 Hi, Miles. Hi there, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm excellent, I'm excellent. It's good to see you again. Nice to see you. I am in the car. So I'm going to mute myself and stay without my video, but I just wanted to say hi. Well, thank you so much for saying hi. Okay. Take your time and be safe. Okay. We are going to be waiting for Miss Rebecca. Jolly red to get here. Before we start, but I just wanted to say hello to everybody. Hello. How are you Miss Gilmore? I'm fine. Thank you. How are you? I am blessed and highly favored can't complain at all. All right. I understand. Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. I get to spend my Valentine's evening with you all lovely people. I get to share all the love. That's right. Couldn't ask for any more. Look, couldn't ask for anything better. Captain Webster, are you sharing only love with us today? Absolutely. Only love today. Multiple hugs to everybody. There we go. I love it. I love it. Okay. I apologize. One thing I will have to do is I will have to break off after I present. Captain Whitaker and I both have to break away early. And if that's okay, I just wanted to let you know that also, sir. No problem. No problem. Well, hopefully Rebecca would should be leading this meeting today. But, you know, if you have to tip toe away, I greatly appreciate that, sir. Look, I greatly appreciate you guys because you guys even being here means a lot. We enjoyed the fellowship. Yeah. One of the good meetings I get to attend and get the fellowship with some great folks. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm glad we're included in those ranks, those hollowed ranks for sure. Miles, I can go ahead and get us started if you want while we're waiting for Rebecca. Is that OK? That is perfectly fine. Go ahead. OK. Thank you, everyone, for attending. This is Zion Stankard, one of the past two part of the leadership team. Today is Valentine's Day, so I just want to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day. We have a few other of our team members who won't be present today. We have Kenny Church, who is our secretary, and Brian Galloway, who are attending to other things currently. But I do want to just go ahead and open you all up with a welcome. We have no special guest today, so we'll keep with our regular agenda. And I will turn it over to Captain Gatti, who will give us updates on some of the things happening within District 2. Good evening to everyone and happy Valentine's Day. Can you hear me? Fine. Yeah, we can hear you just fine. Awesome. OK, we'll go. From my staff, I have Jennifer Henshey up here. Thanks for being up here at GN. Lieutenant's off today. And so since he was already off in the book, I figured I wouldn't make him come up here and hang out with us. So nonetheless, we'll go ahead and get started. There were no homicides reported in District 2 in January. There were six total for 2021. We had 19 robberies in January. In 2021, we had 151 total for the district and average under 13. We just want to remind everyone as always, please be aware of your surroundings. If something doesn't look right, don't go to your car. Get somewhere if you can call the police. Have us respond in terms of aggravated assault. We had 14 incidents in January with 22 victims. It's a recap. They're going to give you a recap of 2021 to give you an idea what we look like in 2021. We had 216 incidents with 287 victims. In terms of burglaries, there were 25 in January, 435 total in 2021 with an average of 36 per month. In larcenies, we had 141 larcenies in January. 56 of those were from the vehicle, which is approximately 40%. 80% of those were from unlocked vehicles. And so just to remind you, and we talk about this all the time, anything that you value, don't leave it out in the open because people are walking through these parking lots. They're walking through your driveways, walking through your yard tonight, looking into your vehicles, looking to break into something. So just be mindful that you don't leave yourself open, yourself to victim. We've talked about this before, particularly my Toyota Prius owners. There has been an increase in catalytic converter thefts. I explained last month there are several things you can do to safeguard your vehicles. Always park in a well-lit area, perfectly in the view of a doorbell camera if possible or some type of phone camera system if you have it. Also, there's a vibrating cutting, from the saw cutting off the pipe. And so it's enough to activate an alarm if you have one installed. So if you make sure you turn your car alarms on, and also you can actually have your van, your vehicle identification number engraved into your catalytic converter by mechanic. This will help those if we happen to recover it. At least we'll get yours back in the sense that we know it probably won't be able to go back on the car, but be able to find out who's done it and be able to connect to an actual victim. Over the past few months, we've seen an increased number of vehicles stolen with the keys in it left with it running. And that's probably because a lot of you are warming up your cars in the morning. Remember, never leave your vehicle unattended. Just can't say that enough. In terms of direct patrols, district two officers have conducted a total of 300, I'm sorry, 3,987 direct patrols for the month of January. And so those are just kind of some of the