 Good afternoon. I want to call this meeting, this work session of the Durham City Council to order at one o'clock on Thursday, February the 18th. And I certainly want to welcome everyone here, my colleagues, our staff and all those who may be watching us, all of our residents who may be watching us as well as we stream. And just glad to see everyone this afternoon. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freelon. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. I'm here. Council Member Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And just will say that Council Member Reese has let me know that he may, he's, he's having some competing issues today that he may be in and out of this meeting, but we will soldier on without you when you need to go. So thank you for letting us, letting us know. All right. We'll now turn to announcements by members of the council colleagues and the announcements today. All right. Seeing none then we will move to priority items by the city manager, Madam Manager welcome. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro Tem members of the Durham city council. I do have three priority items for your consideration this afternoon. Agenda item number five fiscal year 2021 22 city council budget requests to be discussed at the 225 21 special city council meeting budget retreat attachment number one has been added. Agenda item number 19 5002 guardian drive a major special use permit attachments five and seven were updated. And finally agenda item number 22 interlocal agreement with Durham county to support emergency rental assistance for low income households is a supplemental item that has been added. That is all I have this afternoon. Thank you, Madam manager colleagues you've heard the manager's priority items can I have a motion for their approval. So moved. I think that that was moved by council member Freelon and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson Madam clerk will you please call the roll. Your school. I your Pro Tem Johnson. I can't remember Caballero. I can't remember Freelon. I can't remember Freeman. I can't remember Middleton. I will die. I can't remember Reese. Thank you. Thank you Madam clerk. Are there any priority items for the city city attorney today. I know Mr. O'Toole is with us. Good afternoon mayor mayor pro tem and council members. There are no priority items for the city attorney's office. Mr. O'Toole. Mr. O'Toole. While you're here. I know that we're not discussing today, but you had an important message for us about item 19 that you have emailed to us about this major special use permit. And I wondered if you would just take a minute to remind the council of our duties in that regard. Sure thing mayor. Item 19 is a major special use permit that needs to be included in the hearing. The most important thing is to not engage in discussions. Related to that matter prior to the hearing. If you do inadvertently, then you should disclose that at the hearing. Another thing that's unique about a quasi judicial hearing is the applicant and anyone speaking on behalf of the application. They have to make sure that all the evidence gets sworn in at the beginning of that hearing. And they have to present what's, um, what amounts to material, competent and substantial evidence. And then council's decision, uh, council access, both the judge and jury. Related to that application. They should then consider the evidence presented at the hearing. And they should then consider the application. And they should then decide to you and then you'll judge whether there's sufficient evidence to, um, Grant that application or not. And if any council members have any questions, uh, after they review the materials that I provided this morning, uh, Sarah, Kim, or I are happy to answer those questions. Thank you very much. Mr. O'Toole. That's exactly what we needed. Thank you so much. And thank you for your time, Mr. O'Toole. And thank you for the questions today. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam mayor pro tem and council members. I did have an item that I wanted to, um, get your direction on. And you had asked me to follow up on the attendance records of the individuals who are on our boards, committees and commissions. Who have less than. The minimum required attendance. And, um, we did. Uh, we did have an item that we wanted to review. And most of the people at 50% are fine. Um, there are only three persons that we have not received any response from. And I was wondering if I could go ahead. Or if you would like me to, um, send them removal letters or not. Madam clerk. Um, I think what we'll do is we'll, we'll vote to accept that as a priority item and then we'll hold that discussion till after we finish the other items today. Okay. Thank you. I've heard the clerk's priority item. Can I have a motion for its acceptance? I moved. Uh, moved by. Mayor pro tem Johnson and seconded by council member Caballero. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor school. Hi. You're pro tem Johnson. Hi. And some member Caballero. Hi. And some member Freelon. Hi. And some member Freeman. Hi. And some member Middleton. I will die. It's member Reese. Hi. Thank. Thank you, madam clerk. All right, colleagues will now move to the administrative consent items. Uh, under the city clerk's office office. Item one approval of city council minutes. Item two, rally Durham airport authority, mayor's nominee for appointment. And I'll point out that prior to the meeting, uh, information was added to this appointment. Uh, item three, rally Durham airport authority appointment. Item four under departmental items audit services department, fire inventory and supplies management performance audit dated dated. January, 2021. Under budget budget and management services department item five, FY 21, 22 city council budget request. To be discussed at the two 25, 21 special city council meeting budget retreat. Under the city council's office, item six resolution calling upon president Biden. To ask Congress to provide additional assistance to the rental housing community under the city county planning department. Item seven expedited hearing requests for zoning map change. Casa North Duke. Under. Also item eight board of adjustment 2020 annual reported. I'd like to pull that item. Excuse me. Under, uh, let's see item non historic preservation commission. 2020 annual report. Item 10 planning commission 2020. Annual report. Under community development department, item 11 approval of JJ Henderson seniors, new construction, affordable housing project and bonds. I'm going to pull that item and also we have one speaker for that item. Under department of water management, item 12 purchase of rectangular butterfly vows, have water treatment plant under 13 item. I'm sorry, item 13. 2021 unscheduled pipeline repairs, award of construction contract to Carolina civil works incorporated. Item 14 item a 2021 unscheduled pipeline repairs, award of construction contract to North state water and sewer incorporated. Under the finance department item 15 bid report. January 2021. Item 16 FY 2021 second quarter annual financial report. I'm going to pull that item. Under fleet management department item 17 cooperative group purchase contract to tandem axle dump trucks. Under public works department item 18 contract ST 310 payment preservation project 2021. Under public hearing city county planning department item 19, five thousand and two guardian drive major special use permit which the attorney has just discussed with us. Item 20 consolidated annexation Phillips way valley. I'm sorry, Phillips valley. I'm 21 under the community development department FY 21 22 annual action plan second needs public hearing. I have a question on that that I'd just like to ask briefly to Mr. Johnson. Is that public hearing the one that we talked about having an additional hearing between the first and the last one is this that hearing. Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor greetings Mr. Mayor members of city council regional Johnson director department of the community development department. That meeting is the meeting that we discussed adding there will be another public hearing. Later on in the season. Thank you for adding that let me just and I'm sure you will but I just want to say to you and and and and and and the public information folks that we need to do a good job of publicizing that so that we make sure that people know about that hearing this additional hearing. Yes, sir. All right, thank you very much. And then item 22 under supplemental items community development department interlocal agreement with Durham County to support emergency rental assistance for low income households. Like to pull that please. Alrighty. Alrighty, Madam manager, I believe that we have pulled items 811 16 and 22 and then a discussion at the end of the clerk's priority items is that what you have as well. That is what I have as well sir. Thank you. Hello, colleagues will now move to item eight. This is an item that I pulled about the board of adjustment annual report. And I'm not sure who will be here from Mr. Miss young great to see you. Miss young there was one administrative appeal held over until the board can begin meeting in person. I assume this was for legal reasons probably related to the something to do with having these hearings during the zoom era. And I'm not sure whether or not this is going to go wrong. And I'm sure, however, that someone is being affected by this delay. And I wondered what is the situation in the plan. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of council. That's an excellent question. And I'll do my best to explain Mr. Tool may also decide to jump in at some point. But yes, that appeal. My understanding is that there was not consent from both members of the commission. I believe. Did not consent to moving forward in the virtual environment and under the current general statutes for remote meetings. That says that we cannot hold the hearing then we have to wait until we can hold it in person. I see Mr. Tool has popped on the screen. So he may have something further. He would like to add. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Tool, city attorney's office. Ms. Young is exactly correct. This was a case in which the city had issued a notice of violation to a property owner. City staff and I were ready to. Defend that N O V. That was being appealed. And the morning of the hearing, the attorney for the property owner. a state statute that allowed quasi-judicial hearings to be held virtually. If a party doesn't consent, then you can't proceed. And so essentially the appellant is benefitting by the appeal not being heard. Is this a situation that's a potentially dangerous situation? Can you tell us a little bit more about, I don't know if you are allowed to tell us any more, giving that this was a sort of quasi-judicial, I'm not sure. But I guess I have concern, if we've issued a notice of violation, if it's a dangerous situation, do we have other options that come? And, you know, Sarah can jump in here as well. It's a notice of violation for, I'll use the term flea market, a flea market operating on some property. And it's out of compliance with the site plan for the night. Do you have anything to add to that? Yes, the issue was there was some additional modifications made to the site that did not comply with the site plan for the flea market. And that is what was being appealed. Okay, all right. Okay, good. So it doesn't sound like anybody's life's in danger or physical health, that kind of thing. All right. Thank you very much for that. All right, the next item is item 11. This was also an item that I had pulled in there as a speaker on this item. And I will now ask if we can make the speaker available to be heard and that is Ajax Woolley. Madam clerk, could you, well, let me, I'm sorry, let me do this first. Let me hear from the department and then we'll make Mr. Woolley available to be heard. Sorry, Mr. Johnson. Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem members of the city council, Reginald Johnson, director of department of community development. This item before you is a request from the Durham housing authority to issue tax bonds for the JJ Henderson site. This is part of the city's ministerial duty as part of the IRS tax code, where the public body in the jurisdiction where the housing authority is issuing the bonds is required to approval of the bonds going forward after they hold a public hearing. And so this is the item. And so the department has reviewed and we're requesting that the city council approve the housing authority's issuance of the tax bonds, tax exempt bonds that does not have any implications to the city financially. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Madam clerk, could you make Ajax Woolley available to be heard? Thank you, Mr. Woolley, welcome. We're glad to have you and you have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of council and staff. I'll just be very brief. And the last time we spoke to this issue was on election Eve in 2020, which I think was approximately 14,000 years ago. I wanted to just mention a couple of points that council members made at that time, council member Freeman in particular had talked about how the incremental process of moving through rad conversions and the compliance and detailed painstaking work that goes on both within the housing authority and among community orbs relates to outcomes for residents. And I just wanted to bring to your attention a report that was shared, Durham can and others have been in conversation with the housing authority, looking for ways to collaborate, cooperate. And there's a report on the JJ Henderson residents that have moved as part of this project. And I wanted to bring it to council's attention and make sure that it was something that either had been reviewed by council members or that you at least had it on your radar to have a look at because I think it speaks to the need for really detailed focused attention on going around the issue of relocation as we move through rad conversion projects. So just read once one sentence from the report and then close with that. So it speaks to the sort of timeline and the experiences of residents faced as the property was handed over to new ownership and the sentence reads, obviously this scenario was unique to the JJ time constraints and the less than ideal arrival of the RCC which is the rad conversion commitment. As this was the first rad deal of this type it has provided us with valuable lessons learned if we ever find ourselves in this situation again. And then it goes on to detail the status of the families, et cetera. And I just wanna make a plea once again to council that I think we in the community are clear that we will face this situation again and we appreciated the report. We appreciate the conversations we're having both with council and with the housing authority and we just like to raise it up and bookmark it for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Willie. Mr. Willie, I haven't seen that reported. I'm not saying it didn't come into my inbox but I don't remember it and would appreciate receiving it. And just to make clear that today's item is related to that because it is JJ Henderson but this is not about the renovation of JJ this is about the new construction on that same property but would very much appreciate getting that report and you're absolutely right. The way in which people are relocated through these rad conversions is gonna be absolutely critical. Other comments, colleagues. All right, thank you very much, Mr. Willie, council member Caballero. Yeah, and actually council member Freeman had her hand raised before me. Okay, sorry, you guys. Go ahead, council member Caballero and then council member Freeman. I just had a minute to folks. I appreciate the comments as well and would like to see report as well and I know this is about new construction in the, I guess summary document on the public hearing there was some discussion on the fact that a lot of folks have showed up and that there was a limitation on the Zoom license and so it was just curious that that had been upgraded so that the next meeting would be able to be open or more open to the community. And secondly, I'm eager to hear more about the relocation and wondering if we can get, not today but some more information because I'm also hearing about folks taking the vouchers and right now it's really hard to find that level of housing because rents are so high and so what is DHA advising folks that it may, what's their process around that? And I know that that's not what this issue is about but I do wanna hear more about it at some point. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I also wanted to just put a pinpoint and acknowledging that there are some reports out about residents being displaced from JJ Henderson and I know that the concern was raised and I didn't have a response because I'm not that close to the project but I do wanna make sure that representatives from Durham Housing Authority have a chance to kind of explain exactly how that work is happening and if they are explaining it in other places to at least direct folks there because I feel like there's a lot of people who are familiar with Durham Housing Authority and their processes who are complaining about what's happening and how it's working. And I just wanna make sure that the communication is clear between the two. Thank you, Council Member. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just forwarded the report about the JJ Henderson relocation to the council email address from VHA. This, the specific situation that led to the problem is that JJ Henderson was originally restricted for only seniors and disabled people and in 2007 that, sorry, 2017 that distinction expired. And so a number of people who were not over the required age or what the disability moved into the property and then the designation was renewed. And so that led to a number of families who had lived in JJ Henderson who were not going to be able to live there after their innovation because it was then gonna be renewed as a senior property. And I think there were nine residents or families who were impacted and who were offered either a voucher or relocation to another DHA property. Unfortunately, some of the folks who chose the vouchers had trouble finding voucher housing due to our ongoing housing crisis and a lot of landlords who still are not able to take vouchers and weren't able to find places that they can afford. So four of the nine residents were assisted by DHA with hotel housing and then with housing at other DHA properties. I think one moved to Damar and other one is back in JJ Henderson temporarily. So I believe at this point all of those residents have been assisted back into housing but there was, there were nine families who were impacted by this problem and DHA has been assisting them for the last several months to try to find them permanent place. But the details in the reporter and everybody's inboxes now and yeah, the relocation, the professional relocation company that's been working with DHA is working on a plan to ensure that this kind of situation is avoided in the future and also making sure it's important to make sure that communicate to residents clearly how difficult it is to find housing with a voucher that a voucher doesn't just mean you get an apartment but a voucher means you now have to go out and search and just how crowded that market place is and how difficult it's gonna be to find, to find voucher housing. Thank you. That was a great explanation Madam Madam Pro Tem super helpful. Also wanna note that this, that 20 of the units that we are talking about today of the 80 are units that are going to be for people in public housing who will be, who can move to these new units once they are constructed under the rad conversion. So this is the kind of thing that will help us with that displacement which is great. New housing, new affordable housing. I like new affordable housing. All right. Other comments? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. Just a follow-up and the new housing and I know this is always in the weeds just acknowledging that a one for one kind of alternative is that also being made available acknowledging that they were, I know you said four families. So I'm assuming that's more than one person in a household and if there's only a one bedroom or two bedroom when folks need four bedrooms is that also being addressed? I'm actually not sure about the details on family size. I know that a one-to-one replacement is required by the RAD program. So if folks had chose to be relocated that that would do another digit property that that would be required. People who chose to take vouchers I don't, I think it's up to them more. Like they're not being explicitly relocated by the company, but I'm happy to check in with the DHA for those details and get back to you all about it. And just one additional, do you know, I mean, I'm assuming you know who the company is that's delivering this messaging because I feel like that might be where some of the issue is as well. What don't we hear from Mr. Scott? Yeah, great. Mr. Scott, I think you've been listening in on this conversation and you have been, I know that your knowledge has been ably represented by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Excellently represented actually. But can you answer Council Member Freeman's question about the relocation in terms of family size? Correct. So the relocation for replacement units is based on family size. So if you have a one bedroom unit we're looking to replace that with another one bedroom unit. And then of course in the case of JJ you have either studios or one bedroom apartments there are no larger units than that. So the nine families that were impacted by this and you're correct at one, one family did age up, that is they turned 62 during this whole process. So now they're back at JJ and that will be their permanent housing. And the other eight are being relocated to units that are appropriate for their family size. So that's at least the one bedroom because that's the max that we had at JJ. Thank you. Thank you for that. You're welcome. And if I could, the reason why in the report it talked about if this issue would occur again is that JJ is unique in that we are renovating with people in place. So unlike the other sites that are being renovated or actually being redeveloped, JJ is the only one that's being renovated. So that's why this situation was more unique. And as you pointed out, it was a senior site. Initially it wasn't, now it goes back to senior. So we don't have that situation that is likely to happen again. And of course, the most important thing is the communication, the communication, the communication and those are the things that will make sure that we are doing a better job in coordinating with the relocation company and DHA. And if something close to this happened again that that communication is happening much more frequently with any impacted family. And as I mentioned, just noting who the communication should be occurring with would be helpful who the relocation company is. And then just another note around family size acknowledging that often there are folks who are over 62 that do end up taking in a child as we make sure that those adjustments are also accounted for. Correct. What we're required to do is provide the housing for the family based on their qualified family size that they have in place at that time. So even if they are 62 and they have three people living at home then we have to accommodate them based on their family size at the time that we engage in any redevelopment. And the company and maybe Anthony Snell by the way who is our new director of development he might be able to respond to what the name of the company is but I know it's a company based out of Charlotte. They've worked with DHIC with relocation before they work with Charlotte Housing Authority so they're very experienced at this type of work but I cannot recall their name off the top of my head so I apologize for that. Why don't you send that to us in an email Mr. Scott prior to our meeting 10 days from now. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you council member. Thank you council members and thank you Mr. Woolley for your important comments. All right, colleagues. The next item is item 16 FY 2021 second quarter financial report and I pulled this item and I believe I see Mr. Boyd. Good afternoon David Boyd finance director. Mr. Boyd, good to see you. I have several questions and I can't say that they're in and I see Mr. Allure as well. I'm not sure that these question I'll just ask them in the direction that they in the order in which they came to me. First is has to do with the solid waste fund which is the personnel is approximately $600,000 over budget. I can imagine why some of the reasons why that might be this year but I was wondering if someone could address that. I'm gonna defer to Mr. Allure as he wants to comment because I don't believe anybody can solve waste zone. Okay, Mr. Allure do you know or is that something we can solve waste zone? Good afternoon. Go ahead Mr. Allure. Yes, John Allure assistant budget director. It's something that we can answer. We know my internet is a little unstable. We know that they are going over for obvious reasons there's more crews out there and that they are attempting to make that up with some savings in operating and it's a but overall in looking at their financial picture over a multi-year scenario as we do with many of the funds that they are able to manage within their means and within the amount of fund balance that they have. So we don't see it as necessarily immediate problem. All right, thank you. City manager is with us. City manager page, any comments on that? Certainly John answered ably. I just wanted to point out that the reason for the additional crews is directly related to the COVID pandemic and the operational changes that have had to take place, the way that that services rolled out between our regular solid waste and recycling as well as our yard waste collections. So it is not normal. It is based upon our COVID pandemic. Yeah, that's what I thought. I wasn't sure and appreciate that. And I appreciate Mr. Allure's assurances that the fund balance is sufficient to help us with that, to deal with that. My next two questions I think are for Mr. Boyd, which is how are we covering the shortfall of the parking fund and the DPAC fund? They both have very, very significant COVID related impacts and just would like for you to address the stability of those funds and our ability to cover those losses. Sure, those shortfalls. I'll start with the easy one. The DPAC fund has accumulated a significant amount of fund balance that we have been accumulating to pay for future capital needs. So in the short term, we have no problem with covering that shortfall within the DPAC fund without the need for any additional external resources. The parking fund, however, is a bigger concern. I haven't seen the full year end projections to know where we're going to end with total fund balance. But we had some funds going into this fiscal year and it will be close as to whether or not we'll have enough to cover this fiscal year. And as I mentioned last week at the budget retreats, the parking fund is definitely something we're going to need to discuss and figure out how we're going to deal with that for next year. Because with no one parking, as you can see, the revenues are just not able to cover all the costs there, so more to come on the parking front in a larger conversation. Great. Thank you for that. My next question is, I noticed that I love reading in these reports through the CIP projects and seeing the status of those projects. I noticed one was the MRF permitting application under solid waste. The MRF permitting application was completed. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant in terms of next steps, or if I really understood that correctly, this is not exactly a, and this could be a question that someone could send me in an email or something like that. But I'm interested in what the next steps on that MRF facility are, I'm very excited about the potential for that project. So anyone want to comment on that or would you all just rather send me, I see again, the city managers here? Yes, Mr. Mayor, we would first like to say we'd like to send you additional information when staff is available. But what I can say is that this is primarily professional services and design services. So we would not have at this point information about projected development, investment type costs. What we have done so far is had the council approve for us the professional services that are moving us in the direction of having that MRF. But we can certainly provide additional details. Yeah, if there's any more, I know that you're very early days, but thank you so much. That would be great. All right. My next question relates to the transit fund. And if I read this correctly, it looks like that we were able to basically, when I look at that fund, there are $12 million in taxes that usually go there or would have gone there this year. But it looks like that revenue was replaced essentially by the federal funding related to COVID relief. Is that true? Is that what I did I get that right, Mr. Allure? The work you are looking at that correctly, yes. Well, the revenue for the taxes is still there. But in addition to that, we also got the federal grant revenue. So yeah, we got the tax revenue. But it looked to me. So what happens? It looks like let me put it another way. The way I read this, we didn't need to use that tax revenue. So it is accumulating in the transit fund right now. OK. All right. So it'll be there as a reserve in the transit fund at this point. At this point, that's where it is. And until we intentionally move it somewhere else, that's where it will stay. OK, great. All right, thanks. That was that question. And then could you all, one of you all, whoever is most suited for this, give me a refresher on the allocation of the impact fees? We've got such an I'm always interested in looking at the various zones and how different they are in terms of the impact fee collections. We've got quite a lot of dollars in at least one of the zones related to street impact fees. And I think our total impact fee collections now are I think we're sitting on about $31 million. And I know it's, is the allocation, are they simply allocated into the CIP projects through the CIP process? Is that what happens? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead, John. Yes, it's deemed another funding source among many funding sources within the CIP. Certainly, we were encouraged by the acceleration of collections, the rate of collections this year. And that speaks to the amount of development, which we certainly spoke at last week in the retreat. But it becomes a factor, one of many funding sources for CIP projects, such as streets, recreation projects, Yeah. OK. All right, thank you. I couldn't remember if there was some other way in which that got used, but that's what I needed to know. Thank you. All right, colleagues, any other questions on the report? Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Could I get someone to explain to me exactly what exhibit four is showing? That is on slides page 13 and 14 of the report. Bear with me as I scroll down there. That's a payments made for liability claims. Sure, so as part of our risk retention fund, we're self-insured for general liability claims up to a million dollars per claim. So we are sharing with you those payments that were made during the quarter to cover liability claims against the city. Some of them are claims that are ongoing, so perhaps legal fees associated with an ongoing claim or a payout for if we ran over somebody's mailbox or backed into a car or something like that. Payments to individuals for damages that they've sustained that were the fault of the city. So this doesn't, so what I'm hearing is if I see a name and an amount on this list, that doesn't mean that whatever's incident triggered that particular payment, it doesn't mean that that's done. It could just be some ongoing expense due to litigation or something else. Correct, these are just payments for claims during this time period. Great, that was the question I was getting at. Thank you, appreciate it. That's all I had, Mr. Mayor. But I think Council Member Freeman has raised her virtual hand. I don't know if she meant that for this time or last time. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, I appreciate that, Council Member Freeman. I just wanted to, I had two questions, but I wanted to follow up on Mayor Schulz's question about the funding coming out of General Fund for solid waste. Is that the same thing for parking? So wherever the shortages, whatever the shortages is, is that all coming from the General Fund? No, so the shortfall in the solid waste fund is being covered by funds that have accumulated in the solid waste fund. Okay. The parking fund is going to exhaust all of its own resources and we are going to have to find additional funding to help out the parking fund for the future. I don't need that help. And you mentioned that the ballpark and D-PAC and there was one other. The D-PAC fund has sufficient funds of its own to cover its shortfalls this year and the ballpark also has sufficient funds within its own accumulated funds to deal with its current situation. So if this were to become a multi-year situation, can you give like a just a rough guesstimate of where we might end up in year two of that kind of happen if we have to just use the funds to cover the shortfall? Well, it's going to vary by fund and magnitude. So it's a little difficult to answer that question. We'd have to have a conversation about each specific fund and the amount of resources that each fund has and because we have similar to the General Fund has a multi-year financial plan. We have multi-year financial plans for all of our funds. So we'd have to look at each of them individually to see what do we have right now? What's the magnitude of future revenues and expenses to be able to help with that? And if I could make that request to get something in that format that looks specifically at each fund over the multiple years and kind of comparison because acknowledging that the personnel side is different from kind of lost revenue and that kind of unless we're not having a conversation about cutting jobs in that area yet but if we're not paying attention to it it's possible that that to come up. I certainly add that section three of the budget has all of the funds, the major enterprise funds with a multi-year component over a five to six-year horizon and that will certainly be updated for the manager's presentation on May 17th. Mr. Allure, maybe you could go ahead and forward last this that section from last year's budget to us in an email, that would be helpful. So we could see. Yeah, and just noting for section three even if it just splits out personnel from like revenue. Madam manager? I was about to just add one point about the multi-year needs and why we are constantly updating our multi-year projections. We didn't mention it today in this meeting but I believe Mr. Ford has mentioned it in the past. When we did the refunding this year that refunding because of the conditions that occurred made our negative impact on the parking fund less, less negative. I know we've mentioned it before but I just wanted to bring it up as an example of how the, we're constantly refining all of the multi-year projections and sometimes conditions cause those things to be different. Thank you, Madam manager. Any other comments or questions for Mr. Boyd or Mr. Allure? I did have one more, but it escaped me right at this point but I will circle back around just before two days. You can always send them an email prior to next Monday. All right, Mr. Allure and Mr. Boyd, thank you so much. We appreciate you. Okay, we're now moving to item 22 and Madam Mayor Pro Temp pull this item and that is the supplemental item interlocal agreement regarding the emergency rental assistance. Madam Mayor Pro Temp. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have some questions about this interlocal related to some concerns I've heard in the community about the speed at which the county is processing requests for rental assistance, that there have been some delays in the program that it's been difficult for residents to access. And I know there's some folks from social services who are available to talk a little bit about the program and how things have been going and want to thank them for being here on short notice. And thank you, Reginald. You're welcome, Mayor Pro Temp, Reginald Johnson, director department of community development. We do have Mr. Ben Rose, who is director of the Durham County Department of Social Services on the call and he'll be able to at least initially respond to your question. Thank you. Mr. Rose. Madam clerk and maybe Madam clerk, why don't you also make Janine Gordon available to be heard because Ms. Gordon may also want to respond. I think that she's here with Mr. Rose. Mr. Rose, welcome. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, wonderful. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for the invite. And yes, Ms. Gordon is here with me as well too. I appreciate the feedback. We have definitely been learning a lot of lessons over this past year as we have been handling these emergency programs that have kind of come to us very quickly. The two big ones of course that we have dealt with is the one that we do have had with the city currently which is the community development block grant CBE funds. And the other program that we currently have ongoing that we're continuing to administer is the HOPE program. The HOPE program was a little different in the sense of how it came about. It was, there was a portal for that for people to apply for services through the 211 system and DSS kind of became the back end of the processing of the applications and then getting the checks out. So HOPE was a little different. The CV program was a little more of the traditional program that we have been used to administering like we do our eviction diversion and so forth. So these programs have definitely taught us a lot about how to manage these funds and to try to efficiently get them out. We've heard the concerns too about the efficiency. One thing I would point out is with these funds there is a lot of income verification and documentation that we have to secure to be compliant with the funds that we are receiving because these funds are definitely subject to audit. So I think that process is not always an easy process. We do have times where households and clients that are applying for services will not respond and provide information timely. So we have to pin the application. There are a lot of barriers and things that definitely play a part into that. However, I think we've done a pretty good job working through those processes and getting these funds out. We've spent a predominant amount of the CV funds. Most of those have been expended and the HOPE funds we continue to administer those funds and get those funds out the door. As we talk right now, I sign often when I go into the office I'm signing about 60 to 100 HOPE vouchers with some large amounts. So I think there is, understand room for concern but I do believe we have really worked to try to improve and streamline those processes. Another aspect that we're looking at for the future funds here with what's called the ERAB, the emergency rental assistance is these funds do provide us some administrative dollars to again continue to have temporary