 Oh, yes, there. Oh, it is totally happening now. Oh my gosh. Have you been here alone for a while? Absolutely. I was making faces before. It's great. Oh, I just jumped from another call. So 53 hours, 52 hours for my wife returns. Oh, wow. Struggle bus, huh? This morning, I had one minute to air, let out a really deep sigh and said, what a day. Then I looked up at the clock on the oven and it was 7.45. Had your children left the house yet? So I have to take one to school and then come back home and take the other one. Gotcha. So it was in between. Yeah. Yep. That is exactly it. 30 seconds. Yeah. Situations facing. Yeah. But Rose would have had to, Rose would have caught the bus at 6.30 in the morning. Q. That's just a little early for my 13 year old. I'm just not gonna make that work. At least had a 6.45 bus and to middle school. And it was, he would, sometimes I wouldn't see him all day because he would leave before I got up and then I would be in the evening. I'd be in meetings when he got home and I wouldn't get home until after he found a bed. It was, it was bad. The only problem we have is the backup at school with the, with the drop off lines. The car lines. Yeah, I've heard horror stories about that too. If you don't get there early enough, it's bad. So yeah. All right, friends. Well, here we have, we have a quorum. We finally got a bus to Riverside. Congrats. Otherwise it was an hour and a half of our day between drop off and to go. Good afternoon, everyone. Are we on the air? Can we hear from our technical staff if we're on the air? And ready to go. Well, I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order and then we'll, we'll wait on that. I'm going to call this work session of the Durham city council order at 1 o'clock PM on Thursday, September the 23rd and certainly glad to see all my wonderful colleagues and our fabulous city staff. Welcome everyone who is listening in any way today. And let me ask again from our, from our city staff, are we, are we underway technically? Know that we will hear an answer to that in a moment. So we'll just hang tight. I can check the YouTube, Mr. Mayor. I'm looking it up right now. You appear to be streaming on Boxcast. Thank you. Yeah, we're up on YouTube. Mr. Mayor, is the fact that we're not getting any verbal response from any staff or is that are we connected? You're live. You're alive and I just checked that YouTube feed. This is John or we can see you. Thank you. Okay. I guess we're good now. Thank you all. Again, I want to welcome everyone today. Madam clerk. Will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freelon. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Present. Councilmember Middleton. I am here. Councilmember Reese. Here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam clerk. Colleagues will now move to announcements by members of the council. Are there colleagues that have any announcements? Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and good afternoon. Colleagues appreciate your always appreciate being able to get together and do people's business. It's going to be a great afternoon. I am. I'm speaking right now to ask the administration, right? I guess ask you, my colleagues to join me in giving some direction to the administration regarding the longtime homeowner grant program. Full disclosure. I made sure that staff knew that I was going to be talking about this this afternoon. We have an outstanding request from the walltown community association to expand the current geographic focus area for the longtime homeowner grant program to include the walltown community. As you know, the current geographic limitations focus on areas and neighborhoods that I had affordable housing investments by the city. Brandon Williams or the folks who's deeply involved in the walltown community association sent us some information relevant to that particular that narrow question and identified a number of city investments in affordable housing in the walltown community back in June. I know that this is something that the city attorney has looked at. The city manager our community development director in the city attorney know my strong views on this subject and I would just ask at the appropriate time today. I don't want to necessarily hijack the agenda with this right now but at some point this afternoon would love to find out what the sense of the council is on asking our staff to to expand the program to include walltown and to allow the application period to be extended to allow those folks to to apply. That's the announcement I want to make Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. I feel the appropriate time to take that up is when we talk about the city county interlocal. And it's very closely related. We're going to do that fairly early in the agenda because our our friends from the county from the county tax office and social services are here and they have a time they need to leave. So we'll be doing that pretty early in the meeting and I think that will be a good time to do that. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Appreciate that. That sounds great. Other announcements colleagues. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to follow up. I know I shared an email yesterday with my colleagues regarding the support for the declaration of healthy homes just in light of giving our staff some more time to review the Bull City Tenants United's Tenants Bill of Rights. And so just noting I pulled this set pulled this out separately and I would like to move it forward. And so I just want to make sure that everyone's on board. I haven't had a chance to speak to a couple of colleagues but I do believe that we are we were all in support. So just trying to put some pieces in place. Councilmember Rhys. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Freeman. I appreciate you bringing that resolution to our attention. Glad to receive it yesterday. And I think it looks like a very promising resolution for us. And I think the idea of promoting healthy homes in our community is critically important for all the reasons that are stated in the resolution. I would ask what response you've gotten from the from our administration specifically the our city manager and our inspections folks about what how what it would take for the city to to create a voluntary certification program of the type that's described in the resolution. I actually received favorite. I mean essentially the staff has said you know what we come up with they will make happen essentially around similar to how we did with the NDO. And so the non-discrimination ordinance. So if there needs to be some adjustments made or staffing added they would do that. I don't think that that would be necessary if we're if we're it depends on how we want to move forward. And so I think that's what's slowing us down a little bit to just give give give our city attorney the chance to city attorney's office to the chance to look at if there are pieces that are in place in different departments that we could that we could already use. Versus well really the the administration to see if there's pieces of departments that we're already using and then have conversations with the city attorney and so I'm just trying to walk alongside of the process so that so that we do actually get to a point where there's something that on ramps the tenants and landlords into the same into the same conversation around the Bill of Rights. Okay that well that sounds great. I know that's the conversations happening with the tenants Bill of Rights and I'm speaking specifically about the resolution that you said us yesterday afternoon about healthy homes. I believe there's a provision in there in which by voting for the resolution we are calling on the city to explore a voluntary certification program that landlords or tenants could sign up for and that's the specific issue that I was hoping maybe you've checked in with the inspections department and city manager to find out if they think that's easy to do hard to do they need some time to figure it out like what's what's the reaction been to that the honest feedback was they'll make it happen. That was that was the feedback I got I did however and maybe maybe the version three needs to be differentiated that does because our mayor access actually removed that one to give us give us more time to kind of nail down some details and so I took that out of the the version three of it and so I can just making sure that you're seeing that. Okay, the version I shared last week is different from the version I shared. Okay. Okay. I'm now seeing I thank you for calling my attention to that counts remember I missed that change. It's okay because I pulled us up in my anyway it's fine. I know I know I'm running I'm running top speed so it's okay to slow me down and just ask the question is fine. I think the staff has been really clear that if it's something that we would like to have implemented I think it takes for like it takes us saying that as a council that they would like to have that in place. So I'll look to you remember hope that's helpful. House member raise that make your concerns. Yes, Mr. Mayor the version then apparently the most recent version doesn't have the sentence. I was just a little bit getting heartburn about about the voluntary program. Obviously that may be something we want to roll into the tennis bill rights once we've taken a look at what that would require at the local level. But now that the version that I'm reading now just says the city supports initiatives that provide tenant protections reduce health for health related property hazards like carbon monoxide pests mold and lead mold and rate on and that the city will advocate with the federal and state legislators for adoption of legislation that supports healthy housing and other sentence rights totally on board with them. Absolutely. So I'm all set. Thank you. Mr. All these councilmember Freeman had originally raised this couple of weeks ago. Actually, I think two work sessions ago and has now provided us with a final draft. I'm going to suggest that we put this on our agenda on the consent agenda for next Monday and ask our ask our staff to go ahead and get on that consent agenda for next Monday. Is that acceptable to you? Councilmember Freeman. Yes. I think mayor pro tem has a question. Mayor pro tem Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and thank you councilmember Freeman for this resolution. I think it's really well written and important. I just had one question in the second whereas the words basic principles of helpful housing are are capitalized and I was wondering if that like what is that? Is that a statement from from another organization that we're incorporating and I'd like to read it. It's actually from the HUD guidelines and I hope I may not have been really clear but I was sharing the links to the kind of information that was highlighted around the healthy homes from the HUD guidelines that were in place during previous administration. That's helpful. Thank you. Maybe could we just add HUD's so that it says rooted in the HUD HUD's basic principles of helpful housing so that people know where that's coming from. That sounds fine. Awesome. Thank you. This is really good work. I appreciate it. Look forward to supporting it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Mayor pro tem. Thank you councilmembers. Other announcements. Councilmember Melton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon friends and colleagues and to everyone watching today. I too look forward to supporting the work that you've led councilman Freeman. Thank you so much for it. Mr. Mayor a year ago some will remember that I in conjunction with some other people in the city intended to launch an initiative called 1000 black men to combat violence in this city and combat some of the situations and circumstances that lead our young people to violence. We know that covid wreaked havoc with a whole lot of things that we had planned and did not allow us to organize but in light of recent events not really recent events in light of events period we feel that we can't wait any longer. So I'd like to officially invite members of this council this government this administration you Mr. Mayor and all of you friends and colleagues tomorrow at 12 noon on the steps of the historic a tie heritage center in the heart of the historic a tie community. We will hold a press conference and kickoff that initiative and I want to say people should not be confused by the nomenclature 1000 black men we've been reached out to by folk of goodwill from all walks of life and we will draw on the resources and expertise and the ingenuity of folk of goodwill men and women black white straight gay rich for whatever to bring to bear on this problem but the nomenclature is is rooted in a in a sense of responsibility for our sons and our nephews and our grandsons and our next door neighbors as well. So we want to invite you tomorrow at 12 and what we will hope will be a sustained permanent part of the fabric of our city. There's not only two tales about our city. There's two tales not just within the American community many communities. There are many of us in the African American community that are doing extremely well that are extremely well connected to have an extreme amount of resources that can be brought to bear to help others. And then there are those of us who who wallow each night under constant gunfire and and have job many times have many pieces of jobs many jobs work but yet still get derided and called lazy or unproductive we're not willing to lift themselves up when they work every day. We not only want to converge the tales of the two tales of Durham but the two tales within our community as well and do something in addition to what we will ask the government to do this is not an initiative that will exempt the government from our responsibilities but to complement and augment what should be going on in City Hall as well. We feel we don't need permission to save our own lives and that is the animating spirit of this of this proposition is an issue to hope to see a folk out tomorrow at 12 noon on the steps of the Haytai Heritage Heritage Center as we go forward guns down horns up. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much Council Member and thank you for that initiative. It's super important. Thank you so much other announcements. All right colleagues. Thank you so much. We will now move to priority items by the City Manager Madam Manager. Welcome. Thank you and good afternoon Mr. Mayor Madam Mayor Pro Tem members of the Durham City Council and you have a few priority items for you this afternoon. Agenda item number five which is the purchase of 12 replacement light transit vehicles for go Durham access. We are asking City Council to suspend the rules and vote on this item today as it will allow us to achieve over $20,000 in savings by exercising an existing contract that is set to expire before your council meeting on October 4th. Additionally agenda item number three excuse me 13 emergency watershed protection professional services stream banks stabilization EWP 2020-01 amendment number one attachment number one was updated. Agenda item number 14 go Durham access services overview of 15 minute presentation attachment number two has been updated agenda item number 19 mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing options. A supplemental item has been added and agenda item number 20 in a local agreement for joint funding for the local for the low income homeowners relief program LIHRP which is in a supplement supplemental item has been added and attachments number one and number two were updated. That is all I have for you today. Mayor and council. Madam manager. Thank you very much college. You have heard the you've heard the manager's priority items and I'll accept a motion for their approval. I'll move second been moved by council member Freeman seconded by council member Freelon that we approve the manager's priority items. Madam clerk please call the roll. You're sure. You're Pro Tem Johnson. I can't remember how they're all I can't remember Freelon I can't remember Freeman I can't remember Middleton I would I can't remember East. Thank you. Thank you madam clerk. The eyes have it the motion passes unanimously. Madam attorney welcome are there any priority items today. Good afternoon. Mr. Mayor not a mere pretend members of the city council is good to see you all. I do have one priority item this afternoon. As I've communicated with you all we are rapidly approaching trial a major trial in the matter of Daryl Howard versus the city of Durham that is a Middle District federal case and in light of the approaching trial I would like to hold a closed session with the council at the conclusion of today's work session just to bring the council up to date on where we are with the posture of the case and allow you to give some direction to defense council as we proceed into trial. So the motion for my request would be to hold a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143 318.11 a 3 for attorney client consultation for the aforementioned case. Thank you very much madam attorney. Is there a motion to that effect. So moved. I can move by council member Freeman seconded by council member Caballero. Madam clerk please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Hi. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Hi. Council member Caballero. Hi. Council member Freelon. Hi. Council member Freeman. Hi. Council member Middleton. I vote aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you council. Thank you madam attorney. Madam clerk any priority items today. Good afternoon Mr. Mayor madam mayor Pro Tem and city council members the city clerk's office has no priority items this afternoon. Madam clerk thank you very much and madam clerk we know you have a well-deserved week of vacation coming up and we are hoping that you will relax and enjoy and we know that your super capable staff has that under control. Yes thank you very much I trust my staff completely so I think you're in good hands. Thank you. All right we will now move to the administrative consent items. Item one under city clerk's office Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau discovered Durham re-appointment. Item two Durham homeless services advisory committee appointment under departmental items budget and management services department city council salary adjustments and I'm going to pull that item. Item four under community development department interlocal agreement with the Durham public schools board of education to support promoting academic learning program like all that. Okay item four under item five Department of Transportation purchase of 12 replacement like transit vehicles for go Durham access can we so this item is the one that the manager has asked us to suspend the rules today and vote and is there any discussion before we take that up. I would just like to just note that this is phenomenal I think it's great to have a 12 plus is added. All righty great I agree by the way I did send an email to our our transit our transportation director Sean Egan about the possibility of purchasing vehicles like this which were all electric or hybrid. The short version is and I appreciate his response there really is nothing in the market now that would be appropriate for this. All right I'll now accept a motion that we authorize the manager to execute this purchase contract. So moved. Second. I'm sorry we have to suspend first I apologize. I'll now accept a motion that we suspend the rules and vote. So moved. Second. Moved by councilmember Freelon seconded by councilmember Reese that we suspend the rules and vote on this item. Madam clerk please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Ah. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you Madam clerk. Now we'll have a motion to authorize the city manager to execute the purchase contract. So moved. Second. Moved by I think Mayor Pro Tem Johnson seconded by councilmember Freelon. Madam clerk will you please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Ah. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Aaron. Aye. Councilmember Meerdl. Aye. Councilmember jetzt. Aye. Councilmember Meerdl. Aye. Councilmember Vick. Aye. Councilmember Becker. Aye. Councilmember Yau. Aye. So moved. Under general services department item nine interlocal agreement for a fire and emergency medical services EMS station amended 2021 22 capital improvement program and amended design build contract for fire and EMS station 18 under item under that would be item nine. Yes, please. Under item 10 proposal to create a city of Durham poet laureate pilot program. Like to pull that please. All right, item 10 under neighborhood improvement services department item 11 Durham city county immigration, immigrant refugee affairs interlocal agreement. I just want to pull it out. Yeah, go ahead. I wasn't I just had a question if it was going to include in the memo some of the context of conversation around the Haitian immigrants as well. Let's go ahead and pull that item then. Okay. And item 12 office of economic and workforce development item 12 by tech training grant under public works department item 13 emergency watershed protecting EWP professional services stream bank stabilization EWP 2020 dash 01 amendment number one. Presentations department transportation item 14 go Durham access services overview under under the police department item 15 2021 second quarter from report under public hearing city county planning department item 16 coincided annexation under public yards at dock nickels under citizens matters to be heard at one o'clock. I'm 17 personable Patterson under eight item 18 to make a Walker supplemental items human resources department item 19 weekly coven 19 testing options. I'm going to pull that item. And the city managers office item 20 interlocal agreement for joint funding for the low income homeowners relief program. I'm going to pull that item and we're going to move that up pretty high on our agenda so we can let our friends from the county get back to the work they need to do. Here. What I have hold items is three, four, nine, 10, 11, 19 and 20 and items 14 and 15 for presentation is that what you have. That's what I have Mr Mayor. Thank you very much by the manager. All right, we, I'm going to do this in this order. We have items 17 and 18 the citizens matters which we'll hear at a moment. And then with your permission. I'm going to move ahead to item 20. So we can get that squared away, and then we'll go back to the pull items and the presentations. So, Madam clerk, can we please hear from personable Patterson. Mr Patterson are you available to be heard. Mr Mayor, I don't see Mr Patterson in the queue. Okay. Let's see. You're right. All right, then we'll hear from Mr Tamiqa Walker is this Walker available to be heard. Ms Walker. Welcome. We're glad to see you can you. We are glad to have you and you have three minutes. Can you hear me. Yes, we can miss Walker. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon City Council. My name is Tamiqa Walker. I'm a go Durham employee for 11 years. I'm here to speak on safety on the go Durham buses. We have had several operators assaulted on the bus. The last couple of weeks. The last couple of weeks. Miss Jones, Mr McGee, Miss Gibbs, Mr Saunders, and Mr Burnett on September the 19 2021. We had no protection on Sunday at Durham Station. Two individuals came down liquor for passenger on Route three. The supervisor was on the scene to stop it. They had told the supervisor that they was getting ready to light up the terminal. They noticed that there was no police officers here union officials do what they can to be amongst the drivers at night to ensure security. Why do we have to run into 12am at night and 9pm on Sundays triangular transit stops running at 10pm. That's it. Miss Walker. Yes. Let me just say first of all, it is terrible that you as drivers have had to face this kind of situation. And I just want you to know that we feel very strongly that this should not be happening. That you need protection. And that you need security. We value you, you extremely highly, and you have got to have the protection that you deserve. I know that the staff has as had a memo to respond to with some of the things they're doing. But I would like to hear from staff at this point I think this is really rises to that level. I would really like to hear from staff about the responses in terms of trying to keep our drivers safe and I see Mr. Egan here Mr. Egan welcome. Can you address these important concerns. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of council. As described in the memo go Durham takes these incidents very seriously, and we're taking clear steps to address safety, particularly for our staff. The administration recently met with union leadership to discuss ways to increase the number number of new hires and improve operator retention rates, like many agencies across the region and country go Durham is experiencing a significant operator shortage. One of the primary concerns for bus operators is personal safety and the group discussed ideas for improving operator passenger safety and next steps. One of the key aspects of this also is making sure that we provide competitive compensation for our bus operators. So over the last several months we implemented a series of bonuses, as well as wage increase and premium pay increase to make our positions competitive and to retain and attract bus operators. We're also working with the Durham Police Department to decrease onboard incidents and increase patrols in locations where there have been incidents. Right now we have four buses with operator safety barriers that enable the operator to close the barrier and be protected within the operator seat. We are ordering eight more buses on order to be arriving later this year with those barriers and we're developing a cost estimate for retrofitting the balance of the fleet so that all of our bus operators have the option of that secure barrier. And we're also looking at different technology approaches to address safety and security concerns for both our operators and our customers to notify security presence where it's needed. Thank you. Mr. Egan. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We all agree how important this is and I'm glad that you're taking those actions. I'm glad to hear about the safety barriers and increased patrols and of course we all know what a shortage we have across this entire region. And I know the folks in the region are working together in terms of trying to get more bus drivers on all of our systems. So thank you very much for that. Mr. Mayor, may I ask Director Egan a question? Sure. If you can reappear. Hey man, how are you? Good to see you. I have heard from a number of people in the community including some operators and I guess is it your sense that this proliferation of late of attacks on our operators both physically and even verbal confrontations did. And my understanding that this is this is anecdotal that it hasn't been associated to like enforcing mask mandate or anything like this that there's something else is going on. Have you gotten a sense of why of late there seems to be an increase in these type of incidents? I don't think there's any one factor that we can point to. We know that there's a great deal of stress and strain in our community amidst the pandemic. And that has certainly played a role. But I don't think there's any single factor that we can such as masks that we can attribute this to. And so we're continuing to work to make sure that we provide our operators training on how to deescalate, for example, where there might be a conflict. So we think that there's more that we can do in terms of customer service training and then some of those security measures for those situations that where the deescalation is not is not possible. Ms. Walker in her comments alluded to someone saying one of the purported, I'm assuming attack or is saying that they don't like the terminal up. You know what that means. I believe it's a reference to gunfire. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before I get to the council members, I'm going to ask Ms Walker, she has any final comments. Yes. I do have personal for Patterson with me and he do want to speak. Can he speak please. Yes, he can. Yes, he can miss Walker. Mr. Patterson. Welcome. We're glad to have you go ahead. Yes, sir. First of all, I must say good afternoon. First of all, Patterson. I'm being a boy. Never seen the things for the past six months. There's a lot of salt. And at one point, we have an operator that defendants. And he has to get terminated. I wonder, what can we do. These issues. Today, I was out of three. And I was on bus. I think it's 21 or two. And we have which we have one of those cages out there. And a young lady says that why they put these cages on this buses. Because it don't stop. So, you know, we asked that we have somebody in our enforcement. To buy these buses so that our operator can be safe. I've been to several other cities, like I use Richmond, Virginia, as for instance, and the operator don't even have to say anything. They have security right in those buses. Back and forth. No, and a lot of times I speak with management. They didn't have a solution. And that's the reason why I come to you. Because badly. Thank you so much. Mr Patterson, thank you. You and I have met before about other issues. And I want to thank you for your long service to our community and I want to thank you for that and I want to tell you that we take very seriously what you're saying and I want to appreciate you. And, and Ms Walker, thank you for being here. Council member Freeman and then mayor pro tem. I was just noting that I was going to ask as well as well. You asked her for the follow up. Thank you. Mayor pro tem. Mayor, I also wanted to bring up a couple of things in that were brought up in the conversation that council member recent I had with Miss Walker and Mr Patterson. Last week about this issue, and Council member Middleton had asked about mask enforcement. They did mention that mask enforcement has been an issue. It's leading to conflicts. I don't know if it's led to, to any assaults but that there were people on the buses who would become upset when the operators asked them to wear their mask or wear their masks properly. And, and another thing I think we need to think about is, you know, the, a lot of these issues have arisen after we made the buses free. There are people who don't really have anything to do and are getting on the buses and just riding around. So, you know, one of the unintended consequences of free buses which I think is a fabulous policy choice and one that we should continue to pursue is that it's increased the number of people who are using the buses for who are using the bus to go anywhere in particular using the bus to just, you know, hang out and that that's creating more opportunities for conflicts as well. Looking forward to seeing the advice of the administration. Oh, one of the, one of the other things that was brought up was that there were, there was previously private security I don't know at what point that ended but at one point there was a private security officer who was who was stationed at the bus station and on the buses and the folks mentioned that that had been that that had been helpful in diffusing and preventing some of the conflicts. So I just want to thank the administration for being proactive in finding solutions to this. We of course want all of the staff for the city and our operators are contractors to be safe, just because that's incredibly important. We're also facing a major shortage of bus drivers. And these are the kind of working conditions that I would not expect anyone to subject themselves to. And so it's important. For a lot of reasons that we figure out the situation as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor Pritzham. I appreciate those comments. Anything else for we move on. I just want to stay again to Ms Walker and Mr Patterson and to the other drivers that we take this very seriously. And I appreciate the comments of my colleagues and also Mr Egan's response I know that he takes it very seriously as to all of our transportation and our city staff and we need to do everything we can to make sure that you're in a safe situation. Please continue to be in touch with us about it. Thank you for being here. Councilmember Freeman. I was just going to ask that Mr Egan can give a follow up on whether or not the cages was the best solution because I'm understanding that this probably holds in gaps in that cage. And so just making sure that we're. If it's possible to find something a little bit more secure or what have you. I think that the barriers are part of the solution but there are other tools, such as better coordination with law enforcement and better training on issues like how to deescalate conflict so we don't think that the operator barriers are going to completely solve this we think it needs to be one. A more comprehensive solution but we do think that it's an important part of that solution. Just a follow up when you say the deescalation I'm assuming that's a training that the bus drivers would be going through. That's correct. Is there an internal person conducting these trainings or is this an external request like. We use a mix of internal staff training resources as well as external. So, all of our bus operators undergo customer service training that includes conflict deescalation as a portion of it so that's that's a standard part of our training program. Just the one piece where the person was, I guess, determine terminated for defending themselves. Is there any process in place to kind of evaluate based on the current situation and the bus shortage, or bus driver shortage as I. I can't speak to a specific personnel matter but there are grievance procedures in place. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Marin and I appreciate streak in the. I think you're earlier comment that there are a number of factors that could be a feeding into this I do want to. I do want to say and I the mayor pretend I was not suggesting this I know I want to be very clear the mayor was saying this and wasn't even implicating it I believe but I do want to be clear because I don't want anybody to make. Assume a connection between between price points and the ability of a price point to siphon out criminality, or siphon out bad things happening. There are some that just suggest that when a neighborhood reaches a certain price point it'll keep certain things out of it. And we don't, we know that's not the case all the time. I, and I know all of us want to keep the buses free. I don't know that, because the buses are free that folk with nothing to do are necessarily the ones perpetrating these, these acts. Quite honestly many times, a lot of our young brothers and sisters that are caught up in this lifestyle have a whole lot of disposable income. It comes with the, the life, if you will. And it's not taxed it's not on the record but but but a price point for many of these young people particularly a price point that we charge our buses is not really a barrier to undesirable type activity and again, my sister wasn't suggesting this but I just want to make sure that nobody watching it even gets that, that message. We all know that free buses are a good thing and we want them to be free. I don't know that people with idle hand or was nothing to do are just getting on and fighting drivers or shooting up buses. We don't know, but but we do know that that the buses are important it's an important life line. Most of the people that ride them are black and brown and poor daily. If somebody out there considers commercial for our buses that you want to help us destigmatize leave the car at home sometimes and jump on the bus and no counselor Reese does from time to time and help us broaden the usage of the bus system. But but but I do want to say that I don't think a price point is the issue. I'm not saying anybody said that but but I don't want that implication to be out there or anyone to think that that that and we're in any way, suggesting that that might be an accelerant to this type of activity. That's it thank you Mr man thank you Mr Egan appreciate you. All right colleagues will now move on to item 20. And this item is the interlocal agreement for joint funding for low income home on his relief program. And I see deputy city manager, Bertha Johnson is with us. Welcome Ms Johnson. Thank you. Good afternoon mayor mayor for pro team city council members Bertha Johnson deputy city manager. I'm happy to answer any questions about this item. As you mentioned earlier mayor we have on the call today been rose Durham County Social Services and Dwayne Branson Durham County tax administrator and other Durham County staff members to answer questions about the program. Thank you very much Ms Johnson and we'll take up the, the, the city program questions that Council member Reese asked after we take these questions and. So colleagues any questions about this interlocal or any concerns that you would like to raise about the interlocal. This is a concern item but we did pull it so we can discuss the city item. Ms Johnson I don't see any questions or concerns from members of the Council so thank you and I want to thank. I believe Mr Branson and Ben Rose were both here and maybe others from the county and want to thank them but they are officially released thank you. Colleagues will now take up the questions the question that Council member Reese was raising related to the related to the cities program that is separate from this joint city county program that we have just talked about the interlocal form. Council member Reese would you like to address this. Sure thank you Mr Mayor appreciate that appreciate again creating some space for us to talk about this here. It's my belief that a majority of the Council will support expanding the longtime homeowner grant program to include wall town on the basis that I discussed during announcements. And this is really just an opportunity for us to provide that guidance to staff and I asked them to take those steps necessary to do that. Could you talk a little bit more and I know you have provided some information and you've mentioned already some information we've received from Mr Williams. Can you talk a little bit more about the basis for this request. The the as all of us know when this program was first created for reasons related to making sure that the program had sufficient legal support. The city attorney at that time recommended that we limit the geographic area of applicability of the program to three areas where the city had made investments in affordable housing. The logic there was that that because the city had made those investments. It would not be reasonable or it would be more reasonable in those places for the city to have the legal authority to provide this kind of grant support to long term homeowners. The rationale being we would not have provided affordable housing investments only to see the neighborhood become unaffordable due to increased property tax bills for long term homeowners. And so that was the justification for it. And in June as we were having conversations together as a council about whether or not the geographically limited program should be expanded to a citywide program. Brandon Williams from the Walton Community Association sent all of us email in which he identified a number of key investments in affordable housing made by the city in the wall town community. I provided that to the city attorney and to our community development department for their review and it's my hope that those investments made by the city form enough of a legal basis for us to extend this program to the wall town community. Of course the the broader answer is the program that is that we just had the opportunity to ask questions about didn't. The better answer is for our county partners to work with us to expand eligibility for that program to increase the median income eligibility from 30% to 60% of very median income and to at least double the maximum grant from $750 per year to $1500 a year. But that is work that we are pursuing in parallel to the role out of the initial program from the county. So this is really a stopgap measure designed to provide a very modest level of property tax support to to a community where the city has made these investments in affordable housing in the past would also add that that Brandon Williams also provided to us. I guess maybe it was last week or perhaps late the week before an analysis bolstered by data from data works in C here in Durham that provided a very rough cost estimate for the number of homeowners who might be eligible for the very very limited grant support that the city provides under our program and the dollar cost was extremely modest somewhere in the neighborhood of $27,000. And obviously the administrative burden of expanding the program is something that we by making this decision would ask our staff to take on. In addition to expanding the eligibility, we also need to expand the period of time in which applications could be accepted to allow a well town homeowners who qualify to submit applications. We'd also have to come up with some kind of plan for community outreach to make folks in Walton understand that the plant that the program is now available to them. I've offered the folks at the Walton Community Association when I sat down with them yesterday offered to make myself available and I know a number of my colleagues will want to pitch in as well to work with the Walton Community Association even if it just means going door to door or having tabling events in the neighborhood to make a long time homeowners aware that this program hopefully is now open to them and make help them get their applications and before the deadline. I think that's the information that I had to share with my colleagues. Again, for a very modest cost and with the legal justification that we need. Thanks to Brandon Williams doing the unpaid labor of doing that research for us. The, I think this is a fairly straightforward measure that we can ask our staff to take. And that's, that's what I have to say. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks so much council member colleagues. I'll go first. I agree with council memories. I believe that the justification is there from the city investments. And I really am very sympathetic to our staffs are legal staffs concerns that we have the appropriate legal justification and I believe that we do in this case. And I think that it is. I agree that we should add this and I'm going to suggest a course of action after we have some more discussion. Colleagues discussion. Council member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also agree. And I am faithfully aware of how nothing is ever a mistake and so I'm grateful that customer release was able to sit down with wall town yesterday. And to get to that point of, of, of, of being able to deliver this message today. I think there's no better representative to, to kind of deliver that and so I'm sure that as we go through the rest of this discussion I'm looking forward to hearing with my other colleagues have to send. Thank you council member mayor pretend. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to also say that I think I agree that we should add well town to the program I appreciate the work of our legal staff to ensure that we have the right legal basis for moving forward with an additional community and then continue to be hopeful that we'll be able to move forward with a citywide or countywide program in the future, but that providing some immediate tax relief to this community in the short term, makes sense. And want to thank council member Reese for continuing to advocate and work on this. Thanks. Thank you very much. Council member Caballero. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to all the wall town folks have been advocating for this issue. Brandon and others have been emailing us pretty consistently. I want to thank my council member colleague. Council member Reese for meeting with them yesterday. I also agree. I know we talked about the interlocal agreement and I'm just leaning into our colleagues I think everyone, all of us are really hoping that the countywide program will be expanded to 60% and that the money will increase and I'm supportive that as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mr Mayor, and just echoing the sentiments of my colleagues that have already spoken sorry if there's a leaf blower outside of my window. I just had a question about about looking to expand this, you know, wall town, I think it's a great start but there are other, you know, neighborhoods and communities from this one. Obviously benefit and if we are going to, you know, look at this reinterpretation, I'd be curious to see how far we can take that. You know, in the short term, I think this is a great start and yeah would be anxious to keep it keep growing. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Melton. Thank you, Mr Mayor and let me echo my thanks to Council Member Reese was really done a yeoman's your person's job. Thank you for his constant leaning in on it. Listen, I think it's a good first step I believe that ultimately as a city we should be looking as I've said at Marshall plan type investment in these types of communities and you know the races and always to the swift and the battle to the strong but the one that endures and this is a good, I think small. I don't mean insignificant. I mean, in terms of them, the overall universe of work that needs to be done, but it's a critical step. And I hope that this provides momentum to the type of revolutionary and paradigm shifting investment in these like as a community that I believe that I believe we need as a city so thank you for the work and I'll certainly support it. I remember and I do want to remind us that we have already let the county commission know that we as a council are supportive of moving the joint city county program citywide program countywide program to being to the to raising the amount at 60% and to raising the the the top limit of the potential award so we've let we've let them know and you all will recall that I think about a month ago I pointed a council member recent meprotem Johnson to many to talk to them about it I took the opportunity recently when we happen to be together at a press conference about Afghanistan with county commission chair howerton to talk to her about it and so they know of our interest and ask her to and let her know of our committee and and ask her if there are folks from the county who would like to talk to us about it so we're we're trying to push that again and and and get because I think that's you're absolutely right all of you all are talking about the expansion. No question that's a critically important council member Freeman. Thank you miss man I just had a question if it would be deemed similar in the case for Bradtown considering that the city actually implemented bike lanes on a road in the area. Recently, and that funding would have come from essentially, you know the city. And so that would be a city investment in that area and so they could also be included that would be a great way to move both of the cities or the communities that have been requesting this for the last couple years forward. I think that the difference in the investment is that this is a residential investment, and that has been the legal hat on which we've been legal hook on which we've been hanging our hat. colleagues, I'm going to do this I'm going to ask for I think we've got thumbs up I think we've got seven thumbs up. And might as well do it again for including walltown and then asking our staff to bring us back something in two weeks that will help us codify that. So, I guess, Mr Johnson are you you with us and perhaps the city attorney. Yes, I'm here. The community development department stands ready to implement a program that is approved by the council the city attorney and the city manager's office. All right, great. Thank you Mr Johnson we appreciate you and you'll be working closely with the city attorney's office and thank you so much. As soon as we have as soon as we have some information to share with the residents I'll be calling each of you individually to come out with me and knock some doors down in walltown to let folks know this is kind of this money's there they can get it so thank you Mr Mayor and colleagues thank you very very much for today I appreciate. Thank you council member. I would like to clarify one other aspect of our city plan, and if Mr Johnson could you come back on to the camera. Thank you. It's my understanding from all of our discussions and the council's the council's previous discussions that the where we are extending the program. We're paying in 2021 the retroactive taxes for 2020 is that. So the program that we're working on as I've shared with council previously, we were viewing 2019 right now. Yeah, we have not opened 2020 as of yet. Is it our intention to open 2020. Yes, if it's a council member we had a conversation that this was a pilot and we had your counselor that says extended it was a three year pilot, we were asked to extend it for another year, and then I would assume that you're asking to extend it for another year. Yes, just want to make sure we're all clear on that. Thank you Mr Johnson colleagues thank you. We took a little detour. I want to thank the staff for hanging in there with us. But I think it's one that we all feel is important. We're now going to get back to take these things in order. And we will start with item three. Item three is the city county salary adjustments we have one person like to be heard on this item, Jacqueline wag staff. Madam clerk, could you please make Ms wag staff available to be heard and Ms wag staff welcome and you have three minutes. Mr Mayor. Yes, Ms wag staff. Can you hear me. Yes, I can welcome. Okay, thank you always a pleasure. And, but I wanted to speak on this item because I was looking at the city charter, as it relates to compensation for council members. I think this is something that needs to be held until the public can have ample input on this issue that the taxpayers need to be because you have to remember, serving on council isn't people then come on council to make it a job. People serve on council because they, I guess they assume they want to be public serving and Durham's council charter has never been one that allowed for full time council members it's always been a part time situation with stipends that were given by the taxpayer, because in essence that the council members are the employees of the taxpayer. So the taxpayers should have some say so in this about this, because I remember doing the budget cycle this year. I remember Councilwoman Carriero mentioning that she couldn't work. She couldn't continue this work with this little bit of pay. And that I think her what she had initiated was about 80 grand would be a comparable amount to what councils need to be paid to be on council. Well, if that was the case then most people need to understand running for council is not something you run for because you intend to get rich is something you run for because you want to serve the people. And I think that this issue about increasing the pay I know there's probably a cost to live and increase that happens each year. I think there's some 3% but when I was looking at the charter, I couldn't quite find the section and I'll find it eventually, hopefully by the time this becomes a public comment or public hearing so that taxpayers will have some input on whether they would like to see this council move to a full time position and I'm pretty sure that y'all are trying to move this along through the minimum wage process. But that's not fair to the taxpayers to move this along to get what you're seeking to get. This should be something that the taxpayers make the decision on since technically elected officials are the employees of the taxpayers and I think the taxpayers could have ample input on this. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. White staff. All right, colleagues will now hear from our city staff on this item. And I believe I saw Ms. Reardon and Mr. Laura welcome. Thank you, Mayor, council members, myself, John Allure, acting budget director and Christina Reardon acting assistant director who prepared the item are here to available to answer any of your questions this afternoon. Thank you very much, Mr. Allure. Colleagues you have read the memo and I'm interested in any comments that you may have. Anybody like to start us off. Council member Freelon and then Mayor Pro Tem. Sure. Um, yeah, just a brief comment to remind folks who are listening watching may not have been present when we discussed this several months ago. That I brought this forward initially because you know, the live reality of the of the service and I don't know if it's how long it's been this way but the hours that go into this work often exceed, you know, full time work between the dozen boards that we sit on the meetings work sessions public appearances research and other tasks. And for me, I think in the in the in the budget request document that I submitted about this. It was really an equity issue about having the privilege to be able to take off work to meet the requirements to be able to serve. So, I don't know if there's if it if it would be advantageous or useful for us to look at this through an equity lens but if the if the service requirement requires you to have that kind of disposable income and time, then the intent of the server may not meet the spirit of the of the call to service. We want people from all types of backgrounds to be able to serve the city of Durham. And what we have currently is a class prohibitive barrier, in my opinion, for inclusion and service on City Council, which should be eliminated. So, I just wanted to provide that kind of context for for why I was bringing this up and just a reminder to those who are listening watching that I won't personally benefit from this. I'm stepping down from Council in December and so but I want to make sure that whoever comes in next doesn't doesn't make that decision based on their income and their ability to manage a full time or part time job alongside the the service that the city needs from a diverse array of voices. So, thank you, Mr Mayor. That's all I got. Thank you very much, Council Member Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Totally agree with Council Member Freelon about the equity concerns. I also have a had a legal conversation previously about whether we were able to at this point, assign, like set the date of the raises to be after everyone had gone through an election and it's my understanding that our city attorney has found that it's not possible that we cannot commit a future council to taking this action that if we want it to happen we have to do it ourselves. And I just wanted to confirm. I wanted to make that clear to the public and also confirm my understanding that we have to as as this council make this choice for every for it to take effect for everyone at the same time, and that we can't. We can't choose a future date where a future council would be obligated by that decision. Would you like to confirm or do not add. Council Member for Tim has our assessment exactly right so the city council does not have the authority to find a future council in subsequent budget years with compensation decisions that are made now. Thank you. So if we want to raise the pay we have to do it. That's correct. Mr Mayor, thank you. All right, colleagues other comments. Thank you so much colleagues and I thank you a Pearson Jillian for your comments. Just so I'm clear so attorney Ray Burke just a question. If we, if we if we pass a raise and put an effective date on it. So are we saying that if we are in ordinance or whatever we do and we put put a date on it. When a new council comes in. If that ordinance or whatever was was was duly passed, wouldn't the remedy for that new council be to go through procedures to undo it. And if they choose not to undo it does it not carry the force of law with it. I'm not sure I'm following you council member Middleton. Um, so I actually just shared a statute with all of you so general statute 16 a 64 does authorize council to fix its own compensation. You know the compensation of the mayor and all council members by adoption the annual budget ordinance. And of course you can if you do that at some point during a budget year you would just amend the budget to account for those compensation changes. But what you can't do is say for the 2023 budget year, we're going to authorize this council is going to authorize compensation and the amount of X. Right, because this council is in a you you pass a budget from year to year that makes sense. Right. And the competition composition of the council may be completely different for a future budget year and that's a legislative action that that council is entitled to take then in that budget year. But aren't part of the actions that they're they're able to take is legislative to legislatively to undo any ordinance that existed prior to their being impaneled. I mean we as an institution where we make changes and make decisions for the institution not us personally but the seats and the institution all the time that a crew and carry on to future generations. And so I guess I'm wondering is the question that are we not allowed to put specific dates of an action. Does that does that does that accrue to ordinances as well and if we take an action and say that this action takes effect at a date certain sometime in the future isn't it within the purview of whatever council is seated at that time to to legally undo it rather than say over burdened by I mean if they don't take any action it's it's the law it's it's it's binding if we if we went through process and it was duly passed is that not the case. If they don't take any action it's just an enforced ordinance. I mean that that's true of any legislative action that the council takes right so you all could adopt an ordinance that a future council doesn't necessarily agree with or like and they could take action to repeal that ordinance or modify that ordinance in some way that's true. Right. It's just from a budgetary standpoint however we do recommend and generally it's the case that a current council cannot legally bind future councils to fiscal decisions. Recommend. So if and my understanding of the law is that you can't fiscally bind a a future council to come to to meet a financial commitment that is made by this council. Could they ratify it. Absolutely. Yes. Right. I think that's just an interesting way to frame it as binding them to a decision if we as an institution decide that the salary for this institution institutionally is X and that salary will take effect at certain a date and we legally pass that. I mean if folks want to challenge it you know the legality of it then that's fine but I get curious as to what how is that different if we can legally go through the all of the due process and the correct legal machinations to to pass something as a as a duly set and then paneled council then we're not denying any future council any remedy or relief to if they say hey we don't want this money. We're not denying that but but what I'm what preclude and I'm glad you said recommended so so is there anything that is there a red line that precludes us from making a decision for this institution and putting a date certain on that decision as to when it goes into effect is there a red line that precludes us from doing that. I think the red line is probably in the budgetary statutes and I would need you know more time to kind of look at the general statutes that govern municipalities budgeting process and maybe talk to the budgeting staff and maybe they know off the top of their heads but I don't think you can budget in this year for things that will not happen. You know in the in the budget year for which you are legislating right now. If that makes sense. It doesn't and I appreciate it and I appreciate the legwork you'll do on that. So I'll thank you so much council I appreciate that. So what I say colleagues if I might Mr. Mayor is you know it's after four years of doing this job. It is abundantly clear to me that were my life not such as it is there's no way I could do this job. I have I know people that are that are that are far more capable than me and far smarter than I am that could not do this job. Because of the way their life is configured because of the money that they make because of the nature of their life and that that troubles me from an equity point of view that the most influential people in the organization and this is paradoxical are the least people in the organization. By definition and there might be some good to that but but but it but the question then becomes how then does a person sit in these seats of influence who can't afford to do it how then do they ever get the opportunity to to to influence the organization or influence outcome. Whatever system we have whether it's council manager or a strong mayor ward in name or true ward system running for office takes money. And and I don't know you know what what what folks perception of the job is but in the city of 300,000 people half billion dollar budget each year. The the calling it part time that listen I could do the job part time but I'd be dialing it in. I'd be dialing it and I'd be constantly just deferring to the staff on everything I'd be rubber stamping stuff. There's no way I'm going to read all the stuff we need to read to make intelligent informed decisions, and I'd be dialing it and and I and I don't think that that's I don't think that's what our is good for our democracy was healthy for us so I asked the questions to counselor Ray Berg about, you know the ability to kind of date certain things because I think we should be have I think we should be in peril I think if we do this that voters should have the right to fire us for this decision, if we decide to make this decision. I, you know, I'm perfectly fine with and I don't even be here the next cycle but but whoever is going to be here from an institutional point of view. I, you know, my desire is that when I when my season is over that somebody be able to say well he did something good he left it in better shape than he found it or we did