 we're at 30 seconds to layer. Now, good afternoon. I want to call this work session of the Durham City Council to order it one o'clock on Thursday, October the 8th. And I certainly want to welcome everyone here today. We're glad to have all of our staff with us, my colleagues, and also our guests and other people who are listening to this broadcast. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Shul. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freiland. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Present. Councilmember Middleton. And Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Madam clerk. I expect Councilmember Middleton will be with us in a moment. Colleagues, Councilmember Reese is under the weather today and will not be able to attend. But he has, I like to have a motion to give him an excused absence. So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freeman, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem that we give Councilmember Reese an excused absence. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Shul. Hi. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Hi. Councilmember Caballero. Hi. Councilmember Freiland. Hi. Councilmember Freeman. Hi. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. And now we will move to announcements by members of the council. Are there announcements by members of the council? Councilmember Freiland. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have three really quick announcements. One, yesterday we had the groundbreaking at Freedom Park. I was in a joint city county planning meeting that I had to leave from a little early. We heard from Governor Cooper and Senator Natalie Murdock and honored two Dermites at that meeting. My father Phil Freiland and the late John Hope Franklin who was the inaugural board chair. It was a really great event and I just wanted to thank everyone for being there and also encourage folks to check it out and to support that initiative because they're still raising money. It's the first monument honoring African Americans in the state monument. So long time coming on that one. And two things coming up on Wednesday, October 14th, Bishop Clarence Laney will be leading a silent vigil around Fayette Place in the afternoon around 3.45 I think is the time starting time. But we'll meet at Monument of Faith and are just going to walk around Fayette Place and hope to encourage some movement on that property. And I will be in attendance and just wanted to shout out Bishop Laney's leadership on that. And also on Saturday, October 17th, there will be a Stanford Durham event at Reverend Dr. Jerome Washington's Church, Mount Vernon, Pastor J. Augustine, Dr. Pastor J. Reverend Dr. Jonathan Augustine. Let me put his whole name out there. Dr. Angelo Birch and others will be present to stand for accountability and public safety. And that will be a noon, I believe, on Saturday, October 17th. So really proud of the work that our local clergy are doing around community organizing and keeping our community safe. So just wanted to shout out Bishop Clarence Laney and the team doing the Stanford Durham event on the 14th and 17th of next week. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. And it'd be great if you wanted to just email us those dates once in times be helpful. And I believe you didn't mention that your father was the designer of the Freedom Park. And we're we're all of us in Durham are very proud of that. So thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. Any other announcements? Councilmember Freeman? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Councilmember Freelon for sharing all those updates. I just want to note that the Federal Street Apartments were home to many families for many decades since like the early 50s. And it's important to note that Fayette Place was a failed development and that the actual location was home to many as Federal Street Project. So I just want to note that. And I just wanted to share that just recognizing that our Commissioner Brenda Howerton has been working really diligently around the presentation of the Race Equity Commission coming forward on the county side. And I just wanted to make sure that Council was aware and supportive of her efforts and acknowledging that it's a county-wide focus is critical. And I appreciate her leadership in that. I wanted to note that the Black Agenda 919 group has been a really supportive push in that work and noting that there's a sense of of a muted voice or a lack of input that's been overshadowed for Black folks in Durham. And there's really been a good organizing effort to pull some of those smaller non-profits and smaller organizers together to make sure that their input is included in the conversations around race equity. And I just want to make sure that this Council is very supportive of that work and figuring out how to make sure that we're showing that support. I would love to hear Council's perspective around that and just thinking about that for the next work session. Thank you Council Member. Is there any other announcements? Council Member Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good afternoon everyone. Good to see you. Thank you Council Freeline for highlighting those events on the two that you highlight. I do want to say the first one Fair Places is under the auspices of Durham Can and they are seeking some specific asks from us. I just wanted you guys to know when we show up there's also a Metro Council that next day after that event seeking some commitments from public officials regarding movement on the Fair Places. Full disclosure of the meeting with Durham Can last week in which the Fair Places property was brought up and they're going to be very deliberate about seeking some hard commitments. I just want that you folks know it's not just a walk. They're looking for some solid commitments from elected officials and also thank you for that. The event on the 17th. I think I'm actually one of the speakers at that event on the 17th as well. So I look forward to celebrating with Clerge and I appreciate you Council Freeline for highlighting those things and for your engagement. Thanks Mr. Mayor. Thank you Council Member. Any further announcements? Alright thank you colleagues. Now we'll move to priority items. Are there any priority items by the City Manager? Good afternoon Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. I do have three priority items this afternoon. The very first item I'm pleased to announce and we have in our presence Wade Walcott. He is the City of Durham's newest director. He's the director of our Parks and Recreation Department and I would like for just a moment for Wade to come on screen and introduce himself to the Council please. Mr. Walcott, welcome. We're glad to have you. Thanks. Thank you Mr. Mayor, Madam Pro Tem, members of Council. My family and I are so excited to be here in Durham to be able to serve such a great community and be a part of a great organization. You know a great team of and just really great people and professionals that love serving their citizens. So very excited to be here and looking forward to hopefully meeting all of you in person or virtual just as soon as possible. So thank you for the time. Thank you very much Mr. Walcott. We're very glad to have you with us. We look forward to being able to meet you in person but we know it could be a little while before that happens but we're you're joining an amazing team as you said both at Durham Parks and Rec and also we have just I think the finest group of department directors anywhere. So welcome to Durham. We're really happy to have you. Thank you very much. If I can be of any assistance just reach out. I'd give you my phone number but I don't know what it is yet. All right. Thank you. Thank you Madam Manager. Thank you Wade and I do have two other items. Agenda item number seven. Request to amend the fiscal year 2020-2021 capital improvement project ordinance for the general fund, the solid waste, stormwater and transit funds and a grant project ordinance. The title of that agenda item has been updated and finally agenda item number 28 is a closed session to discuss an economic development matter. This is a supplemental item and and we asked that that closed session be held today. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Madam Manager. Colleagues you've heard the manager's priority items. Can I have a motion for their approval? So moved. Moved by Council Member Freeman seconded by Council Member Caballero. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll? Mayor Shull. I. Mayor Pro-Dem Johnson. I. Council Member Caballero. I. Council Member Freelon. I. Council Member Freeman. I. Council Member Middleton. I. Thank you Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you Madam Manager. Madam Attorney. Any priority items today? Good afternoon Mr. Mayor, members of City Council. It's good to be with you today. I don't have any priority items but I would also like to make a brief introduction if that's okay. We have. Of course. Oh wonderful okay. We have with us today the City Attorney's Office extern Jacob Brannon. Jacob hails from Charlotte and he's a second year law student at UNC Law School. Prior to attending law school he earned his bachelor's degree from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Jacob is working with our CAO intern extern coordinator Sophia Hernandez to complete a wide array of research and projects for the attorneys in the CAO and we're so happy to have him with us and for my part I wanted him to share in a City Council meeting which is always exciting and interesting and so I'll let Jacob just say hello really quickly if he can turn on this video. Yes thank you for having me here and like Kim said I'm a third year law student at UNC Law and I really appreciate you you know taking me in to you know help help me learn about all the things that the city does here in Durham so it's been a wonderful I've been working for about a little over a month and it's been a wonderful experience thus far and I really appreciate everybody. Jacob thank you welcome welcome to Durham City Government we know you'll continue to have a great experience and you're working with Sophia and so I know you're I know you're getting a great experience so thank you so much and thank you Madam Attorney. Thank you. All right Madam Clerk any priority items today? Good afternoon Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council members Clerk's Office has no priority items. Thank you Madam Clerk. We'll now go through the agenda under the administrative consent items City Clerk's Office item one approval of City Council minutes item two Durham Affordable Housing Implementation Committee appointment. I didn't want to discuss this briefly the clerk had a note on this item that we can come back to at the end of the meeting but did want to note that the person who is applying currently serves as a city appointee on another board this is a highly qualified applicant but I do think we need to think about that and we can discuss that when we come to the appointments at the end of the meeting. Item three Durham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission appointment item four Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors DBA discovered Durham appointments. I didn't want to pull item I just wanted to note that the scanned attendance record is not clear and so you can't see folks names it would be helpful if that was updated before the council meeting and that's all. Thank you for noticing that council member. Item five Durham Planning Commission appointment item six Durham Workers' Rights Commission appointment under departmental items under budget management services department item seven request to amend the fiscal year 2021 capital improvement project ordinance for general funds solid waste stormwater and transit funds and grant project ordinance under department of water management item eight north Durham Water Reclamation Facility and Acadia Street water main replacement in Fletcher's Chapel Road sewer improvements award of construction contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc. I'm going to pull item eight item nine under the finance department interlocal agreement for the collection of taxes with the county of orange like to pull that item item nine item 10 resolution for installment financing contract amendment. I'm not going to pull this item but I do want to notice that this is a savings of 2.8 million dollars over the next 15 years or so. This is the continuing good work of our finance department