staff to help because that is one thing that we need. And then we're gonna hopefully be able to look at purchasing very quickly some automation and software to help both with the processing in and with the access point. That has been one obvious challenge with access. Being working in a COVID type of world, we have different services and DSS altogether right now we're contactless in many ways. And the HOPE program did give us that two on one advantage. So we're trying to kind of create that portal with these ERAB funds by looking at some software. We've actually, and Jeanine is here, she can talk a little more to the software but we've been looking at three, I think three demonstration projects and we're hoping to make decisions this week about purchasing some software equipment that will allow for easier access to online applications. Another goal that we have with these funds is to partner with some nonprofit agencies to look at improving access, especially in those communities where the access and disparities and equities are not always where they need to be. So we're trying to increase access and those communities as well. So we're looking to partner with some nonprofits perhaps to provide portals of entry to these funds. We're gonna be targeting these funds at 50% AMI and targeting them at people that have not received benefits already through the HOPE program or through the CV program. So that hopefully we can help these funds get to people that have not received that assistance yet and prevent them from having a housing issue. Another positive thing that happened is the Chief District Court Judge Evans has actually put out an order to hold all phone eviction hearings. So we have bought some time that I think will help us get this program up and going and functioning as well. That couple with a lot of outreach, I believe we can do a good job in getting these funds out to the community fairly efficiently. I'll let Ms. Gordon follow up with anything I said. She may want to follow it because she's more in the day-to-day management of and then making speak more about the efficiencies as well too. I'll turn it over to Jeanine for a minute. Thank you and good afternoon. I appreciate being here this afternoon. And I really want to address Mayor Pro Tem's concerns about timeliness. I think that having that pain point brought to our attention, not just here but in other areas is one of the reasons why we kind of pulled together a group to really figure out how can we go from application to payment in the shortest amount of time possible. That's really why we're trying to pull together a group of landlords to work with in the most efficient way, pulling in community members to help us help those individuals who may have language barriers or access barriers or fear barriers to have access to these applications as quickly and efficiently as possible and to have a data management tool like Director Rose spoke of that is actually integrated into our systems to be able to try and get that approval process as fast as we can. We did have challenges during the HOPE program about getting all the documentation. But hopefully when we get our data agreement with several other entities, including hopefully with the state, we can get all of those documentation that we uploaded to the state's portal to be able to have access to that so that we can move forward already with that documentation in place. So we have some strategies in place to try to really streamline that process down. I know there were other questions, so. Thank you, Ms. Gordon and thank you, Mr. Rose. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think it would be helpful to get some information about how long it's taking now from when people apply for them to actually receive assistance because I don't actually have any data. I have some people have communicated to me some concerns, but I don't know the specifics. So if it's possible before our meeting to get some specific information about how long it's taking people from when they applied to actually get funding and how long it's taken to get the first batch of funding out the door, I think that would be helpful. And I'd like us to consider potentially doing funding, sending some of this funding to the county, but also supporting other organizations in the community that do similar work there. I know there are some immigrant funds, funds that focus on immigrant residents who are ineligible for the original, who have been ineligible for stipends and helping those folks with assistance. I know that Legal Aid is distributing hope funds for a number of counties out of their office in Raleigh. So I think there are some options for us if we didn't want to move forward with doing, moving the whole eight million to the county that we could put part of it into the county's program and also support some other local initiatives. That's all I've got, thank you. Thank you. Is there staff that would like to comment on that before we move to other questions by members of the council? Yes, I would, Mr. Mayor. One of the things we did look at was going the nonprofit route and that's going to, one, we do have to be careful about procurement and how do we decide on which organizations that we need to participate with, which will lengthen the process. We already have this money, but we need to just waiting on treasury to issue additional guidance on getting it out. That's one of the reasons as we outlined in the memo that we wanted to partner with the DSS because they already have a good portion of the infrastructure already in place. And if we start looking at others, then we will also have to build that infrastructure which has some complexities to it that we have to balance. So I would just offer that as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Madam Mayor, pretend many other questions before we move on. One person. Nope, yeah, I would just appreciate hearing other folks' thoughts and ideas. It seems like DSS is working to improve their infrastructure, but I am concerned that it seems that right now it's not working very well and people are in a crisis now and it's taken a really long time to get that first batch of money out the door. Even if we were to move half of it to the county, it would take a number of months to actually distribute that funding. And during that time, we could be putting out an RFP for other sources. I'm not sure that splitting it up would actually functionally slow it down, but definitely a lot to consider. Thank you. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, I have several questions and I appreciate, you know, I've had these conversations with community development folks and I think they were having some conversations with some of our refugee resettlement organizations and folks who provide assistance within the immigrant communities because I very much consistently hear that people are very resistant to going to DSS for a myriad of reasons. And this issue keeps coming back. It came back, it came last summer when we got the original CDBG money. I'd like to hear from DSS. So what I thought I just heard was you all got a little bit over a million dollars of rental assistance, I think in August and that money still hasn't been fully spent down. So that's one question I have. And so if I'm not mistaken in the memo, it says we have until the end of 2021 to get those funds distributed. And so if we haven't gotten the initial little bit over a million distributed in these many months, what is the plan to get a much larger amount of money out into the community? I'd like to understand what the length of the application is. I'd like to know if people can self-certify it on income. I know that was a question that it didn't seem like we were going to be able to do that, but I wanted to have some confirmation on that. I wanted to understand, a lot of our folks aren't on formal leases. So what's the process around that? And then finally, if we do have some administrative money, we're learning, we've learned this with COVID, this idea of navigators through a process. I have, you know, had to use Medicaid, I've had to use food stamps and it is a pain. It is a lot of information. I have a college degree and speak two languages. So if it's hard for me, then I know it's hard for a lot of folks and we don't have the time with the eviction crisis, we've got to make our stuff easier for people. And that burden is on us. It's not on the people who are coming to get services. So I'd like to hear a little bit about the length of the application and then what is the plan, because it needs to be aggressive from getting $8 million out into the community. All right, Mr. Rose or Ms. Gordon, would you all like to comment? I'll start off and then I'll let Janine wrap around with a couple of those as well too, especially with strategies going forward. I think one issue that happened with the CV funds is the hope funds came available and we had to get those spent by the end of December. So we diverted away from CV and really focused on hope for during the months of October, November, December and into January and we're still getting the hope funds out. So I think that's one reason why there's still some CV dollars probably on the table. And I definitely hear you about, we've had that conversation before about the concerns about coming to DSS and navigating DSS. That's one reason why I think we really wanted to focus on some community partners for this process to really places where residents would feel comfortable going because they may not feel comfortable coming to DSS and they could go there and make that application and start to get access to those services based on the partnerships that we established. I think the city was really interested in doing that and we were as well too. I think we need to definitely work on creating ease of access. That is one reason why we wanted to look at potentially the software package because these companies have built these software packages, especially for these rental assistance or trying to make it an ease of applying and an ease of getting the application in. The applications themselves with ERAP are based on what ERAP demands. You're right in terms of it does not appear that we're gonna have to verify income, we're gonna have to verify leases and so forth. There is a little bit of flexibility, it seems that may be coming. The guidance unfortunately is still being written for ERAP because when you had to change in the administration on January 20th, they have now come in and they're actually still updating the guidance. So we do not have full and final guidance even with the emergency rental assistance program at this point. We're looking for it daily, but obviously there are some guiding principles that are there for it. But yes, we're not gonna be able to self-certify income. We're gonna have to verify income, which is one reason why a system would definitely help us there. Janine, would you like to address the length of time issue and what you're seeing with the current use of funding there? Well, our current use of funding outside of the HOPE program, because the HOPE program is a little bit without outside of our sphere of influence. Our traditional ability to move money in five to seven business days is our typical model. I mean, we have people come in, we're able to turn it around with documentation with two or three days and then we can cut a check. And that's kind of what we're hoping for as the ideal to be able to push those dollars out within that seven to 10 business days. So that is our kind of our benchmark that we're going for because we don't want people to have to wait months as Mayor Partim indicated, like has happened with one of our other larger programs that we identified that that was a huge problem. The other that you had identified, Chair Caballero was the ability to reach individuals who have not yet been reached due to documentation status, language, those items that are even refugee status. And that's one of the things that we've already started with the partnership with the city to reach out to those groups to make sure that with a mobile access application that they definitely do not need to darken the door of DSS. They do not have to set foot in DSS. They can do this completely with a navigator that we are looking at partnering with nonprofits with so that they can with the help of someone that they trust and they know can complete that application, can easily get whatever the documentations are. We are trying to really figure out a way, although the income is kind of the most stringent one. We're trying to work out how to get lease agreements in place that don't jeopardize the placement of the person. That's really important to us. So, we're still working out how to make all of this work for all of our residents because having safe and stable housing, we know is a huge driver of health and it's a huge driver of our economy. And that's why this is such a priority for our partnership with the city to ensure that every resident has a place to reside. Council Member Caballero, any other questions or comments at this time? No, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gordon. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I appreciate Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Caballero's questions and the responses that were shared. I do feel like that the sentiment is still not being heard in that there should be a task force in place to address this specific issue, acknowledging just how hard it has been for folks to find the resource and then to use the resource in place. Acknowledging not only are the language barriers or documentation issues a factor for people who are citizens of this country with documentation, it's also been a barrier. And I'm hearing the stories of folks who just haven't seen a response at all. And so I really would love to have some process in place to track what's happening because I don't feel really confident in how the operations have been going since August of last year and then up until now. I will note that I acknowledge that when we do divert to community partners that there are administrative fees and that's less dollars going out the door. And so I'm mindful that it's probably best to move forward with the DSS, but I do wanna make sure that acknowledging I've submitted a resolution today to make sure that we're moving forward to ask for more funds to become available in the future as funds are available. I would like to see the community development department actually look at how to set up the infrastructure to do the work, to make sure that funds do go out the door with whether it's through city staff or a community partner or what have you but something has to be done to make it a lot more simpler. I feel like the DSS system is not set for this and we're trying to make it fit and they're doing as best as they can. I don't begrudge Ms. Gordon or Ms. Thoreau's. I know that they've been spending countless days and nights trying to address all the needs of the county and including the city. And so it's overwhelming and I don't think that it should sit just with the two departments in the county. I do think that there should be constant conversations and I would like to be a part of those conversations. I do know that I sit in a very different position in the nonprofit organization that serves a predominant cross-section of Spanish speakers who are often undocumented and there are so many families, I mean, that stories I can't even tell you of people who are facing such disparate impact in COVID and this is not just the, this is not just to solve the problem kind of issue. It's really like these are the issues that were there before and now's the chance to actually do something different and figure out how to move us forward from this so that we don't return to what was. Because I can tell you, people don't have leases. They don't have documentation for income and they're managing as best as they can from where they are and we're not coming up with solutions that are going to address the marginalized, the most marginalized in this community and it feels very underwhelming. I mean, I'm saying all that acknowledging always first and foremost, this is not something that sits at the feet of the county or of the community development department. It's something that we as a council and as a community have to figure out how to get behind and grapple with because these are the people in our community we're saying that we want to help and the help is just not there. So the dollars are there and they're not moving and there's this bottlenecking that keeps occurring and it's not just with this, it's with so many other programs. And so I want to be really clear and saying that I think that this should be something that is set as a task force that has many hands and ears at the table both at the community level and elected level as well as staff because it's not something that staff is going to be able to cover by itself. Thank you council member. Thank you. Mr. Rose. Yes, if I can. Mr. Rose, let me ask you a question. You all have received the city CDBG funding and the HOPE funding. Can you give me an estimate of approximately the total amount of rental assistance money that you all have had in those programs to allocate during this time? Yes, so and Janine, I'm gonna ask Janine to help me with the exact figures because I'm gonna give you estimates. I don't have anything in front of me. The estimates are fine. The CD funds I believe for about 1.1 million, I believe in that allocation with no admin funds. So we did prop those funds up with our current staff and HOPE funds. We did receive an additional allocation of HOPE funds due to the amount of applications that came through when they first opened up the program with 2.1.1 and I believe total there, it's around 6 million that is going out to clients. So in all, you've had around $7 million. A little over $7 million, yeah. Yeah, and how much of that money can you estimate has actually gone out the door at this point? Janine, help me with this. I know for the, I haven't seen the most recent HOPE number so I'm gonna rely on Janine because she manages that daily. I signed the vouchers but I don't add them up. Yeah, Ms. Gordon. I know roughly what the DSS portion of the Durham County applications are. The state took some of those applications to process at the state level with state terms and state dollars, which were different than the counties. So that makes it a little bit tricky. I know that we received approximately 2,700 applications. We at the county level processed over 1,800 of those applications and have put out almost a little, I think it was right around $3 million. And the CDBGCV funds have now been exhausted. So that would push us over 4 million out of the seven. And the other 3 million, so it sounds like, let me see if I'm understanding correctly, you still have some 900 applications to process and there's still $3 million roughly remaining of the HOPE funds, is that right? We have processed every application that we were left with. I see, so those others go with the state? Correct. Does the $3 million that remains is that the state is processing those or are you all, I mean, those dollars or are you all? Those actually go out of the state funds. They are not coming out of the county funds, which makes it a little bit difficult for me to say because I don't have access to that information. Well, what I guess I'm hearing then is that you all received the HOPE funds when? October, October 15th. And you've now exhausted all of the local applications and all of the local funds that you have to give out through the HOPE funds? Correct. Okay, so that's important information to me. And I appreciate receiving that. When were the HOPE funds exhausted? Is that recent? We stopped processing the applications on the 31st of January, which was the deadline that we were given. We were only open for 26 days, which meant that we had to process those 1800 applications between the 15th of November and the 31st of January. And we had to work within the process set by the state. So between the 15th of November and the 31st of January, you processed approximately 1800 applications and exhausted the locally available HOPE dollars. Well, three million, yes. Okay. Okay. And yeah, all right. Other questions or comments, colleagues? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. Of the 1800 applications, can you say how many other applications were not processed or were not moved forward? So all applications were processed, all 2700 applications were processed, not all of them were approved. But out of the 2700, we know over 2200 of them were approved. Based on the data that the state has provided us for their applications, as well as those that we've processed. So we know approximately 500 applications out of the 2700 roughly were not approved. Now, whether that is because the landlord wouldn't agree to take the money or the application wasn't completed, that level of minutia I do not have at this time, but it was a dual part application, just as this one moving forward is as well. But that's why we've already started our landlord engagement process. And if I could ask, if there were a possibility to get into the minutia, what that might look like in a form of support, could you spell that out? Could you be a little clearer about your question? So if you were to ask for help on being able to dig into the weeds of why some of the applications are not being approved because I feel like there's quite a few folks that I know that have raised the issue about not hearing back from DSS on an approval, what would it look like to kind of track back through because those families still need help? Absolutely. If you were approved, you would have already received your letter from the HOPE program. In fact, typically you weren't approved. Typically you are already gonna get a letter from the HOPE program, whether that's at the DSS level or the state level, about where you are along the process, including whether you've been approved or whether you have not been approved. And the not approved folks, you just vanished into thin air? They do not vanish into thin air. We still have their application. Should something have changed while the HOPE program was open? That could have potentially changed. Unfortunately, the HOPE program was only open for 26 days. Ms. Gordon, did you say that people who are not, who do not, whose application is not approved also receive communication? Yes. So if you're not approved, you hear that you're not approved, is that correct? That is correct. Okay. And is there any tracking on that so that there's a way to come back and say, so for someone who may have been a non-English speaker and they received a letter in English that we could at least track back to say that this is what you should have received? So all the documentation would have come from Salesforce, which is the data keeping tool that the state used. Now, whether it was in English or Spanish or not, I'm not certain that they were able to be multilingual like our program will be. Yeah. And then just noting some, not much of that information will end up in like the NC CARES 360 platform either. Not much of that information. I mean, all the Salesforce talk specifically to NC CARES 360. It does not connected to NC CARE 360, no. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Colleagues, other questions or comments at this time? Council member Cavallaro. Yeah. I had one final question with the data that is collected. What is, and this is to the, and you brought this out, Ms. Gordon, around the fear component. There is a lot and legitimate fear around the public charge issue for folks with, depending on their immigration status, do you have any sense how that's going to be handled? What should we be able to tell folks? Once this thing, if we approve this item as a council and DSS is managing it, what are the conversations you've all have had about that? This has been, I can tell you the early guidance has shown that this will not be a public charge issue. Reginald may can follow up on that. I have not seen any new guidance to contradict that. So I don't think that is an issue. So it's a matter then of how we message and get that message out for people not to have that fear that this will come back to hurt them for other potential public benefits or any other situation they may face. Is that what you're seeing still Reginald that there's no impact of public charge here? Mr. Johnson, you are. Yes, that's what we're seeing so far to that. I would just add that we appreciate the conversation that we've had about the HOPE program, which was complex and controlled and managed by the state. And we were aware in community development because we had initially put our funds in a community development block grant funds with the DSS and then HOPE funds came into existence which has a tighter, tighter timeline and a more structured demands from the state and the part that I would want to share is one that we in community development have to be sensitive to is the regulations that come with the funding and the timing that comes with the funding and how we're able to get that out. It's quite frankly, very complex. I spent many hours along with our team, trying to get to even to this point because we do have the money in our possession but we do need to ascertain the way to get it out most efficiently and effectively. And so one of the things that we're looking at in this doing this is a little different from the previous two allocations is to have outreach effort. That's the part we're doing research on. Still need to get guidance from the Treasury Department but we're trying to come up with some backup plans to even touch with the approach, the language challenges as well as the cultural challenges in terms of outreach. And so we're looking at that as we shared in the memo. But in some respects, we're working on this as we're developing the process, recognizing that the need is there, the need is there today and that we're trying to meet it. So it is challenging, it is complex but I think we have a plan to be able to move forward. Mr. Johnson, in the memo, there's a paragraph that says in addition, the city is researching the ability contract directly with Watermore non-profit providers to provide support for individuals who may face barriers such as language, education or technology access to applying for assistance. If possible, the city intends to pay for these contracts with ERAP funds that can be utilized for case management. If