 And it one minute to air 30 seconds. And he will be here soon as he gets it. While that's happening, I'll go ahead and call this meeting of the Durham city council, this work session to order. It is one o'clock p.m. on August 5th, 2021. Madam clerk, would you call the roll please? Mayor Schuyl, not here yet. Mayor Potem Johnson. Here. Council member Caballero. Here. Council member Freelon. Here. Council member Freeman. Present. Council member Middleton. I am here. Council member Reese. Here. Thank you. Oh, look who made it. And the mayor has arrived. I will turn it over to him. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for calling us to order. Thank you, council member Reese for sending me the link. Just want to say to our tech staff, I keep not getting the links for these. I'm not sure if Daniel's emails are not coming through to me, but we'll have to figure it out. At any rate, I'm glad to see everybody's. Hang on here. I'm trying to get my iPad to do it supposed to. We've had roll call and now we'll move to announcements by members of the council. And I'll start. We have with us today, Mr. Jean Brattum. You see Mr. Brattum here on the screen. Jean is retiring after how many years, Jean? Oh, there you go. Sorry. After 35 and a half years. With the city of Durham and how many years is director of our department? Well, actually I was hired as the associate director in 1986 and became the director a year later in 87. And then became the director of the Merge City County Department in 93. And just to put it in perspective, I was doing some research the other night. Councilmember Freiland, you were two years old when I came to work for the city. Well, Jean, we just want to say how incredibly much we appreciate your work. I got over to city hall just for a minute this morning to see you and see the great send-off that you got from not only your department, but your peers in the city. And also just people that work with your department and the thing I have heard over and over again. And I heard it this morning. I was only there briefly this morning, but I already heard it from two people there that our inspections department is the best inspections department that any of these people have ever worked at. I hear this consistently. And I know it is due to your leadership. And we are just, we're unhappy that you're leaving Jean, but we wish, of course, we wish you the best. But I just want to thank you so much for all the amazing service that you've given to the city of Durham and the incredible leadership that you've given to us. And would you like to say a few words to us? Thank you for that at all. I appreciate it. I just really appreciate the opportunity to have worked with such a great organization. I mean, city of Durham is hands above all the rest. A great place to work with. I tell employees all the time, super great place to work. A lot has changed on the skyline in the last 35 and a half years. Like coming in off the freeway today, just all the cranes in the sky and things are still busting wide open. So just keep doing what you're doing. It's bringing a lot of growth to Durham and it's a great place. None of this would have been possible. None of those buildings would go up without your folks going out there to do all the myriad inspections that make it possible. And I see Manager Page here. Manager Page, would you like to say a word? I would just, and I noticed you said word, Mayor, and not words, but I did. Words are fine, ma'am. Absolutely, words are fine. I did have an opportunity to be with Jean in person this morning at his going away celebration and say a lot of words. So I won't repeat them here today, but Jean and I have come to 101 City Hall Plaza for more than 30 years together. We've been great colleagues. Jean has provided leadership, like no other, in the area of City County inspections. And I will miss him immensely and I wish Jean and his family much happiness and excitement during his days of retirement. So haven't been here quite as long as Jean. I think me and Council Member Freelon might have been being born when Jean came, but I started kind of early, but one thing I did say is I haven't been here quite as long as Jean, that is true, but we have spent a lot of our career together and I will miss you, Jean. Thank you. One last thing for the record books, Council Member Freelon, your dad, I've noticed, finished architectural school at NC State three years ahead of me, so we still have a lot in common. That's great. Jean, I gotta say, I can't believe, you don't look much older than I do, so I need to inspect what you're doing for your self-care, but thank you for your service. Thank you. First, the scary thing is when you started this job, you looked a lot younger, so. Yeah, I did. Well, Jean, thank you and thank you for being with us today. We really appreciate you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Take care. Colleagues, that's my only announcement. Are there announcements by members of the Council? Council Member Freelon, I think this is the time to talk about the Tennis Bill of Rights. Oh, great, thank you. I just wanted to make the Council aware that I would be bringing forward a resolution around the Tennis Bill of Rights, and I'm hopeful that in the next couple of weeks for the next work session, we'll be able to review that. So just making sure that. Thank you. Can we see some thumbs? All right, looks like we have all thumbs up, and so at the next work session, we'll look forward to reviewing that. Let me just say that I noticed that there were a few people, three or four people that have signed up to speak on that item. I just want to say that we will be taking that item up in two weeks, and we welcome those folks back in two weeks time if they would like to speak on the item. And just to give a little insight, just noting like I know that the Race Equity Task Force from the Housing Subcommittee had been working on this for a while in conjunction with Bull City Tennis United. And so I was working with them to kind of bring it in front of some of the landlords and some folks in the community, so that it wasn't just one off. And so we're just about there. I know that like I was saying before to my colleagues and when we should have stated to the public that the DA DeBerry and Judge Pat Evans have also been involved in those conversations. And so I'm hoping that it won't be controversial. I think it'll be something that will be beneficial to all of our tenants and a good guide rail for our landlords as well. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just had a quick comment also on the tenant's bill of rights. I think that Council Member Reese already sent it to our city attorney but was hoping that we could hear from Kim about a timeline for their review of what, I think some of the things will be able to frame as positive pressure items like we did with the workers bill of rights. And some of the things I think actually might be legally, we might be legally able to implement and I would just like her input on what that is and was hoping she could let us know kind of when they think they might be able to make that happen. I actually have some dates on the calendar for the group to meet with Kim. So hopefully that will happen in the next week. Awesome. So, yes. I don't have anything to add beyond that, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I'm thinking a few weeks to kind of look through it. I have not had an opportunity to really engage some of the materials that were shared and some of the supplements that were sent by Council Member Reese. So two to three weeks, please. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, that Madam Attorney, can you come back on for a sec? So tell me again about the time you think it will take to review. I would say two to three weeks. I'd like to loop Senior Assistant City Attorney Krista Kucrow into this as well. So she worked quite a bit on some of these issues and potentially Senior Assistant City Attorney Sophia Hernandez. They've both done some previous work in the space. So I would certainly like to get their eyes on that as well. Yeah, so that says to me, maybe we should bring this back to work sessions from now. I don't think we wanna bring it back and then have the legal work done. So is that good with you colleagues? Everybody okay with that? Okay. So once we've had the legal work done, we'll bring it back and I think we'll look forward to that two work sessions from now. Actually, I think it would be good to bring the resolution forward. There are actually some ordinances that we'll probably need to work on. I don't know that the resolution would actually need to wait. Okay. So just noting like I'm parsing that piece out. So there are like the legal aspects of it, the parts that are state and federal, all of that has been separated out. Okay. So talk a little bit more about that council member. When you think about the resolution, what will that say that will be different from the support we need to give to these items? So just essentially just like I was saying, just the guardrails, just kind of like what all of the parties in the community can agree on that the attorneys say that we're fine with would move forward, would come forward on in the resolution, but that would be at the next work session. Okay. I guess I'm not sure what the benefit of that is. Maybe, you know, I feel like- Just noting that we have the American rescue funds coming forward and just making sure that we do have our priorities lined up. I wanna make sure we're not leaving out some of this housing stuff. So. I'm happy to have us talk about a resolution that supports a tenant's bill of rights, but I think if we are serious about this and not just about a resolution, we need to have good work done by our attorney to help us decide what is, what are things that we can legally enforce locally? And what are things that we're really just advocating for at the state level? And I think what I'm sharing is that there'll be a train of items that will flow through. So the resolution first, and then the ordinances, which would have more of that legal side to it. And what I'm asking, yeah, and what I was asking before and what I'm asking now is what would the resolution say? Help me with that. So say we support, we look forward to hearing from our administration on a tenant's bill of rights or what would be the nature of it? The resolution would be in support of the tenant's bill of rights. And then the ordinances that would follow would be based on conversations with the city attorney's office. Okay. And that would be after like, so work session, we're talking about the tenant's bill of rights. And then also on the side like parallel, there's also this track of talking about what the ordinances will look like. And so that's why I set the meetings with the city attorney to make sure that we don't have any legal gaps in there. But the resolution is not tied. I don't think that the city attorney will be able to say, like, oh, these are the things. Yeah. I don't want to tie it to this. Council member Reese. Yeah, I just wanted to add that it, based on my review of the sort of the version of the document that I was sent by one of the folks that's advocating for this, it's not just things the city can do legally versus things the city can't do. There are also some real policy decisions to be made about whether or not some of the things in that document are worth the investment of city time, energy and resources and money that it'll take to accomplish. You know, just for one example, there's a whole data collection and analysis piece in there about the sort of how many large out of town landlords are buying properties in Durham, what that's doing to price appreciation. And that's certainly important information to have, but it's not going to be something that's going to depend on this city attorney telling us it's in our authority to do. Obviously we can do that. What that's going to depend on is whether or not we as a group determine in our judgment that is worth an investment of city money and city staff time into doing it. At a time when we just passed a budget that doesn't include any of this in the relevant department's work plans. So there's a ton of that in here. And so it's not a question of do we wanna have, do we wanna do the things that the law allows the city to do versus advocating to the general assembly and the US Congress about the things we don't. It's more about, to my mind, we have to make choices about some of the things. And I see Mr. Machtinger is telling me that that's not actually in the tenants bill of rights. So now I don't even know what we're talking about because I got sent a thing that had, there was many pages that had a bunch of stuff in it. And so I don't know. I would love to get this thing and understand what the different things are called than the Durham homes guarantee for Durham, the tenants bill of rights. If someone could help me with that, that'd be awesome because obviously I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. No, you're right on. It's just parsing out that there was work being done by lots of different groups. And this is pulling together all of the things that were agreed upon that are not built around the legal side of it. And so the resolution and then moving forward some ordinances that would be all like legal and policy. Okay, that's fine. I will just say that I believe we ought to do this in a month once we've heard from our attorney. And I'm okay with that. I just wanted to make sure I gave you clarity that that was, that's fine. All right, thank you, council member. I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem. What was the date that you said, Mr. Mayor that we would do it on? We work sessions from today. So that would be. First one in September. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, council member. Other announcements. All right, I will now move on to priority items. And I ask our manager, Madam manager, any priority items today? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Durham City Council, I do have a few priority items for you today. Agenda item number five, contract with United Minority Contractors of North Carolina for consulting services. That item was moved on your agenda under the great department. Agenda item number 20, Economic Development Incentive with NeuVertronix Inc. is a supplemental item that has been added. Agenda item number 22, Durham Guaranteed Income Pilot, a supplemental item has been added, carried over from the previous Monday night meeting. And my only other item was recognition of Jean Bradham and we have already taken care of that. So that is all the items that I have this afternoon. Thank you very much, Madam manager. Colleagues, you have heard the manager's priority items and I'll now accept a motion for their approval. So moved. Agenda. Thank you. Moved by council member Freelon, seconded by council member Freeman that we approve the manager's priority items. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. I will die. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam clerk. Madam attorney, good afternoon. Any priority items today? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson and the members of city council. The city attorney's office does not have any priority items today. Although might I make the request in looking at the calendar, the council has proposed bringing this package of things about tenants rights, household security back on September 9th. I'm actually scheduled to be out of the office that day on vacation. And I would really like to be present rather than putting this off on deputy city attorney Donald tool. Is there any way we could continue at one more work session? So the work session two weeks from then. I think that would be fine. I think we do need you here, but let's hear from colleagues. Is everybody good with that? Thank you, Madam attorney. Thank you so much. Madam clerk, any priority items today? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and council members, the clerk's office has no items. Very much. Thank you very much, Madam clerk. I think we, everybody muted. Make sure that you're muted if you're not talking to us. The council chambers needs to be muted. All right. We'll now move to administrative consent items under the city clerk's office approval of city council minutes. Great job, Madam clerk. There's a lot of minutes there. Appreciate it. Item two, Durham city county environmental affairs board appointment. Item three, Durham workers rights commission appointment. Item four, it mirrors council for women appointment. Under departmental items, community development department. Item five, contract with United minority contractors of North Carolina, Inc. for consulting services. I don't wanna pull this, but I wanna congratulate the administration for this. Item six, budget management services department in a local agreement for joint funding for vaccine equity program. Under the city manager's office. Item seven, 2022 city council meeting schedule under a US department of transportation, federal aviation administration, airport improvement grant. Under the city county planning department, rescission of the Durham arch, light rail corridor, transit corridor, under the finance department. Item 10, May 2021 bid report. Item 11, June 2021 bid report. Under the general services department, item 12, lease amendment with great hand lines, Inc. at Durham station. Under the office of economic and workforce development. Item 13, grant project ordinance for workforce innovation and opportunity act, WIOA employment training funds for program year 2021. Under the public works department, emergency watershed protection, stream bank stabilization, EWP 2021-01. Under technology solutions department, item 15, Microsoft enterprise software licensing agreement. Under presentation, the city council's office, item 16, digital equity plan. Item 17, under the city manager's office on youth update on key activities. Those will both be presentations. Under public hearing, city county planning department, item 18, consolidated annexation courtyards at South Point 2. Item 19, consolidated annexation junction and ferrule. And under supplemental items, office of economic and workforce development. Item 20, economic development incentive with new Vatronics Inc. Under, and that will be a public hearing on August the 16th. Under the city clerk's office, the Durham cultural item 21, the Durham cultural advisory board appointment. That item was withdrawn. The candidate has withdrawn his candidacy. Under the city manager's office, item 22, Durham guaranteed income pilot. All right. Thank you. Council member Caballero. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull number seven. Number seven, okay. Thank you. All right. We will proceed then to item seven, the 2022 city council meeting schedule. Yeah, I would like to propose that we change the work session that is on Thursday, December 23rd and move it to the Tuesday, December 21st. Thank you. Let's see who from the staff is going to respond on the item, which is the 2022 city council meeting schedule. I have a feeling it might be Ms. Wallace. Oh, it's Ms. Templeton. Hey, Ms. Templeton, good to see you. Hi, thank you very much. Yes, that is a change that we could make. All right. Thank you very much. That's all. Thank you. Matt, question? Yes, of course. Okay, I have here. Why do you want to change it? I'm just kidding. It's like, because I want to hang out with my kids. I'm gonna say cancel the whole week. Then we're better. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, Matt. Yeah, I get it. You know, Hanukkah will be over and hey, we don't care. No, just kidding. Just kidding. All right. So now we will move to the, let me just look here at the list of speakers, make sure, yeah, good. Now we'll move to our presentations and we will begin with item 16, the digital equity plan. And see who is here to help us present that. I know Ms. Lara Fogel is here. Ms. Fogel, welcome. We're glad to have you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for this time. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, Manager Page, Council members. I'm Laura Fogel. I'm the founder of Digital Durham. And also I believe here somewhere in the participants, Constance Stansel is with us too, Director of Neighborhood Improvement Services. And she and her team were a big part of the development of this plan. And I'm gonna share some updates on the work that we've been doing to bridge the digital divide for everyone in Durham. And if I may, I'd like to share my screen. Let's organize together. All right. So the organization that I represent, Digital Durham provides a platform for cross sector digital equity work. As you can see on the slide, we have many members from non-profits, government agencies, educational institutions and businesses that all collaborate together in this work. And as I mentioned, Neighborhood Improvement Services is a member representing the city of Durham. And they've been instrumental in our work over the past 12 months. Also the Durham Housing Authority, I'd call your attention to their participation. They're a long time member of our collaborative. And our group has decades of experience, but no paid staff. We're dedicated professionals volunteering our time to this work. We've been engaged in this work for several years, as you can see on this timeline. And I know some people here were part of a convening that we held last summer. We're one of the charter members of the Digital Equity and Inclusion Collaborative at the state level. And at the national level, we're members of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. And in recent years, we've received grants from the DPS Foundation, the NC State College of Education, the Institute for Emerging Issues. And most recently, we just had grant funds that were approved from LSTA to fund digital equity work in our community. And last summer, we began working on a digital equity plan for Durham. And we really need your support to move forward with implementation of that plan. And I'll come back to specifically the kind of support that we're asking for in a few minutes, but I wanted to provide just a little bit of background and common vocabulary before I go into the details of what we're asking for in terms of support. So, we all saw the impact of the digital divide during the pandemic school closures in this past year when students couldn't engage with their classmates or their teachers because they didn't either have an appropriate device or an adequate internet connection. And that was really heartbreaking and it demanded our attention and swift action. But that problem was with us long before COVID and it really will continue to impact educational opportunities and outcomes even when schools and libraries are able to be fully open. And that's not only at the K-12 level, but really at all levels of education. But you might be wondering how big this problem really is in Durham and it is significant here in Durham. There are tens of thousands of Durham households that lack a high speed broadband connection to the internet. And in this chart, it really focuses on looking at that divide in terms of economic or salary of the households. And if you look at the dark blue bar, you'll see that in Durham, almost 40% of the households in Durham that make $20,000 or less a year are not connected to broadband. Now, that's not to say that high speed internet isn't available to them because according to statistics from the state broadband infrastructure office, 99% of Durham County and that state tracked this county by county, 99% of the county has access to broadband internet, but we know that there are issues with adoption. And that's what we're talking about, really significant issues with adoption. And that's what we're seeing in this slide and how those differences break down differently across different economic bands in our community. And I'd also call your attention to the fact that the poor