 Good afternoon. I want to call this work session of Durham City Council to order at one o'clock on January the 7th 2021 I certainly want to welcome all my colleagues and our staff here as well as anyone who is Attending this meeting in any form. We're glad to have you and it's good to be together to For the peaceful Work of democracy glad to see everyone Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor sure off here Mariportem Johnson Here comes a member Caballero Here comes a member Freelon Here comes a member Freeman President comes a member Middleton Here comes a member Reese Right here. Thank you Thank you very much Madam clerk Next we will have announcements by the council. Are there any of my colleagues that have any announcements this afternoon? Mayor pro tem Thank You mr. Mayor. I don't have anything prepared, but just wanted to Take the opportunity to comment on the events in DC yesterday and the Attempted coup by Trump supporters in Washington. I'm sure we're all feeling Not at the top of our game this afternoon and that a lot of our residents are feeling the same and also struggling with the news and with the Events that are happening In our country, so I wish I had something profound to say. I don't really Just wanted to make some space for the for current events in this meeting and not You know continue with the expectation that everything is Fine and operating is normal. We're in a moment of profound and difficult crisis as a country and I know everyone is dealing with that in a lot of different ways, so We're all gonna do our best, but if we're if we're not at the top of our game today, I'm sure everyone knows why and I'm I'm glad that we're gonna be able to discuss some really important issues today as a council that will move our city forward and hope that our elected officials in DC can Get back to work doing things that will move our country forward and Stop supporting these forces of violence and terror and hate that Descended on our capital yesterday Thank you very much madam mayor pro-tem Councilmember Freeman Thank You mr. Mayor, and thank you mayor pro-tem Johnson for making this space. I also want to note Just a hearty positive Congratulations to our southern neighbors in Georgia for historic showing and Over four million people showing up in a runoff election I think it goes without saying that in these moments. It's it's hard, but you got to find a light in it and you know people showing up and Using their power to vote is just as important as people showing up to protests and civil disobedience but I Want to be clear. I understand how emotions in the protests can escalate But what we saw yesterday was was way more than an escalation of a protest and I Know that in the days ahead I'm looking forward to swift action being taken to make sure that this doesn't occur again Because I am I am fearful of what does come next if nothing is done and I also just want to make sure I take a moment and continue to Uplift the fact that all those folks who were there. So, you know, those officers of the Capitol Secret service the Congress members all of them at this point have been exposed to those folks who were unmasked and Just want to ask folks who do believe in prayer or meditation or what have you just to just keep them in your thoughts And prayers that their health is not going to be at risk because of all of this Today and I just know I will continue to pray and I just want to ask folks to continue to keep our country in prayer Thank you Thank you very much council member Anyone else council member Middleton Thank you, mr. Mayor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon colleagues and everyone watching my thanks to the mayor pro tam into Counselor Freeman For their word. I'm going to fully associate myself with their remarks and thank them for providing. I think Noteworthy bookends kind of two polar points and a lens to which to view what happened yesterday I think yesterday Demonstrated the the utter fragility and the resilience of our democracy Georgia taught us about the resilience of our democracy and reminded America what we in the black community have known for a long time That's the redemption of America will probably be carried out in the chief by black women Organizing and leading we saw that in Georgia. So for those that have had personal Experiences by being raised and corrected and admonished and loved by black women We saw it in action in Georgia. That would be the redemptive parts I think what happened in DC just demonstrates the fragility of our democracy and why it's so important for all of us To be involved elections truly do I have consequences United States of America Protected by the crosswind of two great oceans the world's largest nuclear arsenal good relations to the north and south There's no army in the world. It's going to be landing troops You know in Wilmington or at Venice Beach in California or a Coney Island We're not facing a full frontal assault from a nation But we are facing is danger from within We will tear ourselves asunder from within if we're not careful and I think you know Yesterday proved that all people are created equal is not a promise. It's a challenge and that every day We have to get up and continue to do the work that preserves This democracy because it's fragile and we can lose it We also saw the difference of if had it been me and a few of my friends storming the Capitol I think we know we've seen a very different outcome than what we saw the folks storming I think it brings us again face-to-face with with this deep dark secret. That's not so secret that America deals with January 20th cannot come quick enough. I want to express also my gratefulness that none of our Delegation were hurt We send prayers and and regard out to the the families of those Whose lives were lost In a temple in a sacred spot there in DC supposedly the one of the most secure buildings in the world I think it shows us that our security is not in our buildings our structures Our security is in an informed enlightened and involved electorate may God protect our nation may God protect our city Thank You mr. Mayor Thank you very much council member any further comments council member Reese Thank You mr. Mayor and good afternoon to you and my colleagues city staff and Folks watching and listening To this meeting remotely I don't have the Elegance that my colleagues do to talk about what's been happening in our nation's capital of the last 24 hours So I probably shouldn't trust myself to try to talk about that And I think all the important things have already been said Except I will say this What happens over the next 13 days Will depend in large part on how our congressional representatives respond To really the unprecedented attack on our democracy by our president yesterday, and if folks listening here feel as I do David price is my representative in Congress, and I called his office this morning that numbers nine one nine nine six seven seven nine two four I Encourage anyone who believes that there must be consequences for what happened yesterday to call his office and let them know that But the reason I wanted to talk this afternoon mr. Mayor is that The COVID-19 epidemic has reached new heights here in the state of North Carolina and here in Durham County it is a terrifying situation we find ourselves in and Without strong leadership from Washington the vaccine distribution process has really been a disappointment everywhere in the country except perhaps here in Durham our Department of Public Health has continued to make its way through the very first set of folks Who will be vaccinated in Durham what they call group 1a category 1a? but this morning Duke health and you would see health announced that they would be making The COVID-19 vaccine available to everyone in group 1b, which I believe is folks who were 75 years of age and older The Department of Public Health shared that information early this morning I wanted to make sure anyone who was watching or listening to this meeting To know that you can go to Duke health org and at the very top of the website You'll see a little link that says COVID-19 vaccine updates if you click that you can get more information about how to Get yourself vaccinated. You don't have to be a patient in the Duke health system to access that And as our governor has made clear repeatedly the vaccine will be made available At no charge to anyone who needs it So encourage everyone the most important thing we can do right now is get vaccines In the arms of as many people as possible With all respect to the guidelines that our public health Experts have put out I'm just so grateful to Duke health and UNC health for making The vaccine available to everyone in that next group and encourage folks to go get vaccinated. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you very much councilmember. That's good news Any further announcements All right, I have one announcement I am also of some good news We we expected to be good news As you all know, I'm a member of a group called mayors for a guaranteed income I think there are about 30 of us now and the The objective of mayors for a guaranteed income is to get federal legislation For a universal basic income This is a group that has become increasingly active and Has now received funds From jack dorsi you'll be interested to know uh to support pilots small pilots in cities across the country for guaranteed income programs this would This would be private. This is privately funded through mayors for guaranteed income The timeline is very short We learned about it in december We the funding Would be available in march And while we are not guaranteed this funding We are very high on the list of the people who are doing the funding mayors for guaranteed income and so uh, I Asked councilmembers Middleton and freelon if they would lead this effort on our behalf And they have kindly consented to do so Ryan smith and amber wade On our city staff Are working with us and with council members middleton and freelon to Find out what other cities who there are a few cities who've been doing this already to find out about their pilots And to see what we could adapt Here in Durham And so this is an exciting effort And I wanted to let the council know and the public know that this is happening and That there will be that uh, there will be some more reporting on this soon Once we know the shape of what we think Durham's program should look like Our um What we what we know is that in most places that this effort is done through Although the funding may come through the city that it's done by uh, non-profit partners and so Again our our Staff is looking at what some of the other cities are doing and other in order to advise us and Especially to advise council members middleton and freelon So i'm going to ask them if they would like to uh, make any comments as well Just uh about this Uh council members middleton or freelon any comments that you would like to make at this point council member freelon Oh, uh, I was gesturing to brother middleton. Uh, okay. I'm sorry council member middleton Okay. Yeah, you want to go first? I'll go first. I already got the mic unmuted. So Um, yeah, thank you mayor schul for announcing this. Um, it's been one of the You know holiday gifts that we couldn't really share With the public and i'm glad that today we're letting folks know that this is coming um You know guaranteed income is is I think going to be a really important part of a broad scope of programs to address a variety of issues and Durham that relate back to poverty including violence And uh, brother middleton, you know every two weeks, you know reminds us that you know, the the the shooting hasn't stopped That the violence has continued and that we need to be making more efforts to support You know wraparound efforts, you know police efforts and and guaranteed income is one of those crucial Efforts that he has been advocating for a while that I've been talking about For a while. So I appreciate mayor schul you trusting us with the Uh, you know the sacred responsibility of getting this right And so we've been meeting with folks on monday. We met with uh, uh folks in richmond virginia and in charleston south carolina to hear Uh, how they've deployed those resources and and there's different strategies in every place comped in stocked in You know, they're we have the luxury of being able to study what other cities have done And and to collect those best practices and to put that into something that's very unique. That's very durham What is the durham mgi guaranteed income program look like is what we're constantly asking ourselves and uh over the next couple weeks will be um You know continuing to talk to others talking to folks at the same of the boys cook institute for uh equity at duke and other partners Um to help uh inform what that potential program could look like I think it's important to reiterate mayor schul what you said about it It's not guaranteed that we're going to get it, but it's looking good So we're doing all the due diligence that we possibly can and uh and taking this uh quick timeline and uh A responsibility with deliberate speed and our undivided attention. So um, yeah, I just wanted to uh, I didn't know that We were going to share that today. So I hadn't prepared remarks, but i'm thrilled that um It's out there and the ethers and that we're going to you know, manifest or try to manifest this Really important program for durham. So thank you mayor schul for trusting us and Uh, we'll we'll we'll we'll get to work on it Thank you very much councilmember And councilmember middleton. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Hey, uh, uh, pierce sun. We're gonna get that money Uh, we we not leaving any money on a tail. We we coming for them bands. So so we're gonna get the money Um, believe that Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. This this this whole situation reminds me ever see like A guy trying to lift weights and like this guy is really struggling to lift a whole bunch of weights And then some dude walks in who doesn't look as muscle bound It kind of takes with one hand It just lifts the bar up and it comes up and everybody's wondering. Well, where'd that guy come from? That's kind of like what this situation is like. Uh, mr. Mayor Pierce and I have been talking about this for a long time and in public in the public square in our city And along you come uh with your uh relationship with with mayors for guaranteed income and kind of drop this thing Just kind of lift the weight up. Uh, so I just want to say good mayors matter Uh in the country and and I want to thank uh You for for being a good mayor. Listen, this is a huge this this is a huge opportunity For our city for all of our friends and allies that talk about the need to focus on root causes And not just lean on kind of traditional approaches, whether it's crime You name it. Uh, this is precisely what a city like Durham. I think ought to be doing Um, it's also wonderful because it takes uh And asked that I was going to make of this council our next budget cycle for some money to fund the pilot For for for ubi and shout out to professor darity. I want to be clear about the nomenclature What we're going to be doing isn't really ubi. It's guaranteed income And and I want to thank him for for admonishing us to be careful about the nomenclature But it's something that that I know pierce talked about for a long time I've been talking about it for a while here in the city and now, you know Rather than ask us for a whole bunch of money to fund it There's an opportunity for us to get a pretty good clip of money As a as a government official, I love putting other people's money where my mouth is And I think that this is an incredible opportunity to do so and I pledge I know I pledge along with piers to do all of the legwork necessary to put the structure and anatomy in place To ensure that we get this money. What what who better than Durham? In this country, what city would you expect to be doing something like something like this in Durham? I think this is uh, I think about my cause. I think about the work that jillian's been doing for years In terms of of empowering BIPOC people in the city. I think about de jirana who will never let us not hear about equity I think about charlie When he was always pointing out the pitfalls of capitalism and as we go and do our work Even though we're in a capitalistic system to be mindful of what we can do to push back against it I think about Javier is a strong voice Not just for for the latinx community But for all in Durham and all of us is having more opportunity and the chance to advance This is what we've been talking about. I think fighting each of us in our own individual crusades and collectively as a council For years. So thank you, mr. Mayor Looking forward to really working really hard to doing everything We need to do to get this money um I think that you know While I was going to ask for a big piece of money next year I think that we should at least be open as a city although if we get the grant It doesn't require us to put me matching fund I would like to perhaps to preserve as much money going to as much grants as possible Maybe consider a funding stream for an administrative person or an intern or whoever to to oversee the program And I know that that's the wonkiness we'll get into But but I'm very excited about the initiative and thank you mr. Mayor for coming and just lifting the weight with one hand uh, and you know with the stroke of a You know a pen and joining that organization has put have put Durham in the position That's so aligned with our values. Um, so good mayors matter. Um, let's get this money peers Go Durham. Thank you, sir Thank you all very much both of you. Thanks for taking this on. Thanks for being great advocates um All I had to do was sign up join the organization. Uh That was my that was my contribution But I but you know, they these people knew about Durham and uh, They called us which is super great All right, colleagues any further announcements Thank you so much. I will now move to priority items by the city manager Madam manager Good afternoon, mr. Mayor Madam mayor pro tem If I could take just a brief moment of privilege, uh, I would really like to thank you Mayor mayor pro tem and members of the council for your words today for your leadership For your support and the energy that you transmit to us on a day like today as we work Just like we worked yesterday Serving Durham residents and carrying out The policy of this body this body in Durham Of government and this community. So I appreciate the opportunity to say that to you this afternoon Thank you, madam manager and you you have our 100,000 support and I do have some priority items of business for your consideration today We the city council is being asked to suspend the rules today to vote On one agenda item and it is a agenda item Number 20 It is a revision to the approved utility extension agreement with corning incorporated The county of Durham and the city of Durham to serve corning phase two and That item is described in An agenda item number 20 If I if I need to read on the record Corning's vial manufacturing operation at this facility has been identified by the federal government as a critical component Of the COVID-19 vaccination effort The city of Durham is being reimbursed by corning up to 460 south 460,380 dollars Through an army Corps of engineers grant for this critical component In the vaccination effort um also For your consideration agenda item number five The non-discrimination ordinance There have been some attachments added attachment number one through three have been added and attachment One and two have been updated Agenda item number six expansion of bull city united That will we are requesting a 25 minute Or so presentation an attachment Numbers one and two have been updated Agenda item number 10 purchase contract for six 40-foot electric buses with gillig llc The attachment number one was updated An attachment number four has been deleted and attachments Six and seven have been added And finally agenda item number 20 Revision to the approved utility extension agreement with corning Incorporated and the city of Durham will serve corning phase two Attachment number two has been updated. That is all I have for you today Thank you, madam manager colleagues. You've heard the manager's priority items. Can I have a motion for uh accepting them? so moved Moved by councilmember freeman seconded by councilmember freeland. Madam clerk, please call the roll Mayor shul. Aye. Mayor protan johnson. Aye. Councilmember caballero Aye. Councilmember freelon Aye. Councilmember freeman Aye. Councilmember middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember reese Aye. Thank you Thank you, madam clerk. The motion passes unanimously Thank you, madam manager madam attorney. Do we have any priority items tonight this afternoon? Good afternoon, mr. Mayor and madam mayor for 10 members of the city council. It's good to see you I do not have any priority items today. I do want to echo the sentiments of manager page I am really full to work in local government at a time like this, especially with such forward thinking Compassionate um political leadership and we're grateful for all that you do Thank you very much, madam attorney as I said to The city manager you have our full support and we are Glad to be working with you in honor Madam clerk any priority items today Good afternoon, mr. Mayor madam mayor for 10 and council members I'm really glad to see you all in peace today and the city clerk's office has no priority items Thank you very much madam clerk and we are glad to see you in this peaceful environment as well in this peaceful constructive environment where we're doing the work of democracy All right We'll now move to administrative consent items Item one under the city clerk's office Durham housing authority board of commissioners appointment Item two Durham workers rights commission appointment Item three human relations commission appointments Under the departmental items item four inter under budget and management services interlocal agreement with Durham county regarding Durham county crisis response center I Don't Yes, go ahead. I don't want to pull it I just want to say that I'm glad to see this and I know that council member recent maybe some other of my colleagues Had a I know they they were kind of behind the scenes doing some of the work So I just want to acknowledge them and and thank them for moving this forward. Thank you. Thank you for thank you for Putting that out there. That's so true and thank you very much council member Uh item five non-discrimination ordinance. I'm going to pull item five Uh item six under the city manager's office expansion of bull city united and this is a presentation Item seven under community development department amendment to contract number 17116 with Durham county for the provision of the housing opportunities for persons with aids Hopwell housing assistance or related support services Item eight opportunity to contract. I'm sorry amendment to contract 17351 with a housing authority the city of Durham for the provision of the housing opportunities for persons with aids tenant based rental assistance services Item nine interlocal agreement with Durham county to provide funding for minor repair and substantial rehabilitation program Really good to read this memo and to see not only that the county is providing these funds, but