 Good evening. I'm John Martin, past president of the Interneighborhood Council of Durham, which is co-sponsoring this forum. The Interneighborhood Council is nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates or political parties. I would like to thank Durham's television network, Channel 8 on Spectrum Cable, and Channel 99 on AT&T U-Verse for producing and broadcasting this event. Close captioning is provided courtesy of the Interneighborhood Council. I would like to recognize and thank our co-sponsors, student groups at North Carolina Central University and Duke University, who have provided questions, Spanish language translation through full circle interpreting, childcare in conference room 1A through platinum sitters and food in the lobby. These groups are bridging communities at the Sanford School of Public Policy, the International City County Management Association Chapter at North Carolina Central University, the Duke Student Government, Durham and Regional Affairs Branch, Duke Polis, the Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership, and the University Scholars Program at Duke. At this time, please turn off your cell phones and refrain from taking pictures or videos of this forum. Please hold all applause until the end of the forum to save time for more questions. The participants in the forum tonight are candidates in the October 10th, 2017 primary election for Mayor of Durham. The candidates are in the order in which they will appear on the ballot for Ad Ali, Shea Ramirez, Steve Shul, and Sylvester Williams. Pierce Freelon originally accepted our invitation and then informed us this afternoon that he was unable to attend. Another candidate, Tracy D. Drinker, did not respond to our invitation to appear. The seventh candidate on the ballot, Michael Johnson, has withdrawn. All questions will be asked by the moderator. If audience members have questions they wish to submit, please do so at the table outside the council chambers. Each candidate will make an opening statement of one minute and a closing statement of two minutes. Candidates will be allowed a minute and a half to answer each question and the buzzer will sound when their time has expired. The candidates are asked to observe the time limits. The first question will be different for each candidate and will ask a specific question about his or her campaign. These questions are not designed to be negative but to allow each candidate to address an issue that has been raised in the community. The remaining questions will be policy questions and each candidate will have 90 seconds to answer the question. Let's begin with the opening statements. Mr. Ali, one minute for your opening statement. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Farad Ali. I'm running for mayor of Durham. I'm running, I'm currently the CEO and president of the Institute of Minority Economic Development, which is a 30 year old nonprofit that focuses on building the prosperity of minority women on firms, particularly in the state of North Carolina. Also, I've served on the city council from 2007 to 2011. And after that point, I went to go serve on at the pleasure of the city council, serve at the airport authority for the last five and a half years. Currently in the chair of the airport authority and have served in that leadership role for about a year now. I'm running for election of mayor of Durham because I believe that Durham has an opportunity to become more homogeneous in the way that we work. I talk about one Durham because I believe that some of the things that are happening in our community, we have a chance to unite them. One Durham, meaning that we focus on economic development, that we use economic development as one of the carrots that we build our city. We do the second part, which is community development. We make sure that the communities in which we live and have a place live. And lastly is jobs. Thank you, Mr. Ali. Ms. Ramirez. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. My name is Shea Ramirez. I am from Greensboro, North Carolina. I've been here since 1991. I'm a graduate of North Carolina Central University. I graduated in 1995. I have a bachelor's of arts degree in public administration. I have a master's in entertainment business from Full Sail. I have six daughters, teenage daughters, and I'm married. I'm a small business owner. I have currently two businesses in a nonprofit, Shabella Mollon Talent Agency at Northgate Mall, and Textions, also a beautiful U. Why am I running for mayor? At my agency currently, what we do is I empower and teach self-esteem and confidence through fashion and talent. And the reason why I'm running is because right now, some of you may not know about my business, but right now I cannot touch but a limited amount of people. Thank you. Mr. Shull. Thank you. My name is Steve Shull, and I'm really glad to be here tonight. I appreciate the Interneighborhood Council and all the other sponsors. Thank you so much. I also want to say it's great to see some of my students in the audience. Thank you all for being here. I grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia, a small segregated Southern town. I went to my first civil rights demonstration when I was 13 years old and I've never looked back. Racial and economic justice are the causes that have defined my life, and that's what I work on now. I came to Duke in 1969. I fell in love with Durham and I have stayed here. I've been on the city council. I've been on the school board. I've coached soccer for 18 years. I've been a PTA president. I've taught at Duke and for 30 years, I published the independent weekly newspaper, which I founded in 1983. I hope and believe that my service has prepared me well to lead us towards the realization of a common vision, a vision of a prosperous, innovative, green and welcoming city that thrives on diversity and difference and that puts racial and economic justice at the top of our civic agenda. And that's what I will work for. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Hello, excuse me, I'm Pastor Sylvester Williams. First, I'd like to say that I love Lord Jesus. He's first in my life. I am a retired financial analyst from a Fortune 500 company. I was chief of economic development for the Durham business and professional chain and also the Durham committee under fares of black people. One of the reasons why I'm running is that when you look at the growth downtown, you do not see it being evenly distributed throughout the city of Durham. Durham has a higher poverty rate than the state of North Carolina. Durham has a higher poverty rate than the entire country. With all the growth and development in downtown Durham, you would not think that was the case, but it is. The reason why I'm running is because I want to see every section of Durham receiving the same treatment that downtown has received, and it can easily be done if you vote for Sylvester Williams for mayor. Thank you. Now I'm going to address a specific question to each of you. I'll begin with Mr. Ali. Mr. Ali, you served one term on the city council and then chose not to run for reelection. Now you're running for mayor and according to reports have received a considerable amount of campaign donations from people living outside of Durham. Why do these people care about the Durham mayor oral race? Thank you. Great question. I want to express an answer. I'm thankful for all the people that have supported me, the volunteers and people who have contributed to the campaign. I think it's not just that people I currently in my role working at the airport authority and other boards that I serve on in leadership capacities. I've got a chance to have relationships with people who are from around the state around the region and around the country. For example, I serve on Duke University Hospital Board and many of the board members on Duke University Hospital system are not local, but yet they've contributed to my campaign. So when you read the campaign reports in context, you get an understanding that it's just not people are interested in Durham. They're interested in my leadership in the one-derm concept. So when given an opportunity to express my views for the vision of one-derm and the future of Durham, they support that work. And as a result, they financially supported the campaign. Thank you for your question. Thank you. Ms. Ramirez, you currently own and run two businesses. Will you be able to do those on the side while being mayor, which is almost a full-time job in and of itself? Thank you for the question. Yes, I will be able to. I have, like I said, I have six daughters, I have a husband, and I also have people that are currently helping me with the business. So yes, I will be able to run the city and also run the businesses and take care of the family as well. Thank you. Mr. Shul, you've been on the council since 2011. Even if you were to lose this race, you would still be on the council for at least two more years. Why shouldn't voters choose new blood in the mayor's position knowing that you'll still represent them at least until 2019? So let me first say that I'm sure that Shay can do what she said because she does have 16-aged daughters. I am honored to be on the city council. It's a privilege to be on the city council, but it is also true that the mayor has a different position in this city that can make a bigger difference. And that's what I seek to do. I think that the job of the mayor is to try to pull people together across races, ethnicities, languages, neighborhoods, and differences of opinions and ideas and come together around a common vision and then realize that vision. That's what the mayor's job is. And I think that's a strength of mine. I think it's something that I've done a lot of and I think that it's something that I can contribute to the city. Okay, you do have a minute and a half on these questions. Nobody has talked that much so far. So let me get out of here. Mr. Williams, in your response to the People's Alliance question about LGBTQ rights, you said that, quote, civil rights do not apply to the bedroom, unquote, and that, quote, transgender is considered a mental problem, unquote. Given these attitudes, could you actually be a mayor for all of Durham? I'm glad you asked that question. The reason I'm glad you asked that question is because as a pastor, I have to deal with all kinds of people. And people have confided in me and talked about some of the deep hurts. And one of the reasons why I'm running is because what we've done, we've put a band-aid on those problems instead of looking and addressing deeply what caused those problems. The same thing we see happening here in the seat of Durham and some of the poor neighborhoods and communities. Any time you talk about giving money to poor neighborhoods, it's considered way of fair. But the same money that's going downtown is considered investment. Why do we have that double standard? Why is it that we can't deal with people where they are and allow them to express themselves? The hurt and the pain they're feeling without labeling them as either this or that. And that's what I do as a pastor. My experience is