to take advantage of refinancing opportunities and I want to thank and congratulate you. Similarly Mr. Mayor I'm sorry I apologize. I wasn't I was going to pull it but I figure if just noting that comment it would be good to have a publicly available list of all of those bonds because I think people hear that but they don't they need to see it as well and so I'm not sure if I know it's in that document we receive at the end of the year for budgets like in going through the budgets but I wanted to make sure that it was available on the website someplace and if it weren't just the link if it is already just the links to be available from public information the site that would be helpful. Do you mean a link to our bond the various bond financings we have? Yes. Okay not a manager that probably is available at some place but I think you heard the comment of council member Freeman. Yes it is on the can be accessed through the finance department's page a whole list of all of the you know the debt issuances and outstanding debt that we have so we can speak about it and get that link to you. Thank you. Thank you be good to have that link. Thank you. Under the general services department item 11 acquisition of 1602 Midland Terrace PID 159782 another win item 12 construction contract with engineered construction company for rock quarry park upgrades. I just want to say something particularly about this item. I want to thank Gina Probst, Beau Ferguson, Deborah Giles, and the others who I don't know who may have been involved in the decision to rebid this contract for lack of the appropriate UBE efforts on the on the on the part of the various applicants. It was very interesting to read that in the memo I was really glad that we rebid this and we'd got very good UBE results as as a result of that rebidding and I know that on the part of the department of general services this time I know it took effort I know it costs us some money but it's an important practice and a high priority for the council in our community so I want to thank you for this good work. Also I want to say that that gives me confidence when we do have these contracts rebidded it gives me confidence that we are looking really hard at these and that the ones that we do let go by because there we don't have available subcontractors I think that it gives me even more confidence in that regard. So I want to really express my gratitude to staff for that. The neighborhood improvement services department item 13 fair housing assistance program grant project ordinance under the public works department item 14 odyssey drive culvert replacement sd 2021 item 15 odyssey drive culvert replacement sd 2018-01 amendment number two under public hearings city county planning department item 16 consolidated annexation 1101 olive branch road under 17 consolidated annexation fairington road multifamily bdg 1900017 under consolidated annexation i'm sorry item 18 consolidated annexation 90-pound drive annexation item 19 pascal's bakery building and student baker building landmark repeal under public works department item 20 curb gutter and paving water and sewer mains and water and sewer laterals on a portion of ardmore drive um mental manager are we hearing about that today is that a presentation we'll hear today or we hear that uh at another time that presentation is scheduled for today mr mayor it is the only presentation we have right on the workstation and it is it will be a presentation to proceed the hearings that will be at the city council meeting perfect thank you item 21 curb gutter and paving water and sewer laterals on a portion of linden terrace under citizens matters to be heard at one o'clock item 22 dr johnson i can lay a item 23 kevin holiday item 24 canisha willard item 25 quichon colman item 26 barely evans item 27 revan dr j augustine and in the closed session will be item 28 closed session to discuss an economic development matter which we have already approved as a priority item i have the three items that uh that we need to discuss before we go to the citizens matters uh rather than after we hear the citizens matters just want to confirm with you items eight and nine were pulled and we have a presentation for item 15 and then we have the closed session item 28 is that correct and mr mayor if you could pull item 19 i just wanted to get some clarity i didn't realize we weren't going to have a presentation on that one okay item 19 is a is a public hearing item um we can certainly pull it um well i'm not sure we'll find out if staff is here to be able to present on that okay uh okay mr mayor point of clarification um i was under the extent i was under the understanding that we would have a presentation on violence interruption that this work session in my mistake that that presentation is scheduled for the 22nd okay all right i'm sorry i thought it was accelerated my bad thank you madam manager no worries thank you thank you madam manager um madam manager i have items eight nine 15 a presentation for 15 i'm sorry pulled items eight nine and 19 a presentation for item 15 and then uh closed session item 28 is that what you have as well that that is what i have mayor thank you all right uh and now we'll go to our citizens matters and i want to welcome everyone is here today to be heard uh in front of the council and very much i know we have a lot of folks from North Carolina Central University here and i just want to welcome them give them a hearty welcome and really appreciate them and know that a lot of them have been in touch with us previously about their concerns and looking forward to hear them today so the first speaker we have is dr johnson i can lay our esteemed chancellor uh who we are uh really happy to have you here today mr chancellor is this chancellor i can lay available to be heard i am here uh mr mayor great thank you thank you chancellor uh welcome thank you very much uh thank you so much good afternoon and um i want to thank uh army and uh all of our council members uh for giving us the opportunity uh to come before you this this afternoon to share a few thoughts with you and to ask for your um your your assistance as chancellor of this university i have the pleasure and the responsibility of uh providing a safe and secure campus environment for 8 000 plus students uh and 2500 plus faculty and staff and uh i want you to know that we have with the approval of our board we've done a number of things on our campus we've invested three million dollars into campus security on our campus we have more than 900 uh 360 degree video cameras within our buildings and around our campus uh but even with that uh we believe we have a safe campus but even with that we are not able to uh completely control uh violence uh coming from the streets around our campus um i i've talked to many of you already about these uh these issues uh today i have uh on this meeting with us miss kineshia woodlard who is a student on our campus who experienced the most recent incident uh about maybe three weeks ago and she will be talking to you about our experience herself in terms of the street bullets that are coming from the streets onto our campus in the last three years we've had about three incidents many of you are aware of that today i am coming to you to ask for your partnership and your support and your voice in in helping us to carve uh these violence uh coming from the streets into our campus i have five recommendations that i'm bringing before you uh that i like for you to uh support and to help us to implement one uh i'm asking for an mo u between uh our campus police and the city police for a joint or shared jurisdiction on public streets within have a mile radius of our campus one and number two i'm asking for the placement of dummy police cars with low level our patrol lights in major intersections around our campus as well as increased police patrols and presence number three i'm asking for the installation of speed speed humps on fervor street uh cisil street and losses losses street within the demarcation of our campus number four i respectfully request a six-month trial of the chat spotter technology at no cost to be installed in and around streets on our campus to at least gather some data and to determine its effectiveness for deterring or preventing gun violence around our campus number five i'm asking for you to allow our external affairs director and legislatively is on ribbon doctor michael page to serve on the community health and safety tax force but that way our university can also engage and be a participant on this very important tax force and it is our goal uh here uh that not we we are not saying to you that any of this particular recommendation any one of these recommendations is a panacea for addressing the issues of crime and violence and gun violence around our campus or what's suggesting to you here is that doing nothing at all it's not an option and so i am asking you uh this to for you to take these as an urgent call to action uh and with secure support of your partnership uh in helping us to keep you know our students our faculty and our staff and folks who are coming to visit us on the campus safe by helping us to implement these recommendations that we've presented before you i want to thank you again for all of what you do for the city and for the citizens of this of this great uh uh uh city uh nccu is a great partner we've been here for around 10 10 years and we contribute immensely uh to the economic uh uh uh vibrancy of durham and so that's our plea to you uh we're not here to get into a debate or anything at all but we're simply seeking your support uh um and your uh uh advocacy in making these things happen on our campus thank you so much answer i can lay thank you so much for being here um we share the concerns that you expressed and the as you know uh the the gun violence that you've experienced is is we've had a lot of gun violence in durham uh in the past several months more than we've had in past years and we all feel that and uh are grateful to you for bringing these ideas to us um the way we're going to proceed is we'll hear from the other speakers and then colleagues you may have comments that you want to offer uh after we hear from the speakers and we'll do that um but but let me just assure you chancellor that all of those five things that you have raised will be carefully considered by our administration uh and by the council but thank you ma'am yeah very much so i mean i think that uh we know for example that duke university has a mo you arrangement such as you described uh and these are things that we will very very carefully consider and work with our administration on so thank you thank you our next speaker is mr kevin holloway and i believe mr holloway is the uh is a is perhaps the chair of the board of the north kelton essential university board of trustees is that correct that's correct mr holloway i received your correspondence uh and i'm really glad to have you here today thank you so much and uh uh you also have three minutes for your comments thank you for being here okay thank you thank you mayor mayor pro tem council members on behalf of the ncc you board of trustees i want to thank you for providing this opportunity to listen and internalize grave concerns about the safety challenges around north carolina central university there's no greater conflict with fear when parents dropped their children off at a college campus to receive a undergraduate education their safety is foremost and this is typically discussed again and again and again before parents arrive and depart i know this to be true because i had two daughters who are graduates from north carolina central university and they received a heavy dose of be careful you comfort your fears as a parent by prayers in believing that if your child addresses all the precautions their safety is assured it is apparent with recent incidents that we are teetering on disaster we are in a perilous position without the city's intervention to mitigate risk on our campus my personal opinion is that nccu and the city of derm are linked together at the hip with one heavily impacting the other improvements to the city of derm make nccu a place where a student's educational experience is enriched as the university activities on campus enhance revenue for the city of derm this can happen if we don't improve the safety around our campus i don't want you or me to be in a position where we stand in front of parents and alumni answering the question what did you do to prevent this after having the discussion and make the making the appeal we are today i just