upon further guidance from Treasury, this is not an option, then the city may use dedicated housing funds to support them. Yes, sir. Is that still alive? Is that still a goal of the department to partner with one or more of these non-profit providers? Yes, that is a goal that we have. We actually were talking with purchasing just yesterday, the day before yesterday in terms of how we are able to do that in the timeframe. That's another thing that we have to balance because we want to have this program started probably the end of March, the middle of March as you're sharing the memo, but we need to have the outreach to occur before it is released. So this is February the 18th. And so you can imagine, so it's two sets of things going on in terms of outreach. One is just how people know about it. And so we have a plan for that in working with DSS, convening landlords, convening renters, associations and just having a broad campaign to make people know about it. That's one piece. Then another piece is to report that we're talking about in what you just read is to actually have people that can help other persons to be able to explain the process and help them guide them through the process so a bit of hand-holding. That part we'll have to pay for because that's gonna be more involved. And of course, we have to figure out how we're doing. That's the part we're researching. Of course, it involves some complexities because of treasurer's rules, which have not been issued, mind you, say that it's a no-go, then we have to figure move to a plan B or C to be able to do that. But our goal and our commitment is to make it happen because it's the right thing to do. But understand that we have to also manage the complexities and the nuances of the rigs and making this happen. I didn't realize that the treasurer's rules hadn't been issued yet. That is a... And just to be clear, Mr. Mayor, that this is a little different in this way and this is a major difference is that normally when we receive funds, we also have received the guidance and the rules that comes with the money. In this, we've received the money, but we have not received the rules. And we're trying to get it in place. The need is there and people, the people in need, but we need to be careful about how we just formulate this program. And so this is one of the things that you're hearing in this conversation and the reason we've made the decisions that we have, understanding we still need gaps that are filling, but we don't fill them as quickly as we can. Thank you. All right, colleagues. Other questions or comments? Council Member Freeman and then Council Member Reese. Just to follow up real quickly, just asking Mr. Johnson, if you're working with the folks in community, I'm sorry, in neighborhood improvement services specifically, acknowledging that they have already folks in the community who are creating those relationships and just making sure that the connections are continued across the board because I don't know that that will carry through to the county. And if there's a way to make sure that that carries through to the county, that would be really helpful. Yes, and we've already talked with neighborhood improvement services, community engagement, they're already on board. We've already had conversations with them about the steps that we're going to take. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the information about how the county spun up to distribute funds through the HOPE program and understand the obstacles that they faced and the fact that there were requirements at the state level that made it take longer than I think they would have wanted. I wanted to ask one clarifying question about what happened before and then I have a question about the proposal before us. First of all, about before, am I right in hearing that DSS estimates they've received somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million in rental assistance funds and have only distributed, and I can't remember the HOPE number, either three or four million dollars, did I drop somebody somewhere or am I right about that? No, so Durham County received an allocation but the state is processing a portion of that allocation. So we have processed the portion that we have actually received and then the state is processing the other three million that's out there. Okay, excuse me, that's very, very helpful, thank you. So I guess my support for the agenda item relies pretty exclusively on whether or not DSS and the Community Development Department can deliver on what I now believe is an incredibly aggressive timeline of getting this program up and running within about four to six weeks. And on the one hand, and on the other hand, not, I don't have a good sense of how long it would take to fund alternate methods to get this money into our residents' hands for their very real rental assistance needs today, that would be faster if they really get it faster, then we're gonna have to live with whatever DSS and Community Development come up with and y'all just have to know that our community is desperate for this help and whatever support we need to move into that work, whether it's allocating funds from the dedicated housing fund or whatever it is, let us know as soon as possible. But I still haven't heard anything concrete on the other branch of that, which is I've definitely heard, Reginald, you telling us that the effort to qualify a vendor to provide that service for us and to get money to them is certainly significant. There is an obstacle there. But for example, we already have a grant funding relationship with Legal Aid. As far as I understand it, we're paying for a lot of things for their eviction diversion program. We received a letter from Legal Aid not long ago that said they are perfectly capable of distributing rental systems along the same funding pathways. So I don't really understand, unless there are some other funding, because this money is gonna come from a different source, that there have to be a whole new approval process. But I would like to hear, on the one hand, do y'all really think that in four to six weeks you can spin this up and get money to the people that need it? But on the other hand, what are the real obstacles and what is the actual timeline if we wanted to try to do some other sort of avenue to distribute this money to the community? Because my concern isn't who we give the money, what organization we give the money to, that is immaterial to me. What matters to me is that we get money in people's hands as soon as possible because folks are suffering now. So that's the questions I have. Thank you, Reginald. Council member, I would give you one example that stands out right front. Up front is the software system that needs to engage. So Legal Aid does not have the software system that we need to be able to manage this. And then to be honest with you, having multiple software systems is a challenge that is fun because we are charged with a duplication of benefits issue, which means that persons can't get the funding for multiple sources. But you have to have the software to do that. One of the reasons to go with DSS, and most certainly I hear the comments about DSS is they already have part of the software in place versus going to two things. Because I just mentioned the software, but you're also gonna have to pay the staff of the nonprofit to do the work where you're not necessarily engaging in that cost from DSS or Community Development, which is another piece. And then we have to design our contracts so this is the third piece to take all of that into account. So if I could intervene here to just to say, I wouldn't just to be clear, we in Janine please help me here, but I would not claim that we have the software yet either. That's why we've been looking at demonstrations. So I'm not gonna, I wanna be very transparent. We do not have the software system up and running. So that is something that is a barrier because as you know, it's not easy to get this up and going. And we are relying on funds from the ERAP administrative side to help fund that potentially. And I just wanna say too, just as the DSS director, I want to say that we are by no means opposed to legal aid administering these funds. I don't want you to think that we're trying to just compete and we want these funds exclusively. We want to do what's right for the community. We're here to serve our community, but if you feel these funds are better in another entity, we will not, we totally, we would support that effort because one conversation I've already had with Karen and Reginald is legal aid obviously is a source of potential clients in need. And could that be one place that we go to first to try to get benefits to using, they're seeing the clients in need. They're dealing with them. So, but on the flip side, I want you to understand that we don't, we want what's best for the community. And if you feel as an entity, another agency can do it better. The DSS is typically not in this business. As you know, this is definitely not our, if you look across the state, you don't find DSS is doing a lot of housing programs and how, and rental assistance and eviction diversion. There's a few, but not many. It's usually done either in the nonprofit world or the city side of things. So we would, you know, we're gonna be team players. We want to be partners and we will support whatever you decided. If you want to go with legal aid or with another entity, we will do all we can to support that. We have a county allocation as well. We did get, we secured about 1.2 million from the county side. So we've got that. We can look to focus on that and then support other entities if you feel that is best. I want to just be very transparent that we're here to do what's best for the community in the end. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to respond to that and say, Ben, I really appreciate you saying that. And I'm sorry if my frustration about the situation we find ourselves in led you to believe that I thought y'all were trying to give you the money. I know- Not at all. The opposite. We, the city have come to you and said, will you please help us get this money to the people that need it? You're gonna be doing this regardless because you did, as you said, you got the 1.2 million dollar allocation to the county. So we totally understand, I mean, I totally get the fact that you're doing us a favor by even negotiating this agreement with us and being willing to sit here and listen to us, ask lots of annoying and frustrating questions about why the money isn't getting out faster when you don't need that. I totally get that. So if I gave you a different impression, I apologize. No, no, no, no apology. I've appreciated the discussion. And look, we're sensitive to it. We understand. We understand DSS has a perception in the community that it's not always positive. Yeah, we try to message a whole, as being a community-friendly supporting agency, but yes, we understand and we understand there's a lot of ingrained fears with DSS even. So we're here to be partners and definitely support whatever is best for our citizens. That's what we want to do. And if it's Austin, we will work our hardest to get it out. But I wanna be clear, we do need the staff. We have, with the HOPE program, we had administrative funds that allowed us to hire temporary staff. Well, you can already imagine the challenges with temporary staff. They turn over quick, you lose them, you get someone in, they find a permanent job somewhere. There's nothing easy here. So if there is another entity that has a more stable situation, again, we want what's best for the residents. But thank you, Mr. Mayor, and then I'll be done. I just wanted to say how grateful I am, again, to DSS for partnering with us to put this plan together. Also wanna thank our staff. This is not well-covered territory. We're basically, as Reginald tried to say, we're building the train as it's going down the tracks. I'm trying to make sure we actually get to the destination and still can't figure out exactly what kind of fuel we're gonna use and what shape the wheels are gonna be and all the other horrible areas that this metaphor is dragging me down now that I've started using it. Anyway, but Reginald, I really appreciate you focusing my attention and maybe my colleagues too on the actual barriers to doing anything else at this point. Maybe next summer we can all sit down and have a post-mortem about what, in future global pandemics or other situations where we find ourselves in the need, yeah, there's gonna be more, where we find ourselves in the need to get rental assistance to folks very quickly. Maybe six months or a year from now we can come up with a post-mortem to look at what we could have done differently when it started, should we have started qualifying multiple folks in the community that could have access to these kinds of systems to distribute the money in case there were bottlenecks or other problems. But I appreciate you focusing us on the barriers to doing that today, which to me is more like the critical question we face. Also, and then I promise this is the last thing is I just wanna thank my colleagues, especially the Mayor Pro Tem, Council Member Caballero and Council Member Freeman who have been extremely persuasive today in convincing me that we've gotta do something else. If it makes any sense at all at this point. I think I went into the meeting, sharing and hearing from residents about their frustrations about the whole program and some other things about distributed, the way the funds have been distributed. But I think I would not be in the position I am right now without my colleagues having stepped up and clearly rationally and sometimes even with emotion talking about how we have to do better. And I know that even if this agenda item goes forward and change, even if the next on our next money meeting, it goes forward on the consent agenda as is, even if that happens, I know that the folks who are on the call with us today, the folks from County DSS, our staff are gonna hear our urgency and the urgency that our constituents are making sure that we come into meetings like this equipped with and we'll do everything that can of course and for our community. That's enough talking by. Thank you, Council Member. Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I would just say I've definitely heard the Council's concerns. I would just say I wanna make one clarification. Ben is correct. We know that he does not have the DSS, does not have the software. We are actually going to give a portion of our money to DSS so they can make sure they have enough resources to get the software. The point that I was making was that when we talk about duplication of benefits, it also includes the CDBG-CoV-CV as well as the HOPE funds, our bodies of funds that we have to do checks against for duplication of benefits. DSS already has that information versus us giving it to someone else, or them giving it to someone else for them to check as well. And so I just wanted to be clear on that point, but I would also definitely receive the comments of the Council. I would also say that the DSS did not mention that they do have a unit that does deal with public and the integrity of the application process that reviews application that's already built in. And that's something I have to be concerned about. I know we talk about the need that we have to address, but I have to, as community development, we're responsible for it all. And so that's something that we also have to look at as well. And I just want to be transparent about that also. Can I ask a question about income verification? In the memo you refer to the fact, Reginald, and maybe this is a question for Mr. Rose or Ms. Gordon, that the income verification, you all have a lot of, you're already income verifying for a lot of people for other programs. And that's clearly a strength that you all bring because you, but there are, I guess really, this is really a question for Mr. Johnson. If there was another organization that was to administer part of this, how would income verification occur in that situation? So that's a question that they will have to, both entities will have to do the same income verification. I know Ms. Lotto is on the line as well. So I don't know if she has any more details, but I'm not quite sure. I might understand your question that I'm not understanding your question. I'm not sure. I asked my question very well. I guess I was thinking that I'm wondering how income verification would, how does income verification happen? I'm, let me point like this. I read in the memo that one of the strengths of the social services partnerships is that there is income verification for a lot of people that's already pre-done because they know that for other programs. So somebody comes in, they're already income verified, or not everybody, but a lot of people. And, but I was wondering, so how does income verification happen if that doesn't, if that's not the situation? And if another organization had, you know, part of this money, how would income verification occur? Is that better? Yes, sir. This is Karen Lotto, Assistant Director of Community Development. So that's a good question. It's one of the factors we consider because we did evaluate whether we went with a third party partner or whether we went with the county and the county was very transparent in saying exactly what Mr. Rose said today. They wanna do what is best for the community. If right now we have been told by Treasury that we have to income verify, that we have to provide documentation for income. There was a hope that there would be a self-certification, but that has not materialized. In that case, a nonprofit that doesn't have access to the databases for Medicaid or LIHEAP that our means tested program, our goal is to be able to use, if you're already gone through a means tested program and you're deemed eligible, we don't wanna make you go through the income certification process again because that data are already there. But they would not be available, they're available to DSS and DSS is working on how to get access to them because DSS administers those programs. They would not be available to a third party. So we would have to go, I presume unless we could figure out a workaround, we'd have to just go through the regular of asking people to document income. And part of this really speaks to the challenge that we have with this program, which is in order to run this program, you need a certain infrastructure. You need staff, you need a software system, you need the ability to process payments. When the HOPE program, which both DSS and Legal Aid rolled out, the state provided the software system, the state provided the intake actually through 211. We don't have that now. So whatever partner we go with, whether that's Legal Aid, whether that's DSS, has to put that infrastructure in place. Neither, you know, no one has it outside of the state and some county program that had already built this capacity in their own county. We don't have it in Durham, we have to build it. So any partner we work with is going to have to go through building the infrastructure. It's one of the challenges around not wanting to have multiple partners who are doing the actual application processing because then we have to build multiple infrastructures and we have an enormous data reporting requirements to Treasury for this program. We need to be able to slice and dice data in lots of different ways and report it, which means we need to be aggregating that data in a way that lets us report it. So what we're trying to work with is a model where we create as user friendly and interface as possible. So that's the backend you apply through a web or phone portal. It gets processed on the backend that ideally you never even need to see, but that we're really trying to improve the ground game of outreach and application support because that's what gets people over the documentation hump, the fear hump, the language hump, that is a real barrier to people applying. Thank you, that was really helpful. Council member Caballero. Yeah, I appreciate all of that background. I know we've had this conversation before. And so I understand the pickle we're in. And I guess with the income verification, are we gonna be working? It's the income and the leases for me because it's gonna just keep so many people out that we who need the money and they have yet to access. I mean, there are so many go fund me and desperate pleas for rental assistance right now because there's very few pots for lots of folks to actually access. And when we have, and I understand that those criteria are not being set by us, I get that they're criteria from federal government. That needs to be communicated to people because what's gonna end up happening is that what the takeaway is at the community level is the city or the county don't actually hear. So that is one thing we need to let people understand very loud and clear that the criteria is not being set at the local level. This is something that was handed down to us. And then as we work with landlords and as we work with folks, and this is where the navigation exactly what you all are saying. I'm thinking about like the green light app folks who are working right now to get folks vaccinated. This is exactly what they're doing. They're registering people, they're having to dig deep when we have these mass vaccination events. And it's a lot of work to get folks into these systems. And I think that it can be done but it just has to be done very carefully and very well. But there's gonna have to be some really, really deep dive work with residents to get them, you know, if they don't have a landlord with their lease, why don't they have a landlord with their lease? Like let's get them on leases, let's get this figured out or they're not gonna qualify for this money. And these at this point these are honestly our most desperate residents as far as because they've gotten nothing. They didn't get checks in the mail like other folks did. They don't qualify for unemployment half the time. And so it's great that the immigration status issue and the public charge issue like people are thinking through that but then we still have these ridiculous barriers around income and leases that leave so many folks out of the equation and that we have to figure that piece out. I don't know the answer. I appreciate the hard work everyone is doing to get us there. And I just wanna ensure that we do the hardest piece I think about this. Thank you, council member. Council member Freeman. Thank you. I appreciate council member Cabrero running us back around to the area that I think I'm consistently gonna say it again. I don't feel like we're covering and acknowledging that this is not something that's internal to staff. And so I don't want to jeopardize any funding resource. I don't want to jeopardize any bond rating but I do think that we all hold a position in the city that could actually support making sure that if 211 is not in place there's a Facebook page that we're all dialed into in support of like seriously this is an infrastructure issue on the outside coming from the outside in and people don't care. They don't care about whether it's home or rap or CDBG they don't even know. And so when we're speaking in this language this is all internal. And yes, I believe staff comes up with the best solutions around how we can get it done as quickly as possible. But I don't think that it's on staff to come up with how we cover the folks who will fall through the gaps. That is on us. And so we have a recovery and renewal task force that hasn't had a housing component since it started. And maybe that's where we start. Maybe that's where we actually gain some ground and pulling folks together to have the conversation around specifically. We knew that the eviction issue was gonna create ripples and waves across the board for not just the renters but for the property owners. And what are we gonna do about it? It can all come from the dollars outside. I mean, there's a parts of pieces that we could pull together to come up with solutions around if we're talking to each other. Similar to how there was a whole housing round table around making sure that property owners felt comfortable taking the vouchers. I don't know what happened to it. It kind of fell off my radar. I don't think there were any additional meetings. But these are the conversations where people pour in, they show up, they come out, they give solutions, and then there's no follow up. And that's on us to keep this going or to pull it together. And us, I'm talking about specifically this council and county commissioners and any other electives who are interested in pouring into this housing conversation because it's not just something that staff is gonna be able to cover. I did want to note that the integrity of the application process is the piece that I think internally we're focused on but the integrity of actually making sure that people in the city are covered is the integrity piece that I'm focused on. And I don't feel like that's being heard. And so I appreciate council member Reese acknowledging that point. But I do think it's incumbent upon us to come up with something better than what we're talking about right now. I'm in full support of moving forward with the interlocal agreement and getting the funds out as quickly as possible. But I do think that it begs the question of what's gonna, what are we gonna do in a tandem with that? And I don't feel like that's that solution is coming up and this is the place to have the conversation. Thank you council member. Other comments, colleagues or questions? Okay, yeah, I'll just make a quick comment which is when I hear the actual record of DSS of getting the money out the door, I think the record is good. And that I do think that it is really, there are a lot of good reasons that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Lotto said to us that the memo contains for why this money should be at DSS. And I really appreciate Mr. Rosen, as Gordon's thoughtful responses about the issues that they have faced here to foreign and still face and their commitment to get this money out the door quickly. I do think that what I'm hearing from my colleagues and also from our staff is that, and read in the memo is the necessity for working with our other community partners for outreach around this. If money's not gonna be at these places because it's too complex, I get that and that makes a lot of sense to me. But I do think that we are going, this issue of how to get the information out about everything from what are the regulations and who sets them to how you access these funds, that's really gonna be critical. And we've had a lot of discussion about that today but just wanna second that. Any other comments, colleagues? Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Lotto. Thank you, Ms. Gordon and Mr. Rez. We really appreciate you all being here with us, especially for our friends from the county. We know that you all have been thrown into such a difficult position this year and you've responded admirably, not just in, I think about the work that you all have been doing with our homeless residents, the way you all have responded to them as well and so many other ways. So thank you so much. Thank you. All right, Council Member Reis. Mayor, I heard a huge amount of consensus. I'll move forward on this item but I also didn't hear any other path. So I'm wondering before we move to settle the agenda, where folks think this item ought to be on our next Monday night agenda? I mean, whether or not it should be on a consent agenda or a GBA? Yes, yes. Yeah, well, why don't we talk about that once we settle, okay? Yeah, we have one more item to do and then we'll settle. I will also say that when I grew up, ERAP, which is the name of this program, stood for the Economic Research Action Project of SDS. And a lot of you all are too young to remember SDS, Students for Democratic Society. But the objective of ERAP was to build an interracial movement of the poor. We don't remember it, Steve, but we read about it in our history books. Okay, great. Well, I remember it. Okay. Thank you all so much. I thought, Collin, great, great questions and discussion, really appreciated. It was challenging questions and important questions. We'll come back to what we do with our agenda in a minute. But first we have one other item, which is the attendance records, a priority item about the clerk. Madam clerk, why don't you help us a little and let us know what you did. I know you've written to us, but just refresh us and then we can maybe make the necessary decisions. Great. Okay, I'd be happy to do that, Mr. Mayor and Madam Mayor Pro Tem and Council. Some background on this issue, on February 4th, Council requested that the city clerk reach out to the members with attendance at 50% or below the standard percentage rate. And so the clerk's office, Paola Rowland, she reached out to 18 members from February 15th to the 16th. And she contacted 18, as I've said, three have since resigned, two remain non-responsive and the 13 other members have indicated a desire to remain on their boards. Now, my question is whether Council would like to continue with the virtual meeting guidelines in regard to attendance, meaning that attendance and excuses will, all non-attendants will be excused. Or if you wanna go back to the regular attendance policies that were established prior to the virtual. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Could you just say the numbers again? Lola wrote to 18 people who had attended less than 50% of the meetings. Right, they were at 50% or less. And what did she hear back? Well, three have resigned and two have been non-responsive to emails and telephone messages, voicemails, that sort of thing. And the 13 others who have varying attendance percentages, I would say from like 30 to the 50 have indicated they want to stay on the boards themselves. And a couple of them have said they've attended virtually, but they may have gotten to the meeting late and mis-roll call or they were attending in their car as Council has had experience with. So, there are various reasons. Yeah. For technical. Right. So colleagues, just to refresh, we did set a guideline, as the clerk had said, during COVID that we weren't going to be enforcing the 50% rule. And I wanna appreciate the clerk and the clerk's office for reaching out to these folks. Thank you, that was great. I'll tell you my thought and I'm happy to hear everybody's, those people that wanna stay, I think should be able to stay, especially during these situations. But anybody that is not responding to any kind of contact, you know, emails, has not been come to the meetings and is not responding. Apparently there are a couple of people who are in that situation. In my mind, I think that they should not be serving, but I'm happy to hear other thoughts. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, I just wanted some clarification and maybe that I missed it, but when we had this conversation previously, I thought we had left it with, we were gonna ask the chairs and vice chairs of the actual boards and commissions to kind of reach out and do that soft touch, because I think what ended up happening, and I get why we did it this way, I think typically there's just an automated letter from the clerk's office. And that's what we've done historically. And I think that what I had heard from some folks is that they just got the letter, hadn't actually been contacted by their chairs until after they received the letter. And so it kind of was a surprise. And in some cases, some folks got frustrated because it was the first that they'd heard about it. So the first thing that they're hearing or seeing is they get a letter from the clerk's office, which is formal saying, oh, you've missed 50% of the meetings and, you know, kind of now you're in trouble. That's not necessarily the intention, but that's how it was received by some commissioners. And so if think if we're going to, for the folks, we had said as a council early on during COVID times, we were going to be flexible. And then it appears then, oh, well, we weren't actually flexible. So I just wanna bring that up. I think for the folks who are not responding, I think that that makes sense, Mayor, what you just suggested. But I really wanna rely on the staff liaisons for a lot of our boards. There's chairs and vice chairs for a reason and really relying on those folks and giving them clear guidance because they're gonna have a more, you know, they have relationships with these folks that sit on these boards and commissions. Madam clerk. I'd like to defer to Paola Rowland about who she contacted. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Potem, members of the city council. I absolutely understand all of the feedback that we've received. I think reaching out directly to some of the commissioners and the board members was only done out of trying to get as much productivity and results and an answer as quickly as possible. When Diana and myself and Ashley discussed it, instead of going through the staff liaisons with the chairperson of each committee, but moving forward, I'm happy to just rely solely on those individuals to communicate anything from the clerk's office. Thank you. Are there questions or comments? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I appreciate Council Member Caviaro's thorough covering of how unfortunate the letters were received. I also just wanna note that the chairs might have updated information and so it's probably best to make sure that that's a part of that conversation before we even make a decision about the folks who might be unresponsive because if you're sending it to the wrong address or calling the wrong number because it was submitted on an application two to three years ago, I just wanna make sure that that step is taken and we don't just remove someone who's, I know in some of the emails or messages I received where they said that this was the first time they'd heard anything was the letter, just trying to make sure that we covered the basis because there are a lot of folks that we look to engage who don't normally engage with sitting boards and committees and just wanna make sure we take that extra step. So, thank you. Madam Clerk. Mr. Mayor and Council, I would like to let you know that the two individuals who are non-responsive have a zero and a 10% attendance rate for last year. Yeah, I just, I guess I have a different perspective than I have been hearing from my colleagues. I think if you're on a committee or commission and you're not coming to 50% of the meetings, you know you signed up for it. And, you know, this is not a, people have to take some of the responsibility for themselves. I have no patience for people who are attending no meetings or 30%. And it's a duty that you've signed up for. And I think our, I know that our commissions and chairs and clerks and liaisons have made a tremendous effort to get people to attend. And, you know, now reaching out to people with emails and letters and I don't know, for those people that aren't meeting the attendance requirements and now have been done, you know the clerk's office has gone the extra mile and contacted them and they want to continue to serve. That's great. They should continue to serve. But anybody that hadn't responded by this point and is attending very few meetings should not be serving. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. I think that it would be fine to give everybody a period of time by which they have to respond to the clerk if they haven't attended and haven't responded and then send them a removal letter. I agree it doesn't make sense for someone who hasn't shown up for a year and also isn't responding to our contacts to stay on. I also would support continuing the virtual meeting attendance requirements though so that no one is getting automatically removed from a board for low attendance that we continue the process of having those folks get contacted if their attendance is low to see if they want to resign or if they want to continue and try to improve their attendance. But for anyone who hasn't shown up and isn't responding to inquiries I think it's fine to just remove them. Other comments? Council Member Caballero. Yeah, and I know in most cases now at least on the boards and commissions that I'm liaison to a lot of the, there has been some direct contact or some feedback saying, yeah, we did try also or yeah, that person really hasn't shown up and it's very few people who have given is it just two or three, right? It's very few people who haven't responded in some way now. If it was lots of folks I would feel differently about it. And the folks who haven't been able to attend for the most part, they're there being honest and saying, yeah, you're right, I don't have the capacity for many reasons where I moved and so I've resigned my spot. Yeah. So, Madam Clerk, it sounds to me like for those two people who have attended zero and 10% and you've reached out to and haven't responded, it sounds to me like the council is supportive of you writing them a letter and saying thank you for your service but you're no longer a member. For others, the others, I think the actions you've already taken are the other 13 who you contacted. I think that's great. You do this annually? You do it at the end of the year for the full calendar year and then we do it at the halfway point. Okay, so twice a year. Okay. Council Member Rees? I guess before we take that step, I think it's fair to ask the chair of whatever board committee or commission those folks are on to send an email to the city clerk affirming that. Like I don't want to make sure that we know the clerk's office knows that the board chair tells us I've done these things that I cannot make contact with this person. I think that seems like a fair step to take before sending that removal letter. That's just me. Okay, Madam Clerk, can you do that? That's going the extra mile. That's going the extra 100 miles. Considering COVID, I think it's worth it. And Mr. Mayor, one more question. Do we want to continue the virtual meeting guidelines for the rest of 2021? Well, I think it's premature to say that but we certainly want to continue in for now and why don't we continue them and you can check in with us in a few months. Okay, that sounds great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, colleagues. We'll now hear from the clerk on the decisions we made on the appointment. All right, the nomination for the Raleigh Durham Airport Authority has been nominated to Tammy E. Hall and that was unanimous. All right, thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. All right, now we'll settle the agenda and Madam Manager. Before we settle the agenda, I know the council was going to have a little more discussion about- That's right, yeah. Right, thank you for the reminder. Colleagues, we need to discuss the disposition of item 22. We can certainly put that on GBA. Is that your preference? I'm going to put it on GBA then. I hear no preferences. If that's all right with the manager, we'll put that on GBA. All right, we have one nod, then I didn't see, so that's good enough. Madam Manager, go ahead. We have for your consent agenda, items one through 18, GBA, item 22, and GBA public hearings, item 19 through 21. Thank you, Madam Manager. You have heard the manager's recommendation to settle the agenda and I'll accept a motion. I moved. Seconded. Moved by Council Member Reece, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Hello, colleagues. I believe we've done it. There being no further business to come before this body, I'm going to adjourn this meeting at 3.06 p.m. and everybody stay safe and warm.