 Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. This is family tradition. Mayor and Council, we are live. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good evening, everyone. I want to well call this meeting of Durham City Council to order at 7 p.m. on Monday, October the 5th, and certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight. All the our city staff, my colleagues, and all the people who are attending this meeting in one way or another. I was certainly glad to have you tonight. Before we start our moment of silent meditation, I want to keep in mind all those who are continued to be suffering from the coronavirus, and that includes our President and First Lady. I hope we will keep all of them in mind as we engage in our silent meditation. Please join me for a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Councilmember Reese, will you please lead us in the Pledge to the Flag? I will. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, colleagues. I will now recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much, Councilmember Reese. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schull, here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, here. Councilmember Caballero, here. Councilmember Freelon, here. Councilmember Freeman, present. Councilmember Middleton, here. Councilmember Reese, here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And now we will move to ceremonial items. We have four items on our agenda tonight. And the first item is Hispanic Heritage Month. And I'm going to call on Councilmember Caballero. Before I do that, I want to just say that we've added back our ceremonial items, our proclamations and so forth. But we haven't yet added back people being here to receive them. That's something we will be working on in the future as we continue to add more and more things to our virtual meetings. But we haven't solved that complication yet. But we're glad to have those people here who are listening to our meeting in order to hear these proclamations. Councilmember Caballero. Yes, Mr. Mayor, I would just like to make an interpretation announcement. We do have Zoom interpretation for the evening. And if you see at the bottom of your screen, there should be a little icon that looks like a glow. You should select the language that you prefer. And now I'm going to let our interpreter, who should have been enabled to make that same announcement. Yes, Javier. I already did. Oh, thank you. Then it worked beautifully. I'm not seeing an attachment for my proclamations. You're muted, Mr. Mayor. I will send that to you. I have the latest one, that's fine. Sure, go ahead. You can use that. That'd be great. Yeah, I just need to. And I just want to thank the mayor's Hispanic Latino committee who wrote this year's proclamation. So thank you to the members who were able to do that for us this year. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated annually, annually from September 15th through October 15th to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens with ancestry from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. And whereas the 2020 National Hispanic Heritage Month theme is Hispanics, be proud of your past and embrace the future. And whereas the city of Durham embraces persons of Hispanic heritage and recognizes that this population has had and continues to have a profound and positive influence in Durham. And whereas the Hispanic community has faced significant hardships this year, including the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 and the unwanted hysterectomies performed on immigrant women at the hands of ICE. And whereas the city of Durham recognizes the efforts led by community organizations to support the Hispanic community like La Semilla, Latinx 19, Centro Hispano, El Futuro, Church Wood Service and NC Youth Contra COVID. And whereas the city of Durham celebrates the election of the first Latina Alexandra Valladaris to the Durham Board of Education in 2020, the appointment of Pablo Friedman as the first Latino department director at Durham Public Schools and the appointments of Sonia Marquez and Jose Cardoza as the first Latinx assistant principals at Durham Public Schools. And whereas the city is committed to seeking to improve existing opportunities and to open new doors for Hispanic and Latinx residents of all backgrounds, thereby fostering inclusive communities with equitable resources and opportunities. Now therefore, I, Stephen Shule, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2020 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Durham and hereby urge all residents to honor the distinction, the distinct traditions of the Hispanic community and their contributions to our city, state, and nation by participating in relevant ceremonies, activities and programs. Witness my hand this fifth day of October, 2020. I think we should do the appropriate clapping. Thank you, Council Member. I think we should add another milestone. I was thinking as you were reading your resolution or your proclamation that we have another milestone within city government, which is the appointment of Sarah Moreno Young to be our city planning, city county planning director within the last month. So let's add that wonderful milestone as well. Thank you so much, Council Member. Our second ceremonial item is Arts and Humanities Month. As you all know, we limit our ceremonial items to three, and you might notice that there are four ceremonial items on here tonight. So I am the, I really have more of an announcement tonight about National Arts and Humanities Month. October is recognized nationally as Arts and Humanities Month, and the city of Durham has recognized this proclamation for several years with the Durham Arts Council. At our next city council meeting on October 19th, we will officially present the full proclamation and celebration of the power of the arts. So we will look forward to that full proclamation next month. And now we will move to our third ceremonial item, which is the Alpha Kappa Alpha breast cancer awareness proclamation, and I'll be reading that. Whereas October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the month dedicated to increasing public knowledge about the importance of early detection of breast cancer, and whereas National Immography Awareness Day as observed annually on the third Friday in October as part of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month established during the presidency of William J. Clinton in 1993, and whereas October 16th, 2020 is the 27th anniversary of National Immography Awareness Day. This day serves as a reminder to all women that mammograms are the best method of early detection of breast cancer, and whereas Alpha Kappa Alpha Society Incorporated under the leadership of International President Dr. Glenda Glover is seeking to raise awareness about the effects of breast cancer through its 2018-2022 International Program exemplifying excellence through sustainable service. And whereas Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated encourages women ages 40 to 44 to begin annual screening mammography and seeks to help 100,000 women by sharing information concerning breast cancer to increase awareness regarding the risk factors that contribute to breast cancer. And whereas Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated launched the Alpha Kappa Alpha Mobile Mammography Unit on the campus of Texas Southern University, providing access to mammograms to the uninsured. Now therefore, I have Stephen M. Schuyl, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, hereby proclaim October 16th, 2020 as Mammography Awareness Day in Durham. And hereby encourage health care services, hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies to deliver affordable options of every woman, of every income while having easy access to mammograms and be informed on their risk of breast cancer through continuous screening. Witness my hand in the corporate seal this, the fifth day of October 2020. Yes, the clapping. Thank you. And thank you to Alpha Kappa Alpha for this good work and for submitting this resolution again this year. And our final resolution will be read by Council Member Freeman. This is the 75th anniversary of the Durham chapter of Jack and Jill of Emerald. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I will add that I do have a phenomenal member of Alpha Kappa Alpha's quoted shirt on today and then noting that there's no vaccine for racism and appreciation of Kamala Harris. I will read the proclamation for the Jack and Jill organization. Whereas philanthropic volunteer civic organizations are responsible for enhancing the quality of life of people in their community. And whereas organizations that are formed with the desire to improve the lives of its members in the community address and to address and combat the ills that plague our nation. And whereas philanthropy is unique to the fabric of the African-American community. And whereas Jack and Jill of America Incorporated was founded January 24, 1938 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from a meeting of 20 mothers by the leadership of Marion Stubbs Thomas with the idea of bringing together children in a social and cultural environment. And whereas Jack and Jill is a membership organization of mothers with children ages two to 19 dedicated to nurturing future African-American leaders by strengthening children through leadership development, volunteer services, philanthropic giving and civic duty. And whereas the Durham chapter of the Jack and Jill was founded October the 9th, 1945 on the campus of North Carolina Century University by Miss Leonia Dorsey, a founding member of the first Jack and Jill club. And whereas the charter members were Geraldine Austin, Miss William M. Bailey, Mabel S. Beale, Adrian Buldware, Beatrice Burnett, Mabel Bell Crooks, Leonia Dorsey, Maria Baggett, Mollie Lee, Alice McClendon, Virginia Morgan, Marianne Mellassie, Miss Ernest Neal, Willie Oglesby, Patty Scarborough, Desa Turner, Lynn Seville, Taylor, and Lily Taylor, Catherine Walker, Virginia Wheels, and Ann Wright. And whereas the Durham chapter has served the surrounding counties for 75 years by actively planning various programs, have partnered with local and national organizations such as the Children's Defense Funds, the March of Dimes, UNICEF, when we all vote, Boys and Girls Club of Durham and Orange Counties, Agape Corner, Table, Genesis House, Grace Outreach Ministry, Enrichment Ministry, Durham Rescues Mission, and whereas for 75 years the chapter has dedicated its resources to improving the quality of life, particularly for African-American children. Today, the Durham chapter is comprised of 73 families and remains equally dedicated to seeking for all children the same advantages as the desired for our own. Now, therefore, I, Steve Shul, Mayor of the City of Durham of Carolina, do hereby proclaim that October 9th, 2020, be a reminder of the Durham chapter of the Jack and Jill Mother's members' commitment to address inequities that plague our community and their effort to develop African-American leaders, and I encourage residents to recognize the positive impact that service, leadership, and giving has on our community. Witness my right hand on the 15th of October, 2020. Thank you very much, council member. And thank you to the members of Jack and Jill for their work. I must be very old because I knew two of those founding members. All right. We will now move to announcements by members of the council. I'm going to call first on council members Rhys because I know he has a couple of announcements. Council member Rhys. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening colleagues, staff, and folks watching at home. Two weeks ago I opened our meeting with an announcement about the fact that Durham had not been responding as robustly to the U.S. Census as many of us had hoped and encouraging people to fill out their census before the deadline of September 30. Well, guess what? There's a new deadline in town. October 31, Halloween thanks to the intervention of a federal judge. The count will go on through the end of the current month October 31. And so we've still got time to do outreach to talk to our friends, neighbors, and families about how important it is for us to complete the census. So the easiest way to do that is to go to my2020census.gov you can complete it online. If you want to do it over the phone, that's great too. You can call 844-330-2020 and if you want to fill it out over the phone in Spanish, you can dial 844-468-2020. It's really important that Durham get a complete and accurate count so that we receive our fair share of federal funds for programs and services over the next 10 years. You know for sure the feds are going to collect all the taxes that we owe them. We certainly want to get all of the programs and services that we're entitled to and that only happens if we have a complete and accurate count. So just please make sure you talk to the folks in your life about whether or not they filled out the census. There's lots of ways to do that. Second, Mr. Mayor, it's my hope that this item will not be pulled into tonight's agenda just a minute on item number 18 which has to do with the conveyance of property located at 505 West Chapel Hill Street. This has been a labor of love for a while here in our community and I wanted to thank all of the staff members with the City of Durham who made this agreement possible, who achieved everything that we in our community has asked for them to bring us for this piece of property. That has been achieved and I just also want to thank not only my colleagues in the council who have been steadfast in their support of this project, but also perhaps most importantly community leaders in this city who refuse to let anything else happen other than what we promised them what happened with this property. The agreement that's on our agenda tonight fulfills that promise. Look forward to joining all of you at a legit ribbon cutting when that blessed day arrives and we're ready to open it up once it's built. So thank you to staff, my colleagues and especially the people of Durham who refused to accept the fact that there was nothing that could be done to build this kind of community where lots of different folks of lots of different incomes live. My last announcement Mr. Mayor is a little bit more about current events than I usually like to say, but let me just say this the coronavirus is still rampant in the world. It is not over and while we have had some good luck in Durham keeping our numbers low or at least growing at a lower rate than the rest of the state there are disturbing signs across the country that the coronavirus infections are on the rise again. Normally I wouldn't mention this except today the most the most well known coronavirus patient in the world checked himself out of the hospital and made some statements that it's not that big of a deal you can't let it dominate your life he felt better than he's felt in 20 years. I just want to make sure that folks that can hear me understand that getting COVID-19 will not make you feel 20 years younger. Chances are most folks who contract the coronavirus are not going to have access to a suite of rooms at a top-notch medical facility run by the government free of charge they're not going to have access to experimental cutting-edge therapies that are not approved for use yet and they're not going to be able to access that kind of recovery if assuming the most famous patient in the world does recover so I just felt a moral obligation to make sure folks understood this is not over there's still some troubling signs around the country that this could get worse again before it gets better and I don't want anybody to think that seeing pictures of someone who is trying to project a sense of strength and well-being give anybody the impression that this isn't an extremely deadly and contagious illness so please continue to do all the things we know how to do to keep each other safe wash your hands wear a mask and maintain social distancing those are the things we have to do to keep each other safe during this time. Thank you Mr. Mayor and I will now move on to my announcements. Thank you very much councilmember all right other announcements members of the council all right thank you seeing none I'm going to now move priority items by the city manager I'm sorry councilmember freeman do you have an announcement. Yes Mr. Mayor I had thought that councilman Reese will have covered it and run through October 31st I know that that will occur that will start before our next council meeting I wanted to make sure folks are aware and start to make a plan if they haven't already just know that the early voting sites will be located throughout the county and I'm sure that more information will be available at the county's Board of Elections website. Thank you councilmember they're over six I think it's over eight 16 sites so this would be a very spread out cycle for you to go vote where no one is really there so no lines go early thank you all right I don't believe there any other announcements and so I'm going to move to priority items by the city manager madam manager welcome. Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of Durham City Council I do have some priority items but if I may I would like to make just a very brief comment to the council I appreciate your confidence in me this evening to lead the city of Durham as interim city manager after Tom Bonfield's retirement from a very long historic career as a local government leader for me this is an amazing opportunity regardless of the length of time to arise every morning and serve alongside the more than 100 city employees bringing dedication, creativity and passion to local government service that I believe is unmatched as a team filled with great leaders and contributors we will without a doubt continue to move in excellence towards the important goals and priorities we have set together with you our elected leaders and our beloved community I know we have some challenges ahead of us but our vision our courage and our purpose is greater I look forward to working collaboratively with you our residents community partners and city staff executing your policy your policy direction with a spirit of transparency inclusion and accountability so thank you very much and I do have some priority items this evening agenda item number six that would be fiscal year 21 participatory budgeting process we have added an attachment to that item attachment number two agenda item number seven contract with Moss and Ross LLC for communications consulting services we have added some additional information has been provided in attachment number five agenda item number nine supplemental agreement with WSP USA Inc for gold Durham planning and operations attachments one and three were updated agenda item number 12 nutrient analyzer service agreement with the HACH company and we have also added some additional information to this item and it is in attachment five agenda item number 18 proposed conveyance of property located at 505 West Chapel Hill street to West Chapel Hill Development LLC parcel ID 114577 attachment nine has been added agenda item number 22 contract amendment number one for ST 264 Fayetteville road improvements with Carolina Sunrock again pursuant to council's request we have added additional information to this item and it is provided in attachment number five agenda item number 24 update on cities addressing addressing fines and fees equitably that project work pursuant to council's request additional information and that item can be found in the section labeled priority items by the city manager city attorney and city clerk in the section of the 10 520 city council meeting agenda agenda item number 27 franchise with Duke Energy Carolina's LLC additional information has been provided in attachment number 10 and attachment number three update it and finally agenda item number 29 consolidated annexation national heritage academies in H.A. Oak World Charter and attachment number one was updated and attachment 16 was deleted that is all I have thank you very much madam manager for those priority items madam attorney are there any priority items this evening good evening mr. mayor madam mayor pretend members of city council the city attorney's office has no priority items tonight thank you madam attorney thank you madam clerk are there any priority item from the clerk's office tonight good evening everyone the city clerk's office has no priority items thank you madam clerk we will now move to the consent agenda the consent agenda is consists of items that the council has previously worked on and can be approved by a single vote of the council council members or members of the public can pull items from the consent agenda and if an item is pulled it will be considered at the end of the meeting item one human relations commission appointment item two mayors council for women appointment item three fuel usage performance audit june 2020 item four water billing performance audit june 2020 item five amend the FY 2020-2021 budget internal service fund spending plan other grant amendments item six FY 21 participatory budgeting PB process item seven contract with moss and ross LLC for communications consulting services item eight move Durham transportation study item non supplemental agreement with ws pusa ink for go Durham planning and operations analysis item ten amendment one of the interlocal agreement with chatham county respecting water sales item five pressure zone improvement phase one contract professional engineering services item 12 nutrient analyzer service agreement with chach company item 13 bid report august 2020 august 14 construction contract with bar construction company ink at valley springs park item 15 construction contract with geosources southeast ink for the cm herndon park field conversion project item 16 construction services with engineered construction company item 17 item 19 propose lease agreement with yarbera warehousing and storage LLC for the police department's property and evidence storage facility in the upfit of additional space item 20 city of Durham employment and training 2020-2022 grant project ordinance item 21 contract SW 77C for sidewalk asset management plan and condition study 2020 with precision safe sidewalks LLC item 22 contract amendment number one for ST 264 fateful road improvements with carolina sunrock LLC item 23 contract amendment number nine for ST 264 C for professional services related to fateful road improvements you have heard the consent agenda and I now accept a motion for its approval. So moved. Moved by councilmember re seconded by councilmember freeman that we approve the consent agenda. Madam clerk will you please call the role. Mayor shul. Mayor pro tem johnson. Councilmember caballero. Aye. Councilmember freelon. Aye. Councilmember freeman. Aye. Councilmember middleton. Aye. Councilmember east. Aye. Thank you. Thank you madam clerk. The eyes have it the motion passes unanimously and the consent agenda is approved. And I'll see and I see deputy city manager both Ferguson is here with us. Good evening mayor mayor pro tem members of council. My name is both Ferguson. I'm the deputy city manager for operations. We are here this evening to continue the public hearing in review of the proposed Duke energy franchise agreement and associated documents during and since the last public hearing staff received feedback from a number of sources and has worked with Duke energy. They have been available into the documents under consideration this evening. A memorandum in council's packet outlines the changes that are proposed to these documents as amended from when they were last reviewed at a work session on September 24. City staff and representatives from Duke energy are available to answer any questions from council. That concludes my comments prior to resuming the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This hearing as Mr. Ferguson said is a continuation of an earlier hearing. And so I don't need to open the hearing, but I will just remind you that the hearing this public hearing is now open. Madam clerk, we have three people who have signed up to speak on this item. I will be recognizing them first. Alice and I believe that there may be people here. I know that there are people here who also are interested in speaking on item 27. The that I have seen previously in the chat. So I just want to let those people know anyone is here as an attendee and is interested in speaking on this item. Don't worry. You will be able to speak on this item. I see Stephanie is here to speak on this item. And I believe that maybe all, but I just want to be clear that we will give everyone a chance to be heard. And maybe I will I will start first by asking at this point are there any questions members of the council for our staff at this point council member Freeman. I noticed that I know in the previous meeting we had quite a few conversations about a few complaints and I just wanted to know, because I noticed a few folks complimenting the lights were there any well received information like I hadn't heard on the other side of this conversation and if there were folks who were really appreciative of these lights I would put in place. And I wasn't sure if that was connected to this, but I wanted to make sure that we were able to hear from them. I believe the judge is in the meeting and bill would probably be the appropriate staff person to address that. Bill to unmute and provide that feedback. Thank you. And I do want to just in partial answer to your question one of your questions council member Freeman. Yes, this is an appropriate time to talk about that. And I do want to make sure that we have five or six written comments sent to us through the clerk about the lights as well. Mr. Judge. Yes, thank you bill judge transportation. We have gotten some comments in support of the lights and saying that they like them we've even had a few folks ask for additional lights. Certainly not as many probably as most recent round the complaints are more from the folks that dislike it than that do, but there are definitely folks that support it and like the lights and the current configuration. Thank you, Mr. Judge. Yes, thank you. And I only wanted to note because I had heard from a few folks around some areas where the lighting was only on one side of the street that it was helpful that it was able to cover both sides as opposed to just the one side of the lights. Thank you very much. Mr. Judge, I'll have some questions later about that as well. But unless there are other questions for staff now, I will move on to public comment. All right. I will now move on to public comment. And we have as far as I know four people to comment and we will begin with Alice Sharp. Madam Clark, can you make Ms. Sharp available? I see that Ms. Sharp is available to comment. Ms. Sharp, welcome. We're glad to have you. And you have three minutes. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Alice Sharp. I live at 208 Riggs B Avenue in Durham and I'm a Durham native and I'm here to speak on behalf of Durham and I am in support of continuing the city continuing the collaboration with Duke Energy and just want to remind people what a good community partner Duke Energy has been and is today. I don't agree with everything they do, but I can tell you they work to make our communities better. From the seniors at the senior center County library has been for whom I worked has been well supported by Duke Energy and Duke Energy has a continuing and supportive interest in broadening our connections in the community and that includes the Latinx community that you spoke up earlier and I also want to say how Duke Energy has been a good partner for Durham Crop Walk and I do want to say that for those of you who don't know we lost Karen Johansson today Karen had coordinated Crop Walk for Durham for many years. She was our leader and I just want to give a nod to her but all in all I do hope that you will support Duke Energy and also recognize that there have been moves to consolidate Duke Energy with a larger company that would make it one of the companies in the nation. Duke Energy does not support that nor do we so I hope we certainly consider our the city of Durham's position in terms of partnering being with Duke Energy as opposed to being under one big umbrella. Thank you. Miss Sharpe, thank you so much. I'm sorry that we are not able to be with you in person it's great to have you here with us and I'm so sad to hear about Karen Johansson. Thank you so much for letting us know that Karen was just an amazing civic contributor and a wonderful person and I'm sorry to hear that news but I appreciate you bringing it to us. All right we will now hear from Ethan LoCicero Mr. LoCicero welcome. We're glad to have you with us in three minutes. Hi there. Good to be here. Thanks for letting me speak. So I first want to acknowledge that there has been a good bit of progress on the memorandum since the last draft but there's still a few points that I think are worth holding out on and trying to get some stronger language in there. One of my primary concerns is that a lot of the stipulations in this have to do with collaborating between Durham and Duke Energy where we have common interests and I think that's great except that the wording seems to kind of go out of its way in this document to allow Duke Energy to not acknowledge climate change and environmental injustices and the need for a transition renewable energy and a reduction in fossil fuels. So the whole collaboration doesn't really mean very much in terms of action on climate change unless they acknowledge that and the need for more action on that. I also think we could hold out to have stronger wording around commitment to solar energy. Right now it's limited to city operations and I think it's part of the city's goal to extend that to the broader community and so ultimately I think the main question is does this agreement give the city the power and the freedom to achieve our energy goals over the next 10 years and does it give us flexibility as technology evolves and I don't think it's quite there yet. That's all I have for you. Thank you for those comments Mr. LaCicera we're glad to have you with us. The third speaker is Tom Campbell Mr. Campbell are you able to be heard? I hope so Mr. Mayor. Thank you and again it's always good to have a former council member back with us. Well I'll try not to haunt you too often in the future. I would like to echo many of the things Ethan said but I would also like to point out that there are certainly improved possibilities in these documents especially in the memorandum of understanding the proof will be in how well Duke Energy and the city perform on these goals. The memorandum of understanding says that Duke will work with the city to plan and implement community solar projects and a pilot project for improving energy and efficiency in our buildings which I think would be especially helpful focused on low income neighborhoods that they will work on a pilot project to improve resilience through things like micro grids distributed generation with battery storage and undergrounding of utility lines and on your own the city when these documents are signed the city will be able to produce store and discharge electricity itself and Duke Energy agrees to purchase city generated power it's a city so desires and it also says that my reading is that the city may purchase renewable electricity from other generators I think that these are all positive steps and the city wouldn't have to build renewable energy system on its own it could lease systems from lease purchase systems from hard solar producers a number of them are recorded right here in the city of Durham so there are possibilities here but they're going to have to be followed up on fall through and I hope that that happens thank you Campbell we're glad to have you with us I know now that we have another speaker who is Stephanie Foreman Ms. Foreman are you able to be heard I think so can you hear me yes welcome we're glad to have you and you have three minutes great good evening council members I'd like to speak about the new LED street lights specifically the following three issues first the health consequences associated with 4,000 Kelvin LED lights and blue rich lighting second the illumination levels and resulting light trespass into people's homes and third the recourse individual residents currently have and some city wide options and solutions to address these problems I know the city council has received many emails about this so I'll be brief on my first two points four years ago the American Medical Association released a report about the negative health effects 4,000 Kelvin LED lights and light on the blue end of the visible spectrum the council of science and public health found that the pervasive use of nighttime lighting disrupts various biological processes creating potentially harmful health effects related to disability glare and sleep disturbance I can only speak for myself but for almost five weeks I've had city street lights shining into my bedroom disrupting my sleep and preventing the use and enjoyment of my porch but this is not an individual problem this is a city problem earlier today city council received a map of survey responses collected by the old west Durham board of 148 collected responses from across the city only four responses were positive and felt the lights were an improvement the other 144 responses felt the lights were too bright invasive and disruptive and I know that the council is able to see many of the other responses so on to some possible solutions I fully believe the city can find an appropriate balance that addresses the concerns its residents have while still adequately lighting our streets I'm encouraged by the statement that alternative lighting is available as described on the transportation department's FAQ page and some alternatives I'd like to raise are replacing existing lights with ones that are 3,000 Kelvin or less installing light shields or baffles on all street lights for individual requests dimming the lights during off-peak hours or after a certain time like after midnight to minimize disruption to sleep cycles and wildlife and then evaluating and reducing the density of street lights throughout the city I can say on my