 way I am trying to monitor in addition to paying attention to the meeting some of the various platforms that this is that this is being broadcast in to try to bring some of those comments into the meeting since we can't obviously hear from folks in person tonight. Here's another comment getting background noise maybe from technical support staff but not the live feed. I don't know. The good news is the video seems to be working so that's great we got that that going on and I'm open to suggestions about whether or not we move forward or wait a little bit longer so. I'm getting indications that they can hear us at least on television. Okay great okay looks like they've cleared up the problem I'm now hearing this so we are not in our Council chambers where normally we have a beautiful American flag so instead I'm gonna temporarily change my background to the American flag while while I lead the pledge so now I also have to stand so see if I can there we go all right. Okay I pledge 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 and justice for all. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Councilmember Reece and thank you for helping us to delay until we could get a little better situation with the with the audio. Thank you. There we go. So we've we've had our moment of silence we've honored Representative Marion Black, Brother Ray Ehrkart and our one Durham resident so far who has died from the coronavirus and now we'll have the wall call. Mayor Shul. Here. Mayor Protem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Alston. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Councilmember Middleton. Here. Councilmember Reece. Here. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk. We'll now move to our ceremonial items and we do have a couple of ceremonial items. The first is National Community Development Week. National Community Development Week annually recognized the importance of community development block grant CDBG and home investment partnership programs. CDBG remains the principal source of federal revenue for states, localities and their program partners to use an assisting low and moderate income people to prevent physical, economic and social deterioration in neighborhoods and communities across the country. CDBG and home dollars allow the city to successfully undertake the South Side Revitalization Project, dense and apartments primarily for homeless veterans, the Witte School for Low-Income Seniors and the permanently affordable Piedmont rentals for very low-income households, just to name a few. And here's the proclamation. Whereas the week of April 13th through the April 17th 2020 has been designated as National Community Development Week by the National Community Development Association to celebrate the Community Development Block Rent program, the home partnership program. Whereas since 1975 the CDBG program has provided annual funding and flexibility to local communities to provide decent, safe and affordable housing, a suitable living environment and economic opportunities to low and moderate income people. Whereas since 1992 the home program has provided funding to local communities to create decent, safe and affordable housing opportunities for low-income persons with over one million units of affordable housing having been completed nationally using home funds. Whereas over the past five years the City of Durham has received a total of $9,417,000 in CDBG funds and $4,642,000 in home funds. Whereas the City of Durham has used CDBG and home funds directly or in partnerships to address issues surrounding homelessness, including veteran homelessness, to promote home ownership opportunities for low and moderate income households, to develop hundreds of affordable rental units for low and very low-income households, to provide repairs to homes of very low-income seniors and to help revitalize neighborhoods and to leverage millions of dollars in additional public and private investments within the Durham neighborhoods. Now therefore I, Stephen M. Shull, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim April 13th through 17th, 2020 as National Community Development Week in Durham to support these two valuable programs that have made a tremendous contribution to the vitality of the city's housing stock, infrastructure, public services, and the economic vitality of our community. Witness my hand on the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this, 6th of April, 2020. Can I have the traditional applause? Thank you. Second, we will have National Crime Victims' Rights Week, another important proclamation. The victim services unit of the Durham Police Department offer support and services to victims of violent crimes, homicides, armed robberies, aggravated and sexual assault, and other serious felonies. These services include but are not limited to crisis intervention, referrals for community resources, investigative support, assistance with the filing of victim compensation claims, advising victims of their rights, educating victims about the criminal justice system, and what to expect accompaniment to court and medical appointments. The Victim Services Unit in 2019 serve 1,628 cases, three full-time victim and witness service coordinators, service 2,350 victims in 2019. The unit referred victims to outside resources a total number of 4,841 times during the year and services are provided in both English and Spanish. The first National Crime Rights Victim Week ceremony was celebrated in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan. The annual recognition continues every year in the month of April as a way to renew our country's commitment to guarantee that all individuals have the rights and services that they need to recover for victimization. This year's national theme is seek justice, ensure victims' rights inspire hope. And now the proclamation. Whereas these are unprecedented times in the history of our nation, region, state, and the city of Durham as the coronavirus pandemic escalates. And whereas even in times of a worldwide health crisis the critical work of law enforcement, judicial systems, and crime victim rights advocates remains necessary. Whereas crime can leave a lasting impact on any person regardless of age, national origin, race, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, or economic status. And whereas the formation of the city of Durham Police Department's Victim Witness Services Unit in 1997 demonstrates the department's strong commitment to providing essential services to victims and witnesses of crimes and to ensuring that crime victims are treated with respect, compassion, fairness, and dignity. And whereas the department's victim services advocates continue to render services during this challenging time supporting citizens and residents in the aftermath of crime victimization. Crime victims whose sense of grief, loss, fear, and anxiety is likely further heightened by the effects of COVID-19. And whereas now more than ever the ideals of compassion, respect, healing, recovery, and hope resonate now with all of our residents. And whereas national crime victims' rights week 2020 seek justice, ensure victims' rights inspire hope. The theme for this year provides a timely opportunity to collectively commit to these ideals as a community focusing on our common humanity. Now therefore, I, Stephen M. Shulmer, the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim the week of April 19th to 25th 2020 as National Crime Victims' Rights Week in Durham. And hereby encourage Durham citizens to take the time to learn more about crime victims' rights and to find ways to nurture resilience and hope in the lives of crime victims and others who are in need of specific support, special support during this time of challenge. Witness my hand, the corporate seal of the city of Durham, North Carolina, this the sixth day of April 2020. Thank you so much and thank you all for those who work on do the valuable work that is recognized by these proclamations. And now we'll proceed to announcements by members of the council. And I'm going to begin with council member Austin who has an important announcement. Unmute myself. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, colleagues. I know we have very important matters to discuss tonight, so I will briefly try to be. Today I reluctantly submitted my resignation from the Durham City Council. Before I reflect briefly on my time on this council, I want to acknowledge how profoundly the COVID-19 virus is affecting all of our lives. Almost in an instant, people from all walks of life are afraid, facing uncertain economic circumstances and looking to all of us for answers. There's far more about this virus that we don't know than do, but I want the public to rest assured that our courageous frontline workers in health care, public safety, sanitation, transportation, and food provision are doing all that they can to help keep us going. Our local government and public health staffs are also working tirelessly to keep basic infrastructure running and ease the impact of illness, loss of work, pay, and child care on thousands of residents. We all stand ready to follow the advice of public health experts and give you the information you need to keep yourselves and your loved ones safe. Now it's very likely that after this trying week, I will have to continue or work together in a different role. I'll share more about that role soon, but in the very likely event, this is my final opportunity to address all of you as a member of the Durham City Council. I briefly want to thank the residents of Durham for allowing me to serve Ward 3 and this wonderful city. I am the lone Durham native on this council. My roots go back in this area more than five generations. My ancestors were enslaved on land near where I live today. My grandparents cleaned homes in Trinity Park, tended farmland, and show for doctors who worked at Duke Hospital. My mother was part of the first integrated class to graduate from Durham High School and I myself attended school in Durham even when I lived in a neighboring county. Many years later during the Great Recession, I moved back to Durham deep in student loan debt. I'm sure if I would get a paycheck each month, certain that my credit card would get declined when I brought groceries or a beer at one of the only bars in downtown at the time. I could not have imagined then that 10 years later I would get the chance to serve an elected office in a town that I could hardly afford to live or play in 10 years ago and that's been a city that holds so much of my love and so much of my history. We are staring now into a kind of unknown that feels familiar in many ways that history tells us very little about. Many of our residents are sick. Others who are already struggling to pay their rents or afford basic necessities are now facing unemployment and our city is reeling from shuttered downtown storefronts and an economy in shock. The bad news is it will take a long time for us to recover. The good news is Durham is an extraordinarily capable hands that can lead our recovery and for that I am personally grateful. To our administration and our staff, all of your work is essential. Even in this moment when people are fixed in government responses, so much of your work goes unheralded. Many of you risk your health to keep our city running and I know that this crisis weighs on all of you just as much as it does all of us. Thank you for the sacrifices you are making. Thank you for your exceptional work under unimaginable stress and thank you for making our city what it is. It has been a gift to represent your work to our residents. To my colleagues, I never took a hug, a handshake, or fist bump for granted for many of you because frankly our work is hard and your collegial nature has always been a comfort. But I wish now more than ever that I could thank you with the kind of caring gestures that you've always extended to me. For now though I'll say you are a compassionate and brilliant group of people. I am proud to have worked together. I'm proud of the work that we've done and I'm prouder yet to have done this work with each and every one of you. I will miss you all greatly. To Durham, I am yours and because of that I know your spirit. This community has responded to this moment in exactly the way that I expected and in exactly the way that we needed. You're working together, fighting for each other, and trusting that together we will make it through this current crisis. One month ago at the end of our mayor's powerful and moving state of the city address which set an ambitious tone for the next year, the student group sang Andrew Day's Rise Up. Part of that song goes, when the silence isn't quiet and it feels like it's getting hard to breathe and you know you feel like dying, I promise you will take the world to its feet and move mountains. I'll rise up, rise up unafraid, and I'll do it a thousand times again. You could not have known then how poignant those words would be just weeks later. Durham, right now the silence isn't quiet. It feels hard to breathe. We will take the world to its feet. We will move mountains and we will rise up. To everyone listening, please stay home, stay safe. We are with you. I am with you, and thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much councilmember Austin for those beautiful words and no one could have said it better. Wonderful expression of where our city is at this time. We will miss you tremendously. We'll be in close contact with you as you move to represent our city in the legislature and you're going to do an amazing job, but we will really miss you on this council and we hate to lose you. I hate to go. Yeah, but you'll still be with us and you'll be doing amazing things and thank you for those fantastic words. They were wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, and now I'll ask other announcements by members of the council. Anybody who wants to raise your hand so I can see you. Okay, I don't see a hand up. I have a very few words. Just want to just to mention that we have received public comment for this meeting. I appreciate our city clerk opening a portal to allow a public comment in the form of emails. We've all been given the emails and there are 34 of them. They all involve one topic, which is the topic of curbside service for breweries. When we get to a later part of our meeting, we can certainly discuss where we are on that, but I did want to mention and appreciate that we have the public comment available. I want to report just a little bit to our council and to our city where, how we're doing in this fight against the coronavirus. In many respects, as hard as this is, in one very important respect, we're doing well. In the past week, our daily rate of a coronavirus case increase has gone, has fallen from about 12% per day to about 8% per day. We are the large county in the state that has the slowest rate of growth of coronavirus cases, which we can be very proud of. Travel endurance down more than 40%. People are taking the stay at home order very, very, they're doing very well with it and taking it very seriously and social distancing and it's making a difference. We are flattening the curves. How do we compare to other regions around the country and around the world? I think it's very important to know. So, we know that, we know, we know the worst are places like New Orleans and New York and we know that Washington was a hotspot for a while, although it's improving. Our rate of case increase on the 27th day, since we began having cases for 27th day, our rate of increases about the same as South Korea. One of the places in the world that has done the best with the coronavirus. So, if we continue to do this work well, if we continue to stay socially distanced, I believe and our public health folks believe that we can continue to flatten the curve. The modeling from Duke University Health System says that we estimate the peak of our cases to be between April 24th and May the 2nd and that has been consistent in the modeling that they have done. This is a very hard time and again, Councilmember Austin said it better than I can but it needs to be said again. Our hearts go out to everyone in Durham who is suffering in some way because of this coronavirus. People have lost their jobs all over the country and right here in Durham and I know many of us have gotten emails of difficulties accessing the unemployment system and you know all kinds of difficulties that people are facing to the businesses that have had to shut their doors temporarily and hopefully only temporarily. Our hearts go out to you. There's so many people in Durham who are suffering because of this and we all want you to know how much we care and how much we're trying every day to get our city safely through this and to tell you all that the more quickly we can get through our peak and the more we can flatten the curve the more quickly we can reopen our businesses and Durham can be back in business again. We hope that this won't be long but it depends on us. If we can successfully socially distance and we can stay safe and we can flatten the curve, we will keep our medical our healthcare workers safe, we won't overburden our hospital and make it impossible for each of us to get good medical care should we need it and we will be able to more quickly get back into business as a city and that is that is our aim and that is that is something that we have to do together. But we are doing amazing work and we every one of us is working hard to do what we need to do and giving the gift of distance. It's a gift now. It's a kindness. I want to say that I believe deeply in the separation of church and state. We don't have prayers at our council meetings and but I do want to note that this is an important week for many religious people. This is the week of Easter. It's the week of Passover and I wanted to just tell our community that I've asked one of our council members, a pastor himself, Mark Anthony Middleton, to compose a prayer during this week for our city that our churches and synagogues and mosques can share this week. People of all denominations and he's agreed to do so and I really appreciate that. I want to ask everyone to please stay at home. Please do what we need to do to keep yourself safe and everyone else safe. Give your love from a distance. Take care of the elders. Be safe. We can do this together. We can fight this virus together. Each of us can act so all of us are safe. All right. And now we'll move into priority items and I'll ask first is there a priority of the city manager. Are there any priority items, Mr. Manager? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone, members of council. I'll have some remarks in a few minutes but for now I have no priority items. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Madam Attorney. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of city council, Madam Mayor Tim, the 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, Madam Clerk. All righty and now we'll move into our first item which is the report on the city's response to COVID-19 and I'm going to turn this over to the city manager. Thank you again, Mayor, members of the city council. Before we move into the more structured discussion on a variety of the COVID-19 topics, I would like to take a few minutes and provide some prepared remarks. As you know, the city of Durham was hit with a malware attack on the evening of March the 6th which significantly impacted our data and communications networks. This malware attack was followed very quickly with the realization of the impact COVID-19 would have on our community and the way many services could safely be provided to our residents. These back-to-back events have challenged us all beyond anything we could ever have experienced or even imagined. The city of Durham staff has always been at the pinnacle of public service professionalism and capabilities. Every time the bar has been raised, our staff has responded with resolve, innovation and dedication to public service. And I want to use this opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation to all of our employees and their past, present and future commitment of service to our community and the residents of Durham. It is truly my honor to be a part of a part of them. Today we have approximately 1250 front-line employees working every day and receiving premium pay. We also have 700 employees teleworking every day to keep Durham running. And at the same time, we have continued to pay and provide pay and benefits to an approximate 220 full-time and 250 part-time employees who are ready to support our services when called. As has been said, we have a long road ahead and no one knows for sure where it will lead and who will be impacted. But I have never been more proud or confident that our employees will respond and be up to the challenge of keeping our community safe, ever working to recover and return Durham to the community that we love and cherish. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, we have a number of staff people who are prepared to respond to a variety of issues that you have asked us to address this evening. I don't know if you have a particular order that you want them addressed. I will defer to you, but if there are, they are, they are ready and I can jump back in whenever that time comes. I think you'd wanted to hear about some operational issues. Oh, no, you want to hear about the EOC first? Yes. I was thinking we would first hear about the EOC, then about the operational issues, and then the, any order that you wanted to call the departmental reports. Is that okay? So the first speaker will be Jim Groves. Mr. Mayor, council members, this is Jim Groves. I hope you can see me okay? Yes, we can, Jim. Thank you, sir. So one, thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to talk with you this evening. I'd like to give you a quick brief of what we've been doing in the EOC and maybe actually share what the Emergency Operations Center is for the folks that are listening in or tuning in and kind of go a better understanding of what that is. The EOC or the Emergency Operations Center is a centralized function that provides interagency coordination that is supported by executive decision making in supportive emergencies and disasters. So really what that means is the EOC is structured to promote communication, information sharing, and a better way that we can understand and coordinate and collaborate together to respond to any emergency or disaster. In Durham County, our EOC is structured to really promote accountability and action. We have it structured similarly to the incident command system or ICS where we have an EOC manager that's responsible for the daily or the operational period actions that's going on within the EOC. You all may know that Ms. Leslie O'Connor has been taking care of those duties since the beginning of COVID. Within the realm of the EOC manager, they are supported by the Public Information Officer within the EOC, the Liaison Officer within the EOC, and then the Safety Officer within the EOC. And they also have different chiefs and that's not a rank that's a title within the Emergency Operations Center, but they have an operations chief that really does the hands-on work of what we've been asked to do. We have a planning section chief that is constantly looking forward 12 to 24 hours and finding out and determining and planning for what we need to be doing before the next operational period begins. We have a finance admin that administrative section chief that is looking at the total funds that we're spending on resources, on personnel, on supplies, and then lastly we have a logistic section chief and the logistic section chief is really looking at those resources and resource management that we need to bring every effort that we can to respond to whatever event that we're dealing with. Each of those chiefs has a large staff that's working within to accomplish these tasks. For example, in the operations section we have a human services branch, we have a public safety branch, and we have an infrastructure branch. And within each of those branches, those people are working on specific tasks. For an example, one of the interagency groups under operations is the homeless population and how we're dealing with that with COVID. And also food security and how we're dealing with that. And then also we're working with the public schools on the things that are going on with them and the children being out of school. The EOC is typically set up for any type of hazard that we may need to respond to. But specifically for the COVID event, we're operating just a little differently than we typically do for public health. Usually when we activate, emergency management is set by ordinance to be in charge and running this. We know that public health and this is a public health event really is the subject matter expert. So within our activation of this EOC, we are fully in support of public health and anything that they may need. So our main job is to get the cadence of the operations, to make sure we're getting briefings done, to make sure we're giving situational reports, to make sure we're sharing information appropriately across all different areas of the city and the county, private, public, non-profit, to just make sure folks kind of know really what's going on. That's a really high overview of what's going on with the EOC. I can tell you that we were monitoring the COVID before it ever came to Durham County. We activated the Emergency Operations Center before COVID was in Durham County. We drafted the state of emergency to make sure that we were prepared for anything that may happen as a result of this. We continue to do long-term planning. We're looking weeks in advance to think if this thing really goes out of control, although the message that you shared, Mr. Mayor, that we are really low on the curve, which is beautiful, to say that turns around. And so we're planning on weeks that if it does not stay to that trend, we're prepared and we've got a plan to be able to do that. And then obviously we're fielding questions from management and from elected officials to make sure that they are able to share with their constituents as much as they can. Happy to take any questions that you might have. Jim, thank you so much and thank you for your leadership. And thanks to Leslie, who's been wonderful and all the folks in the EOC. And I know this time you've had a, usually the EOC is a kind of tight pact. I've been in there during previous emergencies and everybody's sitting in the same rooms, real shoulder to shoulder. This is a whole nother ball game for you all as well. It is, sir. And we had to activate our Emergency Operations Center actually in the HHS building this time because unfortunately our existing EOC is just not set up to be able to facilitate social distancing like we need to. So we did move over to the ABC classrooms at HHS to be able to accomplish that safely for our staff and support staff. Great. Alrighty, thank you so much. And I'm now going to ask council members, if you have a question for Mr. Groves, if you could raise your hand. And I hope I'll be able to see it. Council member Reese. All right, I think I've unmuted myself. Mr. Mayor, there have been a couple of comments from members of the public on the Facebook stream about folks that are concerned about the fact that the Durham Public Schools ended, at least for now, its meal program for kids in the public schools. Today, I believe they gave a number of meals to kids. And now where the parents are getting guidance about other programs. I'm wondering if, Jim, if you can talk a little bit about what the folks at the EOC know about the options that are available to families right now. So I can share with you that we have been in close communication with the schools and the support agencies and the volunteer agencies that may support the feeding for the children. We have a phone call plan with them tomorrow to try to facilitate a successful outcome with this. So we do not have children and families going unfed. But I think that's the best information I can share with you is we have assembled a team and interagency task force that is working with the public schools that includes volunteer organizations, nonprofit organizations, and anyone, any subject matter expert that we think that we can bring to bear to have those conversations to try to develop a solution for this. Let me just add, Jim, thank you. It's today, as Council Member Reece said, during public schools gave out meals. They have been feeding about 5,500 children a day. They gave out meals. My understanding is today to last for the week, lots of food with stable shelf life. I know that the Durham Public Schools Foundation is working hard to step into the breach. With Durham Public Schools announced it could no longer do this because of lack of personnel, the Durham Public Schools Foundation is stepping up to work with the public schools to organize the feeding of these children. It's going to cost a lot of money and there are people who are contributing mightily, but I will say to members of our public, one way you can help is to contribute to the Durham Public Schools Foundation who's going to be working to feed these children. As Jim said, it'll take a lot of partners, but they're planning to step up and lead this effort and have done a lot of really good work to do so. Council Member Reece, another comment or question? Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to say how grateful I am for your leadership on this issue. If I'm correctly informed, I believe your family has posted a $10,000 match, so any members of the public who want to support feeding our Durham Public Schools families, but also maybe make it a little bit painful for the mayor, this is a great opportunity to hit where it hurts and do it for our kids. As soon as we're done here today, I intend to do my work on that. So thanks, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions or comments from Mr. Groves? Alrighty, seeing none, Jim, thank you. Mr. Mayor, thank you for the opportunity to address you and the council. We really appreciate what you're doing. It's hard and you've always been such a good leader. So thank you to you. Thank you to Leslie, Ari, everybody over there has just been doing great, so thank you. Appreciate it, sir. Mr. Mayor, next I think we're going to have Bo Ferguson talk a bit about our outward-facing operations. Welcome, Bob. Thank you, Mayor. Members of Council, good evening. I want to thank Jim Groves for his report and also add my sentiments to those of City Manager Tom Bonfield who expressed appreciation and an acknowledgement of the privilege that it is to be part of this team right now and to work with the employees who are doing such great work. It's really been a privilege. And one group I just wanted to make great comments about before my report, one of the groups that's probably not getting mentioned as often is those some 250 employees that Tom said are at home and not able to telework as well as a number of teleworkers who it's really gut-wrenching for them to not be reporting to work. And some of the reports that I'm getting from department directors is how they're being asked repeatedly by some of those staff, when can we come back and when can we get back in the field. And while we know it was absolutely the right decision to keep them home, I want to reiterate that many of them perform extremely important and essential services for the citizens and the residents of Durham and we will be returning them as quickly as it's safe for our community to do so, but I wanted to acknowledge that some of our heroes are the ones who are sitting at home and helping us not to spread this and I just wanted to point that out. Briefly, I've been asked to just give a high-level overview of what departments in the operations portfolio are maintaining in terms of services right now and to note a few that have been suspended. This is not a comprehensive list, just tried to pull out the highlights. And I'd also note for anyone listening that this could change over time. We are constantly evaluating what services we're able to continue to provide and what the community needs right now, but acknowledge that that could be changing in consultation with the manager and the leadership on the council as we move forward. So briefly and in no particular order, I wanted to walk through the departments in the operations portfolio. There are nine departments, I'll be reporting on eight and I know that the police chief, Sarah-Lynn Davis, is on this call as well and she'll provide any information from the police department separately. So beginning first with the public works department for services that we are definitely maintaining and continuing to provide. We are still providing emergency street and concrete repairs. We are providing limited litter collection and bus stop cleaning just at those high-use facilities. There is and this goes for several departments including water management and parks and recreation. We are providing limited construction inspection and plan review to support the ongoing residential and commercial development activity in the city. But some key public works services that are currently suspended are permanent and long-range concrete and asphalt repairs. Stormwater maintenance services are suspended. All capital projects and I'll repeat this when we get to general services, but any large capital construction projects underway in the city have been paused to ensure that as many people as possible are staying home. Obviously with all of our facilities closed, all of our walk-in customer service has been suspended at any city facility and field investigation of any stormwater complaints has also been suspended. Moving on to water management and those services that are ongoing, obviously all our water and wastewater plants have to remain online and all the maintenance at those plants must continue. But we are modifying shifts and schedules to limit as much employee to employee contact and exposure as possible. The water distribution and sewer collection system maintenance has to continue to make sure that that system provides safe water and safe sewer services to our city. But again we have reduced staffing to only perform reactive maintenance or work activities that are required by our collection system permits. Our utility billing and meter reading is continuing. Our lift station maintenance is continuing as well and previously I mentioned that development support continues. A few things that we have suspended that are in the water management area of services. Any in-home water use assessments have been suspended. We will do online or we will do telephone consultations with people who have questions or concerns. Likewise we will not go into homes right now for water quality testing and sampling, but we can take samples for people who have water quality concerns from an outside hose or faucet so that is something that continues. And finally as has been widely publicized there are no service disconnections for non-payment going on right now and no late fees for anyone who is struggling to pay their bills at this time. Moving on to solid waste. Garbage and recycling maintain a normal service and normal collections. We have reduced staffing on trucks from three to two for our rear load trucks to ensure appropriate social distancing. Our transfer station and convenience center remain open but only to those customers who have contracts with us. That means that we're able to accept that waste without any person-to-person contact. We did have to suspend kind of retail people who just use the convenience center for household trash or small customers so that we could eliminate that person-to-person contact. All of our customer service operation remains functional. Those employees are working from home and our composting operation continues. We have suspended yard waste collections and bulky collections as well as bulk cardboard collections. We did that specifically to make sure that we could have enough staff to maintain the garbage and recycling collection. Those services will be restarted when we are able to provide the manpower to do so but likely not until the state home order has been lifted. Moving to general services. Some of our unsung heroes in this unfortunate time have been our custodians and so we have had to maintain core custodial services at critical facilities where we still have daily staff activity and we certainly have very enhanced cleaning protocols that our custodians have put into place. Likewise the staff at our cemeteries continue to perform burial services only limited services but still a very necessary service unfortunately. As well in general services the monitoring of critical building facilities and checking on buildings that have been closed and are not being occupied by normal employees we're doing basic checks to make sure all those buildings maintain the operations and that we don't have any maintenance problems in those buildings. From home a number of our staff continue to work on all the various projects and portfolio in this portfolio and all the real estate work that general services manages and we are also right now doing some limited monitoring of litter and landscaping in the landscape division of general services also keeping an eye on litter and maintenance downtown and right of way but most right of way maintenance right now has been suspended. Finally our urban forestry group is providing emergency response but but not some of their core basic services. So the suspended functions in general services includes construction projects all projects managed by general services all the capital projects and enhancements that they manage have been suspended. Most of our landscaping service as mentioned previously mowing and litter cleanup have all been deferred. Urban forestry their tree planting work and their not urgent tree requests are deferred and obviously there's no KDB activities going on. I would note here and again in parks and recreation that at some point right of way maintenance and parks mowing and maintenance while currently not considered critical services may become critical service as the growing season continues this does become a problem for site distances along the roadways as well as functional basic use of the parks and so several weeks in we may move some of those employees into a limited operational role but we'll be evaluating that as we move forward. So moving on to parks and recreation as well you all know that there are very limited ongoing functions the only facilities that remain open are parks trails and greenways. We are not doing any core parks maintenance at this time but again that's something we may stand up in a few weeks. We are working very hard in a virtual environment to continue to do all the wonderful things that DPR does on a normal basis. So the marketing staff is working hard to make sure we're promoting leave no trace programs for people who do use the parks since we don't have normal litter pickup please take your trash with you and DPR is working very hard to push those messages as well as the important critical social distancing messages that we need to have going in our parks. Likewise DPR has created a number of virtual programs so if you go to DPR's YouTube channel you can and follow us on social media you can see exercise classes activities that parents can do with their children. We have a virtual egg hunt that DPR is planning that I'm excited to learn more about. We have very limited park inspections and limited development review activities. As far as suspended functions most of the core functions in DPR have been suspended to include drop-in programs leagues and activities they've all been canceled until further notice. We've canceled all special events through at least the end of May 2020 all rentals and activities have been canceled at any DPR facility until further notice. Recreation centers and pools are closed city lakes are closed and many park amenities including skate park tennis courts pickleball disc golf courses restrooms dog parks shelters athletic fields and basketball courts are all closed. That has remained an area of concern for us and so I take this opportunity for anyone who's listening to please respect the stay at home order please respect that those facilities are not to be used at this time and we're taking additional measures to secure those facilities to make sure they're not not being used. Our fleet department continues to provide core basic services to all the departments with vehicles in the city so their maintenance and repair of vehicles especially to essential public health and safety vehicles continues as well as special disinfectant and cleaning protocols for those vehicles the course fleet continues to acquire and distribute fuel for all the important city fleet. Lower level maintenance within the fleet department has been suspended until further notice. Moving to the public safety departments our fire department are critical first-line responders during this time and very grateful for all the precautions and excellent service they're providing as as expected fire suppression and emergency medical service technical rescue hazardous materials vehicle accident and other rescue type responses have all been maintained however we have been following the direction of the county medical director and have changed our EMS response protocol for fire personnel they are being dispatched only on critical calls at this time not to a non-emergency or non-critical calls and of course have a great deal of protocol that they are following in those scenarios to keep our first responder firefighters safe. Fire investigations do continue some minimal construction related fire inspections and referral or life safety complaints continue to be investigated as well as foster care and inspections. We are still able to offer a smoke alarm and CO alarm delivery but we are not going into homes we're not making contact with residents not able to install those as is our normal protocol. So the the functions they have suspended again the the first responder EMS role has been scaled back to only be for critical situations a number of educational events that our fire department does so well have all been canceled fire station visits have been canceled the number of other community outreach activities as well as our ongoing recruitment efforts in the department have been paused. The last department I'll report out on is emergency communications 9-1-1 this group with the help of our excellent technology services department made a tremendous recovery from the malware attack and pleased to say that all of their systems remained operational but through tremendous efforts of a number of staff now our 9-1-1 system is fully functional has remained fully functional and is not seeing any service related reductions due to COVID while we're taking a number of measures to protect our staff and ensure that protocols are followed that to keep them distant we have not had to scale back and will not be scaling back any 9-1-1 services they remain a critical part not just of responding to this emergency but also providing good information to first responders and fire EMS and the police department who are heading out to calls to make sure that they know if they're heading to a COVID related call and to take appropriate precautions so mr mayor as I said earlier police department is on this call they're the ninth department obviously playing a critical role and they'll report out separately but that concludes my comments I'm happy to answer any questions now or follow up with council later if there's information that I have. Thank you for that great report let me uh mr manager yeah let me just jump in real quick if I could in the interest of time I didn't have each of the deputy city managers you know prepare remarks about their operations I thought most of the pieces that council members and the public would be concerned about mr Ferguson could cover but I did want to mention certainly and a lot of behind the scenes things going on with technology solutions paychecks are still getting sent out you know bills are still being paid all of the telecommuting work that's going on that most people don't know happens they just take for granted anyway and then in the community building portfolio you'll hear more about the the work that OEWD is is doing with small business we are still fairly fairly operational in the development services arena both in the planning and the inspections departments they are doing everything online we still have inspectors going out because we still have tremendous construction activity going on and then you'll hear from community development shortly but also even neighborhood improvement services is looking for opportunities to continue community engagement virtually and there's quite a bit going on there too so that the danger in starting to report about who's doing what as you always leave somebody out and I'll hear about it first thing in the morning but I did want