 Thank you. Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order at seven o'clock on April the 20th of 2020 and certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight on this again very unusual extraordinary meeting of the Durham City Council. We're meeting again virtually as we did two weeks ago and I want to appreciate our technical staff for making this possible and all the other people who have helped to make it work so that we could have this meeting tonight. Before the moment of silence I want to just remind all of us that in a single rehabilitation facility in Durham we have 86 of the residents there who are who have been diagnosed with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and we have had deaths in our community and many people ill. We also have many people who are suffering economic deprivation and so we want to think of all of them tonight as we enter in our moment of silence. So please join me for a moment of silence. Thank you. And now I'm going to ask Councilmember Reese if he would recite the pledge for us. I will do that. Thank you. Good evening colleagues and staff. Good evening members of the public tuning in at home. I'm now going to 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 very much Councilmember. And now Madam Clerk would you please call the roll. Mayor Shul. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Present. Councilmember Middleton. Here. Councilmember Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you Madam Clerk. We will now proceed to announcements by members of the Council. I know that Councilmember Middleton has an announcement. I have an announcement. Is there anyone else that has an announcement would like to go first? Councilmember Freeman I think you said yes. Yes. Go ahead. I wanted to just take a moment and reflect as you mentioned on the COVID-19 and the responses that have been made and really want to take a moment to thank many organizations across the city and the county that have stepped up to the challenge. I also want to specifically note that the COVID-19 food co-op has been moving food into the community at a rapid pace and they've actually responded to the call to actually set up a fund to support our local small and mid-sized businesses and farmers. And so we're looking to see a thriving community fund moving forward and we will be making a request for people to pledge funds to the communities in partnership in an effort to move that forward to put some relief out there for the small businesses that might not nor might not qualify nor be aware of the funding that was available and is no longer available as far as stimulus and regarding unemployment and trying to keep their workers employed. So just making sure I give a heads up to everyone around that and then also I wanted to note that though the MacDougall Terrace crisis may not be on the agenda it has not been forgotten and I look forward to getting updates from staff and DHA as we move forward and wanted to make sure I gave a special shout out to the Durham Public Schools Foundation for stepping up and feeding the students and children across the county and many faith-based organizations and institutions that have been stepping up with funding and resources around this including institutions like Duke Energy and Blue Cross and Blue Shield and I would also like to point make sure that I acknowledge that the phase one funding is still available for the smaller community-based grants through Duke University. Duke community partner with I'm sorry Duke partners and affairs and so just making sure that folks are aware that the funding is still available for small community-based grants up to five thousand dollars for immediate distribution and phase two will be moving forward with larger funding available I think up to seventy five thousand for non-profit organizations. Thank you. Thank you very much councilmember and if you could make the link available to the communities and partners communities and partnership fund that would be great. I will thank you and also if I could just get in there a happy birthday shout out to my colleague councilmember Middleton I had not had a chance to speak to him about that so happy birthday sir. Many happy returns youngster. All right thank you any other announcements before we go to councilmember Middleton councilmember Reese. I just wanted to wish a councilmember Middleton a happy birthday and I brought balloons uh sorry you can't have them they're actually making a mess on the ceiling I'll have to get rid of them in a bit but happy birthday my friend. Very nice Mayor pro tem did you have an announcement? No I was just laughing at the balloons. Okay great councilmember Middleton I think you're up. Thank you Mr. Mayor thank you so much colleagues it's good to see all of your faces I know this has been challenging times and you know with the flag behind you Mr. Mayor and council Reese's balloons and flag it it's just showcasing my utter ineptitude when it comes I got to settle for a wall I don't know how to do any of that so thank you so much for all of that and it's good to see you. I want to echo Mr. Mayor your your statements about what we're going to do with respect to COVID-19 and send our best regards to our community that I think is doing an incredible job I want to congratulate Durham County and the city of Durham for leading the state and slowing the spread and keeping down the spread of new infections in our state of the large counties in our state so I just want to send a shout out to all our folk I know that even as we deal with this while our crime is down we still got some shooting going on in our city so I just want to send a heartfelt regards to those that are dealing with those issues in our city and know that we've got to do a lot of things at the same time as leaders in the city so I want to I just want to send my heartfelt regards out particularly to the McDougal terrorist community that had an incident that was reported heavily on the news the other day so we got work to do. Mr. Mayor I just wanted to briefly thank my colleagues for their indulgence as has been as I've indicated to the council via email I'll seek recognition later on in the meeting at the gavel's discretion to introduce a motion to rescind our previous action regarding the war three seat I'll briefly share why I'm doing it and and seek the council's agreeance to that up or down so I just wanted to put that out there during the time of announcement Mr. Mayor and of course at your discretion if you would yield to me I'd like to put that before my colleagues for consideration. Thank you very much councilmember Middleton we will do that colleagues my plan is to go through the consent agenda which is pretty much all that we have and then have that discussion if that's okay with everybody okay I have a couple of announcements one is I want to thank the clerk for arranging for public comment we had eight comments we had four comments that were concerned about loud motorbikes a group very large groups of loud people on very loud motorbikes in North Durham you all may be like me we've received a number