 Laugh every time No, I wish More condo nice to see you. Thanks for being here He's not having it he's trying he's not having it You will not he will not do that for me Attorney he saw this Yeah, if you have any concerns You have Good evening, I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council order excuse me On May the 6th 2019 and I certainly want to welcome everyone and thank you all for being with us tonight. We're very glad to have you and Now I'd like to ask if you could please join me in a moment of silent meditation Thank you And now I'm going to ask if councilmember Reese could lead us in the pledge to the flag. Good evening, Mr. Marin, thank you colleagues We are privileged tonight to be joined by the scouts of troop 405 if they'll come on up to the front and lead us in the pledge and Folks in the audience if you're able to do so and if it's your practice, please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance My pleasure Legions to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic For which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you job gentlemen. Thank you Thank you very much to our scout troop. We appreciate you all being here and leading us in the pledge. Thank you so much Madam clerk, could you please call the roll? Mayor shul here mayor pro tem Johnson here councilmember Alston here councilmember. Kada Yaro here councilmember Freeman President councilmember Middleton here councilmember Reese here now. We're going to Have our ceremonial items and you can see we have a special guest I'm going to begin with national drinking week proclamation I Think this meant national drinking water week Whatever works, mr. Mayor. I just read what they had printed on the program Whatever you say the ones every week mr. Mayor Thank You councilmember Middleton I want I would like mr. Tom Lucas superintendent of the brown water treatment plant if he would please join me and whoever else might happen to be here Whereas water is bait is a basic and essential need of mankind And whereas our health comfort and standard of living depend upon an adequate supply of safe clean water And whereas the city of Durham continues to take a lead role in source water management and protection And whereas the city of Durham consistently produces a reliable supply of high-quality award-winning drinking water And whereas climate change may impact the availability of this previous natural resource And whereas our drinking water and water resources are undervalued and whereas we are all stored to the water infrastructure upon which future generations depend And whereas dedicated individuals and organizations such as city employees industry leaders Scientists environmentalists and students that made significant contributions in developing operating and maintaining our water treatment and distribution systems Protecting and conserving this precious resource and educated the public on the value of this resource Now therefore I Stephen M. Schuylmer of the city of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim May 5th to 11th 2019 as national drinking water week in Durham and hereby urge all citizens to help make Durham a more sustainable Community by embracing the theme of this year's water conservation poster contest water is life Witness my hand the corporate seal the city of Durham, North Carolina this the 6th day of May 2019 and I'm going to present this to mr. Lucas for any words that he or anyone else may like to offer Thank You mayor Schuyl members of the council and city management as superintendent of Durham's Wade G Brown water treatment plant I'm probably a bit biased But I always enjoy seeing water management recognized for our best-known product clean healthy refreshing and reliable drinking water I Invite all of you to take some time and read our annual water quality report, which is hot off the presses today and Available to our customers in English and Spanish Also, we hope you'll enjoy your our your wane drop can koozies and whatever you decide to put in them Mr. Mayor we appreciate your thoughtful remarks highlighting the importance of national drinking water week Locally this year's celebration is even more important considering water management and more specifically the brown plant Was recently recognized for having the best-tasting drinking water in North Carolina and also some of the most humble employees This By the North Carolina American Water Works Association and Water Environment Association is something. We are extremely proud of It's also a great reminder of everything that goes into a glass of the delicious Durham drinking water every time someone turns on the tap The people the pipes and other infrastructure the equipment and technology the constant testing and quality control It takes more than three hundred of us here in water management to make that happen 24 7 3 65 On behalf of the awesome staff at brown water treatment plant and across our department I'm honored to accept this proclamation celebrating that drinking water week Something we all work hard on every week as part of our commitment to the health well-being and safety of everyone here in Durham Again, thank you all for your support of everything we do Okay, so we mentioned that we do a poster contest every year for water conservation again. We've done it this year. We had over 250 entries 12 schools participated 19 different teachers supported and of course the parents also supported So we really thank you guys for all your efforts and we love seeing your posters So now we're going to announce our local winners as well as our state winners So some of these state winners actually all of them do not know that they won at the state level So this will be a surprise for you guys All right So starting with our kindergarten through second-grade division in third place. We have Ada Solomon Well, we'll give time for Wayne to make his way All right, and in second place we have Isabella Boydar and in third place We have oh in first place. I'm sorry one in the other order. We have Angel Rinden Cruz Angel and Isabella won first and second at state as well And on our third through fifth-grade division in third place We have Iris Emerson and in second second place Mackenzie Wiles and in first place We have Jenna Kim all three of these contestants won first second and third respectively in state as well All right in our last division six through eighth grade in third place test Mater I don't think test is with us tonight second place Camille Sherman and In first place Mira handsball and these local winners also won at state Congratulations guys Wayne is a little Wayne drops a little awkward Best Wayne drop in the world though that was fantastic Congratulations again to all the winners and our state winners. That's amazing That is just great Alright Now we're gonna move on to children's mental health awareness month And I'm gonna ask Tika Demson a family coordinator for Alliance behavioral health care to come up and Tika If there's anyone else that you would like to join you good to see you great Whereas to promote awareness of positive mental health well-being and development for all children youth and young adults ages birth through 26 years in North Carolina And whereas the leadership in Durham, North Carolina recognizes that mental health needs and treatment be on par with medical needs and treatment Whereas families shall not feel stigma and shame to seek treatment for their children and youth and be able to discuss openly their need for help without public retribution And whereas children's mental health promotion needs to be available to everyone Education on the identification and use of child strengths to support success and promote mental health as well as anti-stigma inclusion and social skills education could be available to all citizens of North Carolina and Whereas available school-based mental health programs and positive behavior interventions and support should be considered as best practice And be encouraged to be practiced in every Durham, North Carolina public school And whereas children are recognized for having unique needs for recovery of mental health emotional behavioral and substance use issues and Not being combined with the adult mental health population for treatment And whereas effective mental health treatment services to strengthen families youth leadership development and family partner peer supports results in children and youth overcoming trauma becoming successful contributing Durham, North Carolina citizens in a safe environment in their homes schools and communities And whereas the Durham City Council of Durham, North Carolina North Carolina mental health planning and advisory council National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health Alliance Behavioral Health Care, NC Families United, the NC State Children's Collaborative and the Families NAMI NC Public Health Department of Social Services all medical facilities all legal entities and communities who have children youth and young adults struggling with emotional behavior health Join to recognize Children's Mental Health Awareness Month now therefore I Steven M. Schulmaer the City of Durham, North Carolina Do hereby proclaim May 19th as Children's Mental Health Awareness Month in Durham and commend its observance to our citizens witness my hand in the Corporate seal the City of Durham, North Carolina this the 6th day of May 2019 congratulations It's not much to say other than what Miroshul read about the proclamation. However, I was sitting there thinking this evening that When I created the proclamation a few years back Wondered why and how could I get our young people to understand the value of their presence who may live differently And that and this is why I hope that you understand the value of the proclamation You're bringing voice to many who may not you may not even be aware of their mental illness They have a right to live to be happy to be Educated to play with their friends without stigma and by doing so you've also opened the doors for the Families the adults who are caregivers for our children who have mental health who are living with mental health Because they're now able to work and hold jobs and it's no longer a Secret when you get a phone call as a parent and you have to leave work to say what is wrong with your child and For that I say thank you I say thank you for our young people who befriend other children who may not look and talk and behave the way you do I say thank you and I applaud you our children are not our future I believe our children are now and we must continue to support them in all that they do. Thank you I'm now going to introduce our public historian eddie davis for some remarks you all may know that This is our sesquicentennial year and it's part of our sesquicentennial year eddie is our public historian Irin Durham and he has been bringing us wonderful history moments Here to the Durham city council meeting so that we can learn about our past together And tonight is another one of those and I'm going to ask eddie to please come forward And and introduce our history moment Thank you, mr. Mayor. Good evenings council members and staff I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to organize and present avenues for history to be remembered during the sesquicentennial of our city Many of these presentations have involved people who were long-term residents of Durham However, the history that has been made by Durham's newer arrivals should be acknowledged and remembered as well Later this month, Durham and the nation will remember and commemorate the 65th anniversary of the landmark 1954 us supreme court decision called brown versus board of education of topeka, kansas Our community is fortunate that mr. Earl Pollock Decided to move to Durham about five years ago In 1954 Mr. Pollock served as a law clerk for chief justice Earl Warren And thus had some very close involvement in the evolution of that high court's decision to overcome Overturn the legal separate but equal doctrine from american education As we saw from the recent film the best of enemies it took Durham and other communities some time To fully adjust that decision. It was handed down on may 17th 1954 Now for a brief presentation about the brown decision. I was going to present to you. Mr. Earl Pollock Mr. Pollock, unfortunately had a bout of illness And was recommended it was recommended that he not appear tonight However, he decided that he wanted his daughter Dr. Della Pollock Who is in the communication school at UNC to present in his state? So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you dr. Della Pollock Thank you mayor Council mr. Davis for this extraordinary opportunity to speak on my father's behalf It's a it's a great privilege to be here. I only wish my father were I think he would enjoy meeting him I will uh speak his his written remarks So I trust you will recognize that when I say I I am not him My involvement with the brown decision came about because of a few twists of fate In June 1953 right after finishing law school I arrived at the supreme court to begin a clerkship with then chief justice fred vinson The segregation cases were pending before the court The cases had already been argued once but no decision was forthcoming Instead a second oral argument was scheduled in october The ultimate outcome was very much in question The court was sharply divided The separate but equal doctrine had become deeply embedded in american law and society Strong arguments were made that in these circumstances overturning the doctrine could only be done by congress Or a constitutional amendment And even if a plurality of the justices say five or six voted to overturn separate but equal A split decision of that nature with other justices writing dissenting opinions attacking the majority decision Would divide the country and prevent any chance of public acceptance This was the situation in early september when vinson suddenly died A day or two after I had driven him home President eisenhower quickly replaced him by appointing earl warren then governor of california Because of vinson's death. I thought that my clerkship experience was probably over But two weeks later when warren arrived to take office He asked me to clerk for him and i promptly accepted In order to give the new chief justice a chance to get settled the reargument was rescheduled from october to december After the reargument in the justices conference warren persuaded the others not to vote at that time He did not want the judges preliminary views to be locked in too early In the following months warren undertook a low-pressure campaign one on one To persuade the court to unite on a single opinion He felt strongly that on this issue the court should speak with only one voice At the end of april warren called me to his office And told me that the court had reached a unanimous decision He gave me a memorandum. He had prepared what he called an outline And told me to write an opinion on that basis The memorandum laid out a narrow set of parameters instead of dealing broadly with government segregation in all its many varieties The memorandum focused exclusively on public school segregation and its harmful effect on black children Warren gave me several specific instructions. He said the opinion should be short Non-legalistic understandable to the layman and even suitable to be printed on the front page of a newspaper He also said that speed was of the essence Having finally obtained unanimity He obviously didn't want to lose it That weekend at home in view of his emphasis on speed I worked on the assignment for 24 hours straight On returning to the office monday I gave my draft to warren together with a short cover memo recommending separation of the district of columbia case From the four state cases because as a federal jurisdiction DC is not directly subject to the 14th amendment The chief accepted the recommendation And to my very pleasant surprise Approved the draft except for a few word changes The next few days moved with breathtaking speed After the addition of footnotes and some final polishing Copies were distributed to the other justices together with a cover member memo from warren Stating that the draft was prepared on the theory that it should be short Readable by the lay public Non-rhetorical unemotional And above all non accusatory I recall delivering a copy to justice black while he was in the middle of a tennis game at his home Except for a few editorial suggestions each of the other justices gave their approval And it was agreed to announce the opinion at the court's next public session the following monday may 17 At the may 17 session warren read the opinion word for word But with one exception In the sentence declaring that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place He inserted the word unanimously Causing a noticeable stir in the courtroom Over the next 65 years the brown decision has proved to be the indispensable foundation For the enormous progress that the country has made in racial relations I feel very fortunate to have been a witness to one of the most important milestones in american history Thank you Mr. Mayor, I just think it's important after hearing Dr. Pollock's words For us to find a time somewhere during the course of this year To have mr. Pollock to just be here so we can see the man who wrote that decision That was cool We have a person in Durham Who drafted the opinion on brown versus the board the mount everest of American jurisprudence in the 20th century. That's really fantastic. Please give our regards to earl pollock miss pollock Thank you so much before he leaves and also noting It it's important to note that poly mary actually put together the The legal justifications in her I could call it it is the legal book that she put together as she wrote That is that actually third good marshal used and so we've had two involved Thank you All right Now ask if there are any announcements by members of the council council member reese Sorry everybody For most of my time on the city council We've been blessed to have Two really fantastic local government reporters working Really working with us here To spread the word about what's going on in state government to ask difficult questions to make us a little bit uncomfortable sometimes a lot uncomfortable And really to be our indispensable partner In in governing this great city and I just wanted to Pay special attention tonight because I believe it's the last council meeting. We're both dawn on The herald sun and sarah will it's of the any week will be a president reporting for those publications Together don is moving on to join the state politics team for the news and server their sister publication And sarah will be joining the Durham district attorney's office and community engagement and communications I'm really excited for them, but really sad for us So thank you don and sarah for Making us better through your coverage. Thank you Okay, enjoy that because that's hardly ever going to happen We really do appreciate you. Thank you council member Uh other announcements by members of the council council member cabillero I just wanted to let everyone here know and anyone who might be watching at home that Voting is open for the city's first participatory participatory budgeting cycle It started on the first of may goes through The end of the month may 31st. You can vote online or at one of the city's pop-up events which will be Happening periodically throughout the month. There'll also be pb representatives Coming going to middle schools and high schools in the district community events etc, so Please take the time to vote a couple of our council members voted today here at city hall And there's evidence on social media It's really easy. Um, it's it takes about 15 minutes and you get to Um actually participate in making decisions about how public money gets spent So please take the time to go online and vote at pb Durham org or Attend one of our pop-up events and you can vote in person. Thanks Thank you very much Council member freeman. Thank you. I uh, I also wanted to Echo, um, I think tika is she's still here tika's comments around making sure that Mental health care is highlighted. I really appreciate her being here and sharing that and I had the pleasure of touring our wonderful Raleigh Durham airport authority this week well last week I should say and I just want to highlight also note that um, we actually added another Sub direct I guess well, um, like seven direct flights with spirit airlines. And so we're really um Beefing up our airlines Services in the area. I want to make sure folks are noting and make sure you sign up for those discounts and um I want to I want to make sure make a special pause to say that we're celebrating our 50 year of Celebrating the bimbe festival and I think it's important to make sure that people know All of next week will be all a lot of active activities and events and cultural arts Activities that you should be able to attend and so I look forward to enjoying that as much as possible and hopefully you will as well Thank you. Thank you very much Any other announcements by members of the council? All right. Thank you. I'm gonna there's one other announcement I'm gonna ask julie garret of the recovery center of the us small business administration Miss garret, uh, miss garret is here as you all know, um Everyone here is of course very aware of the explosion that took place in downtown Durham recently Miss garret is here to talk to us a little bit about the recovery center. Miss garret. We're glad to have you Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. I love your city. It's so beautiful I've really enjoyed being here the last few days So i'm a public affairs specialist for the office of disaster assistance with the small business administration And that office is in atlanta and the reason i'm here is we have a business recovery center set up at the chesterfield Building in suite 203 Where businesses that were impacted by the explosion? They didn't have to be physically damaged They just could see a drop in their business or being, you know, they're economically stressed by the disaster We have economic injury disaster loans up to two million dollars That um germ county businesses are eligible to apply for and i You have the information in your packet. The interest rate is really low. It's four percent And there's a lot of favorable terms, um up to 30 years and no fees And i'm just encouraging anybody who knows anyone who has a business and has been impacted who would like to come and ask us Questions or get help will be there till thursday at four o'clock We're in suite 203. It's open 8 30 to five and you actually have until January 30th to apply for these loans But we'll be here to help you with the paperwork through thursday And i'm leaving paperwork in the back for people. You can also go to disasterloan.sba.gov for more information Thank you. Thank you, miss garrett. We appreciate you being here and appreciate you offering assistance to our businesses that need it Thank you so much. Thank you All right. Now i'm going to ask if there are any priority items By the city manager. Thank you. Mr. Mayor members of council. Good evening everyone. No priority items this evening from the city manager's office Thank you very much. Madam materny Good evening. Mr. Mayor members of council. It's good to be with everyone. We also have no priority items. Thank you. Madam clerk The same for me. Mr. Mayor and council. I have no items. Thank you very much We'll now move to the consent agenda the consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the council An item can be pulled from the consent agenda by any member of the public or a member of the city council And those items will be heard at the end of the meeting the um Consent agenda also consists of items on which the council has previously done work I'm going to read the items on the consent agenda item two sports commission reappointment item three board of adjustment appointments item four Durham city count city county environmental affairs board appointment item I'm sorry that i missed the the one that we need to make the appointment on is I'm sorry. It's on gba. My bad Item four Durham city county environmental affairs board reappointment item six resolution recognition the life of l. Hajma league all shabazz aka malcolm x and There are some speakers to this item. So we will pull that item from consent item seven city county planning department fy 20 work program item eight 2018 durham open space and trails commission annual report item nine 2018 durham city county appearance commission annual report item 10 2018 board of adjustment annual report and also there's a speaker on this item miss dockery Would you like this pulled from consent? No Oh, you're here in case there are questions. Okay. Thank you very much Item 11 2018 durham environmental affairs board annual report item 12 2018 planning commission annual report item 13 2018 historic preservation commission annual report item 14 sub recipient contract with housing for new hope ink for rapid rehousing services item 15 approval of dedicated housing funds of the north kylianna coalition and homelessness ncceh to provide services for homelessness coordinated entry and homeless management information systems hMIS planning and administration item 16 eb 4707 b old durham chapel hill road bicycle and pedestrian project supplement agreement item 17 water regulatory compliance engineering design services amendment number six for black and beach ink item 18 bid report march 2019 item 19 resolution approving the application to the local government commission for the issues of not to exceed two hundred and sixty three million dollars water and sewer utility system revenue bond anticipation notes item 20 proposed condemnation of property located at 203 south gregson street durham north carolina 27701 parcel number 103295 for the american tobacco water line replacement project item 22 ordinance amending section 38 des 21 of the city code item 30 street and infrastructure acceptances item 33 resolution in support of the mental health protection act the equality for all act in the full repeal of house bill two you have heard the items on the consent agenda with the exception of item six i'll now accept a motion that we approve the consent agenda Mr. Mayor just want to make a note on item 17 on item 17 i'm sorry on item 17 it just looks like the uh workforce statistics aren't attached i just want to make sure that that's uh we'll we'll ask the staff to please provide those thank you all right uh do you right here a motion that we approve so move second i'm looking for my clicker thank you all righty madame clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote the consent agenda just agenda passes seven zero thank you very much we will now move to the general business agenda the first item on the general business agenda is the housing appeals board appointments colleagues you have a ballot at your desk if you all could please fill out that ballot and have you got them all madam clerk all right good would you like to announce the results good evening good evening mayor and council council has nominated and appointed darin chester to serve on the housing appeals board as the alternate member representing at large and mr green remain mr green now moves up into the seat great thank you very much madam clerk thank you council members um we'll now move to item 23 2018-19 Durham youth commission annual report good evening mr mayor uh council members and Durham community my name is Elise Frazier i'm the youth initiative analyst for the city of Durham's office on youth and advisor for the Durham youth commission um in the office on youth we believe that it's not the role of adults to give voice to youth they already have a voice however we do believe that it is our responsibility to ensure that young people have an opportunity to be heard and we amplify their voice in that same vein i am going to step back and invite you all to welcome join me in welcoming two Durham youth commissioners who give the report themselves anika jondala and serig paterson hello good evening mayor shul and council members thank you for the opportunity to present an annual update of the Durham youth commission before we begin we would like to acknowledge that some of our slides differ from the ones in your packet we had a few major events since the slides were due and we wanted to ensure that those were included in today's presentations we would now like to share a bit about the commission the Durham youth commission or as we call it the dyc is a city funded commission that was created in 2005 to actively involve youth and policy issues that affect them we exist to provide civic education leadership development service learning opportunities and youth engagement and empowerment for Durham youth we are one of the 25 chartered state youth councils across the state who are part of a bigger organization called the state youth council each local state youth council is unique and provides opportunities for youth to broaden the scope of leadership in their own community the current dyc is composed of 25 high school aged youth in grades 9 to 12 from all over Durham here are some of the schools represented on the current commission listed here are the priorities for the 2018 2019 term of the dyc and how we spent our year we'll share about each of these during our presentation we will first be reviewing our efforts in skill building and training our first meeting as the dyc was to attend racial equity training through the racial equity institute members were invited to attend over the summer to start our year with a shared understanding of how racial inequities affect youth across the nation during the program youth shared their own racial experiences and were