collectively some things that that are good and that will accrue to posterity. Good and and one of those things if if if we can make this seat in this office, more accessible to folk who are oftentimes far more capable but just don't have the life configuration to do it. I don't know what the answer is, when I went folk at say to me, I'd like to be on the city council, but I can't afford to do it. I don't I don't know what to say get a better job. You know, I'm the boss at my job will be the boss at your job. You know, configure your life in a way where your income will put you in a position where you can do this kind of where I don't know what the answer to that is. And I do know that whatever the salary increases, it's not going to catapult you into the 1% it might not even make you middle class by standards but I know that for many people. It will be a make a profound difference as to whether or not they're able to do this job and for many folk, it would be a significant change from an income point of view from a benefits point of view. And I want more people to have the option like I have, and I have had of saying, yeah, I can do that I can make that work because of my life because of my income because whatever. Make that happen. So what that looks like. You know, I don't know but I do know that where my life not as it is, I wouldn't be able to do this job is plain and simple. And, and I don't want a whole bunch of folk having to do that calculus and coming up with the answer I can't step forward and serve with all of my ingenuity and creativity and passion and vision for the city, because they don't pay a living wage to do it. So, I look forward to the comments from my colleagues and that's all I say at this juncture. Thank you Mr Mayor. Thank you, Council Member, Mr Allure. Yes, I just wanted to make a point of clarification for everyone that I think would be helpful about the budget budget terribly. The FY 22 budget was already set up to move employees from part time to full time. That's why we put the money aside in a non departmental account. And then in terms of what the annual budget is, it's kind of like the baby new year. We start with a new budget every year it has a life cycle and at the end of that 12 months, that budget that new year dies to be replaced by a new baby new year. It just cycles over and over again that way. And I believe Council Member Middleton is quite right, it would take someone to undo it, just as you roll every year as part time employees would take somebody within a budget process cycle to undo that to change that. That is my understanding it so if you moved it to full time, somebody in the future would need to undo that in the budget process. One question that I understood to be an important one Mr Allure is, could we, it's pretty clear from what you're saying about us taking the steps now. Could we take an action today that said for example I'm picking an arbitrary time that we would be we would the pay increases would begin let's just say in the FY 24 budget. No. All right, annual budget process. Right and so that that's what I was thinking that Attorney Ray Berg was also referring to and that the mayor pretend was pointing out it. I think that the distinction is that as Council Member Middleton has been saying, we could raise it in this budget year and it would continue into any other budget year and then any council can change its mind. Correct. But that's hard, but we can't begin a process we can't put something in the budget now that would make those races happen in a future year outside of this budget cycle and not. Is that right. You're correct and for a like example think of the CIP future CIP's are planned, but they need to be adopted in the year in which the plan comes forward. Okay. To me that's a helpful clarification, and I hope it is to you all colleagues. Council Member Reese I think you're next and then we'll go to the mayor protein. Thank you Mr Mayor. I want to thank my colleagues, Council Member Freelon and John and their prototype for laying out the case for increasing a council salaries should say Council pay by about $10,000 per council member to somewhere in the neighborhood of $37 ish $1,000 that you have that about right Mr lower excluding the mayor is slightly higher. You're muted. Sorry for council members going from 25 to 35,000 about and for the mayor going from 29,000 to about 42,000. Great thank you I appreciate that. So, the first thing I wanted to say is, nobody is going to be enriching themselves to a great extent on on $35,200 a year. The difference is about $10,000 before taxes. So, you know this is not what no one's talking about. I think no one on this council has ever said council members ought to be paid anywhere in the neighborhood of $80,000 a year. What I have heard people say is we should be making at least terms of minimum livable wage, as is included in our stats in our city ordinance, as calculated for a full time employee. There's a lot of, there are a lot of good reasons to do that for the, for all the reasons that council member Johnson so Mayor Burton Johnson has remember feeling said. I think one of the things we have to wrestle with and I'll be clear I don't know how I feel about this yet I'm deeply conflicted. One of the things we have to wrestle with is customer Milton is exactly right. You have to have your life set up a certain way in order to work a full time job and do and serve on the Durham City Council in the way that all of us do it and believe it ought to be done. Your life has just has to be set up a certain way. And, and not everyone is like that. My life was not set up that way. And I lead one of the most privileged existences that you could possibly imagine. But you couldn't hire enough childcare to make it work when I was working a full time job. And so we, I don't anymore. And that's, that's the way it is and that's fine for our family, but the vast majority of people in the city couldn't afford to do that. So the limiting the council pay in the way that we do artificially excludes a number of very qualified supremely qualified individuals who could otherwise do an excellent job of serving in the city council. So I want to make sure we understand is that that if we did this, it would not automatically mean that folks have limited means would find it easier to be elected to this body. They would find it easier to serve on an ongoing basis, but getting elected to the Durham City Council is also hella expensive. It's just the money you have to have personally the money you have to raise from people, the likelihood that that you're able to raise enough money to compete, but also the time that it takes to run for office. And those things also artificially circumscribe the population of people who can successfully contest for elected office in the city. And that those are factors that I think are largely outside the control of the council. We could in another world together in sit down and envision a system of electing city council members that largely addressed many of those inequities. But we can't do that. And so we, this is a thing we can do. And maybe we should. But there are two things that to me make it difficult to think about voting for even this very, very modest increase in salary for council members. The first is we all knew what we were getting into when we signed up for to run for this gig, or in one case, applied for the vacancy. We all knew what the salary was, we knew that we were going to have to make it work if we were successfully elected or appointed, we knew that. And so that we, it seems challenging to say now, oh, well, I think I'll get paid more. Now I know we're the thing is we want to try to make the job itself doable for folks of who don't make a ton of money. But that's the practical effect today. The second issue is perhaps more compelling, which is, it's difficult for me to legitimately and honestly look the people of Durham in the eye and say this is the very best way to spend an extra $78,000. Yes, it has all the benefits that have been described. And yes, it may it's, it's, it could very well be a good idea. But there it seems to me that when we look at making budget choices. I always find it very hard to understand how this is the best way to spend this $78,000. And I'm undecided I'm torn I don't know what to do with those are my thoughts. But I want to, I want to make this job easier to do for folks. And, and this is a way to do that. So it is compelling to me on that basis. But the other two things I'm going to have to reconcile myself to before I support it. That's what I had to say about it. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Mayor pretend. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to make sure folks know one of the charts in our memo that lists the salary and benefits of our pier cities. That Raleigh is also considering an increase I think we may have mentioned it last time but I have the numbers that they are thinking about increasing the mayoral salary to 45,911 and counsel to 37248. So Raleigh and Charlotte have both raised their salaries to comparable numbers to what we are to what we're considering over I think just the last year. Thank you, Mayor pretend. And I did send that Raleigh report around to all of you all colleagues. Councilor Freeman. Thank you. Mr Mayor, I just wanted to ask a question a couple questions. And I appreciate council member Reese kind of highlighting I guess some of my concerns as well around how to budgetarily spend that kind of money. Um, I'm, I'm just trying to be mindful. I know we we skipped a step in a couple cycles and I just want to make sure I know where we are. And I was just going to ask staff if they could clarify for me where we were with our city staff and our step process. Okay, here comes the manager. Right. So, just, just to be clear that I that I understand. Could you could you please are you talking about public safety survey salary survey is that I'm talking about all of it all of the salary adjustments that we were doing from the salary study we did a few years ago, and just kind of like where we are in our in our steps because I know we missed at least one or two. So I think I understand what you're what you're asking now so it as as has been spoken here about, you know, once a budget is approved. And we start a new year, the decisions that are made around that budget whether it is skipping arrays or whatever happens, it is, you know, it is somewhat of a, you know, a final, a final decision that has been made and approved. One of the ways that we try to make amends, if you will, for any skipped, you know, skip steps or skip raises that were made necessary because of either financial conditions or just decisions that were made is to continuously do market increases so that we move our plans, so that the employees that we have are actually making market salaries, regardless of whether or not there was a step or or not a step given. So we do have plans to reimplement our step plan this year. So we certainly do have plans to do that. And we are also doing some additional work on market movement. And we did move some of our pay plans. A few percentage points this budget year we did not last budget year but we did this budget year, and we plan to continue to look particularly in our public safety areas which were the oldest market studies that we had, you know, had on record. And we did make some movement but we know we need to look at those additionally. So we are doing some work this year but but that would not necessarily include going back and like adding two steps or anything of that nature we would start where we are. And, and then, you know, try to make sure that our pay plans reflect market for the jobs that we have here. That is responsive to that is that's helpful. I think what I'm what I'm understanding is that we have had to skip a couple of steps, and mindful that the raises that have been skipped for our staff in and of themselves aren't the same amount. I'm more inclined to access to be focused on our city staff who are working full time or part time, rather than council. And so I'm, I'm also mindful that that the salary doesn't actually make it as equitable as it was stated, and there's a lot of pieces to this conversation that are that are still missing. So I'm on the fence. I'm leaning in the like I don't I'm just not supportive right now, but I'm listening. And I appreciate the conversation. Council member council member Melton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and I really appreciate the discussion and my input from input from my colleagues and, and I, you know, I, amen to everything. That's what Maurice said about the conflict. I would, I would suggest however that he's right. I didn't know what I was getting into. And that's precisely the moment when folk are excluded or included. That's the starting point of the conversation I looked I knew what the salary was, and said I can swing it. That's precisely the point when folks say look at it and say, I can't do that. That's the starting point. So that's where the on ramp or the off ramp is depending on how you look at it into service is that is precisely the first data point. I had no idea about I knew what I was getting into in terms of salary but in terms of the workload, what it takes to efficiently do it, and, and I will be very straightforward. It's very possible to do this job and just totally defer to staff to if you want to read minimally and and not go to board meetings and collect the stipend and show up at council meetings and pretend you know what you're talking about just kind of just sit there and just cast votes, you know, based upon whatever the prevailing wind is quite possible to do that. I think that the city deserves more. And, and so so I resonate with everything that counselor he says, the thing, the thing though that I have to do sometimes as a as a, as a leader is you have to separate yourself personally from the institution, and it separate yourself personally from the chair if I think about this is giving Mark Anthony arrays. It's, it's a non starter. If I see myself personally as the embodiment of the chair, if I see me as the sum total of the institution. And by the way, nobody wants me making decisions like that by the way but but if I look at it that way. Then yeah, this this this is this is a non starter. But I think if we look at ourselves as as seasonal help as finite points and look at the institution more universally. You know, I'm not thinking which is why I am perfectly comfortable with if we raise this putting it at a point where I wouldn't even benefit from it, or giving them folk an opportunity to fire me for doing it. But I, but but with all the things that are challenging what is most challenging to me are the conversations I've had with people who are brilliant, who are committed, who are passionate who love the city, who will never be able to do this job. And that's what's most pressing on me and, and how do we undo that. And, and, and raising salary. Listen, that's not going to be a panacea that that's certainly it's multifaceted a bunch of things that need to happen from an election finance campaign finance reform into all that kind of stuff but but right now I'm in this seat and and what can I do. What steps I can I take to make it more likely for more people to participate than not. Because as of now. It's clear to me that that and you know we can we can throw around all of the, you know, the Democratic cliches we throw around and access and stuff all we want. The bottom line is there is a whole bunch of people who will never be able to sit in his office. As a visitor but not as a council person, because of so many class of economic barriers barriers that that preclude them from it. That bothers me as well. If I take me out of it I'm not voting for me to get a raise I think about the institution. The other thing a leader has to do is some people not going to believe you. You know this is about you and and you have to decide what price you're willing to pay and you got to be willing to get fired for it. That's part of leadership to. But I think that I know that there's a whole bunch of people that just simply can't be in this space. As things are now. And that bothers me as well. In addition to all of the other excellent points that my colleagues have raised about doing it so that's a long way of saying I don't know yet either. So I would continue. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member. Council member cover your own that I'll make a comment. Thank you I appreciate all my colleagues robust comments. I am willing to wait on this issue willing to support it I think we're what we're basically pushing forward as a living wage, something that we have made a broad commitment to as an institution for both our full time and part time employees and we are employees. At the end of the day we qualify for benefits. We are baked into the formula every year of cost of living percentages. And there's a reason for that. And so I think that they. Yes, they're, you know, the argument for, I can think of lots of ways we could spend $78,000. That's for true for many of the things that we put forward. I'm willing to listen more. I think it's interesting that both Charlotte and Raleigh have moved this way. There are plenty of cities all over this country that you can't work when you're a council member, you are a full time. You know, you're the expectation is you are full time serving the community. I think we're not going to be able to get anywhere barred from working elsewhere other than as a council member. Obviously the pay is commiserate to that, but that is a model that's out there. It's not novel. It's not radical. That's not what we're suggesting in this conversation we're suggesting tying council pay to a living wage that we pay everyone else that is an employee of the city. But not this isn't the hill I'm going to die on. So, I leave it to you, you know, if we need to further this conversation for another time and open to that as well. Thank you, Council Member. Colleagues I'm going to try to sum up and then make a suggestion. I'll also say first of all that I do believe that everybody on council should receive a living wage and I really want to appreciate council member Freelon who's brought this up in the budget process has been pursuing it and I think it's important and I've also really I had certain different kinds of reservations about it and I feel like the want to appreciate council member Freelon mayor pro tem council member Middleton others for helping me come to this position I do feel that everybody on council should get a living wage. And that the mayor should get a little bit more. And I'll tell you my concern. My concern and especially as I hear kind of people, people in my colleagues discussion of where you're at and wanting to listen more and that kind of thing. One of the things that Riley did was they had, they had a report and they had a big process around I don't think that we need that but I do think in terms of listening more. I think we ought to listen a little bit more. I think we ought to have a hearing or some way for our residents to express themselves. And I think that that wouldn't be hard to do. We could have a time that we set in the near future. If we wanted to to have a time when we would ask members of the public to comment we could hear their perspectives. And then that might give us some more guidance and making a decision. So, that's my thought I'm not hearing solid consensus around this table. Not that we have to do it by consensus. I'm hearing even council members, Caballero and and Middleton who say that they're very supportive, saying that they want to listen more. I'm hearing council member reset the same thing. So that's my suggestion. That's all it is. But it's I'm interested in any, any further comments. Of course, we could also accept emotion at this time or a request to understand where the body is at. I guess we'd have to spend the rules and we had a motion but Mayor Pro Tem and then council member free. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think the public hearing was proposed as part of the initial discussion we had and might be mentioned in the memo I feel like that would be a good next step. So put a public hearing on one of our upcoming agendas and invite people to have their voices heard. Council member Freeman. Yes, thank you. I just had a question. I know that Charlotte's on a two year term is Raleigh on the same cycle as well. Are they two years well. Because I think I mean you just have a chance to get a lot more feedback than on a four year cycle that's all. I believe that Raleigh is but someone can correct me. Yes, Raleigh is Raleigh. It's not part of the report. It's not just there. They're trying to do a whole update of packaging including staggered terms for your terms it's a it's a kind of full package of redoing your council. Yeah, you're about to move to four year terms. I was just looking for clarity on that. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. I was just going to say the same thing. Okay, thanks. Any more comments. What do you all think about the idea. And maybe I'll ask for some thumbs of having a public hearing, and then having come and then and then having a time after that to make a decision I see. Council Member Freeland, Council Member Middleton, Council Member Reese, Mayor Pro Tem, myself. Council Member Freeman, did you have a comment or question. Sorry, I was just, I was going to say I, I'm open to the public hearing that's fine. But I was, I was going to ask something else but okay. Sure. Did you have a question. I was just going to ask if this, if it might be more, I would ask to kind of kind of package it with some of the other conversations we've been having about the mayor's term being four years and a couple of other things that I think have been mentioned, so that it wasn't just I mean the chance to hear from folks. When you get a chance to hear it's probably good to get a couple of questions answered. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, and with that clarification of where we can do it just through our charter authority and where we have to involve the general assembly. Thank you. All right, I'm going to ask Mr. Allure to come back on screen and Ms. Reardon. You have heard the scintillating conversation Mr. Allure of my colleagues. And we are asking you all to put together at the appropriate time, not long from now, a public hearing where we could hear from folks on the on this question. Is that, is that good. That that's doable. So there are, if I'm correct in this. There are six dates left in this calendar year is there is there a date that is more preferable to you than others. Or should I say is there a date that is too late. I mean, we did note that I think in the agenda item shooting for the, the December 6 agenda cycle that the six being the public hearing, would that be, would that be meaning the public hearing would be prior to that, or are you saying that would be the prior. That would be the public hearing or do you need it before them. I'm, I mean, I would leave that to you all as my colleagues have a council member Reese. Did I hear you to say December 6 is proposing for the public hearing. Again. That's the, that's I believe that's the night where I'm wearing newly elected members I would recommend no. Okay. So why don't you all let us know you will trust your judgment, you all figured out you tell us when. Certainly. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you colleagues for an excellent conversation. Doesn't sound like where this is quite right, but moving ahead. Now we'll move to item four. I think I pulled that one. Adam four was pulled by council member Caballero. Yes. I just had a quick question for Reginald if he's here, it was based on the email and I appreciate the questions that you sent Mayor Schuyl to get some clarification on that. In the email, you just said that there was what I couldn't understand if it was this and I'm calling it emergency CDBG versus regular CBDG because I know that that's the wrong term, but that's what I'm calling it right now. That there was guidance that we needed to kind of broaden our view beyond housing needs and I wanted to clarification was, was it for just this kind of, you know, COVID tide funds or just in general. So it's a good question and thank you for the clarification Reginald Johnson director of the Department of Community Development. So in the email, I was referring to the distinction between regular CDBG funding and COVID CDBG funding. And one of the things that the mayor has questions about was this particular funding different from regular CDBG funding. And the answer is yes, it is because one it had must have a COVID time. So let's have a COVID time. And then I also mentioned that it is different because we are permitted to in regular CDBG there's a 15% cap on public services with this funding CDBG the cap is lifted. That means in the public services category we can use all the money for public services if we desire. So also the mayor was asking me, Well, we you normally use our money for housing. This is regular CDBG. So that so I'm clarifying that that money when he's the question was referring to regular CDBG. And what I was saying was, yes, that is true. But I was also making the distinction that CDBG is a broad funding we can use it on a range of things. We have elected in Durham to focus a good part of it on house. The point now getting to your, your specific question was that hood has suggested to his hood Greensboro and hood are the consultant that they have helped assigned to help us have suggested that we need to be careful about how much we put in housing, particularly housing development, because housing development plans and as they can shift will affect how your expenditure deadlines and for CDBG. So for example, if you and you've seen the project so say we haven't CDBG for a development project but the schedule ships, the CDBG expenditure deadline does not shift is statutory. So if you have projects money assigned to a particular project, but you don't spend it by the deadline, you run into challenges. Yeah, I appreciate it. I just in future conversations now just I appreciate the memo I thought it was a great, you know, the kind of you can't. I didn't use the same money for the money for the same thing that we've already used it on and DPS was in a similar situation so I was glad that both sides innovated around that. But in the future just curious to hear more around, you know, we're using all of our regular CDBG towards housing needs and you listed the other places that we could be potentially using it so would be interested in having a conversation on potential other options. We'll be glad to have that. We glad to have that. Thank you. Thank you council member. All right. Any other questions or comments on item four. All righty, thank you. If not, we'll move to item nine in a local agreement for fire emergency medical services EMS station. And I'm sorry that I can't remember who pulled this. I pulled that one too. Just very quickly, the just maybe it came up before and I just don't remember it because I know this is cycled through because of expensive increased expenses but why are we not doing a solar a solar array on firehouse 18 the way we did on firehouse 17. Yes, good afternoon. Mayor and council members toddler with a general services. Member have a yellow. We are doing a solar array on fire station 18. Okay I didn't see it in the rendering. It didn't look clear to me. And then when I reread it I couldn't find it, even in the list of where they're the construction expenses. Yes, the there will be a solar ray on on the roof, just as we did on fire station 17. Okay, that was it. It was my question. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tingler. Thank you council member. That's good to know. All right, when I moved to item 10 proposal to create a city of Durham poet laureate program is Ms Brown with us. Good Ms Brown welcome. Glad to see you. There is a. No, okay, I was just checking in the panelists in the attendees. Okay. Ms Brown. Why don't you give us a brief report, and then we will see if there are any questions. Sure. Good afternoon, Mayor, Madam Mayor pro tan and city council members of the Durham cultural advisory board recommended to fund an opportunity for a poet laureate position. My recommendation is have a pilot year in the first year in order to assess how the selection process goes and also to make assessments for the poet's actual duties. All right. Thank you very much. They also recommended a $5,000. Honorarium or stipend. That is correct. In your in your memo suggested a selection process, which I thought was very good. The selection process will be, you know, rolled out with information that's provided by the Durham cultural advisory board members, and also the poets who presented the proposal, in addition to having a call for poets and a nomination process. The process would go probably through as I remember through sometime next spring. That's correct with before the appointment was made with the appointment of the poets to occur simultaneously with the city's fiscal year. Thank you. I actually know that I'm thinking of this I believe Mayor pro tem you may have pulled this item. Do you have questions or comments, you have asked all my questions. I do have a comment which is I'm just really excited about this and wanted to thank the staff and the members of the cab and of course the poets who brought us a proposal for making it happen. I was hoping that we would be able to get someone appointed before Mayor Scholl left office so that he could appoint our first poet laureate because I know how much he loves poetry but I'm hoping that we'll just be able to bring him back. Thank you for the for the first induction and have him be a part of it in some way, because I do think your timeline makes sense and it would be a rush to get it done more quickly than that but really excited about moving this forward and thank you for all your work. Thank you general services is really excited to have this as one of our pilot projects to work with de cab on so thank you all for your support. I'm so statistical when other people pull items sometimes I think I do it and I go ahead and just dive in. Sorry. That is not a correct description of you just. Are there any other questions or comments for Miss Brown. Another maybe a one day poet laureate of Durham. Whoa. Well my suggestion. I guess I could bring this up at the cab meeting and I probably will but since it's on my mind and you asked Mr Mayor. What about Polly Murray in this moment and how what an awesome contribution she's made to our city. And I think it would be cool for some aspect of this to be named after her if you know maybe we could reach out to the Polly Murray center and see if they'd be down with something like that but whether it's the Durham Polly Murray Po laureate or maybe the opening event where we announced them is named after Polly or something like that so just wanted to put that out in the eat theirs and I'll discuss that more with the board at our next board meeting but I just wanted to share that. Many other things he was a poet. Council member Freeman. I was going to say I really like that idea and I would love for it to be something that books got engaged on. I'm certain there are other poet names that might rise up but definitely interested in that. I want to be at that cat meeting when you discuss it because I'm sure there's going to be some other names. Thank you council member. All right, any further comments. We're very happy. Thank you. I've been told by the clerk to speak closer to my microphone. I may be in the same situation as last week. How about now? You guys hear me all right. Good. Thank you, Ms. Brown. We're appreciative. All right, colleagues will now move on to item 11 Durham City County. Immigrant refugee affairs interlocal agreement. I'm going to try to remember that I don't know who pulled this. Can someone remind me? Council member Freeman, sorry. I'm going to wait for you in the egotistical way that doesn't exist in you. I could have dug right in. Soon, I could hold them all. Go ahead, council member. And then mainly I would have mentioned it previously but just noting with representative Press Lease, Ayanna Press Lease comments today. I don't know how often, I guess, folks are left out of the conversation and so I know that this is a COVID related task force item that came in. I just wanted to make sure we loop in the conversation around the might, I don't know if there's a difference between the immigrant migrant, acknowledging that the folks over and at the end Texas being abused at this point. I'm going to move on to the bridge from the Haitian earthquake. If they would be included in this as well if that needed to be written in or if it needed to be or if it was understood I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on that before we move forward. Thank you. I see both miss Stancil and Mr. Bester with us welcome. Mr. Good afternoon. Constance director made with a room services. Then what best is here to answer your questions today. Mr. Best welcome. Good afternoon, mayors and city council members. Then what best. Yes. I'll reference our refugees are immigrants including this process. This is a citywide process of dressing all people come within the city of Durham County Durham because this is a joint city County program initiative. Thank you. Thank you. And I would just hope that you could state that clearly in the memo because I would hate for folks to to misrepresent us and follow up conversations and say that we didn't include or we weren't talking about the Haitian migrants that are that are in Texas. That was all. Thank you. Thank you council member. All right, Madam manager we now have three items that are left 1415 and 1919 is the weekly COVID-19 testing options. 14 is the Go Durham access and 15 is the second quarter crime report my inclination. Well, do you have any preference for what goes first. The go Durham access services overview will probably be quick. That's what I'm thinking. And, and then the other two items, you know, we'll both probably have some discussion around them. All right, that's what I was thinking. Thank you. So just in terms of letting staff and at least one member of the public who's here to comment on this get get get on with their days. We'll start with item 14 and I'm going to ask Marie phase on is here miss phase on. Well, why don't we will we'll hear first from Sean Egan transportation director and then we'll have miss phase on comments. Mr. Egan. Good afternoon again, Mr Mayor madam mayor pro tem members of the city council I'm Sean Egan I'm the director of transportation for the city of Durham. And I've come here today to talk about the go Durham access program we've made a number of changes to the program recently, and wanted to share with you some of the updates and the initiatives that we have underway. I hope everyone's able to see my screen. Unobstructed. Yes, we are. All right. So, just some background on ADA paratransit service so it's been 30 years now since the enactment of the federal Americans with disabilities act. And the one of the key goals of the ADA was to provide equal opportunity equal access to facilities and services for people with disabilities. And so, as part of this, any fixed route. That's a bus or rail system that receives federal funding support for public transit is required to provide complimentary ADA paratransit service for people who have a disability that prevents them from being able to use the fixed route transit service. So, any ride that would be within three quarters of a mile of one of our bus stops. If the services on an inaccessible because of ADA. ADA paratransit has is provided by paratransit so we've taken a series of steps on our fixed route system, such as having wheelchair ramps on all of our buses, fully equipped to make them more accessible, but we have some work to do to make our system fully accessible. And until we're able to do that, we're going to see a significant number of trips on our access ADA paratransit service. Each system provides its own eligibility qualifications here for Durham access go Durham access 60 age 60 years of age or older with a disability. There are also eligible special eligibility for work related trips, medical transportation, or other special qualifications and services also provided to residents in the rural areas of Durham County. So, as I talked about, it's not just the vehicles that have to be accessible. We know that many of our fixed route bus stop facilities in Durham are inaccessible. Accessibility requirements, for example, are that there should be a five foot by eight foot clear and improved level surface landing area, there should be an improved pathway that connects to a safe crosswalk. And what we have across most of our stops in Durham is what you see here on worrying road, where it is essentially a signpost in the grass, and there's no improved surface there's no safe crosswalk there. And so anyone who lives in one of the apartment complex near this stop would be eligible for our access service, because the fixed route infrastructure is not accessible. And so we're seeing a significant number of requests for service that are tied to the inaccessibility of our fixed route system and that's why we're working very carefully through the Durham County transit plan to address accessibility improvements at our bus stops to make every single bus stop in Durham accessible for people of all different abilities. So if, if the person's disability or the facilities or infrastructure are inaccessible, that person under our rules is fully eligible for access services. And our current cost per trip is $48 which compares to about less than $4 for the fixed route bus service so it's a much more expensive service to provide than our fixed route. The history in Durham is that the city took over the Duke power transit services. One of my predecessors the late Mark Aaronson was instrumental in the transition of those services from Duke power to the city. In 1991, the first interlocal agreement between the city and county was in 1998, looking and was focused on eligibility certification customer service and other administrative services. So from access began a partnership with Lincoln Community Health in 2010. This partnership provides vehicles that have reached the end of their federal useful life, but are still in good working condition to Lincoln Community Health Lincoln Community Health can then use those vehicles with their operations infrastructure to bring their clients to medical appointments their clients who would otherwise be eligible for access services are served by the Lincoln service instead and so it's a great use of our equipment and the operations and services from Lincoln Community Health and provides a good customer experience for those clients. And then as a result of a regional rebranding in 2015, what had been the data access program became go Durham access. In 2019, the city and county agreed to a more comprehensive merger of not just administrative functions but all service operations and maintenance functions for the city and county access para transit programs. So, that was the initial short term agreement from 2019. We went through a process to select a new provider with new performance standards for improved on time performance customer service. This resulted in a new vendor national express transit that was selected and began in 2020. And then once we had a full understanding of the cost structure associated with that new operations and maintenance contract. We worked closely with Durham County to finalize what's now a five year merger agreement so that they're no longer to separate city and county access all of the services are provided by go Durham access. So as I said, National Express is our new vendor. They operate across the United States, a number of properties. They hired 62 local employees, and there's an average hourly rate of $16 and 25 cents. The city has informed our go triangle operations team that there is funding available to be able to ensure a livable wage for go Durham access operators during the next year. So we're looking forward to making sure that the staff are compensated for the important critical work that they do. They did receive earlier this year frontline worker bonus that was consistent with frontline worker bonuses, provided to city employees, and they're getting from a 5% premium pay for frontline workers. So, we've seen since the last 20 years, a significant increase in access ridership, you know, cresting over 200,000 trips a year. We've seen a recent decline in that with the COVID-19 pandemic. And we expect with the changing demographics of our community and the aging of our community that in the future we will see that ridership rebound and then grow beyond the prior peak levels. For our core ADA service, we are providing generally round trips. Most of our service is in central Durham. We see the red dots on the map, but there is service that is provided across the city of Durham for these ADA trips. We also provide the non ADA or beyond ADA, the services to residents of Durham County, and those services include non emergency medical transportation for example to the UNC health system in Chapel Hill, as well as opportunities for job access. In terms of the demographics, the 40 to 65 is our largest age demographic and two thirds of our access riders have a disability, about a quarter of our access riders use a wheelchair, and 12% of our riders are using the system every day, generally for work trips to get to from the workplace. We see that the medical