 Recording in progress, okay, no, we'll do it one minute to air We're streaming Well city strong we are here and city hall today on a beautiful Thursday may 19 2020 to at 1 p.m. for our work session. I would ask our clerk to please call the roll. I am present. I'm here. Here. Present. Present. Council Member Johnson. Here. Council Member Williams. Here. Thank you. All right. We will now turn to our announcements by council. Any announcements? This is your first work session. Dr. Mosley. Hi, ma'am. Well, I... This is a first work session. So thank you again. I made some announcements and I lost me. But I'd just like to say again, I am so happy to be part of the team working for the people of Durham. Thank you so much. We're glad you're here. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And welcome, Dr. Monique. I... Hosie, hi, ma'am. I don't wanna leave out. I am also excited you're here. But I did wanna just take a moment and just say, you know, this morning, making sure to mention that today being the birthday of El-Hazmalik El-Shabazz, it always puts on my mind the reminder to make sure that we're looking at how we address our formerly justice-involved folks in our community and providing opportunities for them to re-enter society, fully engaged. And so I just wanted to just take a moment and just say happy birthday to El-Hazmalik El-Shabazz, also known as Malcolm X. Additionally, I wanted to share, I had the opportunity to be a part of the Workforce and Economic Development retreat this morning, which is why I was running behind for our photo. I wanna make sure that I do note that there are openings in the department and we would definitely like to see them filled. And so just making sure that folks understand, know that those openings are out there. And that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Any further announcements? Councilman Williams. Yeah, I just wanted to say, this was Small Business Month and Durham is bouncing back pretty well. There were some small businesses in the city who saw the highest numbers that they've seen since well before the pandemic. And that's a testament to the support of our residents of the city of Durham and the tenacity of our small business community as well as the perseverance. And I'm looking forward to ensuring that we're positioning ourselves as a city to continue to support our small business community. The strong small business community creates a strong community. So, and thank you for those that I see in the audience for being here. Thank you. Thank you both. I just wanted to highlight our BIMBY that we'll be having on Saturday because it's always a great city-wide event. Please come out and join us at Whipple Wheel Park. I think we have Sunshine Anderson who will be performing out there. Most of us probably know her hit song and she was a graduate, I think of NCCU and there are a couple of, so it'll be a great time at the BIMBY. I've always enjoyed, have participated in it for many, many years and also just wanted to give a shout out to Hillside High School. We will be having a parade, I think, on Saturday morning. So for all of y'all who wanna come out and enjoy the band and all the floats and all the Hillside High School Hornets, we'll see you Saturday morning at 10, going right down Fayetteville Street. So it's gonna be a fun week in, in the Bull City and we hope you all are coming and participating in some of the various activities that will happen this weekend. It's at Rock Quarry Park and that's the one out there across the street from Durham Regional, Duke Regional in the back of it. Right there. Okay, so I'll be there with my dancing shoes on. So we will now turn to our priority items in that term. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Mary-Anneale. I wanted to bring to the attention of council that I would like us to pass a resolution in favor of abortion rights and reproductive rights. And I was hoping to introduce the language of the resolution at our next work session so that we could pass it at the meeting before we go on summer break. So I just wanted to bring that to y'all's attention and see if anyone, you know, okay. Thumbs up. Thank you. Yes, and thank you, Madam Mayor, for reminding me. I do want to take a moment and thank the Parks and Rec staff. They actually had the kickoff event at Halton last night and they were doing hundreds of haircuts for young kids and I thought that was phenomenal. I am excited that this is like 51 years of celebrating African American or African cultural arts in our city. So thank you. All right, I will turn to our city manager to see if he has any priority items. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem and members of the Durham City Council. I have two priority items for you this afternoon. Agenda item number 13, fiscal year 2022-23, third quarter financial report. We are prepared to make a 20 minute presentation for you this afternoon for that item. Agenda item number 33, which is 2022 first quarter crime report. We also are prepared to make a 20 minute presentation for you for that item. Those are all the items I have for you this afternoon. Thank you so much, City Manager Page. You have now heard the manager's priority items. I'm now ready for a motion for their approval. The move by Councilman Williams, seconded by Councilwoman Freeman that we approve the manager's priority items. All in favor, signed by say aye. Aye. All those opposed have the same right. The ayes have it and the motion passes unanimously. We now turn to our city attorney and see if she has any priority items for us today. Good afternoon, Mayor Neal, Mayor Pro Tem Middleton, members of the City Council, it's good to be with you. The city attorney's office has no priority items. Thank you, Attorney River. And I'll now turn to our clerk to see if she has any priority items. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem Middleton and Councilmembers. I wanted to let you know that the city clerk's office has no priority items. Thank you so much. We now will move to our administrative consent items and I will read through the entire agenda, which would include our department of items, our presentation and public hearing items. So item number one is approval of city council minutes. Item number two, audit services oversight committee appointment. Item three, Board of Adjustment Appointments. Item four, Citizens Advisory Committee Appointments. Item five, Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board Appointments. Item six, the Durham Cultural Advisory Board Appointments. Number seven, Durham Open Space and Trails Commission Appointments. Number eight, Durham Performing Arts Center Oversight Committee Appointment. Item nine, Durham Planning Commission Appointments. Item 10, Mayor's Council for Women Reappointments. Item 11, Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee Reappointment. Now turn to our departmental items. Item 12, the Economic Incentives Performance Audit April, 2022. Item 13, FY 2022, 23, third quarter financial report. Item 14, the Interlocal Agreement for the Distribution of Sales Tax between the City of Durham and Durham County. Item 15, NC Records Retention and Disposition Schedules 2021 Substantive Changes. Item 16, Approval of Amendment Number One to contract 18597 for legal aid of North Carolina LANC to administer the Emergency Rental Assistance II Program. Item 17, Contract with Fulcher Electric for the Construction of NC DOT Owned Traffic Signals in Durham. Item 18, Mayor, yes. I didn't wanna pull it. I just wanted to note that it's these transformational policies that sometime are as simple as creating a payment plan that are making a difference for our residents. And I just wanna appreciate staff in the Transportation Department for working with the fines and fees subcommittee or committees to bring this forward. Thank you. Thank you. Item 19, I'm sorry. This item number 18, is this the one about parking fees? I didn't get a chance to get through this. 19 is the ordinance to change parking fees. 18 is the ordinance to change the civil penalties for parking violations. Okay, hold on. They're both sort of related but different. Okay, yeah, let's go ahead. 19, I do wanna pull. 19, ordinance to change parking fees pulled by Councilman Williams. And I think we also have some citizens who have requested that item be pulled as well. Item 20, the award of a services contract to HydroMax USA LLC for the Sewer Outfall Inspection Program North Project. Madam Mayor, I don't wanna pull it. I just wanna note that for 220 miles of sewer main to cover that north sewer basin is gonna cost us $3.6 million. And I just wanna just hold that context in the way that we're approving cases. When we create that sprawl, this is the type of cost that I'm talking about. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Freeman. Item 21, the award of construction contract to Owens Roofing Inc. for roof repair and replacement at various department of water management buildings. Madam Mayor, would you pull that please? Yes, sir. Item 22, ordinance amending Chapter 7, Article 7 of the City of Durham Code of Ordinances, which regulates cross-connection control. Item 23, water distribution system study, hydraulic model update and Western intake partners discharge analysis award to McKim and Cree Incorporated. Item 24, the annual insurance plan FY23. 25, the April 2022 bid report, number 26, FY20-21 through 22, Capital Improvements Project, CIP, Budget Amendment Project closeout. Item 27, resolution for limited obligation bond series 2022. Item 28, the cooperative group purchase contract, one fire rescue truck. Item 29, cooperative group purchase contract, one mid-mount aerial platform fire truck. Item 30, 2022 Durham Environmental Affairs Board interlocal cooperation agreement. Item 31, resolution supporting the installation of public art at select bus shelters and associated encroachment agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Nice artwork, I must say. Item 32, contract amendment number one for FY20-22 through 23 city services and programs for the downtown Durham Municipal Service District between the city of Durham and downtown Durham, Inc. Item 33, 2022 first quarter crime report. Public hearings, item 34. Public hearing for the city manager's proposed fiscal year 2022 through 23, budget and fiscal year 2023 through 28, Capital Improvement Plan, CIP. Item 35, 509, Sharon Rowe Consolidated Annexation. Item 36, Highgate Commercial Zoning Map Change. Number 37, public hearing and proposed economic development incentive agreement with Green Solutions, LLC. Item 38, Retain criminal penalty for violation of Durham City Code section 26-23 noise. That will be all that I have for our agenda. Now, Madam Manager, I do want to pull item 38. I think that's my first pull item. All righty, okay. Now, Madam Manager, here's what I have for the pull items and presentations for pull items, item 19, 21, and 38. And then we have two presentations and I think you have both, you talked about both of those, would that be correct? Yeah, 13 and 33. 13 and 33. All right, and so we are in agreement. So now, I do think we have a couple of citizens matters as well that we will take up at this time. Let me take with the City Manager. We have two persons who have signed up to speak with us this afternoon. The first will be Ms. Gwen Silver. The second will be Mr. James Chavis. I believe they may be in the audience. Ms. Silver, if you will come up, we will have three minutes. Thank you for being here today. Good afternoon, Mayor O'Neill, Member Tim Middleton, City Manager, one to page of the administrators. I'm addressing the Council this afternoon on agenda rules. And before I get into that, I wanna give some background. I was 11 when John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the federal bench. 