educated on how the racial injustice excuse me and were educated on the racial injustices in Durham and nationwide at the connect ed conference hosted by partners for youth opportunity we took part in discussions with professionals and several career paths where they shared their journeys in life during our youth empowered solutions training we discussed ideas of equality versus equity in terms of race as a youth organization we felt it was important to recognize these issues even within our own commission and began to talk about power and balances and how we could be aware of falling into those traps we also learned how to identify needs in a community and plan an advocacy project in march a few of our members attended the national league of cities conference in dc and met with youth delegates and local government officials from across the country in total over 150 youth were in attendance and three of our members were on the planning team for the youth delegate conference as part of our membership in the state youth council we'll now talk about some of our annual conferences the minigate conference was hosted by high point the goal of the conference was to allocate over six thousand dollars funds to several organizations who work on interesting youth problems including wheel of hope and involve mentoring the team building conference was hosted by raleigh through fellowship and exploration of the city musical expression and fun at the galaxy fun park we grew closer as youth commission members the spring convention is the final conference of the year for the state youth councils this is a this is an acknowledgement of all of the successes and impacts the councils have made collectively this year we took home two awards receiving second place for best scrapbook and first place for best advocacy project our next priority was connected with elected officials in durham this year we hosted our first dyc retreat with city council and county commissioners during the event we took part in a scavenger hunt downtown to learn more about durham and network with the elected officials yellow team was the best here we go here we go the green team green team yeah the green team won yellow it was it was yellow after the scavenger hunt was gold we asked this question to officials and ourselves what is required for authentic youth engagement the result was several great discussions that generated ideas for the following word cloud equity communication and listening being some of the most prominent items similar to this current update back in december two of our members rita kabicho and henry cruz reyes gave an update to the board of county commissioners these pictures are are of their practice run that they presented to the entire dyc for feedback and the final presentation to commissioners our next priority was participatory budgeting or pb along with having two members of the dyc on the pb staring committee the dyc also helped plan and host a pb jam which is an idea generation session we hosted the event at the wg piercant center and made space for youth to give input on how their own communities could benefit from the allotted 2.4 million dollars over 50 youth ideas were submitted at this event we also partnered with the riva street rec center pb team durham housing authority and kids voting durham to host a community event in the cornwallis neighborhood on may 1st for youth out of school we talked to community members about pb voting and they were able to vote on site next we'll present our advocacy project for this term following months of training and dialogue about youth advocacy and empowerment we chose to focus on creating more fun and engaging platforms for youth to share their ideas and concerns with local officials what better way to do this than a youth voice festival in addition to connecting youth to local decision makers for roundtable conversations we also wanted to have an opportunity for them to connect with other youth advocacy organizations so they could learn to advocate for themselves and their community lastly we held space for young people to speak about their lived experiences growing up in durham around some kind of issue that is important to them the youth decided what that what that meant to them and we had a few spoken word artists a rapper and a ukulele player performed for everyone at the festival we would also like to thank kids voting durham and the durham housing authority for being partners in planning and hosting the festival helping us plan the advocacy project and providing their support we would also like to thank elected officials who are also in attendance to hear what the youth had to say we couldn't do any of this amazing work without our amazing partners throughout this term we have had the opportunity to meet with several other youth groups including the rolly youth council where we volunteer for their halloween dance for differently able to people and yes youth empowered solutions as part of our trainings we regularly partner with the durham county cooperative extension for kids voting durham events where we help kids learn more about the electoral process both locally and nationwide in november we participated at the forest hills precinct on election day and helped kids who came with their parents to cast their own ballots in partnership with the west and community foundation incorporated we also hosted our annual peace toys for war toys event co-sponsored by the north carolinians against gun violence at this event we encourage and promote positive social play among young children in the neighborhood by having them exchange violent toys such as guns and swords for more peaceful toys the west and community center is also the host site for the interfaith food shuttle where some of us volunteer at the mobile market a temporary market set up in a community where residents can go to the line and shop for food or free during this term we also had the opportunity to meet with exchange students from toiyoma japan one of durham sister cities we took part in a cultural exchange where we tried new foods and learned about each other's cultures here is a picture of us teaching them how to do the cupid shuffle as we wrap up we would like to take this moment to honor our seniors lisi jones lemak a job rita kavijo miles leathers ray palma sarah paterson john fachillo jenny uba jesca uba and larianne whitehall we look forward to another memorable year of serving on the dyc for those of us graduating we would like to wish you success in your next steps and thank you for your service thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our presentation good afternoon great job are there other members of the durham youth council who are with us today if you are would you please stand there they are thank you thank you durham youth commission members you are awesome and we really are thrilled at all the things that you're doing and what a great report thank you all so much appreciate you i'm going to go back to item one although we had the paper ballots we still need to vote on that my apologies this is the housing appeals board appointment i'm going to accept a motion that we appoint mr green for the seat and mr chester as the alternate all right some moves second been moved and seconded madam clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes seven zero thank you very much and now we'll move to item 25 the 2019 first quarter crime report chief davis welcome good evening everyone good evening chief thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the durham police department's 2019 first quarter report tonight's report covers our department six performance objectives part one violent crime part one property crime part one index crime clearance rates response times to priority one calls and staffing levels i'll also discuss a little bit about a few highlights during the first quarter part one index crime is the total of part one violent crime and part one property crime for the first quarter of this year part one index crime was up by 16 percent during the first three months of the year compared to the first quarter of 2018 larceny's accounted for more than half 61 percent of all reported part one crimes which in essence made up shoplifting thefts for mottos and other types of thefts reported crime dropped in one of seven part one crime categories which was burglaries this slide illustrates the cumulative weekly year-to-date change in part one violent crime which is the blue line and part one property crime which is the red line between last year and this year as you can see both categories started in the year significantly higher than in 2018 property crime has steadily declined towards 2018 levels as the year has progressed violent crime reached even with 2018 levels in early march as depicted on the chart but also crept and increased slightly somewhat during the remainder of the quarter and then plateaued part one violent crime includes reported homicides rapes robberies and aggravated assaults part one violent crime was up in all violent crime categories during the first quarter there was a slight increase in the number of reported aggravated assaults the most concentrated areas for aggravated assaults were district four and district one although robberies aggravated assault in part one violent crime went up compared to the first quarter in 2018 they are lower than the first quarter three-year averages for those crimes there were 12 homicides in the first quarter of 2019 there are two open homicide cases from the first quarter as well the number of reported sexual assaults increased by nine during the first quarter but we have no evidence to indicate that there was any type of reoccurring theme in those incidents 45 percent of the rape cases reported during the first quarter occurred in 2018 or earlier robberies increased by 24 percent during the first quarter 2019 as well 84 percent of robberies were from persons we did experience a trend of robberies against Hispanic victims particularly in apartment complexes during the first quarter we increased our visibility and directed patrols and citizen engagement in areas where these crimes were occurring and met residents in several complexes officers passed out crime prevention flyers in English and in Spanish and information was provided to Spanish-speaking media outlets as well our Hispanic liaison officer coordinated several successful forums at Hispanic churches apartment buildings and we plan to continue these meetings in the future most of these meetings were well attended there were 20 commercial robberies and five bank robberies one person has been arrested and charged with four of the bank robberies and an arrest was also made in the fifth one the percentage of commercial robberies dropped in 2019 16 percent of the robberies in the first quarter of 2019 were commercial and bank robberies 26 percent of the robberies in the first quarter 2018 were commercial bank robberies the number of aggravated assaults from multi victim firearm incidents dropped by 12 percent from 69 to 61 31 percent of all aggravated assaults during the first quarter were from multi victim firearm incidents versus 35 percent during the first quarter of 2018 moving on to property crime part one property crime includes burglary larceny and motor vehicle theft overall part one property crime was up by 17 percent in the first quarter burglary's continued the downward trend particularly the same trend that we've been seeing over the past several years they were at a 10-year low in the first quarter and were down 49 percent from the first quarter 10 years ago we continue to urge citizens engagement related to suspicious activities and engaging in crime prevention opportunities to talk to PAC members and other types of forums we're continuing our 9 p.m. lockup campaign and the lockup campaign is basically telling folks to lock their doors and lock their cars and we are actually using social media for these announcements which reminds people to take care of their property and use that as a way to try to send out messages to prevent property thefts a burglary trend we noticed this year even though burglary burglary's have been down we noticed a trend this year that 12 percent of the burglary's were burglary's to sheds lawn equipment was taken in many of these burglary's we have posted notices utilized social media lists serves including next door to inform residents of these trends as well larcenies made up 61 percent of our part one crimes 44 percent of our larcenies were from vehicles over thefts of motor vehicle parts 29 percent of larcenies were from shoplifting incidents investigators have arrested several people who have numerous shoplifting charges in several counties however misdemeanor diversion has been utilized whenever those those elements exist in those cases our larcenies were averaged during the last three months of 2018 they were below normal during the part the start of the first quarter 2019 they have been steadily escalating since mid-march more than 50 percent of stolen vehicles were either left running or had the keys in the vehicle has been a common thing the most frequently stolen vehicle again Honda Accords followed by Nissan Altamas and Ford Explorers motor vehicle thefts were below normal for much of the first quarter of 2019 moving on the clearance rates as you're aware we compare our department's clearance rates to those of other departments of similar size the FBI's clearance rates are used for us to compare our annual clearance rates our target clearance rates are 23 percent property crime clearance and 50 percent violent crime clearance our clearance rates at the end were better than the average for cities our size and all property crime categories and homicide and robbery during the first quarter of 2019 the homicide clearance rate is at 100 percent at the end of the first quarter it should also be noted that on rape clearances almost half of our reported rates during the first quarter were for prior years also rape cases often require DNA tests and sometimes clearances come much later because it takes time to get those results back priority one calls for service our average response times were 5.75 minutes which met our target of 5.8 minutes or less the last time we met this target was the fourth quarter of 2014 we answered 56.9 percent of the priority one calls in less than five minutes in the first quarter of 2019 this increase came very close to meeting our 57 percent target in the next few months we should have enough data to determine if our our beat adjustments and our beat realignment has really been beneficial as it relates to response times and calls for service utilizing patrol officers during supplemental has been helpful in increasing visibility and adding to the response time numbers as well recently we've adjusted our supplemental staffing to deploy more officers during times when we have peak calls staffing at the end of the first quarter 2019 as of March 31st our sworn staff was at 98 percent at the end of March our non-sworn staffing was at 97 percent at the end of March this has been the highest that our civilian staff has been in many years as well 24 recruits graduated from our BLET number 48 class during the first quarter we currently have 27 recruits in our basic law enforcement training academy number 49 this academy is scheduled to graduate this summer and we are continuing to test applicants for our BLET number 50 which is scheduled to start in August we also continue to hire in our ALEP program where we are transferring lateral officers from other agencies our uvisa requests our uvisa program continues to receive application requests the Durham police department processed 51 uvisa requests during the first quarter of 2019 65 percent were approved we're seeing fewer applications from previous years and plan to expand the time frame more as our processing levels continue to decrease just a little bit of information about internal restructuring we conducted a bit of restructuring in the police department in January to enhance the efficiency and create a more equitable administrative workload amongst our key command staff members to accomplish this we added a new deputy chief position who oversees the investigative services division we split the patrol bureau under two majors one is in charge of district one two and three and the other is in charge of district four five and special projects these majors report to the deputy chief of field operations the third deputy chief oversees administrative services which includes personnel training fiscal and other administrative support functions the rank of assistant chief was changed back to major this reestablished the pyramid structure of the organization and maintains a clear delineation of roles in the department march of course was international women's month we held our third annual eagle award celebration on march 15th many of you attended and thank you for your support in that affair the eagle award honors women who represent excellence and leadership achievement and gallantry and law enforcement six women investigators and officers received eagle crime fighter awards captain denise cambell was supervisor of the year two women received sister-in-law awards more of mentoring types of recognition and support attorney karen bethea shields was awarded the trailblazer accommodation she became the first female elected as a judge in north carolina's 14th district and the second african-american female judge in north carolina in 1980 during the month of march we participated in several panel discussions around the triangle area and sell in celebration of women history month and that concludes my report i would like to say thank you to council and to mayor shul and city administration during the explosion a few weeks ago um with the help of the great leadership of our fire chief chief zoloft we were able to really work well together zola zola zola zola we were able to work really closely together to help mitigate but it made a difference to see the city coming together the way that the way they did on that day thank you thank you very much chief i wanted to uh say we have chief kates and chief assembly here and it was good to see you all uh as our deputies along with chief marsh uh congratulations to you and we know that we know you we've seen you all at work over a long period of time and admire you and really appreciate your your your ascension to the leadership so it's great thank you we have a number of speakers but i think before we do that i'm going to ask if uh we can if there are questions from members of the council and then we'll go to the speakers or any comments from members of the council at this point council member austin just a couple points of clarification thank you chief report you mentioned the multi victim firearm incidents i just missed the number and if the total number yeah just the total number let me go back to it thank you council member i'm going to dig through my notes no problem i have that number i think i have you only take a minute okay but i can get you that information sure um and just another question um you mentioned the rate of robberies um in our next community and involving apartment complexes yes and i wanted to just i guess even anecdotally are they are they accompanying are the robberies also also involving home invasions typically or are they like what's kind of the nature of mostly parking lot parking lot and that's what we've been talking about um our community members just being very cognizant of their surroundings most of these robberies have occurred while individuals are coming and going either coming home from work or going to work in the parking lots of course we've had a few that had other characteristics to them as well but we've been very focused on apartment complexes in the parking lot robberies to try to curtail some of that okay thank you and just whenever you find that number i will thank you very much thank you councilmember other questions or comments at this point mayor pro tem and then councilmember reis thank you mr. mayor and thank you chief for your report i just had a couple clarifying questions on the third slide of your presentation there's a graph that we see in every report and i just still don't completely understand what it's trying to communicate it's the year to date change 2018 to 2019 cumulative by week yes what is what are we meant to understand from this visual well that particular visual basically just captures the percentage of whether and it doesn't it doesn't depict the numbers but it it sort of depicts the percentage of crime being up or down say for instance in the as i mentioned earlier around the first week of march it was kind of at zero which meant we were right where we were last year this time and it helps us to determine whether or not we're moving up or down as it relates to the percentages at the first of the year as you can see compared to last year's numbers we were up about 40 40 percent 45 percent on right but those numbers are so small that i don't know that they're really meaningful i see what you're saying well and we we also um i did receive the and i'm sure councilmember rice may have some comments about it the annual numbers typically do shed um a broader or more vivid picture of crime trends and um just that particular email will give us costs to to go back and really talk about how we can present the numbers so that they make sense to this body particularly since we're just talking about quarters comparing a snapshot from this year to last year most crime data is captured annually anyway um durham is a little unique that we do a quarterly report but it doesn't mean that we can't capture annual numbers as well um it gives the impression that there's a lot going on when you're just capturing just one you know 30 day snap i mean 90 day snapshot so expanding it throughout a 12 month period really lets you see whether or not the numbers are really um peaking or you know or we're in a good place thank you so so on this particular graph for example the the last numbers on it 10.9 percent does that mean that we're 10.9 percent higher the year higher than the previous year that's right i'm sorry that that graph may have been confusing yeah i always find it a little bit confusing and just not um i'm just never really sure like what how it how it communicates meaning i guess like what it means well from day to day uh well of course we pay attention to it from day to day and week to week we talk about it so that as it's edging in one direction or the other we we began to deploy resources so we talk about it and really kind of know what it means not saying that that um nobody else really understands it but because we're in it every day we sort of know that those 10 percent and those five percent means something to us it means for us to try to stay on top of it but it can be illustrated in a different way so that it conveys um more of where we are over 12 month period has been suggested and whether we're up compared to the 12 months prior or even the three-year average or something like that i think it's just the the previous year to this year isn't um i just think it's not as useful in a measurement as like a broader sort of trend analysis and we can do that because we capture the three years to um moving from from one year to the next is important for us to know that we're moving in the right direction and um and we've looked at the data from 2016-17 and 18 to see you know how those how those months um compare and it does have a a different meaning when you look at it that way thank you um and i had just one more question on page four of your report for first quarter part two crime um again you know as it's just the first first quarter this may level off over the course of the year but i noticed that for 2019 that drug violations had nearly doubled from the previous two years um we had 144 in 2017 150 in 2018 and 295 in 2019 and i was wondering if you had a sense of why that's the case um and the the long explanation has to do with Niber's reporting we we sat down and talked about that that was glaring for me too but we have a new reporting requirement through the Niber's reporting and it is that we have to report all all numbers of of these types of violations as opposed to those that are or a certain amount so as we're reporting especially as we started at the beginning of the year this quarter is showing a large difference um i would i would suggest that we sit down and talk about the whole new Niber's reporting too because it's is quite involved could you what is Niber's i'm sorry it's the new um national incident reporting system that all agencies around the country have to utilize okay we're shifting from ucr reporting to Niber's and we talked about possibly doing a presentation in work session so that um this body would understand that we're having to report differently now and and much more information than we have in the past okay but we'll be glad to drill down and help explain that that would be yeah that would be really helpful i just wanted make sure it stood out to me too yeah arresting more people for drugs yeah um and i wanted to also on this um sheet wanted to appreciate that we didn't arrest anyone for solicitation in the first quarter um and i'm hopeful that those folks will continue to be diverted for um treatment and other services rather than arrested and and that's what our officers are trying to do we get a lot of calls yeah from community members but the first effort is to provide assistance um you know especially those individuals that are willing to accept assistance so okay um thank you appreciate that thank you councilmember reese thank you mr mayor good evening chief it's always good to see you thank you um as you know and you you alluded to this so let me explain a little bit about what you were talking about and then ask you a question about it um one of the things that one of the frustrations i've had for a long time about the way that we report crime numbers here in durham's that we do year-to-date figures at the end of each quarter and for the fourth quarter report that's a great way to do it uh because by then there are four quarters of data report you've got a whole year um you can easily compare that to other years and that's a good uh comparator but this first quarter report um of each calendar year is the shortest reporting period it's just three months of data as a result those numbers are often the swingiest or most volatile of all of our quarterly crime reports um and with that in mind i prepared what i hope is a mathematically accurate graph um that i sent to my colleagues this afternoon along with you and the city manager um that that is the model of something that i think we might want to try to look at from here on out and instead that that is in the at the end of each quarter don't look at just the data from the beginning of the year to the end of that quarter so not just one quarter and then two quarter and three quarters of data but at every quarterly crime report also let us see the last previous 12 months of crime data so that we can see for each quarter what the previous 12 months looked like and i think that will tend to smooth out some of the seasonality that can get creep into these numbers because each 12 months obviously has each season in it in each month um and i think what you see when you look at the data that way um with respect to this quarter is that we um that for the last 12 months we've actually had fewer violent crimes than we had at the end of the first quarter of 2018 um because at the at the end of the first quarter of 2018 that includes three quarters of 2017 data which were a much higher crime period all of which is to say to reinforce what my colleague mayor pro tem said which is the these relatively small numbers as compared to the to the 12 month data can lead to some misleading conclusions about what's actually happening in our community and i just wanted to commend that to your attention the next time you prepare one of these reports obviously i should have gotten on the ball about this a couple months ago because it could have been in this report but i wonder if you would just um share your thoughts about kind of looking at the data that way instead of the way we've been doing it i totally agree most police agencies don't capture crime data in a 90 day period that snapshot doesn't give you an accurate account of of trends so um even though we have to report year to date data most year to date data is reported on an annual basis so at the end of the year police department goes and does their annual crime report so to speak and that's for a 12 month period most of time it's a calendar you're doing the 12 month period but because um we conduct a quarterly report then we would probably create a report that captures 12 months from the quarter it does give a more accurate a more vivid picture of where crime trends are are are going and um i got your email i didn't get a chance to cross check your math but well fingers crossed but um i i totally agree um what we'll do is we'll talk to the staff because they still have to report crime ucr neighbors uh crime year to date the way they are we would just have to um capture that data so that we can look at it the window of next quarter's report if it's in um august then we'll be looking at 12 months of data from august and that might um help satisfy that that that particular issue thank you chief i appreciate one of the question i wanted to raise um before we got to the some of the citizen comments is that back at the end of march um i you and i were emailing along with the city manager about the 2018 traffic stop data um i'm wondering if uh when you get back to the police department if you might take a look at um sending that data to us um i think this is around the time of the year