trips represent the largest share of our trip purposes, followed by employment and education, but our riders can use it for any trip purpose if they're going to the grocery store if they're going to church on Sunday. Any trip purpose is eligible. We collect this for information to help us better understand the needs of our customers. We have a $5.4 million annual budget that comes from the city transit fund from property taxes as well as federal grants. There's funding in the Durham County transit plan. There's rural operating assistance provided by North Carolina DOT, and then there's also non emergency medical transportation provided by social services that it's funded from the federal Medicaid program. We've had some delays in getting our Medicaid updated. So we're hopeful that within the next month, we will have the fully updated Medicaid agreement with Department of Social Services in Durham County. But for any customers who need non emergency medical transportation who would have been eligible for the Medicaid program, as long as they call our reservation line 9195601551, we'll make sure that they have a trip while we finalize the details of that agreement. So we don't want anyone to go without transportation that they need to get to their medical appointments. We hear a lot from our customers about where we can improve. On time performance is a big concern for our riders. And so we're working to develop better performance measures, make sure that both our pickups and our drop offs are on time that we have enough staff to be able to provide all of the trips. And that we're looking at a and we're in the process of launching a third party agreement to provide ambulatory trip services for things like medical appointments like dialysis. And we've just received a funding of federal award through the Durham Capital Carboro Metropolitan Planning Organization to support that work. And we're looking at possibilities to expand that program using a transportation networking company that has specialized training in providing services to people with disabilities and meeting all of the federal regulatory. Requirements. One of the other big things that we've heard over and over again is that all the books have to all the trips have to be booked a full day in advance. Our riders want to be able to make plans and go in the same day and so that's probably the most exciting prospect that we have on the horizon right now for fiscal year 22. In the next month, we may be able to provide that same day service so we're looking to accelerate that as much as possible to provide that flexibility for our customers. What we've heard from many of our customers is that they they want to be able to use our fixed route service they want to be able to use the bus service they want to be able to just go out to the bus stop when they decide that they want to go somewhere and be able to use that service they like the flexibility of doing that but there are those barriers like the accessibility of our bus stops that make it difficult for access riders to use the fixed route system so we're trying to provide better more responsive services on access while we work through that process to make our fixed route system fully accessible. So this the on demand scheduling is the pilot project that we have underway right now with the new federal funding. We launched a food for seniors program that provides shuttle services from senior housing, one day a week to the grocery store. So the folks make sure we'll always have access to groceries, we've been providing trips for free to vaccination sites for the COVID-19 vaccinations, and then we're exploring microtransit demand response opportunities with our service to better meet the needs of our community and our riders. So with that I'll stop and happy to answer any questions from the council. Mr. Reagan thank you so much that was a great report and I really appreciate hearing about some of the innovations that are coming. I'm going to now ask Marie phase on. Clark, could you please ask make Marie phase on able to be heard this phase on a welcome and you were glad to have you miss phase on is a long time driver with our paratransit services and miss phase on you, you were glad to have you and you have three minutes. Yeah, so I'm glad I wish I had as much time as Mr. Egan but I understand time constraints. I just wanted to say that I do appreciate all of the improvements being made. I don't understand why we pick the company that we pick because they didn't have any experience with paratransit. They generally work with schools and things of that nature and the other thing is I was also checking their stock is way up and when you get companies like this they that their main idea is not community and I speak on community. And I hear all the numbers everything fits nice and tight but I see what I see when I service the clients and I see what I see when I do my job and I've been doing it for 19 years. And I'm not asking for it. I don't put a money value on serving your community because I live here and I care about the people that live here. And and what I don't see is the company showing that appreciation for being able to service our community. And that's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see them appreciate the community that we live in and respect it. And all these numbers are fine. But when you when you get down to it all the services, you know, I want to see people get where they have to go on time. And I also would like to see more communication between the council and the mayor, the people that hire the companies that do the businesses and and hold them accountable for the services. You know, I know that we don't have enough drivers. Some of the drivers are disgruntled because of the influx of new drivers coming in and but it's just a matter of time before that collapses also. So we want to do something that's longstanding something that will stand the test of time and continue to service our community that we live in. And that's all I think I could say in three minutes. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. First of all, thank you so much for being such a wonderful member of the staff and the driver and for doing this really important work. And thank you for your comments. We really appreciate them and we thank them very seriously. Thank you. Okay, colleagues. I'll now entertain questions and comments will start with Councilman Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and thank you, Mr. Egan and miss phase on I appreciate the presentation and the follow up comments as well. I know that when I when I used to serve as the chair of the access board, when it was just for the county was through the county. I know there was a lot of concern about the federal funding being cut and then what I'm hearing is you're saying that there's new federal funding being provided through COVID. Is that going to be continuous. Do you know where we are with that grant that used to be in place for the rural drive like rural community of kind of like connecting us back to those folks who are who aren't within the city limits. So there have been some changes through the North Carolina Department of Transportation. They have the rural operating assistance program. It's called rope. It's for non urbanized transit services across the state of North Carolina, when the additional federal relief for COVID was provided starting with the cares act. General assembly zeroed out all funding for the rope program as well as the state maintenance assistance program. So they, the rationale provided at the time was that since there was additional federal funding, the state could zero out support for these services. So, in the case of Durham County. In other cases, the rural areas were receiving federal funds but Durham County was not eligible to receive any federal funds so Durham County was excluded from any benefit from that so that the county lost the rope funds and is not eligible for the federal funds. And what we are hearing now from NC DOT is that they're going to be accepting applications for the FY 22 for the rope and SMAP programs, and we're hopeful that that funding will be restored in the final state budget. And we're also looking at federal funding opportunities like the competitive award that we won that will hopefully be able to enable that same day service on a pilot basis. If we can demonstrate that program is successful, we'll be looking at federal funds as well as the Durham County transit plan as a potential funding source to continue to offer that service that meets a need that we've been hearing so much from residents and writers about. Thank you I really appreciate your understanding of the complexities of this all and I want to be the one to highlight which is why I wanted to highlight exactly what the problem is and that our state would actually kind of leave us out. To kind of handle this expense on our own for the people who are most vulnerable to COVID and in a time of desperate need it's acknowledging that people with disabilities and people who are especially wheelchair bound are limited to. Especially in our rural community are limited to this access ride and to zero at zero it out zero out rope benefits or rope dollars is absolutely irresponsible and so I just want to make sure that my colleagues all heard that and I appreciate you giving that update. Thank you. Thank you for that important question council member and I didn't know that and it's. Thank you for highlighting that other questions and comments colleagues. Any other questions or comments. Mr. Egan, this is such an important service and I'm really glad to hear about a lot of the innovations that are taking place things that I didn't know about and. I had asked for this report so we could get an update now especially with the merger. I learned a lot from reading it and from your presentation and so I just want to express my gratitude. Thank you very much for this opportunity to share the important work that we're doing to serve our community. Thank you so much and also I want to send him his face on we hear you and I know that. Yeah, I guess I should add one more thing. Mr. Egan, I'm glad to hear that we're getting the pay up to the livable wage we really need to know that they're not officially our employees but the fact that we are budgeting for that is critically important. And I want to thank you for that. All right. Colleagues will now move to item 15. And that item is the crime report and I see interim chief Montgomery chief good to see you. Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Madam manager. Yes, I if I would if I may, I would just like to before chief Montgomery starts today with her first crime report. I really would like to thank chief Montgomery for serving admirably in the interim police chief role. The police department works hard every single day on some very, very important community safety matters that we have going on in our community. We are in constant contact and using constant communication and strategy to help keep this community safe. And I wanted to publicly acknowledge the leadership of interim chief Montgomery and her leaders as well as her other employees who do this work on a on a daily basis. Madam manager, thank you for those most appropriate important comments. We appreciate it in chief. We appreciate you and we're really glad you're here. This is your first quarterly report. I promise you we won't be too hard on you. And so go into it with nerves of steel. Thank you, Madam city manager page. Good afternoon, Mayor Schull, Mayor pro Tim Johnson, city council members, Madam city manager page and deputy city manager Ferguson. Thank you for this opportunity to present our second quarter information. This report covers the police department's first five performance measures. Part one violent crime. Part one property crime. Clearance rates, response times to priority one calls and staffing levels. I will also discuss some of the 2021 second quarter highlights. Next slide. Part one violent crime includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Part one violent crime was down by 4% during the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. There were 23 criminal homicides and the first two quarters of 2021 compared to 16 and the first two quarters of 2020. During the first six months of 2021 investigators cleared six homicide cases from 2021 and three from 2020. One 2021 criminal homicide case has been classified as the best of balance. The number of reported sexual assaults during the first six months of 2021 was of 29% compared to the same period in 2020. There does not appear to be any indication that these incidents are serial in nature. 36% of the rape cases reported during the first two quarters of 2021 happened in 2020 or earlier. Robberies dropped by 14% during the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. 77% of the robberies during the first half of 2021 were from persons compared to 79% in the first six months of 2020 and 86% in the first six months of 2019. 37% of the robberies from persons in 2021 involved at least one Hispanic victim compared to 31% during the same time in 2020. Commercial robberies decreased by 5% and 40% of the commercial robberies were from convenient stores. 55% of all robberies involved firearms and nine people were shot during robberies in the first two quarters of 2021. Next slide. Aggravated assaults were down by 4% during the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. 38% of all aggravated assaults during the first two quarters were from multi-victim firearm incidents versus 43% during the first six months of 2020. It should be noted that one firearm related incident may produce multiple victims and in some cases there may not be any injuries. 29% of all aggravated assault cases were domestic related. The number of shooting incidents dropped by 8% from 434 during the first six months of 2020 to 400 and to 2021. The number of shooting victims decreased slightly from 122 in the first six months of 2020 to 120 during the same period in 2021. The department centralized our criminal investigations division also known as CID and 20 in June of 2021. District investigators are now a part of this division. This helps us identify patterns and issues across districts and gives us more flexibility to place resources where needed. The centralized violent crimes task force which was formed in September 2020 is now the violent crimes unit and is under CID. Since inception, they have handled more than 530 cases. We also know that people who commit violent crimes often also commit property crimes so the centralization helps our investigators share information and identify suspects. We are continuing to do many community outreach activities which you will see in the upcoming slides. These activities help us enhance our police community partnerships and provide mentoring and other activities for at-risk use in an effort to deter violence. We recently released a video campaign to educate the community about the effects of gun violence and to encourage them to work with us to reduce violent crime. Next slide. Part one property crime includes burglary larceny and motor vehicle theft. Reported part one property crime made up 81% of all part one crime during the first six months of 2021. Part one property crime was down by 14% at the end of the second quarter and there were decreases in all part one property crime categories. Burglaries were down significantly by 30% during the first six months of 2021. Residential burglaries were down by 37% which may be due in part to more people being at home during the pandemic. Commercial burglaries were down by 4%. The top three business types targeted were specialty stores, restaurants and convenience stores. Larcenies accounted for 62% of all reported part one crime. 43% of larcenies were for motor vehicles which is the same as the first six months in 2020. 30% of the larcenies involved shoplifting. We continue to receive numerous reports of tools and construction equipment being stolen. Officers and investigators set up several operations targeting thefts from construction sites and made several arrests. We've also noticed a significant increase in the catalytic converter thefts which has been a problem throughout the nation due to increasing value of the precious metals in this equipment. We've been working closely with investigators from nearby agencies to identify suspects and these thefts. And as usual, Honda Accord remained the most common stolen vehicle. This has been a trend for many years. At least 48% of the stolen vehicles were left running and or had keys left in them. 85% of the stolen vehicles, motor vehicles have been recovered. Next slide. Compare our department's clearance rates to those of other departments our size. We are in the FBI's 250,000 to write under 500,000 population category. Our clearance rates were better than average for cities our size and robberies and all part one property crimes. It should be noted on the rate clearances approximately one third of the cases were from prior years. These cases often require DNA evidence to be processed by the state lab and these results can take a minimum of six months to be returned to an investigator. Next slide. There were 3779 property one priority one calls from for service in the first half of 2021, which is a 3% decrease from 3910 priority one calls in the same period in 2020. Our target response time is 5.8 minutes or less. During this time our average response time was 6.1 minutes. We entered 51.9% of priority one calls in less than five minutes in the first two quarters of 2021. Patrol staffing levels affect response times. We continue to use overtime funds to pay for supplemental patrol officers which increases our ability to respond quickly to emergency calls. We have adjusted the supplemental staffing to put more officers on the road during peak call times. Next slide. Our sworn staffing was at 85% at the end of June 2021 compared to 93% at the end of June 2020. Our non sworn staffing was at 90% at the end of June 2021 compared to 89% at the end of June 2020. BLET 53 graduated four recruits on September 8th. BLET 54 started on September 13th was 16 recruits 15 remain. There were 294 applicants, including 192 from North Carolina and 59 from Durham. BLET 24 started on August 16th and will include two in-state transfers and one out-of-state transfer. Recruiting officers were able to start attending some in-person job fairs during the second quarter. The recruiting unit set up an information table at the Durham Bulls Pride Night on June 30th. The recruiting unit's 12 month digital marketing campaign ended on June 30th. The campaign covered North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, North Eastern Georgia and Eastern Tennessee. The unit also worked with Morson McDaniel management consultants and police app to set up a two-day applicant testing event at Northern High School on June 26th and 27th. This event produced some viable applicants. The recruiting unit has also been holding several local pop-up events which have been advertised on social media. These have included monthly events at Starbucks, Wills and other locations. The recruiting unit continues to try out-of-the-box ideas to reach potential DPD recruits. Next slide. The Durham Police Department continues to review applications for you non-immigrant status, commonly known as U-Visa, in an effort to assist with the investigation and successful prosecution of certain crimes. By reviewing and certifying applications, the department seeks to security assistance and testimony of crime victims who may otherwise become unavailable due to their immigration status. The police department processed 29 U-Visa requests during the second quarter of 2021. 83% were approved, which is the highest approval percentage we've had. Next slide. Looking at updates from our adult misdemeanor diversion program, these are the statistics from the Criminal Justice Resource Center for the program since it began in October 2015 through June 2021. The program originally was for adults ages 16 to 21 until February 2019, when DPD did an expansion to include up to age 26 and older adults at all for discretion. There have been 374 participants enrolled to date with a 100% completion rate. Only 16 participants reoffended within one year of the completion. The program demographics are made up of 58% African American, 25% Caucasian, 14% Hispanic, 2% Pacific Islander, and 1% other. 