keep thinking as a trustee we were a few inches away from experiencing a unforgivable disaster thank you for your time and consideration and i appreciate you addressing this matter thank you very much mr hollyway and we're grateful to have you here thank you next we'll hear from kinesia woollard and miss woollard um i want to first welcome you and tell you that we share the university's not only concern but horror that a that a bullet would have entered your room and we're glad to hear you have you today and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts good afternoon mayor council and their approach with him i thank you all for this opportunity to speak to you today um i am kinesia woollard i am a junior here at north colinas century university and i majored in social work i am also the recent victim of the shooting that occurred here which resulted in a bullet coming through my room window um i am not okay i am facing this trauma each and every day the anxiety and fear of the incident each and every day and i believe that we need an action plan immediately because our campus is it's not safe from the residents and criminals that are surrounding our community this is a place that we're supposed to come to from our homes and feel safe and feel at home and that has been taken from us in a matter of two months with the cases that we have had on this campus i agree with everything that my chancellor has presented to you i believe everything that he has implemented is serious and it is necessary to make sure that our campus is safe because at this very moment i was just very just inches away of losing my life and i do not want this to happen to any other fellow eagle on this campus and so therefore we are here today to make sure that safety is guaranteed and implemented seriously we need connections to more of Durham's police department we need more safety cameras we need more implementations to assure that these criminals these shooters these are soldiers these robbers are not going to continue to use our campus as a battleground and i thank you all for hearing us today and i pray that you go that you all seriously take in consideration all that my chancellor has offered because he's working hard and i am hoping that times will get better here because i'm facing so much after this incident and i just thank you miss wallard thank you for being here i know it's probably even hard to talk about it but you did so very eloquently and persuasively and our hearts are with you i want you to know that and we hear you about the need to take action and we're grateful for you for being here thank you next we have beverly evans miss evans welcome and you also have three minutes okay can you hear me yes we can miss evans all right thank you words i am beverly evans and i am a member of the community of college heights which is around uh surrounding n ccu and words just cannot express how the residents of college heights are feeling anxious alarmed and neglected for our safety with hearing the constant gunshots and criminal activity in some of these rental properties around the college on january 10th 2019 college heights was designated as a national historic district for its unique african-american neighborhood from the 30s to the 60s and just a little history there are 12 buildings on n ccu's campus named after residents of college heights with 38 professors and personnel that lived in our neighborhood there were also 28 personnel of north calana mutual life insurance company including the president joseph goodlaw on mason dale 40 public school teachers uh one mechanics and farmers bank president john herby fielder who was the federal courthouse was named after as well as a host of entrepreneurs and in fact uh john herby fielder's house where his son still lives uh had a bullet shot through the living room window as well as my car well and i live on odors street that was parked in the backyard a bullet that was shot up in the air came down on my car causing 1200 dollars worth of damage the oldest resident in the neighborhood is 104 years old living on cecil street with a number of others in their nineties and the ages on losin street by the dormitory are 99 98 80 76 65 60 where there are only two males in that whole entire block where they have been many gunshots incidences and we're all frightened by hearing these shots which have become more and more prevalent we need you to approve that six month trial for this shot spotter that detects gunfire and we need more cameras on the streets entering into the community we need a substation back in this area so when we do call the police it won't take them forever to get here and then the perpetrators are gone by the time they arrive we need a we need undercover police to monitor the hot spot rental houses where suspects are frequenting because vandalism and theft is on the rise especially there on losin street between febill and concord a fine needs to be given to these landlords with a substantial lien or something for a certain number of calls the same way um these um especially when there's suspicious activity and they're called there for a certain number of times just like the homeowners get fined if they call the police for false alarms after a certain number of times they are fined well these people need to be these homeowners need to be fined when when police are called for suspicious activities going on in their rental properties because they don't care and a lot of the original homeowners have died passed on and either their houses are sold and these people don't live there they're not homeowners they are just renting it out then those renters bring in other suspicious people from other parts of the area and are just creating havoc and we need the city police to work with nccu police so that we can work together because our community is willing to sign a petition for this technology and anything else that we need to do because we have older members of the society living in our neighborhood and they are afraid and i just uh can't stand to hear them saying that they have to get down on the floor when they hear gunshots because they are so afraid of being hit something coming through a window whatever because a gunshot can travel a mile up in the air and land wherever so it's just very dangerous and we really need the help and the members of college heights are willing to do whatever it takes to help us feel safe like we used to in our neighborhood thank you thank you miss evans we appreciate it we hear you we appreciate it you do have a wonderful neighborhood uh and a unique neighborhood and a historic neighborhood and you do need to be safe so thank you for being here um i believe that i skipped quichon colman and i apologize are you here hello can you hear me yes we can welcome and you also have three minutes thank you good afternoon city officials city council members and the Durham community i am quichon colman and i currently serve as the student body president here at north carolina central university i come to you in agreement with our chancellor johnson oak and lea for the city council to take immediate action and aid us in resolving and reducing the crime in our local community both the members of the immediate n ccu and greater dumb Durham community have a shared responsibility in maintaining and in sharing a safe environment for our university faculty staff and students as well as the residents and visitors of the city of Durham we understand that there are increased instances of crime in our local Durham community however we must work together to take action in the community and decrease such activity that is going on with an on-campus community of roughly five thousand students from various cities states and even countries we know that all students who call n ccu home want to feel safe and protected in such an unprecedented time as this coupled with the stress college students often experience we must work together to ensure our students faculty and staff are safe at their home away from home no one should come to their workplace place of learning or residents and feel unsafe and unprotected we appeal to the tools such as the trial period of spot shooter to allow for our university and community to enhance public safety and build trust this tool has proven effective in helping other communities such as clark at lansing university and the surrounding atlanta community reduce gun violence and improve the police community relationship our students reside on campus and all members of the Durham community should go to sleep at night and not worry about what may happen if they close their eyes or whether they will be allowed to see the next day together we can turn this situation around and make our Durham the safe community it can be so again i strongly urge you guys to take heed of this matter and work with us north Carolina central university to ensure that our city becomes free of crime in a place where all of us can feel safe and proud thank you thank you very much mr colman we really appreciate you being here with us and sharing that with us and finally we'll hear from reverend dr j augustine whose name was earlier invoked already at this meeting and we're glad to have you thank you so much thank you so much mr mayor ladies and gentlemen of the council it's a pleasure to be with you i thank you for your service i have had the opportunity to work i thank with most of you in an individual capacity so i truly respect the one for work you do i want to appeal to you to support the five fold proposition as offered by chancellor i can lay and i appeal to you in a two fold capacity first as a pastor i am a the leader and a good corporate citizen but i am also leading an institution that has had a long-term partnership with north Carolina central university and i personally am one of chancellor i can lay his biggest fans and and one of the biggest advocates of the institution both of those roles from which i appear before you lead for your purposes lead to economic development and let me unpack for just a moment in the capacity of a corporate citizen st. Joseph shares the fadville quarter we are literally a stone's throw from north Carolina central university my pastoral leadership operates under the fundamental premise that the church must leave the building meaning the church is not a physical structure but the church is the people we are still even in the midst of a pandemic where we are not having traditional worship we are still engaged in voter registration at this time of year we are still engaged in feeding the homeless uh and being advocates for those who are the most marginalized in our community we have a vested interest in ensuring our community is safe we want to be a good citizen and ensure that all of Durham is safe but particularly that area secondly as someone who is a very strong supporter of nccu and of chancellor i can lay his leadership to give you an example once a quarter we typically have a hashtag nccu sunday a philanthropic event where we raise scholarship funds for the school we recognize that this institution is not simply a local school is not simply a state school it is a national entity that attracts people from all over the country and in fact i would say from various parts of the world i'm speaking anecdotally now i don't have a white paper before me i don't have any firm statistics but based on my own experience people tend to stay in close proximity to places where they went to school in that regard that means north carolina central university is an economic driver for the city of Durham and it's a it's a tremendous benefit to the entire state of north carolina so we want to work together we want to work collaboratively to make sure that students are safe students have a wonderful experience and students are willing to stay in this area and prayerfully add to the economy after graduating i also am deeply touched by the remarks offered by sister wood woodward if i pronounced the last name correctly as well as my sister from the community who invoked the name of john hervey wheeler for whom the federal courthouse was named i did the prayer of invocation at the naming of the wheeler courthouse not because i'm a magical person but because i am the pastor of a church where he was a lifelong member our church has had a history of being engaged and being a problem solving of solving problems in the community and we want to remain consistent here so i would encourage you mr. mayor and ladies gentlemen of the council to the extent uh supporting or adopting chancellor i can lay his five fold a position calls for a fiscal