short block of Laundale we have five of these LED lights and to me that feels too many and too bright and I think that there are a lot of reasonable solutions to address concerns but still light Durham streets thank you for taking the time to listen and I look forward to what the city council comes to on this issue thank you miss foreman we really appreciate that we did receive the map from the members of Old North Durham I'm sorry of Old West Durham and I appreciate the work that went into that and also your comments let me ask now is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item who's an attendee tonight if so could you please raise your digital hand or put your information in the chat I don't believe there is anyone else but I just want to make sure Madam clerk I don't see anyone else do you no sir all right thank you all right we have heard from members of the public and now I will ask if there are any questions at this point members of the council for our staff all right I have some questions I will begin by seconding one of the things that Mr. Tom Campbell said in his remarks which is that these agreements especially the memorandum of understanding these agreements are only as good as our joint implementation and so I'm interested in hearing from staff on their and let me just say a little bit more we are now in the midst of or in the process of creating a full work plan or rather the city's own energy action plan which will be done sometime in 2021 FY 2021 and then the MOU says that the work plan will develop after this energy action plan and so one of my question is that could be a while before a full work plan is developed I think those are the kinds of things that we have time to do well but we also know that there are some things that we need to go ahead and begin to take advantage of now so one of my questions is and we heard a little bit about this last two weeks ago with the discussion of the RFI for the green source advantage but what are some of the things that we ought to be doing and can be doing in the next year and something while the energy action plan the city's energy action plan and the joint work plan between Duke and the city are being developed what are some things that we can move forward now and begin to implement for mayor I'd like to ask Stacey Poston from General Services who's really been the point person on developing the MOU to talk a little bit about the content there of that program but also our ongoing relationship with Duke Stacey good evening mayor members of council Stacey Poston the general services department happy to be here this evening so we have a number of initiatives that have been going on so we have been really working on dual tracks one is understanding that we need to have a comprehensive master plan for our entire portfolio and engaging GDS associates to help us look at all the data that we have analyze the data we have and put that in some sort of order of what things ought to come first sequentially and how much those things are going to cost separate from that we have been doing a number of things some of which council is aware of and some of which you all may not be so we have passed a number of years ago I think in 2018 the sustainability roadmap which really was kind of the first pass at trying to gather all the different things that all the departments were doing you know seven chapters and identifying those and moving them towards actionable items that we were measuring progress on across multiple departments next we have been installing solar so we have solar at fire station 17 we are just about to install in February solar on the new sign and signal shop we have solar coming in the queue on fire station 18 and general services building next additionally we have been doing LED lighting replacement at a number of our facilities I believe we have done it at 15 facilities right at this point and we are continuing to move into now buildings that we are leasing so we have police substations where we have long term leases and we are doing LED lighting replacements in those areas as well so there is typically somewhere between a two to four year return on those LED lighting replacements you know we have done it at Durham station and we have done it at a number of places so that work is occurring additionally we are working in collaboration with the fleet department to really look at and Joe Clark has really been leading this effort what our portfolio of vehicles could look like what is happening in the heavy vehicle equipment arena that are possibilities particularly for solid waste vehicles and so we are running down the track on a number of different initiatives at the same time we are trying to craft a master plan and part of the work that we are doing with GDS associates while the final result will be delivered in May we have asked that consultant through their work to daylight some early initiatives for us such that we would be able to include them in the budget cycle in this year and so we will have some preliminary data come out on the 15th of this month that sort of looks at some of our early opportunities additionally we are looking at whether you know the things that we are planning we want to try to get some carbon offsets for those and sell those in the market so we have got a number of initiatives going on at the same time we are trying to look at the entire portfolio and I will just pause there and see if that is sufficient or if you have further questions well that was a killer answer thank you those are great initiatives and I appreciate very much the fact that we are doing those things while we are doing those things that was exactly what I was interested in and I didn't know about all those things I know about some of them but not all I am really appreciative let me also ask you spoke last time about an RFI to help with an application for grain source advantage what is Duke's role in helping us with that process so Duke has been providing consultant GDS Associates technical assistance on the crafting of the RFI in addition to helping us think about what partners might be available so when you look on Duke's website it indicates solar providers who may have an interest or may be a part of a program such that they might have capacity that we could take advantage of and prior to releasing the RFI they also did a full review on it to make sure that we had a misty thing that we had clarity on those documents and are going to help us as we move through the process what's the timetable on that so we issued the RFI on the first of this month so a couple days ago the responses are due on the 16th of this month and then we will look at the responses and make some determinations on what the path ought to be moving forward we are hoping to get some cost data as a part of the RFI and we are interested to see what comes in and we'll be doing an analysis on what the appropriate next steps might be from there and I'm sure you don't know this exactly but and then how long does it take to work through the green source advantage process and to actually get the allocation I'm not sure my language here Ms. Poston but the allocation of the megawatts you're getting into an area that I don't have the answers for you I certainly can gather that information and provide that to council laying out a schedule of what we think that timeline might look like but I just I haven't gotten deep enough into it that's a confident answer right now that's fine getting down to a little more detail in the MOU attachment one in the attachment you'll see there's a section on energy efficiency okay and it talks about the tariff on bill pilot program and you and you may I don't know you may want to call on one of the Duke Energy folks that are here explain a little bit more about that yeah I think it would be great to have one of my Duke partners in Darra or one of her team tell us a little bit more about that the intention here is for us to create a pilot program and to test it and if the pilot works then we would ask for confirmation from whatever the regulatory agencies are to be able to continue that process but I'd like to see if some of my Duke team can respond here and I'm particularly interested in the fact that I'm what I'm trying to understand is a little bit about this the specific language what is a tariff on bill pilot program I know what a pilot program is and Darra are you out there well I see Miss Danyl can you all hear me yes Miss Danyl and or Miss Everett either one Mayor Schull thank you for the opportunities to respond my colleague Christy Daniels on the line and I think she can handle this question thank you and Miss Everett I didn't see you here we're glad to have you with us yes sir Miss Danyl sure thank you so specifically your question is the on bill financing pilot program yes so this is something that Duke is evaluating and quite honestly has had limitations in the past because of our billing system but we are in the process of updating our billing system so it'll have capabilities that we haven't been able to have before so this is something that we'll be able to roll out as that system becomes available within the next certainly within the next year so this is something where if a customer would like something like a air conditioner but they potentially couldn't afford to pay for that air conditioner all at once it could be paid for along the course with their Duke energy bill over time so they would be able to get the benefits of a more efficient air conditioner and pay for that over the course of their billing cycle however long that might take so that's it's kind of a financing that so Duke in part is financing the project for energy efficiency thank you that was very helpful I wasn't quite I realized I didn't quite understand exactly what would be finance and that's extremely helpful thank you I have another question related to attachment one under the reliability and resilience section the about the pilot program such as solar arrays paired with battery storage on critical municipal facilities I know that that is something that tremendous interest to all of us and would like to hear a little bit more about either from the city I guess I'll start with this post and then you may want to throw it over to Duke but what is our what is their ambition here I mean this is super important technology the change in battery storage is enabling a lot of alternative energy efficiencies so could you talk a little bit about that miss poster what when we what would you be thinking of here and what would be piloted yes so this one I'm going to ask Paul Cameron to weigh in and tell us a little bit more about you may remember that we received a grant earlier this year where we did some analysis on battery backup at city hall and at the new police headquarters sort of analyzing what the costs were and what sort of technology there was let me just see if Paul can speak a little further on that Mr Cameron are you able to be heard yes could you hear me yes we can welcome thank you mr mayor and members of council so as the mayor as the mayor said solar powered with battery storage is a fairly new technology but one that is growing in importance particularly for resilience for example if we can install solar panels paired with storage on key facilities they can provide electricity in the event of a power outage so for example in city hall police headquarters critical facilities that we need to keep the power on in the event of a storm or hurricane where there is a regional power outage solar and battery storage can provide critical resilience capability in that situation and this is something we did a pilot study last year with using a grant from the national league of cities to do a study of that capability and this is something that we could work with Duke Energy on in the future to explore that area more in depth and perhaps implement some of those projects on some of our key facilities thank you mr Cameron I'd like to ask now someone from Duke Ms Everett Ms Daniel whoever is appropriate what is Duke's level of interest in this and what would you see your role as in terms of helping us make this a reality I can take that one if you want me to so some of you might know we recently filed an updated Carolina's resource plan and in that plan were many different portfolios for how to decarbonize our fleet and within that was a very large amount of renewable energy and storage technology which doesn't exist today on our system we hardly have any batteries so this is of great interest to us and I think it only makes sense that the first places that we test and pilot these projects are with critical infrastructure there are certainly other places that will look to do some of these projects places on the grid that have various disruptive activity but certainly as we think about our critical infrastructure and making sure as Paul said we could keep it on in emergencies or in certain weather events that would be beneficial we have been able to get pilots approved in our jurisdiction in Florida and we are currently putting a battery system on I believe it's a school or recreational center but it's used in times of hurricanes for a place where elderly and folks in the community can go during a hurricane so this is something that we are trying in other jurisdictions to do and certainly especially with the filing of our resource plan in North Carolina we will look to do even more so in North Carolina Thank you, Ms. Daniel. That was very helpful. One more question about that I don't know the way in which this technology and its uses is described in the MOU it is it's context is just what you described in the example that you gave kind of emergencies you know a resilience issue isn't there other you know when I think about battery storage and the changes in battery storage aren't there going to soon be much more far reaching implications of this for uses far beyond thinking about kind of immediate you know emergencies and that sort of level of immediate resilience and I was wondering what Duke's plans are there to see Durham fitting into that Sure absolutely and you're right I think especially as the cost of battery storage we're projecting to come down significantly as it has been coming down of course we always need to keep an eye on the future and making sure that we know what's going to happen to these batteries in 30 years but the Carolinas are in an interesting area in the southeast in that we can put a lot of solar on the system but our peak usage is not when the sun is shining right now it's during those shoulder hours so if we can come far enough along with our battery storage technology such that we don't have to rely on other peak capacity generating systems that are by and large fossil generators today then absolutely battery would be considered as a good peak resource to use on a broader scale going forward and what's what do you as you look into the future on that issue what do you think how much time are we talking before in your opinion that sort of that technology will be available for that kind of use I won't hold you to it Thank you because I'm not the engineer but you know I would say certainly within the 15 to 30 year time horizon and not it's not all dependent upon technology I think technology will help drive down costs as we get more efficient but we have to keep in mind everybody across the country is trying to do the same thing so making sure that we're deploying this efficiently is of great importance and making sure that we don't run into some situations as other states have where we start closing down other units too quickly without having that battery in place in order to perform that necessary peak capacity that it's needed for so I'm but I certainly think that it's within the time horizon of you know getting within within the 15 years I think we'll start seeing it being deployed on a very large scale much sooner than 15 years but before we can really phase out potentially any reliance on fossil resources that could be a while longer Thank you Miss Poston one of the other key points in the examples of potential cooperation in the MOU management is the electric vehicle charging stations deployment and I was wondering what you were thinking about and what is our in terms of that rollout are we talking about work that's ongoing now with Duke to try to figure out how to do that I'm sure that there's a lot of issues related to current demand and then inducing demand I'm not sure all the alas economics work I bet you council member Reese might have an idea but I wondered if you would like to make some comments about that very first example there in the attachment sure thank you mayor so we have installed a number of charging stations starting with federal funds that came down in 07, 08 and 09 and then subsequent to that we have been installing EV charging infrastructure as we build parking garages and some of our surface slots and some other places and we've been starting to have conversations about how many we need to have of which types of things I think we're just about to standardize the unit that we'd like to see installed in any of the city facilities such that we can begin doing some tracking and monitoring of what we have we begin to have conversations