 Good evening. We'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order. Monday the 6th of January 2014, the first council meeting of the new year and certainly want to welcome all of you that are here with us this evening. We'll just take a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. I would ask Councilman Brown if he would lead us in the pledge. Madam Clerk, will you call the roll please? Mayor Beall, President, Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden, Councilmember Brown, Councilmember Cattati, Councilmember Davis, Councilmember Moffitt, and Councilmember Shewell. No ceremonial items this evening, but I do want to recognize the young people that are with us tonight, Cubs Scouts from We Blow's Cubs Scouts, back 400. They're in the back of the room. They are here to, everybody wave to them, plus they wanted enough to go be on TV, so cable eight, make sure you pick them up on TV. Okay. Great. They were here to visit the City Council and Council to learn about the duties of the job of City Council persons and the mayor and talk about why it's important to do the things that we do and also why it's important to obey the laws of the land. And this is a part of their program for receiving a badge. So I had an opportunity to meet with them this evening. Very interesting young people, nice questions, and I'm just glad to have you with us and hope this works well enough for you to get the badge that you, Father, I'm going to turn you right to deserve. Let me ask other comments by members of the Council wanting any particular items that recognize the mayor, Pro Tem. I would like to recognize that you celebrated another birthday last week, so happy birthday, Mr. Mayor, and hope that you'll have many, many, many, many more. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Pro Tem. I hope so also. I also want to announce we made committee appointments last month and one of the committees is the Crime Committee, Crime Cabinet. And Councilman Clement previously served on that committee. Councilman Brown served on the committee for many years. Councilman Moffitt served on it and Councilman Davis served as an alternate. And would like to recommend that Councilman Brown served as a co-chair of that committee when it begins again. And Jean has agreed to accept that, so we appreciate that effort. As probably most of you know, the Council tonight had a closed session. And that's why we started a bit late. We met tonight at 5.30. And the City Council voted unanimously to occur with the city manager, Tom Bonfield's recommendation, to release a report on the findings of the Durham Police Department's internal affairs investigation into the deaths of Aizu Werder on November 19, 2013. This authorization was made pursuant to North Carolina Journal of Statute 168-168 C7, and that the release of information was determined by the city manager and the City Council to be essential to maintaining public confidence in administration of city services. And our report of the findings of the internal affairs investigation should be completed in the next couple of days, and we do expect that report will be released this week. And I just want to say, and I'm sure the Councilperson's also agreed, while this investigation is important, we also recognize the fact that a young man lost his life. And obviously that has had an impact on his family and others in the community, so we don't take that lightly. But we also know it's important that we release as much information as we possibly can, and that will be the purpose of the release of the report sometime this week. Now, there's an SBI investigation that is ongoing, and as probably some of you read, that is not complete in the sense that they don't have the medical examiners report. That report will not be given to the City Council. The SBI report will not be given to the City Council. It will not be given to the Police Department. It will be given to the District Attorney's Office. And once the medical examination is complete, I assume that will complete the SBI's investigation there, turn that over to the District Attorney's Office, and it will be up to the DE's Office to determine what moves beyond that. But what we're looking at is an internal investigation that Police Department has made, and we've got a summary of that, an oral summary of that in our closed session. And as I said, a written summary of that report will be given sometime this week. And it's also important that while we will release that report, we also want to be respectful of the family, so as our content to make that report as available to the family as soon as it's available to the public, probably before. And the manager, the City Attorney, will be getting in touch with the Attorney's family, who represents that family. That's Alex Sharnes, as far as I know, to make him aware of this, so that he will know when the report is released, and he'll have that, that he can share with the family also. So we are just still trying to move forward. We're trying to get this out as quickly as possible. We want to be factual. We want to reveal as much information as possible we can, and you'll be seeing the summary of that this week, certainly no later than Friday of this week that report will be made available. So having said that, we're going to move on with the agenda. And the first is to listen to any prior items by the City Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening. Two priority items this evening. Agenda item number 16, which is the Comprehensive Plan Amendment Meadows at South Point 2. This item is being referred back or deferred to the January 21st, 2014 City Council meeting due to a notification error in the newspaper advertisement. And agenda item number 17, Zoning Map Change Meadows at South Point 2. That item is also deferred to the January 21st, 2014 meeting due to a similar notification error in the newspaper. That's all my priority items. It's been a proper move in the second that the Managers to Priority Items be approved. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes 7-0. Let me just comment on that because I know this is a public hearing matter. I will not be in attendance at the January 21st meeting. I will be attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting. But there was one item on that that I would hope that someone would look at on on that particular item. And it had to do with the construction of the proposed buildings. And one of the pieces that concern me is that, and if I can pull it up, it was it had to do with the construction material. And it allows vinyl siding. And I would hope that that would not be allowed as a part of this proposed building. And that was listed on it's trying to find a page. I think it's listed on page 11 of the first attachment. Maybe it's the second attachment. Anyway, it had to do with the building construction. Pretty sure I was on is on designing patient. And I want to think it was on. I'll get to it before the meeting is over. But I would hope to someone pay attention to that as we as we move on. Recognize the city attorney for any prior items that you might have. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Likewise, the city clerk. No, I know Mr. Mayor. In that case, we'll proceed with the agendas printed. And as you know, if there are items that on the consent agenda, I'll just read each item. And if a member of the council or member of the public chooses to pull one of the items, then we will that was that says on page page 11 and head to covering. Thank you. Under consent agenda on item one approval city council minutes. Item two is Durham City County Appearance Commission appointment. Item three is the Durham Housing Authority Board of Commissioners appointment. Item four is the resolution memorializing Joseph William Anderson Beckton Junior. Item five is the big report November 2013. Item six is street and infrastructure. Acceptances. Item seven is a dark preliminary assessment role and setting public hand for confirmation of assessment role for street paving on Clover Hill Place Dunwoody subdivision. Item eight is system vision program agreement between the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to City of Durham and Advanced Energy Corporation. I had one question about that, that item. Item nine is ownership transfer of two city owned lots in Southwest Central Durham to Habitat for Humanity of Durham, Inc. And someone has pulled that item. Item nine. Item 10 is piggyback purchase one custom pumper truck. Item 11 is contract extension estimated annual requirements for asphalt concrete. Item 12 is co-op contract purchase three knuckle bone loader trucks. Item 13 is upper Noose River Basin Association nutrient credit product project. Item 14 is household hazardous waste contract amendment number five. Item 15 through 17 items that can be found on the general business during its public hearings. Entertain the motion for the approval of the Consent Agenda with the exception of item nine and the one that I pulled which is very it's been properly moved to second Madam Clerk. We open the vote. Close the vote. It passes seven is zero. Thank you. We move to the general business agenda public hearings. Item 15 is FY 2014 2015 annual action plan needs a public hearing staff person on it. Good evening Mayor Bell members of council. I am Wilma Connors federal programs coordinator. The purpose of this public meeting is to receive citizen comments on the community development needs in Durham as it relates to the use and receipt of community development block grant home investment partnership and emergency solution grant funds. This public meeting is a requirement for the preparation and the submission of the city's 2014 2015 annual action plan. Notice of this meeting was advertised in the Durham Hill Sun and via general lists serve. Excuse me. As a recipient of CDBG and home and ESG funds the city is required to hold at least two meetings during the development of the annual action plan and one being early in the developmental stage of the plan. We anticipate that the second hearing will be held in late April. In addition the city is required to hold a public to publish a copy of the draft annual action plan at least 30 days prior to the submission. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has not yet announced the FY 2014 entitlement allocations and has advised grantees not to submit its consolidated plan or annual action plan until those announcements have taken place. At that time PJs that is grantees are to submit their final plans with the exact entitlement allocations. However for planning purposes the city expects to receive approximately one million six hundred and fifty thousand in CDBG funds seven hundred thousand in home and one hundred thousand in ESG funds. A summary of comments from this public hearing and written comments received during the development of this plan will be incorporated into the final plan for submission. Thank you. Like you've heard the staff report. This is a public hearing I would ask first of the comments by members of the council we have persons that have signed up to speak on this item. If there are no comments this time by by the council I'd call those persons that have signed up to speak and would ask if you would limit your comments to three minutes. Steve Hopkins and if you would proceed to the podium to the right are Refig, Zahidi, Sharon, Elliot Bynum and Dwayne Langley. Dwayne Langley. Mr. Mayor of City Council members my name is Stephen Hopkins I live at six fifty four North Party Street apartment B Durham North Carolina. I have been a resident of Northeast Central Durham most of my life. I would like to quickly remind you of a concept that was accepted and implemented in Northeast Central in 1994 the weed and seed strategy. It called for communities to look at the issues facing itself in a way that communities could attack them at the root causes while addressing the problems that had. We had to come this was a whole new approach for community leaders. We had to come together have open and honest discussions and trust each other something totally unheard of the Northeast Central at the time. It had to be a partnership. They had to come in and do things for us. We the residents had to have ownership of the changes. There were many heated meetings with neighborhood leaders threatening to walk away. Even a few meetings when we almost came to blow but at the end we refused to give up. Things start to change. Neighborhoods was having meaningful discussions and plans of action were taking shape. It became real clear flash back to the leaders of the Northeast Central Durham with all the attention that we were getting to that we were getting. It also opened us up to people who didn't really want change in the Northeast Central because Northeast Central has became a place for drug rehab program. Very low income housing and a cash cow if you would. Non-profit creditors who just wanted to make money off the suffering of its residents. We also accommodated the resettlement of other neighborhoods after housing was eliminated and we have been other parts of the city. What do we need jobs? Jobs hadn't come to the residents as we had hoped. We need jobs for ex-offenders single moms teenagers in high school educated to protect our neighborhoods. We are competing for our own neighborhoods being bought out. Current residents are being priced out three combat crime. Crime is back on the rise. We have more murders than any part of the city. Crime like this can't be fixed with more cops. We need after school programs. We need job training. We need banks grocery stores real organized neighborhood. For built up our streets and sidewalks. We still have streets unpaid the major streets where our kids have to walk in the streets or in ditches such as Hardy Street. Five improved the housing stock. We still have a lot of boarded up and run down properties. We need investment in adult human capital in Northeast Central. We need self efficiency program. Our businesses need help with expansion. We need help building programs to help understand all the changes that are coming and help us to stay focused as a community rather than individual. Our neighborhood organizations need help with capacity building. These are the real needs in Northeast Central. We need to finish what we started. Thank you. Thank you Steve and you sent us copies of that. But I assume that that will probably be part of the discussion at Northeast Central Durham. Committed me subcommittee when they meet. The next person is Raffy Zaidi. Have that name spelled pronounced correctly. Not here. Sharon Elliott Bynum. Good evening. Good evening. Mayor Bill Mayor Perotam and other council members. My name is Sharon Elliott Bynum and I reside at 105 Chancellor's Ridge Drive and I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County. I currently operate a nonprofit Healing with Care located at 214 Broadway Street in downtown Durham tier for the past 19 years. We built our model based on the unmet needs of disenfranchised low income populations in Durham County. This is a comprehensive one stop shop that includes housing, food, supportive services and other medical and dental needs. I am here this evening to bring your attention to process procedures as it relates to receiving funding for a nonprofit like my own that has participated actively in the housing process and offered our location for many of the events and meetings regarding homelessness. For example, the port and point in time count projects, homeless, connect and various other meetings. Recently care applied for $108 to rehab one of our houses for four homeless female veterans who may also have substance abuse issues, HIV or other chronic issues. During the process, we were told that the funding would be allocated for a new project and that there were no existing female veteran projects in Durham. A recent article in N and O said that North Carolina is the home