to see the fact that we are now I'm really providing a lot of these repair service repair funds for people that really need it Item 10 our department transportation purchase contract for six 40 foot electric buses with gillag llc I think we should all go yay for that. This is a great step forward for our sustainability efforts and congratulations to To our transportation department and our whole administration Department of water management item 11 amendment number two to the Fayetteville road lift station and force main upgrade professional engineering services contract Item 12 eno river outfall phase two west award of construction contract to jav welcherson contracting incorporated item 13 triangle land conservancy day watershed protection project authorization to fund Another very positive step to protect our waters water supply Emergency communications department item 14 radio software upgrade agreement with Motorola solutions, Inc Under general services department amendment to interlocal agreement with the Durham housing authority procure security cameras and lighting. This is a Participatory budgeting item. It's great to see Item 16 land lease with craftsmare. I'm going to pull that item, please. Sure item 15. Yes, please Uh-huh item 16 land lease with crown castle south llc 301 archdale drive Item 17 ninth amendment to assignment agreement for the Durham athletic park operating agreement You all may notice that this did not have the memo attached but now does have the memo attached By the way, I'm sitting in a very um In a room with sun coming in. I'm sorry that my if I look like I'm kind of half in shadow Office of economic and workforce development item 18 second amendment to the training to work reentry grant for contract with ecord youth alternatives, Inc doing business as ecord kids Under the police department item 19 contract with recovery innovations for a licensed clinician Great to see this being renewed Under public works department revision to approved utility extension agreement with courting incorporated the county of Durham and the city of Durham To serve courting phase two I think i'll stop there before reading the rest of the agenda because the manager has asked that this be a priority item That we approve this as part of the national covet response We've been asked to approve this on an expedited basis So i'll accept the motion now to extend extend Suspend the rules of vote on this item Moved by council member freeman seconded by mayor pro tem johnson. Madam clerk. Can you please call the roll? Mayor schul I Mayor pro tem johnson. I council member caballero I council member freelon Council member freeman I Council member middleton. I vote I council member reese I Thank you, madam clerk and the eyes haven't the motion passes unanimously I'll now accept the motion to authorize the city manager enter into a revised utility extension agreement with courting incorporated in the county of Durham to extend water and sanitary sewer to courting phase two So moved Second Moved by council member freeman seconded by the mayor pro tem Madam clerk, please call the roll. Mayor schul. I mayor pro tem johnson. I council member caballero I council member freelon I Council member freeman I Council member middleton I vote I Council member reese I Thank you. Thank you, madam clerk the motion passes unanimously We'll now move to presentations I'm continuing to read the agenda here budget and management services department Item 21 9-1-1 first responder calls for service evaluation update an initial report And this is a presentation item 22 under public hearings city county planning department 3 16 30 16 page row townhounds item 23 Unified development ordinance text amendment amendment due to ncgs chapter 160d tc 200 000 04 Item 24 amendment to zoning district pdr point 000 development plan forested duke Z t 000 012 Item 25 z 19 000 057 quarters of broccoli townhounds cell Uh, colleagues, uh, you have heard the agenda and madam manager, uh, what I have heard and I hope you'll help me confirm One item has been pulled item 15. There's three items. Well an item five Sorry items five and item 15 And then uh, we have presentations with item six and i'm 21 and I believe our plan is to do item 21 Is the first presentation is that correct? That is correct mayor Thank you so much All right colleagues, I'm going to first go ahead and move to item 15 because I have a feeling that one will be a little quicker than item five So just for the sake of our staff and councilmember middleton pulled that item Amendment to interlocal agreement with the Durham housing authority procures security cameras and lighting Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Who am I going to be addressing? Yes, slogan small general services Mr. Small, thank you. Good afternoon. Happy new year to you. Good afternoon. Thank you as well absolutely do you um Do you have any sense where these cameras are going to be placed? So the cameras are primarily um near the front entrances of the complexes. They're in public areas. They're not On the buildings or anywhere. Um But they are There's just there's two pretty much for each complex for those three complexes Um that dha has installed Will these cameras be functioning 24 hours a day seven days a week? They do and then they work there They're all self-contained and then they uh record over each other once that they reach their limit Is it safe to say that these cameras will be capturing People just moving about their regular activity in daily lives notwithstanding whether they're involved in criminal activity or not Potentially based on where dha places the cameras. They're They're potentially could be right. They're not in other words They're not going to be switched on when something happens and switched off and something's not happening They'll be perpetually capturing life, correct? Yes Um, thank you. Um, so I I just wanted to place that in the record because I want to I want to just make clear to the people of this city The the danger of appearing utterly hypocritical In terms of moving forward on this initiative, which I plan to move forward on um We when we were in the throes of the debate about shot spotter One of the biggest objections was the big brother big sister ish um invasion into privacy Uh, and we rail against the possibility of expanding the platform of shot spotter to include cameras um One of the participants said you can incorporate drones which means you don't have to but that the platform was expandable and My inbox was filled. I'm sure yours was as well. Um had letters to the editor All kinds of stuff about shot spotter which are dummy sensors Which can't see anything Which would be awakened by a threshold crossing event To send first responders. That was a bridge too far Even with dumb sensors that slept Until they were awakened and now And we'll get to you know, because it's through the participatory budgeting process We'll get to that in a minute, but now we're prepared to spend city funds On precisely the type of apparatus that we were afraid Of using relative to shot spotter. Where's the outrage? Where's the protest where the the hundreds of emails flooding our inbox Saying that this is outrageous that we're going to place the most vulnerable areas in our city folk that are most poor Most black and brown under constant surveillance with cameras And and let's be clear pb money Is city money? Now if we if we argue that well the people wanted it Yeah, that that's what we've been saying relative to shot spotter now when I when I Raise some concern about the demographics of the voting population the voting stratum first Pb when I said, you know when I quoted the number that we put out there that You know 60 of the respondents of the vote people that voted were white You know I I was told that that needed to be contextualized that we just didn't capture Fully the the black and brown participation in it Well, if we're going to argue that if we're suggesting that that number did not fully capture Black and brown participation and we're implying that more black people participated in pb Voting then that number reflects then we have to also argue that there were a whole lot of black people that one of these cameras So by extension, are we really going to suggest that for all of the people who wrote prescriptions and admonished us and told us that That's not what the people want. That's not what we need Are we really to believe that all of those black people that participated in pb? Sort of sort virtue in cameras being on 24 7 But we're going to suggest that they didn't want shot spotter, which can't see anything Which does not collect data until something happens a triggering event. Where is the outrage? Why are we not Putting some strictures in place that well or at least registering our concern that while the people ask for this I think that this is going to forward the big brother big sister state. I think this is increased surveillance Uh on people of color Black and brown people that are already poor. This is just going to add to the state of surveillance nothing none of it And and and I would be remiss because Not to to I would be remiss not to at least register that in the public square One record in this meeting and the city for the city to recognize We're we're saying no to sensors That will send help When wait for it gunfire goes off in our streets and I have yet to hear a compelling argument why Knowing precisely the location of gunfire in our streets knowing where that's coming from Is somehow a threat to our democracy and a bad idea. I've yet to hear a compelling argument on that But here we are getting ready to put cameras In our public housing complexes with city money I from an intellectual point of view I just find it hard to to to To reconcile that and the next time you come in my inbox With a lecture about big brother or big sister or or increasing police surveillance Please come in with an explanation or attach your email Of of outrage and protest to us putting cameras in our public housing complexes around the city And then hold that attention with the discussion We've been having with a free and offer for a free trial to use technology That could potentially help us combat gun violence in our city Please attach those comments the next time we want to engage In a debate about expanding surveillance or or government or police surveillance in our city Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you, mr. Logan. Thank you. Thank you councilmember Uh councilmember freeline Thank you, mr. Mayor and thank you, um councilmember middleton for for those comments I when when I saw this In the agenda, I had a similar thought, you know I thought back to the presentation where the guy came and talked about shot spotter and thought about the differences And um since you opened up the conversation I thought it would be important also to offer in public square that between that presentation and today I've done quite a bit of canvassing and neighborhoods impacted by Violence including I remember oxford manor When I was there a couple weeks ago once for a bike ride another time for a community meeting talking to folks There's actually a camera out in front of oxford manor and a lot of people reference that camera Like this stuff doesn't even work like and so I've heard actually quite a few people Specifically say they want cameras like that's that's feedback that I've heard Talking to folks But I do want to distinguish between cameras and shot spotter Which comes with a mechanism that sends police running towards the a noise Which is something that folks felt a lot more apprehensive about. Um, it's kind of like, uh, you know Surveillance is a thing that that I remember surveillance debate popping up when there was a debate about body cams And some people were really against it. Some of those same people are like so glad to have body cam footage about some of the Uh, you know issues with police violence that we've seen that have been captured because of those body cams and so holding that contradiction between Uh discomfort with being surveilled versus the You know the the benefits that these types of things offer I think is something that I want to hold space for and just acknowledge that exists Because I heard a lot of people talk again about specifically in oxford manner Uh, didn't hear so much in college heights, uh, or some of the other neighborhoods. Um But clearly I think mac google terrace was on the list for these cameras But I mean, I think that those contradictions contradictions exist and one of the crucial Uh intervening factors for folks comforts with camera versus shot spotter I think is the fact that the camera being on that can capture something that might be useful to police is one thing a loud noise Including a gunshot, but also a car backfiring or a helicopter wearing as was the case in charlotte, uh That we heard from the the city manager in charlotte is that uh, you know one in 39 or whatever Loud noises resulted in evidence of gunfire I think it's the it's the police coming automatically when that noise happens That distinguishes those two things So, you know, a lot of people didn't know what shot spotter was and when you mentioned shot spotter I don't want to take for granted that all of our listeners and community members know exactly what you're talking about Um, so I just wanted to offer and provide a little more context You know since we're having and I'm sure we'll talk more about it later But and I appreciate you bringing up that point, but um, just wanted to share those thoughts. Thank you Mr. Thank you and mr. Mayor Absolutely. Thank you. If I might respond mr. Mayor since you were refreshing me directly Pierce with all due respect I think that's a really really tortured logic that you brought to this conversation And it totally flies against Everything that's been said in the public square during this debate including by members of this council when cameras were mentioned People that are a part of this meeting right now Firstly, you know in terms of canvassing I would say that I would remind you that you actually canceled going to a neighborhood and cited because it was too dangerous Which would kind of bring this point you were going to go to the mat and you said that because of the violence there you couldn't go um So the fact that we as public officials are having our activities Contoured because of the recognition of violence. I think speaks volumes to The need for us to bring every measure to bear on this problem secondly, you know I've done a lot of canvassing too over the years these neighborhoods have spoken to folk and I literally Have never heard anybody say that well Including on this council that cameras Are less intrusive than shot spotter cameras that are on 24 seven Cameras that could record a group of black people hanging in a particular known drug area And if we identify folk from the footage, well, you were hanging out in this area Let's go talk to this guy as opposed to sensors that do What sentient human beings should do when they hear gunfire When when you hear gunfire, what do you do you call the police? Uh, that that whether shot spotters in place or not. That's what those centers do However, when you see a black person drinking coffee in Starbucks Or you see a black jogger or you see a group of young people Hanging together all things that a camera can capture Now you've introduced a human element to decide, you know, I think they're acting kind of suspicious and to send folk um, I think I think your logic is is is is You know dubious it is argument. I understand the needle. You're trying to thread and there were folk who appears quite honestly Question the methodology that that was used to some of that canvassing There were number of people, you know, who who they it wasn't far reaching and the questions were, you know, weren't fully Expansive enough to capture good data. So so then I've never heard anybody say that, you know Cameras good shots, but are bad what I have heard the same neighborhoods that will are Alluded to, you know, my organization owns a significant piece of land right up the street from oxygen. That's our neighborhood We've been working there for years and what I've heard is do something Do whatever you can To to to keep us from training our children to jumping in bathtubs at night And and with all due respect the notion that cameras which many on this council have railed against is somehow superior cameras that are functioning In perpetuity always on Compared to sensors that are dumb and don't wake up until something happens that everybody on here Would call the police anyway if we thought it happened is somehow You know the cameras somehow superior to shots bodies and argument that I just I don't I don't find it compelling at all That is not consistent with what I've heard from this council and what I've heard from people in the community as well But the conversation continues the cameras are going to go up, but I you know, I'm just wondering where the outrage is So thank you, uh councilman. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you council member all right colleagues at Councilmember freeman go ahead Thank thank you, mr. Mayor. I just want to appreciate my colleagues for drilling in on the concerns around you know cameras sensors and I just want to note that I I I appreciate that there are Options that are being put in place to support what folks in the community have asked for And I do want to say that I appreciate councilmember middleton being staunch and pushing us to consider the shot spotter and just note that I would I would be more than happy to consider the free Trial just to make sure that that is something that would work for our city And I look forward to hearing from our staff on whether or not that's A viable option that they would be willing to use or how it could be put into place And so I just want to just note that I think it's a It's a it's a great point to make and I want to thank you Thank you councilmember All right colleagues We have three more items and I want to ask The manager and the city attorney My suggestion would be that we start with item 21 Uh, and then that uh, I believe that item six also may involve some people who aren't uh on city staff That we move to item six next and Then madam attorney that we take up item five and I want to make sure if that's okay with you That's fine with me mr. Marius. Okay. Thank you very much That that auto is filled with the administration. All right. Thank you madam manager So, uh, I'm gonna begin uh, we're we're going to now have the presentation for Item 21. It's a very very exciting item And uh Something we we've been hearing about and now this is our first real presentation And I want to just say briefly that At some point during this presentation, I'm going to need to step away for about five minutes I'm going to ask the mayor pro tem to uh Step in and take over for me But let me just go ahead and now turn this over to the administration And we're very very much looking forward to this to this Mr. Parra, welcome Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon mayor Madam, uh mayor pro tem members of council. I'm monica cross ski chapato assistant budget director And i'm really excited to be part of today's presentation on this 911 calls for service project Um, I typically do not start presentations with thank yous But I think it's very safe to say we are not Living in normal times. Um, so i'm going to break with tradition. Um It's no secret that data analysis really is my love language and uh data analysis informing local government decision making is my professional passion So it really is an honor to be part of this troll blazing work And I want to thank you mayor and members of city council for requesting this study I also want to thank my leadership for their unwavering support as we navigate through What is really uncharted territory? There has not been a study of this kind done before So there is no blueprint for how we should proceed But we have a lot of smart people a lot of dedicated professionals working on this Some of which you will hear from of whom you will hear from today So although there's no blueprint I am very optimistic and very confident that we will not only find something Valuable through the study for us here in durham, but that what we're doing will be beneficial for cities across the country Um, so with that I will ask madam clerk. I believe will you pull up the presentation for me? Thank you very much and will you advance to the next slide for me madam clerk? Thank you I do want to spend just a few moments talking about this project What's included in the project design so that we can be very clear on what? This project is designed to address and what it will not address Really, there's three main goals for this initiative The first one really is to approach this work in a very data-based way Of understanding the services that the police department is being asked to provide Based on A community demand so really getting our hands around what it is they're Providing to the community And then next from a research informed way Really begin to explore if there are better ways to meeting that demand To addressing those demands for services and the needs And finally is to really pilot alternatives based on What's being asked from the community based on goals of the administration and mayor and city council Really test pilots to see if there are better ways Do you want to highlight when we started this work? It became Very apparent that this is the type of journey where it makes more sense to have more people at the table rather than fewer So we at the city of Durham invited experts at rti As well as our peers from across the carolinas to join us In this in this journey, and we are so grateful that they accepted our invitation We've divided the work of this project up into four phases The first phase is dedicated solely to data analysis And on the slide I have collect 911 service Calls for service data, but I do want to emphasize it's not only Quantitative data is also qualitative data that we will be exploring in this phase I also want to be very clear that although phase one is squarely dedicated to data analysis analyzing data will Be a recurring theme throughout the phases undoubtedly as we go through the other phases There will be additional questions that we have and we'll need to pull in additional data resources We might need to look at our current data in different ways So data analysis will be a recurring iterative process throughout the the project The second phase is where we will explore evidence-based alternative responses rti's Dr. Mitchell has already done quite a bit of work in this area of not only scanning current practice But looking back through literature dating back to the 60s to see what's already been tried What was successful? What seemed promising? um, and then we will definitely engage city council and the ministration and uh Collaborative discussion so that we can be clear on what we want to tackle through a pilot talk about our available resources So that in phase three we can pilot alternative responses that meets the desired needs and the desired goals And lastly it's really about evaluating The pilot projects to see if they're really working And I want to underscore that this will be rapid evaluations that are done by rti the university of chicago With emphasis on rapid. This is not an academic exercise. This is real life So we want to be able to see if what