talking to listen to people, to understand where they are coming from, to feel their hurts, to feel their pains. And I'm telling you, that's what I have done. And so the things, the comments that I make, one thing that you will find in Sylvester Williams being your mayor here in the seat of Durham is someone that is transparent. Someone that anyone can come and talk to. Someone that anyone will feel comfortable around because that's who I am. And that's what I try to do. And so the comments that I made, it was because, number one, there are reports that say that there are issues. Those things are not resolved. It's not genetics. And so if it's not genetics, then why are some people having some of these problems and issues? Thank you. Now we're going to go to policy questions and you will have 90 seconds to respond to these. And again, we'll start with Mr. Ali. There is a widespread perception that many people in Durham are not benefiting from the city's growth and general prosperity. Is this attributable to anything that the mayor or council have done or not done? What would you do about it? Yeah, great question. I think the answer is more complex than 90 seconds we'll give it. So we'll just take a couple of ideas and talk through this. I think the city council has a way of setting policy and culture for our city. Having an understanding that as we do economic development and we see growth in our city occurring, making sure that we have policy for inclusion is important. So let's take, for example, I worked on a project with the county of Durham. They were spending 6% of their resources with minority and women owned firms for the last four years. After one year of engagement with our organization, we were able to get the county to pass an ordinance for 25% utilization for women and minority owned firms for their contracting and procurement. Within the first year of that work, we were able to secure over 25% of utilization with minority and women owned firms for contracting services. Many of those contracting services were for women and minority owned firms inside of this county. So when you're talking about setting policy, that can make a difference for inclusion and participation, economic development, community development and human development. Not only do I talk about doing it, I've done it already at the county and believe that we can send that same kind of message to the city so that we can grow and have prosperity, not just for the big people or the companies or the organizations that we're contracting with to do the work that they're doing, but to make sure that we're able to spread that around so that other people can participate in this prosperity. So I've proven that I've done it. We've got a policy that shows that we've done it, and we're now celebrating opportunity to continue doing it in their work. Thank you. Thank you. Uh-huh. Ms. Ramirez, the same question. I'll repeat them if any. Candidates want me to repeat the question. Could you repeat, please? Yes. There's a widespread perception that many people in Durham are not benefiting from the city's growth and general prosperity. Is this attributable to anything that the mayor or council have done or not done? What would you do about it? Well, first, I don't think that local government has done a great job of being in the community. I'm a people's person. I love people, and I believe that in order for us to fix any issues or problems in the city, you have to be involved in the community. We can't sit behind a desk. We can't sit in a chamber. We can't be involved in what's going on with everyday people, and I think that we can do a much better job of that. I don't think it's been done. It's a lot of things that are going on in Durham, and I think that if people, citizens actually see local government involved in their everyday lives, that lets them know and feel their concern and they care about the actual individual citizen. So I think that's really huge, and I think if I become your mayor, I will definitely be doing that. I do that already. I'm in the community way before I decided to run for mayor. So this is something that's not new to me. I'm a community person. I love the people. I don't care of your sexuality, your religion, your skin color. I'm about helping the people and bridging the gaps. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Schultz. So there's no question that it is true that we are experiencing the march of gentrification through our neighborhoods. The harsh underside to Durham's newfound prosperity is that 20% of our people, mostly people of color, do not participate in that, and we need to change that. The way in which I do, to answer your question directly, John, the way in which I think the city has participated in this is the city has done a lot of things that has helped Durham develop. Downtown development is partially the result of the actions of the city, and that has meant people have wanted to come here. And that's a good thing, but it also 20 people a day come to Durham. But it also means that that's driving up the prices of real estate and making it tougher for people. So what should we do about it? First of all, we have the city councils just double the penny for housing to two pennies to start building more affordable housing here in Durham. We have rapid rehousing, which we fund to rapidly rehouse homeless families and we rehoused 185 last year. We funds habitat second mortgages, interest free second mortgages for all habitat homeowners. We have our proactive rental inspection program, which has tremendously increased our ability to get housing up to code. We have invested in the Durham Housing Authority, which houses 12,000. One in every 20 Durhamites are in some sense dependent on the Durham Housing Authority, and the city has been funding the redevelopment of those properties. We have effectively ended veterans homelessness in Durham, and now we need to do the same thing for families with children. We can do that. And so there are many, many things that we can do to change this. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Please repeat the question. Yes, there is what a widespread perception that many people in Durham are not benefiting from the city's growth and general prosperity. Is this attributable to anything that the mayor or council have done or not done? What would you do about it? From 2000, 2015, the poverty rate has increased 28% in the city of Durham. When you look to the Southside community, one thing you see is that they use CDBG money. They took out a $19 million loan that could have been used for housing and also for counseling. They went in together and they said, we're going to develop that property for low income and middle income people. What do they do instead? They raise the property, put the houses down, put a hold on it when buying the property. And how do I know? Because I talked to a person with self-help. They had signs up all over the place saying they would not sell property to anyone in that community. They put a hold on it. And then they allowed these developers to come in and build houses for $300,000 and $400,000 that the people in the community cannot even afford to pay the taxes on now. Because they've been so priced, so highly. Now, what am I going to do about it? What I'm going to do right now, 25% in reserves, 25% in reserves for the next year's budget. What am I going to do? Those people living in those houses who've been code enforced, they're telling them they don't get their house up to a certain standard. Then they've got to get out of their houses or they're going to put a lien on their house. Those same people, I say take those reserves and use that money for those folks who are struggling to stay in their houses. The elderly who've been there for 30, 40 and 50 years. And now because of these other houses, they cannot afford to pay their taxes. Thank you. I think a couple of you anticipated the next question. I'm going to start the next question with Ms. Ramirez. Recently, a vacant lot on Dowd Street in Northeast Central Durham sold for $80,000. The developer who bought it plans to build a house on that lot that will be priced at $440,000. Does the soaring price of land in and near downtown make affordable housing in these areas unworkable? What alternatives do you see, Ms. Ramirez? Well, first I think that the inclusionary, we need to have inclusionary zoning. This will be a way to fix affordable housing, which it mandates all development in a jurisdiction typically over a minimum. Thresholds such as 50 units includes a certain number of units that meet affordability goals for all citizens. So I think that we need to have some regulations as far as developers coming into the city, allowing them to come in, but also requiring them to have a certain amount of units that are affordable. I think that's very important. I think that we're putting more money into the land versus the people. I think that's huge. Thank you. Mr. Shul. Thank you. So I'm going to repeat a couple of things I said because I think they're really important. And I do think that this is a great question because there's no issue that is more important in Durham right now. So next year we have about $80 million will be spending an affordable housing in Durham, $30 million the budget for the Durham Housing Authority, about $40 million to develop two of our redeveloped two of our Durham Housing Authority communities, which the city has helped finance, and $10 million from the city's pennies for housing now, two pennies for housing fund. And what that means is that if you own a $200,000 house in Durham, and $40 a year in taxes to help build a house for somebody else. And we're doing a lot with that. And to answer your question, John, absolutely, we can do a lot about this. We can't beat gentrification. We can't stop the big market forces, but we can make a difference. We can preserve the Durham Housing Authority communities that are housing the 6,000 of our most vulnerable and support the Section 8 program, which is housing another 6,000 of our most vulnerable. We can do that. We can use our publicly owned land downtown to leverage affordable housing as we're doing on Jackson Street and as we will be doing at Fayette Place, which the city just spent $4 million to purchase. We can help low income homeowners stay in their homes through tax relief and repair programs. There's a lot we can do for affordable housing. We can make a difference. Thank you. Mr. Williams. Please repeat the question. Recently, a vacant lot on Dowd Street in Northeast Central Durham sold for $80,000. The developer who bought it plans to build a house on the lot that will be priced at $440,000. Does the soaring price of land in and near downtown make affordable housing in these areas unworkable? What alternatives do you see? One thing that we do know is this right here. Is that businesses are not moral agents. They go where the money is. And so that's why we see some of what you see happening and happening. The thing that I would say that can be done, the thing you need to do is stabilize some of these communities. The same thing that happened in downtown Durham can