of 87,840 female veterans as of September 2012. Female veterans have a hard time in the labor market and they don't self identify as vets because they don't think of themselves as qualifying for benefits because they didn't engage in active combat. During the process, the citizens advisory committee ranked us two with an average score of 85 and the agency that was recommended by the community development had an average score of 84. Again, I bring your attention to process. The second process issue is the fact that the agency who received the recommendation gave back 48,150 dollars, which in part made the $108,000 available and the project that was recommended is not in fact a new project but instead part two of a renewal project. Thirdly, care was awarded $28,000 for the same exact project that we applied for in 2008-09. The executive director passed away before obtaining the funds and when I inquired they said wait until there's an RFP. So thank you for listening to my concerns. I really just would like to have clarity of process and I want to make sure that the needs of the homeless female veterans in our neighborhood is one that is inclusive. Thank you. Thank you. Warren Langley. Good evening Mayor Beall, members of the city council. Happy new year. It is an honor and privilege to speak on behalf of the citizens advisory committee. The CAC works to ensure the quality of life for citizens in Durham by advising the city council and board of county commissioners on housing and community development needs and to improve housing quality and affordability and economic opportunities for low and moderate income families. Additionally, the CAC evaluates and makes annual recommendations on how the city should use entitlement funding here in Durham. In a city with a 19.4% poverty rating, safe and affordable housing for the poorest residents is scarce. According to the annual point in time count, the homeless county Durham has grown from 395 in 2001 to 698 in 2012 to 759 in 2013. Durham is one of the most expensive rental housing markets in North Carolina. At minimum age earner making 725 an hour would have to work 102 hours a week to afford the average or fair market rent of $742 for one bedroom unit or 115 hours a week to afford an apartment, a two bedroom unit, $832. Our strategies to address affordable housing, centers on housing, production and retention. As the demand for affordable housing continues to grow, we must also work to ensure a quality labor force for employment opportunities relocating to the area, which will expand the economic conditions for our citizens. We're working to recruit businesses and provide economic development incentives. We must develop and implement innovative educational and training programs necessary to meet the workforce needs of Durham community to support economic development. By equipping Durham citizens with the skills to exceptionally perform for the companies expanding and relocating to the area, we improve the economic viability and attractiveness of Durham and ensure the continued decline in unemployment and poverty while providing citizens with equal quality and affordable opportunities for an improved quality of life. Additionally, we must create real incentives for developers to provide affordable housing and implement immediately begin planning affordable housing around future transit corridors which will be the hub of future employment opportunities and service centers. Founded in 1850 as a railroad stop, Durham has become a thriving industrial city and today a resurgence of investment downtown and the rehabilitation of several age neighborhoods near the core of downtown has helped continue to thrive as we move into our future. If we're going to see a continued investment in Durham and to improve the quality of life for low to moderate income communities, we must make that same investment that we've made downtown and other developing communities. The CAC looks forward to working with the city council board of county commissioners and the department of community development to continue to engage citizens in developing and improving the quality of life for all. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Have a great evening. Thank you. I assume you will leave your written remarks with the clerk if you don't mind. Let me ask you, there are other persons that want to speak on this item. This being a public hearing item. Yes ma'am, Victoria, you just gave me a name. You didn't say what you were saying. Fill the card out. You want to come forward, please? And if you could set your name and item you're speaking to and then fill out a car with the clerk's office, so we have that on the record. I apologize for not signing up. My name is Debbie White. I live at 60 Citation Drive in Durham. I'm the financial officer for CASA and I'm here tonight with Joyce Dansell Williams. Joyce is the vice chair of the council to end homelessness in Durham and the programs director at CASA. We are here to speak tonight just about the need for developing additional permanent supportive housing units in the city of Durham. I recently read an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine that notes that there is a distinct correlation between the high cost of health care spending in the US and the relative lack of investment in permanent supportive