when we should normally get that or maybe a little after so absolutely let us see that that'd be great that report was um completed this past thursday perfect and um and it's already been sent to the hrc it just posted to the web it's on the website great yeah and we could do it the way we had jason to present before on it that'd be perfect thank you chief i appreciate it sure it's all ahead for now mr man thank you councilmember uh councilmember freeman i i get you lucky yes i'm sorry thank you i i actually wanted to ask the question you mentioned the diversion well council i'm sorry may approach this mean a diversion mentioned the capture well i just wanted to know how the data was captured regarding who was diverted um i'm not sure if you're we have that that's another report that we um compile it's not included here because um it too was was just completed we have a complete misdemeanor diversion report it captures the various types of cases um that misdemeanor cases individuals how many were actually diverted to um the misdemeanor diversion program through Durham county court and then i also wanted to ask uh when you're talking about the the data comparing year to date i just wanted to know if you were using that to chart staffing at all well we use we absolutely use our data not just year to date but um we use we use our our data on a on a daily basis to help deploy where officers should be assigned and i think that anyway in that instance i'm i'm just trying to make clarification in my own mind but um can you tell me when the next meeting is for where you do the stats reporting again that'll be first in the morning say again Thursday morning Thursday morning Thursday morning at nine o'clock at police headquarters we're talking about the cap meeting thank you my reporting um and uh and you know that there were some beat adjustments and and alignment changes have any of them been around hours per day as far as we're officers as far as for officers no hours are are the same okay yeah thank you thank you thank you councilmember councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor good evening colleagues and good evening to everyone in the chamber chief good to see you and to the command staff present always good to see you you might have you may have the toughest job in Durham so uh appreciate uh the way you you go about doing it i um i want i want to associate myself with with the comments uh of my colleague uh councillor east end with you chief about um the statistical integrity or perhaps the best practices of reporting statistics on a yearly basis as opposed to a quarterly basis but in so far as that's the way we've been doing it i i think for transparency's sake for folk at home watching and listening i i feel i should just say you know we we didn't have a problem taking victory laps when the numbers were good on a quarterly basis and that probably would have been a better time to talk about the expanded view of yearly uh reporting um and i think that's a better way to do it i want to say that but um you know so so i just want to own that for folk watching at home who have been accustomed to us doing it that way these numbers may be a bit sobering um but the year's not over uh from a statistical point of view but it does however i think give us an on ramp to talk about how non-compelling the argument is to folk who are victims of crime who live in neighborhoods that are are um are facing um quality of life issues they just don't find the the statistical discussion very compelling and i want to talk about ask you chief about a phenomena that you know about far better than me that does not get captured in our reporting um namely gunfire that goes unreported uh in many communities and um i appreciate the report i i want to ask you chief we had a presentation on a shot spotter some time ago and i know that you're in a budgetary deliberations but are you in a position to give us any sense as to how um probable that our police department will be asking for that technology uh during this budget cycle can you give us any sense of whether or not that's coming well we have been in discussions about shot spotter and um looking at all of the specs looking at the costs uh to the department to the city um not just that looking at uh the resources that might be needed to support it and in the discussions that we've had we just feel like any tool to help us curtail if not for just the the the psychological factor that um this particular system is set up could could act as a deterrent so we have absolutely been in discussion about the potential to to get shot spotter technology and really have talked about it for um several months now and i know this is something that you have also been involved in as far as sitting in on some of our presentations and discussions but the discussions have gone beyond just um the fact that the Durham Police Department thinks it'd be a great tool we've also thought about the impact and listening to um other you know members of council about what that impact might be to um our community members and sometimes lack of understanding and not really um understanding or getting information about what the tool will actually do sometimes skews um the perception of of the actual tool itself it it captures gunfire and it creates an opportunity for um officers to be able to respond to a quality of life issue even when there's no one who's been struck by it to be able to say is everybody okay we got a report that there's gunfire here um right now not just here in Durham but in many cities gunfire goes on on a regular basis and people just kind of hit the deck and sometimes police don't come out because they're not called because people become normalized to a gunfire sometimes and that's that's sad to say but i will say that the conversation has been active with the city manager we have been in long discussions about it and um we we just know that there are various types of obstacles sometimes um of course this say isn't for me but right definitely we'll like to evaluate anything that will help us as it relates to violent crime and gunfire and councilmember if i could interrupt sure we're we're doing councilmember briefings on the budget recommendations this week i think beginning tomorrow and that's on our schedule to speak with council members about i appreciate that thank you mr manager and thank you for the for the measured response and well-crafted response i gotta tell you chief personally i think this is one of those issues that we should be leading on i think this is one of those issues and if you look over the recent history of this council the council has an institutions involvement be it um uh uh written consent be it implicit bias training i think there are moments when um certain things need to be led on and certain things need to be tasked to the administration rather than waiting for a recommendation i think this is one of those moments and i'm glad to hear that the conversations are going forward and i just wanted for the record state and just for whatever it's worth that however those conversations go if for whatever and i know you're a manager so you've got to look at resources and prioritize ask and because an ass may not be on the list doesn't necessarily mean that you don't think it's important but you have limited resources and as a manager you're mindful of that i want to honor all of that but i think with respect to this issue if it does not make the list i want to say to my colleagues very directly that i think this is one of those issues that rises to the level of leadership on our part that we should make this happen as we've made other things happen i don't know how many people were killed on bikes in traffic last year i know that one is one too many but i do know that we're moving to put protected a barrier protected bike barriers in the city there was no science that suggested that tire mulch was endangering our children in eastern park but the parents felt that they were and we acted this is i think one of those moments another one of those times when we need to act notwithstanding any recommendations that come from staff and and i think we've more than demonstrated our willingness to do this this is one of those moments i think so i want to encourage and thank the manager for the continued conversations but however those conversations go i want to respectfully submit that this council should be prepared to act and demonstrate to people in this city that we take this issue as seriously as we do trees and bikes and tire mulch and that we when it comes to certain people in certain neighborhoods will go beyond making speeches and platitudes and dissertations about root causes and spend some money and if it doesn't work we can cancel it thank you thank you thank you councilmember any other any other any other comments council members any questions or comments councilmember caballero yeah i just wanted to say thank you to you and the police for the last quarter i have been at many of the events that you have held in predominantly latino community spaces either in neighborhoods or at churches i want to particularly think officer ramos who has stepped in and really just done a phenomenal job trying to engage folks uh i am heartened to hear that you're open about your uvc policy you know i will continue to ask for it um i appreciate that it did get moved back to 2011 i like i like i like the movement that i'm seeing uh you know i want the limit to just be open-ended but i do appreciate that you um are acknowledging on your end that things are moving quicker and that hopefully we will have a a no time limit soon thank you um and with that said i i can use this forum just to let you know part of the incremental spread was really just so that we could we could manage it and over the last three months or so even after we changed it to 2011 we we had begun to see fewer cases we talked about that a little bit and um we are expanding it i just need a little time can to change the general order but uh we we will and we will continue to communicate to the community and i do believe that we will probably um take in i would say in the next six months anybody who has a request left out there because they're becoming fewer and fewer so i thought i'd use this as an opportunity to do that thank you chief that is uh very glorious news to hear thank you mr mayor thank you chief thank you council member any other questions or comments by members of the council at this point council member freeman just a question i'm i'm just thinking out loud essentially but do you think that the uv's numbers might have some tie to the way in which the latino engagement and outreach and all this is working to make sure that folks are reporting the actual crimes and maybe this is why this number is up um well i i think that we've made some inroads as it relates to the willingness to report crimes and support the investigations of crimes having bilingual officers and individuals sort of boots on the ground council member carrier harpira has um been very helpful in helping to bridge that gap as well um having the the number of officers that we have that are bilingual is amazing for a department this size so anytime we bring uh officers and they typically come in plain clothes um you might see a few in uniform that are at work to be able to have conversation and to have the number of officers who are who are bilingual and literally have conversations with individuals at those meetings i think it really helps thank you thank you chief um appreciated um i want to also thank you for your uh continual progress on the uv's i think it's very important to all of us and much appreciate the way you've taken it on uh and i'm glad to hear that uh you think in the next six months we'll be able to lift the time limit uh and that that's uh you've really made great strides on that and much appreciated um this was a tough quarter we the the um i think that there to me there are two things going on one is last year was statistically uh an extraordinary year in terms of uh our our crime numbers in Durham we had exceptionally low property crime numbers in some categories the lowest crime uh in 20 some years um in some major categories and our violent crime was also down significantly especially in the first quarter last year yep so in compared to last year uh as when we were talking about those good numbers last year as calc member middleton said we were happy to celebrate it and rightly so but uh as we did you uh continually reminded us that those were not always going to be the quarters that we were going to have and we had a tough quarter uh i think especially our homicides i think were very distressing to all of us and i know they were uh to everybody in the department to everybody in the community and every time you know each of these gunshot whether it's a whether it's a wound or a homicide is just terribly damaging to all of us and we know how incredibly important the work that you all do is and we really appreciate it and we support it um our um um i i know that the you know this is the thing about quarterly crime reporting it goes up and down we know that our trend over the last 20 years is like this but it's not straight like that it's like this it's like this it's like this and we're in one of these quarters and so i'm very hopeful that with the good police work we continue to do but also with the support of the community in so many ways uh that we'll be able to bring this down again next quarter and i i really want to emphasize that that that this can't be the job that just we expect our police to do that we all have got to be pitching in uh that the work that you all do to win the trust of communities is critically important and you've done so much of it uh in recent years and i know that our community will respond so i just want to appreciate you and appreciate the work of the department thank you mayor i'm going to now ask we have a number of speakers and i'm going to now ask for those speakers and then we may have more comments from members of the council thank you chief thank you um we have let me count the number we have 11 speakers i'm going to give each speaker three minutes and i would like the speakers as i call your name i will call the first group if you'd please line up over here to my right uh we'll start with mr james chavis followed by miss victoria peterson followed by miss jackie wagstaff followed by mr obdl bernett followed by mr rob belcher if you all could please line up over here to my right and uh mr chavis a welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes good afternoon i mean good evening i wish to thank you mayor and the council for giving mr chavis could you speak into the mic a little bit more i'm having a hard time hearing you thank you okay thank you i have a jacket to give me this information my name is james chavis i say 2813 ash gree and derminov colana i'm also the pat corp facilitator and the information i'm giving you is the incident that happened at our white whitey smith or bull city event sorry there okay as you know i may not know that my knowledge and i've been doing this for 10 years with the driver's street bull city open street valve once we closed those streets with barricades no cars are supposed to come through there and to my knowledge no one's supposed to have permission to allow a car to come through there well sorry i put my own life in jeopardy because i stood in front of the car was trying to get by to go up i didn't know why to come through and found out that your captain of your fire department gave the later permission to drive a car through our barricade and once we closed it and we had a conversation about that and one of the guys asked me to stop and step back and he stepped in front of me and let the car go on up there my question to you all as you read this and see i'm calling for a meeting so this can be discussed openly because a lot of people at that event asked me how did this happen because i was in charge of being one of the ones outside to make sure safety goes to all and not just one okay i know i'm being quick because i only got three minutes but i wish each and every one you will come out read this and got any question to ask me about your captain and i put his name in there to let you know who i'm talking about because we changed information that he told me he did not know the rules and regulation of our events and what's supposed to been followed and if one child or someone a guy hit every last one of y'all who've been looking at us the volunteers and the staff that was in charge of that event because somehow that car was not supposed to been there so i need you all to come at this form to talk to us about this event openly to the public because i cannot say that this should have happened but it did as you know in june the third side in june we once again will be having our boys in open street festival and you sure know we never had any problems like this all right thank you mr chevus i'd first i've heard about it i'll be glad to look at the material and follow up with you thank you thank you thank you mr manager thank you mr chevus victoria peterson i don't see miss peterson here right now miss jackie wagstaff miss wagstaff welcome please give us your name and address do you have three minutes um jack willing wagstaff derm um mr mayor council members i really was not going to speak but this weekend was just horrible um we had 14 murders in the month of four in the month of april higher than all of last year aj libskin father of three girls um recently released from prison but was working three jobs the latest murder on linwood that was the murder that happened at 10 40 Saturday night three murders in one Saturday that was just murders but we had a couple of shootings during the day at 340 there was a gentleman that was shot this is too often this is happening too much i i dare to say that i actually agree with pastor millington over there about the way you appropriate your funds and how you look at things now in derm it was brought to my attention that there were council members that said that the older population were antiquated and our ideals are not relevant to solutions now and we need to be listening to the millennials but we're the ones that understand what goes on in the community we know these victims by name we know the people that are creating the problems in the community by name we're the ones that understand these streets but we're the ones that are never at the table when y'all are having this discussion about what are we going to do about these problems you cherry pick the people that you bring in to have these discussion most of the time those people have no relationship to the community other than being black that's it but when it comes down to knowing what's going on in these streets the people that you want to put push to the side because we may be a little antiquated and we may think a little differently because we do have a little age we've been out here in these streets a long time we understand this community i've looked at a lot of these people that now i can't look at anymore i've watched them grow up in these schools of derm i looked at i went to three events thank you councilwoman freeman for coming to an event Saturday but i went to three events Saturday and mostly every one of those events i spoke with guys that i've seen grow up from kindergarten to now and i know they involved in the criminal justice system and every one of them i asked them the same question every time they see me how are you doing are you staying out of trouble and they always tell me the same thing i'm trying to stay out of trouble do you know where i can get a job one of the things i do know about derm and this population and this crime problem we have this housing situation that we have of not having any is it's directly involved in this crime you show me a person that doesn't have a secure housing i'm going to show you a person that's going to commit a crime and some more thank you miss wax staff mr. abdel bernett mr. bernett welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes abdu bernett fire 12 no party street derm no cologne i'm part of sku which has stopped killing us and justice minister mr. bernett pulled just a little bit farther back from the mic yeah there you go we're on the street fighting in the streets right nobody else is out there right so you have to figure we talk to the families of people that had lost people due to gun violence right so that's our focus our focus also is building a better derm right but when you talk about building a better derm when i ride through the city of derm i ride through a city with huge buildings i ride past the police headquarters downtown across from a community a housing development community right when we talk about these things we talk about pushing people in the streets right with that money and all those billions and billions of dollars that could have been used for our communities putting resources inside our communities to help people to reform themselves instead it's a push out to meet me personally i don't think the numbers right on murders honestly to be exact i mean i know y'all tired i'm tired i'm fed up we be on the grounds consistently in the communities oxford manner now have some shootings out that way right so when a shot fire thing come out is the officer going to respond in time enough i've done been out there when it have been shots fired and it take an officer a long time to get out there that's not good so what are we going to do about that problem next problem is us being in the community trying to build the community establishes a lot for us because we work with the young youth very closely and we love our kids out there and um if we could rebuild our communities and pull our communities together then we would see a better derm with the people of derm not being afraid to go talk to the people of derm that live in the city of derm that live in the public housing development in the city of derm the citizens should have decision-making's too you know i mean i think and i truly believe that if we build that community and if we build that village then we can raise all our kids that's my concern thank you very much mr brunette well now here from mr rob belcher mr belcher here welcome and please give us your name and address you have three minutes rob belcher rob belcher 43 28 gemstone road derm hello to the chair all right everybody up there mayor city of derm my name is rob belcher i'm with a chance to change organization uh we're a fairly new organization and uh i definitely want to come out saying i'm definitely an advocate for the shot spotter i'm saying that because uh we had a 13 year old get shot in our met dougal terrace on last monday so there at the park the kids at the park about 80 kids at the park there's a shooting got guys shooting on this side shooting at each other one kid got hit a couple kids got grazed so if we had a spot shotter it would be able to show the police okay it came from here it came from there because when you come to the neighborhood everyone knows everybody's seen anything and i know the police are tired of dealing with that i ain't see nothing i ain't see nothing but the spot shotter is not going to be an issue the spot shotter gonna tell what it's all so there won't be a problem so i say we got 2.4 million to get it let's get it if we got a probationary period that we can go through and see if it works then let's jump on it we're playing with people live we ain't gonna say we're playing with their lives i'm saying their lives at state also uh if the chief needs some policemen it's in the budget i saw the budget let's get them if she needs 72 let's get a 72 i don't understand the wait in three years i don't understand that part but we need what we need we don't there in three years if we if we giving her 20 here 30 therefore let's give her what she needs we're fighting a war we need what we need to win so i'm i'm asking i'm proposing i'm totally behind let's get the shot spotter and let's get the officers along with having the officers i'm asking that we can have the officers more boots on the ground like i said the last time i spoke just having boots on the ground seeing these police walk around um it's just it pretty much what we call on the street make the sit it made it made the situation hot nobody wants to be doing crime and the police will walk around all the time uh everybody's hip to a police car sitting there and it's empty okay uh even during the shooting uh the police will all work that day in the mac i don't know how to happen but they all on monday so even with the schedule in in in madougal terrace there's a time where there's no one there and there's a substation actually in madougal so i'm saying all that to say i'm i'm behind let's get those officers for the chief let's get that shot spotter let's get the ball rolling we got 2.4 million we have it let's make it happen um and and lastly also i was gonna say uh for a lot of construction going on it's a lot of these crimes going on because these people don't have money and there's a lot of these people from out of town funding these projects i think we should have them to where they have to hire some of the people from durham to actually build to work on that construction site uh that should be one of the criterias and that's that's all i'm done chief thank you very much mr belger we appreciate you being here right uh our next speaker is i believe this is a monica rosa and i believe we have some interpretation if miss rosa needs interpretation so should he become buenas noches buenas noches para todos ya todos conocen el grupo de las visa 1 mi nombre es monica rosa ante todo quisiera dar las gracias por esta nueva oportunidad de podernos expresar el día de hoy good evening my name is monica rosa and you all know about the subject of visa uh one visa you and um i wanted to start by introducing okay um gracias a la jefa de policía por haber hecho otro cambio más la verdad es muy importante porque más víctimas podemos tener la oportunidad de aplicar pero también sepan que no lo vamos a rendir hasta que no se quiten las restricciones so thank you to the chief of police uh for her report and knowing that more victims will be able to apply but also please know that we won't stop until the restrictions are taken away la lucha siguen todos queremos un cambio verdad no sólo del avisa o sino un cambio en general queremos comunidades seguras tenemos que luchar juntos para la para lograrlo the fight continues we all want to change we want safe communities and we all have to fight to achieve this y es por eso que tenemos que hacerlo juntos no tendremos una tarjeta verde pero eso no hace la diferencia and we have to fight together we may not have a green card but that that should make the difference so we have we can fight elbow to elbow hand to hand so let's continue with or we should all cheer for visa uh you and safety communities gracias thank you thank you very much is rosa and now we will hear from margarita o campo buenas noches a todos este yo les quiero dar las gracias porque ya me firmaron mi certificación de la visa aún y les quiero agradecer a todos los que me apoyaron y claro que este yo sé que es un proceso muy largo pero también quiero pedir que perdón so good good evening everyone thank you i want to thank all of you because my certification of visa you were signed so i want to ask for the restrictions to be taken away because there are more people like me that need support the need this visa es todo gracias that's all thank you so much thank you mizocompo and congratulations our next speaker uh the only name i see her is fide no oh okay hello could you give us your name and address please yo fui víctima de asalto agravado yo mis niñas y mi mi esposo les quiero dar las gracias verdad porque a mí me disfirmaron la certificación pero igual como a mí que he pasado ansiedad con estrés por miedo por el trauma que hemos vivido así de favor a otros compañeros que no han podido firmarle si nos podrían ayudar para que ellos puedan también so my name is fidelina moreno and i was victim of aggravated assault and i want to thank you on behalf of my children and my husband because also my certification was signed but i do want to request this to continue because of the people that have that are in fear and that have gone to traumas also should be able to be able to apply or work with visa you thank you thank you our next speaker is erica rojas buenas noches mi nombre es erica yo vivo aquí en duran y en el 2008 fui víctima de crimen y soy una nueva integrante de la visa u y estoy aquí para pedirles de favor que tener restricciones para que pueda tener yo la oportunidad de tener una visa y estar legal en este país que sólo venimos aquí a trabajar para poder ayudar a nuestras familias desde ese entonces que fui víctima siempre he tenido depresión y y mucho miedo de la comunidad donde vivimos porque hay muchos robos siguen habiendo muchas víctimas como yo a las cuales no tienen la ayuda de o quizás también de que no saben que que hay organizaciones que los pueden ayudar como a mí que yo no sabía y no pedí ayuda ni ni ni de psicólogos y apenas fue que yo supe del grupo y me uní con ellos para seguir luchando y tener la oportunidad que les han dado a ellos eso es todo gracias mi nombre es erica en duran en 2008 fui víctima de crimen y estoy aplicando para la visa u y quiero pedirles de favor que se despliegue las restricciones para que pueda tener la visa u y poder trabajar legalmente estamos trabajando familias y desde que esto sucedió he estado sufriendo de depresión y miedo porque de robos y hay más víctimas como yo que no pueden saber sobre las organizaciones o cómo llegar para la ayuda psicológica así que es por eso que quería venir aquí y continuar a preguntar por esta visa para ser las