highlights that we've done in district two as we continue to work and address the issues that you all may see or report to our attention. And so, Jen, do you have anything you wanna add from your shop? The only thing that I will add is national crime victims rights week is coming up in April. This year, the observance is the 24th through the 30th of April. As we plan events, I'll pass that information along to the PAC leadership team to push out into the community. And April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Awesome. Thank you, Jen. And so that's pretty much what I have in terms of reports. Always, I'm always happy to see Captain Western and also Captain Whitaker, guys, great. And I appreciate you being here and appreciate the work that you're all doing with us. And so I will stand for questions at this time. Captain Gatti, just wanted to ask you personally, what do you think is something, some way that the PACs can actually support in potentially lowering some of the particular standout crimes that you just mentioned? Like, of course, you said about like locking your doors on your cars. Anything else, anything else standout that you can say that we can help support you all? Well, and I think, you know, obviously doing what we're doing, I will say this, that I know a number of the different neighborhoods represented here all quite often have lists serves or have even meetings and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, please include us. We have a Officer Super, she's our Community Resource Officer. And so I think by including us, by passing this information along with your own individual lists serves, the things that's going on, but also inviting us to participate with you. Those are the kind of things that will help us, I'll help you help us. And so, and just being like I said, what you all right now, it's active, you know? I mean, that's the word of mouth and just communicating, passing all this information. That's how big, you all are our biggest ally to help combat some of this stuff. Thank you. That's all I have for my report. Thank you, Captain Gatti. I'm gonna turn it over to our co-chair of the PAC meeting, Rebecca Red Jolly, and she'll take it from here. Oh, actually she's just now coming in again. I don't know what happened. Are there any other citizen concerns, anything going on in any neighborhoods that need to be addressed? Just wanted to ask that one more time before we let Captain Gatti go. Angel Romero, I see your hand. Yes, hello. Good evening, everyone. My name is Angel, or Angel Romero. I live in the Colonial Village neighborhood, where the neighborhood that's north of I-85 on the east side of Roxbury Street, bordered by Club Boulevard as well. And crime, thankfully, has not been a big issue in the last few months. However, the biggest problem is traffic related, and it's the crossing from our neighborhood to Northgate Park at the intersections with Roxbury Street. So the main problem is that the vehicles on Roxbury Street drive way too fast and they run the red light all the time. And this is not once or twice. If you sit there, I encourage any police officer to sit there for 10 minutes during most times of the day. And the traffic on Roxbury Street is running the red light constantly. Sometimes it's three, four, five vehicles in a row. And the problem is not just the running of the light itself, but it's the fact that when drivers that are residents in either Colonial Village or Northgate Park are trying to access Roxbury Street, you have to be looking left and right to make sure that you're not going to be hit by those individuals that are running the light. But even more important is pedestrians that are trying to cross that intersection. There's a lot of pedestrians that cross that because that's the main and supposedly safest connection to Northgate Park. Northgate Park has the park itself. It has trails, tennis courts, and a lot of amenities. So a lot of people use it joggers, walkers, parents with kids, cyclists. I use it all the time. And it is a constant running of the light. And what happens is the light cycle, and I realize this is also partially the transportation department, but as far as the police is related, there needs to be more speed enforcement there and more than speed enforcement, ticketing, all those individuals are running red lights because it's become a chronic behavior. This happens all over Durham, but I'm especially concerned about this part of our neighborhood. So I don't know what the solution is. We've been told many times that there is no shoulder, but I think police officers are smart enough to figure out ways to catch these red light runners, so that their behavior changes. Because the problem is that when you try to cross, when you press the light and try to cross, the light cycle is very short. And you have to wait until everyone runs the light and then cross. So the time that the transportation department has factored in is not the correct time because there's not enough time to cross after all the cars have been running. So that's the biggest issue. And number two, the weekend chaos that is happening in our part of the city with all the drag racing, motorcycles, you know, there's noise all the time and people driving way too fast. So those are the two. Thank you. Well, and I'll just kind of go back over what you're talking about with the traffic you're talking about