housing. The message is clear. Housing is a form of health care. The article states studies have shown that the cost of supportive housing are largely offset by resultant savings and services used mostly from the reduced use of the health care system. And it goes on to discuss an innovative approach to reducing Medicaid spending on health care in New York state by expanding housing resources and targeting high risk populations. CASA currently owns 26 units of affordable housing in Durham right now. Five people moved out in 2013 and five people moved in. We have 107 people waiting on our waiting list for an apartment in Durham right now. An apartment that is affordable and provides referrals for community based services. At the current rate of turnover they would have to wait. It would take 21 and a half years to house all the people on our waiting list. So we asked the city to prioritize the CDBG and the home funds to serve people who need housing the most. People who are experiencing homelessness and people with disabilities who are low income. It's a wise investment in people and in the community and it will save on health care costs in the long term. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. If you could leave your statement with the clerk and also if you could just fill out one of the cards so we'd have that for a record also please. Victoria Peterson. City council years ago particularly up in the inner cities you had a lot of the young men and women just sort of out there not skilled and not trained. And the federal government pumped a lot of dollars really into these cities and the cities also receive some of their own local dollars. Those dollars were used to train a lot of your young men and women. And matter of fact I myself. And very few people know this but I'll just let this cat out of the bag that I'm also a graduate of Job Corps. Job Corps helped save me. If I had not gone away to Job Corps I probably would have winded up in prison. But I was able to get the kind of training. And not just educational training but social training. I had to act and had to behave. It was a residential program. That that young folks. Could go away and get training in school training they could work on their G.D. or whatever. And one of the things that I have observed here in Durham that Durham is really lacking is a residential training program for a lot of our young men and women who fall through the cracks. They may not have a parent or an adult. To help them. And to gear and to steer them. The right way. What happened to me. My mother was a teenager when she had me. And I was raised in the foster care system for 15 years. But the system that I was in was very abusive. So I started to rebel. So what I would do. Is run away from home. And get in trouble. I was a I. Was I just I was a young person that had a lot of issues. In this community I see a lot of that. I see a lot of our young people where I live. I can wake up in the middle of the night and look out of my door and see young people walking up and down the street on Bridgeway. Because they're leaving some of the areas. These young people need some skills. And I think what our government needs to do. We get a lot of monies from the feds and that's good. But we do not have an ongoing training program. A 24 hour training program. We have developed. Houlton school. They have a lot of property. Somebody needs to get out there and build a dormitory. We have a Holloway Street school that is sitting there. I'm not saying that the city needs to run it. But we have a lot of churches in this community. We have a lot of non for profits in this community that can get together. If there are some dollars out here because somebody has to put some dollars. We have allowed somebody to come into this community and build a dormitory cross the street. Because that's basically what it is. Cross the street from the from the police station. It's going to house a lot of young people. Well poor kids need that same thing. Besides the college kids are poor children that fall through the cracks in this community. They need housing. They need job training and they need and they need their education. So I'm hoping that the federal dollars that we can try to direct some of these dollars. Mr. Mayor for job training for some form of a residential program. I think in the future you don't have to start with a residential program in the beginning. But you can have some kind of a job training program here in Durham and Durham doesn't really have that. Thank you. Mr. Peterson. Let me ask the other persons that want to speak on this item that's been a public hearing. If not I'm going to close the public hearing. I would like to get a follow up to the questions raised by this bottom. And I don't know if you can do it this evening. You can do it in time for the work session Thursday whatever it's appropriate. I guess the reason I'm raising the question. Everybody has a niche. And I think that one of the areas that she is focused on is an area that hasn't been addressed and that's women veterans in terms of homelessness and etc. So I just like to get a better understanding of at least the comments she made. Members of council Reginald Johnson director of the community development department. The comments raised by Ms. Bynum actually referred to the continuum