer snap benefits as well as we believe people should be given access to fresh food no matter their financial situation being in a pandemic that's had such a negative effect on small businesses bank loans are widely unavailable i bought this building without all the funds needed for the business because i truly believed in it i did not want to miss an opportunity to restore such a historic piece of eastern as well as fulfill a lifelong dream of opening my sandwich shop with the money we've requested we'll be able to fully open and hire members of the community without the money unfortunately 2108 ancher will continue to sit as it is as i can do it i as i'll do it i can to repair it on the side while i work a full-time job um you know being over there in the community and seeing everybody and just having the height be behind us as we you know work on this project ourselves um it's it's hard not to be so passionate about it and keep myself under these three minutes um but that's kind of the gist of what i wanted to say and i'll leave it there for y'all as well thank you so much mr bracken we appreciate those comments and with you for you being with us colleagues are there any comments or questions for mr bracken councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor and thank you mr bracken for your presentation i have a very serious question for you i grew up eating heroes sir uh and the name ideal sandwich shop that's quite a moniker so uh what will be the signature sandwich at the ideal sandwich shop answer carefully i appreciate that i appreciate that question very much um we'll be baking two types of bread in the beginning at ideals we'll be making a focaccia for some pressed sandwiches and we'll also be doing an italian sesame hoagie roll which we'll be doing some hoagies and as you call them heroes as well i grew up in the northeast philadelphia is where my brother lives i grew up in boston paugh grew up in new york city um and uh i go by hoagies but paul's trying to save me here he's trying to write me a little note on the on the proper identification of hoagies versus heroes but um it's very very important yeah it is very important it's a very passionate subject as well absolutely well thank you much i take my sandwich seriously so i wish you the best of luck in the endeavor thank you thank you mr mayor of course thank you councilmember councilmember freeman thank you mr mayor uh my question is specific to the staff uh i was just wondering and just acknowledging the previous um deal i guess uh included a nine-to-one match and this is a two-to-one match is there a specific reason that's in place can someone speak to that specifically yeah uh this is christiky uh office of economic and workforce development and we realized that this is a uh a very uh aggressive grant it's it's aggressive to the point where we're dealing with the the city over the years have put significant money in the ground there i mean we put 3.9 million dollars in streetscape put 750 thousand dollars across the street to do the church and we did james rogers projects and still we still had buildings along those particular areas and we still find it a challenge to get investors to come in to actually own the building and operate a business that's out of there and based upon the analysis of our office and based upon the tenants of the neighborhood revitalization program we felt like from us from a staffing standpoint that it meets the tenants of the neighborhood revitalization grant program and this is a program that we should support in order to assist this uh business owner as well as increase the the viability of the android driver corridor to protect the cities and that's there now thank you i was just concerned that that was such a huge difference in the same cycle you know in a two to one and then i'm also aware that the the android driver corridor has been um kind of chugging along a little bit slower than than other areas but i want to make sure that that i note that this is a little different than the bevel street and that this is coming on the back side and i think a two to one match is pretty high and and just note in that bevel street is really at the beginning of this work and so i think whenever we come forward with a scorecard or what have you there needs to be some conversation about how much of a match is in place for specific areas as well and that's about it thank you thank you council member council member freeline thank you mr mayor and um i appreciate those comments miss freeman and brother middleton uh via the thing that really stuck out to me you know when i first saw the um when i first saw it show up on the agenda and saw you know sandwich shop and then kind of looked in and saw the grocery part it's just the importance of grocery stores uh you know this is to use another new york term uh bodega you know you got your sandwiches you got your groceries really really important uh especially when we look at the way that kind of food deserts and and access to food kind of plays a compounding role in and what systems of poverty create in terms of lack in in our community so i just wanted to big that up as something that i thought was significant about this and to your point uh council member middle or sorry freeman um i think that the nature of the business i think mr dickie spoke about this as well the nature of the business as a grocery store is a is a particularly important thing to to back uh for this area especially the comment that i had was really for mr bracken thinking about the rooftop garden that you talked about i'm really interested and and curious about that um both getting the folks across the street at the children's initiative involved in that and also there there's seeds and san cofa farms here in Durham that do you know youth centered black youth centered and bipop centered initiatives around kind of growing and and cultivating and so i just wanted to hit you all to that let you know that there's already some work being done in that area and some room right for collaboration any storm especially with seeds um yeah i just wanted to share that resource with you but i'm excited about this thank you so much council member mayor pro jam thank you mr mayor um i also have a couple questions for mr bracken in reading your project narrative um i noticed that you are not planning to pay folks living wages that your starting wage is eleven dollars an hour um that's a big priority for me it's a big priority i think for everyone on the council and just wanted to give you the opportunity to um speak a little bit more to that issue uh can you hear me yep we hear you awesome i would i would love to absolutely answer that question but i'd love to start um by responding to miss freeman and finaster freeline as well um and then following up the amputeers um miss freeman obviously it is an aggressive ask uh i will say this is um the smallest a business can get you know this is the small the small this is not a national brand that we're creating we've we're creating something personal um mr freeline mentioned bodega that is absolutely the vibe we are going for um growing up in those cities boston and new york um bodegas were absolutely crucial to the communities we grew up in you know they're places where you can congregate come together see people from the neighborhood pick up some milk and vegetables and head home i cannot wait for coronavirus to be over and just pack people like sardines into the shop so they can laugh together and talk together and talk to the people behind the counter that are cooking this food um with the vegetables that will be growing on the roof the second i saw that roof perfectly flat hundred percent sun coming down on it easily be going some vegetables up there we've actually already asked the engineers to give us support for that roof to hold um beds up there so that we can actually plant vegetables um and you know if coronavirus wasn't going on i would be at seeds every day working with them you know i reached out to them a couple times obviously they can't take new volunteers because of coronavirus um it's absolutely heartbreaking but gardening is something that's very close to my heart it's something that um moving to north carolina you see so many open front yards with lawns that could you know produce food for these families free fresh and healthy um to speak on the livable wage we do have an hourly position eleven dollars an hour in there there will be no indoor seating and all of the customer interaction will be done by the cooks so this means there will be tips available and all of those tips will be going to the employees dispersed it's not like a front of house back house situation like a lot of restaurants are um all of the tips that are given to the people working at ideals will be dispersed between them so to start the mid eleven dollars an hour that's not including tips you know a lot of people get into that um uh livable wage thing by by guaranteeing specific amount of tips and they use that those tips amount uh to get into that livable wage that's not how i generally think about money i know that's a very political way to go about it and to get yourself on that list of giving people livable wages um but i want to get the people that are working for me the most money possible i want to promote the people that work hard and i want to do it quickly to start somebody at eleven dollars an hour it's pretty much like come in show me how hard you can work and tell me why i should give you a raise you know you'll they'll still be getting the tips they'll be evenly distributed between every person that works there um and i'm sure mathematically we could figure it out using that tip percentage based on the sales that we've projected to put forth an application for a livable wage certification um but that's just you know i try not to get ahead of myself and that's not really the way i don't really know how to put that into words but that's just not the general way that i go about um thinking how i'm going to pay people i want them to have a guaranteed hourly wage that i know i can commit to them and anything they get above that i will happily and gladly give it to them thank you for that clarification one more question for you could you give us a sense of how much your food is going to cost um this area of town is pretty quickly becoming more expensive um the housing is becoming a lot more expensive in easter room and particularly in andrew driver corridor not entirely um you know part part of that is is actually as a result of the kind of investment that we've been doing as a city um when we try to make communities more livable unfortunately it also has the effect of gentrification and displacement and then so another concern i have is that folks in these communities are able to take advantage of the businesses um so can you talk just a little bit about like your menu and costs and you know how