happen in the five quarters in Durham too. You take the same resources, the same money that you use to develop downtown Durham. You could also incent businesses to develop in these communities. And when you incent businesses to develop, the way you incent them is saying that if you have from those communities, that's where your incentives come from. Same thing they have for downtown Durham. That's where incentives come from. And when you start developing and building those communities, then you're going to have people who's able to afford the homes in those communities and able to live in those communities. And the reason why we see what we see happening now is intentional. I've talked to realtors and the comment you just made, I know a realtor personally told me about this very same thing. And I also know too that for those of you who are from, I was told by a very well known realtor in the area saying that those prices there were intentionally set that high in order to keep certain people out. And I know that I've talked to people in Durham. They feel the same thing that's happening here. It's not that those houses really value that much, but they want to keep certain people out. Thank you. Mr. Ali. Yes, thank you. Real talk, gentrification, growth in Durham is happening. And real talk is that the value of property will go up because of the development. I do want to talk about why this is in our community, why this is a problem, how we need to address it, particularly around the question that you're posing about land. 40% of our 41% of the people in Durham make less than $50,000. Over 25% of the people in Durham make less than $35,000. When you start running the numbers as what can you can afford for a mortgage, you realize the numbers are maybe around $150,000, $80,000. So I was a banker for over 10 years and I've done financing for affordable housing for individuals. I've done the affordable housing investment for companies like DHIC, one of our partners. I've done affordable housing in other places around the country. The issue is how do we raise affordable housing because affordable housing is different depending on your income from 30% to 45% to 50% or 60% of median income. How many of you all in here had rent go down? Please raise your hand. I'm sorry. Okay, so what that tells you is about the economic pressures of what's happening. We need to get people jobs at a sustainable rate so they can get housing that is affordable and making sure that we get investments from federal and state partners so that we can have public-private partnerships to invest in property so that the rents in there could be affordable for people to live in places, not just in downtown but around our city. We have an affordable issue in our city, not just in downtown. Thank you. The next question I'm going to begin with Mr. Schul. Recently inaccurate information and poor communications regarding a planned clan march led to large groups of protesters and subsequently business closures and people leaving work early. What can be done to avoid this in the future while still protecting the right of peaceful protest? So, great question. In terms of the communication, I think that there's a lot of thought about it's hard sometimes for law enforcement to figure out exactly when to send a message out and I think some good thoughts going into that right now. But I think what happens is raised a lot of other really important issues and I want to talk about them a little bit and the first is this. I abhor everything that the clan and the Nazis stand for and if they do come to Durham, we must meet them massively and peacefully and peacefully. And the second thing is this. I shed no tears when the statute came down. But I also know that we can have a better process than moving ahead because one of the things I've participated in civil disobedience in my life. I've been arrested for it. I've gone to jail for it. I know it's power, but I also know that it doesn't educate people very well. We need a public process in this town to think about our Confederate monuments and the remnants of the Confederacy here and to figure out how to put them in a historical place or contextualize them and take the ones down that are glorifying the Confederacy and the perpetrators of slavery. We need to do that. And then we need to do something else. As a community, we need to figure out who it is we want to honor. Who do we want to have on a pedestal literally? Who are our people in our past who we want to glorify and we want to? I'll tell you more later. Thank you. Mr. Williams. Part of the problem that we're having is something that the state legislature apologized for in 2007. And that's institutional racism. Institutional racism is when there's someone being offended and you don't see any wrong in what's happening. And the other side of the coin for most people is that, well, it's wrong, but I can't do anything to change it. As mayor, in the city of Durham, I will confront institutional racism. I was at a forum last night and Mickey Michelle was in the audience and I didn't know he was there. And I remember when they passed the resolution in 2007 about institutional racism, and they apologized for it in the state of North Carolina. And I was asking myself, what does that mean? And this response to me was, those were just words. And that's what's happening now. My daughter brought home a textbook. And in the textbook it said, this was the first African woman. And above that caption was a picture of a monkey. And we wonder why they call Michelle Obama an ape in heels. It's institutional. These things have been programmed into people. They think there's nothing wrong with it instead of realizing there is something wrong. People are being hurt. People are being offended. People are being made less than because of these decisions that's been made by policymakers here in the state of North Carolina. Thank you. Mr. Elly. Can you ask the question again, please? Sure. Recently inaccurate information and poor communications regarding a planned clan march led to large groups of protesters and subsequently business closures and people leaving work early. What can be done to avoid this in the future while still protecting the right of peaceful protest? You asked the question and gave us the answer simultaneously so I'm going to try to go through that. I think it's important that Durham as a progressive city does protest when we see that there's hate. Hate does not have a place here in Durham. I do understand though that federally we have a lot of things that are being pushed down upon us from DECA and then statewide from laws around HB2, HB13 that are creating a lot of, you know, a lot of, in our community a sense of distaste. And that is causing a lot of people to be revved up because they want to act locally. I think it's important that we do meet things with protest. I'm an African-American man. I grew up with my father protesting in New York way back when for jobs and equality. My mother was a part of, as a meter maid at a union and they protest to get livable wages. And so protest is not uncommon in my community or for my family. So I think we should be able to protest. But also when you protest I've seen things happen and my fear is that we should be able to protest peacefully and not be inundated with the law system because once you protest and get arrested there is not equality once you go into the judicial system. And so understanding that if I protest and I go to jail and I don't have the bail to get out then I can't get out to support my family where people who have resources are able to do that. So we need to protest peacefully and make sure we make a place for people to be protected in their protest so that we don't find ourselves in the disposition of figuring out is this a misdemeanor or felony. So I think it's important that we still keep the energy of wanting to protest and we do that. Thank you. Ms. Ramirez? When there's an issue going on within the city or the United States, the media puts it out. And I believe that in this situation you have a certain amount of time whenever you do a protest. I think it's three weeks, but when it's a situation where it's this critical I think that it needs to be a law pass to where that time frame and getting a permit to protest is a quicker process than normal. And as far as what the statues are concerned, to me the statues can come up, they can stay down, they can go to a museum, they can go to another place. My thing is that when they come up or stay down or are moved at the end of the day, what is in the people's hearts and minds? So that's what it's about for me. You can remove the statues, you can take them down, but if someone has bigotry and hate in their heart, that's the root of it. It's what's in people's hearts and minds. So in the day we can protest, which is healthy protest, but I think we also need to look a little further and really sit down and have conversations with people just to figure out what is the different, why is there a hate? Because hate, first of all, you're not born to hate, you're taught to hate. So again, thank you. Thank you. We begin the next question with Mr. Williams. Two of Mayor Bell's signature projects have been Eastway Village and Southside. Do you consider them a success? How would you respond to the charge that they represent gentrification with city dollars? Thank you for the question and I think that I've already spoken on that. We as Durham can do better. There are policies that have been put in place that we feel that's reflecting all of Durham. And for a large part of Durham, they have no say whatsoever in those policies. I live in East Durham. Currently I have signed off one, two Title VI complaints in the Office of Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. One is about what's taking place in our school system where our African American minority students are being treated poorly. And the other is that with the Federal Highway Administration, where whenever they decide to build roads, they decide to build roads in lower income minority communities. East End Connector, Holloway Street, Austin Avenue, where's all that taking place in minority communities? And so when we start looking at policies, we need to start looking at policies across the board. Is everyone being negatively affected equally or is it just a certain segment of the population that's being affected? And I think this is what we've seen reflected. We have not seen this level playing field when it comes to people of color or people of lower income. We've not seen this level playing field. And if you don't come downtown, you can shout hooray. If you go outside of downtown, you have problems. Thank you. Mr. Ali. You know, I'd have to push back on that question a little bit because if you would have seen that neighborhood before they did it, you would have understood why it was so important that that project occurred. I'm not talking about South Side, I'm talking about Eastway Village in that community. There was, crime was cleaned up, housing was cleaned up, a lot of those people were able to come back to their communities. I thought it was a smart