we're trying is is it working? Do we need to make tweaks? Things of that nature. So that's the project plan. That's what this plan this project's designed to address and focus on next side, please We definitely want it to give our peers our partners a shout out The value that they're bringing to to this plan is just really meaningful Also, things it's important to note that just like with any evaluation of this type Any analysis of this type the city would have this work being led by independent department of third uh third parties department So although the Durham police department is a very valuable stakeholder in this work The office of performance and innovation as leading this for the city And this would be common practice for any type of evaluation or analysis that we would do I do also want to take a moment to acknowledge my colleagues who serve on the technical team alongside me as thought leaders for the city of Durham And I want to acknowledge them by name Shannon Delaney who is a design strategist on my team Christina tooks who's the budget analyst for the police department And last but not least an east vans who serves as the city's chief data officer The intellectual curiosity that each of them is bringing to this project is just invaluable and it's better because of them next slide And before I turn it over to rti When I say that we have the best of the best working on this project We really do Dr. Strom Dr. Renee Mitchell And brian agard are just experts in this field who bring a lot of passion for research For the use of data Also not represented on this slide are the other resources that rti is dedicated to this project The scores of data scientists who have poured through thousands probably millions of of data Point at this point as well as their qualitative experts who've led focus groups with our police officers This slide doesn't really encompass all of the resources that rti has has brought for this project So i'm going to turn it over to brian who will lead us through the next several slides brian Thanks so much, monica And before we get going into the rest of the presentation here I'll start on a personal note As a resident of Durham, I feel so incredibly fortunate to see firsthand working on this project day today The dedicated and incredibly talented people that work in the city It's been a joy to work on this with monica and see somebody who's so committed to this work So knowledgeable and and so engaged. It's um, it's really It's It's motivating to me and it's really meaningful. Um, so I will now take my personal head off and move into researcher mode So what we're doing here today is just to present the initial methodology that we're conducting on the analysis of the call for service data So for folks, I don't want this to get overly jarred me But the the data set that we're examining is what's known as 911 call for service data And that's logged in something called computer aided dispatch And the important thing to note about computer aided dispatch is that it captures two things It captures residents calling 911 and asking for public safety resources And it also logs proactive activity from officers Corrective activity would be things like traffic stops or directed patrol A directed patrol is when an officer Conducts a patrol within a specific neighborhood or street at a certain time So the universe of law enforcement activity that's documented is documented in this computer aided dispatch And that's why it's such an important starting point for understanding what police do And where they're doing it and when So to do this analysis, we're scanning across hundreds of different what's called call natures So call natures are anything ranging from an in progress violent crime To something much more mundane like a general assistance where you're attempting to locate someone So we group those calls into Sub natures So that it's a little bit easier to analyze in the next few tables that you'll see here That'll start to make sense to you In addition to understanding what call natures are occurring the frequency of those things We're also examining the close codes And so what the close codes are is what is the outcome of that call? So when an officer arrives to then with further documentation in the law enforcement agency And that would be something like a criminal incident report Was it referred to another agency? Was it referred to a mental health organization? Those are the sorts of things that are captured in the CAD data and which makes it such a A rich data set to examine and help provide context for what law enforcement are doing Mr. Agar, yes, sir. Excuse me one second. I'm so sorry I as I was just saying earlier I have to step away from the meeting for a moment And I'm just going to ask the mayor pro tem to preside in case there's any questions and so forth But I'll be right back. I apologize I apologize. Thank you All right, and so the last um last note on this slide is something that monica emphasizes That this is going to be an iterative and ongoing process But the main takeaway that I want to have for you all is that we're going to be completely transparent with our methodology So just like doing your math homework We have to show our work and show how we arrive at the findings that we do And that's something that will be very transparent throughout the entire process For anyone that's interested And so the overarching goal here is that the the purpose of this initial analysis Is that we want to develop a common picture of what police are doing All proactively and in response to the public So if you could please advance to the next slide And this is just a quick note about descriptive statistics and the iterative process So the example that's given here using survey information and this is not associated with this project It's just an example It shows the breakdown of respondents and how those things differ based on how they're aggregated And so as you see this tables that are going to be presented in subsequent slides Just keep remember in the back of your mind that these data can be aggregated or disaggregated As needed to help answer and inform questions So for example, we're going to see groups of Nature group group codes where they're grouped together There's going to be very logical and reasonable questions that are going to say now We want to see these data disaggregated Further, you could say we're going to connect this call for service data the CAD data to other data sets criminal incident information or things data sets that have information about complaints or use of force As you add those data, you can ask different questions When you're asking those different questions, the different data sets are going to reveal different types of information It doesn't mean that these things are incorrect or at odds with one another It's just that we're examining the data the other way another way And I just again want to emphasize there The idea here is that we'll always be able to show our work and always be able to be transparent with our analysis If you could please advance to the next slide All right, so this is the first table of uh several that we're going to discuss today in the main takeaway here is This is demonstrating of in the past three years in Durham of all law enforcement calls for service What are law enforcement doing and you can see that directed patrols Again, those are those proactive self initiated activities that occur in specific neighborhoods at specific times In general assistance account for over half of all of the calls in Durham And so if there's any questions about some of these other types, we can get into that But another takeaway here is you can see that Calls related to all other violent crime That accounts for less than one percent of calls within Durham in this three-year period of time And if you can advance to the next slide, you'll see the second set of Calls within this first table Perfect. Thank you so much And again, you can see the other call types here. So we have in progress violent Makes a very makes up a very small percentage Traffic related is just under 10% So the idea here is that this gives a common picture of what law enforcement are currently doing in Durham for the past three years We also examine this for a year in the past 90 days to see if recent events have had any impact or changes on that differences have been negligible Another main takeaway here that I want to stage a little bit for the conversation that Monica will have subsequent to me presenting these tables is Understanding the frequencies of these calls is important depending on what outcomes are inched The city is interested in when exploring alternatives to the traditional law enforcement response If one of the overarching goals is just a reduction in the number of police public context This would become an outcome measure For testing and evaluating whether that any of the pilots are having their intended purpose I just think through this as we go through the the rest of the tables and I present the rest of the information here is Really at our core when we're getting into this phase four of this Project where we're evaluating the pilots We're constantly thinking even this early in the process through what do we need to measure To know whether or not something's working And so this is one sort of measurement But there'll be other outcome measures of of interest that we can get Tune through law enforcement and administrative data that we'll need to consider as well So if we could please advance to the next slide So a little bit ago I mentioned that That there are call closed codes. These are the call What the outcomes of the call are and we want to be able to examine that So there are many different call closed codes and just like the call natures that we aggregated up into broader groups We did the same thing for the closed codes and we actually did that twice So the first aggregation we see here aggregated into nine different categories And we can see things like an ongoing investigation a closed investigation Whether it was referred to another law enforcement agency or if there was an arrest made We begin to see that Most calls end with without a police report. So there's no further law enforcement documentation Of what occurred during that call So if you could please advance to the next slide So this is the second aggregation of the closed codes of what happens after the call It's you can see here and it's important to note that these percentages are based on the CAD system And represents the initial closed codes and call outcomes So an example that we can provide here is that based on CAD data, you can see that an arrest only occurs Just around a third of a percent But it's important to note that there is a subset of calls that end with an incident report that subsequent to law enforcement investigation will also end in the arrest And we'll talk about this a little bit later in the presentation But that's why it's critical to incorporate data from the record management system. And that's where criminal answer reports are what Folks refer to as a police report. That's where those data are housed And know that in coming weeks and months that we will incorporate that incorporate that data set in these analyses To help continue to answer questions that city administration and city council would have So if we can please advance to the next slide All right now on table four here. We are starting to cross tab two things So we're crossing the frequency in which certain call types happen with the uh, the outcomes those those closed codes And so, um, this is difficult to review But there is a longer report associated with this that folks can review line by line But the idea here is you could take a group to nature code something like let's say a disturbance And see the percentage of arrest mental health referrals and no arrest outcomes So for disturbance, um, just over 1% are referred to mental health Whereas something like all other property you can see that the referral rate to mental health is much much lower That just under a quarter of a percent So this starts to drill into data and understand What are the types of calls that are resulting in the types of outcomes that the city may be interested in having? An alternative response to so this is the Very beginning initial steps in that process So if you can go advance one more slide, please Okay, and that's the rest of the call nature groupings that you're seeing there So if we could advance please one more time to table, uh, six So what we've done here is if you remember the nine call closed codes that we had aggregated This is breaking them down in showing the top three closed codes So for example, let's go to domestic or family You can see there that domestic or family call natures The top, uh, three closed codes are resolved without a report at just over half There's an incident report in about a quarter and about just under 10% Are unfounded all of the other nine closed codes aggregated up represent about 12% So there's a lot of stacking and aggregating of data and disaggregating of data that I realize is Difficult to digest in this quick presentation But again, I think the over arching point that we want to demonstrate is that We're starting to provide answers to questions the folks in city administration have been asking about police activity And hopefully that informs this group too as well as the public So if we can advance one more slide that'll show the second half of this table six And then the last table that i'll be presenting in terms of the call quantitative analysis Is that we calculated the amount of time it's spent on calls so we know the prevalence and how Frequently these different call types are occurring based on the first tables that we saw that showed the overall numbers and accounts We also calculated the amount of time that all officers on a call Spent on a given call And you can see there an overall number of hours the percentage And the raw number of hours that they spend on any given call So for example, um quality of life calls there That's roughly six percent of all time on when officers are allocated on a call in the city are spent on Those those types of calls and so you can see the different breakdowns there and we can also get Break this down even further So we can disaggregate not only from these nature codes, but for a specific call nature if you wanted to see for One specific call type how much time you spent on um any specific call we're able to calculate that and I think that's useful because We know that certain calls and more serious calls take more officers to respond and longer to do that So if we can advance to the next slide, please So as alluded to a little earlier There's going to be subsequent analyses that are conducted and there's going to be other data sets that we're going to have to incorporate Help answer some of these questions and they're excited to work with the city and the offices of OPI and to do those sorts of things so they other data sets that may be of interest Would include information about use of force in which calls are resulting in the use of force Which calls are resulting in arrests We also want to understand the nature of police activity and those sorts of outcomes based on whether it was initiated by the public Or if it was initiated by the police So one more slide, please thank you so much and so an important stakeholder and somebody that had a You know good insights and good perspective onto this are the officers that are responding to these calls themselves So this is something that we did at the behest of the city and we had Conducted four different focus groups with officers of various rank and experience that work in the patrol Bureau where they're responding to calls day in and day out And we talked to folks with different demographics different experience And they were grouped by rank to make sure everyone felt comfortable communicating their experiences And the focus groups were really designed to understand their perspective and summarize the collective knowledge About what potential alternatives currently They're aware of what referrals that they feel comfortable making What they think would work and some of the things that they think would be challenging And I think that helps provide a lot of context to the Quantitative data and quantitative analysis that we did and so we'll be excited to share The findings of that from the focus groups here in the next few weeks In a longer report that summarizes the information that they provided So advance one more slide, please All right, I'll turn it back over to monarchy at this point And I really appreciate your time and and look forward to answering any questions at the conclusion of the presentation So very briefly mayor and city council want to talk about next steps. We definitely consider today A milestone for us and for this work But the next major milestone we see is the budget retreat Prior to the budget retreat Dr. Mitchell will provide that research on alternative response options so that you guys you all can have enough time to review it Any additional requested analysis that you may want at the end of this presentation We hope to have some conversation about that But rti is going to try and earnest to have that prior to the budget retreat So that when we arrive at the budget retreat via zoom We will be in a position to really talk about what you've read Really talk about what your goals are for the pilots because we want the pilots to be meaningful For city council for the administration So we really encourage you all to start thinking About your goals sit with this data What about the data would you like to see different after a pilot? Just really start giving some thoughts to what some goals and outcomes are And for the final slide madam clerk, please one more We would really like to invite council to share feedback initial reactions But specifically wanting to know if you have any questions or thoughts about the tables that brian covered in today's presentation For the sake of time, we didn't include all of the tables, but attached to the agenda packet Was a report that did include all the tables. So if there are questions about any of those tables We are more than happy to discuss that And lastly, if there are any additional requests that you know of today As much notice as we have for that the better so that when we do arrive at the budget retreat We are all positioned to have really good informed conversations Madam mayor pro tem. I don't know if the mayor is back yet, but We do have another member of the rti team available for questions I don't quite know the procedures if we should wait to have dr. Mitchell join us Or not, but you know that we are here to answer questions brian myself and dr. Mitchell Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And yeah, I think if we just um go ahead with questions whoever You think is best suited on the team to answer them can can jump in I just want to thank you monica and all of the researchers for this incredible work Expanding to look at a whole cohort of cities in the south was such an incredibly good idea To compare our data with other cities and also to bring other cities into this conversation around transforming public safety So i'm really happy to see um that that that that happened in the Doing the data analysis work with rti was obviously Got a ton of experience in the area and is a real resource For the community is was also a great innovation I feel like y'all y'all kind of took the seat of an idea and made it into a really Well executed um and really informative project So thank you so much for your work and i'm really excited to get to get this information Let's head to questions from the council. Um, who wants to go first Council member freeman Thank you. I I just want to make sure that I note Ditto to everything that uh mayor pro tem johnson mentioned and Acknowledging just how Broaden, um this project is from where we first started the conversation and um appreciation for Really digging in to figure out what it looks like to create um Reporting an actual like usable data that we can make decisions For the city based on and I just wanted to to just kind of toss it out there Just like acknowledging that this is more of a call and you can't really kind of dictate demographic information from a call Has there been any context or any thought given to how you might figure in some of that demographic or implicit bias more so than Um Then kind of like the racial aspect more like the way that you can capture how bias plays out in in this as well I see dr. Mitchell turned on her camera. So do you have any thoughts dr. Ray Mitchell that you offer? I'll let brian go first and then i'll follow up Yes, I I think it's great Um, great observation and there's there's two answers first is There are demographic information in the record management system within um criminal instance before We're able to connect that information to the call for service data. We would be able to access that Um, secondly, there's a few different things that we can do with these data spatially and I think that's where renay Has a tremendous amount of expertise. We can look at the calls for service by where they're coming from You know, obviously there is census data that's available to understand the composition of the neighborhoods And rti also has something that's called synthetic population Which distills census data down to the household level So we're able to understand at a very fine level what the composition of certain areas look like So we can't examine things like how long the law enforcement response Buries as a function of space and as a proxy for space by race But renay, I'll defer to you on that It's gonna say you said everything that I was going to say But that's quite a bit of what this is going to happen with this and and I'm sure Um You've thought about this already but a lot of this process is going to be iterative So this is just the first attempt at looking at these different categories But once things are mapped out geospatially and then looking at Where different activity is across the city that that's where when you like speak of implicit bias It comes out in the aggregate So those are the things that we could start looking at once you start really looking at the data overall and then mapping that out And we have these conversations before when When you look at certain data sets that you're like, well, what does this mean? Sometimes you don't know what it means until you start digging down into it so it's Every time you have these type of questions Bring them up as you see the new data sets come out as you see the mapping come out Because those are the things that we're going to be pursuing and actively Trying to answer for you Thank you. That is um, just one of the main things that I had a question around I know that Monica and I've had some conversations over the last few months in the finds and piece realm on it And I'm sure that you guys will tackle it Um, I and then just the second question just acknowledging. I know that the nine categories That were labeled Which one would the gun violence I guess sit in or kind of like anything that was Kind of a akin to gunfire or gunshots That's a great question councilmember freeman and I'm upset that I don't have it pulled in the background Brian, maybe you can pull it up, but I'll take this As an opportunity to say that's one of the things we realize councilmember freeman is that we need to release the groupings. Yes, we've Aggregated the data to make sense of it, but people are going to want to see what type what calls are in which category So if we are going to add that um and make that public So that folks can see it, but brian or dr. Mitchell. Do you have That grouping up in the background and can answer councilmember freeman's question And it's okay if you don't as long as that information will be available And the public will be able to kind of decipher and distill through it. That's helpful just as long as that is there Thank you And absolutely so that's been the in progress violent category and we have The level of granularity that we can have there is you can differentiate between a gunshot A gunshot wound and then there are even some subcategories like a home invasion That are also grouped into that but Yes, we'll be happy to both provide the data dictionary that shows how those groupings were were made And also the specific counts for each of those things so that you all can analyze that at a very fine level Great. Thank you again. That's all I have Thank you councilmember councilmember reese Thank you madame pro tem I just want to thank Maka and the rest of the folks from our staff for getting us to this point In this process and also want to thank the the brilliant folks from rti Who we have turned to repeatedly as a city to help us understand complicated data And how we can make better decisions for city government as a result of those data Speaking of complicated data, I may be the only member of the council to feel this way and if so, that's okay I've never been accused of being the brightest bulb in this particular chandelier, but This is a really confusing presentation and report from my perspective Um, and I thought it suffered from just a data visualization Um point of view and so what I want to ask And monica you can decide who's best to talk me through this I picked out one thread that I'd like to follow through a bunch of different tables and see if i'm correct in how i'm supposed to be In what these numbers are supposed to be telling us so and it has to do with traffic related um calls for service can um Can can can you just I start start there by finding the person who can help me talk through this Well, first off council memories. I'm so sad to hear that it was confusing. Um, and not clear to you So that's very disappointing to hear even though i'm smiling. It's so disappointing to hear I'm gonna ask brian Brian, do you feel like your position? I know we don't have the data scientists on on this call, but brian I think I can give me the shot Yeah, no and when we're talking about this as an iterative process That's great feedback if you don't understand it that means we have to do a better job of presenting it and making sure it's digestible That's what we're here to do. So I appreciate Absolutely, and I appreciate you taking the time to do this. So if i'm looking at the tail I'm in the report by the way. Okay, if i'm in table one That is the second half of page three in the top half of page four Does this is this supposed to tell me that traffic related calls for service represent 7.2 of all calls for service over that 12 period Over a three-year period. Yes, that's correct. And within a three-year period. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. I think I knew that um and am I Then turning to table four The bottom half of page five and the top half of page six It might understand that 99.93 of those calls for service Resulted in no arrest like 99.93. Is that right? That's correct And then further On the table seven on page 12 That those all those traffic related calls for service represented 13 percent of the entire aggregate time That all of our police officers spent on calls for service during that three-year period That's correct okay, um and so and Great that because that's that that seems to me a useful thing to kind of tease out of the data But I had to go to three different tables to figure that out that calls for service Almost never like statistically almost never result in an arrest In fact, when you if you dig down even further in where my table um Hold on. Yeah, this is uh table five at the top of page 10 we see that 32 out of the 74 thousand dollar sorry 74 thousand Traffic related calls for service resulted in arrest but 130 of them resulted in non-custodial police action By the way, what does that mean non-custodial police action? Is that like a stern conversation or is that something else? Oh, I think I would have to Refer back Both of the data sets in the analyst that did that to be more specific on that But I would imagine it could be something like a citation or some other sort of documented censure And to your point about having to revisit multiple other tables If it is helpful for us to reorganize this data in any way If you only wanted to examine one major group, for example, if you only wanted to see that The traffic and you wanted to see across those different Those across those different tables we can put all of that in the same place And if it's useful to pull in other things to cross tab on that For example, if you want to see of all those traffic stops, they arrest the very few arrests that do occur were they Resulting from an officer initiated a call versus a call from the public Those are things that we can add and examine and We do appreciate the feedback that making this data as accessible and interpretable as possible. That is our mission So thank you very very much for that. I appreciate it. I guess When I when we embarked on this a process It was my hope that we could get a really a better understanding of how Officers were actually spending their time And whether there are Different ways to conceive of how to address the need in the community that officers are feeling In some way other than sending an armed police officer. And so by looking at the different types of calls the What happens when officers respond to those calls and then how much of their time is taken up by those calls that seems to me at least to be The next maybe the next step in the process So that's why I kind of went through that and I think we can you can do that for all this. I I apologize that that if my if my confusion about how to look at the data and the fact that it's not it It's hard to hard to parse a little bit It is not necessarily a failure on your part or anybody's part. It's just that this is complicated stuff There are you know, as you as you showed in table Table five, there's a lot of ways to cut this data You know, you've got a bunch of categories and sub categories and whatnot So cross tabulation of the 18 nature categories This is this is complicated stuff and as the first kind of cut of what this is going to be I think it's So all I'm saying is I'm not faulting anybody And I apologize that came across that way I just wanted to make sure that I was reading the tables correctly And that I think the next step is trying to help us draw some conclusions And then designing the various pilot programs that can test Some of the assumptions that we think or some of the hypotheses that we create together With your help at rti with city staff and with the council About how else we can address that community need to me that is how Is the kind of the ultimate end results of this part of the work? And I'm just want to say again how grateful I am to our staff and especially The smarties at rti for helping us get there You can't spell smarty without rti and I think that's important to remember so thank you very much everybody Thank you, madam mayor pro tem. That's all I had right Thank you councilmember councilmember middleton Thank you, madam mayor pro tem and thank you Crew monica and all of you for for the great work you're doing. I'm a big fan of derm specific data Even if it's in service to what is a universal truth something we already know But having the information that is specific to where you you live and contour to your Situation has always helped us on I'm extremely grateful For this work, uh, and and the presentation you've put together is not Revealing a problem The reason why you're doing research is because there's a problem that we all recognize that is too often Folk are dying at the hands of police when what they really needed was somebody to talk to that That's what this is all about, uh, particularly for black and brown folk And fortunately we have some conversation partners around the country so we can look at around the country because ultimately this is about us making a decision It's about this is an abstract You know Experiment or academic did we actually are looking to do some things and make policy based upon this so I want to I want to kind of tether my my comments and my questions to some specific Policy impacts. I hear military leaders say all the time that all plans are subject to meeting the enemy You know what did you no matter how you plan things the first time you meet the enemy all those plans are just Just get shot. So I want to talk about Um, and I want to use the the cahoots initiative That's an organ that many of us are familiar with that's already up and running I think to a person on this council We all agree that we should have some more tools at our disposal as our chief of police is fond of saying more tools to respond to different initiatives so my question is and and with all the data that What has happened and I understand the predictive value of data But again, I'm also I'm you know operating under caution because once you meet the enemy so to speak Plans can change. Um, for example, if we had made plans based upon shooting statistics the year before last And kind of institutionalized some things and then in 2020 we have a record spike in shooting We'd have to revisit what we did if we crystallized some things based upon reduced shooting and now You know, we've got to go back and look because we've had such a violent year in the city So I want to talk about the amount of of agility And responsiveness that would be built in to a real world situation. For example, I know in oregon the cahoots teams Sometimes go with the police Rather than be dispatched by themselves. So I I want to ask about Have we documented the times when? We thought it was going to be one call and it's escalated into something else Now I saw some anecdotally from some of the reporting I've seen on cahoots where they've gotten the team has gotten there And they had to wind up calling law enforcement Anyway, because based upon what the the call taker had Assessed based upon the information that the call maker was given When the team actually arrived the situation had morphed or escalated and they had to wind up calling for for backup anyway, so And if this isn't a fair question, please let me know does the data suggest that? um And again, I'm drawing from the cahoots experiment that we would be in a position in Durham to send unarmed teams based solely upon the assessment of a 911 call taker or Does the data suggest that we should be sending these teams along with? uh police responders that would allow us to have a wide range of response options for Does the data suggest situations where The police arrive and they should fall back and create a perimeter And call for specialized service like they do for swat You know oftentimes police officers will fall back and say well We need we need more guns or bigger guns swat or we need medical or is a situation where the police may arrive first and can Just create a perimeter and then call for these teams if that question makes sense But i'm trying to think about actual governance the application of this data Council member middle thing your question makes perfect sense and i'm smiling on the inside because Council your questions are living up to everything i told rti. They had to be prepared for a robust conversation I will ask one of the smarties as council member refers to them to address this I don't know if it's too early in the process to venture to answer that at this point But hearing the lines of questions that you all have is going to help us look at our data with the appropriate set of Eyes to make sure that we come prepared to get you what you need From the study. So dr. Mitchell. I know she's done lots of research on cahoots. Um, she's talked to them Uh, dr. Mitchell brian, do you feel positioned to be able to answer council member middleton's question today? Or is this is is this one where we want to to punt For now just for So I would say on the data part Brian would be better posed to answer that and I know part of that answer is going to be we would have to go dig into the to the data to find it and I would also say Some of the things that when you think about the questions that you're going to have some of the answers might also be that Derm isn't equipped as far as how the data is pulled out to answer those questions So the nice thing about this being an iterative process is also learning your systems, right? And we see this with other police agencies too is is they're not capturing data in in a particular way So you can't answer certain questions. Um, so when we look at the call start one way But the the end point was something else It's the difference between how a call was logged and then how it's closed And I'd have to let brian answer that as far as durham date durham's data goes But when it comes to Cahoots in that program It is a program that hasn't been evaluated yet. Um, so they have not had researchers in from an unbiased point of view Examining the outcomes of their research. They've they've have dated themselves that they track Right now we've been talking to them actually about rti. I'm evaluating their program And they have had situations where The call comes out one way cahoots goes in and they and they have their data of those types of calls Where they have ended up meeting officers And and eugenie pd. I've spoken with them also have tracked where When cahoots Goes out to certain types of calls that aren't um, how should I say this that They maybe shouldn't have been going to in their first place Those have a higher likelihood of having a police response after the fact The calls that are really cahoots types calls. They usually don't call for backup They don't end up being the type of call that that they need the officers for they're perfectly capable of taking care of those Those type of calls and they're they they do the safety training They they do those things well the thing the thing that I would note In your data is that your mental health is actually only one percent of all of your calls so when you're thinking about You know shifting resources And where you're going to think about having some alternative responses Um, it's one of your areas that is a lower part of your data points When it comes to and this is the initial breakdown these are large boxes We haven't even gotten to the lower boxes, but I'll let brian speak to the closed codes and how that works It's a good observation and within the data we can answer several different questions depending on how the can is structured You can see the initial call nature And then the final call nature and to see if that's changed within I know that that exists in Durham But it's not something that we examine in the first cut of this data And to your second point not precooked specific but broadly in terms of thinking about interventions You make a good observation There's different entry points where this intervention can happen It can actually happen within the dispatch center and um, I should have noted earlier One of the partners on this project is the university of chicago health lab They have quite a bit of expertise dealing with 911 dispatch and understanding that process So the point of intervention could be at the dispatch where you're dispatching and responding differently It could be sending different units post dispatch It could also be once you've arrived on scene There's a determination made that you need an alternate response to the swat example that you gave And there's one that's critical that we need to remember too Is there's these longer term interventions that don't um that don't necessarily have to happen at these Um periods of acute In heightened interaction where there's this, you know, high tension If there are folks that are having repeat contacts with public safety resources Sometimes the best times to re-engage them would be outside of the call for service and the Emergency structure whatsoever and having teams that are following up with these people long term So generally with this project in terms of both the analysis and the types of interventions that we're going to offer Provide information that the retreat that we all have coming up We're being as comprehensive as we can to provide a full suite of options for the city to consider That uh, that is that is really really helpful. Thank you and doctor. Thank you so much and and um For also your admonition that the coot hasn't been formally studied and I think I did say was anecdotal Some of some of the things I heard come from them Regarding their response and as there's a policymaker as a as a decision maker along with my colleagues You know one of the things uh, well, I appreciate the data is because data service is kind of a guardrail Against any one of our particular ideological addresses, you know Because sometimes we'll start with the end in mind and we just want to get to that end But I I would hate for Durham to be in a position where we've you know Based upon anything other than data kind of contour to response That would for example, we we we take funds from one organization to fund this initiative And then turn out we have situations where we're going to have to call on the organization anyway that we just hobbled Uh, uh with less funding Uh, but we're still expecting the same type of response the same type of service delivery Because we got there and realized we did need a different response in this particular situation And I didn't realize it was one percent I thought it was going to be higher quite honestly But you know one percent has been involved with the universe could still be significant number I'm not saying that that's not a threshold for action But but I think it's very helpful for us to keep in mind that You know data is somewhat predictive, but but we also keep in mind some real world Data points out there actually when the team arrives what happens and what can happen and that we're we're agile enough And and and contoured Appropriately as a city where we can still bring the bear all of the options we need to bring because I'll tell you I'm not a clinician As a late, you know, I'm not a mental health clinician But as a late person I'll just say if any person Uh at any time points a gun at me pulls a knife on me I'm assuming that they're having some kind of mental health situation at that because You cannot convince me that you know, that's not anti social behavior If you point a gun at me or a pull a knife on me I'm already convinced that some type of emotional or mental Help is needed under any circumstances. You know criminality to me is still linked to that type of stuff So left to me, you know, we'd be sending a team out for every situation but I appreciate the work and uh It's gonna I think it's going to be very useful in us as a city crafting the appropriate responses to keep more people alive That's what we want to do We we and we know that it's usually black and brown people that have bad outcomes in these situations And that's what we want to do and you're helping us a great deal getting into that ultimate Thank you. Thank you. Uh, madam mayor pro tem. Thank you council member Other comments and questions from council Council member cabillero Thank you. Just really quickly. I really appreciated the last explanation because I was when originally looking at the data I was also, um, surprised that the calls from mental health services were so small the percentage was so small The traffic part seemed, you know, just from my initial Speculation that tracked and so I'm glad that we were think I'm glad this is an iterative process I'm glad we're going to have a lot more time with you all at our budget retreat Um, and I'm I'm just really thankful that we're approaching it You know, the whole idea of the menu of options is exactly I think the right way to approach it these kind of mini pilots so that we can Really create something that is very Durham specific and really takes into context Our reality here. So just thank you for all the work and I look forward to hearing and learning more Thank you council member. Yeah, one thing I wanted to point out in the data is that quality of life is Um, is separated from mental health But that includes I think some things that we might sometimes think of as mental health issues like drug use and homelessness So those two things combined Get us to about 7% Of calls, which is about the same as as traffic In terms of thinking about pilots. Um, any other questions or comments? Mr. Mayor Thank you, madam mayor pro tem and I'm sorry Mr. Pado that I had to step away for a few minutes, but I was able to hear most of everything Um, I apologize if I'm going to comment on or ask about something that I missed earlier um Yeah, so my when I was looking at the data the number one thing that was on my mind too was was the low number of calls identified as mental health calls in comparison to um what I had expected And what I expected based on Riding with police officers, you know, I I don't know how many times I've done that but maybe 20 and Almost every single time there is a call that in some way I would identify as a mental health call um, and so I wondered if in the uh in the Focus groups You know, if that's something that you all could tease out. I don't know if you're planning on doing more of those or not um But I I wondered if that was something that you could get from The officers get some sense of that. You know that your Kind of qualitative work might help us with Uh, thank you for that question, mayor Staff we purposely did not attend those focus groups who wanted to make it a safe space for the officers brian Just off hand. Can you provide maybe some context to? um Did that come up in the focus groups and the impressions of our officers about the prevalence of mental health calls? Can you offer some insight on the spot on that? Yeah, absolutely So I was fortunate enough to be able to conduct some of those focus groups. So while the analysis hasn't been completed On officer level reports are yes the percentage of calls that are related to or have been some sort of root cause that are Set with mental health It is a higher proportion of calls than 1 and some were saying that upwards of half of the calls that they were on Were related to some sort of mental health issue The way that the CAD data are structured and the way that we did this analysis is We were fairly narrow in examining which call types were directly related to something someone an acute mental health crisis And those calls are a tentative suicide crisis involuntary commitment psychiatric psychiatric and suicide threat so if the area of focus of the key Key area for the any of the alternative pilots is going to be focused on mental health It's clear that we're going to either have to measure how we're How we're defining mental health or doing a better job of using CAD and maybe subsequent data sets To identify or flag. Which is the calls are truly resulting from or have some sort of root cause that's based Whether