about whether these charging stations on city property ought to have a fee associated with them or not and so we're beginning to have conversations about that we had applied for a grant with the state and we had been notified that we were going to be receiving funding for four additional stations and then the funding has been temporarily placed on hold so we're optimistic that we're going to receive some additional funding from that as the taxes come back online so in terms of what the collaboration might look like with Duke this is one of the things that we haven't had deep conversations with them specifically about what programs they have we might avail ourselves of and what their long term strategies are so we can understand how we can dovetail what we're doing Thank you Um is this the kind of thing that will be part of the energy action plan a more is this an example of something that the energy action plan will fill out in terms of a range of timelines and costs and so forth Yes, I believe we'll see information about our current fleet what opportunities exist within our fleet and then you know as we've been having general services and having one-on-one conversations with various departments in the budget next year we've been talking about making sure we've got enough infrastructure in place so that when the buses come in we can and we're adding buses to our fleet that we have the infrastructure to do the electrical vehicle charging for those so I think we're firing on a number of cylinders whether it's transportation or fleet itself or general services and I think this is a place where we have conversations with Duke about how these pieces dovetail together over the long term Thank you. Once we have electric vehicles will we still be filing firing on a number of cylinders or will that metaphor Yes, I hear you Yes, I hear you So Okay Thank you Let me just I wanted to just make a few remarks about this and where we are I really appreciated the speakers we've had tonight and I really appreciate back in the end of last year and several months in the beginning of this year I met a lot with a group of several groups of environmentalists and energy advocates the EAB pulled people together but not just the EAB the grandmas and grandpas for safe energy as the exact name is and the Sunrise Coalition many, many groups and really helped me form a vision for a Green New Durham which I articulated as best that I could in my state of the city speech and I really think that the our staff did a wonderful job and keeping those important points that were put forth by that group of people as part of this vision in the forefront as you were negotiating this franchise agreement in MOU not all of the points that I laid out there are agreed to by our partner Duke Energy in this MOU and and honestly the ones that are the the ones that are particularly not agreed to need regulatory legislation excuse me need legislative or regulatory change I am appreciative that this week there is some change in language in the MOU from the previous week which speaks to the potential cooperation to get that legislative or regulatory change cooperation between the city and Duke the MOU is careful to say that that will be what our interests coincide but I believe there will be times when our interests coincide and we will want to be working towards that regulatory and legislative thing I was also pleased that I appreciate the remarks of Mr. Lucicero I do want to say that another change that I see that I think is positive in the MOU is that Duke does acknowledge the reality of climate if there are several places I was just looking this acknowledgement is I would say implicit but for example addressing the challenges climate changes present is a mission which both the city and Duke Energy agree there are other places in the agreement where this kind of tacit acknowledgement of climate change which I think is very important and our environmental and energy folks did as well is in the agreement and I am happy that that is true I do think that the language is also advanced in terms of the community solar and Duke's commitment to help us make that a reality so I am very appreciative of those changes and I feel that the language is very strong Tom Campbell mentioned this in his comments I think we have very strong language now around our ability to the city's ability our ability to produce purchase solar power including from independent producers and I think that is going to be really important to us going ahead including as we get involved in the green source advantage program and I think being getting to the top of that line as we discussed Ms. Poston with the limited number of megawatts available and no guarantee of more soon is going to be important and so I am very glad that we have the RFI out again Mr. Campbell said that the proof will be in the performance and I think that is true I think in terms of what our staff has negotiated and what Duke has negotiated with us I think we are about as good as it is going to be it is true as Mr. LaCicero said that this does not give us all the power and freedom that we would want but we are not in that situation we are in a situation where Duke Energy is our monopoly energy provider they are heavily regulated and in a heavily regulated industry and our state legislature is not friendly to many of the things that we would like to do and because of those things we do not have the independent power and freedom to do everything we would like to do on energy but in so far as we do in so far as we we are free to create our own energy future and we do have some power in that realm I think our staff has done a really great job in negotiating for us to get those things and I am very I think we are I really appreciate you I appreciate you Bo because I know you Bo Ferguson because I know you did so much to pull all this together to Ms. Poston to Ms. Probst, Mr. Cameron and also to the folks at Duke who worked with us on this and I want to thank Ms. Everett, Ms. Daniel and others for being a part of this because I think this MOU is a huge advance from let's just say right today we don't have this MOU once we approve this we will have this MOU it is a huge advance I think in our potential energy future I want to express my gratitude and Ms. Everett would you like to say something? Yes, sir Mr. Mayor I would to you and all the city council members thank you all for allowing us this opportunity I want to just echo some comments you made and kind of end on a collaborative note certainly as you said the staff the city of Durham staff has been phenomenal to work with thank them again I said that a couple sessions back and it bears saying again they have been exceptional to work with and so we appreciate that they worked in a very professional manner and have been very collaborative and that I have to echo again is well received our leadership certainly appreciates that I personally appreciate that I also want to mention as I want to thank my colleague for being on the call she is a subject matter expert for the subject that she was referring to I do want to make the city council aware and you perhaps you are aware that we started a Duke climate collaborative maybe a year or two ago and Christie actually started that and led that our CEO felt climate change was so important that she actually tapped Christie to lead that organization my colleague Tanya Evans now is kind of spearheading that but we have in that a very diverse group of stakeholders we have Buncombe County we have Asheville we have Raleigh we have Kerry and we have Durham County and just to make you and our city council aware we added the city of Durham as well and so there will be a representative there to the question about how do we move forward collaboratively it will be proof in the pudding if you will we want you at the table and so we've extended that we will have a representative from the city of Durham also joining the Durham County representative as a part of that collaborative because we're very sincere about wanting to work with you and so a lot of the proof in the pudding and the work plan and the action plan that's where that's really going to happen and so we're sincere about that and so I'm not sure the whole council was aware of that but we made that offer actually we presented it a couple years ago but we're glad that's finally come to fruition and so we welcome them as a part of that team that's helping to address all these matters that we're talking about tonight so I won't continue to belabor the point but I do want to say thank you to your staff they've been exceptionally professional and we've enjoyed working with them thank you very much Ms. Everett we love hearing compliments for our staff and we know that they're true and thank you for letting us know about being invited to the table at the climate action group absolutely colleagues I see that Mr. Ferguson has put in the chat many thanks as well the excellent team from the city attorney's office Fred Lamar and Donna Tull yes I should have mentioned that and I apologize thank you so much to Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Lamar we know how much you put into this alright colleagues I have burned a lot of air time but I'm now going to ask other questions and comments that you all might have council member Reese thank you Mr. Mayor I don't want to say as much as you did because you said a lot of things and asked a lot of great very detailed questions I guess I just wanted to thank our staff for working so hard on getting this agreement where it is today especially want to thank both Ferguson our deputy city manager and Stacy Poston who I guess I can't remember a bigger council meeting for Stacy Poston than this one tonight as we complete this agreement with Duke Energy that she's been deeply involved with kind of in the nuts and bolts and then also we just as part of the consent agenda approved the conveyance of the old police headquarters on West Chapel Hill two projects that she has been deeply involved in and so many thanks to you Stacy I don't know what you're going to do to fill your time from here on out but I'm sure you'll find something also want to thank Indira Everett and the folks at Duke Energy for being such good negotiating partners I've talked to Indira about Indira I've talked to you about the our staff's work on this project and you were very a few said about your praise with them and what what a tough bargaining team they were but I think that's got to go both ways we're not going to reach an agreement like this without a partner on the other side who just wants to get to the right answers and I appreciate the work that Duke Energy did to get that and perhaps just as importantly I want to thank the folks in the community especially in the environmental affairs board and I think that's a great example for a member of this body for pushing us and the staff pushing the staff to push harder but also pushing us as council members individually to push staff to push harder and I think what you have seen over the last two weeks is the impact of that pressure and so I think that's how this is supposed to work and I'm really really honored that we live in a community with folks who are willing to get down into the very pretty details of these agreements to talk to us as electeds and staff at a very technical level about where shortcomings are and how they can be addressed and also really happy that staff made a number of adjustments to the agreement since we last saw it to address many of those concerns finally Mr. Mayor I just want to harken back to something that Mr. Campbell said you highlighted it a couple of times agreements on paper are great they have to be hammered out between two negotiating partners to reach mutual goals and that's done that's what's happened here but the real test of this agreement is the will of the two negotiating partners to make it real once the ink is dry and I think we have to accept the burden as the City of Durham for continuing to push our partner Duke Energy to make this agreement what we need it to be in order to have a world to live in for the next generation you know we passed a sustainability a set of sustainability goals not too long ago and unless we change the legislative rules around how power is generated how it's stored how it's bought and sold we're never going to get there this agreement puts us on a path to getting there this is really in my mind the first huge step in getting to those goals but like I said once the ink is dry we still have a huge responsibility to continue to push Duke Energy to continue to work with other municipalities to pressure both the legislature here in North Carolina and also the US Congress in Washington DC to make it easier for producers to produce green energy for cities to produce buy and sell it that's how we're going to get to the future we need along with lots of other things to use and what not so all of that is to say that for the time that we are on this body we will have personal responsibility for continuing to push this system forward but we also our community has to continue to do what EAB and Mr. Campbell and others have done throughout this entire agreement negotiating process which is to push us hold us accountable for making the kind of changes at the local state level that will make this agreement help this agreement build us a world that our kids can live in and so all of that is to say that to the people of Durham continue to hold us accountable we none of us will be in these seats to see that next generation and so the people of Durham have to continue to elect representatives to the city council at every level of government who are committed to making the changes that we need to save our planet this is an important step in that direction I intend to support it tonight I just want to thank everybody involved and thank my colleagues thank you Mr. Mayor thank you very much for those comments councilmember and they were very well said alright other comments by members of the council or questions for staff councilmember Middleton and then councilmember Freeman thank you Mr. Mayor Charlie Pierce and Gillian are like 12 next generation Mr. Mayor thank you for your questioning of folk tonight you know this whole matter a recurring motif for me during this whole matter was don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good but this deal has actually gotten gooder there was a point at which I thought the good threshold was crossed sometime ago but it's gotten gooder and I'm grateful for the work of the staff I think two things that are evident that's been made clearer to me is the absolute phenomenal staff we have when they're given the charge to negotiate and act on our behalf and I also want to recognize the good corporate citizenship of Duke Energy as well I think those two things came together and have given us not a perfect but a very good deal I think and I'm confident that when I read the MOU intention with the actual franchise agreement both documents kind of in a conversation with one another I'm confident that we're at a good place to champion our values when it comes to the climate and the environment moving forward and still giving our city agility so I look forward to supporting this agreement I want to thank the EAB because I think this is a prime example of why activism is so important and why organizing and continuing to push governments when they say this is as far as we can do to keep pushing them to go further so I'm glad we didn't settle just that good that it's gotten gooder because of the excellence of our staff and members of the community so thank you everyone involved such an incredible piece of work but I think we'll do us good and do what we need to do thank you Mr. Mayor thank you councilmember thank you I won't echo all the accolades that have already been heaped on I agree I wanted to just take a moment and step to the side on this conversation a little bit just acknowledging that this evening most of not all of this conversation has been translated into Spanish and many of our Spanish speaking countries this might not be the conversation that they're having at this moment so I just want to acknowledge that there's some differences in the conversations or some just noting that the time that we're spending in having these conversations builds our community in a stronger way it builds our ability to understand and have the knowledge as the subject matter experts spoke this evening many of us are not those subject matter experts and so I appreciate all the questions and all of the wherewithal of our staff to get us to this point and the way in which I know whenever I ask the questions to Endera Everett at Duke Energy I get answers I just I just want to note that this is a this is a very first world issue and a very good opportunity to help shed light on on how clean energy is a huge or huge aspect of where we are going but I also want to make sure that we tie it back to so that it actually relates to people in the community that aren't quite there yet in understanding how clean energy and all the aspects of what we're talking about this evening relates to where they are and how they operate on a daily basis and so just tracking back