move. It gave people dignity. So I'm not sure how many of you all were in Durham during that time, but that community, this is a positive asset that occurred for that community. And it gave people a sense of dignity and home ownership in their community. And I think that needs to be recognized and appreciated for that foresight to focus on that project. Now the South Side project had a little bit of different. It was a little different. It was tougher to get done financially. It was a plan for building, purchasing the homes and providing a play back for people to come back into that community. Unfortunately, that did not happen. And we need to talk about it. Why did not happen? What could we have done better? What kind of nonprofit support systems could we have provided for those people to come back into this community? Unfortunately, those houses that came in, we had people take advantage of the low incomes and they were not quite working at the minimum income and they went into those houses. So there's another story there. But next time we do a community development project, I think we need to wrap around a human services project so that we can make sure that the people get a chance to get back in their community and appreciate that. Thank you. Ms. Ramirez. How I feel about the whole gentrification and revitalization of Durham in the areas that they are redoing. I just feel that it's not equal across the board. I think that Durham is creative, it's vibrant, but I don't think that everyone is given an opportunity to experience, you know, homes, nice homes and nice areas. I just don't feel that it's, people are given the opportunity to experience that. I think that it's with a certain status quo of people. And I think that local government, they can do a much better job. I know with the south side, you know, people have said in the past that, you know, it wasn't planned. At the end of the day, I believe everything has a plan and people know what's going to happen before it happens. I just believe that some people are just left out of the plan and that shouldn't be the case. This is Durham and we need to give everyone, every citizen the opportunity to be successful, to have an affordable living wage, to have a decent home and an area that is not crime-ridden. Thank you. Mr. Schultz. So I think it's important to make the distinction between Eastway Village and Southside. And so what I would say is I would agree with Farad. I think that in terms of who's living at Eastway Village, I think that we hit the target that we wanted. That is to say people who are first-time homeowners or very need very affordable rent are there. And I think that's successful. We're not as successful at that on the Southside home ownership portion. That's definitely been gentrifying. And in fact, any city investment is going to be gentrifying. That's a fact. Let me say two things about that. One is what do you do if you make investment? Because you don't want these neighborhoods to just be continually disinvested from, right? Because that just means neighborhoods are going to crumble. So what we can do and what we are going to be doing in the city, and we started this year with some grants to Southside homeowners, low-income long-term Southside homeowners. We gave grants for them to cover the increase in their property taxes, which they were concerned would drop them out of their house. And we have asked our city council, our city management to come back and say, for the long-term low-income homeowners in Durham, what is a reasonable, sustainable program of tax relief and home repair that can help keep these long-term low-income homeowners in their homes? And the other thing is this. There are two parts to Southside. And by far the biggest part of Southside is on the east side of Roxburgh Road. 132 rental units. 82 of them, affordable for people at 60% of the area median income or less. The other 52, market rate, a true mixed income community, and a successful one. Thank you. We have a question here from the audience, and we'll start this one with Mr. Ali. The new police station is strategically located in an area of Durham with a higher crime rate. Do you believe that increased policing is the solution to reducing crime rates in Durham? If so, why? If not, what is? No, I don't think that increasing policing is a part, is really Durham. I don't think that's Durham. I think I'm confident in the new police chief that's been here less than a year. I've been asking the community when we've been having these debates or forums or whatever you want to call them, that the police chief has come here after being vetted extensively from the community with people from Cannes like Mr. Middleton and being able to focus on making sure that we had a police chief that was responsive to our community needs. I want to say that let's give this person with Chief Davis a chance to lead. I have seen the change in the police officers and their involvement inside of the community. I will tell to the community that there's been a lot of tip offs for our crimes that have been solved because people in the community have been able to tip off police officers to help them to solve these criminal issues. So while we may not see them in the public policy space because you don't call the public to tell them, hey, we just found a tip, you just kind of get, take care of it. I've seen that we've been, crime has gone down, arrests have gone down, pulling people over, driving while black or people of color has gone down. So I think we have the right trend in our police system. And I would ask that we not always refer back to where we were, but where we're going. And that's going to be tough. Now, where the location of the police, where the police station is currently, we need to understand it's the people that we need to focus on and not the station. It could be an asset to the community if we can view it and develop a better way of making sure it's not just about having people go inside of that building, but to cooperate. Thank you. Ms. Ramirez. Can you repeat the question, please? Sure. The new police station is strategically located in an area of Durham with a higher crime rate. Do you believe that increased policing is a solution to reducing crime rates in Durham? If so, why? If not, what is? No, I do not. I believe as your mayor, we need to grow programs for the youth to build up their gifts and talents. Versus building jails and prisons. We have to communicate with the youth and the community where there'd be low income, middle class, whatever it may be. We have to communicate. And I think that's a really big part. More policing will not fix the problem. Accountability is really huge on the citizen's part, on police officers and local government. If everyone in these different categories just do their part, I think that that would really help. But more policing is not going to solve the problem. It's going to actually put a band-aid on it. And at the end of the day, we need to get down to the core root of the issues. And I believe that that main thing is the communication. Everyone wants to be accepted. Everyone wants an opportunity. And I believe that if we just open that up to everyone, everyone won't meet the mark but allow people to have the opportunity. To be successful, not look down upon or judged. I think that's a better way than more policing. Thank you. Mr. Schul. So every two days in Durham, someone is shot with a gun. Not just shot at, actually shot. And we need to be fighting gun violence. The legislature gives us no tools. We're not allowed to control guns in Durham. So we need, in addition to solving the root causes of poverty and crime, which we know is the most important and the most critically important thing we need to do. We do need good policing, and we also need something else. We need policing that's never discriminatory and never racially profiled. We have to be able to have both of those things. So I really support our police chief, CJ Davis, and she has instituted many wonderful reforms already. The appointment of liaison officers to Northeast Central Durham community, the LGBTQ community and the Hispanic community, racial equity training for all of our officers, de-escalation training for all of our officers, ceasing traffic checkpoints, which have created significant problems for Durham's undocumented people. The patient non-confrontational way in which she has had our police department dealing with demonstrations, all of these things are very significant and important reforms. Collecting, monitoring, and regularly reporting data about traffic stops and searches to the city council for public scrutiny. Assertively recruiting African-American and Latino officers to our police force. Training every new recruit, as I said before, with racial equity training. The assumption that all small offenses will be going to our misdemeanor diversion court and keeping people out of our criminal justice system. And more. Thank you. Mr. Williams? I am talking to a former SBI agent who trained at FBI school. And I was asking about the police departments. And one of the things that he told me is this right here. He said that 65% of police officers are either corrupt or incompetent. I told Chief Davis that same statistic, that same number. And she said that she'd be glad to sit down and talk with me about it. Because one of the things that we wanted to make sure, and I've laid out a plan, that to root out people with vigilantes and those who may have agendas, maybe in our police department, you need to make sure that when you call your local police or your law enforcement, they'll come in there to protect you, not with another agenda. One thing I think we need to address too, though, and I think is we're oftentimes overlooked. I think the statistic says like 68% of people locked up in prison are dropouts. I mentioned the Title VI complaints about in the school systems where there are African American students, black students, minority students that are not being treated fairly. We start treating them fairly. And you're going to see also a reduction in the dropout rate of students in school. One of the things that I learned about children in school was that by the fourth grade, then they start building prisons and jails based on whether or not that child is loving school or hating school. One thing I would say too, is that by creating jobs, improving the economy will also address the crime. Thank you. Next question will begin with Ms. Ramirez. Drought has stressed our water system and growing population increases the risk. What would you do to make sure that we have adequate water in the coming decades? First, I would look at the budget and look at the plans for the city to make sure that we have adequate water, enough water, and to make sure that it's spread it through the city and the county. Thank you. Mr. Schul. So there's a lot of planning that goes on now in the city of Durham. One of the things I'm really impressed about in terms of the city of Durham and our government is the planning that goes on at these very basic services that is almost invisible to people. When you turn on your tap in Durham, you