it's an addiction or mental health Better capture that I hope that that answers your question and clears up some of the Disconnect between the observations that you've had and what's born out in the data Thank you. That's very helpful. Um, I You know, and I know how tricky it is. I mean sometimes, you know, a mental health call I've been on These situations where Yeah, I mean, it's you know It's hard to just to figure out sometimes who not who needs to be there. I mean, I think that's One of the really hard things and um, I know you're gonna help us do that. I really appreciate it um Mayor yeah, ma'am. Dr. Mitchell wanted to add additional context related to your question if that would be appropriate She's able to offer some additional insight Is that okay? Sure. Dr. Mitchell Thank you. I just wanted Because you're you're speaking to what the research shows. Um, so On the calls for service and the focus groups and I think as we dig down You'll see other things and I think what it is that you're speaking to is the idea that if you're living if you're living in You know a higher crime area or higher calls for service area. There is research that supports there is Higher rates of mental health issues compared to like other areas that don't have that type of activity So there's just been some recent research where they've paired a police officer with a Mental health worker and the idea was that When you're going to address community issues You you need to address both because the violence and the high crime area contributes to the to the poor outcomes Right to the poor mental health So you have the mental health worker that's focused on the mental health issues But the officers work focused on the the public safety issues So they work on the lighting they work on, you know, any kind of traffic issues they work on the the issues going on to the community and the And the mental health worker is focused on, you know, helping that community With what's going on in the community and they've shown that both it increases the public's view of police legitimacy It helps the community Reduce their mental health issues and it's only one study. So it doesn't mean that it works everywhere But it was just recently published I think within this last year But it was very interesting But I think that's kind of what you're speaking to is this idea that yeah, you might not have a a call for service But it's still there within the community and it manifests itself in other ways Thank you, yeah So Yeah, we also have and we just approved today We just uh, or we'll be approving on monday night uh the a re-licensing with a For a licensed clinician who works with our police officers And I wondered if you all were I mean, that's a person who has this very direct experience with their own police now And I wondered if you all were planning to interview that staff person Brian, I believe rti in a separate engagement. Is that a project where you all are already engaged with dpd? You're talking about the currently funded um arnold ventures individuals in crisis work Perhaps the mayor is speaking to we have a clinician that we're renewing a contract with um And at any point it sounds as though that would be a great person to interview as a stakeholder To get some additional qualitative analysis So we will We will add that to our radar in our project plan mayor great Well, I'll just say this is great and very exciting and uh, it's interesting to hear that Data is your love language. Actually, it turns out I have to ask my wife. I think it might be her love language too I better check that out but This is very, you know, it's great to have the data and and I'm You know, I keep wondering I look at General calls for service. I can't remember what that category was, you know 29% or something it caused and I just want to like get in there and figure that a little bit more And I know that you all will do your best to help us with all those kinds of things I think just I'll just say on the mental health stuff This is I think what we Hear a lot and we talk about a lot, you know that we want to find alternatives for people who have these kinds of mental health Crises and so Yeah, when when all of us I think what we see oh gee is less than 1% of calls in this data You know, we've at least I've you know, we've talked so about how this doesn't match up at least with my Experience and you all have done a good job with talking about how these things kind of intersect and what dr. Mitchell and Mr. Agard said made a lot of sense there But I think you know that's the kind of thing we're searching for you know What are these big categories that we can kind of help with and I know you'll help us parse that and I really look forward to it and I'm so glad that this is going to be one of the major topics for our retreat And I want to thank our city manager for making that happen and for to you Mr. Pado for leading this work for getting us all these great partners and Just want to appreciate it. So thank you. Thank you madam mayor pro tem Thank you, mr. Mayor. I have a few thoughts as well and then we'll circle back To council members. So yeah, I just want to agree with you monica that data is absolutely a love language And I appreciate all the work that went into Getting us this data. There there are a couple of areas where I think it's going to be important Really important to drill down more and I'm sure that you all are already thinking about Giving us more detail on this general assistance category. That's 25 of calls. I think that that Getting a little bit more disaggregation on what the the nature of those calls would be really helpful in thinking about what kinds of alternative responses Could be could be useful the 30 directed patrol number. I also think it would be great to have more Disaggregation there It may help inform Pilot options, but I think it will definitely give us a better sense of what Officers are doing like what kind what self directed activities officers are doing Which I think is just good for us good knowledge for us generally as well as information that we could potentially put into Thinking about pilots for me the thing that stands out that I think we need to think a lot more and figure out the mental health Issues because I also thought that that number would be higher I think when you add in quality of life it gets closer to what I thought it might be which I was guessing more like like 10% or more But the thing that jumps out at me the most as kind of will hanging fruit for a pilot is the traffic response Which is 17 of calls, but then 13 of time That officers are spending and resulted in very few arrests or other other action. I think Philadelphia has recently either started or put into plans for an unarmed traffic response team And there may be other cities around the country that are looking into that that feels and that that to me feels like just looking at this data that that's the The easiest priority that emerges from the data for For an alternative response pilot Um And also the the quality of life Quality of life combined with mental health I think would get us to a significant Significant a significant enough number that it would make sense to try to start diverting those calls The other thing I wanted to point out about mental health while it's only 1% of calls It was two and a half percent of officers time So it is taking up a disproportionate amount of of police resources to deal with mental health calls, which may Um, which I think we would agree the vast majority of them could be better handled by someone Who was a clinician trained to deal with mental health issues rather Rather than an officer And looking forward to digging into all this more at our at our retreat and getting these pilots off the ground I really appreciate this approach. I think it's um very thoughtful and wise and is gonna Allow us to implement these programs in ways that Keep our community safe move us in the direction that we that we want to move and are and are backed by Evidence that we can look to and tell residents That we that we've actually studied this issue and that we're moving in a direction that is um That is warranted by the reality that's happening in our city rather than you know, just Just an idea that we had that we should do a thing. I I like all of our ideas I think our ideas are great And I want to do a lot of things. Uh, but having having this kind of data to inform Our decisions is really is really valuable and important Thank you comes from over cubby arrow. Did you have another question or comment? I just I would like to see the study that Dr. Mitchell was discussing if that could be sent to us. I would really appreciate it Great. Thank you. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you. I um I appreciate the chance to circle back around especially not in um hearing everyone's comments and commentary the The reporting and I mean, I'm looking forward to the budget Retreats presentation as well and acknowledging that this I mean the data dig is always a good thing I am I just want to make sure that I note that this is uh The point of contention for me around some of the conversations with time and effort who've been around Whether or not we need additional officers or not and acknowledging that if we're talking about, you know Transportation officers or directing officers to be trans like in transportation I want to make sure that we bring all of that to the conversation and in acknowledging that the time that's spent Is time away from an investigation or time away from you know responding to um A more dangerous situation And the level of complexity of what officers actually do Has to be um investigated as well or at least reviewed as well And so I just want to make sure that the the experts are also included in this um Context and then I also wanted to also to to note that this is uh I mean I want to echo Mayor pro tem's comments and saying that this is a phenomenal way to to start and to dig into this work And acknowledging that the data can tell a story and I want to appreciate um our former uh city manager tom bonfield for really pushing us in this direction and making sure that we um lend uh Use our resources in rti to to come up with a way to do this so and other than that i i'm really excited I can't I can't contain myself really uh, it's just there's there's I mean the possibilities are endless Once we start, you know to really dig in and figure it out and I really am looking forward to seeing how we can Address the issues around the implicit biases that councilmember middle 10 raised and And of course and and being able to address the mental health needs of our folks in our community acknowledging that I think in every instance Uh mental health is probably a part of it And we've gotta make sure that we're bringing more to the more more organizational support to the table And whether it's the city of the county the state Um making sure that we're not just trying to do this all ourselves through the police department. It's important as well Thank you Thank you councilmember councilmember middle 10 Thank you madam mayor pro tem and thank you council for even and I'm going to associate myself with your Your remarks and just again reiterate that that as we proceed I think this is incredibly important for saving lives too many lives that have been lost because we sent the wrong type of response But I also want to reiterate that, you know, I think the data will help us Uh and provide guardrails from just you know purely ideological policymaking I mean whatever categories we we send these teams to I'm going to be driven more by rather than a database snapshot Which literally can change from year to year allow gun violence in our city last year um to real real world Possibilities when we arrive on scene for example, you know, I I haven't done as many write-offs as the mayor But I I was going to write along in district four and we thought it was it was a traffic accident But turns out it was a traffic accident because a person was criminally intoxicated the level of intoxication was criminal Um, you know or or you know, I was out on a call one time We were traffic accident turned into a roadway incident. So it became a law enforcement Um, you know matter So I just want to make sure that we are equipped as a city and have a robust enough response menu That's data driven not ideologically driven, but data driven so we can provide the services that our residents need Um, I would love nothing more than for armed officers to fall back and people to have Uh, uh, uh, you know the mental health help mental health that they need But god forbid we're going to answer different questions as as policy makers if we send Mental health responders and it turns out we needed to surround a house full of white supremacists with long guns Uh, and I and as a government as a city, I think we need to be prepared to respond to all of those things We can do we're smart enough to do it for the the fourth most educated city in america We can we can craft A robust municipal response where we can do it all keep our people alive That are black and brown and undistressed any people that are undistressed mental Distressed and also respond as we need to respond to all contingencies and that that's what's going to govern my Participation in this debate discussion and ultimately our policy decisions. Thank you madam mayor pro tem Thank you council member Other thoughts or comments from council All right council member freeman just one note um The one thing that uh that does I just I just can't miss this with the traffic Well, the traffic officers I really don't want us to get to the new york level of where we have traffic folks on Standby to tow cars away. So just noting the data can get a little bit too deep We might not need to go in that direction Thankfully we do not have the parking problems of the city of new york All right, thank you so much God, let's hope. Oh my god. You can never get there Thank you so much monica And everyone who's helped make this happen really appreciate all the work that's gone into it and looking forward to Move in some pilots forward later this year Thanks Mr. Mayor, do you want to take back the gavel? Thank you madam mayor pro tem. I will and I appreciate you uh Stephanie and thank you have much appreciated um Colleagues we have two more items on today's agenda Item six and item five and we're going to start with item six uh Item six is the bull city united Presentation And uh, I will Turn it over to staff Good afternoon. Uh, mr. Mayor mayor pro tem johnson Members of the council. I am karmisha wallace The assistant to the city manager And I want to disclose up front data is not my love language I do respect it. I do appreciate it and honor it um, but I would have to say that mine is uh um acts of service And in that vein i'm delighted to have this discussion With you all today If you might recall several months ago This council asked the administration To pursue an expansion of the bull city united Since that time Um, I've been working feverishly along with some other colleagues who I will mention To respond to this council's request Before I go forward. I want to um acknowledge our interim city manager wander page Who has been very instrumental in moving this um this discussion At what feels like warp speed um But I certainly recognize the importance of the gun violence in this community And I think this council has made it abundantly clear Um that you intend to address uh gun violence in the community So I definitely want to acknowledge One to support and leadership in this work. I also want to um shout out or acknowledge County manager windell davis Um while we were away working on this assignment, uh wander and I spent several hours Not at one time communicating with county manager windell davis And the information and guidance that windell has provided has been very instrumental in us crafting this presentation I also want to acknowledge uh general manager Joanne pierce who actually is on the call with us today I mean if you may know that Durham county, I think has their work session or has a work session today during the same time And so I want to thank Joanne for agreeing to join us for this very important conversation Earlier in the meeting uh councilmember middleton made reference to weightlifting And so I have to acknowledge uh jason she's who's at the police department Jason has been my spotter Throughout this process. So if anybody knows anything about lifting heavy weights You must have a spotter if you want to do it safely. So I want to acknowledge uh jason Who's also on the call today along with his leadership? Uh chief cj davis So in honor of everybody's time We'll move forward in the presentation and ask that if you have any questions at any time, please feel free To stop me. I do not mind responding I think that the conversation that you just had um was a great segue into this conversation because it reminded me Um of not only you all's importance of addressing violent crime specifically gun violence in Durham, but also Data driven decision-making um And uh councilmember uh freeman just pointed out not wanting to get too deep And so hopefully if we need to go deep we're prepared to go deep But if we need to stay surface we can do that too, but I want to point out Um, we all know there's quantitative data as well as qualitative data And so we're going to talk a little bit more about that so Moving forward. I just want to remind the council that uh, joe and pierce along with the bull city united team was Invited to an october 22nd city council work session of last year To explain um the cure violence model and bull city united So I won't spend a whole lot of time Talking about that, but I just wanted to refresh your memories Of that uh cure violence model The memo provides more detail on the history And the evolution of the cure violence model But as you all know here in Durham, our cure violence model is named bull city united The model has different names um depending on the community, but ours here in Durham is cure violence The program here in Durham began in november of 2016 And we started in i'm saying we we as a community Started in the census tract 13.01 as well as 14.00 some referred to it as census tract 1400 And I'll talk a little bit more about those census tracts that we've as we move forward I wanted to provide you with an idea of the funding associated with kicking this program off in november 2016 So you will see that some of the funding was provided by Durham county government And some additional funding was also provided through a grant With the u.s. Department of justice office of justice programs Um and specifically the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention I do want to point out that when bull city united um at this point This is the current structure of bull city united. There's a program manager Who uh oversees the work of the supervisor? And then the supervisor That the three violence interrupters and the three outreach workers report to the supervisor during the october Presentation before the council you heard from general manager joanne pierce along with the program manager as well as the supervisor And I've put off on the side of the slides on the left for the three violence interrupters Detecting and interrupting conflicts because that is in a nutshell. That's their primary Work I say in a nutshell just out of respect for time That's certainly not to minimize the work the importance and the impact of the work that they do But in a nutshell that is what their primary focus is And then the outreach workers are um responsible for by providing day to day Connection to programs and services Which when they did the presentation they spoke with you a bit more detail about what that work looks like for violence interrupters As well as for the outreach workers So going back to when bull city united first started they were using 2015 data To get an idea of where the initial service area should be This graphic is one that was provided again by bull city united presentation in october of 2000 2020 is all right, so the initial service area or census tract was 14.00 This happens to be the census tract where mac google terrace is is physically located And so this map or small graphic is just to provide some of the um a snapshot of what the the surrounding streets And some of the highlights from that community, but in 2015 this particular census tract had the highest um incidence of violent crime and i want to point out that specifically it was 19.1 violent crimes per 1000 people in this particular census tract In addition to working in census tract 14.00 bull city united team began work in census tract 13.01 And in 2015 according to the data This was the second highest incidence of violence throughout the city of durham with 17.7 violent crimes per 1000 people So this is just a snapshot of some of the metrics that is monitored by the bull city united team Um and because of the nature of the grant there's a variety of data that they must collect So this is not a comprehensive list of all the data that the bull city united team Is responsible for capturing. This is just a a portion of the information I also want to point out that this is what they refer to as programmatic data So they have programmatic data then there's also data that's provided by the police department So you will see that there's one bullet for person shot for example So what i've actually learned through this process is that there are times where people are shot and they do not call the police So any data that's uh reference in homicides those instances Usually the police is called So there's a distinction between person shot and and homicide from a data perspective obviously there's the obvious difference But I just wanted to point out there's a difference between police data And then the programmatic data that bull city united is responsible uh for capturing But uh there are times when police department provides data To bull city united and and quite frankly to anybody that requests that data So this is where um This particular chart represents um a longer period of time This represents the percent change or difference in gun related violent crime persons distract between October 2013 And september 2019 So you'll note at the top of the slide in the label it refers to benchmark to treatment So benchmark is essentially before bull city united started Okay, treatment is essentially since bull city united And the um so this particular chart um combines data from before bull city united and and the data since bull city united And when we talk about gun related violent crimes, we're talking about homicides robberies aggravated assaults involving guns So I do want to point out um just for everyone's edification who may be watching on tv or youtube or social media that census track 13.01 represents the southern end of the south side community And census track 14.00 um that includes macdougal terrace As well as other parts macdougal terrace is not the only area located in that census track But there are some other communities within that census track trying to provide points of reference for you and going back to that map And then also um so the graphic that shows um The green the green bar that shows a drop of negative 1.78 percent That indicates an overall 1.78 percent reduction um in violent crime In the two bull city united target areas again, which are 13.01 census track and the 14.00 census track But overall between