allocation i ask you to please consider it to the extent it calls for something like community policing we're forming a task force i would ask you to please be creative we have got to support this institution and we've got to ensure that crime is detoured and uh uh and do all we can to solve the problems thank you so much for your time thank you dr augustine it's really good to have you with us and we really appreciate your support for the university thank you so much colleagues you have heard our speakers and now i'm going to ask if anyone has any remarks that they would like to make uh in response any anyone uh council member freeman thank you uh mr. mayor i uh want to thank you all for being here this afternoon and sharing um your story and your message of how you feel safety should occur in our city i i understand uh the gravity of the insecurity that has been felt i want to send my sincere apologies to the young lady miss woodward woodward uh canisia woodward i want to make sure i say her name because it could have been a say her name situation um that had her life been lost i i am i've been deeply disturbed um about the gun violence in our city and i've raised the issue a number of times here on council and in the community we've had these conversations we've continued to have the the kind of talk about what we're going to do and i want to make sure that i'm clear that whether it's a resolution from this council or working on a petition from the community i am here and i am supportive of moving forward with your five uh request and i want to make sure that i know that as a student of north carolina central a representative for ward one in which the north carolina central university sits as well as college heights i am deeply committed to making sure that the over 10 000 people that that you represent um in this community are represented well and your voice it has been heard and it's not just um words it's not just the presentation it's not just about having this this task force in place or what have you it's about making sure that you're safe and what that safety looks like should come from you as a community i am deeply deeply honored to um to be in this position and to be able to serve and so when i spoke to dr johnson this morning i was i was a little i mean i'm trying to catch up and trying to figure out what's going on because i know this is a this is the second time that you've had this conversation with me about a student who's almost been shot on campus in their dorm room and it's unacceptable it's completely unacceptable to the point that it starts to make me feel that i don't know what i don't know what we can do as a council in a city because it's not limited to the city but it is but there are things we can and whatever that is how it looks what it looks like i think we should be working towards that i know that the the previous conversation uh councilmember middleton brought up about uh the expediency of the violence interrupter program that councilmember freeline has brought back to the council again um it's interesting that this it's not happening yet and it's also the conversation about how shot spotter is not moving forward these are the things that make people feel like nothing's happening and if you don't hear it and you don't see it you don't know what's happening i want to be clear and saying that i'm here i hear you and i'm with you on this and whatever needs to be done i will be willing to do i would offer as well that i have been in conversation with councilmember freeline and i know with his work around trying to figure out how to bring the violence into the program forward i think that we can work on a resolution that would entertain that immediately whether it's at the next council work session or what have you however it needs to be there needs to be a sense of urgency around this in the same way that we move to address uh other issues of safety i want to also um thank the dr augustine and not revan dr augustine and also noting that it's not just the safety aspect it's the health and so i want to thank you for hosting the cobit 19 testing uh at your church location acknowledging that you're taking on the risk of you know infecting people in there just being on the front line of the work and being a hero in our community around making sure that people get the testing they need because i know overwhelmingly that the people who are in those lines were black and brown latino and not people who would show up or be tested in other places and that was really a great added value to to the work that that has to happen in this city this is a complete and total um concern that i've raised around the way in which we pulled together around the community health and safety task force i'm grateful that things have moved along and we're included in the city of the county and the school board with their own input and acknowledging that it was again i mean i am not i'm not always speaking about what happens at the on the county side but i think that the addition of making sure that someone who is a parent or a caregiver of a murdered child is included in a in a community health and safety task force is phenomenal and i think that having a representative from north carolina central university would also be phenomenal thank you thank you so much thank you so much councilwoman thank you councilmember um other colleagues councilmember freelon yes thank you uh chesla rock and lay brother halloway kinesia um miss beverly evans kishan revan dr j angestine thank you all for uh sharing these ideas with us um i'm inspired by the spirit of self-determination that i've come to know of is part of the eagle culture not waiting for the city to come up with solutions but like look this is what we need do these five things i think that's really helpful and grounding it gives us a some direct action some roadmaps to look at and see what's in our capacity to do uh i want to echo revan dr j angestine's uh elevating the the voices of kinesia woollard um i just want to say sister that to hear you talk about your trauma and anxiety and fear and i could literally hear it in your voice i think we all could um you know i just want to say that that um um you know i'm doing everything i can every day uh to address this issue it's my biggest priority and uh moving the violence interrupter program that's just one of many steps and many conversations that i'm having in the community and i just want you to know that i feel you and uh you know you can reach out uh anytime uh you want to talk or build about ideas or solutions and i really appreciate your presence here especially given the vulnerable uh energy that you brought with you today i really felt that and um miss beverly evans uh you're thank you for providing that history hearing about the legacy of of uh um herbie wheeler and um i want to go ahead and name you talked about the elder women who are in the community that 104 year old women mozella mclofflin affectionately known as miss mac uh she that's one of the women who helped raise me i spent many many days in her backyard uh uh being nurtured by that woman um and i actually told uh chancellor um about this uh when we met with dr page last week that she was the one who brought me on north carolina central's campus in 1992 when uh i guess then candidate clinton came to visit the campus and kind of got me started thinking about civic life um and so that that her home on cecile street uh you know i know so many people in that community and i and i appreciated hearing that historical context i grew up on those blocks you know right around this area by st titus uh where my family attended church uh growing up and also i just want to connect my childhood here in durham i mean canicia i i've been writing emails you may have gotten this in in response to some emails that i've sent but i remember hearing you know bullet shots right outside my bedroom window uh growing up here in durham this gun violence thing has been with us for a very long time and i'm really interested and passionate about exploring some some radical new avenues for envisioning and creating safe communities and engaging folks who are directly impacted by that violence in the creation of new solutions that can move our community forward um that is my number one absolute biggest priority um and so i'm kind of rambling here i apologize but i just want to say that i've been moved by what i've heard here today um these five bullet points will get my thoughtful consideration and uh i appreciate each of your presence here and ego pride amplified thank you thank you so much council member freeline would anyone else like to make comments council member middleton thank you mr mayor thank you uh colleagues brother chancellor mr president student body president um to all of the eagles thank you so much for being here today last night the world witnessed the the power and brilliance and passion of america's historically black colleges and universities and the performance that senator kamala harris delivered um we are seeing that brilliance and passion again here today uh and i'm extremely proud and great for all of you i'm i'm proud to be a product of historically black college and university and and you're doing us all extremely proud and narcona central university proud today um i want to to say uh i apologize to you because it shouldn't have to take all of this but stony the road we tried a bit of the chastening rod this is our lot it always takes a little more uh for us um let me at the outset say i i wholeheartedly support your your your recommendations i want to also say to to my friends and colleagues um elected and otherwise um i understand that sometimes there might be miss messenger fatigue that sometimes we'll get tired of hearing something because it's from a particular person rather than the substance of the thing but but if i might i i want to just appeal to my colleagues and and perhaps we're seeing some of it today the the other visceral feeling of disrespect that not all but some black people feel when folk who don't live where they live or experience what they experience write prescriptions uh without any consideration of uh uh what the people they're writing the prescription for has to say about their symptoms it is this and i've spoken to some of these students i've spoken to many in the community it is a visceral uh a feeling uh of of how dare you while watching the other things we do so so and i had one student say to me uh that i don't understand why we would not try something for free to get data but when it comes to climate change all we talk about is we believe in science um do not let our echo chambers and our ideology have us miss an opportunity at best to make some changes or dent in the numbers at best at worst at least to have the moral authority to say to folk we have tried and we are trying everything that we can because folk just aren't getting it that you saying that uh i know what's so good for us that even if it's free to hell with it we're not trying it folk are feeling viscerally disrespected by that proposition meanwhile let me tell the students what the council's up to on the other side of the ledger uh there are folk in our city who can't stand on their porches because the brightness of lights and the quality of life is being impacted by the brightness of lights and it should not be and we are pulling out paper we are racking up the cost of how we're going to fix this problem we are spending a hundred dollars a pop from shields on lights to fix the problem because folk have appealed to us much like you're doing today um have organized and written those letters uh because it's a quality of life there are other people in the city who can't go on their porches either but it ain't got nothing to do with lights they can't go on their porches because gunfire is constantly ringing out i would say that counts as a nuisance as well and and when they see us spending money racking our brains uh rightfully so to address that issue but seemingly not willing to do anything uh on the other side uh people start to wonder what is going on and what it looks like is that if you're from a well-heeled high turnout community it looks like you get responses and if you're not from a high turnout community or well organized community um the conversation goes on a bit longer so i want to encourage you just like every other community uh every other uh uh uh group in this city to keep pressing organize and keep pressing don't let anybody tell you they know what's better for you or your community than you no other community puts up with that no