expect to get as much water as you want. You expect it to taste good, smell good, and be healthy for you. We can't take that for granted in this country and we know that. Flint, Michigan is example number one, but there are many others. We do that really well in Durham and you as ratepayers are paying for it. So in the next five years, in order to do this, John, which you asked, we're spending $500 million, half a billion dollars in improving our water lines and improving our sewer lines and improving our sewer plants and water plants so that we're not polluting the lakes and that we're providing a plentiful water supply. And the other thing that we're doing, again, that's really interesting, I think, is on an opportunistic basis, we're buying land that comes available around Lake Mickey, which is one of our main reservoirs, so that we will, when the need arises, be able to significantly raise the level of Lake Mickey so that we'll have even more water here in Durham. We're more fortunate than most cities in terms of the water we have. I love that action on the part of the city, just opportunistically buying this land and we've almost got it. And then the other thing we've got is this, wonderful intercity cooperation so that if one of our cities, we have lines between Durham and Kerry, for example, we recently provided Chapel Hill with water when their water lines went out. Thank you. Mr. Williams? I've talked to a person with a water treatment facility and I've traveled around the world where oftentimes there are places where water is at a premium. And one of the things that the person I talked to with a water treatment facility, one thing was telling me, he cannot understand how is it that we would take good drinking water and put it on our lawns. When California went through that drought, they realized then, okay, it's better to have brown lawns than to have people without drinking water. We need to revisit this whole idea about safe drinking water. How are we going to do it? We're going to continue, just throw water away, waste water. We're going to address this issue and look at, okay, if we have another drought, if there's a time when we don't have, what are we going to do? As I said, this is something we need to start visiting now. We don't need to wait for it to happen and start saying, okay, we'd like California to do it. We need to start addressing that issue now. Other things, I mean, there are ways around, I mean, for businesses. I mean, you could say, okay, rather than you having these lawns from the system, you pay for these trucks to come out and just water your lawns, whatever. There are ways around it to preserve our water system and make sure that we have safe drinking water. So they won't do like what they did in California when the drought hit and all these brown lawns. Now they're scrambling trying to figure out what to do next. We can do it. But it takes a wheel. Thank you. Mr. Lee? Yeah, thank you. I was on council when we had the drought and I do remember us going, talking about the use of water and we did the water line, as Steve said, to Carrie to make sure that we were sharing the water and we actually had to buy the water from Carrie. And it was, and I want to tell you, that was really, when we had that cost that we had to buy this water, you saw the administration start thinking of ways to make sure that we wouldn't have this problem in the future. So these kind of smart, this foresight of the administration to make sure that we would be prepared in case of another drought has been working for us in our forethought. Additionally, I think it's important to understand that we have a CIP, which talks about making investment in our water lines, realizing the importance of that in our community. A lot of our water lines were over 50 years old, almost 100 years old, and we had to already replace those so that we can have a good system. And they've been proper planning to make sure that we can have that system in place over the past five, six years. So I just, I support that. Thank you. The next question, I'll begin with Mr. Shul. And I will point out that there are a lot of students in the audience here, and this is a question that was suggested by some of the students who were cosponsoring the event. What specific things can the mayor do to boost civic engagement, particularly among students at our local colleges and universities? I hope that was not asked by one of my students. Yeah, so what I would say to the students who are in the audience, welcome to Durham. It's an amazing place. The mayor can do some things, but it's not mainly the mayor that can do some things. You guys got to do some things. Get out beyond the walls. Find the nonprofit that you want to work in. Tutor at a school in Durham. Make yourself, find your way in Durham because it is a great place, and we need you. So that's the first thing I would say. But I do think that there are many things that the mayor needs to do and can do in general to increase public engagement. And I think, especially among students, be present. Go to campus when you're asked to, which I'm already frequently asked to, just as a city council member. Meet with students, try to get them involved, hook them up with the nonprofits that they are, that they can be interested in. And I think send, but the main thing I think is sending that message. We want you involved in Durham. We need you involved in Durham. There are plenty of ways that you can play a really positive role, and we invite you to do it. Thank you. Mr. Williams? Anyone that knows me knows that I'm an open and welcoming and loving person. That's who I am. I was talking to my neighbor who is Hispanic, and I was asking her, I said, well, tell me, what are your concerns you hear from the Hispanic community? What things you see in Durham that you like or that you dislike? One thing is that I'm hearing time and time again that we have elected officials that certain parts of Durham, they will not step foot in unless it's a photo opportunity. I mean, if someone like National Night Out there show up, once National Night is over, they're gone. I live in these Durham. And what's one thing I pride myself on is making myself available and open for anyone to talk to. Students on Duke's campus, students at Central's campus, any campus, I'm there because I realize that we're not the ones that should be said in policies for you, but you should be said in policies. You should be determined what it is that you like or dislike. And how will I know what you like or dislike if I'm not engaging with you, if I'm not talking to you? And that's what I do. That's why I've been involved in so many committees on so many things because what I want you all to know, what do the people think? What are they saying? And what I would say to all the students out there, I am available anytime you want to talk. Any concerns that you have, anything that comes up that you want to have conversation with, I'm here. I'm available. That's what I do as a pastor. That's what I do in my everyday life. Thank you. Mr. Early. Yeah, thank you. How many Central students do we have in here? Okay, so it's a requirement to have 100 hours of community service before you graduate. Is that correct? Yeah. Y'all going to do that. Don't do what you're singing here. Do it along the process. I'd say that because it's a requirement at NC Central to make sure they get involved with the community. Their model was truth and service and to go back and give to the community in a way that can build. I think for Dukeson this is also an opportunity to give back. We have lots of students here that are in our school system. We have over 50 schools in our system here in Durham. And you have a chance to invest in them. So I'm a professor or I'm not a professor. I'm an adjunct professor at the small school in Chapel Hill called UNC. Sometimes they call that University of National Champions. At least until 2017. And so we work with the MBA students and the BS students in business. And we found ways to have them adopt a school. So they've adopted a school called Global Scholars Academy. And what they did, we did it before they came to school. We actually had them, we had the students write notes of who they were and what they were. And we sent them to the students in advance. And when the students, I'm talking fast because I don't have a lot of time. And the students came and they made a bicycle for each kid. And so we introduced the students to the kids and they got a chance to build relationships. We know people build their lives because of social networks. And when you have a college student putting your investing in kids, it allows them to have a great opportunity for success. So I pray that you can find yourself helping some of our students in Durham. Thank you. I shouldn't comment, Mr. Ali, but I think UNC stands for the University of Non-Existant Courses. Right. Oh, my God. Okay, yeah. If we could go up. It works coming from a dookie. I get it. I got it. Ms. Ramirez, would you like me to repeat the original question? I'm a Carolina fan. I graduated from North Carolina Central, so I'm just like, whoa. So I learned through this whole process. It has been very amazing to me. I have met some wonderful people, but I learned from other people. We can have stacks, reports all day long, but you really learn when you connect and build relationships with people. So I'm really big on relationship building. And I believe that it's very important to have all the local colleges, community colleges involved, North Carolina Central, Durham Tech, Duke. I believe it's important to get their creative ideas, their unique personalities. I believe if we put it all together in a pot, we can have so many wonderful things happening in Durham. So I really believe that it's really important. Relationship building is really huge, and that's how you get to know people. And you learn from other people. We're not the only ones up here that know everything. I mean, you guys know stuff. You guys are smart, right? So I believe that if we all put our ideas and our thoughts together, we can really tackle all the issues and concerns in Durham. Thank you. Next question will begin with Mr. Williams. This was also a question that was suggested by some of the students, but also by some INC members, so it seems to be some broad interest in it. What are your priorities for infrastructure spending and the capital improvement budget? Is the city spending too much, too little, or about right on these projects? The city is not spending enough. One thing that we need to start addressing right now, our roles, our infrastructures, there are aging. We can't wait for a collapse in a road to try to do something. We need to do something now. I was talking to a person on one of the committees, and they were telling me about roads, and they were telling me that there's like a billion dollars in deferred maintenance. We cannot continue to allow that to happen. We're talking about coming downtown. Where is the parking downtown? And some people now don't have a place to park. We're talking about roads. We need to do more to start improving the infrastructure here