on the aspect of the conversation where it was discussed about how folks might be able to actually add an air conditioner or energy efficiency energy efficient refrigerator in their home it's important to note that I think our gas I think is demand energy has been offering that type of services and if that's a service that's being offered by Duke Energy that's a phenomenal addition and then also noting that there were a couple of other things that I kind of got lost I know that Steve was talking for a while I tried to keep up and sorry about that but just noting that I just want to make sure that we don't lose our everyday folks issues in these conversations because they don't always press forward in a way that's organized like a EAB board member or the people who are at the fringes on these issues but it is important for folks to understand how it relates and so I just want to make sure that we're also making this information as readily available to people in the community so that they are following along because when we talk about 3,000 lumens and 4,000 lumens it can get a little overwhelming but the impact that it has is important and I think that the loss that we would experience if we don't make sure that this information is available not just in English and in Spanish but in other languages but also just connecting more of the dots so that there are more people around this conversation than just the people who are very focused on energy efficiency or solar or what have you I think I'm going along today to say that we should all be involved in this conversation and we have to find ways to do that. Thank you very much council member any other questions or comments at this time I will I will ask I do want to just follow up a little bit about the lights this is not our main topic tonight by any means but we have had a number of people Ms. Forman here to talk about that and we've also had a good number of emails and then Mr. Judge yesterday I believe you sent the memo to us or maybe it was Friday it was over the weekend perhaps that spoke to many of the issues that have been raised about the lighting and I appreciate that very much thank you for making that available to us and I've been really holding back on answering a lot of these emails until I had that information which you gave to us recently but getting that in writing is very helpful one of the issues that the folks raise in the in terms of lighting is the health issue and your memo addresses pretty much everything that people said but with the health issue I'm paraphrasing here basically says what does it say it doesn't have a clear answer on that can you talk to us about that a little bit yes bill judge transportation so we are aware of that 2016 AMA study and recommendation to my knowledge that's there hasn't been any subsequent room additional information provided by the American Medical Association or any other studies we have asked Duke Energy about it obviously it's something that is concerning to us but the industry standard I guess continues to be the 4000 Kelvin even since that study came out Duke did indicate that the there's a group that sorry I'm drawing blank on it but it's like illumination society yeah the illuminating engineering society which is sort of the foremost research group related to lighting has offered to partner with the American Medical Association to do further research but to my knowledge nothing has been produced at this point the 4000 Kelvin like I said it's the industry standard there's probably yeah at least yeah I won't say it's a hundred percent but close to 100 percent of the LED street lights around the country are most likely pretty close to the 4000 Kelvin there's probably a few others that are a little bit different but it's by far the vast majority including here in Durham we've been using them since late 2014 we have almost a thousand of them installed prior to starting this conversion program and the conversion program at this point is 85 90 percent complete yes there's a little over 2000 remaining as of last week I wasn't able to get an updated number before tonight but they're anticipating assuming that there's not significant storms or hurricanes where they have to pull crews off here and during the month of October that they would likely be finished by around the first of November and the the shield costs about $100 a piece to put on is that correct yes it varies depending on the wattage of the light but the vast majority of them are just under $100 some of the larger lights are a little bit more than $100 but and the talk a little bit about the finances of the lighting replacement I'm sorry about the current lighting program yeah so I mean the lighting is paid for there's a monthly fee that is charged for each light and that basically Duke owns, maintains and operates the lighting so they're responsible for all maintenance so the city pays a monthly service fee for each light and that's funded through the city's general fund through our department what are the economics of the new lights for the city as opposed to the old lights so for the replacements it's pretty much close to a breakeven depending on the wattage, some lights we save some money, other wattages we pay a little bit more the net reduction or conversion of $21,000 had just a very slight overall increase to our budget but was actually smaller than a typical rate increase so it was really almost basically a breakeven on that there is a $40 conversion fee though in addition to any of those shields that we're paying so we were able to budget for that so we pay Duke Energy $40 for each light that they're converting so over the period of time of the conversion process the expense to the city was let's see how many lights? $20,000 $800,000 over time yes so there was a $40 one-time fee it was $800 and some $1,000 about $850 I think if I recall with the so and that's actually Duke there's an option through the North Carolina Utilities Commission where it's actually spread over four years so we're paying one fourth of that each year to help recoup and some people have said we've received some emails that said we should replace all those lights any light that we replace I assume would have also a one-time replacement fee I'm not sure what the other replacement light would be but yes so we do have to when we get asked to request service on a new light we do agree to pay for a minimum of 36 months of service for that light so if we were to basically ask them to remove it or retire it early we would be subject to paying that 36 months of service for whatever the remainder is from the time they install it is that in addition to the $40 per light installment fee? that would be if like I said normally it's just build monthly depending whether it's a new pole existing pole underground they vary but in general it's generally about $20 per light per month and so is that then just to be clear is that on top of the $40 replacement fee would be a $20 per month fee as well or is that the same thing as the $40? yeah so if there's no light there when we go out and we request them to install a new light it's about $20 per month per light the $40 is just where we've asked them to replace a high pressure sodium light with an LED it's a one time fee to help them recoup some of the cost of retiring those high pressure sodium equipment early just to make I'm sorry to belabor this but just to make sure I understand the $40 is to replace a light if people are writing us saying you should replace all these lights with something else let's don't argue about what the something else is but if we were to do that we would pay I assume a $40 replacement fee would we also have to pay other fees to replace a light the three months operating in addition to that or is that $40 yeah it would probably be something in between those two closer to the three months I mean 36 months of service so the $40 was a fee that the North Carolina Utilities Commission not knowing a light on one street might have only been two or three years old and a light on another street might have been 20 years old so it was basically just an average for all their equipment throughout Duke Energy's Carolinas and a fee that they were allowed to charge so since this is all essentially brand new equipment that's been installed within the within the last year I think they would most likely Duke would look for us to pay the remainder of that initial 36 months of service and that 36 months of service is payable at how much per month for it varies depending on the light their summer is a little was $10 a month but and others are a little over 20 depending whether it's underground service overhead service or not okay so it could be up to it could be $360 to make a replacement because you have to pay the we would have to pay the service correct or more than that or more than that if it was $20 per month yeah okay thank you I'm sorry to belabor this but I really want to give a good answer to our our residents who've been asking questions does remember Reese yeah Mr. Mayor thank you I appreciate you bringing the light issue back up I realize that we are almost to the end of the replacement program and so my my opinion that we should stop while we figure out how to fix the problem that many of our residents are having with this is likely about to be moved but I do think it makes sense for and I'm and I hope that we can figure out what it what it takes for the folks who live on a street that is serviced by one of these lights to tell the city that they think it's too bright and and figure out how to get a dimmer light in that location I don't think that's too much to ask I think it as you pointed out it could be expensive I'd like to see some actual numbers behind it Mr. Judge I absolutely trust you and you're reading the contract but they seem like there's a lot of estimation going on there and I'd like to maybe have somebody have a conversation with Duke Energy about what would it actually take to replace one of these bulbs that many of our residents feel are too bright with something that's less bright so I think that maybe where I think we ought to be heading with the conversation just because you know this is something that we're hearing from a lot of folks and I at least want to know what it takes to help a group of the neighbors advocate for that change and what it takes on the city side to make that change reality so that's my two cents on that thank you Mr. Mayor thank you council member I appreciate that and Mr. Judge maybe you could give that some thought and you all could get back to us on that unless you wanted to offer anything now no I would need to follow up with Duke Energy as I said the the service agreement we signed does specify that we would pay for it for a minimum of 36 months obviously depending on the number of locations I think there might be able to negotiate something in between that thank you very much I think that you know the yeah the other question is the the baffles I can't remember what they're called that make the light dimmer what do they call Mr. Judge they call them shields shields I mean I think that that is maybe our cheapest good option Miss Page Mr. Mayor the administration would be happy to bring a presentation to council later regarding the lights we've been listening very carefully to all the questions about the lighting and we will schedule a work session presentation that will be responsive to the questions that have come up regarding them thank you so much for that thank you I don't know if you can see my hand yes I can council member you're up just want to make sure that in that presentation that it's included a way to engage the folks who are around those lights because if you're just speaking to one person I don't want to be the one making that decision but the neighbor between neighbors I'm mindful of how these things happen in many neighborhoods and the folks who are on the negative side are the loudest and folks on the positive side aren't and I don't want to be in between that so I just want to make sure that conversation is held in a way that's very open and forthright with the people in the community so thank you thank you council member colleagues I know that I have used way more than my share of time but I hope you all will forgive me because I don't usually so are there any other questions or comments about the about the franchise agreement council member Freelon well it's not about the franchise agreement but I was just thinking just off the top of my head about when to tell folks we can expect to have that presentation about the lights I'm anticipating a response to several of those emails and wanting to give folks a goal post to look forward to maybe that's a question for city manager page or I'm not sure I believe it is thank you good question so as it relates to the timing of it we do have quite a few presentations coming up at work session so we want to make sure that we're mindful of that and I'd also like to speak to the staff to see how long it would really take to put a quality presentation that's responsive to all the questions with all of the engagement so we can get back with a date we could probably have a date just for conversation about a date by Thursday as to when we might be ready to come back with that presentation thank you thank you councilmember and thank you miss page colleagues if there are no further questions or comments I want to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now before the council for a vote I'm going to ask our city attorney we have several things to do and I wonder if we could do them in a single vote those things would be to adopt an ordinance granting a franchise to Duke Energy Carolinas to authorize the city manager enter into an operating agreement to authorize the city manager enter into a memorandum of understanding and to authorize the city manager to make modifications the operating agreement and or the memorandum of understanding did not significantly affect the intent can we do that in a single motion honestly mr. mayor I would prefer that you all take them up in the order in which they're listed sequentially gotcha we'll do that okay thank you alright thank you madam attorney I'll now accept an emotion to adopt an ordinance granting a franchise to Duke Energy Carolinas I move I move by councilmember Freeman seconded by mayor pro tam johnson and madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi councilmember pro tam johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton I vote aye councilmember reese aye thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it so moved second moved by mayor pro tam johnson seconded by councilmember caballero madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember middleton I vote aye councilmember reese thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously and now we'll move to authorize the city manager enter to an operating agreement with Duke Energy Carolinas LLC so moved second moved by mayor pro tam johnson seconded by councilmember reese madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton I vote aye councilmember reese hi thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously and now we will need a motion to authorize the city manager to make modifications the operating agreement and or the memorandum of understanding that do not significantly alter the intent of the agreement seconded by mayor pro tam johnson madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul mayor pro tam johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton I vote aye councilmember reese hi thank you madam clerk we are negotiating partners and our community partners at duke energy I want to thank all the people and our staff who have done such an amazing job city attorney's office general services and others and I want to thank our community members as councilmember reese put it so eloquently who have helped us one name I did not call amongst the community members who have been so active as Kasey Collins I think Kasey has had there is big an impact on this agreement as anyone and I want to really appreciate you Casey's work from the Environmental Affairs Board. Alrighty, thank you so much. Everybody who's involved in this, I suggest that you go out and have an adult beverage of your choice. Alrighty, and now we will move on to Consolidated Annexation Leesville Road Assembly. This is also a public hearing item. I want to remind everyone that this public hearing is is open from a previous meeting and so we don't need to open the public hearing. It is open as of now. Miss Smith, welcome. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'm here presenting this item tonight. Miss Struthers is not available to join us, so I'll begin if that's okay. Yes please. Okay, so I'm Grace Smith with the Planning Department and I will be presenting Leesville Road Assembly. It was continued from City Council meeting on September the 8th. Before I begin, I would like to state for the record that all of the Planning Department notices have been executed in accordance with state and local law and affidavits for those who are on file in the Planning Department. So this is a request for utility extension agreements, voluntary annexation, and a zoning map change from Tim Sivers of four Bath Associates for a total of eleven parcels generally located at 6325 Leesville Road. Ten of the parcels are part of the zoning map change proposal while one parcel to the south of Leesville Road has been included to avoid creating a doughnut hole. Two utility extension agreements have been requested, one for a larger, the larger assemblage and one for 6408 Leesville Road that's the southern parcel. The annexation petition is for a continuous expansion of the corporate city limits. The applicant proposes to change the zoning designation of the 10 parcel side rule residential to plan development residential 3.2.26 with a development plan committing to a maximum of 344 units. No change is proposed to the future land use map designation of low density residential which is consistent with the zoning request. If approved the annexation petition and associated applications would become effective on December 31st, 2020. The city and county operational departments have reviewed this request. The budget and management services department determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following annexation if it were approved. Additional information on the service and fiscal impacts can be found in the staff report. The Durham Planning Commission recommended approval of the proposed zoning by a vote of 8 to 4 at their March 10th, 2020 meeting. There are three motions required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering entering into two utility extension agreements. The second is to adopt the consistency statement and the third is for the zoning ordinance. Thank you and staff is available for questions and it's my understanding that the applicant is here and may have a presentation to share. Thank you so much Ms. Smith. I will remind you all that the public hearing is open and I have signed up to speak on this item for people. Mr. Tim Cybers, Baohang Wan, Jonathan Hayward, and Todd Alsop I believe are the four. Let me ask now is there anyone else who is a attendee at this meeting who would like to speak on this item and if so could you raise your virtual hand or make yourself heard in the chat. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard? I believe that all 4 people have signed up are proponents and may be part of your team Mr. Cybers. Madam clerk can we make Mr. Cybers available to be heard? He's unmuted. Thank you. Mr. Cybers are the 4 people that yourself Baohang Wan, Jonathan Hayward, and Todd Alsop are all of those part of your team? Yes sir that is correct. Are they all planning to speak? Are they here to answer questions? Now we're all available for questions. I have a few about a three or four minute presentation but everybody else is available for questions. All right Mr. Cybers it's been a while since we've discussed this and so I think a presentation would be in order and especially if you could refresh us on some of the key points. Yes thank you sir. I'm sorry Mayor Schull and City Council members I have the presentation that can share my screen whenever Mr. Cybers is ready. Super Ms. Smith thank you so much why don't you go ahead and do that? Are you ready for that Mr. Cybers? Yes please thank you. Thank you Ms. Smith. Thank you mayor. Again my name is Tim Cybers with Horvath Associates 16 consultant place Durham North Carolina. The request in front of you this evening. Next slide please. The request in front of you this evening is a rezoning of 107.24 acres from RR to PDR 3.236 and an annexation of nearly 114 acres. This project is located on the north side of Leesville Road east of Delweb Arbor's Drive and west of Andrews Chapel Road. The area includes large track single family as well as many single family home developments. The project's located about two miles away from Briar Creek and four miles to the Ravenstone shopping center on NC 98. Next slide please. The proposed density of 3.236 fits within the city's designation area of low density residential for the area. Therefore no change is needed to the future land use map. This project is compatible with the existing land use patterns along Leesville Road and is consistent with the intense goals and principles of the adopted plans. Based on the presentation by the planning director to the city council on September 24th, this townhome use and density is also consistent with the expectations of future development in this area while higher density, office, and commercial is anticipated closer to the NC 98 Highway 70 corridors. Next slide please. The proposed density will provide a maximum of 344 units and the developers now are in contract with KB Homes to build this townhome development with prices anticipated in the mid-200s that'll bring additional product type to the adjacent single family home developments. Next slide please. The development plan illustrates right-of-way dedication, landscape buffers, tree preservation area, maximum of 344 units, open space areas, stream crossings, as well as access points onto Leesville Road and adjacent parcels for future connectivity. The development has over 1,400 linear feet of road frontage in which turn lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks will be constructed. The existing two and three-lane road will be widened to four lanes at our access points to provide east and westbound turn lanes. In addition, a right turn lane will also be constructed at Andrews Chapel Road along with a signal warrant analysis for this intersection. Next slide please. The second application includes the contiguous annexation of the 113.7 acres. This encompasses the entire project area as well as the landscape nursery on the south side of the Leesville Road. This parcel is included in the annexation to eliminate the creation of a donut hole within the city limits. Next slide please. A summary of the key test commitments consist of 5,000 linear feet of nature trails, programmed open space as illustrated, a minimum of one traffic calming device, shorter block lengths not to exceed 600 feet, additional asphalt on Leesville Road for future bike lanes, traffic improvements along Leesville Road, as well as a $19,000 contribution to the Durham Public Schools. Next slide please. As discussed in the previous meeting, this slide identifies the revised and new text commitments that have been reviewed and accepted by staff. They include clarification that this is a townhouse residential development, increase in our tree preservation area to 24 percent to include areas outside the stream buffers, and increase the contribution of the dedicated housing fund by 25 percent to $43,000. In addition to three architectural commitments to provide variation in home appearance. Next slide please. This proposal is consistent with the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan and is also consistent with the planning department's expectations of future development in this area. It provides the opportunity for additional housing choices while supporting our growing population for our city. This project has neighborhood support and I believe you received emails in that manner. I do request that you follow Plenty Commission's recommendation for approval of this project and vote in favor of this development. If there are any questions, the developer, traffic engineer, and myself are available to answer them. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Severs for that refresher presentation. We appreciate getting it. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff and you have heard the presentation from the applicant. I do not believe there are any other speakers here on this item. So I'll now ask if there are any questions or comments for staff or the applicant by members of the council. Any questions or comments at this point? All right. If not, I will close this public hearing. I'm now going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council. There would be three motions necessary on this item. One would be to adopt the ordinance amending annexing Leesville Road Assembly. Second to adopt the consistency statement. The third to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. Do I have a motion? Move to adopt the ordinance. Is there a second? Seconded. Moved by council member Middleton. Seconded by council member Freelon that we adopt the ordinance annexing the Leesville Road Assembly. Is there any discussion? Any more discussion? Any comments? Council members? Council member Caballero. I just wanted to share with colleagues that I did. I was able to watch the work session presentation on Searles and heard the really wonderful discussion afterwards. Staff did not debrief me but it was because I did not follow up with questions. Previous to the Searles presentation I had spoken with several individual staff members. So I felt pretty good after hearing that kind of comprehensive update from both really from all three water transportation and planning. I just wanted to thank staff because it was super super helpful to put all of that all the different pieces in context and all the great questions colleagues had afterwards. So I just wanted to thank everyone for that. You're muted Mr. Mayor. Thank you council member Caballero. Other comments? Council member Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I want to thank staff for bringing this back to us and thank Mr. Severs for his willingness to let us take a pause before we considered this and a series of other projects in this area. I just felt like it was necessary for me to say just a couple of words because I was one of the members of this council who'd expressed some deep concerns about this kind of development in this part of Durham. I think one of the things that I mentioned when we talked about this at our work session is that so often is that very seldom do we get our staff to talk to us about what a particular area of Durham is well suited to bear in terms of development. So much of what we do is very transactional. This is the case we're on today. Vote yes or no on this case. And I think it was the Mayor Pro Tem who expressed a frustration about that mode of kind of building out the city in this case part of the county that wants to be part of the city. And I think that need that presentation and the conversation we had afterwards was a great example of what I hope we'll start to do more of in the weeks and months ahead because it really gave me a good sense of the risks and the costs of developing these types of projects in this part of Durham and the benefits and not only that but it also gave me a better sense of the risk of not doing this kind of residential development here. What other type of residential development is possible without annexation? Especially what we can see just on the other side of the Wake County line in the same part of our state. And so all of that having been said I believe it is in our city's best interest to annex this property pursuant to the to the plan that's before us. I want to thank the applicant for being mindful of some of the design commitments that I talked to Mr. Syvers about some months ago now. The types of concerns that are often raised by Commissioner Miller at the Planning Commission want to appreciate that. And obviously we see the project now in a different light than the Planning Commission did because there was no build with air then and now there is. And so a lot of those concerns have been addressed and I tend to support them as you're going to thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much Council Member. Any other comments? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to also appreciate the staff for the comprehensive presentation that we received on the Searles area. I feel a lot more comfortable now moving forward with some of these cases and I'm also looking forward to the work that we're going to do on the small area plan for for the region. And yeah I just want to agree with Council Member Reese that it's really nice to have this sort of broad overview of what's happening in an area rather than the kind of piecemeal case by case work that we usually get and just want to appreciate the staff for that big picture and just say I found it very helpful. Thanks. Thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Any other comments before we vote? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I also didn't follow it with staff as I had a chance to review the presentation and hear comments and I have been as torn as I will be moving forward on each of these cases acknowledging that not only do we need small area planning but we need a comprehensive plan and acknowledging how fragile our waterways are and where all of this development is the 300 and some of my town homes in this area just doesn't feel appropriate and I can't afford I unfortunately cannot support moving forward with that but I do know that the need for residential housing near and close to that border is important and just noting that there's there's still a lot of work to work to figure out how we move forward in these areas around these especially around the waterways especially the falls of the news and that's all. Thank you. Thank you Council Member. Any further comments? All right we've had a motion by Council Member Middleton and a second by Council Member Freelon that we adopt an ordinance annexing the Leesville Road assemblage into the city. Madam Clerk will you please call the vote? Mayor Schuhl? Aye. Mayor Progem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Cabello? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Nay. Council Member Middleton? I vote aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk. The motion passes six to one. We'll now move to motion two to adopt the consistency statement. Move to adopt consistency. Second. Moved by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Council Member Caballero to adopt the consistency statement. Would you call the roll please Madam Clerk? Mayor Schuhl? Aye. Mayor Progem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? I vote aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk. The motion passes six to one. I will now move to motion three to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. Move to amend the UDO. Second. Moved by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Mayor Progem Johnson. Madam Clerk please call the vote. Call the roll. Mayor Schuhl? Aye. Mayor Progem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? I vote aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk. The motion passes six to one. Ms. Smith, thank you and thank you Mr. Syvers. We appreciate you all being here tonight. Thank you very much sir. We'll now move to item 29 and also a public hearing item, the Consolidated Annexation for National Heritage Academy's NHA Oak Grove Charter. And we will first hear the report from staff. Thank you. Mayor Schuhl, Mayor Progem Johnson, honorable council members. Good evening. I'm Alexander Cale with the Planning Department. I'm happy to be here with you. The applicant has requested a continuance of this Consolidated Annexation Item to the November 2nd City Council meeting. The agent, Nogoche, is available to discuss the reason for this requested continuance on behalf of the applicant. Thank you Mr. Cale. Did you say that the applicant would like to give us the reasons? Yes sir. Nogoche is on the- Nogoche is here. Sure. Thank you very much Mr. Cale. Mr. Gosh, Madam Clerk, can you make Mr. Gosh available to be heard? I believe I am available now. Hi Mr. Gosh. Welcome and please let us know. We'd love to hear from you on this. Sure. And good evening all. This is Nogoche at the Morning Star Law Group. As staff indicated, we are requesting a continuance of this item until the Council's November 2nd meeting. Primarily so that we can work with staff to make some adjustments to the UEA for this project. I know you all have a long agenda so once there's any questions for me I can leave it at that. I'm just requesting this item to be continued until your November 2nd meeting. And thank you. Thank you Mr. Gosh. Appreciate that. So we won't open this public hearing. Mr. Cale, we will wait for staff to bring this back to us on November 2nd. Thank you, Mayor Schull. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Gosh. Thank you. Mayor Schull. Yes, yes. Hi. Sorry to jump in. We actually do have to open the hearing and continue it until that date if you don't mind. I'm glad somebody smarter than me is here. Thank you, Ms. Smith. I'm going to declare this public hearing open and we will be continuing this public hearing until November 2nd. Did I hit it that time, Ms. Smith? You're good. Yes, you did. Sorry, yes you did. Thank you. All right. We'll now move to item 30. Consolidated Item Chimpage Road. And we will first hear the report from staff. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council members. I'm Danny Kulch from the Planning Department. Request for a zoning map change for three parcels of land located at 5203, 5321 and 5421 Chimpage Road have been received from Jessica Harsty. The properties are currently zoned industrial light with a development plan, ILD. And the applicant proposes to change the zoning to the office and institutional UI. There is no development plan associated with this request. The site is designated industrial on the future land use map. The applicant seeks a future land use map amendment to office which would be consistent with the zoning request. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Three motions were required for this application. The first motion is to adopt a resolution amending the future land use map. The second motion is to adopt a consistency statement. And the third for the zoning ordinance. Thank you. Staff is available for any questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Kulchra. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. And I'm first going to ask if there are any questions for members for the staff by members of the council. I have a question, Mr. Kulchra. In the staff analysis, it says that the site is currently zoned industrial. The office is inconsistent with the surrounding properties which include industrial to the west and low medium density residential to the north and west. There is no development plan associated with this application. Staff has expressed a concern that without a development plan, there is no way to address potential impacts or mitigating factors associated with development being adjacent to the industrial flum which may include residential since it is permitted within the OI zoning district. However, staff recognizes that in general the office designation does provide a more appropriate transition between the residential zoning and the adjacent industrial uses and less intensive list of uses compared to the industrial zone. So that was what was in the staff analysis. Do you, in the amount of understanding that you're concerned with the lack of a development plan, what made you, what made that concern not so important to you that staff would recommend the approval of this item? I would actually like to get maybe Ms. Smith in on this as well. Okay. I actually had gotten this case adopted to me a little bit at the last minute so. Yeah. That's great. Danny's trying to help fill in. We have a lot of cases that we needed some help with for this meeting but it's so the the staff, the staff determines that the request is consistent with the comp plan and the unified development ordinance and the of course the future land use map. We just wanted to point out the concern. It's more of a concern that without the presence of a development plan there's no way to see the mitigation that may or may not happen through buffers and other graphic details you would see on a full blood development plan. We just wanted to throw that out there but it is a better transition the proposed district versus what is there now. And that that that overrode your concern about the lack of a development plan? It's kind of a washed honestly because the uses that are allowed in the OI are less intense. So that's kind of where we landed to be honest. But the planning commission did not have they were not I mean they they were very supportive they were not. They were more supportive of the OI being the transition district versus the lack of the development plan. That's correct. Thank you Ms. Smith. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Kulture or Ms. Smith before we hear from the applicant? Mr. Councilmember Reese. Mr. Mayor I didn't have any questions I just wanted to remind folks who are listening who might have been had that same concern. I often find it helpful to review the planning commission written comments and I thought Commissioner Miller really addressed very well the how the OI how this change is is good for this area going all the way back to the creation of the comprehensive plan in 2006. What the kind of the received wisdom was about how this part of Durham would be developed and the fact that it just hasn't worked out that way. And so I found those those comments to be very helpful in helping me understand that part. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much Councilmember. All right I think we will now hear from the folks who have spoke sign up to speak on this item. We have five people who have spoken up to speak I'm sorry who have signed up to speak all of them are listening themselves as proponents and the first one is Jesse Hardesty. Ms. Hardesty. Madam clerk can you make Ms. Hardesty available to be heard. Good evening everyone this is Jesse Hardesty from McAdams and I actually believe that Patrick Biker will be representing our case tonight. All right thank you we'll hear from Mr. Biker then thank you Ms. Hardesty. Is Mr. Biker available to be heard? Mr. Mayor I don't see Mr. Biker here this evening. Maybe Mr. Gouche. Mr. Gouche has his hand raised I bet you he's the one thank you. Mr. Gouche are you are you the representing the applicant tonight? It's Patrick here is this uh oh okay I have no idea how these things work. The way it works is we see you as Mr. Gouche but we know your voice and we believe that you are Mr indeed Mr. Biker. He has much nicer hair than I have I will say that. I have to agree with that um okay um Mr. Biker I see five people have signed up are all of them planning to speak I'm trying to figure out the time here or are some of them here to answer questions. Mayor Shull I believe that I'll give I would like to give just a two two or three minute overview of the project then Jessica Hardesty and Rob Griffin from Tri-Properties are here to answer questions and then I believe we have a couple of our neighbors from uh Creekside who wish to speak uh so I I can't speak for them but as far as Mr. Griffin and Ms. Hardesty simply here to answer questions. All right and then I believe Mr. Gaulman said he does not want to speak but also there's a Mr. Kevin Walls and let's find out first before we go ahead if Mr. Walls would like to be heard tonight Mr. Walls um let me see if is Mr. Walls still here? Mr. Mayor I think he departed. All right thank you Madam Clerk. Okay Mr. Biker I believe that you're on and um and then you can ask um yeah and I believe that I believe the other people are just here to answer questions so uh Mr. Biker please go ahead and make your presentation thank you. Did any Mayor Shull, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the City Council, I'm Patrick Biker of Morningstar Law Group. I live at 2614 Stuart Drive. I'm here tonight representing Tri-Properties for this agenda item. Again uh with us tonight from Tri-Properties uh is Rob Griffin the Associate Director of Development and as long as well as our site designer Jessica Hardesty of McAdams. It's been my privilege to work with Tri-Properties on the Bethpage Development for the past 14 years. Back around 2006 Tri-Properties was our lead office and industrial developer for Bethpage and assemblage of property that amounted to about 450 acres located in fairly close proximity to RTP and RDU airport. You may recall members of council that we had an almost identical rezoning for about 24 acres of industrial light that the council approved unanimously changing from IL with a development plan to OI and that occurred back on November 18, 2019. While tonight is pretty much the exact same thing except that the parcels for tonight's rezoning only amount to 8.83 acres. We think the OI zoning district is a better fit for the adjacent Creekside neighborhood and allows Tri-Properties one of our leading office developers in Durham to continue marketing this site for office use. Next what I would like to discuss briefly is our team's decision not to submit a development plan for this zoning map change to OI. 14 years ago our team undertook a massive TIA for Bethpage covering over 400 acres. The Bethpage TIA as part of the development plan that the county commissioners approved runs with the land as a part of the zoning. That TIA accounted for potentially high peak hour traffic generation from these 8.83 acres within the IL zoning district. Any use allowed under the OI zoning district contemplated in tonight's agenda item would be equal to or less than what we accounted for in the original TIA. In fact the staff report states that the anticipated traffic generation will be reduced by over 2,600 trips per day. Also since Tri-Properties does not have an end user at this time it's impossible to scope a traffic impact analysis. However if an end user does come along and a TIA is required it will be done in conjunction with the site plan. Please keep in mind Durham city ordinances including but not limited to the UDO place limits on this site in regards to noise, lighting, building height of no more than 50 feet and a significant project boundary buffer under UDO section 9.4. I think it was due to all these reasons that the planning commission gave us a unanimous thumbs up on July 14, 2020. And now if one of our neighbors from Creeks I would like to share their comments we would certainly appreciate that. My understanding from Mr. Walls is that he did canvass the neighborhood and did not find any opposition to this request and in fact it was widely supported. We'll be happy to answer any questions you have tonight and we respectfully ask for your approval. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Biker. I don't see Mr. Walls here but thank you for that information. All right is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? If so please let us know in the chat. All right colleagues are there any questions or comments for staff or the applicant at this time? All right hearing none I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council. This will require three motions for approval. The first is to adopt a resolution amending the future land use maps. Move to adopt. Is there a second? Second. Moved by council member Milton. Seconded by council member Freelon. Madam clerk will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Pro Tem Johnson. Excuse me. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Councilmember Milton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Madam clerk I wasn't sure that council member Freeman got to vote. Council member Freeman did you vote? Yes. Okay did you vote aye or nay? Aye. Thank you very much. The thank you Madam clerk the the ayes have it the motion passes unanimously. The second motion will be adopted consistency statement. So moved. Second. Moved by council by Mayor Pro Tem seconded by council member Milton that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam clerk please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. And council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam clerk the motion passes unanimously. The third motion we do adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. Moved by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson seconded by council member Middleton that we adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. Madam clerk please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam clerk the motion passes unanimously. Mr. Biker thank you to you and you and your team we appreciate having you here tonight. Thank you so much appreciate you all appreciate you all tonight. Sure thank you Mr. Kaltra for stepping in. All right we'll now move to item 31 also public hearing item Z1900451310 West North 54 and we will first hear the report from staff. Good evening Grace Smith again I'm here presenting this case as well I will be presenting Z1900451310 West North Carolina 54. The applicant is Dan Joule this site is 1.194 acre and located at 13 West NC 54 hence the title. The applicant proposes to change zoning from residential suburban 20 to office institutional with a text only development plan. This request does not include a graphic development plan. The proposed text commitment commitment would only limit uses to those identified in UDO section 5.25 J office. This site is located in the suburban development here in the Falls Jordan District B watershed protection overlay. The future land use map designation is currently office which is consistent with the proposed zoning request. The text only development plan commits to offices only which means that those uses are commit or commitments and specific to use. The proposal is consistent with the conference to plan policies including those listed in this slide I'm sorry not this slide but further details are provided in the staff report. Staff determines that this request is consistent with the conference to plan and applicable policies and ordinances. There are two motions required for this application. The first is to adopt the consistency statement and the second is to adopt the zoning ordinance. Staff is available if you have any questions. Thank you Ms. Smith and colleagues you've heard the report from staff. I'm going to now declare this public hearing open. I do not see anyone who has signed up to speak on this item. I'm double checking my list. Yes that's correct. Is there anyone amongst the attendees who would like to be heard? Mr. Gauch are you here to speak on this item? Yes I am. Thank you Mr. Gauch. We're glad to have you. Please go ahead. And thank you and good evening Mayor Schulmeyer, President Johnson and members of the City Council. My name is Neil Gauch. I'm an attorney with the Morningstar Law Group and 112 West Main Street Durham. I'm representing the applicant for the proposed text only development plan and rezoning. And thank you Ms. Smith for your presentation. As she mentioned at just over one acre this is a relatively small parcel and rezoning request. It also is at least in my mind an ideal candidate for a text only development plan which is a relatively new tool in the UDL. Because of its size there is not a lot that can be built here under any zoning category to begin with. Moreover because there are not any streams wetlands or other environmentally sensitive features on the property the development of the site will not have significant impact on the greater environment. Additionally even at this stage we have some clarity on access to the site. The site's only frontage is along Highway 54 in a median divided area therefore the site's access will be right in and right out only. The text only development plan allows us to make commitments as to use. In this case we have committed that the uses will be only allowed to the extent the UDO allows office uses in the OI district. Of course the UDO fills in the gaps on the other requirements for new development on the property. For example maximum height is limited to 50 feet and building coverage is limited to not more than 60 of the site. Just to give you an idea our latest yield studies indicated that the site would be maxed out with a two-story building two-story office building of about 12,000 square feet and about 48 parking spaces. So because of the limitations of the property and the configuration of the intersection and the requested zoning the text only development plan actually offers a high degree of certainty with respect to how this property can or will be developed. I also wanted to note that although this is not a commitment nor anything that should be taken into your consideration we do have a prospective tenant for this project. In fact the business has been involved with the rezoning from the beginning. It is an outfit called spec on the job which is something like a bookkeeping from staff agency for blue collar jobs. I understand that any office user could end up here whether initially or in the future but I did think it was worth noting that this rezoning may potentially help a Durham business relocate into a bigger space while remaining in Durham. Aside from those practical reasons the staff already mentioned the proposed rezoning is consistent with the future land use map. This is one of those areas where the underlying zoning does not match up with the comprehensive plan. In fact the city's long-range plans call for office in this area which is what we are asking for tonight. Finally the project did receive an overwhelming recommendation for approval from the planning commission at its meeting in July. I thank you for your time and I'm available to answer any questions you have about the project. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Gosh. Colleagues you have heard the report from staff. I've opened the public hearing. You've now heard the report the presentation from the applicant. There's no one else here to speak on this item so now let me ask colleagues if there are any questions or comments that you all have for staff or the applicant at this time. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Could our staff just kind of refresh my memory on the text only development plan option and like what that what is missing from that that would be in a in a development plan. Sure I'll be glad to Madam Pro Tem. The text only commits is basically what it states is text only. They're making a text commitment on the on the in the ordinance of this particular zoning whereas a full development plan would have a graphic sheet a third sheet where you would see the parking and building envelopes project boundary buffers potentially any kind of other like in your access like Mr. Gosh referred to earlier in your right on right only access point. You're just missing that third sheet with the graphic illustrations that you would normally see on a full development plan and the text only commits just to the uses only. Got it. Thank you. So they're so they can't make commitments in a text only development plan like you can't you can't make the same commitments that you would in a full development plan you can only make commitments as regards to the use. That is correct. It's a use commitment only. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for asking that question. That was very helpful. Councilmember Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I don't have any questions for staff of the applicant. I just wanted to mention that excuse me there was a big part of my life where I drove past this location every single day at least twice a day because my girls started school at Hope Valley preschool which is about a block and a half towards Chapel Hill on 54 and during that time I stopped basically every week at the dry cleaners on the corner that's going to that's adjacent to this piece of property. I always wondered what in the world is happening with that little piece of property there and now I know they haven't known what to do with it either so but here they are they figured it out they're going to do this I think it's fantastic. I did have some initial concerns about access in and out because I know from personal experience it's kind of a hassle especially since they installed the concrete medium you may have heard of someone mentioned but they've addressed those concerns and I'll be happy to support the measure. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Councilmember. Any other comments or questions? Councilmember Freeman. Yes thank you I appreciate Councilmember Reese bringing back the memories all flooding through. I also have driven to and from that location is specific so I know just to may approach to his comment if there were bordered residential or other folks around that that property I probably would have a little bit more angst about supporting this but I don't for this particular case based on where it's located so thank you very much. Thank you Councilmember. Colleagues any more comments or questions? All right if not I'm going to declare this public hearing closed in the matters back before the council we'll need two motions to approve this one to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Moved by Councilmember Freelon seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson that we approve that we adopt a consistency statement. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll? Mayor Schulte. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I will die. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk the motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to motion two to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. Moved by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson seconded by Councilmember Freelon. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll? Mayor Schulte. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk the motion passes unanimously. Thank you Mr. Goh. We appreciate you being here. Thank you. We'll now move we'll now move to Consolidated Item 34 our last public hearing item of the night. We do have one supplemental item but this is Consolidated Annexation Sykes property. You will also remember colleagues that we're holding this public hearing open from a previous meeting as well and now ask for the report from staff. Good evening. It's me again. Getting to see a lot of me tonight. We're glad to see you Miss Smith. Oh I'm so glad. I'm happy to be here. So yes this case Grace Smith with the Planning Department this case was continued from the September 21st meeting. It's a request for utility extension agreement and voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change from Jessica Hardesty of McAdams for two parcels located at 7008 and 7012 Leesville Road totaling 40.36 acres. The annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the corporate city limits. There is a conservation subdivision associated with this case for 80 single family lots. You should see that I think it's attachment 16 for you. It was attachment 14 in our staff report. The site is presently zoned rural residential and the staff recommends an exact translation of the zoning designation. The proposed annexation area is designated as low density residential and recreation open space on the comprehensive plan which is consistent with the zoning request. If approved this request to become effective December 31st 2020. The motions on this item may have stated September 30th but we've corrected it everywhere else throughout the item except for maybe in the motion that was published on the agenda. We apologize for that mistake but the effective date would be December 31st 2020. City and county operational departments such as Solid Waste, Fire, Police, EMS have all reviewed the request and the potential impact of this annexation at full build out while it's not yet known could result in some reduction of level service provided by the police department. The public works and water management departments have determined that the existing city and water and sanitary sewer system have capacity for the proposed development. The budget and management services department determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following the annexation. Additional information can be found in the staff report. There are three motions required for this application. The first is to adopt the ordinance annexing the property and to and entering into the utility extension agreement and the second is to adopt the consistency statement while the third is to approve the zoning ordinance. Staff is available if you have questions. Thank you Ms Smith. Again colleagues this is a continuation of an existing public but open public hearing and you've now heard the report from staff. I see two people are signed up to speak on this item. Erica Latham and Bob Zumwalt and I see that they're both here. Madam Clerk it looks like Mr. Zumwalt's been made available to speak. Mr. Zumwalt are you with us? I am thank you. I'm really just here for question so I don't need to make a statement. Thank you so much. How about Ms. Latham? I'm here also. I don't know if someone can make nil available but I think he can speak for us too. Sure yes. Madam Clerk can you make Mr. Gosh available? I think, can you guys hear me now? Yes we can. Welcome. And good evening again. I'm still nil Gosh at the Morning Center Law Group at 112 West Main Street. You've also heard that Erica Latham of in my home and Bob Zumwalt from McAdams are also on the call. So you all heard about this item at your September 21st meeting but asked to lay the vote on this item in anticipation of staff's presentation to you all about the Searles area at the work session on the 24th. So this is one of those projects in the Searles area that got delayed. I think we spoke at length about this project last time so I will try to be brief but I did want to reiterate a few things. Without a development plan we're unable to make certain commitment but if you've been out to the Andrew Chapel neighborhood you should have a sense of what kind of homes will be built here. This request is meant to serve as the next phase of the existing Andrew's Chapel neighborhood which currently is being built by in my home which is the applicant for the annexation. I think it is important to note as I did last time that this acreage does have some environmental features on it which is one of the reasons why a conservation subdivision makes sense on this property. There is no doubt that through a development plan rezoning it would be possible to get more homes on this property. Unfortunately doing so would require environmental impact that simply are not warranted. Under the current approved conservation subdivision plan for this property there are about 20 acres shown for preservation and of those 20 acres nine are not impacted by any environmental feature. So those are areas that could be developed but doing so would require additional impact to the environmental feature. For example the current plan shows no stream crossing but at least one or probably two would be required to put homes on those areas. Sacrificing the environment for only a handful more homes simply does not make sense. Finally I want to touch on one of the lessons from Staff Searle's presentation last month. Developers do not look for pieces of land that are encumbered by a number of environmental features. In an ideal world we would be looking at a flat rectilinear unencumbered piece of land and would be asking for tons of density. The reality is that the Searle's area contains challenging topography environmentally sensitive areas and constrained infrastructure. As Staff mentioned there are certain areas throughout Searle's where a conservation subdivision is the most sensible way to provide new housing without compromising the environment. That exactly is what we are attempting to do here. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the project. Obviously we hope to have your support tonight and I hope you found Staff Searle's presentation as illuminating as I did. I think that really helps put this project into context. Thank you and again we've got Bob Zumwalt from McAdams and Eric Latham from MI Homes available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Gosh. There is no one else to be heard on this item colleagues and so now I'm going to ask if there are any questions or comments for either Staff or the applicant by members of the council. I don't hear any and so I'm now going to declare this public hearing closed. The matter is back before the council. Colleagues it will take three motions to approve this. The first motion we do adopting ordinance annexing the Sykes property into the city of Durham. Move to adopt the ordinance. It was moved by council member Milton and I'm not sure who seconded it could I have another second. This is council member Caballero. Thank you and seconded by council member Caballero to adopt an ordinance annexing the Sykes property. Madam Clark can you call the roll please. Mayor Schull. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. I vote aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clark. The motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to adopt a consistency statement. Is there a motion to adopt the consistency statement? Move to adopt consistency. Second. Moved by council member Middleton seconded by council member Freelon. Madam Clark will you please open the vote. Mayor Schull. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. Oh excuse me. I vote aye. Council member Reese. Aye. The ayes have it the motion passes unanimously. Madam Clark I'm sorry now colleagues we need a motion to adopt the ordinance admitting the UDO. Is there such a motion? Move to adopt the ordinance to amend the UDO. Moved by council member Middleton seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clark will you please call the roll. Mayor Schull. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. I vote aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clark the motion passes seven to zero. Mr. Gouge, Ms. Latham and Mr. Zumball thank you for being with us tonight and for hanging with us so long we appreciate you. Thank you have a good night. Yeah thank you. Colleague we now have one supplemental item that is not a public hearing item. We took it up at the work session on last Thursday. This is the resolution and support of federal action to increase racial equity. I'm going to ask Mayor Pro Tem Johnson if he wants to just say a word about this before we take it up. Sure thank you Mr. Mayor. This is a resolution responding to several of the recommendations by the race equity task force which concerns areas of policy that are either outside of our legal scope or our financial size in order to to be able to implement. There was one change that was requested by council member Freeman at our work session that I made to the fourth point in the resolution about $15 an hour minimum wage recognizing that that is already quickly becoming outdated and really less than a family needs to survive so I changed that to $15 an hour or more with regular increases to account for inflation and increases in cost of living in order to more accurately reflect the demand that you know that the minimum wage be something a family sustaining wage something that people could actually afford to meet their needs and everything else is the same as before. Thank you for that Madam Mayor Pro Tem council member Freeman. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I appreciate Mayor Pro Tem's making the adjustment. I just wanted to track back to the previous case. I expected you to close the hearing and then ask for comments and I think we missed that but I just wanted to note that in that previous case acknowledging that it's a much smaller swath of land and that there were a number of commitments that were made on that conservation district I felt like that was a much better deal or much better plan than the previous plan that I did not support. So that was all and then I just want to note if you're ready for motion on that. Thank you. I apologize council member. I certainly would have been happy to have had those remarks but I see Mr. Gauch is still here and was able to hear them so thank you. Council member Reese. Mr. Mayor I agree with what council member Freeman said about the last case and I'll second her motion. All righty. Council member Freeman let's go ahead council member Freeman would you like to make a motion that we approve this resolution? I'd like to make a motion that we approve the resolution and supported a federal action to increase race equity. I'd like to second that motion Mr. Mayor. Seconded by council member Reese. Any other comments? Council member Middleton. Mr. Mayor yes sir I don't know if we had a full reading of it at the work session but if if the Madam Mayor Pro Tem wouldn't mind I think it'd be appropriate for a reading for the record sake but I think it's an important document. Thank you. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Absolutely. Let me just pull that up. Resolution and support a federal action to increase racial equity whereas racial disparities in the U.S. are wide-ranging and pervasive negatively impacting the lives of millions of black people indigenous people and other people of color in myriad ways and whereas the city of Durham affirms the dignity and humanity of each of our residents in the right of every resident to be free from discrimination and harm due to their race and whereas the city of Durham is committed to the work to eliminate racial bias and racial disparity and create a more just and equitable world and whereas over after over a year of careful deliberation the city of Durham's race equity task force has provided recommendations to the city council to increase racial equity including several recommendations specifically intended to reduce the racial wealth gap and increase access to living wage jobs for black people indigenous people and other people of color in the U.S. and whereas several of these recommendations concern areas of policy outside of the legal authority or financial capacity of the city of Durham and must be enacted by the United States federal government now therefore be it resolved that the Durham city council calls upon our federal representatives to work toward the immediate enactment of the following policies one a program to provide reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans sufficient to eliminate the racial wealth gap two a program to provide a universal basic income to all citizens sufficient to meet each person's basic needs three a program to provide a guaranteed federal or federally funded living wage job to all citizens for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour or higher with regular increase to account for increases in cost of living and inflation be it further resolved that the city of Durham commits itself fully to all necessary advocacy to ensure that these policies are implemented be it further resolved that the city of Durham requests that the city clerks and copies of this resolution to representative gk butterfield representative david price senator tom tillis and senator richard burr this is the fifth day of october 2020 thank you very much madam madam and thank you everyone of the reading yes thank you everyone for your support colleagues we now need to take a vote on this item madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember euro hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote aye councilmember rice hi thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes unanimously colleagues we've had a good night of work i um and we're working through these public hearings that we had to put off so long when covet got going and i think tonight was a very productive night i want to thank the staff i want to thank our clerk and our deputy clerk uh i really appreciate you all i know this is hard and you do a great job and to all of our staff city manager page and everyone uh on our staff tonight thank you i'm now going to declare this meeting adjourned at nine 52 p.m colleagues uh thank you very much thank you have a good evening bye wave it's soon wave bye bye all right see y'all later