in terms of the cars running lights. And they told you correct. In that particular spot, there's not really anywhere where we can safely set up because just as much as you want us to run the radar, we want to be safe. We don't want to endanger the motoring public being other folks that are either crossing the crosswalk while we're trying to go after someone running the stoplight. We'll still look at it. And I think one of the things that you hit on is we'll reach out to the city traffic unit traffic lights, the signal shop and see if they can look at the timing on that. And if there's some adjustments that can be made, that's something that they can easily do. But like I said, as much as we can, we'll get out there and look and see if there's any way we can do enforcement. But I don't want to be a part of the problem or cause a problem as big of a problem as we're talking about. And so if there's somewhere we can safely do enforcement, we will. But if not, just please understand. That is just. Sometimes it's easy not to do it because you may cause problems doing it. So we will look at that. And I promise you, I'll send my folks out there. Thank you. Just one, one suggestion. There's there's a church. Thank you. That has a parking lot where a vehicle could park there with a radar and just get the car that's running the light. And then to get them afterwards, you know, so there's probably some creative ways. You know, I encourage you to drive around, see if there are spots where, where you could do some, some surveillance and. Right. No. And I totally get it. No, I totally get it. Like I said, but just running a stationary radar. The biggest problem is once we get somebody on radar, getting back into traffic safely. Because remember we're coming from a dead stop out of a parking lot. We got to look both ways just like everyone else. So I don't want to, I don't want to endanger the motor and public. If us getting out there means we're going to hurt someone. As far as the drag racers, it's just not your part of the city. Please understand that that is a city-wide, county-wide problem. Matter of fact, this weekend we ran behind them several times. There was a threat where they were going to shut down one of the interstates and do donuts and all that kind of stuff. So we're very aware and that is something we're actively working in conjunction with the county as well. And so. And sure how we patrol all of us. This time they actually went to Wake County to shut the interstate down versus the door here in Durham. And so as much as we can, we're putting resources to that and hopefully come up with the solution that will be viable for everyone. And so just bear with us on that. And I know we've had this conversation as time and time before and we're still working on it. It's just a lot of things that we've got to put in play to be able to effectively stop these young men. These people are part of this club. Thank you. Thank you, Angel. We have a question from Doug and Susan Weaver for you, Captain Gatti. I'll turn it over to them. The gang. Cascors report. Characterized gang violence in Durham. As domestic terrorism. Is the. Sheriff's office or the police department. Have a response to that report. Are there certain recommendations in it that you would support? I personally have not seen the report. I saw the. News release on it and hopefully in the next week or two, I'll be able to get a copy of it and look at it. You know, but just, just for me, it's what I call the common sense approach. Just be aware of your surroundings and. Recognize when something doesn't look right. I think just being overall safe. And so I don't know if Captain Webster's had a chance to see it or not, but I will defer to him as well. I have not had an opportunity to read that report. And we will definitely evaluate that report. And as a share false as a whole, we do recognize that there is a gang problem within Durham in Durham County. And that we are, you know, Putting resources into that. Our intelligence unit is gathering information. We have a lot of information on that. We have a lot of information on that. Putting resources into that or intelligence unit is gathering information daily, working hand in hand with Durham Police Department's gang unit. So there are resources being allocated and put towards that. Those issues at hand. But either one of you. Agree with the characterization. That it is domestic terrorism. And once again, I haven't read that report. So I can actually give your experience is what I'm talking about. Is your experience of what's going on in Durham County. And the gang situation is that amounts to domestic terrorism. I'm sorry. I'm finally went off at this point in time. I cannot comment on that, sir. That will be something that Sheriff Burkhead would have to comment on. Like I said, I think it's definitely an issue or problem. I have not worked directly. As far as gang enforcement. In several years. That's when I was on the heat team. That's something we did. But to tell you how it is now and characterizes like that. I'd be stepping out my realm and I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to either lead you or mislead you. Believe in something that I'm not familiar with. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca red jolly. She's now on. She's the co-chair of the pack too. Rebecca, we can't hear you. Can you unmute yourself? There we go. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay, perfect. I'm having technical difficulties, but that's what. You know, life is about I. I'm moving through it as smoothly as I can. So work with me all, but I do have one question. Before we move off the police department and we go to. The police department. I'm not familiar with any specific incident that has occurred over there in terms of. Let's see if I can change it over. Let's say a couple of weeks ago. Does anybody have any updates on, you know, who those people were? I'm not familiar with any specific incident. That has occurred over there in terms of. Us either being involved with someone being shot or injured. And so. Unless you can give me a specific date or time. It was on seven Oaks road. And I can't remember. It was about maybe two or three weeks ago. Nothing comes. Nothing came up. Okay. I thought. Of course. If there is, I'll go back and research it. And there is something I'll let you know. Okay. Back meeting by email, but to my knowledge, I don't remember anything at all. We've had some areas where we've had people shot in other areas, but to my knowledge, nothing is seven Oaks. There was certainly because the police were present. On seven Oaks. I don't know what it was, but something happened. Yes, ma'am. And we, long times we, we, if there, there's a shot. Fire. We'll respond, but to tell you that. Someone has been shot. I haven't heard anyone being shot. In seven Oaks at this point over that area. There's a burglary of progress. Now we've had some stuff dealing with the construction site over there. And so a lot of times when there's a burglary in progress, you'll see all the officers respond to that. So police presence is not indicative that it's something going on as related to gunshots, but something just in general, maybe going on. Okay. Thank you for that information. I was concerned about that. Yes, ma'am. I'm going to forge through my technical difficulties and we're going to move on. And if you have any additional questions, somebody will get them out of the chat or please raise your hand. But we're going to go on to our service department. And we have captain. Keep web. Webster. And he's our patrol commander. So the floor is yours, sir. Thank you and good evening and happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I'm just it's honor and privilege to be with pack two tonight. And I have captain Whitaker with me also, who's the commander of our training and recruitment division. I've just got a few things to cover it. It's actually been a January was a fairly good month. We had from our CID division, we had two arm robberies. We had two aggravated assaults. We had four break ins. Now this number is up a little bit. We had 26 break into motor vehicles. And 32% of those were unlocked. And I'm just going to echo what Captain Gaddy said, please don't leave your vehicle unattended. Because these folks will definitely take advantage of vehicles left unattended. We have seized a total of nine firearms off the streets for the month of January. And in the news, there was a gentleman who had been creating havoc through Wake Durham and Orange County. And he was finally apprehended on the 12th of this month after an extensive manhunt for this individual. And he was charged with over 90 different charges. We were able to in conjunction with Durham, Orange and Wake counties, we were able to apprehend him. And now he has been charged with over 90 different charges from breaking and entering Larson and motor vehicle, felony speeding to a loon assault with a deadly weapon. So this, this individual is off the streets right now. And we're, we're looking forward to keeping him off the streets. And, but we're also looking forward for him to take ownership and responsibility for all of that he has done. Our patrol division, I just want to touch on some highlights from our patrol division. Our welfare checks. We had 19 of those last month. And to me, those numbers are increased. They're up 52%. And what that means to me is that our neighbors, we're being neighborly. We're looking after our neighbors. Folks, something doesn't seem right. We haven't seen our neighbors in a while. So we're calling checking on, on folks. And I'm ecstatic that we're getting back into that, that mindset to let's be neighborly, let's check on our, on our neighbors. Strand and motorists. We had 35 stranded motors out on our highways, byways in our secondary roads that people are calling for help and assistance. And we were able to go out and assist 35 folks who were stranded on the roadside. Here's something else that I'm proud of. See something say something. We had 59. We responded to 59 calls for service for either suspicious person or suspicious vehicle in the areas, which to me that again says, Hey, we're looking out for our community. We're looking out for everyone's welfare. And it's just, as you can tell, I'm excited about this that we're getting back into, let's take care of one another. And in our patrol division and scope unit, we attended 64 community events last month. Even during this COVID pandemic, we're standing, we're still as a sheriff's office, getting out into the community, fellowshiping with our, with our folks 64 times last month. A couple of highlights that the sheriff's office is doing and has done. The sheriff's office is participating in the North Carolina torch run for Special