 You can leave it with the clerk. You can just leave it with the clerk. Please, could you go give these to the clerk? Friends, good evening. Good evening. I'm glad to have everybody here. I always wait till 7 o'clock sharp to start the meeting. So it's really great to see everybody. I certainly want to welcome everybody here tonight to our Durham City Council meeting for the evening of March 4, 2019. And I would like to ask you all, if you would first please join me with a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. And now I will ask Council Member Reese if he would do the honors with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. We have very rich and friends tonight, Mr. Mayor. And included in that number are 10 different Girl Scout troops. I'm going to read off the troop numbers and then they'll come up here and help us with the pledge. This is Girl Scout troop 264. 966. 998. 1141. 1425. 1640. 3414. 3579. 4036. And 5051. If you guys want to come up and help us with the pledge, that would be awesome. Everyone else, if it's your practice to do so, and if you're able, please join us and rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. And then turn right here. Do you want to turn left? Turn left. Turn right. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, liberty, and justice for all. That was awesome. Thank you so much. Great job. Thank you. Honor them again in a minute. They're being excited about being on TV. I forgot something. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Alston. Here. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. Here. Council Member Reese. Here. Thank you. All those Girl Scouts just, it was so much fun. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. So thank you, Madam Clerk. We are now going to enter into a very enjoyable part of our meetings, which is our ceremonial items. And we have a number of ceremonial items tonight. And I'm going to begin by asking my city council colleague, Mark Anthony Middleton, to do the honors for National Development Disability Awareness Month. And to, if we'll be presenting this to Dietra Spellman. All right, it's been spelled here. Great. Nice to see you. And she's the recreation manager for special programs, mature adults, and inclusion with Dora Parks and Rec. And is there anyone else you would like to have up here with you? All right, great. Mark Anthony. Thank you, sir. Good evening, Bull City. And my thanks to his honor, the mayor, for, as I always say, allowing us to participate in what's probably the coolest part of his job. And that's the reading of these proclamations. Whereas public law 99-483, enacted by Congress in 1987, designated the month of March as National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month. And whereas Durham is home to over 30,000 people with developmental and other disabilities. And whereas Durham residents with disabilities are productive community members, neighbors, and family members, deserving of respect and opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, independence, and personal growth. And whereas all Durham residents with and without disabilities work together, play together, learn together, and to grow together. And whereas Durham is committed to continuing to work towards a more inclusive community with greater opportunities for residents with disabilities to live full and happy lives. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Shule, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim March 2019 as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in Durham, North Carolina, and commend its observance to all residents. Witness my hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham, North Carolina, this the fourth day of March 2019. She doesn't want to say any words. Thank you so much, Ms. Spelman. And thank you so much, Council Member Middleton. And now we're going to have, you might not be surprised, to hear that we're going to recognize Girl Scout Week. And I'm going to ask three of our council members, we're former Girl Scouts. And I want to ask all three of our council members who are former Girl Scouts. Yeah. And I'm going to ask Shanika Thomas, Director of Advocacy and Educational Partnerships for the Girl Scouts of the North Carolina Coastal Ponds, if you would join us. Thank you so much. Is there anyone else that you would like to have come up here and join you as well? Davida and Glendora. All right, please come on up. And I'm going to turn this over to our city council Girl Scouts. And I ask whichever one of them would like to do the honors to please do so. Mayor Pro-Tam. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here. Being part of Good Girl Scouts was really exciting and fun part of my childhood. And when I had my first kid, I actually sang him to sleep with Girl Scout camp songs. So it has remained with me as an adult. So I'll go ahead and read this proclamation. Whereas the year 2019 marks the 178th anniversary of Girl Scouts of the USA, I'm sorry, 107th anniversary of Girl Scouts of the USA, the largest and most successful leadership program for girls in the world. And whereas Girl Scouts unleashes the G-I-R-L, or girl, go-getter, innovator, risk taker, leader, in every girl, preparing her for a lifetime of leadership. And whereas Girl Scouts combines time-tested, research-backed methods with exciting, modern programming that speaks to today's girls and is designed to cater to the strengths of girls' leadership development. And whereas Girl Scouts offers girls 21st century programming in science, technology, engineering, and math, STEM, the outdoors, entrepreneurship, and beyond, helping girls develop invaluable life skills and take the lead early and often. And whereas as the world's premier leadership development organization for girls, Girl Scouts welcomes girls of all backgrounds and interests who want to develop the courage, confidence, and character to make the world a better place. And whereas research shows that girls learn best in all girl, girl-led environments in which their specific needs are addressed and met. And whereas the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest and most prestigious award in Girl Scouting calls on Girl Scouts in grades nine to 12 to take on projects that have a measurable and sustainable impact on a community by first assessing a need, designing a solution, completing a project, and inspiring others to sustain it. And whereas with more than 100 years of experience, Girl Scouts brings a wealth of knowledge to programs that deliver girls' cornerstone experiences with benefits that last a lifetime. And whereas today more than 50 million women are Girl Scout alums and 2.6 million girls and adults are current members. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Stephen M. Shull, Mayor of the city of Durham, do hereby proclaim the week of March 11 to 15, 2019 as Girl Scout Week in Durham and hereby urge all citizens to take special note of this observance and to hereby applaud the Girl Scout movement in the North Carolina coastal pines for providing girls with the safe, inclusive, all-girl space where they can hone their skills and develop leadership abilities. Thank you for honoring Girl Scouts today as it celebrates its 107th birthday and more than a century of extraordinary leadership and driving sustainable change in communities throughout the United States and beyond. As the largest leadership development organization for girls in the world, Girl Scouts helps girls develop into future leaders of our communities, our country and our world. Across Central and Eastern North Carolina, we serve more than 27,000 girls and 9,000 adult volunteers. Right here in Durham, we serve 2,230 girls. We didn't bring all of them tonight, though. We're uniting the best of our legacy experiences like outdoor adventures, camping, and our cookie program with new programs in computer science, computational thinking, and engineering to ensure that we offer a truly one-of-a-kind experience for today's girls. As we celebrate Girl Scouts' 107th birthday, we invite you all to be a part of our work throughout the year. Thank you for acknowledging the Girl Scout movement that serves our community by building girls of courage, confidence, and character who will make the world a better place. Mayor does now. Good news for us, we got some Girl Scout cookies. Yes. And you can see with my city council colleagues what great leadership the Girl Scouts develop. And that's proof right there. All right. And now we're going to move to our history moment. And this will be our salute to Judge Allison Duncan. And Eddie Davis, our public historian, is gonna help me. Judge Duncan, would you, and anyone who is with you who would like to come up and join you, come on up. Perfect. Great to see you. Eddie, come on up. And I'm gonna first read this proclamation, and then we're gonna hear from Eddie Davis, and then we're going to hear from Judge Duncan. We're so glad to have you. Whereas Judge Allison K. Duncan, a native of Durham, has announced her pending retirement from the Fourth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. And whereas Allison Duncan graduated from Hillside High School in 1968, Hampton University in 1972, and Duke Law School in 1975. And whereas after law school, she clerked for the distinguished judge, Julia Cooper Mack, of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. And whereas Allison Duncan served as an attorney at the United States Equal Opportunity Commission from 1978 until 1986, and rose to the rank of the general counsel for that federal agency. And whereas Allison Duncan returned to her home state in 1987, and became a professor at the North Carolina Central School of Law. Her mother had served as a law librarian at NCCU, and her father had served as superintendent of buildings and grounds at the university. And whereas Allison Duncan later served on the North Carolina Utilities Commission, and in 1990 earned the title of judge by being the first African-American woman to serve on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. And whereas in 2003 and four, Judge Duncan became the first African-American person to be elected to the position of president of the North Carolina Bar Association. And whereas on April 2nd, I'm sorry, April 28th, 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Allison K. Duncan to serve on the Fourth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. In spite of the partisan bickering that existed then and now, Judge Duncan was robustly supported by North Carolina's two U.S. senators, one Republican and one Democrat. Judge Duncan was confirmed by the full U.S. Senate by a vote of 93 to zero on July 17th, 2003, and received her commission on August 15th, 2003. And whereas during Judge Duncan's tenure on the Court of Appeals, she's continued to distinguish herself by being elected to serve as the president of the Federal Judges Association and the vice president of the International Judges Association. And Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed her to serve as the chair of the International Judicial and Review Committee of the FJA. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Shule, mayor of the city of Durham, and on behalf of the city council to hear by recognized Judge Allison K. Duncan for her contribution to our community and urge all citizens to join us as we extend our sincere appreciation on her work and wish her well in her retirement. Witness my hand in the corporate seal of the city of Durham, North Carolina, this 14th day of April, 2019. Judge Duncan, we are very, very proud of a Durham person who has gone to international heights. Most of you know that the Court of Appeals is just the step lower than the United States Supreme Court. We should be very proud to have someone who has risen to that rank in the legal system that we have in this country. Judge Duncan, and there is another judge who actually serves on the Court of Appeals in the sixth district, whose name is Judge Eric Clay, who also is a graduate of Hillside High School, also is a native of Durham. And I think you all missed each other at Hillside by one year because at that time Hillside had three grades. So by the time that Judge Duncan got to Hillside, Judge Clay had already graduated and moved on to UNC. But we are proud of both of them, but tonight belongs to Judge Duncan. She has done outstanding work as you have heard through the proclamation. She's never forgotten her Durham roots. And it's good that she continued to work through North Carolina Central in so many different ways, both for parents or employees at the university. So in many ways she grew up there in the university, running around, lived not far from the university, and also spent lots of time in the law library where her mother was in charge. She's given outstanding work on the state level, outstanding work on the national level, and outstanding work on the international level. We were chatting before the meeting started and she has another five years, I believe, on the term as the Vice President of the International Judges Association. Or International Association of Judges. So we are very proud to have someone who is our own, who has risen to such ranks and they will continue to do great things on the national and international level. So the best thing for me to do is to stand back and allow you to hear from Judge Allison K. Duncan. I could say that I think Judge Clay is actually much older. What I'm proudest of is being here tonight and seeing all of you. I grew up in Durham, my roots go deep here. I lived on Pico Street near the Old Hillside High School and my parents, as you've heard, worked at North Carolina Central. So I spent growing up years crawling around in the law school and I'm told that at one point the gavel in the moot courtroom bore teeth marks. I went to church at Holy Cross, the little African American church near Chidley Hall and some of my church members by church family are here tonight, thank you for being fortunate during my career to travel all around the world and see people who live in circumstances that make me feel humbled and grateful for what I have. But what I am most proud of I think is my roots here in this wonderful, rich, vibrant community that I see reflected before me in the faces of the Girl Scouts, in the leadership that you have assembled and all the people here tonight to participate in the democratic process. I am honored and humbled and more grateful than I can say for this honor that you have bestowed on me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Judge. It's always an honor to be up here on the podium with one of our first sons or daughters and we're so grateful to be able to honor you tonight. And now I'm going to ask a council member, Vernetta Austin, if she will join me and she will do the honors on this next proclamation. This is the Women's History Month proclamation and I'm going to ask Nana Asante-Smith of the Mayor's Council for Women and Kim Cameron, the vice chair of the Mayor's Council for Women, Dr. Michelle Laws and Ruby Holmes of the Durham County Women's Commission. If you all are here, please join me. And I am going to step away from the podium for a moment and I'm going to turn this over to council member Austin. Whereas women have played a unique role throughout the history of the city of Durham and Durham County, North Carolina and the nation in many ways. And whereas women have persevered in overcoming challenges and fought for what they believed in. And whereas women have been leaders, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in governance, medicine, mental health, social justice, business and fashion and beauty and other movements which create a more fair and just society for all. And whereas too often women are unsung and sometimes their contributions go unnoticed with many history books focusing primarily on political, military and economic leaders and events. However, the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who helped build America is as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well. And whereas the Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment and other matters. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and introduced in Congress for the first time in 1921 and has prompted conversations about the meaning of legal equality for women and men ever since. And whereas looking over the past 150 years since Confederation, countless women have harnessed their energy and talents, found their voice and claimed their place in our country's proud history and younger generations of women will carry the torch and continue to contribute to Durham County, North Carolina and this nation. Now therefore I, Steven M. Shull, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim the month of March, 2019 as Women's History Month. In Durham and hereby urge all citizens to take special note of this observance as well as library schools and community organizations as we raise our awareness about the generations of women who have, who are and who shall shape and influence the history of Durham, North Carolina and the world. Witness my hand in the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina this 18th day of March, 2019. Greetings Mayor Shull and City Council. Thank you for having us, for recognizing Women's History Month for both the Mayor's Council on Women, I'm gonna say it wrong I know, and the Durham County Women's Commission. We have worked actively, more so actively over the past few years to ensure issues that affect women and children are at the forefront in Durham. Pay equity, affordable housing, homelessness, food insecurity. We will continue the fight for the women and children of Durham with your help with the County Commissioners and the City Council. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Council Member Austin and the members of the commissions and the council. Our final ceremonial item tonight, I'm gonna ask former Mayor Bill Bell, who have asked to be here with us tonight to join me here at the podium and to help me do this. We are saying a sad farewell tonight to our longtime city attorney and our former city manager, Mr. Patrick Baker. And Patrick, I wanna ask you to come and join us and that Rayanne would like to come up as well. We're so sad to see Patrick go, but also happy for him. Many of you all know, most of you all know, Patrick will be going to the city of Charlotte to become their city attorney. We tried to sabotage that. Didn't work, but Patrick has just been an amazing, amazing servant of the city and people of Durham. I'm gonna read this proclamation. And I'm gonna say a word or two. And then I'm gonna ask Mayor Bell if he would like to say a word and then I'm gonna turn it over to you, Patrick. This is a proclamation honoring Patrick Baker. Whereas Patrick Baker has offered tremendous service to the city and people of Durham for the past 21 years. Seven of them has assisted city attorney. Four of them is city manager and for the past 10 years is city attorney. And whereas Patrick Baker is one of the few public servants in this country to have served with distinction as both city manager and city attorney of a major American city. And whereas Patrick Baker has played a major role in most of the major accomplishments of the city of Durham in the past 21 years, either a city manager or city attorney, including but not limited to the Durham Performing Arts Center, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the development of Eastway Village, the establishment of Keep Durham Beautiful, the steady downward trend of crime in Durham, the downtown Renaissance, the recent affordable housing efforts and much, much more. And whereas Patrick Baker has led the attorneys in the city attorney's office to be one of the finest law firms of any type in the city of Durham, doing exceptional work to represent and defend the city government and our residents in all types of cases. And whereas a testament to Patrick Baker's leadership and collegiality is the exceptional longevity of the service of the attorneys in his office. And whereas Patrick Baker has a strong reputation for honesty and integrity that engenders trust in everyone he works with. And whereas everyone who has come to know Patrick Baker knows that he is devoted to his family and he exhibits to everyone he meets kindness and decency. And he is simply one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And whereas Patrick Baker has in summary, given splendid service to the city and people of Durham over the past 21 years. Now, therefore, I, Steven M. Schulmayer, the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim March 4th, 2019 as Patrick Baker Day in the city of Durham and do hereby commend its observation to all of the residents of Durham and do, in addition, present to Patrick Baker the key to the city of Durham in gratitude for his unstinting devotion to Durham and its people. Witness my hand in the corporate seal the city of Durham, North Carolina. This is the fourth day of March, 2019. And I'm gonna first hand this key over to city attorney Baker. Well, good evening to the city manager and my former colleagues and colleagues on the city council, city attorney and those that are in the audience. This is really a sort of a signal evening as far as I'm concerned for ceremonial items. You can imagine over the years I've been through quite a few pledges to the flag and we've had the Boy Scouts here. It's the first time I know we've had the Girl Scouts since I've been here. And I just look at all the people who have been acknowledged this evening, Allison, the women. And I was at an event this weekend, Saturday, at a luncheon when Mayor Pro Tem brought greetings on behalf of the Durham city council and the city of Durham. And one of the things that she mentioned was that now the city council is a majority women. And I see that tonight. I can't help but imagine that played a part in what we've got, not saying no one was deserving but it's just good to see the type of recognition that we see here this evening. I said that in preference to my very short comments about Patrick and I appreciate the mayor inviting me to be a part of this. Steve said he tried to sabotage it. I'm gonna tell you, I tried to sabotage it also. I got a call from Patrick asking if I might consider being one of his references as he was being considered for the position of the city attorney in Charlotte. So I said, Patrick, first of all, let me say this. I don't mind doing that, but there's one condition. And if any of you know, it's sort of been an annual thing, at least for me, that Patrick, through Ray, brings in chocolate fudge every Christmas, sometimes Thanksgiving. And I've sort of become addicted to it if on an annual basis. So I said, it depends on what we say and how this thing turns out. You've got to make a commitment to me and I'm still going to get this chocolate fudge at least annually. And I don't know if I've got to come to have to go to Charlotte to get it or you go ship it to me, but you've got to make that commitment. So Ray, I don't know if he told you that or not. I'm well aware. Okay, okay, we said it. And not if we said it publicly, or everybody knows about it. But seriously, I think the proclamation says not all, but pretty much what Patrick has meant for this community. I've had the pleasure of serving with him, both as a city attorney, as a manager, but most importantly, it's just as a friend. And it's no question of my mind. I told the guy with the headhunter who was interviewing me, I said, look, if Patrick Baker can serve as the city attorney, for as long as he has in the city of Durham, knowing the city of Durham, knowing the type of council members, including me, that he's had to work with, he could be the city attorney for anybody. So, and I was, I said it and just, but I really mean that. He brings a lot of integrity to the office. He brings the type of leadership that is needed. And he looks out for the city first and then keeping the council straight. So I want to again say, Patrick, congratulations to you and Ray, as you take on this next challenge in your career. We appreciate very much what you've done and what you continue to do as a city attorney for the city of Charlotte, but more importantly for just being a friend. And I wish you and your family the best. Before I introduce Patrick and thank you, Mayor Bell, I do want to tell you two things. One is, I also said to Ray and today, are we going to still get the fudge? Apparently you have to be a former mayor to get it. Okay, good, she says I get it. But since Bill is here, I want to tell you another story about Patrick. For the six years before I was mayor, when I was on city council, I sat in the seat where Vernetta sits. Patrick sat here where Kim is and Bill sat over there in the empty seat, the mayor's seat. And over a few number of years, when things got frustrating, I would pass a note over to Bill and say, I really need a pastrami sandwich. Well, Bill, as you know, likes pastrami sandwich, you may not know likes pastrami sandwiches as much as I do. And finally I got around to the point where we were asking Patrick, how come you never bring us one of the pastrami sandwiches when things are getting tough? Well, eventually one day, Patrick sent us an email about a legal matter and Bill wrote him back, Mayor Bell wrote him back and said, Patrick, that's fine, we appreciate your advice, but where is that pastrami sandwich? And it arrived the next meeting. So we have been so lucky to have Patrick as our city attorney and now I'm gonna turn it over to him for anything that he might like to say to us in farewell. Patrick. So my mom was going to join us. She was not feeling good, but she said that she has a hard time hearing us on the Monday night meetings and she asked me to speak into the microphone. So mom, can you hear me? I'm going to try to get through this. My contract with the city says that I have 60 days of notice of resignation of the position, which I announced back on, I think it was January the 7th and 60 days on January the 7th seems like such a long time, but it has been the fastest 60 days of my life as I've been trying to wrap up 22 years and turn it over to the very able hands of Kim Raeberg and the team of attorneys that we have going forward. I've done, I think the calculations and there've been about 349 council meetings that I've been a part of since moving from the city assistant city attorney position to the city manager position. We've had some doozies. We've had some, I think we've talked about one meeting that went to 2.15 in the morning, followed by a trip to the old honeys until the sun rose up. That was the night that we got the D-Pack and West Village, but I've never actually watched a council meeting just for the sake of watching it or reliving it because you're up there. You go through the process and the last thing you really wanna do is relive it again, but this last council meeting that we had the February 25th or whichever the date was, the very last council meeting was the first time that I've actually gone back and watched it just for the sake of watching and reliving a couple of the moments. There was a touching moment. Whoever came up with the idea of the history moments, I don't know if that was you, Tom or whomever, but that's fabulous. I love that. And having Mickey Michaud here with his years of service and looking at, you talk about the people that go before you and pave the way for you and Mickey and his generation, the ceiling that was placed on them by local state and federal governments of people of color and that generation that resisted that and pushed the ceiling up for people like me to do the things that I've done. I really appreciated that and Mickey I think is 88 years old if God wants me here for 88 years, I need to look like Mickey when I'm 88. I hope that I can and speak like he does. And then there was Tony Simpson. Again, I'm sure this is you, Tom, the neighborhood spotlight. Do I give that one to you as well? Tony Simpson, I don't know if you saw him. That is the happiest man or at least tied for the happiest man in the world. He loves his community, loves Durham, has big thoughts about Durham. And if I thought I could pull off the pink suit, I would have done it because he pulled it off really well. And then there was a comments made by Bernetta Austin that exuded absolute class and dignity and it's refreshing to hear an elected official be able to inspire with words in a day and age where some of them don't. And I really appreciated your comments. You were certainly entitled to go a different route but I get the sense that that's not who you are. And I really appreciated your comments. And then there was the mayor's state of the city address that violated all of Howard Clement's rules of a be seen, be brief, be seated. That was a doozy, but what I loved about it was it was big and it was bold. This was, and I was thinking that Durham didn't always think big and bold. When I first got here in 1997, it seemed like we were always stumbling over ourselves and we were a little a little Durham and nothing good would happen here. And I can remember my first task as city manager was the eight bonds for a better Durham, $110 million bond referendum. And then we moved on to the Eastway Village Project and then we went to redevelop what is now Southside and now we built the number one theater in the world. We just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I think now my office is involved with the DEAR program, the Durham Expunction and Revocation Program. Again, big bold ideas that once upon a time Durham was afraid to do or it seemed like we were afraid to do. We didn't think the good things happened in Durham and we made it a tagline and now things actually happen here. I know that I don't get the opportunity to write my name into the history books because that's what Eddie Davis is here to do. But Eddie, if you could put me in the chapter of the bold thinkers, the people that felt that Durham could be great things and can do great things because I trust me I would not have been here 22 years if I didn't believe in this community and believe in the people that serve the community and the residents that live in the community. I just wanna say thank you to everybody, all the residents of Durham who have supported me, all the councils, the councils who hired me, the councils who have supported me. I wanna thank Tom Bonfield for his friendship and the leadership. It was just the perfect handoff in 2008 to turn the organization over to you and it has paid dividends that decision and your decision to come here. Kim Raeberg, I wanna congratulate you for the opportunity that you've been given. It is an enormous opportunity but you are the absolute right person for the position and Diana Schreiber. I am so happy to have played a part in the selection process that yielded your your being brought on as the city clerk. I know you'll do great things. So I wish you all well, Godspeed and Bull City for life. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. That was really fun. What a great group of ceremonial items. I have some bad news. As you all may know, Duke lost to Carolina two weeks ago and I unfortunately made a bet with the mayor of Chapel Hill as a Duke fan that I would wear this hat during the meeting. Woo! I gotta take a picture of this. Last one. I will just... That is a beautiful shade of blue, Mr. Mayor. Beautiful, oh my gosh. I will just say that this hurts me to my core. But a bet is a bet and I'm a good loser. I'm gonna let the scouts get out after thank you all so much for being here and then we'll, once the girl scouts have made their way out we will have announcements by members of the council. And the other folks who are standing. Yeah. And if anyone who's standing, we have plenty of seats now and so please take your seat in one of the seats up here. We've got an auditorium full of seats. Come back and see us again. Yeah, it's great, they're great. All right, now if those who are standing could please take a seat, I would appreciate it. Thank you so much. And now we're gonna go ahead and proceed with announcements by members of the council. Are there any announcements by any of my colleagues? Any announcements by members of the council? Mr. Mayor. Council Member Middleton. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And good evening to everyone in the chamber once again. Mr. Mayor, this is our first public meeting as a council since we learned last week that our friends and they are indeed friends at Duke University decided not to enter into an agreement with us to seed land for the light rail project. I wrote an op-ed last week that appeared in local media to which I've gotten a firestorm of responses to. And I wanted to just very briefly tonight, Mr. Mayor, respond to some of the responses rather than write another op-ed to just briefly say a couple of things. Firstly, I wanna give credit where credit is due. I was not the first one to approach the subject of imminent domain. The threshold for imminent domain has already been crossed in this project some years ago. What I did was seek to extend a conversation that had already been started. And indeed a threshold that had already been crossed. And with that, I think there's a very, very different discussion that we should be having about it. Secondly also, I want to respond to those who thought it was inappropriate or are trying to start a war or disrespectful in some way. Mr. Mayor, I grew up in the Black Church. I was raised in a community where elders gathered youth at their feet and regaled us with stories of young boys that faced giants and young girls that went to see kings unannounced. We also learned of stories of people, ordinary men and women that faced down not one wealthy institution, but a nation. An entire legal system, an entire economy that said we were less than that. It wasn't just one institution that I learned that we faced down, it was an entire country. So I wanna apologize if I have not shown the appropriate amount of deference or fear and trembling in the face of a wealthy, powerful institution. I get it from my mama. We've crossed a threshold, Mr. Mayor. We're about to cross a threshold. And I think that my fellow citizens and residents will consider a couple of things. There's a saying that I think captures what it means to be a free people living in a constitutional democracy. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. It means that the voice of the people is the voice of God in a constitutional democracy. And you might be an individual that has no money, that has no influence. You might not have a bunch of connections. But in our system, something special and sacred happens that when each of us as individuals bonds together and puts our will together and puts our power and our resources together and elect a government. When all of our wills are combined, there is nothing more sacred or nothing more powerful than the expressed collective will of a people through their government. And I ask all of my friends in the city listening tonight, whether you agree with the merits of light rail or not, I'm not here to debate the merits of light rail, but I am here to debate the integrity of our government and what it means to be a free people. Are you comfortable living in a context where the expressed will, the collective expressed will of a people is held to a veto power by an unelected institution, no matter how cherished or loved they are and they are indeed cherished in love. Are you comfortable with that? Are we comfortable as a people with a government that decides to use a tool in its toolbox on certain people based upon whether they can fight back or not or how wealthy they are? Because that's what we're up against right now. We've used the tool already. In the democracy, if you don't agree with something, here's the way we deal with it. You unelect us and then you elect people that think like you do who agree with your views and then those people enact policy. If you're against light rail, you don't want it killed this way. Because next time it might be something you want. Next time it might be something you agree with. We're free people and that's the way we do business. I would respectfully submit to you that Durham is a city with a functioning government. We're not applying for entry to grad school. We are trying to secure our economic future and make good public policy. And I would submit that only us and us alone should be the ones to make public policy. Whether you agree with it or not, let us be very careful of the threshold we're about to cross and let us be very sober and reflecting how we want to run our city and who indeed runs our city and who are our friends and they indeed are our friends, but who's in charge of our city? Vox Populi, Vox Day E. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Any other announcements by members of the council? All right, thank you very much. We will now move on to our priority items. And I'll first ask, are there any priority items by the city manager? Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Good evening, everyone. I do not have any priority items this evening, but as a matter of personal privilege, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you and welcome to the chambers my great niece, Ashton Carr, who I did not know was going to be with us this evening. Ashton, where are you? Ashton is a junior at Duke University. As you might expect, she could be because she's there. She's an extremely smart young lady studying medicine and she's here with a class. She tells me ethics in an unjust world. So I thought that's very appropriate that she'd be here tonight, but Ashton, welcome. Welcome, Ashton. And she's terribly mortified and she's gonna call her grandmother, my sister this evening, and I'll be hearing about it, I'm sure. Thank you, Mr. Manager. That was a great priority item. And Madam Attorney. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, it's good to be with you as well as Mayor Bruton and the members of council. I'm Kim Raeberg from the Durham City Attorney's Office. I know it says Patrick Baker, but obviously I'm not Patrick. I do not have any priority items this evening. I'm just glad to be here. Thank you. And I want to mention that as of the day that Patrick's last day, Kim has been chosen as our interim city attorney and we're very, very pleased with that. And glad to have you here, Kim. Madam Clerk, any priority items? Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have no items. Thank you so much. We'll now proceed with the consent agenda. The consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the council. Any member of the council or member of the public can pull an item from the consent agenda. And if an item is pulled, it will be taken up at the end of the meeting. So I will read the consent agenda. Item one, approval of city council minutes. Item two, Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority appointment. Item three, timekeeping management performance audit dated January 2019. Item four, vegetation management ordinance. Item five, extension of Durham Sports Commission and our local agreement. Item six, community development block grant reimbursement for administration expenditure. Item seven, reimbursement of funds of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development Home Funds Fiscal Year 2014. Item eight, bid term contract for sodium hypochlorite. Item nine, amendment number one for on-call master service agreement, DOLRT plan review. Item 10, Eastern Water and Sewer Rehabilitation Project phase one in Belt Street Regional Stormwater Improvements professional engineering services contract for Hazel and Sawyer PC. Item 11, Eno River Outfall and Eno Lift Station upgrade project. Amendment number one to contract professional engineering services McKim and Creed LLC. Item 12, bid report January 2019. Item 13, FY 2018, 19, second quarter financial report. Item 14, cooperative group purchase contract for single axle dump trucks. Item 15, Hoover Road Athletic Park Project construction manager at risk CMAR contract for pre-construction services of the Skanska USA building. Item 16, contract for SP 2019 dash O2 stream vegetation management between the city of Durham and River Works Incorporated. Item 17, utility extension agreement with Rodriguez Glass Inc. to serve the Rodriguez Glass Project. Item 28, contract with Made in Durham to support the development of an education to work pipeline system for youth in Durham. You have heard the consent agenda and I'll now accept a motion for its approval. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. We approve the consent agenda. Hearing no discussion, Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to our general business agenda and our first item is item 19, 2018 fourth quarter annual crime report. And I'm gonna ask Chief Davis if she would make a report. I will say that we have three. Let's see, one, two. We have several speakers to this item. I'm going to, Chief, after you speak and before the council ask questions, I think what I will do is ask the speakers to come up and then we'll follow with questions. Absolutely. All right, thank you so much. We're glad to see you. Thank you. Good evening, mayor, city council members, city manager and city attorney. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present before you tonight an updated crime report with emphasis on the 2018 annual report. But before I start, I'd like to recognize my leadership team who's here tonight who have played a critical role in the achievements that we have made in the last year. Raise your hands, guys, when I call your name. Major Greg Pickerel, Major Delma Allen, Major Kevin Cates, Major Ed Sarvis, Captain Melissa Bishop, and Will Glenn. Also I have with me is deputy chief Todd Rose and deputy chief parent assembly. Chief Rose has been an intimate part and involved in the development of uniform patrol, crime reduction strategies and effective retooling of the department's daily staffing and deployment. He is retiring in the next week. He has demonstrated amazing leadership over the years, showing true dedication to his work and community and unwavering leadership to the men and women of the Durham police department. He will be sorely missed. I had to say that about him. So thank you for your support. He wasn't expecting that, of course. So tonight's report highlights the department's six performance measures, which are part one violent crime, part one property crime, part one index crime, clearance rates, response times to priority one calls and staffing levels. I'll also speak a little bit about some of the department highlights in 2018. Here we go. Part one index crime is comprised of a combined total of part one violent crime and part one property crime. For 2018, part one index crime was down by 7%. Compared to 2017 and 2018, there were decreases in aggravated assaults, robberies, larcenies, and burglaries. There was also significant reductions in overall part one violent crime by 13% and overall part one property crime by 6%. The largest reductions in part one crime occurred during the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period in 2017. I think I'm missing a slide. That's okay. I get a pop up. This was hard. Forgive me for that. Okay, I'm just gonna work through this. Somebody will be in trouble tomorrow for sure. So, part one violent crime includes homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault. Part one violent crime in the city was at a four year low in 2018. There were double digit decreases in reported robberies and aggravated assaults. Robberies were at a four year low and aggravated assaults were at a five year low. Categories where increases were reported was homicides and rapes. There were 35 homicides reported in 2018. Cases ruled as self defense are not included in the final UCR total, which is why our statistics show 32, but technically there were 35. There were 29 individuals arrested on murder charges in connection with 2018 homicide cases. There were also six cases cleared from 2017 and two from 2016. There are currently 12 open cases from 2018. 14% of all rapes reported in 2018 were belated from prior years. Commercial robberies were down 48% in 2018 compared to 2017 and robberies from persons were down by 3%. Investigators assigned to the robbery unit arrested 70 people on robbery charges during 2018. Many of those individuals were involved in multiple cases. The robbery unit only investigates the most egregious cases which involve guns. District investigators made additional robbery arrests where guns were not involved. Officers made numerous robbery arrests in the fourth quarter of 2018, which are highlighted in the accompanying report. Firearms were involved in 59% of the aggravated assault incidents in 2018 compared to 68% in 2017. Report at part one. Chief, excuse me one second. Yes, sir. I don't know that we ought to run the slides on your report because what we've got is the third quarter slide show. Is that, that is? Yeah, that's why we're having the disconnect, but I think why don't you go ahead, give your report orally. We've all got your report that we've read prior to the meeting on our agenda. Okay, well I'll just. The public won't be able to see the slides, but I think it's better than seeing the slides and aren't right. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. So report at part one, property crime, which includes burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft was down by 6% in 2018 compared to 2017. There were decreases in burglaries and larcenies. Burglaries were at a 20 year low. Reported property crime and Durham made up 83% of all part one crime in 2018. So in essence, while crimes against persons typically make the six o'clock news, a large majority of criminal activity in the city is crimes involving property thefts, of vehicle larcenies breaking and entering burglaries and et cetera. As mentioned, burglaries were at a 20 year low in 2018, the number reported larcenies was the second lowest in 20 years. There was a significant decrease, actually 17% in shoplifting in 2018. Larsenies for motor vehicles comprised 46% of larcenies in 2018. So despite the many proactive measures we've taken to educate our residents, cars are still left unlocked, unattended with valuables left in plain sight. So it still presents a problem. For us, keys were left in the vehicle in 37% of cases. The majority of motor vehicle thefts happened at homes or apartments. Motor vehicle thefts were at a 10 year high in 2018. We saw that uptick as it was occurring. The most stolen vehicle again, you all know, the Honda Accord. In some instances, we've identified individuals who have committed more than one property crime, specifically burglaries and vehicle break-ins. So I've added some additional information also about guns because gun reduction, especially crimes that are committed with guns are a major concern in the city of Durham. Stolen guns in Durham, we had several cases in 2018 in which guns and accessories such as bullets, magazines, et cetera were stolen during burglaries and break-ins to vehicles. There were 202 guns and accessories stolen during vehicle break-ins. Many of these vehicle break-ins occurred at residences, parked vehicles, and driveways, et cetera. We also had more than 90 guns and accessories stolen during burglaries at homes and businesses. The Durham Police Department recovered over 800 guns in the city of Durham in 2018. Some of this work was in conjunction some of our federal task forces like the ATF. As an added measure to combat gun violence in the city the Community Services Division will be providing instruction on gun awareness and safety during our upcoming Citizens Academy and for other community and civic groups. Now talk a little bit about part one clearance rates. The benchmark FBI clearance rates that were noted on the slides are for populations between 250,000 and 500,000. The 2017 FBI statistics are the most recent available for comparison purposes. The Durham Police Department's clearance rates were higher than the FBI national averages in all categories with the exception of aggravated assaults. However, our clearances in this category did exceed the clearance rate in 2017. Our part one violent crime clearance rate increased by 31.6% in 2017 to 38.3% in 2018. Moving to priority one calls for service. The number of priority one calls which are our most urgent calls calls for service declined by 4.5%. Our average response time was 6.1 minutes which was below the target of 5.8 minutes but an improvement over the 6.2 minutes in 2017. We answered 52.4% of priority one calls in less than five minutes in 2018. Our goal is 57% but this is a slight improvement over the 52.1% in 2017. Our longest average response times are from districts three and four. We recently made adjustments to our beach structure based on the IACP study recommendations. So we anticipate that this realignment will help reduce response times in combination with reallocating patrol resources in areas where there is the greatest demand. The ultimate goal is to confine patrol officers to their assigned district and to have one officer per beat. Not only will this improve our response times it provides opportunities for officers to get to know the people in which the areas that they service. So staffing at the end of the fourth quarter give you a little bit of staffing information and annual staffing numbers. Our sworn staffing was at 95% at the end of 2018. Currently we're at 99% of our sworn positions being filled. This number includes 33 recruits who started BLET class number 49 last week on February 25th. 23 recruits from BLET number 48 graduated on February 7th. Thanks to those of you who were in attendance at that graduation. Hispanic officers made up almost one third of BLET number 48. Half of the Hispanic officers hired were military veterans and six of the eight were North Carolina residents. According to our recruiting officers most of these recruits applied here after searching online or because they knew someone in the Durham Police Department. So we're having some good referrals. Our recruiting unit participated in more than 85 job fairs and recruiting events throughout the country in 2018. We're still taking lateral transfers from North Carolina officers as well. DPD hired 68 sworn officers in 2018. 