other community allows someone to write a prescription from them and then drives home to their neighborhood keep advocating keep calling out keep keep getting in our faces keep sending us emails just like every other community does i want to commit myself again publicly to doing everything we can to pulling every lever pushing every button this isn't a political issue i don't live in a neighborhood where i hear gunfire every night so this this isn't personal for me much of my supporters are reflexively and ideologically pushing against a shot spot and the people that it impacts most the most vulnerable people aren't a high turnout community so this is not a politically expedient issue in any way but it's the right thing to be pushing for because people who live in these neighborhoods live in these communities every day are asking what is my government doing concrete when i go to funerals when i what is the government doing to address this issue and the last uh once again here come the htc us here come those beautiful black brilliant brains once again to galvanize us and to focus us and to call attention to what needs to be done and it shouldn't take all this but that's our lot in this country so we accept it and we accept the mantle brother chancellor um thank you so much mr president thank you so much my sister uh um willard uh thank you so much for your story um i thank god that you are still with us and i know although the bullet didn't hit you i know that you were still hit and that there's still some trauma and pain and our prayers are with you as you continue to heal ncc you you are just as vested and as important and as much of a part of the fabric of this city as duke or any other institution in this city and what you said to me brother i won't call you name but what you said to me brother i absolutely agree with you if this were going on in other zip codes we'd have had shot spotter helicopters and everything else there we can throw at it if it were other communities keep pushing we have your support you have my support uh i hope that you will have all of our support in your recommendations not just for central because you you're going to be all right you're brilliant you're educated you're going to be the privileged amongst us but for those who live in other communities uh who may not have the privilege or access that you have or have the ability to craft a statement like you have it's important for them as well that we pull every lever and push every button so we'll have a moral authority to look people in the eye and say your government is trying everything and if it doesn't work take it down let's put somebody else's money where our mouths are thank you mr mayor go eagles thank you councilmember colleagues any further comments mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor i just wanted to join my colleagues in thanking our representatives from ncc for coming and speaking with us today and sharing your your experiences and what's happening on your campus i was especially interested in my previous conversation with the chancellor to learn about the disparity between the duke police department having an area outside of campus where they have access and are able to patrol in the north carolina central police department not having that and would be interested in learning more from from our staff or from you know any from the folks at the university who can tell us you know why that's the case um and what the arguments are for for extending that authority i mean i feel like the council the chancellor made a a good argument for extent for you know being able to extend that um and i'm sure that the duke police department makes use of it i feel a little bit under um i yeah i i don't understand why that disparity would exist and would like to know why and whether you know what power we have in that in that area and then of course the other recommendations um i'm sure that our staff will be will be looking into all of them and and giving us um a full report in the near future um there are a lot of there's a lot of work to be done in this issue and we we know that you know in durham and in every community around the country there continues to be a lot of work to be done on gun violence and particularly in the context of covid and you know we're in the the largest social and economic crisis that we've seen in this country in a hundred years and so we know that this is going to be a significant challenge moving forward um for our community and for communities all over the country and we are uh we will continue to work hard to meet that challenge uh for our residents both you know making sure that we have the resources in place to manage violence when it occurs and that we are putting proactive um programming and and resources in place to prevent these kinds of incidents before they occur so just want to thank you all again um for coming and sharing your your thoughts and your concerns and your experiences with us and um this is absolutely you know a a very high priority for the council that we deal with both the um the the violence that we know is increasing as well as all the other you know impacts on covid impacts of covid and the economic crisis on our neighborhoods especially our most vulnerable neighborhoods um and this and the social disruption and and community um stress and crisis that is that we know is only getting worse um so thank you we appreciate you and um we're we're here to help thank you so much uh i hope councilmember thank you madam mayor pro tem councilmember caballero thank you thank you so much for the uh for everyone from central who came to speak with us i very much appreciated the conversation i had with the chancellor a few days ago um i will be reflecting on the suggestions that were made by the central community today i look forward to the violence interrupter program conversation we'll be having on the 22nd uh i think everyone here is extremely concerned around the increased gunfire that is happening in Durham and unfortunately across the country um it is terrifying to live with gun violence uh in front of your home where you don't feel safe um no one should live like that we're doing it is something that it's hard to hear about um when i first moved to Durham i feel like the gun violence was spread very much across the city and then over time our crime decreased and while there were definitely terrible pockets it seemed like we were making great improvements and i'm very concerned about what has been happening over the last six months to a year where gun violence has spread across our city and it is causing tragedy in many many communities i look forward to continuing conversations with my council members and again i appreciate the folks coming out to advocate for their needs for their community thank you so much thank you very much council member chancellor uh thank you for being here and for bringing your delegation um i think what would be most helpful and you may have already done this is to put your five recommendations uh into writing for us send it to us send it to uh city manager one to page uh and we will pay prompt attention to it uh i can promise you that thank you thank you and i really um you know we all feel a tremendous loyalty to North Carolina central you know chancellor that my first job out of graduate school was working at North Carolina Central uh as an instructor uh i feel as i know we all do a tremendous loyalty a tremendous debt of gratitude um and uh we we know the critical importance to you all of having a safe campus we we deeply understand that every single one of us everybody in this community knows that and my colleagues have talked about the violence the gun violence that we've had in Durham that has increased this last several months and it's been taken a terrible toll uh and we need to do everything every day to fight that and so your suggestions are most welcome and i'll look forward to receiving on that we all will and we'll work with our city manager uh to take those on uh as soon as possible so thank you well thank you so much mr mayor and to all of the council members i am deeply touched uh by your passion and by your commitment and i look forward to working with each and every one of you uh as you've said as you've heard to make our community uh collectively safe for all of our cities and so i do thank you so much and we would get our recommendations to miss page and of course uh look forward to the responses from you so thank you again uh for the time that you've given to us this afternoon thank you chancellor and thank you to all the rest of you all who are here with us today and again to uh miss willard uh our heart is with you you need to know that uh we are just it's beyond words that you would have to face a situation where a gunshot came into your room and we will work as hard as we can to change this not only for you but for everybody in Durham who's under the same sort of uh who's endured the same kind of thing so thank you all for being here thank you so much thank you all right colleagues uh that was important and i'm glad we were able to hear from so many members of North Carolina Central University community um and we know that we'll hear back soon i will have some discussion with our administration on these on these matters and mr mayor i know they'll vet them and i'll be back yes councilmember just a quick question before dr johnson leaves i just wanted to know if they're assault if their social sciences department um had been working on anything currently i wasn't sure but i just wanted to double check before letting them depart because i thought i heard something about councilmember i don't see dr acalaia still on the call uh but that's something that um i think that you know would be good if you wanted to just convey that question to him or to someone else there would be good to to find that out thank you okay uh we're now going to move back to our uh our items that have been pulled we're going to start with item eight this is an item that i pulled north Durham water reclamation facility in a cradius street water maintenance hello mr grealy good afternoon mayor mayor pro 10 members of council don grealy department of water management mr grealy uh good to see you um the um i just wanted to discuss the employment statistics for this contractor um this is um carolina civil works incorporated and i wanted to uh know if there was anyone present today who i could discuss this issue with um i'm not i'm not aware that they were available for the call but we'd be happy to you know if you have some questions we'd be happy to get a response from them and add it to the agenda thank you so i'm looking at their total number of employees they have to 27 employees only one of whom is african-american and so um mr grealy you've heard my usual questions and councils frequent questions um i'm interested in their hiring practices uh i'm interested in their outreach to hbc us and other uh societies and organizations professional organizations where african-american candidates would be uh available to them uh i'm i'm interested in hearing about their outreach and so if you could provide that in writing before our monday night meeting that would be excellent if they could provide that in writing we would be happy to provide that and uh although we're not in the although our you know one of the things that we often ask is of people that come before us we're not in the situation now with our youth internships that we usually are uh but i would also be um interested to know whether or not they would be uh a willing participant in our youth internship program really happy to ask that question as well that would be great um and so i'll look forward to receiving that on the council uh to receive that prior to monday night certainly thank you very much mr grealy sure i think that uh just to the administration i i think that um since we've been in the covid era when these issues have come up we've been less likely to have one of the contractors here so i'll try to provide that information earlier so that we can have someone here to be able to discuss this with so thank you all righty now we'll move to item nine um item nine is also an item that i pulled um and i see mr boyd hi mr boyd good afternoon david boyd finance director so um i asked you this question and i see i got an email back from you already thank you um i see that we're paying one half of one percent for the orange county tax collection and i believe we pay one percent for the durham tax collection that's correct and so and i and i asked you if orange does all its tax