in the City of Durham. And as far as too little to know, I don't think we're spending enough. We need to do more to upgrade the infrastructure here in the City of Durham to make sure that we have quality roads. And let me add this. We don't want infrastructure to disrupt any community or neighborhood. This has been something that has happened in the past, and we do not want that to continue. Every neighborhood in Durham should be a vibrant neighborhood. But also, what I'm saying, though, we need to improve our roads, we need to improve our infrastructure. We need to do it now. Thank you. Mr. Ali. Yeah, thank you. You know, you are students in there, citizens also. I think it's important that we understand how this all happens. So when you're talking about improving the infrastructure of roads and making things happen around this infrastructure bit, you either can do it through payment, through your general fund, which is not a whole lot of money to do it, which means if you have to raise taxes to do it, it's not responsible. So a lot of times we do this through issuing bonds. The second part of this is understanding that it does have a capacity issue. You can't just snap your fingers and roads are built. And we do have a need for building more roads. We have a big ability to build more trails. We have the ability to build more sidewalks. This is an issue for many cities and particularly in Durham, where we have some sidewalk issues that we have to address. And I know we've got a bond, 20 million or 20 million dollars set aside to kind of go after it. But I was talking with the lady yesterday who was out near Grove Park and she pulled me aside after our forum and she said, you know, why do we have roads and sidewalks and places around South Point and maybe the Trinity Park or other communities? But down 98 in Grove Park, we don't have the same things. And I started thinking about an infrastructure plan to make sure we let our community know when we're going to be able to address all of these needs. So based on our current budget, I think we invest properly in infrastructure for the ability to finance it and to complete it over a period of time. And I think our administration manages that process very well during the budget process, including the current city council. Thank you. Is Ramirez? I don't feel that it is budgeted properly because, again, to me it's again about a dollar, tax dollar money. It's not about the people. I believe that we have put a lot of money into downtown and the South Point area. And I believe that some of that money could have been distributed throughout the city a little bit better than it has been to allow other areas that are hurting and being effective due to poverty. I think that it just needs to be spread out more. I think that we look towards tax dollar, the value, the land, and we forget about the actual people. It's about the people versus the land. So I think we look more to land making money versus really caring about the people and what the people need in all areas of Durham and not just certain parts of Durham that are thriving. Thank you. Mr. Shul? So the big infrastructure expenditure is the one that I already mentioned before, which is water and sewer. That's by far our biggest infrastructure expenditure and we have to do that well. We also have to be spending money on our roads. When we have surveys of what people are concerned about in Durham, roads is always at the top of the list. I see Bill Adair's fact checkers here in the room so let me just say that I believe the number is $6 million in the current budget for road repair and maintenance so we do that every year. But they're also what I think of as these very important public assets that are infrastructure expenditures that are important to all of us. Trail miles, sidewalk miles, ball fields, parks, and the tree canopy. The tree canopy is a very important public asset. My priorities include $20 million in sidewalk construction which we have currently in the capital improvement plan. Building greenway trails at a much faster pace than we are now. We should be building at least two miles a year every year. And 100,000 trees in Durham in the next 30 years. We're losing our tree canopy to age. We're losing our tree canopy to development. And we also have a situation where our tree canopy is inequitably distributed. If you look at the old redlining maps in the 1930s, you will see that the same in neighborhoods that were redlined are also currently bereft of tree canopy. We need to do this infrastructure spending on these critical public assets. And we can. We have the money to do that here in Durham and we need to make that investment. Thank you. Next question I'll begin with Mr. Ali. One of the major and unglamorous jobs of the City Council at nearly every meeting is to approve or reject zoning requests. How familiar do you consider yourself with the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance? Does it need changes? And if so, what? Yeah, I think the UDO will, some of that process. So that was a expressed question, right? But we know that it goes to the planning department when you have it. It goes to a development review. The whole process to do a development is not fast or easy. We understand it touches over 19 different citizens groups. You have to go through a development process, site control. And whenever you draw a development up, you have to be conscious of how it affects the city in totality. So you have to talk about parking spaces, fire hydrants, police, parking, building height. So it's all the city services that go into doing the building. Much of the UDO is appropriate. But as we continue to have more development, particularly around our transit sites that we're talking about that may come through our city, those create new opportunities for us. So being able to revisit our UDO to meet the demands of our community, as well as our citizens, is always important. So being able to pivot, understanding that some of those changes may come through the development process, will be recommended by the planning department. So I feel very familiar with it, but I think it needs to be also attached to the values of what we feel is going to happen in the communities that we want to redevelop. Thank you, Ms. Ramirez. So last year I had to go through the planning department for my model and talent agency. And I went through probably about six to seven months of dealing with them. And at the end of the whole process, it was hard. I was crying at the end of the process and I didn't get approved. I didn't give up and I had to go back and make some changes and I finally got it. But it wasn't an easy process. And I was told that when I came in that we're not going to approve you. I'm like, wow, okay. So from the get-go, it was they let me know you're not going to get approved in the beginning. It's just the process. It's just what you have to go through. So I honestly believe that if you have someone coming in and they're benefiting the community, they shouldn't have to go through Rhythm & Road to get any type of zoning that they need. And I went through it. It was difficult. I completed the process, but it was not an easy process. So I think it needs to be a better process than what they have right now. Thank you. Mr. Schul. So nobody should ever have to go to the planning department and come out crying. That is not good enough. And so that process definitely needs to be improved. If that happens ever and we need to make sure that happens. I recently wrote a little bit about this for something else. So I think I'll just read a little from it in terms of what our UDA ought to do and what our planning and zoning ought to be doing. Here's the kind of UDA that we need. It ought to protect our critical drinking water resources and dwindling open space. It should provide for sufficient industrial and commercial zones to encourage job creation. It should discourage sprawl while encouraging density around the eventual transit corridors. It should protect residential neighborhoods from commercial encroachment. It should accommodate housing at a variety of price points for the onslaught of new residents. It should ensure orderly transition from residential neighborhoods to commercial and industrial uses. It should interlock with our transportation plans to encourage walkable, bikeable neighborhoods in mass transit. It should incentivize mixed use, mixed income developments around transit stations. Create form-based compact design districts. Ensure that each design district has its own unique set of characteristics that meets the area's particular needs. Protect significant historical and cultural sites. Give developers, residents, and everybody reliable expectations about the dependability of the UDO and the future land use map. Incentivize the creation and preservation of affordable housing, and in general provide for the orderly sustainable growth of our community. We can have a UDO that does that. Thank you. Mr. Williams. Please repeat the question. Sure. One of the major and unglamorous jobs of the City Council at nearly every meeting is to approve or reject rezoning requests. How familiar do you consider yourself with the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance? Does it need changes, and if so, what? There are two examples that I have. One is that for places of worship, right now it's about four times more restrictive for places of worship than it is for bars and restaurants, as far as parking goes. And a lot of churches are asking why are they being more restrictive when statistics show that if you have a church in the community, crime is down, statistics show you have a church in the community, you help people being helped more. But yet it still is more restrictive having a church than having a bar or a restaurant in the community. The other thing is that where I live in East Durham, there are houses, there are homes on Anger Avenue, and what they've done, they've zoned that area, they've zoned it like industrial. And people are now who've lived those houses for years, but now you see the community going down in that area because they realize that if I were to build a new house or if I were to invest in it, and something happened, the place was destroyed, I lose everything, I fought diligently to get the zoning changed for that area. And they said, well, no, this is what it is. We've got to be fair in our practices as far as what we're doing here in the city of Durham. And I can tell you that there are lots of people in Durham that feel as though they're not being treated fairly. Places of worship as well as low income people. Thank you. Next question will begin with Ms. Ramirez. And this actually ties into something that Mr. Shul just said. Do you consider sprawl to be an issue? If so, what do you propose to do about it? And how would you encourage density without harming the character of existing neighborhoods? Repeat the question again, please. Sure. Do you consider sprawl to be an issue? If so, what do you propose to do about it? And how would you encourage density without harming the character of existing neighborhoods? I'm not familiar with