 Good evening. We'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order. 7 o'clock PM, October the 20th, and I certainly want to welcome all of you that are present with us this evening. We could just take a moment for a solid meditation, please. Thank you. Ask Councilman Davis if he would leave us. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please? Mayor Bell. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden. Council Member Brown. Council Member Cattati. Council Member Davis. Council Member Moffitt. And Council Member Schul. We have several proclamations that we want to present this evening. We are known as the City of Medicine, two great universities, and fast becoming known as the City of Champions. And tonight, we want to recognize some of our student athletes from two of our universities here. First, the athletic director, Kevin Dick here. Join me, please. This may seem to be a bit late. We had extended an invitation earlier and scheduling prevented the Duke team from being here. But tonight, we want to recognize the Duke University's men lacrosse and Duke University women's golf 2014 NCAA champions. And we have a proclamation that we would like to present. And the proclamation reads, whereas the Duke University men's lacrosse team held off a late charge from Notre Dame to win a second consecutive lacrosse title in NCAA Division I. And his third title in five seasons scoring 11 to nine over the Notre Dame fighting Irish, whereas Dukes Jordan Wolf, who scored a game high six points, named the tournament's most outstanding player, became the second player in ACC history to score over 200 points in his career. Whereas John Danowski, head coach, has helped lead the Duke University men's lacrosse team to unprecedented success during his seven year tenure, whereas Duke University women's golf team reclaimed his NCAA title in the women's golfing world by holding off top ranked Southern California, whereas this was the program's sixth national championship as they have won the team's national championship in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, whereas Dan Brooks, head coach, now owns 119 career victories and has six NCAA championships on his belt, and whereas Duke University students, faculty, staff, alumni, and all fans of the men's lacrosse and women's golf teams are to be congratulated for their sportsmanship, dedication, and support of their teams. Now, therefore, I, William V. Bilbell, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby urge all citizens to join me in expressing appreciation and congratulations to Duke University's men's lacrosse team and Duke University women's golf team and the entire athletic department for an outstanding season. I witness my hand in the court of the city of Durham, North Carolina, this is the 20th day of October, 2014, and this is the first time we've done a two-in-one proclamation that has the same significance, so I'd like to present this to you for any comments that you. Mr. Mayor, it's an honor. Walking, first time my son was a student at Duke before I was employed at Duke. It's been an honor to work with the students and with the staff at the university, and it's been a thrill to make Durham my home. This is, we have a saying, only at Duke, and only in Durham, and it's changed my life, being at Duke and it's changed my life being in Durham, and I'm grateful and very humbled to be here. Thank you so much. Next, I'd like to ask the coach of the NCCU tennis team if he would join me at this time. This is Curtis Lawson. How you doing? I had the pleasure of communicating with the coach recently, and I'll be frank. I did not know all that you guys had been doing relative to tennis, and when he shared some of that with me, I said, by all means, we need to have you have the time to come and at least be recognized and for all the work that you guys do, and we talk about student-athletes, too. They're athletes, but they're also people who are getting their work done, and if you look at one of the proclamations that I'll read, you'll see what I mean by that. Three is whereas the North Carolina Southern University men's tennis team claimed the school's first HBCU national championship, won in a team title with a combined 24 points, whereas NCCU men's tennis team won 12 of their 13 matches played on the first day of the HBCU national tennis championship, and whereas freshman Kirk Kilmuths won the men's flight A HBCU national singles title defeating Walid Jattara of Bethel and Cookman, and they did it in about 7-5, 6-0 in the championship match, where senior captain Danil Gerasimov and Fabrice George won the flight B doubles title defeating Gravit Ito and Greg Almito of Bethel and Cookman, 6-4, 7-5 in the championship match, and I hope that misspelling these names and mispronouncing these names doesn't take anything away from what you guys have done, whereas NCCU men's tennis team set a program, a school record, in 2014 playing a total of seven nationally ranked opponents during their regular season. Five of the opponents being ACC teams, they were North Carolina State, Duke, UNC, Wake Forest and Boston College, where senior Fabrice George was the first player in the history of North Carolina State University to win a Division I regular season match against an ACC opponent with one over Jalia Biller of Wake Forest and senior Stefan Charles Donathan made history in the fall of 2013 and is the first NCCU player to defeat an ACC opponent in tournament competition defeating UNC player Connor Daley in the ITA, Carolina Regional Tournament, whereas in 2014, NCCU men's tennis team was one of only two HBCU programs in the country selected to host a USTA, ITA and ESPN3 college match day event, and NCCU won the match against visiting team Howard University in my alma mater. You guys gotta stop that with my alma mater. Football, basketball, no, no. Whereas the NCCU tennis players, coaches and staff are outstanding representatives of NCCU University and Emergent University now recognized was biotechnology, biomedical research and coveted law school, whereas in addition to the skill in the tennis school, the NCCU men's tennis team upholds a high standard of academic excellence, achieving an average GPA, team GPA of 3.2 or above and garnering both local and national scholastic awards each year, whereas the Eagles show tremendous dedication to their team, appreciation to their fans, sportsmanship toward their opponents and respect for the game of tennis throughout the 2014 season, whereas NCCU students, faculty, staff, alumni and all fans of NCCU Eagles are to be congratulated for the sportsmanship, dedication and support of the men's tennis team, senior captain Daniel Jarrisimov, senior co-captain Fabrice George, senior Jamil Hort, senior Tamina Kenyanka, Southmore Cal Harrison, Southmore William East, Southmore Thomas Perisco, Freshman Kurt Kilimanth, assistant coach John McLean IV and head coach and director of tennis D. Curtis Lawson. And now therefore, I, William V. Bilwell, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby urge all citizens to join me in expression of appreciation and congratulations to the NCCU tennis team for bringing the trophy back to Durham from the 2014 HBCU national tennis championships and what's in my hand, the Corpus Hill City of Durham, North Carolina, this is the 20th day of October, 2014 and that was a long proclamation, but well deserved and I'm going to hand it to the coach who in the comments he might make and to introduce his team. And Corey, you sit down. Thank you. I'd like to thank Mayor Bell and the council for this distinguished honor. We take great pride in striving for excellence both in the classroom and on the courts and I think that this proclamation and our capture of the national championship is just one of the many success stories that the program has achieved. So we are very honored, very humbled and on behalf of our chancellor, Dr. Saunders White and our athletic director, Dr. Ingrid Wicker-Milkrie. Thank you so much for this acknowledgement. And Mayor Bell, although you are a bison by education, you are an honorary eagle by... Thank you. And we would like all eagles to stand. If you guys want to leave your can, don't feel bad. I've got one more proclamation to do. Chastity, Newkirk, are they in the room? Thank you. This proclamation recognizes the time when we're talking about take a doctor, take a day to the doctor, take a day proclamation, it's all about health. We're the city of medicine, city of athletes. We're just a great city. This is from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cultural of Health and Take a Love One to the Doctor Day Proclamation. And Chastity is a member of the Durham Diabetes Coalition. And the proclamation reads, Whereas Durham County is one of six national winners of the 2014 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Cultural Health Prize, and what about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Whereas the prize honors communities that are harnessing the collective power of leaders, partners and stakeholders to help residents live healthier lives. Whereas Durham County is being recognized for its innovative strategies to improve health, including collaboration between organizations to increase access to medical care, coordinated planning to create a healthier environment, and a focus on education and poverty in addition to disease as factors that impact health. Whereas the Durham County Department of Public Health works with community partners to create neighborhood-based exercise options to make healthier mile trails and to make healthy foods more accessible by working with corner stores, farmer's markets and community support agriculture and