collection for its various municipalities for one half of one percent yes they do so we're paying more in durham than the municipalities in orange or paying in orange is do you know i mean i you may not know this but is there any rational basis for this that is is there a rational basis for the fact we're great question the fact that we're paying twice what they are for our tax collection what chapel it would be i i don't know that we have done any um significant analysis on the fee that is being charged by durham county for quite some time that that fee has been in place for quite some time um so i that's that's all i can say to you on on that front right now so uh you know i want to think about this this is a lot of money it's a you know half of one percent difference in our entire property tax collection so do we have a kind and again i'm not sure this is really your bailiwick and if not we can and i see manager pages here but do we have a contract currently um i'm sure we have a contract i i how often do that we do have a contract with the county i believe it expires at the end of next year i believe is when the current contract expires yes in fact i think you put that in the memo now that i'm remembering and then we also have we also have an agreement with weight county for them to collect taxes for the portions of the city that are in weight county right well so it seems to me it would be good uh and and it would be good when that comes up that to be renegotiating knowing what our um you know our our peers are doing and the fact that i hear that orange county is only charging half a percent and durham charges one percent durham county leads me to think that we when we renegotiate this we need to have a one half percent fee rather than a one percent fee and this will of course be a significant benefit to the city we'll certainly take that into consideration as we look at the agreement in the future thank you madam manager did you have any other comments sorry uh not significant comments but but certainly those agreements are negotiated with the other parties and and we have actually reviewed the terms every time we renew the five-year agreement and so we certainly will take these comments in consideration um as we you know as we look at what that fee covers for the county that has to actually do the services for us thank you very much thank you madam manager and thank you mr boy i just really hope you know given the large difference in in revenue this could mean for us that we'll take a hard look at this when it's time to renegotiate so thank you certainly all right our next item is item not we're going to go we're going to have the presentation uh at the end madam manager we'll go down to item 19 which was pulled by council member freeman and thank you is um has to cal's bakery building and studer baker building landmark repeal yes and i understand staff's not on the call i just want to make sure that we uh do have some some documentation i guess around the tradeoffs of doing this repeal for this landmark site acknowledging that it's right on duke street i know that it's the site from the explosion but i'm not sure what the removal of that landmark landmark designation will mean and so i just wanted to get a little bit more clarity around it um i think specifically uh if there are height restrictions uh and just what could be on the site just acknowledge and all of those things and that would be helpful before my before the council meeting thank you um madam manager you heard the request of council member freeman i i expected those things will be provided is that true uh yes yes and council member if you have some specific questions that you don't see answered in the memos uh i think the memos that we have now are what is expected being provided at the council meeting for the public hearing so if there are questions that you have specifically that aren't in those memos if you could let the manager know that as soon as you can and so she can get uh staff to prepare any answers you need thank you i think those are specifically the questions that weren't answered in the memo could you say them one more time just noting of the what what designations would be in place around height and i guess specifications and then also materials noting that that area is right there on duke street okay thank you did you get that madam manager yes i do have it thank you thank you thank you council member now we'll move to item 15 um which is a present i'm sorry item i'm sorry item 15 item what's the presentation item madam manager 28 i don't know why i've said item 15 but item 28 no it is it is actually uh the presentation is on item 20 i'm 20 sorry yeah i 28 the closed session so before that we'll have the the uh the discussion on public on item 20 sorry about that yeah okay actually the presentation covers item item really item 20 and 21 21 right mm-hmm thank you colleagues just to remind you this is a public hearing item uh but staff wanted us uh we don't usually hear presentations on public hearing items unless staff feels important that we get educated ahead of time and so we're uh glad to have that who is here to present to us today i see mr joiner hi mr joiner afternoon sir um would the clerk please call up the presentation uh to share on the screen mr joiner could you introduce yourself certainly robert joiner with the public works uh department uh good afternoon mr mayor madam mayor pertam members of the council i'm here today to present the city of derm petition process on items 20 and 21 these are petition items that are coming forward uh for the council uh public hearing for the council to make a decision on in the upcoming council meeting uh to start with i wanted to give a background on the petition process and what it's used for uh these items do not come before council a lot so you can see them fairly infrequently sometimes going years in between them petition process is for infrastructure improvements city of derm has a process where property owners can have various types of improvements made council is the final authority to decide on those types of things that authority is governed by the city charter and it starts where an interested party contacts public works and looks for a defined area for the types of improvements those improvements can be water sewer roads curbing gutter um a various number of sidewalk things of that nature and so um those petitions are developed around a specific area and the folks in that area where those improvements are adjacent will be the ones who will potentially be assessed those costs next slide please public works department is the point of contact it is where you go to find all the information on utility service availability the types of extensions improvements that would be required with these petitions the petition process itself it includes issuance of the petition uh determination of sufficiency and all of the associated property research uh the reason that's important is because you're actually signing on the dotted line when you sign on that petition that you wish to be assessed for those improvements so it is important that the property owner of record is the one signing for the assessment because that will be the person that is assessed the agenda processing for ordering of improvements we actually create all of these agenda items and bring them forth for council consideration next slide please here's a diagram of the infrastructure improvement petition process it's originally issued from public works by the sponsor those limits are determined and then the proposed improvement is reviewed by the design group for constructability petition process is delivered to the the sponsor and then the sponsor circulates that to the property owners in favor of the improvements and you go through this iterative step where you go through and you're looking for and this is an and you're representing 50 of the owners and 50 of the road frontage and this step is actually really critically important because it prevents um a large landowner from controlling the process without talking to their neighbors so you can't have anybody who is disproportionately um in charge it's a very rare circumstance where that can happen and so you go through that iterative process of determining that everybody who signed on that is the owner of the property then the property owners are notified when a public hearing comes across and then if it's not approved that project doesn't move forward if it is approved it goes into the list and the project is looked at being designed and then funding for delivery of the project ultimately is then decided through the cip process next slide these are the most common types of petition improvements um but I wanted to note the differences between the petition improvement versus what we were looking at under the cip gravel road paving program which is finishing um putting down pavement for existing dirt streets within the city limits okay and you'll see those pictures there where you have a proper curbing gutter street brand new that's completely redone and then you have asphalt on a ribbon paved street which is very common in older streets in in Durham next slide please once council orders the improvements to be made the project is put into the city cip process to compete for funding that funding is needed for design construction right-of-way acquisitions as necessary utility reconstruction and utility relocation and construction we have 10 previously ordered projects of paving and utilities that are currently in the queue the current street improvement contracts are st 271 and st 286 and they will deplete all of the allocated funds for current petition projects next slide please uh assessment rates are set by council they are periodically adjusted based on the average cost of the most recent city contracts street improvement assessment rates historically set um on actual cost of construction to recuperate a percentage of actual cost of construction that rate adjustment was last made in 2006 okay water and sewer main assessment rates historically set to recuperate 90 percent of actual construction cost that last rate adjustment was made in 2010 the new assessment rates would be coming out once current contracts are completed and actual costs are calculated in the remainder of those contracts should be finished in 2021 and 22 uh council has the authority to reject petitions if they so choose next slide please uh this is the information on the current petitions linden terrace which is a curb gutter in paving and there are existing water and sewer laterals in this uh project site excuse me uh mains in the project site and this will be the addition of water and sewer laterals uh ardmore drive is a curb gutter paving water and sewer main project and then water and sewer laterals as well uh there was an initial petition to extend issued in 1999 to extend the full length of ardmore but that was never returned as a sufficient petition they couldn't get the required number of signatures and then uh sewer mains were extended in most of ardmore drive under two separate projects that were done under the enable cities enabling act authority due to health hazards uh because of the existing septic systems that were in that area uh there are a couple of vacant properties that do not have access to city sewer so they would be part of that extension of city mains for city sewer uh originally there was a recently there was a project uh that is just done part of ardmore drive nine hundred and fifty feet and that was recently done and ordered by council originally in 2008 uh the water main was installed in 2012 and 2013 as a result of previous petition improvements ordered by council and there was a current petition for remaining portion of ardmore was issued march of 2018 uh that did not return a sufficient number of signatures to move forward until june of this year in 2020 next slide uh there are two options for council and petitioning for improvements you can order the construction of improvements with subsequent assessments based on current rates projects will then be submitted into the cip for approval to fund option two is you may reject the petition and allow new petitions to be submitted with higher assessment rates in the future to recoup more of actual cost or implement a full cost recovery process in order to do that you would need to adopt an ordinance establishing either the increased assessment rates or the full cost recovery next slide please uh frequently asked questions we get on the petition process who could petition for and vote anyone can request a