to make some notes that came at the top of my mind certainly Bo is prepared to respond any of those operational questions as the as am I thank you thank you very much mr manager and thank you both for a great report and now I'm going to ask for questions council member Reese great thank you mr mayor both fantastic report first of all I just want to say how much I appreciate the continued service of our frontline employees who are making the city work at the most difficult time in our history really an unprecedented series of events and I'm just so grateful to them and to the rest of the administration for everything they're doing right now a couple of questions did come up that I wanted to ask you about first of all with respect to solid waste we've also currently suspended bulky item pickup is that right I just correct and with respect to yard waste pickup I know that we've suspended that are we still charging that monthly fee right now no they have suspended the monthly fee and I'm not aware of any concerns about that still being billed but if anyone does receive that bill please let us know we'll make sure and try and figure that out but as it was our intention not to be billing that monthly fee that's great thank you that's what I thought with respect to parks the parks and rec department specifically about our greenway trails and parks have have you has the has the department received a ton of feedback or any feedback really about folks not exercising appropriate social distancing in those spaces I can speak anecdotally I don't have numbers about how many complaints have been received I know that they have received complaints specifically it has primarily seemed to be around athletic courts which we have taken additional measures over the last four or five days to both notify and then physically restrict those facilities where it all possible I can't speak to the volume about I know the city manager and the mayor and council have also received concerns that have been forwarded to myself in the department so would encourage people to continue to do that as well as to use the police non-emergency number that that has been advertised as a place for people to make reports we will when when resources are available and then we can dispatch officers to locations where people have a concern the officers can investigate and deal with that as appropriate um this isn't I don't I'm not sure this is in your portfolio a question about transportation um well presentation about transportation great I'll save my uh my questions till then thank you very much again appreciate all the amazing work thank you mr mayor are there any other questions sorry I apologize I was meeting myself I apologize councilmember middleton you're up and I think councilmember caballero did you also have a question okay councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor I got nervous there for a minute seeing your mouth move and I couldn't hear anything so I'm going to keep my distance thank you thank you I like it better that way when it doesn't come out nah nah good evening colleagues and to all watching um but let me just add um and to the city manager and to the mayor let me just add my words of commendation and just utter respect uh in awe at the job that the staff has been doing since the declaration of the state of emergency this staff has borne uh the brunt of the nuts and bolts of how this city keeps working uh since the declaration and um you know these are these are challenging times but but someone once said that the true test of character is taken during challenging times and and this this city workforce this municipal workforce is just um is making us all proud I do want to ask about uh our do we have everything we need in terms of PPE personal protection equipment for our front line workers and do we see any um uh issues on the horizon with making sure they have what they need as they go into situations I'll uh I'll address that now and I think there may be some other folks who could also contribute the um we want to give a shout out to the great work done by our risk management division under deputy city manager Wanda Page they have been closely tracking the CDC guidelines on PPE as it existed at the beginning of this uh event and as it has evolved over the a couple of weeks and continue to push out uh immediate updates to departments as to what the CDC is recommending for PPE at this time we uh we have had all of the core basic protective equipment of the that we need and but we continue to track as many governments do you know the potential for shortages uh and we also are making sure that we have good guidance from risk on on what is required and not uh not you know participating in um the exhaustion of those resources from the medical community who also needs those so I am as of today not aware of any shortages in departments uh working very closely with purchasing and risk to make sure we have the the appropriate uh gear but we will continue to to track that and there remains an area of concern as as you've heard multiple reports about uh but we are not immediately in in a dire situation with PPE thank you thank you mr mayor you're muted mr mayor I'll say it again are there any more questions for deputy city manager Ferguson uh mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um I've been on a number of the calls with EOC folks over the last couple of weeks and so I don't have a question but I just wanted to add my voice to the course of appreciation and um thanks for all of the work that the staff has been doing over the last couple of weeks um being on those calls it's been clear there's an incredible amount of work that's been happening and the collaboration between the city and the county and the public schools has been really strong um I know that those are the kinds of collaborations that we need right now and they're they're saving lives you know because we were able to act quickly and um and in cooperation with our other local governments um we are more better able to fight this um to fight this pandemic and we see that in the evidence that Durham is um is doing better than a lot of other communities in the country and so I just wanted to um extend my appreciation as well to all of our city staff and staff from the other organizations that have been working so hard to give us um to give us the the services that we need in this time and to make sure that we're doing the absolute best we can to slow the spread of this disease thank you thank you very much madam mayor pro tem uh any other questions or comments for uh bo bo I do have one thing that um Charlie's uh comment a lot of Charlie's questions made me I have heard concerns about social distancing on the American tobacco trail I've been on the American tobacco trail quite a lot uh over the past couple of weeks I haven't seen a lot of problems myself but I have heard from other people I don't know what the we have those great signs that we put into parks um for social distancing and I just we may uh have enough of them on the trail but I do want to just flag that that's why something somebody might want to look at especially with the ATT the other trails that I've been on have not been as crowded but um that might be something you want to give some thought to thank you mr. mayor we'll follow up on that any other questions or comments for bo both uh I'm sorry councilmember Freeman uh well I know questions but thank you for your work and I apologize I have to use my cell phone I know I'm a soft talker so I just want to make sure that you can hear me okay just noting I do realize that the the differences for people that are unhoused um have been raised as a question and I just want to make sure that that is addressed and I'm not sure if that's something Tom or Reginald want to address or if it's bo but I just want to make sure that that is raised we actually have a report on that a little bit later in the meeting um we're gonna we're gonna hear from community development on that important topic thank you yeah thank you all right anything else for bo oh thank you thank you really appreciate you mr. mayor I think it might be good to move to the transit piece now and have Sean Egan talk about that before we have Chief Davis talk about enforcement all right Sean welcome thank you mr. mayor I appreciate the opportunity uh to come and speak about the important work that we're doing in transit here so uh during this event across Durham go Durham bus and go Durham access pair transit continue to provide transit service for essential travel enabling those who work at our hospitals nursing homes grocery stores and pharmacies to continue to serve the Durham community while also providing travel for people to access critical goods and services during this emergency two weeks ago we began using rear doors for boarding the buses while also suspending fare collection making bus a free service for the essential employees caring for our community during this event we also implemented new sanitation measures for both our vehicles and facilities on our buses interior passenger areas and driver compartments are cleaned daily with lisa this includes seats windows floors and handholds Durham station is being cleaned daily and the platform is pressure washed and workers are cleaning all door handles and knobs once an hour during operation with sanitizing wipes we've modified go Durham bus service to reduce the impact of this event on our employees who continue to work tirelessly for our community go Durham service now ends daily at 9 30 p.m and service frequency has been reduced on several routes including the four 5k 7 10 b 11 11 b and 20 with these changes we continue to provide more than 80 percent of our regularly scheduled service this enables us to avoid crowding and maintain social distancing on our services where ridership remains at approximately two-thirds of normal levels would like to take a moment to recognize our employees go Durham operators and all of our frontline colleagues face the same pressures as everyone else right now they have families kids out of school loved ones with health concerns and many may know someone already impacted by COVID-19 despite these pressures and despite understandable concerns our workforce is showing up out of a sense of duty to our community in recognition of the extraordinary work our bus and paratransit operators and the support staff who make our service possible we are providing premium pay for our workforce during this event a 5% pay increase is in line with the premium pay made available for city employees working in the field through this event we are most grateful for the dedication and professionalism of go Durham bus and access staff who make essential travel possible during this time with that I'll take any questions thank you very much Sean we appreciate it so much I'm going to now ask if there are any questions for Sean uh council member Reese Sean thank you so much for that report I've been so impressed with the steps that go Durham has taken during this crazy time to make sure that that backbone of reliable service remains in effect for the folks who need it so many of the workers who've been deemed essential by our stay at home orders are low income workers who who rely heavily on our bus service and the fact that go Durham has remained largely up with a tremendous amount of continued frequency is impressive also impressive are the measures that the department took to to create more separation between operators and passengers with respect to rear of the bus loading and of course going fare free I want to say my biggest praise though as you did for our operators who are just doing an incredible job right now operating that lifeline for our our the employees the folks in Durham who need that bus service the most and I just want to thank you for your leadership on that I had a question that was a little bit related to parks but I wanted to ask it of of you Sean one of the suggestions that I've heard a number of times over the last week or so is that in response to what the mayor has heard and I know I've heard it although I have not seen it personally and I know a number of us heard is overcrowding and lack of social distancing in some of our parks and greenways if the city of Durham would consider closing any city streets in order to give folks more opportunities more places to be outside to walk and to run other than the existing greenway trail system wanted to listen to your thoughts about that sure I mean as was mentioned earlier we have had a number of citizens express their concerns about the American tobacco trail for example and crowding there and what we're really focused on right now is getting the message out and supporting that message that people should be taking trips only for essential travel and then also maintaining social distancing so that of the places where we've heard reports the tobacco trail is the highest volume of reports that we've heard so far so we'll be looking at additional measures that we can take to do that in terms of closing roadways there's not a clear roadway that runs parallel that would be appropriate for closing for the tobacco trail but we'll continue to monitor areas where we see that we've also made a series of changes on our roadways for pick up and drop off zones for our restaurants for example for carry out and we're continuing to see good utilization of that but we haven't seen as much crowding on the roads themselves so we'll continue to monitor that and as appropriate we'll look at the example of some other cities have taken we've been in discussions with our colleagues in the National Association of City Transportation Officials around the country and we're working closely about to monitor best practices and we'll implement them as appropriate here in Durham. Thanks Sean and you reminded me of one other thing I wanted to mention that I'll be done and that is how great flam that the city suspended the paid-on street parking during this period to provide some additional space for takeout parking for our downtown restaurants and also opening the gates on the city-owned parking decks I think those are really important steps right now where we are hopefully obviously it has encouraged a lot of people to come downtown except to pick up food which has been great I know a number of us have been through downtown by car during this time and it's really wild to see what the city looks like in any event Sean I just wanted to thank you or everything that you've really been put into the fire very quickly and I just want to say I'm really grateful to the way you stepped up to the challenge and helped lead the department in this difficult time thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Council Member Austin and then Council Member Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor I'm high Sean thank you for your work just I understand the social distancing measures you're trying to cultivate with the changes in the service and you know the reloading for the buses are folks who board the buses being asked to kind of self-regulate your social distancing or is there anything going on to separate passengers? So right now we're doing that with signage we're also doing that with voice announcements on the buses asking people to maintain that six feet of distance and then we've put up signage around our system before people board as a reminder to do that so we're continuing to try to find creative ways to get that message out but it's not something that we're asking staff to enforce we're we're asking our riders to maintain that same social distance. Great thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Mayor I think you're muted again but you had already recognized this. Council Member Middleton thank you. I'll let you work that out man. Sean thank you so much I want to associate myself with Council Reese's comments I think he aptly captures the characterization of how important transportation is and our ridership here in Durham so I want to associate myself with his comments I do have a specific question I know we've observed in other cities around the country that transportation public transportation oftentimes has been a challenge for social distance that's by virtue of volume obviously we're not in New York we don't have that type of ridership but I think all of us were just struck if we didn't see that that Facebook post that video of that operator I think it was in Detroit who posted this very very visceral appeal about someone that was coughing on the bus and I'm just wondering if our operators I think it's great that we're paying them at a premium number one our operators being provided with any type of PPE mask or gloves or anything like that and if not do we have any plans to do that? So as both said we're working very closely and monitoring the recommendations from the CDC and looking at regularly assessing the level of risk of exposure as well as the equipment and the recommendations. So right now some of our operators may choose to wear a mask and gloves but we're not issuing masks at this point we'll continue to monitor that and as the situation develops and monitor the availability of equipment but we're right now we're allowing that where the operators decide that they want to bring that. So as we monitor is the only metric availability I mean we're not looking for any anything else other than availability to decide whether or not we're going to issue them is that fair? I think that the guidance is evolving as Poe mentioned from the CDC as well about how to gauge the appropriate level of risk so we'll continue to work with our risk management division on that. Sure. We also addressed the paratransit operators and the precautions we take there. Sure so what we typically do is offer door-to-door service for our paratransit customers. What we're asking them now is to is if possible to go curb to curb to try to limit the amount of contact or interaction between our operators and our riders on the service and to try to limit the amount of time and maintain as much as possible the appropriate distance our access paratransit riders have disabilities that require additional assistance but they also understand the risk and the concerns and the importance of social distancing so we've got a very good response from our access paratransit riders and they understand the importance of social distancing and are working with our staff to do everything they can to maintain that. Now I'm sure staff will check me but I think the CDC just recently said that they advise Americans now to start wearing masks in public. I'm pretty sure that was the CDC but I'm sure I'll be checked. I don't know how that will factor into our decision in terms of our operators on Goldurum but I have no doubt that we will be proactive and we will be doggedly determined to do everything to protect them as they do this vital work they keep in the city going. So thank you so much for the work you're doing under just incredible incredible circumstances. Thank you. Thank you councilmember. Other questions for Sean? Councilmember Caballero? I just wanted clarification are none of the I understand the Goldurum operators for our regular services but what about with the paratransit I'm just thinking about the extra brisk with our some of our disabled residents. So I don't when I guess what I'm asking is are there different standards for each system? So there are yeah there are different there are different levels of interaction on the two systems so I think as we move into the PPE issue and making that we'll have priority for our Goldurum access staff. Thank you. Other questions for Sean? Sean I do have one just two I think that the new CDC guidance which recommends people wearing masks whether they're basically whether they're in six feet of someone else or think they might be or will be is important information for us. I really hope we I would like to see our bus drivers wearing masks. I think that that is the current guidance and I just I worry about them so much when we still have I think 14,000 boardings a day if I'm not mistaken. That's you know I know not not each boarding is one person but you know thousands of people a day that's a lot of people for our drivers to come to contact with and so I just want to offer that. Yes sir. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to clarify that the CDC recommendation is for people to wear cloth masks in public not the medical masks in 95 or our surgical masks they're asking that we reserve those for healthcare workers. There are some folks in Durham who have been sewing cloth masks for donation to the community and I'm happy to get Sean and other folks at the city in touch with them to make sure that we can get some cloth masks for our employees. Thank you. Anybody else? Councilmember Cavietto. Yeah additionally there is mixed so the CDC did recommend facial masks but there is one risk which is that folks tend to touch their faces more because they're not used to wearing masks because they're not healthcare workers so it's just a equipment they're not used to dealing with so that it has been one of the risks associated with it so I just wanted to raise that as well so if folks are wearing masks just to be even more careful because you are more likely to touch your face. Thank you. All right thank you so much and Sean thank you appreciate your being here. Thank you all for all your good work we really appreciate it. All right Mr. Manager who's next? I think next we ought to have Chief Davis talk about the police response and enforcement if that's okay. Great Chief welcome are you with us? There she is. Hello Chief yes we can good to see you. Thank you good to see you too thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide an update about patrol operations in the Durham Police Department during this current crisis so I'll start with saying that first of all about three weeks ago we began assessing our response to calls for service in light of the recent emergency orders related to COVID-19 which were initially enacted by the city and the state in collaboration with the Durham 911 Emergency Communication Center we have worked to establish new call taking protocols the modifications allow for effective screening of all calls for service dispatching only calls that require the presence of a DPD police officer and less serious offenses such as stolen property reports and incidents where a suspect is not on scene or handled by phone. Other COVID-19 information only calls are vetted by designated 911 call takers and if appropriate COVID-19 related calls that require an officer's response are dispatched to patrol. Durham one call has also assisted with vetting information only calls and responding to citizen inquiries hence avoiding the disruption of 911 emergency call taking. Also a series of internal communications have been distributed to all patrol officers as a companion document to the state and local orders to guide our officers in the application of each order enacted by the governor the city or the county. As stay-at-home orders are amended the Durham Police Department's internal guidelines are immediately updated to incorporate changes in our enforcement methods. Calls for service continue to be moderate and officers have been effective in utilizing distant verbal commands or public announcement systems our PA systems that are in the vehicles to communicate with people violating any aspect of the stay-at-home orders. There have been no COVID-19 related violations that resulted in citations or enforcement action at this time. Officers have encountered only a few small crowds in the earlier stages of the first stay-at-home order about three weeks ago. However over this past weekend April between April 2nd and the 5th the Durham Police Department responded to at least 10 incidents of individuals congregating in groups of four more to play basketball, soccer or related sports and a call related to a barbecue or cookout of sorts on a parking deck in the downtown area. Officers also responded to an incident where about 15 people congregated socially at a private residence. This call was originally dispatched as a noise complaint and then once the officers responded realized that there were several people at that particular location. In all cases officers responded and reminded the congregants of the city state the city's active stay-at-home order and compliance followed without incident. This weekend's calls were an obvious uptick of the number of people feeling the need to get outside socialize and return to normal but while they may have felt their actions were innocuous this type disregard of the city's stay-at-home order could ultimately have great consequences. Officers responded to only a few calls where citizens reported businesses not in compliance due to the number of patrons at the business location. Upon arrival officers reminded the violators of the active state and local orders impacting certain business operations and then owners quickly comply. Our officers also have a letter with my signature basically to provide to owners or businesses that are in non-compliance or violating the current stay-at-home orders. We have not had to issue those letters at this time but they've been updated recently and we are prepared to post those orders when necessary. Throughout this crisis it is our priority to maintain a healthy workforce to continue the highest levels of response and service delivery to the community we are sworn to serve. However we need our citizens to do their part in slowing the spread of COVID-19. We will continue to provide updates and pertinent public safety information through a myriad of social media streams to encourage everyone to stay at home. Ideally through continuous communication and reminders we hope to leverage voluntary compliance amongst the masses. Our message to the public at large is to exercise good judgment and comply with social distancing and that we should all be ambassadors for ensuring compliance of the existing stay-at-home orders so that we can all return to normalcy in a very very short order. I don't have anything else. I do want to thank the administration also for recognizing essential employees with premium pay and additional leave. I think it meant a lot to our frontline officers and they are very very grateful for that consideration. I also want to thank our officers while I have this opportunity because the men and women of Durham Police Department remain out there on the front lines. They have been on wavering, they have been committed and and to some degree heroic to continue to work without complaining and I really really do appreciate them and honored to lead the Durham Police Department. Thank you Mayor Shull. Chief thank you so much for a great report. I've been really worried and along with our bus drivers and others I've been very worried about our police officers especially reading about some other cities. The number of police officers in Detroit that have come down with COVID-19 or been quarantined the enormous number of officers in New York and I'm hoping that because you know you got started early and we got started early with the training and the distancing that we can protect our officers but it's been on my mind a lot and I'm glad that I know our officers are out there and I'm very appreciative of them. They are appreciative of you too. So council members questions for Chief Davis. Council member Reese. Hi Chief Davis thank you for a great report. I just wanted to say how grateful I am to you for your leadership of the department at really this unprecedented time in our history. I've been following along with our with the daily incident reports and seeing the staffing levels where they are is a testament to the type of people that are employed by the Durham Police Department and your leadership and so I just want to second what you said about our patrol officers who are out there every day. I also wanted to thank you on Friday afternoon you posted a really fantastic post on Facebook about how the stay-at-home orders are going to be enforced in the city of Durham. You identified three things the first of which was the very first question I got from someone on social media about the stay-at-home order which is are people going to get pulled over and asked to pay their papers show me some kind of certificate that they're allowed to be out driving and what I said then is amazingly enough exactly what you said is that that's not reasonable and articulable suspicion to engage on traffic stop and so I just wanted to thank you for that and for the really solid way that the department has operated during this wild period in our city's history. I did want to ask one question about related to the question that was asked about bus drivers. What is the current protocol for our officers in terms of wearing masks when they engage with members of the public? Well you know on the national stage and recommendations initially were sort of like you know misleading in a sense because even some of the the the professionals the researchers and all of the folks that we depend on to give us good advice have sort of shifted gears in what we should and shouldn't do and once the message came that an asymptomatic person should be wearing a mask we began making sure that all of our officers we started early making sure that all of our officers had PPE so that they could put masks on when they needed to in response but now they are wearing their masks during any type of encounter with the public. We've had some recent incidents where officers had to to wear masks where they were just basically responding to a noise complaint or something of that nature but we have instructed them to keep their distance and even though it seems to be a little bit impersonal to be 15 feet away from a caller and unfortunately and talking from the car we have instructed our officers to use the PA systems and do everything that they can to communicate be diplomatic in their communication and hopefully people will understand what that distance is really all about. That's great to hear. I didn't have anything else I wanted to say except say again thank you for everything that Facebook post was awesome. I'm just saying thank you for doing that. Thank you. Sorry every time Mark Anthony wants to speak I'm muting myself. Mark Anthony. Councilmember Milton. I won't read too much into that. Chief thank you so much. We're finding out here in Durham sure enough what the country already knew about you about the level of leadership. I mean that that you bring to the job and unfortunately sometimes the better parts of leaders don't show up until times of times of challenge and controversy as Dr. King said and we are certainly benefiting from all that you bring as a leader and I'm glad to hear the conversation about PPN and this is something I'm going to stay on and not only with the bus drivers and frontline workers but the police department in particular something that really struck me there are more New York City police officers that have contracted this virus than the size of our police force. That's right. Just let that be a marinate on that for a minute and it would be a nightmare scenario for our department to have this thing just run through it and the ranks of it so I just want to lean in and just one thank you for all that you're doing on this time of crisis and just again lean in on letting us know anything you need in terms of PPE and making sure that our departments and frontline workers have what they need to keep them protected as they do their job. I'm going to ask you quickly without compromising any operational security or anything. Are there any enforcement posture changes or priorities that have been again if it goes into operational security don't answer me but are there enforcement priorities that have been outlined that would make it less likely that they would have to come into contact with the public unnecessarily? Well you know one thing we keep reiterating to our officers is that there will be no call that won't be dealt with. We will absolutely respond to every call whether it's by phone or in person. So what we've tried to do is sort of set up a strategy so that officers did not have to have encounters of individuals who just simply want a police report. So it shifted manner in which we're responding but the the actual volume of our calls we're still receiving about the normal range of calls for service. The calls have changed just slightly but officers interactions in the manner in which they address various types of even criminal activity is different. And the level of communication is probably greater than it has been in the past basically to try to mitigate a situation without making an arrest if at all possible. Right citations if that's the best way to resolve an issue. Unfortunately we're still the police and we still had some incidents that we've had to respond to but my priority and my concern is the health of the organization so that they can continue to respond to the citizens of Durham and wanting to make sure that they stay healthy and their families stay healthy and and and none of that is compromised in their work. Thank you. Thank you chief. Thank you council member. Any other questions for council member Austin. Good evening. I don't have any questions I just want to kind of echo my colleagues in their gratitude and just share you know we have some families that live outside the United States and they live in an area where you know many of the folks in their neighborhood and people that they know have just left kind of with their lights on they've left everything in their homes left their pets and just fled not necessarily because of COVID fear of COVID-19 but because of fear of how we'll be enforced how orders would be enforced and so I just want to kind of again echo my colleagues and appreciate your work and your leadership and how you responded to this crisis so thank you so much for your work and I appreciate you. Thank you. Best wishes to you. Thank you. Thank you council member. Mayor Pro-Chem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Chief thank you for your work. I just wanted to also appreciate you and your leadership during this crisis and all the work that your staff are doing and especially your enforcement priorities making sure that we're getting compliance without using you know the sort of punitive measures that I think folks in our community have been concerned about so I want to appreciate that approach from you and also just to bring into the conversation that our county jail has been working really hard to reduce the population in the jail so that they can do social distancing releasing folks as much as possible pretrial and letting people who have any sort of medical complications out of jail and so I just also want to appreciate any work that we can do as a police department to make sure that you know during this time the option that we you know are not increasing the jail population by you know by putting people in there who don't necessarily need to be in there and I know that that's what we try to do all the time. I feel like this crisis has kind of heightened a lot of our existing priorities around you know transit being affordable and you know people having access to great space as well as those you know public safety priorities that were dealing with those issues as much as possible without without sending people to to be in a situation where they'd be less safe in a congregate living situation like the jail so thank you. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I cast member Reese. I saw something and then someone said something and I remembered it. Chief as you know North Carolina has some very odd law about not wearing masks in public and I've had more than one person reach out to me and say you know what I know that recently I know that the CDC guidance has changed and encourages folks to to wear masks when they're out in public but you know I'm not comfortable doing that. Right. It was two black men who approached me and said I or how do I how do I navigate this situation. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how you think your officers are going to handle those situations during this time when a lot more people are going to be wearing masks. Well I think my response will be during a time that we're all dealing with a pandemic a person wearing a mask doesn't stand out as is being you know a person that says that or anything like that. I really don't think it's on the front of lobe of my officers thoughts right now. Everybody's wearing masks and we want them to be to be able to protect themselves and protect the public. So I don't think that that that issue has raised a concern with us just yet. I think that our officers too have a pretty good intuition about individuals that you know are basically wearing a snoopy mask you know or some printed kind of material on their face to protect themselves. We're seeing a lot of that and I haven't I haven't run into that as an issue just yet but I guess individuals who have felt some type of apprehension about that in the past may be a little bit concerned but that might be another tweet that I might have to send out in response to frequently asked questions. Can I wear a mask to protect myself absolutely. Thank you Chief. I appreciate that clarity. Thanks. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. So I wanted to thank Council Member Ruiz for bringing that up. It's also something that's been on my mind and something that I think our General Assembly delegation should bring to to the governor and as we have one of the soon-to-be newest members of our General Assembly delegation here wanted to make sure Council Member Austin had that on them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do want to note that I very much enjoyed seeing one of Charlie's kids run in here and give him a hug. That doesn't happen a lot at Council meetings so it's bedtime so you know gotta do it. Yeah okay Chief thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you for being here and let us know how to support you. Absolutely. Thank you all. Thank you. All right Mr. Manager who's up next. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I thought it might be good now to transition to hear from Colin Davis who's leading the task force at the EOC on homelessness. Right. There have been a lot of questions about that and hopefully Colin can answer most of those for you. Thank you. Good afternoon or evening I guess. Good evening Colin. Good evening Council. So as you know we are working diligently to take care of our community members who are experiencing homelessness at the same time we are handling a COVID-19 pandemic crisis. We've been looking at various ways of resolving numerous issues because we have to look at the homeless population as really several distinct groups. We've got an unsheltered homeless population, a sheltered population of people who are homeless and then another group of people who are being exited from jails, prisons, hospitals who have nowhere to go that would ordinarily go into a shelter system. And then within each of those subpopulations we've got healthy people, we've got people who may be symptomatic, we may have people who are testing positive for COVID-19 and then we've got another group who are medically vulnerable and those are the people who are defined by CDC guidelines as more vulnerable to negative outcomes of this virus. So the EOC, the team in the EOC has been looking at how to handle all these various things as you're aware our shelters in Durham are predominantly congregate living facilities. Some have a few private bedrooms but they still share congregate kitchens where everybody comes together and cooks or you've got a whole bunch of bedrooms in a very close order. So we have been working through trying to reduce the number of people in our congregate shelters to achieve social distancing. We have been in the process of trying to set up hotels to be able to further create that self-quarantine self-isolation to create that distance and allow people the space they need to prevent illness and also have a place for people who are being discharged from medical care to come back to somewhere where they they'll have a place to recover should they not be sick enough to remain hospitalized. So as we continue to work through this we're working with the food task force to figure out feeding figure out how to get the hotels online and how to staff the hotels to ensure we've got adequate safety measures to take care of take care of the community as best we can. With that said there will probably be some people who will remain unsheltered during this during this process that we like that or not that's just a fact of the matter as we work through the coordinated entry process to achieve social distancing that are required. So at this point we're we're hoping to start moving some people tomorrow the procurement of hotel rooms has taken a lot longer than we ever anticipated so this is kind of where we are now as we have a plan in place we're working to execute the plan and hope to be rolling shortly and we have moved about a dozen people who are considered the most medically vulnerable out of the out of one of the congregate shelters to a local establishment local hotel that is able to accommodate them with appropriate social distancing so that they won't get sick. Our hope is to prevent as many people from getting sick as possible. Thank you very much, Colin. Colin I have a question in terms thank you for your work. I know you've done a great job and I've been following this and Mayor Pro Tem has been on the on the twice weekly calls concerning the work that everyone's doing around homelessness has been amazing. I was on one of those calls and have been keeping up with it's an amazing it's amazing work. One of the things that you mentioned and I had been my understanding not from a discussion with you but from a discussion with another member of the EOC that we're going to try to be moving people out of urban ministries and actually empty urban ministries to get people adequate socially distanced and into the hotels this week and then now I've heard today and it's you've confirmed that we're not going to be able to do that and and I know that part of the part of the understanding is that the county has to vote on this contract and that's one of the things that's holding us up and I've asked that they have a special meeting as soon as possible to vote on this contract so that we can get people moved when I think about our vulnerabilities as a community to COVID-19 there's several areas that I'm particularly worried about we've talked about for example our our transit system people cluster buses I'm very concerned about our construction sites I'm concerned about our utility tourism but nothing is am I as concerned about as I am about the many medically vulnerable people who are in our in our shelters and so assuming the county could speed up its approval process and get this done this week in terms of the contract with a hotel how fast are we ready to move once we have a contract in place to get people out of the situation where they're not able to socially distance and into the hotels great question the process I've been talking and working with the executive directors of the two shelters in the city and they've been working on logistics and assigning rooms and we'll be ready to rock and roll pretty quickly as soon as that contract's executed possibly the same day I believe is possible depending on I don't know dates or when approvals would happen and I know that drew drew Cummings and I and the EOC we're all looking at ways to expedite things and try to find ways to move this through as quickly as possible because all of us are sitting here looking at a potential you know high risk situation where one person in a congregate place gets sick and how quickly could 70 people all of a sudden be sick at the same time and possibly overwhelm a medical system and none of us want that to happen so we are pushing as hard as we can and I believe that as soon as that document's ready I think we can be ready to go and have been working with Sean's group with transportation and working with go triangle to arrange logistics for that so there's a lot of logistics that we've been working on as we work through this and every time we come up with a solution and a plan there seems to be a new question that comes up that needs to be addressed and answered and worked through to make sure that everybody's works well so we are moving as quickly as we can with as best diligence as we can to make this happen thank you well I hope the county will expedite its process again I think this is really at the top of our list and somebody mentioned I think maybe council member Reese that Sean Egan had been thrown into the fire pretty fast you have too Colin you haven't been here very long and now you're dealing with something unprecedented so I want to thank you for all the leadership that you're showing and appreciate you being at the emergency running that for the emergency operation center thank you