in Orange County and is 71% connectivity and our adoption, excuse me, in 65.7 in Wake. So really, Durham's poor are less connected than poor households in our neighboring counties. But digital equity is about more than just high speed internet access and adoption. It also includes access to devices and digital skills training. So according to this study by the OECD, the employment rate for adults without digital skills is 31% points lower than that of adults with even the lowest digital skills. And for adults without digital skills who do manage to get jobs, they make less money than people with even the lowest level of digital skills. So taken together these two different studies that I cited show that if we don't take action to close the digital divide, inequities in digital access within our community are gonna continue to reinforce and potentially even grow inequities in economic prosperity. In fact, inequities in access to digital resources already follow the same patterns as economic inequities. Dr. Henry McCoy presented in June to a public meeting where Dr. Henry McCoy from North Carolina Central University that 73% of those in poverty in Durham are black and brown. And if you look at this graph that looks at people in Durham who either do not have a computer or do not have a internet connection for their computer, those people black and brown people are overrepresented in being disconnected. So these patterns of low economic prosperity and low connectivity really are showing the same patterns. And the light blue bar on this graph is pulling out and highlighting for us a different demographic. It's looking at older adults and they really have a dramatically lower connectivity rate than other parts of our population. And in addition to the racial and ethnic differences, we really wanted to highlight how this divide is impacting older adults more severely because that is often overlooked and we think it's really important to identify that and so that we can try to address it. So these inequities in access to devices, internet and digital skills exist in our community. And we know that lack of access has real consequences for education, for individuals prosperity and for their ability to just fully engage in our society. And Governor Cooper spoke to the urgency and importance of this work recently when he announced the new office of digital equity and literacy for the state in July and communities across our state and the country are responding to this urgency and developing plans to address this complex issue of digital equity inclusion. And here in Durham, we are really fortunate to have many organizations working already on digital inclusion and equity. So digital equity is the idea that we is where we want to get to where everybody has equitable access and digital inclusion is the work we do to get there. And some of our peers have gotten a little bit ahead of us in respect to official digital inclusion plans and designated staffing. For example, on this slide, you can see that Charlotte has had a digital equity plan for several years and Winston Salem foresight has a consultant that they hired that's working on one now. And the state is really encouraging all counties across North Carolina to have a plan. Digital Durham was fortunate to be the very first group that the Broadband Infrastructure Office worked with on developing the plan template that's now available to all of our state. So the plan that we developed using with support from the Broadband Infrastructure Office identifies the need for dedicated resources to address digital equity and really to coordinate efforts across organizations and having those efforts be driven by measured outcomes. So this coordinated effort that we recommend is organized around three aspects of digital equity, internet access, devices and digital skills. And I'm just going to briefly go through the goals and some of the strategies that we're considering for each one of the goals. So the first goal is about access and adoption of broadband internet. And really we know that that's a cornerstone of digital equity and probably the thing that's talked about more than any of the other aspects. And our plan suggests opportunities to expand broadband access and adoption through increased awareness of free and low-cost internet programs like the program that's currently available with federal funding, the emergency broadband benefit. In addition to exploring options for expanding where broadband is actually available in some rural parts of the county. So the second piece of the plan looks at devices and we know that many Durham residents are limited in their ability to participate fully because they don't have a computing device of any kind or they rely solely on a smartphone. So we're really fortunate in Durham to have two refurbishers and we're excited to see one of our refurbishers crammed in to open up their new space just recently. And one of the ways that we could increase the number of people who have a device is by increasing the awareness of device donation and affordable purchase programs. So the third, we call it the third leg of the three-legged stool is digital skills and they're really key to improving Durham residents' ability to independently access the resources they need to complete important everyday tasks. So we recommend coordinating existing training programs and really expanding access in particular to those underrepresented and under-resourced residents to reduce the gap in digital skills. So our final goal is about accountability and making sure that our plan gets implemented and tracked and this part of the plan would establish shared metrics for assessing our progress towards digital equity and create the infrastructure for tracking the implementation of the plan. So Durham is really positioned to be a leader in digital equity and inclusion and in our next steps we'll be asking you and the county commissioners to endorse this plan with resolutions that were prepared to put forward. Your support of this plan through those resolutions and through increased participation and collaboration would really help us catch up to other municipalities who have plans and have already been recognized for their efforts as our state puts more emphasis on digital equity, but more importantly than raising Durham's profile. Really support of this plan would demonstrate to Durham residents that you value equitable access for everybody and it would help us get there. So we believe having a strategy for reaching a more equitable state will position Durham to use federal funds that are coming available now and that may be coming available in the future and more effectively use and seek out private grant dollars as well. So toward that digital Durham has submitted an American Rescue Plan Act funding proposal to the city and county to fund jointly using the proposal template that's available. And I know that those discussions are not happening now but will be happening in the near future and just wanted to let you know that we have consulted with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance policy advisor and they believe that the kind of digital inclusion work that we're proposing does fall under section 602 and 603 of the ARPA American Rescue Plan Act. So we look forward to leveraging your support to engage more fully with the city as we move forward with a more detailed plan. So I'm happy to answer questions that you might have for me at this time. Ms. Fogel, thank you so much. I was at that 2016 forum at Haytie. It was a great forum and you are a fantastic leader. You have done such a great job to shepherd this along and pull so many different people in. I remember we subsequently met over at Stanford Warren and I know that you at that point had really engaged a lot of people at the North Carolina Central University from their library and their digital folks. And I know that you've gotten do convolved now and just I know the city constants, Ms. Stansel has been involved and you've done a great job in pulling so many people together. I have one comment and a question and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues and I am looking forward to a resolution of support. I just want to, I know that you know this but I hope that you'll help our public know this. The city this year is making a huge investment in digital equity. We have $5.7 million in our budget, a big number. You know, just to put it up against the American Rescue Plan we have $25 million in the American Rescue Plan money in this tranche, that would equal to more than a fifth of those dollars that is going to provide the broadband services, the high speed broadband, not just last mile but last inch to our public housing communities with children. And so I am really proud of that and I'm really, really proud of our city manager who even before she was a city manager was a big champion of this work and I hope you'll help our community know about this. And yeah, so that's my comment. My question is now what I have seen, so there is ARPA funds, there are the ARPA funds but one of the things I know we're trying to do with the ARPA funds is think about what else is coming and I know that in the new infrastructure bill there is broadband expansion earmarked for every state in substantial, fairly substantial dollars. So I'm wondering if you would comment on what you think about is that a better potential source? I feel certain that that bill will pass and I feel certain that broadband will be in there. So what do you think about that as a potential funding source? As opposed to the ARPA funds, I know that nobody wants to give up potential funding sources but what are your thoughts on that? Right, yes. Thank you, Mayor, for those kind words and that question and I do, we do digital Durham is so excited about the work being done in the public housing communities. It's a huge step forward and super exciting and it is a great commitment, great show of commitment to our community, to connect people who have been largely disconnected. To the question of this ability to use funding from the infrastructure bill, of course, it's still kind of in flux. It's my understanding at this point and I need to get more detail about this but it's my understanding that the infrastructure bill is more focused on the broadband access part and is less focused on literacy so the digital skills and the devices and driving adoption of internet like helping people know that there are free or low-cost options available. So I think that the infrastructure dollars are much more limited in my understanding at this point than the flexibility that's available in the ARPA funds but I would need to consult with the policy advisor at NDIA who I'll just give a shout out to because she is a Durham resident as well. Our own Amy Huffman is working at the national level in digital equity and so I'd need to cross check that with her reading of that, the current law. For the bill. Thank you and it really is great to have Ms. Huffman. I've met her and heard her present and be part of these groups and it's fantastic that she's the national leader. All right, colleagues, other questions and comments for Ms. Vogel. Councilor Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and good afternoon, Ms. Vogel. Good to see you and thank you for the incredible work you've been doing for us in an area that really goes to the heart of equity. I mean, access to information really lies at the heart of upward mobility and the transformation of life for so many of our people. So thank you. I want to ask you a question. Some of the bullets about expanding broadband access and adoption, particularly the one that deals with advocate for policies that will increase broadband infrastructure. One of the things I sit on the board of the North Carolina League of Municipalities and this issue of broadband access has been one of the things in our portfolio and file that I've worked on a good bit and made a great number of friendships with colleagues in rural parts of the state where we