52 officers separated from employment in 2018. Out of the 52, 24 of those were recruits in some form of training. 10 officers retired. 14 other, for other reasons. In essence, someone wanted to return to college, spouse's job, transfer them. Someone decide, a few people decide to go to other agencies. Someone went in the Marine Corps and four were terminated. The average sworn attrition rate 2018 was about 4.3 officers per month, which is an improvement from a couple of years ago. So almost six officers a month. Our non-sworn staffing level was at 91% at the end of 2017. It is currently at 96%, which is the highest it's been in several years. That's our non-sworn. So I'm gonna move on to our U-Visa requests. The Durham Police Department updated its U-Visa policy for certifications in 2018. Historically, most cases were denied due to a lack of workable leads. The new policy allows for qualifying cases dating from now January 1, 2011 to present to be certified even if the case is inactive. An increase in requests for U-Visa certifications were received in 2018. And the graph, which I know you have in front of you depicts an increase in the fourth quarter of approvals. The Durham Police Department received 119 U-Visa requests in 2017 and 222 in 2018, which is an increase of 87%. In 2017, 22% of U-Visa requests were approved. 65% of U-Visa requests were approved in 2018. I'm gonna talk a little bit now about use of force investigations. During 2018, we had a reduction of use of force complaints generated both by the department and by citizens. This is not the number of cases per se. It's the number of allegations, meaning there can be multiple officers in one case. The number of DPD generated complaints dropped by 19% from 59 in 2017 to 48 in 2018. The number of citizen generated complaints dropped by 67% from 15 in 2017 to five in 2018. I'm also going to provide a little bit of information about a body-worn camera program, which I think is important to note that we, how we monitor it. Administrative investigations that were generated from a request by me, the chief, two allegations, both of those were sustained. Performance reviews usually generated and handled at the field level. There were four allegations investigated and all of those were sustained. Citizen complaints, there were three allegations, two were sustained and one was exonerated. Complaints in the category of respecting the rights of others. There were no DPD generated administrative investigations or performance reviews for this particular violation. However, we received five citizen complaints in 2018 for respecting the rights of others. One was exonerated, one was not sustained and three were sustained. A few highlights for the year. As you know, we moved into our new police and 911 headquarters building. The new facility at 602 East Main Street officially opened for business on November 1st, 2018. Everyone, including the 911 Emergency Operations Center was moved in by December. On October 20th, we held a grand opening event which was heavily attended by several hundred people. The new four story building houses the headquarters staff from the old buildings, substation five and Durham 911. Another initiative that was quite significant was the Durham Police Department officially launching our safe place initiative in October, 2018. The launch campaign took place at Starbucks on Guest Road, participating businesses agree that they will provide a safe place for any LGBTQ community member or any other victim who has been harassed or victimized by hate crime, hate crimes or any other type of victimization. The victims will be permitted to wait at that safe place business until authorities arrive to assist them and provide referrals, emergency assistance, et cetera. More than 22 businesses now have signed up and pledged to assist members of the community to find themselves victim of crime or in some other type of crisis. The Durham Police Department safe place is a demonstration of the department's commitment to take proactive stance and crime prevention efforts and community engagement programming. Lastly, in the fourth quarter of the year, during the holidays, the department participated in numerous programs and projects in the community. Just a few examples was adopted families for Christmas bought gifts for children at shop with FOP, shop with a cop, delivered meals on wheels, provided gifts for Ronald McDonald House, purchased needed items for our soft room, which is where we interview children that are victims of crime. And even provided hundreds of dollars in donations for animal protection society, conducted community canvases in the Hispanic community and crime prevention forums in an effort to curtail robberies. Officers also conducted planned safety initiatives by being visible in shopping areas and handing out crime prevention and safety information to shoppers throughout the holiday season. And if I have skipped anything in your heart copies, I'll be glad to respond to it. Thank you. Forgive me for. All right, thank you, Chief. Thank you. And just for members of the public, this is available. If you want to see the slides, they are available on the city website for the meeting, if you're interested in seeing the hard copy of what the Chief has reported to us. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Chief, I'm going to now ask members of the public who would like to speak to be able to do so. And then I will ask you to return to the podium and we will ask questions and so forth. All righty, I'm going to ask the following people if they would please come over here to my right and each of you will have three minutes and please speak in the order in which I call your name and please give your name and address when you speak. First, Mr. Chris Tiffany. Second, Sherilyn Pulial Santos, Victoria Peterson Miguel Staten, Imam Akbar, and Margarita Serrano. Mr. Tiffany, welcome. You have three minutes, sir. Right here at this podium, there was a criminal complaint that someone pulled a gun on their eight-year-old child, but that complaint was undocumented because the complaint taken first as police department was against a cop. And right through those doors, I tried to tell the Chief about that but she cut me off and I complained that she keeps on doing that. And turning her back and walking away and she said, I wouldn't do that. But then when I tried to tell her about a Latino kid who right after the gun complaint said his complaint was worse, he was beaten, stripped naked, and body cavity searched at an unposted target area where he went to see his high school girlfriend. But after he went to the desk with his mother and filled out a complaint for him, the rape complaint was disappeared. I've tried many times to stop public strip searching but Chief Davis, surrounded by her command staff, said, I don't want to hear about it. And turned her back and walked away again. And at a grocery store when I told her about a couple of cops, told me they heard I was asking her out about cops, stealing and selling drugs, they said, yeah, there's cops selling drugs but it ain't none of your business. Keep your nose out of it. We know where you live. Just shoot you down like a dog on the street. No, no, no, just another drive by. She said, I don't have time for this. And turned her back and walked away. And when I went to the desk with a criminal complaint about a city employee from PAC-4 who chased me away from the Weaver Street polling place swinging a baseball bat at my head, desk officer said, take your complaint to the CIA. And when I went to the desk with a complaint that a cop told the drug dealer there's a secret grand jury indictment against you. Gonna be a raid on your apartment tomorrow. The desk officer said, yeah, we know. We got leaks. And he turned his back and walked away like Chief Davis who does not know what goes on in her own department because as she told me and her command staff, I don't want to hear about it. What's missing from PR, police reports, criminal misconduct including armed robbery, drug trafficking, death threats, sexual misconduct assault, and cops sickening criminals on complainants. Chief Davis knows what I'm talking about. Her parting shot was, we'll take a look at it. When I reminded her of a policy complaint regarding cops violating the confidentiality of confidential informants, General Order 1036, a complaint she, they, and y'all got for me in writing in 2016. Y'all need to protect confidential informants, not point them out and broadcast the identities of confidential informants to people who might, quote, shoot them down like a dog in the street, unquote, or make them disappear like criminal complaints are made to disappear. And like the crime report, slides were with details disappeared, not to be seen by the public, merely replaced by a pretty face. Thank you, Mr. Tiffany. We'll now hear from Sherilyn Pooleal Santos. Ms. Pooleal Santos, you have three minutes. Please give us your name and address. Thank you. Sherilyn Pooleal Santos, I am a victim of the crime that occurred at the Valetary Department complex. I would like to know why it has been three months since the crime occurred and we have yet to hear from the police. With this being said, for our community as Latinos, it gives us the thought that our cases aren't cared about, so it wouldn't matter if you contact the police or not because either way our cases are recognized. Ms. Pooleal Santos, would you return to the podium for a moment? Let me ask you a question, thank you. Could you tell us again where you live that you said you're a victim of crimes where? At the Valetary Department complex? Valetary, okay, thank you. The chief is here and other officers are here and I'm sure that they've heard you and they will check in with you, all right? Thank you. Chief Assembly, maybe y'all could. Thank you. Third, we will have Victoria Peterson. Ms. Peterson, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. I do not believe that citizens should have to give their address because persons may not have any when they're at their home and I thought we had stopped that under Mayor Bell, but I am a citizen of Durham and my husband does pay taxes. I wanna just share this here. First, I wanna thank the chief, thank you. A lot of persons here may disagree with me in thanking her. I just wanted to remind this community, before this chief came to Durham, Durham was wreak in crime and it still is. Murder is running rampant in this community and I can speak for myself here. I voted for persons to put new people on this council. Some of y'all are gonna get mad at me on what I'm getting ready to say but the truth is the light. Crime is still running rampant in the black community and we have all of these African-Americans sitting on this city council in one Hispanic, I believe, or maybe two Hispanic. It doesn't really matter. You all live in Durham and you have done very little to take a real true bite out of crime and I'm gonna just tell you why. I ended up with the police department just gave you folks. They didn't give you the part two crimes. You had close to 7,000 part two crimes in this city. You had over 400 juveniles in trouble, in trouble with the law in this city. You had close to 10,000 part one crimes in this city. That gives close to a total of over 6,000 crimes were committed in this community, over 6,000. And the murder and the shooting is running rampant. I don't understand why this council did not approve for more manpower and maybe you did and maybe I missed it. So I'm gonna suggest it. I wanna see 10 new officers over in my district, over on Austin and Ridgway Avenue. I'm tired of the shooting and the killing that's been going on in that community. I live in that community. I wanna see some officers. I want those 10 to start walking the beat. 13 minute response time. Thank you sir. I also want 10 additional officers to work the whole city. And we've got to tap into the sheriff they have officers. And I don't know where the FBI is in the FBI. Our citizens, we pay state tax and we pay federal tax. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Thank you. And I would like to know where those folks are too to fight crime in this community. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Thank you. Mr. Miguel Staten, Mr. Staten. Please mention about, I'd like to see if we can get these 20 new officers. Because we need them. Ms. Peterson, you've had your three minutes. Thank you so much. But I want someone to respond about my 20 officers that I'm asking for tonight, please. If we can get them, please. Mr. Staten, you have three minutes, sir. Please state your name. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Tim Pro, all the Durham community. Listen to the chief giver statistic tonight. One thing I didn't hear from him was about unsolved murder here in Durham. As some of you up here know, I'm the uncle of DeAndre Ballard. And his killing has gone unanswered to this day, five months after he's been murdered. Mr. Mayor, you said we were waiting for a test from the SBIL lab to come back, toxicology report. Medical examiner's office that I talked to last week, they informed me they already did a toxicology report. You know, with that being said, things are getting, well, seems a little sketchy because I'm getting information from the medical examiner's office about this crime and I'm getting different information from my politicians here in Durham. Chief of police, she had a meeting with the Human Relations Committee about this crime that took place here in Durham. She informed them that the case has been closed and turned over to the district attorney. Last Friday, I had a meeting with the district attorney and a couple of the Human Relations Committee attended that meeting with me. They informed us that that fact is not a true fact, that this case has not been turned over to her at all. I'm needing to know why would the chief of police give that information with it not being a true fact. Also, we'd like to know why has the shooter's name in this case been withheld so long from our family and the public in general? Constable, this guy, we're talking about crime rates here in Durham. We got a man out of carrying a gun that has already killed my nephew, De'Andre Ballet, and the police department hasn't arrested him. He's back on the street with a loaded gun, probably the same one that he used to kill my nephew. Let's see, well, basically those are the questions that I need answered. We need to know who the killer was, why the chief of police saying the case is closed when it's not, and another thing with these statistics, why isn't the chief of police being transparent with me and my family about this case? September 17th, De'Andre was shot and killed. Of course, you all know it took three days for them to contact my family. She said she spoke to my sister, Anisha Ballet. I know for a fact she hasn't. I would like to have an answer for that, why she would say that. With that said, yeah, if somebody could give me some answers, I would greatly appreciate it. The mayor's office, governor's office, they looked at this case in the same manner I did. They dropped their mouth in awe when I told them the shooter's name hasn't been released. Thank you. Mr. Staten, thank you very much. Mr. Staten, I appreciate, first of all, I want to say any type of member of your family or any family is killed is a terrible, terrible tragedy. And I want to express as I have before to you that everybody in Durham is hurt when that happens. And I want to just express my sympathy to you and your family for starters. You've said several things about the toxicology report and that kind of thing. I'm gonna suggest that you, why don't you, Thursday or Friday of this week, why don't you send me an email and we'll get in touch again. I will between now and then check on if I've found out anything new about that. I will talk to Chief Davis. I will talk to the district attorney and we'll get back to you. Yes, sir. I say I'll get back to you. I don't want to bother you, you bother me, okay? You get back to me and I believe you have my number as well. And you can call me and we can be in touch. And I will, whenever I know at that time, I will tell you and I will talk to the chief and the district attorney between now and then, okay? Thank you, Mr. Staten. And again, I wanna say, I wanna offer you my condolences. Right. Council Member Freeman. I just wanted to ask a question regarding privacy in this matter, how much information is publicly available versus privately held based on the family members. I know he mentioned his family being involved. And I just wanna make sure we're all clear on exactly what privacy looks like for this. Chief Davis, you wanna comment on that? Absolutely. And I would like to say that not only have we been in contact with DeAndre's mother, we have also been in contact with her in written communication to ensure that she knew that the Durham Police Department was here to support her and to execute whatever her wishes were, whether it was in a personal meeting. And I personally wrote that letter to DeAndre's mother. And we have spoken to Mr. Staten as well in reference to how much information we could provide. We have sent and has been since December, and I'm saying it on public record, the entire investigation to the DA's office. What has happened in the DA's office is a matter of what we need to clear up between the exiting DA and the incoming DA. That information has been provided. The investigator who is working on that case is still there. So I don't see any reason why that cannot be cleared up. And I can assure you, as a professional, we have had the utmost concern about information and providing information to the public and even news outlets just trying to be sensitive to DeAndre's mother as well, who we have communicated with on a regular basis. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Council Member. All right, thank you so much. And Mr. Staten, you can be in touch with me and I'll check into those things and you feel free to be in touch, okay? Alrighty, I'm gonna now call on Imam Akbar. Imam, would you please come to the podium, tell us your name and address, and you have three minutes, sir. Yes, my name is Imam Akbar. I'm at 1604 Adjira Street in Durham. My father-in-law and my grandparents from Bull City right here in Durham and I've been a clergy here for 43 years. I'm an Imam and I'm the National Chief of Staff of the New York Panther Party for Self-Defense and call here for some forms of what we may relate as some form of criminal neglect when it has come to some of the African descendants here in the city of Durham. We appeal to you, Mayor Chual, and to the city manager, Tom Bonfield, and to wish that Judge Duncan would team up to clear up some of the matters that have been neglected, not only the ballot case, but many other cases that may lead to some form at the city attorneys looking at this and some form of malfeasance in the form of when you abandon or neglect the needs of the people or what you would call, Mayor, the volition of the people or what we, the people, meeting the needs. If they're not met, then it takes the citizens to call a network or organization like us to come in and take another look and team up with the city to resolve things such as suggestive hangings or lynchings, modern lynchings, et cetera, and especially out on Hollywood or on Hollywood, which there was a young man that was hung at a bus stop, but it goes on from others when Ms., she was at the university and there's Ms. Reed, Mrs. Shanice Reed that's hanging in the state of North Carolina, along with that young Tom Sanchez Austin. And there's yet another one, a young brother by the name of Lennon Lacy was at a trailer park here. So we see that there are signs of things needed addressed as a form of criminal neglect. We can't address the chief directly on some of that and the officers to combine their forces to give better services in the black community. We see the neglect and we identify, we asked the mayor and the city council to enforce that, to give encouragement to the police to support what is right. When in an investigation, you say there's no report or we don't have a report number, or we have not gotten back to autopsy or something and it leads it on into a situation like Mr. Balloch here or Miguel and the Balloch family. So we extend the greetings to them and ask you all citizens of Durham to pull together to support the grassroots level in resolving and keeping peace in the community and stopping the violence on both ends from the police and citizens. And it's a team effort. And maybe 10 items in the neglect, we have to team up to resolve them all. Thank you city council, thank you mayor. Mr. Akbar. Imam. Yes ma'am. Thank you for being here today. And can you just, are these folks here with you? Members of your concern? With the concerned citizens of Durham. All right, let me just say, I'm sure that I speak on behalf of the chief, I know I speak on behalf of the council and saying that if there are specific cases in which you have particular knowledge or concerns, if you would make that known to the police. Yes. That would be very helpful. City manager. Or Mr. Bonfield says, or the city manager, Imam. The Balloch case put it on record of Gary, GAIRY and his middle name is Donovan Kimber. That there's unconfirmed reports of what actually happened. We the citizens, we don't know what actually happened to our citizens. Mr. Imam, I think it would be helpful if you, after this meeting, at another time, get in touch so that she's able to get back in touch with you and the city manager has also offered, if you have any information about any particular cases that can be investigated, that you think something has not been investigated. That's very important to all of us. So please don't. We have citizens here and Mr. Dennis Garrett who's doing a wonderful job in the community of bringing some peace, we're talking about peace and respect in the community and I think he goes a long way to bring that about. Y'all should give him a round of applause for being here. Appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. All right, I'm gonna ask for the next speaker. Thank you very much. I did so. What are you talking about? I'm sitting there right here clapping for you, Mr. Garrett. What are you talking about? I appreciate all of the citizens. Mr. Thank you. Thank you, Imam. Resip Siliquida. I'm gonna ask now for Ms. Margarita Serrano. Margarita Serrano. Is she here? Okay. She's coming. She's coming. Oh, she here, she comes. Great. Hola buenas noches a todos. Este yo vengo a lo mismo con la jefa de policía que yo sé que no me van a entender porque estoy hablando en español pero no tengo otra forma. Lo que le quiero pedir a la jefa es que por favor si puede quitar las restricciones de la visa U. Que yo sé que ya dio tres años más que son siete, ¿verdad? Pero le doy gracias por eso que extendió más de la visa U por siete años. Pero da la casualidad de que yo no califico para lo de la visa U porque mi situación fue en el 2009 y yo no aplico porque ella nada más dio del 2011 para adelante. Yo quería ver si podía ella quitar las restricciones para que podamos entrar otras personas que somos bastantes personas que hemos sido afectadas del 2010 para atrás. Yo el único que quiero pedirle y gracias por los tres años que dio que yo sé que no muchos no me entienden porque bueno, casi todos porque estoy hablando en español. Y pues esto es lo que les quiero decir. Gracias. Thank you. Yeah, so I think maybe. Yeah. What did you say? Are you planning to translate? No. Okay. All right, so do we have anyone here tonight who can translate? Pablo, do you want to? No. I can say what she just said. No, let's let Pablo. So I want to remind the city council that as a recipient of federal funds you must be providing language access services and no council member Caballero has asked this body to do that. I am not employed by the city to do this. It's the city's responsibility to provide this language access service. And for the very reason that you have a constituent here who speaks Spanish and is unable to properly communicate with this council. So yes, I can do it, but I'm not gonna do it because it's this council's responsibility to do it. Thank you. Okay, Pablo. Let me just say that if we're informed ahead of time that's helpful. And we do have a language access plan that we're working on and planning to adopt for these very reasons, but it's very helpful to hear ahead of time. You were here, you knew the speaker was gonna be here and you could have said something. We could have had someone here to translate. Council member Caballero, would you like to translate? Yes. So Margarita Serrano has just was here saying thank you to the chief for extending the UVC policy back extra three years to 2011. Unfortunately, she's a victim of crime from 2009. And so even though the extension has helped many, it is not helping her and many others. And so while she's appreciative of the update on policy, she would like it to go back further. All right, thank you very much, council member. Thank you, Ms. Serrano. I would also like to highlight, if I could, of course, that it is important to make sure that we do have this access available. And it is important for us to be in community together around this. And if you are gonna be here to speak, it would be nice, it really would be because we actually do have services available. So just making sure that I echo Mayor Schultz's comment. Of which you are aware. But it's important to make sure that we'd have the dialogue. And we know what you're saying. All right, thank you very much, council member. And I believe that's all the speakers on this item. And chief, would you, you're back on? And Ms. Peterson, Ms. Peterson, you know the, Ms. Peterson, you've been here many times. You know the rules of this chamber. If you would like to talk to someone afterwards about that, feel free. I'll be happy to talk to you, but no one's gonna respond to your question at this time. It was, we appreciate your idea. Thank you. And be happy to talk to you later, Ms. Peterson. But yelling out from the seats doesn't get it. Ms. Peterson, here's my response. We will respond to the chief's budget requests about officers as we always do. Thank you. Chief, I expect that members of the council have questions and comments about your report. And so I'll now ask any council members to have any questions or comments if they would like to. Council member Cabriero. I have a few comments. First off, I wanna thank the police department for their expanded efforts to, with outreach into the Latino community. We had a small gathering, kind of like a pilot gathering at Ministerio. I think if I can remember this name. Guerrero Jesus Cristo, which is on Roxboro Road. And we're hopefully having another gathering at the end of the month. We had an excellent turnout. We had robust engagement and a presence from our police. So very appreciative. You know where I stand on the UVSA policy. I see huge improvements, again, appreciative, but I will ask the same as our residents that I would like an unlimited amount. Thank you. Other council members, questions, comments? Council member Freeman. I just wanna come back to the privacy issue. I really am concerned that as a council and then also as a public, we're not really on the same page and understand them like how information about a case can be shared. And so I just really wanna reiterate that it's important that we're clear that the information that can be shared will be shared, but the information that cannot will not. It's not just a blanket. Like there are investigations and we can share everything. There are family members involved, especially in the case that was on Holloway Street. I think it's hard to imagine that if I had a family member that was in that position that I would have to face the public on this in this way because they wanted it anyway. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. And I think this is a good learning opportunity for everybody too. For us and not just in this particular situation in all of our cases, the immediate family is of the utmost importance to us. That's why we have victim witness. That's why we have all kinds of support networks when there are individuals that are victims of crime. So we extend ourselves to the immediate family, those that have the right to know and depend on the immediate family to communicate clearly with other individuals in that family that they want to have privilege to that information. No, we don't provide intimate details about an investigation, a person's medical history and individuals, circumstances in their life, in order to protect their public image and so on. And so on. So not just in this case, but in any case, we provide information to an immediate family member that has the need and the right to know and we have worked very closely with both of those families. Those individuals are not here tonight. Those individuals don't wanna be here tonight. We have been in constant communication with them. And as I mentioned earlier, anytime there's some ambiguity about whether or not I as a chief am doing the right thing as it relates to a family, I prefer to just put my access in writing as well. We've met with family members. We actually took a family member of DeAndre Ballard to the DA's office to be with her to have that discussion. A follow-up, especially as other family members wanted information about this investigation, we're not just protecting the family, but we're also protecting witnesses as well. Individuals who might be intimidated by someone who could approach them or intimidate them from coming forth and telling about what they saw because our job is to get to the truth and that's it. So I wanna make this, I guess, a public announcement that yes, we are very sensitive to the loss of a family member or a community member and we trust that individuals that are related are being provided the information that that mother or father wants them to know they're providing them that information because what we don't wanna do is provide information to people that quite frankly, we haven't been told yes, give that information to other family members. A cousin, uncle, we hope that they are close enough to that family that they can have the conversation and as I said before, that's why I was very clear about making sure that I extended myself to DeAndre Ballard's mother in writing, certified letter in writing that I am available and that if there's anything else that we can do in the Durham Police Department, please let me know, that was back in November, December. And as I'm hoping now that closure is being brought, you know, I don't know at this point what else we should be saying in the public setting about this particular case. Case also just for clarification, the case was discussed with the previous DA and investigative staff and I personally set up a meeting with the new DA so that there could be another briefing in the event that someone needed to help articulate the investigative findings if that didn't happen over at the DA's office. So as a police department, we wanna make sure everybody has all the information that they need to make the appropriate decisions. So I hope that helps clarify things, not just for this case, but in the future. No, we do not publicize personal information about victims, their families, unless we are directed to by that family member. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Other questions and comments by members of the council, council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, good evening, Chief Davis. Appreciate you being with us tonight. Thank you. I wanted to, first of all, thank you for all the work you've done over 2018. I think the report you delivered tonight is easily the best report we've had from a police chief here in Durham about crime in the city. I think the very, one of the first slides in the full report is the property and violent crime rates per 100,000 people in the city. And it shows that last year was the continuation of an early 20-year trend in the city of Durham. There's certainly been some ups and downs, but this last year was pretty significant in terms of the level of crime reduction. The other thing I wanted to note is that the PowerPoint presentation also included some information about priority calls for service that were also down. And I think this is, right, priority calls for service for 2018 were down about 4.5% from 2017. This is something I would like to mention to folks when they express some skepticism about crime and reporting and statistics is that if the numbers were gonna get cooked, they'd get cooked all the way around. But the calls for service show a decline the same way that the crime rate does. And so I appreciate that work. I also appreciate the fact that the average response time has gone down this year. I know that in different parts of the city, particularly in districts three and four, they have a little geographic challenges in terms of the size of the districts and the populations of those districts. And so I appreciate the hard work your officers are doing in that regard. The other thing I wanted to mention, I also wanted to associate myself with Council Member Calvieros, a call for a broad and U-Visa program. And I know you agreed to broaden the look back. I would encourage you to continue to push and again ask us for additional resources if that's what it takes to process more of those applications, that would be great. The other thing I wanted to mention is that as you know, this is the report for 2018 through the fourth quarter of 2018. And in the first part of 2019, we had a horrible double homicide here in the city that involved a double murder. And so I think all of us have been looking at and thinking about what more we can do as a city to reduce domestic violence crimes in Durham. I know that the department has done a good job partnering with the Durham Crisis Response Center recently and trying to figure out new ways to assess the situation that officers find themselves in and that the victims of domestic violence find themselves in, especially when they interact with a police officer. Just since we've been thinking about that as individuals and talking about it, I just wanted to point out that domestic department one domestic violence crimes were down considerably in 2018. I didn't do the math on it, but it looks like something around 25% were thereabouts in reduction in terms of the actual crimes that are associated with domestic violence. And so I think that's a testament to the priority that you've personally placed on it is you and I have talked about this a number of times in these settings and I'm deeply grateful for that and for all the work that you're doing in that area and just look forward to hearing more progress. Thank you, Chief Davis. Thank you. I think it would help too. And I know we've talked about various PR campaigns, some things that are really effective at 12 o'clock at night when you're sitting and you're looking at TV and you see a commercial about if you're alone reported to this number or that number, I think the city of Durham could probably get some benefit out of having, I guess, more PR efforts as it relates to where people can call sometimes. I think it might make a difference. We're trying to do some proactive things as well, even with the Safe Place campaign, not just for LGBTQ community members, but also putting it out that any type of human trafficking, domestic violence, to identify more locations that we can put those stickers on so people know that, you know what, I can come here and somebody can help me. Fantastic. Thank you. Councilor McBrost. Thank you. Chief, I wanna acknowledge the positive numbers and also appreciate a lot of the life-saving work by some of your officers. That's always outlined in your reports and just thank them for that. One question, not as it relates to any specific case, but just generally, I was hoping you could explain in layman's terms what it means for a complaint to be sustained kind of just procedurally what that means. Right, a complaint that has been sustained basically means that whatever the allegation was that officer did that and we sustained that complaint and there will be a disciplinary action to follow that's comparable to whatever it is that the person did. It could be just a letter of reprimand. It could be suspension days or hours. It could be up to termination. So yeah, you're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. It's always good to see you. Thanks for a great report. I just wanted to ask a question about the use of force investigations and the threshold and allegation has to cross before it becomes an actual investigation. I noticed some of them are citizen-generated and some of them are DPD-generated and what's the protocol for something to merit or warrant an investigation? So of course we have policies and procedures of how officers are supposed to handle certain types of situations. What amount of force, what level of communication is required to help mitigate a situation, whether or not that was appropriate or inappropriate. Officers have several tools around their tool belt. They also start with voice commands. What's the most appropriate action for that particular situation? Now, if the department has generated the complaint, that means that it was either reported internally from some other officer or it was determined on maybe even body camera footage during an audit that there was some inappropriate action here. So we do several internal and sometimes our own internal administrative investigations can be more than what we receive from the general public. That's just part of us following policies and procedures and holding our folks accountable for their actions. Right, well, I was heartening to see, it seems to me five is like a really low number for, is that, I mean, that's very heartening. That's the use of force. Yeah, that's very heartening to hear. So all allegations don't necessarily become investigations, though, correct? If it's a citizen-generated use of force, they come in and say officer so-and-so did such-and-such. It absolutely does. So the five investigations actually correlate to just five allegations. For use of force. Use of force. There could have been like a courtesy investigation or I didn't feel that I've deserved a ticket. Those investigations come in too, but for the purpose of this report, I wanted you to know about some of the most egregious kinds of incidents that occur between law enforcement and the community. Also, I know that there's a lot of concern and monitoring of our body camera program and the checks and balances that we put in place to address those types of concerns as well and the respect of the rights of others as well, like courtesy, how did you talk to that person and what was the result of it? So we do those investigations internally when we determine that there was some impropriety or something egregious done or communicated in a way that it shouldn't be. And then of course we get complaints from the outside as well, from citizens as well. Finally, I wanna say chief that tonight I'm not prepared to commit to 20 more officers because our city is growing. You might come back and tell us we need 40. So I wanna leave room to do more if you tell us so. All right? Thank you. Thank you, council member. And just for the record, if I could, I think council members are all aware but just remind you we have a second budget retreat this Friday and actually one of the topics on the agenda for Friday is some background information on public safety staffing both in police and fire. We look forward to that. We'll arrange planning about that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Freeman. Just one last thing. I just wanted to make sure I'm clear because wrapping my mind around this, if there is an excessive use of force complaint, does this go through an HR process or is this still a public, like is it public record? Like how does that work? Well, it comes through as an internal affairs process. You know, where we conduct the investigation, of course we provide information publicly about our use of force cases and we provide that, you know, a quarterly report to make sure that that information is out there in the public so people can see exactly, you know, what was the result of various cases and then we talk to individuals who have filed complaints so that they can know what the result of their complaint was as well. And you would talk to the individual that filed the complaint. Oh yeah, they receive something in writing too to know the disposition of the complaint. Gee, yes, sir. Thank you so much. I have a couple of questions. One is, you talked about respecting the rights of others. Could you describe what that means? That could be a situation internally in the department or even externally, you know, a citizen. You pull over a citizen and you didn't, your tone of voice or refusing to answer a question. Or raising your voice to a coworker. Those are the kind of things that occur to see. Thank you. Has anyone to your knowledge used any of the safe place businesses yet? Has anyone made use of those businesses to find a refuge? I can find that information out where as well. Do you know it? We'll check with our liaison. Okay, thank you. I was impressed with the attrition statistics. We're doing better and much better. Also with the fact that how fully staffed we are in comparison to past years. And we're much more competitive now with our pay and our various bonuses. And I'm, you know, for people living in the, moving to the city and that kind of thing. Absolutely. And so I'm really pleased with that. Also, Council Member Middleton also already mentioned the use of force complaints. And I'm really pleased the extent to which those have dropped as a very low number. And it's a super important category of statistics. So I know we're all very happy about that and want to appreciate it. And I just want to again highlight, this is a fantastic report. You know, every bullet wound is a, you know, it's a terrible, you know, rends our community, not just a family, but a neighborhood in the community. So when we get a report like this, which shows the drop in violent crime that we've had, and one number that's not in here, but crimes with a gun, all crimes with a gun are down 20% over the previous year. Violent crime is down 13%. I know we all need to be careful not to just take one year as too important, but those are big numbers. It's very unlikely we can repeat that. But I also want to say what Council Member Reese said, which is we are a continuing 18-year downward trending crime, our property crime is as the lowest it's been in many, many years. And the violent crime is down as well. In addition to which, all the things that we want to be up are up. Our referrals to the misdemeanor diversion court, and then the, well, I guess it's not up, but the reduction in searches and the kinds of trust-building activity that we're doing is up at the same time as the crime is being reduced. And I'm just really impressed and just want to appreciate that. So thank you very much. Thank you. Council Members, any other questions or comments for the Chief? Thank you very much. Chief, it's been a long night up there at that point. It's all right. Thank you. What we do. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We're now going to move on to item 20. Item 20 is zoning map change for Davis Park West. And I'm going to first ask for a report from the staff. Good evening. I'm Emily Struthers with the planning department. I would first like to state for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law. And affidavits of all notices are on file in the planning department. A request for a zoning map change has been received from Patrick Beiker of Morningstar Law Group for two parcels located at 362 Davis Drive and 900 Marion Avenue, totaling 10.847 acres. The site is presently zoned commercial general with a development plan, CGD, which is legacy case Z0727. It allowed a maximum of 6,000 square feet of office, 37,000 square feet of retail and 180 hotel rooms in the area proposed for rezoning. Mr. Beiker proposed to change this designation to mixed use with the development plan, MUD, to allow for a maximum of 245,000 square feet of office, 35,000 square feet of commercial and a maximum of 482 residential units. The parcel is currently designated as commercial on the future land use map, which is consistent with the proposed zoning change. The Durham Planning Commission at their January 8, 2019 meeting recommended approval of the proposed mixed use with the development plan, MUD, Zoning District, by a vote of 13 to zero. Staff determines that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Two motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt a consistency statement and the second is for the zoning ordinance. Thank you very much, Mr. Others. You all have heard the report of staff. I'm now going to declare the public hearing open and we have several people who have signed up to speak on this item. But first I will ask if there are any questions for Ms. Struthers by members of the council at this point. I have a general question. Council Member Freeman, Ms. Struthers. I'm just for updates purpose because I've been off the planning commission for a little bit. Who exactly does the approval for the elementary or for schools, for DPS schools? Is it the board or is it actual staff that makes an approval based on what's presented to them? I'm sorry, for the schools? Yeah, so where their apartments added, there's residents added, there's a number that's developed, like a number of formulas used. And then does DPS get this information at all? Do they receive this and? Good evening, Pat Young with the Planning Department. That information Council Member Freeman has received from the school board. So DPS provides that to us quarterly and they update it quarterly. So we receive that from their enrollment administration team and we apply those based on previous council, Board of Commissioners and DPS policy on a system-wide basis. So it's received, I'm sorry. We receive the information from DPS. We do not give back. We don't share any information about planned properties that are coming up online. We definitely do. We do share that information back and the estimated student generation rates were done based on consultation with DPS by the Planning Department in consultation with DPS based on their actual enrollment and managed to reflect the enrollment that they've seen. And is that specifically with like DPS at the superintendent's level or is there conversation with the principals as well? It's through the superintendent's office. Thank you. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Mr. Young. Any other questions or comments for staff at this time? If not, I'm going to ask that speakers, there are three speakers signed up to speak on this item. Two proponents, Mr. Patrick Beiker and Ms. Heather Schaefer and one opponent, Ms. Cynthia. I'm not sure if it says white or woot. I'm not sure and I apologize. The, so I'm going to at this point give both the proponents and the opponents 10 minutes to speak and we'll see how that goes if any more is needed than that. So, Mr. Beiker, you are sharing your time with Ms. Heather Schaefer. Thank you, Mayor Schuyl. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the City Council. I'm Patrick Beiker with Morningstar Law Group. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. Along with Craig Davis, the CEO of Craig Davis Properties, our traffic engineer, Earl Llewellyn and our landscape architect, Richard Brown of Kimley Horn and our lead architect, Michael Stevenson with Perkins and Will. I'm here tonight representing Craig Davis Properties for this agenda item. It's been my privilege to work with Craig Davis Properties on this development for the past 15 years. Back around 2003 and 2004, we referred to this section of Durham as Triangle Metro Center and it was approved and began developing in accordance with the Durham 2020 Comprehensive Plan. The 2020 plan was our community's first document to call for compact neighborhoods and Triangle Metro Center was a groundbreaking development literally and figuratively 15 years ago. As Triangle Metro Center was moving forward, the original version of our Comprehensive Plan was adopted in February of 2005. In that initial version of our comp plan, Triangle Metro Center was specifically designated as a compact neighborhood on the development tier map. Then over the past decade or so in the wake of the Great Recession and the demise of the Triangle Transit Authority's Regional Fixed Guideway Plan, we renamed this 150 acre area as Davis Park. Pursuant to what we designed and what was approved 15 years ago, Davis Park has been built out primarily as a surface park development. Now while we think the Finsbury townhouses and condominiums along with the other apartments that were developed in accordance with the original entitlements, all that represents a great neighborhood for Durham. But now we strongly believe that this is the time for Davis Park to become more vertical to incorporate structured parking and quite frankly to provide the shot in the arm that the RTP section of Durham has needed for the past 15 years. In short, Davis Park can provide the pedestrian oriented mixed use environment to generate the type of momentum we need in order to create an alternative vibrant location for businesses and residents outside of downtown. To that end, we are proposing this mixed use development which brings the intensity to support structured parking and vertically integrated commercial uses. We've put together a tremendous local team to create this vertically integrated mixed use development spearheaded by Craig Davis and Michael Stevenson with Perkins and Will here in downtown Durham. In closing, we do wanna thank our neighbors in Finsbury who have given us their valuable input during this process. We respectfully request your approval for this ambitious project to transform 10 vacant acres into the game changer this part of Durham needs. We have a friend from Finsbury here tonight and after she shares her thoughts I'll be happy to answer any questions and I do wish to retain two minutes of time for rebuttal. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Beiker. Thank you, Council. Ms. Heather Schaefer. Hi, my name is Heather Schaefer. I live at 120 Finsbury Street. I'm in the Davis Park development. And I was here just to tell you that as a resident I am here as a proponent of this development. I bought into the development when it was still a field in 2005. I finally moved in in 2007 and I bought into the idea that I was gonna have a dense urban feel in the Durham area. And of course we all know what happened in 2008 with the recession and I've been so excited that some of the original vision is coming to life with Craig Davis and his team. And so I just wanted to let you know how much we as residents are excited about this. We're the ones who are walking our dogs. We're the ones who are looking for somewhere where we can walk our dogs, sit and have a cup of coffee and enjoy the area. So just wanna let you know how excited we are about this. And of course I'm happy to help in any way I can to get this going so we can have a vibrant community. Thank you very much, Ms. Schaefer. Mr. Beiker and Ms. Schaefer, the proponents have six minutes remaining should you need them. And now I'll ask for. Just wanna retain two minutes for a bottle, Mayor. All right. My suggestion is you hold on to the whole six. It's up to you. Ms. Cynthia Wootz. I'm sorry, Ms. White. I apologize, couldn't read your writing. Could you give us your name and address please? Yes, my name is Cynthia White and I represent 800 Finsbury Street, which is adjacent to the rezoning in question. And the reason I'm here tonight is I'm representing the owner of that adjacent property, which is Republic Flats Apartments. And we are asking for a 30 day continuance from the city council. The reason for this request is that the adjacent property owner only recently became aware of the rezoning after receiving notice of the public hearing. Eaton Vance purchased the property in October after the neighborhood meeting. Petitioner Davis Park West knew that the adjacent property had changed owners during the course of the rezoning process and that the new owner was likely not aware of the pending rezoning. Although Petitioner has corresponded with the new owner its desire to redevelop the property, Petitioner never mentioned the ongoing rezoning process. That petitioner's property is subject to private deed restrictions that prevent the property from being used for mixed use or even rezoned without consent from the adjacent owner. So we asked that the continuance would give the adjacent owner an opportunity to study the plans and determine whether it can consent to the proposed project. The approval of the rezoning will not alter the private restrictions and may leave the adjacent owner with no option but to litigate its rights causing a much longer delay and construction of the project. Thank you. Would you do me a favor? Would you repeat your main points again? Yes. Thank you. So basically we're asking for a 30 day continuance to basically look at the owner would like to look at the plans. They're saying that it's a restricted title and that it's only supposed to be for commercial and not mixed use. So they want to ask for that continuance because they were not aware the property just sold. The new owners were not made aware of this rezoning process until after the sale. So thank you. So let me make sure I'm clear. They would like the council to continue the public hearing for 30 days. Yes. And so that they can contest what the, that there was a deed restriction. Yes. And the claim is that the deed restriction is that this land can only be, what is the deed restriction allegedly? So there's, it's a private deed restriction that prevents the property from being used for mixed use. Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. White. You also have significant time left, as you can see. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Biker, I'm going to ask you to come and respond to that. Certainly. Patrick Biker representing Craig Davis properties. I hope the council had a minute today to look at the email that I sent. And I certainly don't mean to, don't know where the previous speaker received her information, but I'd like to share with each member of the city council an email sent by Craig Davis's team to Eaton Vance, a real estate fund in Boston that the previous speaker referred to. You can see that it's dated October 1, 2018, and it sent the complete rezoning package, the neighborhood meeting notice and recap, the traffic impact analysis, and two program options prepared by Michael Stevenson and his team at Perkins and Will. Also want to share with you further to the second page, I'll switch to, again, this was going, in my view, well above and beyond the call of duty because Craig Davis and members of his team actually flew up to Boston to meet with Eaton Vance in October of 2018. I believe it was towards the end of the month. I would have thought they'd be in a good mood after the World Series, but apparently that was not translated to the previous speaker. So I'd like to share this with the council so they see hard copies of the information that was sent to these folks less than three weeks after they acquired the property. And then, of course, there was the in-person visit that happened then. Mr. Beiker, if you could hand those to the clerk and I certainly will. Thank you so much. Can I just ask a clarifying question? You said you sent it, I'm assuming by mail. It was sent electronically, followed up a few weeks later by an in-person visit. Thank you. It flew all the way from North Carolina to Boston to meet with Eaton Vance. Mr. Beiker, why don't you give those to the clerk and then we may have other questions for you as well. Ms. White, could I ask you a question? Thank you for being here. Ms. White, explain to me, are you a resident of the community? I'm the community manager. You're the community manager. Okay, and so this is the owner of the apartment complex that you work for. Yes. Okay, thank you, I wasn't clear on that. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay, council members, any questions or comments at this point? I guess I should first ask, is there anyone else who's here tonight who wishes to be heard on the sidle? Anyone else wishes to be heard? Council members, council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Beiker, can I ask you a question? If I understand the gist of the opponent's argument here, it's that a 30-day delay will allow them to review the plan and hopefully see if they could consent to the plan and that otherwise I believe the speaker mentioned that it would cause some kind of undo litigation delay. Does that sound about right, ma'am? Did I get that? Awesome. Mr. Beiker, if that were true, wouldn't you also be arguing for a 30-day delay? That is correct. We were in very detailed communications with the previous owner, the party that owned these apartments. At the time we held the neighborhood meeting, sent out the initial notices, voluminous emails and teleconferences with the previous owner that were then followed up with the information that I provided to the clerk with the current owner. Suffice it to say we have reviewed the chain of title and we are, I lose sleep over a lot of things, but not this one. We're confident that the plan that Craig Davis, Michael Stephenson, our team will put forward at the site plan phase will comply with the deed restrictions that were referred to in the chain of title. Thank you for that question. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, and after that, I'm gonna let our interim city attorney to make some comments as well. Thank you. Yeah, this is probably more of a question for our staff or for our city attorney, which is even assuming that there was a deed restriction in place that would prevent development, I don't think that that impacts our decision on whether to do this rezoning that that's a matter for private litigation down the road and that the rezoning is not directly related to that question. And you're probably the right person to answer that, Madam City Attorney. Why don't we start? It looks like Mr. Young is there, and why don't we start, Madam City Attorney. Thank you. We did consult the attorney's office, and of course I'll let the interim city attorney speak, but I did wanna first say it's never the case that we as the city or city county planning department enforce private restrictive covenants, and so that would be the case here unless they are associated with the development plan commitment, which is not the case here, so. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Mr. Mayor, I think that Mayor Prudence Johnson and Mr. Young have expressed it exactly as we understand it in our office. I did speak with Don O'Toole, who is general counsel for the planning department, and I know that he and Mr. Beikert had some conversations earlier today. Basically our question was, has there been an injunction or some sort of injunctive relief sought? My understanding was by the close of business that was not in place. Restrictive covenants are a matter of private property ownership, and if there's an issue with the way that the restrictive covenant is being used on the property, then the adjacent property owner really needs to take that up privately through the court system, through private negotiations. That should not hold up the city's process, which is a completely separate issue. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Young. Council Member Freeman. I just had a couple questions for both, yes. So do you have a estimated price range on these apartments that would be? At this point in time, I'm sorry we do not. The only thing I can say is that, as I referenced in my comments, this will be a 100% structured parked environment. In fact, on the segment of the development that's south of Marion Avenue, some of the parking will be underground. If you think structured parking was expensive, wait till you see underground parking. So it'll be an expensive product, expensive neighborhood to build. But it is important for us to provide the type of housing that will, I think, be attractive to employees in Research Triangle Park as the companies in Research Triangle Park expand in the future. Great question. I was just gonna ask Ms. White the same question. What's your current price range in the community that you have, right? Our average rents, we offer one, two, and three bedrooms. Our average rents range around 1,300 a month. Thank you, Ms. White. Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions or comments by the Council? Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? Any other questions or comments by members of the Council? I have two questions for you, Mr. Beiker. One question is that you're adding, I believe the developers adding 102 students to Durham Public Schools. And as you know, it's often customary for developers to proffer $500 per student to the Durham Public Schools. And I was wondering if the developer had considered such a voluntary proffer. Yes, if I may address both. If you don't mind, Mayor, I'd like to address both this and affordable housing together. So there are, to a certain extent, related. You knew I was gonna ask that question. I was, yes. And we appreciate that very much. This is, I have anecdotal stories of, again, having worked on this project for 15 years. I had a hair when it started. It was, it's the type of neighborhood where once people have children, they tend to move out. And so I don't think it'll be a tremendously large generator school children. So having said that, what our team would like to do is proffer $25,000 to the DPS Foundation to support them in their work. And we'd wordsmith that with the plan director in the morning. But to pick up on Council Member Freeman's point in recognition of the affordable housing challenges that we face as a community and the way this project is built, we would like to proffer $75,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Again, would wordsmith the timing on that with the plan director in the morning. So it'd be $100,000. In our view, it'd be appropriate to be 25 to the schools since it's, again, it's not the type of environment that young couples typically wanna raise children in. But we do recognize the affordable housing, the seriousness and gravity of that situation. And we'd like to contribute $75,000 to the Housing Trust Fund. Thank you, Mr. Beiker. Thank you, Mayor Schultz. Appreciate that. All right, Council Members, any other questions or comments at this time? Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to follow up on that last point, just briefly. And I'm not gonna ask Mr. Beiker, I'd actually like to ask you, Mr. Mayor. Sure. You've been doing this longer than any of the rest of us who were elected to the council and not trying to rub it in and just saying that's the way it goes. Do you recall a previous proffer related to schools that didn't go to DPS itself? Don't recall. Mr. Beiker, can you come back up for a moment? If you- Why, why did you- The last. We're not there yet. Why did you suggest the DPS Foundation? The last one project I worked on last year, we worked on, we made the contribution voluntarily to the DPS Foundation. And so I got to meet former Principal Deputy Superintendent Key through that. And I was very impressed with the organization and that's why we put forward the suggestion. If it's the council's preference for it to go to DPS, we're happy to do it. Well, the challenges that they face, I think DPS. Whatever is the pleasure of the council, we're happy to, we're happy to oblige. Do you wanna make a suggestion on that, Mr. Beiker? I think it's probably better that I don't make a suggestion, Mr. Mayor. I'll leave that to my colleagues to suggest other options. I guess I try to be careful on these proffers. I would like to say though, it is interesting the challenges that they're facing right now with DPS and the overflow of children in some schools and not in others. And also recognizing there are a couple of schools that need to be built. And I don't know that the Durham Public Schools Foundation is gonna focus on that area, but I do know that DPS would. I just wanna make sure I offer that. It's the council's pleasure. If it'd be more effective to- Mr. Beiker, I am absolutely positive that it's your pleasure. All right. This is a voluntary proffer. It's up to you. We should not be negotiating this. It's your call. Okay. I appreciate the questions by Mr. Reese. Good question. They're both excellent. And by council member Freeman. They're both excellent. I can sense that it would be more appropriate for the $25,000 to be donated directly during public schools. Be happy to do that. Thank you, Mr. Beiker. Thank you so much. Council members, thank you for your good comments and questions. And now I'm going to ask if there's anyone else who'd like to comment on this item. If not, I'm going to declare this hearing closed in matters back for the council. One, I'll invite a motion to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam Clerk, would you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Second motion, we'd be to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. Ms. White, thank you for being here as well. Mr. Davis, thank you all for being here. We'll now move on to item 21, zoning map change, Hail Street duplex. And we'll now hear the report from staff. Good evening again. I'm Lace Travis with the Planning Department. A request for a zoning map change has been received from Martin McFarling for two parcels located at 1020 Hail Street, totaling 0.345 acres. This site is located in the Old West Durham Neighborhood Protection Overlay. The site is presently zoned Residential Urban 5, RU5. Mr. McFarling proposes to change this designation to Residential Urban 5-2, RU5-2, to allow duplexes. There is no development plan associated with this case. The parcel is currently designated as medium density residential on the future land use map, which is consistent with the proposed zoning change. The Durham Planning Commission at their January 3, 2019 meeting recommended approval of the proposed Residential Urban 5-2, RU5-2 zoning district by a vote of nine to four. Staff determines that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Two motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt a consistency statement and the second is for the zoning ordinance. Thank you, Mr. Others. Council members, are there any questions or comments at this point for, I'm sorry, thank you, Mr. Others. You have heard the report from staff. I will now declare the public hearing open. Council members, are there any comments or questions at this point for staff? Hearing none, then I'm going to move to the speakers. We have two speakers signed up on this item, one proponent and one opponent, one proponent, Mr. Marty McFarling, one opponent, Mr. William Whitmore. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? Anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? If not, I'm going to first ask to hear from the proponents, Mr. McFarling, you have five minutes. Council members, Mayor Swill, good evening. My name is Marty McFarling. I actually live at 5014 Renville Drive in Greensboro, North Carolina. I had sent an email out a couple of days ago, hopefully all the council members had a chance to read it. It kind of gave you a little bit of biography about myself and kind of what I'm trying to accomplish here. I did grow up in Durham, born right over here in Watts Hospital, all that wonderful stuff, hope, junior, Northern High School for schools for I had to move up to Greensboro in the early 90s for employment opportunities. She said, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Vivian. Let me get back to where I was. Okay, yeah, so I've owned these properties for over 30 years. It's been a long road trying to get to this point. I originally tried to maybe get this ball rolling back in 2001, 2000, of course we all know what happened to the economy then. So I had to wait a little bit. Well, I thought I'd try again in 2008, 2009. No, timing wasn't right then either. So basically I've come before you now with a simple request for a duplex housing unit, a new one that I can build on an empty lot. I have an existing non-conforming duplex unit on the other lot that I would like to get conforming. I have no hidden agenda here and I didn't pay $1,795.40 for an application fee to take this lightly. I know what I need and I know how I need to do it. And there's a few special reasons why. I outlined a few of those in the email. Again, the non-conforming versus conforming use of the existing duplex, I believe on lot 139. And then the new duplex that I would like to put on lot 141, hopefully with the idea of having my father and a live-in caregiver on one side and the other side be used for income. I'll say look at this as a structure that I can age into later on in my life. I would like to move back to Durham at some point. Greensboro is nice, but I'm a Durham boy. And then really one of the biggest reasons that the duplex zoning is what I'm asking for is that I'm having to finance this. I'm not a rich person. So of course I gotta go talk to a bank. And I can tell you right now, the banks do not wanna finance non-conforming construction on property. So that's why in talking to a bank, I need to have a duplex zoning so that they can see, yeah, there's no chance that you're doing something illegal or something against the city ordinance. So we get to that point, 221. All right, let me address a couple of the concerns that the planning commission brought up. You have those in your comments, but a couple of the biggest ones were related to, well, hey, he can build a single family house on there and then put an ADU on it. Again, we get back to the financing problem of this. The bank looks at a duplex in a certain way in a single family house with an ADU in a certain way as far as financing these things. A single family house trying to finance it as investment housing is a lot more difficult because they will not recognize the income off the ADU. They just consider that an extra place. If you happen to get an extra rent check or two out of it, great, but we're gonna consider it unoccupied. The duplex is a different story. They'll go ahead and project a 25% vacancy rate in each side, but with two units sitting there with the possibility of producing income, then that looks more favorably to the bank as they try to underwrite the mortgage on this thing. Then the thing I like to do as a financial planner is to mitigate my risk as much as possible and by mitigating my risk and having a duplex, I have two separately meter, water meter and everything. It's actually gonna cost me more money in water meters and power meters than a single family house would, but it gives me the ability to sell off a side if I need to and you see that in the mountains and you see that at the beach. Two owners, one duplex. So it does give me more flexibility and as I found out more about the equal housing choice opportunities that y'all are now looking at, that kind of got me excited, especially when I saw something about maybe an ADU being allowed behind a duplex, but understand that's been knocked off the board now anyway. So a couple other things for I run out of time here. Really the main thing is that I really want to try to do something nice in the neighborhood. I got 18 seconds, there's a couple of pictures on that zip drive. The reason I didn't come with a development plan is because things are still a little bit influx in that neighborhood and instead of wasting money on plans now that the equal housing choice initiative is coming into play. You know, I want to get the rezoning done first and then I can go to the development plan and work with something concrete. Thank you, Mr. McFarling. I'm sorry about the pictures, okay. Thank you. Thank you for the drive. Mr. Whitmore. You please give us your name and address and you also have five minutes. Well, I'm William Whitmore. I live behind the property at 2101 Inglewood Avenue. And I guess before I talk I thank you guys for waiting here. I also want to say I much more enjoyed your meeting. Last time I was here, there was 21 minutes long. Thanks for staying. I guess when I say I have no objection to dividing that property and I'm glad you guys are working on infill for this, you know, to increase our density. What I would like to see, I guess what I'm concerned about is how much owner occupancy there is in the neighborhood because I think that's part of the strength of our neighborhood. I love our neighborhood. We have opportunities for people to rent. We have duplexes. We have owner, you know, people that own their own houses. They have a whole different range of housing options in there and that's a good thing. And you know, he's gonna, when you split it up, you need to fix the non conforming thing with when he splits his land. I just would like to see built there what it was originally zoned for, which is a single family dwelling. And now with the ability to get the ADUs that that will go ahead and be another step towards your goal of increasing the amount of ownership there. I guess one of the things I guess I'm sort of worried about is that if you don't have enough people, you know, living in the spot, you know, if they're owned by people in the distance, they make decisions about the property on different criteria. So for instance, we're gonna be worrying about our canopy a little bit. And it's, if you're living there, you know, you're much more likely, I think in my opinion, to plant a tree that's gonna be big and stay there for years. If you're owning the property as rental property, then that tree becomes a little bit more of a liability because you have to worry about, you know, cleaning up after it and getting the leaves off the roof and all sorts of things like that. So I'm part of the reason I wanted to speak down here now is because I know, and pretty soon, you're gonna have a big, long train of people talking about this new housing proposal. And this way I get your attention all to myself. So as you're working on that proposal, if you would direct a little bit of thought towards maintaining kind of our ratio of rentals to non-rental property and encouraging, you know, a good mix of ownership in there because I think that really makes a big difference in keeping the continuity of the neighborhood and keeping it strong where you have some people, I know people that have a lot of skin in the game, as they say, for staying long periods of time and taking care of the property and looking at it a different way than if it's rentals. So, thanks. Thank you, Mr. Whitmore. All right, you guys, are there any questions or? We'll find out. Okay. Council members, you have heard the speakers. Let me ask, is there anyone else here in the room tonight who would like to be heard on this item before I go back to council members for any questions or comments? Council members, any questions or comments for either the speakers or for the staff? Any questions or comments? Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I wanted to ask a couple of questions of the agreement. Sure. Sir, do you mind coming back? First of all, I appreciate you sticking around with us. This is our job to sit up here as long as the meeting lasts, but you didn't have to do that, so I appreciate it. I'll take you to this a little bit and do it every now and again. I know the feeling. You live directly behind this property, is that correct? Right. Directly behind or just like any corner from it or? It's a little, my lot actually has an extra lot that's behind it. Okay. Yeah, so yeah. You're still a little confused. I mean, at this point, as far as there's, there are actually a lot of duplexes right in that area, and I'm sort of thinking that we're getting into overload a little bit if we build another one. There's that one, there's one he has, there's one across the street on hail, there's another one directly right next to me, and then another one that has, after that there's one that has a house and an ADU on it, but actually its function is a duplex. There's, they're both rentals. I'm a little confused, you seem to be, although you never said it out loud, you seem to be suggesting that a duplex is more likely to be a rental property than a single family home and an ADU. Yeah, that's just been my experience, yes. Okay, just based on what you've seen. Yeah, well, I guess, I mean, we don't have a lot of single family homes and ADUs at this point, so I guess I think that if you have a single family home and an ADU, it's more likely at least to flip back and forth between being a double rental and somebody who owns it and wants to rent it off and use it as a source of income or else have a relative that's staying there. And I guess the reason I was a little confused is that you, although never stated, the subtext here seems to be that Mr. McFarling is going to build this duplex to rent to people if the concern is renting. And I guess I feel like, you know, the other option that's actually his own for right now and still fits his, what he needs, which is he would like to have a place where there's a caretaker and his father. And it also meets the, it can suffer the same, according to you, bad fate that the duplex is more likely to. I don't want to say that this is a bad fate, but I think it's much more likely, you know, if the arrangement is a full house and an RD, and I always want to call these RDUs, it's really been hard for me, ADU, that it's much more likely that at some point, someone will, you know, a family will move in there and want to rent it out or someone will, and it'll be easy for it to transition into that. You wouldn't have to scrape away the duplex and then, you know, build this other. We have a lot of big houses in there that are being built on these properties. I appreciate you letting me ask these questions and kind of think about it. I mean, I guess the other thing I also worry about is, you know, we have, in our neighborhood, we have somebody who I think actually has like 100 properties, you know, and I worry that if you have too many duplexes that you start having, you know, sort of a lot of large intercepts and amsutines land lords and that, you know, these are taken care well of now, but if later on something happens to the company that has all these things and, you know, they end up in some sort of courts for a long period of time, then you have a large section of the neighborhood that gets impacted by that, where the properties are not kept as well for a long period of time. And whereas if you spread that out over a lot of people, you know, in smaller bunches where you have not large holdings, then you don't have that problem. And I guess I just think that the, you know, I'm sort of talking to a little bit to what you guys are thinking about now is that the model of having the accessory dwellings is more likely to not end up in that kind of situation as a duplex would. I appreciate that, thank you, sir. I don't know if I'm being clear about this. I appreciate your time, thanks. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Freeman. For planning staff, I just want to make sure that I understand, because this is inside a neighborhood protection overlay. This is measured against a certain, a different criteria, and this is what you're saying it fits for the neighborhood protection overlay. Yes, the proposed zoning request is consistent with the zoning as well as the neighborhood protection overlay zoning. Thank you. Other questions or comments by members of the council? Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this matter? Anyone here tonight who would like to be heard on this matter? I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council. And I'll just make a comment that I appreciate hearing from Mr. Whitmore, who happens to be my best friend, but I am going to vote against him tonight. Okay. All right, so we'll now take, and I used to live in that house and I... You did what? Really? Back up, sorry. Sorry, Mr. Whitmore. You've had your five minutes. The world. I was going to put in a plea for you to be kind to him, but I think I've changed my mind. Okay. You guys would spoil it for me. Thank you, Mr. Whitmore. That'd be enough of that. All right. We'll now, the matter is now back before the council and we'll, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the consistency statement. The most. Second. And secondly, we adopt the consistency statement. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes six to one with council member Freeman voting. No. Thank you very much. Motion two to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. The most. Second. And move it in second that we adopt the ordinance to by amending the UDO. I'm sorry, to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. Madam Clerk, open the vote please. Thank you. Please close the vote. Motion passes six to one with council member Freeman voting. No. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. There being no more business to come before this body. I'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned 942.