 Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of Durham City Council to order for June the 17th 2019 and I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight. We're so glad to have you with us Before the moment of silent meditation, I want to mention that we the friends and family of One of our former colleagues Jack Price one of our former members of this council rather Jack Price Called a memorial service for him this past weekend Jack passed away recently He was a member of this council from 1965 to 1969 50 years ago Most of us Jack died at the age of 99 most of us knew Jack in his last 25 years as a An advocate for affordable housing and a developer of affordable housing Jack was a nonprofit developer of affordable housing for people Who are homeless with disabilities? He was a remarkable man. He and his wife Joanne Price Joanne was known especially for her work with We're on behalf of farm workers And Jack and Joanne's house among other wonderful things that happened there. They were a they often had Civil rights organizers who came to town stay at their home. They were very very special people And so I'd like us now to as we have our moment of silence If we could keep Jack price in our thoughts, please join me for a moment of silence Thank you Councilmember Reese could you help us help lead us in the pledge? Thank you mr. Mayor good evening colleagues and members of the public who are here if it's your practice to do so And if you're able please rise and join us for the pleasure of allegiance in America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much councilmember. Madam clerk Will you please call the roll mere shul here mere pro tem Johnson here and some member Alston Here on some member Caballero here and some member Freeman president and some member Middleton here Remember Reese here. Thank you. Thank you, madam clerk And now we will have our ceremonial items and I'm going to for the first ceremonial item I'm going to ask councilmember didriana freeman to please join me at the microphone And I'm going to ask ideal Ortiz if she would like to come forward, please be honored as our neighbor spotlight this month and There's Ortiz anyone else that you would like to have join you may come Come on up And I'm going to ask councilmember freeman to please do the honors Hey neighbor As you know It's a very good neighbor to have Ideal Ortiz is the recipient of the neighborhood spotlight award for the month of June 2019 and the neighborhood spotlight Spotlight award recognizes community members that have gone above and beyond and volleys hearing their time To serve in the community and if anyone knows ideal Ortiz This is long overdue This month ideal Ortiz a resident of Old East Derm was nominated and selected because of the wonderful work She's done in her neighborhood including but not limited to promote promoting equitable engagement and an equitable distribution of bicycle and pedestrian resources as a member of the BPAC facilitating dialogue and relationships Which relationship building between government and nonprofits and neighborhood organizations as well as organizing with neighbors in Old East Derm And as the chair of the Northeast Central Derm Leadership Council to ensure residents have a voice and policy decisions Congratulations ideal on being the June neighborhood neighbor spotlight for the city of Durham And thank you for all the work you do to improve our Durham community if there were any of the residents We'd like to show support by standing Please do so sure Y'all are asking me if I want to say a few words on the day you vote for the budget You know me better than that Thank you mayor and the city council for this recognition if anything this belongs to my ancestors and family who sacrifice and prayers make any good thing in my life possible It has been over 10 years working on mobility justice issues and a variety of other quality of life Work in the community the work has evolved But the one thing I know is that none of this work is not is that all of this work is intersectional None of Durham's residents lead single-issue lives So whether it's saving your local minority owned grocer from the jaws of DOT demolition crews Who claim that extra lanes of traffic are more important than access to food or building communities to Cultivate wellness and safety as to not inhibit the free motion health and prosperity of its people Every project greenways trails sidewalks bike lanes Economic development health safety. They are all intertwined in ways that cannot be separate especially housing I Forgot who once said if you trust the people then they will become trustworthy I want to thank the council for resources in this budget that they've already dedicated to equitable engagement in a myriad of ways To really put their money where so many of our communities mouths have said it should be I hope that we continue that trend as the city considers Deepening partnerships with underrepresented people in formal ways within our city's departments Our upcoming affordable housing bond like any project that seeks to provide both solutions to chronic problems Will need the wisdom of those who know the struggles of housing the most Thank you for all the opportunities to serve in this city And I look forward to continuing in the improvement of Durham long term. Thank you. I love the neighbor spotlight It's always a wonderful aspect of every meeting or every time we do it and now we're gonna have another Special moment a history moment and I'm going to ask our public historian Eddie Davis if he would come and lead us in this and tonight's we're going to be talking about early pride activities, so it's very very exciting and Any please come forward Thank You ma'am shul. I'm a pro Tim Johnson members of the council City council city staff leaders and audience members Everyone knows that there always will be additional work that has to be done As we continue to progress toward a society that completely honors the rights and privileges of each and every person Even so we recognize that the United States North Carolina and the city of Durham have evolved tremendously when it comes to respect for our residents who are lesbian gay I sexual transgendered queer or questioning as We take a historical look back to the 1960s and the violent anti-gay attacks That led to the murder of Ron Antonovich here in Durham County We can and should Continue to mourn the victims and detest the un-American actions of folks who would deny equal treatment to all persons at the very same time we can and should Salute the gay and straight alliances that have emerged here in Durham over the past 40 years In fact those alliances have been so strong that Durham has become a statewide leader in North Carolina's pride movement Tonight our sesquicentennial moment will allow us to hear brief remarks from Sherry Zane Rosenthal Mandy Carter Gary Lipscomb and Mayor whip gully about the pivotal 1980s Each of these courageous individuals and some courageous librarians who we can never forget Help to make the words equality and pride Much more meaningful for all persons who live in the beautiful mosaic. That is the city of Durham So we'll hear from those folks who live through those times starting with Sherry Rosenthal For my few minutes, I'm gonna be talking about the context for the first pride marches and then a little bit about the Community and culture that led up to that June 27 1981 a group of about 300 marched in downtown Durham as our day out Which we believe was the first gay march in North Carolina One of my friends did march with a paper bag over her head to not be recognized by her employers at Duke University Another woman was recognized and was fired for participating in that march 1981 was a big year for gay organizing in part catalyzed by the attack that Eddie Davis just mentioned at the Little River in April 1981 On four men who their attackers thought were gay one of the men attack Ronald Antonovich died as a result of his beating After our day out the Klan organized a march through downtown in part as a response In one indicator of the times the Durham Morning Herald ran an editorial that equated the Klan and the pride marches Saying that they both parade their twisted morals through our streets And should have to repay the city for the policing of their events That was the last of many times that I canceled my subscription to the Durham Herald By 1981 we already had thriving lesbian and gay communities which in large part were separate But the Little River attack and the AIDS crisis that followed Spurred us to do more organizing together across gender lines And more organizing that had a public face instead of facing inward to the community Would be five years before the next pride march in 1986 Many of us active in the lesbian community were also active in the broader progressive community And so when Mab Segrist went to whip gully to ask if he would sign a proclamation Supporting the 1986 march. She was no stranger to him So now I want to switch and give you a little more flavor of the times and our values To do that I want to talk about triangle area lesbian feminist TALF And its programs TALF began in the fall of 1974 and the early 70s to mid 70s was a time where a lot of lesbian institutions were created It was active for about 15 years Those workshops and programs of TALF provided a progressive framework and analysis That have stuck with me to this day All the programs in the lesbian community had and still have a sliding scale admission to accommodate people who make less money Topics included ageism living with the patriarchy Feminist child care the social control implications of violence against women Which in femme in relationship and in society Androgyny self-defense Non-traditional jobs such as carpentry and heavy equipment operation and how to get trained and hired Racism and judicial bias which led to loss of child custody by moms after coming out And in another program chapel Hills police attorney ellen scouting made a presentation about how police departments could improve And how they handle rape and changes she was making to try and get prompt processing of rape kits And this remains a basic issue of justice for women today With thousands of rape kits across our state still being unprocessed We lived lives then full of meaning and purpose And we were part of a very concrete and personal community Those great days were the direct precursors to the Durham that we love today. Thank you Thank you sherry Well, i'm a pack rat And i'm sitting here thinking i moved to Durham in 1982 I'm sorry. This is mandy carter. Oh, i'm sorry mandy carter Uh, i moved to Durham in 1982, but i kept every button And i think sometimes i'll keep it short because buttons say a lot and uh, thank you carol anderson for your button machine 1981 there was this thing called our day out And here it is That button was to help celebrate and acknowledge and honor ronald that you had talked about Five years later in 1986. We had our second We didn't even have g if we had the gay and lesbian But also the clan was in town and i want to acknowledge Mab seagruss who's in the audience right now who is ahead of north kirlan north kirlanians against racist religious violence Because between she and toby lippen they went to you whip gully And said to you would you mind signing a proclamation? And the name of our pride march was called out today out to stay And because whip gully dared sign that proclamation I never knew where city council was until they had to have an emergency meeting down here to talk about What was happening with this pride march? And here's whip's button stay safe with whip gully mayor the first right combination 1986 Then we had opposition Coming from some of the churches and up just being real And some of the quotes were where do we saw them on the eno? Button what is the san francisco of the south? Button but because they had to collect so many signatures We had to put up tables and Derm the term paper was full of a lot of better tutorials day after day after day. It was seminal moment And then on thursday june 26th whip. You might remember this at 4 p.m Thursday june 26 1986. We had to come down here to do a support whip campaign And then i'll wrap up with this On august 8th friday 1986. They didn't get the numbers But all the work that had to happen and the controversy that that caused in the city and city and county of durham It made international news and here we sit 33 years like 33 years later and look how far we've come And how far we have to go. I love durham north carolina And maybe it means if you start organizing and having people to say but not you Who's next and we stood up and here we sit happy pride Hi, my name is gary ellipscomb. I'm a durham native. I've uh was born and raised here I started working with the gay and lesbian community. Well, I was born that way Start working in 1986. Um, we were a part of a group called black and white men together Mandy and i were usually the only people of color at most organizations We also were very instrumental in the 1986 pride march. I was the first speaker at that march Which was at a park, um, which no longer exists now next to the Reservoir, yes, um and that park now is gone, but it was wonderful. We had a drought that year and Right at the end of the march. It started to pour rain We called that the fairy effect We also later in like 1992 93 organized a black organization called umoja There were lots of black and gay men who Were having difficulty getting into bars. Um, so we started having socials Um People don't realize that the gay community at that time was very racist and Black members of the community were not included. So if you went to a bar, it was very likely that you would be turned away Um, so we did have our own organization for a while We tried to keep very social rather than being political But as always when you're dealing with human rights We had to get somewhat political and we're very involved with March in that year Thank you, and i'm glad you're doing this wonderful historical part for durham for the 150th anniversary and i'm glad we're a part of it. Thank you Uh, good evening. Mr. Mayor members of the council. The audience is great to be with you fellow citizens It's great to be with you. Um I appreciate so much eddie davis Making this a part of your sesquicentennial year and a chance to remember a pretty important moment in durham's history So long ago that many of you probably have not Heard a lot about it but And it's great to see mandy and sherry and to have you all do that and mab Thank you. Yes I mean one of the things about being older Not old but older is you you get a chance to Reflect on things for a while I had two thoughts to share with the members of the council and the folks from the community here tonight One is that you realize that Uh, this was a pretty significant moment in durham's history. It's hard to imagine durham in 1985 and 1986 and 1987 town dominated by Texel and tobacco industries that were going out of business and a lot of economic recession setting in A town that was seen as the conservative backwater of the triangle and A lot of Not thought of as progressive or terribly forward looking in in many ways and certainly not a town of tolerance Uh, and in the midst of that, uh with some Uh Initiative by mab and by toby lippen They brought me the proclamation. I cited me. It just seemed like the thing to do what you couldn't anticipate is how The community would erupt around this and it's hard to get a sense of that today back Then basically your news was in the newspaper and this was a story that seemed like for six weeks or seven weeks Was almost every day in the newspaper, you know And uh, oh, they're gonna recall the mayor and the petition drives underway Uh, but as has been pointed out, it didn't happen Thanks for that incredible button collection And uh at the end of the day, what you realized didn't happen not because of a mayor or an elected official It didn't happen because a lot of people in this community stood up and said that's not what i'm about That's not what durham's about that's not the community. I want to be a part of And uh starting with mab and toby and mandy and some great folks But also people that that are still here in Durham today that i'm so proud of Carol anderson david austin three ministers who are wonderful and have been all along the way reverend joe harvard A bishop or lewis Rabbi john freedman Folks stood up across the community and said no we're gonna stand up and make sure that this doesn't happen And they were successful and so It's about really a community and about a lot of folks. It's not about any one person But it made a huge difference in two things one is how durham was seen by everybody around us But i also think in terms of how durham saw ourselves, which is my other point One of the things that you all think about i know and that i did a lot is What drives cities what makes them work well or not what makes them who they are today And generally speaking i have bought into the the theory that uh a lot of it is the economics of what's going on there shapes culture But this was a case of the opposite i believe and i think it was really important in durham's history That this was a time when durham made a statement that was as much a cultural And community-wide statement about tolerance and who we were about Uh that then began to change the economic dynamic of durham That said we're welcoming community to everybody And so Then you had the creative class if you will the young Folks who are talented and creative say yeah, that's a pretty good place I think i'd like to be there and come into durham and the folks that were here stayed here And it helped i think reshape who we are as a community today So thank you all again for taking a moment to honor this. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate my colleagues as well Thank you so much Thank you. Mr. Mayer. I'm glad that he mentioned or they mentioned mebsi chris Who's uh been someone who's been on the front firing line for a long period of time and still is I would like to close by mentioning The durham county library there was a display of Lesbian engaged materials books and those kinds of things that today folks were just Just not even better now, but the display brought a lot of Controversy and I'd like to point out and then thank uh dale gattis who was the library director at the time and Joanne abel And nasi blood who put themselves on the line for this whole issue of equality and respect and they need to be recognized also So thank you. Mr. Mayer. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to give this presentation What I remember about the march of 1986 wasn't the rain. It was the heat and uh I was there leo and I were there with our one-year-old in a front pack That was his first march not his last But it's incredible to remember this history now his history Um Thank you all so much all of you all for being here and and thank you annie. That was great Alrighty, we're now going to move on to announcements by members of the council I have a couple but first I'm going to ask if there are any other colleagues that have any announcements councilmember freeman Yes, I wanted to draw your attention to a comic book that I've Shared with each of you from the mayor's committee on persons with disabilities It's an alum anomaly 23 by a chris Who is here in derm and uh Actually suffers from cerebral palsy and did a wonderful presentation It actually is a comic book focused on people with disabilities and how they they use their The weaknesses for strength and I really felt like it was important to share that with you all tonight So you each have a copy. Thank you. Thank you very much Any further announcements? All right Actually, I just have one announcement We make We make three crucial decisions in this city About the people that this council hires we only hire three people We hire our city clerk We hire a city manager and we hire a city attorney And those three decisions that we make are among the most important decisions that we make Thankfully because of longevity of the great people that serve us we have that serve our city We haven't had to make those decisions very often in the in the in the past in The past decade as you all know, uh Patrick Baker our longtime city attorney left us to go to charlotte. Patrick served the city incredibly well for many years and when Patrick left The council unanimously appointed kim rayberg to be our interim city attorney Uh, she has served in that position for the last several months During that period of time the council evaluated kim's work We did a full 360 we talked to the people that worked for kim and the city attorney's office We talked to the city manager the deputy city managers And I will just say we got what we expected which was incredibly glowing reports Of the work that kim has done we are We the council met in closed session and we voted at that time seven to nothing To hire kim as our city attorney and I understand that is actually the official act But i'm going to say just another word and then i'm going to We're going to publicly We're going to have another vote and then we're going to swear kim in As the city attorney for the city of durham Let me just say that kim has worked for this city for the past 14 or 15 years and Most of us on the council mainly know her from her work as a litigator She is the person who has represented durham In court over these many years and has done an incredible job Kim is a fabulous public servant. One of the things that I will tell you about her is that Uh, she can make legal problems Easily understandable for people who aren't lawyers and she's had to do that for the city council many times She's done a wonderful job defending our city in court And she has also Been a great colleague to other members of the city attorney's office When we interviewed the members of the city's attorney's office about kim They gave amazing reports of the work that she does The work that she did as a colleague and now the work that she's been doing as our interim city attorney We i'm required by law to say that our Kim will be hired at a salary of 195 thousand dollars We are so lucky to be about to To elect and swear in kim reyberg as our next city attorney for the city of durham And now I will uh, accept the motion as such mr. Mayor. I'd be honored to move that we Hired kim reyberg as our city attorney It's been moved and seconded by several people That we elect kim reyberg as our next city attorney madam clerk. Will you please open the vote? Please close the vote Motion passes seven zero Madam clerk. I believe you're going to swear in Ms reyberg Let me ask also if members of your family kim would like to join you At the swearing in please come forward. It's great to see so many of you all here State your name I kimberley martin reyberg. Do hereby solemnly swear Do hereby solemnly swear that I will support and maintain That I will support and maintain the constitution and laws of the united states the constitution and laws of the united states And the constitution and laws of north carolina and the constitution and laws of north carolina Not inconsistent therewith Not inconsistent therewith And that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully and impartially and impartially Discharge the duties of my office discharge the duties of my office As the city attorney as the city attorney of the city of durham of the city of durham. So help me god So help me god Ms. Rayberg, would you like to say a few words after the kissing is over? I were a kissy kind of family. I just want to say thank you so much to the city council for the opportunity to continue to serve the city in a really wonderful capacity. I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited about our new transition for the city attorney's office. And I appreciate the confidence that you have bestowed in me. I also want to say thank you so much to my parents, Albert and Jana Martin, who are behind me, my husband, Henry Rayberg, who has already put up with a number of late nights. He's getting used to it, but he's doing a great job. And my daughter's Hannah and Drew Grantham, who are born and raised in Durham, were prepared very well by the Durham public schools for their adult lives that they are now killing it at. And thank you so much to Tom and his team just for being so collaborative and communicative and supportive. I really do appreciate it. And I'm extremely honored and humbled and excited. Thank you, Durham. Thank you so much. And thank you so much to the family for being here. Yes, please, Kim, go ahead. Can I add one more word? Yes, absolutely. I want to thank my team as well. And you all already acknowledged how amazing they are. But my paralegal, Kelly Troy, my administrative coordinator, Kim Belmonti, both stayed late tonight to support me. And it just, it means the world. They're fantastic. And they've helped make this transition a really strong one. So thank you, city attorney's office. I'll tell you what, that was the easiest search anybody ever had to do. Kim, congratulations. We're thrilled. Thank you. Any further announcements? All right, we'll now move to priority items by the city manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. City manager's office and Tom Bonfield specifically do want to congratulate Ms. Ryberg and tell her how much we look forward to working with her, as she indicated, in a very collaborative way. So congratulations, Kim. We have two items to bring to your attention this evening from the city manager's office, fairly minor. Agenda item number nine, the title and motion has been updated. This is the resolution against white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia. And then agenda item number 11 has an attachment. Number two has been updated. This is the approval of dedicated housing funds to volunteers of America of the Carolinas to provide services for homelessness, coordinated entry, and diversion. That was the only two items, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Manager. I will now accept a motion on the manager's items. Second. Been moved and seconded. We accept the manager's items. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Madam Attorney, any items in your first official act? No, Mr. Mayor, we do not have any priority items this evening. Thank you. Madam Clerk. Good evening, Mayor and Governor, I have no items. Thank you so much. We will now move to the consent agenda. Some cards up here that, before I read the consent agenda, I want to make sure I get this right. If y'all would just bear with me for a second. All righty, we will now move to the consent agenda. The consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the council. These are all items that the council has extensively considered previously. Items can be pulled from the consent agenda by any individual who is here, any resident here tonight, or by any member of the council. And if pulled, we'll be considered at the end of the meeting. I'm going to read the agenda. Item one on the consent agenda approval of city council minutes. Item two, Durham Convention Center authority appointment. Item three, Recreation Advisory Commission appointments. Item four, Human Relations Commission appointments. Item five, Workforce Development Board appointments. Item six, Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board appointments. Item seven, Mayor's nominee for reappointment, Recreation Advisory Committee. Item eight, Mayor's nominee for reappointment Durham Convention Center Authority. Item nine, Resolution Against White Supremacy Antisemitism Islamophobia, and this item has been pulled and we'll consider it at the end of the meeting. Item 10, Workforce Homestead Inc. Project Loan Commitment Modification Amendment for Million Town Homes 1311 Cook Road. Item 11, Approval of Dedicated Housing Funds to Volunteers of America the Carolinas to Provide Services for Homelessness, Coordinated Entry with Diversion. Item 12, Fourth Amendment to Durham County Land Trustees for Bigel, Forgivable Construction Permanent Loan Agreement. Item 13, Grant Project Coordinates for 2018 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, Lead Base Paint Hazard Reduction and Healthy Homes Program Grant. This item has been pulled by a resident. This is Peterson. Item 14, Emergency Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure Member, number two, Professional Engineering Services Contract with KF Carter Engineering Company PLLC. Item 15, Temporary Offices at the Public Works Operations Center for Water and Sewer Maintenance Division Service Contract Amendment. Item 16, Resolution Authorizing Durham to Enter to the North Carolina Water and Waste Water Agency Response Network Mutual Aid Agreement. Item 17, Ordinance Amending the City of Durham Code of Ordinance is Chapter 70, Article I, Section 70-17, Related to Frontage Charges. Item 18, Contract for Construction Manager at Risk, CMAR Preconstruction Services and Limited Construction of Assault Round Building with Balfour Bady Construction at LLC for the Public Works Operations Center Renovation Project. Item 19, Public Arch Contract for Black Wall Street Gardens with Artist Stephen Hayes and David Wilson. Item 20, Second Contracted Amendment with Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Inc. DBA, Eckerd Kids to Provide Workforce Innovation Opportunity Accuse Services. Item 21, Contract with Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Inc. DBA, Eckerd Connects to Provide Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act Adult Dislocated Worker Services, I'm sorry. Also, Item 20 has also been pulled by Ms. Peterson. I apologize, Ms. Peterson will also pull Item 20 and will be held to the end of the meeting. Item 21, I already did that one tonight. Item 22, Contract with North Carolina Department of Commerce, Division of Workforce Solutions to Provide NC Works One Stop Career Center Operator Services from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. Item 23, Contract for Prevision of Pre-Employment Psychological Testing. This item has been pulled by Mr. Chris Tiffany. Item 24, Contract for the Prevision of Police Psychological Service to the City of Durham Police Department. Item 25, Utility Extension Agreement with Corny Incorporated in the County of Durham to serve Corning Phase II. Item 35, Mayor's Council for Women, Annual Report. You have now heard the consent agenda and I will accept that a motion that we accept it with the exception of items 9, 13, 20 and 23. So moved. Seconded. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda with the exception of those items. Madam Clerk, we please. And Item 23, did you say, Mr. Mayor? Yes, I did. 9, 13, 20 and 23. You just said that, Mr. Tiffany. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. We'll now move to the general business agenda. First item on the general business agenda is Budget and Management Services Department, fiscal year 2019-20 budget and 2025 capital improvement plan. Good evening, Mayor and members of council. This item is the adoption of the fiscal year 2019-20. Fiscal year 2025 capital improvement plan and other related ordinances and resolutions. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. You said introduce yourself. Oh, I thought I said, sorry. Bertha Johnson, Director of Budget and Management Services. Thank you. Awesome, Budget and Management Services Director. All right, we have a number of speakers to this item. This is not a public hearing, so I'm not going to declare it open, but I'm going to go ahead and move now to hear from our speakers. And then we will have a motion and comments from members of the council. As I call your name, if you could please come over to my right. The first speaker is Ms. Jackie Wagstaff. The second speaker is Pastor Rachel Green. Third speaker is Victoria Peterson. Then Gloria Washington. Then Jerome Washington. And then I believe Pastor Green is signed up twice here. So if you all could please proceed over to my right. Welcome, we're glad to have you. And you each have three minutes. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, council members. Good afternoon. Since this is not a budget hearing, public hearing, I'm not going to say much. I was about to say a lot and you know how I feel about what has been done with the chief's budget. So I'm going to make this short and brief. I'm going to save my disapproval for the voting polls when I go to the polls. Now I'll take that up at the ballot. So I'm going to let you have this. Thank you, Ms. Wagstaff. And now we'll hear from Pastor Rachel Green. Welcome, Pastor Green. And you also have three minutes. I bless you. Good afternoon, Mayor, council members and others that are here to support and speak out about different items. Do have a little something in my throat, but I tried to cough it up, but I didn't come up. But nevertheless, I'm here because I have concerns not only about the community with the violence that's going on in Durham, but also to support our chief who is asked for 16 officers I think we need to support that because we as citizens of Durham know that we have had a lot of violence in Durham this year with the people that have been killed and assaulted. It's no unity to really communicate that we are standing against violence. And I'm just concerned that so many lives have been lost this year, more so than last year. And this is just half of the year. But if we would come together, not only as a council, city council, as the different organizations which I am the new member president of the Durham branch of the NAACP, we have so many things on our agenda that we can't keep up. So many people are calling for different items to address. They have loved ones that need to be released from jail. I'm not sure whether they're guilty or innocent, but they need help as to their legal fees. And it's just overwhelming. And I have really been bombarded in the last month with so many people that are having relatives that have been killed in Durham, those even for the parents that are out of town. So I asked that the community come together with the mayor, with the city council, with all of the members of the commissioners. If we can come together with the interdenomination of ministerial alliance, which I'm on the executive board of as being a past president. I'm just appalled that we have sat back on our laurels and not address the situations together. I think if we could call a meeting of the commissioners, the city council, the mayor, all of the people that can address this situation so that we can come together and find a better solution. Thank you. Mr. Green, thank you. Thank you for being here and congratulations on being the new president of the NAACP. That's great, congratulations. Ms. Victoria Peterson, Ms. Peterson, welcome. You also have three minutes. Thank you. I was also very concerned, in matter of fact, I was trying to get to the work session the other day, Mr. Mayor. And when I heard the news that some of the city council persons voted against the request of the police chief, I believe it was either 17 or 18 police officers. Many of us have already been down here. So you already know that many of us, particularly persons like myself, from the African-American community, and where I live, two and three o'clock in the morning with all these guns going off, our young black men not just being shot, but our young black men being murdered, the black on, black on crime