of emails about this in the past couple of weeks and I just want to mention that to you Mr. Manager I know the police are aware of that but if you could just pass on these comments to them that would be great the second group of comments were about about our the people in Durham who are unable to pay their rent and can we do anything about that and we'll have our budget discussion coming up on next week and we'll be taking up that kind of thing at that time so I just wanted I know you all had the chance to read the the comments but I wanted to mention them to you and then the only other thing I would say about public comment and I want to thank the clerk is we had the the the comments were limited to 250 characters and the clerk and I talked and we we received a couple of emails from people complaining about that and I think we all agreed that that was problematic so we are now I want to thank the clerk Diana Schreiber and Tonetta Amos in the clerk's office we're now going to be receiving up to 4,000 characters I estimated that's about 500 words we might receive from a person if anyone of course has even more than that to say to us they can do so through an email but this will allow us to receive longer comments that people would like to make um I do want to report the good news that we are down now to three families from McDougal Terrace who are still in hotels so we are finally really really turning the corner and this has been all all of our minds for a long time and I'm really grateful that this work is ongoing and people are finally getting home in large numbers I do want to say just a little bit about the coronavirus just to kind of report very briefly to my colleagues who I don't know much of this but also to our community a little bit I mentioned before we have more than 80 cases in a single facility and this is very very worrisome it's a rehab facility and of course people in rehab facilities are very vulnerable they're usually there because they might be recuperating from surgery for example and so this is of deep concern our public health folks are there the county public health folks and working there but it's a very deep concern we have now according to our local count more than 400 cases these are climbing daily but we're not seeing in Durham what we are in New York and Detroit and New Jersey and elsewhere which is great we're now I believe 38 days out from our first case and I'm happy to say that our actions are working people in Durham are doing what Durham needs to do to keep us safe the Duke health system modeling shows that we are flattening the curve and as councilmember Middleton said we're our our growth the growth in our cases is declining which is great we three weeks ago we were growing it well I guess the first week at 12 percent per day down to 8 percent down to 7 percent and I just did the average of the last seven days and we're growing our cases are growing at about four and a half percent per day we have a couple of days where we had a lot of cases for example when we found out you know added to the list like the day we found out about all the cases at the at the rehab facility so we're not out of the woods by any means but we're doing a good job we're our trend is better quite a bit better than North Carolina as a whole better than Washington State better than South Korea which of course was the nation that did the best and but we have a long way to go social distancing washing hands staying at home are all working we're adding the requirement now for face coverings and I just a few things I want to say about the the face coverings um the the order requires that people cover their face when they are in a place where it's not easy for them to socially distance so grocery stores I went I went up to the bank today um and uh even though I was only using the teller machine I knew there might be other people there and I wore my mask over my face and eyes I'm sorry my nose and mouth I didn't put them over my eyes I could have but I didn't um and um so the this the the the thing I want to say about this we get it we're getting a lot of questions and I understand why about um our masks being made available and it's hard to mask up if people are making masks available here's the thing I want to say and I want to appreciate my colleagues many of you all have posted uh with yourself in a mask that is covering your nose and mouth and and what we're asking people to do is just use something very simple in homemade I've been using a bandana many people are using bandanas or tanker chips t-shirts will work anything that will cover your your your uh your nose and mouth uh is what we're asking people to do there are people in Durham uh led a couple of doctors Dr. Larry Greenblatt and Dr. Eric Westman are doing an amazing job of uh getting thousands of masks out to people uh in on our transit system uh in our nursing homes uh and many other places in Durham and lots of other people volunteers are I've gotten several um emails just today people offering masks and have been connecting them to doctors Greenblatt and Westman so many people are making masks many companies are making masks people are are sewing all kinds of wonderful masks and we're getting them out as broadly as we can but we don't need to do that we all have something at home that we can use and so I want to urge people to do that we don't need to use a mask when you're out doing individual exercise but when you're going to be in a place where um you are uh going to be with others please mask up we're not going to uh keep anyone off of transit or deny anybody access to transit because of this we do require it but no one will be denied access uh to our bus system and that's very um right now it looks like from what Duke is modeling that are we should peak around April 29th I just saw the most recent modeling um and the peak is the I think there's a lot of confusion about what a peak means in this case it's the it's the moment when you're experiencing that when your active cases are at their height and after that more people are coming out of being in active cases that are going in and so your hospitalizations will peak a week or two after your cases peak but we're expecting the cases to peak in late April probably maybe very early May and we're then expecting them according to the Duke model to fall and as they say if we keep social distancing measures in place and even then we're predicting a total of about 1200 cases by September a total not not all at once but that will be our total if we can hold our total to that that will be a great achievement so now we're beginning to think as a state and with the guidance of the state health department about how to safely begin to reopen businesses and other activities we're a long way from being able to open big crowds but you all know that in our stay at home order amendment this week we made some adjustments to allow some more real estate activities as well as to allow the farmers markets to operate in a safe way that they worked with a cooperative extension to to make possible and I appreciate that so much so baby steps in that direction