and as now if if council member Freeman she had asked a question about this earlier and she may want to have another question at this time council member Freeman do you have any questions okay maybe not so any one else with questions at this time for Colin council member Middleton and then council member Reese thank you Mr. Marin thank you Colin welcome you get to the good part thank you there I am I just wanted to be clear and the mayor kind of provided an on ramp for my question that the when the obstacles you talked about regarding the hotel room is it plural or is it the only obstacle just the county acting on the contract I want to make certain that we're not signaling that there's reticence on the part of hotel operators or or anything of that nature or is there no I think I think there's challenges when you're working through a contract of moving this many people and figuring out terms that will work that are amenable to both sides and I will say the team worked we made some decisions Friday we worked all weekend on getting a contract put together and I think we have terms agreed to this afternoon that's pretty fast for zero zero to a full full contract ready to roll I think and we are trying to work through that I think when we're looking at additional hotels hotels rightfully are saying you know if you're going to move people who are potentially sick to our facility we really want to make sure you're taking over an entire wing or enough of the building because we really don't want to have a group of people who are sick or potentially sick commingling with another group of people who are healthy that sort of defeats the purpose so we're looking through all these different pieces of the puzzle while trying to ensure we keep the process moving right so is it safe to say that those issues we are now at a point where enough of those issues have been worked out and there is a contract pending we're just awaiting action on a part of our colleagues at the county are they still working those issues out I believe I believe all the issues of the contract language in terms were worked out today I'll have to double check I was in I was in a meeting and then had to leave that to jump on several other meetings I believe when Drew was finishing those discussions with the hotel lawyers and their team and the county finance and lawyer team but I believe they got to a point that they've got something ready ready that everybody can sign off on absolutely listen I know you've got a lot of balls in the air absolutely keep us posted thank you so much oh absolutely appreciate you thank you councilmember councilmember Reese did you have your hand up for question yeah welcome board Colin nice to see you in this context and thanks I've been reading the reports and I've been following along with your work during this crisis so they just want to thank you for the frankly just the energy that you've poured into trying to take care of our neighbors who currently don't have a place to live it's it's obviously something that's very important to come out excuse me singled out these folks in his original state home declaration as much as in need of support from all of our local governments and I'm proud of the work that you're doing to make that happen two questions first of all with respect to our population our neighbors who are currently experiencing homelessness what for the most part what is their healthcare situation how are they receiving care right now most of their healthcare is done through some of the non-profit healthcare for the homeless providers Lincoln healthcare does a lot of their healthcare I believe Samaritan health does some there's probably a few others that I'm forgetting I'm still new to the area so I don't know all the homeless healthcare providers but those are the two Alliance is helping with the behavioral healthcare portion of this as well okay and is that one of the things that the current effort is doing is in case there those connections those linkages aren't there on an individual basis are we helping get those folks hooked up with appropriate healthcare services of this right now yes that's part of the homeless not the homeless service providers are working on that one other question I had has to do with the Durham rescue mission do we know what kind of social distancing practices mask loves PPE what what what's happening at the rescue mission right now I don't know definitively I know health department has been reaching out and working with them on social distancing and checking in to make sure they're following best practices other than that that'd be a better question answered by the health department at this point okay the last thing I wanted to say is I'm I'm almost certain that councilmember Freeman is having some kind of technical difficulty down there can you give us a nod or a thumbs up or something councilmember so we know like is did you want to ask a question and but I'm all done thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember and I was sort of thinking the same thing she wanted to use her chat box maybe she uses her chat box and I'll ask oh yeah councilmember Freeman do you want to use your chat box no I'm good thank you okay good go ahead I specifically I think um two of my questions were asked and I appreciate that from my council colleagues uh and around that congregate living facility um situation I also want to make sure they're um I do want to find out if there's a report coming on the assisted living and other facilities as well in the city and then it would it would be nice to know what the coordination is with the health um the health department on the homeless shelters that are in city limits because um there's no update that's included it's not included in our current like sit reports when we receive them and so just want to make sure that I bring that up but then on the hotel procurement side I didn't know if there were any other RFPs or procurement opportunities that were made available but I do want to make sure that we're not forgetting to keep our equity in mind and and reaching out to facilities and organizations that may not be normally reached out to and um just just keeping that all at the forefront sure thank you councilmember I want to make a couple of comments about that those are important questions um and I think it would be good and I'll just flag for the city manager if we could get some information from the EOC or you know just just a very short written information about how they're dealing with the congregate sites the and not just the homeless shelters but uh the assisted living facilities and so forth this was mentioned on the on the call tonight uh but I think that what councilmember freeman is asking about I think is on a lot of people's minds it's not just homeless shelters it's everywhere where we have group living and there's a lot of good work being done around that but I think it'll be good to hear a report on I know Collin's work is specifically around the homeless shelters and I also want to mention that I've been concerned about also in addition to urban ministries and families moving forward the Durham rescue mission and so we have they're not members of the continuum of care but I know that the health department and I've been asking about this on our calls the health department has been the health department has been reaching out to them around best practices and I'm hopeful that that's all taking hold and I'm planning to be more in touch myself with the folks of the rescue mission to talk about how they're doing and with their social distancing practices but Colin do you have anything to add about the rescue mission sure we've we've been talking to them and I know that some of our nonprofits have been in contact with them and talking about how to utilize space and I believe that rescue mission has several congregate facilities but they also have several properties where they're able to achieve some self quarantining for folks at this point the if you if one were to fully empty their congregate shelter into a hotel it would be a monumental task in an extreme expense so we're trying to use you know what they have available within their within their purview and the thought is we'll get another hotel for those who are exiting the medical system who are sick who might not be able to go back to rescue missions so they would land in that place until they were healthy enough to go back to rescue are you in pretty good contact with them I have not had time to but I know uh Julia with Julia Campbell yes has been working to them and we're planning to reach out to them all right thank you and also in uh in just a one of the things about the feeding that's going on just to comment on one of the questions that Councilmember Freeman had I know that people are very much uh reaching out to minority caterers and restaurants to try to fill the feeding need which I think is very important I know there's a lot of attention to that from their public schools foundation and from the folks who are thinking about how to feed our homeless population as well and agree that's really important any other questions or comments for Colin just specifically around the question of what the coordination looks like from the city in the in the county is there a weekly call is there like a a daily rundown are you getting a report how's that working or for me getting okay so I actually go to work every day in the EOC so I'm a city employee working out of the EOC with all the county emergency response so when I've got health concern questions I can walk you know a couple tables over and stand six feet away and talk to health department officials and say what's your guidance on this here's what we're thinking of doing for a housing for this group of people is this going to create more problems than it solves or will this work and brainstorm through those pieces generally speaking at the end of every day I send an email to Karen Lotto and Reginald Johnson to update them on on issues that may be of concern that would get raised to to Mr. Chadwell and ultimately to Mr. Bonfield a lot of conversations back and forth thank you is there anyone else with questions for Colin thank you so much we really appreciate you being here and we appreciate your work thank you thank you happy to help all right I believe Tom that we have we have a presentation from Andre Pettigrew and one from Bertha Johnson those are our last two that's correct Mr. Mayor and you know we don't know that I'd characterize them as presentations right maybe maybe updates around particularly the next the small business discussions that are going on yeah in very preliminary stages but I know it's at the top of mind for a lot of folks so Andre if you're connected could you jump in and give the council an update thank you thank you Tom welcome Andre thank you mayor thank you Tom Andre Pettigrew the director of the Office of Economic Workforce Development I just want to give you a quick overview of the activities that the city has been involved in through the Office of Economic Workforce Development in support of the recovery and the resiliency of our business community again this is going to be a long challenge but I'm happy with where we are today as we try to support our residents as well as our businesses to access the information and the resources that have come about through the federal let cares legislation it's critical from where I stand that we ensure that our businesses are informed with the right information in a timely and accurate way we have accomplished this by essentially working with a number of our partners and stakeholders we're one of the organizing members of the small business advisory council and coalition this is a group of stakeholders who provided their technical assistance financing etc etc in fact we have modeled this response after the response that we created you know responding to the bright leaf explosion these are a group of providers including workforce providers that have worked together to be responsive to employees as well as business owners they include the Small Business Development Center at Durham Tech the Small Business Technology Center that's a part of the NCCU the Institute's Women's Center the Greater Durham Chamber the Greater Durham Black Chamber as well as downtown Durham Inc we meet three times a week virtually to ensure that we are updated with the most current information on the various programs that are available and being sponsored through the SBA we have hosted a number of webinars to support our community these webinars are again critical because again the new legislation is fairly complicated there are a number of moving pieces and much of that work is is actually those resources are going to be delivered through our banks and through our certified development financial institutions we've identified a number of issues and tried to resolve them one of the issues really has to do with how do we prepare members of our community who are either very small businesses or independent contractors who may not have all of the information that's required to submit their application to the SBA to qualify for these services and again that technical assistance again has to be delivered remotely that's why the seminars are such an important part of our work other city agencies who are joining OEWD as a part of this includes the Department of Equity and Inclusion Deborah Dowell's organization is one of the resources and again working with us to ensure that our hub companies and organizations are receiving services and the Durham Workforce Development Board is there because again as these businesses have had to shut down their employees have been laid off and getting access to workforce development services are important we have tried to sort of make sure that the information was readily available on the city's homepage we have a tab very prominently displaying both the resources that are needed for the unemployment insurance as well as small business resources for the SBA we have created a new portal OEWD we have been working on a new website and I want to direct you to a new website that we have posted it's a portal that provides a comprehensive set of resources information for our community it's called durhambusiness360.com that's durhambusiness360.com that site is up and activated we'll be doing a push email to make more of our community aware of it it's been specifically designed to highlight the set of resources available everything from applying for the various SBA packages but also how to run your business consistent with the stay at home orders and things of that nature so again trying to become a resource relative to all this is really important the $380 billion that are part of the CARES program are resources that include loans forgivable loans and grants that are essentially flowing through banks and certified development corporations and technical assistance is being provided through small business development centers and small business technology centers again all of these programs essentially have been overrun with applications the SBA program the payroll protection program was just started taking applications on Friday there was a bit of confusion on Friday because some banks were prepared to take applications others were not seeking you know more direct information however I understand that on Friday there were between three to five billion dollars of applications that were received during this program and so again we still are working with the banks to sort of make sure that there's consistent information more importantly accurate information for folks to file again let me maybe move over from small business to talk a little bit about the work that we're doing at the NC works career center the NC works career center is actually closed to the public all of the career centers in the state are closed to the public and they are working virtually so the focus clearly is on the spike of folks who have been laid off who are now eligible for unemployment the the division of employment security which is a part of the state manages the ui program the uninsured program the division of workforce solutions are there are partners in managing the career centers all of the division of workforce solutions staff have now been deployed to support the processing of ui claims again the websites have crashed there's been difficulty re reaching people uh on online or by the telephone the best way is to get these resources via the via the online website at ncworks.gov so let me maybe in there and maybe take some questions that you might have thank you very much andre colleagues questions councilmember freyman thank you uh i appreciate you sharing that information andre uh had a group the business support uh that you mentioned the council and coalition is there any um uh hispanic there's a hispanic um business association in derm and is also the derm professional business chain are they both included in that conversation uh we have not included the hispanic group again that's a group that we need to sort of rope in and happy to you know get that contact information to include them in our meeting the derm business chain i think is has been on the list but i don't think they've been on the calls that we have again we'll we'll reach out we're trying to include as many people on this call uh and connect folks to it so uh again we will look to add representatives from both of those groups and then i just wanted to to repeat you said the derm business 360 dot com was going to be for specifically the sba payroll protection or is it something separate uh no the derm business 360 uh dot com website is the oe wd websites that's been repurposed to feature the full range of support services uh that small businesses can access uh in regard to covet 19 it does include information uh around the sba program but it includes both state and other programs that are out in the marketplace and then i just uh want to well two more and i'll let one of the colleagues come along come in um specific to nc works in the division of uh workhorse solutions so for people without internet access or computers if the phone if there's a phone number or email address can you is that available on that same website or is there a different website sure uh you can get to this information but the most direct way to get the phone number as well as the website uh for all of the nc work centers is ncworks dot gov ncworks dot gov and do you have like any handouts that might be available i've had a few small business owners uh reach out to me in regards to trying to figure out how they're going to manage and especially uh folks who are uh contractors so really small businesses of one or two just trying to figure out how to be supportive um as they may have to cut internet access right um because of the social distancing policy uh all of the partners are working remotely and so um the information much of it is pdf available in other words you could print that off but um we do not have uh a you know some physical handouts at this time we we did not design this program uh based on that but again i will bring this issue back to the group and let's see how we might be able to to do it and where we might be able to post and display the information thank you all right thank you for your question member caballero yeah um just to follow up so the hispanic chamber association would probably be the best one and that's regional it's not Durham based um questions i have is what kind of what the webinars and the outreach what kind of multilingual resources are you putting out there what what type of webinars are you doing in Spanish and other high use languages we know that um our immigrant owned businesses are struggling a lot of them aren't going to be able to access the same resources in the same way or don't know how to do it so they're they're you know lacking um language and cultural um or i guess they have cultural and language barriers and so just want to make sure that we're actually being we're getting ahead of it and not just reacting to it and then um um additionally i know that the um lccu the latina cooperativa is not actually doing the sba loans which would be one of the kind of go-to for us in Durham um and i have resources that they shared with me about where they suggested that hispanic uh business owners go to and happy to share that with you but um i know that there's a huge need i know a lot of folks have questions and i know quite frankly there's a lot of panic right now right um so in terms of uh the spanish translation met with nis constant stance on their group uh they're assisting us to do uh some of the spanish translation for some of the content that we've developed um again we're behind there uh all of the workshops or webinars that have been done have been done in english and of course they're posted uh and happy to use this channel to create a spanish version of uh any and all of the seminars uh that is an opportunity that we think are really critical to supporting uh the latin x community uh and i think we can can respond to this fairly quickly so again uh would love to reach out with you directly to again get some details and get them engaged thank you thank you mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um and thank you andrey for all your work i have a question about the workforce development side i know part of the cares act is an extra six hundred dollars of unemployment insurance and that folks who aren't covered by north carolina's unemployment insurance policies like the um like gig workers and self-employed folks are eligible for the federal support um but you mentioned that all of the nc works sites are now operating remotely so i'm wondering what we can do to make sure that any laid off workers in durham or part-time folks who have seen their hours reduced or gig workers or self-employed workers who are now covered who might not have this information um about the new benefits how we can help get that information out to our residents right um again uh we need your help to help us get the word out our strategy has been primarily remote again the city's website the banner page has had this information posted fairly prominently and so citizens can go there and get a lot of information uh the durham business 360 website actually has specific information for small independent contractors one of the issues that we've identified is that there are a number of people who in the past would not have been eligible for unemployment but they now are eligible and again the gig workers uh the sole proprietorships