that has been going on in Durham for the last few years. If we are not careful, this community is going to become a little Chicago, a little Chicago. And if anybody knows what is happening in Chicago, then we all know that a lot of young black folks are dying up there also. I'm glad to see and hear the pastors from the community out here tonight supporting the police chief and supporting what she has asked for. We can do both council members. There's enough money in our budget to create new programs if some of you feel that new programs need to be on. And thank you Reverend Milton, or Reverend Milton and Ms. Freeman. Thank you for your support on the police chief, but I am very concerned about some of you who voted against it. And before I sit down, I want the public to also know next month, starting July 5th, Mr. Mayor, and I'm sure you will appreciate this, there will be an election that will start. Anyone who wants to run for office can run. But Mr. Mayor, as I continue to speak, we have to address the crime that is going on in the black community. The killing and shooting is not going on all over Durham. It's not going on in the white community. It is not going on out in black horse run. It's not going on in some areas. But for whatever reason, it's very, very high. And Mr. Bonfield, you are the city manager. You also can have a say on where the money's gonna go and how things should be done. But I am very concerned. So I'm asking this city council, go back tonight, you can review, put those 17 or 18 officers that this police chief has asked for. Put it back in the budget. We need those officers. I need them where I live at. Two and three o'clock in the morning, our young people are out in the streets, running around, shooting and killing and murdering individuals. And thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Now here from Ms. Gloria Washington, Ms. Washington, welcome. Please give us your name and address. We're glad to have you and you have three minutes. I'm Gloria Washington. I live in Durham, North Carolina, a chamfered place. I am a Christian. And I'm a close friend to a police chief because we go to the same church. I always acknowledge her being there. I go and speak and hug her because she has done some good things in this city. And I'm a mother of a murdered child. And she was not here when my son was murdered. But I feel like all of the things that goes on in Durham is not only murders. There are other crimes that we don't even hear about. So we need police officers because they need to be other places sometime. I was talking to my cousin today in New York and she was looking for another cousin of mine because he had surgery and we hadn't heard from him. So she called, well, she works with the force in New York with the prison system. And she called another set of police officers to go look for his wellbeing. So we need things like that to go on here. We need to find people that we hadn't seen. We need to have police officers with children teaching them things because they can teach some things. Sometimes the teachers in the classroom can't do. So I'm asking that she get the budget because I feel that she's capable. She's intelligent enough. She has the heart of God. And so I believe that she would get it done. And I thank you. Thank you, Ms. Washington. Ms. Washington, we're very sorry to hear about your child as well. And I want to just offer our thoughts about that. Thank you. I appreciate that, but I gave my life to God. So it does not bother me like other parents would be bothered. I can talk to people. I can go and be with people who need help with that. So I do that. I volunteer wherever I can. Thank you for doing that, Ms. Washington. And now we're here from Pastor Jerome Washington. Pastor Washington, welcome. Please give us your name and address. And you have three minutes. I'm Reverend Jerome J. Washington. I live at Three Shoreline Cove, Durham, North Carolina. I'm Pastor von Vernon Baptist Church here in this city. Ladies and gentlemen of the council, Mr. Mayor, thank you for hearing me. Optics are everything. And messaging and messaging, whether it's subliminal or intentional or important is important. As has been said here this evening, we're deeply concerned about the total rejection of Chief Davis' budget. And this sends a message to those who are, who need protection the most in this city. Voices of our most vulnerable residents are seemingly being ignored in this decision. I have a question. Are we saying to the residents, those most vulnerable, that their voices and their votes are not as important as those who cry out for bike lanes, walkways, line trees. Do they not need those kinds of things, just basic human needs as protections? Will you even reject the mayor's recommendation of nine officers, long with an increased wage for the city's part-time workers? I will say that that proposal was both reasonable and fair. Chief Davis has recently been selected to lead one of the nation's largest leading law enforcement organizations. Those law enforcement officers trust her judgment. Yet the city that hired her is now ignoring her years of experience and her competency. We ask that the council reconsider this matter and put additional officers back in the budget before tonight's final vote. Out of a request for 18 officers, the council doesn't even find it reasonable to grant even one officer. I'm not always carrying the banner for more police, but I wanna caution you that over-policing is not to be mistaken with police presence. Don't confuse over-policing with police abuse or police presence. The people who are crying out for police presence are the least and the less. Thank you very much, Pastor. Thank you very much. Those are the people who have signed up to speak tonight, and I'll now accept a motion and then we will begin from there. I'll move it, we adopt the budget, Mr. Mayor. Just a minute before we move forward. I just had a question for Bernie. Let me go ahead and get the motion a second and then we'll get to the discussion. I second. So there's been a motion and a second that we adopt the fiscal year 2019-20 budget, 2025 Cal for Improvement Plan Ordinances and other related ordinances. Councilmember Freyman. I'm just verifying, in the current budget, there's no additional officers or even the late and print officers. The late and print officers are in the budget. Those two positions are. The 18 sworn positions are not. The late and print examiners are not police officers. No, they're not. There's some. 18 sworn are not the late and print examiners are. Civilian. Okay. Councilmembers, I know there's discussion on this and I'm happy to start with whoever would like to begin. Councilmember Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanna, first of all, thank all the folks who came out to talk to us about the budget decision we have to make tonight. As we have all through this process, we've heard from a lot of different voices in this community with a lot of different opinions about how we ought to handle the critical decisions that are in front of us. I did wanna say just a little bit about this budget and the entire process. This is my fourth budget as a member of the Durham City Council. And I'm proud to have played a small part in guiding our city's budget priorities over that time working with you on all four of these budgets, Mr. Mayor, as well as the Mayor Pro Tem, our outstanding city manager, Tom Bonfield and our budget director. That work on these four budgets has been the greatest privilege of my public life. We have shown the people of this city that our values as a community can be reflected in our budgets, even when inevitable disagreements emerge about specific allocations for individual departments. And so I wanna thank all of my colleagues for their contributions to this specific budget document that's now before us and to say that I'll be voting in support of the budget. Mr. Mayor, no matter where you look in this document, whether it's expanding efforts to implement our city's strategy for housing access and affordability, or implementation of our inclusive and equitable economic development strategy that we'll begin this year, funding of our equitable community engagement blueprint for the city's future green infrastructure projects with the inclusion finally, finally of our part-time and city employees in the city's minimum living wage ordinance. Wherever you look in this budget, you see a city meeting the challenge of inevitable population growth in a reasonable and responsible way while continuing to build a Durham that works for everyone. A Durham that works especially for those who have been excluded from our city's prosperity for far too long. And at every page of this document, you see a city actively striving to embody more perfectly the progressive values held by our residents to make inclusion and equity our twin guides when making our public policy decisions. You'll also see a city doing everything it can to keep the property tax burden as low as possible on homeowners, especially long-time low-income homeowners. And that is something about this budget which I am particularly proud. Mr. Mayor, I know that no budget is perfect and this one is no exception. No budget is easy and this one is certainly no exception. But I firmly believe that the budgets before us tonight represents progress towards city which everyone can afford to live and work and raise their kids no matter how much money they make or no matter what part of our city they call home. I call that progress and I'm happy tonight to give this progressive budget my praise and my vote. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member. Anyone else like to go at this time? I'm Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also just wanted to say a few things. Again, to thank our staff, especially our city manager and our budget director, our department directors, our budget department and all the staff who had spent a lot of time working on this budget really the entire year. Brith and I just had a conversation in the hall about how it's never not budget season. These folks dedicate their time year-round to thinking about what our priorities are as a council and as a community and how we need to get the resources, how we can get the resources to fund those priorities. And we're very appreciative of all of that work. I wanna just highlight a couple of the things that I think this budget does really well. It goes a long way towards meeting a lot of our policy goals. And when I was looking at the budget, there were so many things that I wanted to talk about but I just pulled a couple of them to speak briefly on that I'm especially, especially wanted to highlight for folks. We are moving forward with transforming our office of equal opportunity and equity assurance into an office of equity and inclusion. This is part of a process the city has been engaged on for the last several years around thinking about how we can play a role in advancing racial equity in the city of Durham, both internally as an organization and broadly in the community. And so that office will now be a space where we can institutionalize our commitment to that work and retool some of our existing city staff to think more deeply about equity in the city as a whole. And I'm very excited to see what comes out of that office. We'll talk later about our affordable housing bond, but we're already by keeping our dedicated housing fund rate at two cents, gonna be increasing the amount of money that we're dedicating to affordable housing. And we'll hopefully later this year have the opportunity to put another $95 million to work creating affordable housing in our community through the bond. Of course, I'm thrilled that we're raising all of our part-time workers to our minimum livable wage this year in recognition of the very valuable work that all those people do for our city. And we're also gonna be funding a new economic development organization that'll provide capital and training and support for Durham's businesses, especially black-owned, Latino-owned and women-owned businesses we know have much more trouble being engaged in in our economy here in the city. And that's all in addition to our regular, regular and increasing investments in things like sidewalks, streets, our water and sewer infrastructure facilities, and then the community facilities that we own, like the D-Pack and the ballpark, all of these investments that we have to make year over year and continuing to expand our investment in things like sidewalks. And bus shelters and all these things that we know make Durham a great place to live for everyone. There are a lot of things that are not in this budget. We've talked a lot about the police officers that aren't in the budget, but I wanted to make sure that folks were aware that we made a lot of hard decisions about what we were and weren't gonna fund. The parks and rec department asked for another half of penny to fund a large backlog of park maintenance items, and we didn't fund that. We know that we need additional firefighters in our community, that we are behind communities our size and the number of firefighters that we employ. And we're not funding that this year. We're putting a plan into place to fund that, but that's not in our budget. We are implementing an ambitious language access plan and an equitable engagement plan this year that's gonna be done by consultants, not by city staff in spite of requests for more city staff. We have hundreds of millions of dollars of capital items that we weren't able to fund, some of which aren't even anywhere in our plan that we have a five year plan, but we also have a 10 year outlook. Some important capital items aren't even in that plan. So I say all this to say that we make choices every year about what we are gonna spend money on, and we have limited resources. And unlike a lot of cities in more progressive states where they have more options for how to raise money from their community, right? We have one, property taxes. We know that property taxes disproportionately hit our low income homeowners, our older residents on fixed incomes and our long-term residents who we know new or folks who are moving to Durham have much more money than the people who live here now. So we're concerned about our tax burden and we don't want to increase that to a level where people would be unable to, where our community would be unable to hold that. But we also have all these priorities for things we want to fund. As Mayor Schull loves to say, which I'm sure he'll say later, the only two things people want, more services and lower taxes. So we're always trying to find the balance of what we fund, what we can do, what our community really needs and how we fund that. I think we've done a good job finding that balance with this budget. And I appreciate all of the work and consideration and coming and speaking to us about the budget that happens every year, all the work from our staff, from my colleagues here and from all the members of the community who come and tell us your priorities and help us make these really important decisions for our community. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem. Who would like to go? Anyone else? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I don't necessarily have prepared remarks for this evening. I actually was in the hope that this wasn't the direction we were going, but I can see that we are. And I am torn and concerned because I know that there's a political season ahead of us and I'm not trying to get an affray of that, but I do think that there's a heavier burden on those of us who aren't running to really pay attention to this and recognize that this work is more than what we just say. It is what we do and how we address issues in our communities and I wholeheartedly support what both my colleagues have stated previously, but I am so disappointed that we're at this point and we're not having a conversation about how devastating this could be for a community that has requested these funds and these officers and I would like to offer a friendly amendment if I could to actually reconsider adding the additional officers even if at the number of nine at this time, if I am. Did you say to the number of? Nine. Nine new officers. And that was offered as a friendly amendment. I believe Council Member Reese made the motion. Mr. Mayor, our procedures call for the consideration of only one substantive motion at a time. And if the members want to amend the budget, the way to do that is to reject, vote against the motion that I've made and then we can take additional steps. I think that as I understood it, Council Member Freeman, I ask you if you would like to accept that as a friendly amendment, but would you like to do that? No, sir. Okay, thank you. All right, Council Member Freeman, are there remarks that you would like to make? I mean, I think it's very sad and I'm really prayerful that Ms. Washington doesn't have to speak to any other parents in the community. I'm also very mindful of the fact that if we don't do something, this is gonna, I mean, it's just eating away at me and just, no, I don't wanna see any more children killed. And I know that I don't want to have over-policing and I know that this comes from a place from everyone of us doing more and better. But there's a such thing as over-correction and you can't undo that. All right, thank you, Council Member Freeman. Thank you. Other remarks? Council Member Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I wanna appreciate the comments from my colleagues and appreciate the work of staff in producing this budget and the administration for their guidance through this process. I'd first like to briefly discuss the budget for our police department, which Council Member Freeman just mentioned. My $60 million budget for our police department includes the absorption of 15 grant positions for SWIN officers, funding for two new latent print examiners to help address a backlog and forensic testing and capacity for crisis intervention training. These are positive and important additions to this year's budget. Adequate staffing for our police department is also important from our patrol officers to investigators to our evidence technicians. It's important because police play a critical role in the achievement of our public safety goals. It's important because the department is staffed with individuals who do a uniquely difficult job in a community with understandably high expectations and many do it working difficult hours. It's important because all of our residents deserve to have crime and particularly violent crime met with appropriate resources. And if we're gonna continue the work by our residents and by our department to successfully, excuse me, change the culture of policing such that everyone in Durham can discover their inherent capacity to support themselves and their communities, department has to function effectively. Just as programs like transitional jobs, deer, the second trans driving, which I'll mention more about shortly, eviction diversion, property tax relief and our crime prevention through environmental design efforts have to also function effectively in order for our communities to thrive and for safety to be more fundamentally accessible. Right now, this year and in this budget cycle, our police department is operating well under extraordinary leadership and with high, excuse me, highly successful strategic implementation that has transformed the department and allowed the city to realize positive statistics over the last few years. I support these positive outcomes. I support our chief and our department. I will continue to maintain an open mind and ear to the diverse public safety needs of our community and the practical needs of our police department and our fire department to ensure that as we move forward, they have the capacity to support their staff and to serve their critical functions for everyone in Durham. Right now though, in this budget, I am eager to respond to a different and urgent responsibility, that responsibility being that we have to pay all of our employees the living wage they deserve. By bringing our part time employees up to that age, we can immediately impact the ability of these employees to do things like better for childcare, pursue educational opportunities for themselves and their loved ones or simply afford transportation and healthcare. This move is a significant one for the city, but a potentially transformative one for all of our part time employees, increasing their earning power, their spending power and I hope their political power. This opportunity is too pressing to pass up or delay. In addition to living wage, this budget includes roughly $200,000 for the Dear and Welcome Home programs, which will allow these programs to continue to help residents remove unnecessary barriers created by our system that prevent them from finding work, going to school or driving a car. These programs also facilitate critical peer to peer connections with individuals coming home from our state prison system. I'll pivot to our Capital Improvement Plan. In that plan, we are investing $600,000 for new audio pedestrian signal projects next year. Accessibility, and I'm grateful for Council Member Freeman for bringing the comic book to our attention tonight, but accessibility issues don't often command public attention, like many of the other issues we debate here. But for our residents who need accessibility services to go about their everyday lives, they mean a great deal and deserve just as much attention. Fortunately, the city already has many very effective audio pedestrian signal locations, but I'm glad to have these additional projects in our CIP. Relatedly, the city is also investing $6 million over three years inside of our projects to improve pedestrian connectivity. In Parks and Rec, there are a number of park and trail projects that will be funded over the next few years. Some of the planned improvements will restore and or provide basic facilities like bathrooms and playground improvements. Some improvements, though, are bigger, like the $4.8 million over the next two years for the Beltline Trail. All of these investments are critical, and how we build up making them is also critical because of the potential impacts to many of our historically disenfranchised communities, impacts that our history will not allow us to ignore. Fortunately, all of our departments have engaged in an unprecedented effort to evaluate our community engagement tools and strategies and to ground those strategies in equity, fairness, and inclusion. We will continue to need the community's partnership to make that work and these projects successful. Also, and I just think this is an interesting note that I want people to know about, the city is also putting $130,000 toward new wayfinding downtown to help us catch up to the growth and infill that we've seen recently in our downtown area and to help us emphasize that our downtown and our city are for everyone. This budget was a challenge to work through in many ways, but ultimately reflects the high level of strategic planning that we expect from this organization. I look forward to supporting the work of all of our departments as you implement this budget in the coming year and as we continue to work together to plan Durham's future. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Caballero or Council Member Middleton, either one of you all would like to go? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, colleagues, and good evening, everyone in the chamber. This document is 100% reflective of the type of people we have working for our city. We have the best, I mean, is the best manager and staff and budget staff in the United States of America. This is a splendid document, but I think it also reflects a missed opportunity. This document is a progressive document, but I think it also lays bare the dark secret of the progressive movement, and that is the pecking order as to who gets funded in the progressive movement. The city manager said that we have the money to do the increase for minimum, the minimum wage increase for our employees and the higher the 18 officers, I believe him, because I've seen us spend money on what we want to spend on. I wanna say this, I spent most of my adult life in Durham before anybody was checking for me or writing my name in newspapers, working on policing issues. I'm against over-policing, but I wanna be very clear, in the glossary of terms in the progressive movement, over-policing has nothing to do with the number of police. Over-policing has to do with posture and culture. If we never hire another police officer until Durham burns down, it doesn't exist anymore, we can still be in danger of over-policing, depending upon how we deploy those police. What protects us against over-policing is having leadership that is unafraid to manage growth and insist that our culture be protected. I was the only elected official in this city to openly call for and advocate for the use of imminent domain against Duke. I was the only one to call for the snatching of land. I will certainly not hesitate to call for the snatching of a badge and for the prosecution of someone if they engage in egregious activity against one of our residents. I will not hesitate. The reason why I'm comfortable with growing our police department is because I am directly comfortable with my willingness to protect this culture. That's where the progressive edge comes in. We have to be able to demonstrate, I believe, that we're able to manage and govern a growing American city and protect our values. Over-policing has nothing to do with the number of police. It has to do with the courage to make sure they behave and make sure that they carry out our values. I think this is a missed opportunity. Secondly, I want to say to those residents in Oxford Manor and Cornwallis and McDougal Terrace that we hear you and that you've been heard. And yes, Cornwallis, you deserve to have a community engagement unit just like McDougal Terrace does. Yes, you do. And yes, there is a pecking order in the progressive movement. And I want to say to you that there are those of us in the city, there is an awakening in this city. There's a new discussion that's about to be had within our progressive movement. And I want you to know that you have been heard and we understand what you're asking for. You're not asking for over-policing. You're asking to be treated the same way other interest groups in this city are. Finally, I want to speak to how good our metrics are. Our metrics are good. Everything we measure success and the police department by is good. They're good because we have kept up with staffing. That's why the numbers are good. And may I suggest to you listening in the room and listening at home tonight. If I want you to follow the logic. If the metrics by which we're judging our police department are good, therefore we are not hiring, then what is the threshold we must cross to hire more police? The implication is that when the numbers start going bad, that's when we'll act. I don't think that's a good governing posture. And may I also say that those numbers are not abstractions. There are real human stories attached to every one of those numbers. So I ask you, would you like to be part of the statistical reference group that signals to us it's time to hire more police? Would you like to be one of those anecdotes or cautionary tales listening around the city? I know I don't. I think that waiting for the metrics to say it's time to hire more police, just in my opinion is not good governance. I think we need to be proactive and keep doing what we've done that has kept the numbers good in the first place. It's not by magic. This budget is going to pass tonight. It will not pass with my vote. On the other hand, I do want to say this. This budget is magnificent. We are raising wages of our part-time workers. We now have the moral authority to say to folk, you need to raise your wages. That's a good thing. We're putting money into eviction diversion. That's a good thing. We had an incredible run with participatory budgeting. That's a good thing. We're starting to work on economic development. Let's be clear. When you tell people that live in high gun and high crime areas that we're attacking root causes and the jobs are five years away and you can't have police, that's a pecking order. And it's the dark side of the progressive movement and that conversation, the game is up. There's going to be a different conversation in this city. So there are wonderful things in this budget. I fought half my life for affordable housing. That's the first thing I cut my teeth on as an activist in the city when there were no headlines. So I'm proud of this budget. I'm proud of the work that the staff has done but as a symbol and as a message to those who have been crying out for us to do something, for those who felt that their voices have not been heard, I will not be supporting this budget. I will not be voting for this budget. Happy it's passing but I won't be voting and I want my vote to be registered as a nod to those folk who have been asking us who can't always get to these meetings because of childcare issues, because of money to take the bus or drive that you were heard and then I'm registering your concerns and you're asking when is it our turn? When will we reflect what we want? There are a whole lot of people writing prescriptions and offering diagnoses for people that they have not examined. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council, excuse me. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Caballero. Good evening. It's always hard to go after the pastor. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, staff. Budget season is always a challenging time to be a part of. Thank you for everyone who's here in attendance and for those who are watching. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to take a moment to speak. Many of my colleagues share the sentiment that budgets would pass or moral documents. I also share that sentiment. This Council is clearly not all in agreement as many of you are also not in agreement about what we are about to pass tonight. I shared in our previous work session that while I felt what Chief Davis was asking for was compelling. I ultimately believe that we owed all of our employees a living wage regardless if they were part-time or full-time employees. And there was no way of doing that without raising the tax rate to accomplish both. But beyond that, I've spent the last 11 days since we had that conversation, reflecting on my values, not as a politician, but as a person. I took to heart many of the ideas and suggestions that Durham Beyond Coalition proposed to us, and I also deeply respect the work our Chief has done with the police department. And as I think about our next year and the years to come, my ask, I will be voting for the current budget, which does not include the 18 patrol officers. And so my ask for this next year and the years to come is that we will all need to lean in on the expertise of our police department and on the community members asking and asking us to imagine a Durham Beyond policing. To implement something of the magnitude we are envisioning, it will take everyone. And in this next year, my hope is that two of our commissions, the Human Relations Commission on the Race Equity Task Force will kick off our work. So to the end, I believe that the budget we will pass tonight is the best one we can pass within the context of all the needs and responsibilities we face. There will be more work to do, but we have taken a bold step in making Durham safer and better for everyone by funding our welcome home and deer programs, by increasing the money allocated to eviction diversion, by paying all of our workers a living wage, and by ensuring our outreach from land use to trail development is more equitable. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. I have some comments to make. This is almost a half a billion dollar budget. It's a fantastic budget. I wanna, again, by thanking the city manager of his many strengths, as a manager, I would say if I had to pick the top strength, it's his ability to bring us a fabulous budget every year that's reflective of what he hears from the council and what he hears from the community. And I think he did so this year. So thank you, Mr. Manager. And thank you, Bertha. And the budget staff and all the department directors who contributed as well and all the many people have contributed to this budget. I just wanna talk a little bit about some of the things that are in the budget. And some of my colleagues have mentioned some of these as well and so I'm sorry if I'm repeating a few of them. We've got $500 million of water and sewer infrastructure in this budget over the next several years. And what this is about is making sure that 50 and 100 years into the future, we have the water supply that we need and that we have clean water. And that's what that money is doing. We have organics recycling. And this is something we've been working on for a long time. We're moving along in a great direction which will mean biosolids and food waste will be sometime this year, already already really getting started. Turned into city-made compost. This is a fabulous opportunity for us to reduce what goes into the waste stream and to save a lot of money as well. We funded affordable housing as several of my colleagues have mentioned in various ways. We'll be talking later tonight about the affordable housing bond issue. But I do wanna mention in particular one thing that I'm very proud of and that's the affordable housing loan fund, $10 million fund, which the city is providing $2 million of and we have other partners contributing to the other $8 million. And that fund will allow our nonprofit developers to go quickly into the market to compete when affordable buildings become available and before they're bought by our private developer and made more expensive for people, this will allow our nonprofit developers to quickly go into the market and to be competitive and to be able to buy and eventually preserve these units and to keep them permanently affordable. We talked earlier that we have increased the pay of our somewhere around 200 part-time and seasonal workers, the city living minimum wage of $15.46 an hour and many of those because of the way we're doing this will actually be receiving more than this and some substantially more than this. Another thing that's in our budget that I think has gone largely unnoticed is that in addition to the normal pay increases that our full-time employers are receiving, we are adding $3 million more for the 1,000 lowest paid employees in the city of Durham. We have around 2,600 employees, the 1,000 lowest paid employees in addition to their regular pay are each receiving on the average of $3,000 increase which is, as you know, is a very, very substantial increase, an average of $3,000 apiece. And also a new step plan for our employees which they have asked for for our lowest paid employees and I think all those are really very important. We're budgeting $1.7 million more in the budget in transportation than we had last year just to keep up with what we're doing in our bus service now. We have about 20,000 riders that ride our buses every day just to provide the same level of service we've had added another $1.7 million to the budget. This is going to be a continuing