 Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order tonight at 7 o'clock on November the 18th 2019. I certainly want to welcome everyone here today and also those people who are at home watching our meeting. We're very glad that you're with us and I'll first ask if you please join me in a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Madam Clark, will you please call the roll? Mayor Shul. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Alston. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. Here. Council Member Reese. Here. And Council Member Reese, will you please lead us in the pledge to the flag? I thought I would do it as an announcement, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. If it's your practice to do so and if you're able, please rise and join us for 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, indivisible, with liberty to become justice for all. Thank you very much, Council Member. And now we'll have the ceremonial items. And for the first item, the neighbor spotlight, I'm going to ask Council Member Javier Caballero if she would please join me at the microphone. Good evening. Is Ann Drennan here this evening? And if there's any family members or community members who would like to join, Ms. Brennan. So this month, this neighborhood spotlight is for Ann Drennan. She's a recipient of the Neighborhood Spotlight for the month of October 2019. The Neighborhood Spotlight Award recognizes community members that have gone above and beyond in volunteering their time to serve the community. This month, Ann Drennan, excuse me, a resident of Old Sugar Road was nominated and selected because of the wonderful work she has done in her neighborhood, including but not limited to raising awareness about the need for affordable and accessible medical equipment in our community, organizing community volunteers and leaders to find solutions to the community's needs for free access to medical equipment, organizing and managing project access known as HELP, Health Equipment Loan Program. Congratulations, Ms. Drennan, on being the October Neighborhood Spotlight for the City of Durham and thank you for all the work you do. I'll say one thing. I hope you don't need us, but HELP is here in Durham. If you don't know of us, have never heard, Google it. It's always great. The Neighborhood Spotlight is always very special. And thank you, Council Member Caballero, for presenting it to Ms. Drennan. Congratulations again, Ms. Drennan. Our second item for tonight is the history moment. And I'm going to ask our public historian, Eddie Davis, to please come forward. We're going to have a great history moment tonight, in honor of Dr. John Harding Lucas Sr. So, Mr. Davis, welcome. Thank you again, Mr. Matt. Thank you, Council Members, staff and audience. Good evening. Good evening. Today is Monday, November the 18th. It is the beginning of the annual National Observance of American Education Week, which always is commemorated during the week preceding Thanksgiving. Distressed that 25% of the nation's World War I draftees were illiterate, and 9% were physically unfit, representatives of the National Education Association and the American Legion met in 1919, exactly 100 years ago, to seek ways to generate public support for education. Over the years, since its 1869 incorporation, Durham has recognized the fact that public education is one of the distinguishing measures that spur upward mobility and advancement into the middle class and beyond. Many state and national education leaders have hailed from Durham. Tonight, I would like to take this history moment to salute one of those great local educators, Dr. John Harding Lucas Sr. Dr. Lucas is a native of Rocky Mount. He was born on November the 7th, 1920, which means that 11 days ago he celebrated his 99th birthday and thus has begun his 100th annual orbit of the earth around the sun. Dr. Lucas is a graduate of Shaw University. He served in the United States Army during World War II and was deployed in the Asiatic Pacific Theater. While earning a master's degree from both New York University and North Carolina College at Durham, Dr. Lucas taught chemistry and coached at Atkins High School in Kingston before becoming a principal at Orange Street School and Murray Potter High School. In 1963, Lucas, his wife, Blondola, and their children, Cheryl and John Jr. moved to Durham and he became the principal of Hillside High School. He held that position for 24 years. Today, the school's John H. Lucas Senior Wellness Center is named in his honor. The Lucas Middle School in Durham is jointly named for John Lucas and for Senator Jeannie Lucas. Jeannie Lucas and John Lucas were not related, but they were school system colleagues. While working at Hillside, John Lucas became a leader in the merger of the Predominantly White North Carolina Education Association and the Predominantly Black North Carolina Teachers Association. Originally, discussion centered on the white organization absorbing the black one. Lucas proposed an alternative. In an interview with journalist Evan Schmidt for the 2016 AT&T Heritage Calendar, Lucas said, our interest in my opinion was to seek a strong single voice for education with equal opportunity. Lucas remembered, my concept was in order to merge, you should bring two groups together on an equal footing. The National Education Association recognized Lucas's brand of equity within the process of merging southern black and white associations. Thus, the NEA branded his leadership platform the Lucas concept. This Lucas concept was utilized in teacher education, teacher association merger processes in numerous southern states. His proposals led to the formation of the North Carolina Association of Educators in 1970. In fact, his influence was so impactful that white, black, and Indian educators selected John Lucas to be the person to make the North Carolina merger announcement in front of a national audience of 12,000 educators who were gathered in San Francisco on July 1 of 1970. Lucas served as the NCAE state president during the 1974-75 school year. Today, the NCAE continues to bring educators together without regard to ethnicity. In fact, the current vice president of NCAE, Christy Moore, is a teacher only from the Durham Public Schools. I don't know if Christy is here or not. Once successful in executing the state mergers, Lucas shifted his attention to working as a United States delegate to world conferences on the teaching profession in Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Ireland, in Canada, and in South Korea. He also served on various state and national committees on education issues. Although he was active in state and national education endeavors, his work at Hillside High School continued at a very high level. However, after accumulating a combined total of almost 75 years of education work, John Lucas and his wife, Blondola Lucas, retired in 1985. However, in 1986, Dr. Lucas rose to an important challenge and accepted the presidency of Shaw University. He worked diligently with alumni and supporters to resolve financial and management problems, which threatened the 100-year-old institution. Here in Durham, in 1992, Lucas was elected to the first school board of the newly merged school system and served as its vice chairperson. At the point of the merger, Lucas applied the Lucas concept again. He advocated that instead of the Durham County Schools absorbing the Durham City Schools, the newly merged school system should have a brand new name and new leadership. Thus, we now have the Durham Public Schools. Lucas has received multiple honors for his work on behalf of education and equal opportunity. In 1982, Shaw University awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters. He was named a lifetime honorary board member of the National Education Association in 1972. And in 2009, aided by a nomination process initiated by Durham's Minnie Fort Brown, Dr. Lucas received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National School Boards Association. In 2013, he received the North Carolina Award for Public Service from the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and from Governor Pat McCurry. With us tonight are several local educators and former students who worked with Dr. Lucas at Hillside High School and in the Durham Public Schools. If there are folks who went to Hillside while Dr. Lucas was the principal, or if you went to Hillside at any point or if you attended any of the Durham Public Schools, would you please stand now? Thank you very much. Also here to support Dr. John Lucas, Shaw University Director of Alumni Affairs, Dr. Lamont Johnson, and other members of the Shaw family, would you please stand now? Students and faculty members from the Lucas Middle School along with family members of Senator Lucas, Senator Genie Lucas, and Dr. Lucas. I think we have a delegation from Lucas Middle School here. Yes, we do. The principal. That's Principal Sanchez, I believe. That's correct. Rebecca Clayton and Manna Hampton who were two of the white educators who worked with Dr. Lucas to merge the Durham Black and White Teachers Association in the late 1960s and 1970s. I believe Rebecca Clayton is here, would you please stand? So locally, the Black and White and Indian teachers and other minorities and other folks worked real closely here in Durham, and Durham became a model for the way that people would cooperatively work to make sure that students and teachers and the schools in general worked very well together after integration. Pastor Reginald Van Stevens and members of Dr. Lucas' beloved White Rock Baptist Church, where he retains the title of Deacon Emeritus. I think there is a delegation from White Rock here, would you please stand? During Dr. Lucas' days at Shaw in the 1930s, Dr. Lucas became a member of the Omega Sci-Fi fraternity. His membership has been continuous and thus, this makes him one of the longest serving members of the organization throughout this nation and internationally. Would these gentlemen who are wearing purple and gold please stand? These are his brothers from Beta Phi chapter here in Durham and other parts of Omega Sci-Fi, would you please stand? Mr. Mayor, I promised Dr. Lucas that he would not have to make a speech. However, I did not promise that I would not ask for a rousing round of ovation for Dr. Lucas and the American Education Week that he symbolizes. Thank you so much. So it appears that he is willing to make a few comments right now. So would the 99-year-old gentlemen please come to the microphone. Thank you very, very much and praise God from all blessings flow. I sure would. Come on. Dr. Lucas, look over here towards Eddie. See how we look. Yeah, come on up. One more. Go ahead, come on up. Dr. Lucas, I think we got one more from Shaw University. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much, Eddie, and thank you so much, Dr. Lucas. Eddie only forgot one thing. Dr. Lucas is also the father of the best athlete ever to come out of Durham, North Carolina. I will say that as well. That's for sure. And now I'm going to ask Council Member Mark Anthony Middleton to join me, which I believe he has already done. Here we have a proclamation to reduce violence everywhere. And I'll ask Wanda Boone. Is Wanda here? Ms. Boone here? She's coming up. Oh, there she is. Great. And anyone who she would like to have join her, please come on up, and I'll turn this over to Council Member Middleton. Good evening, everyone. We'll give our friends an opportunity to exit before we get started. Good evening. My thanks to His Honor the Mayor for allowing me to read this important and wonderful proclamation for STRIVE, which stands for Striving to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere. Now, hardheaded. She was waving for two minutes. Come on now. Everyone. Proclamation. Whereas adverse childhood experiences, ACES, experienced early in life and lead to a greater risk for committing violence against peers, bullying, teen-dating violence and child abuse, elder abuse, intimate partner violence and sexual violence later in life and whereas children who are victims of abuse and neglect are more likely to exhibit antisocial behaviors, suffer from anxiety and depression, encounter challenges in school and abuse drugs or alcohol and whereas 28% of high school students reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing usual activities and whereas 11% of high school students in Durham reported that they did not go to school at least once in the past month because they felt unsafe at school or going to or from school. 51% of high school students have seen other students being bullied and 37% of high school students report gang activity in school and whereas people living in low resource communities experience more crime, higher stress levels, less access to resources, higher rates of chronic disease and higher rates of early death and whereas strategies applied at the community, relationship and individual levels that include resilience as an antidote and that address historical trauma and institutional racism can help prevent multiple forms of violence. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Schul, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby call upon all citizens to participate in this call to action and join together for resilient youth, T-R-Y, in the strive to reduce youth violence everywhere strive initiative. Witness my hand and the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the 18th day of November, 2019, Stephen M. Schul, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. One of the things that we want to do or I believe we want to do in Durham is to prevent violence. It's wonderful to think about all the things that we can do to impact violence after it occurs, including helping victims of crime to recover from that trauma. But if we want to see a brighter future for all of us, then we need to really pay more attention to prevention. And so with me are several members of Together for Resilient Youth and there's so many more. So thank you for being here with me. If someone experiences four or more adverse childhood experiences before their 18th birthday, then the outcomes can be devastating. So those are physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, mental illness in the home, incarcerated relative, mother treated violently, substance use were divorced, four or more, then these are the possible outcomes. Lack of physical activity, smoking, alcoholism, drug use, missed work, severe obesity, diabetes, depression, suicide attempts, STDs, heart disease, cancer, stroke, COPD, and broken bones symbolizing violence. So one of the things we need to think about is instead of asking someone, what did you do? We need to ask what happened to you as the foundation of prevention. So one of the things we do in Together for Resilient Youth is to use community sectors in order to spread the word about ACEs and resilience, but also to be authentic carriers of the message. Now, a while back it used to be that those 10 things were the only thing that we're talked about, but now research shows that institutional racism and that historical trauma are also a part of those things that happen that really impact a person's health and it can lead to someone partaking in violent actions later on. Children are children. The adolescent brain doesn't fully develop until someone is 25 years old. So we may say because they have grown tall that they should know better, but with the frontal lobes not fully developed, then we as adults need to surround our children to make sure that we protect them in every way that we can and that we also include them in the prevention process. So real quickly I will say that Stephanie and Angie and Tanya are part of the Youth Coalition for ages 9 to 25, college age students who help carry this message. So again, you often see me or my husband Earl, but we are not the only ones that are involved in this process. So they're in the school. We have the faith community, law enforcement, community members, mental health and health. Ashley is back there. Arminius Dobson inside parents and parents that have lost children due to substance use and overdose. We also work in the Durham Housing Authority training individuals to carry this message because you can recover your childhood and that is really the good news. So we're excited about this work that didn't just start yesterday. We've been around for 17 years and we've seen substance use among high school students go down and marijuana is going up. That's another conversation. And the opioid epidemic did not hit Durham in the same way that it did other communities. However, heroin use is going up and we need to look at what's happening in the black community. So we work with everybody. We don't single out a certain subset of people. We are community wide, but still recognizing that historical trauma is an issue. Historical trauma means that as slavery has an impact on every single black person at the DNA level. And that's something that we have to talk about. So anyway, we are strive and the ways that you can get involved and I'm winding down. The ways that you can get involved are from providing information, building skills, providing support, and then environmental change, enhancing and reducing barriers, changing consequences, looking at physical design and changing physical design and modifying and changing policy. So we do address the social determinants of health, transportation, you know, and providing funds, gap funds for people who need those funds intermittently. So that's who we are. The website is DurhamTry.org and I invite you to become a champion of change with us. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Middleton. And thank you all for our ceremonial items tonight. We will now move to our announcements by members of the council. Are there any announcements by members of the council? I don't believe so. I'm sorry, Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Mr. Mayor, I just want to take just a really quick minute to thank so many members of this community, particularly members of this council, firstly, and members of this community, for your wishes of condolences and prayers and good wishes during the bereavement of my family with the passing of my brother Michael. I just returned from New York on Saturday from that funeral and was just overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from this community and this staff from departments throughout this city from so many members of our community. I want you to know that it is acknowledged. If I don't get to call each and every one of your names individually, know that your love and support were absolutely critical during the season. So I want to thank all who sent well wishes. Secondly, real quick, Mr. Mayor, when I got back on Saturday, I had an opportunity, interesting kind of, I guess, connectivity to attend a wonderful discussion hosted by the Friends of Gear Cemetery regarding the upkeep of that historic cemetery and particularly African American fathers and mothers of this city are buried. I want to be very clear. I'm well aware that Mayor Pro Tem Johnson and Councillor Freeman have been engaged with this issue. But I'd like Mr. Mayor for us, and since we've been talking a lot about racial equity and we just finished celebrating 150 years of history in our city, racism and institutionalized racism was so pernicious we know in our country that it followed you to death. And oftentimes the dignities that were afforded members of other communities were not afforded to black people when they died. And that was also expressed in the upkeep and maintenance of those cemeteries. I know that the city's been engaged some years ago in doing some cleanup there and some grappling, but my hope is that in coming months, perhaps in the coming year, we would at least explore some opportunities to perhaps be a little more involved and intentional in bringing that cemetery up to code. I don't anticipate that it would be a great financial burden on the city to keep it looking beautified and to honor all of the folk that are buried there, some of whom the history of this city would not be what it is, were it not for their contributions. So no action tonight, but I just want to honor the Friends of Gear Cemetery and Durham Preservation Society and keep Durham beautiful for the work they've been doing in that area and would like to put it on at least our intellectual radar as a council to perhaps look at ways we can become involved in bringing that cemetery up to code. Finally, Mr. Mayor, this week, I'll be traveling to San Antonio and I'm going to get to pretend to be you. On Thursday there will be an important panel discussion highlighting the work of cities that have done work to close the racial gap when it comes to wealth as the work we've done on fines and fees, our deer program, license restoration program. I know my colleagues would agree that one of the coolest parts of our job is to get to be brand ambassadors for this great city anywhere we are in the globe. And I'm looking forward very much to joining other elected officials from all around the country at the National League of Cities in San Antonio this week where mayors and council people and elected officials and staffs get together to talk about best practices on how to best govern great American cities and communities that are equitable and sustainable and that are welcoming to all folks. So I look forward to being there this week. I thank my colleagues for the excused absence for the work session this Thursday. And Mr. Mayor, I hope to do you proud on Thursday. Thank you. Councillor Middleton, I know you will do us proud and thank you so much for being there and doing that. And again, condolences on the passing of your brother and we all feel it for you. All right, any other announcements? Thank you. I just want to make sure that I bring to light in light of the proclamation or the proclamation against violence this evening that I in the previous meeting I brought to the attention of my council colleagues some conversations that have been happening in the community around some calls for action from this council and recognizing that there are some things that we can do like supporting TRY and the work that they've been providing for this community for over 15 years or like many other groups like Communities in Partnership who's doing the food pantry or Spirit House that does a harm-free zone or a chance to change who does the standing in the way of violence. I could go on and on. I mean, love and respect. There's so many organizations that we could look to engage in our conversations immediately as they are doing the work already. I hope that we'll have a conversation at some point. I am recognizing that it takes a, you know, a vote of four of us. So I will continue to bring this forward recognizing that the community called for a day of healing and to honor the police chief's request also noting for the parks and rec locations to be not just open but welcoming and then also noting that those resources need to be made available to actual credible messengers in the community who are doing the work. And I just want to make sure that I keep bringing that up until we do address it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. One additional thing. I feel it's probably appropriate to probably share noting that time we'll pick up with the holidays coming along that on January 15th a group of us was in Poverty Derm and the Episcopal Alliance United Against Racism will be hosting a conversation for a case for reparations with Professor Sandy, Dr. Sandy Darity and his partner when a woman messes her name up. Kirsten Mullen. Yes, Kirsten. And I would love to invite you all to attend and to make sure that everyone's aware it will be held on January 15th. And that is an event that I am announcing. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Any further announcements? All right. Thank you. If not, we are now at the Consent Agenda. The Consent Agenda can be... I'm sorry, we're not the Consent Agenda. We're now at the priority items by the City Manager. I'm sorry, Mr. Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council, good evening. I don't have any priority items this evening, but I would like to tag on Council Member Middleton's representation of the City Government and the work we're doing at the National League of Cities Conference. We'll have two other staff persons on panels that will be also highlighting the work of Durham. Our Budget Management Services Director, Bertha Johnson will be there, as well as I believe Brian Smith might be there. And we will also be receiving two national awards yet to be announced, but we're very proud of that as well. So thank you. I'll bring them back. Thank you, Mr. Manager, for that announcement. And we're excited about those awards and are looking forward to hearing more about them. Madam Attorney. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council. City Attorney's Office has no priority items this evening. Thank you. Madam Clerk. Good evening, everyone. The City Clerk's Office has no items. Thank you. I think that this might now be the appropriate time for a couple of motions. One, we need a motion for an excused absence for tonight's meeting for Council Member Alston. So moved. Second. Second. It's been moved. And seconded that we grant Council Member Alston an excused absence for tonight. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. And the motion passes 6-0. Thank you. I will be attending the North Carolina Metro Mayors meeting on December the 5th, which is the day of a work session, and we'll need an excused absence for that meeting. Can I have a motion for an excused absence on December the 5th work session? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded to give me an excused absence on the December 5th work session. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much. And now we'll get to the consent agenda. The consent agenda is made up of items that have previously been considered by the Council. And the consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the Council. Items can be removed from the consent agenda by any member of the public or any member of the Council, and if they are so removed, will be heard at the end of the meeting. Item one, Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau, DBA, Discover Durham, Joint City County Representative of Reappointment. Item two, FY 2020-2021 Budget Development Schedule. Item three, Review and Discuss Council, Inter and Hiring and Onboarding. Item four, Selection of Chrysalis Research and Consulting LLC for the preparation of a five-year consolidated plan, annual action plan, and analysis of impediments to Fair Housing Choice. Item five, Contract Amendment, the Housing Authority, the City of Durham Community Development Block Grant, Subrecipient Contract for the Rehabilitation of Laurel Oaks Townhouses. Item six, Approval of Dedicated Housing and Community Development Block Grant, Funds to Reinvestment Partners, Aim for the Rehabilitation of 2816 Ross Road. Item seven, Interlocal Agreement with Durham County on Funding at Widditt School, Affordable Housing Project. Item eight, First Amendment to Durham Community Land Trust, Inc. DCLT for Vickivable Construction Permanent Loan Agreement for the Southwest Central Durham Home Rental Rehabilitation Project. Item nine, Grant Project Ordinance for Durham County Transit Plan. Item 10, Contract for Water Supply Storage in Jordan Lake. Item 11, Triangle Land Conservancy, O'Neill Watership Protection Project, Authorization to Participate. Item 12, Purchase Contract with Brady Integrated Security for Citywide Access Control Standardization Project. Item 13, First Amendment to Contract with Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities to Develop a Strategic Plan for Shared Economic Prosperity for the Residence of the City of Durham. Item 14, Contract with Marissa McDaniel, Inc. to Conduct Promotion Testing, Assessment Services and Job Task Analysis. Item 15, Cooperative Purchase Group Police Mobile Command Center Contract. Item 16, 2019 Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Program Grant Project Ordinance. Item 17, Emergency Watership Protection and Watershed Restoration Project, Grant Project Ordinance. Item 18, Emergency Watershed Protection Professional Services, EWP 2020-01. Item 33, Marissa Hispanic Latino Committee Appointments. You have heard the consent agenda and I will now entertain a motion for their approval. Did you have information from Ms. Peterson and Madam Clerk? What would the item be, Ashley? 33. All right, thank you. We will pull item 33. Thank you very much. We'll now have a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of item 33. So moved. Second. Moving to second, we approve the consent agenda. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you. We'll now move to our general agenda, business agenda and we'll begin with item 19, the 2019 Third Quarter Crime Report. And we'll welcome Chief Davis and her staff. Welcome Chief, it's good to see you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Honorable Mayor Schuyl, Honorable Counsel, City Manager Tom Bonfield and our city attorney, Kim Raver. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the Third Quarter Crime Report this evening. This report covers the Durham Police Department's five performance measures, our Part One Violent Crime, Part One Property Crime, the Department's overall clearance rates, response times for priority calls for service, and sworn and civilian employee staffing levels. I'll also discuss briefly other highlights that occurred during the Third Quarter. There were 32 homicides during the first nine months of 2019 compared to 24 in the same period of 2018. There were 36 incidents, but the count is 32 homicides because three cases have been cleared as self-defense and one case was classified as negligent manslaughter, which is determined to be an unintentional shooting. So far there have been five homicide cases that occurred in prior years, cleared in 2019. The number of reported sexual assaults dropped by 18%, 77 versus 94 for the same reporting period. There were 19 cases from previous years that have been reported during the first nine months of 2019, approximately one quarter of our cases. Robberies dropped significantly during the first nine months of 2019 to the lowest third quarter numbers in three years, 16% of robberies were from businesses, which include eight bank robberies. The number of shooting incidents increased by 17%, and the number of shooting victims increased by 5% during the first nine months of 2019. More than a quarter, 27% of aggravated assault incidents were determined to be domestic. 38% of all aggravated assaults in the third quarter came from multi-victim firearms incidents. The percentage of this category, the multi-victim category, 31% in both the first quarter and the second quarter. Our focus and efforts have been to reduce the number of aggravated assaults, particularly multi-victim aggravated assaults. The percentage for multi-victim firearms incidents during the first nine months of 2019 is 34%. Our goal has been 30%. Clicker here. So part one property crime, January to September, burglaries were at a three-year low for the first nine months of the year. There were decreases in residential and commercial burglaries, but there was a brief spike in miscellaneous category, which includes sheds and construction sites. Larsonese comprised almost two-thirds, which was 63% of all part one crime. 43% of all reported Larsonese were from motor vehicles or involved auto parts and accessories. More than a quarter, 29% of all Larsonese involved shoplifting. So 72% of all Larsonese are either thefts from vehicles or shoplifting. Almost half of the guns stolen this year, 49%, 126 of the 256 were taken during break-ins in vehicles. And again, Honda Accords were the most stolen vehicle model during the first nine months of 2019. At least 46% of vehicles stolen this year had keys left in the vehicle or the vehicle was left with the engine running. This is a reoccurring theme. As we entered the cold season, we want to remind everyone, again, especially during the holidays when people are scurrying about in a hurry, that it's not a good idea to leave your car running with the keys in it. This is a reoccurring theme here in Durham. Vehicle thefts stemming from the desire to get into a warm car result in vehicle stolen. So our clearance rates, we compare our department's clearance rates to other departments of our size in the category of 250,000 to 499,000 or 500,000 population. And FBI generated clearance rates. Our clearance rates were better than the average because these are size in all categories, but aggravated assault and violent crime during the first nine months of 2019. The aggravated assault clearance rate is affected by the number of multi-victim firearm cases since these cases are often difficult to clear. Keep in mind also that the clearance rates for 2018 and the FBI Peer City results are for the entire year of total cases cleared. To update our clearance rates, the totals at the end of the calendar year. That'll be sometime in February or so 2020. Our homicide clearance rates include five cases cleared from prior years as well, where the incident actually occurred in prior years. So priority one calls for service. There were 6,056 priority one calls for service in the first nine months of 2019, essentially a 10% decrease from the same period in 2018. Our average response time was 5.92 minutes, which was close to meeting the target of 5.8 minutes. We answered 55% of priority one calls in less than five minutes in the first nine months of 2018. Our goal is 57% under five minutes. Six to 11 minutes has been the average for other comparable cities too. Education has played a significant role in citizens using other reporting platforms to report crimes. Our communications dispatchers do an excellent job in working the triage calls so that they aren't dispatched to officers unnecessarily. So we believe that some of the work with the P2C platform where individuals are going to, our software platforms to make police reports and also vetting of calls through communications has helped as well. Staffing levels. Our sworn staffing was at 97% at the end of September 2019. Our non sworn staffing was at 92% at the end of September 2019. 19 recruits from Basic Law Enforcement Training Academy number 49 graduated on September 18th. There are currently 20 recruits in BLET number 50 who will graduate in February 2020. Two officers completed the advanced law enforcement training which is known as our ALEP program during the third quarter. This is an accelerated program for officers who are already North Carolina state certified. So U-Visa requests for the quarter. The Durham Police Department process 47. U-Visa requests during the third quarter of 2019. 57% of the requests, 27 out of 47 were approved. For the first nine months of the year 2019 we processed a total of 157 U-Visa requests. So a few other highlights for the quarter. Three new pieces of public art were unveiled on July 30th at DPT headquarters. And during the placemaking at headquarters celebration we had several people from the community to come out and speak. Each piece of artwork expresses a theme of common thread in the symbolic badge that you've probably seen out in front of the building. It's the shape, more contemporary shape of a badge structure in the front of the building. It sort of represents the weaving together of ethnicities and cultures in a very diverse city. The unveiling mark, the culmination of an 18 month process coordinated by the city's Police Department General Services Department, Office of Economic and Workforce Development and Public Art Committee in collaboration with Durham Technical Community College. It was a great event. Other highlights was National Night Out held on August 6th in more than 90 neighborhoods throughout Durham. We had another awesome National Night Out with lots of participation by community organizers, citizens, and elected officials. Thank you all for supporting National Night Out as well. National Night Out is one of the department's favorite community events which allows us to fellowship and get to know our community members from a variety of demographics. Just a few, before I finish, a few other highlights that I'd like to bring out. Some of this is already in the written report, but I'd like to say some of this publicly that we initiated a homicide cold case detective who has begun working on cold cases in the Durham Police Department. We also arrested a primary suspect in the Zion Parson case and that case is seeking federal prosecution. Six other significant homicide arrests occurred for cases in 2016, 18, and 19. After launching our anti-gun violence campaign this summer, during the month of June, we rolled out a 60-day initiative that focused on reducing violent crime. 94 felony arrests were made and 24 guns were seized. Details are also in the accompanying report for that particular operation. This year, or at least this quarter, we made several robbery arrests, one involving a repeat of Fender conducting buy-sell robberies on the Internet. At least five incidents were associated with this individual. Our misdemeanor diversion program, there were 316 referrals to the program, 100% completion rate for those individuals, which was really good. 75% of those referrals came from the Durham Police Department. We also held a child safety seat event sponsored by our attack unit, our accident crash unit, the community engagement unit held a bicycle repair event for children. Investigator Judy Rodriguez became the first Durham Police Department officer to receive certification from the International Association of Fraud Examiners. She now works with the OIG's office investigating financial fraud in the Durham area, which is very significant for us. We get a lot of financial fraud cases. At least four employees receive City of Durham Stars Awards in integrity, customer service, and fairness. The department is also receiving on November 26th the North Carolina Dogwood Award by Attorney General Josh Stein. It'll be presented to our forensics unit and other individuals who have been working on sexual assault case reductions. Officer Ramos was recognized for exceptional and courageous response in a Cornwallis fire incident, and she's also being recognized as the North Carolina JC's Outstanding Young Public Servant for other work she has done in our Hispanic community. Major Sherri Montgomery, Captain Walter Tate, Captain Melissa Bishop, and Lieutenant D.M. Anthony graduated from the Police Executive Research Forum, the Senior Management Leadership Institute. I'm very proud of them as well. And the last thing that I will add is that we have two members of our executive team who have announced their retirement. That is Deputy Chief Anthony Marsh and Deputy Chief Terence Simley. It's very possible that the next time you see me presenting, they will no longer be with the Durham Police Department. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the work that they have done during my tenure with the Durham Police Department to be agile in the midst of change to support me and various initiatives. And I know whatever the next chapter holds for them, they will be exceptional in it. So thank you very much. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Chief. And we have some speakers, but first we'll have questions and comments from members of the council, and then we'll hear from our speakers. But Chief Marsh, Chief Simley, want to just add to what the chief says, to express our appreciation to you all for all the fantastic service that you've rendered to our city, all of us on the council, and our whole community is in your debt. And I just want to second the chief's appreciation. And I'll be looking forward to hearing what you all are going to be doing in your retirement. I hope it's fun. We'll now have questions and comments from members of the council, and then we'll hear from any speakers that we have. Questions or comments? Council Member Rees. Briefly, Mr. Mayor, thank you. How's it going, Chief Davis? Absolutely. Before I get to you, I just want to thank again the two folks you signaled from your executive staff who are going to be leaving us. It's hard to imagine the Durham Police Department without the two of you. Firstly, from my perspective, and I will just also say that Chief Marsh, I don't know if you remember the first time I met you, was when you started doing the community outreach around the police warrant body camera policy. And I had not then and have not since seen a public servant go about that very difficult work in the way that you did. You were extraordinary during that process. I told you that then, and I will never forget the way that you were engaged in this very difficult conversations with people around the community who have very different values about that particular issue, whether they want to be told they're being recorded, whether they want the option, what to do with the footage, and you were the quintessential public servant during that process. I'll never forget it. So thank you for your service. Really appreciate it. Chief, I wanted to first, you mentioned almost everything I wanted to talk about from the back half of the report. I just want to call out the allocation of resources of cold case unit. Homicides, it is so important that the families of victims know that we have not forgotten these cases. Absolutely. And that allocation of resources is really personally meaningful. And so I appreciate that. The other thing I wanted to mention is that you mentioned a lot of officers. You couldn't mention everyone, but I wanted to pull officer DT stocks out of the report and hold up that officer who was approached in mid-September by a person who was having trouble paying for a hotel and feeding their family and the officer and other officers. It's always an officer and then a bunch of other officers, they rope in to help, helped get them some food, helped them stay in the hotel for a bit. I just want to make sure that you give him my phone number. If he comes into these situations again, just give me a call. I'll see what I can do. Thank you. But more directly, I just wanted to say that I continue to be impressed with the quality of your leadership in this community, the work that you've done over a difficult year, the way that we have continued to have a very positive working relationship and the fact that your department is responding heroically to the world that we are living in right now. And I just want to say thank you so much for all the work you do. I really love that the staffing numbers are so high. That's a really good sign for us. I believe we can keep it that way. Yeah, we're going to keep it that way. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Other council members, questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I thank you, Chief, for your report. We got noticed recently of a grant that we were receiving to clear up some of our old sexual assault test kits backlog. I'm really excited to hear about that and was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about how we got that resource and how we're going to be putting it to use. Absolutely. And that was kind of one of my bullet points, but I didn't want to run too long. But we applied for this grant through the Department of Justice and we were awarded the grant. So it's a three-year grant. It's right at about a million dollars. And it is to support the Durham Police Department by eradicating the backlog, which is dwindling. And we're getting a lot of recognition from that too because of the deliberate intent in working those cases. But it's also so that we can hire a DA's ADA in the DA's office as well so that when we get hits and there is the potential to prosecute that we will have the resources that we need to investigate and prosecute. So we're excited about that. We're in the embryonic stages right now of actually planning what that rollout looks like. But I'll be glad to provide more information on the narrative of what we asked for as well. Thank you so much. It is. It's very substantial. Yeah. It's a huge grant and it'll make a huge difference. So I'm really excited to see how that goes forward. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you. I also want to echo my colleagues in thanking you for your service as well as Chief Marsh and Chief Solvus. I can't say how much I appreciate just what you guys do in this community and the way that you handle it. It's commendable how approachable that each of you are and how much you attend to the kind of people, to the people in the community as if they were your neighbors. It's appreciated. I also want to commend our Chief in recognizing that the service you do in and out of uniform definitely is also commendable. And I was fortunate enough to attend your sister's event Saturday at the health department with our DA, Satana DeBerry. And I was really motivated and touched in a way that I want to be careful about and making sure that I follow your lead. But I do want to hear more about exactly how you guys have been able to partner and figure out ways that you can work around some of the shortcomings or the short resources beyond just the million dollar grant and addressing some of the issues. I want to lift up the one of the cases or one of the women that stood up and shared her story about how a rape kit was lost and how her case would never be heard really hit home and recognizing just how many people never get the justice. And I know far too many women who have been survivors of sexual abuse. Yes, I think we were all moved by that testimony. But I really was also very, I guess, like I only intended to stay probably 10, 15 minutes. I think I ended up staying about an hour. But there was so much information you were sharing regarding resources for people in the community. And I really love for you to take a moment and just share some of that. So the conversation sort of took a turn just to discuss education in general and how do we educate individuals and the testimony that we all experienced during even though that was not a Durham Police Department case, it was still very moving. And I think it touched everyone to hear the intimate details of what an individual had gone through and how that person continues to carry that. And then we personalized some of that conversation. I gave an example of a young man and this could happen to anybody, a young man who is almost like a nephew to me. And this person was in a relationship with, he was 17 at the time and he was in a relationship with a 15 year old. And the mother came home and caught them even though there was not an act there. But the lack of education on the part of that young man and of course the young lady who was involved it caused charges to be placed on the 17 year old and he's about 25 now. And he still carries those charges because of the fact that in the state of Georgia a 17 year old could be considered a rapist or that situation could have been considered a statutory rate charge. So he continues to carry that even though this particular case was dismissed. But we shared a lot of information about how we need to educate our young people, how we need to educate our students on college campuses and that no means no and that sometimes the other contributing factors that come into play that aggravate those kinds of situations is there's a need for more forums for that kind of discussion open and honest discussions because a person's career could be lost or a person could be violated in a way and we sort of want to be on the preventive end. And then also I note that the child abuse case as well it's important that people acknowledge just how vulnerable our children are in this community to sexual abuse. Absolutely. And sexual assault. Absolutely. And who has to actually take that report and follow the leads to see the case through. Yes. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Chief. Council Member Milton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening. Good evening, Chief. Good evening. And the man staff. Always good to see you. Chief, before we made a historic hire bringing you here I don't think Chief Marsh's shoulders were quite as blinged out and nobody called me honorable at that time at all but during that time when I was working with so many other people in this city to transform our police department, to transform the culture, I know Chief Marsh wasn't always happy to see me coming as we sat across many tables but I just want to publicly say that the temperament and the professionalism and the steady hand that you brought to that work to those times and to those discussions were just above board. Just above and beyond. I think with a lot of folk in your position would it display. So I just want to commend you for just the even handedness that you've displayed and the temperament and the professionalism over the years. Immense respect for you and you're a young man. So I look forward to seeing what you do after you take the uniform off to your assembly as well for your leadership and your temperament as well over the years. It's amazing how fast time flies but I wish you both the best as you do. Kate, I'm going to be bothering you for a while so you're going to be around for a while. Chief, congratulations on some of those high profile arrests that you made. Of course the presumption of innocence is on everyone. Those trials come through. We do want to congratulate you and the women and men under your command for those arrests. I want to talk a little bit about the shootings in our city. While this government has not declared the state of emergency in our city we have not officially declared that. There are some residents and citizens who feel that way and I hear from them all the time. I'm not even talking about the gunfire that gets reported, the shootings that we do respond to. There are people in this city who every night you're gunfire in neighborhoods. That's a reality. Not just a few, a lot. I saw a media report a couple of weeks ago where you were interviewed and I want to quote you correctly. I think you were speaking about additional officers and you said, quote, I needed them then. I need them now. There's only seven people in this city that are vested with the power to make that happen in the budgetary cycle and they're here right now. So I was pretty clear who your audience was in that interview. You also talked about a plan to augment the gang task force in response to what's been going on of late. So I just want to ask you very directly as the seven people in this city that can act, if you will. I want to ask, is there something, is there a specific ass, is there something this council can do outside of our regular budgetary cycle to augment your capabilities to help you and your department address the issues you have? I know the city manager is empowered to spend up to a certain threshold without calling us, but outside of the traditional budgetary cycle, is there something this government can do to help you in the short term and to convey to the people of this city that although we're not declaring an emergency, we get it and we understand that there's an issue going on and that people are scared and people are upset and they're looking to us for leadership. So if it's a price, what's the price? If it's a declaration, whatever it is, is there something this government can do in the short term? Council Member Middleton, if I could interrupt. Sure. I have had conversations with Chief Davis over the last couple of weeks. I don't know if that was completely a rhetorical question or a direct question of her. I'll let you respond to that, but certainly I've asked the police department to particularly around the gang unit to provide me some additional information so that both she and Sheriff Burkhead are working on that issue, but provide me some additional information over the next several weeks and we'll be reporting back to the council about what that might look like and to directly answer your question, assuming it wasn't rhetorical, there are many avenues by which the council has the authority or the ability to supplement resources mid-budget. Right. It wasn't rhetorical. And I appreciate the manager's information. Well, let me just say for the record and I look forward to that reporting. I want to go on record saying that whatever comes back, if it's reasonable and within our power, that we should do it. We should act. I also want to go on record saying that I am not going to pretend or play the game that anyone that's seriously engaged in this conversation is going to suggest that there's something causally linked between what has happened and what we do now. No one serious is saying that any action this council takes or could have taken could have prevented a particular shooting or a particular incident. I think the conversation deserves much more serious engagement than that. But I think what needs to be displayed and said is that we have the moral credibility to look our folk in the eye and to say we have done everything we can do, at least to create an atmosphere where things like this are less likely. No one is suggesting that there's a causal link, a hard causal link, but I do think that I won't always be on the council. One day I'm going to be a private citizen again and I'd like to be able to say that my government, when they look at me, has done everything within their power to create an atmosphere, to create a context so that we have the moral authority even if we can't say we couldn't have stopped that one, we have created a context in which these things are less likely. So with that said, I look forward to the report and I look forward to acting and voting if there's something to vote for and if there's some appropriation to be made for a regular budgetary cycle because I think we are at a moment that calls for that type of engagement. I thank you again, Chief, and thanks to the men and women under your command. Appreciate you. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Council Member. Anyone else? Comments, questions? Council Member Caballero. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Just a couple of things. I was very happy to see Officer Ramos named. She is a stellar officer and I've had wonderful experience with her reading the report. I was not surprised to see that's how she reacted. And then I just want to say I'm very pleased with the UVSA numbers. I know that earlier this year there was a commitment made that the current time limitation would be lifted and just wondering a little bit around what your thoughts were there and what plans were thinking into 2020. Well, Ashley, I would need to really look at I don't know how many other cases that we do have. At this point we have just about gotten to everything that's been out there, but I'd have to get back to you to let you know that. Okay, thank you. Any other comments or questions? Chief, thank you very much. We appreciate you and I'll ask you. Thank you. I didn't say it, but I appreciate my command staff being here as well and all the work that they do to, you know, work around the resources that we have. Thank you again. Thank you for this council support of the Durham Police Department. Miss Peterson. Miss Peterson, I will call on you at the appropriate time. Thank you. Chief, if I could ask you and your staff to please go back to your seats, that would be great. Thank you very much. We appreciate you all being here. We have seven people signed up to speak on this item and I'm going to call their names. And when I call your name, if you could come over here to my right, that would be great. And I will give each of you three minutes. The first speaker will be Andrea Muffin Hudson. The second will be Chris Tiffany. And the third will be Deborah Friedman. If you all could please come to my right. And Miss Hudson, welcome. You're up first and you have three minutes. Yeah, don't worry. Your time doesn't begin till you start. Welcome. Please give us your name and address. My name is Andrea Hudson. I live at 322 Junction Road. I'm Ben Wood Apartments. I had questions for the police chief and her officers, only because I've been getting calls recently from law-abiding citizens who have been pulled over by either the sheriffs or the police. From your watch commander, he said it was sheriffs that had on police shirts and police cars, but they're taking registered handguns from these citizens. And then when we go downtown, there's no paperwork showing where they've taken these handguns. And I've had two families who have missing handguns and one family is missing at least six, because it's happened multiple occasions where the officers are kicking in their doors and taking their firearms. And I really would like to know what's going on with that because if there's no paperwork for these guns and we've been to the sheriff's department, because we figured maybe it is the sheriffs, and we've gone to the police department and no one can say where these guns have gone and my fear is those guns are back out on our streets and that they are the ones that have their serial numbers erased because we have one of the biggest gangs in the city taking the guns from these citizens. And we really need to figure out who these officers are, because they're wearing these face masks where you can only see their eyes and they're wearing black shirts to say police on the front so you can't even get their badge numbers and they're snatching phones from people so you can't even identify the cars that they're in because some are in patrol cars and then some are in unmarked police cars. So if we can figure that out. Miss Hudson, thank you for your time. Tom, let me just say that if you have a specific complaint, obviously no one can deal with just a blanket complaint that you've described. If you have a specific complaint about a specific incident, please make that known to the police department. I did. We went to the police department on October 11th. It was a little bit after midnight after we went to the jail to bail the young man out but they let him out on the signature bond and we went to the police headquarters to file a police report and the watch commander who I took a picture of and I'll be happy to show you his picture that they wouldn't take the police report. I mean the complaint because we didn't have officers' names and we didn't have car numbers. So he wouldn't take anything. He just kept telling us, well maybe it's just the sheriffs wearing, you know, t-shirts that have police on them because the sheriffs did stop and the sheriffs did do the stop and the sheriffs, when they did the stop, they called it in and said that they were in a high-speed chase which really isn't true because if anyone knows where North Briggs and Holloway is, the individual lives in the middle of Holloway before you get to Raven and Holloway. So it wasn't a high-speed chase but that's what the sheriff's department called it in as. I'm going about what the watch commander told me. He told them to fall back from that call but the victims said that the police were the ones who pulled up his shirt took pictures of his tattoos and they took the firearm that was out of the glove compartment. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Hudson. You can see why the police will need specific information to do an investigation. So if you can provide license numbers or you can provide names, our police department investigates every complaint and they actually investigate a lot of complaints, mainly things that they themselves find in terms of disciplinary concerns, as well as some complaints that we do get from residents. Any resident complaint will be investigated but it needs to have some specific information. So if you have the name or badge number or license number. We can't get that because they're wearing t-shirts that say police that don't have badge numbers on it and they're taking people's phones so they can't record the license plates numbers or the card numbers because they're unmarked chargers. Well, I'll... Lieutenant Bishop from the back so you can take the information. You can see Lieutenant Bishop. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hudson. Thank you very much. Mr. Tiffany, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have three minutes. Chris Tiffany, I don't know how to get to my... I'm supposed to have a... Here we go. All right. I'm sorry. Chris Tiffany, post office box 25331-27702. What was called the political arithmetic of status is now called statistics. We need statistics when we talk about social problems but statistics are the result of social processes that determine what will and will not be counted. Police officials tend to us for an underestimate. Political purpose is often hidden and it is naive to accept numbers as accurate without examining who created them and why. Why you harass our kids? Because that's who commits the crimes. Young black males. I don't know what it is. But when a boy and his mother submitted a written complaint about a random stop, the complaint disappeared just like a cop told witnesses that he could make them disappear and that cop was singled out recommendation in the last quarterly report. Not only are random stops and searches of innocent boys and use of force not counted even when documented by civilians but real criminals, even drive-by shooters go free because you need to protect informants who have information. Don't deny it. Don't deny it. Violent crime is heating up. Climate change denial is funded by fossil fuel money and crime PR problems threaten a variety of business interests. Crimes reported by the police are often not the same as crimes reported to the police and although it's hard to reclassify homicides cause of death is sometimes inaccurate and some missing persons might be dead but homicide counts tend to be more accurate than other crimes. Officials may respond to critics by defending existing policies as adequate or can't do anything about domestic violence or incumbents try to imply it's not so bad or oh well, maybe we are worse than average but look over there, back then it's worse over there back then cherry picking one point years ago that was almost as bad as now. The elections over now and now you can admit we do have serious problems and existing policies are not adequate. A highly publicized drive-by shooting case has been cleared but not by stopping and searching random young black male pedestrians. According to racial profiling stats created by police stopping and searching random young black males in or from unmarked target areas the drive-by shootings who knows who the drive-by shootings are someone knows but you have to protect informants protect informants I'm sorry I'm clumsy here. Thank you Mr. Tiffany, Ms. Friedman welcome you have three minutes please give us your name and address. Deborah Friedman 1109 East Hard Scrabble Drive Hillsborough 27278 thank you for allowing me to speak before council Durham's gun violence deserves a better response than your weak deflection people need housing or climate change is the biggest problem facing Durham your stubborn refusal to prioritize people's lives over your beyond policing agenda should raise the alarm for cities across America sacrificing people's lives for your agenda at any costs will lead to more people dying in the streets of Durham Durham City Council's actions prove you don't support the police department give Chief Davis the funds she needs for police hires if you don't Durham will continue into joy to enjoy the shameful reputation as being weak on crime a lack of police presence lays out the welcome mat for criminals no longer is it acceptable for you to say black lives matter but offer no solutions to save black lives we now see how your willingness to sacrifice minorities don't that don't adapt to your narrow progressive vision one councilman offered to revisit shot spotter technology if more data was provided citing a surveillance concern the NYU School of Law performed an audit concluded that the risk of voice surveillance is extremely low the report notes that there are no important design frameworks and operational safeguards built into how shops shot spotter operates to prevent this from happening while it surely while it is surely possible that shot spotter sensors will on occasion capture some intelligible voice audio related to a gunfire incident we have little concern that the system will be used for anything approaching voice surveillance other policing technology companies should follow shot spotters leadership and proactively embrace their responsibility to protect individual liberty with their products Barry Friedman policy project faculty director this city council's concerns over surveillance should be laid by this independent report I will hope you'll finally address the need for a police presence and or shot spotters technology countless lives can be saved by spending three hundred and twenty five thousand we calibrate your moral setting city council thank you thank you miss Friedman I will now hear from Monica Rose having a hard time reading that oh it's about says you visas I see Monica Rose and it says you visas welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes my name is Monica Rosa me address Tony fights were in chapter hero Duran I don't know what to say we were prepared to celebrate to celebrate to give thanks to each of you to the police we came here prepared to celebrate to thank you to think the chief of police but unfortunately we can't celebrate she promised to change the policy and use us six months ago and today would mark six months from that point and also to the group visa one no sentiment we need a little show me simple personal on bronca con rabia con ganas or art we do you visa group we're very hurt I personally feel rage I want to cry me nombre es laura loesa 710 Melanie street ah bueno hoy es un pensamos que era un día ah bueno para la comunidad latina we thought today was going to be a good day for the Latinx community porque la jefa nos había prometido que iba a quitar las restricciones as a chief had promised that she was going to remove the restrictions desafortunadamente no cumplió su promesa unfortunately she did not follow through on her word pero aquí estamos y vamos a seguir luchando por la comunidad but we are here we're going to continue to advocate and fight for our community que hasta ahora siga viendo mucha violencia muchos asalto muchos asesinato sobre la comunidad latina y nadie ha hecho nada is right now in our community we see a lot of assaults a lot of robberies que otra cosa y no y nobody has done anything about it es la única oportunidad que esas personas que han sufrido violencia asalto a mano armada puedan tener una oportunidad de tener aún permiso de trabajo de estar aquí con su familia con sus hijos this is the unique opportunity for families who have been victims and have gone through hardship by violence and crime to have an opportunity to be with their kids to have protection and be with their kids cada uno de ustedes que están ahí sentado hemos hablado le hemos contado nuestra historia each of you that is sitting there in city council seats we've had conversations with each of you hemos pedido su apoyo we've asked for your support para que esas personas que no pueden calificar para una visa u puedan hacerlo so that those people don't qualify for you visa can qualify entonces yo en nombre de todas esas personas en nombre de la comunidad quiero pedirles que nos apoyen y sigamos trabajando para que la jefa pueda quitar las restricciones and I on behalf of all the people including the visa visa group I'm asking you that we can continue this work so that we can ask the chief to remove the restrictions on you visa gracias thank you Hola buenas noches mi nombre Silvia Segundo hello good evening my name is Silvia Segundo la verdad estoy aquí y estoy muy decepcionada me voy desilusionada porque habíamos esperado hoy una noche de celebridad y lamentablemente no fue así I'm sorry can the timer be adjusted go ahead thank you I am very disappointed I am very let down because we expected tonight to be a night where we would get the restrictions on you visa removed pero no por eso nos vamos a ir muy defraudadas vamos a seguir luchando but not because of that are we going to leave with our heads bowed because it is not just hay mucha gente Latina que está sufriendo ahorita día a día cuánta cosa está pasando y no estamos aquí para que nos den una decepción total estamos aquí también con la frente en alto para seguir luchando y esperemos el apoyo de todos ustedes I'm sorry I'm not a professional interpreter but there's I think that you can convey she's conveying the feeling just saying that this is this is not something that's going to have the group be let down and walk off you're going to continue to go forth with this que no vamos a irnos con la con las cabezas we're not going to go with our heads bowed we are here to continue fighting and we will continue and we ask for the support from each and every single one of you so that we can be united and we can get the restrictions on