uh the independent work we talk a lot about the hairdressers and the barber shops uh these people are now eligible and part of this in terms of working through this network is getting the word out and the websites are an ability for people to self serve again if you spend some time on that on our new website you'll see that a lot of the information is there we'll be sending a press release out tomorrow uh promoting this new website to get the word out as a again source of information for our community and all of our residents thank you that's helpful um could someone in your office um or somewhat make a like an infographic or something that we could use uh to promote to send out um that would be helpful folks thank you all right um other questions from right uh andra i just a couple things i wanted to add thank you so much for all you're doing um the um so colleagues uh as i think all of you all are aware Duke University is putting um a million dollars towards of their five million dollars towards the work of uh supporting our small businesses and they are very uh they want other corporations to pitch into this fund this uh the uh fund that they're setting up and they very much want uh both Durham city and county to pitch in as well uh and uh i've talked briefly about this to tom uh andra i've been on uh the uh one of the calls with uh andra and keith um actually i guess duke wasn't on that call but i've had discussions with stelfany williams and so i think this is something that we're going to need to be thinking about what uh in the call with self-help what we talked about uh with andra and keith and and a couple people self-help is city funds uh should we choose to allocate them which i believe we should um would be particularly geared towards uh so so well let me step back a second a lot the funds that are available from the uh from the cares act are not available to undocumented people so one of the one of the most important gaps that we'll have to fill is so many small businesses with undocumented people this could be a gap that would be filled by city funds as well as a lot of the fun a lot of the small businesses um historically disadvantaged businesses are also going to need to be uh targeted for assistance and so these are a couple of things i think that we need to be keeping in mind uh should we choose to allocate funds and um which i hope that we will um that's one thing i just wanted to to to put out there another is i uh last week i and the so-called big city mayors there were cities the the eight largest cities in north carolina were on the call with uh we had a call with the governor and and the thing that i really tried to highlight with the governor and and he knows this of course already is just the terrible situation we're in with our unemployment uh the state's unemployment system the computer crashing that andre mentioned that and the reason is that last week you know a month ago they were they were processing 3 000 applications a month i'm sorry 3 000 a week now they've got to process 300 000 that have come in the last two weeks so it's not their fault that the system isn't working but the need to like beef it up get more people in there is all super important and you know the governor knows that it's a huge priority for him uh but i do think i mean i have gotten some of the saddest emails from people just trying to get into that unemployment system who are eligible um and who just can't you know the computer's crashing they're trying in the middle of the night i mean it's it's a huge problem um but i i just wanted to mention that as well any other questions for andre any comments andre thank you we appreciate you thank you and i appreciate your leadership and support thank you so much mr manager okay so the last thing we thought we would check in mayor is a brief uh conversation with our budget director bertha johnson again we've spent the last couple weeks delving into a lot of departmental budgets but we know the hard work is about ready to get started so on bertha just to give a quick update as to where we are and what we're thinking about maybe some next steps with interaction with the council thank you very much thank you good evening bertha johnson director of budget and management services i want to briefly share with you that we have continued our budget process as scheduled um we started budget presentations to the city manager the departmental presentations on march 30th we have our final department scheduled for tomorrow and we plan to have meetings with the joint uh city county departments in conjunction with Durham county next week um we are in the process of preparing the third quarter financial report which is key to how we proceed with the remainder of the fiscal year and we're working with our departments on their projections for revenue and expenditures for the remainder of the year um as you may know the third quarter report is really going to be the key to how we respond over the next quarter as well as how we make adjustments in our next year's fiscal year's budget we um are have been in conversation with the league with Dr. Walden and other large cities as you have the mayor um trying to figure out you know what the impact of COVID-19 will be on our revenues particularly on sales tax which is the second largest um source of revenues in the general fund there are projections up to 10 percent of revenue loss from sales tax which is significant from us because we get about 71 million dollars in sales tax in the general fund each year but not only sales tax we're looking at the impact on the motel hotel tax the gas tax and as you've heard from some of our departments program revenues particularly in planning inspections uh parking is significant parks and recreation transit will all be impacted their program revenues will be impacted by this of course again we will continue to do a thorough review with our departments making those projections um obviously the revenue projections we share with you at the budget retreat will need to be adjusted and as such we will be revising our budget development guidelines as well um our um we have planned to have a um conversation with you on more detailed as Tom mentioned um we are hopeful that we can do that um in the near future but one of the option is option is on April 23rd because you already have a city council meeting and we could do that um in the morning prior to that meeting we do want to have enough time to have some meaningful information for you all to move forward with the fourth quarter as well as the next fiscal year in terms of adjusting our projections the city manager is scheduled to present his budget on May 18th we're still planning for that to be the case we're currently working through as other cities are what the preliminary budget process looks like and the document looks like because we want to make sure that we have the best projections possible when we develop our documents so um as for uh the final um part of the component of the budget is you know public engagement and so we're thinking about and uh looking at formats that we can uh engage in terms of making sure that we continue to have our residents engaged in the budget development process we did all of our budget meetings with 18 meetings with our departments with zoom with many folks on on the on the on the meeting as you have tonight and that has worked well and so we are looking at ways that we can engage our residents in the budget development process again the the the most challenging aspect of the budget process will be will be revenues general fund revenues as well as program revenues and also looking at our existing tax rate our bid rate and other rates and how we may want to approach them on the next fiscal year and so it's going to be a challenge we're working through it our department directors have been great they all you know completed their assignments in terms of their presentations and their projections but you know of course we didn't make a lot of changes at you know around the revenues at this point because we just don't have enough information but we're working with others throughout the state to on that issue and looking overall I mean their projections that you know we will lose 20% of revenues around uh you know discretionary spending for our residents and others and so it's it's going to be a challenge but we're working through it and you know we will see you to work towards having a more detailed discussion with with you all I'm happy to take any questions so thank you very much and now I'm going to ask if there any questions for Bertha Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor this is less of a question than a thought but when we come together again and we talk about the fund balance I know that you all had an initial proposal for how to spend out the fund balance over the next few years but given that we now that that's kind of the rainy day fund and we're now experiencing quite a few rainy days if y'all could give us some thoughts on ways to use that money differently in order to help support some of the help support people in the city who are struggling right now support operations that we you know that we want to continue that may not have the resources that we need otherwise to continue so just some ideas from you all about other ways to allocate fund balance over the next couple of years. Thank you that is on our list and we're working on that as well we certainly know that we need to make changes in terms of how we had originally thought about using those resources. Thank you yeah looking at it from our last budget retreat um we had such a healthy outlook for what the next year would look like and now it's kind of in the blink of an eye it's a completely different um story but thank you for all your work and we know that y'all we're in the right hands so thank you. You're a council member sorry council member Reese. Great thank you Mr. Mayor Bertha I just I don't have a question or even a suggestion I just want to say that I can't imagine the job that is ahead of you and your staff right now this is exactly the wrong time to try to be figuring out what next year's revenues are going to be given where we are in the spread of the coronavirus in this country and in this community the incredible loss of jobs that we've experienced because of the choices that we've had to make and I just want to say to you how much comfort it gives me to know that you and your staff are going to do the very best job possible for us and for the people of this city this every year the budget is the most important thing we do as a city council and none of us I have ever faced a budget situation like the one we are going to have to face over between now and mid-June and uh you know I was talking to um council member Freeman over the weekend about how it just doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like a good idea to have to do the budget right now because we don't know so much about what the real impact on the economy is going to be what the lasting impact the economy is going to be how long will it will a recovery take but you know for better or worse we have to pass a budget that's just one of the things we're required to do and so I just wanted to say to you how grateful I am that we have some of your experience your dedication and the incredible quality staff that you've accumulated in uh in recent years and I feel although it's going to be painful and it's going to require some really hard choices I believe this council is up to that and I feel well armed for that conversation knowing that you are going to be doing all the important work that we need you to do um and lead up to that so thank you and um good luck with that thank you council member uh thank you um thank you Bertha for your work and your city hand um throughout all this just one clarification I know you don't have a lot of projections yet you did mention 10% loss of revenue that was just sales tax wasn't sales and gas do you have any projections of this point about the loss and gas tax revenue sales tax is the revenue source I was referring to with our gas tax revenues it's those revenues are based on population and street miles and so it really depends on how much the state allocates per capita as well as per street mile so those we don't have projection on at this point but we know the the the pot will be smaller the pot will be smaller um but it will not be significant we've already received 100% of our revenues this year for that so it'll be basically looking at next year um revenue projections from the state thank you any other questions or comments council members bertha thank you we appreciate you we know how hard this is going to be and and I just do want to say to my colleagues this is something we're going to have to step up to we are in a you know everybody's been saying a very different situation and a lot of our hopes and dreams for some awesome stuff we really want to do we're not going to be able to do and we're going to need guidance from our staff and then we're going to have to step up to it and I know that we will thank you bertha thank you I look forward to talking to you all more in the future thank you mr mayor that concludes our presentations if we you have any other questions on anything we didn't cover we try to that's all we have right now thank you very much I think we've done it uh thank you tom and uh we're uh that was a good long couple of hours more than a couple of hours and I feel like you all did a great job in educating us uh colleagues if there's nothing else on that I'm going to go ahead and move to our second item which is a discussion of the timeline to conduct the council ward three replacement process and I'm going to ask councilmember reese the head of our council procedures committee if you would like to start us off with a presentation about his recommendations and and then we'll we'll have a discussion about that thank you mr mayor um first of all I wanted to thank all my colleagues I had the opportunity late last week and over the weekend to speak with each of you individually about the the vacancy that we um uh now know is coming because we have accepted um our colleague rinetta allston's uh resignation or I guess I should say I think um the city clerk can correct me but I do think we are supposed to vote on that um and so we'll try to remember to do that during this meeting I think that's something we have to be in any event um I wanted to share with uh charlie excuse me one second let me stop you right there and ask the attorney um what is what is our obligation here do we vote on that vacancy tonight since we had the I mean not on the vacancy do we vote on the accepting resignation tonight you do yes mr mary you should vote on that pursuant to the charter provision thank you and if we don't all agree then she can't leave well yeah no she that's a good trick okay do I have a motion that she can't leave no all right thank you madam attorney uh charlie sorry to interrupt you go ahead that's okay as long as everybody remembers we got to do that before we get off the call um so um at the direction of mayor shul uh and in consultation with each of you and after reviewing thoroughly the provisions in the city charter and the council procedures manual about a vacancy of the city council member I prepared a proposed timeline for conducting the process to fill this this upcoming vacancy in the city council and shared that with each of you and senior staff at the city uh last week uh towards the end of last week and um let me walk through the dates there and then talk about some of the issues and then obviously we'll have a good discussion about that as the mayor suggested today the first step in that timeline is tonight and it is the thing we'll probably do at the very end of the meeting because I think we'll all want to put it off as long as possible and that is the vote to accept the resignation of council member allston effective um as I understand it thursday april ninth um 2020 at just before midnight uh can i get a thumbs up on that council member allston does that sound correct that's great great um and um the next day friday april 10th uh the city clerk would post what's called a notice of vacancy a draft of which we have seen uh that she shared with us last week um the city clerk would make the application uh for um candidates to want to apply for the vacancy as well as the questionnaire uh that we developed as a group uh two years ago the last time we had to do this um and uh those would be made available um starting that friday april 10th 2020 um and concurrent with that the city of Durham would obviously send out a press release indicating that the vacancy has now occurred and that the process for choosing a successor to council member allston has begun um the i'm just now getting a message from our city clerk uh um that uh friday april 10th is good friday um which i should have known but did not um and so we'll obviously have to make some adjustments to this timeline as we uh go forward in this process but i'll i'll give you what i originally came up with and then we'll figure out how we need to change it um the council procedures manual requires 10 days uh that the application process be remain open uh although as a council we can um change that timeline if we decide that's the appropriate thing to do um maybe we want to do that now that we know that friday april 10th is a holiday i don't know we'll talk about that in a bit um but assuming we had a full 10 days and assuming we could start on february on friday april 10th the application and questionnaires would then be due on monday april 20th um my proposed timeline has us during the council work session on thursday april 23rd um voting to identify three to seven finalists again that is consistent with the process laid out in our procedures manual um and then um after identifying the finalists on monday april 27th um at a special evening council meeting called for this purpose the council would conduct interviews of the three to seven finalists um and then the on thursday april 13th um four days later um the council would then vote on the appointment and our new colleague would be sworn in either that day or um at our monday may 4th uh council meeting and obviously the details of the swearing in have to be figured out uh to do it at appropriate social distancing and all that good stuff um and i think um that's the timeline i put together and there's certainly ways that we can tweak it to cut to account for the fact that friday april 10th is a holiday but before we talk about the specifics let me talk more broadly about the process uh and why i think it's important for us to proceed we um the city charter requires us to at least attempt to fill a vacancy created in a member of the Durham city council the city charter is really clear the word used is shall not may uh if it says shall there's one exception and that is if we can't do it if because we have an even number of members we can't um and if we fail to do that then within 60 days a special election is there thereby called um and uh the the idea that we would allow a special election to go forward without trying to fill the vacancy um seems uh difficult to understand especially given that that would mean that the residents of ward three in the city of Durham or without representation on the council for approximately eight months um when our new colleague could be sworn in uh in december and so uh for that reason um because i think there are some uh challenges in terms of how representative the council will be without award three representative because of the fact that i think the charter requires us to go through this process that i'm advocating uh that we go forward the other thing is we've got 60 days we could take 60 days to do it my concern there is that if the clock starts running um on friday morning april 10th that puts us at about june 8th or ninth as the deadline for appointing that person and obviously we hope to be voting on a budget very shortly thereafter and i think that's incredibly unfair to our whoever our future colleague may be that we would ask her or him to weigh in on that budget uh so quickly after being sworn in i think if we follow some version of the timeline that i've proposed uh that that will bring our new colleague online on board um on or about may fourth and that that person would let them be allowed be able to go through the process with us um alongside us and um and then be able to cast a meaningful vote for against the budget when the time comes i know that i personally would have to vote no if i was sworn in seven days before we voted in the budget because i couldn't possibly figure out what's in that and know whether or not i wanted to support it um so those are the those are some of the issues more broadly i will note um that just prior to this meeting we received a resolution uh from chairman umar bezley of the germ committee and the first black people who and the the committee is asking us not to appoint a successor uh and to allow um a special election to go forward um and obviously uh i think that's um not the not something that we can do i think we have to at least try um and if we fail to do that then a then a special election will be called by operation of law um i guess the last thing i wanted to say is that um this is much like the budget it's not really fair that we have to go through this right now um you know in a perfect world uh we would be able to take uh the amount of time the same amount of time that we did two years ago to appoint a successor to um uh mayor schul uh as in his at-large seat we would be able to have in-person um public comment periods where people could come to a microphone and tell us to our face what they thought about the various candidates about us about whatever they wanted to talk about about this process um but uh because of the coronavirus and the various mandates that we're operating under that's not going to be possible at least as far as i can tell that means that it's going to be hard but it also but i think in that case we just have to do what's hard um and uh i think we will bear a specific a particularly heavy burden uh to collaborate together and with other community leaders and organizations to try to come up with robust forms of public input and comment that don't include um going to showing up at a city council meeting in person and delivering remarks at the microphone but i think we're up to that challenge i think durham's up to that challenge um and i think it's um it's really important that we move