 I'm going to take off my mask and put on my hat. I love Halloween. I love everybody's costumes. It's one of my favorite holidays and I know it's one of your favorite holidays as well. I love the toddlers dressed up as pumpkins and I love the stream of ghosts and goblins and spider men to our front door and the scary decorations. My own neighborhood is a Halloween magnet. During the last several years, we've had over 1,500 kids come to our porch for candy every Halloween and we love it and I'm excited to do that again in future years. But you all know that this year because of COVID Halloween is going to have to be different. Durham residents have done a great job suppressing the coronavirus, wearing masks and social distancing and washing hands. We've kept our virus count low and the last thing that we want is for Halloween to become a super spreader event in our community. To figure out how to have a fun and safe Halloween, I've spent time talking to the leaders from those neighborhoods who get the most trick or treaters and I and several other North Carolina mayors met recently with North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services Mandy Cohen to talk about Halloween. The department has now issued guidance for having a safe Halloween which urges local governments to take any necessary precautions to keep our residents safe and healthy. So today I'm announcing some strong local guidance from the city of Durham as well. First, our guidance incorporates the most important recommendations of the Department of Health and Human Services. That is, the department's, and I'm quoting here, strongly recommends alternative Halloween activities instead of traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating. In addition, the department cites Governor Cooper's order limiting outside mask gatherings to no more than 50 people and that's far fewer than the number of people who crowd many of our neighborhoods on Halloween. On Halloween, I often have 50 people wind up just on my sidewalk alone. We know that this year that can't happen. So now I'm going to say a little more about what we can't do on Halloween and then I'll tell you a lot of ways we can have a lot of fun on Halloween and there are ways. And this includes the wonderful activities that our own Durham Parks and Rec Department will be sponsoring. Our local guidance strongly discourages large gatherings of trick-or-treaters and city government will not be providing barriers or cones or police officers to manage Halloween traffic in neighborhoods this year. Leaving the porch light on is the traditional signal for a Halloween welcome and we will be urging neighborhoods where there are usually large crowds of trick-or-treaters to keep their lights off to discourage the mask gatherings. We hate to do that, but we know it's necessary this year. I note that the Watts Hospital Hillendale Neighborhood Association worth perhaps the most trick-or-treaters of any neighborhood in town is respectfully requesting that households in the neighborhood not participate in traditional trick-or-treating. They will be posting signage around the neighborhood announcing this to Durham residents and will be requesting that neighborhood homes turn out their porch lights on Halloween and I urge other of the busiest Halloween neighborhoods to do the same. In addition, our local guidance incorporates the Department of Health and Human Services guidance citing the high risk of traditional trick-or-treat events where children often gather in large groups in church parking lots and move from car to car. Unfortunately, we cannot have this fun activity in Durham this year either. It's just too dangerous. However, there's a lot of Halloween fun we can have and we can do it safely. So let me talk about some of those super fun things that we can do. First, our guidance will also be recommending a safe way to trick-or-treat. We will be supporting trick-or-treating that is prearranged between specific families carried out in small groups touchless in the transmission of the treats and where everyone is wearing a COVID-safe mask. Not a Halloween mask, but a COVID-safe mask. Or best of all, wear a COVID-safe mask with a Halloween theme. If your family wants to trick-or-treat with a few other families, this is encouraged. As long as you have prearranged the visits, the groups are small and outside only. Everyone is wearing a COVID-safe mask and the tradition and the transmission of the treats is touchless. Also, our guidance encourages all of the other fun Halloween activities recommended in the state guidance. That includes pumpkin carving at home or maybe you want to carve your pumpkins outside in your yard with friends or at least six feet away. Watch some scary Halloween movies, put up your Halloween decorations and of course dress up. Also, we're encouraging virtual Halloween celebrations among friends, church groups and others including virtual Halloween costume contests. Also, while traditional walking, trunk-or-treat activities are not COVID-safe, we do encourage faith communities or civic groups to have a drive-through, touchless, trick-or-treating and church parking lots are elsewhere. Candy and treats must be given out safely and all volunteers must be wearing COVID-safe masks and maintaining social distance. We encourage drive-through Halloween events such as these where the kids can dress up and have fun and pick up some treats. And finally, I'm really delighted. Here at Holton, one of our wonderful recreation facilities, I'm delighted to announce the Contact Free Halloween and Fall Festival events sponsored by Durham Parks and Recreation Department. These events will be safe and they will be super fun. All of the Parks and Rec events will be free and open to the public. I do want you to know, however, that space is limited because we do need to control the number of