 One minute, 30 seconds. Good evening. I recall this meeting of the Durham City Council to order. On Monday night. June the 21st at seven o'clock and I certainly will welcome everyone here. My dear colleagues. Our wonderful staff. And all those who are joining us in many different ways tonight. We're really glad to have everyone with us. Before we have our moment of silence, I want to. Remember a. Great friend of the city of Durham. A lethia bell who passed away. On. On Saturday, June 19th on Juneteenth. Lethia bell came to the city of Durham as a graduate of the UNC. She was a member of the city of Durham. She was a member of the city of Durham. NPA program in 1975. She was born and raised in Durham. She attended Hillside high school. She became human direct resources director for the city in 1996 and served 17 years in that job, touching many, many lives. And retired from the city in 2013 after 38 years of service to the city of. She was a key member of the city's executive team until her age. She was a member of the city of Durham. And to many, many people throughout the city. Our thoughts and prayers go out to. A lethias family. As we remember her tonight. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. This meeting is being recorded. Council member Reese, will you please leave us in the pledge? Well, Mr. Mayor, good evening. I would like to thank the council. I would like to thank the council. I would like to thank the council colleagues. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much, council member. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Here. Here. Here. Council member Caballero. Here. Council member Freelon. Present. Council member Middleton. I'm here. It's memory. Here. Thank you. Thank you, madam clerk. Colleagues were now moved to our ceremonial items and we have three great ceremonial items today. I'm going to first ask council member Middleton. If he will do the honors for the cleft and cranio facial awareness month proclamation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I will be presented tonight to Kyle Hale, who is a Jordan high school student. And Kyle is also is with us tonight. And. After the after council member Middleton reads the proclamation would love to hear some comments from you. Council member. Thank you so much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. The honor is indeed mine to read his proclamation, which is impressive. I am moved by Ms. Hale as well. Here in Durham. Let's take it. Even to cry can't see her yet, but Go Falkins. I know her friends and colleagues from Jordan are watching. So let's do this. Whereas oral facial clefts are the most frequently occurring birth defects in the United States. Affecting about one in 700 infant per year. as well as specialized feeding support, dental and orthodontic care, speech therapy, hearing intervention and social and emotional support as they grow and develop. And whereas this complexity of services need to be provided in a synchronized manner over a period of years and are best provided by interdisciplinary cleft and craniofacial teams and whereas organizations such as the Kleft Palate Foundation and the American Kleft Palate Craniofacial Association serve populations affected by craniofacial differences and the professionals who care for them in order to help infants have a healthy start to life by providing their families with comprehensive information, support and connections to these interdisciplinary teams and whereas it is fitting and proper to recognize the efforts of organizations and programs such as the Kleft and Craniofacial Program at Duke University and its families working to ensure a better life for those affected by Kleft lip and palette and other craniofacial conditions. Now therefore, I Stephen M. Schul, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim July 2021 as Kleft and Craniofacial Awareness Month in Durham and hereby urge all residents to contribute however they are able to the support of families and organizations working to aid those affected by craniofacial birth defects. Witness my hand in the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the 21st day of June 2021. Thank you. Kai, you're on. Thank you, Mayor Schul. Hello, everyone. My name is Kai Hale. I am 16 years old and was born in Albany, Kansas with a Kleft palette and lip. I'm honored to receive the proclamation to promote Kleft and Craniofacial Awareness on behalf of my team of providers at the Duke Kleft and Craniofacial Center. Worldwide a child is born with a Kleft palette and their lip every three minutes, making it one of the most common of all birth defects. A Kleft condition can be isolated or occur as a part of an inherited disease or syndrome. There are many different syndromes and they can affect facial development and appearance, neurological and cognitive development, vision, hearing, breathing, speech, and other parts of the body. Kids with Kleft and Craniofacial differences face certain hardships as they grow up. They undergo multiple operations throughout their childhood and adolescence and undergo extensive therapeutic treatment. In 2004, I was born in Albany, Kazakhstan and I was placed in the orphanage house at Burt because my birth parents did not have the resources to help care for my Kleft palette and lip. At an early age, while at the orphanage, I had one procedure to repair my lip. It was not until 2009 when I was adopted into the US and started going to the Duke Kleft team. Over the span of nine years with the Duke Kleft team, I have had seven surgeries related to my Kleft palette and lip as well as multiple orthodontic procedures. I am a rising junior at Jordan High School here in Durham. This past school year has been challenging due to the pandemic, but I have focused on my academics while also playing on the varsity football and baseball teams and finished the year with a 4.2 GPA. I have aspirations of playing baseball at the college level in one day in the pros. This small success for me is a great example that setbacks in life are a small building block for future success. The Duke Kleft team, including orthodontic, plastic surgeons, speech therapy, ENT, and audiology all have played a major role in how I live my life now. I am thankful for the Duke Kleft team for all the contributions so I can live my life just as normal as anyone, even with having had a Kleft palette. Despite how common Kleft and cranial facial conditions are, the care and challenges we face are not general knowledge not known by those unaffected. Thank you for the opportunity to raise awareness about the Kleft and cranial facial differences despite the different challenges every child with the Kleft or cranial facial differences can grow up to realize their dreams. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kai. That was a fantastic presentation. I hope that you will one day be playing for my team, the Baltimore Orioles. They really need you, by the way, and it really was a really wonderful, wonderful presentation. Thank you to Council Member Middleton and thank you to you, Kai. It's a really, really great and inspiring to hear you talk about your dreams. So thank you so very much. All right. We'll move on to our second proclamation. This is Olympic Day proclamation and Council Member Caballero is going to do the honors. This will be presented to Marcus Manning, Executive Director of the Durham Sports Commission, and Hill Carrot, the founder and CEO of Sports Properties Incorporated. So, Council Member Caballero, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. And I think that this is great that this is the next proclamation based on what we just heard from a wonderfully inspiring resident. Whereas Durham is home to numerous excellent parks and recreation, high school, college, and university, public and private sports, recreation, fitness facilities, and whereas Durham specifically and the Triangle region collectively comprise a significant regional and national hub for Olympic and amateur sports, and whereas Durham has a long history of supporting Olympic and amateur sports and Olympic sports events such as the state games of North Carolina, special Olympics, senior games, ACC championships, MEAC championships, NCAA championships, US Olympic Festival, USA Track and Field championships, and many more. And whereas Durham and Durham County are proposed as locations for North Carolina's bid centered in the Triangle region for the 2027 Summer World University Games, a major international multi-sport Olympic event, and the largest competitive event for student athletes in the world, and whereas Durham-based institutions and organizations such as Duke Health, Duke University, the Durham Bulls, the Durham Sports Commission, Durham Technical Community College, North Carolina Central University, and North Carolina Amateur Sports are involved in and supportive of Olympic sports and the bid for the 2027 Summer University Games, and whereas Olympic Day is an annual worldwide celebration dating back more than 70 years and held during the month of June each year, typically celebrated on or around June 23rd, which marks the anniversary of the founding of the modern Olympic movement on June 23rd, 1894, and whereas the city of Durham promotes and encourages physical fitness and public participation in amateur athletic activities including Olympic and Paralympic sports for able-bodied and disabled athletes regardless of age, race, gender, or athletic ability, and whereas Olympic Day celebration also serves as an opportunity to promote Olympic values of excellence, respect, and friendship locally and around the globe, I now therefore, I, now therefore I, Stephen M. Schul, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim June 23rd, 2021 as Olympic Day in Durham, and hereby urge all residents to take part in sports and fitness activities wherever possible to help maintain good health and well-being personally and in our community, and to help promote the Olympic values of excellence, respect, and friendship among all citizens and visitors alike. Witness my hand and the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, this the 21st day of June, 2021, and I will let our esteemed guests take it away. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. I'm Hill Carrow. I serve as a volunteer with the Triangle Sports Commission and serving as chair of North Carolina's bid for the World University Games. Hopefully, members of the Council have had a chance to want to read about some of the exciting Olympic and Paralympic trials that have been going on during the last week in swimming and track and field. These trials serve as the perfect backdrop for this year's celebration of Olympic Day, a day which not only celebrates the birth of the modern Olympic movement worldwide, but also calls attention to the Olympic ideals of excellence, respect, and friendship. Adding a special aspect to Durham's recognition of Olympic Day and the City's encouragement of its citizens to engage in Olympic and amateur sports, recreation, fitness, and wellness activities is the Triangle's bid for the 2027 Summer World University Games, the world's second largest Olympic sports event. The World University Games Initiative is a team effort involving the entire Triangle and helps elevate our aspirations for the region to an international level. Now, here to speak further on the subject is my sports tourism colleague and fellow member of the North Carolina Big Committee for the World University Games, the Executive Director of the Durham Sports Commission, Marcus Manning. Thank you, Hill. Like Hill, I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council for recognizing Olympic Day 2021. Established in 1948, Olympic Day has grown from doing an event to a total movement. Based on three pillars, move, learn, and discover, national Olympic committees around the world are utilizing Olympic Day to celebrate sports, cultural, and educational activities. This includes everybody, regardless of age, gender, social background, or even the ability to play sports. As we think about celebration of Olympic Day, we're also extremely excited and supportive of the Triangle's bid for the 2027 World University Games. Having the largest multi-sports event for student athletes in the world, right here in the Triangle region, and to have an event that celebrates sports and culture on this type of grand scale could potentially have a transformative impact on our community. In closing, I want to thank you again for giving us the opportunity to speak to this proclamation. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Manning. Thank you so much, Mr. Keller. We really appreciate you being here. I'm very excited about this. I really hope we get the bid, and I'm very much looking forward to it. So thank you, and thank you, Councilmember Caballero, for doing the honors tonight. Our final proclamation is the Mayor's Monarch Pledge Day proclamation. This will be presented to Ashley Marion Robbins from the Bull City Trailblazers. I want to say first that this proclamation, I received a request to proclaim that Durham Monarch Pledge, but it required certain actions. And in order to make sure we could actually do them, I asked LaKeisha Griffin from our city clerk's office if she would take the role in really initiating this and do the work to make sure that we could fulfill what we said we were going to do if we took the Monarch Butterfly Pledge. And I just want to thank Ms. Griffin for doing a great job reaching out to our various groups like Life the Trailblazers and Like Keep Durham Beautiful to figure out what we're doing already that supports our butterfly population or what we can be doing. So many thanks to you, Ms. Griffin. Whereas the Monarch Butterfly is an iconic North American species who has multi-generational migration and metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly has captured the imagination of millions of Americans. And whereas both the western and eastern Monarch populations have seen significant declines with less than one percent of the western Monarch population remaining, while the eastern population has fallen by as much as 90 percent. And whereas Durham recognizes that human health ultimately depends on well-functioning ecosystems and that biodiverse regions can better support food production, healthy soil and air quality and can foster healthy connections between humans and wildlife. And whereas cities, towns, and counties have a critical role to play to help save the Monarch Butterfly and Durham is driving to become a leader. And whereas on March 30, 2021, I signed the National Wildlife Federation's Mayor's Monarch Pledge and have officially committed to taking meaningful action to protect the Monarch Butterfly. And whereas Durham is committed to create a community-driven educational conservation strategy that focuses on and benefits local underserved residents, poster support a Monarch neighborhood challenge to engage neighborhoods within the community to increase awareness, support community unity around a common mission and create habitat for the Monarch Butterfly, supporting the various conservation environmental group efforts in Durham such as the Bull City Trailblazers. Whereas every resident of Durham can take can make a difference for the Monarch by planting native milkweed and nectar plants to provide habitat for the Monarch and pollinators in locations where people live, work, learn, play, and worship. And whereas Durham has committed to continually recognizing the efforts and importance of the Durham Area Audubon Society, engaging in conversation with community gardens on best practices for cultivating a space for pollinators, participation in milkweed seed exchanges, keeping greenways and community art an integral part of the city of Durham's culture. And yes, therefore, now therefore, hi, Stephen M. Schul, Mayor of the City of Durham to hear about proclaim the 21st day of June is Mayor's Monarch Pledge Day in Durham and encourage all residents to participate in community activities that support and celebrate Monarch conservation. Witness my hand the corporate seal the City of Durham North Carolina this 21st day of June 2021 Stephen M. Schul, Mayor. So thank you very much to Ms. Griffin for really doing the work to get that together. And I'm now going to ask Ashley Robbins to please join us and say a few words from the both City Trailblazers. Thank you, ma'am. My name is Ashley Robbins. I'm with the Bull City Trailblazers, the Durham Chapter of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation. BCT being committed to the appreciation and protection of Durham's natural areas, except this proclamation with enthusiasm, especially today, the first day of National Pollinator Week. Monarch butterflies are in decline due to habitat loss, as well as unsustainable pest control measures that threaten other native pollinators as well. By protecting the Monarch and spreading awareness, we protect our green spaces, our environment, and our agro economy. We thank the Mayor and his staff not only for taking the time to support the National Wildlife Federation Monarch pledge, but also for analyzing and developing specific goals that will best benefit the diverse communities within our city. We also pass a long support from our parent organization, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation, and our like-minded partners, Toxic Free NC, the Garden Club of North Carolina, Eno River Association, Obie Creek Watershed