or what we're going to take and as the governor said so well we need tracing testing and trends taste testing and tracing of cases and then we need to be able to watch our trends and when we see a spike we need to be able to take action to to stop that it's important to remember I think what happened in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 which was an incredibly deadly epidemic it had three peaks it had one peak and then the all the various restrictions were loosened then it had a much higher peak than no one expected and that's where most of the people died thousands and thousands of Americans died and then it actually had a third peak after restrictions were loosened again we're in much better shape than that now is because we have tests that if we can get them on the ground we can figure out how to isolate and and quarantine there are lots of things that we can do now that we couldn't in 1918 but it is important to remember that this is going to be gradual and I appreciate the governor's metaphor he says this is not going to be a switch that's turned on and off it's going to be more like a dimmer we're going to gradually come back and we will be working thinking about that locally very actively now so I just wanted to try to summarize where I think we are for the community and I'm very proud of Durham we've done a great job of socially distancing of doing all the staying at home and doing all the things that we've needed to do and I really understand people's angst and pain about the economic situation we're in we have to try to figure out ways that people can come back gradually and we're going to do that so I'm sorry that's an overly long announcement a lot longer than I usually give but I did just want to offer those remarks colleagues and thank you for thank you for your enduring them now we're going to turn to our priority items and our first priority item from from the city manager mr manager welcome thank you mr mayor good evening everyone glad to be here with you virtually the city manager's office has one priority item this evening which is agenda item number 16 proposed acceptance of offered to donate property located at 2702 and 2704 Dearborn Drive just wanted to point out that additional information has been added to that agenda item at the request of city council and that's all my priority items for this evening thank you mr manager madam attorney good evening mr mayor good evening members of council it's good to see you all this evening there are no priority items from the city attorney's office tonight thank you madam attorney madam clerk good evening everybody I do have a priority item I wanted to remind you that the ballots for boards committees and commissions has been sent to you or the multiple ballots and I would like to have them returned to me by Wednesday noon so that's April 22nd so they can be tallied thank you thank you very much madam clerk and thank you for providing those to us early I think we've got a good system going for that let me just mention that the clerk and I also discussed trying to get our boards and commissions back to meeting in a way that we can make work virtually and we're during the she's going to have that as a priority item at the work session this Thursday so we will be able to begin a little bit of a discussion about that and try to get that moving along all right those are the priority items and now the consent agenda the consent agenda could be approved by a single vote of the council any council member or an usually member of the public but in this case council member can pull an item from the agenda and it will then be then be heard at the end of the meeting these are items these consent agenda items are items that the council has previously worked with item one approval of city council minutes item two boards committees and commissions 2019 attendance reports item three citywide strategic plan performance audit February 2020 item five community development block grant cdbg grant i'm sorry contract with urban ministries of Durham Inc item six second contract amendment with a housing authority the city of Durham community development block grant cdbg sub recipient contract for the rehabilitation of the Laurel oaks townhomes item seven housing authority the city of Durham grant funding request with doodle terrace item eight emergency response plan and source water risk and resilience plan mr mayor like to pull that item item eight okay item nine resolution of support for reclassifying a segment of the Hinoe river for water supply item 10 2020 manhole rehabilitation south award of construction contract to biomec services Inc item 11 2020 manhole rehabilitation north award of construction contract to am liner east inc item 12 Durham sports commission interlocal agreements item 13 bid report february 2020 item 14 lease to the museum of Durham history at 521 west morgan street Durham NC parcel number 103 1 1 2 item 15 a member to the construction manager riz cmar contract for construction services wisconsin usa building Inc for the Hoover road park project item 16 proposed acceptance of offer to donate property located at 2702 and 2704 D born drive item 17 2019 fourth quarter crime report item 18 buckingham road culvert replacement sd 2020-03 item 19 alpine road culvert replacement sd 2020-04 item 20 street and infrastructure acceptances item 21 utility extension agreement with vc hunter llc to serve venable center office item 22 virtual chief information security officer vc iso managed services item 23 ashton plays development loan commitment uh and those are the consent agenda items and with the exception of item eight i'll accept a motion to approve the consent agenda so move council member riz mayor on um on the on item number 17 we are going to receive the report from chief davis right no we weren't planning to receive that that sorry i'm misunderstood okay that's okay um but uh what the manager said is if we do have questions that please email chief davis if you have any questions or concerns about the report thank you all right so with the exception of item eight um we're going to uh vote on the consent agenda all in favor please raise your hand all posed the motion passes unanimously thank you very much uh i think we'll go ahead and do item eight now and then we'll go to the um council member middleton's uh the item that he had raised so uh council member freeman let's talk about item eight thank you i just really wanted to highlight that i i appreciate the staff and their quick response and and um handling all of our emergency needs i just want to make sure that i highlight that it's important to make sure that we don't lose sight of of um businesses that aren't always on our radar and these conversations and just noting that i mentioned uh at work session it it becomes a more of an issue in the long term but in this short run i'm i'm okay with this proposal but it does feel a little off off-putting and that you're selecting a company based on level of comfort and that was just an issue that i had i just wanted to show i raised it again and make sure that we're paying attention