are you going to make your space accessible to the folks that live in the community that you're trying to serve absolutely um it's something very close to my heart you know the street that i grew up on my parents are the last residents that that are on that street all the other houses have been sold for much more than they originally bought for and i was kind of uh i grew up on a street that was quickly gentrified over the years i grew up on and watching the people get pushed off my street by people coming into it uh is something very near and dear to my heart um we really really want to be able to offer snap benefits you know these sort of government programs there's so many rules around them like you can't serve hot food to people with snap benefits is i mean it absolutely breaks my heart like how could you not serve hot food to people you know getting snap benefits um we will always have a sandwich for five or six dollars on the menu we'll always have a low price sandwich and we're going to be able to do that through also having these specialty items that the neighborhood um you know the changing neighborhood is looking for obviously there's wealthier people moving into this neighborhood and a lot of them are from metropolitan cities you know boston new york and philadelphia being three major cities that people move down here from constantly paul and i being two of them and we're not we don't want to come in here and be like hey we're here now so you can't come into the shop because we're going to sell everything we're going to sell thirty dollar pies you know absolutely not we'll always have the five dollar sandwich on the menu i'm going to be making all the bread the reason i love sandwiches so much and i'm passionate about sandwiches is because i mean i started cooking when i was 12 i worked in a student-run restaurant food teaching and learning about food is something very close to me and sandwiches are something that you can teach every single aspect of cooking baking you bake the bread roasting meats you roast the meats that go on the sandwiches sauce making you make the aiolis the sauces that go on it it's literally every aspect of cooking so that if somebody wants to get into this position where they want to learn about fine dining or learn about cooking this is a place where they can come and learn the absolute basics so that they can move on to higher levels of cooking you know we have a school right behind us that has a a restaurant program and we look forward to working with them something that i talked about with the children's initiative is their program where they have kids come and work for us and learn and get um actual job experience and that's something that just made me you know to have that right across the street from us is something that made me purchase the property i was like that is a sign that we need to be here and so that's kind of the community is what's going to make us again coronavirus i'm sure with the size you know we're nine or 50 square feet with the size of it while this pandemic is happening i assume we're not going to be able to have more than four people in there at a time but the second you know what a walk-up window yes something we're definitely discussing would be great but the second that this pandemic ends and we can have people in there you know chatting talking to each other um you order the sandwiches from the person that's making your sandwich you know there's no you don't type in the pos system tell somebody what sandwich you want and somebody else makes it you talk to the person that makes your sandwich so it's exactly how you want to be made and not only that but you now have a connection with somebody who's going to make your food in the future so it's community building is the basis of our business again very very small you know we don't have a national brand behind us we just have a lot of passion and a lot of excitement towards the project thank you um appreciate all of that i think i still have some concerns um i'm not so the the living wage piece is pretty important to me i think that uh when we invest public money into a private enterprise we need to ensure that the jobs that are being provided are are good quality jobs and i don't think that $11 an hour even with the possibility of tips meets um meets that standard so i i do think you have some really good ideas and i appreciate all the work that you've gone into thinking about how to um how to collaborate with the community i think it would be helpful to get some feedback as well from folks in the community um because because y'all are new to town um because this sounds like a business that is not necessarily going to serve the people who currently live in the community um and so i don't i i'm not sold right now that this is a project that um that we should invest public money in while i think it's a good project it doesn't meet my threshold um for for public investments but i appreciate all of your um all of your ideas in your work thanks thank you very much madam mayor pro tem council member freeman thank you i appreciate um mayor pro tem pointing out those few things i hadn't even thought about the livable wage aspect but i am concerned about the community engagement aspect i know that folks serve on a self-help advisory board and know you mentioned russell's pharmacy and sam and darm chose initiative but i'm not sure that i'm i'm trying to gauge gauge it from tonight because i haven't heard from any of them but um i would love to have a little bit more time to review this if that were possible i also have letters signed letters from them supporting this project um if that's helpful at all um if i may this is chris dickie if i may go ahead go ahead mr dickie yes yes so what's going on here there there was a lot of information that i put into this file and unfortunately what i didn't do as mr as ian mr bracken said was that there there were close to six seven letters of community support that came like he said joe's diner sam's barbershop sam's been there for close to 20 25 year joe has been there since 2008 i think he also had an initiative i would need to go back on my file here but he did have six or seven letters of support the reason why he couldn't get other additional support is because of kovat he when we were sitting down talking about this project of kovat kovat it was here and it was very difficult to get in front of people or get in front of meetings of people to try to sell this particular project as it relates to the little bold wage we did talk to him and any business that's about to to open and i respect what the council members are saying in reference to if we're going to get public dollars out of there one of the things that ian said that he would do is that he would aspire to the livable wage what he wanted to do was to get his business up and going and if it reaches the the threshold at a point where he can do the livable wage that he would be willing to aspire to that so that's why this came forward to council there and i really understand what your concerns are but these are questions that came to us what is important is that that building has been sitting blighted for a long time and it does need to have some type of investment if we're going to protect the city's investments that's where they're which is why these uh the office of economic development supported that so i just want to add my two cents to that thank you very much mr diki council member carriotto yeah what is the i know every city has its own formula for the standard living wage so a lot of folks aim for $15 minimum wage but in some places that would not be enough you would need to make close to $22 in more expensive cities so what is if somebody could let me know what the actual wage was and it's something we should have actually and i apologize it should have asked for the previous uh public hearing we just heard because while they said they were paying a living wage did not actually give a dollar amount maybe it was in the packet and i just missed it uh so i apologize for that but i'm just curious what is the at some point i know we were like 12 66 but that was i think three or four years ago now i can i can say the the city minimum uh the city livable wage last year i believe was $15 and 68 cents or something that's right that's right because it's tied to our city employees okay thank you it may be maybe up from that at this point but also the living wage there the local living wage project sets it at 13 35 an hour but that's as of a couple of years ago so it may be a little bit higher other questions or comments can council member caballero yeah i just have another clarifying question what i thought i heard mr bracken say and i'm just curious if this is how people are are fudging it uh is it our folks saying they're they're hitting their living wage because they're including their tips even though the base pay that they're actually getting from the restaurant is less and and so i was curious if that's what he he meant can i speak to that can i speak to that i'm i'm fine yes you may just rack and go ahead i'm sorry i don't know whether i'm muted or not so i just don't know when to speak um yes what i learned from the Durham livable wage um is absolutely that's happening they start people on uh a different hourly wage with the guarantee that in a in a set amount of time um this is what i understand from the rules of the living wage within a set amount of time they will get to that living wage they're not started at $15 an hour they started at something like $12 an hour with the with the promise that within a certain amount of time they will get to that and tips are being used to supplement this so what the restaurants do is they take the tips into a pool and they distribute that into an hourly wage to make a livable wage which um if i could just speak more to livable wage thing i you know i've worked in restaurants since i was 12 years old the most i ever made hourly was $18 an hour and it felt like you know the richest i've ever been in my life um restaurants are notoriously low paying jobs and i being a restaurant worker you know i'm not like a i'm not a corporate ceo i don't have that sort of background where i get to just have these minions that i pay whatever hourly rate that i want to pay you know i'm in there and i'm cooking with them and i want to give these people as much money as i can and i would absolutely love to be able to say with this project we can start all of our employees at $15 an hour but we're coming to a new area um a targeted corridor where we're not sure where foot traffic's going we're hoping uh um but we need to get in and we need to get established and we need to figure out exactly what our profits are going to be so that we can pay these people if we have the profits to pay people $15 an hour that will absolutely be the first thing on my agenda but i can't go in promising this just from