challenge, how to improve our bus system for our residents which is so crucial to them is going to be a continuing challenge. We have in here $10 million in road paving. When we ask our residents what is the most important thing to them in surveys? The number one thing always at the top of the list, it isn't schools, it's not crime, it's road paving. We have $10 million in this budget for road paving and that will not even do the job that we really need to do. We have $125,000 in the new equitable engagement plan. That is to pay, that is in addition to staff and we also have another $250,000 for equitable engagement for the comprehensive plan update. We are really going to be doing a lot more. We'll be paying neighborhood residents to be able to participate in these processes and I'm very proud of that and really appreciative of the community for pushing us on that as well. Council member Austin mentioned the new trail money that we're getting. We are, she mentioned the belt line. There's also $11 million in new trail money through 2029 and $3 million in trail repairs. There's $15 million in sidewalk construction over four years and $10 million in sidewalk repairs. We have the participatory budget implementation that's coming next year. We have $125,000 for public art. We've never had a public art budget nearly that big and I think that's great. Down the line in our CIP plan, not next year but in a few years we have the first designated money for sustainability projects. We have a new sustainability plan and a new target for our, when we will meet our carbon neutral goals and we have $4 million in CIP for as yet on designated sustainability projects. The Hoover Road Athletic Fields. We have $7 million for the Hoover Road Athletic Fields, soccer fields, which is especially important to our Latinx community but is important to all of us and something that I've been working on a long time and so pleased that our administration is pushing this forward. We have million dollars of park improvements. We have $3 million. We still have a few dirt streets in Durham. We have $3 million in the budget to pave dirt streets next year. As been mentioned, we have the DEER program, the welcome home program and we have our shared prosperity program which will fund the Durham, the Bull City Fund, foundation and the Bull City Fund to provide technical expertise, advocacy and then funding. We have to get the fund together in the second year for our minority businesses so that we can be serious when we say we want to be a city that shares our prosperity. All of these things are great and I'm very proud of them. I think it's a wonderful budget. I do want to talk a little bit about the policing and what I want to say about that is that in my mind, this is a hard question. I just want to say that I'm very respectful of those people. I really appreciated the work that the Durham Beyond Policing Coalition did, tremendous research, a great document that they delivered to us, very thoughtful and very thought-provoking and I read it all with a lot of intense interest and gave it a lot of thought. I also appreciate those people who also many people have come to us to say that they favor more police so I want to talk about that a little bit. Chief Davis in the three years she's been here, I believe has led a tremendous change in the culture and practices of our police department. Before she arrived, the city manager had instituted written consent to search after a unanimous vote by the city council to support that. We are one of the very few cities in the nation that has a policy like that, but that's just a policy and without a change in culture, the best policies die a slow death. As I said in the work session when we talked about this culture trumps policy every time and what I have seen in the last three years is that our chief has changed our culture. These figures are rough that I'm about to give you but they're pretty close. The number of cars that we stop in Durham are down by two thirds. The car searches are down by more than a half. Drug arrests have been cut in half. All this work has positively affected thousands of lives and as the great majority of these stops in searches and drug arrests were of people of color, this has been a significant blow for racial justice. Our chief supports the misdemeanor diversion program. Hundreds of people have been referred pre-arrest for treatment or services and do not have any arrest record, any arrest record that hits their record. Now the chief requires that drug possession arrest be referred to this court. This is now an assumption that a police officer has to live by. This is culture change and it's changing the lives of many, many people. The chief has now endorsed an increase in the age of people referred to misdemeanor diversion court from 21 to 26. Several years ago, our police department asked RTI to study racial equity in our traffic stops and they conducted what's called a veil of darkness study. Some officers were significantly, I'm sorry, the same officers were studied before dark and after dark, the two hours before and after dark. And the same officers were significantly more likely to stop black drivers than white drivers in the hours before darkness and stop them at the same rate after dark. And this was a very, very troubling finding. This past year, RTI repeated the study and found that there was no difference in the rate at which black and white motorists were stopped before dark and after dark. And this is very significant progress. This is culture change. And I give the chief and her leadership and the culture change that she's inculcated in this department the credit for that work. Chief Davis ended random traffic checkpoints so we wouldn't be putting our immigrant neighbors at risk of falling into the clutches of ice. She has dramatically increased the number of undocumented immigrants granted UVs a certification for assisting our police in solving crime, giving them a lifeline to stay in this country. She has now expanded the UVs a certification to include all people who've helped solve these crimes no matter how many years ago that work was done. She's instituted biospace policing and racial equity training, CIT training, domestic violence training for all of our officers. She's appointed liaison officers, a liaison officer to the LGBTQ community who has done a tremendous job establishing a number of businesses as safe spaces for any LGBTQ person who feels in danger and Durham. The Hispanic liaison officer that she's appointed has been very well received and has done great work. And I have been so impressed by the chief's own deep involvement without reach to our Latinx community. I could go on about how this department is changing but I will say that it is a tremendous transformation and I'm very proud of it. And I believe in the leader and her staff who are leading it. It isn't all good. We have had two people in the last few years, two young men who were mentally ill, who were holding guns, one of them was holding a gun, one of them was holding something that a gun like wasn't a real gun but no one could tell that including his mother. And these people were both, these young men were both shot by our police and killed. And as I have said many times then and in public and I will say again, these men did not need to die. We need to have practices in our police department where we are more patient and are able to wait out people who are mentally ill, whether or not they're holding guns to clear the area and to wait as long as it takes for these people to be brought safely down and helped. So in many ways it's not perfect. That's one way that's dramatically true for me but I know there are other ways as well. But I believe that our police chief is doing police reform as well as anyone. And now she's come to us to ask us for more officers so we can primarily do two things that she advocated. One is begin to move away from 12 hour shifts which often turn into 16 hour shifts with overtime and to turn that into 10 and a half hour shifts. And second to do in-person training rather than online training in very important areas such as crisis intervention training. And I think that's critically important, both of those things. I believe this is a good thing and will lead to better policing, fewer bad decisions by our police officers and our ability to keep good officers in the department. Giving our employees including police decent working conditions is critically important. Over-policing is real and it is dangerous. I don't believe that that's what this proposal is. Our chief with a proven record of reform that I think we can all be very proud of and a proven record of reducing violent crime is asking us to move away from policing through overtime hours. And I very much trust her on that. We're working very hard all of us to make Durham beyond policing a reality. And I know that every single council member up here all my colleagues are working very hard at that. And one day I hope we will believe, I believe and I hope and believe that we will make it so. That means a good school for every kid. It means a safe, warm, dry, affordable house for everyone to lay their head down in at night. It means a great job that pays a great wage. It means healthcare for everyone and it means transportation that's affordable and goes where people need to go. Until we have those things, till we have a Durham beyond policing, I think what we need is the right kind of policing. We need the kind of policing that can fight violent crime but does not discriminate or criminalize small acts. I heard during her campaign, Justice Anita Earles, our new state Supreme Court Justice was asked about how she viewed what we ought to do in terms of policing and I will quote here then. We need to hire the best, we need to train them well, we need to pay them well, we need to lead them well, we need to hold them strictly accountable. And I believe that is what we ought to do as we do with all of our city employees. My first priority other than what the manager brought us in the budget is I made clear prior to the meetings to my colleagues and also when we began our discussion to the public was to make sure that we were getting our part time and seasonal workers up to the living wage and we have put $650,000 in the budget to do that. And I think that's something that we really needed to do and if we're gonna be telling, as a couple of my colleagues have mentioned, if we're gonna be telling McDonald's they need to be paying $15 living wage, we need to be doing that for everyone that we are. We want a dear and the welcome home and the eviction diversion and we've added those things, increased eviction diversion funding. All of those things are good. So I did support the addition of nine police officers that was voted down. Let me just say, we have a $476 million budget and we are in disagreement about one million of it. I know to many people that's an important one million. It's not just symbolically important, but it's important, it's significant in many ways just to some people, but I do wanna emphasize that we have $475 million in which we are in agreement and I think we have a great budget. So while I would like to have seen a compromise and the addition of nine officers, I recognize that that was not to be, that the majority of the council does not support that. I respect that the majority as well. I know that they have really good points and we will need to be continuing this discussion. I think they're really good points on both sides of this issue. So now I'm going to, everyone has made their statement and I'm going to now call for a vote on this issue. Madam Clerk, we have before us a motion to accept the budget and the capital improvement plan. Will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 61 with council member Middleton voting no. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, colleagues. Colleagues, I wanna thank you all for the good work that you all have done over this period of time. I know it has been a difficult discussion in many ways during the last couple of weeks especially, but I really wanna appreciate everybody for doing it. Thank you. Mr. Manager, thank you for a great budget. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, point of clarification. On the graphic, it did not show me. I don't think it... Yes, it did, Mark. I thought it said okay, did it? Yes, it did. Thank you. A closed caption had you covered up. Yeah. It was blocking, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And thank you all for listening tonight to these remarks, I know they're long, but it's important for us at this budget time to make a statement that we all think is reflects what we wanna reflect about our city. So thank you for your patience. We're now going to move to item 27 under General Business Agenda Public Hearings. And I'm gonna ask David Boyd, our Finance Director to come forward. Good evening, Mayor and Member of City Council. I'm David Boyd, Finance Director. This is a public hearing to receive comment relative to the Council's consideration of adopting a bond order, authorizing the issuance of not more than $95 million in general obligation bonds for affordable housing purposes in the city. Notice of this public hearing has been published in accordance with the applicable law. Upon conclusion of the hearing, the council will consider the adoption of the bond order and have approved a resolution setting a special bond referendum. These would be the final actions needed by council in order to place the question on the ballot on November 5th, 2019. We've had numerous conversations with council about this item over the past several months. So I have no further comments, but happy to answer any questions that any of you may have. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I'm gonna, you've heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. We do have three speakers, but first I'd like to ask if there are any questions for staff on members of the council. I have a question, Mr. Mayor. Hi, David, how's it going? While we have been considering this particular agenda item for the last months, I'd say you have presented us with a set of scenarios about how the money under this bond referendum, I'm assuming that the voters approve it, the timing of the borrowing and concurrent with that, the timing of the repayments. Can you help me understand where we are with that? What are we gonna do? So we still have work to do on that. And you have pointed out the key issue that the ultimate impact is going to be dependent upon when the debt is issued and the interest rates relative to that. The spending plan and how the money is ultimately spent will dictate when we borrow the money so we can make sure that we keep the impact as low as possible, but we'll clearly have more work prior to the referendum to help people understand what the possible impacts are to refine those numbers. If I could to add, we began working on that, I haven't worked on that for several weeks now. Last week I presented the mayor with some broad guidelines around things to think about, in fact we're doing this week with the mayor talks more about that. Our thought was that we really don't need that decision tonight, but we certainly would need that August-ish timeframe when in fact the public information portion of anything moving forward would need to be ready to go. So we are begin working on it, has some thoughts. The mayor has established an advisory committee mayor, I forgot what you call it, an advisory committee, and I'll let him speak to how he's going to pass that information along to them. Thank you, I'll just go ahead and add a little more detail. If that's okay, David and Mr. Manager, that there were two different scenarios that the finance director, that the manager presented to me from the finance director. They're both substantially lower taxes for the bond issue than they originally began talking about because they were being conservative, which is a good thing. As you all might remember in my state of the city, I said that this would probably be two cents or a little over. There are two scenarios that the finance director has prepared. One of the scenarios is a set it and forget it rate where we would set a single rate. And that rate would just be the rate we do it once. And again, this is substantially under the two cents. And that rate would just be the rate. The second rate, the second possibility is to do a variable is to fund it on a variable basis, so that at the beginning of the bond issue, instead of setting a single rate, we just keep forever. In the early years, in the first couple of years, when there's very little borrowing that would be needed because the construction program hadn't started yet, you might have as little as a quarter of a cent as your tax increase. This would rise up to as much as two cents and then fall over a period of time back much, much lower. And the average would be about 1.2 cents. So between 1.2 cents for the variable rate to up to 1.6 cents if we did a set it and forget it rate. So I want to be, yeah. Average 1.2. Average 1.2 cents. So I want to be careful to say that this still needs work but council members, I think that gives you council memories kind of the ballpark you were looking for. But under no circumstances would this appear on the ballot before a decision was made about which scenario and obviously put before the voters as part of their decision about whether or not to approve the bond. Exactly. Thank you, Mr. May. That was my question. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for that. And we'll know, we'll have more exact information. We of course need to give everybody the best information that we can. But I think that gives us kind of a ballpark, which is a better ballpark than we thought we were in. And I want to thank David for his good work on that. Any other questions at this point for staff? And then I will move on to speakers. We have three speakers who've signed up to speak on this. Brianna von Vets, Belzin, Marie Hill-Phezon, and I'm sorry, four speakers, Victoria Peterson and Wibgully. And I'm gonna give each of you all three minutes. If you would please come over here to my right. While you're coming, I will say Marie, I saw your daughter downtown on Saturday, was glad to see her. Yeah. Great. All right. Ms. Van Vels and I believe that I called you first. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please give us your name and address and we're glad you're here. Good evening. Thanks, Brianna van Velsen. I live at 1605A Sedgfield Street, Durham, North Carolina 2770. I just wanted to say that I'm in favor of this being put on the ballot. I've examined as much information as is available about the bond issue. I'm gonna have training and policy. And I think as someone who personally and professionally advocates for better housing in this city and who's continually having to pay more and more rent myself, that will eventually push me out of the city. That I am in huge favor of us considering something like this and understanding the federal and state limitations to the policies that allow us options to help other people that I would really just like to have some options available to vote on in November. Thank you very much. Ms. Hill-Pheza and welcome. And you also have three minutes. Please give us your name and address. Marie Hill-Fasen 1303 South Alston Avenue. And that's pretty much right there by North Carolina Central. I attended the affordable housing meeting at the Presbyterian Church today. And I feel that it was urgent for me to come to speak in behalf of affordable housing. I believe we're in crisis right now. And I support putting a bond together for that. I was looking online at the developers to see what their plans were, the ones that you were considering. And I was wondering if that hard copy was available for people to study, basically. Because flipping it over on the computer, you'd be on there for hours just reading. And so if there's availability for that to be read or if I requested it, I'd like to know how to do that. And well, I just came here with my two grandchildren because, and they are bothering me. But I thought it was important for me to come here. I learned a lot about policing. It's a hard decision. I agree that maybe we could find a middle ground somewhere, but money is always an issue. So I don't know which way to go with that being that we have a brand new police department. That might have cut into the budget a little bit. But if you could just have that material available for people to read that don't have computers or don't want to sit in front of a computer for hours because one of the developers had 104 pages. But it's very informative as far as showing you what the vision is. And so people could see that vision. They'll probably approve a lot of the affordable housing because to me I was very impressed. But so I support the bond for affordable housing. I think it needs to be monitored. That's a lot of money. And as I know, when there's a lot of money, there's a lot of leakage. So we could just keep a tight eye on it and make sure that it goes to where it needs to go for the people. Thank you. Thank you. In terms, Ms. Hill-Fazan, in terms of the information you need, the city council takes a vacation after we pass tonight's budget. We're all excited about that. But when we come back in a few weeks, if you'll be in touch with me, there are gonna be a lot of information about the bond and I'll be more than happy to make sure that you get it all. Thank you. We'll now hear from Ms. Victoria Peterson. Ms. Peterson, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have three minutes. I'm Mrs. Peterson. I will also like, I have some concerns and I know the public is also listening. I would not right now support a $95 million bond with just the word affordable housing. We see what has happened to affordable housing when you removed the public housing unit on Fayetteville Street. We understand affordable housing when you wiped out, not you, sir, personally, but this community wiped out two public housing in this community, wiped them out, removed them, where the people at. I went past Fayetteville Street the other day. There's not one house on that property facing Fayetteville Street. Not one, not one shack on that street. I have a concern to the council members and Pastor Milliton, thank you, and Pastor Green and Pastor Washington as a realist. We've got to make sure that people in this community, particularly some ministers, need to be on this so-called committee or this committee that you're going to bring about. We want persons who really are concerned about affordable housing. A $300,000 home is not affordable for somebody who works over at Duke, who's been there for years, but they're not even making $30,000 a year. That's not affordable. I would like this city council to start putting in writing your definition of affordable housing. We want to see some houses that maybe only cost $50,000 or $60,000, and some people may be listening and saying, well, good Greek Peterson, that's still too high. But if there's going to be some other dollars, some grants or some other dollars hooked to this $95 million, okay. But a three and a $400,000 home that you guys build down here on Rocksboro Road, right down the street from the ballpark, that's too, a lot of our people have moved out of that area and cannot come back. So before Victoria Peterson supports this, before I go out and tell my community, we're gonna support this or we need to support it, I wanna see what is in writing, what affordable housing is. And also I wanna say something about the senior citizens and about the baby boomers who are growing and coming in this community, which I'm one of them now, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir, I'm a baby boomer. I am closer to a hundred than I am to one. I don't never hear this community talking about building housing and places for new senior citizens. We don't wanna live up in the sky. There needs to be some nice development for senior citizens in this community who eventually one day will be giving up their homes to move into another kind of facility. I wanna see all that information in writing before I support this $95 million bond. Thanks, Ms. Peterson. Thank you. And as I mentioned to Ms. Hill, phase on all the educational material will be out well before the vote. So thank you. Mr. Gully, welcome. Mr. Gully, welcome. I'm glad to have you. You have three minutes. Please give us your name and address. Thank you, Web Gully, 4803 Montville Drive Durham, North Carolina. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, thank you all for bearing with me one more time tonight. I am appearing on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit, a volunteer group of organizations and individuals in Durham that works to try and find ways to support the creation of homeless housing to home ownership and rental housing, all the options we need in Durham to try and combat this enormous challenge for housing. People in our group are well aware of the fact that the single largest item on average in all Americans budgets is their housing cost. And it's a challenge in many places in America, but no place probably is facing as great a change and a great a challenge as we are in Durham today. So we're appreciative. The Coalition wanted me to come and just say, we're appreciative that the council is considering adding this to the November ballot. We're supportive of that step being taken. And we were happy to have the mayor talk about it some of our meeting in February. We're happy to have a member of the city staff explain in some detail the proposal as it stood in April. We spent our whole May meeting as an organization with individuals broken in small groups to talk about what we liked, what might be improved and so forth. We look forward in the coming weeks and a couple of months to giving feedback on that to members of the council about our thoughts about the bond issue. But we're very happy to see this go forward. We're appreciative of you all taking that step and helping Durham, because at the end of the day, as was said earlier in a state of the city, we're either gonna talk about the problem or we're gonna do something about it and just do something about that's effective and that's proportional to the problem and we're supportive of you all doing that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. And again, it's good to have a former mayor in the house. Glad to see you. All right. Council members, well, first of all, let me ask, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone else here tonight who would like to be heard on this? Is there anyone else who would like to be heard? Hearing none, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now before the council. I'd be happy to accept any comments or emotion at this time. And after a motion, we can have comments. Mayor. Council member Austin. Thank you. I'll start with comments, Mr. Mayor. I'd say housing affordability is easily one of the greatest concerns that I hear from residents that I talk to. I share that concern and think that this bond referendum, along with the affordable housing trust fund or dedicated housing fund and the dedicated work of our staff will play a key role in our capacity to fund our affordable housing goals with the very significant capital investments that they require, our ability to build new partnerships, support the Durham Housing Authority and to complement new housing initiatives that will bring not only much needed affordable housing to the city, but allow us to address broader issues with housing affordability. We all recognize the need to do something. This bond will allow us to not only do something, but to put as much of our weight behind fixing this problem as we reasonably can. I support it and I think our residents should too. So thank you, Mr. Mayor for leading this effort. And thank you. I'm happy to move. Second. What's our motion on this? Thank you. The motion is to adopt the bond order. I'll move to adopt the bond order. Second. Is there a second? Second. Okay, thank you. I expect there may be other comments. So before we have a vote, I'm going to ask for that council member race. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the residents who came out tonight to share their thoughts on the proposed $95 million bond. I also want to thank our community development department, especially Reginald Johnson and Karen Lotto, our finance department, especially David Boyd, and our incredible, all the incredible staff work that went into getting this particular item on our agenda for tonight's vote. And I definitely want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, if your leadership are proposing this bond referendum and for your vision, as you expressed at your State of the City address of a future in which the city we love becomes a city for all. Mr. Mayor, as you said back in February, to continue doing the same work the city is currently doing on housing access and affordability. And it is amazing, transformative work, work that is creating and preserving housing for low income families across Durham right now, work of which all of us can be rightly proud. But to continue to do what we can afford to fund right now out of current operations is to surrender to the market forces that are driving gentrification and displacement throughout our city. This $95 million bond referendum represents an opportunity to break that vicious cycle, to change the market dynamics of Durham's housing market and to fund enough projects to build real and lasting capacity, not only in our nonprofit developer partners, but especially in the Durham Housing Authority. I want to thank our CEO, Anthony Scott, who's here. Anthony, I know you have a flight. You have to leave at 5.30 in the morning. Really appreciate your presence here tonight. That means a lot. This exhaustively detailed plan will create and preserve thousands of units of affordable housing, housing that's affordable to low income families across Durham, help thousands of low income residents stay in their homes through eviction diversion, emergency rental assistance, home repairs and tax assistance, create new opportunities for home ownership and make a concerted and deeply funded effort to drastically reduce the number of individuals and families in Durham experiencing homelessness. This work will not be easy and it will not come without sacrifice. All of us who pay property taxes will be asking ourselves the question on the November ballot, is the work that is being proposed as a part of this referendum worth paying a small amount of additional taxes every year to pay the repayment on these bonds over time? That is a consideration that weighs heavily on every member of this council when we talk about the tax rate. I'm happy to hear from our finance director and city manager and the mayor about the scenarios and where they might end up. And I'm especially excited to hear that that information will be before the voters before they go to the polls. Without the critical investments outlined in this bond referendum, Durham's neighborhoods will continue to be at the mercy of market forces that seek to transform our communities against our will. I believe we can and must do everything possible to stem that tide. And this $95 million bond referendum is the path forward. I'll be supporting the measure tonight, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let's have a few comments. I really think this bond package is one of the most important things that I will do as a member of this council. We have the opportunity to make a choice as a community to spend our collective resources to meet this critical need in our city. Not having access to the healthy, safe, affordable housing has so many impacts beyond just not having a place to live. It makes it harder for kids to learn in school if you're always moving. It's harder to cook and eat healthy food if you don't have a kitchen. It's harder to maintain employment if you don't know where you're gonna stay that night. It's harder to maintain a positive outlook and maintain your mental health if you're constantly struggling just, to find a safe place for you to sleep and for your kids to sleep. So we can calculate the cost of this bond, of the thousands of units of housing that we wanna create with it. But we just can't calculate the vast cost to our community of not having an adequate supply of affordable housing for all of our residents. This problem is bigger than us. It's bigger than the bond and we all realize that. We have some real issues with our national priorities. We've made choices as a country to value markets over our lives, over human rights to housing. And these market forces will continue to put pressure on Durham. We know that building a thousand units of affordable housing, supporting the Durham Housing Authority's plans, but that's not gonna solve this problem. But we need to do everything that we can to make it done. It makes me even more motivated to do something to have an impact knowing that there are these huge forces that are stacked against us. It's even more critical knowing that, that we take a big bold step forward into creating our own future that's not dictated by what the market wants in Durham, but by what we want as a community. So I'm excited to have the opportunity to support the housing bond. And I'm hopeful that everyone here and everyone in our community will also support it as well. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Caballero. Thank you, Mayor. I will also be voting in support of the housing bond. I feel that we have a moment in our community where we can actually change the arc of our story. And I think that without passing a bond in November, we will kiss an affordable Durham goodbye for most people who already live here. I moved here in 2010 and the cost of living in Durham, North Carolina has grown tremendously. My mother moved in November across the country to Tucson, Arizona, because she could no longer afford to live here. I have a sister who lives in Tucson. When we first moved to Durham, Tucson and Durham were about the same cost of living. And now Durham has far outpaced it. So I know this story personally. I know that there is a deep need for senior housing in our city. And I will be supporting the vote and I really, really ask our voters to also support the bond. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Anyone else? I had some remarks prepared, but so many good things have been said that I'm just gonna just say a couple of quick things. One is I agree that this is a defining moment, at least in the recent history of our city. If we are serious about taking on the biggest challenge that I hear about every single day, which is the challenge of gentrification and affordability, we really want to attack the affordable housing problem. This is our opportunity to do it. This is a large bond issue, but it's very affordable for Durham because of the tax base that we have. We will have full information for everyone in our community in the fall and plenty of time for everybody to make really good, to make really good decisions about the bond issue. But I will repeat what my colleagues have said. We really have a critical choice here. We can decide we're just gonna submit to the market forces and take the future that the market dictates. Or we can intervene in that future in a very significant way by passing this bond issue that will provide thousands of new affordable units, preserve thousands of units, and divert thousands, hundreds of people in the five year period that we're talking about from homelessness. Those are critical, critical community goals. I know of no higher community goals. So on the top of everyone's list, every day, every day I get a call or someone comes to my office to say that they cannot afford where they're living. The story that Javier told about her mother is a story that I hear repeated endlessly. We have to change that. We have the opportunity to change that. We have the money as a community. The decision is, are we going to share our prosperity? I believe that we're gonna decide that we will because I know that's the kind of community that Durham is. All right, anyone else? All right then, we have a motion on this that has already been made and seconded that we adopt the bond order. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. And the motion passes six to one with council member Freeman voting no. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Thank you, council members. If I may, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry, sure. Additionally, we need you to consider the resolution setting the actual bond referendum, the second item. I'm sorry. Second resolution as part of that. Sure. So moved. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the resolution setting the special bond referendum. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. And the motion passes six to one with council member Freeman voting no. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Thank you very much, David. We'll now move to the items which have been pulled from the agenda. We're going to begin with item nine. And I'm going to ask the following speakers. Please come to my right to the podium. We have five speakers. And I'm going to ask each speaker to please limit your remarks to three minutes. Robert DeAngelo, Amy Rosenthal, Ron Barron, Josh Ravich and Deborah Friedman. If you could please come to my right. And Mr. DeAngelo, we will begin with you. Welcome, please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. Good evening. My name is Robert DeAngelo. I live at 500 Advancement Avenue in Durham. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. This is my first city council meeting. No reason to be nervous. You can see that there are plenty of things that are said here by us that are just as problematic as anything you're going to say, Mr. DeAngelo. Okay, so I would like to say that I agree with the crux of this resolution, but I would like to dissent based on one sentence which I believe undoes the entire purpose of the resolution, which the purpose of the resolution to me seems to be to foster unity in the community of Durham, condemn irrational hatred, and as a symbolic gesture to condemn, as a symbolic gesture for unity of all of humanity, which is great for me. But in the third to last paragraph of the resolution, there's a sentence which states, Islamophobia plays upon the fears and prejudices of individuals through the tropes of rampant foreign terrorism and the otherization of Islamic culture while ignoring the greater frequency and likelihood of terrorism fueled by white supremacy. I believe that while it may be true that individual people may use fear and to play upon the prejudices of individuals, I believe it is wrong to refer to foreign terrorism as a trope in this context because it seems to me to say that foreign terrorism is a sort of tiresome, overused cliche that we don't really have to worry about. When acknowledging foreign terrorism as a reality is not automatically Islamophobic, you do not need to ignore the KKK or the alt-right or Dylan Roof or any group like that to acknowledge ISIS or al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab as a reality. And just to speak to people here in Durham who have been victimized by Islamic terrorism as a member of the Baha'i Faith myself, you can visit the Durham Baha'i Center or the Raleigh Baha'i Center and you'll find Iranian refugees who have been victimized by Islamic terrorism. You'll find the same with Nigerian Christian refugees, Indian Christian refugees who have been, who are members of the Syrian Orthodox Church. And Israeli Americans as a descendant of Jews myself, I'll be visiting Israel in two weeks. I've talked to Jews in America who have witnessed the terrorism themselves. I do not know whether or not white supremacy is a greater threat as opposed to Islamic terrorism, but I believe to compare the two is to pit one group of victims against another and it causes a division and it achieves the opposite of what this resolution is supposed to do, which is unity. To say that one group of sufferers is worse than another group of sufferers here in Durham pits people against each other, sows disunity and is not conducive to progress in my opinion. So I would ask you to, if you could remove that sentence, then I believe the resolution would be perfect and I would be super happy to adopt it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. D'Angelo. Now we'll hear from Amy Rosenthal, Ms. Rosenthal. Welcome, please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. Amy Rosenthal, 402 Old Larkspur in Chapel Hill. You say you're against anti-Semitism, but your words are empty. Hollow, how can you be against something you clearly don't understand? What good are these words when you're so deeply committed to an anti-Semitic trope that you run slipshod over the Jewish community? Of course, I'm referring to your ban on police training with Israel from April of last year. Since you're confused about why this is anti-Semitic, I'm gonna spell it out for you. Targeting the state of Israel conceived as a Jewish collective and blaming them for why things go wrong is anti-Semitic. Did your Israel resolution do that? Absolutely. The petition that you signed claimed that the Israel police used tactics that helped police terrorize black and brown communities in the U.S., erode our constitutional rights to due process, freedom of speech, et cetera, et cetera. We understand that racialized policing triggers you. We get that, but portraying the Jewish state as a symbol of great evil like this is anti-Semitism and you rush to embrace this scapegoating showing disdain for every piece of evidence to the contrary. Your prejudice against Israel and the Jews was on display for everyone to see. You complain you can't criticize Israel without being called anti-Semitic. This is ridiculous. No one on either side of the issue says you can't criticize Israel and I challenge you to find someone who does. The criticism that is offensive is that which is based on demonizing anti-Israel lies on double standard judgments which you heard in attendance on April 16th of last year and clearly accepted as truth without question. The comments you made before your April vote showed your true colors. One of you said you spent time on the issue because when you have the money, well we spent $0 on our defense. Another had the gall to say we all know anti-Semitism when we see it. I would never presume to tell you what is or is not racist. So how dare you tell me what is or is not anti-Semitic? Another person sitting before me made a statement comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. This is completely false, shameful, and blatantly anti-Semitic. So go on with your little resolution. As we know you will. It's just a collection of pretty little words that are utterly meaningless until you take action and rescind your April 16th anti-Israel resolution. Thank you. Now we'll have Josh Ravich. Mr. Ravich, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have three minutes. Josh Ravich, 402 Luxford Chapel Hill. Good evening. Historically anti-Semitism has often been associated with extreme right-wing groups. However, in recent years, an insidious brand of anti-Semitism coming from the extreme progressive wing has gained strength. This brand of anti-Semitism seeks to destroy the Jewish people by delegitimizing, demonizing, and holding to a double standard the Jewish state of Israel, thereby disenfranchising the Jewish people. Both left and right-wing anti-Semites share in common an emphasis on blaming the Jew when they face hard times. That would appear to be the situation here with the Durham City Council. This city council passed a resolution April 16th, 2018, banning all police exchanges with Israel, singling out and harming the local Jewish population and depriving all Durham citizens of state-of-the-art Israeli crime-fighting techniques for use by their police. In parallel, you de-emphasized and delegitimized the Durham police, setting the stage for a major spike in murderers up 75% from last year. Durham is currently rated as less safe than 94% of U.S. cities. Furthermore, this council has failed to reduce the very high poverty level of African-Americans and Lintinkses and failed to modernize transportation systems, whether via light rail or other options. So what's the council's solution? To distract with another resolution. This one carefully designed to attack white supremacist anti-Semitism, while conveniently omitting any mention of the dangers created by your own brand of anti-Semitism. More social engineering addressing a Jewish problem is supposed to distract Durham citizens from the governance failures of this council. Retract your anti-Semitic April 16th resolution. You'll have less reason for distracting social engineering as with tonight's resolution, and you might focus on governance. I'd like to hope that the recommendations of citizen speakers this evening may influence your actions. Regardless, I leave you with words of Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel. Quote, there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never, never be a time when we fail to protest. Thank you. Ms. Deborah Friedman. Ms. Friedman, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have three minutes. Hello, my name is Deborah Friedman, 1109 East Hardscrabble Drive, Hillsborough 27278. Our lives changed forever on April 16th, 2018, when Durham City Council imposed an ugly anti-Israel agenda on the Jewish community. Durham City Council chose to disregard Chief Davis' advice. They chose to dismiss statements from experts to discount pleas from the Jewish community because council was intent on importing the Middle East into City Hall. If council had to discriminate against its Jewish citizens, then so be it. As one member said, a culture of deference exists at Durham City Council. All for one and one for all is okay, as long as all council members share the same from the river to the sea philosophy. But if any member on this council agrees, Israel has the right to exist, you would never know it from the evening of April 16th or by the council statement, which is widely viewed as a BDS success. Jews endured condescension by elected officials more intent on demagoguery than concern for citizens. The council's demand for a group-think political stance is reminiscent of fascism. Jews have every right to self-determination. For council to defame, delegitimize, and hold Israel to a double standard is the very definition of anti-Semitism. For the council not to recognize the indignities inflicted on us by council is to deny our personhood. We've been gaslighted by council long enough, it's time for council to humble themselves. Whether or not it's an inconvenient truth for you, you must face the fact we live in the age of Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Poway. There's a point where white supremacy and anti-Zionism share a common ideology. They both hate Israel. Do the right thing for all of Durham's Jewish citizens. Recognize anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. Don't whitewash anti-Zionism by saying it's not anti-Semitic. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Ron Barron. Mr. Barron, please give us your name and address. Welcome, and you have three minutes. Ron Barron, 208 North Driver Street. Mayor Shul, Mayor Potem Johnson, council members. I come tonight to support the resolution condemning anti-Zemophobia and anti-Semitism and white supremacy. This resolution is a welcome one in a world full of these hatreds, one in which we have so much to fear for our children's future. I come tonight as a Jewish-Israeli immigrant, a father, a teacher, a long-term resident of our progressive beacon, our Durham. I come tonight as a grandchild of a survivor of Auschwitz and of a Nazi-assistance fighter on my mother's side, and of the chief author of a Camp David Peace Accords on my father's. So my sabbachanan was the man who never finished high school after having fled Nazi Germany in 1938, yet he was to be one of his top diplomats. In a decade or two before his death in 2003, my grandfather was increasingly concerned about the direction his country was taking. Indeed, today, the Israeli government has lined with fanatic governments worldwide. The worst anti-Semites the world has seen since the 1940s. It pursues alliances with far-right deeply anti-Semitic regimes in Hungary, Austria, Brazil, the Philippines, India, Italy, and so on. Today's Israel goes closer to the religious autocracies of Oman and Saudi Arabia. Israeli sponsorships of the likes of Richard Spencer and deepening ties to the United States and the white nationalist Trump regime add to this. Why does a Jewish state engage with anti-Semites? And what does this have to do with Durham? Looking at Israeli history, I see a deeper continuity than my grandfather did. Zionism began in the 19th century, in part as Jewish cultural resistance. After the Holocaust, as the world nodded its assent to the establishment of a Jewish nationalist state in historical Palestine, Zionism became dominated by its ethno-nationalist stream. Regardless of nuancism left and right, disdain and hatred for the other, be they Muslim, Arab, or non-white Jew, were always in hell into nationalist Zionism. In that light, these alliances are not new or surprising. It is the flood of nationalism that unites these regimes. Coming back to our dear city, this common flood of nationalism is also sadly missed into night's resolution. Resolution fails to condemn local strains of nationalism, and so it does not even address anti-Semitic comments heard in this belly chamber, including a phrase, Synagogues of Satan, which should be explicitly condemned. That such talk came from an accurate yet another nationalist group, the Nation of Islam, whose posters leading to separation or death abound in my neighborhood, Aldi's Darm is not surprising. That such posters are found in close proximity to white nationalist stickers isn't Iber. And that white nationalist stickers are found close to Israeli flags around the world today isn't Iber. I support tonight's resolution, yet I wish it did not structurally miss this opportunity to condemn the root cause of these hatreds, a deep and abiding fear of the other that springs forth from the fount of nationalism writ large. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barron. All right, we will now... I would like to speak on this. Sorry, Ms. Peterson, you're speaking on a lot of items tonight, which you've signed up for. This is not a public hearing item, and you did not sign up for it in time. Can I just give you my thing right quick, please, sir? Because I really would like, I thought this was also a public hearing item. Ms. Peterson, you can hand that card over there to the, but this is not a public hearing item. You can speak on, you have, I believe you're already signed up to speak on two more items, Ms. Peterson, and you're not speaking on this one, so please take a seat. Thank you. Okay. I'm gonna turn to Council Member Middleton, and I wanna say Council Member, first of all, thank you for all the work you've done on this, for authoring this resolution, and especially for listening to all of us and to our various publics, which I know has not always been an easy task, but you took it all with good will and much appreciated, and I appreciate Council Member Reese's additions to it, as well as all of us who tried to contribute in some way, and I think you've landed in a great place, so Council Member, any comments that you would like to make, and then if there are others, and then we'll cast a vote. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you all for our neighbors and residents and friends that came out to make comments. I also wanna echo, thanks to Councilor Reese, who was an able conversation partner. Yeah, I heard from a lot of folk, our democracy is messy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. In the United States of America, we have no crown. There is no person that's the chief of state and then a chief executive. Our president is both chief of state and chief executive. So in the mess of governance, it falls to the lot of elected officials, oftentimes not only to fix potholes, but to channel our values because we have no crown. We have no person that just speaks to values. It's where what you got. So from time to time, it is our responsibility to not only govern terms of the tangible street lights and potholes, but governance also sometimes means giving voice to the collective values of our people. This statement was not meant to be definitive, but I think it is necessary. One of the reasons why I love jazz music so much is because I think it's a metaphor for our democracy. On the bandstand, once the tune is called out, at some point every musician on the bandstand gets to vote and get to improvise without doing violence to the underlying melody and the key you're in, but you get to vote. But at the end, you come back to the melody, the standard tune. You may like a particular standard by Miles Davis and hate it by Dizzy Gillespie, but the wonderful thing about jazz is every time you play the tune, it's a new creation. That's what our democracy is. This is an iteration of a statement that I believe needed to be made, but it is not definitive. And the wonderful thing about our democracy is that we keep talking. The reason why the pyramid on the back of your dollar bill is not complete is because it symbolizes that America is still in progress. It is an ongoing discussion always. I do not pretend that this is a definitive statement on anti-Semitism or Islamophobia or white supremacy. It was not intended to be definitive, but I believe it is necessary. Now, let's be honest. There are members of our community that are distrustful of this council. You think we made a bad decision with our April 16th statement? Maybe we did. And maybe humility dictates that at some point we revisited that conversation. I'm not above that as a leader. That is not what we're doing tonight. And may I say, as a fellow resident and citizen, that even if we got that statement wrong, it does not absolve us or excuse us from our responsibility and obligation to continue to channel the values of our people until you get together and fire all of us. We are not exempted from that. We are not excused from it. Even in our imperfection, we have to keep striving and keep having the conversation and keep forwarding this American experiment and American proposition until we get it right. There's a reason why there are so many prophets. There's a reason why there's at least four wax at the gospel, at least four of them that are canonical, because the conversation's ongoing, because sometimes you need to say something more than once in order to get it. Respectfully, we are all limited by our own experiences. We are all limited by our own prejudices, by our blind spots, our biases, I own all of that, but this statement needed to be made. I remember, and I'm gonna read the statement shortly, I remember being in a class years ago, and the professor said, if you put your blindfold on and start reaching out and feeling something, you told these students to reach out and feel something and describe what you feel. And all of the students described something different. Then the professor said, step back and take off your blindfold. There was an elephant in the middle of the room. And they were all feeling the same elephant, but the folk that were feeling the trunk had a very different description of the folk that were feeling the stomach, but it was the same elephant. I am not pretending to have knowledge or a grasp on the entire elephant. That's not what this statement is meant to be, but we do have a perspective. We do have a voice. We do have a position that needed to be stated. This resolution is not a mea culpa. It's not meant to correct something we did on April 16th. I think if we're gonna do that, we should have the boldness to just do it through the front door. May I say to you, just because a couple of things were said here tonight, just from a factual point of view, I didn't vote for a BDS petition. The petition that we signed during the campaign is not the same petition that was circulated. It is not. I didn't vote for a boycott of all police exchanges with Israel. I voted about militarized policing. Here's the test and you can hold me to it. If our police chief comes to this council and says that she'd like to have an exchange with Israel, that does not involve long barrel weapons with scopes, that does not involve mechanized vehicles, that does not involve military style corraling techniques. It involves crisis intervention or de-escalation. To me, that's not militarized policing. And I will go at it with my colleagues because what I voted for was a statement about militarized policing. I did not vote for a boycott of Israel. With that said, this is the tune we're playing right now. This is our chance at the bandstand. The wonderful thing is after tonight, I invite you, I implore you to keep the conversation going because the pyramid is not complete. The conversation is ongoing and this statement is not meant to be a definitive statement but it is a necessary one, I believe. With that said, Mr. Mayor, with your permission, I'll read it. Please do, thank you, Council Member. This is a resolution against white supremacy, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia of the Durham City Council. Whereas the United States of America has sought to represent itself to the world as a bastion of human dignity, equality, democracy, freedom and justice being the only nation in history that is codified in its credo statements, the proposition that all men are created equal and has committed the blood of her children to the defeat of slavery, fascism and Nazism, which is a form of white supremacy. And whereas, in spite of the nation's aspirational statements enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and in the preamble of the United States Constitution, racism and white supremacy have historically undermined our national life and moral fabric, thus necessitating a perpetual existential struggle to reconcile who we say we are with who we actually are as a nation. And whereas white supremacy is a bankrupt and immoral ideology that stands fully apart from the great faith traditions of the world and is antithetical to the American ideal and to the values and beliefs of the city of Durham. This ideology has been cited by perpetrators of some of the most heinous acts of violence directed at Jews, Muslims and black people around the world and must be recognized and characterized as a scourge on humanity and a threat to our national and municipal security. White supremacy has fueled the climate in which the anti-Semitic targeting of Jews and the Islamophobic persecution and racial profiling of Muslims is made more likely. And whereas anti-Semitism like racism is a phenomena that is expressed in various forms, ranging from overt acts of violence and speech to subtle acts of discrimination and indignities aimed at Jewish members of the human family attempting to alienate, stereotype, marginalized in gender fear and to harm them. Anti-Semitism is a repugnant and repulsive form of hatred that has no place anywhere on our planet certainly has no place in the city of Durham. And whereas Islamophobia has been stoked by the highest level of our nation's government and has created a dangerous climate for Muslim members of the global community, Islamophobia plays upon the fears and prejudices of individuals through the tropes of rampant foreign terrorism and the otherization of Islamic culture while ignoring the greater frequency and likelihood of terrorism fueled by white supremacy. Islamophobia is a brand of bigotry that is incompatible with the values of Durham. Now therefore be it resolved that the city of Durham utterly and completely renounces and condemns white supremacy, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in all their forms. And be it further resolved that the city of Durham urges all Durham residents to maintain vigilance against white supremacy, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and to engage in dialogue and actions that will combat all of these evils and preserve Durham as a city that is open and safe for all peoples submitted for the council's approval. Mary, I'll move approval. Second. There's been a motion and a second that we approve and this one say again, council member Middleton, thank you for your work on that. I think it's really strong and much appreciated. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the resolution. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. And the motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. All right. We have three more items before us. We're gonna begin with item 13, Ms. Peterson. Ms. Peterson, please come forward, give us your name and address and you have three minutes. I would just like to just say the public has the right to come down here and if they wanna sign up to speak on every item, Mr. Mayor, we have a right to do that and your rudeness to me is ridiculous and I'm getting a little tired of it. But anyway, and also we need to stop staring up in the pot and leave stuff alone. We don't have to be involved in everything. The Jewish community is part of our community, part of the Christian community also. So we need to be very careful, okay? But anyway, this bill here, I thought at one time, Durham had a organization that was removing the lead-based paint out of the apartment buildings and out of public housing. Has that changed? Ms. Peterson, please, you have three minutes, please. Yes, so is the person here? No, please make your comments, Ms. Peterson. I will make my comments, Mr. Mayor, but I also would like my comments, I would also would like your staff person to respond to the comments. So the question is, do we no longer have that program to remove lead-based paint? Because my understanding, several years ago here in the community, that was a job training program that we were offering. So that's my question, wherever that person is to be able to answer it. Also, the program that you want to run, that you have been running, are they planning to hire the Durham local young men and women to train them in removing the lead-based paint from the various buildings or apartments or whatever they're speaking about? Over $3 million, that $3 million, that's a lot of money that looks like it has come down. So I would like that question answered. And also, what housing places are they planning to use these funds? Has that already been decided? Ms. Peterson, please make your remarks. Once you have finished your remarks and taken your seat, then if there are questions that can be answered, they'll be answered. Ms. Peterson, we go through this a lot. You know this, this is the routine. Please, Ms. Peterson, help us maintain the order, okay? Thanks. Okay, thank you. Mr. Manager. Ms. Peterson, I would just say if you would send me an email, I would be glad to respond to those questions. I don't think I have your current email address the last couple of times I communicated with you would kick back. So if you could send me your email address, I will get to those responses. Thank you. In terms of having this meeting, Mr. Mayor, I should have to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Thank you, Mr. Manager. You heard the manager. He's happy to respond. Council members, we now need to vote a motion on item 13. So moved. Second. To adopt the ordinance, Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll now move to item 20. Ms. Peterson, this is also an item that you pulled. You have three minutes. Yes, I would like the public to know that in the past when Mayor Bill Bell was our mayor, the city employees that were over these various departments that was handling these various projects had a staff person here to answer our questions. That is the purpose of having these meetings so that the public can come in and ask questions. Now, Mr. Mayor and Mr. Bondfield, these individuals are being paid by the taxpayers. They need to be here to answer our questions. So my other question for number 20, it looks like it's a youth program. So how many youth are they planning to work with with this project? Where are the youths coming from? Are they going into the public housing to work with the youths down in McDougalteras? I was over at Carmel Wallace the other day. You have a lot of young people over there. You have a facility that is sitting, even though that is public housing, the city can still put a little pressure on the public housing to view some of those, some of those recreation centers that are sitting in these public housing units 24 hours with very little projects going on to reach out to the young people. So since this is another youth program, I would just like to know are we going to be able to, or the persons who's running this, are they going to be working with the youth that are living in the public housing that may not be able to come wherever you folks are located at? I do not know, this is not speaking about the summer's mayor program, which is a little different. I think that looks like Mr. James. Is that, who is that standing? That's James Dickens. Okay, Mr. Dickens. Can you please tell me, sir? I know in the past you have run Mr. Dickens. Miss Peterson programs. Can you please tell me? Mr. Dickens. I have another second here. No. Miss Peterson. Oh, you will like me. When you have finished your remarks and you have sat down, then we will ask Mr. Dickens to respond. I guess my question is, sir, we have these various programs. I live in walking distance of McDougateres. I see nothing down there for their youth. I was over in Oxford Manor. Nothing's over there for their youth. So my question is these programs that the city wants to put monies in, are we making sure that the persons that are running these programs are really in these communities and working with our youth? Mr. Dickens, I believe you understand the question. Good evening, Councilor and Mayor. My name is James Agenwood, Officer of the Economic and Workforce Development. You asked a couple of questions. The first one, I believe, was how many students will we be serving? We will be serving 150 youth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dickens. You also, I think, ask, do students come from the housing authorities? Our students, the 150, come from everywhere in the city. These are federal dollars, and they are for Durham County residents. And so we serve students all over the county. Thank you, Mr. Dickens. We'll now take a motion on this to authorize the city manager to execute the contract amendment. I moved. Second. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Mayor. Could I just briefly remark at the Juneteenth celebration downtown on Saturday, I saw the folks from this program tabling and we had a great conversation with them about all the great work they're doing in our community. So I'm really glad we were able to get that done tonight. Thank you, Council Member. We'll now move to item 23. This is Mr. Chris Tiffany. Mr. Tiffany, welcome. Please give us your name and address, and you have three minutes. Oh, yes, Chris Tiffany, 2-5-3-3-1, Post Office. You're still gonna be hiring many cops, more than double the number asked for, but psych testing is at the end of the selection process after handing out professional offers of employment. The best predictor of behavior is behavior. I've talked with polygraph experts and psychologists who've tested cops both before and after cops were hired. Polygraph experts admit they make mistakes. Remember Hanson and Ames and Pollard, years of treasonous activities undetected by some of the best polygraph experts and psychologists in the world. Charming sociopaths with anti-social personality disorder can fool lie detector psychologists and parole boards. A psychologist with years of professional experience with cops said, you have to do a better job with recruiting and background investigations. The best predictor of behavior is behavior. Insist on and pay for thorough background investigations before psych testing. And then what? A black woman with an address in pack four who saw a friend murdered told me she wanted to be a cop so she could kill someone. She's not gonna say that to an interviewer and maybe she fits a profile for the kind of cop you want but a third of a check would discover red flags. Another wannabe cop was advised that during the interview process, one question might be, is there something in your background we might discover that you wanna explain now? A good question, the cop told the applicant to make up a story that shows aggression like a bar fight showing that you're a street fighter and can mix it up. Is that what you want, liars and street thugs? Different cohorts are hired for changing political pressures like women and or minorities with local roots or military background. During one hiring push, applicants were sought at military bases like Fort Bragg and Sherry Point but not from MCCU's criminal justice program. No flyers, posters, emails to faculty or staff, different cohorts dominated by any one category reinforced neuro-minded Clicous subcultures within the department. I've talked with cops here, one of whom bemoaned a warlike approach in his cohort, treating areas of Durham like military targets of opportunity but a couple cops here told me their job is not law enforcement but social control. We come here to Durham, pull a tour of duty in the inner city, keep people in their place and go back home. That approach is why your target areas are sometimes called ghettos. Their job is law enforcement, not military occupation. Weed out any applicant who sees a job as military occupation and control as in a public service before handing out provisional officer's employment for psych testing. The best predictor of behavior is behavior insist on and pay for thorough background investigations. Thank you. Council members, we need a motion to authorize the act to execute the contract. It's on move. Second. Madam Clerk, would you please open the vote? Motion passes seven, zero. Thank you very much. Council members, we have mercifully reached the end of tonight's agenda. I wanna thank each of you for another great year. And Mr. Manager, thank you to you and the staff for the great work that you do every day. Happy new year. Yes, happy new fiscal year. We will next meet in this chamber on July the 25th, I believe. August 7th, August 5th, August 5th. This chamber on August the 5th, yes, that's right. And our next work session I believe is July the 25th. So until then, happy trails. I'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned at 9.46.