to other organizations as well that might not often fall into the category that we've used them in the past all right thank you very much do you want a response from staff council member or did you just want to make those comments um if if staff can just let me know that they're keeping that in mind that would be helpful all right doesn't always come across okay uh mr manager or i see i see don grayley here mr grayley welcome uh good evening mayor mayor pro tem members of council um yes we'll definitely keep that in mind and as we go forward um the emergency response and waters source risk and resiliency plan is required by epa to be completed by this fall and a e com which is a great job with the risk and resiliency plan and this emergency response plan is an extension of that but we always um keep that in mind we work through our uh with um our equity department to make sure that we do our local businesses before we go out and um solicit any uh consultants thank you mr grayley yes thank you thank you council member um okay i'll now accept a motion for approval of item eight so move second should move to second that we approve item eight i'll do it by voice this time all in favor please say aye aye opposed the ayes have it the motion passes unanimously thank you very much uh we do not have uh any comments regarding mcdougal terrace which is also on our agenda we had let me say council members we agreed to keep this on until uh the mcdougal terrace residents at our home uh if we find out that we are they are home by the our next meeting uh we won't have this item but if we they are not home we will so just wanted to say that um now our council member middleton i'm gonna uh turn the floor over to you for some comments and uh then we'll have some discussion thank you so much mr marron thank you colleagues for your indulgence this evening on this matter i know we did the agenda was pretty straightforward so i'll try not to drag it out um i i want to firstly start by saying that when when the the duly elected representatives of the people speak it is a fearful and awesome thing and it's to be taken seriously mark anthony we can't hear you can you hear me let's see um is this just a problem mark anthony's having another colleague can you uh unmute and say something i hear you okay mr mayor i can hear you and i don't have any problems okay um okay let's see here i'm not sure mark anthony do you think it's a connection problem or do you think it's your computer do you know oh he's on his okay i did i did send him a message to say he might want to just call in yeah you could you could stay on your um screen and then give us a call also we haven't gotten the technology perfect yet have we so i see daniel terry is on daniel have you been able to advise uh councilmember middleton about um how to uh reach us mr manager is there anyone who do you think can offer us a little bit of technical help to councilmember middleton so we can try to make this work mayor we've got several people trying to get in touch with him his okay not picking up and uh he's not responding to text so i think okay his internet connection at his his home it's not a okay a little issue of everybody else's working okay let's see okay can you guys hear me yes okay you know what um i'm not even gonna make this crazy i think it's a computer i'm going to um we can we can see you and hear you okay does it sound scratchy a little bit but it's okay we can hear you well okay okay i'm just after the meeting what i was saying uh mr mayor is that i have great deference when a uh a duly elected body of the people speaks um and i think it's something to be taken very seriously so i i rise and i'm gonna say rise tonight but i i present tonight uh with great great humility and deference to my colleagues when i ask for a motion to rescind an action that we've taken and that is regarding the filling of the ward three seats and i think for the sake of my colleagues i owe them an explanation i think i owe the people of durham an explanation as to why i'm doing this very briefly uh what has changed since our last meeting uh when we voted to move forward uh after a wonderful piece of work by councilor reese to lay out a a process for us i believe what has changed mr mayor is is that we've become i i certainly have and i think we've become a little more knowledgeable on some of our options uh as a council that are before us and i think those options allow us to do something that i know isn't really important to all of us and that is maintain uh our our strict strict um guardianship and protection uh of our love of equity in the city i think we have an opportunity uh to move forward uh and protect and uphold our most cherished value or one of our most cherished values here in durham and i know that we prefer to do that more rather than less i want to thank uh so many voices that have been raised in our community first i i have to thank uh the leadership and membership of the Durham committee on the affairs of black people who were incredibly uh diligent and incredibly insistent on lifting the concerns and issues of some of our most vulnerable uh and affected folks and residents we're all being affected by this COVID-19 pandemic but i want to particularly thank Durham committee for raising their voice first uh to put us on notice that there may be some things we need to consider moving forward i've been also of course going to thank the people's alliance and friends of Durham who added their voices to the Durham committee on the affairs of black people when you have all three uh political action committees in our city agreeing on something at one time that that is a a major thing that that's a universal shake so i want to thank all of them for raising their voices and i do also understand the importance of keeping fidelity uh with the letter of the law and the spirit of the law as well and i'll speak briefly to that um colleagues during the civil rights movement one of the things that um our forebears and the civil rights movement fought against of course with access particularly when it came to the vote which is the most sacred way we participate in government particularly self-governance uh and something that was pretty common throughout the south were poll taxes and literacy tests when folk came to vote and these were super constitutional barriers that were arbitrarily um foisted upon people uh by races by those in power who wanted to impede black people's ability to vote so they came up with these extra tests and these extra barriers to overcome in order to just exercise their right to vote in order to be involved in the process i know uh that no one in this government no one in this council supports literary test literacy test for poll tax but i think that we have to be mindful in this current environment that we're we're very careful not to in a de facto accidental way create extra barriers to access for our people um people that as we've spoken to during our announcements are dealing with unemployment uh dealing with fear dealing with if i can't buy a mask what do i use to make one out of dealing with how to how