my perspective and how i go about you know deals that i make with people or promises that i make i don't want to open the small restaurant where i'm spending i'm literally my my savings account i am exhausting my savings account trying to get this business open and i want to be there and i want to be there for these people community members and pay them as much as i can but to go in selling sandwiches and grocery items you know that are i mean hopefully low cost you know we want to be able to serve the people that are in our community to offer $15 an hour starting wage i'll be i'll just be you know if we don't do if we're not serving 250 sandwiches a day i'll be losing money like the business won't be open to pay these people you know so we have to figure out exactly what our profits are we need to be open for six months and then we can make you know then we can apply for that during living wage and um and get that done but that's absolutely number one on my priority i am not trying i'm not in this to get rich you know this is the smallest of the small business i plan to be in Durham for the rest of my life this is a starting point of my you know ownership restaurant career um and i am so eager to get in there and and teach people how to cook and serve the community um and i i would absolutely love to be able to come in front of you and say i'm gonna start everybody on $15 an hour but i can't you know i can't know that for sure at this point because we don't know exactly what our profits are going to be let me just um we're just looking at the at the checkers website um what wages um go from nine dollars cash years 11 to 12 dollars for assistant manager so i think that's uh you know wanted to just put some perspective on that uh okay other other comments council member middleton thank you mr mayor and thank you mr bracken again and i i think the mayor pro tem because i think she really provides an on-ramp for us to really kind of parse out our our understanding and the philosophical underpinnings of our economic policy um as a city as a government as and i really resonate with with a lot of the mayor pro tem said particularly if you're a large corporation who wants to do business in our city and you've got a billion dollars in the bank and you're established multinational but but as i see it the the whole animating proposition of economic development is to one identify and prop up um businesses that that don't have the capital don't have the clientele yet don't have the wherewithal to behave that way because if they did what do they need an incentive for what do they need economic development for if they if they're already at that capacity and in this particular lane if you will where we're using public money to to to incentivize using public money to spur economic development in blighted areas it seems to me that one of the things that we have to keep vigilant about is if we're going to use public money to vet and and and be certain that who we use the money for actually is a business that does not have the wherewithal yet to pay $15 an hour i'm not going to be mad at a cub for not being able to roar like a lion full grown lion yet when they're a cub um we got to get them to the to the lion status or else what is the what is the animating proposition behind economic development if we're going to expect the the recipients to behave full grown when they're not full grown yet if you're full grown what do you need our help for um so i but i but i appreciate the the the holding the line and calling us to accountability of using public money but i think in these particular cases um when we're we're looking at economic development in blighted areas for small businesses i think about all the businesses struggling business businesses during cove that we just had money go out the door grants and loans um word not for those grants and loans you know would they be able to pay anything uh um to their employees so i think that if if we're going to have an economic development policy then i i think we've got to be um understanding that uh aspirational uh goals have to be part of the rubric as well where where you're going to and where you're headed and your willingness your demonstrated willingness to get there um and with that i would ask the chris you've already spoken to perhaps andre as well what type of vet before you recommend to us to do these type of things i'm assuming that there are some some some metrics and some some guardrails that that govern your behavior some some vetting uh that you go through before you recommend uh to us um uh funding these initiatives and i guess i would ask you directly is being able to pay minimum wage a living wage out the gate one of your metrics and economic uh development or is the willingness to get there your metric and or the demonstrated willingness to get there uh if you guys can speak to that uh council member uh middleton again i think as you articulated uh there is a a delegate balance uh that we're trying to do here and stimulating economic growth and supporting independent small women minority owned businesses as we again uh try to to attract investment uh again the city uh including our department are very much committed to the living wage program uh but yet there there there is no uh red line that prevents us from investing in particularly small independent businesses around the living wage um again we have an interest in promoting and supporting local minority and women owned small businesses and in many instances they are not paying livable wages not because they don't want to but the business model has to scale to be able to generate the profits to be able to to do that uh again uh the the business development aspect of our work is to try to help these businesses first sustain themselves and grow so that they can be able to pay a living competitive wage uh consistent with the ambitions of our city but again you know like i said there's not a bright red line that says that we don't provide public dollars to to those communities now within these major businesses that again we still will have to talk to again the quality of the jobs the benefits and the wages are really critical uh and again even in meeting that standard what's even more critical is how they connect those opportunities to our targeted communities uh and and so again there is a lot of moving variables in putting together a macro plan across our city uh again we want to ensure that the larger companies who are attracted here and coming are not only making a capital investment in creating jobs but also looking to be provide a multiplier in terms of job opportunities as well as supply diversity opportunities again that sort of investment can offset the abilities for us to make investments in smaller local independent firms and again it was in a macro sense it's my hope that it balances out and that those businesses again sustain themselves and able to continue to add value uh to it its attention uh again uh the city's livable wage i think is is an important strategy around economic prosperity and so we're not running away from that but again we're trying to balance that against uh the types of businesses we support that that's extremely helpful thank you and i appreciate your admonition that as as we look at this particular slice of our economic policy not to look at it through a narrow prism but within an ecosystem in a larger context that that's very helpful and i appreciate uh that that admonition i yield back mr. mayor thank you thank you councilmember councilmember freelon and then councilmember freeman yeah just really quickly wanted to build on what councilmember middleton was saying um i'm so grateful for the dermal living wage project and and councilmember johnson for for bringing this up and it is an important discussion i'm just thinking back to different businesses restaurants in particular that i know that are on that list i remember when monats first opened downtown initially by city council i don't remember at that time that they were paying living wage then when they moved into when uh what was the restaurant that was uh across from ekpo prior to becoming monad monats magnolia grill magnolia grill right oh man loved that place but when when they shifted to magnolia's location and were able to kind of scale their capacity that's that's when they went living wage and uh same for kopa kopa used to be up further up uh main street and when they bought their own building and had more capacity that's when they went living wage in both instances there was an intention but not the capacity to to make that commitment and uh and hearing the intention i think from mr bracken and also from our staff uh is encouraging to me and uh i think matters in the context in the prism that uh councilmember middleton kind of presented um and so anyway i just wanted to toss that out there like uh i know that that or i don't know that monats or kopa have received um uh you know city money so maybe uh to your point mayor protem johnson uh they they would have needed to according to your rubric in order to get city money but um uh i don't know i i i'm just hearing i'm hearing what you're saying loud and clear but just thinking about what capacity looks like for a young growing independent business and i mentioned those two specifically because they're locally owned small businesses and not larger chains um just wanted to toss that into the discussion as we consider our options with the vote thank you very much councilmember councilmember freeman thank you mr mayor i i think i'm i appreciate the conversation and i appreciate the context around the livable wage i don't want to lose sight of the actual location and acknowledging that it's oldies derm and acknowledging i have a very personal connection with derm children's initiative and then also with the angi driver corridor i know that very personally um the community's been traumatized um by what the events that occurred with old with the big shop and so just acknowledging that this is not just specific to just this one case with the mayor protem is highlighting is how or how small businesses can come in and harm a community that is kind of moving in a direction that does not look like gentrification and acknowledging that there's a lot of work that takes place to make sure the businesses that are there are supportive of the folks in the community that are there and acknowledging that this community has seen a huge shift in what housing sizes look like who lives in those houses i'm a little bit more um cautious about the public dollars that go towards additional projects because it does look like the grants that we're now putting place to support folks's taxes being covered and so just noting that there's a there's a duality in this conversation that's not the same as it is as it was in that previous conversation yes that's a national chain and this is a local but we just went through