visa use result thank you thank you thank you I'll just say a few words in response and first of all maybe I misheard the chief but my understanding is that the chief said that she that there were very few cases of any that had still not been cleared from any time but what I will say to you is this to all of you all who spoke tonight I agree with you and I know that this council agrees with you that the limitation should be lifted and I'll be discussing that with the city manager and I'm sure that he will be in contact with our police department about that there's no reason to walk away with your head bowed you should walk away here with your head held high and I can just tell you that you have my commitment to work on this and make this happen and it is my understanding that that is also the position of the chief and the department and so please be in touch with me I will say in two weeks okay thank you very much Mr. Mayor can I add something as well please do have professional interpretation available now as well and if you contact us in advance we can ensure that there are interpreters available and I can be in touch with you about getting that information to you thank you thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem if I could just just as a matter of conversation with community it probably would be best if we actually have someone on site at each meeting just I recognize that but I think that we're going to ask in advance and they'll be here I think we're going to need to get to that point if we're going to talk about how Latinx communities need to be heard recognizing that they might decide to come within 10 minutes of the meeting it shouldn't be a hindrance and we'll get to that point it might not be tonight thank you Yvonne Almonte Mr. Almonte welcome please give us your name and address good evening my name is Yvonne Almonte I live on 311 Salas Hall Street Durham 27705 I'm also here because I'm a victim of a crime and I was also expecting my friends to hear about the time restriction so and it just so disappointing that only two people of the council are talking about how our communities are in suffering all these crimes and in the last few days there was a case of violent harass that a Latino was assaulted and he didn't call the police for a reason so I really encourage you to be connected to the community because we're suffering, we're the ones who live in these neighborhoods where all these crimes are happening so so I want to thank you Didriana and Middleton for always talking about this issue because it's really so important for us we're living the hell every single day and I really think and the conversation is to happen soon because my community will not call the police for this so what we're expecting, what we're waiting for it's almost a year after the since the shooting happened in Valiterra on December 15 and the community feels like no one has done anything to support us so I hope that a conversation should be taken maybe in one of the neighborhoods with this group because we gotta do something we are tired of more shootings and helping victims of a crime it's just like sometimes you don't know what to say to our community, honestly it's just they don't have access to healthcare they don't have access to this and that so sometimes our lives are miserable so when we're talking about Trump, Republicans are not doing this but we're having these policies that is not helping our community so I hope you can take a different direction and do something thank you Ms. Victoria Peterson you have three minutes Ms. Peterson, you have three minutes Chief I'm proud of you girl you're doing a good job okay, when you came here you walked into a mess this city council and the council before this council knew that this community when it comes to crying is off the hook the problem that we have there are two problems the citizenry refuses to get up and go out and vote less than 50% of the population in this city voted less than 50% these folks got under 20,000 votes that's ridiculous of a city that is close to 200,000 register voters this city council could have given you the funds that you need to patrol this community yeah, they have they are sitting on 42 million dollars 42 million dollars of taxpayers' money the Hispanic community is up here complaining hey, I've been in this community for a year we have a reverend that sits up here he's been trying to do his best somebody needs to bring the black folks together in this community and get down here on this council and make these people do what they need to be doing supporting this police department developing programs for our young black men and women to help them get employment to help them get jobs to sit up on this council literally do literally do we don't know what to do oh we had two shootings in my community folks I live on Ridgeway last night our electricity went off from six o'clock last night to three o'clock in the morning dealing with Duke Power so we've got to deal with the crime also with electricity I'm a little concerned about the Hispanic community you came into a community that is in crisis I mentioned a year ago the SPI ICE and the military needs to be in this community when young black men can go up and down these streets shoot and murder and nothing is really happening we have only a little bit 500 and some police officers there's no way that these men and women can address the serious crime that is plaguing the city of Durham no way this police chief only gave part one crime numerous times you've heard me say about the part two and about the juvenile crime thank you miss Peterson we'll now hear from Sondra Mendoza welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes Sondra Mendoza Durham 27707 also we're disappointed about what happened today with the UVS six months ago even you Mr. Mayor said publicly that there was going to be a press conference and all this from that time on we told most of our community who wasn't qualified to start looking for their paperwork because there was going to be a time where it wasn't qualified they were going to do it this month so that's what we can tell them just keep doing your paperwork keep looking for an attorney because they promised us that this was going to happen publicly online there's a video out there the reason why the chief has signed off most on it but that's the people who qualify she hasn't signed off on people who hasn't qualified so they were the ones who are going to sign in when she takes the term restriction off I feel like this was all political they could have done it months ago but yeah very disappointed I'm not sure what I'm going to tell the people who I told to start doing their paperwork yeah thank you Mr. Mendoza alright thank you very much for everyone Mr. Tonight and brought up a lot of serious important questions please be in touch with me about the UVS thank you alright we'll now move to item 20 the Mutual Plaza Landmark designation and we'll first hear the report from staff good evening I'm Carla Rosenberg with the planning department first I'd 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 avidavits of all notices are on file in the planning department so I'm here to present a request for Landmark designation for Mutual Plaza located at 411 West Chapel Hill Street the designation request requested pertains to the two parcels on the northern half of the block totaling 1.65 acres this request is submitted by Cynthia de Miranda of MDM Historical Consultants the Historic Preservation Commission gave its recommendation of 6 to 0 on September 3rd 2019 and the State Historic Preservation Office issued a letter of recommendation on August 19th 2019 staff is recommending approval of the request to include the building and land associated with new lots 1 and 2 as shown in attachment 3 of the staff report thank you miss Rosenberg you've heard the report from staff and I'm going to declare this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask are there any questions for staff by members of the council questions for staff at this point just one Mr. Mayor Mr. Freeman exactly so once this landmark is designated what will what will come out of this will there be an event will there be any funding made available is it tied to tax credits I just want to make sure I'm clear on exactly how this will be beneficial sure so the local landmark designation first of all gives the property owner the opportunity to apply with the tax department for a 50% deferral on the taxes associated with the property and if both the building and the land are designated then it would be for 50% of the value of the building and of the land in conjunction with that there would be a new requirement for a certificate of appropriateness which applies to all properties within local districts and to all local landmarks so any changes that would be made to the exterior of the buildings or to the site would require the certificate of appropriateness which is reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission or in cases of less substantial scripts of work by staff any other sort of ceremonial recognition that would be separate from the actual ordinances passed and the legal requirements any other questions for staff a question Mr. Mayor Mayor Proceo? Thank you so it's my understanding that this property is going to be redeveloped so there are plans to add additional buildings on some of the vacant land how does that affect the historic designation so a certificate of appropriateness it's it would be approved under what's called the Historic Properties Local Review criteria and so there are criteria that specifically address new construction on historic sites and so the whatever is proposed would need to meet those criteria so it would address massing, scale materials used for the new construction Would those buildings also be eligible to apply for the 50% tax reduction? So if the if the land were designated and the buildings as well for those parcels then the 50% tax credit would then apply to whatever was constructed on site subject to that COA and the staff and the Historic Preservation Commission are both recommending that we designate the land? Yes, in order to preserve sightlines from the street and the site itself having some elements that are important to the architecture of the building. But if that property were to be redeveloped are you saying that that helps with the redevelopment we can then control that those elements are preserved? That's exactly it. Thank you. Just to the tax benefit currently is about $137,000 a year I believe is the number that you had in the memo. Is that correct? Roughly. That would be the approximate annual tax benefit. Just also the third, there are three parcels correct? There are three parcels and we would be recommending New Lot 1 and 2. Yes. But not number 3 which is half of that. Right and so if New Lot 3 was developed New Lot 3 could be developed I'm going to say this you can tell me if I got this right but New Lot 3 does not have to be developed with those same strictures. That's correct. Right? Yes. But that's really most of the lands most of the vacant land on this property is New Lot 3. That's correct. And that land if it's developed would be not be subject to either the requirements of the historic designation nor would it be subject to the tax relief. Correct. Just one point to note in the same vein as the conversation we had earlier around the cemetery I just want to note that this historic site has sat without designation for at least 30 40 years now I mean it was built in the 60s and we're now in 2019 so would have been like 2010 where they would have been eligible. Right. Eligible for historic designation. I mean we our landmark program started well before that. So what's the eligibility that you're. So I just want to know if there's any work that's being done in conjunction with the workforce I mean well the economic development department to make sure that there are funds available to organizations that are preserving history around black history specifically recognizing that the mutual building itself is a historic landmark and I know that there's been any occasion where the historic I guess representation has been celebrated and not necessarily has that been quantified into a number and I think it would be important to make sure that in our legacy conversations that that is also a part of what the planning department is looking at and trying to figure out what we can do. Yeah that's excellent. Any other comments or questions at this point for staff. All right we have one speaker signed up on this item and he's the author of the The author of the this excellent historical review. There's good. I just signed up in case anyone had any questions so I have no statement to make. Thank you very much. All right is there anyone else I don't know if I've said this yet you've heard the report from staff I'm declaring the public hearing open I believe already said that but just in case I did just to cover the basis here you have heard the report from staff questions from the council you've heard from Mr. Miranda is there anyone else here this is a public hearing item that would like to be heard on this item is there anyone else here who would like to speak on this item there's a public hearing all righty if not I'm going to declare that this public hearing is closed and the matter is back before the council mayor council member Mr. Mayor this building certainly in no way can capture to the full extent all of the hopes and aspirations and dreams that have been attached to it not just in Durham but around the world I just wanted for the record say I feel very blessed and fortunate to be on the council at this point in history to be able to cast a vote to declare this iconic and sacred space historic and to give it designation that it's originally deserves thank you any other comments I want to just say that we read a lot of policy memos we read a lot of contracts we read a lot of recommendations from staff and we are really fortunate I've always felt in city government in the quality of the writing that we get in the excellent in the excellent reports it's also clear I've always been so impressed by that but it is rare that we get such fabulously interesting reading about our own history in one of our items this was a great history lesson I thought I knew a lot about that building I thought I knew a lot about what what it stood for and I thought I knew a lot about the history surrounding it but I learned a ton and so I want to congratulate this de Miranda and staff Rosenberg and others for putting together such an interesting application really really fun to read and no offense to our city managers and others but not all of our items are that much fun to read I want to particularly cite one page three of the application see if I've got the right attachment here I'm sorry page nine of the application my computer will help me yeah I'll just read from it uplift and racial pride was still important of course in concert with announcing the choice of REA construction company of Charlotte to build a new tower the mutual also unveiled a training program in the construction trades apprentice carpenters bricklayers cement masons painter decorators and other crafts working on our project under the supervision of journeymen in these trades at the end of the quote would also attend state supported classes twice a week announced president spaulding the program had the opportunities for raises half yearly the company intentionally went with a negotiated contract for the work in order to better be able to have input the hiring of workers ensuring the jobs and training for African-Americans the mutual also was careful to work with architectural and contracting firms that had good record of employing African-Americans I just want to cite that because of course this is the same kind of critically important work now and we are bond issue that we have recently passed has funds in it for training workers in these trades in the building trades and I hope that we can not just appreciate this history but to continue to do this same very very important work and it was inspiring to read this and I know that we have a duty to continue to do the same things alright just another note on that not quite I just want to mention again the significant tax relief that does come with this designation the tax relief comes with a reason and the reason for the tax relief is that it's the belief of our folks that wrote this law that to preserve a property and its historic condition takes extra money and the tax relief for these historic properties is associated with that it is why we have to be careful though in terms of the landmark designations that we do make we have to make sure and through our staff and historic preservation commission that we're judicious about applying this landmark status in this case the of course there's no question of the incredible historical value but I do want to say that it's not just that we give up taxes that we give up property taxes there's a reason that we give up property taxes and that's to make sure that the historic landmarks can be preserved in the condition that has given them that has contributed to their historic significance alright councilmember freeman building on your both points I would just like to say that I appreciate how collectively as a community we do come around this as far as variety has been around black and brown communities in building and actual people like in human resources it's important that we're not only looking at the history but making sure that we're not ensuring extinction and so when you point to the job training and the fields that are middle skills it's an opportunity that I hope that we don't miss in making sure that we surround it wrap around it more support I'm not sure that that's in the bond and the way in which it should be which is why I continue to press the conversation around what in addition to that we can do I know that we'll continue to have the conversations I look forward to figuring out how we move the conversation forward but recognize that these same deliberations we're taking and looking at history are the same deliberations we need to take and looking at gun violence and the people who are impacted at the center of that being black males I just can't keep I keep harping on it because I know that you know this in your second brain thinking but first brain you might not and so especially for folks at home recognizing that we're spending a lot of time talking about the second brain conversation not recognizing how all of those stereotypes and all of that all of those lives lost are all of a value to us as a community and if we don't take care of it now we'll continue to lose more thank you councilmember thank you I'll now accept an emotion that we will need to pass this item which will be the adopted ordinance desigating mutual plaza as a local historic landmark councilmember? Mr. Mayor it's my honor to move this item. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance desigating mutual plaza as a local historic landmark Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 6-0 thank you very much okay let's do it we'll now move to item 21 WC and Mary Hinton lion house landmark designation and first we will hear the report from staff and welcome Ms. Rosenberg evening again I'm now going to present a request for landmark designation for the WC and Mary Hinton lion house it's located at 2423 west club boulevard on a parcel of 0.54 acres this request again is submitted by Cynthia de Miranda of MDM historical consultants the historic preservation commission gave its recommendation of 6-0 on September 3rd 2019 and the state historic preservation office issued its letter of recommendation on August 19th 2019 staff is recommending approval of their request to include the buildings and land associated with this parcel thank you very much Ms. Rosenberg you have now heard the report from staff I'm going to declare this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask are there any questions for staff, for members by members of the council I do have one question I know other people that live on club boulevard I might even live on club boulevard myself and there are lots of very nice houses on club boulevard that have a lot of historical value they have historic plaques and so forth and you again I read Ms. de Miranda's descriptions and staff's descriptions which were very useful but could you speak to why this house is of particular significance compared to say other historically valuable houses on club boulevard why would this house be distinguished for this historic designation so there were two points one there was architectural significance of it being this prairie style on two levels the mayor style but even more importantly we felt was the resident of the house having been served on the city council for several decades and at the point at which Durham was expanding the most rapidly in its history in the 20s and 30s and so this was a very prominent citizen who started off humbly and grew to have own multiple businesses that really served this community and its growth throughout the early part of the century you said that both of those things would have to be present at the historic significance of the well the building might be in itself historically significant in some unique way hypothetically let's suppose we've had other city council members that have served for lengthy periods of time poor souls but they might not live in a house that had any particular historic value architectural value say again architectural value, thank you so both of these things are present here and they're both important correct alright, thank you very much so we have two speakers signed up for this item and I'm going to first call Cynthia de Miranda again I'm just here to answer questions if anyone has any questions about the report itself did you agree with Ms. Rosenberg's comments about this was a particularly historically important house? I think what's interesting about Lyon was his business at the time as Ms. Rosenberg said of Durham's rapid expansion in the 19 the late teens in the 1920s he owned a hardware store it sold not just hardware but building certain types of building supplies and his house one of the earliest houses on Club Boulevard if you look at a map of the neighborhood it's kind of an anchor position in the neighborhood and I think his construction of that house very large very imposing an unusual and eclectic style paired with the fact that he owned businesses that related to the building trades really together those two the interplay of those two things you know the house I think it was also advertised early on in the Durham paper I think it helped spur development this kind of suburban development generally but also particularly in the Watts Hill and Dale neighborhood and I think his choice of an eclectic architectural style was interesting and in terms of the architecture itself it's an unusual example I think the report goes into the fact that there's a similar but different house in Trinity Park