to when can i leave my house and do i need a mask to ride the bus there are so many things that our people are dealing with i know that we as a government don't want to create a situation where it feels like there are extra barriers for them uh to be uh involved in the process so as i alluded to earlier i believe that my sense of proposal out to to each of you um and by request uh the media has gotten it as well regarding what i believe is is a way forward in which we can honor um the the law and our responsibility our safety responsibility but also live up to our values uh so the substance of the motion i'll be presenting uh colleagues is to rescind our previous action uh to fill the seat under our charter and to instead proceed in the north carolina general statute 160 a dash 3 which will allow us obligate us to fill the seat through selection uh but allow us to do it in a reasonable time i think that reasonable time can be determined by us but at the very least um i think the stay at home order being lifted should be at least one marker not solely the only marker but at least one marker uh that we look to to let us know that we might be approaching some degree of normalcy i just uh uh don't think that i could explain um wholeheartedly or with full conviction to anyone um doing the selection process under our current circumstances and i think north carolina general statute 160 a dash 3 um gives us that path forward to to make the selection process in a reasonable time i do also want to speak to um the marvelous marvelous piece of legal work that our city attorney attorney kim rayberg has done for us in clarifying some of our options and and some of our responsibilities and and i do um want to also say because i i think it's important uh as an elected that that folk understand uh where i'm coming from and how i'm operating earlier uh today the indy had an article come out that camp come out uh that detailed what was going on with the filling of the ward three seat uh and quoted from our city attorney's memo uh that we got the brilliant memo that we got from the city attorney and um also quoted me in the article and i want to be very clear to the people of derm on two things uh one um we know that that we have an obligation as a council to to act in accordance with the spirit and the letter of the law uh at no time at any time did i suggest that we just ignore uh filling the seat and opting for an election what i did ask however is that is there a way that as part of our selection process which is not enumerated by the charter uh it doesn't prescribe what that selection process should look like i i ask and i still have this query uh in me uh is there a way to make part of our selection process an assessment of the feasibility of proceeding with the process uh in other words if our applicant pool is being affected by a let's say worldwide deadly pandemic will that in any way hamper a good faith effort to fill the seat and if we in a good faith effort reach that conclusion uh then then to opt for an election uh and not only did i i did not suggest that we foisted upon ourselves or take that responsibility upon ourselves unilaterally um my proposal called for us to actually ask the general assembly to either get clarification from the general assembly if we could do that or if not then by relief through a local bill uh exempt us from having to do that so we could go uh to an election so i wanted to be clear about that and i certainly am well aware that the city council does not in and of itself have the authority to amend our charter i never made any representations privately or publicly that we could amend our charter ourselves i did however uh once again suggest that we appeal to the general assembly uh to provide us with uh some relief turns out that the first thing i asked for in my proposal which was essentially moving the 60 day clock to start time of the 60 day clock up is already available available to us practically um and in a realistic way through north carolina generals to stat statute 160 a dash three which allows us to fill the seat uh in a reasonable way i have participated in a selection process before so i'm clearly not anti-selection process i participated in process in that no point did i raise any concern or or objection to us engaging the selection process and of course at that time there wasn't a worldwide deadly pandemic going on i think covid-19 changes things i think um what we're dealing with changes things i think that uh access is one of our most sacred values and cherished values and we now have an opportunity based upon uh some incredible legal work and based on some incredible research by our city attorney uh and by some voices in the community that pressed us the Durham community affairs of black people and people aligned friends of Durham and others that have pressed us to look for other ways to continue to fight for who we are and that's what we do in Durham we fight and we look for ways uh the Durham work around i think is what we call it uh to lift up our values and make sure that they they shine for so with that said mr mayor and colleagues um i'm going to to yield this time i i i believe the chair of our rules committee uh councilor might have something to say but of course the gavel will decide who goes next but i i think i'll yield this time and and after the discussion my intention is uh either by traditional vote motion mr mayor or if you sense that the debate is trending in an acceptable way perhaps by unanimous consent uh to rescind our prior action uh to suspend the selection process that's going forward now to civil war three and opt to proceed now under north Carolina general statute 160a-3 which will allow us to fill this seat um in a reasonable amount of time thank you mr mayor thank you college thank you council member middleton and appreciate that i'm glad we were able to hear you um even though the technology is not perfect i'm glad we had a backup there thank you and i am going to uh call on council member nice uh the chair of our council procedures committee for any comments that he might have thank you mr mayor and thank you council member middleton really appreciate uh the substance of the comments that you've made and uh your desire to try to find the solution that matches who we want to be as a community with our obligations and our fidelity both to our city charter and state law wanted to clarify a couple of things first of all i think the motion to rescind is not properly made to with to rescind the idea that we had to go forward with the selection process because that's not the motion that passed two weeks ago uh the motion that passed two weeks ago was to set a timeline um to fill to fulfill the process that's laid out in our procedures manual um and if the motion to rescind is a motion to suspend the remaining portions of that timeline in favor of another process uh that's perfectly fine to me but i don't want to give anybody the impression uh that we are somehow rescinding the decision we made to fill the seat by appointment we're not uh because we are going to fill the seat by appointment under the