Olympics this year. On June the 1st of this year, we'll be right running the torch along with the Durham police department through the county and city of Durham. Please come out and support that. This event is not about us. It's not about law enforcement. It's about those, those individuals who are having the opportunity to shine. It's about those, those athletes out there. I attended the conference last week and you get an opportunity. Please go to the North Carolina law enforcement torch run website. Take about three minutes out of your day. Watch that video. Watch these young athletes and the smile and the confidence that are on these young people. And it's absolutely amazing. I've got goosebumps right now just talking about it. So the sheriff's office is fired up and we're going to be asking for donations. Please don't get mad as for that. But that money goes to the torch run. It does not go to the sheriff's office. It helps provide everything that these young athletes need. So you're going to see us on top of Chick-fil-A. Hopefully you're going to be seeing us doing some crazy stuff out there to raise funds to help these young athletes and to have such a great time. And you'll see them with us out there. We're going to have those athletes with us. And we, we moving on to our next highlight. This past Saturday I attended an event. It's called homes for our troops. U.S. Marine Corporal Sharp was injured when he's his vehicle ran over and provides explosives device in Iraq. This young man lost his leg, his right leg. He is, he's been through 120 different surgeries over a span of four years. This nonprofit organization is called home for troops. They're going to build this young man a home, which has all the capabilities for him because he is confined to a wheelchair to an assistant walker. They're building this for free. This is a 501C3 who is 90% of every dollar. They were telling us Saturday 90 cents of every dollar goes towards purchasing land and building homes for these injured warriors of ours. If you get an opportunity, we posted some videos and posted some pictures on the sheriff's office Facebook page. Please go and take a look at that. Those are just two of the highlights that I have for today or this evening. I'm available for any questions if anyone has anything. And as everyone knows, the police and the sheriff's department always love to answer whatever questions anyone may have. So please don't hesitate to ask them during our pack two meeting. If there's nothing right now, we're going to continue on parks and recreation. We have Colleen to me here. So I'm going to let her have the floor. Hi. Good evening out everybody. Happy February. I've already loaded some events in the chat here. And I'll just hit send on that. We have some our senior Olympics coming up our summer camp for kids registration. So plenty of good information there. Let me send that for you. Some update about some department projects that we are doing your tax dollars at work here. We're making improvements to red maple park. We're making improvements to red maple park. Red maple park. Rock quarry. West point on the Eno and Lake view. And so just some of those highlights are. You know, restroom building. Repairs. Changes. The rock quarry park is going to be our new. Special event park. So it's going to be set up better for our. We're going to have a new project. We're going to have a new project. We're going to be in everything out there. That'll be terrific. We are doing some basketball court repairs. We have a new Kaboom. Project, which is a sponsored. Playground. Group that. We work with blue cross blue shield. And providing a new playground for the Burton park area. It's near the. McDougal terrace neighborhood, but for those who are familiar with that area, we're going to be doing a new playground build in that community. The beginning of May. And that's exciting. So. There's any other questions, happy to answer. But lots of things continue in parks and recreation here. And the most important thing is creating. You know, the park. We all have the same memory. We just finished having our ties and tears dance a special night date night for men and in the community with. A little girl, whether that be a nice. A daughter, a friend, a neighbor. So they all had a great time dancing and painting. programs today so we keep moving along as best we can. There's a lot of good programs I'll tell you that much. I've utilized park recreation as my daughter was growing up she just graduated from college last year so we were heavy into Edison Johnson and a few other places so thank you for all the great information. So we're going to continue on. We have our health department is a Lea Brown with us. I'm just trying to think. All right. Was there anyone that was from the health department like sweet tonight? If not, we'll just continue on on our departmental presentations. I just remind everybody I'm have a little technical difficulties but you know we're going to forge ahead because that's what we do in Durham and I'm just so dedicated to pack two and what you know everyone's trying to do out here to make our community better not just here but really the whole city. So we have NIS. I know Mr. Spain is here. Miles, I'm going to leave give the floor to you sir. All right. Hello everybody. I don't have too much to update but I do have some significant things to talk about. The first one