13 when Kennedy's civil rights bill was signed into law. 17 when Martin Luther King was assassinated. And in between those years, my parents were involved in meetings, boycotts, and getting my older sister and I involved through our church. They explained to us that the turmoil was about and what the struggles would mean for our rights to be involved in the political process. My first attempt to speak at a city council meeting was in Henderson, North Carolina, Vance County, where all elected officials were white. I signed up to speak on unpaved streets and our black community that was one block from our black high school. On Monday night, I signed up to speak to this council on general business item number 20, the budget, specifically the Capital Improvement Project. I reviewed the guidelines online and those guidelines say to speak on public hearings or the general business agenda, sign up to speak in person by using the yellow speaker request cards located at the city clerk's desk and the city council chambers. I did that. The council, as the council reaches each agenda item, the mayor will recognize those who have indicated an interest in speaking. Monday night's council meeting started and ended without my being recognized to speak. I expected to be overlooked in Vance County, but to not be recognized Monday night by Mayor Pro Tem Mark Middleton, Mark Anthony Middleton and African American to speak before this body of all minority representatives. It was a slap in the face of the 1960s civil rights and a slap in the face to the civil rights that we're trying to maintain today. The council violated its own procedures as I read to you. That should not have happened and I trusted it would never happen again. The community should not be silenced and the community should be given the right to speak. And because of this incident, I am requested to speak twice at the June budget hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Silver. We'll now recognize Mr. James Chavis. Good afternoon to the mayor and all other city council members and all administrators. I too must respond the same way when responding. It was a disappointment for us to come up here and ask to speak and we was denied. If you don't believe us, ask the city clerk who we gave our cards to, to be presented to whoever was in charge. And at that person, it was our Mayor Pro Tem that was in charge. Two black people with all this blackness up here, that's a slap in the face. At one time, it was all white and we could call discrimination. But now what we're gonna say about our black folks not honoring us other black folks, it's a slap in the face. And this must not happen again because we have the right to come up here and speak whether you want us to or not. I'm not gonna take this line down. When it's time for me to speak, I'm coming up here and ask to speak. Please don't do it again because we got so many new black folks up there and it's a disappointment to us black folks who's out here volunteering our time and y'all just gave y'all self a $10,000 raise and finna raise our taxes to help pay that $10,000 raise. What do they say to us? It says that you don't care. So prove to us that you care about us and don't do it again. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, honorable colleagues. Good afternoon to everyone in the chamber and those watching at home. I wanna thank our residents for coming out and speaking today at the time that's allotted for folk to speak. Our residents alluded to the Monday night meeting where her honor was traveling and I did preside and I wanna be clear for those in here in chamber and those watching at home. On Monday night, we have consent items that you can pull from the agenda and speak. The manager's presentation on the budget was a general business item. It was not a public hearing. It was a presentation and it was slated at that way. There will be a time for folk in the community to respond to the manager's budget request. I think there are, we have work sessions, two work sessions this month and then we will have a public hearing in June on the budget. Monday night was not, that general business item was not an item that could be pulled and spoken on. It was advertised as a general business item and a presentation. Any item that's on the consent agenda, you can pull and speak on. So I just wanna make that clear. And finally, I'll just say, if anybody thinks in this city that Mark Anthony Middleton silences black people, well, we can talk after the meeting. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you so much. I was traveling on Monday night, but I assure you that that is my understanding of the rules as well is that when, and I'm asking, I'll turn it to verify, but I do believe that what Mayor Pro Tem has stated is true and it's one of those things where we need to make sure that our communication with the public so that they understand, I'm still trying to understand the processes and the times when citizens speak and when they don't, but it is my understanding that on Monday nights, if it is a part of that general business agenda, those items are not available for public comment per rules that probably were established long before any of us got here, but on today, on work sessions, is normally when we have the opportunity for the public to comment on things that are on the agenda, but I'm asking our attorney to take a look at to make sure that that is correct, but I believe that what Mayor Pro Tem has stated is correct. So it wasn't an intent to silence anybody, like you all indicated, we are public servants, so we need to hear from the public in order to serve you and I assure you that each of us, we may not like a lot of the things that people say to us, but that's not a part of the job description is that you like it. You have to be willing to listen and hear from folk in the community and we always wanna make sure that we do that. So we apologize for any missed understanding and I do think that there needs to be some clarification. Like I said, I'm still, we were just having this conversation earlier with Dr. Hose Lehmann and I was asking Councilwoman Johnson just before this meeting about that, explain when the public speaks and when the public doesn't speak, explain when presentations happen and when they don't happen. So we're still learning about that process and so we're still learning, I'm still learning after about six months in, we probably can't clarify that part a little better. So apologies to you all, I assure you that Mayor Pro Tem has no desire to stifle anyone's comments as you know, he likes to talk himself. So we don't wanna do that. So I apologize to you, Ms. Silver and Mr. Chavis and to the public at large, it won't happen again, but we will try to do a better job of how our procedures should manifest so that it's understandable. Be that as it may, we're on to the people's business and we are now going to review our pooled items beginning with item number 19. We have a couple of citizens who have pooled those items, I believe as well, Councilman Williams. We have about three. And we have, I think Mr. South Gross is here, maybe here in chambers with us. And we also have, I believe online, Ms. Lara Butler, Ms. Laurie Bell and Ms. Amanda Savage. The item 19 will be dealing with parking. I wanna make sure that I have it correct for the record since we have two that are very closely aligned. Item 19 is the ordinance to change parking fees. Mr. Gross, you have the floor for three minutes, sir. Thank you so much for being here. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. My name is Seth Gross. I own two restaurants in downtown Durham. I'm here today to express my opposition to the proposed enormous increase in parking rates for downtown Durham. Restaurants are still struggling post. Mr. Gross, would you suspend for a minute? Madam Clerk, the clock's not running. Oh, I got extra time. All right, while I know the city has held off raising parking rates, the proposed rate of $2.50 an hour is a 67% increase in parking costs. This is a huge burden for both our employees and for our guests. Can you imagine if you came into our restaurant and a burger was $10 on Monday and then came back the next day and it was $16.70? I think you'd be outraged at the increase. Raising parking rates will hurt small business in downtown Durham. One of the biggest complaints we face every day is the current cost of parking. No matter whether you believe it is in line with our neighboring cities, guests still complain and we take the brunt of that. Once again, we're put on the front lines to figure out how to speak to angry customers who complain to us about parking costs while we do not control the price. When a guest comes in to eat in our restaurant, they have to factor in the cost of parking for an hour or two into their meal. If you pay for one hour of parking, that $10 hamburger is now $12.50 at the new rate. Raising parking rates will hurt small business in downtown Durham. Bear in mind that small businesses rely on foot traffic and people driving into the city to shop and eat. These people who come downtown are frustrated by the additional cost of parking. Raising parking rates will hurt small business in downtown Durham. Our businesses are still trying to recover from the last two years. We're hurting financially. For us, business has not returned to where it was in 2019 yet. We took significant debt during the pandemic. We're still digging out of this hole. Please do not raise parking rates as this just makes it even more difficult for a small business to survive in downtown. Raising parking rates will hurt small business. Maybe most importantly, the cost of parking is hurting employees. These are the people who work in the city and it adds a burden to hire employees. We frequently have candidates declined to work simply because parking is difficult to find and it is expensive. Raising parking rates for an employee means they have to give up about their first hour of pay if you work a full day shift. So your first hour just goes to paying for parking. Many see this as a deterrent and they'd rather work outside the city where parking is abundant and free such as at South Square or South Point Mall. As a result, we're now subsidizing parking for our employees. This is an additional financial burden to my businesses just to maintain employment at a time when employment is once again at an all-time low. Raising parking rates is hurting downtown Durham. Ladies and gentlemen, businesses are not the bad guys and raising parking rates feels like a penalty to us. We're the ones who are employing people who typically do not have PhDs or master's degrees or even college degrees. We employ those people that have high school degrees and GEDs. We're the ones who help keep the city workable and livable and we're the businesses that give people a second chance. The city council needs to make decisions that are business friendly and allow businesses to prosper. The return on investment will be far greater than raising parking rates. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Groves for being here today. Ms. Butler, Ms. Laura Butler. Yes, ma'am. We'll have three minutes. Thanks for having me today. I am a small business owner on Rock, Paper, Scissor, Salon and downtown Durham in the downtown loop and currently have 18 employees who are paid a living wage. They are not under the poverty line like that was brought up in consideration with some of these parking increases but they would be spending almost $3,000 on parking to come to work per year. This is not sustainable as almost half of my employees work part-time and commute 45 minutes to an hour into downtown Durham. Our business also validates parking for our customers and that's been happening since we've been open in 2009. It's not something that we can quit offering and not something I want to. This newer proposed rate will increase our parking expenses for the business by double or $20,000 or more. We are still living through a pandemic and recovering from it mentally and financially all of its struggles. We are still losing income daily due to clients being sick and calling out of their appointments to increase the hourly and monthly rates by such a large amount as well as an 8% increase in my rent, supply increases, gases for everyone to commute. I fear that my 13 year old business will soon be priced out of Durham. This large increase puts the burden of the city's debt for parking onto the service industry businesses and folks who have to work in person and can't work from home. I urge the parking sector to come up with a more sustainable option for its Durham employees who work so hard to make downtown Durham unique and its visitors that come every day. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Butler. We will now turn to Ms. Bell, Laurie Bell. Hello. Yes ma'am, we can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes ma'am. Awesome. So I am an employee at Rock Paper Scissors Salon and I've been an employee there for a little over four years. When I first started working at Rock Paper Scissors Salon I worked close to 40 hours a week and the parking was pretty burdensome. There weren't any parking, there weren't any monthly parking passes available. And so for two years I spent close to $3,000 a year in parking. Last year I was injured. And so though I was able to get a monthly parking pass in 2020, my income went down to about $800 a month for six to seven months. Also because I was injured I was pushed out of living in Durham proper where I had previously lived. So now I commute 45 minutes to work. I am hopefully going to get back to full time. Right now I am part time. The parking for those six to seven months basically took up 20% of my earnings and my commute and my parking took approximately 43% of my earnings for those six to seven months. And that's just for parking in my commute. If this goes through, we're looking at employees who work 40 hour weeks at the salon spending close to $5,000 a year just for parking. And if they commute, you're looking at tripling that just for commuting and parking inside of Durham. This makes a significant hardship for people who have built, have been with a backbone of building the service industry in Durham, which makes Durham so wonderful and unique to be in. And I don't want it to get to a point to where the parking and the commute are just too much for me to be able to work in downtown Durham at a job that I love in a place that I love. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bill for your comments today. And I'll turn to Ms. Amanda Savage. Savage, you have the floor for three minutes. Hi, I actually don't have anything to comment. So I apologize for the mistake. What did she say? I'm sorry, what did you say, Ms. Savage? I actually don't have anything to comment. So I apologize for the mistake. All right, thank you so much. Councilman Williams. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I, you know, there's the cliche thing. You know, don't tell me how much you care. Show me your budget. And in this case, I think this is why it's important to have a diverse perspective on council stating for the record, I don't have a business in downtown where parking fees are implemented. But I do understand what I'm hearing. I do want to ask a few questions. Have we done due diligence in assessing who works downtown and at what industry levels, you know, what is the average pay or income of a server at a restaurant, a bartender or, you know, a barber or a beautician? These industry level jobs, what is the average income? And I want to not only consider that and understand how many folks we actually have employed in those industries at that level, but also where they are located. See, gas prices are higher than ever right now. And actually we are seeing record gas prices and I could name on both of my hands with 10 fingers, 10 people that I know right now that live, that work in downtown Durham that live in either Henderson or Franklinton or Wake County or Johnston County. And that commute that they're having to make because they can't afford to live in Durham because of all of the issues we're having with affordability, that is a tax. And those are the folks that are actually making our city work. The other is, you know, now we're considering parking fees. I am not against raising our fees, but I am for being innovative and ensuring that we are strengthening our small businesses with, you know, maybe parking passes, maybe enhancing the parking pass program that we already have, maybe better utilizing the parking space that we have, but having a more robust conversation around this, I am not comfortable with it as is right now because I do know how many folks this is going to harm. And, you know, when it comes to the labor issue we're already having, I don't want us to, I don't want us to assume that we've come out of COVID as if it's osmosis. It had a huge impact. And we are, there were a lot of loans taken out that we are trying to make sure are paid back. They are, but even bigger than that, there's a huge labor crisis right now and we cannot discourage work. So I want us to be consistent. If we're going to keep, you know, if we're going to keep the buses free because we want to make sure that we are sensitive to COVID and we have federal funds to help with that, then we need to also find a way to not create a punitive environment for the folks that actually work in downtown. Now I am for raising the fees a bit and having more events downtown so folks can come and actually pay for parking because money doesn't grow on trees. But I do want us to be sensitive to, I want my colleagues, I want all of us to be sensitive to what we're saying when we're considering raising the fees for those who are actually working in downtown. And I want to also remind us that the minimum wage in North Carolina is still $7.25 an hour and in Durham, we're doing it right. We've had tenacity, we've had perseverance and I'm not sure that our small business community can take another blow. So before we move forward on this, I hope that we'll be sensitive and come up with an innovative way to strengthen the folks that are making downtown work. The reputation that we have as the tastiest town comes at a cost. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor and thanks to those residents and citizens who came out to speak on this issue. Believe it or not, we never like raising taxes or fees. That's not a fun thing to do. We're all taxpayers as well and we're all fee payers in the city. Some time ago, some weeks ago, we had a very substantive presentation from our parking folk in March which it was graphically demonstrated to us that our parking fund is not in the black, it's in the red and we are consistently running with expenses exceeding our revenues. And I want to say to our business owners in the area, I've gotten emails from folk that work along the Ninth Street corridor compact district and encouraging us to find creative ways to subsidize parking for employees. This is not about punishing employees. Our focus group is the same group of people that I noticed some of my favorite restaurants I go in now, there's a convenience fee or service charge included right in the pricing because you realize the same realities that we've realized in COVID. You realize the same thing that cost have gone up, COVID has impacted us and the city is no different. The overwhelming majority of people that park downtown are customer base, not employees, although employees are parking down there. So we weren't, this wasn't about targeting employees. We need to do, and I agree with Council Member Williams to do more to subsidize parking and make it easier on employees, but the folk from Raleigh who are driving in and go to DPAC and parking downtown and going to the restaurants, that robust customer base that by definition, it has to be more of them than your employees. If it's more employees parking downtown than customers, then we've got a bigger problem. That's who we're focusing on, the folk who come in and enjoy all about our city that makes our city great and then drive back. We're doing things in this city to encourage less car use. We're putting bike lanes in, the buses are free. The raise in minimum wage and livable wage in Durham was very much about empowering employees. Keeping buses free are very much about empowering employees, but if we don't get it from one place, we're gonna have to get it from another. And that federal funds are not gonna last forever keeping our buses free. There's a timetable on that. So I agree, I agree every day. I wanna associate myself with everything that Council Member Williams has said, but I want us to understand that this is not in any way aimed at penalizing employees. This is about the customer base and those customers that are coming down. Those customers who I gladly along with pay an increased convenience fee because our prices are going up and our parking facilities are operating at a deficit. When folk come to town and they drive their cars and they park and they come in and they spend money and they go to our restaurants and our shows or a ball game, many of them are coming and they are parking at prices that are not comparable in other major cities here in Durham. We have been behind the curve in terms of pricing for that commodity here in Durham. The last thing we wanna do is put greater hardship on employees, greater hardship on our folk that make the city go. As I said, we all up here are tax payers ourselves and fee payers ourselves, but that presentation that we received from our parking department made it clear that we're gonna have to do both and we're gonna have to do what's necessary to stabilize the city's parking fund. And as Council Member Williams has said, we cannot relent or take any breaks from finding creative ways to help our employees and those that make the city go every day. I'm hoping that we will reach a place as a metropolis that no great metropolis can consider itself great until it crosses that threshold where the entire city can be negotiated without a car. You have to be able to access what makes the city great and leave your car at home. That's a threshold you have to cross as a city in order to be considered great. And I hope that we'll continue to do the work to be multimodal and make other options viable for folk to travel, particularly for those of our folk who work downtown and throughout the city and who make our city go. So I associate myself with everything Council Member Williams has said. We heard the presentation. I support the fee increase, but I also will not relent on finding ways to relieve burden on those that work. As restaurant workers and others have had to find ways to subsidize your revenue as well. City's in the same position. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council Member Friedman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I appreciate Mayor Pro Tem Middleton's comments and also Council Member Williams as well. I just want to say to the residents that did speak or folks in the community who did speak that I hear you. And I think that I did a disservice in not pulling item number 18 so that you had a kind of context of how this process moved along because there was an in-depth look at incomes and pricing and a focus group. There was a lot of that work done over the last few years and I was just trying to figure out if Mr. Leathers was going to respond or if he was available from the Transportation Department. Okay, but I think that would probably be the best way to hear about the item and the information before I make any additional comments. Thank you. Yeah, I just, I think we're all on the same page. We want to make sure we can take advantage of building more revenue through our parking because it is in the red, while also finding a way to support the folks that are making downtown what it is. And we have that context to work on. So I think we're in good shape. We want to make sure we can do the both end. That's been great. And I do want to make sure that I do add that downtown Durham Inc is working in partnership with the parking department to make sure that there are resources in place. We had this issue a few years ago and we heard you. We're not trying to lose our employees in our small businesses that is not at all missed on me. I know that each and every time that any rate raises, there's going to be some fallout. What our hope is is that in that equitable approach, we'll find ways to kind of gather those areas that are specific to employees or small businesses or what have you in buckets that aren't generalized. But this increase is necessary. I do want to say that. Because we cannot have crumbling parking decks. Thank you. I'm going to ask Mr. Egan if he would come and give us a few comments. I was just talking to our city manager. I think all of us, you know, are surprised that the changes in the price of gas and just in general, since we had that presentation in March, who would ever thought that we're now looking at over $4.00, some are since the gallon and gas. So these things are real. And at the same time, we have to try to be innovative in this space. And I know that they have been working on some things that can kind of help to allow the fears of that being a cumbersome amount in terms of workers. So it's Mr. Egan. Yes, I'm available, Madam Mayor. If you could speak to what you've been working on, specifically for people who are working in downtown Durham. Absolutely. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Mayor Potem and members of Council, Sean Egan, Director of Transportation. I wanna start by saying that the Transportation Department, specifically Thomas Leathers, our Chief Parking Administrator, has done extensive outreach with downtown stakeholders in the lead up to the item that you see before you today. And what we heard, as you heard in the public comments today, is particular concern, especially among small business owners for the impact of these changes. On lower income employees. And so what we've been working on in response to that outreach and engagement. And really it was very helpful to hear that from the small business owners. There was a concern about their customers, but we heard overwhelming concern from the small business owners about potential impacts on their employees. So what we've been developing is a subsidy initiative. This is similar to work that we did in 2019 for evening parking permits, where we provided what's effectively a discounted parking permit to restaurant and hospitality workers at the lower end of the income scale to reduce the cost of parking for qualifying individuals. This is similar in many ways to what you see with the hardship fund for water bills, where we set up a parallel subsidy that's outside of this, the parking fund that would come from general fund resources that addresses hardship and needs. And the worst, still finalizing the design of the subsidy. But our plan is to effectively offer a half price discount to qualifying individuals who have incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level for a family of two. That's about $34,000 for a family of four. That's about $54,000 of household income. And so that would be done outside of the rate structure. It would be done as a subsidy voucher program, but the effect on the parking customer who qualifies for this would be a 50% reduction from the advertised rates. So for a monthly rate, the item before you says has $140 at the monthly rate that's increased from the current rate of $100. This would reduce that to $70 a month. So