100% of the referrals have come from DPD. The program also provides referrals to wraparound services including education services, employment assistance, mental health, mentoring, substance abuse, evaluations, treatment, and housing. During COVID-19, community resources for food, financial resources, and other needs have been provided to all misdemeanor diversion program participants free of charge. These resources and programs are available in English and Spanish. Next slide. The Public League or PAL program has adapted its activities to provide opportunities for youth during the pandemic. Activities have ranged from basketball, golf, and baseball to new activities such as the community gardening and a fitness club. PAL partnered with Neighborhood Improvement Services or NIS for these community guarding activities and they met on Tuesday afternoons at the Hoover Road community. The Summer Fitness Club, which was open to police explorers and PAL participants, met at 7 a.m. on Tuesdays at Twin Lakes Park. Club members got an inside look at DPD physical training. The program has now ended for the summer. Our new PAL venturing program has continued to provide mentoring as well as fun and educational activities for youth in our community. In the photo on the slide, venturers and PAL members took a field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science on May 22nd. Officers have continued to come up with new and innovative ways to partner with and reach out to the community. Next slide. DPD employees reached out to the community in many ways during the second quarter. This slide and the following slide show a snapshot of just the few of those events. In April, several DPD officers spent time with members of the community at the Main Street Town Homes as part of the Community Builder Spring Fling event. Also in April, officers from the Community Resource Unit made over 100 community contacts during its four-day community pop-up event at Welles Village Shopping Center. Taking advantage of lunchtime traffic each day, officers engaged shopping center patrons and workers and provided safety resources and tips related to robbery, personal safety, vehicle safety, and information about Durham Cromstalkers. The police department's motor unit joined with the Durham Fire Department, the Durham County Sheriff's Office, and the Orange County Sheriff's Office and able to help a 10-year-old who suffers from serious medical issues celebrate his birthday and style with a parade in front of his home. Officers were honored to be a part of this special celebration. For the second time in two years, District 5 Squad A Officer M.M. Atkins unofficially adopted a high school senior whose graduation was diminished by COVID-19 pandemic. Officer Atkins and nine other A Squad members held a brief graduation celebration in June at North Carolina Central University for the senior who graduated from Berty High School and will be attending NCCU this fall, majoring in criminal justice. She has aspirations of working in law enforcement and or attending law school. Next slide. This slide includes more second quarter community activities, DPD employees participated in community safety and recognition events, raised funds for Special Olympics North Carolina and help build and deliver beds during the second quarter. Several DPD employees attended a giving back to the blue first responders appreciation event on May 21st a fellowship Baptist church. This is a great opportunity for officers to have their positive interactions with community members. On May 22nd, officers from the community engagement unit partnered with North Carolina safe kids to hold a hot car safety event at Walmart on Glen School Road. They spoke with approximately 150 people and handed out 75 safety fires. On May 25th, DPD employees ran and bite 11 miles to raise funds for Special Olympics North Carolina as part of the law enforcement torch run relay. The employees took the virtual torch from DPD headquarters to Briar Creek where it was handed over to Raleigh PD employees who carried it to the Special Olympics Games Cauldron Lighting Ceremony on May 27th. Officers from the community engagement unit continued to volunteer with the sleep and heavily peace bed build program. Volunteers with this program and officers build beds for children in need and then deliver and assemble these beds so no child has to sleep on the floor. Our employees have participated in this program since the fall of 2018 and have helped build more than 250 beds. This concludes my presentation. Happy to try and answer any questions. Thank you so much. Before we have questions from the council, we have two members of the public who signed up to speak on this item. And we'll begin with Donald Hughes. Madam clerk, can you make Mr. Hughes available to be heard. Mr. Hughes welcome and you have three minutes. Good afternoon Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I want to start off by thanking Chief Montgomery for her report and for her service. Also want to thank the staff of the Durham Police Department for their service doing what we know are difficult times for our community. I have two personal experiences. One was that of a missing great grandmother in my neighborhood where officers spent hours along with community members searching for this great grandmother. And fortunately we're able to find her. Also yesterday I happened to catch a new story of a Durham Police Department officer getting out of their vehicle to assist the resident that was in a stalled mechanical wheelchair about pushing them up a hill. So these are just some examples of the work that our law enforcement officers do that may not get recognized. So I want to personally thank you as a resident of Durham. But Mr. Mayor and members of the council my remarks today are for you. We are tired. We're tired of the oppression Olympics and passing of the buck to the state when we say that black lives are being lost in our streets due to gun violence. Councilmember Caballero. We're tired of the grandstanding and use of national political talking points when we say that black lives are being lost in our streets to gun violence. Councilmember Johnson. We're tired of elected officials using our communities when running for reelection but being conspicuously silent after crime happens and when we say that black lives are being lost in our streets due to gun violence. We're the ones that are standing for hours with our neighbors as they watch their black children lay in the streets surrounded by yellow crime scene. Mr. Mayor we're the ones that are kept up at night by the sound of more than 20 rounds being fired off praying that another life has not been taken like I experienced in my own neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. We are tired and while we are tired we're not going to give up. We will continue to demand that you allocate millions of dollars just as you committed to the participatory budgeting program for jobs and paid training for our young people. We will continue to demand that you invest in affordable housing free of mold roaches and sewage for black families with household incomes, even less than the salary increase that you discussed for yourself today members of this council. We will continue to demand that the voices of those closest to the pain are elevated when decisions are being made in our communities, including those in our community who are asking for shot spotter technology here in Durham. And we will continue to demand that you fund black organizations that are working in black communities with black residents to address black issues such as behavioral health food insecurity, housing instability, violence and more members of the council. Mr. Mayor we're tired. We're tired of you playing politics without black lives. And today we say enough. And I wasn't going to address this but at the start of the council member Johnson mentioned that part of the reason that crime or attacks on bus drivers may be happening is because we've expanded access and allow folks to ride our go during buses for free. I think that is appalling to say and that at a time when people are so just their lives have been upended by this pandemic the idea that expanding access to a necessary public service such as public transportation is looked at as the reason for increasing attacks on black people. So we're not going to bus drivers without any support and data. I think must be addressed and must be called out Durham that is not what we value and I hope that council member Johnson really addresses the impact of her statements and I don't know what your intent is and I don't presume to know what your intent but I know what I heard and what other community members heard when a statement such as that was made but I hope that you all really. Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hughes thank you your time is up. We appreciate you being with us. Thank you. The second speaker is Ms. Jacqueline Wackstaff. Madam, Madam clerk, can you please make Ms. Wackstaff available to be heard. Can you hear me, Mr. Mayor. Yes, we can Ms. Wackstaff welcome and you have. As usual, always a pleasure. But I don't have much to say because everything was said that I might have said with the previous speaker. But I did have a question about this report. I don't know if you know about it and I've seen Victoria on several occasions asked for the part two of this crime report, but I was looking at what the US Department of Education has required of our college campuses and based on the press conference that was had a couple of days ago after the death of two young men on the North Carolina Central campus and the most recent death that's right across the street from the communication building at North Carolina Central. There is a crime report that is that's essential to just the school they have a crime report that they put out that talks about all of the crime that occur on the campus on the campus and also outside of the campus at their campus location their housing location. And I just want to know if that report that data is included in this report that is given by the interim chief today, if not, why haven't we included it. And can we look at the data that comes from Duke we have two major institutions in North Carolina and Durham, and both of those institutions have data that is collected about crime and criminal activity that occurs inside those walls and those campuses. And when I heard the Chancellor talk about the most recent incidents and tried to equate it to the outside elements of Fayetteville Street and people on Fayetteville Street. We need to understand when I looked at this report, there's a lot going on inside that campus for anything from rapes and assaults to property crimes, all types of things. And this report needs to be included in the Durham report because that campus of the public university that sits inside one of our major distress area. So I would just like to know if this report has been considered. And if not, why not. Ms. Wack staff, we appreciate your being here. All right, colleagues, you have heard the report from Chief Montgomery and I'm going to now ask for any comments or questions that colleagues might have counselor Middleton. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you Chief Montgomery for being with us. The difference is that an announcement for our new chief is probably imminent. At some point it's certainly closer than further away. So let me now take the opportunity to thank you for for the really remarkable job you've done. It's a pretty challenging time. It doesn't matter that you were interim chief when the history is written, your name is in the line of chiefs of our top leaders and executives in the department. So if you're a pastor or anything, you you were chief and our chief and you've done a great job and it's challenging circumstances. I want to congratulate you and thank you for your willingness to step forward and provide leadership to the largest department in our organization, organizational chart during some challenging time. So thank you for that. I do also want to want to want to shout out. I also want to thank you for the great work you've done to scan the media as well and saw some great stories. The thing was officers may and nobles were cited for rendering some life saving attention to one of our residents. So please pass out a shout out. Let them know that we're shouting out at the city council meeting and I believe it's Pat Officer Harris, who's the officer who got out and helped a resident that was in a wheelchair get pushed up the hill. So please pass along that that officer was shouted out as well here today and thank them for their service. So a couple of questions. First thing I wanted to. It's not germane to your actual crime report but I think it is important because I've gotten some questions from people in the community and the media and just want to give you an opportunity to clarify something recently we had an audit of our body camera usage in the department and some things that were made and anytime people hear that recommendations are made pursuant or subsequent to an audit. They usually think that that's something really really bad. And as I read the report, the recommendations had to do with with things like management of the incredible amount of data that these cameras are capturing and correctly marking them as opposed to officers turning off cameras and city officers obviously or nefariously turning them off when they should be on and that's what some people were thinking. Oh, the officers aren't using their body cameras properly, but it was really, at least in my read more about information management you want to take a few minutes just to talk about that audit and just let the public know, you know, what your stand is on that. Absolutely so and and you're correct. A lot of the information that was in there was not about officers turning off the cameras during calls or missing important evidence or information it's how the calls are tagged and a lot of officers when they would call in on the audio we have codes to tag them and the computer system has the ability but the officers weren't going back to verify that both the computer and then tag the calls correctly. So, most of the calls that were then labeled as are labeled improperly it was what was stated in the audit were lower level calls maybe like a calls for service that instead of being held for 80 days would be held for a year 180 days will be held and then the actual monitoring where the supervisors were to monitor and document it those forms needed to be updated and so we have a better way of tracking how often those are being monitored and looked at. Well, and so the, the, the bad thing is that we might wind up sometimes keeping information longer than we need to, in another case is discarding information which might be material from an evidentiary point of view that is that the possible correct. Got you. Okay. Thank you for that I wanted to turn to response times our target response time is 5.8 minutes average response time is 6.1 minutes I've been listening to these reports for years now and correct me if I'm wrong it seems like that our response time has has has dropped dropped in a bad way meaning it hasn't it's it's it's higher than than it's been in past reports that's correct. That's correct it's it's actually increased our response time yes you want to can you tell us what your would you why you think that is. Even though it says that our calls for service have increased but if you look at it and compare it to 2020, we had 60 to 70 80% staffing. So there were more calls to respond to the calls which would reduce response time. You know as of recent our staffing levels are in the 40s. So we don't have as many cars available or patrol or staffing available. Okay. Okay. Okay. Have have aren't at the patrol level our officers. At least, well, I'm not asking you to anecdotally have have you in any way quantified any reports or or characterizations from our officers about the quality of information they get from 911 dispatchers at all. I don't know any issues typically that's had with those are brought up immediately so we work well with them now I'm on one so that that has not been an issue that's been brought to me. Okay. Thank you. And the recruiting efforts to to bulk up I think our the last BLT class was four people or six people. Graduates for four. And how many are in this upcoming class. We started with 16 we're down to 15. And the how has have recruiting efforts that we're not over COVID, but since there's been somewhat of a relaxation in in COVID strictures of late. Has that had any any positive impact on the ability to do more recruiting get to more events do more outreach, or is it still kind of muted because of COVID. We have been doing a lot more events, a lot more pop up events we just had one at South Point where we had a first responders event where fire 911 and Sheriff's Department was there. The biggest issue that we face is the competitive wages. So we we lose a lot to all other agencies because we're just not competitive minutes and that's an issue across the nation there's just not as many people that are joining law enforcement. So the agencies that they are joining have a competitive wage, and we just are able to compete. Do you, in final question, back to the reduced or the increased response on which is very concerning to me. Other than more people or or or more staff is there anything else that contributes that to that or anything substantive that the council can do to to help your department get those response times out or does it just come down to people being able to take those calls. You know I think a lot of it has to do with we just need more officers on the street you know there are more cars out due to the pandemic so there's more traffic for him to contend with, but it's just we need more officers to be available for the calls. Chief Montgomery thank you so much and again thank you for your service to the city for answering the call during some challenging times and appreciate all you do please give our regards to the men and women under your command. Thank you Mr Mayor. Thank you. Thank you council member. Other other colleagues with questions or comments for chief Montgomery Mayor pro 10. Thank you Mr Mayor, and thank you chief for your report appreciate you being here and helping us understand all of this information. I just had a couple questions about the misdemeanor diversion program. These numbers look really great 374 people enrolled 100% completion rate. I was wondering if you could and only 16 people who have re offended out of 368 participants so it's seems like it's doing great work. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how y'all decide whether to refer an offender to misdemeanor diversion or to prosecute for misdemeanor, whether that's based on the offense that they're accused of or their history or some combination of factors if you could just give us a little bit more insight into that. I believe you covered it we do look at the history, you know and the offense. And, you know a lot of times it's hard to say you know we move the age up to 26 or older, you know you may have someone who has hit hard times and 28 years old and never has a history. Why would we you know want to prosecute that we would defer them to the program. So we realize that people have come upon hard times and we'd like to give them all the resources to be able to assist them so that they will not have the criminal record based on their history and the type of offense. Great thank you do you have a sense of what percentage of people who are charged with just a misdemeanor offense or multiple misdemeanor offenses are referred to the program. I don't have that information available to me now I can get that for you. That'd be great thank you. And when you say the type of offense what types of offenses would you exclude somebody from the from the program for probably serious assaults or domestic violence situations or any sexual anything that's violent in nature. Okay. So any low level misdemeanor, you would qualify. Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. So like you said before, you know that you'd expanded the age of the 26 but you sometimes go over 26. Is there any reason for that age limit to apply in any case for a first misdemeanor at any age. Like do you think that's that there's a point to the age limit. I'm sorry. Sure, I'm wondering. I'm wondering if there's a reason to limit the misdemeanor diversion program to folks under 26 and I know that you said that you sometimes ignore that guideline for people who as you said may have fallen on hard times, but the program is is going so well. And the expansion of the age up to 26 doesn't seem to have had any negative impacts I'm wondering what you think about a program that didn't have an age limit at all. So really with it just saying up to 26 we really don't because it is also discretion in case by case so okay really it probably could be that there's not necessarily an age limit. Great. Thank you I enjoyed reading all of the information about the personal stories as well about what folks have been doing. It's been, you know, a really hard 18 months and all of our first responders have had to deal with a really intense environment just want to appreciate you and your staff for the work they're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. colleagues. Other questions or comments for my country. All right, chief I have some. First of all, I wanted to just say, reading some of the heroic actions in the report were mind boggling the officer Ben fields, who pulled the driver from the burning car. After trying to put the fire out trying to get him out the driver side door got into the burning car. Pulled the driver across the console. I mean, that is just her heroism of the absolute first order, and then the officer L Nessar. I'm not sure if that name is right pronounced right but who got into a car flooding car to pull a person out of that car as the, you know, in this most precarious of positions that she actually got into the car, as it was. I would have easily died in that situation, and I have just in all, whenever I read of these activities activities I know that I could never do. And so I hope you'll pass on my appreciation and what I know is the Council's appreciation of these. Those are two lives saved by by actions that are absolutely, absolutely. I have appreciated reading all the community activities, the community outreach and wanted to just say that take back the night this year I was so glad that we went back out. It was a great night you know we didn't have the number of neighborhoods we usually have, but we had a lot of neighborhoods this year back in action, and I wanted to thank everybody who in the department Kimberly and everybody else who makes that possible it was a really great thanks. I have just a couple of things to the wanted to just say about the wages. We have to have competitive wages, and I have talked to the manager I urged her and I know she is very planning to do this to bring us out of cycle, whatever is whatever it is necessary to get our wages to be competitive at the at the level with every other department my understanding from my discussion with her is that up the, as our officers get more veteran that our wages are quite competitive but not as the entry level and we need to make that happen and I just will say that I'll be totally supportive of that and look forward to receiving that on the misdemeanor diversion. So, we at one at one point was so after raise the age, there was additional staff capacity in the criminal justice resource center to take additional people may pretend and at that time. We gathered a group of people together. Chief Davis the sheriff da and others, and raise the age from 21 to 26. I also advocated what you just talked about which is having no age limit for the misdemeanor diversion program. The thing that I would say is it's 20 say up to 26 the assumption is that you will be right you will be you know for especially for a first time misdemeanor unless it's one of the categories that chief like every mention. The assumption is that you will be assigned to misdemeanor diversion. I think that assumption should be should be the assumption for any age. We know that most about 26, you know, most of the misdemeanors are from people who are, you know, in that age group or younger. So there wouldn't be a whole lot but I do think that should be the assumption and when we moved up to 26. It was with the understanding we would go back and revisit this and so I think that we should revisit. And I think that that will be something hopefully that we will be doing. And it's not just us, you know, it takes the takes the justice system to move it. But I do hope that, again, I won't be here for it but I hope that you all will keep that in mind the the opportunity to revisit that and raise that age. I continue to think that the best single measure of how we're doing with God violence is the number of people shot and we're almost exactly where we were last year chief. I think we had 122 last year we have 120 now. The size are up but as I said last year when they weren't as high as previously. That depends a lot on where you get shot and how close you are to do hospital and those kinds of things but the number of people shot. We're almost where we were last year and that's very dismay is a enormous number of people shot and Durham last year, and it is just, it's really hard to see that number continue to be where it is. When the property crimes is, are there reasons besides people staying home from the pandemic, which you said, you said that people staying home from the pandemic cause fewer burglaries home burglaries, but we really seem to be down across the board, do you have any other thoughts about why property crime is down when it's a little bit fortunately our aggravated salts are down. But do you have any thoughts about that property crime any other reasons that you could think of it might be down. I think it passed to do a lot with more people at home. A lot less people are working so you have more people that are around the property that would pretty much prevent anyone from attempting to commit these type crimes because usually those are done when individuals are at home or no one's around to see them and I think that plays a really big role in it. Thank you. Well, those are my comments I want to appreciate you chief. It is hard to step into a job like you have, and you've done a great job. We are so grateful to you. And for your service to the department and to our community and the ways in which you are leading us and we know that we'll have a new chief soon, but you're the chief now, and we are just extremely grateful to you so I want to really express my appreciation. Colleagues any final comments or questions for chief Montgomery. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate your comments and I do want to note that I have a growing concern around the increase in rapes as well. And I just wanted to ask specifically, where are when you say you're adding some supplemental from. So exactly who was coming in to do the patrols on the supplemental side versus overtime so overtime I assume it's like a patrol officer conducting overtime work. Sorry. So it's open to any officer to work the supplemental shift hours and they are paid time and a half. So any investigator supervisor any officer can pick up the supplemental times and answer, answer calls. And I just wanted to know as well I do thank you for stepping into the role I appreciate. Similarly, that I'm not, I'm not as extroverted and so I can appreciate the kind of nervousness that might come with with being on on the presentation like this you're doing a wonderful job I just wanted to say that and say thank you again to the to the members of our, our folks in blue. I am mindful that the, I want to say it right it was, I was hesitant to even mention it but the, the dog that was shot, Dargo. Darro. Darro is Darro back in back at work or is. Thank you. Thank you for asking. I want to also thank our canine service workers as well. Oh, is any further questions or comments for chief Montgomery. Chief, thank you. We really appreciate you thanks for being here. Thank you and I will pass along your message to our officers you know most of the officers feel like that's just doing their job and not heroism but that is honestly was what made this a little easier to be the chief as this is a premier agency and there are a lot of great officers here. Thank you chief thank you for saying that, and that's the way we view it as well and I really those those they may view it as everyday work it's heroism for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening colleagues we have now item 19, and then we have the closed session so we'll move with dispatch to item 19. I see miss young blood is with us, and miss young blood, glad to have you. Thank you. Good afternoon Regina young blood human resources director here to answer any questions that you have about this informational item. Thank you miss young blood. I believe that it's that what you want from us is some guidance around the preferred alternative. Is that correct. That is correct please. All right. So colleagues, any comments or questions are on this one item 19 counselor Middleton and then Councilman Freeman. And thank you Regina good to see you. I was going to say very quickly, at least as I remember it the city manager was going to go back and kind of do some some pondering so I, I was under the impression that she would kind of framed discussion today based upon what she pondered. So thank you. Yeah, I think that I think that miss young blood could could do that for us. If you'd like miss young blood why don't you do some framing for us because I agree that's exactly what happens and pondering took place. I can do some framing for you so. When we last spoke about this matter. Oh, I said, I saw Wanda jump on Wanda do you want to go ahead and take that. I'm free to frame. Okay, so when last we brought this item and this topic to you, we had proposed paying for testing for our employees at on site locations, partnering with CVS health. There were concerns raised by council members and the mayor about how we would pay for that testing the cost of that testing possibly having an impact on our insurance fund. And we were asked to go back and find some options to shift the cost of testing to the unvaccinated employees. I think with the city manager about her intent for us to have a testing program that last for 12 weeks. We talked about some options that are laid forth for you here in this memo. It is clear to me that we're going to be doing some testing that could later be proceeded or by some testing mandate excuse me a vaccination mandate. Miss young blood. There are three options, really four options I guess if you if you include the vaccine mandate but but I know that what our administration would like to do before a vaccine mandate is to at least for the next 90 days, have a vaccine come testing protocol. And you've really given us three options is I read the options the one that you liked the lead the one that the administration like the least was the first option am I correct. I am. It's too much administrative burden you would have to be doing a whole lot of checking of everybody's tests that is correct. Between the two other options, both of which I thought were very reasonable options. Do you have a preference does the administration ever preference option three option three. Can you tell us why option three is your favorite. Well I can tell you this is where is this where we want to go council member Middleton. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is what I needed. I think you don't need this. Yes, option three is the least disruptive for the organization. It encompasses our original plan to order testing and have it be orderly because it is provided on site by one provider that we contract with. It allows us then to shift the burden of the cost of that testing to employees and the way that we normally do a wellness rate consideration so we were calling it a surcharge. And so this we would change our wellness requirements within this plan year, and we typically have the effect of an individual who either does or doesn't complete their wellness requirements. That effect happens in the next plan year when so when they sign up and open enrollment, they see their new plan costs, and they are higher. You know if they did not complete the wellness requirements. So we would be adding the requirement to be vaccinated as a wellness requirement, and then the cost would be recovered in the next plan year. It doesn't so the option to the reason why we don't prefer option to is it requires that we create another open enrollment. Just for those individuals who would be impacted by the decision and we were changing premiums in this current year. Miss young blood I thought you all did in two weeks an amazing job of getting these options together. I agree that option three is the best. I'm very supportive of it. I think it does everything we want. It does. It doesn't force you all to do a lot of extra administrative work which did worry me, of course with option one but also with option two. It does make it so that people who are getting the test or will be paying for their tests, albeit not at the time of the test but at a later time. And I think that's fair. I think it's fair people and the other thing is, it means people have a lot of advanced warning. You know that this charge is coming to you, and you have the opportunity to get the vaccine, and then you don't have to. And so it gives people I think a real fair, a real, it's fair to our employees. It gives them the choice. And I think it's, yeah, I like I like I like, I like option three. Madam manager. Thank you, Mr Mayor. One of the words that you use you said a lot of advanced warning so I kind of wanted to pop in here to just give a little bit of, you know, insight into what, you know, what it means when you don't comply with whatever our, you know, rules are around wellness, and it is a warning but it but it's not way in advance we on a typical year, the wellness activities have to be completed by the December of the calendar year for the next plan year. I just wanted to make that really clear because we know we have a lot of people listening, and we want our employees to, you know, have some time during this testing phase to really really think about how important, you know, it is to try and keep themselves safe keep their family safe keep their co worker safe. And yes they do need a little bit of extra time, you know, if people were making a quick decision it would already be made. But at a certain time that that window is will close for, you know, for a decision to get the vaccine or not. And it is not way way off. We have not actually set that time frame yet but we are setting it sort of based on this conversation today in terms of which option the Council provides us the direction to move in. But certainly that that qualification date is not going to be beyond beyond December. I think that's an important corrective matter manager you're right, I think that's the, having that information is really important, and it's not way way off. All right, colleagues, other comments or questions that I guess I any questions or any thoughts about which option you like Councilor Middleton. And thank you, I'm out of manager and again. This young blood. I, I like option three as well but but a line and option three across my attention, it is possible that testing course may not be fully recovered. So, other than an employee who may have availed themselves of testing and then left before they could be assessed the charge or is there any other reason why course would not be fully recovered. No. Oh, man. I'm coming for a job at HR. You figured it out. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. They're not hiring you. You definitely do not want me. I'm looking at you. I'm listening to you. I'm not even mad. I'm not even mad about that. You don't really qualify. I was like. Thanks, Mr. Bear. She used to work in HR. She sees you she looks at you. Okay. Other comments or thoughts about the item three I guess council member Milton and myself have. I'm sorry for alternative three have expressed our support but I want to hear from others. Council member Caballero and then council member Reese. I appreciate the clarity from staff and all the work it makes our decision so much easier. The only question I have is what does the word says other considerations with President Biden's executive order. What does that do? How does that impact us? Well, if we are going with option three, it really does not impact us as much. Now there could be some, yeah, so no, it doesn't impact us as much. And so there's, there could be some nuance in the legal interpretation of we pay versus they pay, but no matter what, we have a wellness program. We have a wellness program being revised as long as it is revised legally and does not assess too much of a burden on an employee which is described in this memo. We can do that. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, council member. I think I said council member Reese and then there pretend. Thank you. Council member Caballero. Council member Caballero, did you have, are you in support of option three while we're going through this? Absolutely. All right, thank you. Council member Reese. Council member Caballero asked what I was going to ask about. I'm all set. Thank you. Option three sounds awesome. It's great to have great staff. It is. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. I'm also in support of option three. I just had a question about the amount of money that we can charge as a surcharge because I know it's capped as y'all said it 30% of the cost of the plan. Is that enough to actually capture the cost of the testing? Yes. And so basically it would be more than enough. And so we have proposed an amount of a surcharge that is less than the maximum that we could impose. Okay. So what, what would the, what would the surcharge be? The surcharge for, if we go with option three, it's going to be $70 per month. That's enough to cover the cost of the testing. That is correct. Awesome. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, I support option three as well. I think that we should when this 90 day testing period is over revisit the vaccine mandate and think about that more, more comprehensively though as well. Thank you. I am 100% sure that that is in the manager's plans. So, Council member Freeline. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to, I'm also a fan of option three and wanted to just apply the staff for this creative solution. When I talk check them with the city manager on Tuesday and thought about the wellness requirement which you know I was a new staff member. I was sworn in in September and had three months to do my wellness requirement go on a job or something. And I thought, you know, I asked question oh what's this about I think it's a great policy to have and to utilize it in this way. I thought was a really ingenious solution to a tricky, sticky problem and the timing just works out great. And best of all, I don't have to go run a 5k to be in compliance because I'm vaccinated. So anyway, yeah, just, I think, like Charlie said earlier, it's great to have good staff and creative leadership. And I'm just appreciating that in this moment. Great, but you still need to run that 5k. All right, Council member Freeman. Thank you. I will also add I'm, I guess I'm supportive of option. I'm still on the fence but I just wanted to know, I didn't want to just discount folks anxiety around getting the vaccination and so just be mindful that that anxiety, building or mounting could cause some performance issues and so I just want to make sure HR is paying close attention that no one's being dinged in this around figuring out how to get to that point by December so just my thank you. Council member. Miss young blood, I believe you have your guidance. Yes, I do. Thank you. And we are very appreciative of you all pulling this together in the, in the last couple of weeks giving us the alternatives, letting us know the alternative that is most the best alternative in your mind and I think you've heard that we all agree. Thank you so much. Thank you. Madam manager. So just just sort of to bring closure we will, you know, we will have the contract that was on the last work session that we will need approval for so we will, we will bring that contract back in order to have CVS to provide that service on the option three so. Thank you so much, Madam manager. All right. Well done to our staff. Council member melton. Does this need to be codified with a vote or is this sufficient when we get the contract contract. Okay, got you. Yeah, that's the thing we'll need to vote on work work. Thank you. I think we've given that the option that the thumbs up right madam manager. That is correct. Cool. Thank you, sir. Thanks. I will now turn to this to the city clerk for a report on our appointments. Okay, good afternoon, everyone. The council is nominated for reappointment Aubrey's D Zinnick at the Durham Convention Visitors Bureau representing food service. The final nomination is Council has agreed to re advertise the Haystack vacancy representing the faith community. And that's the end of my report. Thank you very much, Madam clerk colleagues. We have one more item which is the closed session item, and I'm going to ask our attorney if she would come on the screen. Mr. Mayor, can you restate the language? Do we need to vote it already? Have we met? You did. Yes. Yes, Mr. Mary, you did vote on the motion, but it's just a closed session for attorney client consultation. If that makes you feel better. All right, do we need to vote again? No, you voted at the beginning of the meeting. All right, thank you. All right, colleagues, I'm now going to declare that we are going into closed session. And I'm going to ask those only those people who are