that I really want to spend some time on today is talking about our community stories. That is a project that we've been doing for a while now where we talk about a community or neighborhood in Durham that has a rich history and we have conversations about it and they tell the stories about the history behind those neighborhoods and coming up on January 25th at 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. So at the noon hour we'll be talking about the West End neighborhood. So we really want people to come out to that one and every month we're always looking for more communities to speak about just their own history. So if you would love to participate or just see it please shoot me. You can shoot me an email and we'll get you set up and lined up for all of that. Also our neighborhood matching grants for this season has closed. We had a total of 19 different applications for the neighborhood matching grants which are grants that you get from us up to $2,500 where we match it with sweat equity. So we give that much money and it's matched with the time of the participants to go towards any neighborhood focused event that you would like to make. We had six applications from our community in North Durham so please, please, please. This was a phenomenal turnout. We're going to be reviewing those and getting back to everybody who applied but we would also love to prepare people for the next time when we open. So if you have any ideas you and a couple people in your neighborhood would like to do something good, please reach out to me and I'll be able to pass you that information also. And finally, just another additional positive news. NIS has been partnering with North Carolina Central University to put on a community's partners course which will be running the second and the fourth Monday. I know those are the times that we are right now with one of our meetings but the second and fourth Monday, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. from February all the way to July, the community partners course will cover any information that it will take for you to be able to apply successfully to any of our grant proposals and just have better understanding on how to interact and advocate for yourself in local government. But besides that, that's me wrapping up so I don't take all of your time. But we are excited to continue to work with everybody. So if you need something, if you want something, if you have an idea to build up your neighborhood, please feel free to reach out to us at NIS. And my name again is Miles Spann. Angel Romero, would you, do you have a question? Yes. About two weeks ago, one neighbor in, I think he was in Northgate Park reported that the area right next to the Beaver Marsh, this is a protected nature, I-85, the Compare Food Shopping Center and East Club Boulevard, there was a lot of garbage that has spilled over. Most of it was on the shopping center side but some of that garbage was spilling over into the marsh. And there were lots of neighbors asking who do we call, what do we do. They were trying to contact the owner of the property. They were trying to contact the East Aberdeen Creek Watershed Creek Association. And so they were trying to contact a lot of people to see what could be done. They also contacted big lots because this was behind big lots to see who was responsible for that mess and cleaning it up. And then also who was responsible for the garbage that has spilled into the creek. That's a protected, into the marsh. It's a protected area. There's wild birds, there's a beaver, and it shouldn't be full of garbage. So anyway, what would you recommend? What is who's responsible? Because I know there's a lot of private property issues, but I think even private owners are responsible for keeping their property without the litter and garbage. Yes, yes, I do agree. And the first thing I would say is we have a whole division in NIS called what is our cold enforcement officers. And with any complaint like this, we would turn around and we would recommend it to the code enforcement officer for the area and they'll go out and check it. And if they find out that there is a violation or whatever the issue is, we would reach out and ask what to be dealt with by the property owner. Also for trash, we have a few things. We also can do neighborhood pickups, some neighborhood cleanups, especially for large trash, large things that need to be taken care of. And we also have Durham One Call. Durham One Call is the easiest way to start the process that anybody who sees an issue that can use their phone. And it is a simple app. Let's see if I have the app. It is a simple app that looks like, okay, it is a simple app that is, let's see if we can get people to see this. There's a simple app and I can actually show you what it looks like. It is wait for it, wait for it. No, I can't see it close enough. Well, it's a simple app called Durham One Call and you can also make a phone call to it and send and put a report in. So we have a paper trail for whatever issues and they actually direct your issues, your complaints directly to the people responsible for it. We want people to start using Durham One Call because once you use Durham One Call, there's a record. When you give it to me unless you send an email and even then the email and knowing how people are, some people don't answer their emails and things like that and that makes it