but other than that this is not a style that was often employed in Durham so I think the rarity of the style the prominence of the businessman the early construction of the house and the influence it had on the development of the neighborhood I think all those things come together for its importance thank you let me get the other speaker the second speaker is Ellen Chompe Ms. Chompe welcome colleagues I'm just going to have Ms. Chompe speak from this microphone right here thank you we're glad you're here thank you also as Ms. Miranda I would as a homeowner I wanted to make sure I was here in case you all had any questions to let you know there's a real face behind this and to I wanted to quote there's a very high demand watch company that always has these advertisements that say you never really own this watch you sort of care take it for the next generation and I feel that this applies to our house it is a privilege and a responsibility to be the owners of such a historically significant and labor intensive property it is a wonderful house we've had great parties we are happy to open our home to the community for many things and have during the 20 plus years that we've lived there but it takes a lot of attention and we don't want my husband and I he could not be here he's ill but we don't want this care and love and attention time comes for us to sell our house we don't want that to be taken away by someone who perhaps might not have the same feelings we would like them to be aware of the significance and to have the ability and the the love to carry the the heritage of the house on to future generations and future inhabitants of both the house and the community and I think that this designation will be a big help in ensuring that thank you Ms. Chompey thank you I am like completely like trying to get my thoughts together I really appreciate having I didn't catch my name I'm sorry the owner's name again Ms. Chompey here today I understand what it is to be a monitor of a older home and I appreciate the work that you're doing I just wanted to come back to the first speaker was Ms. DeMarenda and just because I opened up this can of worms the irresponsible of me not to ask do you know the ethnicity or the heritage the heritage background of the owner of this property the original owner I'm quite certain that he was white I have seen a black and white photo of him just noting that as a person of color it's denoted each and every time whether you're African-American is not when you're white it will be helpful that in your history and noting your history it will be helpful to have that denoted as well because what tends to happen is you get folks will see all of the check marks under African-American and not under white and it looks a little skewed and I think that's not the case so I understand just that point and I wanted to also thank you for pulling together the history it's really great to hear and to read well to read through just what lived here in Durham before we were ever even thought of thank you very much thank you councilmember is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item is there anyone else here tonight who would like to be heard on this item if not I'm going to declare this public hearing I'm sorry I think I see a hand in the back would you like to be heard on this item then please come to the podium welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes Leticia Ross 1708 Hillcrush Drive apartment D during North Carolina it's my first I'm excited but not really just had a quick question about I guess the role of the person that own the home on the city council I mean it's great that they did serve for that period of time but is there any I guess historical significance to what they contribute during that time specifically to the community of Durham as a whole that it would be significant that it would now be a historical landmark thank you thank you for asking that question there was some research done on that point by the homeowner and it's my feeling that he is more significant as a business owner rather than his time on the council I I from the research that I looked at I didn't see anything that stood out that he took a particular leadership role in doing any particular thing that's not to say it didn't happen but we just we didn't find that and maybe Miss Chompey would like to comment because she did a fair amount of research I believe in council minutes from the period but I felt that he was important as a local business owner he started with a harness shop and it grew to a very large hardware business paint store he eventually had a filling station and it seems to me that his larger contribution to the development of Durham was as a business owner and not so much as a city council member thank you to Missy Miranda Miss Rosenberg did you want to also comment at all I I'll just say as noted in this staff report he was outspoken advocate for recreational facilities parks and playgrounds and he supported the creation of Durham's first and only African American city cemetery Beachwood Cemetery in 1926 he supported citizens in their fight to maintain the trolley system alive during the arrival of bus transit and he was a founding and sustaining member of Watt Street Baptist Church thank you ma'am thank you for your question before you leave today if you wouldn't mind coming to this table so the clerk will have a record of your name for the minutes thank you alright Miss Pless we want to comment yes my name is Ellen Pless I live at 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard I'll just keep this very quick something that struck me as I was listening to Miss Chompy speak the fact that we've got a resident who has been living in this historic house for an extended period of time already without tax benefit they I presume have been supporting the house keeping it up to a level where it actually meets the criteria to still qualify at this point in time for the landmark designation because this is a resident who has been incurring those expenses already over a long period of time there's the sense I don't feel like they're looking for a tax break I get the feeling that they are truly earnest in terms of forward looking stewardship to help Durham retain part of its historic structure and and feel and to that end I just as a fellow citizen and a fellow resident of an old house that like our family members when they get old we love them they've got character and they've got a lot of health problems I totally wish to support her in putting that forward and just wanted to say that thank you thank you Ms. Pless anyone else here who would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item if not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and it matters back before the council we would need a motion to adopt an ordinance designated the WC and Mary Hinton Lionhouse as a local historic landmark I have a question if you don't mind hang on one second is there a motion second it's been moved and seconded and now we'll hear some discussion Mr. Hiddleston thank you Mr. Mayor your earlier comment about and I'm paraphrasing the need to be judicious handing out these designations is paramount and that's ringing in my head and first off you talked about the writing on mutual being interesting this is also equally fascinating history story Mr. Lion obviously was a remarkable man the house is a grand and beautiful house I guess my question is and I think first off I wish your husband well and a quick recuperation I think I heard say that there's a similar house in another area similar to it maybe not exactly but there's another house like it in our city I guess my question and perhaps you can help me is because these things seem to be more art than science what's the equation to say this definitely meets historical landmark designation mutual tower for me obviously clears the hurdle a number of ways if I'm a visitor to Durham and I'm riding past this house with someone who's conversing on Durham history you point it to house and say what to me because if it's not the only one like it in the city and yes this was a very wealthy or successful businessman who and I appreciate the work with Beachwood of course Beachwood was established because it wouldn't let blacks get buried in Maplewood so what do you say I know what to say about mutual but what do I point to this house and say this house is historically designated as a landmark because I know he was successful and great businessman and the house is indicative of particular style although we have another one like it somewhere else in the city what gets us over that hurdle to grant this thing that I think the mayor was right in saying that should be done judiciously and sparingly that's also a good question and that's these are the questions we're asking all the time when we're evaluating these buildings for any sort of designation so I mentioned that there is another one in Trinity Park but that was sort of the point is that there's two located in the whole city of Durham whereas I couldn't tell you how many bungalows there are I couldn't tell you how many craftsmen four squares there are I couldn't tell you how many colonial revival houses there are I couldn't tell you how many Georgian revival houses there are so many of all those styles and even mill housing I couldn't tell you how many mill houses there are additionally this house is remarkably architecturally intact it has seen so few changes in its long history and as someone who really loves brutalist architecture and most people don't love it but I do love it I wish we could say the same about Mutual because that was such a fantastic design there were reasons why they changed the design and I think those reasons were really valid but that building architecturally has a different history and a different story in that it needed some changes at a certain point this house is really remarkably intact and that's in itself somewhat unusual so your question if we're driving around Durham and I'm pointing out the house and I'm saying why is that important I think because it's a house that helped develop that neighborhood and that neighborhood is a national register historic district and also a local historic district so it was an early house it's in an anchor position in the neighborhood it was an interesting eclectic architectural style that would have brought people out to the neighborhood to see oh there's this new community for white families upper middle class white families not even all white families yes all of that is true and that's part of the history but that's to me researching this house that's the story I found associated with the house I appreciate that and I appreciate the primer on the architectural singularity of it I guess for mutual for me it's the architecture but it's also what happened there that combination of you understand what I'm saying that's sort of my point despite the changes to the architecture that building is still I agree with you so obviously eligible to be a local landmark and actually eligible in my opinion to be listed in the national register of historic places as well and it was intentionally the leadership of mutual intentionally built an iconic building as you read in the report they hired an architect who specialized in building icons really icons so that was their goal and that was what they wanted to do and that was what they achieved and so what I'm saying is despite the fact that some of what was architecturally iconic and engineering marvel even though those elements have been changed that did not diminish its significance thank you Mr. Miranda thank you very much and I would just say Mr. Miranda you said that you found the reasons for the changes that mutual understandable the way I read it was you found them understandable but you weren't too happy about them I think would be a more accurate statement if you want to take a minute to talk about it I think it's actually very fascinating so there was apparently a little bit of a conflict only 30 seconds there was a conflict between the original engineering company who designed the building and who designed the engineering and the engineering company that they hired in whatever it was the late 70's to determine is this building still safe so obviously the original engineer said sure it's still safe it's fine and the other company said yeah we don't know and this was an insurance company after all they couldn't really risk the building failing could they it did sort of feel like an impossible decision to leave it there was one solution for retrofitting it but it was insanely expensive and this was the 1970's so it just didn't really work out for the architecture of this building thank you I just want to make sure that we're stating it clearly because it sounded like you were saying that because the residential location was fully intact it was the only reason that it I just want to make sure it's clear that if it is restored it also could qualify because there are homes that might not have necessarily been intact once a homeowner came in and decided to have it designated historic but it could be restored completely to the period and it would still qualify it it could absolutely be restored it also like the mutual building could be designated historic despite its architectural integrity because it has a different story to it so each of these properties have their own individual story and they're going to have their own individual reason for being eligible as a landmark which is why the art aspect of it is important exactly yes I'll now accept a motion do we already have a motion before do we have an ordinance designating the WC and Mary Linton in the Lion House's local historic landmark Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes 6-0 thank you very much thank you for our historic preservation staff for being here and Ms. Chompy thank you for being here we'll now move to item 22 the zoning map change for Bethpage office this is a public hearing matter and first we'll hear the report from staff welcome Ms. Struthers good evening I'm Emily Struthers with the planning department I will now present Z-80009 and Z-1800033 requests for a zoning map change and future land use map amendment have been received from Charlie Oakley of McAdams on behalf of Rob Griffin for two parcels of land totally 23.66 acres the properties are located at 5621 Chin Page and 3824 Page Road the applicant proposes to change the zoning from industrial light IL to office and institutional UI there is no development plan proposed with this request the property is currently designated industrial and recreational open space on the future land use map the applicant has requested a future land use map amendment to office and recreational space to coincide with the rezoning request the Durham Planning Commission at their September 9th, 2019 meeting recommended approval of the proposed by a vote of 10-2 with regards to staff's recommendation staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances few motions are required for this application the first is to adopt a resolution amending the future land use map the second is to adopt a consistency statement and the third is for the zoning ordinance staff is available for any questions thank you very much Ms. Struthers you've now heard the report from staff and I'm going to declare this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask are there any questions for staff by members of the council seeing none I'm going to next ask ask for our speakers we have one speaker to sign up for this item Mr. Neil Gauch welcome Mr. Gauch Mr. Gauch I'm going to give you three minutes and if it turns out more is necessary later we'll work that out that sounds fine good evening Mayor Shul Mayor Pro-Tim Johnson and members of the city council I'm Neil Gauch this is our law group at 112 West Main Street and I am representing tri-properties for this rezoning also here tonight Mr. Rob Griffin who's the vice president of development for tri-properties and Mr. Charlie Yokely who's the land planner for this project from the Cattims this is my first time addressing the council since the election so I wanted to take a moment to congratulate the mayor and Councilwoman Johnson and Councilman Reese on their re-election and especially Councilwoman Kalayero for her first-time election to the city council it's a well-deserved congratulations thank you sir a little bit about the project I'm sure you all are familiar with the Beth Page area which was approved originally in 2006 and had multiple development pods scattered throughout the acreage the property in this case is within an industrial pod but it contains both well it contains some steep slopes jurisdictional streams and has some access issues which have proven unattractive for industrial development at least during the more than a decade that my client has owned the property and marketed for development for either industrial or office space my client primarily is an office developer and unfortunately for it in this part of Durham the market has been slow to respond to the availability of acreage available for development for office instead what we have seen nearby in the communities so this rezoning represents a down zoning because we're getting rid of the industrial entitlement and basically exchanging it for a residential entitlement while retaining the office entitlement that is there today with the residential development both north and east of the acreage we felt an industrial use wouldn't make sense and that a residential use would make more sense now than it did maybe previously because the neighbors they agreed I handed up an email in support from Kevin Walls who is the HOA president of the adjacent Creekside neighborhood if his name sounds familiar it's because he won the neighbor spotlight in April and so we are honored to have his support in that of the community we also have the support of the planning commission which recommended approval by a vote of 10-2 my understanding is the primary concern for the two voted against the project is the development plan but we wanted to maintain maximum flexibility through the requested zoning and we've been very transparent with the neighbors about what a development under this request would entail and in turn we have won their support and we hope to have yours as well I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have and as I said we have some folks from our team available to answer your questions but we are respectfully requesting your approval tonight thank you Mr. Gosch this is a public hearing item is there anyone else present here who would like to be heard on this item is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item alright council members I'm going to declare well maybe I'll wait a minute any questions and comments first for either staff or the developer by members of the council council member Reese thank you good evening Mr. Gosch appreciate your remarks earlier it was an adventure here we are so commissioner Al Turk at the planning commission signaled his concern expressed his concern about this proposal for two reasons one because there's no development plan as you mentioned but the other because if we as I heard you say it's more likely that this is going to be developed as a residential use why aren't we rezoning for a residential purpose can you help talk a little bit about that part of it and I'll ask you about the other part yeah absolutely we've been very transparent about the ability for the property to be developed residentially under the requested district we've also been very clear that our primary interest my client's primary interest is to put an office here and they have been marketing the property for development for an office for quite some time over a decade I think 12 years and there have been no takers however if there were a business which wanted to move to Durham and identify this spot I can guarantee you my client would be very interested in building them an office on this location so we do want to maintain that flexibility and yet my client has no interest in developing the property residentially however the writing is somewhat on the wall it's not been developed in years for office so it may be more marketable as a residential development let's move on to the development plan I think I heard you say that the absence of a development plan creates more flexibility for your client is that correct sure why should that be a concern for the city council I'm not suggesting that it should be I'm just okay I thought you were okay something that is true in this case they are maintaining the flexibility through general use zoning which of course is something that is allowed under the UDO the lack of a development plan so I can appreciate the level of specificity that a development plan might afford in this process but there are certain aspects about this project that give us some certainty even without one for example as I mentioned this is a down zoning so any development on this property pursuant to the rezoning we're requesting at its most intense level is going to create less traffic for example than what you could build at the most intense level in the current zoning so from a traffic standpoint we have some level of comfort that what we're asking for is less intense than what currently is allowed the other I've mentioned this a couple of times my client tri-properties is primarily an office developer there's no builder in mind residential or office well if it's office it'll be tri-properties but there's no residential builder in mind so I understand that a development plan would generally give one the opportunity to have commitments related to that residential development we just don't know what that would be so it's kind of hard to make some of those some of those commitments at this time seem like the right time to do it now of course all of this would be when it comes to be developed there will be a site plan which I understand is not a public process but there would be the opportunity for an architectural review and if necessary a traffic study at times I plan if that's necessary but we don't think it will be I'll have to say that was not an expert that's probably the best answer you've got on that so I appreciate it I'm not sure what I think of it but I appreciate it thank you Mr. Mayor thank you councilmember I have a question for staff it's along these same lines this is a large parcel would we normally expect a development plan with this sort of request and does the lack of the development plan give you any concerns good evening Pat Young with the planning department thank you for your question Mr. Mayor I think staff's position is that the plans are reserved for situations where the adopted unified development ordinance standards appear to be inadequate to protect the quite enjoyment property values environmental features or some other interest of the zoning ordinance on adjacent properties I think as you heard from the applicant's agent in this case since this is a down zoning so it's almost less intense in every way the homeowner's association