collaborative on initiatives such as the Durham Diabetes Coalition. Whereas the Durham Diabetes Coalition is a partnership of Durham County Health and community organizations, faith-based groups, local government and universities and community members. The mission of the Durham Diabetes Coalition is to identify individuals living with type 2 diabetes and provide education and assistance particularly managing their diabetes in order to cut down on death and injury-related to diabetes. Whereas our health encompasses the emotional, spiritual, social, environmental and physical, whereas these programs support and improve health outcomes and whereas the continued efforts of the Durham Diabetes Coalition and partnership for a healthy Durham is to improve the health of Durham County adults. Whereas take a loved one to the doctor is a campaign to increase health awareness and emphasize the importance of regular medical check-ups. This initiative began in 2002 as a partnership between the Tom Jonah Morning Show and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration whereas the Durham Diabetes Coalition in partnership for a healthy Durham in collaboration with Radio 1 Raleigh hosting a community celebration and take a loved one to the doctor event to commemorate receipt of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize and to recognize importance of preventive medical care encourage Durham residents to get streamed which are health problems and link residents to necessary community health and social resources. Now therefore, I will use the bill Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do have a hereby proclaiming November 1st, 2014 as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health and take a loved one to the doctor day in Durham and challenge its residents to recognize the importance of preventive health, streamings and innovative health to build the culture of health. I witness my hand and call for the receipt of Durham, North Carolina. This is the 20th day of October 2014. I'm going to present this to this young lady for the comments that she may have. Thank you. Just really want to invite everyone present all community members to this great event on Saturday, November 1st at the Human Services Building Downtown. It's a great event, family event. We will have a celebration of the Culture of Health Prize beginning at 10 o'clock followed by fitness demonstrations, cooking demonstrations lots of community resources and information along with education and it's just going to be a great event. So I hope to see everyone here there and bring someone with you. Thank you. I'd like to recognize the Mayor Pro Tem first for recognition. Good evening everyone. I am honored to formally introduce to the council and those watching us tonight the new President and CEO of Mechanics and Farmers Bank Mr. James H Sills the third. Come to the mic sir so everyone can see you and we're welcoming you to the City of Durham and I know that you're going to take us to high your heights and if you have some words you'd like to say please feel free. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem I really appreciate the opportunity to be introduced this evening. Mayor Bell it's great to see you again and all of the council. I'm new to Durham. I'm the new President and CEO of Mechanics and Farmers Bank. I'm excited about the opportunity. We really appreciate your business that you have with our bank. I wanted you to know personally that we're focused on downtown and so we're going to make our branch downtown a very viable branch that will drive economic development for this city. So again thank you for the opportunity to come here this evening and I want you to also know that we are Durham's hometown bank so don't forget that and we got some exciting things planned in the future so we want to partner with the city and a lot of the other organizations here so again thank you for the introduction and I really appreciate everything that you've done for us. Normally when folks come to Durham they never want to leave alright. Let me recognize the councilwoman Katati. Thank you Mayor I meant to bring the article from today's paper with me so I could quote from it but I just wanted to do a shout out for Chuck Davis who's receiving a Bessie award in New York tonight so congratulations to him and I hope we'll take the opportunity to recognize him with the proclamation as well. Thank you. Thank you Diane. I attended an event at the Carolina Theater Saturday evening and it was the performance of 100 men in black. There were at least 60 men Judge Hill is a member of that group they were fantastic but what was so outstanding was the presence of somewhere between 18 and 20 young men and some little boys who were being mentoring for for life and what they have asked us to do is to go back to our different churches, synagogues, mosques what have you and see if there are young boys ages 7, 8, up to maybe 18, 19 who would be willing to be a part of a special choir that they are going to have next year and I think it's just wonderful and I hope that anybody who hears us tonight will call Marlon West and express an interest in their children to be a part of this great event. It keeps them off the street they are mentored for success and this is just another example of great things that are happening in Darrell and great things only happen might because great people make them happen like you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Welcome. Are there other comments about recognizing city manager for the priority items? Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening everyone. Two priority items this evening which are supplemental items to the agenda. Item number 20 is the proposed acquisition of property for police headquarters at 616 East Main Street 101 South Elizabeth Street 113 South Elizabeth Street 601 East Ramzer Street 605 East Ramzer Street property of GWC properties of GWT Wilkerson and agenda item number 21 is the neighborhood stabilization program 3 grant project ordinance. That's all. Thank you. Enterting the motion on the city manager's priority. It's been property moved to second. Madam clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes 7-0. Likewise recognize the city attorney for any priority items. Thank you Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Likewise city clerk. No items Mr. Mayor. Thank you. In that case we will proceed with the agenda concerning the agenda being the item first. An item is removed by a council person or a member of the audience we will discuss that item later in the agenda. Again I'll just read the heading of each one of the agenda items. Item one is the approval of city council minutes. Item two is the by-circle and pedestrian advisory commission appointment. Item four is the request to carry over funds from FY 2013, 2014, 2014, 2015 to amend the 2014-15 budget and other budget grant capital project ordinances. Item five is the Durham interfaith hospitality network Inc. 2014-2015 community development block grant contract for case management services. Item six is the urban ministries of Durham Inc. 2014-2015 community development block grant contract for meals at the community kitchen. Item seven is FY 2015 agreement between the city of Durham and North Carolina State University to support the triangle regional model development enhancement and maintenance and I will pull that item. Item seven. Item eight is the Durham city county 9-1-1 emergency communications and a local agreement. Item 10 is the contract amendment for contract ST 2013 to 2013-01 stormwater infrastructure repairs and improvements. Item 15 is an item that can be found on the general business agenda's public hearings and take the motion for the approval of the consent agenda with the exception of item seven. It's been proper movements by Mayor Pro Temps, seconded by Councilman Katati. Can we open the vote? Close the vote? It passes. Seven is zero. Move to the general business agenda public hearings. Item 15, downtown open space to conduct a public hearing to receive comments on the downtown open space plan and to adopt the downtown open space plan if necessary. Hi, I'm Tom Dawson with the Durham city county planning department. I'm here to present the downtown open space plan for the council's consideration. The downtown open space plan is a policy guideline document for parks, plazas and greenways in the downtown tier and it's an outgrowth of the 2008 downtown master plan the adopted Durham comprehensive plan and the approved annual planning department work program. The plan contains recommendations for renovations to existing downtown open spaces suggest possible new open spaces and proposes greenway improvements. It also includes policy and implementation recommendations. The plan is a long range and scope and provides guiding principles for potential public open space projects. While the plan may contain many conceptual drawings, these are non-binding and are being used to show only one possibility with the city council retaining total discretion on the ultimate implementation of the plan. The plan was developed over three years through a series of five public meetings and two surveys that both sought input and described progress on the plan. Two of those meetings were participatory design surets where residents were asked to draw their visions for open space. Staff interpreted the drawings and feedback and relayed information back to the public in the form of videos and subsequent public meetings. Staff also met with our advisory boards and commissions as well as stakeholder groups such as the DDI board. Staff met with representatives of the federal broadcasting company, Duke and NCCU campus planners and many others. The plan reflects the comments made by the city council in June work session as well as comments by the administration. The plan was unanimously recommended for approval by the Durham Planning Commission on April 11th. Staff recommends adoption of the downtown open space plan and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. You've heard the staff report. This is a public hearing. I would ask first are comments by members of the council on this staff report. If not, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven persons that have signed up to speak on this item. Is anyone that would like to speak does not sign one of the yellow cards. If so, if you could raise your hand and go to the clerk's desk to the left. Meanwhile, as I call your name, if you come to the podium to the right and if you could put your comments to three minutes, the clock is before you. First is Reynolds Smith, Reynolds Smith President, followed by John Gover, followed by Chad Jemison, followed by Joanne Andrews, followed by Marshall McNally, followed by Dan Jewel, and Alvona Piper. Is it anyone else that would like to speak whose name I haven't called? If you could come to the table to the left, please, my left and sign up. Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds, if you could start, if you like. I wrote the endorsement of this plan on behalf of the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. We believe it's an excellent plan. I stress that it's a plan. It's not a prescription. Nothing can be known about the future and things change, but we think this articulates a vision. And I think it's important that the city, that the citizens of the city recognize that its government cares about their space. We want a space that's cordial, that fosters communication, and we think this plan provides that. I urge you to adopt this plan. Great things are happening in downtown Durham, and we want them to keep happening. So thank you. Yes, my name is John Goble, and I'm the current chair of the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. And as Reynolds said, we did vote to endorse this plan. We strongly urge you to adopt the plan. I think this plan, together with other things that are on the table, like the L.B. Creek Watershed Green Initiative, transform Durham into a healthier, more beautiful, safer, and environmentally friendly city. I urge you to adopt this plan. Thank you. Chad Jemison. Mayor Bill, City Council people. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. I'm here to speak in support of the Open Space Plan. My name is Chad Jemison. I'm the Executive Director of Triangle Land Conservancy. And two years ago, we relocated our offices, to downtown Durham on South Duke Street. Part of because of the vitality that we were seeing in Durham and the opportunity that we saw as the community was truly continuing to charge forward in the revitalization of downtown, that TLC might have a role to play in no other way than being part of that community as it moves forward. We represent hundreds, thousands of households across the triangle. We have six counties in partnership with communities at the county level, at the town level, at the city level. We're involved with Watershed Protection. We're involved with supporting Greenway projects. But I tell you, the opportunity that Durham has to work on open space protection in its downtown area, it's huge. And this is a tremendous opportunity that has been brought forward by the Planning Commission in support of open space. You know, while it's not binding, this is such an impressive plan. And you can tell how much care and thoughtfulness and community engagement was put into it. We at Triangle End Conservancy believe in healthy, vibrant, livable communities. And that includes from downtown to distressed communities to fast-growing communities across the triangle. I'm here today to, one, just to speak on behalf of our membership in support of this open space plan and also to just say that we are interested in partnering as going forward, that it's not all on the city, that there are public-private partnerships and partnerships with other agencies who are very interested in working in partnership with you to create that vital downtown livable city. So thank you so much for your work and consideration and thank you to the staff and all of the committees who worked to bring this together. You're welcome. Joanne Andrews. Good evening. My name is Joanne Andrews. I live at 1715 Shawnee Street. I teach with Durham Public Schools. I've been a Durham resident for over 20 years. I participated in the earlier surets for the open space plan. I'm here to express my support for the proposed open space plan as Durham quickly grows and develops. Quality open space is necessary in attracting business, visitors and residents and it's vital to the physical, social and civic health of our community. Quality open space is as valuable an asset as any new business. This plan is thoughtful and visionary, linking together all areas of downtown in a comprehensive, functional and beautiful way. Please support this plan, fund it and implement it in all its phases. Thank you. Marcia McNally. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Marcia McNally and I'm here to represent the Durham Crest Condo Association. We are not an open space organization but rather a daily consumer of downtown open space. We sent you a letter via email on Friday and I'd like to take a minute to outline our key points. Most important we urge you to adopt the downtown open space plan. It's forward, it's well crafted, it's inspired and it's democratic. The staff did a great job getting the word out, involving the citizens, involving organizations, doing internal sort of recruitment for the ideas and getting by and across the board. Having been an open space planner for decades I have been completely impressed from beginning to end at the way that this project has been undertaken and proceeded. As you know the plan is caused for modest improvements of existing parks but it also calls out creative reuse of space that's overlooked and left over. It encourages pedestrianism which is consistent with a lot of the other goals of the city and it also creates important connections not only to trails but to neighborhoods that come right up to downtown making it cohesive and a glue for the whole city. As others have already said with downtown's rapidly growing residential population we need more parks. The plan not only shows how downtown can meet the needs of this growth but also how urban open space can become a drawing that increases the quality of life of Durham for residents who live in the downtown, for residents who live elsewhere in the city and for visitors as well as workers. Again we at Cress ask that you adopt the plan and look forward to working with the city on implementation and we hope that you all will call on us to do that. Thank you. You're welcome. Next Dan Jewel. Good evening Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor. I'm here tonight speaking as the current chair of the Durham area designers or dad as we're sometimes known around the community. Dad is a loose organization of designers, planners, developers and folks who generally are interested in how our built environment can positively influence our quality of life. We promote and facilitate meaningful community discourse and discussion on ensuring that the places we create contribute to the great place that we want to live. We followed and participated in the discourse over the downtown open space plan for these many, many months now. We sat in on the workshops, have had regular updates from the playing department, followed the communications of the steering committee and have had at length internal discussions over the plan. To that end dad has asked me to strongly ask that you adopt the plan before you tonight. Is the plan perfect? Probably not. Are all of the concepts proposed for the various sites around town? The best possible plans? Unlikely. But that's just my opinion. And tonight my opinion and the opinion really I think of anybody in the room is not what counts. What counts is how much public discourse in time and stakeholder input has gone into this plan. This plan has been a model of creating a community based plan. To do anything other than adopt the plan tonight I believe would diminish those efforts. The plan though should be a living document. Just as there are opportunities to modify Durham's comprehensive plan and our unified development ordinance there should be similar framework in place to modify this document once it is adopted. But the most important point is that that opportunity to modify the document have just as much of the ability to have broad public discussion and input and framework coming up with the document in the first place did. That is the way we do things in Durham and for that reason we strongly urge you to adopt this plan tonight. Thank you. You're welcome. Ivona Piper. Good evening. My name is Ivona Piper and I represent a resident, a downtown resident. I last week did email to all of you a letter requesting that you approve the plan. I, being a layperson nevertheless I look at the plan I read it. I walked the many sites it addresses and discuss it with neighbors and concluded it is a terrific plan. It strikes a very fine balance between livability and development and as a resident looking forward not only you approving the plan but executing it within the vision and specification it outlines. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Randolph Hester. I'm Randolph Hester. My office is over on Church Street. Thank you for this opportunity Mr. Mayor, I'm usually on the other side of these. I've been doing open space plans for other cities for about 50 years and I'm very critical of open space plans and planners. I was completely converted by your staff their dedication their professionalism the extent to which they went to great lengths to include anyone who could possibly ever be concerned about open space in Durham. They provided us with the information that we needed they helped us develop our own ideas they led us to a place that I think we have a world class open space plan it will make this civic area second to none we won't be the envy of Charlotte we will be the envy of Chicago I urge you to adopt this plan I want to thank specifically Tom Dawson for his heroic effort to have done the plan in-house and I think made it better it engaged us at every point it is a plan that is uniquely Durham it is still a little gritty it is idealistic it is entrepreneurial and it reflects the best of our cultural diversity let's adopt this plan tonight and let's make it happen let's start right now Mary Barzy it's a tough one to follow my name is Mary Barzy I'm a ten year resident of Walltown and I also work in downtown Durham I ride my bike or walk to work nearly every day and this plan got me extremely excited about the future of Durham I'll just keep it sweet I hope that it is adopted and thank you for looking at it today you're welcome is there anyone else that would like to speak on this item this is being a public hearing item let the record reflect that no one else acts to speak I will declare the public hearing to be closed and I expect before the council as councilman Cattari, councilman Shewell in that order I would like all the staff involved in this plan to please stand you are stars tonight thank you thank you so much for your work and thank you everyone who came tonight in support of this plan now it's councilman Cattari thank you mayor I also appreciate all the effort that's gone into this plan and the participation by so many stakeholders I wholeheartedly agree with the need for more urban open space and just specifics generally I agree with the priority order noted in the purple table on page 36 the report and the projects noted there I'm not going to ask you questions about that I do have some questions about the funding plan and phasing of project implementation I did hear staff Mr. Dawson say that the plan is non binding and that council retains discretion but can you clarify when I'm done how you expect projects to come forward whether they'll come individually and funding and design similar to I guess what Mr. Jules said I don't necessarily agree with all the proposed projects and locations and I too fear inherent conflicts with upcoming development projects so again I completely support the concept and the need for urban open space and the corresponding commitments on development developer projects but I do want to retain some flexibility in individual locations and priorities so if staff can comment on those concerns thanks thank you we'll be coordinating with different departments and we've already began to work on projects individually as they relate to other departments such as the Beltline and Rotary Park with General Services so as they arise other departments will begin to coordinate with them we anticipate more in future discussions on individual spaces within the plan as other development projects start to move we'll begin to comment and develop those ideas further is there any intention to do an overall plan for a cost estimate I mean what would it cost to implement this whole thing and also phasing I mean what we actually think will come forward in short, medium, long term I just think that level of extra specificity would be helpful particularly to folks that want to know what it means we don't want this plan to sit on a shelf but I think to make it realistic we need to have some pretty clear cost and timing elements that would come in future phases as we begin to develop these spaces cost estimation would come within the design development of these these spaces going but I guess my interesting concern is I understand that they will come individually with cost estimates but I think in terms of prioritization and making decisions about some things that would be helpful to have a sort of pictorial view of so we can make some comparisons not just based on land availability and other things Steve Madeline with the Durham Planning Department certainly understand your question Councilmember Cattati we had not programmed that into our work program but we are going to be considering our next year's work program at our upcoming joint city planning committee for items to add to the priority list certainly I believe that is one of those things that we can probably add to that list Councilmember Shul Thank you Mr. Mayor I just want to add to my congratulations and thanks to the staff for your great work and a lot has been said about that already tonight I think the vetting in the public process was great I really like the inventory of assets and the presentation of them in the report I like the comprehensive nature of it it considers parking recreation environmental benefits connectivity transit tree canopy stormwater this is a very holistic view of what this open space plan could mean it's got streetscapes it considers public art there's a lot in here and it's done very concisely extremely readable and I think that our public will be able to really use this I like the recommendations a lot let me just mention a couple the use of recreation and open space fees from all three impact zones downtown and trying to figure out how we might do that I think is a very interesting and good recommendation the on-site open space requirement for larger developments and the site specific recommendations I agree with people have said I'm sure every one of us can look at this and say I just don't think that's going to work but in general I think the site specific recommendations are really strong and interesting particularly a few of the ones that I thought were really good the convention center and a lot of these we discussed in work session in more detail the convention center plaza reconfiguration I think is a really interesting aspect of this the church street north rocksboro street park I mean this is going to take some work on our streets in the loop but what a fantastic asset that would be and I think to me that is one of the I would say let me just go on and come back to that but that to me is key and the other key I think is the belt line and I'm so appreciative of our transportation apartment I see Lindsay out here and with our tiger grant the work that Dost I see John gobel out here and others Reynolds that folks are doing on behalf of of trying to get the support and the funds together to do what we need to do to make the belt line a reality I think it's just such a critically important piece of this I really appreciate it and then I wanted to mention also the d-pack green that's a great I was I just want you all to know that I ran the half marathon yesterday and I did not die no one scraped me off the street but at the end there was an amazing assemblage of people thousands of people on the d-pack green what a great open space and this is private property and so it's important that we work with the owner to make this viable for them and viable for the residents of the city it's just a tremendous asset so those were some of the site specific recommendations I liked particularly I think just a couple of things that I wanted to mention that seem like big challenges in addition to funding this which Diane has already mentioned but one of them is getting the traffic separation study right and I was glad Dan is here and Randy from dad from Darin Mary designers are doing a lot of great work on that and that's going to be a big challenge but it will be important for many things but it will be especially important for this open space plan and then of course the loop how are we going to figure that out it's expensive how are we going to get that right and how are we going to pay for it so these are challenges that are before us that I think impact this quite a lot but when people move here people are moving downtown and a big part of the quality of life is going to be determined by whether or not we do this well and so this is such a fantastic basis and foundation for that and I really appreciate Mr. Dawson Mr. Medlin and the whole staff's work on this and then finally I was glad to see Mr. Jemson here from Triangle Land Conservancy saying that they're happy to become partners because I do think it's going to take that there's some I could suggest some pieces of this you might want to take right away and help us fund so it's glad to hear that because I know you all do fund you help fund open space projects and in this plan we've got here we've got some for you so it's really important that we have those partnerships and I appreciate it but I think this is a good chance although the staff has taken great pains to stress that this is some plan that the council will retain control over and various projects will come up and we'll be able to make decisions on them I think what is important about this adopting this is that we lay down a marker and that we say as a community that this is what we want to do and these are the standards for open space downtown and so thank you Mr. Mayor and I look forward to our adoption of this Thank you Councilman Brown Thank you Mr. Mayor I to support the plan and again thank the staff for all their hard work and vision on this I was pleased to see that the red group the area design group has sort of come around a little bit on this and to me that's very