october 2013 and september 2019 Citywide we saw an increase of 16.49 percent and gun related violent crime You'll note that um we have a A decline in census track 11.00 Of two point a drop in 2.1 percent again between october 2013 and september 2019 While there was an increase of 27.5 percent in census track 13.04 And 17.09 census track saw an increase of 17.5 17.56 percent So that is a longer um period of time where the data was reviewed This next slide represents shooting incidents over a shorter period of time And so this is a more current time frame covering october 2019 which i believe is when the grant ended from the u.s. Department of Justice to september 2020 and you'll note that there were 820 total shooting incidents during the state at time period So uh this this um slide here includes a couple of different things So there's the the bar chart which looks quite different from what we saw on the previous slide But i also want to point out the the the maps that are included here and where you see the red circles Those are the areas where there's a a concentration Of gun relay or shooting incidents in these particular census tracks so The administration is actually recommending that we That the council if the council chooses to pursue an expansion the administration is recommending An expansion to two of the census tracks that have been identified And those two census tracks are 13.04 and census tracks 17.09 and so based on our communication with Durham county who's been in communication with um staff at university of chicago Along with communication that we've had with members of the violent crime reduction roundtable there was Data used quantitative metrics that that that we've been shared as well as some qualitative factors That have been provided in as a basis for the recommendation that we're putting forward at this time So based on the recommendation The we are suggesting that uh, we go with the two census tracks, which would require seven new FTEs one would be a supervisor Four would be violence interrupters and two would be outreach workers with the responsibilities that have been previously described Um, so this is the administration's recommendation. However, I do want to point out there are some other options that were considered Um, if the council wants to just expand to one census track We've provided the costs associated with that along with the staffing that would be required There's also an option to pursue Four census tracks, which we've uh, the four census tracks that have been noted that would require hiring 18 FTEs And then the breakdown of that of those FTEs required are noted there so um in terms of next steps we This item is on the council's agenda for the January 19th city council meeting So, uh, assuming that the council would want to or would approve an expansion during that time The next step in the process would be to draft an interlocal agreement acknowledging the expansion and the city council's Intent for funding regarding that expansion obviously that Interlocal would have to come before the city council As well as the board of county commissioner. So, um, those are just some of the next steps But if there are any questions, then please feel free That was a fantastic Presentation as well as thank you so much very clear Really appreciate the administration for laying out the alternatives. Uh, so clearly And making the the case as well as want to thank, uh, miss pierce Uh with the county For being with us and and the other Folks who work in both city united who were previously with us So, um colleagues questions and comments for miss wallace Mayor pro tem and then council member freeline Thank you, mr. Mayor, and thank you miss wallace for all of the work on this. This is um, a really excellent recommendation and Um, have responded really quickly to our request to get some more resources on the ground. So I appreciate that Um, can you give me a little bit more context as to Um Why the administration is recommending the two additional census tracks and not for is it cost or was there any other consideration that went into that recommendation? Well, uh cost was a consideration. Um, but then also acknowledging for the county to hire um 18 at essentially at one time or um pretty rapidly Would be a significant lift for the count for the for Durham county since they would be the employer of the required individuals Not a barrier, but uh, we thought that Essentially, we would probably start a little bit smaller before taking the full leap to all four census tracks Thank you. Um, I saw miss pierce jump on Could you comment on that as well from the county perspective? I would certainly um, good afternoon to the mayor mayor pro tem city council Manager page and thank you karmisha. Um, yes, just wanted to provide you with options and also I believe the council is aware that just staffing and onboarding This type particular type of group really takes careful consideration and time And so if you wanted to expand to you know, up to 20 staff it would take time because you the identification and ensuring that The person selected are good fits and um, really have all the competencies and training It just it just would take longer But certainly I agree with miss wallis that it's not a barrier just providing you with some options And certainly an option to match the staffing Compliment that already exists Great, thank you. Um, yeah, I absolutely support the staff's recommendation I would I would support going up to four additional tracks if we Um, if the county felt like that was manageable and we could find the money Um in our budget. This is something that we all Care deeply about it's an approach that we all think is worth pursuing and This you know under a million dollar investment given the context that our community is in right now With increased violence with co vid And this is just a you know This is a tiny percentage of what we spend on policing Where we are spending 70 million dollars a year I think that it's absolutely worth making a million dollar investment in in this kind of alternative and Would be happy to To support the the larger expansion as well. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you, madam mayor pro tem Other um, oh councilmember freeland Thank you, mr. Mayor. Um, and thank you mayor pro tem johnson. Um, I Agree with everything that you've said and thank you miss wallace and and miss pierce for being here um I wanted to provide a little context for those who might be watching when miss wallace talked about the lightning speed with which our wonderful City manager interim city manager, uh page has brought to this process I think there's been a lot of frustration with folks, especially as shootings had continued to wrap up throughout 2020 about the the slow pace with which we've been able to address this issue And it just takes it just takes time That's the one thing that i've learned since i've been on council Which I didn't fully appreciate when I was an activist on the outside Kind of pounding on the door asking for changes literally the amount of time that it takes The coordination I remember calling a city manager page You know after speaking after shedding tears with members of the Durham committee on the affairs of black people and other folks who work in the community and care deeply whenever a person is shot and reaching out to family members and You know like what are we going to do and um, you know because this is something that's a city county issue And there are so many moving parts I just wanted to sit with some deep deep gratitude for our staff for doing the this comprehensive deep dive. I definitely want to um Get as as much as possible and and expand With the four census tracts as well So I wanted to align myself with that but also just to uh, just to yeah share a word of gratitude but also Um, you know for those who are kind of asking questions about you know, we are the ones and you know There are just so many members of the community who are who are frustrated and and want to act Mayor Schull, I just want to give you a shout out as well I think when you did the um press conference with the police chief a couple weeks ago That was also really instructive and informative and um, You know, it's I think that that empathy part is is kind of missing when you're when you're grieving From the a sheer amount of violence that we've experienced here in Durham in recent years So definitely gratitude definitely that was lightning fast. I can I can see that And uh, I would hope that you know county staff, uh, you know It does seem like a heavy lift 18 people especially during the pandemic Um, but I totally think it's it's worth it and now's the time and it's really needed So, you know to my colleagues, please, you know, I think that that scaling up With the option three is definitely where I stand and I hope we can get more support around that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor Thank you council member other colleagues Well, I'll I'll comment. Um, I'm very supportive of the administration's recommendation. Um, I'll tell you that I am I think it's really important that we do this and it's great Um, I don't think we ought to go all four at this point. Um The reason being simply that we've got a giant giant budget hole This is not a one-time expenditure. What we commit now is something that we're committing To continuously fund and uh we were There are a lot of things that we've already committed to That we're going to be adding to our budget There's so many things that we want to do. I really want to raise our employees pay this year I really don't want to lay anybody off from the city of Durham All these things are I think There are going to be choices that we face over the next few months and I think To me it makes a lot of sense to fund these two that the city's recommended that the administration is recommending Let the county hire them Get them up and running and then see through our budget process If we have you know, what is this is this our top priority for that next 600 thousand dollars You know, which is the additional money it's going to cost So those are my thoughts that I want to offer Okay, other colleagues councilmember middleton And then councilman cabillera Thank you, mr. Marin. Thank you colleagues, uh for your your great Insights, uh madame pro tem and and council three line. Thank you. I'm as Wallace For for uh in the team For for the great work on this You know when when when I when I asked the council to consider this last year wrapped in some other things there This is what the beauty of deliberative government We're not going to agree on everything But i'm incredibly grateful that the things that we can coalesce around agree on that we can move on This this is a critically important day I think uh for our government for our city of this conversation because alas, I think today We can say that we are moving with deliberate speed towards crafting Uh a substantive response to gun violence outside of the traditional police response something happens call the police They go investigate hopefully arrest someone but this year 2020 I think has called for us to do some things Beyond that that paradigmatic address beyond what we normally do and I think the expansion of bull city united is Is an important first step. I want to say, you know, it's a first step I'm excited that we're going to do this Um, but we'll have very little time for you know victory laps or high fives because there'll be some other things that we need to do when I um saw this this model at work when I Department of justice gave money for us to send the delegation of boston that was a part of in 20 But thing was 2015 before I was even thinking about running for elected office And and so and I had an opportunity to see this model at work in other cities Namely boston And it was part of a comprehensive multi-faceted approach that radically impacted violence not only gun violence in boston, but the relationship between the community and the police as well Um, so violence interrupt was part was part of a multifaceted thing that included wraparound services It included a shot spotter boston used shot spotter along with violence interrupt along with wraparound services along with creative Based initiatives like we are the one fund All working together in concert to kind of flood the zone Not overly intrusive surveillance through video cameras, but but shot spot that because they didn't want cameras all over the place In conjunction with violence interruptors to make a real impact. So this is a critically important day And I'm very very very very very pleased That we we've called us around this. I do want to add my weight to to option For the four additional centers tracks as well and I want to do it I want to do that and I fully listen everything the mayor said amen to it You got a budget gap, but but I think we're also facing an optical challenge as well Um, there's nothing more important that a government can do than to protect the lives of its people I mean if you run down a list of things no matter what you talk about if it's voting rights You know economic empowerment you have to be alive in order to participate in any of those things You know if we can't get our young boys and girls out of kindergarten out of elementary school To graduate from high school all that to to experience all that great stuff is waiting for them Then all of that none of that matters if you're not alive There's nothing more important That then we can do as a government than protect the lives of our citizens I think in under a one million dollar investment close to one million dollar investment Within the universe of other things we do because I think if we don't do option four Then we're going to have to have a conversation and justify You know anything else we propose next year anything else we propose next year will be held intention to What have we done to address the most pressing Quality of life issues facing our city right now as gun violence whether it's two million dollars for participatory budgeting Whether it's a cool million dollars that we've laid aside for whatever the wellness and public safety task force comes up Whatever we spend money on it's going to be held attention against this And I I think we would be hard pressed to explain to the city why given the On sort of gun violence that we're facing that we did not even if we phase it in over over the years That we did not Go as bold as we can Based upon the recommendations from the staff to address the number one issue facing our city right now And it's not we didn't even cross the million dollar threshold We just came close to it to impact gun violence given the record number of shootings we've had In our year, I think from just from moral point of view, whatever else we spend money on and this is next budget It's fully aware that we have a budget Gap and that it's going to be a struggle We're going to have to justify those expenditures relative to what we do about this issue of gun violence So so while I deeply resonate and understand About the budget challenges we're facing if we're going to apply that metric to this issue Then we better be prepared to apply to everything else we do and I mean everything else we do Because it can't be business as usual If we have a budget shortfall and if it is going to be business as usual What more business what business is more pressing than protecting the lives of our children and our community And if we don't want to do it with more police, we don't want to do it with shot spotter Alas, here's something that we can actually say yes to and I think we should say yes In as emphatic terms as possible. And if it's four census tracts at under a million dollars Um, I would be hard pressed to explain to the city why we went any lower than that Even if we've got to phase it in and I know our folk know how to do this if we don't write to check all at one time But I think making a commitment Uh and telegraphing to the city how seriously we take this issue and that on today on today Their government committed to go big and hard And we'll deal with the challenges of phasing it in I think it's an important critically important message to send to our city on this day particularly Uh, those of our residents who live in the most affected areas where we're getting ready to put cameras in If we can put cameras there we can darn sure put violence interrupters around the city as well for under a million That's a good price Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you councilmember Councilmember caballero Just wanted to say thank you. Um, this is excellent. Um councilmember freelon That is one of the things that I hear a lot about is the From residents is the distrustration and I always like to remember This is public money and so the work has to be done in the public And it has to be transparent as much as as best as possible and that takes time and so that is um And I get frustrated with that as well and I just continually remind myself that that is why we have all these processes in place I I'm happy to either do the staff recommendation or the higher amount. Um, I I'm kind of stuck quite frankly. Um I'm anxious about our budget. Um, I'm anxious about What we're going to hear during our budget retreats, but I also recognize Um Where we are the city. So I will go with the majority on that. Um, I just do want to share that I Have a lot of anxiety about what we're going to be seeing in the next few months and uh, what that means personally Thank you councilmember Councilmember freeman Thank you, mr. Mayor. I um, just had a few questions And um, I appreciate my colleagues and their passion for this this conversation and the work Knowing that it's important that we we do find solutions is um as our focus and acknowledging that gun violence has been an issue for the In this last year that I've also raised as um, you know, trying to find ways to engage So that we're not relying so heavily on just the police department is important I do want to say that I support either the the staff recommendation or the additional You know two census tracts, but I did want to uh, just want to make sure I touch base because I do I have a concern about the way that the organization is set up. And so just noting this this would be exist This would be adding staff to the county's existing staff. And so I just wanted to talk to Um, the county representative miss pierce and just hear a little bit about how you would implement this this work And acknowledging how race and racism has operated over the course of time and acknowledging how we we've arrived at this point today Uh, finally, but um, I just want to make sure that I hear some some kind of check-ins and some kind of Goal points on how the work will happen Once the staff members are added to the county staff because I do want to acknowledge I do want to note that it has to be full-time staff with salary and benefits and all of the kind of equity aspects in in up front so And uh based on some of the comments that uh, some of the representatives shared at the at the previous presentation I want to make sure that we're whole We're taking a holistic view of what's happening on the ground level in the neighborhoods that That the gun violence is occurring because you are going to have to figure out who in those neighborhoods Are actually your interveners. They cannot be just people from out of out of town coming in from california or You know, new york It needs to be specifically people from derm preferably A high school graduates in derm or if they haven't graduated. I mean It just needs I just want to hear a little bit more about how this work would happen Thank you councilwoman freeman You've asked some important questions. I'll try to answer the maybe the last one first about the process of onboarding staff And you and you're correct that The criteria is that the the person or staff Really need to come from the community That they're going to serve That they have to have some level of social capital within Where where they will be serving and also yes, um, you want staff with a full-time employment Benefits all of that. However, we do have a process in the beginning where The staff person may be to ensure that they're a good fit may have a short period of Temporary assignment and then definitely open in the application so that someone could be on board Full-time with benefits because if we're going to talk about equity We want to ensure that people have an opportunity to thrive and and work full-time and receive benefits The other piece, um, I think it's important to note and again Thank you miss wallis for your presentation and just to add this might be a both and type of response but It's important to note that implementing programs and services alone Um are wholly unacceptable to address or respond to a legacy of structural and institutional inequities and racism and that's really important Um because programs and services alone will never ever solve the issues that we have because we're dealing with You know years centuries of inequities And so I think that's really important Just to really manage all of our expectations around any program or service I'm also glad to share that the city and county are members of the government alliance on race and equity that And that's a national network of government at all levels and we work As a government because we're really clear that it's been government For centuries, unfortunately, we weren't there but have significantly contributed to inequities And so it is our um and how through our policies and our practices and procedures And so, you know, so then it's our responsibility to really participate And actually take the lead to address Structural and systemic racism. So, you know, and that ties in certainly to this program Because we can't just again rely on a program To address or solve the issues that we've had for centuries. And so I just want to say that And that doesn't mean that we don't need this program or interested in the program But we have to do our own work in government to address the systemic issues that produce these outcomes and often when we look at a An iceberg and all that we can see is 10% of that iceberg But if we're not going to delve more deeply into the 90% of why People are situated differently in society or how things are showing up Then we'll forever just work in that 10% area and never delve more deeply. So and then again, it's our responsibility and government to do that We definitely have opportunities During this particular time in history to make some real change And not just superficially. So, you know, and how do we do that by share share a common understanding and language around racism what it is what it's not How it shows up and how it even spends on its own access and doesn't require Access and doesn't require any of our permission or intent And so we have to really be comfortable and courageous enough to really have these conversations So that we really can delve more deeply into The issues that we do have so anyway, I just want to say that That there's some important work that we need to do and we can do it working together collaboratively with our our wise and expert community residents and that as long as Racism is embedded in our systems and institutions. It is our moral obligation to do this work and James ball when said not everything That is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. So I don't know if I've addressed anything that Any additional pieces that