petition however only a budding property owners can sign the petition because they are the ones who will be assessed city council votes on whether or not to install an improvement in response to a valid petition being received and the types of petitions uh that are successful have two criteria must be assigned by over 50 percent of the number of owners of properties abutting the improvements and the road frontage of those properties whose owners sign must equal over 50 percent of the area within the petition limits for sidewalk improvements this required and this is sidewalk only improvements the requirement is 70 percent for those criterias one and two uh in the design and construction of new improvements a lot of questions we get is who can be considered and who can be talked to residents property owners renters and users of the infrastructure can express comments anyone can attend these meetings and anyone can send in comments as they are welcome community meeting is always held to give residents and owners an opportunity to review and comment on these preliminary designs prior to construction of the project to get community feedback next slide it's council members of council have any questions for me thank you mr joiner i really appreciate it um colleagues uh questions for mr joiner madam mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor and thank you mr joiner for refreshing our memory or for some of us um the first time we're hearing this info um of course i'm thinking about you know the round of water and sewer extensions that we had a couple years back where we ended up absorbing a much higher percentage of the cost than we had initially anticipated because of increases in and costs over the several years that the petition said sat and acted upon have we taken action to prevent that kind of situation from happening in the future and if not what can we and what kind of action would we need to take so that action that would need to be taken would essentially be full cost recovery and that action has not occurred yet we are also looking to see what the final assessment rates would be and the cost of new construction in the previous water and sewer rates that you mentioned one of the things that i would want to put out there is those projects occurred in the county and they were outside of the city limits so we were actually fixing dot roads on those particular items and dot had installed new policies that had greatly increased the cost of those far beyond what was expected so some of the things that occurred to really increase those costs a lot would not be a consideration or an issue for these types of projects inside the city limits and those dot roads at that time i would also like to mention were not really built to the most compliant dot standards of today and they were substantially aged so the type of reconstruction that was needed on those improvements greatly exceeded what one would normally expect in this type of process got it thank you that's helpful in allaying some of my anxiety um so as an alternative i mean i i think the the question of full cost recovery is you know that's like a policy decision that we have to consider and it would be helpful to know what other cities in the region do with regard to that question and then the other thing i'm thinking is could we could our policy be x percent of full cost but but implemented at the time of actual construction so that we're when we're computing the rates when we're computing what people would be assessed it's based on the cost that we expect to actually incur rather than the cost at the time the cost that is relevant at the time of the petition yes we could do that we could essentially uh go back in and change the ordinance to look at full cost recovery at the time of impact and that would also deal with the problem of timing just because council orders these improvements at the time that doesn't actually create the need to go forth and do those it has to compete with cip funding under the council's directive and initiatives and priorities of course and so in some cases as you'll see on these types of assessments you'll see a great deal of time has passed between when the petition improvements were ordered and when they're actually being constructed and that has to do a lot with competing priorities over time and so going to full cost recovery would greatly change that math and would allow the city to recoup those costs in their entirety as they're actually made great i think that sounds like what we should do and thank you so much for all the information thank you um one other issue that i want to raise i think about all the you know so you've described the way in which this competes with cip other cip projects and those other cip projects all come to us through some sort of process that the city has our city of staff has built a rational process that uses an equity model and an equity lens to try to figure out so for example the bike walks plan this looks at lots of different aspects of uh you know it looks at racial equity it looks at a distance to a school it looks a lot you know it looks at safety all these are considered in building a plan and when these petitions come in they come in outside of that plan and yet they're competing for the exact same resources and so the petition process has always given me concern um as an equity issue we as you say mr. Joyner we don't get it very often uh and so it doesn't you know it doesn't impinge on us a lot but when i think about a million dollars um which is essentially i think 1.1 1 million 1.1 is this the ardmore uh uh project would be from city funds after we do the cost recovery under the current formula it troubles me it troubles me as a policy matter not not making any judgment about the people that brought the petition to us i get why they did it but it's competing for example with um well just to take the example that's come into our inbox recently is junction wrote i mean these are all you know i worry that when petitions come to us they disrupt an equitable process um do you have any thoughts on that mr. Joyner about the competition and those resources that is a very difficult thing to control because it's driven by uh request from residents as they get together and and deal with their uh micro community needs i guess would be the best way to say it um yeah i think that's right and i and i think that you know it's it's a process that's driven by property owners property owners you know aren't always the people that should be determining where we put our sidewalks our carbon gutter and so forth and we do such a good job with that systemically throughout the city that it gives me concern you know the i again you know i'm struck by if it's full cost recovery that's a different story then that that's that changes things a lot so anyway we've got to we've got to do this at the public hearing but if there are any other questions or comments at this point colleagues councilmember freeman thank you i appreciate the mayor's explanation because i hadn't thought about it in that vein of it um acknowledging that uh i actually served by the advisory board for the cip and developing the race equity or the equity format to try and do the red green yellow blue you know on which projects move forward and acknowledging that it does create the disruption but it'd be the same disruption as doing participatory budgeting and so i just want to make sure that we don't miss that um and that those those projects are also being added in and that's coming from the community from a micro level and i don't want to discourage folks from being engaged in the process so yes those property owners may be um not who you want to direct it but oftentimes i mean the people that live on those dirt roads are folks that have um not always chosen to have a dirt road in front of their house and so just acknowledging that specifically for this paving situation it might be a little different and acknowledging who the property owners are and how they move forward in pushing a petition forward i just had a question specifically around you know this is assessing a fee essentially with the full cost recovery has there been in the instances where you've noticed um a lien had to be put on a home or a property and folks have lost their property because that would be my one concern around full cost recovery i would have to um do some research on that with the finance department that controls uh these items we set up the accounts as a part of our but we do not control the payments over the eight years that these items are typically paid out over and then i was also just wondering if if grant funding had ever been uh researched around doing some type of uh just acknowledging that the dirt roads are harder to control the flow of water and this storm water and resiliency conversation has there been any conversation with the uh eda on or the i'm sorry economic development association administration around making sure that those funds are available just so we're not pushing the cost to uh residents in the community because what i would i am mainly concerned about and i'll just say that's up front is that it's not the property owner that will carry the burden it's the renter in the home whose rent will go up because the order has been passed and they finally get the the dirt road paid because often those houses that are on those dirt roads are rental units and it's it's just just making sure that we're not pushing folks out of their homes but thank you thank you councilmember mayor for just one quick comment i wanted to acknowledge uh i'm both Ferguson deputy city manager and mayor thank you for for a minute i wanted to acknowledge the the council the questions you've raised mayor pro tem and councilmember freeman i think we anticipated that there may be a disconnect between the values and philosophy that originally undergirded the petition process and and where this council may be now and in part we we wanted to put this presentation out there to call that question a bit this process has you know been legitimately started by residents of these two streets and needs to come forward uh to the council but i think we did want to call out some of the priority setting questions that have been raised here uh and hearing your comments today i think help us to to both you know process uh to consider how this process works uh and to potentially bring back uh policy level discussion for the council so that you can provide us direction on how future changes might be considered for the petition process so i just wanted to acknowledge that we're sort of hearing these questions we wondered if these questions were out there and and we're grateful for that feedback in the meantime you know we'll continue to be happy to answer questions about these two petitions as well uh and i'll confer with public work staff after this about uh and uh madame manager about the potential to come back to council uh on sort of a policy level discussion about the petition process thank you that's very useful let me ask about the timing a little bit then so do you think we should have that policy process that policy discussion before we have this public hearing or at least in current with it sorry go ahead no go ahead go ahead bud as mr joiner reported uh you know some of these petition processes have been under discussion for for a while and these communities really began this process some of them well while these petitions were filed in the last couple of years the discussions predate those for that reason you know that i believe it's appropriate for council to consider these actions uh again you you have several options you may you may order them uh you may choose not to order them you may uh in choosing not to order them you may suggest to residents that they can they could reapply under a full cost recovery model but i think rather than delay that discussion you know you you probably have the information you need to decide on these two items uh and then i think going forward you know we could come back and uh give council some options to rewrite the rules for future petition processes uh and and would be happy to facilitate that conversation thank you and i think councilmember freelon had a question yeah sorry i thought i was muted no worries um yeah well um mr furgusson uh bow um hearing you kind of uh reflect on just getting general feedback is compelled me to speak um so may or should mention the junction road emails that we've been getting in and uh you know i'm also thinking about what councilmember mittleton uh referenced earlier in regards to you know