supported it as compatible we didn't see anything on the site when we matched up against our 500 plus pages of unified development ordinance standards that we thought would threaten or jeopardize create undue impacts on the adjoining our nearby properties so that was our assessment certainly we all understand that neighbors prefer to have more certainty rather than less and that's very understandable we didn't see that there was a significant risk of any negative impacts on the community thank you Mr. Young are there any other questions or comments for seeing their staff or the applicant a question for staff specifically around I guess the open space the recreational open space I know that we're getting ready to enter into a comprehensive plan to assess or at the very beginning of it how does this impact or how do you frame the future land use map against where that area is going with all of that residential is there enough open space identified in this so the future land use map identifies recreation open space primarily in areas such as floodway, floodplain so what you see designated as recreation open space is directly tied to those environmental features I can't speak for the comprehensive plan but that's what we are working with currently can you explain what the measure looks like how the measure is made or even in the old 2005 plan what the measure was to determine whether there was recreational open space in this area that young youth planning department also expand on Ms. Struthers answer as Ms. Struthers said the only property we designated as open space recreational are properties that were owned by a public entity in an recreational use or that really were precluded from any other substantial use like floodplain areas just to expand on what Ms. Struthers said but that doesn't but in addition to that designation the ones including the one that's before you tonight do require some open space dedication on site Mr. Struthers is going to give me the exact amount for the proposed OI use so it's 18% of the gross area of the site so even though that's not designated on the future land use map that is an ordinance requirement at the time of site planning will be applied and we'll ensure that 18% of the gross acreage of the site which is more than it is for industrial so it would be significant increase over the current conditions and just noting that that 18% is specific it's not just like anywhere on that section well it's 18% there's limitations and requirements about where it can be but there's some discretion to the applicant and some requirements about where it has to be on the site but it does have to be committed on the site plan and just noting that it will be committed in the site plan how do you like how do you feel comfortable with it in I guess pre site plan noting that there's such a large it's like a you so to speak around it is there a flood plain in there or am I missing there's a creek like there's something cautioning us right now with the open space designation well there definitely is on the site and stream buffers which can be used in part for open space I don't know if the applicant wants to elaborate on that but there are areas that can be claimed for open space that will be protected and preserved I'm not sure I'm getting at your question I'm just really just trying to gather some feedback so that I can make a determination based on what you're saying because what I'm also looking at is that in current situations where we have housing or office space in a flood plain who's responsible for alleviating that flooding well the intent of the standard is to keep the flood plain as flood plain have it be undeveloped and therefore not have any additional impact than what it does prior to development that in combination with our storm water standards if the property is developed as residential which I believe is likely but certainly it's being marketed for both office and residential if this is approved there has to be what's called active open space so that means it would be outside of a flood plain area and managed as some kind of a recreational or active like a walking trail or sports field so I don't know exactly what that percentage is one third of that so one third of 18 is 6% and that looks similar to like a Duke diet fitness active open space is what you're saying it could I mean not that per se but I mean there's like there's some features around it it has to be right and active so sports fields tracks tennis courts walking trails running trails and then just going back to the responsibility as far as I know that the storm water feature or the storm water standards were in place 92 and forward or so so for office institutional office industrial office light what was it it's OI OI prior to 92 who's responsible for alleviating the flooding well if the property was developed prior to the current storm water control standards and they and the use has not changed or abandoned then they're not the owner is not required to mitigate or manage storm water so typically what would happen is those downstream impacts are managed by the city or wherever the impacts occur and I think I'm bringing to light I'm not saying in this case that it would be something that would prevent me from moving forward but I want to make sure that we're mindful of the fact that as a council colleague has mentioned that climate change is a factor and recognizing that flooding is going to occur more rapidly and more intensely in a lot of areas if we already have a feeling or an understanding of where those areas are we need to be even more intentional about not building densely in those areas and then also I don't know how we create some in our unified unified development ordinances space that acknowledges that particular point so that we're not trying to ding a developer in each case so that there's enough Duke diet fitness features around an area that we know could be flooding without a site plan to know whether or not they would be building into that area or not and that might make it a little bit easier to even if you just propose I'll try to go ahead I'll try to react to that if I might so there's two separate issues that are definitely interrelated which is storm water management for quality and quantity and flood plain flood plain is federally is a condition where flood insurance for our residents is federally mandated again if we want to allow our residents to get flood insurance which of course we do one of the things Durham does which is very innovative and a very small number of jurisdictions in North Carolina do is identify both current and future 100 year flood plain I think there's an item later that's going to talk a little bit more about that so that is already identified and regulated and the amount of the encroachments in those areas is very very limited and if it is sought there's additional approvals required documentation required meaning the flooding levels won't rise so on storm water again since this would be new development they have to meet all the current storm water development standards on the site so I think in this instance it's very well covered through those two means thank you I appreciate that thank you comments thank you Mr. Mayor so while the absence of a development plan certainly in no way automatically scuttles a rezoning request it does at least for me invite a different level of scrutiny or perhaps different type of scrutiny so you know I look to the staff to give us assurances about protecting the quality of life of residents and I also look to what the people say and I appreciate the letter from Mr. Walls in which he says I quote as 110% I'm not the best math student but 100 intents 110% support from the residents so I'm curious how many meetings did they have out there about this do you know I think we had two meetings and just to be clear I mean to touch on the item I think Councilman Reese asked why should the city care that the developer wants more flexibility and I didn't mean to suggest that that's what we're asking for here it is we are asking for more flexibility but the point is when we were rezoning there was two options theoretically presented one with the development plan and one without and what we decided to do was to be very open and honest with the neighbors and what we found actually was that the neighbors in this case they when they bought their properties they understood they were buying homes next to a non-residential zoning district but what they didn't understand or appreciate necessarily was that industrial uses could be established on that acreage so we went through with the neighbors the list of uses that are allowed in the district we are requesting and compared that to the list of uses that are allowed under the current zoning and the neighbors at that time agreed that what we were asking for was more in line with what they originally understood to be the case about the types of uses that could be established on the property next to them so these are not neighbors that only want to see residential in fact they would invite and always had to assume that there would be non-residential next to them but they do not want industrial uses next to them and that I think is the main reason why we were able to work with them and get their support and that and I will say in lieu of a development plan which may have given them a distinct level of specificity about what was going to be built there the truth is we don't know what's going to be built there that's why we didn't do a development plan but what we decided to do instead was tell them everything that could be built there and see if they had concerns about that and we found out that actually they really like our request just so I'm clear so you said two meetings okay cool all right thank you if you would need a motion to adopt this first of all though I guess I need to close this public hearing is there anyone else that needs wants to be heard on this anyone else here that wants to be heard on this public hearing item if not I would declare this public hearing closed the matters back for the council and I would accept a motion to adopt the resolution emitting the future land use map Mr. Mayor if I could before we adopt I just want to ask staff if it might be possible I'm just trying to figure out to the point that council member Middleton made if there's a max form and how it would fit into this section not necessarily like development plan if there's a way to see like max form and that's in that area even if it's just a box what it would look like sitting in that section just to make sure that I'm I mean I just don't feel comfortable with both stormwater and flooding being possible areas of concerns because we're basing it off of 2005 and so I'm just trying to just trying to make sure that I'm not missing anything now I'm fine to vote no and move forward but I would really like to find if it's possible to like wait a moment and to see if there's a way to see this and feel a little bit more comfortable about it so are you asking the question of how much can we build on there by ordinance standards so for if it were to be built out as office or under the OI zoning non-residential I believe it's 60% of the area can have building on it that doesn't take into account the streams or the flood plain those are other constraints that they would need to respect is it possible to see a demonstration or a graphic that would reflect that I don't have one I'm not sure if the applicant or their site planner does do you have any graphics showing percentages of potential I don't think we have any graphics but I was I was just conferring with Mr. Yokely who's at McAdams and the overall site is about 23 acres and a portion of it is about flood plain yeah so about four acres are in stream buffers or flood plains and the way that realistically the site would be developed would be I would say at a maximum 300 300,000 square feet of office without and that is specifically so that you don't impact the stream buffers or flood plains if you were to develop the site at the max residential you'd be upwards of 200 220 residential units and so in that scenario you'd have to have at least two points of access per the UDO and so at least one of those points of access would require stream crossing so at the max end of the residential development that's where you would get the most environmental impact but you could develop the site for I guess 100 unit residential units and not have a stream crossing and that would be that would be less impactful on the environment and if you developed it for solely as office you could do up to 300,000 square feet and you wouldn't have to impact any flood plain or have a stream crossing at all the site kind of I guess the highest point of the site is kind of in the middle of the site and if that makes any sense so that's probably where most of your development will go thank you Mr. Goche could I ask if the max of 220 units that could be possible what would it look like on student impact on the side of the county yeah and those numbers are in the staff board I think it was well I shouldn't guess but I think it was like 33 students total so I'm pulling up attachment 8 in order to answer your question so based off of the let's see if we're to be used with the maximum number of residential impact of calculate out as 253 multiplex units which is 11 units per acre we see an impact of proposed zoning totaling let's see 54 students additional compared to the non-residential use of this any more questions council member thank you very much thank you Mr. others any more questions this public hearing is closed it matters before the council and I'll accept a motion to adopt the resolution amenity of the future land use map so moved it's a move from the second that we adopt the resolution amenity of the future land use map for land use density residential for the site Mr. Mayor now that we've had the motion and seconded the motion I'd like to make a brief set of remarks absolutely Mr. Mr. Mayor colleagues as I think you might have been able to tell from my questioning Mr. I'm loathe to support this item Mr. Goche I gave you a little bit of a hard time you were fantastic I you've done you've been you dealt with us with candor you've been direct you've been forthcoming I really appreciate that honestly it was fantastic the idea that we would approve this without a development plan purely because it gives the owner more flexibility to either develop it under the use that they prefer or to sell it to a residential developer who will develop it under the max fill current zoning or future zoning is a difficult pill to swallow I want to associate myself completely with Commissioner Al Turk and Commissioner Baker's remarks about how much I don't like that and ultimately my likes or dislike don't matter about what a bad idea that is for the way that we handle our business on these types of issues at the same time the mayor of Creekside sent us an email in which he said that as Councillor Milton pointed out 110% of the residents of this neighborhood I'm assuming they're including like grandparents come to visit their kids folks kids all for college you come back to the holidays I'm gonna give them some play on the 10% I think that's fine support this rezoning and it's easy to see why you offered them a very unattractive list of uses under the current zoning and a less unattractive list of uses under the future and I think ultimately while I do share the concerns about how this makes less possible meaningful community engagement on the backside like once this thing actually starts to be developed in whatever use case it gets done that this type of process that I'm about to vote in favor of robs those future residents of that opportunity but the current residents have said this is what they want and while I can have a lot of theoretical reasons about why they shouldn't want that because I'm smart and know a lot of things the fact is that is what they want and in this situation it's not the worst case option and I don't like voting for it I'm loathe to support it but I will be voting yes Mr. Mayor I'll have to say about that thank you council member Reese okay I'll try again we need a motion to adopt the resolution and amend the future land use map to low-medium density residential for the site I moved as it council member Caballero is there a second second thank you it's been moved and seconded madam clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 6-0 we need now a motion to adopt a consistency statement so moved second moved and seconded we adopt the consistency statement madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote and finally need a motion to adopt an ordinance motion passes 6-0 I'm sorry madam clerk to adopt an ordinance amending the Durham unified development ordinance so moved moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance amending the Durham UDO madam clerk please open the vote and please close the vote motion passes 6-0 thank you very much madam clerk thank you mr. gauche thank you mr. Griffin thank you all for being here I will now move to item 23 united development ordinance text amendment federal emergency management agency FEMA firm updates and we're here with mr. Stock welcome mr. Stock thank you Michael Stock with the planning department text amendment TC 1903 is a technical update to adopt revised flood insurance rate map or firm panels issued by the federal emergency management agency or FEMA by December 6, 2019 as required by FEMA and state law in order to maintain Durham's participation national flood insurance program or NFIP the NFIP requires local communities as a condition of future federal financial assistance and federally backed property and flood insurance to participate in the flood insurance program to adopt flood plain ordinances consistent with federal standards to reduce or avoid future flood losses FEMA implements the NFIP in the North Carolina division emergency management serves as a state coordinator once FEMA approved flood plain map for the NFIP each local government affected by flood plain the NFIP provides map into its flood plain ordinance and no new flood insurance coverage can be provided until that occurs the panels that you're looking at tonight are actually all in the unincorporated part of the county and that's why I went to the board of commissioners back in October 28 for their approval they are actually a follow-up number of panels this board as the board of commissioners back in October of 2018 saw a larger list of panels over panels parts of the map that were under being contested in neighboring jurisdiction some of these panels crossed jurisdiction Person County, Grandville County the joint city county planning committee reviewed the Texas amendment it had no concerns the planning commission recommended approval 12 to 0 and as I mentioned before the board of commissioners have already approved the amendments at its October 28 meeting as a reminder city council were required to take two actions first would be the action on the appropriate statement of consistency that's found in attachment A and the second would be action on the ordinance amendment itself which is attachment B thank you I'll be happy to answer any questions thank you Mr. Stock you've heard the report from staff I'm going to declare this public hearing open we do have one speaker who signed up to speak on this item and that's Ellen Pless Ms. Pless welcome Ms. Pless please give us your name and address and you have three minutes yes my name is Ellen Pless I live at 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard in an area that floods very regularly we are frequently featured on the news people breaking out boats and fishing rods in order to participate in fun in our backyards as Durham incentivizes new construction it simultaneously increases our flood risk living in a residential area that is defined by its pressured urban forest surrounding a FEMA flood zone has been in education that forest is incredibly important to us it includes old growth trees many others the FEMA firm update while I understand you may need frankly to pass this in order for my neighbors to consider to continue to be able to get their flood insurance this does provide an opportunity for this body to please consider the development of actions that might mitigate the expanding flood risks that come with every single approval of building that comes before this body such actions could include more robust urban forest protections better infrastructure for stormwater specifically around our areas that are flooding actively and to quote council member Freeman in the Bethpage item just prior to this quote we need to be more intentional about not developing too densely in the areas around flood plains I could not agree more thoroughly my neighborhood has initiated actions that would assist in such mitigations and npo application and a separate action to amend the future land use map I ask for your support moving forward as forest hills tries to manage its expanding risks with regard to flooding thank you very much good evening thank you miss place all right is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item is there anyone else that would like to be heard are there any questions or comments by members of the council any questions or comments by members of the council just a note that I want to echo miss plus comments and that it's it's becoming it's wearing on me to see how much of where we're missing because we're still in 2005 ordinances so holding study but thank you any other comments by members of the council any other questions or comments by members of the council is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item if not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matters back before the council we would need to adopt first motion one the appropriate consistency statement moved second second madam clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes six zero and we would now need a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO second and moved it second and we adopt the ordinance amending the UDO madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes six zero thank you very much well now I'll move on to item 24 the united development ordinance text amendment omnibus changes 13 I'll just say that this is my ninth time hearing this presentation over the years and if you've not heard previously the omnibus text amendment you really haven't enjoyed yourself fully this is one of my favorites I want to thank Mike Stock for his usual diligent work and let me just say that you all have heard of Woodstock I now call this item Mike Stock and I believe we ought to celebrate accordingly I'm not quite sure how to respond to that I'll let it I'll let it all work much appreciated Mr. Stock welcome we would like to hear the staff report please absolutely Michael Stock with the planning department text amendment 1901 consists of technical revisions and minor policy changes and various provisions of the unified development ordinance amendments are identified as necessary corrections, clarifications, reorganization