state statute the second clarification i wanted to make is that 160 a-3 is a state law that it basically says where there is a state law process to do a thing um and there is a city charter provision to do a thing um a city council can elect between the two um and still uh be uh in compliance with both state law and their charter uh the fortunately for us there is a state law provision governing um the feeling of vacancies on municipal elected boards it applies in almost every city in town in north carolina except for those that have a specific charter provision which durham does it was passed in 1979 for reasons that passeth understanding um creating this obligation to fill the vacancy within 60 days or trigger a special election the general statute 168-63 is the statute that outlines a separate process um and the law 168-3 is the law that gives us the ability to choose between them and the difference um between the our charter process and 168-63 is that there is no 60 day clock put on a local elected board to appoint a replacement to fill the vacancy and so it provides us with the flexibility that say for example that the the town of chapel hill has under its actual charter um and as many of you know chapel hill currently has a vacancy on their town council and have elected to defer consideration of the appointment process until some later date because their charter does not have a 60 day clock on it of course ours does um but the state statute does not and so um I think proceeding under the state statute is the most reasonable course for us now I want to thank um our amazing city attorney kim reyberg for uh helping all of us understand our obligations both under the charter to proceed with an appointment and also the possibility of electing to proceed under state law um and still it still creates the obligation for an appointment the word shall is in both but the state statute as I said does not have the 60 day window within which we must act and obviously that is something that we would all like to avoid if we can we'll just say that as the chair of the procedures committee and as someone who was tasked with the responsibility of coming up with a timeline to do this had I known that 168-63 could apply to a city with a charter with a different provision that would have been my proposal two weeks ago uh because I think it makes all the sense in the world for us to wait until we get back to some kind of regular order uh to move forward what that looks like on the other end um is something we're going to have to spend some time thinking about and talking about I take uh I take with great appreciation councilmember milton's suggestion that at the very least the stay at home orders be lifted uh but I say again with respect I don't know that the orders are going to be lifted anytime soon I think what we are more likely to see at least what I've heard from public health experts is that we're likely to see a gradual releasing of restrictions um in successive amendments to our stay at home orders and then in the unfortunate incident in the unfortunate case where we get additional infections that begin to mount again some additional restrictions put back on so I think all of that goes to say that I don't know exactly what we're going to be looking for in terms of a trigger for ourselves to figure out when it's time to start the process the appointment process but I do think that amongst the six of us um working with our public health experts our great staff um and the people in the community in Durham um we can figure it out I truly believe that and um the other thing I wanted to say before we kind of get moving a little bit more is to say that I really appreciate the ability to reach out to councilmember milton and talk through these issues this afternoon um as I told him um and as I mentioned to the city attorney earlier today I spent some time uh late last weekend over the weekend talking to individual council members about the possibility of using the state statute 168-63 as an alternative to the city charter I think um the the the risk in doing it that way as I've said before is we can't say today what conditions in our community are going to need to look like for us to be ready to go forward with the appointment process but as I said before I'm confident that the six of us with our great staff and the people of this city we can figure it out together and I'm committed to doing that I do have one suggestion about kind of what happens the kind of the first step in figuring that out at least in terms of putting a flag in the ground and that is when all is said and done with whatever procedural process we need to do next I'll ask that we put this matter back on a work session agenda on august 20th and it would be my expectation that I would work with the mayor and councilmember milton and all of my colleagues as well as our staff and members of the public to have a better sense between today and that time about how we can plan to move forward and obviously that will be the next time we talk about this I'll be in communication with y'all as we go through the next several months and hopefully as we see a gradual releasing of restrictions and Durham and that give us the ability to move forward but I did just I didn't want to leave it completely open-ended I do think that having a date for all of us to have on our calendars to come back and talk about it at the very least makes sense hopefully by then we are meeting in person maybe with some additional I don't know if we I don't know what will I what I don't know what that would look like but maybe we'll be meeting in person again in some form or fashion and we'll have an easier time with it those are the remarks I wanted to make about it just I guess ask the city attorney what what we kind of need to do from a procedural process to elect to use 168-63 and then and how we move forward on that basis so thanks everybody I appreciate your patience as I talked for a long time thank you council member ma'am attorney thank you mr. mayor thank you council member Reese so I would say to proceed under 168-63 rather than under the charter provision there's going to need to be a second to council member Middleton's motion to rescind the prior process you all need to have it up and down vote and reverse that decision and then a motion to proceed under 168-63 to proceed and and I think that as you know council member Reese the council does have some prescriptives in its council procedures manual that govern filling vacancies those are not necessarily tied to use of the charters so those can be instructive and in some sort of a framework for you um in terms of a process but beyond that I think that where you start is dealing with the motion to rescind and then voting on a motion to proceed under the other statutory provision thank you madam attorney are there any questions for the attorney at this point council member caveatto not so much a question for our city attorney but just just clarification so essentially we we go either one of two ways either we follow what's in our state or excuse me in our city charter which is the 