the effective impact of the combination of the proposed rate changes and the subsidy voucher program would be a reduction from $100 a month today for monthly to $70 a month going forward with the new rates and the voucher program. As the Mayor Pro Tem indicated, the overwhelming majority of parking permit holders are folks who are coming into office jobs who would not qualify for the voucher and subsidy program. But we wanna make sure that as we implement this new set of rates that there is an opportunity for qualifying individuals up to 200% of the federal poverty level to receive actually a discount. Like I said, a 30% discount in the cost of monthly parking. And so we think that this is responsive to the overwhelming concern that we've heard from our downtown stakeholders and it aligns with equity initiatives that we've done previously in parking and that the city does with our water customers as well to address some of the hardship experienced by members of our community. So that is still in development. We would bring it forward as a separate item but we think that that subsidy initiative would respond to the concerns we've heard from stakeholders as well as the residents who spoke today and our city council members who spoke today. So I'm happy to answer any questions about that initiative. Thank you, Mr. Egan. I believe those are all of the speakers for item 19. I want to briefly revisit as our attorney has not looked, I see Mr. Chavis and Ms. Silver have left the chambers but I did want to ask our attorney, we're all gonna learn today about some of our procedures. So she has been able to find how this is actually supposed to work from the legal perspective. Attorney Rayburn. Thank you Madam Mayor. So the city council's rules of procedure provide that a citizen at a Monday night regular meeting of the council may speak on any item of the agenda provided they sign up with the clerk by before 7 p.m. So before the meeting time. The notices that go out from the city clerk's office to encourage citizen and resident participation in our meetings also invite speakers to sign up on any item on the agenda. And that does include public hearing items and general business agenda items as well. I think we get into these groups where we run meetings and we're used to certain practices. It is rare to have a citizen or a resident want to speak to a presentation. That is a rarity. It's not something that the council's taking action on right then and I think to the extent that the request came in I think the impulse is to say we're having a public hearing on this item in the future. We cannot hear comments on a public hearing item outside of the public hearing. So I think that gets a little bit confusing particularly with something like the city manager's budget presentation. So I hope that word gets back to Ms. Silver and Mr. Chavis that we are collectively very sorry for our misunderstanding of our own procedures. We will certainly do better. Citizens and residents are always invited to participate and we don't want to discourage folks from feeling like they have an audience with the council. I know that the council is always receptive through many different media and many different avenues to hear from constituents and residents in the community. So our apologies to you, Mr. Chavis. I see that you've walked back in. You are correct. You should have been given an opportunity to speak on Monday night having signed a yellow card with the clerk and we will do better about monitoring how we're administering the council procedures and the citizen participation rules. Madam Mayor Fehmack? Yes, Your Honor. Attorney River, thank you so much and thank you Madam Mayor for getting that clarification. I want to say in my five years on the council, that's the way we've been doing it. So I apologize. I didn't actually see the cards actually never reached me that evening as well. I never saw the cards. I was not aware that folk had signed up for that precisely because, and I think all of us were kind of on autopilot because we did publicize a public hearing would be held on that item and we don't allow people to speak on matters that are gonna be public hearings. So for example, today, when we broadcast public hearings for our next Monday meeting, we won't allow comments to be made about that because it's a public hearing. So I don't know if we need to clarify our procedures. I'm the chair of our procedures committee so we might need to have a meeting about that. But we have always had the manager's presentation and then allowed citizens to come and make a presentation or make public comments on the budget part since I can remember watching council meetings even before I've been on the council. So deepest apologies. I didn't see the card. It was not put in front of me and my suspicion is that it's because we were all kind of operating under that assumption. But thank you so much, Madam Mayor and thank you. And I hope that Mr. Chavis, you and others will come on the day when we do have our public hearing for the manager's budget and we will govern ourselves accordingly moving forward. Thank you so much. Mayonium. First of all, I want to say as a new member I'm learning myself but we really want to hear from the residents of Durham. I can say that learning with my team as I've been learning that I know they're passionate about that and I heard your passion about not being able to be able to speak. But I do remember I think at that meeting I think we asked, I think a mayor wrote to him asked if there was any other yellow cards. I remember that conversation. But I would also like to add if we could do maybe something posted on our website with the policies and procedures may sort of break it down in somewhat of layman terms so that people understand it because we want to hear from our citizens excuse me, our residents. Thank you. Madam Mayor, I can't help but channel my four years or five years of being on this council with a former council member Reese in this conversation has come up quite a few times and how our public comments are only at work session and not at our council meeting. And I think it may be time to have a conversation about how we do allow public comments actually at the council meeting. Whether it's three or six or however many I think it's important to ask Dr. Monique how's the high man a council member who's the high man I'm trying to get used to. Well, as the high man mentioned I think it's important to always hear from our residents which is why I made sure to exit and let Mr. Chavis know that it's a process and things happen out of sorts and sometimes and if you just allow us some more time to figure it out we would definitely hear all comments everything that needed to be said it would not be missed on us at all. So thank you. I think Mayor Pro Temp has charged that there's a good lesson for us all. Like I said, you deal with a lot of procedures and rules and that's why we have our attorney here to kind of help guide us through but these are matters that we want to do right. We want to make sure that we do them right and we're always gonna be in the mode of learning and getting it better. So this is an opportunity for us to get it better and we have a man in charge who will guide us through that process and he take a look at that and see where we can clear that up. He has Councilwoman Johnson on that committee as well and they have led us down the process of the appointment ably led us through that process of appointing Dr. Hosley Hyman and I'm sure they can help us figure this out. So I'll leave that charge to them and ask that they get back to us after they talk with our attorney and figure out how do we make that clearer for all of us, all of Durham on how we interact with each other's counsel and as our public service to our city. So now we turn to item number 21, the next pool item. Mayor Pro Temp, a water construction contractor owns roofing ink for roof repair and replacements at various department of water management buildings you have before. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a few questions on this item. Do we have a representative from Owens Roofing here? Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Temp, Members of Council, Don Greeley, Director of Water Management. I believe that Burt Owens from Owens Roofing is available to speak today. I was told that he signed up for the meeting. Okay. I believe he's available now for your question, Council Member Milton. Mr. Owens, can you hear me? Madam Mayor, Mr. Owens is in the queue, but he is not speaking. Looks like his hand is up and he's, does he need to unmute himself? Burt Owens, it looks like his microphone is hot. Mr. Owens, can you hear me, sir? Mr. Owens, if you can hear me and would you hit star six if you're using a phone? If you're on your computer, make sure it's your microphone's unmuted. I see him in the queue, but I can't. Mr. Burt Owens, if you could hear us, if you would please acknowledge that, you may have to press star six in order to speak with us. Not Council Member Pro Tem, I just ask that you raise your issues for, and maybe he'll work on it while you're doing it. Yeah, Madam Mayor, I will, I'll just yield back. If we can get them later, I don't know if there were any other pulled items, but I can. We have one pulled item, number 38, and that's it. So you wanna come back? Yes, ma'am, with your permission. All right, we'll move to the item that I pulled, which is number 38. It won't be a surprise to anyone. It's to retain a criminal penalty for violation of Durham City Code, section 2623, the North's ordinance. And we have a resource person, Ms. Minerva-Counts. So I did have a couple of questions. And I think Attorney Rayberg may have answered that. There evidently has been a change in state law, and we have an option to do that or not to do that, but I'll let you handle that, explain it. And I also note that Chief Andrew's here in the audience, so I may call on her as well, and also Police Attorney Tony Smith, Tony Russ is with us as well. So last fall, the General Assembly passed some legislative changes to 16875 of our North Carolina General Statutes, which is a provision that basically said violation of municipal ordinances may have a misdemeanor, other types of penalties contained in it. It's kind of like a catch-all provision. In addition to that, the city had a provision in its city code, that was also a catch-all provision. And what the General Assembly did was in a larger omnibus bill, Senate Bill 300, it went, one of many things that it did was to say, for violations of city ordinances, in order for those to have a criminal penalty at all, it has to be explicitly set forth in each individual ordinance. You can't rely on the state catch-all statute. 16875, and you cannot rely on the city's catch-all provision either. You have to go through line by line and make sure that each ordinance that has a potential penalty explicitly states whether it's going to contain a criminal penalty. Police Attorney Russ has been engaged in that activity. She has taken it on for our office and it has been quite a project. We anticipate bringing all of those ordinances to the city council after the summer break, just for you all to authorize the amendments needed. What we are doing is not necessarily adding a criminal penalty that was not there before. Previously, our noise ordinance would have reverted to our one-dash-nine provision in our city code and to 16875 to find a criminal penalty should that be needed for enforcement. Right now, the noise ordinance does not have that available. And so if we want an entire toolbox, the entire toolbox that previously existed, we would add the language that I have put before you in this supplemental item today. I understand that if city council wants to not have criminal penalties for the noise ordinances or others, that is certainly your prerogative. We can do that. I would rely on the public safety folks, the law enforcement folks to kind of address whether that would be the best approach for something like the noise ordinance. I don't know how often we need to rely on having a criminal penalty available for noise ordinance violations. My guess is it is for repeated violators of an ordinance. And egregious violators of an ordinance, it's not something that we do routinely and with every noise ordinance violation. But we have pulled it out of the larger group of ordinances because more recently we have been getting quite a few complaints as officers are called to respond to noise issues in the community and residents learn that there is no potential to impose a criminal penalty for violations of the noise ordinance. So I'm sorry, council member Caballera. Thank you. I was just curious. I know there have been lots of discussion around actually updating our noise ordinance because it's very dated unless it has been updated. In fact, I think it mentions a phonograph in it. And so I'm just curious because we've had some incidences where the noise ordinance didn't, at least in my mind, protect or provide cover either way for what I consider just you live in a city, sometimes it's noisy. You decided to move an apartment where