forward so that's my proposal um obviously we're gonna have to tweak some of the dates if we decide to move forward because the holiday um but i've probably talked way too much and i'm interested to hear other people's thoughts thank you mr. Randall absolutely you did not talk way too much i thought that was a great presentation i thought you covered a lot of the really important uh ground charlie uh councilmember risa thank you so much for doing the work and i really appreciate you uh reaching out to all of us individually it was very helpful to have a heads up uh before the meeting so thank you all right i'm going to now open this up for discussion and uh hear what folks have to say about the proposal that councilmember risa has made uh any thoughts that anyone has uh questions comments go for it i don't see any hints mayor pro tem thank you um quick question when the thing about 10 days the application period being 10 days that we can adjust that can we adjust that in either direction absolutely um the that portion is not in the charter it's in our procedures manual um it was a requirement we created last time around and um that particular paragraph includes language that it could be a different period of time that the city council wants and then at the very bottom of that section that deals with vacancies there's a kind of a catchall provision that says that the council can change this process through its procedure um in the interest of expediency or some other language so we can move it either direction if we want yeah thank you any other questions councilmember milton thank you mr mayor can you can you guys you can can you yeah yeah we can hear you thank you mr mayor and let me uh thank um my colleague councilor risa who always does a yeoman's job and stuff like this his attention to detail and just uh thoroughness uh always comes to whatever task he's given so i want to really thank him for the work he's done and thank him for the conversations we've had as counselors individually about this most sacred and important decision that faces us right now as a council and that is filling one of our seats that is ultimately owned by the people of this city and i want to assert the ownership of these seats um from the city ownership of these uh seats about the people of the city a councilor risa alluded to a statement that we received from the Durham committee on the affairs of black people i thank him for mentioning that on record and i do uh want to to challenge my colleagues i want to just have a heartfelt conversation about um the process and and what we face filling the seat under the circumstances that we are um i want to appeal to the council to indeed fill the seat by special election and i will i will address um some of charlie's comments counselor risa's comments about this being compulsory on us um this this plan and the timetable is an adoption adaptation of a plan uh that was conceived and adopted implemented under regular order and during normal times and i don't think there's anyone in this city that thinks that we are operating under regular order or normal times perhaps the most dramatic illustration of that is the way we're having this meeting tonight we can't even have it in our own chamber all of the shells that guide our country have been suspended the federal government has pushed back the date to file taxes uh we're not cutting off uh utility services you can go down the list of shells in our country that because of this pandemic we are not facing and if we are if this is the one carve out is if this is the area out of all the areas in the country that are being upended that we must engage in then i'd like to challenge us in considering some things um i believe uh if we implement this plan under emergency orders that we are potentially uh inviting a master class on what it looks like to have privilege insulate you from hardships a master class in it and by that i mean the people who we spent a lot of time talking about who we most who we are most concerned about accessing government uh inclusion equity would bear the most hardship in accessing this process at this time i want to talk about our scorecard for equity when we're not under a pandemic think about it um participatory budgeting we had an excellent uh roll out of participatory budgeting 2.4 million dollars um tens of thousands of people voted 60 percent of those voters were white when there wasn't a pandemic that was our scorecard when we weren't under emergency orders and i know we're talking about we're going to really lean in and do a great job to make sure folks can access it uh people can't pay their water bill um we um are talking about uh instituting stipends for our boards and commissions because we recognize we don't have representation from lower socioeconomic strata and that's without a pandemic that that's under regular order that that's our scorecard for equity and and accessing government that's how we're doing under regular order um we came up with a plan for uh immigrant brothers and sisters who didn't want to give their address to participate in boards and commissions that required them physically coming in to the building and i can't i can't hear you anymore yeah lost mark anthony councilmember can you say something to us let's see now we've really lost him can the rest of you all hear me can you all hear me i guess all right councilmember milton say something is your um use your computer let me check a computer microphone do that again let's see anybody else any any tech person out there um from the city who might have some ideas i'm not sure if daniel's on the call i just send him a text to let him know we dropped him and suggest he try to sign back in okay i could drive over and take in my ipad um so let's think for a second um diana says his mute button is on but oh yeah it is on now it's off the mute button isn't a problem yeah it's something else mark anthony try signing out and signing back in okay well i i well i'm gonna use i'm gonna use um uh one of the deputy dc manager says in the chat that it has something it has something to do with his signal strength wherever he is okay well maybe when he signs back in we'll see what happens but i'm gonna use this time to think about dinner that i haven't had yet and very much looking forward to eating after the meeting me too mr mayor me too i didn't know y'all gonna be sadeg on long windy my fault you know how it is always always talking all the time exactly especially council member allston she's ganna she's chatterbox yes we've texted him i see from wanda can someone text him and tell him to sign back and sign back in i think we've done it have we not yes i did okay thank you thank you tunnel steve can we call like an official five minute break yes i think we can um let's call an official five minute break uh a recess i believe augmented maternity is that correct maternity can we take a five minute recess you may yes mr mayor you can recess the meeting for five minutes for people to all right thank you we'll take a five minute break and hopefully marcancy will be back on by then uh and we'll we'll reconvene in five minutes do we sign out and call back in or do we just stop our video no don't don't don't sign out we might never get you back there's marcancy up he tried there he's back marcancy are you back yeah i can't i still can't hear him mr mayor yeah i think his signal strength is just challenged okay i'm gonna fix itself all right so um well we said we're going to um recess for five minutes so five minutes we may have to reconvene to discuss this okay so one thing i want to be sure to do tonight is to vote to accept council member austin's resignation period we can reconvene for the other stuff period all right here we are hey folks i'm on the phone i don't know if i'm showing up on the screen marcancy you're not showing up on the screen okay but we are hearing you on the phone mr mayor he's down at the very bottom yeah that's probably the best we're gonna get if we're on the phone yeah he's got it you can see a cell phone number down there yeah on the little gray phone i think that's him yeah that's him doesn't look like himself doesn't really look like himself looks more like a gray phone but okay um mark anthony we're taking a five minute recess in as soon as um it looks like um i think council member freeman and mayor pro tem we'll just give them another minute okay mayor pro tem's here can you hear me okay yeah we can okay thanks council member freeman's back to apology i don't know what's going on um what uh what uh wanda says is in the tech people think that you just it's not about low signal strength and so um okay yeah um but um please go ahead you were speaking and i think we're we're now ending the recess everyone's back um so uh please go ahead thank you i i think i don't know where i drop off but my my my the thrust of my first point was that um all of the shells that that our nation's been living under have been suspended and and i'm i'm just i find it curious that the only thing we're compelled to do of all of the carve out i mean we i haven't voted on anything that's happened in the city as an elected official in you know in week and i i certainly support the mayor's exercise of emergency powers but but it's pretty much been ruled by ci so nothing the world is upside down right now so so that's one of the things that informs my um concerns about filling the seat my belief is that those folks that we're most concerned about uh in our equity work are the ones that will have the highest bar to clear to participate in this process um and when i said a masterclass on um privilege insulating you from uh harm um by definition those that will participate in this process will be one people who are not worried about paying bills who are not worried about unemployment who aren't worried about a a sick family member and i think that with all of our concern about equity and access that the folks who we are most concerned about are the ones who will have the least amount of access uh in this process um i also think that that as much and i believe we are well intentioned to to go out of our way and really meet this challenge to let folk in but i think our optimism is really the optimism of privilege though those of us that sit on this council um for the most part i you know aren't facing some of the things that other people are facing uh in our city and i think as much as we are well intentioned on making this process uh accessible it's hard enough when we're not under a pandemic i also want to say that that i i i find the ward three representation argument um a bit uh a bit curious particularly from those of us who know how this system works um those of us in particularly who sit on this council have intimate knowledge that we don't have a true ward system uh we have a a zip code diversity system in place we use the nomenclature ward system but we don't have a true award system we don't uh each of us doesn't control a pot of money that we have control over like an alderman system in our particular ward our udo our comprehensive plan doesn't carve out uh pieces that are ward specific or zoning issues that are ward specific ward specific and i wonder what the corollary of that argument would be would we say that if the seat we were filling were an at-large seat would we argue that we need to fill it because the whole city is lacking representation because one of our at-large seats uh isn't filled um i don't think we would argue that and if we did then are we suggesting that perhaps we should uh give some more special powers to ward seat uh perhaps give deference to ward representatives when there's a specific issue that we're voting on that is located in our ward and of course none of that exists because we do not have a ward system uh the system we have actually allows not only for a ward representative but there's nothing that precludes all three at-large seats coming for any particular ward so under regular circumstances a ward a seat could be augmented by all of the at-large also coming from that ward um so i i i just find that um that argument a bit curious since we do not have a true a ward system we are all empowered to to look out for the good of the city uh our vote it's one person one vote we don't wait our vote uh particularly for for any particular member of the council when it's you know when the when the vote is your main to our particular ward or neighborhood um i think so we so i i just find that a curious argument i don't i don't find it very uh compelling we have a fully functional legal form um on our council uh with the six of us uh we don't have to uh maintain a partisan majority uh like they do in the legislature so the dynamics for us are very different uh than other bodies so we can function i think the question before us is is should we do this under these circumstances and finally with respect to the ordinance and i certainly respect the letter of the law but but the or at least from my point of view the ordinance contemplates an election um for a reason i mean the fact that the ordinance allows for a special election and and i don't think it offers any editorial that an election is is inferior or less preferred um and i and i think we have to be careful about sending a signal to the to the people of the city uh i think it counts in place an election uh because it realizes there are exigencies under which we cannot fill the seat that is and charlie talked about some attempts and i agree with them if we make an attempt political gridlock uh may not fill the seat we may not see we have qualified applicants uh that apply or there could be an invisible pathogen sent from the pits of hell that are trying to kill us all and and and i think that's an exigency uh that is before us right now um that that that at least asks us i think compelled is actually to consider an election i think the best way to assure that ward three is represented is to allow the people of war three to vote on the seat uh that the people of this city uh own um and i think we have to be careful also and i know it's not deliberate that we somehow suggest that an election is is is inferior or less preferable to the selection process um elections are sacred elections are good thing that's how we're elected officials that's how we all got our seats uh and i think um whatever price we pay if if we if we make the election in november or pay for an earlier election i think that's the price we pay to maintain the ownership of the seats um of the people of the seat uh so i i think uh until we can play basketball again until we can go see hamilton until we can eat in the restaurant until we can physically come into city hall and pay our bills then i don't think we should create a higher bar or then already exist to sit on this council uh for folk who may not have computer access who are worried about who would have failed out an application but are worried about employment right now or worried about bills worried about whether they're their real job of the job that actually pays the bill that's going to be there um but i think to to to date ourselves into thinking that we can meet the challenge of making sure this process is is open and fully transparent when we struggle with that under normal circumstances again i think and i'm including me in this this is the optimism of our privilege i think uh if we want to uh involve ward three and make sure they're represented we should let them vote so i respectfully and umbly uh ask my colleagues to consider uh filling this seat during an election because the world is turned upside down nothing is normal we are under emergency powers right now we're having this meeting right now because nothing is the same and i don't think it's realistic that folk who struggle under normal circumstances will really have full access to this process as it exists so thank you for that i whatever the council decided of course i will go with it and i know we'll have a robust discussion and filling the seats but this is critically important and these are challenging times and and i think uh that we should uh let this seat be filled by election thank you mr. mayor thank you colleagues thank you thank you very much councillor meadowton and um i appreciate you hanging in there with the technology thank you sorry for there no it's not your fault thank you for hanging in um other comments other comments anyone else mayor pro tem i think um council member cubby was raising her hand but it was disappearing into the background no okay i had my mic on and i moved to turn it off okay okay all right sorry okay great then i'll go next thanks um i want to appreciate um council member rice for putting the schedule together um and for his um work to put together a process that i think meets um a number of our goals and also um you know i i hear council member meadowton's um concerns and objections and um it is true we are in a very um unprecedented time and an unprecedented moment in our city um i don't however believe that that removes us from the responsibility of doing all of the things that we can do um to hold to the um procedures that we govern ourselves by and the charter that governs our community and we can um appoint someone we're not prevented from doing that by this pandemic we are simply challenged to um to build a process um an inclusive process by which people can give us feedback um in a in a virtual a more virtual world in the next phase i believe that we can do that uh the majority of the input that we got during the appointment process that added council member caviero to our council was um via email we got very few um people coming to city hall to discuss the appointment process but we received a lot of email um and letters and i think a couple of phone calls about the appointment process so that's a way in which our residents are already um used to engaging with city government and have engaged with an appointment process in the past um this appointment would be for an even a slightly shorter period of time um than council member caviero's uh first um first chunk of a term right it's just a little over a year and a half um and to to put city resources into a special election for one out of seven seats for less than half a term um especially in a time where we know that our resources are are going to be limited does not feel to me like um like a good choice i think that we can and will be able to create a process where people can have their voices heard and can be included and that that's what we should do and we should move forward with an appointment um i have a couple uh logistical suggestions regarding um member Reese's uh proposed schedule um given that uh the 10th is good Friday if we were to um just move the notice of vacancy posting until the following Monday April 13th um we can make the applications and questioners due by 5 p.m on Tuesday April 21st so give people a little bit of extra time it's a little bit less um than the 10 days it's eight days um but i think that that is enough time for people to do a short application and a questionnaire and we'll um be able to review those we'll have about a day and a half to review them before our council meeting on the 23rd where we would id finalists so that's my proposed scheduled tweak thanks thank you very much um anyone uh council member caballero yeah thank you mayor um thank you to uh my colleague council member reese for putting this uh forward and also for uh mayor put him and council member mental times comments uh while we are definitely facing you know unprecedented times our roles are still um very active and if we were to suspend everything um until this pandemic was over we would not be having this meeting this evening we would not be losing our council member colleague austin because the reason we're losing her so quickly is because she's getting sworn into the general assembly which begins in short session on April 28th so they are actually moving forward we are in the hard predicament of having to move functions of our city forward including our roles as council members who will be taking up votes potentially virtually later this month because our past work session that was canceled that we were meeting that we were we're going to vote on and then this upcoming one we'll be passing those work sessions which means we'll be passing all of those contracts virtually later in may and we are still excuse me later in april and we are also still beholden to pass a budget by june 30th so to think that we are not undertaking the work of governing while this pandemic is happening is not true um i am particularly concerned about the cost of an election when we just heard from our budget director about the potential um really challenging fiscal issue that we're going to be facing with this budget and to have an election in november for a seat that will then re-opt in 2021 just doesn't not seem um like the best use for our resources and while this is challenging and i think that ideally we would have a different choice we are not faced with that choice we lose our colleague i'm actually also concerned that we have to pass the budget and what happens if we are gridlock 3 3 with a budget in june and that's why this is a seven member board and that's why i believe we need to move as quickly as possible uh to make sure that we are a seven member board and i'll leave it at that thank you thank you council member any other comments any more comments miss racky and see if anybody's raising their hand but i'll yeah i'll certainly yield if other college one of the comments yeah council member freeman is i'll get back to you though council member melton council member freeman is raising her hand and uh council member freeman go ahead thank you mayor and i also want to echo uh the thanks for council member reese uh delving into this task and coming up with a timeline in a few days um i do want to take a moment and just note that i what i'm hearing from council member melton is specific to actual representation not in the form of um engagement and so i'm i'm i would like to hear more um around how you make sure that uh folks we talk about being you know inclusive with are involved in this process as actual applicants not just as a voice to say whether they like or don't like it's not about i'm not i'm more concerned about how heavy this this uh board is on people who aren't working full-time jobs and don't have the the mixed um priorities or responsibilities around holding the job and and being council members and how the timeline is shortened and so it looks like i got to take time off from work and it