 Good evening, we'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order at 7.01 p.m. I'd like to welcome all of you that are here with us this evening. If we could just take a moment of silent meditation, please. Thank you. I would ask Councilman Brown if he would lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll please? Mayor Bell. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden. Councilmember Brown. Councilmember Cattidy. Councilmember Davis. Councilmember Moffitt. And Councilmember Shul. We have proclamation, well actually not proclamation, some recognitions to be given this evening. And I'd like to invite the following people to join me at the podium, Tanya Dotlik, Co-ordinative Keep Durham Beautiful, Joel Reitzer, Director of General Services, Robert Williams, Assistant Director of Solid Waste Management Department, Laura Webb, Smith, the Education Coordination, Director for Stormwater Services of the Public Works Department. Thank you. We're here this evening to recognize Keep Durham Beautiful for assisting the City in preventing stormwater pollution, reducing litter, and promoting recycling through a grant product that was provided by Waste Management. The grant implementation is a partnership between City staff from Departments of General Services, the Public Works Division of Stormwater Services, Solid Waste Management, and Keep Durham Beautiful. And I want to turn this over to Tanya for her to make some comments on this if you don't mind. Good evening, Mayor Bell and members of City Council. Thank you for providing an opportunity to share this exciting program with you this evening. Keep Durham Beautiful is a non-profit volunteer organization working in public-private partnerships along with the City of Durham and Durham County. We are located within the City of Durham Department of General Services. Keep Durham Beautiful encourages residents, businesses, and community organizations to collaborate to conserve and enhance the appearance and environment of Durham and reduce waste through cleanup events, beautification projects, and educational activities. The grant that we are talking about tonight is called the City of Durham Urban Tier Litter Prevention and Recycling Outreach through Social Media. We are so grateful to our friends who are here to present a grant to us from Waste Management. This is really generous and will really support our efforts to reduce waste and increase the beautification of the City of Durham. I'd also like to recognize the many contributions that are being provided by the City Department of Public Works, Division of Stormwater Services, and the Department of Solid Waste Management. Durham is experiencing an exciting period of growth, and with this increased activity comes a responsibility to increase our attention to the impact on the environment of litter while decreasing the blight that is caused by litter. Roadside litter negatively impacts economic vitality and environmental quality, particularly in the waterways. Together with this grant award, we have initiated a pilot study to assess, educate, and find ways to decrease the litter at five litter hotspots within Durham's urban tier, and we are beginning to work with the organizers of large public events within Durham to increase the rate of recycling at these events. Finally, we will assess the opportunities to add permanent recycling to public spaces in Durham. We look forward to this grant enhancing Durham's public spaces. I'd like to ask the person from Waste Management, Amanda Farrelly, Amanda Taylor, and Chip Dodd if you would come to the podium for a few comments. Mayor Bell and members of the City Council, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you tonight. Waste Management has sponsored this Keep America Beautiful Think Green grant for the past five years. There are a total of five grants and each one is of $10,000, and Waste Management helps to award these grants every year. The grant process is very competitive and Durham stood out as a worthy recipient due to its dedication to community improvement activities. This is evident in the City's effort to revitalize the downtown. We are excited to be part of this revitalization, and we look forward to working with the City through the effort of litter prevention and recycling improvement activities funded by the grant. Thank you. I'm members of the Council. I recognize Councilor Moffitt. I just wanted to welcome a group of college students in the back of the room from Duke this time. And I understand it's a class on ethics in an unjust world, and I wanted to just say welcome everybody. I'm going to tell you that much of the discussion around the agenda topics much, but not all, transpired at that work session 10 days ago. We have another work session on Thursday for the meeting in two weeks, and that's just my part of what you see. Great. Any other comments? If not, we will proceed with the agenda and recognize the City Manager for any prior attendance. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. No priority items. Likewise, City Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No priority items. And likewise, City Clerk. No items, Mr. Mayor. The agenda is the consent agenda initially that can be approved with a single vote. If a member pulls an item or a member pulls an item, we will discuss that later in the meeting. I'll just read the heading of each consent agenda item. Item 1 is approval of City Council Minutes. Item 2 is a grant agreement for construction of bicycle and pedestrian facilities on University Drive. Tip number EB-5514. Item number 3 is Barbey Road, Herndon Road, Massey Chalper Road, Roundabout, Sidewalk Agreement. Item 4 is a bid report for December 2014. Item 5 is the lease between the City of Durham and Yarborough and Hesse warehouses, LLC at 700 North Austin Avenue, Parcel ID, 111 319. Item 7 is resolution authorizing a public art project on the North Carolina 147 retaining wall on the south side of Willard Street, and I'll pull that item. Item 8 is an item that can be found on the General Business Agenda's public hearings. I entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda items, with the exception of item 7. So moved. Second. Second by the Mayor Pro Tem, second by Councilor Brown. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? You close the vote? It passes. 7 is 0. Thank you. We've moved to item 8, General Business Agenda Public Hearings. Item 8 is public hearing and recommended agreement for economic development incentive with ANJ, Councilor Corporation. Mayor Bell, members of Council, my name is Chris Dickey with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Okay. How's that? Okay. Mayor Bell, members of Council, my name is Chris Dickey with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. This agenda item for consideration is a proposed economic development incentive agreement between the City of Durham and AJ Capital Corporation. According to the agreement, the city will appropriate to ANJ Capital Corporation up to $170,000 for capital improvements within the community development area located at 406 South Driver and Durham, North Carolina. The total project cost of Ashley Corners is $525,000, $336. The proposed project will produce approximately $355,000 in private investment with $170,000 coming from city funding, pusing a 2.09 to one ratio of public to private funding. The thrust of the neighborhood revitalization grant program is to redevelop commercial buildings that will have a substantial impact on the physical economic vitality of the affected neighborhood, which will ultimately over the years strengthen the City of Durham tax base in that area. The proposed project is located along an OED targeted commercial area located in Northeast Central Durham. Prior to the building being purchased in August of 2014, the City of Durham's Neighborhood Improvement Services Department in September of 2013 cited 406 South Driver Street as an unsafe building which contributed to a condition of blight, disease, and vacancy. The AJ Capital Corporation proposed project would eliminate these hazards that poses these imminent threat to the health and safety of the general public and is being recommended for funding based upon its alignment with the goals and objectives of the neighborhood revitalization program. The project when completed, the building will be redeveloped into an 8,500-square-foot mixed-use commercial residential two-level building. The floors for it will consist of four commercial bays totaling 6,250 feet, and the second level is slayed for two residential partons. Each will be approximately 1,125 square feet. The project when completed will stimulate new business development and provide additional housing opportunities in the neighborhood. City support is needed to assist AJ Capital Corporation to securing additional funding for this project. I'm here to address questions. You've heard the staff report. This is a public hearing. I remember so the council have questions. Recognize Councilman Schuhl. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for this. I think this is a great project and I'm really happy that we're doing it. It's a really important building at a really important corner. I do have a couple of questions. Excuse me. Which? Yes, sir. Is there any way we can put a photo of the picture of this building on there? Are you trying to replace my picture with a picture of the building? Just temporarily. Go ahead and see. It would be nice to have the photo up there. So again, I emailed you these questions over the weekend and I apologize for being so late with them. But the first one is do we require any kind of operating pro former for the building? Do we feel confident in the success of the enterprise? I know that we're not. What we're doing here is renovating a building with our money. But do we have confidence in this, in the sense that we've reviewed their pro former and we feel pretty good about their opportunity for success? Yes, we do. Any project that, well, neighborhood revitalization grant project that comes for you, we do an independent study within our office and a lot of times what happens will contact a local bank and do a check and balances with the number and based upon the pro former that we've examined and the sources and uses of fund, this is a viable project. And it's important to know is that no fund, no city funds will be dispersed on this project until it's completely finished. Great. And then thank you for that. And then my second question is that the developer says that they'll be, their housing units will be affordable units on the second floor. They'll be, as I understand it, from what they've presented to housing units. And I wondered is with this public subsidy, do we want to, are we getting any kind of guarantee of long term affordability of these units? Well, the purpose of the neighborhood revitalization fund does not address affordable housing. As I indicated there in the, as I indicated, the thrust of the program is commercial revitalization. This project just happens to be a mixed use project. The commercial developer based upon my conversations with him basically saw that there was a need in a particular area and said that he would like to put some affordable housing there. But as a, as something that's in the economic development agreement, that's, that's not an agreement. Okay. Yeah, I mean, let me just say, I think that in the future it's something to think about. Obviously it's too late for this one, but I understand that this is a neighborhood revitalization project. But when someone says they're gonna do affordable housing, that makes me think, okay, and we're subsidizing it, are we gonna give them, you know, can we get some sort of guarantee of a time period at a certain AMI? So I just hope that's something that we'll, we'll keep in mind. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Steve. Are there other questions? Well, the reason I asked the photo to be displayed, I think it's important to at least convey to the public what type of facility we're making an investment in. And what it does, this is a major corridor we've invested in, and it's the neighborhood that we're very focused and invested in, and I think it's just gonna be very positive. Now another reason I wanted to put up there is a selfish reason. You see those, the way those stop lights are hanging up there, the arms and all this stuff, no wires. And you go down to South Point, Southside, the loss, and you look at all the strings of the way the lights are hanging. You know, give us some thought, Mr. Mayor, as we go forward, because it makes a definite difference in appearance, but good, good, good shot here. But I appreciate your question, Steve. Appreciate the staff, and I appreciate the fact that we're able to support this project. Are there other questions? Recognize Councilman Brown and then the Mayor Pro Tem. Councilman Davis and the Mayor Pro Tem, Davis. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also want to mention that this is right on the edge of the census tract that we've been dealing with in terms of the Mayor's Poverty Initiative. So it's also important for that revitalization also. Recognize the Mayor Pro Tem. I think it's important to note too that the developer has strong ties with the city of Durham. In fact, we have raised him in this community. Attorney Rogers, and so congratulations on getting this far on your project. Thank you. Are there other comments, questions? Does anyone in the public want to speak on this item? If not, let the record reflect on the one else and the public who wanted to speak. I'll declare the public hand to be closed as a matter of fact for the Council. Move the item. It's been properly moved by the Mayor Pro Tem and seconded it down that way. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote and close the vote? It passes seven to zero. Thank you. We'll move back to the Consent Agenda Item Seven, Resolution Authorizing Public Art Project on NC 147, Retaining Wall on South Side of Willow Street. Mark Owinski, is that, is he present? Mr. Mayor, City Council, thank you very much. I'm actually here. You have three minutes, I'm sorry. Three minutes? Yes, there's a clock there. All right. My name is Mark Owinski. At 2902 Quincemore Road in Durham and I'm a visual artist and teacher residing here. I am here actually to support this mural and would like to address something that I saw that came up in the newspaper and I was concerned that the mural was being discussed on issues with regard to whether or not it supported the Durham Bulls or it had a baseball kind of dynamic. And I really felt that this, having seen some of the design elements for it, drawings for it, that this really sold the mural short. I feel that in many ways it's aesthetic quality and the character of it, it's tradition and optical art and it's the linear quality in terms of wood enhance, the otherwise kind of drab character of that chunk of concrete retaining wall. I feel that it goes a long way to add dynamic color to sometimes rather, how should I say, overuse of beige in city planning and designing. Hope no one takes offense at that. But I feel it's important that as we consider these kinds of issues in terms of the kind of city and the character of the city that we want to see, have the outside world see. I feel it's important that quality art be considered, that it have aesthetic worth, and that we support this work as we go forward and as the city of Durham becomes a much more vibrant place that we should have works of art that reflect that vibrancy. And I feel that in many ways the character of this mural does exactly that, that it will take this rather small little area, the swath of concrete and begin in a small way to address that concern. And I would like the city council to seriously consider supporting it and to pass the amendment to do so. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Are there further comments on this item? This is before us. If not, I would entertain the motion on the item. It's been properly moved in a second by the mayor pro tem, second by councilman Schuyl. Madam clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes seven is zero. Okay, are there any other items to come before the council this evening? Well, I want to thank councilman Schuyl for his comments. She said you guys had a rather short work session which reflected in this meeting. And it was a work session and I was not present. So we'll see if we can do something else about that. Have more shorter work meetings and meetings. But anyway, I appreciate everybody being here this evening. Meetings adjourned at seven, 22 p.m.