that question. Well, then I'll go on to Mr. Shul. So there are only two things that people in Durham don't like. Sprawl and height. Sprawl and density. Those are the only two things that people in Durham don't like. So you got to pick one. And I think that sprawl is definitely the evil that we need to avoid. We don't want to become a big Atlanta suburb or no offense to my friends over in Raleigh, a big North Raleigh suburb. We need to embrace the fact that density is going to be positive for our community in the long run. We have 20 people moving here a day. We have 300,000 people living in this county now, and we will have 200,000 more people living. We'll have half a million people living in this county in 25 years. Maybe 30. So what are we going to do about it? Well, one thing I think that's the most important thing we can do is we can embrace the light rail. The light rail will guide development. We need to make sure that we get to push the light rail and our commuter rail to Raleigh over the finish line so that we have a great public transportation system here that will guide development and increase density. Density follows rail lines, and that is a great way to guide our development and to keep our development coherent and prevent the sprawl that a car-centric society creates. The light rail is crucial, and I hope that in 12 years from now, we should have our first line. 15 miles from North Carolina Central to Duke to UNC Chapel Hill. Thank you. Mr. Williams? I hope that the light rail does not come to Durham because using existing rails will only displace minority communities once again. What sense does it make to drive five miles to a train station to ride a train for five miles? It makes no sense. The population in Durham is not dense enough. There was a 30-year study done saying that in most places where they put light rail in, the systems fail. It's not making money. Why would we in Durham want to go down that same path? The other thing is for our density, talk to the people on Pickett Road. This is something that's coming to Durham. I mean, those areas of green and that everyone talks so glowingly about and this is what Durham is going to be, well, guess what? It's going away. And you know what? It's because of the growth of Durham. It's one of the major cities in the country, one of the major attractions in the country. So those nice little greenways that you like and it's going away. That's a part of having growth. That's a part of being one of the top cities in the country. So we have to learn to just deal with it. Thank you. Mr. Ali. Yes. We have already some sprawl in the city. I mean, we have a tree burn community or that's in the county out this way, but we provide them city services and then we have South Point way out here. So we already have some of that already occurring. But for future growth, I think it's going to be important that we understand how to do density responsibly when you talk about mixed use and making sure as we do some of these projects around the rail project and around our university and around our communities that they fit. We talked earlier about planning and the UDO. I think it's important that we understand the culture of our community and that if our community can understand the benefits of having sprawl and they can provide affordable housing and fit the ecosystem of housing that is affordable to workable to home ownership. How do we create communities where we can have that occur? I've been in Durham now for over 40 years and it used to be communities where you have communities that were disinvested near communities that were doing very well. I think it's important that we build a responsible community that you can have the density of going up, but you can do that not just in home ownership but in retail and create communities that work well together. And this goes around making sure you do planning around streets and police and water and all those things. But our opportunity is to be more dense as we have a population growth of more than 150,000 more people coming to this city in the next 10 to 20 years. Going out is not going to work. It's going to be going up. Thank you. Again, the next question with Mr. Shul. Are you willing and able to look at policy decisions through a racial equity lens? What does that mean to you? Are you comfortable discussing race and racial impacts when making policy decisions? Great question and a super important question. So I'm white. What? And part of what that means is that I will never understand in the way African Americans will, for example, what it means to be pulled over for driving while black. I won't understand that the way an African American person does. So that I think confers a special responsibility upon me and to all of us who are not people of color to look at all issues through a racial equity lens. It's critically important. So part of the way I've tried to do that is to prepare myself. I've taken the racial equity training at the Racial Equity Institute, at Dismailing Racism. I've taken the racial equity training that the police department does for its officers. And I've encouraged our city to do as well. I've talked already about doing that in the police department, but also our city manager is now at... We've budgeted for another 150 people to be taking that racial equity training this year. So that's really important. But it, of course, goes way beyond the training. It goes to looking at every issue as an issue of racial justice and to think about how we might do that. And I hope I've discussed some of that in specifics of policing and housing. But there are many other ways as well. And yes, it's critically important and I think it's a discussion. We have to have every single issue, every single issue. Thank you. Mr. Williams? The thing that I truly love, I went to see my wife and I went to see her play over the last 40 years, past September, so I was a second and so, 40 years. I went to see her play called Crowns and the entire cast was African American. But the people paying to see the play were, I would say, 95% white. And they stood up and they applauded for the play that was over. And one thing that I realized is right here, we've been talking to each other and started realizing we have more things in common. We have white friends, black friends, and it's not us against them, but it's us working together. And it's somehow not allowed the media to distort this relationship. I talk to white people all the time. They talk to me, so we're not talking to black people all the time. And there's not that animosity, that hate, or that bitterness. And the thing that's happening, we're not talking to each other. We allow the media to drive the narrative as far as how we respond to one another rather than get out to know our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, or whoever they may be. One thing I'd like to say quickly that I think makes the point is not really knowing each other. My mother's cousin, about 85, 86 years old, said he was a young boy, some guys out against him. He went out, sprayed a bus, shot it up with bullets. And he said that a white police officer came and told him to drop his gun. He did not. He had the gun in his hand. They told him three times to drop your gun. He only dropped it when the officer cocked his pistol. That's when he dropped it. But he was not killed because there was a community relationship where they understood and they talked to each other. Thank you. Mr. Ali. Yes, thank you. It's unique in this time when we're talking about Durham and it's pivoting and we talk a lot about poverty. We talk a lot about economic development. We talk about jobs and equality. So a little bit about me and I know I don't have long but so I grew up in a small city in New York called Brooklyn and back then it was not as bougie as it is today so I understand poverty. So when people talk about pets I had rats as pets when I was growing up because we lived in a poverty situation. So when you talk about being sympathetic or understanding poverty I've lived it. The second part about this is understanding jobs. So my father's ability to go get a job changed the trajectory of my life. So my brother's now a lieutenant colonel in the army and I'm here now talking to you all but that's because a job changed the trajectory of my community. So when I talk about economic development from a standpoint of changing the lives of kids I'm a part of that. This is not a story. So when you talk about affordable housing when I first moved to Durham it's called Grey Street. If you are from Durham and you haven't been to Grey Street please go down there it was 606 Grey Street. There's a house that's probably a lot as big as this podium. My brother and I sat there and fed a stove so that it could have it could be our heat system and our system for cooking. So having been empathetic to understanding that process is important. So I've been blessed and I've had to work harder twice as hard to appear qualified because the institutional racism of someone being a black man growing up and being able to make it as hard but the reality is that we have a chance to embrace all of this. That I'm just a symbol of what we can be and I want Durham to be that. Thank you. Is Ramirez? So coming here to Durham in 1991 I was bullied and picked on as a kid. I had low self-esteem I didn't have any confidence and coming here my sophomore year I got into modeling and modeling helped me change the way I feel about myself. So I'm not the lady that you see now back then. I'm totally different. Durham made me and changed me into who I am today to be able to be sitting here before you running for mayor. So I'm very proud of myself because I was very shy and I didn't think that I would be able to do anything like this. My husband is Spanish. My kids are biracial. So I don't see it's not that I don't see color. I look at everyone as the same. I love people no matter their religion, their sexuality or their skin color. And if I become your mayor that's what I am going to push for. That's what I believe Durham is. I believe Durham is a melting pot. When you come here to Durham you're allowed to be who you are. You're allowed to be unique and different. And I think I fit in because I came here and I was able to be shy. I wasn't able to be shy in Greensboro but I came here and I was able to be who I am and I'm very proud to allow and let brown girls and young ladies like me to know that they can come here or they can be anywhere in the world and they can do whatever that sets their minds to it. So thank you. Thank you. Next question will begin with Mr. Williams. A few years ago Mayor Bell chastised the Historic Preservation Commission for not approving a proposed department project in the downtown historic district. He also voted the Golden Belt local historic district and the expansion of the Cleveland Holloway local historic district. Is historic preservation an important priority or a matter of secondary importance? I think it's an important priority. I think that what is happening in Durham and those who are Durhamites like I am I've been here pretty much all my life except from going off