a similar situation with a local uh business that came in from new york have you as a baker and some of the things that i hear in this conversation sound very similar and so i would love to have the opportunity to look into it a little bit closer i know that the the applicant mentioned his heart was in this and if his heart is in this it's not going away so i think that just a little bit more time to engage some of the folks who are in the community not just the businesses on that block would be beneficial and i would love to have a little bit more time i don't think it's a it's awful i appreciate all the work that andre i mean that mr paddock grew and mr dickie you put into this i know that they are working very hard they have their rubric and i think that the flag that was raised specific to the livable wage is just one and the other is the community engagement aspect i acknowledge that there's covet and that it's harder to reach people but it just means that when we're spending public dollars like this around economic development it's still important to make sure that the people who live closest to it can remain in the area and remain involved in the process i i continue to raise this issue i i raise the same issue when it was sophia's property owner and just making sure that the people are engaged in the process and making sure that the sophias could come online in that location it's the same it's a similar conversation i do know the letters would have been helpful to see and just knowing tonight you know voting based on what i'm seeing i mean i'm noting there's a salary in there of 38 000 dollars for the property owner and the who's the baker these are things that that i just want to make sure that i parse out a little bit further and i would just appreciate a little bit more time that's all thank you thank you council member other comments colleagues i'd love to return uh speak on that if possible um mr brackenshaw go ahead um just just to quickly go over uh you know the event that happened with easter and bake shop uh i was actually getting my haircut by samuel that day that the article came out um so we were able to have a full conversation one-on-one between me and sam about his opinion on all of that um and from the barbershop you know i called joe directly after that um and with my mask on i went over and had a conversation with joe um and something that stood out about my conversation with joe and something that he mentioned is you know joe moved to that area in 2007 he actually grew up in boston similar to me so we had a quick connection through that um and you know between 2007 and 2008 joe said something like that the crime rate went down 78 percent with joe being there and just caring about the community and being a part of it um with somebody who made that deep of an impact on the community you would think that everybody in that intersection at least would have introduced themselves or um you know spoken with him and joe said that the people of easter and bake shop never introduced themselves to him they would receive orders on the side of the street where he would be he would wave and they would mr bracken mr bracken yes i don't think that's appropriate here okay um i appreciate that you're trying to respond to council member freeman but no one from the easter and bake shop is here to be able to respond to anything that you might say to them about them and i really just don't think that's appropriate okay i apologize no problem i understand where you were going with it but i just i'm very leery of having that kind of personal discussion about somebody you can't respond isn't here absolutely i agree sorry about that all right colleagues any other questions or comments uh council member middleton and then council member caballero thank you mr murray i'm gonna just ask um uh when that's my colleague council member freeman what what if we were to wait what would we be doing in the interim would would there be some kind of canvassing of resident in the neighborhood would it be a rereading of the submission by oewd what what is your vision as to what would happen if we delay taking action on this uh tonight if i might answer mr mayor i just just though one addition could just be the letters itself i know that there were letters mentioned just making sure that we all saw them i would love to get a look at them um an additional thing could just be to just i would love to to ask mr dickie a few questions about the numbers honestly i i i didn't we didn't i didn't go this deep into the conversation at work session uh it wasn't i knew there was going to be a presentation tonight there wasn't one at work session and so i i just i i didn't know that there's this lack or there was this much of a difference in that two to one that was that's mainly been the kind of questions that would brought up all the questions and then also just noting that i know this is on and your avenue and all that's been happening thank you council member um council member i'm sorry council member middleton i didn't mean to cut you off are you um oh no thank you mr. merits and thank you council freeman i yield back so thank you sorry all right and council member cabrera i believe that you also had a question yeah i just wanted to have a little bit clarification from staff what it would look like if we decided to pause um to to council member freeman's um you know she was looking for more time and so i just wanted to have a better understanding what that would look like uh you're you're muted can you hear me can you hear me yes yes all right so in reference to uh some of the questions that were here again i think initially what i said that they're at least know that there were at least two letters of support from joe written statements supporting this particularly from joe bushfan and familial documents i did not include them as a part of this this uh uh as a part of the attachments i mean there there's more attachments in this particular deal than any other deal that i put forward and i didn't feel like the letters of support would be there that i could speak to that so i apologize for that there as it relates to two to one i mean if we if you look at the memo basically neighborhood revitalization we could go up to two to one so we're we're within the guidelines of the neighborhood revitalization program to order to do this what i can say is is that we did about a year ago we did the chicken hut and that was a two to one ratio in reference to what we did we're basically we it was a forty nine thousand dollar project in the city i think did approximately twenty four thousand dollars or twenty some thousand dollars so that was sort of a two to one ratio that was there support so we've done some some uh two to one ratios and we've also documented in some of those files that basically when we're dealing when we're doing deals of this nature you're not going to have that nine to one just nine to one ratio with i did with the uh with the checkers deal that was there that's unheard of where we have local business people and then we have a nine to one ratio that normally doesn't happen normally we're five to one four to one three to one uh as it relates to the uh the east bakery derm shop east bakery derm shop did not apply for the grant that was in that building there that was uh uh james rogers and i think that deal was more of a three to one investment there so when we're when we're along these targeted corridors we're within the framework of of the tenants that are there so that's why you see the wide dispersion that's there with its checkers uh that's there and much more investment was required to do the deal on the Fayetteville street corridor no i just want to bring that up yes member cubby arrow i think you had another question or eight that that you wanted uh something else answered there yeah i mean we could vote on it tonight or we could move to move to move to vote to another meeting and so i just want to know what are what are the consequences for the applicant if we decided to do that well the the consequences is that you know i think money is time time is time is money we've we've been holding this to an offer for quite a long time waiting for the right opportunity to present it to make sure everything is done up to make sure our teas were crossed and dies were out of there i i think it's just penalizing the applicant i mean the sooner we can make our investment and and and having that then move forward all that would support them from a financial standpoint but again if council wants additional time that's that's if that if they feel like any additional time uh oewd would give any additional information that's required thank you thank you council member thank you mr deke uh council member race thank you mr mayor i've got myself squared away um i want to thank staff for putting together a lot of information about this project i really appreciate it and obviously uh these things take a lot of time to get before us also want to thank the applicant business or the applicant the property owner it's clear uh in hearing you talk that this is something you're really passionate about and that uh is really impactful um i grew up in our family business which was a bar in wudson-salem a little bit different business model uh then you're looking to start there but i understand the passion of entrepreneurship um and you clearly have it and i really appreciate you bringing that into our chamber so we can virtually anyway so we can talk about this particular proposal i also want to really thank each of the one of my colleagues who is who's spoken about this tonight i think the people of durham if they could hear this conversation would know that this is something we take really seriously a lot of people might think that the dollar amount that we're talking about here um hundred and two thousand dollars um isn't necessarily worth the time that we've put into it and i couldn't agree i couldn't disagree more and i'm just really proud to be part of a group that looks at a decision like this from so many different angles uh i will say that for my part um there are two things that strike me about this project first of all obviously it's very concerning that uh city money would be going to incentivize the creation of businesses that don't pay a living wage especially during a global pandemic um when our local resources are going to be stretched are stretched and will continue to be stretched to the maximum i think a fair question that the people of durham and we ourselves should be asking is is this the right time during that period of incredible fiscal uncertainty to be putting a hundred two thousand dollars into a business that won't pay its employees living wage because each of those jobs creates another burden on our community um and that's the real problem with living wage jobs is that folks can't live on what they make and so they have to access other