60-day clock and then if we fail to do so we we trigger a special election or we use the state statute which doesn't have the clock but then if we fail to fill the appointment there is no special election it would just fall under the natural occurring election which is November 2021 and I just want to say that so that it's made very clear what um what responsibility we have as a council that is my interpretation of that statute council member Caballero yes thank you that if you fail to find consensus in the appointment process under the general statute 160 a 63 that it would just carry over to the next municipal election which as you said is 2021 thank you I appreciate that and mr mayor if it's appropriate I would just like to make the second to council member Middleton's motion to rescind and I'm assuming he's taking it was uh to rescind the action from the April 6 meeting I don't believe we have a motion yet but when we do have a motion you will definitely be able to second it thank you other questions for our attorney uh or other comments at this time council member Middleton thank you can you hear me mr mayor yes we can thank you so much um I appreciate uh council Reese's uh comments and again his diligence on us and again I can't say enough about the work that our city attorney has done um I do want to to clarify I was not uh in my original iteration um suggesting that we weren't going to select it and by virtue of of my moving uh to proceed under 168-3 perhaps I was in artful but my my assumption was that that that implies that it's going to be a selection process not implied it's it's going to be a selection process under the uh state legislative uh the statute so forgive me um I do want to for the sake of the integrity of the record um and just keeping fidelity with my original um concerns um that the the the notion of um an election my the proposal I made if we thought at a council that that was something that we thought was worth pursuing um the proposal that I offered would it I mean would allow us to ask the general assembly for that leeway um to proceed again I I I appreciate the incredible council we've gotten um from professor bluestain um and and our own esteemed city attorney but I still you know and I would deference to also the the the many voices the community that have been raised if if this is something we thought was worth pursuing we could make inquiries in this and I I want to very much be clear that the the proposition that part of our selection process could very well be much like a state we vote motions of uh statements of consistency could very well be a statement of feasibility is it feasible at this time to do uh the selection process and if we find not then I uh then then precedes the election I think I happen to think and if we are a challenge you know uh we've taken the city to war over many things I think that's a that's a fight worth having and if someone is going to challenge the the outcome of an election because we decided in the midst of a worldwide killer pandemic that this probably isn't a good time uh to do a selection process if someone were going to challenge that I would you know that's a fight as a as one of the leaders of the city that I think would be worth having uh that I'd be willing to have so I just want to make it clear to those that are listening to this debate that I am not recommending the the selection process under the general statute because I think that an election is untenable or that we don't have a path to work towards it uh I'm doing it because I take seriously um the our role and and to fill the election I take seriously the prior action of my colleagues as I said it is a fearful and awesome thing when the voice of the people are expressed through their elected leaders um and I take very seriously the prior action so which is why I'm proposing the general statute selection process however I want the record to you know to be reflecting on the record I think that if we decided we want to go with an election that is available to us I mean there are ways that we can make that happen and proceed uh as a body to make that happen although that's not what I'm pushing now I I stick by my intent to rescind the prior action to move on with the selection process under the statute but I do want the record to reflect that um if we if we chose to pursue an election we could do that uh thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember other comments at this time okay um I have a couple of comments let me just uh one of my concerns I want to express is I think it's important that we not say lifting the stay at home order is uh a uh a sine qua non for proceeding um I think what councilmember re said is quite possible I think both from the state level and the city level these orders are going to be with us for a while and hopefully what we'll see is a gradual gradual loosening but I think we could definitely be in a situation where we've all felt very comfortable having a selection prior to the rescinding of a the final rescinding of a stay at home order so I do want to put that out the other thing I would my other thought is that um I August 20 seems late to me for a discussion I'm not sure what our I mean I don't know are we going to have a council vacation I think maybe the city manager already took that away from us uh but um what is our first july or what is our last july uh uh do we have a july work session anybody have that on their calendar I think it's your July 6th yeah I guess I would be more comfortable having an initial discussion at that point that doesn't mean we're going to be able to do it at that point we don't know but that's I'd rather be able to discuss it then and see if we are in a position that we think we can do that I don't think that that we don't that's not part of a motion as I understand it but just to respond to uh council member Reese's proposal I would prefer if we started talking earlier and if we can't do it earlier then we can do it later council member Reese do you have any concerns about that I just don't know uh this is the first I'm hearing that we've got meetings in july so um that would be uh yeah you're right yeah I that's a great point I guess I I make one once in a while mr mayor are we going on vacation in july I don't know okay what I'll say is that uh I have concerns that that August meeting is is late and that if there are ways that we can figure out to do it ahead of that we may need a special meeting but I'd like to start having the discussion earlier how do you feel about August 6th better great sounds good let's go with that okay mark it comes from mellton likes it I think we're yeah okay yeah and I know that's not something we have to set in stone I just wanted to let you all know both those points how what I've been thinking about I'm gonna let me just also say I'm it seems like we may have a consensus on this a consensus that I'm happy to join but only because I want to join the consensus of the council and support what you uh councilmember reese and councilmember millton want to do I and councilmember freeman will as well I don't actually think