to school but we see things that have been lost things that we took pride and say this is where I was born Lincoln Hospital or this is the school that I went to Hillside High and then we look around and say whoa they're gone they're no longer here and so historic preservation it plays a part in maintaining the community to keep it thriving to keep it alive I don't know there have been achievements accomplishments and if you don't invest in it if you don't do those then you tend to lose a part of your history and you tend to lose a part of your accomplishments and your achievements and that's one of the reasons why you know that that I'm big on historic preservation and maintaining and keeping certain places so that when our next generation come up they can look at those things they can feel proud about the accomplishments and the achievements Thank you Mr. Oli So I've been blessed to have lived in two historic houses one on Holloway Street and one on Mancom Street and both got tax credit for being historic homes but more importantly in 1999 the organization that I worked for the Institute of Minority Economic Development was able to purchase a building on the Black Wall Street called the Mechanics and Farmers Bank Building which was the original building for the North County Mutual Life Insurance and when we purchased the building it was passed down that the building kept its minority run led organization ownership because the imports of history this is the Black Wall Street this is the place where economic capitalism began for African-Americans around this country and we purchased this building and had put in over a million dollars in this in up fit and upkeep and now we house the state chapter of the NAACP Mechanics and Farmers Bank and some other businesses and so while I watch the development of downtown and look at the street which was the Black Wall Street having only maybe two minority owners on this street of course I think historic preservation is important because this street makes it this adds to the fabric of what Durham is and to make sure that when you do this kind of development that you're responsible and that it continues to add to the character in the community. Additionally I served a term or two one side historic preservation and I think it's very important and I think it's very important mainly when you have families that have been in their homes for a very long time and they might can't afford to or sale tear down their home and get it rebuilt so I think it's very important to allow families and communities to if they want to keep their house historical to allow them to I also had a shoe store on Parish Street so I know about Parish Street very well and the historic history of Parish Street actually the building that I was at is still up it didn't change the outside of the building so I think that's very important. Thank you Mr. Shul. So you cited two votes the Golden Belt Cleveland Holloway historic preservation votes and on both of those I voted in favor of the historic preservation districts for those neighborhoods and one of them passed 4-3 and one of them failed 4-3 but I think in both cases it was right to support the historic preservation district there. The other thing is that there's no question that without the preservation of American DeBaca Rightleaf Square West Village and hundreds of other smaller buildings that we would not be experiencing the prosperity and development that we are in Durham that's part of what lures people here that's part of what we Brooklyn that Farah has been talking about we have you know I like to say about Brooklyn we're just like Brooklyn and we pick up the trash ooh so I think that this historical preservation has played a key role in making us the city we are and not some soulless supper. Thank you unfortunately we have a lot of questions and we're going to let you make your closing statements you have two minutes to make a closing statement again with Mr. Ali. Yes thank you thank you INC the students the Central students of Duke and the listening audience for having us here for this form I'm really excited about running for mayor of Durham it's an opportunity really to have for the last 10 years one is a city council member one is a chair of the board of the Raleigh Durham airport authority past chair of the Durham greater chamber of commerce current chair of the southern coalition for social justice and even on the Duke university health systems board and I say all that to say there's so much time and I think I bring that sense of leadership and ability to be a collaborator when you start looking at Durham and its benefits and the growth that we're going to have it's going to be important that all those assets that I've named come together from the economic development standpoint from the jobs growth and development standpoint as well as for dealing with poverty poverty is a real issue in our city development person has provided jobs work with public and private markets particularly for those who need it the most the minority and women on businesses and has proven that to be successful in working with the county I'm asking to be the leader of Durham not just to be one Durham but to help build a future of Durham we're a Durham that's cool that's unique that's tough that's gritty that's cool and I think as the mayor of this city that I can help be dedicated without a four three vote or more so being able to collaborate with people from around the city and to be able to collaborate with people on council are critical to success as a leader and I believe I have those skills to do that thank you please vote Ferrari Ferrari or mayor of Durham thank you Ms Ramirez my platform is our children our community and our future and I believe that it's a great stage in this community it affects anything that goes on in this community it affects all of us and not just some of us really quick about a month ago I was at the south regional library and it was an argument between two cars and it was an intense argument a very heated argument and it was several people walking by shooting and killing so I rolled down my window and I said something to them I knew them from a can of paint I didn't know them but what I'm saying is that at that moment that was that was I was I had the obligation to say something because that could have affected my life it could affect other people's lives so what I'm saying is I'm a doer I'm in the community if I see something that needs to be done or said I'm not going to wait for local government I'm not going to wait for a police officer you have to be involved we have to do this together this is our community these are our children this is our future I really believe that's very very important with Durham I believe that we need a leader that's going to take charge that's going to empower people encourage them to do those hard things not to do them my name is Shea Ramirez I'm running for mayor thank you thank you Mr. Schull thank you so much thanks again excuse me to our sponsors and also want to thank my fellow candidates I we this is maybe the 10th or 12th of these things and we're friends and I feel so honored to be up on this stage with these people really really good people so I'm running for one reason which is I want us to make the city we love a city for all that's our job and how do we do it first of all we need to make sure that everyone is sharing in our economic prosperity the harsh underside of Durham's recent prosperity as I mentioned earlier is that thousands of people overwhelmingly African-American and Latino are not sharing in it they're poor they're jobless they're increasingly priced out of their central city neighborhoods and we need to change that through affordable housing through training citizens for good jobs through creating a bus and rail system that makes the employment in this region accessible to everybody second in the age of Trump and in the age of our ultra-conservative legislature we need to speak out boldly for Durham's values and we must act on them at home this means speaking out as the city council has an opposition to HB2 or to Trump's immigration policies but just as important are the practical ways that Durham has chosen to support for the faith ID for undocumented immigrants like our misdemeanor diversion court like Durham refugee day like the our assertion of an environmental agenda in response to Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accords as our state and national government fails us we have to find our own local solutions and finally as we grow we have to enhance rather than diminish our wonderful small city quality of life we need to preserve open space and park land protect our neighborhoods we need to provide water supply for the future the mayor of Durham can't do this alone but I ask your support to help bring us all together to do it together thank you thank you Mr. Williams thank you for having us here one of the things that I can say and I may be a little biased but the forms that we've been to I truly enjoy the comments afterwards of people being so excited about my campaign and one of the reasons I think that they're excited about me to enter for mayor is because not only am I a retired financial analyst we manage money for multi-millionaires or I saw the other side but also I go home to East Durham each night too as a pastor why I see people struggling trying to find homes trying to find houses places to live so I as a person a candidate for mayor I bring a person who has experienced both sides and I know what it is that the people want that the people need and I also know what we can and cannot do from the mayor's office to take care of those needs I feel that I am the best candidate because I bring those things to the office I'm not someone who's afraid to go into the hood as they say I've gone on trips with gangbangers Crips Blood but then also set in conferences where I've talked to lobbyists from Washington DC about programs they're putting in place I know both sides of the spectrum and a lot of others who in this office or in the mayor's office cannot say that they'll void certain problems I'm not avoiding anyone because I realize that we all play a part in the city of Durham be in the city that it can be and I know that it can be better thank God for the growth downtown let's have this growth spread out more evenly and who better to do it than someone who actually live in those communities who understand the plight of the people in those communities someone who understands the struggles they have from day to day who better to be in the mayor's seat and address those concerns Sylvester Williams for mayor thank you thank you do you give all of our candidates a round of applause we're really ending this a little bit early so that you could have time to if the candidates are willing to stay to talk to them individually to ask them questions we do need to be out of the building by 845 but we've been going Steve can you do something about that I'll work on that okay yeah make it 846 we're good okay thank you and thank you all for coming thank you Mr. Rarius Mr. Rarius thank you Mr. Rarius Mr. Rarius thank you both