restricciones para estar retiradas gracias you could you tell her that the chief has said that in the next six months she's planning to lift the time restrictions thank you very much our next speaker is in which month will this be she was in march thank you and after which one will she be able to apply well it'll be it will be announced in the public she will well it will be publicly announced our next speaker is evan el monte pimentel el la siguiente persona que va a hablar va a ser iban al monte welcome iban please give us your name and address and also no nombre y tu dirección yo puedo hablar en inglés okay hi good evening my name is iban amonte i live on 311 sablas all street so i'm leaving in duran for 20 years and i'm so proud of these women that were victims of a crime and has been seven times in duran as well so i really encourage all the city council members that we do really need have honest conversations with our committees we have been outreaching the community at the flea market talking with a lot of latinos here in duran many then they they might be eligible to apply for the u visa but because of the time restriction they cannot apply so now we have the most progressive city council in duran so we need to some actions we keep talking about the guiop about these policies at the federal level but we in duran we have these type of policies that limit us to be eligible for the u visa so i know a lot of people they might they might not know what is the u visa is but immigrants without a status they can apply if they were victims of a crime so let's pay attention because we live in the neighborhoods where all these crimes are happening and but oftentimes we see all these people with a lot of privilege they don't live in these neighborhoods but they don't want to provide the resources that our community needs so please we need to listen to the victims we need to listen to our communities who are affected every single weekend we we hear about people i was a victim 20 years ago i was a victim like 12 years ago and then i'm being a victim again so we need to have those conversations so we need to go to our communities and listen to them we're gonna because we pay taxes so they need to hear to us too thank you thank you our next speaker is mr denis garratt mr garratt welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes loving respect my name is denis i really ain't here to talk to the city council i'm here to talk to it to the public like i'm gonna run for city council because i'm tired of every time we have these meetings all we do is we come here they already don't have a meeting three four times they don't have a meeting already they already knew what they was going to talk about before they got here they give us three minutes to talk about somebody that just been killed chief i want to say thank you because you are doing a great a lot of things in the community i thank you the mayor i thank you for all y'all doing and all you're gonna do but it ain't enough it ain't enough so we need to put people in the office to understand what's going on in the streets i'm from the streets and i gotta pass so they're gonna come up with all the dirt about my past i'm telling you i'm from the streets so i gotta pass but i'm gonna run for city council i'm asking you vote for me so people like me can be back there when they make them decisions thank you mr garrett all right um that concludes the speakers councilmember freeman and then any other council members with any comments or questions and then we'll move on to the next slide i have a question for chief davis chief uh there's a question for you almost made it to the door almost yes ma'am so just very specifically the the reason that the lady's speaking today asking about the u visa um resonates for me is that i think all crimes should be reported every single last one and how you report after reporting it is it's more than just the report it's actually having investigations that actually follow up to find out what happened and to track and like to create the safety that's needed it how would you do that if you were limited this year from having those 25 additional officers that you asked for initially well um we will work with the resources that we have at hand especially to follow up on crimes investigators to be able to go out and follow up with our victims on various types of crimes it absolutely gives us more flexibility to prepare our officers to go to the next level and to add support to the department made a comment about even the explosion a couple of weeks ago that was my observation my observation at the explosion was that i had um officers and investigators who were not in uniform who should have been in uniform at a scene that catastrophic trying to manage traffic control if it were different kind of incident in my head i was thinking that i don't know if this is a person who is really someone who is there to manage traffic control or is this somebody who um i shouldn't pay any attention to because i rolled up on that particular individual but it makes me think about the resources not just about patrolling but about a city that is experiencing unusual occurrences and mitigating those types of occurrences too so i'm i look at our staffing from a holistic standpoint not just having officers on the street but how does how do we matriculate to another level and have better officers have the type of training for officers i know this isn't a budget meter or anything but just to respond to that making sure that they have time to train and be able to respond to citizens appropriately as well so um i hope that we wouldn't waver as it relates to responding to victims especially victims that expect the police department to come and you know help them find justice in that in their particular situation so thank you i also would like to ask so you mentioned the explosion i'm just wondering how efficient it is to actually have officers working overtime rather than having the additional offices it's not good for officer wellness at all um we work unusual occurrences like that if we have an unusual occurrence we're going to work it as long as we have to but that shouldn't be the daily operation and that's just from my standpoint the type of work that they do every day um requires um an appropriate amount of downtime uh from their day-to-day activities as opposed to taking advantage of supplemental and sometimes just like kids you got to tell them to stop they'll keep you know filling in the gaps until um sometimes they break and unfortunately an officer breaking is different from someone working for corporate america breaking so um we'll continue to evaluate you know our officers and now we're managing their overtime and supplemental as well so that they aren't working as many hours as they have you know before um while i'm standing here too i want to um also respond to uh councilmember austin i had those numbers in my notes i just couldn't see them um the decrease was um by 12 69 compared to 61 multi-victim our arm incidence yeah councilmember freeman did i answer your question yes thank you all right chief thank you very much we appreciate you thank you thanks for the report and we're lucky to have thanks very grateful for what you do thank you all right i'm gonna move on now to item 26 under public hearings this is the paterson place compact suburban does on district text amendment zoning map change and uh we'll now hear the report from staff good evening i'm lisa miller with the planning department i'd like to start off by stating for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law and affidavits uh of all notices are on file in the planning department um so i have a brief introduction to begin your consideration of the paterson place compact suburban design district projects tonight this project includes the creation of new zoning regulations to be applied to compact neighborhood tiers with existing auto-oriented context through a udo text amendment it then applies those regulations to the paterson place compact neighborhood tier through the zoning map change um establishing the placement of three sub districts core support one and support two and finally it includes a proposed future street network to be fully designed and precisely placed as property is developed or redeveloped this is in order to ensure smaller block sizes and to implement multimodal street design standards in the creation of new streets this particular project is supported by a myriad of comprehensive plan policies and is the culmination of work by staff and a variety of stakeholders that began in october of 2016 after the compact neighborhood tier boundaries were reassessed and revised it's also useful to note that many long-standing homeowners in the area have been expecting and waiting for this change long before our work with this project began so i'd like mostly to talk about why in light of the discontinuation of the Durham Orange light rail project staff believes that this project should continue moving forward as i mentioned at your work session in march when this question was raised albeit in a slightly different context in terms of the project staff has had the opportunity to think about this scenario at least a handful of times in the last two and a half years while the project has been underway and the light rail project experienced one obstacle or another we continue reaching the same conclusion which is that whether the transit system proceeds or follows we need to create significant pockets of dense walkable mixed-use developments in parts of our community to accommodate the growth we're experiencing and Patterson Place is somewhat uniquely served in comparison to our other adopted compact neighborhood tiers by existing high-capacity roadways and well-used regional and local transit service in addition its location between Durham and Chapel Hill make it the best candidate of our existing tiers to implement this project without the Durham Orange light rail transit there are also short-range plans to increase frequency of existing transit service both locally for 15-minute headways on the route 10 both to serve Patterson Place and New Hope Commons on either side of 15501 and regionally with the rerouting of GO Triangles 405 route to the Patterson Place shopping center we believe that the development that can be created under the design district framework is better than what the current zoning designations allow we want to encourage the kind of development that can help us grow more sustainably in areas that have existing infrastructure and access and take advantage of places where that infrastructure and access is intended to be improved whether through additional lanes on I-40 modifications to the 15501 corridor or a Giffens lift station upgrade when property redevelops and we believe it will even without the light rail we want to ensure that it does so in a way to create walkable places further the proposed regulations provide an opportunity to test the affordable housing bonus structure that significantly incentivizes the provision of affordable units and along with that we continue to commit to monitoring and reassessing that particular regulation and the number of units both affordable and market that are created as well as the rest of the design district regulations which we have consistently monitored and modified as needed since their initial implementation in 2010 with the downtown design district we also continue to believe there's great opportunity in the creation of connections across I-40 to create local circulation from Gateway to East Town through New Hope Commons into Patterson Place. It's also worth noting that some of the Durham's elected officials on the Go-Triangle Board have stated a desire to continue to preserve the Durham Orange Light Rail corridor for potential repurposing for other high-frequency transit types. As work on a new transit plan and a new comprehensive plan for Durham begin we'll have the opportunity to ensure that this area continues to be a priority for high-frequency high-capacity transit to serve the land use vision carried out in this project. I would be happy to answer questions on the project or go into greater detail on aspects of the proposal. I wanted to mention as noted in your memo that the Planning Commission meeting results had not been finalized by the time the memo went out. The Planning Commission did vote on the three different pieces of the project. They voted to recommend against the project five to six on the text amendment, five to six on the zoning map change, and four to seven on the street network. And I just wanted to call your attention to the fact that we have five motions that will be necessary at the time that you're ready to take action on the item. The consistency statement for the text amendment itself, the consistency statement for the zoning map change, the zoning map change itself, and the resolution on the street network. Thank you. Thank you very much Ms. Miller. We appreciate it. You have heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and I'm going to ask first if there are any members of the council who have questions or comments for Ms. Miller at this point. Just one question regarding the way that the compact district is designed is based on the light rail. And I know that it accounted for that rail line. In the same way do you think that it would account for oil? I think if you pause to say to look at what is happening now in the neighborhoods, specifically around, there's so much green space in that area. And what we're talking about is adding a whole lot more concrete. And I'm concerned that what water runoff will look like and how storm water would be handled. And I'm not sure that the current, I mean the current district plan accounts for that. And I just want to verify if it does or not. We did part of the reason that we created the compact suburban design designation as opposed to using one of the existing design district designations, which are compact and downtown, was because we felt like as opposed to the areas where we previously put the regulations in place, we had an existing context where it wasn't as constrained of a tight urban environment that allowed us to do more with creating a green storm water infrastructure opportunity in the streetscape, requiring a greater amount of open space, allowing opportunities for green roofs and things like that to be part of parking structures that are created. Things that we thought we we had opportunity to really to do more on those things that are harder to do in a more constrained urban environment. Thank you. Any other questions at this point? Mayor Pro Tem? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just had a couple of questions about the densities that were developed and whether you all think that those densities could be supported by a light rail alternative like bus rapid transit or are they are they now higher than what we would expect bus rapid transit to support given that we developed them based on we would have thinking we would have light rail. Sure, so the buy rate density is partly because of the use of the affordable housing bonus. Our slight increase over what our approach with the affordable housing bonus let me step back a second is to slightly increase the densities kind of overall throughout the district as opposed to a significant increase like we did with downtown or night street and then only allow that really big bump when you are providing the 15 percent affordable units. So the densities that we're talking about are between nine and 30 units per acre that are buy right. I believe that that is supportable with bus rapid transit and then any units that we get above that density are going to is going to be because we've created affordable housing units and I so I think the opportunity there and the the ability to serve with bus rapid transit I think is completely doable. Great, thank you. Do you think that given that there will not be a light rail station there that there will be desire or the market for those sort of larger buildings that we were hopeful could include the affordable housing component? I think that's a great question. We have continued to see and kind of increasing as we've been working on this project interest in land development in that area and I don't believe that that was light rail dependent because construction of the light rail obviously hasn't even hadn't even begun and was projected 10 years out. There is interest in development there currently and I think part of the reason that we feel it's important to move this forward now is because we want to make sure that as the area develops that it doesn't develop in the existing pattern and kind of lose our opportunity to get a lot of the growth that's happening here in jobs and housing to happen in a more condensed walkable mixed-use fashion. Okay, there were a couple of comments in the memo about all of the naturally occurring affordable housing that's in this area and figuring out a strategy to protect and preserve some of that as development continues. Could you give us an update on what work has happened towards that and kind of where we are on that? Sure, so we are continuing to work with our partners in community development to look at opportunities for maintaining that naturally occurring affordable housing. Most of it is within the 60 to 80 percent area median income range. One of the things that I do think was the case previously and probably more so now with the light rail project not on the books is that we don't believe that there's going to be immediate pressure on those units and so having time to continue to work with community development and the developments there to figure out how to fund retaining that affordability is something we have time to do. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem, Councilmember Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. How's it going tonight? We had a specific, maybe this is a little bit in the weeds, but a specific issue raised by someone who came to talk to us about congregate living facilities and the fact that they are considered residential for the purposes of the height limits with respect to projects with and without an affordable housing component. Can you talk a little bit about if or why that makes sense in this context given that those congregate living facilities include a number of services and the other types of sort of sub facilities within them like healthcare, cafeterias, those types of things. How or what if that makes sense to be categorized in that residential portion? Sure. This is something that we've had a chance to just briefly look at as it was raised relatively recently, but certainly it seems like there may be a good argument for using the non-residential height limitations for the group living categories within the use table. For the purposes of this evening we didn't have enough time to fully vet that, make sure that there were no unintended consequences of that, and so it's something that we've let that individual know that we could entertain in the Omnibus Text Amendment to address that modification. Okay, so we think that might be, you'll do some work on that, maybe come back to us about it later. Fantastic, I appreciate that. My last question is more of a, I'm going to save that to left of the public here. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. I'm sorry. You're the boss. I'm the boss. All right, so we have several people signed up to speak on this item. Our first speaker is Michael Waldrop. Thank you, Mr. Waldrop. You have three minutes and please give us your name and address. Happily. My name is Michael Waldrop, 5-3-2-4 McFarland in the heart of Patterson Place. First of all, I'd like to thank the council members and Mr. Mayor that I was able to meet with today. We had good discussion and Charlie, thank you for raising that question. I have done a lot of thinking about this. I've had plenty of time. I've had decades of time to think about Patterson Place. I support the project. There are many things that are really very good that are coming out of this, the street designs. There's just a number of things I have some concern. Excuse me, the street sections, not necessarily the street plan, the street network plan. I'm very concerned about the street network plan and its interface with the 15501 quarter designs that were just made available a few days ago. And then of course, there's the open question of what we do, if anything, to put a substitute, a replacement for light rail in the corridor. So I'm certainly not going to, I couldn't do it if I wanted to, but I certainly don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I support the project. I know there's been a lot of work that's gone into this. I handed over our own private efforts to come up with a compact neighborhood when that was still an option as a privately initiated venture in October of 2014. So four and a half years ago was when we basically saw the start of this process. And it's good to see something come out of it at this point and allow us to move forward. But again, I think there's a number of issues that I hope you will individually or collectively take interest in. And they all relate to the big handmaiden of land use planning, which is transportation planning. And we've got a lot of work ahead of ourselves. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Waldrop. Our next speaker is Robert Healy. Mr. Healy. And I don't believe we did the thing where we allocate time to assign. I'm sorry, we sure didn't. I'm sorry. My bad. Okay. Bob, hang on one sec. Okay. Thank you. I've been, I've been repurposed. Okay. Mr. Hall here. Yes. Would you characterize yourself as a proponent or an opponent? Would you characterize yourself as a proponent or an opponent of this? You're undecided. Okay. I got it. I got it. Okay. Good. Thank you. We're going to say, let's see, we've got one, two, three, four people who signed up as proponents. We have one, two people who signed up as opponents. And we have one person, Mr. Hall. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give three minutes to each of the speakers. We'll see if the opponents who don't have as many speakers need a little more time. Okay. Mr. Healy, welcome. Thank you very much. I'm Bob. Are you ready? Yes, we are. Okay. I'm Bob Healy. I live at 839 Sedgefield. I've been a Durham resident for 30 few years. And for the last 27 years, I have been the chair or co-chair of the New Hope Creek advisory committee, which has advised local governments on the implementation of the adopted 1992 New Hope plan. This has resulted in protection investment of over $5 million in federal, state, and local and private funds to protect the integrity of the New Hope corridor for both natural values and public recreation. One of the things has been the council in 2005 voted to, along with all the other jurisdictions, to raise the bridge at the replacement bridge at 15501 over New Hope Creek at a cost of a million dollars to permit wildlife and person's movement underneath that bridge. And we're concerned today with a large tract of land that's immediately adjacent to this on the north side of 15501. When staff initially came up with their proposal, they suggested a 300 foot setback of development from the flood plain. They had conversations with the developer, which we were not a party, and they changed their recommendations to a 200 foot transitional use permit zone for the same property. We can't support this. It doesn't cover enough of the property to really see that New Hope values are given adequate scrutiny. Now, this is not my opinion. We have had six ecologists look at this land. Three of them have PhDs. All of them have long, long experiences, including Steve Hall, who probably has the longest. Three of them have 30 years experience in studying the New Hope. In that very area, there are 12 cameras motion activated underneath that bridge to track wildlife. We don't believe that this is this 200 foot transitional zone is sufficient. We think there is an alternative. We know there's been major changes in the LRT. We don't know what's going to happen to 15501. We don't know what's going to happen as a replacement to the LRT. What we suggest is this property be simply taken out of the compact neighborhood until we understand how all of this fits together. We think this goes slower approach, no longer motivated by the kinds of strict deadlines that the federal process involved is much better than a blanket up zoning with no real protection for the corridor. What I think is no real guarantee of low and moderate income housing. We think we should wait to integrate this into the new comprehensive plan and the new plan for a different kind of transit system. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Healy. I'm now going to call the rest of the proponents. Mr. Patrick Biker, followed by Reynolds Smith and Jim Svara. If Mr. Smith and Mr. Svara, you can come over here to the right of the podium, that would be great. Mr. Biker, welcome. You have three minutes. Good evening, Mayor Schuyl, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the City Council. I'm Patrick Biker. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I've lived in Southwest Durham for 25 years, and I also serve as chairman of the Durham Area Transit Authority from the late 90s to the early 2000s. I attended all of the neighborhood outreach meetings hosted by the playing department for tonight's agenda item as a concerned citizen and as a transit advocate. Now, even though I've represented several property owners on the district you're considering tonight, I attended all of those meetings as a resident of Southwest Durham, and I was very impressed with the work that our staff did to bring you this item tonight. So I'm here this evening to encourage you all to vote to approve the staff recommendation. The playing department has labored for years with this task, and now is the time to move forward. I'm pretty sure everyone in this room had the best intentions in regard to the Durham area, I'm sorry, Durham Orange light rail transit project, but it did not work out, and that's just the way life is sometimes. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the playing department did a very good job with community outreach and striking the right balance among a wide range of community interests. That's probably why this agenda item came to you tonight with I think it was 27 attachments. I will not tell you that I read all of them, but I can see that the playing department did a thorough professional and thoughtful presentation of the key issues. In that regard, I want to acknowledge the hard work and expertise of Lisa Miller and Scott Whiteman in particular, in addition to playing Director Pat Young and Assistant Director Sarah Young. For all these reasons, it is time to move forward with approval of the staff recommendation for Patterson Place, and I hope you'll do that. Thank you for your time tonight, and Mayor, if it's appropriate, I'd like to reserve the remaining minute and 20 seconds for rebuttal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Beiker. Mr. Reynolds Smith. Mr. Smith, welcome. You have three minutes. Good evening. I'm Reynolds Smith. I live at 1905 Old Red Mountain Road in Rougemont. I'm on the Durham Open Space and Trails Advisory Commission. I'm chair of its Open Space Committee, and I'm here to represent their interests. What concerns us in this development is its location along the western edge of the New Hope Creek Wildlife Corridor. Like every other citizen group that's offered opinions, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, the New Hope Creek Advisory Committee, and others, Open Space and Trails can accept these proposed zoning changes, and we enthusiastically welcome the steep slope protections. But also like these other groups, we prefer a 300-foot transitional use area, as the planning department originally proposed last summer, rather than the 200-feet it now suggests. 300 feet, roughly 100 meters, is what the best ecological and biological science recommends. You can see our reference to this fact in the Environmental Law Institute citation provided in Dost's memo to you of last December. At least 300 feet is necessary to insulate and protect wildlife, especially during floods, and to mitigate the degradation of water quality in Jordan Lake, a reservoir already threatened by excessive nutrient levels. But whether or not these zoning recommendations are approved, whether or not the proposals for a design district at Patterson Place are accepted or even totally abandoned, the New Hope Creek Corridor now confronts a real and immediate threat from development. This land is a state-designated natural heritage area. It links many special habitats containing rare and threatened species. It was created in the 1990s by four cooperating jurisdictions in one of the very first multi- jurisdictional open space agreements in this state. You've heard about the efforts on the bridge from Bob Healey. This important change was done at great cost, but it was necessary to preserve the corridor's greatest ecological benefit, which is the connection it provides between numerous special habitats. Without a functioning connection between them, these habitats will shrink and disappear along with the species that live in them. Now the corridor is being challenged at exactly this point, its most vulnerable point, its narrowest point, the point where the bridge passes over it on the Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard. In July of last year, developers submitted a grading plan that would allow mass grading and tree removal at exactly this most vulnerable point. That plan conformed to existing legislation put in place by the state legislature in the wake of the 2010 elections, and so the grading plan had to be administratively approved. But this plan now gives these developers the vested right to destroy the very features that the planning department is here proposing new regulations to protect. It's a dangerous time in the fight for the environment today. In the 1970s, at the dawn of the environmental movement, it was widely understood that environmental issues were first of all local issues. It was in the specific localities where environmental problems existed. Go ahead. Go ahead, realms. You got a little bit more time. Okay. We have to defend what this special place exists for. And if North Carolina state government is now a chief obstacle to this defense, this cannot be allowed to be a secret. If our rights to defense have been abrogated, well, this must be public knowledge. It should not just slide on by without notice, without comment, without objection. People will want to know that before the bulldozers and skid steers descend into New Hope Canyon, our leaders first said, no way, no way. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Savara. Mr. Savara, please give us your name and address. Welcome. You have three minutes. Good evening. Jim Savara, 1114 Woodburn Road. I'm speaking on behalf of the Coordinating Committee for the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit. We still feel it is still appropriate to approve these standards that will encourage dense mixed use, mixed income, walkable suburban development. Patterns in place is well connected by transit to the rest of Durham. Not only can residents of Durham get there, but the residents of Patterson Place would be able to get downtown into other parts of Durham. We think this is a model with regard to the affordable housing provisions because it includes limits on density as an at-right feature, but then provides important incentives in order to encourage affordable units, 15% or more for persons that 60% or below area median income. These are a density bonus that overcomes that limit on density. In fact, there are no density maximums in the three areas. The design requirements are more flexible with the possibility for greater height. The current normal height restrictions are 145 feet to 35 feet across the sub-districts. With the affordable housing, the height requirements will be 300 feet in the core, 145 feet in sub-district 1, and 60 feet in sub-district 2. There's also greater flexibility on parking. There are two revisions that we would like to propose in this framework. First of all, the height limits. The height limit of 300 feet for commercial use in the core area and 145 feet for residential use gives a strong incentive for commercial over residential development. That limit for housing can be increased to 300 feet for residential use or a component that includes some residential use. That's appropriate, but we don't think that 300-foot commercial limit is appropriate. It provides too strong an incentive for commercial over residential. That same philosophy should be applied in the other two areas as well. I have a handout. That is the boundaries of the core area. We propose that it be reduced in size. In part, we don't need as much space for transit station with the bus alternatives that will be considered over light rail, but also this will mean that the incentives in sub-district in sub-area 1 will be more powerful than if that extended area on your map, the area that's to the right of the line that's been drawn in, if that's shifted over to sub-district 1, the incentives will be stronger. So I encourage you to improve the proposal with these revisions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Sephora. We now have two more speakers who have signed up to speak in opposition, one in opposition and then Mr. Hall. Mr. John Kent, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. Did you write over on your bicycle? I did. My name is John Kent. I live at 394 Cub Creek Road in Chapel Hill. And I have been a technical advisor to the New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee since the early 90s. And from a similar time, I've headed a volunteer group that has done water quality monitoring on New Hope Creek from Stagecoach Road. We do six sites monthly and we've kept it up. We're in our 29th year. Stagecoach Road would up into Orange County, North of Calvander. And I am a regular attendee of the Open Space Subcommittee of DOST. And I know some of you because I also go to the bike head committee here. And it's basically because I am an advisor, Mother Henning, the New Hope Creek. I want to stress this is a very special place that is on its cross by the main drag between downtown Durham and downtown Chapel Hill. Furthermore, it's the main drag which has an interstate interchange on it. And with or without the LRT, this is prime real estate. Every developer looks at the four quadrants when you have two big highways and an interchange. And I don't think you should be giving away density. And I, without the LRT, you don't have to worry about making the system viable. It's unfortunate that the LRT isn't going to happen, but it's not going to. And so I know staff has put a lot of time into this. I've been to all of the meetings. I was instrument and I go back on being involved. We are involved in getting the bridge done. I did that in 2000. I was involved in getting the line put next to 15501. So it didn't cut a new swath through the woods east to Kroger's or what was Kroger's. If you're going to pass it, I think you should take the part out north of 15501 east of Mount Mariah Road. I also think if you are going to pass it and that's left in, we need a 300 foot setback. Not a tour, we need a setback from the edge of the compact neighborhood boundary. And that's a compromise already on that. We're going downslope into the flood zone from the original May 2018 planning department proposal to do it from the edge of the 100-year floodplain. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Ken. Mr. Hall, welcome, Mr. Hall. Please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. Chapel Hill. And in late 1980s, like early 1990s, I participated in three inventories of the natural areas and wildlife habitats of this region, from Orange County, Durham County, all the way down to Chatham. And the one link between all three of those counties in terms of the natural areas and the species that live in this area was the New Hope Creek floodplain, the waters of New Hope Creek itself, and also the adjoining slopes. So I'm speaking in support of as much conservation of these natural areas along New Hope Creek as we can manage. During those inventories, they had the great good fortune to work with both Margaret and Iguard and Hildegard Riles, two of the most important conservation figures in the history of North Carolina. And they had the foresight to see this area needs to be conserved and special to all the people who live in these, not just the three counties, but the entire Piedmont of the state. So if we can remember their vision and protect as much of the slopes, floodplains, and waters of New Hope Creek as possible, that's what I wish to support and hope that we all remember their vision. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard at this item at this time? I'm going to keep the public hearing open and I'm going to now ask if there are other questions or comments by members of the council. Ms. Miller, I have some questions. So let's see where to start here exactly. This was a prodigious piece of work and I want to thank you and all the members of the planning staff that worked on this, all the outreach that you've done, all the good thinking that's gone into this and I think one of the speakers already mentioned, I think even for us just reading this item was an enormous amount of reading and I know that you all have just put your heart and soul into this. We are in a different environment without the light rail and you gave your reasons why you thought nevertheless we ought to move forward with this and I thought I agree that those reasons in terms of transportation are persuasive. I think that there's still plenty of transportation to get out here and I think that in the not too distant future that will be strengthened. Exactly how we will be getting through this quarter we don't know but we don't, what we know hasn't changed is that this is a super important quarter for us to get through. The fact that 15501 is clogged with traffic and will be more clogged with traffic, things are only going to get worse and so we're going to have to have a transit solution. Patterson Place will have to be part of that transit solution and so I found what you had to say about that persuasive. I want to mention in particular the TOD guidebook which I thought was excellent and I was glad that you all made use of that TOD guidebook as you worked. Some of the fallout from not having the light rail is that we have all this tremendous work like the TOD guidebook which is now only partially relevant but still extremely relevant here in Patterson Place and appreciated the way in which you all made use of that. There is some question about, there have been raised kind of by the speakers today and other some of the planning commission comments and so forth, questions about the extent to which this is too much upzoning at this point or not enough upzoning at this point. So you've made a decision to upzone some but not the extent to which you think developers will want there so you believe they will then come in and ask for the affordable housing bonus to get additional density. Was that a fair statement? That was the goal, yep. Do you think that how has the light rail changed that equation? Has that changed that equation and the mayor pro tem asked earlier similarly about that but I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah I think one of the things that was always noteworthy about the Patterson Place area, you know again leaning on the expert work that we had with the consultant team on the TOD planning grant in their national and I think international work in TOD planning is knowledge that places that have a suburban context in place are very difficult to transition into a non suburban development pattern. I think that the development intensities that we've set with this as we took into account this way of implementing an affordable housing bonus actually sets us up very well to continue that path forward without the light rail. I think there was a little bit, this was outlined I think by Mr. Waldrop's emails but then also in the GoTriangle memo that maybe we were not setting up quite enough intensity for the light rail so I think there's a little bit less concern of that without the light rail being in place but we still have densities that are increased from what's there existing that are at a level that we can create the mixed use walkable places and the design standards and form standards to allow that to occur that I think can easily be supported by other means of transit so I believe that we're still finding a balance that will function here. So our affordable housing bonuses elsewhere have unfortunately been unsuccessful even though they're very aggressive. I think that we could have reasonably predicted that light rail could have created the kind of the need the demand for density that would have elicited proposals for the density bonus. Do you think absent that that in the short term do you think that that it's likely that people will seek that density bonus? I know you don't know the answer to that question but I wonder what your best judgment is. I think it's hard to kind of depends on what short term means to you. I think there will be interest in the level of intensity that would require the bonus in a somewhat short range future. What that exactly is I think obviously depends on a whole lot of factors but I believe that that range of densities that would require the bonus are set in such a way that it would be desirable to utilize in the short range future. You also commented in response to the Mayor Pro Tem's questions about the naturally occurring affordable housing but I think could you repeat what you said about that? What do you think the future of that housing is? Sure so one of the things that I mentioned in response to that question is that and it kind of relates back to the difficulty in changing the shape of a place that is suburban development that I think it's going to take some time before we see significant development pressures. Not to say that there won't be development interest because as I mentioned previously we've we've still seen development interest here but that those developments they're not kind of at the end of their lifespan as far as we can tell based on how long other developments are in place that are of that kind of residential and so I think that we do have some time to continue to work out how we can preserve that affordability as the pressures of new development come into that area. And when you talked about working with the community development department on that are you thinking then that that will involve some sort of eventually I mean are you thinking that this these will be subsidized in some way in the future will they be well is that your is that you're thinking because you know all of our subsidy efforts are very much geared towards downtown and in the short term. Sure. So what do you what is the as you were give me a little bit more about what your thoughts are. Yeah and I think the again more great work that is somewhat you some of it is useful and some of it may not be but the the Triangle J council of government's report that's included as an attachment is something that's been a great resource for us and you know I think one of the things discussed about the potential for trying to retain that affordability would be to actually find a way to buy that affordability so yes I understand that the sort of five-year goals are oriented very much on downtown and and that's part of why this is a continuing conversation to look at what other alternatives there may be. Yeah and I agree it's quite possible that you know I can see that the timeline might work but it's hard to tell but I hope that yeah so but I appreciate your efforts along that line but I I do think it's going to be really important over the next few years to really think about the naturally occurring affordable housing out there with community development with our housing advocates and others because we don't have an obvious subsidy at this point not to say that we couldn't have one but it is something that we need to really think about it is imaginable to me that we might have a private developer with a four percent tax credit or something that might be part of that in which case we might have no subsidy or a minimal one but in that case we may not be getting the density we want either that likely to be you know garden apartments or something so I do think it's a it's tricky but it's also incredibly hard to predict these things and I appreciate your doing your best to do so on page three the memo of the memo it says about something about allowing creative configurations of dense single and two family residential with integrated open spaces how what did that mean so essentially that was creating a provision that just applies in the support to sub-district that as long as you're falling within the minimum and maximum densities that are set for that district that there can be single family and duplex housing developments that's basically like a really flexible pdr so you can kind of create you know a little bit more unique setting without having to go through the process of creating a pdr got it thank you that's really helpful and that's great glad to hear that um the you've heard tonight and we've heard about the request by various groups to expand the tradition transitional use area to 300 feet from 200 feet as I understand it your decision to recommend the 200 feet has largely to do with an existing developer who's threatening to mass grade by right on a large parcel of land partially in the two ua and has indicated he will do so if the 200 foot two ua is raised to 300 feet that I get that right mostly um we actually so we initially put out the idea of a 300 foot setback from the floodplain and as we further looked at what we could legally do within the bounds of north carolina laws on environmental regulations as well as looked at some of the research that was provided to us both by the environmental stakeholders um and the um an environmental engineer hired by property owners we saw a wide range of recommendations for a variety of different conservation or ecological corridor uses for recruit corridors and revised our recommendation based on all of that then and so we we created the 200 foot transitional use area um after going through that uh consideration um then the uh then the part where the the property owner um has existing entitlements for the probably largest continuous area of undeveloped land adjacent to the new hope creek corridor under the existing zoning regulations um which has uh it does not have the revised steep slope requirements it does not have a 200 foot transitional use area um there are existing entitlements in terms of the zoning for um the area that we've heard identified as the most important part of the corridor which is adjacent to the um where the corridor goes under 15501 um there's a pdr zoning with a development plan that allows uh three about 350 um senior living units in one of the most kind of a finger that goes up into the most sensitive areas um through the process um and reflected in the the zoning ordinance uh we received a proffer from the the property owner um that has has those entitlements um that if this moves forward with a 200 foot to ua that they would agree to remove their mass grading from that 200 foot to ua and subject themselves to the new process of going through a major special use permit if they want to develop in that area would that include the steep slope uh rules it does not it is uh using the existing steep slope requirements but would put them into the the new transitional use area requirements so they would they would be within they would be with they would that would be the 200 foot transitional use areas requirements not the steep slope requirements but they would not be able to mass grade they would anything that they want to do within that 200 foot to ua would not fall under existing entitlement but would go through that major special use permit major special use permit yes okay well help me with the mass grading and how that relates to the major special use permit um so it probably depends on how they would go through that process um because in their existing plan um what they've agreed to do is to pull out of that 200 foot area with that plan um and so I'm not sure if what's left would be considered a mass grading site plan at that point because of the amount of area um but the way that the transitional use area requirements are set up is that there are some specific findings that only relate to kind of the consideration of its impact on the adjacent corridor that we got some feedback from both the Durham County Open Space staff as well as the um New Hope Creek folks as we were developing those about what are the the right considerations for those findings um and would have to be in keeping with all of those findings to allow encroachment into that 200 foot to ua so you have to help me with this a little bit more this is a important question and we have um you can call reinforcements if you want them um this is a uh the way I so so you've heard the the case for the 300 foot transitional use area transitional use area thank you um the way I read the memo the there is a developer who has by right ability to mass grade significantly into the New Hope corridor right or not depending on how you define the corridor into into area that would be protected with the regulations that we've uh drafted okay yes and and they have now proffered that that they would submit to the 200 foot to ua and you have to go through a major special permit process to do what any encroachment of development into that 200 foot to ua has to go through that major special use permit process and the the major special including mass grading including mass grading and that major special use permit would come to us yes and there would be certain objective criteria that we would uh be looking at it would be a quasi judicial process is that right and what would be some of the criteria that we would have to look at in terms of granting or not granting their major special use permit the five review factors that are included specifically for this major special use permit are environmental protection lighting effects on nearby properties conformance with adopted plans and other factors it's on page 26 of the text amendment or I'm happy to read the description under each of those items if that's helpful now would you read the headings again though environmental protection lighting effects on nearby properties conformance with adopted plans and other factors what are the other factors that's just allowing you all the opportunity to take into consideration other things that are brought to your attention okay so they would come to us for major special use permit having a seated to the 200 foot to ua if they don't if if the if we were to adopt the 300 foot to ua their stance is what if you all were to adopt something other than what is the than the 200 foot to ua um what they have indicated to me is that they would remove the proffer related to the to the mass grading site plan that's um they have entitlements for um and also um that they would not want to be part of the rezoning um they so one of the other pieces that's kind of related the split the zoning split parcels um relates to one of the properties that that they have ownership of part of what is included in the zoning uh ordinance is to take existing protection of 50 some acres that um goes outside of the compact neighborhood tier and in that pdr um development plan says that that will be that will remain undisturbed so there's a provision in the zoning ordinance before you that includes a basically translation of that protection into development plan uh text only development plan um so my understanding is that they would remove both of those of proffers so one of the proffers they would remove is that they would be that that one of the proffers has to do with the um their willingness to submit to the 200 foot to ua and bring us the major special use permit and could you succinctly describe what the other proffer is that they might that they would withdraw I will try uh so the existing protection that's part of the pdr development plan basically allows development on a certain portion of the property which is the sensitive area that I mentioned that's kind of a finger up into the corridor the remainder of the property that's primarily outside of the compact neighborhood tier is called out as to remain undisturbed in that development plan this property being rezoned as part of this project would wipe out that development plan so we've created language working with them to translate that into text only development plan commitment to apply that to that property um the combination of them so them being unwilling to proffer that if the 200 foot to ua changes um would make us uninterested in including them in the rezoning because it would be a significant loss of protection and I also understand that they would not want to be part of the rezoning if it has changed to a 300 foot to ua um I apologize that was not more succinct it's not well it's a difficult situation it wasn't more succinct but I think it deserved not being more succinct um okay still not quite sure I get it but I think I do the I have some questions on some other things let me just do them what is a clear zone for sidewalks uh that's an area that needs to remain unobstructed from street furniture like street lighting benches things like that what is a suspended sidewalk system um you see them most of the time in downtown where there is uh um the pavers are actually elevated over the street tree pit so you may not notice but it's just like you see the tree trunk and a little square space around it and then there's a system that the pavers sit over the tree pit to allow greater area that you can traverse um makes it so that it's easier to get clear zones and tighter spaces okay can we prohibit payday lenders from core as well as support one and support two I believe so yeah that was so there was a specific uh item in the night street plan when it was developed um so that limited u standard was put in place for the compact design district um we had some requests at the planning commission meeting I was the first time that this issue was raised that we put that same provision in place for the compact suburban design district um which is just for support one and support two so the the the request is that we use the ninth street model for this or that was the request but I don't think that was because there was a specific interest in retaining the right to have them understood understood um is there any reason that we would want to have payday lenders in the Patterson place area that you know not to my knowledge okay me mine either um how did you decide on the support two boundaries so uh about a year and a half ago um at the public meeting that we held we had kind of a workshop style meeting where we asked folks to giving them an understanding of uh the intention behind the support two subject sub district as well as the others but the support two sub district is really intended to be a transition in intensity to what is the existing development outside of the compact neighborhoods here um so we asked folks to tell us where our areas that you think are sensitive to transition to um and the area that was identified by the different groups um was only in the area south of Danziger between Mount Moriah and southwest Durham drive down to old Chapel Hill um one group had it that full extent and then another I think two other groups had it a smaller extent um but one of the things that we decided to do as we were implementing the affordable housing bonus strategy that's in place is knowing that the support two has the potential to go up to 145 feet with the use of the bonus we decided to err on the side of the larger support two area in order to make sure there was a better transition thank you I now have a note that I made to myself Lisa that I have no idea what it means maybe I'll read it to you and you can tell I wrote zoning implementation attachment page two map areas one and four invade open space how will this work can you translate that for me for myself can you translate my words to me possibly she's not good I think it may have been actually you said page two yeah I think it actually might be what you we were just discussing yes which is the fact that you've got these developers who will be invading this open space it's actually directly related to the split zoned parcels and retaining existing development plan commitments just that piece of it so how will that work so in the zoning map change ordinance in your packet there's one section that's just about kind of the overall taking these parcels and putting them into the compact suburban design district zoning um there's one provision for each of the two parcels that have the split zone where there's a development plan in place protecting open space that's outside the compact neighborhood tier and there's a section for each of those translating with a text only development plan to maintain those protections and then an additional item that's related to the proffer from the property owner on the north side of 15501 so on the 300 feet versus the 200 feet we've heard from the folks from New Hope Creek and these are people that have just devoted a tremendous amount of I don't have to tell you they've probably been all up in your grill too um tremendous amount of time and effort and goodwill and you know John rides his bicycle every from Chapel Hill to every single BPAC meeting and and their concern their their contention is that the best thing for the environment is to have this 300 foot TUA what I hear you saying is that the 300 foot TUA is problematic because we have a developer with the right to mass grade into that area and that you think that the 200 foot TUA which this developer would agree to in in return for a major and would have to go through a major special use permit is environmentally preferable is that right or no is that what I said is it I get what you said that's correct and I think the one other thing that I would say is we from the beginning of the project our goal as staff was to try and figure out how to best find the balance between new development intensity and what property owners expect to be able to do with their property and the environmental resource and protection of that and trying to find a balance that works um the number of acres that are taken away in a 300 foot TUA are not insignificant um so that there may be concern about that even if this site plan were not in place but this site plan the entitlements being in place um and the ability under the existing zoning to to really develop in what is very close up into the corridor is are some of the biggest things motivating our recommendation okay all right I think I'll have a little more later but I think for now I'm done uh council members council member Reese absolutely thank you mr. mayor she ditched me oh okay yeah good call can you address the concern that a number of folks have raised with me about this particular um proposal that what we're likely to get in the absence of light rail is a lot of single story commercial development um especially in um I guess support to as opposed to a light rail project that would bring more of a