a drumming group meets at six feet, right? So in general, I do have more questions around this item because I don't think, I think the Environmental Affairs Board had taken up the noise ordinance updates. And so I guess that's something that I would like more information on. I do too. When you start talking about moving to misdemeanors, I always think of the long-term lifetime consequences to having that, if you are convicted and certainly that is one of the tools in a toolbox. But I wanted to know for certain things if there can be a monetary fine because money can sometimes be a great deterrent rather than a criminal record which has a whole lot of societal consequences when people start picking up criminal records for and noise about ordinance violations can be egregious. I've seen those many times for people who are repeated but sometimes money can be a greater deterrence in certain instances if people start getting fined for and that money goes up higher. So I just wanted to know if there's some wiggle room in that or does it just constitute the charge of a misdemeanor or is there some flexibility to add monetary consequences? I'm gonna ask Senior Assistant City Attorney Russ to come to the podium to address that. Tony, can you? I think, it doesn't matter. Good afternoon, I'm Tony Russ. I'm the Senior Assistant City Attorney that advises the police department. So to answer your question, currently the noise ordinance is simply defaults to the misdemeanor violation. I should point out the vast majority of the city's ordinances are default ordinances. Once you start getting into, you can certainly add other types of penalties to any of the ordinances. But once you do that, you have to have administrative processes in place to handle those things. For instance, if you wanted to do a civil fine, you're going to have to have the actual fines created. You're gonna have to have somebody who can serve those citations on people. You're gonna have to have collection processes, things that are currently handled when it's a criminal citation by systems that are already in place. Now to address your concern, which of course was a concern of the legislature as well, they added into this bill when they put the provision about putting the penalty into the ordinance. And the whole purpose of that was because they were concerned that, say for instance, the noise ordinance, if I pull up the noise ordinance, it's in chapter 26. For me to realize that, hey, they're serious about this, there could be a criminal penalty, I'd have to flip all the way back in the ordinances to one dash nine. Or I'd have to know to look in the general statutes, which most people probably don't know to do. So they wanted those specific penalties written into the ordinance. So it's very clear right up front to everybody, hey, this is a potential penalty. They also added in that bill though a provision that says if you get charged with an ordinance violation and it's criminal, you cannot be convicted of it. Unless the state can demonstrate that they have had two charges for that same offense in the last 30 days, which would be highly, highly unusual. So they built in sort of an affirmative defense. Yeah, prop 10. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you, attorneys for clarification. I almost see this as when we do kind of the omnibus kind of technical revision kind of things, kind of correcting language and making sure language is compatible throughout. My sense is that it, you know, and Durham PDs, that's not hauling people downtown for noise violations. I mean, most times it's a warning and they'll come back maybe and the discretion that's been exercised in Durham over the year. This is just something, it's almost like a solution in search of a problem. I think that what we've been doing has served us well. I think in terms of just, you know, making sure the language is consistent throughout the ordinance as the attorneys have told us, basically just codifies what we're already doing. I don't see this as a kind of a major departure from what we've been doing. If, you know, if I thought that we were, you know, somebody has their radio up loud and we're bringing them down, you know, town first offense. And I would be the first person making noise about it. But I see this as at least based upon my hearing of what attorney Ray Berk has said and attorney Russ has said that almost like I said, when we do those omnibus kind of things just to make sure the language is consistent and tight. So I have no issue with it, what it's worth. Thank you, Madam Mayor. If I could echo that, that is working on the bigger project. That is exactly what we were doing. We were trying to make no substantive changes to the code at all. We were simply trying to get the code back to exactly what it was before this statutory change. The only reason, as attorney Ray Berk said, the noise ordinance got pulled out was because there are so many ordinances to sort of effectuate this change. We had some citizens who found out and even though they were given warnings, that they had complained about a noise situation, the person was given a warning, the person complied. It was the complainant who nonetheless, I think got a little antsy about what if they don't comply? What are you gonna do? And when they realized they couldn't ultimately get a citation, then that's when we started getting complaints. So it really is just sort of reinstating what we already had. Thank you for the clarification. Sorry, just really quick, but the ordinance itself hasn't been updated anytime recently. Do you know, Council Member Caballero, Patrick Baker updated the noise ordinance in 20, it was like fall 2018, might've even been 2019. I think there were changes made at Council, former Council Member Reese's request may be related to the central park situation. There was a minor change, but it was not a total rewrite of our noise ordinance. So there is, as you noted, still some dated technology referenced and that sort of thing. Thank you. That's why we have a smart attorneys around. Thank you both. All right, I think we're now ready to turn to our presentations, is that correct? I'm gonna go back to 21. Oh, 21, I'm sorry. We, let's see if we were able to get the, Mr. Owens, Mr. Burt Owens, Mr. Burt Owens, we are now returning to item 21. And I think Mayor Pro Tem, I know he has pulled this item full question. Yeah, Madam Mayor, members of Council, Don Greeley with Water Management, we were able to get in touch with Mr. Owens. He was able to hear you, but for some reason, he's having technical difficulties on his end. We'd be happy to take your questions and get back to you with the potential of just putting this item on GBA. And we could have Mr. Owens there for the meeting at the Council meeting at your discretion. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We're moving now to our presentation. All right, I believe we have two, the first of which would be item 13. Make sure I flip to that and read it into the record. First presentation would be item 13, FY 2022, 2023, third quarter financial report. Mr. John Allure would give us that presentation. And then we will have item 33 would be the next one, which and the next and the last, which would be 2022 first quarter crime report. All right, all right, you have the floor, sir. Great, good afternoon, Mayor O'Neill, Mayor Pro Tem Middleton, members of council. My name is John Allure. I'm the Director of Budget and Management Services here to present to you the third quarter financial report. This report is presented four times a year in conjunction with our partners in the finance department. So the finance director Tim Flora is on the call, also available to answer any questions you may have. We kind of divide up the work here. So although I'm in front of you at this point, when we come before you again for the fourth quarter financial report, which will be in September, it will be Tim Flora speaking at that time. And we'll start with the general fund. And what I would say overall with, first about the quarterly reports, it's a point, it's four times a year when we take the temperature of where we're standing with our actual performance versus what we predicted would happen. And of course, the third quarter report is the most predictive. You have the most data, the first quarter report being the least predictive. So right now, we feel very confident that it's what we're seeing with three months remaining in the fiscal year is it's good news, but. So I'll start with the general fund and with expenditures. And the expenditures is the but portion. What you'll see here is sometimes we call it positive variance. Really what that means is that department is under budget. And that's good news. It's bad news because of the reason. So one thing I'll point to there is you see a lot of departments here returning funds, which is good, which then goes to our fund balance. But in particular, I'll cite the second item, which is the budget department returning $400,000. That's very good. I think we're being very fiscally responsible. But the reason for that is, is the reason that we're seeing throughout the situation going through right now is vacancies. We currently have about 50 vacancies in the department. So I will certainly make a pitch right now to say on the city's website, we are advertising for both a budget analyst and a strategic analyst. And we welcome anyone who would like to apply. Moving on with the departments, the one oddity you'll see there is with the fire department and you'll see that they have a negative variance, meaning that they are going over budget. And that has to do with the mid-year salary increases. That was something that was planned, but not budgeted. So certainly, but we have areas with the other surpluses that can cover for that. The reason you're not seeing that in the police department is again, they certainly had a mid-year increase as well, but they have a number of vacancies that can absorb that. And that's why you're seeing it that way. This is just another way of looking at expenditures, looking overall at the savings and personnel, the savings and operating expenditures, et cetera. So overall, with the expenditure year end, expenditures projected $4.4 million less than budgeted, split up between personnel savings and operating cost savings with the fire department as the only department project to go over budget due to the mid-year pay increases. Moving on to the revenues, very good story. We alluded to this somewhat in our one-on-ones conversations. Property taxes predicted to come in over budget by approximately $2.3 million, sales tax by $6.8 million. Again, very, very good news. This is the basis on which we then project and make our decisions on putting together a proposed budget, which you saw on Monday night. Property taxes, the revenue is all, the majority of the revenue is collected after the triggered date of January 6th, that's when bills are due, and we see most of the revenue come in in January and February, looking very, very strong and of your projection, as I say, $2.3 million over. Sales tax, again, collections very strong. We have collections through March at the end of your projection, as I said, $6.9 million. It's a lagging indicator here with sales tax. I'll remind you, we collect it 90 days behind, meaning what we're collecting right now is actually from February, or we will collect, we just collected on the 10th. Overall, general fund revenues, very, very strong. $11.3 million over budget, sales tax, the property tax, utility franchise tax, slightly under charges for services over budget and occupancy tax over budget for what we predict for the remainder of the year. This slide is simply showing you a comparison of where we were at last year, compared to where we are at this year at Q3. Again, very, very strong performance. More bars extended out to the right, it means a better situation than we were in last year. Fund balance we've talked about, but just a reminder in some of our conversations, the public hasn't heard this. Fund balance at last year was at $61.8 million. That's where we started the fiscal year. Then we take back from that the projected use of fund balance in this year. We budgeted $15 million, but certainly with the savings, the actualized usage of that we only see is $10.2 million. We add into that encumbered funds, $8.8, with the projected fund balance when we land at the June 30th of $60.4 million. That's the basis of our taking off point. We required to hold back $16.7 million, meaning the level above that, 16.7%, excuse me, is 20.2, and then in the proposed budget we're proposing to spend about $7 million of that 20.2. Moving on to the enterprise funds. These are our major operations. We don't discuss every fund, but certainly the major ones like our utility, et cetera, we want to certainly take a temperature on those. Water and sewer fund, again, things looking very, very strong. Revenues are just under budget. The expenses, say, we're overall, we're in a better position than we thought we'd be. That's what that overall budget variance is, and that's what you see here. Overall, the fund is expected