this is the best way to proceed um I think that that that normalizing as much as we can um and uh and and going ahead and making this appointment under the charter provisions the Texas instead of 30 days at 60 day schedule would be fine but I also know that you know that's just a difference of opinion and I'm happy to join the majority uh in voting for this procedure I am my comfort level with it is much higher than if we were to go to an election you know spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on the primary the very few people voted in um and um and especially under the under the under the charter provision or uh under the you know and I and I do deeply believe I've heard some interpretations of the charter that it doesn't really require you know that that it doesn't really require us to try to make the appointment I believe the charter does require us to try to make the appointment um but I'm also happy to proceed under the state legislation and my understanding of that is is exactly as uh from what what uh city attorney reberg said is exactly as council member rice uh and council member middleton expressed it uh and I and I do believe that we don't want to be waiting under that provision for an election in 2021 I think that would be really really bad so um with that said um it's not my preference but I don't always have to have my preference okay um other comments council member middleton mr. mayor thank you so much I appreciate your leadership and the spirit of of uh cooperation and congeniality that you always bring uh to your seat um I want to personally say I was in no way suggesting that the stay-at-home order was the news ultra for us to move forward with the selection process it was just an example I was giving us at least one possible indicator that we might be heading uh towards normalcy um I also god willing god willing we will be there absolutely um I also want to associate myself with your comments that that the the charter um I embrace the reading that the charter doesn't just let us ignore the the the um selection process as a matter of fact that was the very animating spirit of my proposal that if in fact it does it and we need permission then let's get permission from our final arbiter so I you know every what I was proposing was in deference to uh that we don't we can't assume this mantle for ourselves I never suggested that we could uh and that if we needed to enlist the the the legislature uh to give us a pass um suffice to say when this thing is all over as as a member of the legislative committee I do plan on making a recommendation that we get our charter changed at the legislative level to just to mirror more what chapel hill has and that's just to make a selection in a reasonable time so that's something colleagues just forecasting but when we get past this man so with that said uh Mr. Mayor at your direction I'm I'm prepared to to make a motion at your of course I'll go ahead council member well Mr. Mayor in light of your comments about uh seeming unanimity I'm going to rather make a motion I'm going to move if there's without without objection unanimous consent on rescinding our prior action uh to fill uh the council seat under the uh city charter I'm going to ask the city attorney what's appropriate in this situation sorry mr. um uh appropriate would be to consider the motion and have a second unless I'm misunderstood councilmember milton right I yeah I was just using parliament yes yes yes madam attorney I was just using parliamentary shorthand since there seemed to be unanimity and without the voicing of a of a um objection under unanimous consent a carry unless somebody has an objection then we would move to motion and second as I am and that's that's an acceptable for the process to mr. Mary yes thank you um I councilmember I think just for the record let's go ahead and have a motion to rescind uh and then that way I just think it'll be cleaner because we had a motion on the floor I mean we have a motion that we've passed so why don't you go ahead make that motion and we'll get councilmember freeman second then we'll vote mr. mayor before we go forward I just want to I want to ask again if we could be really clear on what we're rescinding okay we're rescinding the timeline that's the only thing we voted on two weeks okay so I think that's what the motion has to be properly stated all righty will uh it does the does the attorney agree with that uh mr. mayor I'm sure councilmember Reese has looked at that I went back and watched that segment of the April 6 meeting trying to capture exactly what the motion was and it was a schedule it it was a laid out process so that yes councilmember Reese is articulating it correctly that what the council actually voted on which was pursuant to the charter but what they voted on was an actual schedule of activity to fill the position and make the appointment once we do that do we need to take further action to proceed under the state statute I think it would be helpful just to clarify what process you're using so that no one can accuse the council of not being observant of its duty under the charter okay thank you that you've chosen 160 a 63 is your process to give yourself a more latitude thank you all righty councilmember middleton with that in mind would you like to make your motion yes mr. mayor I moved to rescind our prior action which in fact was the schedule if I moved to rescind our prior action uh which is the laying out of the schedule to fill the ward three seats councilmember frema would you like to second second it's been moved in second is there any more discussion I'm doing this against my better judgment just okay that I appreciate for better judgment mr. mayor and recognizing that the timeline was really short all in favor please say hi hi hi all opposed nay the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously um councilmember reese I believe that there's a second motion could be in order would you like to make that motion for how to proceed yes your honor in light of the fact that we've now learned that we can proceed under the state statute I would make a motion that we elect to operate under state statute 168-63 and avail ourselves of that particular appointment process and appoint a successor to the ward three seat pursuant to 168-63 is there a second is there a second to that motion it's been moved and seconded um any more discussion all in favor please say hi hi all opposed nay the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously thank you very much council colleagues um and councilmember reese we will look to you and your committee for some procedural leadership and uh some discussions leading up to this god bless you okay um I believe we've done it uh is there with I believe there is no other uh business to come before this body I'm sorry that I don't have my gavel which you all know how much I love to bang at the end of these meetings I'm going to bang this pin uh and say meeting is adjourned at 808 p.m. good night colleagues thank you mr man thank you very thank you everybody thank you everyone y'all soon have a good night y'all too