resources to do that so that's number one obviously that's a deep concern to me but the other aspect is uh is the location as a number of my colleagues said this is an area that the city has decided uh is is in need of additional public investment that is why we have seen so many incentive deals at the at or near this intersection over the last several years and i've supported i think many of them if not all of them um it's why we uh we crossed we crossed over the guidelines for for per project investment to support uh the new uh the project where um where the church used to be on the corner and helps and support self helps redevelopment of that of that particular property um but i will tell you it gives me pause when i hear um someone say they bought this property because of the the money that the city invested in the church across the street to turn that into uh non-profit offices and daycare underneath that that's why we're doing it totally understand that um but it's a signal to us that our actions have consequences one of them is a nice guy with passion from boston came down here and bought a piece of property and started a restaurant across the street from there um and so you know we have to reckon with that reality uh that that's that's what has happened um and so i understand exactly where councilmember freeman is coming from um it's important to know not just that the city wants to make financial investments uh and economic incentives in this intersection in this corridor it's also important to know what the folks who live in this community think about this idea this proposal this sandwich shop slash small grocery store in this location with jobs that pay the wages that they've said they're going to pay and um and i don't have that what we have um is a number of letters um from nearby business owners who will obviously benefit from additional foot traffic generated by a sandwich shop and small grocery store so uh if i had a business around there i'd be signing that letter to totally understand that um so i take their support as a given especially because there's not i take that as a given what i don't see and what i don't hear is any kind of other outreach to the community you say we are um this is the kind of business we want to we want to put in here these are the wages we want to we want we're going to pay our employees is this something that would be a benefit to consider the community or not um and so in the absence of that it's left to us to figure that out ourselves in terms of the vote that we're going to cast tonight um and so that's all of that is in the context of the the broader economic development strategy that councilmember middleton quite rightly points out is that often in order to incentivize the creation of a new business especially in the food service industry if you have to if you in if you start the process by requiring living wage jobs for public investment you're not going to get a lot of restaurants incentivized to be started and that's just a fact of life um just that's the output of the business model that exists and and that's that stinks obviously and so i think that's another issue we have to ask ourselves is you know we want it we want additional business investment in this quarter what does that look like um do we want to take say yes to everything that comes through here because we know that economic development in this quarter is important to us and important to the community or during a time of a global pandemic can we be a little bit more choosy about how we spend our money about the types of jobs we're actually creating um and so that's the question that i'll be answering when we vote honestly i'm not sure how i'm going to vote yet uh because this is a it's a close call for me um but i just wanted to kind of lay out some of the things i'm thinking about i appreciate your time thank you mr mayor thank you council member let me just i wanted to make a comment um you know we've got ourselves in a complicated box here tonight um we we i was extremely supportive of our last item i believe that supporting a black legacy business on Fayetteville street in that location uh is very important and that we really want to support uh black business ownership the creation of black wealth those are super important goals of ours um but i think we ought to be realistic about the other aspect of that business it's a fast food restaurant um and they are not going to be paying $15 or 68 cents an hour um i'm not saying no employees will be getting that we should have asked that question more directly we use the euphemism living wage but as i say go check out what you know in the next 10 seconds you can check out what checkers pays i'm not critical of this um the fact that we approve that i think that it was the right thing to do and i it's i'm sure that mr bookman will do everything he can to get the wages as high as he can at his fast food restaurant but if you're going to compete in the fast food restaurant right now i think we all know what that means so now we got this other uh restaurant which we do have the specifics of the wages and that was the question that i had um uh and and i appreciate mr bracken's explanation uh and uh you know it's hard for me to say i'm not going to support this because of the wages when i just supported the last deal the other thing that's i think is really complicated is this we want mr bracken and mr bracken says he's always going to have a five dollar sandwich the price of food and the ability to pay a living wage actually go together it's really hard if you're keeping food affordable to pay a living wage i've had that discussion with so many people in the restaurant business i think it's a reality especially as people have pointed out for small startup businesses we we want we're you know at this every five dollar sandwich that mr bracken sells and you know if he is indeed as he says always going to have a five dollar sandwich on the menu that's going to hurt his ability to pay a living wage keeping food prices reasonable and paying a living wage both both of those things together is very hard to do so um i i just you know i i'm i'm i'm not sure what more time would do um um and i personally am supportive of this if the council does feel like we need more time i could certainly you know be consider that but i'm personally ready to make a decision tonight okay other comments uh councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor i'm gonna fully associate myself uh with the comments you just made i uh i don't i've listened very carefully and asked very directly i i don't haven't heard any compelling case for extending more time and i've listened very carefully uh to the arguments and the concerns while i understand the animating spirit behind them i don't think in this particular case given the level of information we've got from the staff i don't see where where any virtue would be we gain from more time i do want to say part of this discussion kind of reminds me of the whole um controversy behind standardized testing and how when kids of color um didn't do well on standardized tests you know we said oh they just they're underachievers or you know they're not as smart as other kids and come to find out there's a whole lot of other things that go into performing well on standardized tests and go into measuring competence and intelligence and if i want to be careful that we don't make the living wage a standardized test kind of across the board kind of an idolatry an idol in this because for me if that is the standard what is the very premise of an economic development program on the part of the city because if we're going to insist that you start off paying $15 an hour i know what kind of companies are able to do that out the back they're the ones we're concerned about who come in and gentrify our city who have that those generations of wealth already accumulated who have those resources um and i just also mr. mary you you entered checkers into the record um if i recall correctly um and i can be fact-checked because i have no problem being fact-checked i believe that when coco cinnamon opened coco cinnamon received uh city funding for their first brick and mortar location and it was not in a blighted neighborhood or a neighborhood not nearly as blinded as this one um and they now have of course have a cult follow in our city and they did not pay a living wage at that time if i recall uh that case um and please feel free staff or or colleagues to go back and fact-check me but but so i just want to enter that into the record as well as long checkers but i think the fundamental question is if $15 is the the necruz ultra if that's if that's the the standard from which we will not deviate then then how do we what what uh um what do we articulate as our undergirding principle or animating uh uh reason for an economic incentive and development program who are we incentivizing and who are we trying to get up to speed uh uh to begin with if you got to start off with $15 um so i'm prepared uh for the safety consistency and fairness that i supported the last um project um i plan on supporting this one and i personally don't need any more time but of course i will submit to the will of the body thank you mr. mayor thank you councilmember colleagues are there any more comments or do we are we ready to close the public hearing and have a motion one way or the other councilmember freeman thank you i i appreciate um my colleagues and their commentaries i i really um i i mean it's hard to to fathom how much we all pour into this process or these processes but i i do want to note that in this one situation i am concerned and i cannot support it tonight so i i just um want to make sure that i note that thank you thank you very much councilmember colleagues any more comments or are we prepared to close the public hearing all righty i'm going to now close this public hearing uh and the matter is now before the council um i will uh await the pleasure your pleasure there is a motion uh we could have a motion to authorize the city manager to execute an economic development set of agreement with ideal sandwich up llc in an amount not to exceed a hundred and two thousand dollars mr. marylton that's needed all right second moved by councilmember middleton seconded by councilmember freelon uh any more discussion before we um vote on that councilmember caballero yeah i just want to go then i'll get councilmember freeman i just wanted to share i know some of my colleagues and said they were on the fence and i just felt like i would go ahead and let folks know i will be supporting the item this evening while i acknowledge the issue with the living wages i think this issue in the restaurant business is going to keep coming up i think about a lot of our immigrant owned restaurants know they did not get public money but if we demanded that they pay $15 an hour anytime soon they would be