to end with a positive budget variance of $1.8 million, meaning it's under budget personnel services, $1.2 million under a budget, again, due to vacancies, revenue shortages offset by the savings. Moving on to the transit operations. Again, positive variance, it's under budget on the revenues. It's a bit of an anomaly here. Under budget, very much under budget on the expenses. The operating expenses projected significantly under budget due to delays in the plan service enhancements. Capital outlays projected under budget by $7.8 million, a total positive budget variance of $15.5 million, a reminder of the grant funding that is included in the current year we're in, and the tax rate for that fund. Solid waste fund, moving on to that. Again, mostly good news. Operating expenses are, excuse me, the operating revenues is down slightly due to decreases in the commercial garbage and transfer station. Solid waste expenses are slightly over, but overall operating revenues projected $600,000 lower than budget personnel services over budget. Operating expenditures projected under budget by $2.2 million for a total positive variance of $1.6 million. Stormwater fund, again, good news. The fund is in very good shape. Slightly over budget for operating revenues, but total positive budget variance of $589,000. Parking fund, Mayor Pro Tem, this in no way contradicts what you said earlier about the parking fund. Yes, the parking fund is, I would say experiencing stress, although the overall picture will show that a positive variance, but the thing I'd draw your attention to there is the revenues, the operating revenues, we budgeted in a COVID phase much less revenues compared what we would do pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, we budget approximately $4 million for this fund and this year we only budgeted the adjusted budget $2.6 million. So it's good news, but again, in an economy with stressors. And there you see overall a positive variance of $429,000. The other major funds we have, no, I would say potential warning signs. Ballpark fund expected to meet revenue projections. Deepak profit share and the occupancy tax revenues are robust, expect to exceed budget this fiscal year. So overall positive variance inspections funds and revenues are expected to come in over budget for $1.4 million, indicating a strong economy. And again, a lot of that has to do with, that's the basis point for our taking off point with the proposed budget. Overall positive variance of $1.4 million. That concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. You all have any questions? I don't have a question, just a comment that this is, again and again, it's just really impressive how that a manager, this city has run. It's just really impressive. Thank you so much. And Mr. Lord, thank you for making that consumable. You're very welcome. Thank you. All right. We'll now turn to our final presentation for the afternoon, 2022 item number 33, 2022, first quarter crime report. And I see our police center, police chief and our staff are here today. Thanks you all over in the corner for being here today. Captain Packard is here to make sure I don't mess anything up my first time. All right. So good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, esteemed members of city council, manager Paige and the rest of city leadership and our community. Thank you for having me here today. We're gonna present to you our first quarter report. And that report actually encompasses January through the end of March. So part one, violent crimes. Part one, violent crime covers, as you can see here, homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Overall, our violent crime was up 8% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to where we were this time last year. There were eight homicide cases with a total of 11 victims. However, in all, we have had 18 homicides to date. And so I do want to break those down to you just a little bit, all right? So three of our homicides were double, all right? And those were January 1st, correction January 2nd of 2022. That was at the extended stay. February 19th of 2022, as Cornwallis Road. Then March 26th of 2022, that was Holloway Street and Joy Land. It should be mentioned that one of our cases was actually an officer involved incident and that is still under investigation through professional standards and the SBI. So moving on to our sexual assaults. So we have seen an increase in the percentage of sexual assaults that are being reported. That's not necessarily a bad thing because ultimately we do want our victims of sexual assault to report no matter when they report. And so we want to continue to encourage our victims to come forward no matter when their victimization occurred. So our robberies have increased. We've had a couple of weeks here lately where we have seen an increase in the number of reported robberies. Those rose by 45% during the first quarter of 2022. Obviously compared by the previous quarter last year. Three quarters of those reported robberies were from persons and a quarter of those were commercial robberies. Almost half of those commercial robberies, so it's about 45, 46% were at our convenience stores. And so I can tell you that our officers have been conducting outreach and really talking to our convenience store clerks and helping them harden the stores to prevent any future incidents. Our aggravated assaults were down 8% and so we always like to see a reduction and certainly we want to continue that downward trend. Firearms, which is something that we certainly have been speaking a lot about, were used in 55% of our robberies and so that's higher than the number or the percentage of firearms that were used in 2021. And then 25% of our aggravated assault cases were domestic related cases. All right, so let's talk a little bit about our shooting incidents. This is kind of a constant data that we are always monitoring and certainly reporting out on. As you can see, the number of shooting incidents during the first quarter increased by 8% compared to the last quarter of 2021. And we are seeing multi-victim firearms incidents and so I don't have to tell you that but the number of victims in some of our firearms, our incidents involving firearms, our shooting incidents, we're no longer seeing a lot of single-person victims. It's multiple. And so there was a slight increase in that it rose 59 incidents for a person shot compared to 53 person shot this time last year. And then we have our fatal and our non-fatal shootings. So multi-victims, again, those are 32% of our aggravated assaults. We are seeing an increase in that category. So I do wanna talk about just some of the work that we've been doing just around trying to mitigate a lot of the firearm crime that we are seeing. As you know, and again, this is more sort of second quarter but we'll talk about it now, we did start and just an initiative of really focusing some of our efforts on mitigating and addressing the violent crime that we are seeing, particularly as it relates to incidents that are coming across on some of our watch reports and areas where we're seeing a constant increase. And that unit has been working very closely with our violent crimes unit, our gang unit, in order to address not only the violent crime but also let's address some quality of life issues and making referrals to many of our city departments. They have been more than gracious and partnered with us. It's increased their workload but we wanna make sure that we are getting neighborhoods to help that they need. And I also wanna take a moment to talk about the work that we are doing as it relates to analyzing casings, so shell casings. There has been some significant incidents of violent crime that we've been able to connect where same guns are being used in different incidents. So we know that these guns are, they're traveling. Whether it's by car or by foot, they're traveling. So I just wanna bring you, just tell you about one incident in particular. It occurred in February of 2021. There was a home invasion in which there was a shooting that occurred. And so fast forward and obviously that was being investigated by our investigators in a violent crimes unit. In April 2022, our gang unit conducted an investigation at a different location and they had received a drug complaint from one of our community members. And so this was just not something out of the ordinary that they would do. And so they were able to obtain a search warrant for that particular location and they located a double R-223 rifle. That was stolen, a Glock 32, 357 handgun and an MMP shield, nine millimeter handgun, a Ruger nine millimeter handgun and several other various assortment of ammunition and drugs within this one location. So then those guns were turned over to our forensics unit. Our forensics unit, we do everything in-house with the exception of analyzed DNA. So we analyze our own shell casings that are recovered from scenes. So based upon analyzing that they were able to do, they were actually able to connect the shell casing recovered from the February incident to the shell casings fired from one of the guns that was seized in the April incident and actually was able to make an arrest for one suspect for one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied property, one count of possession of firearm by felon, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and breaking and entering with intent to terrorize. So that is some of the work, just a portion of the work that staff are doing just focused around being able to connect a lot of these crimes and some of them are interconnected. All right, so let's take a look at our property crime. So property crime often seems like it takes a backseat because of the violent crime, but our property crime and really being able to address victimization that occurs through property crimes is just as important. And so as you can see here, we were down in burglary, larceny, and I'm sorry, just burglary and larceny, but overall property crime was down 8%. And so that's a good reduction. However, our motor vehicle theft, we're seeing an increase 15% over this time last year. And so again, it really is focused around cars being unlocked with keys and cars. It's not anything that we have not discussed, but we will still continue to educate our residents and about the importance of just taking your keys with you, not leaving your car unlocked. So 49% of the vehicles that we had that were stolen had the keys left in the car or running, but 80% of those vehicles stolen have been recovered. So a lot of that is just through patrolling, community members call us to report, and that is the kind of partnership and the work that we really note that are very important. I would say that 275 burglaries were reported this quarter, and that was the fewest reported in any first quarter during the past 17 years. That's significant. 62% of those burglaries were two homes, and then the commercial burglaries were down 77%. Again, I think it's just a testament to great partnership with our property owners, our community, and our officers. All right, part one, clearance rates. So we compare, as you all know, our clearance rates comparison to like-size agencies by population. So 250,000 to 499,999,000 population. Our 2022 first quarter clearance rates were higher than the 2021 clearance rates, as you see. So the FBI generally reports on a later timeline. So we're always about a year or so behind, and what you see on the left-hand side is the FBI 2020 clearance rates, our 2021 clearance rates, and then our quarterly clearance rates for January to March. And I will just note that we are slightly above in our clearance rates for this quarter than FBI clearance rates. And so we like to continue to clear our cases, but clear cases in a responsible and meaningful way. I do wanna talk just a little bit about a report that came out initially at the first part of this week regarding our homicide clearances. So I think it's important that I go a little bit further into that, talk about that, and provide just further information. So it is true that we have cleared by arrest one of our homicide cases this year. But I will tell you 70% of our cases this year we either have a suspect or a person of interest for. So that doesn't count for a clearance though. A clearance rate is not, we can't say we have a suspect or a person of interest, right? That's not considered a clearance rate. A clearance rate is an arrest, right? And so I will tell you that it's not easy. The work that our homicide investigators are doing, it's not easy work. Two of those cases, we would actually be able to make an arrest if we had cooperation from witnesses. That is the only thing that we need. Many of our cases require some pretty intricate investigative work from search warrants to digital analysis to digital forensics analysis, fingerprinting. It requires that we oftentimes start from scratch and tracing people's steps and making sure that if we are connecting anyone to any kind of case, particularly a homicide case, that we've gotten it right, that we've gotten it right. And we are communicating with our family