meaningful I'm also glad to see the Turingo Land Conservancy here and hopefully you can step up in the future and perhaps help us because everyone knows you have more money than the city does for purchasing the Turingo Land and finally it's important too now that everyone realize that this plan is not set in stone that it is a living plan and I'm glad that our staff mentioned that at the beginning but it's important and if there are no other comments we'd like to call the question to move the item if there are no other comments well I think I don't know if I could add any more that's been said by the public and my colleagues on the council to me as a living document it's almost a strategic plan for open space in downtown Durham and you sort of taking the I can't say a blank easel and that's by the way speaking of pictures what's on the cover I'm trying to figure out where this cover piece is I just had a conversation with the manager about this green space tell me what this is you got water in here you got green space in here actually within the context of the survey that we put forth earlier in the process many residents did want some sort of connection with water and we did take pains and especially in regards to storm water management this was an early concept it's not shown in the later plans but they wanted to share that we can have fun with water in the city so the actual space or the actual rendering is in front of the D-PAC area as as something that the D-PAC could look down on and also frame the D-PAC the reason I asked it just before we came in I just commented to the manager much along the line what Steve said I've got to keep that green space open that came through town also when the race was over and again it's just something we can't afford to lose but then I see there's water here I said well is that part of the plan too actually we've dialed back that particular area because there's so much development potential within that but it does, we framed it as being very important for to retain as a green space and the design will come in later developments all right questions been called mountain clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes 7 to 0 thank you okay we'll move to supplemental item item 20 propose acquisition of property for police headquarters 616 East Main Street 101 South Elizabeth Street 113 South Elizabeth Street 601 East Ramswood Street 605 East Ramswood Street property of GWC properties and the property we'll move to the next item item 30 proposed acquisition of property for the new police headquarters complex at 616 East Main Street 101 south Elizabeth Street 113 South Elizabeth Street 601 East Ramswood Street and 605 East Ramswood Street property of GWC properties and and the property located at 102 Hood Street, property of W.T. Wilkerson. The real estate staff of General Services has negotiated an option to purchase a total of 4.439 acres of land and improvements located in the area bordered by East Main Street, Lisbon Street, Ramser Street and Hood Street from GWC properties for 5.49 million dollars. This option has been provided to the city by the property owner and the real estate staff has also negotiated an option to purchase .084 acres of land and improvements located 102 Hood Street from W.T. Wilkerson for 200,401 dollars. This option has been provided to the city by the property owner and is included in your package. The Department of General Services recommends the city approve the fee simple acquisition of both of these properties. We have worked with the Police Department and 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Department in reviewing various options for relocation or redevelopment of a police headquarters site and we present this to you in the work session on October 9th. Police Department and 9-1-1 Departments wholeheartedly support this site location for the new Police Department headquarters and 9-1-1 complex. We have begun due diligence on the properties. Public Works Department has provided field work for our property survey for the entire properties located as listed previously and we have obtained appraisals of the two properties and we have also received proposals for geotechnical and environmental investigations for the properties. So we recommend this acquisition. Are there any questions? Let me ask a question first about Councilman Brown. I just want to cover a couple of things. Joel, could you clarify the due diligence that will be following an action by the Council before any closing of the property of the real estate transaction actually takes place and then comment about the review of the independent appraisals that the city had completed on the properties? Yes. Let me take the appraisals question first. The GWC properties was appraised for 5.39 million and the Wilkerson property for $80,000, excuse me, $80,000. So there's a difference between the purchase price on the Wilkerson property because the appraiser looked at the value of the property alone versus looking at the entire business that's located. So there is a business in that location of wings and more restaurant that's been there for at least 10 years whereas the fee simple acquisition of the GWC properties was about $100,000 less and that's just for the property itself. Now as part of the acquisition of these properties from GWC there is a revenue stream there. The closing would be in January of 2015 and there are tenants in those locations. There's about 11 tenants on the GWC property and there is a revenue stream that would continue through 2015 and the net value of that would offset the difference in appraisal for the GWC property. As far as the due diligence on the properties, I mentioned the survey is ongoing. The Public Works Department has been very helpful in that. The geotechnical investigations would proceed with approximately 15 borings to bedrock depth and the borings would give us soils information, environmental information and as well there will be an asbestos report and the seller of the property GWC will be providing us with Phase 1, Environmental Investigation Phase 2 and any no further action reports have been received from Dean. Could I follow up on that? I had a little conversation with the manager early about the $80,000 appraised value of the property and I just think for the public we need to give a pretty good explanation as to why we're paying almost two and a half times the appraised value of it and I know you indicated that this was for the property itself but generally when you go to the tax office and you're doing evaluations they can do the income approach or the approach that you have here. So I guess my question is do you have a feeling that the income approach on this property would pretty close to the value we're talking about purchasing for $200,000? We do not have a profit and loss statement on the business but have met with the business owner and he has provided with his opinion of the gross revenue and net revenue on the restaurant property. He forecasts a $175,000 per year net revenue out of the restaurant. So is there any particular reason when we did appraisal since we knew this was a business that we didn't ask them to do take both approaches in terms of an appraisal value for? We were looking at the property alone at that time and the conversations that we have finalized with the property owner Mr. Wilkerson have been just most recent. We have been endeavoring to have a conversation about including this small property with the entire block because it is right along Main Street. It is a strategic location on the property for Main Street frontage and so the conversation on the income approach was just in the last several days. Again, I just think it's important when we talk about spending this kind of money that we have a sense as to why we pay such a large difference and I guess what you're telling us that the property is value for what we're trying to do is we're paying the price to your suggestion we pay for it. It definitely is our recommendation to proceed. The business owner actually wanted to continue operating business in that location and considering the amount of net revenue that he's forecast we believe it's advisable to proceed with this acquisition. Okay, I recognize Councilman Brown. I want to follow up on the mayor's concerns. I imagine there was more than one appraisal. No, just one appraisal on each of the properties. If I recall normally we get two appraisals. I was curious why we did not on this. That is definitely not necessary in this case in our opinion. Again, I may be wrong on this but I think we're paying a rather steep price. Correct me if I'm wrong but we're paying close to one million dollars an acre. I believe that the smaller property is much larger price per square foot but it is a very small property. It's an odd shape property and it really completes the block whereas the larger property, the Carpenter Chevrolet property is in the neighborhood of $28 to $29 a square foot. If you multiply that out times 43,560 square feet per acre then you come up with the price per acre. What about the cost of demolition? The cost of demolition would be included in the city's capital project budget versus the acquisition so there is an estimated value of demolition of the properties that staff has received. I'm sorry, could you? We have received that, yes. And can you give us? It's between $300,000 and $400,000 for all of the demolition work including buildings, asphalt pavements and the other improvements that are in the entire block. All right so, again let's summarize here that the cost of this property, the Carpenter Chevrolet and the Wilkinson piece and when you include the demolition, we're looking at what again? Probably