looks like a lot of very heavy um privilege conversation around what this looks like and pushing it through in a month and so i'm really concerned about moving fast and i know very well that i like to go slow to speed up and so i like to make sure that we dot our eyes and cross our teeth as much as possible i'm very cautious about um about the decisions we make as far as as far as a council member being added and as far as the budget and so just noting that the comment was a little off-putting of um council member cavillera about a three three split i mean i think as the mayor has said in the past we've been 95 percent of the like the budget has been an agreement so i don't know that there would be an issue on whether or not there'd be six of us to make the decision i think we can all see that these are extraordinary times and we can come to agreement on what the priorities need to be covered which would be the residents of this community um and so i'm not as concerned about that i um i know that the work that has to happen has to happen with staff involvement and i am very concerned about pulling on staff to do any of this of this process and i know how much it took the last time around and just how hard it was to have people engaged in both the application process and in the engagement and i and i really do appreciate council member middleton pointing out uh just how flat uh we can be without the pandemic and so just noting that the complexities of adding the pandemic and all of the health related issues that come along with it i'm just i'm just really concerned that we're making this a priority over the fact that i mean there isn't even any place for folks who are who are on shelter and living on the street to shower and wash their hands and that should be what we're focused on you know pushing forward and figuring out how to solve like there's a lot um it's just a lot i know i spend my time uh coming up with solutions around um trying to find ways to support families with young children in this community and i'm i stress this to council member recent that i felt like it was a value judgment to say that that we were not holding or we were not holding up our end of the of the responsibility and and actually performing performing some effort around um creating an appointment process and going through an appointment process when you know that there is a a crisis at hand i think it would be more responsible to actually push this out a little bit and making sure that we're past this this peak because i'm i'm also very concerned about the fact that we haven't taken up anything to to address short term rentals and all the folks who are coming to the city um from other areas there's a there's just a number of of areas that i haven't heard tonight that weren't even touched or weren't even covered and i don't i don't know that there are answers to those questions there probably are and i haven't heard them i haven't had a chance to sit down with the city manager nor the city attorney i mean there's there's there's just so much moving right now and i think the fact that there are folks who are on council who aren't working have time to focus on that is great but i want to make sure that when you're moving forward in the process we actually have um people who are engaged who would not normally be involved in this they're likely to be working and i want to make sure that we're as open to the to the people as possible thank you thank you councilmember councilmember meadowton thank you mr american you hear me all right yes yes we can thank you colleagues so much i really appreciate the the spirit uh and the and the substance of this debate i i just want to be very clear um and i i did not at any point and i'm sure the record will reflect and say that um we're not doing anything as a government uh what i said was we are a government that is operating under emergency footing um depact is closed our parks are closed our businesses are closed and i didn't vote on any one of those things none of us voted on that those things were issued by scott by our mayor using emergency powers which i support so the fact of the matter is the government is functioning but it is functioning under emergency powers and this is what it looks like um the mayor is pretty much this is the closest we'll get to and i know my my political uh uh sophisticated friend they're gonna hate me using this term this is the closest we'll get to looking at what a strong mayor looks like under emergency powers where executive directors are simply being issued and we haven't voted on anything college so uh the government's functioning but it's we're functioning under emergency powers i just want to be clear about that i'm secondly i remember a pretty full room during the uh uh selecting process that that gave us uh fortunately gave us a council of caballero uh a full chamber the night when folk were speaking to us and i remember robust audiences during the time when we interviewed people in person so yes it was very internet intensive but there was definitely some face time to spoke as well and to be clear i'm not talking about the people who will have input about the process i'm talking about people who may actually want to sit in the seat who may actually want to apply to be on the city council who by definition will now have to do it by computer because our building is closed and what if they don't have internet access i'm talking about the people who actually want to serve on the city council who won't be thinking about filling out an application because they're going to be thinking about their paycheck they're going to be thinking about whether they have a job or not those the people i'm talking about those who will actually sit in the seats or who could potentially sit in the seat not just those who will give us input or guidance about those who will sit in the seat and finally we absolutely can do this that's not my issue my question is should we do it do we have to do it can we do this in a way that if we have a choice of doing this in a way where we have more inclusion or less why would we not choose more if we can do this in a way where we have more access than not why would we consciously choose less we have we leak we have a fully functioning quorum with six folks we did it before council cabrero joined us and and you know we we worked out just fine um i find the prospect of a potential three three vote when this council historically is almost voting unanimously on a whole bunch of stuff i find the prospect of a potential three three vote far less compelling than the prospect of having a process where we can have more people involved than less that's what compelled what's compelling to me i absolutely agree we can do this process the question before is before us is should we and i think we should not thank you mr mayor and oh final i'm sorry we have an election coming up in november of november there's an election schedule we're going to be voting for president and a whole bunch of other stuff so we can piggyback on that election that we're going to have anyway in november and if we choose to have a special election i think we should consider that the price of ownership of these seats that's the price we pay to ensure that the ownership rights over these seats of the people of derm are assured this council certainly has not been afraid to spend money on a whole lot of things i think there are far less things far less important things we can spend money on the election that ensures the ownership rights are asserted over these seats thank you mr mayor thank you council member council member austin thank you mr mayor i feel conflicted about weighing in on this process at all but i'll kind of give a very very brief uh two cents just on the equity argument um and i really i recognize kind of this council member melton has laid out but the the paradigm that we're working under is different um than it ever has been uh for us and for so many people um i do just want to say kind of under perhaps different circumstances i think the argument could be made that um an appointment actually and this is difficult with covid but uh an appointment actually is a more accessible way to inter-elected office and so far as if someone has to go through a special election even for a municipal election um there are expenses involved there's you know typically you know campaign fundraising that has to take place there they're there are oftentimes more barriers to folks having access to a political campaign than than to an application um so you know i don't state that as a preference again i i i want to kind of err on the side of leaving that to the six y'all to decide what the process is but i feel concerned about leaving the seat open um any longer than it has to be i do think that our procedures lay out a strong process that i think gives fuel room and latitude to make changes to make it more accessible under the circumstances and i'm concerned that a special election would in in reality be harder for folks who are um lower income or who have are having difficulty accessing finances or fundraising networks who are unemployed um to actually participate meaningfully in that process so i just put that out there thank you very much any comment any other comments okay um council member premium i appreciate that um council member austin and um i think that's why i'm i'm specifically concerned about the that 30-day turnaround and uh recognizing that that's really uh a heavy burden to put on anyone thank you okay other comments anyone else have comments mr. mayor thank you i'd like to associate myself with councillor austin my distinguished council we're going to miss tremendously i'm going to associate myself with her comments and say yes elections are prohibitive and and it does you know you do need to raise money and do all those things um and that that is hard when there's not a pandemic and and i think that's my point in any process whether it's a selection process or an election carries with the challenges now take that process under normal circumstances and add a pandemic to it and add uh you know this emergency situation to it i'm not suggesting that elections are perfect i'm not suggesting that you know they they're they're a panacea to equity by all means but at least you have a you know you have you have uh the opportunity to go ask people for money um this process they've got to add six people for their votes who they can talk to only through a computer if you have a computer they can't talk to us in person they can't be around us uh city hall is closed and and my point is that everything that that even represent or or or to some degree represents normalcy is topsy turvy donald trump's federal government has moved the due date for tax buy that's how upside down the world is right now so so i i you know i i hear you and i agree with you that elections by in and of themselves have barriers i just think it's much harder for any election or selection process to be undertaken while we're facing an invisible enemy that's trying to kill us all um so for that reason i think we have the wherewithal this is just a principal decision i i think we can choose to to uh uh take the path that would allow more people access people who want to weigh in on the process and people who actually want to participate in the process and again uh whatever the the cost of an election whatever the cost of a special election is i'm certainly won't exceed two point four million dollars and i think it's far i think an election is far more important for these seats these seats are the property of the people of durin what price can you put on it thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember um any other comments so um we have in front of us a schedule that councilmember rice has proposed um and uh i would like to try to decide tonight how we're going to proceed it looks like your schedule has the april 10th problem uh no matter what we decided so um and i i'll just say that i don't think that keeping the i think the 10 days is personally i think is the minimum for uh the applications to come in i don't think cutting that down by a couple days is a good idea i see our attorney has some thoughts um mr mayor i i just wanted to point out that your council procedures provide that um applications shall be submitted within no more than 10 days um so it's a council procedural rule um and i also want to correct an earlier comment that i made so the requirement that you all vote to accept councilmember allston's resignation is actually also in the council procedures it's a rule 2.8 thank you very much you're welcome all right anybody want to make any comments on this schedule then we can decide if whether or not we want to adopt this schedule or not councilmember race one thing we could do um is have applications and questionnaires do thursday april 13th which is 10 days after monday april 13th um which will the clerk confirm for me that is not a holiday the monday after easter i don't think it is but um while while that's coming through um and just move everything forward one step in the calendar so um hi madam clerk hello hi the 13th is not a holiday fantastic thank you thank you and just move everything forward in one step so the so the applications would be due on the 23rd application of the questionnaires do the 23rd at the monday we would have a special meeting on april 27th monday for the purpose of identifying three to seven finalists um on thursday april 30th we would have a special meeting uh for interviews and then on monday may 4th and by the way at the end of that meeting on april 30th we could vote um on our selection have them sworn in on may 4th or we could um roll the decision forward to that meeting and have the person sworn in after we vote um and take uh their seat on the dais and participate with us in the meeting um or we could do uh yeah i think that's probably those are our options mayor pro tem you are still muted madam mayor pro tem working okay great thanks could you just say all that one more time uh basically the if if you can pull up the email that i sent last week or um you can just pull up the chat function where i've pasted this calendar in here yep the currently we have the um the um put notice of vacancy being posted on friday april 10th because that's a holiday i would propose rolling that forward to having the notice of vacancy publish on monday april 13th the application of the questionnaire being made available at that time um by the way i have already volunteered i'm happy to volunteer anybody who sees the notice published in the newspaper for example and calls the clerk's office and says i want an application and a questionnaire but i don't have a computer i will wear gloves and i mask and drive it to them um i volunteered to do that in my email that's perfectly fine that would i would love to do that um and so roll that forward 10 days from the 13th is thursday april 23rd um at our regular work session that's when the applications would be due at five p.m that day then we would hold two special meetings the following week which is actually already in the process monday april 27th 2020 we would identify three to seven finalists then on thursday april 30th uh we would conduct interviews for the three to seven finalists and neither at the completion of that meeting or at the beginning of our monday may 4th council meeting we would vote to um appoint uh the successor for the word 3c all right i'm going to see if i can stay that make sure that we all understand it if we're going to vote on this uh would be uh that uh on on monday april 13th the clerk would post a notice of vacancy and make the application questionnaire available online city would send out the press release and so forth on thursday april 23rd the council would identify i'm sorry the applications would be due applications and questionnaires would be due by 5 p.m on april the 23rd and on april the 27th the council would identify three to seven finalists for the appointments at regular council work session then on april the 30th the council would interview final finalists at a special evening council meeting and then that night could make the appointment or could also decide to hold making the appointment until monday may the 4th that i capture what you said the reason i the best argument for having the vote on monday may 4th is that after the the interviews will obviously be in some format similar to this and that will give members of the public who weren't watching it live to go back and watch that to to let to talk to folks about what they heard and to contact us for input into our decision okay so the appointment will be made at the regular council meeting of monday may the 4th i think that makes the most sense all right okay um any other comments at this point council member freeman just noting that a council member of middleton is still not visually on the line i just want to make sure he understands uh the proposed 30 days to appoint someone to the seat uh yes i i'm not visually on the line i i'm here uh can you hear me can you guys hear me yes yes we can and i'm watching on television you guys look great and and yes i'm and i understand the 30 days absolutely okay thank you thanks for checking thank you very much all righty um i'm going to now ask uh if there's any more discussion and if not if someone would like to make a motion on this item i would be happy to accept that mr mayor as a matter of course should we accept the resignation first or we don't do that last or not or never at all or not at all that that's that's a great question i'll leave that to the city attorney to ask if there's any priority with that um mr mayor you really only have to vote to on the resignation itself there's no requirement that you vote for a timeline um for how you want to proceed with the vacancy okay but can we vote i think i would i would do as council member middleton is suggesting which is to actually vote to accept the resignation which then creates the vacancy that you'd need to fill okay and when would your resignation be effective again is that april the ninth is that what we said i believe it's in the written resignation that council member allston has tendered to the clerk April 9th i believe that's April 9th 12 a.m. uh 11.59 thank you all right then uh i'll accept a motion that we accept with reluctance so move to adjourn is there a motion to that effect i'll i'll move that but only because you added with reluctance okay is there a second second it's been moved and seconded that we accept council members allston's resignation with reluctance let me i'm going to have a roll call vote i'll call each name and you can say either i or nay or yes or no whichever you prefer uh and and i will uh i'm going to just do it on the order on my i'll i'll call on uh i'm gonna i'm gonna start with myself i mayor pro tem i council member allston council member freeman i council member reese i council member caballero i council member middleton could you repeat the question yes do we do we do we accept okay thank you um the the uh it's the vote was seven to zero madam clerk uh to reluctantly accept the resignation of council member allston all right uh now if there is a motion on this process we can decide whether or not we would like to do this i'll make that motion mr mayor this is the process you've described hang on one second council member freeman let me ask if there's a second on the process and then we'll have discussion second all right it's been moved and second that we accept the process as described council member freeman just noting that the process and a vote um all in the same night doesn't seem um um like we're doing due diligence but i i mean i understand that you all want to move forward so i just want to make sure i just note that i will not be supporting it all right thank you any other comments before we vote yes mr mayor council member middleton i will i will vigorously uh participate in the selection process of our colleagues if it's the will of this council but i will also be voting uh no i think uh we can do this more inclusion so i'll be voting no i look forward to participating thank you very much any other comments before we i call for the vote okay the way i'm going to do this y'all is i'm going to call myself first i'm going to call mayor pro tem and i'm going to go right across my screen just like i did a minute ago okay uh so uh we'll now have the vote uh i vote i madam mayor pro tem i council member res i council member austin i council member freeman no council member caballero i council mayor middleton no all right thank you uh the motion passes five to two um i'm going to uh council member race as the head of our procedures committee i'm going to ask you if you will continue to work with our attorney clerk to uh move the process forward as we've discussed uh thank you so much i will also endeavor to have both forms uh prepared in spanish as well um so that we can have that uh promulgated on April 13th uh in those two languages thank you so much um council members i don't believe there's any more business to come before this meeting we we stuck it out until almost 11 o'clock and i want to thank you all in other very difficult circumstances i do want to offer one other uh we've talked a lot about staff tonight and thanking everyone i just want to thank our city attorney which i neglected to do earlier when we were talking about everything around COVID-19 kim you have done a great job under incredible stress and uh unbelievable hours and i hope you'll pass on to your staff our appreciation as we expressed earlier to our as to the city manager and his staff you all have done a fantastic job and just so appreciative of you thank you thank you all righty uh council member freeman thank you along those lines i also want to uh thank our admin staff who've been so phenomenal and answering all of the onslaught of questions that have been pouring in by phone and by email um and um making sure that i recognize that uh if not for them i wouldn't know all of the questions that were all coming in and all the concerns that were raised over the last two weeks or last three weeks i should say thank you very much thank you for bringing that to us absolutely super important all righty uh there being no other business to come before this body i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 10 48 we will have a um a work session at one o'clock on thursday so i will see you all virtually as well thank you everybody thank you thank you good night everybody good night good night thank you good night