know that this is an important issue. But one of the things that we talked about was cities exploiting the opportunity to put in infrastructure, dark fiber, kind of stuff when we were doing other projects. When we have the hole in the ground already open, piggybacking on those opportunities and exploiting that if we're doing work in a right of way or have other projects, I'm wondering, is that something we need to be doing better in Durham? Would that fit into the desire to increase infrastructure? How is Durham in terms of that underground kind of infrastructure for broadband? And should we be working to coordinate with our planning department and you and others to exploit those opportunities when we're doing other projects around the city? So that's a great question. Thank you for that question. And I think I can't, I'm not an expert in what our particular infrastructure is in the ground. But what I would say is that we are advocating for the fact that there needs to be someone who gets up every day and that's what they think about for Durham is just all of these issues for digital equity and inclusion and how they connect to planning and how they connect to the public housing and how they connect to health, right, public health. And so we need a central point of contact who could be the focus for that who would be able to know where we stand in terms of the best practices for all of the different areas. Because right now it's really sort of in different silos and there are different people whose work touches on it but it's not consolidated into one place, if that makes sense. Right, no, absolutely. And I think there are some eyes on this conversation right now that it's cross-disciplinary and inter-departmental. So I hope that this conversation will spur some of that thinking and germinate some of that potential networking across departments. But I did want to ask about that since infrastructure was mentioned. I think a lot of folks think about the signals going over the air, that if you got a smartphone, you just kind of connect to a Wi-Fi but there's a whole lot of stuff that supports that. In the ground, right. Absolutely, and if planning is watching or other departments are watching them, obviously there may not be imminent policy changes but if we can think about ways, if we have opportunities to exploit when we're doing other work to get that infrastructure in the ground, particularly in areas obviously where it's not, that may be something we want to look at strategically as a city moving forward. But excellent work. Thank you. I was really anticipating this presentation and I'm going to echo everything the mayor said about to you and your work. So thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I yield back. Council Member, I just noticed that Planning Director Young put the word absolutely after your comment. So here listening and supportive. Thanks, my colleagues. Other questions or comments for Ms. Vogel? Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to know my appreciation for the digital equity program, digital equity inclusion program and just noting like I appreciate the spelling out how seniors are impacted by or having been covered by our current programming so far. And so I'm hopeful that in the next iteration that we'll have something that addresses specifically those over 65 and then also people with disabilities specific to hearing and visual impairment. And if you have any thoughts around that, I would love to hear them. Yeah, thank you so much Councilman for that question. We're fortunate to have some representatives from the partnership for seniors who are participating in our planning and many of our members actually have a significant focus on older adults. And the people with disabilities that is part of what we're including in the plan is looking at how we address people with disabilities. So, yes, that is part of what we're looking at. And I just want to make sure I invite you then to the Mayor's Committee on the Persons with Disabilities and just sharing this presentation. They might be willing to offer a whole lot more feedback and I think a lot of resources as they all connect in different ways to different groups, so that might be helpful. Thank you, that's a great connection. Thank you. I think about that presentation. We have members of that group who are blind and hearing impaired themselves. So, when you make that presentation, you'll have to think about the digital inclusion, be a good challenge. All right, colleagues, other questions and comments from Ms. Vogel. I'm going to ask Ms. Stansel if she has any comments that she would like to add. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a James Davis and I have enjoyed working with the Digital Divide for maybe a year and a half now. We got involved when our community engagement staff were out in the community and they're realizing that there are students who didn't have devices and they're also realizing that parents, for the students who did have devices, parents didn't have the capacity to help students get on to devices as they connected to do their homework. And we realized that not everyone had the Wi-Fi connections that were strong enough to manage more than one or two students. And so we worked with Digital Divide to hold community conversations to help parents understand how they could connect with DPS and connect with DPS with the students who were supposed to be in school but because they couldn't connect to their devices, they were not attending school. And we went into the community with Digital Divide members and actually connected some of the devices, help parents understand how to connect devices, how to work with their students. So we sort of built some literacy around how parents and students could actually use the devices that they had and made sure that we got devices for those students who didn't have them. And so we could not have done that work without Digital Divide. And James and I have continued to work with them to create the plan, the Digital Divide plan for the city of Durham. And it's been a wonderful experience for us to be at the table with this team. Thank you, Ms. Stansel, we appreciate you. Madam Manager, would you have some comments? Just a few, Mr. Mayor, I would also like to thank Ms. Fogo for being a leader in the Digital Durham work that has been going on in this format for at least six years. And I would just like to go on record to say we are at a place in our whole community to be able to take some of the great planning that has been going on across many sectors, private sector, the health sector, all of those partners that you saw on one of the slides here, just I guess a innumerable amount of resources that no one really had to pay for, or the community did not have to invest in to get us to this point. The heavy lift comes with implementation as with any other thing that comes before you. It comes with the amount of influence that one organization can have in order to move the needle, in order to move the ball down the road a bit when it comes to multiple partners. I listened to Ms. Stansel as she spoke about often having to deal with family by family or person by person in a community that is the size, in a county that's the size of Durham. It is a heavy lift, but not one that is beyond what we can do together. So I look forward to the proposals that are coming forward. We are working very hard to make sure that we leverage, as you mentioned, Mr. Mayor, all of the sources of federal funding that can give us a good start in any of these matters, whether it gives us two years, three years, a lot of work can take place to get something almost operational in that amount of time. So we don't wanna lose the momentum. We don't wanna lose the excellent space that we have gotten into. As you mentioned, individually, we've done a lot of investments and mostly in the infrastructure areas. And I don't need to repeat that, but giving people access. But as we well know, those statistics are not because of access so much, but because of some of the things that Ms. Stansel has brought to our attention, it's devices, it's replacing devices that get outdated. It is just plain adoption and training of individuals from zero to 103. I met with the lady at City Hall yesterday who's 103 and met with her at her car. So we got, we have a lot of landscape to walk into and I certainly am happy to be a part of that solution and conversation. Thank you so much, Madam Manager. So you have a great partner in our city manager, Ms. Vogel. Ms. Vogel, thank you for being with us. We appreciate it and we're looking forward to the next steps. Thank you all. I really appreciate your support as particularly manager Paige. I appreciate those kind words and your thoughtful leadership in this area and look forward to future conversations. Thank you. Thanks for being with us, Ms. Vogel. All right, colleagues, we will now move to item 17. And this is the, let me see exactly what we call it here on the agenda. This is the office on youth update on key activities and I see Ms. Khalil, welcome Ms. Khalil. It's good to see you. Hey, it's good to see you all too. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mayor Shul. Another great leader, Ms. Khalil. We're really, we so appreciate you. Thank you. I am joined by my amazing team. I'm going to actually start by turning over to Jaylen Seegers to kick us off and welcome us into this space and I will share my screen. All right, thank you, Laura. Good afternoon, Mayor Shul, Mayor Pro Tim Johnson, council members in the Durham community tuned in. It's good to see you all again. My name is Jaylen Seegers, pronouns he and him and I'm a project assistant in the city of Durham office on youth and also a rising junior at North Carolina Central University. And I have the pleasure in opening our session today. I'm joined by my colleagues from the office on youth, Norm McDuffie, Elise Fraser and Laura Khalil. And we are grateful to all be here with you today. Next slide, please. So during our time today together today, we'll share some key updates since the last time we met in January. We'll start by grounding in our values and vision before moving into updates. And we'll focus on two in particular, the Durham Youth Leadership Fund and the upcoming Durham Youth Commission Restructure. We shared this in January and wanted to lift it up again today. We believe that young people's voices are important and that they deserve to be a part of the decisions that affect them and their communities. We work to achieve our vision by creating opportunities for young people to be decision makers in local government and working to improve city and county services for all children and youth ages five through 24. And we do this work by partnering with a lot of different community partners. Next slide, please. So getting into our updates now, I'm excited to share that in February, we released our youth listening project report. We've shared about the purpose of the project and the process we used in previous updates. And here you can see some key cornerstones of the process. In the end, we had over 800 touch points with young people, caregivers and service providers. And the report with our findings includes 30 recommendations on what should come next. Next slide, please. So speaking of that, we've said it before and we still believe that this report is not a report that collects dust on a show. You can see here the various ways we've been working to move things forward. We'll talk about the last two a bit more in a few moments. We've had a lot of conversations sharing our findings with a number of roots since and before February and we'll continue to do this work. We hope to have a large convening with stakeholders around the shared priorities later this year and we're hoping to do some celebrating too since we haven't had a chance to do that safely. We'll continue to engage young people in the comprehensive plan and because we heard so much from young people about transit, we plan, we're planning on