members of our victims. Any homicide investigator will tell you that they view their work as just a responsibility to be the voice for that person or those persons that are no longer able to be here to speak for themselves. And so we are, I want you to know and I want the community to know that we are working tirelessly in order to bring each one of these cases, not two more, not four more, not 11, but each one of these cases to a resolution that ends up in a successful prosecution. So let's talk about our priority one calls for service. So this is definitely a metric we always want to track and look at because it does indicate several things, right? So for us, we had 1,955 priority results in one calls for service this quarter, during this first quarter, which was a 10% increase from the first three months last year. And so we can say, you know, that's COVID related. More people are out and about, right? People are starting to move around a bit more. More people are moving to the area. And so we are receiving a lot more priority one calls. Our average response time is up. It was 6.07 minutes and it did not meet our target of 5.8 minutes. We are always striving to meet the target and meet our target goal. It is difficult, but we are certainly not going to relax and say, you listen, it's just difficult. No, we want to create ways in which we can respond quicker to our calls and figure out why we aren't able to respond to calls under our target time. We answered 52.3% of those priority one calls for service in less than five minutes during the first quarter of 2022, but that still did not meet our target of 57%. UVC's, we are processing more UVC's now more than ever. Great thing to stay busy processing UVC's and we ended up 64% of the total submitted UVC's for this quarter were approved. And the ones that were not approved, we always make sure that we're communicating and letting most of the time, those are attorneys that will file, letting them know why the UVC was not approved. We currently do not have a backlog of UVC's. So as quickly as we get them in, we want to make sure that we're making it a priority to process them and get them back out and provide a response. So let's talk about staffing at the end of our first quarter. Our sworn staffing was at 82% at the end of March 2022. It is currently of this date at 80.3%. Our non sworn staffing was at 86% and today it's currently at 84.8%. We currently have nine recruits in our basic law enforcement training, Academy class number 55. We graduated as you know, seven recruits earlier this year, Academy 54. And so they're all in different stages of training. We're trying very hard to track the reason why we lose recruits. So if we start an Academy at 14 and we end up losing some or we started 11, we want to know why, what happened. The reasons that we are being given by our Academy classes or our cadets that are just saying, this is not for us. This profession isn't what we thought it would be. I'm going to reinvent myself. I want to go and pursue a completely different profession. Those are the reasons that we are hearing. When we talk to our officers that stay, that decide to stay, one of the, well, couple of the things that they are saying is that Durham is where we want to be. We don't want to, we could go somewhere else but Durham is where we want to be. We enjoy serving our community. We are thankful for the support. So they are, many of our officers are here to stay. I'm extremely proud of the work that staff has done working collaboratively with city leadership to really enhance our recruiting. So how we are recruiting the compensation that's being offered, certainly the work that you all did, HR, our team did collaboratively and you ended up approving a new pay plan helped tremendously, that helped tremendously. So we're tracking those numbers. We also increased our signing bonus. What we realized was that our competing agencies, so some of these smaller agencies that are offering more money, they're not offering a signing bonus and their benefits are not nearly as good as the benefits offered by the city of Durham and I can attest to that. So we are really looking at what else, what other story can we tell about the great things about working here for the city of Durham? And we're using that. You know that we have the 30 by 30 initiative going. We're doing several things with our recruiting unit. We just started to recruit from other basic law enforcement training academies and not, we run our own yes. And we could afford to just run our own and recruit from our own years ago. Now we're going and recruiting from other law enforcement training classes. So we've got several folks that are coming to us to come join our ranks that are coming from other basic law enforcement training academies. The recruiting unit looked at how we were doing our physical fitness test just to start your background process. And we did some adjusting there and we have seen the most candidates coming in to test both physical and our written test than we've ever seen. So we are testing anywhere from 17 to 20 candidates at any one given period of time, which is an increase from testing four or six before Christmas. So it's making a difference. I wanna touch on this very, very quickly. So when we started the initiative when old folks like myself were going out and getting in a patrol car, we started that back in January and we were looking at will this make a difference? So will adding investigators, all ranking officers back to our patrol units, will it make a difference? Staff redeveloped and kind of re-energized our telephone response unit to direct some of our non-priority calls to our reserve officers. And so here's the results. The agency's initiative that started January 2nd, during the remainder of the first quarter, there were 29,167 community-initiated calls for service. Of these calls, 6% were handled by officers participating in the all hands on deck or supplemental staffing initiative. Another 4% were diverted from, diverted to the telephone response unit. Combined 10% of the workload was taken off of our traditional uniform patrol officers by this initiative. And then calls, so reports, right? We know a lot of reports, a lot of our calls end up in being a lot of reports. So we diverted 912 reports. There were 5,178 incident reports filed by our community members. Of these reports, 6% were handled by officers participating in the initiative. And another 12% were diverted to the telephone response unit. So that is workload that's being taken off of our patrol officers. We are going to keep it going. We're gonna reassess every quarter and be able to provide you with those numbers. So this is an awesome picture. I'm very proud of it. This is just but a fraction of the women represented in the Durham Police Department, but it's a great picture. I'm very proud of it. It's our 30 by 30 recruiting initiative picture or initiative kickoff image. And so we're really trying to get women into law enforcement. Not that we don't value our counterparts, but we know that women are just very, we are good at what we do. And we bring a certain voice that is missing sometimes in law enforcement. Community outreach, it's a constant. It's not just a quarter, it's a constant. Our employees continue to partner with members of our Durham community and beyond to offer a variety of activities, whether it's working with the girls camp and really doing things for our kids through PAL units, teaching them how to be amazing community members even at the age that they are. The community services division held its first spring break camp from March 28th to April 1st. They actually went horseback riding, which I hate it that I missed, but we actually got some kids on horses and officers on horses. So that was fun. Officers continue community engagement unit, making the building the beds with sleep and heavenly peace. And there is a constant demand for the bed. So we are constantly building beds and sometimes we just don't build enough and we're working on that. And then other community outreach events, we have a whole list of them every single month. Waltown, we did a bike rodeo, the venturing bike rodeo, the DPD girls camp, grow, inspire, reach, learn and serve. We provided many of our female residents, young ladies that live within some of our underserved and underrepresented communities that they need our help the most. We bring them in and really just spend some time with them. So here's our DPD social media page. You can follow us, like us, respond to reply on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And always, if you're interested in joining our ranks, please submit an application. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chief. Great presentation today. I'll open it up for Christians from any of our colleagues for our Chief. I do have a, I guess I comment or question. On my stand of Vice President of the DSS Board, we had some issues with obtaining child welfare workers. And I remember us doing a video, right? In terms of actually interviewing child welfare workers, kind of really talking about what they really did. And that really helped our level of recruitment. So you probably may be doing this already, but I just wanted to know, do you have something where you do have your police officers who are actually filming themselves and saying what they do? Because I'm thinking in relevance to losing some of your recruits. Because sometimes you don't really know, you wanna do it, but you don't really know what you're getting into. But if you had something where, a video, and you might have this already, a video where they're actually being interviewed and saying some of the things that they really do, what they like about it, some of the barriers about it, just ask them a question. I think that's perfect. I will tell you, we have partnered with WREL to create a documentary that focuses on telling the story of the Durham police officers. And so that's gonna be used as a part of our recruiting campaign, but really more so to what you're speaking about, just talking to our newer officers. We don't do the videos, we probably should start. I think that's great. But what we also do too is offer mentoring. So our newly graduated officers will mentor the officers that are in the academy all the way through to graduation and beyond, but I appreciate that. So we will definitely look into that. Yeah, I mean, in terms of like you saying you're losing some of the recruits, so just in terms of, because sometimes you wanna do this, but you really don't know what you're getting yourself into. So actually seeing someone who's actually doing the work, and I know it worked, you know, what I was trying to do, child welfare workers, and I will say my husband has done one for probationary parole years ago, he's getting ready to retire, but it does work. It does work in terms of telling people what they're really getting into. Agreed, thank you, thank you for that. Anyone else? Yeah, pretend? And followed by Councilman Williams. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Chief, good to see you. Good to see you. To the command staff as well, it's here, and to all of the men and women under your command, we thank them for their continued service to the city. Thank you for the report and being here today. I know it was greatly anticipated and we always look forward to hearing from you. I think last time you were before us, I asked you about any noticeable impacts from the pay increase, and I think you had talked about a lateral, more activity lateral from a lateral point of view. Yeah, any updates on that? And I know you mentioned the Academy, but is it still having some impacts in your assessment? Thank you for that. Of course, I knew I would forget something, so thank you. Yes, we are seeing some impacts from that. We actually have hired two officers back that left Durham. They came back from another agency, and so they're gonna be starting back, and they were waiting to see what was going to happen with the pay. We do have more interest in our lateral program, so we are hiring on and actually taking calls from more officers that come in with experience. We worked with Manager Page and Deputy City Manager Ferguson on doing some stepped improvements with how and how much we bring in our lateral officers at, really honoring them for their years of service, and so that's been most helpful. Thank you for that, and I trust you'll continue to keep us posted on how that's going. I wanted to ask about current use of force numbers and citizen-initiated complaints. One of the things that when we were, over the years looking at Durham's Police Department is relative to other departments in our state that are, I mean, use of force is never good, but our numbers relative to the other departments, we tended to fare better the other departments in the state and also citizen-initiated complaints. Do you have any numbers on that or? So we, I don't have any numbers in comparison to other departments, that's an easy, I can get that information. We just heard a presentation today from professional standards on our numbers for use as a force. Our