shutting your doors and i will also say that our small business community in durham is extremely generous as a former pta president the amount of money that our small business so many of these places run huge deals for our schools they do a lot in our community um so and we have ample example ample examples of other small businesses like mownuts like cocoa cinnamon that the community supported and within three to four years have been um steadfast supporters and really model employers in the city of durham thank you councilmember councilmember freeman yes mr may i was just going to offer an a friendly amendment to the motion that we send it back to uh the city interim city manager page and allow for an additional cycle to bring this back forward i'll ask councilmember middleton if he would accept the amendment to delay this for another cycle as first of all thank you first of all i'd like to offer a point of parliamentary order i know we've done it a couple of times but that's not actually the way a friendly amendment works according to parliamentary procedure after it's been offered and seconded it it's no longer the the um property of the person that offered it it would take a whole another uh motion and second and vote to amend it but our protocol being established no i will not um entertain an amendment to it but moving forward we should note that that's not actually the way a friendly amendment works so thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember i am not a parliamentary expert and i appreciate the uh the lesson thank you um all right um any more comments colleagues all righty uh we we have a motion before us which is to authorize the city manager to execute an economic development incentive agreement with ideal sandwich shop in an amount not to exceed a hundred and two thousand dollars madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor sure hi mayor pro tem johnson no councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeland hi councilmember freeman no councilmember middleton i will i councilmember reese no thank you thank you very much uh miss wyatt uh the eyes have it the motion carries four to three uh and uh the motion passes mr bracken thank you for being here all of us who voted for this project or against this uh this allocation i'll wish you the best and uh we look forward to you paying the highest possible wages that you can and look forward to you building to bring it can be paid the livable wages that i would absolutely love that thank you so much everybody all right thank you mr bracken and and uh thank you mr dickie all right uh colleagues we have uh past the two hour mark and i'm going to um take a break now of uh it's 917 we'll be back at 922 uh so that we can give the folks who are doing our closed captioning a break uh so we'll see everyone back at 922 go get a slice of apple all right colleagues uh and staff we are going to come back in session now at 922 i hope everyone had their snack um and we're glad to give a break to our uh closed captioners we're now at item 25 an economic economic development incentive with the chlorox company and uh first we will hear the report from staff um andrey pedigree the director of the office of economic workforce development uh adrian graham scott uh our manager of workforce development uh will uh do the staff report on this particular public hearing thank you very much mr pedigree uh miss graham scott welcome oh thank you mr mayor good evening uh good evening to you and to madame mayor pro temp and all other council members happy new year to everyone um i'm adria graham scott and as stated i'm with the office of economic and workforce development and this evening i'm actually joined by um brian fox from the greater doram chamber of commerce as well as andrew miracle from the um county doram county's economic development um the doram county um the dorm city council is requested to hold a public hearing and consider the allocation of a total of 75 000 dollars in economic development funds to the chlorox company and to authorize the city manager to enter into preliminary negotiations and execute an agreement with the company the chlorox company a leading multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products will create 158 new jobs and invest 7.5 million dollars into the dorm community since 1913 the chlorox company has manufactured and marketed household cleaning home care sauces containers and personal care products in more than 100 come countries the company's better health vms division focuses on vitamins minerals and supplements chlorox will establish a new research and development facility and expand corporate operations for a better health as well as for bert's bees which currently employs more than 500 people between its headquarters in doram and a manufacturing facility located in morrisville approximately 60 of these new jobs are it positions and that will require a range of education and experience committed to diversity equity and inclusion in their operations and in their hiring process practices chlorox will consider work experience in lieu of formal degrees and qualifying for entry-level positions with approval of the award the company has agreed to make reasonable efforts to participate in several workforce partnerships that include engagements with the north carolina career center north nc works career center as well as providing paid internships and deploying their diversity purchasing policy and participating in minority from purchasing trade events the chlorox company's expansion will be facilitated in part by a job development investment grant known as a j dig approved by the state's economic investment company on november the 24th over the course of the 12-year term of that j dig grant the project is estimated to grow the state's economy by more than 462 million dollars payments for all j digs as well as for local awards only occur following performance verification that the company has met its incremental job creation and investment targets j dig projects result in positive net tax revenue even after taking into consideration the grant's reimbursement payments to a given company staff is recommending that the city of dorm provide $75,000 in economic development investment funds to the chlorox company subject to performance goals being met by the company related to the timing and amount of the investment employment creation and maintenance of the created jobs as partnership engagement criteria and this public hearing has been advertised as required by the law and back over to you mr. mayor thank you very much miss graham scott colleagues you've heard the report from staff i'm going to declare this public hearing open we do have first of all i'll ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council after which we do have a couple of people to speak on this item all right hearing none at this time then we'll go to the speakers i see two people have signed up to speak on this item first is jeff durham and second is matt copack is there anyone else here tonight who would like to be heard on this item if so you could you raise your virtual hand all right let's start with mr jeff durham mr mr durham welcome you have three minutes good evening and happy new year mr mayor mayor pro 10 council members madame manager staff as well as neighbors i'm jeff durham i'm president and ceo of the greater dorm chamber of commerce and as we've heard tonight and i was really encouraged by hearing the depth of the conversation earlier you know economic development projects take many forms and they're all really equally necessary to sustain a diverse ecosystem and i'm so pleased to be included in the discussions and supportive of the projects that we heard earlier i want to applaud you all for joining the state and the county and supporting the growth of the clorox company here berth's bees and clorox have been an important part of our community for over 20 years now and while new headquarters and those jobs that adria mentioned are significant on their own even more so during a crisis of both public and economic health those jobs also carry a significant multiplier effect and along with berth's bees record of great corporate citizenry recent examples of this such as berth's bees partnership with duke university and leading the multi-million dollar durham covid-19 fund support local nonprofits while the pandemic has further exacerbated underlying economic issues partnerships like this actually add to our bottom line and enable the city to work directly with the state and the county and ensuring that these jobs and investments support workforce development education and other systems that are being primed for more equitable economic development and shared prosperity so that these opportunities further bit our whole further benefit our whole community the chamber looks forward to continuing to facilitate our work together and i thank you for hearing us this evening thank you very much mr durham uh mr copack welcome we're glad to have you with us and you also have three minutes thank you so much mr mayor mayor pro tem johnson members of the council and what's that i'm sorry i thought somebody was chiming in once again my name is matt coback resident of durham and a sustainable business and innovation manager for berth's bees which is a division of chlorox and i'm here this evening as a local rep of chlorox to thank the city for its partnership to help make the proposed expansion possible i know chlorox has submitted a lot of information for you to review in advance so tonight i just wanted to start with a bit of history birds bees has been in the region since the early 1990s when berth first arrived in his berken stocks and and wildbeard with his business partner rocks and quimby and they were a small and growing business from main looking for skilled manufacturing labor and access to distribution channels and felt this was a great region and community to be in after a couple of moves around this area birds be settled in southern durham county in 2000 where a manufacturing plant still operates today and where we make products for global distribution to 50 countries with a manufacturing workforce of of almost 200 people we were acquired by chlorox we started by chlorox into the local equation in 2007 and then in 2010 with the help of local incentives by the city we took a leap and relocated our entire commercial staff to the america tobacco campus in downtown durham where we're still based today and now in 2020 we're excited about this announcement and the opportunity for chlorox to further expand and accelerate its growth in durham and deepen partnership with the city of durham in this community so it's exciting that durham will be home to not just birds bees now but will but can be a second headquarters for the company with this global vitamins minerals and supplements business and an it hub the investments will go initially