residential demand um so one of the things that we have in place in our design districts um is that a minimum podium height so the podium height is the initial height that a building goes up before you're required to step it back in order to continue up in their allowable height um you certainly could see a single story uh commercial structure that's 20 feet tall that's the minimum in support to um so I can't say that that's not possible um in fact a lot of the commercial development that's in that area now like the where the Panera is in the music store used to be music store anyway that's kind of at that height right I would think so yeah um and the the portion that's in support to there's uh I think one commercial property currently that may be a house um so that area is has not had the draw for commercial development um I don't want to say it's not a possibility but I don't see that being uh as likely as seeing commercial interest in the areas that are closer to 15501 and 40 um as opposed to on the south end of the company neighborhood looking at the map uh of the proposed district is it fair to say that the core um is based on where the planning indicated the light rail station would be this that may sound like a really stupid question but I just want to make clear that I know what that why it's like that uh yes but I will say um the as I mentioned the workshop that we had where we asked folks where they wanted to see the greatest intensity of development happen um all of the area that's currently in the core and pretty much everything uh that is to the west along 15501 and along 40 was also included as we looked at implementing the affordable housing bonus we wanted to we wanted to make sure that there was around the proposed station an area where we had a little bit of shelter from potential um any potential negative impacts of the affordable housing bonus so making sure that we would get some commercial or office uses that we're not um having the suppressed height that we wanted to put in place in the majority of the district and so that motivated us to shrink the core down um in order to accommodate that affordable housing bonus and kind of protect the the core area from uh lower intensity non-residential development but since light rail isn't happening and we're not exactly clear on what the new transit options will be along here um whether that includes some kind of BRT and a separate guideway with a separate station some kind of transit station we don't know where in this configuration that would be right we should that's correct although there is existing transit that serves um at McFarland and Witherspoon which is in the center of the core and there's a pretty heavily used park and red lot there as well the choosing to go forward with this in the absence of light rail seems a little bit like um a leap of faith and the the leap as you you described you didn't describe it that way earlier but what you said was you believe that there would be sufficient transit alternatives to bring a necessary demand to this area or sufficient transit service to induce the kind of development we want is that fair to say uh to induce or serve uh what is created because I think it's both both are important um but if that doesn't happen what kind of development are we really incentivizing with this configuration if they if that doesn't work out so I think uh if the concern is that there's you know if transit isn't either the transit that is does end up being proposed more enhanced does not induce the kind of intensity that we originally foresaw with the the light rail proposal the worst case scenario with development we have minimums in the requirements which is kind of unusual for our zoning districts um and so I think that we still in our worst case scenario with these regulations are going to get better development than any of the existing uh zoning districts out there provide um we can't get the same sort of uh suburban commercial uh with very prominent parking that is there now because of all of the parameters that are built into the design district framework so I think that there is uh we we certainly want to be aware of and concerned about what intensity ends up there because I think um at least from our department's perspective the compact neighborhood tier uh mechanism is one that may in you know the county as a whole look we may look to reshape where some of those compact neighborhoods are placed but the concept is one that's really important to us being able to grow sustainably and that even you know we know that there is not going to be the Durham Orange light rail but we have an opportunity to create a transit system that serves places where we either have the kind of mixed use that we want to serve with transit or to create it around that transit system so I think I think that with that is why again I believe that moving forward is is still worthwhile shifting the way that we think about development and how we're growing is really important to the future of our community is it fair to say that the size of the design district was driven at least in part by the perceived demand for development that would be created or shepherded or however you want to put it um by the light rail project so the the the boundaries of the compact neighborhood tier uh so before the reassessment that was completed in 2016 the suburban transit area which is what this was previously which was basically a future compact neighborhood ended at 15501 sorry no yes so it was it was expanded at that time it roughly accommodates a half mile or 15 minute walk which is good transit planning principle one of the things that I think is worth noting is that in the increased transit service that is short in the short-range plans for like for instance with the route 10 15-minute headways includes a stop both on both sides of 15501 so even if we don't think that there's going to be great pedestrian accommodation across 15501 which is a thing that we're working on with the 15501 corridor study the opportunity for transit to to take you to either side and take you there frequently um is in our short-range future yeah I'll think I'll hand over the microphone for a bit now. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you um Lisa for hanging in there uh with so many of my colleagues have channeled um so much many of my concerns um and questions about this I do I'm not really struggling at first of all I want to echo the the mayor's comments about how just a yeoman's job your person's job uh you folk have done uh and the enormity of this piece of work I guess for me intellectually the the this design district's vibrance and vitality has been so tethered to light rail since we've been talking about it that I guess intellectually for me now that light rail's not going to happen the I wonder if some of the optimism about proceeding as it exists now in this configuration is fueled by you know it was going to be great whether we did light rail or not or because we're not having light rail we just have to make it great um and and I guess I'm I'm wrestling with some of that but I you know this this planning department could tell us to rezone the moon and I would that's so much trust I have in them but I do want to ask a question about the the how robust the support of stakeholders bracket out the conversation about the environmental conversation about the buffer how robust is the support of stakeholders in the area sands light rail I know that you work a great deal with them when light rail was in the mix but have what what is that how robust is that support now so I think that uh it's a little bit hard to characterize we've obviously heard from some folks here tonight that they're supportive of the project moving forward and I think that the I'm trying to think of anyone I think that the the any lack of support for moving forward if anything is temporary as opposed to permanent um in terms of uh I think at least one person requested some time I think one of the things from our from our perspective as I've as I've mentioned uh maybe in a couple different ways previously is that there are existing zoning regulations on the ground right now um there's a lot of rs 20 out there if we want uh two units of single family housing per acre um people can do that now um they won't be constrained by the fact that the lift station doesn't have the capacity when you're dealing with single family uh residential so part of this is trying to put things in place that as the desire and need to develop occurs that it will be done so in the in the way that we've visioned for this area but but also much larger we want to kind of change how we're developing um in certain pockets of Durham that that sort of anticipates my next and final question by the way of if we decide not take action on this tonight or not to do it pending greater clarity on what our transportation options will look like in this area the risk is um so yeah certainly that there would be development kind of in the existing pattern um there uh there's also I think that there's a point in time where we have to decide as a community how we want to move forward whether we want to change how we develop or not and I I think that depending on a transit system to tell us whether we want to do that we we were doing that because we had a transit project that was had a lot of inertia and was bringing us all along with you know whether some folks wanted to or not um and I think in the situation that we're in now we have the opportunity to set the land use policy and requirements in place that will create and shape the transit system that we want to have and will serve folks that are already you know it's already a high transit use area um and I think that for that reason it makes a whole lot of sense and it's one of the reasons that this area was selected to be our first uh our first next compact neighborhood to develop regulations for is because we thought about whether or not the transit system in the light rail line would occur or not whether we could still justify the work that we were putting into it thank you thank you mr. mayor thank you council member council member freeman thank you I I really appreciate you going going into that depth of exactly what the tension is and recognizing that currently I mean it would continue to be built out suburban recognizing we don't own the land and whomever the developer is from writing california or chapel hill north carolina um has that option to do more suburban residential at 20 units of square amina for an acre um what i'm what i am channeling though is i want to have the conversation about which would uh which is where i'm concerned i want to have the conversation around how we're looking at six or seven generations prior to us where development was occurring and we were urbanizing downtown Durham on the east side there was sewage being run into the river because they thought that that was the best way to alleviate the sewage in the area and I don't want to do the same thing moving forward seven generations and setting up a even with the owner in the area deciding to hold this hostage with mass grading that we would consider if we're building in floodplain floodplains and we're considering how um or not considering how this will have impact in the future multiple generations ahead i'm i mean i'm i wholeheartedly support the development the urbanization of that area because we cannot do it all in downtown but i'm still concerned that we have not addressed the stormwater we have not addressed how we would move forward in a way that's responsible enough multiple generations ahead i'll keep saying that because if we don't no matter how much housing you create if there is no if we don't have our water clean we don't have trees like all of these things matter in an ecological way that our ecological system is sensitive to and we have to be responsive to that and i'm i'm almost thankful that we had the chance to slow down without the light rail project forcing our hand to have these conversations to really think about what it looks like to develop the zoning in a way that comprehensively looks at what this area looks like i really appreciate the street gritting i'm just not i'm just not as comfortable with the way we're thinking about storm water i will say that in some respect certainly what we were able to do in regards to environmental protections with this work is significantly held back by our state requirements and that's why i'm like this is this is a larger conversation that we're having we're we're kind of arguing with ourselves based on our risk being tied together so that we can't really protect our community and our land and i don't want to push blame on one side or the other i really want to make sure that we understand this is a conversation we need to have statewide because we can't continue to develop these piecemeal projects and even with the compact district i mean it's a larger district that you're trying to develop but we're i mean water really matters and we have to figure out a way that that we do this comprehensively and responsibly for multiple generations ahead and so i'm really i hear what with what many in the room are saying on the side of ecology but i also understand like we have to urbanization we have to move towards more urbanization this is a great area to start in i'm just i really i'm i just want to be on the record and saying like this is really a horrible way to do it thank you council member those were good comments i'm going to uh let me just tell you where i am lisa and take your suggestion and maybe the attorney's suggestion as well um i am for many of the reasons that i and others have said i'm very much in favor of this rezoning i do think that this is um the way that we do want to grow i think that it we we've we face you know the idea of a bunch of rs 20 out there over the long term and you know makes it much harder to do anything else out there once we want to the resistance will be strong and i think that we have a really good opportunity to as councilman freeman said urbanize and i think it's the right place to do it i'm not sure about how effective they the uh the housing density bonuses will be in the short term but i i do believe that our region will come to its senses before long and we will have transit out there we already have transit out there but we'll have significant transit out there and it will be the it's the first logical place to go um i have more questions about some of the other areas that we're thinking about designing for the compact design but but not about patterns in place it already has a lot of the features that we want in an area in a district like this and um appreciate mike walgert being here mike and you know has been responsible for a lot of good decisions out there the so i do believe in you know councilman remittleton asked about this i think great questions but i i do believe that the transportation will get out there um it won't be as soon as we want but i think our region will be demanding it the uh i do think but but i'm confused honestly is the word i will use about whether or not what is actually best in terms of the what's the what's the best environmental outcome in terms of the tua because normally i would say the 300 foot tua makes sense i understand it would reduce the the acreage to some extent but that's something i that's certainly a tradeoff i could live with on the other hand i hear what you're saying about the threat to uh the environment because of this developer's existing by right abilities to mass grade in the in the in the corridor so i really would like to understand this better before i voted um because i think it's important and i don't think i quite get what the true tradeoff i it's hard for me to understand because this is the first real discussion we've had of it is the first discussion i've had of it and the council's had of it what this what is really the best way what is really the best thing for the environment in terms of this tradeoff i don't i don't get it yet so i would like some more time to understand that um and that that could mean uh holding the public hearing open uh and to a time certain when we could you know in in the interim you could give us some more education about that our friends from New Hope Creek could think about the things that you said they could be giving us some information as well um so um i would appreciate any advice that the planning staff uh the the city attorney and i have whispered to each other about this i know that she feels it's okay to hold the public hearing open and but i wondered what you all think would be advisable for us to make a good decision what's the mayor i'd like to add that when you're ready for a motion i'd like to ask customer freeman when you're ready for a motion i would like to support that okay thank you do i timeframe yeah and should we do it yeah i have a i have a question for staff about the the sizes of the buffers do we know the difference in acreage between a 200 foot and a 300 foot buffer for this given area just for the area where the masquerading is in place um no so so looking at the zoning implementation report you have an acreage listed for that area number one of 25.13 acres that could be masqueraded if we um did a 300 foot buffer instead of a 200 foot buffer do we know the difference between the acreage of the 200 like what additional acreage could be subject to development if we had a 200 foot buffer rather than a 300 foot buffer i do not have that information offhand i think that the i know that the property owner does yeah i don't have that number okay and there could be additional considerations regarding the type of land that would be saved or not saved but i think that question of what's the trade in terms of actual acres developed or not developed would be helpful for making that choice but yeah i was hoping we could do it right now but since we can't i would support the mayor's request for you all right um if i'm going to ask colleagues any objections to holding the public hearing open uh for consideration of this question and uh anybody council member reese you're ready to go tonight mr mayor i i i mean we this often comes up we've got a ton of folks who came here tonight um waited a long time through a thick agenda to share their thoughts with us about it and i i'm always reluctant to ask them to come back again at some later date but obviously the will of the group appears to be that we'd like some information i'd also like to hear a better case about why it makes any sense at all to create one of these districts that's bisected by one of the busiest roadways in this part of the state so if we could hear some more about that next time that'd be awesome thank you mr mayor i i understand your reluctance i appreciate it but i think i want to do it for the next item too okay all right thank you we're going to hold this hearing i'm going to declare that we're going to hold this hearing open until we have our date to recommend so good evening mr mayor council members pat young with planning department um really it's at your discretion so that doesn't interfere with other business that you have coming up we can be prepared we would lease like at least two cycles so that we can prepare a supplemental memo that really drills down on the subject matter areas you identified tonight um particularly um the ability for this these proposals to be supported with another mode other than light rail and drill down on some of the environmental tradeoffs that was great all right how about the first august meeting august the that's agreeable to us sorry august the fifth we can have the material ready in that time frame thank you i will also say that i hope that you i would like to see that we don't just i know this is a small point no payday lenders in the we can certainly make that change amen brother thank you lisa great job thank you for letting us torture you for about an hour and a half thank you it was amazing for letting me sit down so well you did it you did it you really did a great job lisa thank you and all of you all who've worked on this many thanks much appreciated okay long night at the Durham city council mr mr mayor yes i would certainly defer to the um city attorney but i believe there needs to be a vote to continue it to a date certain emotion can that be done i don't usually okay but i'm happy to make sure there were no personal concerns i like to do what bill bell did and always a good idea no less thank you very much okay all right organ street closing item 27 good evening i'm emily struthers with the planning department organ street closing case sc 18 0001 was continued from the march 18 city council meeting a minor revision has been made to note eight on the plat for clarity purposes and additional language was added to the staff report summarizing the private private privatization oh that's tough of the water and sewer remains within organ street upon approval of the street closing request no other changes have been made and staff is available for any questions thank you very much mr others all right um you've heard the report from staff i'm declare this this public hearing is open already we're continuing it and uh we have two speakers robert shunk proponent and steve hotten i may have that name wrong an opponent mr hotten here great um and uh first uh mr mr stanziell you're gonna speak okay mr stanziell welcome all right thank you i'm sorry i have a little cold so um please excuse me my name is george stanziell president and director of design at steward i live at 115 cofield circle just want to be brief i i just want to bring some things to the council's attention duke uh owns all the property adjacent uh to this to this portion of the street that we're asking you to be closed it is located within central campus and is a relatively minimally used street um duke university has agreed to unrest to an unrestrict unrestricted access to the city until adjacent properties adjacent to this uh street closing this portion of the street is are developed duke has agreed to maintain all utilities as well as the street itself and has met all requirements of the city departments including a number of questions over the course of the review period by the attorney's office and all of the requirements that have been included all the suggestions requirements changes have been included on the on the platz um so um i just want wanted you to know that it's it's gone through the system it's gone through every department and um we'll just ask for your consideration thank you thank you thank you very much mr haughton mr haughton please give us your name and address you have three minutes yes steve haughton 312 alexander avenue alexander is the street one over from oregon which is the street we're talking about closing and just as a preface i found out about this um proposed closing from a street sign last week i understand now it's been going on for a while um i've got pictures of those street signs you don't want to see those at this late hour i'm sure but suffice to say that uh despite what i'm sure were the best efforts of planning to uh make those signs visible the sign on urwin road one of the two from the east is not visible on the sign on campus drive from the west is not visible now i haven't had time to discuss this with my neighbors and i don't know how aware people affected by this closing would be as a result of that the big issue i think is that duke hasn't said what it plans to do with the existing central campus area after may 15th and until we know duke's redevelopment plan and its effect on traffic including construction traffic and bus traffic closing oregon street seems premature to me there are currently three north south roads connecting campus drive with urwin road and the central campus area and uh those three are anders are anderson which is often congested alexander and oregon it's not clear from the documents that i got online that have been posted on the city site um whether and for how long oregon will remain accessible to current traffic i understand you're talking about emergency traffic um i'm thinking about students employees and visitors um about access to east and west campus the buildings along campus drive and asher it's etc access to sporting events which creates a lot of traffic um the fact that the proposal says that closing oregon would create landlocked parcels along oregon seems to indicate that oregon will be closed to existing traffic now i know that recombinations of lots have been done to keep them from being landlocked but if oregon was to remain open i don't think there would be landlocked lots on oregon so that suggests to me that the it makes me wonder how long if at all there will be general access to oregon any traffic diverted from oregon will necessarily use alexander and anderson so before oregon is closed the traffic impact on these streets as well as on urwin road needs to be studied uh final thought regarding road maintenance because that was mentioned until two years ago alexander was under constant road maintenance because of the duke bus traffic going up the hill alexander is very steep mr mr houghton thank you very much okay all right mr stanzial do you have any response to mr houghton's concerns excuse me well first of all i i want to go on recorders saying that duke does not have a plan for central campus the only thing that that they have been looking at and you know they have looked at it over the years a number of times over the years but there isn't a plan right now in in place or contemplated for central campus with the exception of potentially looking at replacing the student housing which is very old and dated on the campus so to my knowledge the only thing right now that is at all under consideration is that there is no master plan there's no plan right now in place to do anything with the campus that could that change sure but it at this point there is none um the as far as it remaining open to traffic um the can i robert do you have that because we were asked to add this to the plat this note until such time as properties abutting the closed portion of oregon street are completely and substantially redeveloped duke shall provide unimpaired vehicular access to city county fire and emergency access emergency services vehicles on a maintain on a maintained traveling surface so duke is interested in maintaining organ street actually to a higher level that it's maintained currently and will also maintain all of the utilities as well but as far as emergency access emergent city access county access it will it will they have agreed to keep it open to city and county access so that i you know i don't have any other answers for him but i think his major question was about redevelopment of the campus and there is no plan to redevelop the campus at this point all right my point of information if i might sure um we had requested through um steward mr stanzial mr shonk that the university consider a note that would clearly allow unimpeded vehicular and pedestrian traffic to the general public until such time as all properties on oregon street were redeveloped and the note that mr stanzial read that limits that access to fire and emergency services vehicles was submitted by the university and by the applicant so i just went council to understand that we had requested that that be unimpeded general public pedestrian and vehicular access and what was proposed by the applicant was considerably less met kind of the minimum needs for our emergency services and fire personnel thank you any thoughts on that the university is not interested in granting that that that vehicular access to a wider group i'm happy to talk to the university about that if that's the issue here i'm happy to talk to them about that again we had a series of requests that went back and forth and we went back and forth with the city and landed on what we ended up with uh if if that is a significant issue um i'm happy to speak with them about it all right colleagues what's your pleasure mr mayor i have a question thank you mr mayor i i um i understand that there's no explicit plan that duke has um at this time but there is an explicit statement on the application um for the reason for the closure to clarify responsibility for street maintenance duke wishes to assume and to improve campus security uh is there some particular data driven concern in that area that duke is uh trying to address or the group of folk are you aware of that robert in the application i i i don't know reason for street closure now you have you have you seen the application yeah did you write it it's been a while it's been quite a while do you recall do you recall that i do recall it but i don't recall the reason for it it's been a very long time it's been in the process for months and months it says to improve campus security does that sound familiar yes so what what's what's the plan for improvement other than i suspect that it's i mean it's so that they can control that street for for campus security so they can control the street for campus security i'm a layperson what does that mean well i mean so that they're so that their campus security can control that street and maintain control of it from a from a security perspective okay all right i'll you i'll you just wanted to clarify is that because until it gets converted to a private street duke university security can't patrol it is that the they can they can patrol if they do patrol it okay they're you know their position is that like they've done with a number of other streets on the university they've closed a number of streets on the university over the years that they they would like to see this piece of the campus closed or made private and that they see that as a as a positive in terms of their campus security that's the only the only answer i have for you at this