you had councilwoman. Thank you. I appreciate that miss pierce. I I do Do think you addressed a little bit of it and I would love to hear from our interim city manager page If there are any ideas around how to incorporate some of this Conversation into the context of what happens with the additional Staff so that so that there's some way to have reporting out because my my continuous concern is always going to be How does the community stay at the forefront of this? Um Direction or support and making sure that there is a lot more transparency And what happens with bull city united or any other? intervening program that we put in place and so if there's a way to kind of structure Conversation or contract or interlocal agreements that that kind of tie Outcomes and goals that are reported out to maybe the health and community Committee health and safety task force or the race equity commission whatever it it looks like I trust that you can figure that out But I would love to know that you're thinking about those things up beforehand Thank thank you council woman freeman We certainly have begun those conversations We have numerous interlocal agreements with derm derm county, you know, none of them are identical because they all Are tailored to the work that's actually being done. So, you know reporting Whether they're quarterly reporting whether it be you know Or reporting out to the city council From time to time We can build all of those kinds of accountabilities and and reporting structures to You know to to relate it to this work, you know, we have not heard a lot of reporting From bull city united in the past. We weren't an investor And I would use that terminology. We were not funding the program but With this expansion We will be A a partner in the program. So our interlocal agreement will cover the accountability and reporting components that you refer to Thank you. I appreciate that and um, just noting like I said, I Similar to council member capiero and fine um, have concerns on on where we fall and our budget shortfalls, but I'm fully Fully ready to support at whatever level our majority decides So I would just add if I may please do the manager We are um, we hear Every comment that is being made and and we're thinking about how we structured the interlocal agreement with the actual timing of The ability to to to bring The employees on board and get them functioning And we would bring that back with with the intent of ultimately According to what we hear Expanding to all of the census tracts all four of them But the interlocal that we work out in the background would would reflect The actual operational components and timing of um, you know, how quickly we would be able to move Move to full expansion one other thing that wasn't mentioned directly It has been mentioned, but regardless of Some of the other outcomes that come from a initiative like this What we end up doing is giving full Time livable wages plus to Members of our community who live right in our community who helping us To advance some of the highest priorities They end up with with jobs and benefits Like some of the rest of us have you know in in the community. So that just by itself I have heard about some of the background and history of some of the employees that work in this program And the the difference that have in this type of employment um, has made to their to their life in the lives of their families and um It so that one mentioned specifically here We talked about the number of of people whether it be seven people or 18 people all of those will be working Residents of our community who live in the communities that they're serving in Um, will we do this expansion? So thank you Thank you very much madam manager, uh councilmember middleton Thank you, mr. Mayor, and miss pierce. Thank you so much I should have acknowledged you at the top of the my remarks forgive me I want to thank you for your your work and your partnership with miss wallis and for your spot on um observations about the need to still address the systemic Root of all of this and and it's so critical because I just want to say colleagues I don't know about y'all, but I kind of sensed some stars aligning here Uh as we move forward as a city think about it if if we do the work and expand this initiative If we lean in and get that money for guaranteed income something we've been talking about If we look seriously at initiatives like like brother pierce's proposed with we are the one fun and others Um, if we really put some muscle in our shared economic prosperity plan that we've been talking about and go hard on that We are essentially creating an ecosystem for my brothers and sisters who want to defund the police We're creating an ecosystem whereby we will start to organically Defund the police almost systemically through atrophy Through diminished through diminished utility Which is something I've said if we do the work and really go hard on these initiatives Go beyond just talking about them and put some real money behind and put some real creativity We'll start to automatically organically find that we can cut our budget in other places Because we've done the work to build up our systems in other places not wish for it Not hope for it But actually have done the work and spent the money And empowered the right people and listened to the voices in the community We can get there organically And naturally and still be able to do what a city needs to do To effectively and safely govern itself. Um, I don't know if it's you but i'm excited. I think this is a good day With all that's happening and and we've got some opportunities before us as leaders of this city to do some really really really good I think paradigms shifting things If we if we lean in and I know we're all up to it So I just wanted to say that and thank you miss pierce for the admonition about focusing on the route And I think we've got some opportunities to do just that And sort of move away from some of the traditional Knee jerk responses that all of us all of us want to and know that we need to Move away from so I just wanted to say that. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you council member Other colleagues council member race Thank you, mr. Mayor I often have a funny thing I say about going last a serious thing That is good about going last but that I get to hear Everyone's perspective before I embarrass myself by sharing mine. So I just want to thank all my colleagues for being brave and going first So that I can go last I am In surveying the remarks we've heard so far from our council colleagues. Mr. Mayor. It sounds like We have one member who supports the staff recommendation only two members who support either the staff recommendation or Expanding the recommendation to four census tracts and three members who support Funding the program at the four census tract level from the outset Um And I'm sorry three for that do that and I want to count myself in that category as wanting to support Uh, the recommend the the additional recommendation to move To fund this program at the four At the four census tract level It would be really hard For me to face the folks in those third and fourth centers correct census tract communities And tell them it wasn't worth the additional money even in a tough budget year to at least try to do what we can to To make sure that we have the resources in place to support folks who are trying to make a change to To to get folks involved in these situations Who are in the community from the community of the community to provide them with a good Strong basis of financial support and then to put the tools in their hands To go out and talk to folks who are engaging in some of this violence to talk about how they might make different choices You know a year and a half ago Some of you may recall I was actually running for reelection and it's hard to believe And during that reelection campaign I came out and supported city support for both city united I think today Is a great opportunity for us to come together behind A proposal to expand that program in a really robust way Um, mr. Mayor you're 100 correct councilmember calvier is 100 correct. We have a really difficult budget season ahead of us um The the budget whole as we enter that process is the largest that I can remember as a member of the city council And there's still a lot of uncertainty about what faces us in terms of revenues in terms of the additional needs That are going to exist in our community about what additional support might come from raleigh or washington As an output of those quite frankly broken political processes And so in many ways As it's often the case durham is going to have to come up with our own solutions to so many problems that we have But mr. Mayor, I guess this is my way of saying that as we move into that process It's difficult for me to imagine a higher priority for me Then doing what we can Reasonably within a modest budget requirements to not only To not only Make these resources more broadly available in our community. And so That's where I am on that and I look forward to seeing this come back before us At our next full council meeting to get approved. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you councilmember other comments Councilmember freeman I I really appreciate uh Councilmember riece, you know spelling it all out and Making sure we're all on one accord to see exactly what is in front of us I I just want to note that In no way shape or form would I not want to support the the force census tracts like this think it might be a A measured response to make sure that we implement so that I know that there's the timing and the aspect of When and how you get the right folks in place And so I am committed to making sure that all force census tracts are covered and in addition to not just This program but actually throughout So making sure that the roads all of all of the things that we cover as a city the trash the yards Making sure we have parks all of those things and so I'm mindful that If if the majority of the council is is committed to the to Spending just a little under a million dollars on this that they'll be just as committed to making sure we find funding to support us where we need Need um elsewhere and so I'm I'm fully on board with moving forward with the force census tracts Um, that is not uh apprehension on my part at all Thank you Thank you councilmember any further comments Okay, I'll just make one as you all know I'm not a big uh, I'm not big for trying to argue people into my point of view, but I'm going to just say this again I We can do two of these now And by the time these people are hired up and ready for these two we can see what our budget looks like And decide if we have room for the other two I continue to believe that that's the most responsible course of action uh, and uh, I hope that I can Convince some of you all that before uh, uh, a majority of you all Before uh, monday night. I don't anticipate that I can but I just want to be very clear that that is my position and uh, um, I really feel I don't think everybody realizes the budget situation we're about to be in we are going to be in a really hard situation With things that we really want to do and so I've just put that out there Councilmember millton Thank you, mr. Mayor, and I appreciate your your caution and your reminding of the budget situation. Um, I think we're aware Uh, may I ask her that if will you If if we do that will you bring that same? type of scrutiny to any other Initiative that council brings forth for the next budget cycle um Are you are you are you prepared to say that that everything will get that type of scrubbing? Uh, whatever we come up with as council members outside of our but a traditional city services, whatever ideas we come up with Yeah, my my concern is not so much that we don't all give the the I think we all give Of that level of attention when we get to our budget cycle My concern about this is that it's outside the budget cycle that we're making commitment outside the budget cycle i'm happy to do that for two of these uh For two of these census tracts and I might be happy to do it for four once I see what else is out there for us uh, and so Yeah, I mean I I think that we all give I give I think we all give that level of scrutiny the difference here For me is this is outside the budget cycle. We're making commitment Without knowing what our other choices are Right And if I might and and I'll certainly give to my colleagues I and uh, you're right. We all do bring us into this group I should have been more clear in my in my question I was talking more of kind of that hard right like like we say 300 some odd thousand dollars That's going to be kind of a hard stealing for me as we consider Other things as we move forward in the other initiative that we might want to do as a council In or out of the budget season. I think um You know the the the the emergent nature of what we faced in gun violence in the city Um, it's precisely why you know, we we were having a conversation again with outside of the budget cycle and I will also say that, you know, um I mean if we've got a firm commitment Uh to look at uh more money in the regular budget cycle and I understand what we're facing But you know, we I don't think we were in the budget cycle when we committed a billion dollars to the the wellness task force Um as well that that wasn't very as I if I recall during the budget cycle, right? Yeah, that's that's a million Um, you know, this is and with all due respect, you know, I think Given if you look at both initiatives, most of the united versus A task force that today has not had a meeting yet And given where we are, you know in terms of as a city what the most virgin need we need to address in the right now Here and now I think, you know, the both of the united initiatives again, respectively is a far more Uh far more important thing. We need to be doing right now. I and a number of my colleagues that spoke was the urgency of the hour Um, uh council freeline has spoken to the frustration in the city in terms of us You know not seeming to be moving our feet quickly enough Um, I guess I'll ask somebody for buster for the manager office if if we cook because I think it's important That the city sees us commit to what we can do if we commit on our next meeting to the to uh the four cycles And and those folks aren't hired up immediately at 13 and does the commitment mean that the money goes out the door immediately? um, and if we look at the realities of staffing up the realities of of Treating folk. We know that these folk aren't going to all be brought in overnight Uh, and if if I guess I want to hear a little bit from the staff of what phasing in would look like And and does does us voting on four tracks mean that we've got to we've got to cut it on in a thousand hour check that night Or realistically as we do with many other initiatives in the city It will be there will be a process in the timeline over which those funds are phased in Um Councilmember millerton and Councilmember, I also see uh, miss joxson coming on when we have an uh interlocal agreement with durham county And and certainly this agreement will be you know, some of it will be language that we're familiar with but it will certainly contain um language as I mentioned when I came on camera before That is unique to the operational components of of expanding A program like this when we if what we are paying for here is salary and benefits That is what you see as a proposal. It is it is employed. It is employee salary um statutory benefits health insurance the things that go along with a person having a full-time job Working working for durham county government doing these things that we We know that they will be doing In in the context of violence interruption And outreach to residents that live in those census tracks We pay based upon actual expenses In these types of interlocal agreements when we do our reconciliation at the end of every year So if positions are filled just like if we have positions in the city and they only are filled half the year Then we you know, we pay for actual expenses In these interlocals, that's a little bit different than we may have an agreement to give a nonprofit You know a grant and we grant that nonprofit. We pay it pay them a quarter of it every quarter We may have some cash transactions that we do between us and durham county But at the end of the year we reconcile the interlocal agreements and we pay actual expenses And i've actually confirmed that with our financial financial team. Ms. Johnson is here and i've also spoken to Mr. Boyd Related to the finance department's reconciliation of interlocal agreements Thank you, madam manager miss johnson. Good to see you. Do you have anything you'd like to add Uh bertha johnson director of budget and management services City manager page is correct. We have those agreements. We may make monthly Payments to the county based on actual expenditures and we reconcile at the end of the year with them And so that is correct. We do not pay up front and let it unless it is an grant agreement with an organization Thank you very much All right council members any other comments? Okay, we'll we'll move this on to uh monday night's agenda miss wallis as a Let's put it on gba Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor Thank you. Thank you councilmember freeman. Did you have one last question? Just making sure that you were saying putting it on gba with the four Senses tracks just just making sure that was well, it'll be on gba I believe the way we've got it and there'll be a motion The whoever would like to make the motion to make it four census tracks can feel free to do so. Okay. Thank you Okay, um We have one more item and that item is item five This is the non-discrimination ordinance and i'm going to turn it over to our city attorney or maybe uh Is is are you starting us off? Madam attorney I'm happy to start us off. Mr. Mayor, but as you know, well, um, and I think I've already informed most of the members of council Uh senior assistant city attorney christa kugaro has done the yo man yo woman's work on This item a lot of research and writing So for the technicalities, I will definitely turn it over to her um This item is coming to council at the request of you and others on council You all may recall That there was a provision in the legislation that ultimately Resolved if we're going to say it was resolved the hb2 controversy some years ago that expressly prohibited local governments from adopting anti-discrimination local ordinances and other regulations that would affect private employment relationships that provision sunsetted on december 1st of 2020 and In light of that sunset there has been a rather robust conversation among local governments to spearhead efforts to provide broader protections at the local level for all of our residents In putting together a non-discrimination ordinance for the city of durham Miss kugaro has has taken a look back durham has had in place previously non-discrimination provisions, uh, we currently have a fair housing ordinance that provides some protections and the idea was to expand both the scope of our anti-discrimination efforts to employment matters as well as public accommodations issues and also the The the persons who would fall within the purview of protection provide some additional protections that are Some of which are not provided at the state and local state and federal level Um others of which are but we just wanted to reiterate our commitment to them So with that said, um, I am going to turn it over to miss kugaro to address some specifics Thanks kim Good afternoon council. I'm happy to be here Just as a introduction before we get into the business of the ordinance I'd want to say listening to the conversation today I feel like this ordinance complements a lot of the conversations that have been had And I feel like this is important, especially given what happened yesterday. Um initiatives like this one And all of the ones that you've been speaking about today make me really proud to be a resident of durham And are proud proud to be an employee of our organization. So I just wanted to to mention that So, um, I'm going to provide a very kind of high-level overview of the the substance of the ordinance Um, you had documents that were available Through on base and I legislate and I do hope that you've had a chance to look over those I know that this week has probably Not been what some of us Or any of us expected. Um, and so I'm happy to answer questions about the ordinance Um as we move through So as kim said, we do have an ordinance in place that does address some Discrimination in the context of fair housing and what we're looking at now is expanding The context in which we address non-discrimination and the folks who are protected by our ordinance So to achieve those goals, um we Are adding some protected classes um And framing the enforcement of the ordinance similar to how enforcement operates now um, and just to back up for a minute The neighborhood improvement services, uh department has a human relations division. There's also a human relations commission um, the city of durham, which has a subcommittee a quasi digital subcommittee And that's where the enforcement lies currently the fair housing ordinance um And so the enforcement here and in the proposed draft before you operates similarly To get back to the protected classes that have been added to the ordinance As drafted, we've we've included protections for military status sexual orientation gender identity and protected hairstyle In in sort of alignment with the crown act the council member freeman has has raised Pregnancy is not explicitly included in these additions because it's actually already covered Under the definition for familial status I know that that's something that some ordinances do call out specifically, but it's actually already covered under our existing ordinance and then operatively, um, the ordinance creates a new article a new article three, um and adds prohibitions in discrimination against discrimination in employment and public accommodations And includes some exceptions, um, that are often included in these types of ordinances And as mentioned earlier places enforcement with the human relations division And the subcommittee of the human relations commission The ordinance also modernizes language by replacing the term handicap with disability And removes binary gendered language just again to sort of Align more with the city's values um at this moment The effective date of the ordinance is proposed for july 1st 2020 um And that's really I think that The overview of the ordinance and everything that's included in the materials before you today And what would be before you on the 19th? I will pause there. I'm happy to answer your questions Provide some more detail on any of the provisions that you have looked at Thank you so much miss kukuro great job. Um I just want to thank you for this work. Um Our you know, I read the ordinance. It's I don't know 28 pages or something and uh Fortunately a lot of it was there before you got there, which is good And you just had to rewrite some things and then of course you had a lot to add um And I really want to thank you and uh our city attorney For For working with uh other attorneys across the state and with equality and c to give us a really good ordinance and And I know as soon as it gets passed Uh, we're going to be hearing from other cities