people this year and they require – these events require pre-registration to participate so that the department can control the size of the crowds to comply with state orders. Let me tell you about some of those also Parks and Rec events and Cindy Booth and all the other folks are here from Parks and Rec who can answer your questions. But I really want to appreciate our Parks and Rec department for the great job they've done, the creativity they've shown to come up with these events. One event is called Vamp It Up and this is a virtual event. It's going to be held at Edison Johnson Recreation Center on October the 23rd. There'll be friendly vampires and ghosts and goblins – those are the kids – are invited to a virtual costume party. Participants can dress up in their Halloween best, enjoy some spectacular games and crafts and fun. Supplies will be provided earlier that day by a contactless pickup ahead of time at Edison Johnson. And then there's Friday night which will be at Pineywood Park also on October 23rd a week before Halloween. And this is Ghosts and Goals will enjoy an evening that is sure to have them howling with screams and laughter. Kids can dress up in their costume attire and enjoy drive-through trunk or treat, haunted drive-through trail and a socially distanced movie on the lawn and all that's at Pineywood Park. Then on October 30th at night before Halloween there's Trick or Treat Stay 6 Feet Apart and that's a drive-through event right here at Holton Career Resource Center where the families will be able to drive through and the participants will have a fun-filled evening that will include free candy and treats right here in the parking lot at Holton Career and Recreation Center and Resource Center. Then there's Halloween-O. This is a, as you all know, this is an event that we do every year in Durham. This is the 32nd annual Halloween-O and this one's going to be different because of COVID-19. This will be a super fun event for the whole family. Participants will enjoy a drive-through style event that includes Halloween decorations along the park loop, drive-through trick or treats, activity stations and live Halloween music from the comfort and safety of your own vehicle. And then there's the Full Moon Fever Bike Ride and this is on Saturday, October 31st Halloween and this is the also called the Blue Moon Ride. And this is a way to experience the American Tobacco Trail at night at our Full Moon Fever Bike Ride with the Durham Community Trail Watch Group. There are two starting times and locations. There will be a 16 mile ride and a 32 mile ride and look for ways to register for that. It's also going to be a wonderful event for Halloween. And finally, there's Diaz de los Muertos, a virtual event which will be on Monday, November 2nd. Diaz de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday, wonderful holiday designed to celebrate family members life and memory. Participants will learn about this tradition on Zoom through music and crafts and treats and supplies will be provided at Contactless Pickup at Edison Johnson Recreation Center. So remember that anyone wanting to register for these events should visit dprplaymore.org that's dprplaymore.org to register and for pertinent details about these events. So those are our Halloween plans. Halloween will be different this year but Halloween will still be wonderful this year. We're just going to have to do it differently. And I urge all of our residents to be as creative as you can to create a wonderful Halloween for our kids. Alright, are there any questions? Will there be any penalties for people who don't hear to these guidelines? We are not, other than the enforcement that we normally do of the government's governor's order or our local safer at home order, there won't be any additional enforcement. If people are egregiously violating the orders or the guidelines, we would visit with them and ask them for example let's say a hundred people were gathering, which is twice the limit we would have a police officer might be called to ask them to disperse or to get under the limit. But we're not in, this is not about enforcement, this is about voluntary compliance. We know we can't make this all work through enforcement. We have to make it work through our community voluntarily compliant. So could then like a homeowner in a neighborhood where they're not participating in trick-or-treating but they're still getting trick-or-treaters, what would be their recourse? What would you recommend that individual do? Well, if they're still getting, again if it's pre-arranged trick-or-treating with friends, that's fine. I think we encourage that. But if you're getting trick-or-treaters and you are uncomfortable with that as I would be this year I would just simply advise people to turn their lights off and discourage people from trick-or-treating. We can't afford to have a super spreader event at Halloween. What's the overall message that the city wants to tell the citizens about Halloween? So the overall message is this, Halloween's got to be different this year. We can't have mass gatherings and so that means traditional trick-or-treating is not really possible. But there's lots of ways to have fun at Halloween, we can still do it. Go to the Durham Parks and Rec website, dprplaymore.org, find the events there for you and figure out a creative way that you and your family can have a really fun trick-or-treat with pumpkin carvings and costumes and all of those things without the mass gatherings that will endanger our health. This guidance is city guidance but I would expect that the county will be adopting this guidance as well. Any other questions? Well, thank you all so much for coming. I really appreciate it and thank you for helping us get this important message out to our residents. We really are grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.