having a series of youth engagement sessions related to the transit plan and survey this month. Something to note is that we know that many of the recommendations in the report don't fall within our sphere of influence, but some do. Our commitment is to steward the recommendations forward in ways that align with the work of our office and also that includes of lifting the work that's already being done by organizations in those areas. And now I'll turn it over to Lara. Thank you, Jaylin. Good afternoon again, Mayor and Council members. I am Lara Khalil, pronouns she, her, hers, City County Youth Initiatives Manager and Office on Youth Director. Excited to share updates about our Youth Leadership Fund with you. Just as a quick reminder at our last meeting in January, we updated our interlocal agreement to include additional county funds and those were coming from the nonprofit funding program for this program. And the purpose was to fund community-based groups and young people who are working to advance the listening project priorities. We saw this as a really concrete way to move into the implementation and action steps that Jaylin just talked about. So just a few notes about our process. If you've been paying attention or know our office, we've act with intentionality. If you've been following our work and this process was no different. We scoped out the various pieces of this program with this incredible Youth Adult Grantmaking Team that you see pictured here. We were six young people and six adults and among the 12 of us, seven were community members who were compensated for their time working alongside city and county staff. And so together we built this out, this whole process out and the scope of the funding out narrowing down to these three focus areas based on various inputs that we considered. And we centered the same identities in our grant funding as in our listening project and we added young people who've aged out of foster care and also young people with disabilities. So we deeply considered accessibility at all steps. Again, we were thinking about young people who might wanna apply and also community members who historically haven't had access to grant opportunities like this one. And so it was always on our mind some examples of that are just the application process itself using a short interest form for initial submissions and then having virtual pitch sessions. We did 24 of those with selected applicants and there we got to have conversations to hear more about the ideas being presented which ended up being, I think, a very successful way of understanding what the vision was behind the proposals. We offer language, Spanish language access at every step of the process. And we also supported applicants in lots of different ways from drafting their initial submissions, preparing pitch sessions and even providing post session feedback for those who are not awarded. And one other note is that we worked with our legal department to draft a grant agreement that is more accessible and language and in length than a typical city contract and still covered us on our side. So a lot of care was put into this process to make it accessible and to try to ground the work in the priorities of what we heard in the listening project. Okay, so we received over 50 applications totaling over $700,000 in requests. Here are the final 10 grantees. I feel like there should be some kind of drum roll. There's a lot on this slide. So this is like a reference slide here, just a snapshot of what each of the grantees will be doing in the next year. And you can see if you're just scanning it quickly, you might notice a range of really innovative, creative ways or community partners and vision doing this work. We're really excited to be learning with them over the next year. We're also happy to share that for all the projects, any young person serving in a leadership capacity is being compensated for their time. And half of the projects, which are those pink stars you see are being led by a young person and or have a young person on their planning team. So the contracts are being finalized right now. And we are really excited to begin this journey with these 10 grantees. And finally, just a little overview of what our year together will look like. We're taking a cohort approach. So we'll be working with the 10 grantees as a full cohort, hosting convenings during the year, for progress sharing, lessons learned strategies and general connecting between all the organizations. We'll be providing support to grantees as needed for promoting their events amplifying their work, connecting young people to their work and linking up organizations that have similar goals. And at the end of the year, of course, we'll have grantees will have to submit a final report of their accomplishments and reflections. So with that, I will turn it over to Elise now to share about our upcoming Durham Youth Commission restructure. Afternoon, y'all. My name is Elise Frazier. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I am the Youth Engagement Manager for the City of Durham's office on youth. So like today, I'm really excited to share with you all about the restructuring of the DYC that we have planned. And so the DYC will become the new change by Youth Ambassador Program or CBY. As you all may know, our office has been and is still like evolving in its new kind of, its newer mission since the launch of the City County Strategic Initiative. Since the launch of the initiative, we've grown as a team and we've learned from community and our stakeholders. And we've been making some like changes to the DYC over the last few years to be responsive to those things that we've heard from community. And so the change that we're announcing today is kind of a continuation of that evolution. And it comes in direct response from what we heard from young people during the Youth Listening Project, but also what we've heard from City and County Departments, right? We've heard very loudly, it's been very clear that there is a desire for like more opportunities for young people to engage in local government as the leaders and decision makers. And there is also a desire from our like partners to have young people in those roles who can serve in those spaces, right? And so we had a chance to like pilot our own kind of ambassador cohort during the Youth Listening Project. And this actually was very successful, right? And it led to many opportunities for the young people to be decision makers in other departments and other organizations and able for them to like engage their peers on the work they were doing. So even now, the young people who were our previous ambassadors, this is like a year after the listening process, listening project sessions have ended, our previous ambassadors are still engaged in a number of City County projects outside of our office, right? And so that would be the similar work that the CBY or Change by Youth Ambassadors will do. And so just like to give kind of a kind of snapshot of what the ambassadors will do, they'll have kind of like four major roles. The first one is to be a consultant for City County departments on their various projects. The next one is to engage other young people and local government and connect them to the opportunities but also to policy changes and to resources, right? To make sure that they're aware and informed and engaged in the changes that happen in the city. The third one is really to be like a facilitator and to lead trainings for adults but also other young people on issues like youth engagement and other things that come up. So we really wanna like build up their skills so they can be delivering the trainings in the same way that our ambassadors facilitated our focus groups. And then the last one really is about connecting with you all, right? So our elected officials both in the city and the county but other city or other decision makers, right? Within Durham on like connecting with them on policies, right? Connecting them with them on the issues that matter to young people and really being able to weigh in on those things. And so that can look like connecting, making sure that the ambassadors are also connected to the boards and commissions. And so we've been in talk with a few of boards and commission commissions that are interested in having youth seats. And so ambassadors would like easily slide into those roles, right? And so a few of them that we talked to was BPAC. And I can't remember the name of the other organization. I know their acronym is EAB. It's the... Environmental Affairs Board. Yeah, Environmental Affairs Board, thank you. And so we've been in conversation with them about what it looks like to have young people on their boards and commissions and how they need to shift and change to be a welcoming space for them. And so our ambassadors will also easily slide into those roles because they will be equipped and prepared and have the experience of already working with city and county departments on their various initiatives. So next slide, please. So this is just a reference slide because we are like a name change, right? It feels like a significant change. And so I kind of want to highlight what the changes are and what actually won't change. So the cohort will be a bit smaller. We are going to have 10 people. And really what we found in our ambassadors, we had eight ambassadors. And we found that the less people that we had, we actually had a greater impact. We were able to do much more in-depth training. The cohort was able to really have a sense of community, right? And a shared responsibility and not just in all of the projects, right? And everybody was able to kind of have a full role where if we had a larger cohort, that might not necessarily be the case. The other notable thing is we are switching from a commission style, right? The DYC has historically been a commission in name and that looks like not fully being able to integrate into the work of the office because as commissions and boards are, they're often advisory worlds, but not necessarily fully engaged into the work. So with this kind of ambassador model, they'll be fully engaged with the work and being able to align with the work of the office. And so we thought that that model, having done it with a youth listener project would be successful. And since we saw a success there, we wanted to continue it here. They would still have opportunities to engage with elected officials. So that would still look like yearly retreats where we talked about opportunities and priorities of young people and of the city and county. It would still be open to young people who are living in Durham city and county. And we actually brought in this right now as young people who live in Durham and who go to school in Durham, no matter what school it is, we've brought in this so that they don't have to live full term in Durham, right? But if, say, a college student at NCCU was committed to Durham and had lived here for three years, they would still be able to engage in the ambassador program. And that is like the other update is that previously the DYC was high school age youth. And so this commission or this ambassador program instead would be ages 16 to 24. And this would allow us to have like a greater depth of engagement as well. Also our age range and our office is five to 24. And we've seen in the past that older young people, right, that 18 to 24 year old range also want to be engaged, but they didn't have the space to really engage in the DYC. So we're brought in this so that they also have the same opportunities. And if then they like want to continue to work and continue to be engaged with the city, it feels like a smoother pipeline, right? So yeah, so those are some of the like major shifts, but as you can see on the snapshot, they'll still be a year long kind of cohort model. We'll still have a similar selection process and then ceremonial inductions. And it'll still be open to young people living in the city and county. Next slide. And so the last thing I kind of want to talk about is just like what's next, right? We've been retreating as I think Jalen said earlier to really talk about like how this new ambassador program will run. And so we're finally at the process and we are planning to launch our application next couple of weeks. Our goal is to have the ambassador seated by October. And so you'll definitely hear when all of our promotional material goes out for recruitment. There are a couple of things that will be coming down the pipeline after the ambassadors are seated. So there is a 2003 city resolution that establishes the creation of the DYC. And after we consulted with legal, we were able to move forward with the restructuring because under the current resolution, these changes still fit it within the scope of the resolution. But since that resolution was created like almost 20 years ago, it's time to update it. And so once a cohort is seated, we'll be working in partnership with the new cohort members to update that resolution and it will be back in front of you with those updates. And yeah, so now I'm going to pass it on to Nori to close this out. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nori McDuffie. My pronouns are you and his and I work as the project assistant for the city of Durham Office on Youth. And in this last minute or so, I'm going to close this out with some Office on Youth highlights, some other ones. We continue to grow our youth network, mostly youth engagement network, mostly through our very active resource sharing listserv, which now has over 260 providers. We hope to convene folks in this network again around the listening project findings later this year, when it's safe to do so, of course. We've also continued working with the Durham network of care on enhancing the navigation on their youth service page. And it can be accessed directly and has a new URL which we will begin promoting this fall. But we've also been preparing a list of all the city and county services for young people with short descriptions and reference links. And that will be housed on our website. Finally, we are committed to amplifying the experiences and needs of young people in Durham. And to hear are a couple of ways we've been doing that. We supported the development and launch of a new youth led zine, youth led art zine as called Sabribona. And basically that was a zine to give young people a space to speak truth to power through art. We also co-sponsored a panel on youth activism and leadership with other partners hosted by We Are. And I had the wonderful opportunity to moderate the discussion. And it was just such an amazing experience to be in conversation with other young people and to really get a chance to really hear their brilliance and all the amazing work that they were doing. And so not only was it motivating for me and inspiring but it was also motivating and inspiring for other people who were watching in that space. And next slide, please. And so yes, that closes out. If you all have any questions or comments for us, please feel free to share. Thank you so much. What a great presentation. Thank you to all of you all. And especially to Mr. Seegers and Mr. McDuffie. We love hearing from you all. I know my call, I have some comments but I'm gonna hold them. I'd love to hear from my colleagues. Colleagues, anyone who wanna get us started? I see Council Member Freeland and then Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Wonderful presentation. I've still got my youth listening project report here. It's just, y'all are just doing such incredible work. So I wanted to show you some love, some affirmation. I'm really excited about the Durham Youth Ambassador program that's, I think it's a, it's a wonderful idea and pivot. And it really feels aligned with what some of, what was being proposed through We Are The Ones, with their community ambassadorships and would urge y'all to speak with, strategize and conspire with idealities and with whom I know you know, she was instrumental with the youth listening project as well and your community engagement strategy. She's also along with the Spirit House Tribe and several other community organizations leading on We Are The Ones. And I think that there's a really interesting opportunity with the youth ambassadors to look at some of what they're modeling and doing in the community. So that's just a suggestion. And I also just wanted to let my colleagues know that I've been meeting with the office on youth quite a bit. We've had, I don't know, maybe a half dozen meetings over the spring and summer about kind of dreaming through what a strategy for black boys could look like. We've had a few meetings with folks on the county side and that work is ongoing. I just wanted to give community and our colleagues a heads up that we've been in communication about that. But yeah, just mainly wanted to suggest that you connect with We Are The Ones and thank you for the wonderful work that you all have done. Thank you very much council member and it's great that you're working with the office on youth. You got a lot to offer. All right, colleagues, other council member Freeman, I think I said you were next. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you council member Freelon for sharing the accolades. I would also echo all of those sentiments and noting that the work that you're doing is greatly and deeply important. I have one question and then a comment. The one question was just around the ambassadors serving or are they actually looking to serve on those boards or to help make the board more friendly to youth? And then that would be open to them looking for youth. I just wanted to make sure that was clear because I didn't feel like it was specified enough but that it's not that the ambassadors would be the ones serving on the board. It would actually be them making the space better for youth to be involved. And I'm hopeful that each of the boards that are interested aren't just looking to make a token or a single member a part of their boards but actually at least two and if possible more. And I really am excited about this. I wanna say that this on a larger scale speaks volumes and just the way that you've been able to connect to the county, the work that I do in the community with Durham Children's Initiative, I mean, all the way through to merging with Partners for Youth Opportunity. This is like, I wanna like just take a moment and appreciate what Ellen Recal's vision has brought us today or brought us to this point today. And so acknowledging that from early childhood, from birth all the way to zero to eight and then all these pipelines are developing over time and this is that back half. And I really am like excited about what's next because this youth perspective and not just like high school students but actually like youth perspective all the way into adulting is amazing. I wanna thank you all for putting this work in and putting this together and I am looking forward to supporting as you move forward. So thank you. Yeah, I think I can answer your question really quickly. So it will be much of the latter, right? So the young people will be working with the boards and commissions to build up the space for other young people to be able to take on that role. There was also another kind of question in the chat. I just wanna get to it. It's about whether or not there'll be representation from the five districts of Durham and young people from underserved communities getting information about serving on the committee. So we are committed and we have a goal of making sure that this new cohort is representative of all the lived experiences of young people in Durham but we'll also be doing some direct and intentional recruitment from neighborhoods like Bractown, Cornwallis but also from rural Durham. We heard a lot that the young people who lived like kind of outside of the like Durham city also really wanting to be connected but weren't getting a lot of opportunities. So we'll be really intentional about making sure that the space is open to them but not just open but going where they are to tell them about the opportunity. Just wanted to add, thank you Elise for that. Just a clarification also about this being a cohort of young people who will serve as consultants and it's not an advisory committee. This is a shift from the way that DOC has been, has a legacy of doing their work. This is really more about hiring young people to serve as consultants to the various initiatives happening in local government. And so they'll be paid, they'll have certain hours that they work every month and they will be a cohort, right? Cause we all, we want to make sure that it is a collective effort and also they will be assigned to different sort of projects throughout the city and the county. So just want to clarify that. Thank you very much. Colleagues, other questions and comments for the Office on Youth Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to appreciate this work. I got a copy of the report in my office and paper, which was very exciting and had a chance to read it before the agenda came out and I'm really excited to see all the work that's happened with the Youth Listening Project. And I'm excited about shifting to this model. I feel like I've learned a lot from y'all about how to engage youth more effectively on our boards and commissions. Ideas about, y'all have a lot of great ideas about how to make youth advocacy work better in the city. And I just want to really appreciate the work that you've done to get us to this point. And I think this change is going to be really good for us and impactful for our youth. I've had a really good time hanging out with the youth commission and doing hilarious scavenger hunts and shooting the mayor with silly string. And I'm excited to keep that, keep the youth engagement and energy going in this new form. And it looks like y'all are really thinking hard about how to make sure we benefit from the knowledge and life experience and work of young people in the community and how they can really benefit from being involved in the city. It feels much more like a reciprocal relationship and something that I think we will really benefit from. So thanks so much. Looking forward to learning more as we move forward. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and congratulations to all of you. What a wonderful, wonderful presentation. Laura, great work. You continue to do with your leadership. I thought it was a brilliant move when the office of youth was brought into the city manager's office. I think that's precisely where it belongs and it was the right signal to send to the city. Nori and Jalen and Alice, we're so proud of you. Your community and the city are so proud of you and the work that you do. We're watching you and we talk about you and it's amazing just to see the development and impact you're having. I want to say I've been looking at the documents and work you've been producing and I had a thought. I just want to share with you about the work you're doing as youth. Don't ever let anybody tell you that what you're doing is cute. It is absolutely essential. It is absolutely necessary and it is absolutely pivotal to the transforming of this nation. I just want to remind y'all that the sit-in movement in this country got started by people who were closer to their high school diploma than they were their college degree. Birmingham, Sierra DeNation, those were children. Those were young people on those front lines. This nation was transformed by people your age and in your cohort. So this ain't cute. This ain't sentimental. This is absolutely essential to the work of our city and the work of our country. I'll continue, be undeterred and dogged in your determination. We've got your back and I look forward to learning and being led by you. So thank you so much for the work you're doing. We are so proud of you and keep doing what you do. Warns up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Any other comments, colleagues? Council Member Caballero. I'll be brief. I just want to extend deep thanks to the work. I know that you all work with a lot of other youth groups in the city and I know that that has deepened the strength of this work. I want to just acknowledge the excellent presentation and I look forward to hearing more from you all. Let me say that we have some public comment from Mr. Dwarren Langley and we'll now let Mr. Langley have his time. He's been waiting patiently, having signed up earlier. Mr. Langley, Madam Clerk, can we make Mr. Dwarren Langley? I see he is available to hear. Mr. Langley, welcome and you have three minutes. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, Mayor Pro Tem, City Manager Page and the wonderful staff on the Office on Youth. First, I want to commend the Office on Youth for all the great work that they've done with the Youth Listening Project and incorporating those recommendations from young people and the work that you all are doing. I'm here because although I'm not youth, I am youthful and over 17 years ago, I was the young person then a student at Jordan High School working with fellow peers my age that brought forth the recommendation for creating a youth commission. And the purpose for creating a youth commission was to provide an avenue for young folks who were not eligible to vote, not eligible to serve on boards and committees and commissions to have an opportunity to work with other individuals their age to develop policy and program solutions to the issues impacting their lives. I believe and support the new change ambassadors change by youth ambassadors program but I believe that we can have an ambassadors program that provides consultation opportunities for young people without forgetting and remaining grounded in why the youth commission was created in the first place that being for young folks who don't have an avenue for having their voices heard. Ages 16 and 17, they're not permitted to vote. They're not old enough to serve on boards committees and commissions whereas 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 year olds although maybe considered youth are eligible and able to do all of those things. And so I'm gonna urge the city council as well as the office on youth to preserve the youth commission for what it was intended to do which was to provide a place especially in these challenging and unprecedented times for our young people to have a voice role impact and influence and local decision making. And I also urge the city council, county commissioners as well as our school board to do a better job of engaging young folks. The reason why we had a youth work program is because advocacy of young people. The reason why we have an office on youth is advocacy of young people because it was then when I was a teenager then mayor Nick Tennyson was actually proposing a juvenile curfew in response to youth crime. And I attended a community meeting where I suggested we needed a team center which we now have. I suggested we needed a job program which we now have and need to do more with. Mayor Pro Tem has actually been a strong proponent of investing over a million dollars into that program which I'm looking forward to seeing put into a future budget to actually codify that support. And also looking at other ways so we can really engage our young people and create additional opportunities. So in order for us to do both of these things if it requires more capacity for the office on youth let's upfit that office with the capacity so that it doesn't have to make decisions about what voices do have opportunity to be heard and which ones do not. Because I understand with limited resources often requires prioritization. And I don't want us to lose the voices of our middle and high school students as we prioritize those that are 16 to 24. Thank you all so very much for this opportunity to speak. And one of the reasons why you didn't receive an email I'm having some technical issues but please know that you will hear more in the coming days. Thank you. I'm Mr. Langley, thank you. And thank you for your, I remember you when you were that young. I was even young, I was even younger than I am now. And when you were doing that work so thank you for being part of that. And I appreciate the question and Ms. Cleal maybe you could respond to Mr. Langley's important concern about keeping those folks who are 16 and 17 year old and having their voices continue to be heard. Thank you. Yes, thank you to Warren for your comments and for the legacy of work of your commitment to young people in Durham definitely wants to uplift. The Durham Youth Commission would not be here today without your advocacy and others who you who advocated alongside you. You know, as Elise mentioned, the shift is really the commission model and the way that our office I'm seeing some chats here. So the major concern is the voice of young folks 12 to 17. So let me address that specifically actually and you're absolutely right. And there are resource considerations. Our office has a ginormous age range that we are responsible for five to 24. A lot of the work that we have done sort of is at the intersection of the older young people because youth engagement is one of the priorities of our office as is enhancing programs and services for all youth ages five to 24. So with two full-time people in our office and two part-time people, it's incredibly challenging to make the kind of impact that we wanna make on that age range. And so of course we have to prioritize and the shift to youth ambassador model was a way to actually have a more powerful impact for young people to have actual power in the commission model. We weren't seeing that as having an actual impact in terms of policy change, getting into decision-making spaces. The model itself wasn't resourced well for young people to be compensated for their time, to have more hours. A lot of people were volunteering. I mean, all of them were volunteering their time. And so it doesn't mean that we can't consider what a commission that or some kind of focus on a younger age range would look like. I do think that for the resources that we have and we're able to get in this last budget cycle, having paid positions to serve in actual decision-making spaces and have real power in local government versus like a group that's like doing advocacy work, which isn't not important, but we wanted to shift towards actual power structures, impacting power structures. So that is the reason for the change. And of course, having 10 students or 10 young people and hearing from young people in that age group about also not having opportunities to do that kind of work. And that's what informed our decision to for the older age range. But I hear you loud and clear. There's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of young people to engage in local government and we don't discount the importance of having younger people engaged in this way. I do want to, at least do you want to comment on that at all? You don't have to, but I was looking at you, not sure if I'm reading you right. Yeah, no, I think I appreciate all the comments so far about it. One of the things that I'm sorry, my neighbor is cutting my grass right now. So if you all hear that, I don't want to get a citation from the city because it's too long. But one of the kind of thoughts that Laura and I were having about it is the DYC has a long legacy, right? And it has been around for about 18 years, right? And so we knew that even in this change, we wanted to get ahead of it before, because we knew people were attached to the idea of a commission, right? In a youth commission. And so that's why we've really were thinking about like how can we make the change that's responsive to what we're hearing from community, but still kind of really hold on to the legacy and also like inform the folks that we think might be most impacted by the change, right? Like Mr. Lingley for all the work that he did and the creation of it and other folks who were really like impactful of like not just creating the DYC, but sustaining it for as long, right? Like the DYC is a beautiful legacy, not just because it was created and youth were given the space, but it was maintained, right? And so I hear the question about or the concern about younger youth and we will continue to work with younger youth 13, 218 in our office. And so the shift, right? Because we were doing high school age youth, the folks who were no longer be able to serve or who won't be necessarily recruited for this cohort who were recruited for the DYC or about 14 or 15 year olds because we were prioritizing and only had high school age youth on the commission. Usually we didn't have young people that were under 13. We usually had maybe one 13 year old sign up. And so I think to DeWarrant's point, what I'm thinking is like one will still be recruiting them for different opportunities that come up in our office. This just won't be one of them. And then also making sure that as the new cohort are advocating for their peers they're also advocating for young people that are younger, right? That kind of 12, 14 and 15 year olds who are not present on the new cohort. So those are some of the things that I'm thinking, but thank you for the time to kind of respond to it. Thank you. Madam manager, did you have a comment? At the end, I would like to make a comment, Mayor, if that's okay. Sure, I have a question and as well. Would you like to go now, Madam manager? Do you want to wait until? I can wait to you. Okay. I just, yeah, I love the report. I also, it's funny what I guess it was Madam Mayor Pro Tem said about getting it on my desk and paper. I love that. That was great. And I really thought the report was great. There were a couple of things about it that I wanted to ask about. You know, it was interesting to me to read all the different priorities and needs and to see the extent to which there are some like, you know, sidewalks and, you know, those kinds of things where we have a big city commitment, where we spend millions and millions of dollars to try to, you know, improve. You know, there was a lot of talk about, in the report about, you know, access to transit. And we're really trying to do that. And then there's some of the things in the report that we don't do anything on. And I don't know that the county does either. And so that was really interesting for me to see that kind of, and to think about, you know, how we're going to start doing things on some of the things that we do very little on. I was really struck by the emphasis in the report on mental health and the desire for safe spaces and spaces where diverse youth feel comfortable coming together. And I was wondering, maybe we could hear from Mr. McDuffie or Mr. Seegers about that. And when those issues, do you have any comments on those? Because I was really struck by that. And in particular on the issue of the safe space, I wondered, did you talk a little bit more about what you mean? And I do think about Council Member Freeland's cypher, which I was fortunate to bump into on several occasions. And that always felt to me like that kind of safe space for young people. And I'm wondering what you mean by that, what you think would be useful. And then also if you could comment on the mental health concerns that you had, I would be appreciative of that. So those are my two questions. Yeah, I can get a starter in jail and if you have anything to add, please feel free to do so. So yeah, so when we talk about mental health and safety and diversity, I think all those things are really overlapping. Mental health is really about that, like being able to go into a space. And perfect example, if I show up to a meeting and I'm having like a rough day, I know I can say, hey, y'all, I'm having a rough day. I know I will be taken care of. And I know that there will be some offering given to me about how to maybe handle that situation better or just advice. And so when we were talking to the young people, it was really about that, like being able to show up in spaces, but also when it comes to