problematic. So first thing I would say is definitely take note of it. If you download the app, you can actually take a picture of it and give the specific location of any problems and it will be sent and made a record of and someone usually comes and deals with whatever that issue is as soon as possible. So what I will do is put the phone number. The phone number is 919-919-560-1200. I'll say it again, 919-560-1200. So you can call One Call and talk to someone to make sure it gets taken care of and I will put it in. I will put it in the chat. Thanks, Miles. You always have everyone. PAC-2 is just so blessed to have all this great information continually giving it out to the citizens. I just want to say that I see that Mayor O'Neill, if you come in to PAC-2, I want to open the forum to you. If there's anything you would like to share with the citizens of North Durham, we would love it. And so I'm going to give you the floor. Well, good evening, good evening, good evening. I just wanted to drop in. I hadn't seen you all since the big day that my life changed dramatically and the life of the citizens of Durham. I spoke loudly in mourning a different kind of change. So I just wanted to drop in and say, hey, I'm working really, really hard putting in long hours, long days, enjoying myself. I hope to have a state of the city soon. We'll try to tie it in, I think, around the time that the President does. He is our latest iteration. But it's been really busy. I've been learning a lot, a lot, and my days are still long, but it's going. We're doing a lot in the city. I guess my biggest takeaway is how well run the city is run. It really, really is. We have a lot of great employees, and they've been giving me deep dives into different departments every week. I've been to the mayor's conference in DC for about a week. I've had orientation with the state as well. So it's been a learning curve, a steep learning curve. We've had lots of things that are newsworthy. I'm dealing a lot in the gang arena. You all may not know, but we're in somewhat of a ceasefire. Not all violence is gang related in Durham. There are differences, but right now we are in the middle of a truce, and we're hoping that that truce will hold with a lot of our gang members in Durham that we've been meeting close with. Basically, on a weekly basis, just about, I'm having contact with at least 10 to 20 of those guys. It's a work in progress, but I do ask that you remember that they are human. They're not UFOs that just landed. They all have the same desires that we do. Their tools of the trade have to be replaced, though, and we've got to make room for that to happen, and that does take time. The biggest challenge so far has been trying to stabilize housing. Everywhere I've gone, it's a no. That we are not able to help them secure housing. A lot of them are working, actually. A few of them are working, have been working legitimately for a period of time, but the housing has not been affordable along with what they call the F, the felon status. Some of them have felons that date back to the 1990s, early 80s, and those are still being used to screen them out of our housing, even when they have jobs that can pay a legitimate job. I just want to know that everything that you read does not paint the full picture. There are stories and lives behind each and every one of those. It behooves us to know that we can't police our way out, nor can we arrest our way out, nor can we incarcerate our way out of what is going on out in those streets. I'm out here working hard, and that part will not be televised. It will not be televised. A lot of that work goes on behind scenes because they don't have a trust for our government or what government officials in a lot of instances, but you'll be surprised at how many appreciate the men in the blue and the men in the gray, our sheriff's department and our police department. They work closely with a lot of those guys and ladies. Things are happening, but it will take a moment for us to get out of the situation that we now find ourselves in. Suffice it to say, I'm glad to be here. Just wanted to drop in to say, hey, everybody, happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to you, Mayor, and I just feel like we're in capable hands because the city spoke loud and clear, and so we just look forward to all the wonderful things that are going to be happening in Durham with your leadership. We really appreciate it stopping in. See, this is what happens when you come in the pack, too. You better let your friends know the mayor might show up, so I'm just saying. We really appreciate it, Mayor. We are going to end it unless somebody has something they would like to share. We go straight to the meat of the bone, and then when the meeting's over, we go head on and look forward to the next one. So if there's, you know, we'll address anything that anyone has, but Brian, I'm going to pass it on to you. Is Brian? Yes. Brian's not here. There were a few questions in the chat box. Colleen is still here, and I just wanted her to take time to address a few of those who were in the chat box about parking. Thank you, Zion, because I'm having difficulty with my computer system, so if you can address those, that'd be helpful to me. I saw that there was the question about summer camp, so I put in the chat the manager who was in charge of the summer camp program, Danielle Haynes at DurhamNC.gov, and