the squeaky wheel and the ways in which privilege plays a role in folks ability to organize to get the things that they want out of council and uh you know there's a member of our community that's just seems like just an individual out there with her phone documenting what is a dangerous situation on her road with no sidewalks um i don't know to what extent they have the capacity to you know organize the adjoining neighbors and to do the requisite work to meet the standard for our current petition process so i guess bow to your uh to your back to the drawing board conversation i would offer uh this example as a as a something to consider and someone like this this person who's been reaching out i can forge do the correspondence and i've been in contact with shawn um about that uh but i yeah i would want to consider from an equity perspective but also hearing with um councilmember freeman was saying about a participatory budgeting and the ways in which we've created loopholes and other contexts um i hear that as well and want to be consistent um but i think this particular example uh in the the shortcomings of of creating such a high bar in the process in the petition process might be something to can reconsider as we think about an equitable model moving forward um so i just wanted to offer that and and and amplify what may or should kind of mentioned in passing which is you know we've been getting emails about junction road so i'll forge you those emails and we'd love for you to take that into consideration for thank you and just as a point of information junction road is a state dot road it's not a city road and i did receive a text from public works director marvin williams that uh he understands that uh shawn eagan in transportation is uh in receipt of that i would also be happy to review those emails and make sure we're responding appropriately cool thanks very much thank you thank you councilmember and thank you mr ferguson those were very helpful comments um and mr joiner thank you for being here we always appreciate your presentations and um seems like you often get the sticky wicket um and uh we're glad for we just want to tell you how much we appreciate you thank you thank you sir happy to serve it i gotta find a way to use that sticky wicket gotta find a way well i don't think colleagues i'm not sure that any of you all were on the council uh when we went through the uh uh fail development phase after the recession but uh mr joiner was running point on that and we were and and figuring out ways to get developers to come in and take over these failed developments and try to keep the city out of having to pick up a lot of expenses and uh i know you don't miss that mr joiner yeah it's good to have you with us thank you thank you sir all right colleagues i think we have completed our agenda except for now we'll hear what we have the closed session but now madame clerk can we hear from you about the um about the appointments absolutely mr mayor uh i'll have my assistant clerk livern brooks report on the affordable housing implementation committee because you had a question on that all right right miss brooks we're happy to have you with us getting towards retirement yes i'm still trying to believe it's that time it came came sort of quick and i went in one way i can't believe it's been 30 years i can't either well good afternoon uh mayor and council members um i just wanted to share you saw the note in about um miss big louis she is can everybody hear me yes we can okay she's currently serving on the homeless service advisory committee as a former homeless person she's been on she came on in 2018 so she'll come up on a year in um june of next year i'm sorry on a three-year term she'll come up on her first term next year in june here's the reason why i put this note in because in council procedures it says on number 13 that citizens must serve one full term before they are eligible to apply to any other board or committee and then it says except in unusual circumstances and the reason why i bought this to you is because um we have three we have three seats for a person who's receiving assistance from Durham housing authority and we haven't had any applicants she's the only one that's put one in so far and i talked to miss big louis and i want y'all to know she is so um so ready and and just really wants to serve on the support of a housing understanding that you know she it wasn't around when she got appointed to the committee she's on now but uh she is truly committed to wanting to serve so that's why i bring it before you because you do have that um accepted unusual circumstances um miss brooks that was super helpful um and the comment that you made on the um on the written comment you made was as well i think we've got a couple different issues one is uh she's our appointment to the hsac and i believe that she is now an officer of the hsac um and i know she's been very enthusiastic in that role i think let me suggest colleagues so she is excellent i i think a lot of you all know her uh she would be a great member of the bond implementation of the housing a formal housing implementation committee let me suggest that we have time between now and when we actually do the vote on monday night 10 days from now uh that uh we have a discussion with her about which board she would prefer to serve one because she would have to give out the other board so um does that suit you colleagues if we wait on that decision until we hear from her excuse me mr mayor sure short mr brooks has had a conversation with um with the applicant okay miss brooks has information regarding this yes ma'am i was gonna i didn't want to break it on you but yes she um i talked with her and she understands that she actually wants to resign from the uh homeless services committee to be on this committee okay and that's her preference yes that is down to her preference okay well then if she's not appointed if she's not appointed she says she will continue to serve on the homeless but she really wants to be on this on this committee all right so i think you all have heard what uh miss brooks has said that we we are trying to fill these positions we have had a couple of rounds of applications that we haven't had but one applicant yet for the three positions we would have to violate uh violates not the word we would have to override our uh our policy uh under this exceptional circumstances uh provision because she hasn't served one term yet on the the board that she's on now so i guess i'll put that to you colleagues given that miss vick would like to serve on the housing bond implementation committee do you want to override our policy uh under this exceptional circumstances provision to allow her to do that and i'm interested in any thoughts you may have councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor i'm prepared to accept the uh strong recommendation of the sitting mayor of our city as an exceptional circumstance okay mayor pro tem uh i'm comfortable with appointing her to to the affordable housing implementation board i do want to give some further consideration to the fact that we haven't had any folks from dha apply to that board and that their voice is really important to the bond implementation because of how much is going to dha we had hoped that we would be able to offer stipends this year for board service in light of the fact that you know a lot of folks who are who are lower income or people of color are not able to participate as um at their at their own like right putting their own bill at their own cost for transportation child care you know having to have dinner out all that stuff but we took it out of the budget because of covid um i think that if we were to have that if stipends were available it would be significantly easier to find folks from dha who of course you know face a lot of barriers to service i don't know i don't know what to do but i just wanted i i wanted to highlight the fact that we really need folks at the table and that right now we don't have a system that is that is letting us get them thank you councilmember we'll talk about that in just a minute but let me go back to the question of miss vick is is everybody can i see some thumbs um i heard from councilmember milton i heard from mayor pro tem okay miss brux uh could you be in touch with miss vick then and tell her that's our plan i will do that thank you and we look forward to your farewell party thank you all right um and then mayor pro tem raises an important issue about uh i think that maybe what will be good uh is if you could talk to anthony scott about a little bit um and just as our you know liaison if you could talk to him and get his thoughts and uh you know maybe other members of his staff uh who he wants to include uh i think that would be good yep i'm happy to do that good first step thank you councilmember caballero on the note of stipends and this opens up a whole other conversation but i just want to say that depending on where as we move through our fiscal year and depending where we where we are i would be i know we had talked about it needs to be universal but i think it's helping folks who are dha residents like if we need to narrow the stipend idea because of budget constraints to the folks who really really need it um i'm just wondering if that would be helpful we know these are three dha residents we know what the average salary is there for folks who live there i think it's very different so if our budget would allow it it wouldn't be that much money especially in this case to open up the possibility make it easier for folks pie thank you that's something you know that's certainly within our purview okay other comments mr mayor we need to continue with the boards and committee yes we do go ahead madam clerk all right for number three the bicycle and pedestrian and advisory committee for the appointment daniel clever has been um nominated for reappointment for the urban trails in greenway category number four germ convention and visitors bureau board of directors dba discovered germ appointment council has accepted the nomination of ron hunter to represent lodging and limited services and that was a reappointment and then to appoint thomas lube to represent lodging and full services the Durham planning commission appointment item number five council has nominated kimberley cameron to fill the seat and finally for the item number six Durham workers rights commission there was a technical issue with with um computing the ballot we have three votes for bria williams and two votes for steven cornigy and i didn't know how you wanted to pursue that hi diana i didn't i'm this is councilmember freeman i was unable to submit and i would have submitted for bria williams bria okay so that makes four so you've nominated bria williams to the workers during Durham workers rights commission appointment and that's all thank you thank you that's everything madam claire yes sir thank you so much um mayor pro tem thank you i'm sorry if this has already been responded to via email but we didn't receive the attendance record for mr clever from b pack in the packet and was wondering if we could get that before the meeting just to confirm that he's been attending regularly definitely thank you thank you mayor pro tem all right colleagues um i'll now ask uh what we'll settle the agenda and then we'll move into closed session mr mayor madam mayor pro tem members of the city council i have for you uh consent um items one through 15 and gba public hearings items 16 through 21 thank you very much you have heard the recommendation to settle the agenda by the manager uh can i have a motion don't move second moved by council member freelon seconded by mayor pro tem johnson madam clerk we please call the roll mayor shawal i mayor pro tem johnson i councilmember caballero i councilmember freelon i councilmember freeman i and councilmember middleton i vote i thank you thank you madam clerk the motion uh carries and we've now settled the agenda and you know what i say who's tom bonfield that's what i want to know good job madam manager you're carrying the ball we appreciate you thank you you're awesome we you got through it we just pretended like nothing was different okay uh thank you colleagues we now have a closed session um it's 301 and i need to go get an apple and a drink of water and i bet you do too so uh i'm gonna and and we also of course need to have folks leave who aren't supposed to be in the session and lock the meeting and so forth so i'm gonna say that we'll reconvene in five minutes we'll see you at 306 okay thanks everybody