around numbers, about $6 million total. Well, I just want to, for the record, state and I am the only real estate broker sitting up here and I think that's an exceedingly high cost. Thank you Mr. Mayor. You're welcome. Yeah, I have a couple of people signed up, I was trying to get to the council. Okay, any other comments from the council at this time? If not, we had two people that signed up to speak on this item and this isn't the public hearing but still an opportunity to speak on this important decision the council is making. Marcus Jackson, is Marcus Jackson present? Followed by V Peterson and you each have three minutes. It's Rob Emerson also. I'm calling people who have signed up to speak, Marcus Jackson and Marcus Jackson, V Peterson and Rob Emerson. If someone else wants to speak, I'm going to ask you to go to the clerk's side and get a copy. You have three minutes. Marcus Jackson, I represent GWC properties. I have a serious passion for downtown. I also represent 539 Foster Street, which is next to the farmers market and it's going to be the site of a future condominium project. To show you how much passion I have also represent the investor group out of Charlotte that has the Hendrick site under contract with Money Hard. They are planning a significant mixed use project there and they're proceeding very rapidly. I spent a fairly long process and I've attended the community meetings. I believe virtually every one of them and I've tried to listen to both sides. That's what any good broker does. There have been criticisms about economic development on the eastern side of downtown, both current and as potentially impacted by the police headquarters. That's a fair comment, especially when you consider eastern downtown does lag behind the other districts. But I do see a significant amount of hope in spite of the media regarding the likely location of the police headquarters in eastern downtown. We have to account for the success of Golden Belt. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit and Southside Rolling Hills is about to deliver and I think we all know that that's going to be a significant success. We have the future location of the Dillard light rail station and we are seeing a lot of signs frankly of what makes Durham Tech is entrepreneurism and the pioneers. Just last month an entertainment restaurant entrepreneur bought a half acre track directly across from the police headquarters. So the police headquarters has been in the press. It's hardly inhibiting economic development. I've even prepared an aerial called downtown Durham East. I'm happy to share it with you where I've started to dot and mark the progress of eastern downtown. And so it is reaching everybody and I want to speak to you a minute about Hendrick. My client is a very sophisticated investor group. They have full knowledge of eastern downtown. They've driven it extensively. They know all about the police headquarters. They view the police headquarters in that location as a positive. And I every time that I show a prospective developer that's interested in the Hendrick site. I take them by the police headquarters and I haven't heard one single negative comment. So I'm a great believer in downtown Durham East and great believer of the police being in that location. Thank you. Welcome. V Peterson. I think a lot of persons here in the community I think we sort of forget the Durham is an aging community. A lot of the homeowners and persons who own homes in this community a lot of them were senior citizens. When we have projects like these the monies that are being used are coming from the taxpayers the homeowners. I also agree with one of the city council persons. I think six million dollars is a lot of money. I don't think there's any property downtown that is worth over a million dollars each for acres of land. Nothing downtown is. And I think it's wrong for these persons who owe this these various properties for them to gulch and take advantage of the people in this community. I also would also like to talk a little bit about do we really need a huge huge police station in one area. I don't have a problem in having some satellites stations around the city and maybe have one main small facility. We keep saying in this community that crime is going down that we have a handle on crime. Well we just got finished building a huge courthouse and now we want to build a huge police station. But we constantly keep hearing that crime is getting better and better. Well if crime is getting better why do we keep building facilities that deal with crime that houses and work with persons that have committed crime. And Mr. Mayor and city council members what I would really like to see this community do we have various persons that come together and work on various projects. Why can't we get a group together in this community and really put persons together to work on what we need to do to get a handle on crime. How can we get the young men working and train in skills. And I just want to say this last thing. I have a criminal justice background. Never that I know of in the history of this country that that African American men have gotten involved with serial killing. When you go home tonight you're going to see that on your news. If we do not get the crime underhandled in this community that is going to be some of the problems that we're going to have. Black men need jobs. They need job training. They need skills and they need employment. Keep building courthouses and running the African American community through those courthouses making money off the backs of our grandmothers and uncles and fathers because many of these men cannot pay for that. So Mr. Mayor I'm asking the city council to please sort of look at some other ways instead of keep building these huge huge facilities to deal with crime when crime is supposed to be going down. And thank you very much. You're welcome. Rob Emerson. Yes sir. I can't speak quite as passionately as Mrs. Peterson. She's certainly a passionate woman. I appreciate your words. I wrote to the council last week and I would just like to read real briefly a little bit of what I wrote. I think you've all probably seen this and I'll do my best not to bore you all with it. I've been following this process pretty closely and I do support having a new police headquarters. I'm not opposed to having that police headquarters on East Main Street. My opposition is to the demolition of the historic structures that occupy the carpenter motor company site. There are two buildings in particular the 1928 original carpenter motor company building the one closest to the street that's covered in the unfortunate metal cladding in the blue and white paint and the 1948 truck building which is to the rear of the site. These are valuable historic assets and buildings just like these have been renovated all over Durham. You don't have to look very far. Golden Belt West Village. American tobacco. Any building in Central Park District. Many buildings that had trees growing out of them and people thought should have been torn down. One good example is now occupied by birds bees. So I just like to say downtown Durham is just starting to hit its stride largely because of historic preservation projects that repurposed buildings just like these. And I would strongly encourage us not to go too far down a path of this being the site and having to tear these buildings down. We've done far too much of that in East Durham and in particular on Main Street. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm going to bring this conversation back to the council. I have some comments I want to make out there for my colleagues. I recognize Councilwoman Cattati. Thank you Mayor. I don't object to moving forward on this site although personally I had preferred reconstruction on the current headquarter site. What I would like to do right now is just reiterate my concerns that were noted at the work session regarding project design and the need to activate Main Street as well as to consider additional capacity in the proposed parking deck to support the plan transit stop nearby on Dillard Street. I've already shared this with the manager but I'd like to suggest that we consider having the planning department host an urban design studio to get additional input and address concerns for the design of the site. We've heard a lot from folks that are concerned about the design. I'd also like the manager to consider exploring the potential for public-private partnerships on the site particularly to support retail on Main Street. I understand the security concerns and sensitivity but I wonder if perhaps by moving the annex forward that maybe the annex is less secure. There's just issues I think that could be addressed. So I'm wondering if staff could briefly clarify also the next steps. I know it was outlined in the manager's memo but regarding the architectural contract and other aspects of things that would happen if we make a decision tonight. What's the immediate timetable. Thanks. Well we have received proposals from shortlisted firms for architecture engineering and also for construction management and we will be bringing to you for your consideration negotiated contracts with those entities here in the next cycle or two as soon as those negotiations have been completed. We have provided several test fits that we've shown to you in the various properties and particularly on the Main Street we've had more studies done on that recently than previously and of course the site is adequate for all of the facilities that we have indicated in our facilities program including the parking structure. We will hold design and planning forums for the site to provide stakeholders