or other minor changes to clarify the intent of the regulations or codify interpretations regulations or reflect aforementioned minor policy changes some of which are not solely technical in nature additional amendments are proposed specific to a number of video provisions including comprehensive plan and evaluation assessment report or the EAR limiting agricultural permits and domestic chickens sedimentation rows and control regulations accessory solar installations and expanded sidewalk placement joint city planning committee reviewed the text amendment that had no concerns the planning commission recommended approval 12-0 at its September 10th meeting again as a reminder the city council will be required to take two actions first would be an action on the appropriate statement of consistency found in attachment A and the second would be the action on the ordinance amendment itself attachment B again thank you and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much you have heard the report from staff I'm going to declare this public hearing open we do have two people who have signed up to speak on this item first is Ms. Ellen Pless and second is Mimi Kessler Ms. Mimi Kessler if you all will please come to the microphone here to my right and welcome you each have three minutes and I'll call you first Ms. Pless Thank you I'll try to be less nervous this time around Ms. Ellen Pless 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard thank you for this opportunity to speak I'm interested in addressing three different sections of the text amendment specifically part one section 3.2.5 dealing with the notice and public hearings Durham likes to state that it is committed to equitable engagement well equitable engagement begins with successful notification the sparse notification requirements written into omnibus 13 do not adequately support equitable engagement and therefore are not in the best interest of the community Durhamites cannot engage where they are not successfully notified email notification is not sufficiently adequate as it fails to reach anyone who has not signed up in advance with the city's notification system or anyone who lacks consistent sorry I'm out of breath and I don't know why it lacks consistent and reliable internet access for whatever reason publishing notices in the newspaper of council's choice is also not adequate as a great number of Durhamites do not read that same paper equitable forms of notification are those which are most readily accessed and which notably we're missing from the EHC process those include mailed paper notices sent to impacted property owners and large signs posted publicly affected areas for the benefit of all passers by successful notification is not just notification that is convenient to the planning department or some other version of what is the minimum the state might let us get away with if we actually are a city for all that is dedicated to equitable engagement then we must commit to successful notification the sparse notification standard of omnibus 13 does not adequately support equitable engagement the next section is section 17.3 the defined terms with respect to the definition of density please do not accept the proposed definition as it appears in omnibus 13 instead please develop a definition in which accessory dwelling units which fulfill the definition of dwelling unit are included in density in other words an ADU if it is being used as a dwelling unit should count toward density as it is written ADUs will not count toward density and no one has been able to defend why that is an appropriate method to proceed with us please explain clearly the logic why an accessory dwelling unit operating as a dwelling unit does not count toward density what is the rationale for creating a parallel class of housing comprised of fully functional dwelling units that essentially become invisible on paper when it comes to density how does creating this invisible class of stealth housing benefit our neighborhoods our straining infrastructure and the accuracy of our growth and density related data the last issue I wish to touch on real quickly very quickly is the suspension of the UDO rules for the planning director I'm hoping Ms. Kessler might follow up on that thank you thank you Ms. Kessler welcome your name and address you have three minutes good evening my name is Mimi Kessler I live at 1418 Woodland Drive in Durham and I do want to talk about the item number 1.11 in the text amendment my basic problem with this is I don't understand why it's necessary and my further comments have nothing to do with the incumbent in the planning director position Mr. Young has nothing to do with him what what makes the planning director qualified to suspend the UDO what qualifications does that person have that an elected official does not have what criteria constitutes an emergency some people have told me it's things like there's a natural disaster and that there have to be FEMA trailers parked someplace that ordinarily the UDO wouldn't allow perhaps there's some sort of martial law situation there's no criteria for removing the emergency situation either and there's no reference to consultations with elected officials I would like to know why the paragraph is necessary and I would much prefer that this decision is made by an elected official as opposed to staff thank you very much thank you thank you Ms. Kessler is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item is there anyone else that would like to be heard alright thank you we will now hear if there are any questions or comments by members from the council members of the council council member Rees can we have staff respond to the concerns that were raised by the residents just now Mr. Mayor would that be okay I'm sorry yes that would absolutely be okay Mr. Stock could you please comment pursuant to Mr. Rees's questions on those three items absolutely so the first one talks about notice and public hearings particularly for UDO text amendments the current practice is publication in the newspaper that is required by state law and we maintain that practice the other requirement that we have in the UDO is beyond state law or in addition to state law which is email notification originally just to give a little history about that before the UDO there was a policy of neighborhood notification with public hearings zoning amendments and other such that was codified when the UDO was adopted in 2000 became effective in 2006 and then about a year or so ago we took a look at that current process where the neighborhood notification was limited to a certain range and we felt that we were starting to hear a lot more concerns that certain neighborhoods or persons that were registered with the planning department were getting notification on certain cases because they were just beyond that notification range whether it was 300 or 600 feet but maybe a neighbor of theirs did get notification or a certain neighborhood didn't get notification because they were just beyond that notification range so we had brought the idea to JCCPC and eventually through a text amendment through city council to basically open it up to anybody who wanted to be registered with the planning department to get at least once a month although our notices go out twice a month for all public hearings that are going on with links to those cases and as far as I'm aware we have a larger list for that public service notification than we did for the limited neighborhood notification registration that we had prior to that so that's to answer that first question the second one with ADUs historically the interpretation has always been that ADUs have never been counted towards density calculations density calculations tend to prohibit the use of ADUs and actually we made that explicit with the adoption of the expanding housing choices text amendment within the ADU section that it would not be explicitly counted towards density and this is just a follow up technical adjustment to the definition of density to make that clear also and then I think Pat you wanted to adjust the suspension of rules issue so good evening Pat again with the planning department the provision that Ms. Plus mentioned briefly and Ms. Kessler spoke to 1.11 is intended to ensure that we as a community and I as the administrative representative are allowed with consultation for the administration and the mayor my understanding is it would require the mayor's authorization so again this wouldn't be something that the planning director myself or any subsequent director would do independently but if there is a federal or state emergency declared and a federal or state entity wants to come in and say put an emergency housing because there was widespread damage or destruction to housing that there was a means or method for me to authorize the suspension of those rules for that housing to be installed currently there's not and we've been fortunate here in Durham that we haven't had that kind of widespread disaster but I think we were concerned with several disasters over the last couple years that if there were to be a federal or state entity that with the administration and the mayor's blessing wanted to put in some kind of housing or do some kind of other repairs or development that they wouldn't have to strictly adhere to the UDO if the declaration identified that as a need if that makes sense so there's no independent authority for myself for any subsequent director to utilize those provisions without a federal or state emergency declaration and approval from the administration and from the elected officials you agree with that Mr. Stock you agree with that interpretation I agree I would never contradict my boss in that matter but he is correct declaration of emergency is based upon city and county codes and that provision would only be instituted based upon a declaration of emergency based upon those codes I didn't mean to disagree with him he asked for your help there and I'm just making sure you're giving it I couldn't remember the specific role of the mayor in this but as ever has reminded me that's embedded in city code so that's where that comes from Mr. Mayor I just speak to that real quickly it's my understanding that the authority that would be vested in the planning director pursuant to this amendment applies only to a situation in which the mayor and or the chair of the county commissioner has declared a state of emergency pursuant to city the relevant city ordinance the relevant city ordinance has reference to state statute which lists the various categories of reasons why an emergency declaration might be appropriate Ms. Pless and you can find that at North Carolina General Statutes 1668-19.3 it's the definition section of the North Carolina Emergency Management Act and I would just ask the city attorney kind of how that would work on the back end that was one of the folks that spoke I believe was Ms. Kessler who asked if the if the UDO this ordinance gives the planning director the authority to suspend any portion of the ordinance to see some enforcement of any portion of the ordinance and that authorization is that authority to do so is triggered by the declaration of emergency what happens if the mayor and or the chair of the county commission determines that the emergency is no longer in effect and revokes their declaration what happens to the planning director's authority under that situation I am speculating councilman Reese and I would have to research it specifically but I was I would suspect if the emergency declaration has been rescinded that we would go back to the prior state of affairs and I'm sure some kind of orderly wind down of like if we had some temporary housing built in a place that would allow for that we'd have to wind it down right and I'll also just say as a comment not as a question to the folks who raised this concern this is obviously a very valid issue that you've raised and it takes some digging into the city ordinances to find reference to the state law that has a list of all the categories of things that would be a valid emergency and but what I'll also say is that the question you raised I think it begs the question what if we had a rogue planning director who decided they didn't like the UDO and wanted to do differently well the scenario the turn of events that would allow that kind of planning director to exert that kind of authority is extremely limited to the very narrow category of emergencies that are listed here and also a subset of those in which the mayor or the chair of the county commission decided to issue a declaration of emergency and would only persist so long as that authorizing person by virtue of their position on either of those boards were to allow the emergency declaration to remain in place and not rescind it and if we were in a situation in which a planning director persisted in not enforcing the ordinance or deciding to do whatever the heck she or he wanted to do there is a chain of accountability in the city that ultimately runs up to elected officials to make sure that that did not persist and so very valid concern incredibly valid concern especially as it relates to the enforcement of really important rules and regulations in the city and I just wanted to know that we take that very seriously I appreciate that No Ms. Kessler, I'm sorry Is there anyone else that has any comments or questions any members of the council Kessler Middlewood Thank you Mr. Mayor with respect to the equitable notification which is something that resonates with me deeply I this is my second time looking at hearing the omnibus presentation I and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong I don't see the listing of ways to notify residents as exhaustive in other words it doesn't preclude us from doing other things as well that we might find necessary and codifying our minimal targets or what we do doesn't mean that we can't do other things to notify folk in the in between times so I resonate and I hear that all the time about how folk know and don't hear and I think that I think that we have approving this does not lock us or preclude us from doing those things above and beyond what's codified here enlisted at least that's my reading this is not and the city attorney can speak to that if I'm wrong about that but I think we need to always be vigilant about exhausting all the ways all the tools that we have to notify people to be as creative and as exhaustive and as diligent about notifying folk when something's going on in their neighborhood or in their community so I just wanted to put that out there that I don't see this list preventing me from doing other things or calling for other things to be done to notify folk that's it for me Mr. Mayor thank you councilmember any other comments for the accessory dwelling unit I think I missed something in the comments that Ms. Pless was making because I just want to make sure I'm clear that we're not talking about the the coop as an accessory dwelling unit for the chickens versus accessory dwelling unit for the person and I just want to make sure that I'm catching what you're saying if you could just come back up and say the small part that you said about define terms being invisible on paper or something because I want the coops to be invisible on paper they're not units that people live in but I wouldn't want the units that people live in to be invisible on paper correct yeah and forgive me if I got loose in my speech I was referring specifically to section 3.2.5 so we are dealing with accessory dwelling units in this case that are probably not coops I was specifying accessory dwelling units that are being used as dwelling units one could foresee that you might be built for like an art studio or some other purpose at woodshop you know something where you've built the structure but no one is residing within the structure but in a case where we do have somebody residing in a structure and using it as a dwelling unit and it meets all the definitions of dwelling unit which I believe occurs in that section 3.2.5 why is it not counting toward density historically there is an argument that it hasn't been but that's again I'm getting at why are we not well we've never done it before but what is the rationale behind having that then become invisible when we're talking about density in Durham sorry did that answer I think so but it's not section 3.2.5 that's why it wasn't me up but if staff could help me out here I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear the dwelling units that people live in as density no for regulatory purposes no they are not they do not count as density they have not been prior to expanding housing choices they was explicitly put into the regulations through expanding housing choices and this is just a technical clarification of the definition for density that covers that plus other aspects within the ordinance that might affect density calculations how do we specify which which section that is because it's not 3.2.5 I'm sorry well the definitions is section 17.3 defined terms I'm so sorry and then also noting that now if it's not included in density for regulatory purposes how does that impact for nonprofit organizations to increase density with accessory dwelling units wouldn't affect it at all it's a program that would exist in and of itself it actually makes it easier to do that kind of program when you don't have to worry about density thank you thank you Miss Place thank you councilmember any other comments or questions from members of the council I do have a couple of comments first of all I at home I have a folder in which is the what I might have to sign in case of an emergency I also keep one at the office and I've had to sign them before and I have a lot of faith in our staff in terms of talk to me about that getting me well prepared for it and I'm not concerned that that will be a problem I appreciate your thinking about it but I have so much faith in our staff and I know that the safeguards are completely there and feel 100% or I guess tonight I would feel 110% level of comfort I also appreciate the speakers raising the issues of the notification and density I think that Mr. Stock spoke well about the the ADUs and we have previously discussed this while we were discussing the EHC we were very conscious of what we were doing there and I think that this is just a recodification of that and feels very appropriate on the notification I appreciate councilmember Middleton's comments if there are times when we need to do more and certainly we are doing a lot more and a lot of our work that we're doing a lot of different kinds of notifications I would just think about what we did we have an item coming up at the end of this meeting where there was just an enormous level of notification of all sorts where that was deemed necessary and I think that the standards that we have built in here are appropriate okay any other comments or questions by members of the council or so in tracking the accessory dwelling units in light of the EHC that would come up in a historic district how would you note that specifically in I guess a case that came forward I guess we come to the board of adjustment rather than a planning commission like how does that move I'm trying to wrap my mind around what it looks like to see this come forward and to assess whether or not to support or not support because it is in a historic district based on a lack of density or increasing density so local historic districts focus on the design and oftentimes also placement, mass scaling and materials so not focusing on the use the use and development of an ADU has its own regulations in addition to what would be required under the local historic district which would have to go to the historic preservation commission and that would be tracked how that would be a certificate of appropriateness issued for that and it would be tracked also through building permits when they go for building permits for an accessory dwelling unit and also kept on file one last addition to that if I might Pat Young with the planning department as we promised you we'll see proceedings in September we're going to come back and do a very detailed report to you all on all of the development that's implemented at the six month interval at Council Member Middleton's recommendation so I think that's everywhere here March Thank you Council Member Reese I had something else to say I didn't want to let the moment pass without noting that section 12.4.2 that sidewalk requirement has been changed dramatically outside the downtown compound neighborhood downtown tier to require new development to have sidewalks on both sides of the street outside of freeways and expressways of course which I believe one of our planning commissioners Commissioner Baker called a revolutionary change and our UDO and something he was really excited about and I am too and with that I'm ready to move on Thank you Council Member Reese one more the planning commissioner Baker also says that this talks about the city's goal of reducing community emissions by 30% by 2030 I'll quote him the additional walkability and sustainability provisions related to block lengths, connectivity green building and design are fundamental to achieving these outcomes and should be carried out immediately so I'm trying to remember the last time we did something immediately but Mr. Young talk about timetable for considering concerns like these are all of them wrapped up in the comp plan are there any that should be considered on an accelerated timetable? Sure so Mr. Mayor it's a very good question as you've heard me say before I think the concerns of Commissioner Baker and other planning commissioners have raised are very valid and worth due consideration we did exactly the kind of assessment and analysis I think you expect us to do and the only one that he and other commissioners had raised that we felt like we could take forward immediately was the one that's before you tonight that Council Member Reese referred to about requiring sidewalks on both sides of the street in the suburban tier and that is a significant enhancement I appreciate Council Member Baker's description of it and the way he did because it is a really a best practice and something we probably should have done a long time ago but here we are the other items he's referred to such as required block lengths like we have in our compact design districts things like required green building standards kind of have a whole host of fiscal, legal and policy issues that are complex and then involve costs and tradeoffs and that really need more analysis and our commitment has been and remains to do that through the comprehensive plan process I think it would be either towards the end of the comprehensive plan process in early 2022 or during the comprehensive plan process if we can accelerate community engagement and research on some of those independently. Thank you so much. Alrighty, any other questions or comments on item 24? Just to say that I have also been here about six times now and I am always amazed at how staff tries to gather all of the possibilities around how from 2005 to now that we can manage to have some continuity in what we're approving and not approving and I still feel tension there but around the environmental side of it but I'm confident that the staff has made every possible push to make sure to ensure that we have the regulations in place to support the city and we can move forward. Thank you. Thank you Council Member. Any other comments? If not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and I'm going to ask that there be a motion to adopt the appropriate consistency statement. Move in the second that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam Clerk please open the vote. Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. And the motion to adopt the appropriate consistency statement. Madam Clerk please open the vote. Please close the vote. The motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much. Another year of mic stock is under our belts. I think next year can we have some tie dye maybe or something like that. A lot more where that came from. All right. And we'll hear from Ms. Sunyak. Good evening. Good evening I'm Jamie Sunyak with the planning department request for a zoning map change has been received from Stewart Inc. for one parcel of land located at 1107 Chalk Level Road totaling 12.17 acres. The applicant has applied for a zoning map change from rural suburban 10 to rural suburban that stipulates up to 97 townhouse units. The areas designated low medium density residential on the future land use map which coincides with this zoning request. Key commitments include limiting the development to townhouses as the permitted building type limiting the building height to 35 feet limiting the number of units to 97. Entrance number two will be public access and serve a maximum of 10 units. A minimum of 80 percent of the townhouse units will have Habitual Square footage that will not exceed 1500 square feet and installing a bus pullout and pad bus shelter on the south side of Chalk Level Road adjacent to the site. Additionally the applicant has agreed to construct a sidewalk within the Chalk Level Road right of way along the frontage of PID 126012 and 126011 prior to the issuance of the first certificate of occupancy. Durham Planning Commission recommended approval of the proposed by a vote of 11 to 0 at their September 10th 2009-19 meeting. Staff recommends that these requests are 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. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you, Ms. Sunyak. You've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and I'm first going to ask if there are any questions by members of the council for staff. Just one. Will the new text commitments be approved? Like I said, nothing immediately. Okay. I just want to mention to staff how much I appreciate providing both sets of comments from the planning commissioners that was extraordinarily helpful for context. Thank you. All right. We have one person signed up to speak on this item, Mike Tarrant. Mr. Tarrant, welcome. You have three minutes. We can talk about it. Thank you. Good evening. Members of the city council, my name again is Mike Tarrant. I'm with Stuart. Resided 4616 Paces Ferry Drive. Have been helping Eagle Point properties with the cases before you this evening. I have Mr. Keith Greenwood with Eagle Point and some members of his team if you have any specific questions for them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We did have two neighborhood meetings for this project leading up to this point. Those did result in many of the commitments that you see that were presented to you just now, including reducing the number of units from 192 297 and changing the unit program from apartments to town homes for sale. So part of the strategy with minimizing or excuse me putting the cap on the 1500 square feet for the units was to help assist with the affordability of these units by keeping the sales price down. And then the cul-de-sac or the connection to the neighborhood to the west was introduced in an effort to reduce the amount of traffic going through the neighborhoods. So we did work through with the neighborhood to get their consensus with this project. The additional sidewalk that Ms. Sonjak mentioned is between our frontage so we were committing to construct more sidewalk than what would be required under the ordinance so that there won't be a gap in that portion of the chalk level road. As Ms. Sonjak mentioned, Planning Commission did approve this by unanimously this project as a town home development will provide a nice transition between the apartment community to the east to the single family neighborhood to the west. With those factors, we would greatly appreciate your consideration of this request and your support with it. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Tarrant. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone else here that would like to be heard on this item? I'll now ask Councilmembers are there questions or comments for the applicant? Councilmember Cavalletto. Very quickly, I just wanted to thank you all for doing a lot of engagement in that neighborhood. I know that it was different than your plan was different at first and that can be challenging. So I appreciate the continued effort there and I also appreciate the from beatbacks comments around the sidewalk gap that you all planning on not creating that. So again, I appreciate that. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Questions, Mr. Mayor? Councilmember Middleton and Madam Mayor Pro Temp. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening. What are the price points on the town homes? I think low 200s. Low 200s? Did you have any or your client had any discussions about any proffers to our Florida by housing fund or to Durham Public Schools? Were there any discussions about that? We haven't made significant efforts in this conversations at this point given the change in the development program and the other commitments that we're making at this point. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember. Madam Mayor Pro Temp. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I really like this project. I appreciate your commitment to keeping the units as affordable as possible. I want to bring up some of the conversations that I had with the developer prior to this meeting where the developer indicated that their initial conception of the plan was using our affordable housing density bonus and building more units than are currently in this plan. Though I do like this plan and I'm going to support it, I want to point out that I think the original plan was better and through conversations with the surrounding neighborhoods the plan was changed to have less units, less density and for the units to be for sale and less affordable. We are going to have to deal with conflicts that come up with building affordable housing near existing single family residential developments and one of the comments that we heard from the developer was that some of the residents explicitly stated they didn't want affordable housing near them and that is why they requested for the plan to be changed. Everyone in Durham is going to need to have affordable housing near them. We need more affordable housing in our community that's a fact of growth and of how Durham is developing and so we can't we can't not build affordable housing because there are people in our community who don't want it near them. We're going to have to figure out how to make affordable housing out of the city. We have not had a lot of success with our affordable housing density bonus and I would really have loved to see a project that used that bonus and provided some housing that would have been affordable to people at lower income levels. This is not this is a problem that happens in every community. There are lots there's lots of reticence to building additional housing and building denser housing and especially affordable housing. It's something that we as a community are going to have to face and are going to have to address because we need more affordable housing in Durham and we need it to be in all of our neighborhoods not concentrated in certain neighborhoods where people think it belongs. So I just wanted to bring that up for the council to consider and also with like our planning commissioners to think a little bit more about affordable housing to our community and thank you again for your proposal and happy to support it. Thank you. Other comments? I would also like to align myself with Mayor Pro Tem's comments and recognizing that it is a need it's important that we are looking at where the conversation is going at a neighborhood level which is why I've been pushing for us to have more engagement conversations. People don't necessarily understand and we don't want forced affordable housing. It's important that the community feels integrated into the conversation in a way that makes it so that they're neighbors and I really do appreciate the process that you took and having the meetings and actually stepping down so that there is an attention for the new residents in a way that we've seen in some of the other contentious conversations but I know that there's a process we'll have to go through to figure out how to move forward with some of the conversations and I hear it in many communities where people say I don't want those people to live near me and it's just not acceptable and it's important to make sure that we note that for everyone in Durham that that is not going to work we have to do better and we have to figure out how to make this work and feel comfortable and moving us forward affordably and equitably sustainably. Thank you Council Member. Any other comments or questions? I do have a comment. I'm also going to vote for this. I also appreciate the engagement with the neighborhood. We on the council as well as our planning commission often delay decisions on zoning matters as developers to go back and work more closely with the surrounding communities and that is very often an important step and sometimes often results in better zoning plans and decisions but I will say in this case while the negotiations apparently please the neighbors and the planning commissioners and I understand that the developer can live with this program the current program just fine I also think that the negotiations well negotiates and apparently also stop the very first use of the city's affordable housing density bonus so I'm voting for this rezoning but I am not at all sure this is the best outcome for our community given what the options were and I hope that our planning commissioners will urge them as Mayor Pro Tem Johnson mentioned to think hard about these issues before sending developers and neighbors back together to negotiate what's good for one neighborhood and this is a hard thing to hear but true isn't always what's best for the people of Durham as a whole and I'm worried that in this case that is what has happened that we've gotten something that's more satisfying to the neighbors that the developer can live with and can prosper from or wouldn't be proposing this and developing it but I think that this is not the best result for the city of Durham we could have had a better result and especially if we could have used the density bonus so this is not really directed to you at all Mr. Tarrant but really more to our community, to our planning commission to those of us on the council to think about how we're going to deal with these issues alright any other comments or questions for members of the council if not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council we would need a motion to adopt a consistency statement so we'll move second Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes 6-0 we would need next a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO so we'll move second it's been moved and secondly we adopt the ordinance amending the UDO Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes 6-0 thank you very much, thank you Mr. Tarrant we'll now move to item 26 FY 2020-25 consolidated plan needs public hearing and I bet you Miss Conyers is here Miss Conyers welcome I don't have a, I've heard you just as many times of Mr. Stockman I'm still working on a name good to see you it's good to be seen good evening Mayor Shule and members of council Wilma Conyers Department of Community Development this is a public hearing to receive citizen comments on community development block grant known as CDBG home investment partnership known as HOME emergency solutions grant known as ESG and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS known as HOPLA how funds can be used over the next 5 years to address housing and community development needs in Durham notice of this meeting was properly advertised in the Herald Sun K-PASA newspaper and the Carolina Times as a recipient of CDBG HOME ESG and HOPLA funds the city is required to hold at least two public hearings prior to submission of the consolidated plan and annual action plan we anticipate the second public hearing will take place in March or April of 2020 in addition the city is required to publish a copy of the draft consolidated plan annual action plan at least 30 days prior to submission to HUD the 5 year consolidated plan and annual action plan must be submitted to the department of housing and community housing and urban development by May 15th or as applicable to HUD HUD has not yet announced the FY 2021 entitlement allocations however for planning purposes we expect to receive 1.9 million in CDBG funds 1 million in HOME funds 160,000 in ESG funds and 429,000 in HOPLA funds a summary of these comments from this public hearing will be incorporated into the consolidated plan slash annual action plan no action is required by council to receive public comments on the needs of public hearing thank you you've heard the report from staff I will now declare this public hearing open is there anyone here to speak on this item Miss Peterson welcome you have three minutes I think this is a good time for the city and Miss Freeman you're in my ward she's in charge of my ward even though I'm speaking to all of the city council persons this is a good time to really look at to see how these dollars are going to be used on Miss Freeman since the city has signed off on this 95 million dollar bond this is a good time to try to work these federal dollars with this bond that also has been approved because we're speaking about two separate two separate dollars and here's an opportunity persons speak about making sure that the young men are being trained whoever is going to be getting the monies for their various projects we need to make sure that they're going to be hiring our local men and women to help them to get employment whatever these projects and I will get I would like to get a copy of this to be able to go back over to see exactly how the monies are going to be used I think in the past the city will allow organizations non-profits to put in applications for these funds I'm not sure I don't have it here in front of me how that is going to be done this time but I'm glad I hope the city council will sign off on it but we've got to have some folks who are really going to manage and oversee these dollars to make sure somehow that they're going to be able to work with that 95 million now folks we're out here on this campaign trail stating about how this 95 million dollars is going to be used we're going to hold this council accountable on how those dollars are going to be used and any other dollars here in the city because the city as I've stated before has about 42 million sitting in their reserve we need to get some of that pastor Milton for job training get some of that monies we have a good training program in the Holton school and when this city starts remodeling the housing and the senior citizens we will have young men and women who are ready being trained in carpentry and construction stop waiting for these companies to do it we have the money this city has the money Mr. Shuler you're the mayor you're in charge of this community also you got to step up to the plate put the five million dollars out there bring in an individual several that can run a construction program over in our Holton school and let's get with it let's stop dragging our feet trying to figure out what to do we have plenty of people pastor Milton he's a minister in this community he's one of the ministers that could come to the table and help this city address this serious problem that we have had when our young folks caught up in this system in these dollars that's the purpose of these dollars coming in from the federal government to make sure that our local people are getting employment and we're helping the needs of the community and we hope to be heard on this item if not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed I don't believe any action is necessary is that correct Ms. Conyers? thank you so much when I move to item 27 it's also a public hearing item the urban avenue street closing and development agreement good evening Pat Yen with the planning department with me tonight are representatives from the general services department Gina Probst, Stacy Poston and Matt Filter along with Emily Struthers this item before you as the mayor indicated is a street closing request and an associated development agreement the property of 949 Washington street the brain specialty company building there's a proposal to redevelopment of the property that requires both of these actions to proceed forward however this afternoon we received notification from the applicant that there was a change to the required easement which would involve a change in both the development agreement and the street closing plat which necessitates a continuance or some other deferral of this item staff is recommending a continuance to December 16th if I have that date correct hearing two cycles hands to consider this item and we'll be happy to take any questions if you choose to take that recommendation that you open the public hearing okay thank you you have heard the report from staff I'm going to declare this public hearing open and without objection we will continue this public hearing until December the 16th thank you thank you Mr. Beiker thank you all for being here we'll now move to item 33 Madam Ms. Peterson welcome you have three minutes can you please tell me Mr. Peterson your time has started already Madam Clerk thank you Ms. Peterson go ahead can you please tell me who's going to be in charge of this group here when are they going to have their meetings Ms. Peterson if you will go ahead and make all of your comments and if you have any questions and if I do think there are ones that we can or should answer I will I would like to know who's in charge when are they having their meetings and do you know about how many meetings they have had already it looks like when I look on this can you please tell me what OF means I'm assuming BF must mean black female we are actually African Americans females that's what BF means I'd like someone to tell me what is H slash LF H slash LM and H slash LU I just have a little concern Mr. Mayor also I think the organization needs to be a little bit more racially diverse I don't from this I really don't see any whites on this organization I don't see any African American males that's going to be part of this organization I know we want to reach out to the Hispanic community but I think we're going to send a bad message if we're trying to tell other folks they are not welcome part of this organization so they don't have to be I'm assuming Mr. Schuler that they don't have to be a member of this organization but it would be nice to know when this organization is going to be meeting also to get a copy of the bylaws and also those persons who are going to be in leadership of the organization you've got to make sure that they really are citizens and that they are also naturalized because that's going to be very very important and the reason why is because we do not want to send a wrong message that it's okay to be part of a whole lot of stuff and they are not legal even though we want to help a lot of people and I understand that because I'm a Christian and I understand that people are coming here from other countries in serious in serious conditions but we've got to make sure that if they're going to be part of these organizations and they're going to be in leadership that's what I'm speaking here is that they're going to be in leadership we've got to make sure if we can that they are US citizens and that they are also naturalized thank you Mr. Mayor thank you Ms. Peterson Ms. Peterson go ahead and take your seat and then I'll have a couple comments okay so I hope that you will be Ms. Peterson if you'll take your seat I have some comments absolutely crystal clear Grace everybody is welcome in Durham regardless of their documentation status and that includes they are welcome on all of our city boards and commissions and we have an explicit process by which people who do not want to reveal their documentation status are not required to do so we would never require that we are not going to require that for this commission or any other commission and I hope I make myself crystal clear to answer some of your questions there are bylaws are there bylaws already for this group Madam Clerk those are public it's a public document if you would like a copy of those bylaws you can go by the clerk's office and they can be provided to you the the meetings will be noticed in a way that all of our commission and board meetings are noticed we'll just look at the county the city clerk's page you will be able to find that the designations that you asked about OF means other female means they're not either Hispanic, black or white they identified themselves that way HLM means Hispanic or Latino, male or female I believe that answers all your questions there being no other information there being no other items to come before this body I'm going to declare Mr. Mayor I'll move the appointments I'm sorry thank you is there a motion for the appointments? I made it yes I just want to make sure that it's clear I know from the work session that there were some changes in the votes and I think we did head nods rather than hand raises a roll call and I just want to make sure that the clerk has noted all of that in the meeting minutes or whatever I also want to note that it does raise concern to have a full committee under the mayor where there is only Hispanic and black and so I just want to make sure that we're noting that that is the case based on equitable or racial equity in the stance that this is a people of color kind of thing and it's important to note that that's a positive not a negative thank you ma'am councilmember we have a motion on the floor to approve these appointments it's been seconded ma'am clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes 6-0 thank you it wasn't my smooth this meeting but I will now say there being no other items to come before this body we are adjourned at 10.55