of care process not the social funding that's the subject of this public hearing. So that's the first piece that the matter that she's speaking about actually comes before the homeless services advisory committee on Wednesday. So it's a separate process from the subject of this public hearing. The second part that she mentioned about the twenty eight thousand will have to do some research but I'm familiar with what she's asking about but this is separate funding source from the subject of this public hearing. Thank you. Thank you Richard. Recognize the mayor pro term. Mr. Johnson with the homeless services advisory committee be voting on. The information that that's coming to us. The recommendations yes ma'am. All the recommendations only. Yes. That is subject of the meeting on Wednesday. What what miss. Elliott bottom has said is something that really needs to be fully investigated because it appears that. Even though that's not what we're doing with the mayor I'm glad she brought it up and I hope that you will come to work session. And and be able to share some more information with us because if we don't somehow break this chain of saying people getting the money all the time. It just isn't it doesn't seem fair. So if if she could come back on on Thursday and give us some more information, I'd appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Okay, we've are in any of the comments. Recognize councilman school. Also for. Reginald. The we heard appreciate the comments from from everybody tonight. But we heard from the folks from Casa. I wonder how the guest road. How we doing on the Casa housing on guest road. I know it had been a little bit behind. How how's that doing? I would have to ride you with some more information on Thursday on that. Okay. My stand generally is doing well, but talking in detail right now. All right. Appreciate that. And I wanted to also add that. The one of the sources that we do have now for funding for the kind of housing that you were talking about is we have our penny for housing. And we have about about a million dollars at this point built up for just the local general fund money. Durham people taxing themselves. To provide the the kind of housing that you're talking about it or to help leverage some other financing for that housing. So I hope that you and other groups will be able to take advantage of that. Thank you. Thanks Steve. Let me ask the staff the action I've closed the public hearing what action do you need this evening on this item? The action that the department is requesting is that the city council receive the comments. It's been proper to move the second madam clerk. We open the vote. Close the vote. It passes seven zero. Let's move back to the items that have been pulled. I pulled item eight and it was just for information purposes. More or less I should have thought I had. I guess one of the questions that I had this has to do with the company that energy company and do we have any information on the company that we're talking about contracting with? Yes, we do have information on the company. Mr. Mayor, this company is part of the program for the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. This is alone. The company that they're using is a company that they've used for some time. So what's been experienced? I know you said they use them. What do we have an experience? The reason I asked was one of the points that I noticed was the analysis said that they're going to pay the difference if the energy cost exceeds $33 per month. And I guess my question was do you know how often have they had to go back with the other units in terms of paying the difference? And the other question I had is they've got this number $33 per month. Does that take into account changes in energy costs, utilities, and going up or changing? Mr. Mayor, I have to give you additional information in terms of how many times they've had to pay. This company is, my understanding, the same program and company that we use it eastway. So we've got experience there then, right? Yes. I can't tell you. That's good. That's the only question I had. I knew you were here, so that's why I didn't take the motion on the item. It's been properly moved in second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes 7-0. And item 9, that was pulled by Dorothy Croom. Is Ms. Croom here? C-R-O-M. She's a loader, sir. Okay. Entertain the motion. Say what? Will somebody get her? Okay. Well, I guess maybe she didn't want to deal with it. Well, entertain the motion on item. Proper move in second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote? It passes 7-0. There's one item I'm going to ask. We had some concerns raised about the floor arrangement that was left on the police department. In fact, it's been removed. And I just wanted to, Mr. Manager, if you could give us what is the department practice on persons placing information on public properties that we own. You know, who makes the determination as to how long the stay is there, abuse and permission, et cetera. And you might have an answer now. Yeah, I don't. I'd like to get that for you. Typically general services, but I'll get a clarification. Okay. I think it would be helpful in the future for that. Any other items to come before the council? If not, the meeting is adjourned at 7.48 p.m. Thank you.