an opportunity to provide input on the issues of interest such as streetscape pedestrian experience land use and open space historical context and resources. And we can also provide you with sequential progress reports of how we are progressing with this. So this is a public building and it's an important site on Main Street. We recognize that we recognize all of the interest that there is in the site for activity on East Main Street. And it's our intent to explore all of the subjects that have been brought to your attention and to ours as well be a deliberative process. It'll probably take us about a year to get through the design. But we want to move through it quickly because cost escalation is reportedly people have found out about Durham and a lot of the trade contractors in particular are very busy these days. Developers have come to town and proposed very large complexes and projects. So we want to proceed through it quickly without delay but we do want to go through a deliberative process to make sure that there is community input in the design. I recognize Councilman Moffitt and Councilman Schuyl. Thank you. Councilman Brown, the math is 1.3 million per acre. It's just let you know the math is 1.33 per acre, 1.33 million per acre. You were asking earlier. That's the answer. The plan that you just read, Mr. Reitzer, you were looking at a document reading a plan. Could you, I would like to have that in writing. I'd like to know, I'm visual, not very audio, so if you could provide that, that would be great. Well, it's an outline at this point. I'd be happy to provide that to you. Yeah, that'd be great. Just an outline and even just rough dates. That would be perfect. Thank you. I do want to say that as I said in the work session, I share Councilwoman Cattati's concerns about Main Street, about the design, about the impacts on the street and on Durham. So I will want to have periodic updates and be able to review progress. So thank you. I recognize Councilman Schuyl. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Excuse me. Thank you very much. Let me ask a question. How long, what is the range? Is the police headquarter projected to be in use? When you build a building like this, how long does it, how long do we use it for? Well, the projected plan for its usage in terms of how long we'll take to fill it up and be so full that we'll be spilling out or in terms of the physical construction. Physically, the construction could last 100 years because we anticipate a reinforced concrete and steel structure there. So as far as the growth of the community, once we reach a point of growth with our police, this is for command and control for 911 and it's for forensics and property and evidence as well. So there's a lot going on at this particular site. So at some given point, though, as our growth continues, there would be the possibility of needing to have satellite growth of some of those services in the future. So I would say in the 20-year range, you'll be looking at other types of facilities. Now in the overall plan provided by Carter-Goble, there was a different plan for the districts in terms of there's plan A and plan B. Plan A was dispersed out in the various districts in satellite locations. And plan B was to have the police service centers sort of consolidation of the north and south facilities for efficiency. So there were a couple of different ideas on how to take care of the districts and the activity going out in the districts. And then those two options are still on the table for your future consideration as the police department services needs grow. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I just want to, and I appreciate that, Joel. Thank you for that. I want to align myself with Diane's comments about the walkability and pedestrian-friendly, the need for this to be a walkable pedestrian-friendly area to connect a golden belt into East Durham, the neighborhoods of East Durham. If this is a forbidding corridor, that's going to be a bad outcome for everybody. And I appreciate Diane's request for periodic updates. And I know you all will take these designs concerned very seriously. And I understand the concern about the historic building on the property. I think that, as with any site, there are trade-offs. And I appreciate the concern that you raise. And it's not to be taken lightly. We certainly discussed this at length at the work session. But I think in this case, this is the best site given all the possible trade-offs. And I'm certainly planning to vote for it. I do want to say one other concern I have, and again, I think this is something that my colleagues have raised, that this purchase does take away a possible site for dense, transit-friendly development very near a future light rail station. This is all the more reason I think we need to be moving as quickly as we can to develop the plans for our station areas to include plans for affordable housing. And so, again, I support this. But I do think it comes with trade-offs, as many big decisions like this do. I appreciate the deliberative process that you all have been through. And I feel like we've been well informed throughout. And I think we've been given really good information about the choices facing us. And so I'll be planning to vote for it. So thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I recognize the Mayor Pro Tem. How will residents be involved in this process? Well, I believe that Mayor Pro Tem. I mean people like James and the PAC, whatever they can be a part of, regular people. It would be our idea to make contact through the different groups such as the PACs, as well as through Downtown Durham and other community organizations so that when we do have the forums, we'll also ask for the help of the Planning Department in terms of making contacts through their contacts for planning processes that are similar. So it would be our hope that we'd be able to reach everyone who has interest so that they'd have an opportunity for input as we progress through the plan. Thank you. I had, at the last work session, it urged us to try to move forward on the recommendation of administration in terms of purchasing this property. And I still haven't changed my mind on that. I don't have any questions about costs because I think that's always important to understand, not just for us, but for the general public. But I guess I'm comfortable that the staff has gone through its due diligence in trying to find a suitable site. I don't think it's a question of whether or not we need an inclusive headquarters. I think that's pretty much been established. But the question is where? And I recall back when I was a county commissioner and we were building the same called the judicial, or planning for the judicial, the jail. And everybody was saying, why are you going to build a jail there? Well, there were two reasons we built that jail. One, the courts were saying, if you don't do something, we're going to put you in jail because the jail that you presently had was intolerable. The second was no one in the community was asking to build a jail in their neighborhood. Nobody asked for a jail to be built in our neighborhood. So that's where it was. Along with that, we always knew that there was a judicial plan and the courthouse was to come later. And the county commissions have done that. And I don't think anybody talks about the jail. Now, when we're doing DPEC, everybody was up in the uproar, why are you going to build a performing arts center across from a jail? Now that the courthouse has been built, nobody pays any attention to the jail. With the police station, we're in the same position. Nobody has asked for a police station to be built in their neighborhood. No one has asked. And I think the staff has gone through and picked out sites that meet the criteria that are needed. And first, I was in support of Fayetteville Street, but obviously we knew what happened there with the Durham Housing Authority having plans for that. So we backed off of that one. We've seen the costs involved with trying to build on the present site. So I think this is the right site. But I also acknowledge the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues and people have written, we really want to build something that is friendly. And I think that we can find a creative way once we've got the site as we go through these public deliberations and get the public involved to allow that to happen. One other concern I do have is when we were building a convention center, there was some talk about, well, why don't we have stores along the side of the street? Well, one of the problems we had, and one has to see the attorney to opine on that. At that time, we were told that you could not use public dollars to build commercial space and lease it out. I don't know if that's still the case or not. So when we talk about using the site for retail and commercial, I think we've got to understand what our limits are. It might mean that we end up selling the site back to somebody to build that. But I don't think that we as a public body can build commercial space to rent it out. So I just think we need to keep that in mind as we go through all these public deliberations about what we want to see on that site and how we want it to be customer friendly and walkable and et cetera. But having said that, I support the recommendation of the administration and I'd entertain a motion on what's being proposed. It's been properly moved. And second, Madam Clerk, we open the vote and close the vote. It passes. Seven is zero. Mr. Brown, are you voting? No. Yes, I'm voting no. Okay, it passes. Six to one with Councilmember Brown voting no. Thank you. Let's move to item 21, Neighborhood