numbers for use as a force are about where they were. We can pull a quarterly snapshot for you to compare it to quarter to quarter from last year, if that would be helpful. Okay, sure. Thank you. Are you folks back to allowing ride-alongs now, Russ, since COVID? No, yes, we are. Also, I just wanted to get that on the record. Thank you so much, Chief. Appreciate it. We know it was a challenging time for you to come in and assume leadership in the department with all that's going on in the city and the country, but we continue to be thankful for the leadership that you've provided. And I continue to rib my colleagues over in Morrisville as well on a daily basis for getting you back here. So thank you so much for the presentation. Madam Mayor, I think that's all I have for now, and I yield back to you and my colleagues. Thank you so much, Councilman Williams. Yes, thank you, Mayor and colleagues. Chief, it's great to see you. You. First, I just want to compliment your officers. I had a situation with the officers. A little run-in, and they handled it amazingly well. And yeah, I learned what a courthouse was, and I just wanted to say they handled the situation with all integrity. No one's going to say anything. They do their job very well. I'll pay my ticket off on June 17th. Thank you. So for anyone that thinks that's preferential treatment, nope. But I wanted to say I appreciate this report quantitatively. Could you direct me to where I can get a bit more qualitative information, just the psychology that you all are assessing, or if there's any type of qualitative information that we are assessing that can help us understand what's driving some of the behavior? That, for me, will help me better understand, from a cultural perspective within the community, why we are saying what we're saying. And it'll help us when we're thinking about resources to innovate around. It'll help us direct more at the root cause. So I'm just trying to seek more proactive engagement, rather than reactive. I want to take a holistic approach to public safety. I think housing instability is contributing to criminal activity. I think that from housing instability to kids not being able to pay their band fees after school. So there are no longer involved in after school arts programs, which means they're home bored and getting in trouble. So if I could, if you could just help me locate or either just get access to that type of information, I think it'll help drive my conversations with my colleagues when we're trying to innovatively invest in public safety. Yes, I'm afraid we'll get to that information. Thank you so much. But thank you all. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being. You did a great job on that traffic stop, too. So your name is in the principal's office. It's not good. Sorry. He didn't say he was a council member. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. I would like to know what I don't think I've ever been told in Durham. Because I drive a minivan and I drive like a mom. Thank you for being here this afternoon. I appreciate it. And I have enjoyed a few ride-alongs this spring. So thank you to those officers. And really appreciate the way you've explained a lot of this today. One of my questions is around recruitment and I appreciate all of the extra information you're providing us, especially around the lateral entry. I will say if we can, and I don't know the rules around this, but if we can start thinking about how we can be pulling from police forces that have more bilingual police officers. I know that that's something that is, I know our department has always worked on it. I know it's always challenging and I know it's always a need. But we know often that the victims of a lot of these robberies are in the Latino community and it's something I consistently hear is a need is more bilingual officers. And then as other language groups increase, we'll have a good roadmap of how to recruit for different language group officers when we have that need in the community. That's all, but thank you. Chief, I do have a question for you. You spoke about your officers being, having used some diversion tactics in terms of quality of life issues. Can you speak a little bit more about what they're actually seeing out there and who they are making their referrals to? So, dilapidated housing. So if there's, obviously if there's a house that needs to be boarded up, there's those contacts that are being made, street lights out. And really anything from how a house dilapidated or street lights to mental health resources. And sometimes they'll often call our CIT officers, Officer Beckett, everybody knows Officer Beckett. But we'll call our CIT unit to come over. We try to offer resources, the resources that we know we can get our hands on right then and there in order to be able to help. So it's just there's an array of things that officers are doing. Also, I found out too that we make referrals for restorative justice. Very good. And officers have actually called some of our folks that are with the restorative justice program, which I literally found out a couple weeks ago. I had the same reaction. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. That's awesome. And my final question to your chief is the question that I asked you the other day. And I asked not only you, but I asked a couple of other chiefs as well. And the answers were so profound to me that I want to give you the opportunity to speak to what you said and also to kind of summarize what those other folks said who sit in the light seats. And that is simply this. If you had a magic wand and you could wave the wand one time and get one thing that the community could do to help to make your job easier, what would that one thing be? Yeah, that was actually a really good question. I thought some of the responses were very thought provoking. So I would say to counsel, the general response was just partnership, being partners with law enforcement, accountability. So one of the things that I specifically said was accountability. So we want our community members to say, listen, because it takes a village to raise all of us, right? But when we see things that are happening within our community and we know the person that might be doing it, or if we see our children getting involved in things at a very young age, the call maybe shouldn't be to us. We should be holding each other accountable, being accountable for each other's actions and responses to certain situations. A lot of our gun violence and things that are occurring or just impulse control. So the road rage, impulse control, being accountable for our actions. It goes a long, long way. Also, knowing that we are all on the same team, right? When you witness a crime, we don't have to know who you are, but we just really need the information, right? Partnering with us, being accountable, holding each other accountable. And that is for me and for many officers that beyond the support and beyond, providing more funding and things like that, that really does get to the heart of what we would like to see. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Paul, that you do and all of your able staff. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, thank you. All right, we will now turn to our clerk for our board and commission's task was nominations. Thank you, Madam Mayor and council members. I have quite a report to go into. The nominations for the following boards, committees and commissions have been made by council. The Durham Board of Adjustment appointees, the two nominees are Jessica Major for the category of regular member seat and Michael Ruchlas for the alternate seat. The citizen advisory committee appointment, the three nominees are Ahmed Ali, Robert M. Brown and Rashaki R. Furnace. Amy Jones has been nominated for reappointment to the CAC. The Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board appointments, the at-large resident nominee is Quincy Bo, the equity and environmental justice nominee is Michael Burroughs. Durham Cultural Advisory Board appointments, the three nominees are Carolyn Dwyer, Mitchell Esava and Aya Shabu. Angelique Stallings has been nominated for reappointment for the cultural advisory board as well. The Durham Open Space and Trails Commission appointments, board one is W. Vincent Pierce, the third, ward two Terence Priester. The reappointment for the mayor's Dostapointee, the vacancy has been requested to be returned to the administration for Mayor O'Neill. The Durham Planning Commission appointments, the four nominees are Kimberly Cameron, Shonda L. Luther, Anthony M. Cease and Gary Cutwright. The mayor's council for women reappointments, the council has nominated Wahiba Carti for reappointment to the cultural recreation fine arts sector on the mayor's council for women. Sheenote Matthews has been nominated to the Fair Housing Economic Development Sector position and Ikea Umsted to the at-large resident. The Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee reappointment nomination goes to Axel Herrera Ramos for the at-large residency vacancy. And then there is one board that has not reached consensus that's the Durham Performing Arts Center Oversight Committee Appointment. The current breakdown of the votes is Amit K. Singh, received one vote, Craig Spitzer has received three votes and there was a desire to re-advertise by three of the council members. And that's the end of my report. So let me know how you want to treat the D-PAC appointment. Thank you so much for that report. Um, she's raised the question. Madam clerk, I'm sorry, could you repeat the break? Which one did you say there was a? Performing Arts. Performing Arts. Amit K. Singh has received one vote and that was from you, Mayor Pro Tem Middleton. Craig Spitzer received a vote from council member Halsey Hyman, Williams, and Johnson. And then to re-advertise was Mayor O'Neill and council members Freeman and Caballero. I'm fine with switching my vote to the applicant who had three already, right? Okay, to Craig Spitzer. I think Craig Spitzer, yep, that's fine. Okay, thank you. All right, and that is the end of my report. Thank you again, Madam Manager, return to you. Settle our agenda. Thank you, Madam Mayor O'Neill, and members of the council, I have for your consent agenda items one through six and items eight through 20, items 22 through 23 and item 38. I have item number 21 for GBA and items 34 through 37 GBA public hearings. Thank you so much. I will now request the motion to entertain a motion to settle the agenda. Madam Mayor, may I say one thing on the other matters, please? Thank you so much, Madam Mayor. We, and I'll consult with council member Johnson about having a conversation under the auspices of the Procedures Committee regarding the matter that came up with how we list things on the Monday night meetings. One of the questions I think we're gonna have to deal with is we have, if something is labeled and has public hearing attached to it, then if we entertain statements about something that we've noticed or intend to notice as a public hearing and then what we're entertaining comments on it prior to that date when we've advertised a public hearing, that I'm gonna need some guidance on, that has implications for notice and what we do to focus. Perhaps create another category for certain items on our Monday night agendas, but those are the questions I think we need to have some conversation about. So council member Johnson and I will convene and we'll convene the Procedures Committee to talk about that and we'll consult with Attorney Rayberg as well. Just wanted to put that in the record. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. We look forward to those conversations. Now, I think I heard a motion from councilman Williams. Second by. Council member Caviere. Thank you so much. All right, let's hold you all captive to four o'clock. No, actually, it has been motion and seconded and now we will conduct the verbal aye for those in agreement that we sell our agenda. Would you sign by saying aye? Aye. Those opposed have the same, right? All right, hearing none. The ayes have it and our agenda is now settled. Are there any other items to come before the council today? No, wow, y'all, you all did that. If not, this meeting is adjourned. Check it out at 3.20 on May 19th, 2022. Bull City strong and we took pictures. Have a great day, everybody out there. Mark, the other issue that I want you all to take up, you know what I'm doing here? Who are you? These people over there are four. See how they jump up? Now, they're not gonna talk about all the good stuff she did. That's what I said. You know, we just don't think that that is fair that we open the door to create controversy. We don't have to do that. There's nothing else. None of those cities are not doing that. Why would we open up for you today? I mean, they put the air inside it. They don't know where to go out and talk about not any of the different they're doing. So, no. And she came back, check this out when she came back, she's like, oh, I didn't go for him, I don't think. I put, what the hell, oh my God. Him and his crew were at my mother's place.