into our office and that new lab space that were mentioned we there's a plan to expand on our pre-existing role in supporting youth internships and also look forward to exploring opportunities to work with the city and economic developers to find those opportunities for local diverse procurement opportunities within wwe's and it was when it was mentioned we take inclusion diversity very seriously in hiring promotion and work culture and look forward to continuing our practice of sustainable business practices and building on the existing support we've provided financially for covid relief for black owned businesses for racial justice and for green infrastructure and food security which in 2020 all told i think surpassed $500,000 locally so i love that the story of birds bees and chlorox are part of the story of durham and that a former tobacco warehouse is now home to a health and beauty hub and i love that we're posed for more good things to come i appreciate you entertaining this this item and for the opportunity to speak this evening thank you very much mr copack just to refresh everyone colleagues this came before us in a closed session several months ago uh not i can't remember the exact date uh so i know we we were made aware of this at that time although we were not given the name of the company we were given the information about the employment the pay uh and all those kinds of things so just want to remind everyone of that all right uh council members questions um or comments at this time mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um yeah i was wondering where that information was in that it's not in our agenda packet the information about um pay and benefits i know that for these grants we require that the employer pay our living wage and that they provide health insurance and keep the job on the books for a year but i didn't see it written down so i just wanted staff to confirm that the company in this item is meeting that standard yes in fact um i apologize for not submitting that information madam pro tem and i can submit that to you but um in fact it has been um verified in a in a packet that was sent to us with information um and i'm not sure and if perhaps maybe mr. miracle or mr fox might be able to speak to um some specifics around that great thank you thank you madam mayor pro tem and and miss graham scott uh mr miracle do you have anything you'd like to add uh in that regard or mr fox or we're glad to have both of you with us ryan you can feel free to start us out there brian uh we we can't hear you mr fox sorry thank you mayor uh good evening uh brian fox with the derm chamber of commerce um while the chamber and businesses work with you all as part of our community on many shared issues like workforce development and education and and many others um we are pleased to uh be here in the role uh in which we play uh working directly with the county on some of the larger projects like this um we uh in general these these type of projects come to us through the state as opposed to types of projects that you heard earlier and so um these projects do meet all state requirements county requirements as well as city requirements around your incentive policy all of those items that you mentioned included madam mayor pro tem and would be part of the final agreement thank you thank you mayor pro tem and thank you mr fox mr miracle did you have anything you'd like to add yes i i believe there was a reference to health insurance in the question is that correct yes i um i think our policy requires health insurance and and so i can say so for all of the jade projects that come through the state um there is a requirement that they provide health insurance and i believe um up to uh 50 percent of uh coverage um deductible coverage or premium coverage i forget the exact language there but that is a requirement built in uh for jade thank you yes thank you mr miracle other questions or comments all right um um council member reese thank you mr mayor um i want to thank staff for putting this together for us i know projects like this that come through the j dig system are really uh big unwieldy complicated difficult to kind of packaged for our purposes and so i appreciate all the work that went into that i have a a question for my friend matt copack full disclosure i'm mad as a personal friend in addition to a great member of our dorm community i'm going to ask him a really hard question and i hope that's okay um matt uh i want to ask you uh yeah thanks i want to ask you why the chlorox corporation needs 75 000 of derb's dollars to do this chlorox is um at the close of at the closing bell today uh chlorox's market cap was 25.27 billion dollars uh net sales in 2019 were 6.2 billion dollars why in the world is 75 000 of derb's money needed to do this yeah i appreciate the question council member reese uh i think it's a good one i think tough questions are are always appropriate um so i was not personally involved in the details of negotiating this deal either at the state level or the local level um but is that i'm acting as a representative this evening um for for the company so i have to say there may be members of staff or the chamber who can better answer that question um but one thing i do know for sure is that there is a role that local communities play uh in contributing to incentive deals in order to make j dig deals possible so i know that's one answer to the question uh and i believe that staff in the chamber may be able to add additional color to it um but i certainly do understand uh the reason for the question yeah i'd like to ask uh either staff um or mr miracle or mr fox uh whoever is best able to answer or mr pettigrew thank you mr mayor uh uh again in my tenure in the position as a director uh i have not brought very many deals of this type to you in fact this is the first one um again we were competing against other communities uh in order to secure this this this opportunity um and as a part of the j dig program it requires both state and local matches again uh my staff did the work to determine again the the value of the jobs again these are all jobs beyond livable wage and includes benefits but the other thing that um excited me and my team was the ability to work uh with a corporate citizen that had a track record of supporting minority communities uh and that's clorox i will also acknowledge that i had a previous experience with clorox in oakland where i actually ran the minority business development center in oakland and i found them to be good consistent corporate citizens and to essentially be able to bring that expertise and wherewithal uh in history to our community i think again helps us accelerate our goals around shared economic prosperity diversity and inclusion uh the final thing uh that i will say uh in terms of the investment again we're competing against other communities uh again the $75,000 investment that we are contributing uh i believe will pay for itself uh in a multiplier the $75,000 and this is a performance grant it's based on the jobs that they create uh and and so to me uh there's a strong ROI uh and multiplier in bringing uh this particular uh incentive agreement uh to to you as city council thank you very much mr pedigree mr man if i'm a race council member race were you oh i'm sorry miss grand scott i apologize go ahead i apologize mr mayor um i i just wanted to add one um to mr pedigree's comments um that um it is calculated and and estimated that within five years will have received the projected of over uh 156 thousand dollars in new revenue um that will be generated by this project um and as mr pedigree indicated this is a performance based uh and incentive and um it actually pays for itself um while simultaneously creating a partnership that will support ongoing growth for the dorm community thank you miss grand scott council member race do you feel like you got your question answered do you have more on that um i guess the answers i got were why it's so great that chlorix wants to do this in Durham and i 100 they're awesome uh burt's bees is awesome what chlorix wants to do here's awesome it's my understanding that that we ought to be doing this if but for our investment it won't happen and if someone could tell me if that's the case that would be great i'm sorry that i missed the work session where this where this was talked about in closed session is is it the case that if the city does not put in its share then the entire deal falls apart is that what happens if so we should make that explicit so that we all know that and that the people watching this all know that and if that's not the case we all want to know that too thank you i appreciate that mr mayor thank you council member i thought that's where you're going um and so uh i'll just say it's my understanding and and you could you i'd like some confirmation from this from mr miracle or miss grand scott or uh someone from the chamber that the j dig that in order to get the j that the j dig grant was at least the state felt it was necessary to have the j dig grant to compete successfully for this and that in order to get the j dig grant from the state we had to put in this match and so i i i guess i would like to say ask staff to confirm whether or not that's true uh mr mayor that is true um qualifying local awards are required um as a tier three county as dorm county is a tier three county the qualifying local awards are required for the j dig thank you that was very helpful if i could just briefly mr marion then i'll stop talking please do thank you um no i don't mean please stop talking what i mean is please go ahead please go ahead thank you um i intend to support the measure for that reason i think it's important that this project happen i think they're great benefits to our city i think in terms of the investment the roi as andre said is fantastic i i love almost everything about this except that durham is required by the state to kick in um for this to work uh because no one on this call on clorox's senior leadership on their board no one in the country could honestly and with a straight face look at me and tell me that the clorox corporation needs durham's seventy five thousand dollars to make this project work that that's not that's not accurate that's not true so i hope we're not all pretending that that's true what we are doing is saying state law in order to for them to participate in this jd program local governments have to kick in and um that is that is the way it is and it stinks um it feeds into a uh a cycle where states across the country compete with each other local governments local communities compete with each other about the most lucrative incentive package they can offer these huge absolutely massive over 25 billion dollars in market capitalization these corporations who don't need our money but no they can get it the only way this vicious cycle will ever stop is if a state says no