point if i might miss me so is is is closing the street is the anticipation that it's the street still will not be trafficked it or frequented by folk who aren't matriculating at duke is is that the i'm sorry something is it anticipated that you think you see you keep saying control the street and by them controlling it'll make it safer how do we does that mean that they anticipate um how don't we say this do they anticipate folk not like just normal residents or citizens not walking through there is that what's going to make it safer well i think that's well i think one of the questions is that is whether not duke would allow full access along the street which would essentially make it the same way as it is today except it would be a private street rather than a public street yeah i like campus drive like a number of streets on the campus many many in fact when we were going through the process the planning department had had a question i don't remember what it was exactly but it had to do with um uh the precedent for closing the streets and we gave them on a laundry list of um of street closings that had occurred on the campus over the years so i mean it's just it's the precedent is there it's on their campus they'd like to make it a private street Mr. Haught well that's what i'm sorry that is not we don't do that yeah i mean that i hear the question and i what i said was that i would be happy to talk to them about that okay um mr. if i could just find with fun fun and i don't want to believe with what i my questions are animated by it doesn't stay on the application precedent being established we just want to close it because we want to close it it says to improve campus security so i i'm i'm not trying to understand you but but but to me that evokes some pretty specific concerns i just wanted to be clear about about that i appreciate that all right thank you thank you mr. mayor thank you councilmember okay um i have just a few observations mr. stanzial mr. haughton i do think this was well advertised i appreciate that you didn't see the signs but i actually think it was done well and it's been a long time and anyone that missed it i know we missed these things sometime but in fairness i think it was done well um the um you know my original desire to hold this open had everything to do with the fact that uh the university was willing to stand in the way of our light rail project and expects us to just let them do any of their own transportation planning in the middle of on their campus any old way they want um i am but i you know in my my own reflection i think this is probably a poor vehicle through which to make that point any further i think it's a really important point i think that we need to we need you know i will just tell you i'm dismayed we haven't heard anything from the university about this the only people we've heard from about this is robert and you i've heard a thing from the university nobody's called any of us that i know of my understanding is that mr. selig scott selig reached out uh last monday or tuesday by i believe email i can't say that every single email that i get i read but as you know i'm pretty good at it maybe i missed it but um i've to my knowledge nobody reached out and maybe my colleagues got something i'm not sure anybody get anything from duke just yeah so i no i specifically after you and i spoke i i asked him just to reach out specifically to you yeah okay well um i i i feel like you know i i'm just saying i feel like we've made our point um obviously unsuccessfully but i don't think this is the right thing to this is not the right vehicle to have that discussion i hope we can have it in another way all righty uh they the we're to approve this motion it would be to adopt an order permanently closing 1794 linear feet of oregon street from mr. mayor uh is there a second second it's removed and seconded now we'll have discussion councilmember reese thank you mr. mayor i appreciate that i apologize for my tardy request no problem i wanted to lift up an email we got about two months ago um from adam buyer during community member um duke you know now graduate maybe see did adam graduate yeah i do graduate graduate um uh asking an employee and yeah an employee that's right right um asking us to thoughtfully consider a number of issues around this closure um specifically around something that i think um mr. stands y'all let us know that there's no real comprehensive plan about what to do with it uh once with this particular um area um and one of the things adam raised up is um that ceding this to duke without a plan for public consultation or much less a concrete proposal about what it wants to do with it um is uh is unwise from a public policy perspective um given the um given some of the issues that the neighbor raised um but also just because of the proximity of this street to certain other areas uh like the ninth tree corridor for example um he also identified that this is one of the closest uh areas to do campus with free on street parking um which i thought was a particularly um apt concern for someone in the situation to have um and i am i'm concerned about it from the from the perspective that adam raised i also definitely shared a number of the concerns that the neighbor raised i'm sorry sir i forgot your last name what is it mr. hoten thank you for being here but i will say that a number of the concerns that he raised were also raised by a ceding county departments in connection with this closure um and it appears to me that a number of those concerns were addressed by the applicant for example that the concern that this would create landlocked parcels has been addressed by including recombination as a part of this street closure um and the fact that for at least the foreseeable future the um the street will be will remain open to cars and trucks um including um emergency vehicles from the fire department which is another issue they raised um i and so my uh my support for delaying action on it was uh more aligned with uh adam's concerns than the issues that you raised mr. mayor uh but i think on balance given where we are today and given the remarks that you've made um i will go ahead and support the closure uh with the knowledge that the applicant has addressed many of the practical concerns that i had about it thank you mr. mayor but i did want to say how much i appreciated hearing from adam um and look forward to hearing from lots of other folks in this areas as we continue to see these kinds of requests thank you thank you councilmember mayor pro chair thank you mr. mayor i just still need a little bit of clarity on the issue of access it sounds like the city asked for access to be available to um pedestrian and general vehicular traffic and that Duke responded with access will be available only to emergency vehicles that's correct i don't understand that um does that work like what how do you how do you do that how do you close the street and only allow emergency vehicles and not pedestrians for example what's that yeah it was well but that's not her question her question is about pedestrian says what he was saying was that it's emergency vehicle solid waste you know everything all of all of the city and county vehicles but your question is about ordinary people from driving their cars down it i'm sorry how do you stop ordinary people from just driving their cars on it like they you know do every day to get from one side to the other well i suspect that they would have the option of close of blocking it off they would i just then how do emergency vehicles get down well i mean it could be 10 i don't i don't know the answer to that i mean it could be temporarily blocked off it could i mean there are many places on campus that have that have temporary you know blockades that they move for traffic mr. stanzi almo i'm gonna uh recognize the city manager oh thank you mr. mayor and i'm not sure if this is for pat or or bill judge but uh it's probably been eight nine ten years ago now one of my earlier council meetings as i recall i think anybody sitting at the dais but me was here uh we had this exact conversation uh for what street was that behind the smith smith warehouse maxwell street had an extended discussion almost exactly the same conversation but i don't recall all of how that was worked out and resolved but it sounds very familiar to me do you remember that so i believe i believe in that situation it was very similar you're right that they that they gated it with a a bar that can go up and down in that during the year to your question mr. mayor daytime it's open at night time is closed that's right and then emergency vehicles would have a code or a signal that would open it same thing here they could put up a fence bollards a gate some kind of obstruction that could be activated or removed with a under agreement with emergency services but also it wasn't that allowed for regular public access during the day and then closed at night or that's correct that was stipulated very clearly in the maxwell street action that in this case there's no specification on the extender degree of access that would be provided thank you i would really like i hate doing this because i know we're going to do it again but i would really like more clarity on that before we move forward with this considering that this doesn't benefit us at all it only benefits duke it seems like the least that we could ask for is for people to be able to continue to drive and walk down the street so i'd like to hold this public hearing open there's a motion you're right there is a motion this is ridiculous there's a motion that could be withdrawn um what's your pleasure we're going to do it again in a minute if we vote today i'm going to know okay i'd be fine to hold it excuse me i feel fine holding the public hearing open all right because of this precise issue mr stanzial sounds like we're going to hold this open to again and that's fine again to a date certain and that date certain will be when should we hold it open till mr mayor i'm not going to be careful how we play this game recognizing that when it's councilmember hang on a second i've got a question third or 17th june third or june 17th we have no preference in that regard either one would be fine make it we'll make it june third councilmember did you say june third no third uh you want to be careful how we play this game and recognizing that when it's when it's okay when it suits you to do this it's okay but when it's not when it doesn't it's not okay it's an interesting kind of um hypocritical critical approach to addressing an issue you have with Duke University i don't support the way we're going about this it's not good leadership it's really not okay thank you okay we have a motion on the floor we'll either vote on it or the person that had the motion can withdraw it i can't remember who had i don't know who made that motion i made the motion okay councilmember free me we should just move forward all right there's a second who had the second ranata i did yeah you want to keep it i would like to withdraw it okay all righty there's a motion on the floor there's a second there's not so it looks like we're going to hold the hearing open till june the third i've never heard let me just say the thing of the sort how do you hold hold it after first and second and then take the second i don't i've never heard that i'm sorry can you explain how that works well there's there's a motion the motion needs a second and and the person that had the second withdrew the second okay thank you very much thank you and we'll get some answers i'll just i'll just also comment that you know i appreciate the what mayor pro tem brought to us on this and the questions that she asked that quite appreciate the planning department for asking that of duke and my original reason for wanting to hold this open i i'm happy to forego but i appreciate these additional questions so thank you i do too thank you item 28 united unified development ordinance texan mammot tree coverage and landscaping revisions you're thank you for staying i will now hear the report from staff thank you very much michael stock with the planning department i'll be brief uh texan amendment tc 18 005 includes amendments to landscaping buffering and tree coverage standards for additional buffers for residential development sites that are mass graded to establish or retain more tree canopy to modify requirements for street trees and to strengthen current specimen tree requirements additionally amendments pursuant to consideration of the trees during requests submitted on october 2nd 2018 are included uh the at the december 5th 2018 jccpc meeting staff presented responses to trees during request and the draft text amendment uh details as to how the trees during requests were addressed are within your attached memo uh the planning commission recommended approval 10 to one of the text amendment on february 12 2019 uh as a reminder city council will be required to take two actions the first would be an action on the appropriate statement of consistency found as as attachment a second would be an action on the ordinance amendment itself attachment b thank you and be happy to answer any questions thank you very much you've heard the report from staff i'm going to first ask if there are any questions from members of the council questions or comments from members of the council if not we have four speakers signed up uh one two we have one proponent donal adu but i don't see donald and then um i see three opponents katie rose levin oh i'm sorry katie rose levin and laura marie davis all right um could you all please come here to the podium to my right um miss davis yes please speak to us and give us your name and address and you have three minutes my name is laura marie davis my address is 1707 valley run i'm also a member of the environmental affairs board and that's who i'm speaking on behalf of tonight we did pass a resolution um so expressing our endorsement of the changes to the ordinance proposed by trees durham and i'd like to reiterate some of the statements that we made in that resolution it is in the interest of the city of durham to maintain at least 50 tree canopy covered to create a healthy sustainable and socially just city shade from trees can reduce cooling costs of detached houses by 20 to 30 percent consequently reducing air pollution associated with electricity consumption and lowering resident energy costs the reduced cooling costs is particularly relevant when we recognize that temperatures in cities can be as much as 22 degrees fahrenheit higher than in surrounding rural areas this is known as the urban heat island effect and planting trees is widely recognized as an important strategy to bridge this gap in temperature tree lined streets also reduce particulate air pollution by up to 60 creating a positive impact on health including reducing incidences of heart attacks strokes asthma and pulmonary diseases thus improving quality of life of community members and reducing economic stress on families and the health system there are additional environmental benefits to tree canopy cover including an increase of five percent tree canopy cover that corresponds with a reduction in storm water runoff by two percent additionally there are economic benefits of a tree canopy cover several studies have found that the presence of trees increases property value from anywhere between five percent and 18 percent in recognition of all of these benefits to the health of our environment and of our community the environmental affairs board strongly endorses the revisions to the planning department that have been recommended by trees Durham thank you thank you very much is levin welcome you also have three minutes thank you my name is katie rose levin and i'm with trees Durham first i would like to thank y'all for having us and for staff and all of the work that you've put into addressing our tree protection planting ordinances second i would like to ask everyone who's here to support the stronger ordinances stand or wave we had a a good contingent and most of us made it through to the end so thank y'all so much for staying on strong our goal is to create a healthy sustainable and socially just tree canopy which we don't currently have and we also would like to maintain a 50 tree canopy over the next 50 years or so in order to do that we have to dramatically change our planning ordinances so what planning has proposed is a step forward but we still haven't reached even the floor that our neighboring cities have and i'll go through that specifically in a minute but Durham has made all these progressive votes to address carbon emissions to or address flooding to become a progressive city and these types of sort of nitty gritty changes are where the rubber meets the road or the trees meet the soil and so we really need to get it right so our main request is to ask for the this proposal to be sent back to the planning department and back to the work session to increase it to at least the floor of what our neighboring cities do primarily Raleigh and Chapel Hill uh so in particular there are a couple of ways that the proposal needs to be strengthened first is we request a minimum of 10% preservation across all zoning and across all uses at least so right now it allows as low as 7% preservation in the urban core which stretches pretty far outside of just the downtown area 10% is what Raleigh requires 20% or plus is what Chapel Hill requires so i think that we should at least be on par with our fellow cities the reason why this is particularly important from a social justice aspect is that in a lot of non a lot of communities of color live in areas which are zone non-residential and so by ensuring that all communities regardless of zoning have this minimum preservation we're allowing for equitable distribution of tree canopy the second is for street trees street trees are an essential infrastructure they work best when they're planted beside the street a fact that the general services has acknowledged because they're planting 1500 trees a year in the city right of way they've determined that this can be done safely using smaller tree stock so we're doing it we're doing it in a way that the city is already determined will not damage sidewalks and will not in impact utilities and so we're asking for developers to do the same right now that is not in the proposed code the proposed code maintains the prohibition of planting street trees next to streets and we request that the city council make developers pay for this infrastructure so taxpayers don't have to keep going back and doing it well that went fast thank you very much miss levin appreciate it thank you is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item is there anyone else in the public that would like to be heard on this item i didn't know if you were going to close yeah i was i was going to keep it open if but i wanted to hear if anyone else wants to speak on this okay um we have uh several uh issues that um that uh the uh advocates the tree advocates could tree advocates have brought to us they're requiring the minimum of 10 tree preservation on site for all new developments of two acres or more uh the uh the trees planting trees in the right of way and and and so forth um mr man just was going to say mr mayor the staff has no problem referring this back to a work session discussion but we would need some time to evaluate and come back with the the our thoughts on on the impacts of these proposals uh i talked to the planning staff earlier and thought that uh maybe sometime after the break we would be able to come back and and have some more details in response to the proposals if that's okay this planning staff um you've heard the manager is there a date that you would like to um so mr mayor and members council we would ask that this item unlike the other items be referred back to the administration rather than continued um the reason for that request is we would like to align this um closer with our expanding housing choices initiative which we think this has a lot of um overlap with uh and we're not exactly sure of the date that'll appear so it the target date would be the second august meeting but we would ask that it be referred back to the administration we will re-advertise it all right and then make sure it appears at a work session as um you all have requested all right thank you uh i believe we should have a motion to refer this back to the administration and then i will ask for such a motion second been moved to the second we refer it back to the administration madam clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes seven zero thank you very much we now move to item 29 consolidated annexation item by the way thank you tree advocates for staying we appreciate you being here we know it's a long night but it's just as long for us we don't like these long ones either it's rare but i know you find them as enjoyable as we do um thank you for being here all right you will now move to item 29 consolidated annexation item november drive annexation good evening i'm laced others again to the planning department uh regarding november drive annexation case bdg 16 00016 a request for utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change have been received from sonia ramadan for seven parcels of land totaling approximately five acres located at the southeastern corner of umsted road and november drive the site is presently zoned residential rural and staff recommends an exact translation of this zoning district the parcels are designated low density residential on the future land use map which is consistent with the zoning request well this annexation is for a non-contiguous expansion of the city limits no department has raised service delivery concerns as the site is located between the existing contiguous city limits and an existing satellite area to the west the site is located in an area which is surrounded by properties served by the city water and sewer which was authorized without required annexation under earlier 1980s city policy additionally this project is deemed revenue positive by the budget management services department should the council act favorably approval of the annexation petition and zoning would become effective on june 30th 2019 staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement the second is to adopt a consistency statement and the third is for the zoning ordinance staff is available for any questions thank you mr others you've heard the report from staff i'm now going to clear this public hearing open and i'm going to ask if there are any questions by members of the council hearing none or is there anyone who would like to be heard on this item is there anyone here tonight who would like to be heard on item 29 anyone here tonight who would like to be heard on this item it is a public hearing all right seeing none i'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matters back before the council there's three motions necessary the the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing November drive annexation so moved second the moved in second that we adopt the ordinance annexing November drive annexation just madam clerk we please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes seven zero thank you the second we adopt the consistency statement thank you second it's been moved in second that we adopt the consistency statement madam clerk we please open the vote please close the vote motion passes seven zero is there a motion to adopt an ordinance of ending the udo i move we adopt the ordinance it's been is there a second is there it's been moved in second and that we adopt an ordinance to amend the udo madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote motion passes seven zero thank you very much we have one more item before us tonight and that's item six thank you all for your patience as well for hanging with us this long um this is the um this is the resolution recognition of the life of al hajmalik al shabazz aka malcolm x um and um i'm going to we we have two people signed up to speak on this item one of them is jonathan dianne and one of them is carl kenny uh i think what uh i why don't we go ahead and hear from the speakers uh we are so sorry you all had to wait so long but we appreciate you being here um maybe we'll start with mr dianne and you have three minutes and then mr kenny you also have three minutes uh jonathan daon 1104 anderson street in durham um honorable mayor and shul and honorable council uh i have to start by uh apologizing because i'm about to read i usually speak from my heart i think is a friend here and nancy gordon has written something that summarizes it and a little bit more uh um it's written well so i decided i i will read i hope you hear my heart and part of the big community in durham's heart as well in this uh in this passage um so i'll start without including wording in this proclamation against antisemitism and hate for others including our muslim brothers and sisters explicit language that is inclusive and will bring us all together as human beings and renounced in exclude exclusion of people based on religion race or gender this well meaning proclamation will remain as yet another breach between the jews of durham and this body malcolm x was an incredibly important african american leader whose views of white people evolved over time and after his visit in mecca malcolm stood for the independence and strength of black men at a time when this was difficult to do and critically important we now live in times that are polarized by politics gender religion and race and as durham city council you must be keenly aware of the recently occurring antisemitic acts locally in north carolina school of science and math and the university campuses the fast-paced national increase in antisemitic acts i think we are in a historic high in the last 20 years and the two synagogue shootings in california and pennsylvania in the past six months the jewish community has concerns that the proclamation doesn't make explicit that in honoring malcolm x you are rejecting antisemitism with everything going on in this moment of time i suggest that council must make it clear that you are not tone death to our durham jewish community we are aware that when malcolm left the nation of islam he renounced the nation including lewis farrakhan and that he did not have any good relationship with farrakhan that alone however does not alleviate the concerns of the jewish community which need and deserve clarity it's fair to honor malcolm x as a leader a black nationalist and as a man who successfully rehabilitated himself and went from incarnation to a world community we understand that after his detailed discussion of his conversion he visited his visit in to mecca is breaking with nation of islam he moderated views about white people and jews so while i hope the jewish community can take you at your word that this proclamation is not meant to be and is not antisemitic the times we leave it we live in cannot be ignored i asked to continue just a little bit more sure thank you to quote from a letter signed by all of our jewish community readers on april 24th before the call for this is before the california she uh shooting one year later after this body had the statement uh uh the israel statement as it regarded we urge please listen more it's been a painful year in many ways again this is before california with increased open antisemitism and shootings a year in which extreme voices were emboldened while voices of moderation and respect were ignored jews are an integral part of life in the triangle and we are connected to jewish communities around the world 10 days ago that's when they wrote in an april 24 we celebrated Passover a festival of freedom grateful for the gifts of america and praying for peace in israel and jewsland we remember a history that spans thousands spans thousands of years and commit ourselves again to participate in repairing god's work durham jews remain committed to helping to build a durham for tomorrow that is equitable diverse affordable and a beacon of what's possible in north carolina we pray we can come together as a community heal and rededicate ourselves to building a city of equality justice and understanding for all of its citizens finally the most important we hope that you will demonstrate that you are a city council for all of us in durham thank you thank you mr diane mr kenny welcome please give us your name and address and you also have three minutes it's good to live in durham north carolina where um this resolution is coming before the city council i know of no other city that would be bold enough to consider such a proposition and with that in mind i do think that it's it's fitting that the life of malcolm be lifted up as a meaningful witness of the life and struggles of people of color black people who struggle to to find meaning dr king is known for making it possible for white people to trust the voices of black people and malcolm is responsible for helping black people in this country to tell stories and ways that fit their human struggle therefore this resolution is important it is it's it's kind of interesting to me that it comes up at the proverbial end of the bus the end of your meeting and that malcolm's life has been treated in a similar kind of way we know his story through spike lee's movie but i think it's critical that in considering this proposal for the city of durham that we think think about why why this is a meaningful resolution for the city of durham first we know the work of c eric lincoln dr c eric lincoln who coined the phrase black muslim in his book on black muslims in america and with his book race religion and the continuum american dilemma went even deeper into why the work of malcolm x and is is an important contribution to