Wanting to know can they steal it? Which of course we're happy for them to do But I think that this is such an important time because we this state legislation sunset on december uh The beginning of december And here we are a month later with our ordinance in place or ready to be in place And I just want to thank you all for your Your quick response and also for working with others across the state to make this a reality So I really appreciate I know how much work went into it Okay, colleagues questions and comments for miss kukaro councilmember freeman Thank you. Um, mr. Mayor and thank you miss kukaro and uh, mr. Redberg I am very grateful for your work. I know that you've been working hard over this holiday break And pulling all of this together. Um, I think Councilmember freeland mentioned earlier how slow, you know I guess bureaucracy can work and and trying to get things to move forward And that has been the exact opposite And that in the council meeting where I mentioned it and and here we are today You know, it's already kind of like laid out and I know that there's been a lot of work to figure out What parts and pieces could be in place and how much we could really have an impact? um on as a local, um Municipality and I just want to make sure that it's not left at our local level And noting that we've just had our legislative agenda put together It would be great to make sure that this is also, um included And noting also that in our next I think work session Uh, I will be bringing forward the the crown act support around this resolution and kind of explaining, um, exactly what it means to to to To acknowledge what you know, natural hair is and how it and how the discrimination that's been experienced by people with, um With hair that's not considered um The norm and so I'm really grateful um to watch the process unfold And I'm really grateful for your support and trying to put that this work together Noting this is I think this is probably the first time I really had to like dig into like actual law and read as much as I have and I um I am I am uh Flabbergasted and grateful and I just wanted to say thank you and I just want to make sure that um that this is also included for Future and making sure that at the state level that the ordinances that we're using are as well Are um incorporated into our state laws and federal laws. So thank you Thank you councilmember councilmember middleton Thank you, mr. Mayor. Can you folks hear me? I got a uh indication of the sound For a little while you had kind of uh Uh, we couldn't we could hear you fuzzily for a little while, but you're fine Okay, I had to put some more money in the meter. So thanks Uh councilor cuckoo. Good to see you. Happy new year and kim. Thank you. Thank you so much for this work I just want to say um, how excited I am and anxious I am to vote for this ordinance You know to declare who you Declare who you are just requires eloquence but to codify it requires courage And I think this work basically just brings us closer to who we say we are in Durham And you know, I love living in a city where we do as much as we can for as many people as we can for as long As we can and I think this uh, this ordinance helps us get closer to that reality So just want to thank you for the work and and pledge my uh full support and look forward to uh voting on it. Thank you Thank you councilmember um councilmember reese Thank you, mr. Mayor. Um, I want to thank our city attorney kim rayberg and especially A christa kugler. Christa. I like the mayor dug into this ordinance um, and some of the recent More recent revisions, and I just wanted to say I'm really grateful for all your hard work um, and for the care that you took um in Broadening the city's current protections in a really thoughtful way That incorporated many of the ideas that we've wanted to incorporate um Even prior to house bill 2 in 2016, but certainly since then also wanted to just say To the people of Durham. This has been a long road It was during my very first year as a member of the Durham city council that the general assembly and riley passed house bill 2 um, I was proud to draft the city's response to that That was adopted by my colleagues unanimously. Um, I also um remember that in the wake of house bill 2 the general assembly passed house bill 142 Which purported to repeal certain portions of of house bill 2 But then extended the The blanket prohibition on local governments from expanding our existing non-discrimination ordinances um to uh last month and so We've had a long time uh here in Durham and around the state to think about what that would look like To think about how we might best address The problems that we try to get at when we pass a non-discrimination ordinance And christa, I just want to again say how grateful I am for all the work that you put into this Uh during a during a challenging time to get us to where we are. I don't have any any anything I want would want to add or change to the ordinance Um, so i'm really grateful. I did have a question. Maybe it's for I don't know if this is for the city attorney or from the city manager um the How are we how is the administration envisioning? Any potential budget impact from the enhanced Enforcement requirements of an expanded non-discrimination ordinance like the one that we're considering I'm I'm sure manager page. I can address the budgetary impacts, but councilman vorice you raise a very Great question. Um, a very key consideration in our conversations With the administration which because of the timing Really only began in earnest this week um They have pointed out to us that this will require quite a bit of investment um from the city and quite a Quite a bit of staff resource In order to stand this up. I mean just the piece that we have for fair housing Is a very knowledge intensive in depth Not in extensive propositions. So to add other regulatory pieces to that Um, where the city would be receiving complaints in the realm of employment and public accommodations Obviously, that's going to be exponentially more Staff resource and just city infrastructure that we do not currently have um Ms. Cuckrow mentioned that The city attorney's office and just Putting forward a draft had proposed um an effective date of july 1 2021 You know having spoken some with the administration. I'm I'm not sure that that can be achieved like that's excessively ambitious Um, and really they need an opportunity to assess What the staff and infrastructure needs are going to be for enforcement and with that said alternative to manager page Thank you. Ms. Rayberg. We we uh have had conversations with staff The the current members in nis. They've been very uh preliminary They have actually, you know worked in the fair housing space for a number of years and a very, you know familiar with You know that that Part of the code and and how we manage it here in the city We we will be able to Evaluate the resources Unnecessary based upon the um the amendments that are being That are that are part of this new Adjustment to the code section and be able to provide What those costs would be Different options to to be able to do All of the different components of it whether it be internal resources whether it be out, you know consulta services You know so contracting components of it out But we will certainly be able to do that With with some time To to to be able to provide that But we do not have any estimates. We don't have any estimates today Oh Understood one. I just want to say um, thank you for that and and kim as well Um, I certainly didn't expect any kind of estimate and I apologize my question came off that way I just wanted to make sure That that the administration understands that I fully support not only this ordinance and its adoption at our next business meeting but also The fact understand that there is going to be a budgetary impact to this ordinance If we just wanted to pass a bunch of words and feel good about ourselves We could do that But I think every member of this council understands that when we pass a new Non-discrimination ordinance in order for it to have any meaning it has to be enforced and enforced in a robust an impartial way And that's going to require an additional budget investment And I just wanted to let our administration know that I fully intend to support that investment And when it comes forward and I wish you the best of luck is you try to figure out what that might look like I know there are some good models from around the country About how that what that can look like And and I just wanted to make sure that I expressed my support not only for the The words of the ordinance the spirit that animates it and the validation of our community values that it stands for but also That I support and ready to support The budgetary investment that we're going to need to make as a community To give life to those words and that in that invoice So that it's not just a reflection of our values, but an embodiment of them and how we protect our neighbors And so I just wanted to say that and to thank you again Madam city attorney and christa for coming forward with an outstanding ordinance to look forward to supporting. Thank you, mr. Thank you councilmember madam mayor pro tem Thank you, mr. Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes, we can although I realized that when councilmember middleton said Could you hear me and was talking? I probably just should have said yes and Let him go on unheard. No, just kidding Thank you, I'm sorry to be off camera with my house just lost power It seems that a car crashed into the electrical pole Just down the street from us. So hope everyone's okay. There's an ambulance and fire trucks and such responding now. So Working from home. It's an adventure. Um But thank you. I just wanted to thank um our city attorney and miss cookro for all the work on this ordinance I also Read through it pretty carefully though. I do not have a legal background Um, I think I got as much as much out of it as I possibly could And really appreciate all the work um that went into putting it together and I think it's really excellent and and will definitely serve as a model for um for other cities in our state For a number of years We've been you know looking forward to a time when this legislation would expire We would have the opportunity to move forward with legislation like this to protect all members of our community from discrimination and so i'm just really glad that we I finally reached the moment where where this is possible and i'm glad that we are in collaboration with Uh local community organizations that have been fighting for the rights of lgbtq folks for decades and that we're in collaboration with Folks in other cities who also are excited about taking action to Protect vulnerable um members of our community. So i'm looking forward to supporting this legislation at our meeting on monday and Um, and I really appreciate the attention that has been paid to the enforcement mechanisms I for one am hopeful that we never have to enforce in action. Um that everyone in our community um will simply follow these guidelines and not discriminate against people, but i'm glad that if we Do face any um any issues that we have a robust enforcement process And that our human relations commission who have been So um stellar at at dealing with our fair housing issues are going to be able to to take on This additional piece of work. So thank you again. This is um great It's a it's an incredible step forward and I appreciate all the work that's gone into it and Um, I'm glad to be a part of this community where these are, you know, the kind of issues that that we're willing to take on And that really mattered to us. Thank you Thank you madame mayor pro tem and I should I think I should uh, I think most of you all know this anyway, but just to They're they're over the last few months Uh the metro mayors the the so-called big city mayors in the metro mayors not that our cities are that big except for charlotte But we've been discussing this there's been discussion at the national at the north kalana league municipalities Local progress has been part of the discussion and it's a lot of it's been led by quality nc So there's really been a lot of good Discussion they've engaged in the north kalana chamber of commerce as well um mayor pro tem johnson and I Talked A couple of weeks ago or maybe it was before christmas to The folks at duke so that they could be they were they were very strong opponents of hb2 When it was passed they're very interested in this and we had a good discussion with them So we've really tried to keep all of our community partners Our local chamber abreast of it, uh, so that there are no surprises and um that people are moving in concert and so we'll now see other cities In hopefully some counties moving along with us We we were hopeful and We had we discussed this That we might be able to get some state legislation, but that was prior to november the November the third Okay, I do have a couple of questions miss kukaro in light of what the city attorney said about the uh The start date and and the need for the staff to Be able to you know for the city to be able to make the right decisions and staff up What is this that we now have the july 1st? 2021 date do we not on the uh for the start date is that Still the date that we want or do we want to wait a little bit longer? Uh, or do we how do you want to do that? mayor if you're asking me, um I would defer I think to to the administration perhaps once we have more information um most certainly we can discuss with them in between now and um tuesday And there may be some other options that we can explore in terms of enforcement and and modifying the enforcement language so that that enforcement follows Standard enforcement of city ordinances rather than the sort of current processes that are laid out So I think we have a few options. Um And and I don't know that I'm best situated to make that decision Okay, thank you Uh, I see that miss rayberg is with us I am mr. Marin and And miss kukaro gave you exactly the answer that I would have given which is I I'd like to um Get the input of the administration on an effective date Certainly, um, but as she just pointed out we can put some standard ordinance effected an enforcement language in there as a placeholder until we can get to a point Where the hrc can be employed more robustly in the implementation Great, thank you The the it seems like the basic choice that you made here miss kukaro Uh, when you wrote the ordinance was to have a kind of general and broad Uh anti-discrimination ordinance as applies as it applies to employment and public accommodations as opposed to the very Specific language that we have in the housing ordinance. I understand While we have the very specific language in the housing ordinance we we're We're we're acting kind of in lieu of a federal agency there or in lieu of a Yeah, I guess we are the kind of federally designated agency. I'm not sure I've got my language right For housing Do you can you just say a few words about why you thought the more general anti-discrimination approach was better? I know I know that in the memo you said that if we didn't go this way We would we would have more specificity, but there would be also kind of We might miss things. I guess, you know, it would be narrow where in a set So I wondered if you could just take a minute to tell us how you weigh that consideration and And just give us a little insight into your thinking on that Sure I think Given some of the constraints In terms of the time That certainly was was a factor, but I think I think More broadly The ordinance as drafted Without getting into specifics of what discrimination is isn't Gives the city More leeway To to make determinations. It gives I think our residents A little bit more room to come to us with with their grievances And then for us to explore those and and pursue enforcement if that if that needs to happen The more specific we get and this is what you mentioned and what the memo mentions The more we're sort of excluding possibilities For enforcement. So I think it gives us the most flexibility to address The most harm Thank you very much. Appreciate that All right, colleagues any further comments or questions councilmember caviato Yeah, just a ton of gratitude for so many folks within our The city legal offices and just across the state. I know so many people have been dedicating a lot of time and effort to this I looked extremely I've looked really really forward to having us at our next council meeting um, want to just say that I also Understand that the enforcement components will add um, some monetary potential monetary, um I guess complexity or issues and I get it. I just we just need to do this and I'm glad that We're at this point. It's been a really hard last few years in the city north Carolina. And uh, this is a new day Thank you councilmember I'll also remind ours us that this does not deal with bathrooms The state still retains control of legislating about bathrooms One day they will give that up But that's where we are All right, uh councilmember freeman Thank you. I just wanted to appreciate all the context and conversation shared and just note that this is part of what um Was kind of laid out in very general terms for us in the conversation previously with um adding the additional um What the expansion of bull city united and how Miss pierce was explaining that we can't just do programs. And so I fully appreciate The budget aspect or the budgetary aspect of how We're going to need to to step it up and making sure that we protect our residents in our community. And so I'm thankful and grateful. Thank you Thank you councilmember councilmember reese Mr. Mayor, thank you for just let giving me one more opportunity to say I forgot to thank two folks Um, and they worked for equality in c I want to thank kindra johnson The executive director of the quality in c and especially aim simons their policy director who have been super helpful Uh and helping me understand What this ordinance can and ought to do? And I know that they've also talked with a number of us as well as staff. So just wanted to um Make sure that we um, we recognize their Contributions to where derm is going to be when we pass this ordinance Thank you very much councilmember All right, uh, miss kukara Thank you, mayor. Um, I just wanted to mention one thing which I didn't bring up earlier. Um, the human relations commission I know has been having conversations about specific language regarding its composition Um, right now there is language that uses male female or sort of references both genders Um, and I did want to mention that that's not something that was addressed in this Ordinance amendment just because that is something that the hrc is currently undertaking and discussing um, and I understand Attorney Sofia Hernandez is working on that with the human relations commission And so I expect that that will come to the council later this year So I just wanted to mention that in case that caught anyone's attention Thank you very much miss kukaro Miss kukaro, thank you again for this fantastic work. Uh, we're very grateful to you. Uh, it was a hard task and you know, uh Councilmember freelance that earlier, you know talked about the speed with which things are done And I do think and and councilmember caballero addressed part of that when one of the most important parts Which is we have to do things a little more slowly here because People want to know what we do and they want to have input into it. We're not a we're not a private corporation that can just do it Uh, we really want to hear from people and that takes time And I think the other thing is and which is it's hard to do things that are both fast and good Uh, we can do a lot of things fast and they might not be so good But this time I think you did something really fast and really good and that's hard to do and just want to thank you Ms. Rayberg. Thank you You're welcome. Mr. Mayor and just so that we're prepared for council's vote on the 19th on this item Is your um, is the council's preference to just have us simplify this enforcement language for now? um and keep the july 1 2021 effective date or Would you like to extend that effective date? um We just need direction on kind of getting that In the form that we need to have it in for you all to vote And I suggest that you and the city manager work that out and okay My guess is that council will be happy with whatever you two suggest Um, if we're not, you know how we can let you know We will do it. Thank you. All right. I think that would be great and and Um, let's go ahead and if there's no objection. We'll put this on consent I think we're all in favor if there is some concern with what the city attorney and the and the manager come up with in terms of that Start date slash enforcement mechanism issue. We can we can take it off with us. Is everybody good with that? Okay, super Okay, colleagues, uh, I believe we're at the end of uh that part of our agenda and now Um, I think we're ready to hear from the city clerk on uh the appointments Yes, you are. Good afternoon, mayor and city council I wanted to let you know that you have nominated pebble lucas to the germ housing authority board of commissioners You've agreed to re-advertise for the germ workers rights commission appointment And you have nominated maria solis guzman to the human relations commission for the position representing hispanic latino female and stacey d white knight to the other racial group female on the same commission Thank you very much. Madam clerk. You're welcome Um, madam manager, are we ready to settle the agenda? We we are mr. Mayor um The agenda for consent would be items one through five and items seven through nineteen uh general business agenda item six And gba public hearings items 22 through 25 Thank you very much. Madam manager colleagues. You've heard the manager's recommendation for settling the agenda. Can I have a motion? So move Second Moved by councilmember freeman seconded by councilmember caballero. Madam clerk. Please call the roll Mayor shul. Ah, mayor pro tem johnson I Councilmember caballero Hi, thanks member freelon. Hi councilmember freeman Hi Councilmember middleton. I vote aye councilmember east Hi, thank you Thank you, madam clerk. The eyes haven't the motion passes and we have settled the agenda Colleagues, I do want to remind everyone that we do have the special city council meeting coming up on Friday, january the 15th at two o'clock if my memory serves um to talk about the search committee for the I'm rather the search firm for the city manager and I want to thank miss youngblood for preparing us for that And we may well have some more preparation that she is Going to Want us to read before that time, but I just want to Remind everybody of that and thank you all for working to make that happen Colleagues, I believe that we've done it. Uh, it's 435 on uh 436 and I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned and uh Come sorry councilmember reese I just wanted to say mr. Mayor I can't remember a work session where we did more and better work than we did today So thank you each and every one of my colleagues. It's great We that you're so right and we were trying to contrast ourselves with those people in washington that decided to storm the capitol So, um, I think it was a it was a good way to do it All right friends meeting adjourned and good good to see you all I'll see you all in like 20 minutes