like, you know, depression and other things that come along with mental illnesses, it's really about having those resources available to them so that they can have access to it because a lot of things aren't accessible to young people for a myriad of reasons. And so that's what we're really trying to get at. When we were talking about diversity, a lot of young people felt like they go into spaces and it isn't really for them, especially black and brown folks or folks who come from neighborhoods that are low income. And so it's about like making sure that there are events where they can go to and they see themselves and there's people around them who are encouraging and can be safe. And so it's really about creating those mental health resources but also creating events where young people can come into, feel safe, feel like they're being seen and heard and like they can just really enjoy themselves but also when they need the necessary help it's available to them. Yeah, that's what those two focus areas are really centered around. And I think that that is some like, some of the ways that that can happen is really, you know, the people who have access who are in charge of those things who are creating those resources, they are keeping young people in mind and figuring out how they can be more accessible. So maybe that looks like promotion. Maybe it looks like going directly to young people where they're convening and telling them about those resources, creating events and letting young people be a part of those resources that have been created and figuring out how that, what that promotion looks like, help having young people be a part of those planning committees. Like, you know, there's an event that's going downtown. Maybe young people are leading that and the adults are sort of being a support system for them, some things that immediately come to mind. Chilling, if you have anything to say, I'm going to pass it off to you. I, Nora actually didn't have anything to add there in response to Mayor Schultz's comment and questions. I think you, you know, you did a great job summing up the key focus areas that he mentioned. But I, yeah, I think I'll leave it at that. I think Nora mentioned a lot of valuable things. And, you know, this wasn't just a focus for those areas, the things he mentioned. I think they could also be interacting with, you know, all the areas that we, we heard in the listening project, but, you know. That was helpful. I guess, not today, but at some point, I'd love to hear more about, you know, think about, so the word space is so kind of fungible these days, you know, does it mean a physical space? Yeah, so I'd love to hear more at some point about when you think about safe spaces for youth. Just, you know, a little bit, and I appreciated Nori's comments. They were very helpful, but a little bit more about that, you know, are we talking about physical spaces? You know, we talk about team centers. Are we talking about, you know, what Nori seemed to stress was kind of ways of, you know, activities in which people felt safe to come together. And so anyway, we'd love to hear more at some point. And then the other thing that I really took away that got me thinking a lot was about what the youth listening sessions, and yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm throwing this at my other council members because I'm not going to be around to listen, but I think that it would be interesting to think about, I don't, you know, the best kind of listening sessions I think are not the ones where everybody lines up on a microphone and it has three minutes, but are there ways to kind of formalize, you know, I think, you know, as a council and maybe I could be around, you know, maybe it could be in the next few months, we could do something, but that there would be an opportunity to, we've had some wonderful listening sessions over the years and Mayor Pro Tem mentioned the retreats, you know, where we would get with the youth commission and we would have fun, but we would also do a lot of listening and those were great. And so I'm wondering if you all have thought more about how to do that and if you have any recommendations for us about, you know, how to structure that and how to listen to you all. Again, I guess I'm asking Mr. Sagers and Mr. McDuffie. Okay, gotcha. I was just waiting, I was looking at, you know, my team, but yeah, I can take this question. So I think it really gets down to, we talked about space and you mentioned it already, but some of these processes or specifically the youth listening project, it wasn't like an overnight thing and it just happened the next day. It really took time, it was a process and it was an intentional process from the very beginning. There was a lot of, and I don't want to take up so much time to go through the whole process, but what I will say is that, you know, as you are considering totally spaces, safe and welcoming spaces, you know, it's much deeper than just a, you know, various roles in the space and these roles, they come together to really, really make that space welcoming and you know, make that space welcoming for community. And I would say that, you know, just for example, we had facilitating roles, we had note-taking roles in the space of the listening sessions, but we also had reading roles, right? We had folks in that space to just welcome community, right? And it's not even the fact of just the whole conversation but just in terms of, you know, what do you need in this moment? You know, how can we, you know, support? Just small things like that is a lot of other things that I would say make these spaces, but I would say that there really has to be some intentionality behind, you know, the purpose of these spaces, you know, for the folks and for the people that you are, you know, you are serving and supporting. So yeah, those are a couple of comments and I'm sure there's a lot more that we can say, but those are a couple of things that are popping up right now. Well, that was great. And I just would say that, I think, you know, let's just say, let me just say, I know the council is willing to listen more than once a year, you know what I mean? We don't have to have this thing where we have one time where we are on retreat with you and so give us some thoughts about how you would like us to listen because that was a big thing for me. That was a big takeaway for me from the report. Okay, those are my questions and now I'll ask Madam Manager for her comment. Yes. I'm sorry, before the manager gives our finale, can I just have about six seconds? Yes, absolutely, of course. I committed a gaffe during my comments. I called Elise Alice, which is clear evidence why I should not be a part of the Office of Youth. So I just wanted to apologize to her and let her know, clearly I know who she is and forgive me, charge it to my head. That's my heart. Elise, thank you, Mayor Shewell. No problem, Council Member Middleton. All right, Madam Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I've been on camera much longer than I normally am, but it was great to be able to listen here today and now be able to provide a shout out to Laura Khalil, the leader of this team that you've heard from today, part of the city manager's office, as well as Elise Jayland and Norrie as they bring their semi-annual report. They were not given a lot of time to talk about some of the things, particularly over the last year that they were required to do really, really pivot to be able to reach youth whose needs severely changed and their families changed during the pandemic. I see a lot of comments in the chat section about the different partnerships that they have and the connections that they have in the community with youth serving organizations or organizations that support youth and their families. They did not have to create these connections when we were in crisis because of the building that had taken place before. And so almost any organization that you name in this community, Laura Khalil and her team can probably tell you the last time they met, the last time they engaged was some type of networking or connectivity that they have to support each other. So I didn't want this hour to pass without actually giving them kudos for the difficult work that they had to do, particularly in the last year in order to continue this great work that you see some of highlighted today. And I would just like to say as a city manager, part of having work products and information shared with you like this is because of getting the right people and the right voices in the space to actually do the work. We have to provide appropriate resources. We have to give them time and space to create and innovate. And we all have to be open to change and transformation. And every time I am in the presence of this team that is reinforced for me as a city leader and I appreciate what they bring, what they deliver to this community overall. So I want to say that today. Thank you very much, Madam Manager. And to the team, we appreciate you being here. Thanks for your great work. We're looking forward to more and also to more interaction in ways that you all think would be most productive. We want you all to be part of the way that part of Durham's governance and in ways that are constructive and useful to you and to our community. So thank you so much. Appreciate you. Thank you. Just adding, taking a point of privilege and I think it was said earlier and I just wanted to speak back to it because I think it's important that Elise Frazier mentioned in the chat and I don't think people at home can all see it but it is part of why the listening piece is included and the boards and commissions is also partly, there's a buildup to it and we're working in that direction. So I think to the matter's point, we're definitely heading there. So thank you. Thank you. All right, Madam Manager, I believe are we ready to settle? We're not quite ready to settle. We have to hear from Madam Clerk. Yes, we are. I lost my, I lost my venue button to unmute, but I have that. I forgot we needed to hear from the clerk first, Madam Manager, I'm sorry, I apologize. We'll get you one second. Madam Clerk, before we settle. All right, the following nominations have been made by council for the Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board for the category of equity and environmental justice, Christian R. Valley Kinlich, the Durham Workers' Rights Commission Category Low-Wage Industry, Eric J. Winston, Mayor's Committee for, Mayor's Council for Women, the category award three position, Lydia Mitchell and related to withdrawal of the applicant for the Cultural Affairs Board. The cap has submitted its seventh recommendation to the clerk's office, but I wanted to ask, how would you like to proceed in filling that vacancy? You mean they have added a day, they have in light of the withdrawal of Mr. Dorfman, they have submitted another recommendation. What we'd like to do is deal with that at the next work session. Okay, so you want it as an agenda item? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right, now we're ready to settle. Madam Manager. I am ready to settle the agenda for your next city council meeting. I have for consent items one through 15 and item 22 and GBA public hearings, items 18 through 20. Thank you very much. Did you say item 22 would be on consent, Madam Manager? Yes. Thank you. Colleagues, you have heard the manager's recommendation to settle the agenda. Can I have a motion? Move to settle. Second. Been moved by Council Member Middleton, seconded I think by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson to settle the agenda. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuhl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Madam Manager. Thank you, good colleagues. I believe we have done it. And we will see you. We have some evaluation meetings coming up in the very near future. And then of course our next council meeting. So I look forward to seeing all of you all and this meeting is adjourned at 3.01 a.m.