the life of people and dr lincoln of course was in residence he was a professor there at duke university it's important that we think about that that the way we frame these conversations about malcolm's life uh is because of of the contribution of dr lincoln it is also important that we recognize uh that riot on the campus of duke university the taking over the allen building and the the students who took over the allen building did so because of their desire uh for for duke to be more involved in in the study of afro studies in that group afterwards established that malcolm x university here in the city of durham in 1969 and instead stood in the city until it was relocated to greensboro north carolina because of durham freeway coming in enforcing a movement of of of that university but i think the most critical piece for us as we think about the the criticisms that may be coming from those within our jewish community is a contribution that wallace d mohammed the the person who took over the work of elijah mama the son of elijah mohammed close friend of malcolm x close friend of mohammed ali uh sent to the city of durham aman abu wahid who was well known in this community for being an advocate of conversations between black uh jewish community christian communities and islamic communities uh he was sent here by uh walla du mohammed and his contribution is one who is central to the way we think about faith uh it makes this proposal one that is one deserving because of the work that continues uh uh in our city uh the work of malcolm that continues as an extension of the work uh it continues through the work of of of walla du mohammed and it also continuing now through the work of our mom abu wahid uh who is the minister in our community uh who continues that legacy uh we thank you for consideration we pray you will do this i think it uh in in summation that um given all that has taken place in the community with the increases in crime i think that this this resolution would go away a long way and be given a different conversation around how communities that are troubled by crime can can make a radical shift in the right direction we thank you for consideration thank you mr canny council members uh i think i'll next turn to a council member freeman do you have any comments okay anybody have any comments at this point uh i will i had not planned to do this i'd talk to council member freeman earlier about this that i think that um i think that the resolution as it stands now is is actually uh very clear and positive uh however and i had said council freeman uh council member freeman i talked earlier about the fact that i think what the council ought to do in the near future uh is to issue a sort of freestanding resolution about anti-semitism and islamophobia both of which are definitely anti-semitism is on the rise in our country there's no question about that we have seen what happened in the recent synagogue shootings which are unprecedented in the recent past and we know all the islamophobia that exists in our country um but i will just say that i have no problem also with adding a a uh an additional whereas which i will i will read to you all and see if this meets with your approval whereas this council is unalterably and adamantly opposed to the scourges of anti-semitism and islam of islamophobia is committed to fighting these evils wherever and whenever they appear i think that's an unequivocal statement against anti-semitism and islamophobia and would be interested if you all are are interested in adding that to the resolution and council member freeman and others oh new body mark anthony um thank you mr mayor i um i think we should unequivocally and in a full-throated way issue a freestanding statement on anti-semitism and let me tell you what my my struggle is um so often um and i hope my heart is heard so often black leaders and black folk in general in this country have have been asked to take that extra step to prove our legitimacy validity patriotism love of country um we honor dr king but so often we we you know we're asked to while we honor dr king to renounce communism just in case um because so much of his work was uh reputedly informed by communism and and outside agitators um lifting malcom x el husband legal shabazz malcom x up um as we know him to be and what he represents um to to suggest that but just in case because you know you might be kind of in the left-handed way trying to to make a statement that we support uh uh uh we we want to stop our consideration of him at a particular point in his evolution rather than a complete person um to me as as a black man as a black leader in this city uh harkens back to uh uh those days when we have to always qualify uh ourselves as as as a leader as a citizen that we're always suspect um there's always that lingering question as are you really such and such so you got to go extra um we have uh a leader who's having stuff named after him in other countries for moving an embassy but this same leader um uh said that folk who were yelling jews will not replace us we're very fine people among um and it seems like he gets a pass I think and and I will Mr. Mayor I will volunteer to lead the effort to meet with whoever in this community to to craft a standard uh uh statement of resolution against anti-Semitism and anti Islamophobia uh that would put the rest of the nation to shame I'll work on um and I and you know without touting it uh that's the record that I've tried to build in this city for over 20 years with folks so I I'll work on that statement but I think that uh anti-Semitism in Islamophobia deserved its own standalone statement uh because it's that important an issue um Malcolm X is is a is like many historical figures is a complicated multifaceted uh person that evolved um we can't talk about C.P. Ellis without talking about the Ku Klux Klan as a matter of fact what makes the story of C.P. Ellis so compelling is because he was in the Ku Klux Klan um yet we we've had a very celebratory moment with the the releasing of the best of enemies um and we didn't require that author to put a disclaimer about the clan in their book and I don't want to I think we can do both things I think we as a city can make a firm stand and we ought to make a firm stand and and it's overdue for us to make a firm statement against anti-Semitism and also not play into that that Chris Rock once said that black people's uh relationship with America is complicated it's kind of like your uncle who paid for you to go to college but molested you uh uh uh it's a nuanced uh uh relationship and it's a difficult relationship and and I hope that folk around the city and listening to me night will understand that um there's there's there's a fatigue as black leaders and as black people always having to prove that we're patriotic enough that we're not filling the blank enough and it's and and I don't think it's unwitting I don't think that people are insidious when they ask us to do it but you have to understand how how exhausting it is to have to do it all the time this statement of this resolution to honor Malcolm X is to honor the Malcolm X he came to be not a a a a photograph or a snapshot of a particular point in his life um and I'm sorry that folk don't trust this council it it breaks my heart that folk don't trust this council and I hope we'll work to regain that trust but I will not uh uh uh as a as a black man conversant on some of the things that have happened with leadership and some of the techniques that have been used wittingly or unwittingly play into this notion that we have to always go the extra step to prove ourselves this resolution uh is not secretly trying to prop up anti-Semitism it's trying to honor a life um who at the end of it at the end of his life was a paragon of virtue and how we all should be looking to to foster uh interpersonal interracial and interreligious relationships that's what we're honoring this resolution that's what I'm voting for uh tonight and uh after this vote is over you can put my name down as one of the people that will work on crafting a model statement of anti-Semitism uh in Islamophobia for this nation uh because it deserves a stand alone uh so with that said Mr. Mayor I don't think we should add a whereas to this particular resolution I think we should do the work of crafting a freestanding resolution and pass this resolution uh as it stands tonight thank you thank you council member anybody else thank you Mr. Mayor we received an email today with a suggestion that I liked and I thought I would just call our attention to it in case other folks like it as well um that that we could in this resolution highlight the way in which Malcolm X at the end of his life um became a person who was very interested in rejecting all forms of bigotry and especially after his trip to Mecca when he returned and he spoke on um having seen Muslims of all races and all colors together changed his views on um on race and on uh some of the issues that he'd seen in America and so one of the quotes that was included in this email um is that Malcolm X said what I've seen and experienced has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions and later said I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom justice and equality life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people um I think that I I agree with council member Middleton that I wouldn't support including um an anti-Semitism disclaimer in this resolution but I would support including some of Malcolm X's own words um clearly demonstrating that he um at the end of his life had a very different view um than some of his earlier writings and thoughts on um on these issues okay you've heard this suggestion comments mr. Mayor if I might I as always um always respect the um the words and the views of the mayor pro tem I I think that the fact that we're passing the resolution is indicative of our understanding that uh again this this kind of air of suspicion that there's something that that for me I have never read anything about Dr. King that said enough you know that honor you know they didn't print the whole text of the letter from the Birmingham Jail he's one of my heroes so so there's not there's nothing they've written about Dizzy Gillespie that for me was superimpressed enough I think that um I think we have to have have an honest conversation that we have to honor our Jewish brothers and sisters but we also have to honor who we are as well and they're not mutually exclusive and I think that um wherever we come down on this resolution there's something else we could say um and as I said and I'll yield after this um we have we have had a culture of great deference on this council when one of us have brought resolutions forward we we've passed resolutions on this council that I would have written differently and and some of us stated have stated publicly that statements we've passed on this count including the policing statement uh that some of us would have done it differently but because we have a culture of deference to one another the threshold has been incredibly uh um high if you will the bar has been incredibly high when we would make um um substantive uh changes to it so so I I want to honor that culture of deference that we've shown to one another firstly and secondly I'm not sure what we're trying to fix in this resolution by by continuing we had a work session we made changes to it I'm not sure what we're trying to fix my suspicion is that we're trying to address concerns that I think need to be contextualized and those concerns need to be addressed not with an additional few words in the statement by the way state a resolution on Malcolm X is pressing in it now we encourage all residents to go back and citizens to go back this council as an institution has passed a resolution before about Malcolm X um so it's not unprecedented what's different now are the things that our friends have said are different and they're right where the anti-Semitism is up we live in a crazy time which is why I think that that the what's different now deserves its own treatment it deserved its own full-throated standalone treatment um but I again we can do that and we can also not unwittingly play to this this this trope that there's something suspect about Black leaders that we have to go a little extra further a little further to prove that we're okay we we know the Malcolm X that we're honoring now and and I understand as a mistrust of this council I get that we have to work to to to to regain that trust but I don't think adding a few words to a resolution that is not unprecedented to a Malcolm X resolution is the way to do that the way to do that uh is to do the work to have honest heartfelt conversations and to pass an anti anti-Semitism resolution on its own because it deserves it thank you councilmember councilmember allston thank you mr mayor three things I want to just in this meeting kind of in this space endorse the um kind of quote that the mayor approached him read the spirit of it um and um yeah kind of the with that is kind of the animating piece of why we want to honor Malcolm on our Malcolm X and um note that that that's that's behind the celebratory tone of this resolution that said I'm fine to pass this resolution as it's written and to craft a standalone resolution that addresses the issues that you mr mayor and um councilmember mentalton have kind of detailed and illustrated um in this conversation so that's where I am thank you anybody else like to be heard I just say that I found the words of councilmember middleton to be incredibly compelling I know that's the first time I've ever felt that way but I did all right uh I think that we're ready unless anybody else has anything else anybody I would I would like to add that I I appreciate um all the viewpoints that have been shared and I I mean I I come at this from a place of recognizing just how difficult it has been to even have the conversation around Malcolm X or the nation of Islam knowing that in these times that we're in it's important to make sure that people are speaking out and up and so I have no problems with anyone saying what they need to say which is why I wanted to make sure I gave space because I brought it forward and I think it was important to make sure we heard everyone's voice um unfortunately we didn't hear some of our council members this evening but hopefully they will continue to um think about it and start to think about what they feel around this resolution and the issues that we're facing in this country because they're all tied together we are all human beings in this country it is not about religion and faith and race and all the things that we talk about it is just the outcomes that come from those things that that have been created to differentialize each of us and so recognizing that we're all one we are all one body and it frustrates me to even have to have this debate but I recognize that this is this is the time that we're in and so all of the phobias and all of the isms become a a matter of you know I've got to scream my story I've got to tell why I'm hurt and I feel like we're in an oppression olympics that I'm just not okay with and so that that kind of like negativity I can't I can't deal with it's really like so I mean I can't I can't think of any other way to think about it then it's just so un-christian like I can't it just doesn't live in me and so to even hear people discuss it and talk about it in the ways of which that frame me as something that I'm not is frustrating it's angering but I step back and I look at this because it is not about me as a person it is about the context in which it was written which is recognizing that the people who are descendants of slaves in this country do not get this get to stand up and say say thing honor me at all there were emails about a statue being taken down and I was sitting there like when has there been a Malcolm X statue that could even be taken down and I mean the the whole conversation in context is set in white supremacy and unless we're we're deliberate in having the conversation around how we address what that structure is I don't really I don't really feel like we're doing anything and so I'm okay with the stones being thrown my way I'm okay with all the knocks I'm okay with being thrown under the bus I'm okay with all of that if it moves us forward in having the conversation and actually being serious about who we are as a people in this community it is it is far more important for us to talk and to address how there are so many black men sitting in jail and night after night as I receive these messages that there are black men laying dead on the street we we're not we're not equipped we're not ready and we're not doing enough which is why earlier this this evening when uh Dennis Gaddy and Jackie Wagsack for standing up saying well what are we gonna do it's frustrating that we sit here and act like there's nothing happening like we're I mean it's okay but we're in uproar we get emails I mean I mean the the person who was killed yesterday by a by on the bike my heart breaks each time we lose one person one it doesn't matter what race it doesn't matter what faith it doesn't matter what gender it doesn't matter what sexuality it doesn't matter it is it is a human being we have to see each other in each other and until we get to that point I'm gonna keep bringing these types of resolutions I'm gonna keep bringing these types of conversations and I'm gonna keep being that thorn that says this is not enough this is not okay and we have to do more I I can't express enough how I know I'm passionate and it comes across as anger and I know that when I'm speaking I'm trying to be careful that I don't hurt the people that I care about in this community I'm very clear that that that words do hurt but I'm also very clear that if we don't say it if we don't have the discussion that we're not gonna get anywhere and so I I mean I'm I appreciate that the mayor pro tem and the mayor have offered the warehouses that they think should be in this resolution but I'm also recognizing that they have not offered any warehouses and any other resolutions that have come forward other than my own and so that concerns me in a different way but I want to say that this this conversation is not the end I as I said with the mayor earlier today I mean I think it's important to make sure that we do continue this conversation because we're not going to come to any solutions that will actually have impact so I I mean I really would like to figure out how we get past this impasse of this anti-Semitism and anti-Islamophobia but I know that it's not going to happen tonight and I know that it's not going to happen through Malcolm X but I do know that we can continue to have the conversations and we can continue to push forward in a way that we're intentional about repairing these harms that have been caused because they've been harms caused across the board for multiple generations for multiple scales and reasons and multiple countries and and I mean if it starts with this I'm happy that's all I can say council member Reese thank you mr mayor my colleague council member Freeman seemed to encourage those of us who have not spoken to speak out to that tonight and I'll honor that in this space tonight want to just briefly mention that Jessica Bridgers the young woman who was struck on her bicycle in the early morning hours of saturday this weekend at the intersection of west club boulevard and duke street did not die she is very seriously injured there's a go fund me that helps support her medical care and her family and encourage folks to look for that if they're interested in helping that family I would also just gently note for the record that I was the principal drafter of this council's resolution opposing house bill 2 and calling for its repeal and I can guarantee you with 100% metaphysical certainty because I was there and it wasn't fun that every member of the council at that time had suggestions about how to change that resolution and include whereas is so you're not alone council member Freeman in in receiving feedback on resolutions I will say that I think those suggestions might have been more appropriate at the work session where we dealt with this and unfortunately I was not there as my colleagues knows granted an excused absence so that I could be out of the state tell relative who was recovering from surgery but I listened to the recording of the of the work session and was heartened by the spirit with which all of my colleagues addressed themselves to this resolution the suggestions that they made to address concerns raised in the community and I especially I wanted to thank council member Middleton who worked hard to find common ground on this particular issue council member so the mayor mayor pro tem Johnson who raised the concerns and had some suggested changes but most importantly I want to thank council member Freeman who championed this resolution all the way through was willing to accept changes that she might not have otherwise made to the to the resolution in order to find common ground with her colleagues and as expressed very clearly her passionate views about this and other issues tonight I just want to thank you for being who you are in closing I want to say to the to our Jewish the Jewish members of our community that I think as you can see all of the folks up here on the dais are prepared to exclaim with a loud and clear voice that anti-Semitism has no place in our community and I think that your desire to have that expressed clearly and unequivocally is not part of any kind of oppression Olympics it is your right as members of this community and I think we will I am encouraged by council member Middleton's volunteering himself to to take to shoulder that work and I'll volunteer to work with you on that because I think we are going to need to to make it very clear that that that we don't we don't support anti-Semitism which is kind of obvious with respect to the resolution itself I think where we landed is a fitting tribute to the man who died as El Hodge Malik El Shabbaz who is commonly known as Malcolm X obviously like any other person as council member Middleton has said we change and grow as people and we honor as we do with any person we honor the good and I think that's what this resolution does and we wouldn't be the people that we are if we didn't grapple with the right way to do that together and I feel like that's what we've done throughout this process and so I think all my colleagues and happy to vote for the resolution when the time comes thank you Mr. Mayor thank you the other comments yeah I just want to say I'm tired and it's late I support council member Freeman's resolution as it stands and just to say that I also appreciated where we landed at the work session because I felt that it was the compromise that everyone felt comfortable with we will all be I'm sure over the next several months submitting our own proclamations and I hope that we continue to push each other where we need to be pushed but always maintain a spirit of collaboration so thank you thank you very much council member council member Middleton and council member Reese I heard you volunteer to write a write a resolution against anti-semitism and Islamophobia how would you feel about doing that by the 6th of June work session Mr. Mayor I'm I would love to and but I do want to also do that in consultation I'm in a discussion with with community leaders um in the city gives you a month absolutely okay that's fine so those of you at home listening we have our marching orders June the 6th yes sir Charlie you with me 100% my friend all right okay thank you mr. mayor all right thank you that was a very enlightening discussion and again council member Middleton I really appreciated your remarks I think that was very helpful um okay we have a we have a motion to approve this resolution move to approve second um madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes seven zero yeah thank you madam clerk uh there being no more Mr. Mayor just making sure that I do read the resolution I know that um the um reentry council uh left it around 10 o'clock but um Ben Haas has waited this long to receive the resolution as written that's okay I want to thank both uh members of the reentry council um Ben Haas and Darren for um Demetrius Lin for being here um I know Demetrius had to cut out but um I appreciate you staying through the whole meeting and uh I want to just acknowledge that last week was reentry council or I'm sorry the week reentry week and a lot of events happened and um hindsight I wish we'd have had this a week earlier but um reading the resolution in recognition of the life of El Haj Malik El Shabbaz Malcolm X whereas Malcolm X born as Malcolm Little the fourth of eight children to Luis a homemaker and Earl Little a preacher who was also an active member of the local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association on May 19th 1925 in Omaha Nebraska and whereas Malcolm X faced significant amount of racially motivated violence in his early life when his family was targeted as his father was killed because of his father's role in the civil rights movement leaving his mother a widow and whereas Malcolm X faced additional trauma as a child when his mother was committed to an insane asylum in 1939 and Malcolm X and his siblings were sent to foster homes or to live with family members and whereas in 1946 Malcolm X was arrested on charges of larceny and sentenced to 10 years in jail while incarcerated transformed his life dedicated himself to self improvement and recovered from his addiction educated himself even read the entire dictionary and other such large volumes of books during the six and a half years he was there converted to Islam before his early release from prison in 1952 and after his release from prison Malcolm X became a minister in the nation of Islam a human rights activist a prominent civil rights leader who influenced the work of various organizations around black nationalism during the 1950s and 60s and whereas in 1964 Malcolm X resigned from the nation of Islam and announced his founding of the Muslim mosque Inc in Islamic movement and organization devoted to working in the political sphere and cooperating with civil rights leaders and whereas also in 1964 Malcolm X made his first pilgrimage to Mecca and returned for the second trip to our to Africa and Arab nations aimed at organizing international support to fight to end human rights violations against blacks in America and whereas upon returning from the Hajj to Mecca in his second tour of several African and Arab nations Malcolm X was given a new name El Hajj Malik El Shabazz from Sunni Islam and upon his return home he called the first meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity and proclaimed he found the true brotherhood of a man and whereas El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Malcolm X was assassinated February 21st 1965 at 39 years old 39 years old while preaching on the possibility of a peaceful solution resolution to America's race problem and whereas El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Malcolm X has many speeches and written works which form core pieces of knowledge regarding the history of civil rights of the civil rights movement and black nationalism in the United States and whereas El Malik El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Malcolm X never stopped working to better himself as a formerly incarcerated individual through his dedication to faith self-knowledge in his unselfish pursuit of black liberation denoting true brotherhood until his assassination and whereas El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Malcolm X will be remembered for his contribution to society underscoring the values of true free populace by demonstrating the great lengths to which human beings will go to secure their freedom now therefore be it resolved that the city of Derm hereby recognizes the valuable contributions and sacrifice of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Malcolm X and hereby urges all residents to hereby honor the late Malcolm X for his resilience service and dedication to the empowerment through knowledge into through knowledge into all human rights and be it further resolved that the Derm City Council calls on the governor of North Carolina and our state and federal legislative delegation to actively support reentry programs and services for our returning community members especially those in the black and brown community who are disproportionately jailed in our current criminal legal system thank you witness my hand on the corporate seal the city of Derm North Carolina this day the 6th of May 2019 Stephen M. Shull mayor so it's good to be here representing a religious coalition for non-violent Durham and also local reentry council which is dozens of agencies from around the county who work with reentering individuals community members coming back to our community and behalf on all those folks and a lot of folks people of good faith and goodwill around Durham who just to bear witness to the joy and transformation that has come among those hundreds of folks from getting to know fellow citizens who come home their eyes light up y'all and so as late as the hour is I just want to say on behalf of all these folks that these stories matter holding stories like this up to the community we imagine matters and I think this resolution matters so thank you for taking the time to say it right and say it well I think there are a lot of folks who resonate with the struggle and the intention that's represented in Malcolm X that appreciate living in a city that that agrees with them and is excited about them thank you thank you mr. Haas there there being no more business to come before this body we are adjourned