and there's no incentive to do that the other way is for the federal government to outlaw these ridiculous incentive packages but that's not going to happen none of that's going to happen i but i deserve my three minutes to rant about it i will get off my soapbox now and thank everyone for humoring me tonight i just get really grumpy about these but i'm i'm good now thank you mr rand well councilmember race um we appreciate it uh you're right and you'll have another chance to say that about the next item as well of course so uh unless you want this previous rant to have covered that okay uh probably so all right colleagues any other comments um before we close the public hearing all right uh i do have one other comment just i think i just want to recommend to staff we did get a good thorough understanding of this when we were in closed session but of course not everybody was in closed session i think next time it would be better to add more information we need we need to we would have been more helpful mr pedigree so just for the future all right um colleagues i'm going to close this public hearing and now i'm going to ask for a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute an economic development senate agreement the amount of 75 000 of the chlorox company moved is right moved by councilmember cabrera who was the second seconded seconded by councilmember freelon um madame madame clerk um madame deputy clerk please call the roll mayor shul aye mayor pro tem johnson aye councilmember cabrera aye councilmember freelon aye councilmember freeman aye councilmember middleton i will die councilmember reese thank you thank you very much madame deputy clerk the motion passes seven to zero uh thank you so much for the folks who were here uh mr copack thank you for being here and uh also the folks from the chamber and mr miracle will now move to uh item 26 economic development senate with new botronics incorporated and first will will hear the report from staff thank you mr mayor and i apologize my internet cut me out so i missed the last part of your statements but i will um get myself caught up um on the outcomes um again this is adria graham scott and with office of economic and workforce development and i'm joined tonight by uh andy miracle from the dorm county economic development department as well as brian fox from the greater dorm chamber of commerce the dorm city council is requested to hold a public hearing to consider allocation of 150 thousand dollars in economic development funds to new botronics and to authorize the city manager to enter into preliminary negotiations and execute an agreement with the company new botronics an innovative microelectronics company will expand at their current dorm location creating 150 jobs and investing 50 million dollars into the dorm community new botronics was founded in 28 in 2008 with a vision to revolutionize microelectronics hardware based in dorm new botronics patented poly strata technology enables the design and production of uniquely packaged radio frequency devices such as antennas and filters and combiners all of which are components in cubic corporations advanced technology product offerings the proposed project will be manufacturing microelectronics microwave components for communication to enable 5g networks and other communication applications the proposed facility will allow new botronics to be more effective in its manufacturing process and technology innovation therefore to serve its current customers better and meet the demand of additional customers with the approval of the award the company has agreed to continue their commitment to building and expanding their supply of diversity spending in addition the company will make reasonable efforts to participate in several workshops of i'm sorry several workforce development partnerships that include engagements with dorm public schools career and technical education dorm technical community college nc works career center and north carolina university moreover with a long and established commitment to diversity equity and inclusion in their operations and hiring practices new botronics will consider work experience in lieu of formal degrees and qualifying for entry level positions new true new true new botronics expansion will be facilitated in part by a job development investment grant a j dig approved by the state's economic investment company on october the 30th over the course of the 12 year term of the j dig grant the project is estimated to grow the state's economy by more than 299 million dollars payments for all j dig and local awards only occur following performance verification that the company has met its incremental job creation and investment targets j dig projects result in positive net tax revenue and that's even after taking into account the grants reimbursement policy staff is recommending that the city of dorm provide $150,000 in economic development investment funds to new botronics subject to their performance goals being met by the company relating to timing and amount of investment employment creation and maintenance of the created jobs as well as partnership engagement criteria the public this public hearing has been advertised as required by law and back to you mr mayor thank you miss graham scott colleagues you have heard the report from staff i'm going to declare this public hearing open and we have two people who signed up to speak on this item but first i'll ask excuse me are there any questions at this point for members of staff all right then we'll hear we have two people of his mind understanding we have several people here who are available to speak but it's my understanding that two people would like to speak one is mr jeff Durham and the second is mr martin amen or i'm not sure how you're pronouncing your last name sir amen amen amen great um and um first we'll hear from um mr Durham welcome mr Durham and you have three minutes thank you sir good evening again council members uh madam manager staff and neighbors i'm i'm jeff Durham president and CEO of the Durham chamber um just uh i'll echo some of the comments that were made earlier and state you know these are competitive grants and and these projects are calculated for policies that that fund themselves and verify the benchmarks uh before investing back into their operations and we're really proud to partner uh with the team at oe wd to help vet these projects and we remain here to help one another further refine this process to stay in line with the county and other progressive community who are also doing the same thing in this space um we're really excited to be here and support a great hometown manufacturer in a different part of the city in our growing tech cluster the direct and indirect benefits that have already been discussed are further multiplied again by working with the state and the county we are able to ensure that workforce development education and community partnerships are leveraged so that those opportunities further benefit the needs of our whole community the chamber does look forward to working with this team and you all are continuing to facilitate our work together so thank you again thank you very much mr Durham mr amen welcome we're glad to have you and you also have three minutes okay thank you very much i did want to note uh mark anthony's uh star trek enterprise flying in in the background so that's quite applicable to this uh this project anyway first of all i do want to uh thank you uh the Durham city council for your support this project uh really brings proven technology from a r&d perspective into high-volume production uh this this along with the creation of high-paying jobs this project will also keep and maintain what i'd consider a very high technology edge in Durham Durham north carolina and even in the united states from a broader perspective this project also fosters component level developments that'll be part of almost all complex computer communication networks and and elements that are a service around the globe as well in space it's uh we're really excited about the opportunity and i know we've been working at it now for a better part of at least two years in this advancement and i know we've just in one year recreated 30 jobs and so we're looking forward now to even take it to another level thank you thank you very much mr amen all right colleagues uh you have heard the speakers let me first ask is there anyone else here today who would like to be heard on this item anyone else okay uh colleagues now time for questions and comments that you may have anyone all right um any questions or comments mr reese would you like to repeat your your thank you mr mayor um i'd just like to point out that Nuvatronics is actually a great company here in Durham uh they were bought as i understand last year uh for something in the neighborhood of 64 million dollars in cash not only by cubic corporation which at the closing bell today had a market cap of just shy of two billion dollars um but as i said before um we are uh participating in this race to the bottom with every other state in the union and until we have make some different choices uh at state federal level we're going to continue to do that and so i'll be casting my vote to give uh this large corporation 150 thousand dollars more terms money tonight thank you mr mayor thank you very much any other comments colleagues all right then i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council um hang on a second and i'll get myself together uh this will take a vote to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute an economic development agreement and center of agreement in the amount of 150 thousand dollars to nuvatronics incorporated is there such a motion moved as red second moved by councilmember middleton seconded by councilmember freelon madam clerk will you please madam deputy clerk please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember reese hi thank you thank you very much uh miss white and the eyes have at the motion passes unanimously and we want to say to mr amen uh thank you for being with us we uh wish you good luck in the business and we know that you're going to be a great corporate citizen here and during continue to be so thank you thank you i also want to thank the folks from the chamber uh and uh our staff miss graham scott mr pedigree earlier mr dickie for being with us tonight through these uh through these public hearings and also uh andy miracle mr miracle thank you we appreciate when you come over from the from the county uh it's always good to have you thank you all right and thank you chamber friends and and uh as well all right uh colleagues i believe that that is all the business to come before this body uh i look forward to seeing all of you all virtually on thursday and i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at nine fifty nine p.m. good night y'all thank you for your night