Stabilization Program, three grant project ordinance. Mayor Bell, members of Council, Reginald Johnson, Director of Community Development Department. The city last week was awarded additional funds, NSP funds from the state. And this is the grant project ordinance to accept those funds. There's a November 3rd expenditure deadline. The funds will be used for infrastructure for the south side project. Probably moved in second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close vote. It passes. Seven is zero. Thank you. Let's move back to item seven, which is the item that was pulled. Just a minute. FY 2015 agreement between the city of Durham and North Carolina State University. And who pulled that item? Find the car. James Shaffers, okay. Reginald, could you stay for a minute? Because I do have a question I need to ask. I recognize. It's Shaffers. You have three minutes. Good afternoon, Mayor Bell and City Councilman. You know, I looked on the website. And this is what I found all together on the website. All this together for us to read in one day because we did not get it as a citizens. And I call some of the citizens that's working with me into each Durham to learn more about the rail system. They did not know anything about it. All of this, but then when you come here tonight, I see it was broken up into two different forms. One is go back to number four that you already voted for. I forgot to get, I didn't get a chance to sign off on that one. And number seven. But on the website, it is all put together as one. This whole package is as one. So I'm asking, how can we, I thank you, Mayor Pro Tem asks the question. How can the citizens of Durham be a part of something when we don't get the information in time? This information was given to you all some in last year and some this year and July the 1st. But citizens did not get it until this evening when I looked on there. Because my main interest is making sure peoples over in our area understand about this rail system coming here in Durham. We need jobs for our peoples here in Durham. We also need affordable houses here in Durham. How can we get it when we can't get the information to after y'all sign off and then come up here and they all do not like what we asked. So I'm asking you on number seven, because none of the 10 peoples I call about number seven and some of these grants do not know anything about that module. But that's part of the rail. How can we understand about that module if that module also has something to do with job opportunity for the peoples in our community? How can we have them to come and explain it to us when we just find out about it right now? And if you approve it, we still won't get no information. So I'm asking you before you approve anything like this, please give us an opportunity to get these people like Bertha Johnson and I know he's on here. This is a thick 66 pages. And I ask you all who you vote on how many have you read it because I haven't got a chance to read it all. I just had a chance to scan. That was by Keith Chatwell. So please, before you vote on number seven to add into the rest of them, please give us citizens a chance to get these peoples over to our area and respond to some of our questions because we do have questions. Thank you. Do you have staff person here to speak to this item? I think James, I think you're probably reading a little bit more into what this really is. This item is not related to the rail. It is the regional transportation demand model modeling projects. That's a modeling study. Can you come? It includes vehicles, all transportation. Right. And that's what we're saying because we don't know and we want to know, will there have a part of the rail? I understand what you're saying, Mayor Bill, but to us to get to know or to ask questions on this, we have not had a chance. I understand it's a part of the light for cars and stuff that y'all want to buy. You understand what I'm saying? Is that not right? I just glanced at it. This is just a contract for the modeling. Okay, see that's why I'm here tonight to ask a question that we don't know because we read the top headlines only and we do not get chance to read anything in between until we can sit down and break it down like y'all did, those that did. You understand what I'm saying? And I'm not reading to you. I'm just going by the top main headlines and see that. And when I saw that, it said something about, and I asked and I called around so others can get involved because we are trying to stay up on what's going on for our community to make sure that we are involved and stay involved. So that's a difference in number seven than the rest of them. I apologize, but we just read that as a whole. You don't have to apologize. And trust me, James, you made me, I know I chair the Triangle Transit Authority now, and I can assure you that we're going to have as much involvement as possible as we move forward. So that's a commitment we have. I'm not saying we're going to agree for everything people ask for, but there are going to be ample opportunities for people to express their concerns and listen to see how we can react to that. But this is a different, this is a modeling study here. All right. Thank you. Entertain the motion on, I'm sorry. Entertain the motion on item. It's going to probably move to second. Madam Clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. I'm going back to, I'm going back to supplement item 21, which I skipped over. That's why I call you back. I have a question about it. I have a question about it. And the question I had, I didn't pull it, the question I had, a lot of what is in this program speaks about market studies, and my question is how are we going to determine the credibility of a market study? I mean, a lot of what I read into this, and that's not the one, I'm sorry, the one I was looking at is when you put together the program for how we're going to spend extra money, the housing dollars. Okay. That's the one, not 21. And a lot of that had to do with a credible market study and determining that. So my question was how are we going to determine who presents a credible market study for whether we need more rental units or we need more home ownership units? So I'm not quite clear on your question, Mayor, because the guidelines for the neighborhood stabilization, this is the third award that we've received. It's not neighborhood stabilization that I'm talking about. I was going back to the question that we, when we presented the plan for housing, how are we going to use the money for affordable housing, and the questions were raised, we're going to leave time for people to comment on it. And a part of that study had to do with the need for a market study if you're going to determine home ownership or if you're going to determine rental units. And my question is, what is a credible market study? Who's going to determine what they present as a credible market study? Okay. If you're talking about the market study that we did for South that we engaged a firm to... No, this pertains to the items on Thursday whose work session agenda about the dedicated funding for the small projects. Okay. I'm not going to be here. Okay. I wanted to get that question on the table because a big part of the report referred to market studies and I wanted to understand who is going to determine what is a credible market study? I mean, I could give you a study and say, this is a market study I've done for this project. Is that sufficient? Do we have any criteria that we're going to establish when we talk about these market studies? So the market studies that we... they do have to be a credible market study that's either a firm or somebody who has a track record in providing that information. Do we have a standard outline? No, most people who are able to do those do have a background in that. So I couldn't come up with a market study. I'm suggesting that maybe we ought to have some kind of standard. Yes, okay. Some type of criteria because anybody can come up and say I've done a market study. That is correct. And the question is, how do we validate that? And we'll have a way to validate. I'm not going to be here. That's fine. Okay. Raise that question. Council Member Catari. It's actually on a different topic. Is that okay? Yeah. Well, I was just trying to respond to Mr. Chavis' concern. I wonder if somebody wanted to explain the process again so that things that we see tonight on Monday night, we've talked about at work session 10 days ago. And then when we received the agenda five days before that, is that when it's available to the public? So I just want to make sure that everyone understands that there are many weeks that you can look at the agenda and the information that's available. I think it's important to explain that, that there's nothing that's coming before this body or that we're acting on that has not had a public meeting. With the exception of anything that was a priority item that might be added to the agenda, even those would be added typically, no later than the Friday before the agenda. But the item specifically Mr. Chavis was talking about was on the work session 10 days ago. I don't think there's been any change to that since. Dan, did I answer your question? Okay, good. And I apologize for jumping where I was, but this was an item that I had outlined and I just wanted to make sure that we have some criteria when we talk about requirements for market study. And that was item seven on the work session agenda item. Yes. Well, we'll be able to do that now. Okay. Any other comments to come before the council? Before we adjourn? You don't need a motion to adjourn, but we'll go ahead and do it. We're adjourned at 8.40 p.m. Thank you.