I just had the question for I'm not sure who to address it to. I was just curious when we get Amber Alerts on our phones, is that Durham specific? Is that the region in Durham, or is that the whole state? Is there anyone on that can speak to Amber Alerts? Oh, thank you, Captain Getty. Yeah, I was trying to find my buttons. Typically when you get those, they're coming through your cell carrier, and it is a lot of times statewide Amber Alerts. Sometimes it's sometimes region specific or a particular area, but most ones I've seen have been statewide, and even as you live on the TV, you'll see them on TV 11 or RAL and all that, and so they typically coincide, because there's one location that we're calling into. Great, thank you. All right. Was there anything else, Zion, that I might have missed? No, I think both things have been addressed, but if there's any other citizen concern, I'll see Jennifer Hinches. Yes, please Jennifer. I just had a quick question. I was at another PAC meeting over the weekend, and they're starting to have discussion about whether or not to be in-person, and they're considering moving to a hybrid model. Has there been any discussion about that here with PAC too? Yes, we want to go to hybrid. We're waiting for the city to give us a nod so that we can go back into the facility over at the Staff Development Center. They haven't given us the word on that yet, and as soon as they give us the word on that, then we're definitely going to open it up on a hybrid situation. So as soon as the city lets us know, but I'm sure it's close to letting people know. It's sort of feeling that way, but we're going to make sure everyone PAC too knows. Mayor, is this something that you want to share with the group? Yeah, I can. I can give you a brief update on that. We meet weekly, just met just last week with Rod Jenkins on the Department, the Public Health Department, who's in daily contact with the CDC. We're in contact with the CDC and the federal, national, folk, and state folk, and he meets with Brenda and I weekly. So we're, they're thinking that we are like at the peak, we've had the peak of the variant. And we're hoping that over the next two weeks our numbers have been going down, that they will continue to go down. The problem has been, this last variant has been so infectious. The numbers have been like unbelievable in terms of just in January, the number of infections in January versus the number of infections in the whole last year. So we'll continue to monitor those numbers. They're hoping that within the next two weeks, we can begin to look at things and sort of begin to lift things. But you know that all depends on what the variant is doing and how people are being vaccinated. So it's been a daily process, but it seems as though the experts believe that we are on the other side of the peak. And hopefully within the next two weeks, we will see, continue to see this down with trend and be able to make some movement. Just, just stay really, really safe out there. The numbers that we were given, it's just, it's been unbelievable in terms of the rates of infection, even though hospital rates have gone down, it's just a number of people getting it. It's been really, really disturbing. And you still have lots of children who are not able to, to get the vaccine. So just stay, stay hopeful and we'll get there. But we want to do it safely. Absolutely. Thank you for that because I feel the same way if we just kind of stay vigilant until we can get where we need to be. Thank you, Mayor, for clarifying that, that for us and Jennifer for bringing that question to us. Because everyone is waiting to get back into a situation where we can meet together on something. Anything else before we wrap it up? There's one thing, Rebecca. Kenny Church is the, one of our practice, the team members and she provided, she's also a licensed, a licensed counselor and she provided some therapeutic resources and I've entered those into the chat for those of you who would be interested. That's wonderful. So if anyone that's on now that might, maybe not for themselves, but they might know someone that would need a reference, a really, really good reference. Kenny is just a wonderful person and she has such a great resource of information. Just take the time to go in the chat and pull that information out so that you'll have it maybe for someone because we just live in these times that we just have to like Sergeant, Captain Gatti and also Captain Whitaker was saying, we have to watch each other and we have to be neighborly. And so I think that's important and when they talk about welfare checks and stuff, we have to welfare check the people that we know and that's very important. So just know that PAC 2 is here for everyone. Continue to let your friends and neighbors know that it's the second Monday of the month and we're going to do some more outreach later. We're just trying to get through some of the initial variant decreases and hopefully we're just trying to be ultra safe right now. So I just want to wish everybody a happy Valentine's Day, evening should I say. And I look forward to seeing everyone next month. Aw, look at the heart. All right. Good night, everyone. Bye. Good night. Good night, everyone. Good night, everybody. Have a safe holiday. The rest of it anyway. Thank you, Mayor. So appreciative coming on. I'll be back. Yay. Good night, everyone. Good night.