Association, Mayor Moore Community, New Hope Audemann Society, the Museum of Life and Science, the Triangle Land Conservancy, Durham Parks Foundation, and Keep Durham Beautiful. We look forward to assisting you and your staff with implementing this beneficial project. Thank you so much, Ms. Ravens. We very much appreciate your being with us today for this important occasion, and I'm excited about the work we're going to do to preserve and protect butterflies in Durham and the biodiversity that we treasure. All right, colleagues, those are our ceremonial items, and now we're going to move on to announcement by members of the Council. I'm going to start. I have an announcement. I'm sorry, it's rather longer than usual. And Madam Clark, at some point I'll ask you to put those. Okay, there it comes. Here's a picture. Here's a relevant picture. In the summer of 1986, LGBTQ activists and their allies approached Mayor Wibgully to sign an anti-discrimination proclamation written by Durham's Mab Sigrist and others. On June 25th, 1986, Mayor Wibgully signed the anti-discrimination week proclamation declaring the last week in June to be anti-discrimination week in Durham. Among other clauses, the proclamation said that it is the right of all people to live in dignity and self-respect. They went on to say, whereas lesbian and gay men often face discrimination in housing, employment, immigration policy, child custody, and many other parts of their lives. They're often targets of harassment, intimidation, and violent attack, merely because of their affectional orientations, and they have contributed to the spiritual, artistic, and civic life of our city. And whereas all people have the right to love and live free from bigotry, violence and fear, and the workplace, the family, and streets of our city, our places of worship and play, our hospitals and clinics, our schools, and the privacy of our homes. Colleagues, you will remember the history lesson we had about this proclamation and its aftermath from our public historian Eddie Davis a couple of years ago. Following this proclamation, you will remember, Reactionary Force has launched a recall campaign against Mayor Golly and gathered thousands of signatures to try to force a recall election. Others launched a no recall petition, tabling alongside the tables of the recall proponents, engaging in debates, writing letters to the editor, and doing all the kinds of organizing available to us at that time. And I will just mention to you all that there was no Twitter, no email, but plenty of door to door. Fortunately, the recall proponents fell just short of having the number of signatures they needed. And I'm glad to say that Mayor Golly was reelected handily in the following year. Today, we are remembering this moment because this week is the 35th anniversary of that momentous proclamation, and it's slightly too exciting but ultimately triumphant aftermath. This is also the 35th anniversary of the first state gay pride march, which was held here in Durham in June of that year. There had been a previous march in downtown Durham a couple of years before when a gay man was murdered here at the Little River, which I attended a day of incredible sadness and anger. But the 1986 march was a day of defiance and excitement and joy. I'm glad I was at this point going to ask the clerk, but she already has posted a photo which I gave her of two people, three people that you might recognize at that march. I want to thanks activists like Mab Segris, Mandy Carter, and so many others who led these events 35 years ago. We have made a lot of progress and we still have a lot of progress to make until justice is present and real for all of us. I know we can do that here in Durham and I hope you enjoyed the photograph. Thank you, Madam Clark, and thank you colleagues. Yes, I was that young once. Thank you all for allowing me to make that rather long announcement, but I think an important anniversary for our city, the 35th anniversary of the anti-discrimination proclamation declaring what was then called gang rights in our city. All right, other announcements? Council Member Freeman and then Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take a moment and to also just share in that 35 years is a long time, but it seems like there's so much more ahead of us. And so I just I want to thank you for that work. And I also want to just note there's a little bit of background noise. Please excuse it. I'm going to public place. But I wanted to take a moment and it seems monumentous as well. I mean, in 35 years, this is the first year we've celebrated Juneteenth as a federal, a federal holiday, and then also for our city staff to have the day off. And so I'm grateful that we're doing this work and all the years that I've brought the resolution forward with unanimous support. I didn't expect it to happen this quickly, but I'm excited that it has. And I just wanted to take a moment and just thank all of the various community members who pulled together very robust Juneteenth celebrations in the face of what is can often be determined as a kind of attack on Black history, acknowledging how HB 324, which we'll talk about later this evening, just trying to make sure that folks understand exactly what history we're talking about when we're having a discussion about critical race theory. And so I just wanted to just thank the Village of Wisdom and Hattie Heritage Center for their event on Friday. And then also wanted to thank Bradtown Community Association and Oxford Manor residents for their events on Saturday and then also Spectacular Magazine and all the various sponsors who came together to make sure that the event took off very well. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilmember, and I agree what a momentous Juneteenth it was this year. Wonderful, wonderful. Councilmember Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, colleagues. It's great to be with you tonight on our last meeting of this particular fiscal year. Good Lord willing. I wanted to make three announcements tonight. First of all, last week, in the middle of last week, I learned that close family member was having major surgery on Friday morning. And so Thursday, I got on the road and came down here and have been mostly at the hospital with her and our family ever since. And I'm glad to be able to participate in this meeting tonight by this virtual means, this miracle of modern technology. And it occurred to me, first of all, all praise due to the amazing staff at Grant's Grand Medical Center in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. They are amazing. If you need to have major a heart surgery, that's definitely the place to do it. I was thinking today about how great it is that I'm able to participate in this meeting and still be here for my family. And it occurred to me that we are going to lose the ability to do that in the not too distant future. And I thought that's not awesome. And maybe we should have a committee of the city council who look at our procedures to figure out how we might do that. And then I realized we have that committee and I'm the chair of the council procedures committee. So this is my way of telling y'all that over the summer, I will sorry to our city attorney staff, they won't get the summer away from me altogether. We'll be working with them to figure out what changes we might need to make to allow for remote participation in our meetings, bring that to the procedures committee sometime in the early fall and hopefully have something to put for the council thereafter. I think there are ways to do it. There are other jurisdictions that do this. I want to find a way to make that happen because but for the pandemic and the changes in how we run our meetings, I would not have been able to participate in passing this budget tonight and that would really have been bad. Although the budget still would have passed, it would have been awesome, but that would have been bad. So that's number one. Number two, I pulled off at rest stop Thursday afternoon to send y'all an email that I also sent to senior manager senior staff at the city about the long time homeowner grant program and about the possibility of extending the deadline for current applications and figuring out a way to expand the program citywide as soon as possible. So the mayor reached out to me today and said he's talked to this to the city manager and we're going to have an opportunity to talk about that at the end of our meeting in other matters. And so I want to thank the mayor and the city manager and for all of your patience as we try to figure out an answer to that particular vexing problem. Third and finally, we have an agenda item tonight, agenda 19 loan that's about 2.3 million dollar loan from the city of Durham to DHA for the replacement of sewer lines at the Moreen Road DHA community. Earlier today, councilmember Caviar and I had the really the privilege to meet with one of the residents of Moreen Road who for about a year and a half lived in a ground floor unit and one of the buildings effected by the problems with plumbing there. I will not regale you with even a tenth of what she's had to endure last year and a half. But what I will say is this, I'm glad that we are helping the housing authority make the absolutely critical and urgent repairs that are needed at Moreen Road to make sure that those those homes are habitable for their residents. I don't want to pull the item and I have not pulled the item. But what I do want to say is this, as a council and as a community, we have to find a way to make sure that the Durham Housing Authority is and remains accountable to its residents and to us as a community. What I heard today from the resident who was brave enough to come talk to two city council members about this should not happen to anyone in the city of Durham, whether they live in a Durham Housing Authority community or anywhere else in our city. And so I'm hoping that we can work together to find some way to make sure that that happens. One thing I'd like to propose and this is something we've talked about and I don't know if there's anything on the books about it, but I really feel like it would be helpful for us to have a joint meeting with the with the Board of the Durham Housing Authority and the city council to kind of talk about the direction we're going and maybe some ways to improve accountability along these lines. I know that the Housing Authority has made considerable progress over the last couple of months in their maintenance backlog of work orders, but this is something that I will just be honest with you. I was enraged earlier today and I'm much calmer about it now, but this is something that I think we have to make a top priority as we go into the next year just because it makes a huge difference to our neighbors who are living in these communities. So that's the last thing I wanted to say and I know that that we'll be able to come together and figure some stuff out. So those are the announcements I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Other announcements? Council Member Caballero, then Council Member Middleton. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I just wanted to thank my colleague for uplifting all and up with all those comments because I concur 100%. I look forward to the conversation with DHA in the future. Additionally, I wanted to thank Mayor Shull for joining. We are now a member of the mayor's organized for reparations and equity more. I saw the post that he put on social media and I just wanted to say I was very moved by seeing all of the celebrations around Juneteenth and I know we as a council have talked about reparations before, but I want to publicly declare that I believe that until there's reparations in this country, Juneteenth and other other celebrations fall very short at what we owe many citizens and residents of this country, Black U.S. Americans, and so I just wanted to thank the mayor for joining in on that endeavor. Thank you very much, Council Member. There are 12 of us, 12 mayors, and I'm sure they're going to be a lot more. Council Member Middleton. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to you and good evening to friends and good evening all watching. I thank my sister, Council Member Caballero for her words, and I want to also add my prayers with yours, Charlie, for your family member, and I'm glad you're able to be there with them. Mr. Mayor, I want to just say happy Juneteenth to everyone that's celebrated. I want to echo the sentiments of my good colleague, Council Member Freeman, and thank her for the years she's brought, the indeed brought the resolution before us. I know that within our community there's some discussion as to whether or not the government should have even put its hands on Juneteenth. There are some that think it should have happened, there are some that think that it shouldn't have happened, but I just want to say that the brand of racism that's been practiced in the United States is so insidious and deep that I think a case could be made on either side. Racism is so crazy in America that I think a case can be made that either standing or kneeling for the national anthem are both subversive, subversive, depending on how you look at it. For some, somebody is going to be offended by it. The government making Juneteenth a holiday or not making Juneteenth a holiday, I think a case could be made really on either side, a compelling case. That's just how deep it is. So to all those celebrating happy Juneteenth, I was pleased to have an opportunity to attend some of the festivities on Saturday here in Durham, but I started my Juneteenth celebration visiting Memphis, Tennessee, Mr. Mayor, to carry the goodwill and best wishes to Chief Davis as she was installed as the new Chief Police, Chief of Police in Memphis, Memphis, a 202-year-old city. This is the first time that they have sworn in a woman as the Chief of Police, and I was pleased to be there. On our behalf, Mr. Mayor, I'm charged also to bring back to the greetings and best wishes from Mayor Strickland and our council colleagues there in Memphis to you and to all of the residents and citizens of Durham. They send their best wishes to us, and I said whatever as I left, but that's another story. I had opportunity to visit the mark as millions of pilgrims and allies have done before me to stand and reflect for a moment at the place where Martin Luther King was martyred, and I could not help but think about Durham as I stood there because on that day that Dr. King was killed, he was supposed to be in Durham, but alas it was not to be. So even standing in that sacred spot, a whole lot of emotions watched over me, but I found myself thinking about my city because Dr. King was impressed with Durham. Dr. King loved the culture, loved the intellectual vibe, loved Mickey Michaud, loved Central, loved walking down Main Street, loved White Rock Baptist Church. He loved Durham. There was something about Durham that drew him here. The food and the culture. Much is made about the legendary disagreement between WB Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, but one thing that they agreed upon was that Durham was a hot city. They both agreed that Durham was the place to be, particularly for Black folk. So as I started my junior team there thinking about all of these people from the outside who celebrate Durham and who have looked to Durham, I was reminded the incredible privilege and burden we have as leaders in this city at this moment, at this particular point in history, to make sure our city is worthy of how enamored people on the outside are of Durham for those that actually live here in the residence of Durham. So I kind of took a silent pledge to myself and I just want to, on this night as we're still, as the celebrations of June team are still echoing in our atmosphere here in Durham, just say that I hope, I know that we will be committed. We're going to pass a great budget tonight, but after that, that we would get busy and get down to the brass tacks of the work of making the Durham that so many people fell in love with from the outside, all of these luminaries who have traveled to Durham to celebrate us, to make that Durham just as rail for the most vulnerable, for the most impoverished, for the most in danger physically in our city as well. This is a privilege that we have, but it's also a burden. I know it's thankless, but I want to thank you for the work that you do and continue to do for your commitment. I know the extraordinary amount of money you make is part of the reason why you do this, but I just want to say for all of the other stuff that you have to put up with, I'm proud to be in the work. I recommit myself during this June team to making what Dr. King and what WB Du Bois and what Booker T. Washington saw about Durham as real for someone whose name will never be in the newspaper or no monuments or museums will be lifted on their behalf. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, friends. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you for representing us in Memphis. That's really awesome that you were there. All right. Other announcements? Okay. Thank you, colleagues. We'll now move on to priority items and I'll first ask if there are any priority items by the city manager. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Durham City Council. I do have several priority items for you this evening. Agenda item number nine, fiscal year 2021-2022 budget and 2022-2027 capital improvement plan, CIP attachments number one through 36 were added. Agenda item number 12, Commerce Street Apartments residential development revised and restated development loan commitment, Durham Housing Authority, DHA, downtown neighborhood plan pursuant to Council's request additional information has been provided in attachment number six. Agenda item number 17, development loan to Elizabeth Street Apartments LLC pursuant to Council's request additional information has been provided in attachment number five. Agenda item number 40, comprehensive plan, community goals and objectives adoption attachments number one and number eight were updated. Agenda item number 41, consolidated annexation, Bertha Gamble residence attachment number 11 was updated. Agenda item number 42, consolidated annexation, Lumley Road industrial attachment number 10 was updated. Agenda item number 43, consolidated annexation, 1051 Olive Branch Road attachment number 23 was added and attachment number 22 was updated. And finally, agenda item number 49, a resolution in support of the American jobs plan. Supplemental item was added. That is all I have this evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Thank you very much, Madam Manager. Madam Attorney, any priority items tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor, pretend members of the City Council. It's good to see you all. The City Attorney's Office does not have any priority items this evening. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Thank you. Madam Clerk, any items tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, pretend and City Council members, I have two items. I'd like to let you know that item 50, the resolution in support of Durham Public Schools Board of Education opposing House Bill 324 has been added to the agenda as a supplemental item. And item number seven, I'm requesting Council approve the recommended nominations of Kevin Griffin and Leslie Elaine Madison to the Workforce Development Board. But for the third vacancy, I'm requesting Council vote to refer the vacancy back to the Workforce Development Executive Committee for additional review. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Colleagues, the staff of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development has asked that we refer that third potential appointment back to Mr. Atkinson. You have heard the clerk's request that we vote to do so. And I'm going to ask for a motion that we refer that appointment back for to come back to us after the break. Second. We're back Councilmember Reece, seconded by Councilmember Freelon. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Proton Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I will die. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Thank you, colleagues. We will now move to the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of items that the Council has previously worked on and can be approved by a single vote of the Council. Items can be pulled from the consent agenda by a member of the Council or the member of the public, and if pulled will be heard at the end of the meeting. I will now read the consent agenda items. Item one, approval of City Council Minutes. Item two, audit services oversight committee appointment. Item three, Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board appointments. Item four, Durham Homeless Services Advisory Committee appointment. Item five, Durham Workers Rights Commission appointments. Item six, Marist Hispanic Latino Committee appointment. Item seven, Workforce Development Board appointments, and colleagues we have just voted to send one of these appointments back as you know. So we're voting on the other two. Item eight, American Rescue Plan ARPA of 2021 grant project ordinance. Item non-fiscal year 2021-22 budget and 22-27 capital improvement plan CRP. This was pulled by a member of the public. After the consent agenda we will hear from this person and then we will move to vote on that item. I don't want to hold the most important item of the year to the end of the meeting. Item 10, Recovery Renewal Task Force RRTF funding request for convention center complex. Item 11, Recovery Renewal Task Force RRTF funding request for rediscovered dorm proposal. Item 12, Commerce Street Apartment's Residential Development Revised and Restated Development Loan Commitment, Durham Housing Authority DHA Downtown Neighborhood Plan. I'm going to pull that item. Item 12? Yes. Okay. Item 13, Conditional Binding Commitment to Development Adventures, Inc. for the Commerce Street Seniors Development. Item 14, Contract with Durham County for the Provision of Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV, AIDS, COVID-19. Opal CV, Short Term Rent Mortgage, and Utility STRMU Assistance. Item 15, Contract with Matrix Health and Safety Consultants for Lead Hazard Control, Lead Inspection Risk Assessment, LERA, and Clearance Services. Item 16, Contract with the L Group and Inc. for Lead Hazard Control, Lead Inspection Risk Assessment, LERA, and Clearance Services. Item 17, Development Loan to the Elizabeth Street Apartment's LLC. Item 18. If I could just pull that one as well. 17. Item 18, Grant Contract with Legal Aid of North Carolina, LANC, to provide legal representation to City of Durham residents facing eviction. Item 19, Loan Agreement with Marine Road LLC for the Replacement of the Sanitary Lines at Marine Road Apartments. Item 20, Interlocal Agreement for Review, Approval, and Implementation of Transit Improvements. Item 21, North and South Durham Water. Sorry, 20 as well. Item 21, North and South Durham Water Reclamation Facilities Process Improvements, Amendment No. 8 to Professional Engineering Services Contract. Item 22, South Durham Water Reclamation Facility Process Improvements, Phase 2, Construction Award to TA Loving Company. Item 23, Bid Report, April 2021. Item 24, Letter of Credit, LOC, and Guarantee Agreement for Durham City Transit Company, DCTC Insurance, Large Deductible Program. Item 25, Resolution Approving the Sale of Not to Exceed, $263 Million, Water and Sewery Utility, Sister Revenue, Refunding Bond, Series 2021. Item 26, Resolution Authorizing the Virtual City Auction. Item 27, Hazardous Materials, Cost Recovery. Item 28, Design Build Services Contract with Skanska USA, Building Inc., for Major League Baseball Facility Standards Upgrades, at the Durham-Bills Athletic Park. Item 29, Professional Engineering Design Services Contract, Amendment with Kimberly Horne and Associated Inc., the R. Kelly Bryant Ridge Trail Project, EB-5720. Item 30, Professional Engineering Design Services Contract, Amendment with Kimberly Horne and Associates Inc. for the Third Fort Creek Phase II Trail Project, EB-5837. Item 31, Housing Code Text Amendment, due to NCGS Chapter 160D. Item 32, Unsafe Building Code Text Amendment, due to NCGS Chapter 160D. Item 33, Contract with Affinity Bridges Inc., to Provide Economic Development Consulting Services, Item 34, Contract for Pre-Employment, Polygraph Examination of Police Applicants. Item 35, Contract Amendment Number 10, for ST264-3, for Professional Services Related to Federal Right Improvements. Item 36, Subscription Services Agreement, Recollect Systems Inc., for Digital Waste Management, Software Solutions. Item 20, 37, Contract with E-Plus Technology Inc., for Network Managed Services. Item 38, Contract with Presidio Network Solutions, LLC, for Voiceover Internet Protocol, Telephone System Managed Services. Colleagues, you have heard the consent agenda, and with the exception of items 9, 12, 17, and 20, I'll accept a motion for their approval. So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Reece. Seconded by Council Member Freeland. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Shull. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freeland. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it, and the consent agenda has passed. We have an exceptionally, exceptionally long agenda tonight. We have seven public hearings. We have two items to follow that, actually three items, including the one I added by Council Member Reese. So I don't want to make people stay for all those items, our staff. So I'm going to go ahead and hear these other items. Now we'll begin with item nine. And Madam Clerk, could you please make Larry Hester available to be heard? Mr. Hester, you're welcome to be here, and we'll have to see you in three minutes. Mr. Mayor, there are four Larry Hesters. Well, why don't you make one of them available to be heard, and let's see how it goes. Mr. Hester, are you available to be heard? Can you unmute yourself, Mr. Hester? Or perhaps raise his hand. Mr. Hester, can you raise your virtual hand so that we know that you're here? All right. Can you see that person to unmute, Madam Clerk? All right, Mr. Hester, you are available to be heard. Could you please unmute yourself? There we go. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can, Mr. Hester. Welcome. You have three minutes. Okay. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Larry Hester, and I reside at 229 Shalomod Drive. At our last meeting of the Fable Street Planning Group, members expressed grave concern on the need for an effective public safety initiative to assist in the economic development of our corridor. This is why we came to speak tonight. In 2001, we presented a petition already on fire with the city to the Durham City Council with over 600 signatures requesting walking and bicycle patrols along the Fable Street corridor. We feel that crime, actual and perpetual and perceptual, and economic development cannot coexist in the same community. The petition reads in part, we, the undersigned business owners and residents of Durham, request that a 24-hour walking and bicycle patrol and undercover officer be established immediately for the greater Durham Southeast Business District. We further request that this patrol be a permanent assignment of officers to beat 411 of Police District 4. This request is based on beliefs that walking and bicycle patrols help to deter crime before it starts, promote a safe environment for all citizens and help form a healthy relationship between the police and residents, business owners in our community. This effort would embody the spirit of community policing, not to infringe on the rights of any individual but to protect the rights of all individuals in our area. It is my personal opinion that when services are reduced in an area, there are negative outcomes. Our fire department was relocated to the Research Triangle. Our police substation on Fable Street was relocated off Miami Boulevard. Our public safety officers who are assigned to do community policing were reassigned in 2019 and we met with the police department about this and I think I met with one of our council members about it. We've lost our South Side community to gentrification as the residents did not fully understand the full effect of redevelopment of their community in the manner in which it was done. This council has an opportunity to strengthen the Fable Street community by creating the safest environment for its residents, businesses, students, visitors to live, work, and enjoy. We hope that this budget can accommodate these requests and the council can make that happen. Our people do have some expectations. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Hester. We appreciate your being with us. Also tonight we have Mr. Donald Hughes. Madam Clerk, can you make Mr. Hughes available to be heard? Mr. Hughes, can you be heard? I'm here, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Welcome and you also have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I want to first start off by just taking a moment of personal privilege to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for attending our vaccination clinic that we held at Hillside High School a couple of weekends ago where we vaccinated about 366 community members, 96% of them historically marginalized population members, and 72% 12 to 17 years. I think it was an amazing collaborative effort that really speaks to the spirit of DUM. But tonight I'm here to talk about something that I talked about at previous meetings, funding for our DUM YouthWorks summer jobs program. As we honor Juneteenth and the spirit of freedom of our people, we must also be intentional about the economic liberation of our people. So what does this look like in DUM? This looks like investing in our youth, providing them with summer opportunities to work and gain skills that will put them on pathways to the middle class and really supporting the full development, the whole development of our community, again through doubling the amount that we're investing into the summer jobs program. I want to thank the manager and her staff for the development of the budget, as I'm sure it is a very difficult process to manage and to really gather the concerns and the ideas of the community until comprehensive document. But I do want to offer a suggestion. After the public cares that are held and the engagement sessions that are held, I was a person who attended North Carolina Central University, obtained a master's degree in public administration, have worked in city government for nearly a decade. I wasn't able to identify a document that showed what changes, if any, occurred after those engagement sessions were held. So what I would suggest to you all as a council is that future budget sessions are development of future budgets. If you all would allow city staff to create a document that shows any changes that are made based on community's response to the proposed budget, I think that's something that is imperative. If you have these sessions and you ask for feedback from the community members, and it's not just a performative type of action, then we should be able to see some changes from the time that those engagement events are held and the final budget is voted on. So that's just a suggestion from a community member that's looking to really have a transparent process and so that way we can keep our folks engaged and feel like they have a real say in what our budget looks like. So thank you again, members of the council, Mr. Mayor, for the time. And I encourage you to vote to double the DUM Youth Work Program so that we can serve about 1,000 young people in this community. Thank you very much, Mr. Hughes. We appreciate you being with us. All right, colleagues, this item is the adoption of the fiscal year 2021-22 budget and 22-27 Capital Improvement Plan, CIP, and I'll now accept the motion for its approval. So moved. Second. Thank you very much. Move by Council Member Reece, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl, aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, aye. Council Member Caballero, aye. Council Member Freelon, aye. Council Member Freeman, aye. Council Member Middleton, aye. Council Member Reece, aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. I see that it says in the chat from Mr. Hester, the Denise Hester signed up to speak on item nine. I did not see Ms. Hester having signed up to speak on item nine, but Ms. Hester, we're glad to hear you. Madam Clerk, can you make Denise Hester available to be heard? I don't see Denise Hester anywhere in the chat. Mr. Mayor, I believe she's one of the Larry Hesters that have contacted the meeting. Ms. Hester, can you please raise your virtual hand so we can know which one of the four Larry Hesters we should unmute? Okay, I see. Ms. Hester, are you available to be heard? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. We're glad to have you. You also have three minutes. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Denise Hester at 229 Shalemar Drive and I'm a member of the Fayetteville Street Planning Group. For over 150 years, African-Americans helped make Durham an economic powerhouse as entrepreneurs, workers, and citizens. And our ancestors endured slavery, Jim Crow segregation, urban renewal, eminent domain, and now gentrification, but without losing hope of sharing in our city's prosperity. But it appears that our city's funding priorities do not include key elements that could lead to an upward spiral for Fayetteville Street, such as enhanced public safety and public infrastructure improvements. The Fayetteville Street Planning Group members have worked for over 20 years for community policing and public improvements to our corridor that would benefit the entire community, not just one location. In 2005, over 200 community members created a community plan for the future development of the Fayetteville Street plan and its surrounding neighborhoods. That plan was never acted on and is probably gathering dust someplace at City Hall. I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine how Fayetteville Street would look with new wide sidewalks, brick crosswalks, landscape road medians, historic street lights, buried utilities, new bus shelters, street trees, pocket parks, historic banners, and signage. Imagine regular bicycle and walking patrols through our corridor acting as a deterrent to crime. Just imagine. It is unfortunate that downtown and other corridors receive streetscape improvements but the Fayetteville Street corridor group who initiated the streetscape plan has not. It is also unfortunate that so much of Durham's African American history lives on Fayetteville Street. Landmarks, residents, businesses, institutions, neighborhoods, local historic district, national historic district, I could go on and on, yet our community has garnered so little of our city's public resources to help it rebuild. This budget and this CIP could have been an opportunity for this council and we hope that will change in the future to help restore Fayetteville Street to the prominence it deserves by adopting the Fayetteville Street neighborhood master plan and by funding streetscape improvements for our corridor. Thank you so much. Ms. Hester, thank you very much for being with us tonight. We very much appreciate it. All right, colleagues. We'll now move to item 12, which was pulled by Council Member Freeman. Council Member. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I honestly wanted to say something on the previous item before we started voting, but I couldn't get my mute to unmute. But I just want to note that I do agree fully with the comments that Mr. Hester and Ms. Hester made and I think that the Fayetteville Street corridor is underserved in a way that's kind of disrespectful to the history of what's occurred in that area. And so I would like to figure out how we can address it in a way that meets the values of our city. In addition to that, I also have been stressing that it would be beneficial to us as a city to double our number of youth works students and youth who are involved with those opportunities. And so I appreciate Mr. Hughes being here this evening and repeating that comment. For item number 12, I just wanted to make sure that we got a very good, clear understanding. I had some questions over the weekend. And I just wanted to just note for folks that I do realize that we're moving from the 9% the 9% loan to the 4% loan and that changed the costs that would be there. But I do note that in the document, there is a 30 and 60% and there's no notation on how many. And so I just wanted to make sure we were able to explain the prioritization and how it would work so that folks didn't have questions. I believe we'll be hearing from Mr. Johnson. Yes, greetings, Mayor. Reginald Johnson, Director of the Department of Community Development. I do have Mr. Anthony Scott who is on the call. He would need to be upgraded. I think might be able to answer that question. Quite frankly, I'm not sure about the question. So Council Member, if you could repeat the question you asked, I think you're asking what is the change in the number of units for 30% and 60% AMI? But I'm not sure. So just noting, and I'll pull up the page. So on page three in section two, where you're talking about comma street seniors and I think again on page two, you're talking about comma street apartments, the 84 units of mixed income development and the proposed 88 units of mixed income development. There's no indication of the number. And I just wanted to note that that I assume based on what I'm reading that it's due to the cost. But I just want to make sure that the prioritization that would be in place and making sure that 30% was at a certain number and 60% would be at a certain number is still in place. And that didn't change because of the nine to 4% change. So I'm going to have to defer to Mr. Scott, but there is a specific number for the number of units. Mr. Scott, thank you so much. Good evening, Council members. Mr. Mayor, Pro Tem. And if I think I understand your question, Commissioner Freeman, are you asking has the number of units at certain income ranges changed? Exactly. Okay. No, that hasn't changed that remains the same. And just a little bit more clarity. It's we switched from a 9% tax credit application to a 4% tax credit application. The 9% is competitive. The 4% is non competitive. And that was a change made because there were some changes in the legislation around the 4% credits that made them essentially more valuable. And then in dealing with the increased costs that we've all heard about, it made more sense to even though these are two separate two separate developments, they're going to actually go in as kind of one deal. So you actually get to save money by doing it that way. It's those two things that drove the decision to switch from a 9% competitive application to a 4% which is a non competitive application. So it comes out better for the overall development because you can do more units. 9% has in North Carolina, the 9% credits really kind of puts a cap on the number of units that you can actually apply for with 4% there is no cap. And so by combining the two you actually save costs in a variety of ways. Thank you. That was all. Welcome. Thank you, Carol. So Linda. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Colleagues, we're now I'll accept a motion to approve the Commerce Street Apartment residential development item 12. So moved. So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Freeman. Seconded by Council Member Reese. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schull. Ah. Mayor Proten Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll now move to item 17. This was also pulled by Council Member Freeman. And just a clarifying point on where the dollars are coming from for the loan. Mr. Jellison, we can't hear you. I'm sorry. So the dollars are coming. These are dollars that are from the Affordable Housing Bond. And so that means that there are dollars coming from the Affordable Housing Bond and this current year is what also wants to make sure that we note. So the way I respond to that, that's what the source is of the funding. The actual dollars won't be actually being going out until the next fiscal year, of course. But it's so in terms of cash and what actually is going to happen is that the finance department is going to use other dollars before we actually use bond dollars and go to the market. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. All right, colleagues are now except a motion to approve Item 17. And moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Reese. Seconded by, can I have a second? Second. Seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. We'll now move to Item 20. This item was also moved by Council Member Freeman. And this is in a local agreement for review, approval, implementation of transit improvements. And I see Mr. Egan is with us. Go ahead, Council Member. Thank you. I just wanted to hear about how the prioritization plan was going to shift or change, acknowledging that there was a conversation around Route 9 bus stops and what have you, not being included in the plan. And I just want to make sure that they are included as a priority and that there is a plan to address upcoming priorities that might come up as we find them. So this is Sean Egan, Director of Transportation for the City of Durham. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, Pretendent Members of the Council. So we have had very good discussions with Go-Tran-Ingo about ensuring that Braggtown bus stops locations are included in design and construction plans. Moving forward, I was able to participate in a bus tour of Braggtown on June 12th and we saw a number of the locations that would benefit from these improvements. And we have gotten very favorable responses from our colleagues at Go-Tran-Ingo to make sure that locations in that community will be prioritized going forward. Thank you. I appreciate that. And just noting, I think that there was some concern around whether or not that would happen. And so I just want to appreciate you saying that this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Egan. All right, colleagues, we'll now vote on Item 20. I'll accept a motion for its approval. So moved. Back in. Moved by Council Member Ruiz. Seconded by Council Member Caballero that we approve Item 20. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuhl. Aye. Mayor Prudence Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Ruiz. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. All right, colleagues, we'll now move to our public hearing items. The first item is Item 40, Comprehensive Planned Community Goals and Objective Adoption. And I see Mr. Whiteman is with us. Welcome, Mr. Whiteman. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Schuhl and City Council. This item is the Community Goals and Objectives to which the City Council held a public hearing on June 15th. This includes the changes that were presented to that public hearing to include revisions to address biodiversity as requested by the Audubon Society. There were no other changes made since the June 15th meeting. Staff recommends approval. We'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Whiteman. Colleagues, as you know, we've had the public hearing on this item jointly with our County Commission colleagues. And I'll first ask, I don't believe we need to open another public hearing, do we, Mr. Whiteman? You do not, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Colleagues, what we would need here is to adopt a resolution on the Community Goals and Objectives for the Derm Comprehensive Plan. Can I have a motion to that effect? So moved. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, before we make the motion, I just wanted to make sure that we circle back around acknowledging there were some conversations around the motion. We'll have some discussion in a minute. But first, can I have a motion to adopt the resolution? So moved. Second. Moved. Moved by Mayor Matt Pro Tem Johnson, seconded by Council Member Freeman. Discussion. Council Member Freeman. Just circling back around to the engagement blueprint and how this process worked, I just wanted to make sure that there was also a process to make sure that the changes and adjustments that were made, similar to how Mr. Hughes mentioned earlier, were also circulated back to the folks who were involved in the process, noting that there may have been some shifts and changes. It's not that there couldn't be, but just knowing that there were, that there was some way for folks to be, to not get blindsided by the changes. All right. Thank you, Council Member. Mr. Whiteman. So Council Member Freeman, we did, because of the short turnaround, we did not have time to review this with our average team and some of the other mechanisms we've had to review changes in the past. We will make sure we do that. We feel based on all of the discussions of participation we've had, that the changes that were made are minor and do not really change the, don't change anything fundamental about the objectives from what we talked about with the community. But we'll make sure that the folks who have participated are aware of what was changed. And thank you. I think specifically there was one request from INC, the Interneable Council, around the feedback that they offered, which was quite substantial and just making sure that they get feedback on why the changes weren't incorporated. I'm sorry. I think I've misunderstood your question. So we do, we didn't have time to review the changes from Tuesday with the community, but we tried to be as transparent as possible about what changes were made and which ones were not and what the reasons were. And if there is still confusion about that, we'd be happy to do that. Even more in the future. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, Mr. Whiteman. Any further discussion? All right. Colleagues, we have a motion on the floor to adopt a resolution on the community goals and objectives for the Durham Comprehensive Plan. And we have this resolution in our agenda. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Mr. Member Caballero. Aye. Mr. Member Freelon. Aye. Mr. Member Freeman. Aye. Mr. Member Middleton. How about that? Mr. Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, the ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. All right. We now move on to Item 41. Considered annexation, birth of Gamble residents. And first, we will hear the report from staff. Good evening, Mayor Schultz. Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, Honorable Council members. Alexander Cale here with the Planning Department. I'm happy to be here with you tonight. I do want to note that all affidavits of notices are on record in the Planning Department and are available upon request. Request for a utility extension agreement of voluntary annexation and an initial zoning map change has been received from a private landowner, birth of Gamble for one personal land totaling around 16 and a half acres located around 1518 Hamlin Road. This annexation petition is for a non-contiguous expansion of the existing satellite corporate limits. The landowner is in the process of constructing a single family residence and is seeking annexation into the city for the purpose of connecting to the city's water system. A septic system was previously installed and permitted on the site that currently meets county septic requirements. The resident is seeking connection to the city's water utility either through annexation or solely through utility extension agreement with annexation. As the case before you is relatively unique, we do want to take a quick minute to walk you through how we got to the two sets of motions that you have at hand. When an annexation petition is received, planning works with Budget Management Services who works diligently to put together fiscal impact analysis with data provided from reviewer departments. That fiscal impact analysis determines whether an annexation petition is revenue negative or revenue positive at build out. This analysis determines whether it's sorry excuse me negative or positive at build out. In the cases where this impact analysis determines that it would be negative such as this case, the council and its sole discretion can excuse the annexation requirement to connect to city utilities. This discretion is granted to the council by city code section 70-129. This cost benefit analysis performed Budget Management Services did come back as revenue negative. And additionally, a one single family residence on a large geographic swath of land that's located on the furthest side of a previously annexed satellite area does create potential issues for the provision of public safety to the site as the site is on the edge of certification standards. Because of these and we have offered two sets of motions tonight for you to consider. The first set is for you to adopt the ordinance annexing Bertha Gamble into the city of Durham and authorize the city manager to enter into utility extension agreement with Bertha Gamble and of course to adopt the zoning ordinance. Staff has also provided a second motion this evening which you found in your staff report that allows you to excuse the annexation requirement and approve the utility extension agreement. This alternative motion would authorize the council to approve this utility extension without annexing Bertha Gamble into the city limits as council finds that the development of the property proposed for annexation is found to be revenue negative based on a fiscal impact analysis. Staff is recommending that the city council approves the second set of motions the alternative motions and just approves the utility extension agreement. Thank you for your time this evening. We know it's a complicated case. Staff and the applicant team are here for any questions. Mr. Kulture, did you make the usual statements about the hearings this evening being advertised in the required ways? But I'm missing that. Okay, sorry. Oh, no worries. All right. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. And first I'm going to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Cahill, good evening. Thank you for your presentation. You actually, you did a really great job explaining kind of a weird situation. When in the process of designing and building this home did this property owner apply for annexation? That is a great question. I believe they are able to answer that tonight. But for planning's perspective, we found out I think it was three or four months into the process. Three or four months ago, you said? Three or four months into the construction of the home. Okay. Alrighty, I'll have some more questions for the applicant. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. Thank you, Council Member. And thank you, Mr. Cahill. I realize I called you Mr. Caltrow a minute ago. Apologies. Not that there's anything to the matter with being called Mr. Caltrow, just that I mixed you up. All right. Other questions for staff at this time? I do have one, Mr. Cahill. Who will pay for the extension of the water line? I know that I was looking at the map that the water line goes right by this property, but the hookup and that sort of thing. If we don't annex, is there cost to the city? No, so the extension agreement is written for the cost to fall on the landowner to construct that extension. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions for staff at this time? All right. If not, I see that one person has signed up to speak on this item, Glen White. Madam Clerk, can you make Mr. White available to be heard? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Mr. White, welcome. Mr. White, we'd welcome any comments that you might have, but also you heard the question from Councilmember Reese, and so perhaps you could try to answer that as well. Absolutely. We started the process back in October. When we started to build a home about a year and a half ago, we did everything in our power to find well water on site. We did multiple well attempts, even had a dowser come out, if you can believe in that. Did multiple well permits, and just didn't have your luck. We even tried to tank potable water, and that was declined by the county of Durham to be able to do that. I just want to mention that this is a sizeable property. It does, but right up against the current city jurisdiction. I think it's worth noting that certainly I would hope that the council could weigh that Mr. and Mrs. Gamble Harris are lifelong residents. Excuse me, they have a successful business within the city of Durham, and they're not developers. They're just doing what they can to put that home on that property and function within. We did have the desire, or they did have the desire back about a year and a half ago to go down this annexation process. It's great to see the face with the name here, because Mr. Cahill and Mr. Coulter both have been very helpful in this process, but nonetheless it has been an eight month, very complicated, very expensive process. Mr. and Mrs. Gamble Harris have provided everything that has been asked of them. We have currently are paying the connection tap-on fees. We've paid for every bit of the annexation permits. All that has been done and completed. My hope is just that the council will put a certain weight on the history of the gambles and their longevity of being there and living within Durham their whole life and successful tax-based business owners within the city of Durham. My hope is just that that gets weighed accordingly. Thank you. Mr. White, thank you. Council Member Weiss, do you have a further question for Mr. White? Yeah, I guess I just don't really understand why y'all started to build this house out there without having access to water. I mean, did you start building it just figured you'd find water somewhere? I'm not upset with the gambles. I'm more upset with whoever convinced them they could build a house there and find water without us bailing y'all out. Well, it's not a matter of finding water. It's not exact science. Any well-drilled will tell you that you could hit water here or move three feet and not hit water there. All of the surrounding properties have managed to hit water. It's not been great in that type of soils, but nonetheless, they've been successful. And it is the fact that one of the problems we had was we did all this during COVID. So it literally took us five months to get the permit process, get the well companies out there. So we were well underway before we even got the first attempt. And that was not because of anyone dropping the ball or counting on someone else that we did everything we could to make this happen. It really took that long to go through. Because I mean, German just had had the problem with being the website hat, with not being able to go down and pull permits like we usually do. So there was a lengthy process just to get that point. That helps me understand a little bit more. Thank you, sir. And thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't have any more questions, but I'll have some comments. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions or comments at this point? Colleagues, any questions for the applicant or for staff? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Mr. White. If the Council were to extend the connection of water without the annexation, would your clients consider that an undue burden? I think that would be acceptable to them. It wouldn't be preferred, obviously, because we have gone through a lot of effort to be annexed. But I will say I'm very thankful that Public Works is the thing is willing to step up and allow that water extension agreement. Because we already did install the septic system as well. So other than paying extra fees for the water rates, obviously paying the tap-on fees, they've already had exceed 11 grand and just cost at this point. So they are burdened to a certain degree, but they wouldn't have been anyway. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll yield back now. I might have questions later on, but I'll reserve now and yield back. Thank you, Mr. White. Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions or comments? Colleagues, Mayor Proto. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is probably a staff question. If we were to deny the utility extension as well as the annexation, what would happen? The house can't be built. It can't get a certificate of occupancy. Is there any other solution for these landowners, or is this it? So my understanding is that they will not be able to get a certificate of occupancy, occupy the house. There's really no other mechanism for them to obtain water service. The current soil situation doesn't support any other way, any other well service. So really, this is kind of their last resort, if the Council chose not to approve either option. Thank you. Any other questions, colleagues? Council Member Freeman. Thank you. Just acknowledging, I want to note the location of this area, and I just wanted to hear from staff if they felt like there would be an additional justification pressure because I'm recognizing this is around Braggtown, if this were annexed. That is a really great question that we don't necessarily have the, you know, tools to analyze at this point, but I know it's been in discussions about ways to approach gentrification. How do we analyze that? How do we, you know, mitigate some of those potential pressures that was looked at, but we didn't have much of a way to analyze that for this particular site. Some of the dialogue that did come up was if this is not annexed at this time, you know, and development does increase around this site. Does it create a donut hole in the future? So that's a potential, that is a potential thing that come up in the future. But at the same time, we can't predict that either. So I think that's a great question, at least to some of the work that we continue to try to figure out how to approach. But at this time, I don't have a good answer on what that potential gentrification or displacement could be. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. Thank you, Council Member. Any further questions, colleagues? All right. If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed. And I am happy to hear any discussion we might have on this. And then I'll accept a motion. Council Member Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, I want to appreciate our staff for helping me understand a little bit better, very unusual situation. And I appreciate Mr. White helping me understand the impact of COVID on efforts to kind of have the construction arm of this project and the water arm of this project kind of hit the same timeline at completion and how COVID made that hard. And also, I think going into this, I didn't really understand the uncertainty about finding water, I guess intellectually without any experience at all in the water finding business or house building business, it seems like you would want to know if a property could get water before building a house there, just common sense. But obviously, Mr. White, you know your business better than I do. And this is, we have ended up here. I don't see any reason to annex this property into the city. It's a very nice house, by the way. I drove out there as I want to do. A very, very nice house. And I think if we can get water out to it, the folks will be very happy there. If we can't, they'll be really unhappy. And they're going to pay quite a bit for the increased water fees, as I understand it. They get, maybe staff can help us understand what that rate is. It was probably in the memo and I missed it. But there's no, it doesn't seem to me to be any reason not to extend water to this house. There are lots of reasons not to annex it. The net negative revenue impact is one, the fact that I already don't like satellite annexations and this just makes one bigger. And, you know, probably some others I can't think of. So when the time comes, I'll be happy to make a motion for the utility extension alone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Any other comments, colleagues? Council Member Middleton and then Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to associate myself with Council Member Reese's comments. I find the staff's council compelling. I mean, as if I do share the city, I think, you know, we've got to make decisions that are, it's one house, it's one family. I am familiar with the Gamble's family's impact in Durham. So I'm going to put that out there. But that aside, I've said time and time again, when it comes to food and water, I tend to want to extend it rather than withhold it as much as possible. So I'm inclined also to not support the annexation for I think the compelling reasons that the staff has laid out, but I certainly would be in support of extending the utility extension of water to the home. So I intend to support that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also feel that a utility extension agreement rather than an annexation makes sense in this circumstance. I'm wondering if the applicant would be willing to offer a donation to the City's Affordable Housing Fund just as there's a potential concern about growing home prices in the area and given that this is a voluntary action on the part of the city that they need to continue with their home, I thought it might be reasonable for them to make a donation to the Affordable Housing Fund. I'm wondering if they feel comfortable doing that. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Pro Tem will ask Mr. White as their representative. Mr. White, are you with us? Can you all hear me? Yes, we can, Ms. Gamble. This is Ms. Gamble and Mr. Harris. I guess we understand what you're saying. We want to say thank you for just hearing our case. We've been listening and yes, we would be willing to make a donation. I'm not sure what kind of donation and I guess we don't understand. But I am, like we said, a long resident here. I've been here all my life. A matter of fact, my father was for 33 years working for the City of Durham. Of course, my brother's been an attorney downtown for more than 33 years. He was there for a very long time. My husband has been at Duke Hospital for over 33 years. It's very hard. We did not expect to build a home and not be able to have water. It has been very costly. It's been very costly in every way. I had no insight on what to do to build a home or how to build a home. So our contractor was responsible for everything. We just want to say thank you for any help that you would be able to give us. And of course, we would be willing to donate money or, like I said, we just don't know what you're saying as far as donation. But anyway, we could help. We would be willing to help. And again, we want to say thank you to all of you for just listening to us and to considering even helping us in any way that you can. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gamble. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And our planning staff can help get you the information on how to make the donation. And we appreciate your help. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I believe Councilman Freeman is up next. Yes, thank you. I wanted to just make sure I knew exactly what the plan was around sewer. Acknowledging that the water is one side, but the other side of this conversation, if there's just a utility extension for water and there's no annexation, I just want to make sure that the sewer line is also included in that. That's a great question. Council Member Freeman, thank you for bringing it up. The sewer is already permitted through the county. So that's the reason that's not part of the utility extension agreement. I believe that it is already up and running and working. And if there's sewer already in the area, and I'll just share my concern is that this whole section of the city or the county at this point, with the number of subdivisions that are there, will eventually become city. And then this donut hole of this one house will be sitting there. And what will be the impetus to bring it back forward to annexation or to create the annexation against? Can you reframe that question for me, please? So if we don't include it in the annexation today, what would bring it back before us? It would have to be so annexations are voluntary petitions. So it'd have to be a voluntary petition in the future by whatever landowner that is. Unless, of course, there's some sort of legislative cleanup of donut holes, like has been done rarely in the past. Okay, thank you. And I just want to clarify it was, I said sewer, I meant septic. It's on septic. Okay. All right, other questions or comments? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank my colleague, I'm Member Tim Johnson for the inquiries about the affordable housing fund. I do want to telegraph that moving forward that at least for me, I make a qualitative between developers and private residents seeking to build a home. I have no, I mean, no position to speak to the wealth or lack thereof, this particular family. But I do draw a qualitative distinction between developers putting multiple townhomes or single family residences for the purposes of making money, as opposed to residences. And I'm thankful for the question. I'm thankful for the families' willingness to do that, but I just want to telegraph that moving forward that for me, there's a distinction, I think, to be made. And I'll govern myself accordingly. I remember, I can recall, as doing individual things, be it street closings, and I think there was a case a couple of years ago where I don't think a person may have been building affordable housing. It may be different, but I just make a distinction between private residents petitioning us and big developers, building large development. So I just want to put that on the record moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam Member Tim. Thank you, Council Member. All right, colleagues. I'll accept an emotion. I would, from Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll move an alternate motion. Alternative motion or authorize the city manager's into an utility extension agreement with both a gamble, pursuant to Durham Code S70-1219 per in nine, as included in the agenda. Second. Move by Council Member Reese. Seconded by Council Member Milton. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Do so. Mayor Fruton Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? I vote aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. We wish you the best of luck. Ms. Gamble, Mr. White, thank you all for being here with us. And you will have water, which is great. And we hope that you enjoy your new home. All right. Colleagues, we'll move to Item 42, Consolidated Annexation, Lumley Road, Industrial. Hey, good evening again, Mayor Schulman and Mayor Fruton Johnson, Honorable Council Members. Alexander Cahill here with the Planning Department again. Get to spend the night with you. A request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation, and initial city zoning has been received from HNS Venture Group. For two parcels of land totaling around seven and a half acres, located at 5605 and 5513 Lumley Road. This annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the existing satellite corporate limits. The proposed seven and a half acre assembled lots have two existing single-family homes on the site. Both of these single-family dwelling units will be removed to allow for the construction of an industrial facility. The applicant has proposed a future 75,000 square foot industrial manufacturing facility with supporting surface parking and loading docks, should the annexation be approved tonight. There is a concurrent Level 4 site plan being administratively reviewed in the Planning Department. This annexation does not have a concurrent zoning map change request tied to it. Instead, this is a request for a direct translation in which the existing zoning in the county translate to the same zoning in the city upon the effective date of the annexation. This site is presently zoned industrial light, and this zoning would stay industrial light in the Sydney zoning as well. Staff is recommending that the city council approve the utility extension agreement this evening, the voluntary annexation petition for the proposed consolidated annexation. Staff is recommending this approval based on some key findings, including the minimal impacts to city services, the revenue positive result of the cost benefit analysis, the contiguous and geographic nature of the annexation itself, and the quality industrial development this annexation will bring to the city as we hear time and time again, we need more industrial sites. As a reminder, two motions are required for this application tonight. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into your utility extension agreement. And the second is to approve the translational zoning ordinance. Thank you very much for your time this evening. Staff and the applicant team are available for any questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Cahill. Colleagues, you've heard the report from staff. I'm now declaring this public hearing open. And first, I'm going to ask if there are any comments or questions, questions rather for members of our staff. Kassler Burrice. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Cahill, thank you for the presentation of this item. Does the department, is the department aware of whether or not those two homes are currently occupied? I am not, I am not familiar with that. I'm hoping the applicant can answer that. I'm sure they will. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. That's all I have for staff, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember. Colleagues, any other questions for staff before we hear from members of the public? All right. Thank you. We have signed up to speak on this item. David Bergmark, Wyatt Bone, and Justin Parker. All of these members of the public are listed as proponent of this item. And so I'm going to ask, first of all, Madam Clerk, if you could make Mr. Bergmark available to be heard. Mr. Bergmark, can you be heard? This is great. This is great, Harold, with McAdams, the civil engineer on the project. Mr. Bergmark had a conflict with another meeting, so I'm filling in for him. Okay. Are all the other members here, the three people I listed, are you all members of the development team, Mr. Harold? Yes, that's correct. All right. Are you planning to make a presentation tonight? We did not have a presentation prepared, but we'll be glad to field any questions. All right. Thank you. So you've had your first question, and I'll ask Mr. Wieseth to restate that question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to know if there's anybody living in those houses right now. I do not believe so. I think Mr. Wyatt Bone is on the, he's actually the development side. I believe he might be able to answer that, but to my knowledge, there's not anybody currently living here. Mr. Bone? Hi there. This is Wyatt Bone with Alnire. One of the homes is uninhabited. It's somewhat defunct, been run down for quite some time. The other one is inhabited presently, but the inhabitant knows that this will be coming to an end here as we close on this project. Is that person a tenant? Yes, it is a tenant. And what's going to happen then if we agree to this annexation? I can't say for sure what would happen to them. I imagine they will probably find another place where they'll be living. I've not discussed this with them personally. Okay, Mr. Ease, if I may jump in, this is Justin Parker also with the development team. My colleague Mr. Bone is correct that one of the houses is not occupied. Actually, both houses are not occupied. There was a tenant in one of the homes, but he has moved out already. Okay. And that was information we got from the landowner as of last week. Okay. Thank you. That was my question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Colleagues, are there questions for members of the development team? This is a public hearing item, and I'll ask if there's anyone present, anyone else present who would like to be heard on this item? So, anyone else present who would like to be heard on item 42? I'm looking down the list here. I don't see anyone. All right. And now I'm going to declare this public hearing closed, and the matter is now back before the Council. We would need to adopt two motions. The first would be the motion to adopt an ordinance annexing Lumley Road into the City of Durham. Mr. Mayor, I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, Council Member. Is there a second? I'll second it. Made by Council Member Reece, seconded by Council Member Middleton. Mr. Reece, did you have any comments you want to make? I did just briefly, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I want to thank staff again for presenting the item and for the applicant for being present to answer my pointed and annoying questions. I just wanted to say that I'm really glad for y'all that no one's living there right now because that would have been real hard for me, especially the way the second guy answered the question. But now I understand that the other, that the tenant has moved already, which is great news because we're not going to be evicting someone by our vote tonight. That would have sucked. That's a legal term for it, by the way. What I wanted to say about the use, you know, two things. First of all, I absolutely hate taking a vote that will move housing from our housing stock. The last time we did this was for NC Central University. There were a number of houses there that because of action we took, those houses are now demolished or in the process of being demolished to build something very nice and good for the university that will help our community. But they took houses out of our housing stock. The same is true here. But two things make it a little bit easier. One, yes, one of those houses was definitely broke down and not habitable. And two, this land is not currently in the city. And so my concerns are somewhat elated by those two factors. The other thing I'll say is that a lot of the nearby property is industrial already. And so that makes me feel a little bit better about this particular annexation. And so that's why I'm supporting it tonight. I appreciate your patience since I got all that out, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Other colleagues? All right, Council Member Freeman? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think Council Member Reese's comments fit quite well and it just kind of makes me want to ask or just note that I'm hoping that the tenant was actually moved with support. And so I'm going to hope that they're still in Durham and that they weren't moved because of this project without support. So thank you. That was all. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Any other comments? All right, colleagues, we have a motion on the floor to adopt an ordinance annexing London right into the city of Durham, effective June 30th, 2021. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I will die. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. We'll now need a second motion to adopt an ordinance admitting the UDO. So moved. Thank you. Moved by Council Member Reese. Seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I will die. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you for being here with us and we look forward to the development of this property in a way that will make us all proud. Thank you. Colleagues, the next item, item 33, three, Consolidate and Annexation 1051 Aller Branch Road. And then there are four more, there are three more. So we have four more public hearing items but the next one, let's just say I anticipate we'll take some discussion. Therefore, I'm going to ask that we go ahead and break now for our closed caption folks to get a little rest. We will be back in five minutes. It's now 851. We will be back to begin our business on this item at 856. Please make sure that you've muted your microphone. Thank you. Colleagues, it is now 856 and we're going to move on to our next item. This item is item 43, Consolidate and Annexation 1051 Aller Branch Road. And we will first hear the report from staff. And this time I do see Mr. Kulture. Welcome, Mr. Kulture. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Shull, Madam Mayor Pro-Tim Johnson and Honorable City Council members. Danny Kulture here. Representing the Planning Department for this item. This is a request for a voluntary annexation until the extension agreement and future land use map change and zoning map change, which was received from Tim Cybers of Horvath Associates for 79.478 acres located at 1051 Aller Branch Road. The site is presently zoned Residential Rule RR and falls Jordan Lake Watershed Protection Overlay District or FJB and is located within the suburban development tier. The applicant is proposing to rezone the property to plan Development Residential 3.700, excuse me, or PDR 3.700 for up to 284 single family and townhouse residential dwelling units. The property is currently designated very low density residential and recreation and open space on the future land use map. Pro's PDR 3.700 zoning is inconsistent with the designated future land use. But if the proposed zoning was approved, the flow would be re-designated to low-density residential to ensure consistency with the zoning. This change does not require separate motion would take effect and currently with the zoning map change ordinance, all of the reference approvals would become effective as of June 30th, 2021. The planning commission by a vote of one to 11 at their April 13th, 2021 meeting recommended denial of this request. There are three motions required for the application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing 1051 olive branch into the city of Durham and enter into a utility extension agreement with Polti Home Company LLC. The second is to adopt an ordinance for the rezoning and amend the future land use map. And the third is to adopt a consistency statement. Thank you very much. Staff and the applicant team would be available for any questions. Mr. Kulture, thank you very much. Colleagues, you've now heard the report from staff and I'm going to declare this public hearing open. And first I'm going to ask are there any questions for staff by members of the council? All right, I'll now move to members of the public. We have five people who have signed up to speak on this item. And all of these members of the public are so let's see six members of the public. Five of them are proponents. One of them is an opponent. And I'd like to hear I believe that Ms. Matthews is here. Madam clerk, could you make the dirge of Matthews available to be heard? Good evening, ma'am. Sure. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Ms. Matthews, I have listed here Jamie Schwaedler, yourself, Tim Sivers, Jamie Davis and Rob Rudloff as all proponents. Are they all and Valhalla and Juan also as members of are these all members of your development team? Yes, that's correct. Are you planning to make a presentation? Are each of these folks wanting to speak? How are you planning to do this on? Thank you, ma'am. I'll be making a presentation and I said it'd be pulled up at this time. Everyone else on our team will just be available for questions at the end of the presentation. All right, then. We'll begin with the proponents. Thank you very much. We're glad you're here, Ms. Matthews. Thank you for having me. Good evening, ma'am. Sure. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson and members of City Council. I am with you, Joe Matthews with Parker Poe, Office Address 620 South Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, along with my colleague, Jenny Schweitler, in our Raleigh office at 301 Fayetteville Street here on behalf of the applicant. Tim Syvers, Jim Davis from Polti Homes, and Baohao Wang, our traffic engineer here to answer questions. You'll notice that this presentation is similar to the one that was before you last October for 1101 Olive Branch and that's by design. While there are two separate requests, the development team intends to coordinate the developments in a way that will be efficient and minimize impacts to the area, which I think will become apparent to you throughout the presentation. I will reserve a few minutes at the end of the presentation for Tim Syvers to discuss the correlation between the previously approved development and the one before you today. Next slide, please. The request is half the size of 1101 Olive Branch Road at about 80 acres. It actually contributes to the housing stock at a density consistent with surrounding development and in a manner appropriate for land use and infrastructure in the Searles Basin. The map is of the Eastern area and Searles Basin area. The site is shown in green on the screen and is surrounded by approved or under review site plans in purple, approved rezonings in a pinkish-orange color, and is close to several other proposed rezonings shown in yellow. And again, 1101 Olive Branch is at Jason and to the right of the subject parcel. The infrastructure lines on this screen note areas of utility extension planned to be funded by the city in red and then other utility extensions in orange anticipated to be funded by developers in connection with the development. Those extensions are needed to pay for the Searles investment. Next slide, please. The request involves a slight change to the future land use map from very low-density residential to low-density residential with existing recreation and open space designation to remain. This change is consistent with designations to our west and east and provides for contiguous patterns of development. And again, you can see the recreation and open space which is located to the upper northeast corner of the parcel shown in green on both pictures. Next slide, please. The zoning change from rural residential shown in yellow to planned density residential 3.7 shown on your screen in blue is also consistent with developments approved to our east and west. Annexation on this parcel will complete the development pattern in regards to surrounding approved developments which have already been annexed into the city. Next slide, please. Our rezoning includes a development plan which lays out the existing stream buffers to be preserved shown in gray. Opportunities for tree save shown in asterisks points of sight access with arrows and the proposed building and parking envelopes shown in yellow. As you can see on the screen the building and parking envelope only take 59% of the project leaving the resin open space. Next slide, please. Key commitments with this request were published in the staff report and include a minimum of 15% of each two product type single family detached in townhomes. 22% preserved tree coverage area. 25% open space area with at least 50% of this located adjacent to stream buffers. Minimum five feet additional asphalt for bike lane along site frontage on east side of our branch road. A $28,400 contribution to the city of Durham dedicated housing fund and a $5,000 contribution to Durham public schools. Next slide, please. Also made significant design commitments summarize here which include higher quality building materials distinctive architectural features amenity programming home variation block length and appearance of front facades in garage doors. Next slide, please. The development plan is consistent with the east Durham open space plan shown on the left with our site in blue towards the bottom half of the screen. The map on the right shows the recreational and open space designation to the northwest corner of the parcel again. The plan the excuse me open space plan calls for preservation of wildlife habitat by using clustered development open space requirements and voluntary agreements. We are meeting this policy by clustering development exceeding the minimum UDL requirements on both preserve tree coverage in open space and after discussion with staff of the 25% open space commitment we are again committing that 50% of that open space will be adjacent to stream buffers to support wildlife opportunities. Next slide, please. This slide shows the traffic commitments we're making at our site access points on our branch row which consists of additional turn lanes to maintain traffic flow. We are also making improvements off site to our north. Next slide, please. This slide illustrates the location of those improvements on our frontage which details with details to the left of the screen showing existing lanes and white and a new turn lane shown in dark arrows. These additional lanes will allow for turning movements and through traffic increased flow on the roads and allow for safe staging areas. Next slide, please. This shows our off site improvements an additional turn lane on our branch road in 98 widening Highway 98 itself and installing a new traffic signal at the intersection of Highway 98 and Kent roads. These improvements are not funded by the city or NCDOT on any timetable so this development provides a means for completing these in the near term to ease existing traffic congestion. Next slide, please. As noted on the first slide this site is in the heart of the Searles Basin and development at this density is consistent with the intent of the compounding utility plans. Department of Water Management has shared that utility extensions and the fees charged to offset is cost were based on the basin developing in a low to moderate density which is consistent with this request. So it's actually better for the environment in the long term to have public utilities that this development would provide instead of septic which is all that is currently available and would be available if the site was developed by right. As Director Young shared in her presentation on the Searles Basin septic is more likely to fail over time and it cannot support non-residential uses. Next slide, please. We show how the request would bring this development in line with land use patterns so the surrounding area can accommodate the increase in density and will not create substantial adverse impacts because the traffic impacts are offset. Thus the project is consistent with the comp plan. Excuse me, low density designation is consistent with PDR and the suburban tier and provides a mix of single family and town home housing. These houses, these two types of houses will further policies on housing variety. Also this will contribute to affordability in the city. Our price points for the town homes are currently 230,000 and the single family detached have an average price point of 300,000. Next slide, please. This is also consistent with the expectation of suburban, expectation of growth in the suburban tier and with the intent of PDR described earlier, including design commitments and open space. Next slide, please. And this shows a little bit more about how we are consistent with the comp plan but in the interest of time I am going to wrap up my presentation on respectfully request approval of the development and turn it over to Tim for just a little bit to talk about the correlation between this project and 1101 Isle Branch. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the council, Tim Savers with Horvath Associates, 16 consultant place, Durham, North Carolina. As LaDija did mention earlier, this project is an expansion of the 1101 Isle Branch Road Project that was recently approved. These projects were not able to be brought to you at the same time due to contractual agreements with the landowners. Once these, if this project is approved tonight, the two projects will move forward as one complete project and our team is available for any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Savers and thank you, Ms. Matthews. We appreciate hearing from you. All right, colleagues, we have one other person signed up to speak and that's an opponent and that is Larisa Seibel. Madam Clerk, can you make Ms. Seibel available to be heard, please? Hello, this is Larisa Seibel. Welcome, Ms. Seibel. We welcome your comments. As I read the comments from the Planning Commission that voted 11-1 against it, it was clear that this is not the development for this particular piece of land, both for the natural the trees, the waters and it's just too intense. I think that it would be appropriate to follow the guidance of the Planning Department and consider that. There was some mention also with affordable housing not being included, which of course we don't require, but when they say that the townhomes would be affordable at a median income, that's also a stretch with all of the HOA dues. I'm not sure that they would be affordable, but they certainly would not be affordable to the vast majority of people living in Durham. And so I just wanted make sure that when we talk about housing that we look at also the impact of the new much more expensive housing on the existing residents. You can see in the neighborhood compass that that area already has a higher rate of cost burden mortgage holders than the rest of Durham. So we need to think about the impact on the people who live here in Durham and in this area with the new much more expensive housing. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? Anyone else who would like to be heard on item 43? I don't see anyone raising their hand. Okay. All right. I'll now ask if there are comments or questions by members of the council. Anyone? Councilmember Milton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening all who are presenting tonight on this petition. I perhaps I want to say something about some of the comments from the planning commission and maybe later when it's fully back before the council let's make an observation on some of the trending. I'm seeing some of the recommendations from our planning commission particularly relative to Southeast Durham but bracketing that out for now I want to ask the applicants in Tim or Ms. Matthews. Did you read the letter from the State Historic Preservation Office about the cemetery? Thanks, councilmember Knowleson. Yes, we did. And since the hearing before planning commission the development team has contacted the family members of those buried on the site and I'll turn it over to Tim to let you know how that correspondence has gone. Okay. Yes, thank you for our question again. This is Tim Cybers. We've reached out to all the family members I believe that was 16 or 18 letters that we sent out. We've received responses from about three or four of them all were which in favor of relocating the cemetery to a local relocating the onsite cemetery and grave sites to a local cemetery. You said you heard how long ago did you send the letters out relative to the start of the process? How recent? If you will give me two minutes I will answer that question for you sir. I'll find the date of the letter. Sure. While you're looking for that let me go on to my next query about some of the concerns about the design commitment being cookie cutter. My words, I'm not attributing that to any planning commissions. Could you talk a little bit about materials and materials and design commitments and if you can intelligently at this point in the process talk to some of the design commitments of what the homes might look like. Thank you Council Member Middleton. I will give Tim a slight break and kind of preface the answer while he's looking for that email. The design commitment some of them I'll highlight for you. 30% of the town home units will be limited to single car garage bays. The average block length shall not exceed 700 feet. We are committing to 15% of a minimum of 15% of town homes in single family development to ensure that we'll have a good mix. Tim, if there's anything that you or Jamie would like to add please do so. Yeah, Jamie Davis with Polta Group is on the on the line as well. He may be able to add to that to answer the previous question the letters were mailed out on May 19th. May 19th, okay. And you said you got responses from three. Yes, all phone calls responding back to me and discussing the situation with them. I explained to them that the location of the cemetery was right in line with the future road which is the fourth leg of the intersection across from mongol homes development and that that road location couldn't be moved because of it being the fourth leg of the intersection. All the family members understood some of them weren't even aware that they had family members here. But even those family members were acceptable to moving the grave sites. You said you had three to respond, right? That is correct. Of the three who are the all who are the some that weren't aware that I mean how many numbers are we talking about in a universe of three? Can you ask that question again, sir? So I can hear it. I don't fully understand. You got three responses. Are you saying of those three one or two we're not even aware that they had people there? One of the family members that responded was not aware of they had family members here. The other two family members that responded were aware in different generations so they but all three members that I spoke with were all in acceptance of moving. Okay. So is your intention however of moving all of the remains that are in that cemetery? That is correct, sir. Yes. Okay. Is any remuneration being did the families are those families receiving any remuneration for the movement of those? The details in that haven't been discussed with them and Jamie may be able to follow up on that. Yeah. This is Jamie Davis with Polti Homes. We are going to take care as the developer moving those gray sites but as far as other details within that those are still things that are being discussed. Okay. Well I'll be curious to see what the specific text commitments are or commitments around those are. I've got some more questions but I'll yield for now Mr. Marin and my colleagues who may have some questions and I'll get some perhaps because if they cover I won't need to with some nuts and bolts that are wrong. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. All the colleagues Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Middleton. I didn't realize that they were moving the gray sites. It's a little disturbing not only moving residents out of the community and moving deceased residents out of the community as well. So I just wanted to note are all of these homes at 1101 and this site at 1051 Polti is the developer or the site builder for these homes? Thank you, Council Member Freeman. That's correct. And so just noting that based on the previous hold on I'm trying to trying to just kind of get a feeling this is probably more a question for staff. The site maps that you're sharing don't show like currently approved cases of the Council against these current against this current case. And so I'm having a hard time seeing just how much of an impact all of these cases are having in this kind of Searle's area around that false false area. And so I'm having a little bit of trouble seeing how it's a positive because I know you're looking at cost but I'm trying to see I don't know how we would view it in a way or make sure that we were viewing it in a way that showed the impact of all of the townhouses all going in that area at once. Council Member Freeman, I'm not are you asking that is that directed to the applicant team or staff? My apologies. Okay. Council Member Freeman, this is Danny Kulture. There is we did do supply a annexation overview map within the packet and that kind of gives an overview of the whole area for all the areas all the different properties in the immediate area that have been annexed within the city of Durham. Can you tell us so what attachment number that is Mr. Kulture? Let me see if I can find that attachment in the agenda packet. That is attachment one as I'm being told. The site right next to it. Dude, maybe I'm Council Member Freeman, this is Tim Syver speaking. The staff report doesn't actually have those highlighted maps. There was a highlighted map in Medijas presentation. I believe it was the second or third slide. If Danny, if you would like to bring that back up, that may be a better example to show Councilman Freeman the answer. Also attachment to show some of that Council Member Freeman. Let me see. Yeah, I'll have to open that back up, Tim. I close that one, but I will open that. It only shows the one area. Council Member East. Well, but it will you can see it. Sorry, colleague. Thank you. Let's let Mr. Kulture pull this up and we'll go from there. Give me one second and I'll open that that power point back up. And Mr. Kulture, it is slide two. And while you're pulling that up to kind of address Council Member Freeman's question, what we'll see on the screen when we do get it pulled up is that there has been approved our under review site plan shown in purple all around the site. And essentially we are filling in a donut hole there. And just to add harking back to the comment that was shared by the opponent, it is striking how much of the natural resources have been essentially destroyed and the intensity level that's there with townhouses that are not affordable. Concerned, I mean, I appreciate that addition because I didn't realize Neighborhood Council, Neighborhood Compass showed the cost burden for the existing homeowners as a map as well. But all of those areas, so around all of those purple areas, there are property owners who will all be cost burdened and we are not factoring that into this conversation. And I'm concerned around that. So thank you. I appreciate you sharing this this slide. And this is specific to all of the cases in the city are just the ones that you guys have worked on. And this section, I'm not specifically. Yes, Council Member Freeman, this is all, these are all of the rezoning in the area, not just by this applicant team. And if I may, in regards to the preservation of environmental or the mitigation of environmental impacts, we do have the stream that runs through this parcel and have several commitments to make sure that we preserve that. And if Tim, you want to speak a little bit to that, please feel free. And that that third street or the stream crossing is still in place. So there will be a stream cost crossing as well. Yeah. Yeah, Council Member Freeman, that is correct. There's a proposed vehicle as well as utility string crossings for this project. And then but there are the string crossing or stream preservation area does kind of bisect the development in general. In addition to the text commitment about the addition are open space being provided along the string buffer to provide extra resources in that area. Mr. Kulture, could you please take the slides down? Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Kulture. And thank you, Mr. Cybers. And Ms. I didn't catch your last name. Ms. Mayer. Happy. Happy. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions, colleagues, Council Member Freelon and then Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayer. I just wanted to build on some of the questions that Council Member Middleton asked about the cemetery. And I read this in Council Member Miller's comments as well. So he answered some of the questions he posed in his comments by informing us today that you'd be moving the cemetery. That was the first I'd heard of that. And I'm curious in your conversations with the families when you talked about the roads, you said the cemetery needed to be moved because of a road of some kind. And my question is, what that road, is that road contingent upon the what you're proposing and what we're voting on here today? In other words, if we vote not to change the zoning would that road be a part of this community or not? Thank you for the question, Council Member Freelon. So the road in reference to the development plan is site access point number one. It is aligned with the existing and currently approved access point to Mungo homes development, which is on the opposite side of all Branch Road. The proposed road is the fourth leg to that intersection. So right now with Mungo, it's a T intersection, if you will. We'll be adding that extension of that T into this development. This road location is also located and part of the 1101 Aller Branch Road. So the two projects there work together. That road is part of that site plan and that proposed development as well. When we did talk with the family members, we explained that to them and that the road location because it is the fourth leg of that intersection and that it did have to stay there and it could not be relocated because it is tying into what is already currently proposed via site plan by another developer. So I guess I'm not sure if I heard the answer to my question, which was if we decide to keep the zoning the way it is, would that road need to be built? So sorry, so that is what I meant by that that road is also part of the 1101 Aller Branch Road, which was a which is previously approved and going through site plan reviews now. So yes, yes, it's already it will, it will, that road is part of a separate project that has been approved by this council. Got it. And so whether we whether we approve this zoning change or not, that cemetery will need to be moved. What would happen if they if they said they were uncomfortable? How would how would that be managed? Maybe that's a question for staff. So Mr. Cartwright, can you help Councilman? Yeah, actually Mayor Schultz and Councilmember Freeland, I think I would we wouldn't probably need to defer that to transportation representatives, starting the alignment of that at street. Well, Mr. Cartwright, we're lucky because the cavalry is here. I see Mr. Young and Mr. Judge. So I'll defer to Mr. Judd. Yeah, I'll start. And I'm not sure Director Young wants to chime in or has a slightly different interpretation as ultimately it does become the planning director's call. But the so bill judge assistant transportation director, the the traffic impact analysis that the applicant prepared for this site did assume a road connection opposite that mongo homes property as they indicate it. Apologize, I'll have a furry friend co-worker that's trying to help. The I thought you were going to chat for a minute. Yeah, the so the but anyway, so the traffic impact analysis does show a the road aligning with that existing acts or the proposed access point for mongo homes as Mr. Coulter indicated the so if they were to make a change, they would need to revise the TIA to show the impact of that not being connected or aligning with that for driveway. I don't know that during the scoping that that was ever really contemplated or considered. So we would need to look at that impact or that potential change. So at this point, it would be a fairly significant change to the to the project and cause a delay. Councilmember Freeland, was that helpful? Yeah, it was, I guess. Yes, it was helpful. It sounds like the cemetery is going to be moved. Miss Young, did you see your hand up? Maybe you could help. Sure. Good evening, everyone. Sarah Young with the Planning Department. And I just wanted to share, and hopefully I think this might be getting at your question. Correct me if it doesn't. But regardless, whether it's this development or a different future development, the ordinance requires that new streets be aligned with existing streets, at which point the street across the street, if you follow me, will be there and any new development will be required to align to it. So whether it's this project or another, the same end result will occur. Does that get at what you were trying to ascertain? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in other words, this cemetery will need to be moved. Okay. And this development proposal doesn't change, doesn't alter that reality if there's going to be any development here at all. Okay. Yeah, that answered my question. Thank you for helping me understand that. Well, that was helpful to me. Thank you for those questions. Miss Young, can I ask also what are developers' responsibilities when it comes to a graveyard and relocation or do we have rules around that? So that is a great question. I will tell you that the cemeteries is something that is highly regulated at the state level and therefore is not something that we at the local planning department have regulations on. We defer to the state and I have to be honest and say that I don't know the ins and outs of all those regulations. That's something we can certainly do a little more homework on since it seems to be coming up repeatedly just to educate ourselves. We will do that, but I have to be honest and say that I don't know the ins and outs of that. Thank you. Honesty is the best policy. Other questions, colleagues? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to ask Miss Young to come back. Real quick, for the inevitable conversation about the Soros Basin. So I was wondering if you could remind us of the timeline for the planning that is happening right now around the area and also just give us your opinion about whether any of the land in the site that's under consideration right now could reasonably be used for something other than residential development if we were to not approve this request. So we'll start with the easy one, which is where we are with the Southeast Durham Focus Area Project. We are in the process over the next this month and next month we're going to be drafting all of our recommendations and sharing them back out with the community with the intent to be before the to start the public hearing process in September. So somewhere in September, October depending how long the planning commission takes with the item, it will be getting to you all. And so that's the timeline anticipated for that project. In terms of other development potential, non-residential particularly for this site, I personally don't think that this is a good site for anything other than residential. If you've been out to this area, it's where I would consider kind of deep into the heart of residential. It's actually closer than many of our other development proposals to older existing residential like the Shaw Hills neighborhood if you're familiar with that neighborhood built out mostly in the 70s, I think. And so and there's a fair amount I'm looking at the plan right now. There's a fair amount of great change and some natural features that really don't make this a good site for something that requires bigger building pads like commercial, even if it were small scale commercial. So that's my professional opinion in terms of the development potential of this site. I hope that answers your question. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. I have a few questions. Is it the is the judgment still the judgment of the staff that this is not compatible with Eastern open space plan? I'm going to let Danny come and talk a bit about the details of that. Mr. Kulture will rejoin us. There is. Sure. There is some compatibility and there's some possible incompatibility. We went back and forth with the applicant on this. This site does overlap a lot and has a lot of heritage area on this. The state did a report on this, but it did not find any heritage species. Well, they identified that it could have the applicant did have their engineers do an actual survey report on this and did not find any heritage species on this. However, the Eastern open space plan does recognize that there is a lot of wildlife corridor in this area. However, this area does not overlap the Martin Branch Creek, which is adjacent to the east of this site, but the wildlife corridor does overlap the majority of this site. The Eastern open space plan talks about how to mitigate impacts into the wildlife corridor. And one of those is to perform clustering development to mitigate impacts into the string buffers. The applicant, we went back and forth with the applicant and they proposed ways to try to do that. So this final condition that they have proposed based on their slides is trying to mitigate that by moving a lot of their development away from what stream buffer is on this site. So it does a much more proficient job than what we initially got from them in doing so. And they're providing much more open space and putting a lot of their open space along these stream corridors. So I would say it does a much better job at meeting the Eastern open space because the way the Eastern open space defines it is to try to perform clustering development to achieve that, minimize the impacts. So if I were to say it meets it fully, I can't, I don't know if I can answer that, but does it do what the intent of the open space plan says? Yes, they're trying to do that. I appreciate that. I'm trying to distinguish between trying to do it and actually doing it is... The language in that policy is, it's not an absolute policy language. Would you speak to the same thing this year? Yeah, I was going to chime in and say that, you know, the policy language in the plan is phrased as recommendations, right? And there is no... This is one of the projects that we were working on in-house behind the scenes is how to take some of the natural heritage recommendations from our open space plans and actually codify them into some concrete standards that developers know what it is that's expected of them. So that's a text amendment process where we're working on behind the scenes right now, actually. But this is one where we met with the applicants and shared our concerns and talked through what we would like to see in terms of what we felt would satisfy the recommendations in the open space plan and they have come back and done that. I will also say, and since we're really telling honesty tonight, that we, as we look at this area more carefully and we try and apply these plans and look at them probably in more detail than we ever have, except maybe when they were written, we are learning new things about what does it mean to actually put this into practice? So this is probably the plan that has done the most in terms of trying to be concrete and responding to that to date. Thank you. I'll just say that it's unusual for me to read the words not compatible with the Eastern Open Space Plan or any words like that in one of our memos. It troubles me. And then the fact that the discussion of the encroachment on the 300-foot buffer and the staff's express concerns about mass grading and tree coverage. Another developer added went from I think 21% to 22% tree coverage. The staff, my reading of the staff's response to that was disappointment. So can one of you all just speak to that, please? Certainly. I'll say that again, and maybe this is actually something that the applicant should address. We did share our concerns about the almost negligible increase in open space that was committed and the applicant shared with us that, you know, again, I don't want to put words in their mouth. It may be better for Tim to come on and talk about the rationale they shared with us about how they were. The challenges that increasing it significantly would have posed to them. But on the clustering we did, that I think was probably the biggest concern that we had and I do believe that they have addressed that with what they've shown tonight. Agreed. I thought that that made a lot of sense. The concerns about mass grading that was expressed. There's a lot of mass grading and a lot of developments that we see. Why in this particular memo did I see that concern expressed? What's different about this development than other developments? I've been to this property. I've been all over the land out there. What is it that in your mind is problems mass grading a concern here when it's something we don't usually read about in our memos? Let me say that I think it's something you're going to start seeing repeatedly in a lot more memos. Again, as we have refined our thinking and really tried to be more critical and better stewards of not just our adopted plans but of our environment and natural resources. I think you're going to see more concerns raised by staff, particularly in regards to mass grading. I have not been shy in saying that those regulations and true preservation are on my kind of top to-do list to address in the ordinance. So until that is rectified you probably will see us being more critical and conservative on that front. And you mentioned specifically you're related in the memo. Mr. Kaltra and either one of you all can respond to this. The tree save to the mass grading. They are of course intimately related. I don't have the memo open, but you talked about the fact that it would have been better to have trees around the property, more tree saving and around the property. Any comment on that? Let me go back to that memo. That would help. I'll try to pull it up too. So while Danny is looking for that I'll just chime in and say that this is another area where you know tree save right now gets pushed to usually to the edges and to stream buffers where you can't impact the stream buffers anyway. So that's an easy place to put on your tree save. So we are really seeing some pretty stark effects of mass grading. I'm not necessarily proposing that developers do individual lot by lot grading because I understand market forces and we do want to keep things affordable and that does raise the cost of things but dispersing tree save throughout a site as opposed to pushing it to the edges and to the stream buffers it does a number of things. And so that's one of the things that again we talked with the applicant specifically about and my understanding was that the applicant was kind of heard us loud and clear and was going to take that into consideration for future projects but didn't think that they could redesign and commit to that with this particular project. And and Mayor Schull I think to Miss Young's regard I think that's what we were actually looking at in that memo in regards to tree coverage and mass grading is could there have been more outside of the stream buffers more to protect in the line of those corridors of the stream buffers rather than pushing it to the fringes you know even where those open space areas are defined. Thank you. I have a number of comments I'm going to make once we are at that point but I think those are all my questions. Okay, other comments or questions Senator Councilor Freeman. Thank you Mr. Mayor and I appreciate that conversation that additional layer I was on I was almost that like just trying to figure out how to make it work but it does sound like there could be a lot more done to make this more amenable to what the city's needs are around natural resources and I just wanted to touch base and just circle back to Ask Miss Young if she felt like the density level was appropriate for that area as well. I know you mentioned that the residential was good but I just wanted to get your feedback on that. Yeah, I just I had to quickly look over to the planet and remind myself you know I do think that the density is appropriate for the area certainly the to go to the neighborhood immediately to the north is you know large lot subdivision again from many many decades ago but I do think that this this strikes a balance of trying to increase the density but still maintain some preservation of the environment. So I'm comfortable with the density number. Thank you. And then Council Member, we can't hear you. Sorry, I was noting in the comments that you were making that it seems like the Braggtown tour may have been a good opportunity to see exactly what's been happening in the community and noting that the chases have legs when they leave and so just what the impact of masquerading across North Durham and similarly in Southwest and Southeast and different sections when it when it comes on this heavy without the kind of I guess the kind of transportation supports and necessary and then also kind of I really wish we had an open space coordinator in place in place to kind of have this conversation because then we focused on this kind of look at what we're talking about in addition to the kind of transportation needs because I don't know that moving the cemetery is the benefit it just seems like we're rushing to kind of get to an answer on something that could be a more equitable solution so I'm grateful that you're sharing your comments and being truthful and just laying it all out there so I thank you for that both you and and Mr. Coulter thank you thank you council member are the questions council members council member caballero this may not be a wanted question but we've had a couple of these where I'm what I'm hearing is a lot of questions from my colleagues that I appreciate I'm leaning towards no right now just because I feel like there's a lot of unanswered questions and concerns also as always but that up with the tension of we don't have a lot of inventory which is the consistent which is the consistent thing we've been facing and so we have seen a number of these where we've continued them and the developer has come back with the things that we actually need from them and so I'm just curious where colleagues are or where the developer is and where staff is because I know that affects y'all's work on that potential could you restate that I'm sorry I'm just wondering if we can continue this case because I think that just from what I'm hearing I don't know if it's going to pass and I also know we need housing so I'm wondering if we can continue it the developer can really listen to the concerns from planning commission and us and come back with something that aligns better with what I'm hearing from my colleagues well let me just say we certainly can continue it that's within our our purview let me take I see that Mr. Silvers and Ms. Schreidler have their hands up Mr. Silvers would you like to comment on the things that we've been discussing yes there's a few comments I would like to make thank you for the opportunity and then I'll pass it to Ms. Schreidler for a comment or two as well about the 300 foot corridor buffer the wild life corridor Danny did mention that I do want to reiterate a point that he made the 300 foot wild life corridor follows the Martin Martin Creek which is not on this site the creek that's on this site is a tributary to that Martin branch creek so the 300 foot wild life corridor Mayor you mentioned you thought was impacted that 300 foot wild life corridor is not applicable to this project and that is on the adjacent project so not on what's in front of you tonight also I wanted to mention just reiterate the text commitments and graphic commitments about our open space that we will be providing the larger open space areas along those stream buffers to cluster the development away from those stream buffers to provide exactly to meet the intent of the of the Darmo Eastern open space plan which is what Miss Young pointed to earlier and as for mass grading yeah this area we spoke with Miss Young planning director about three to four weeks ago I think it was so it was a relatively recent comment that took place after planning commission meeting and the topography and rock in this area does provide concerns with mass grading but also as you know this site will be is planned to be masqueraded in different pods with the stream buffer bisecting down the middle with the stream you know so it will be broken up in those different pods and as Miss Young also pointed out that mass grading is or individual lot grading or smaller lots if you will is typically done on those larger lot subdivisions where your home costs are typically higher they typically involve retaining walls or crawl space and does not help the affordability and also those items typically hurt the density in projects in general I'll finish with that and like to hand it over to well Miss Schwedler I believe you said she had her hand raised as well yes thank you Miss Schwedler thank you Mr. Mayor members of council Jamie Schwedler with Parker Poe I'd just like to add I appreciate the full and robust discussion I know that this is not the first case in this Eastern area and certainly we had a full discussion last October with the adjacent site and I would just note the comments that council member Caviero made with respect to the availability of housing and what the future of this area could be and just note that what Miss Young brought up in a work session presentation now playing Dr. Young many of those issues have not changed the area still is destined for very difficult to develop other than residential the existing environmental constraints on the site are such that the additional environmental protections or additional open space or pulling areas further away or things that might seem like good concessions will only tend to drive the density down which as we discussed in that work session has a tendency to drive prices up but the big thing that has changed since last October is that the pressure on the housing stock has only gotten worse the longer we delay these decisions and the more we strive to find the what seems like the perfect balance that lines up with everything we want for done the fewer houses are getting built and that means those houses that are getting built are going for higher prices because there's fewer of them that impacts not only the existing stock and the people that live here in terms of resale but of course the price of new housing and so I fully obviously we defer to you all what you choose to do tonight but would submit that the housing somewhat of a crisis is not going to get better by slowing the approval of or denying the approval of lots in areas like this where the reality is there's just not much more to be done with them that will provide meaningful housing that is relatively affordable and so we've tried to do everything we can here in respect to all of the comprehensive plan policies and put those those measures forth I'm happy to answer any specific questions and of course we'll hopefully have your support tonight if there's something specific that you think would make a meaningful difference for of course willing to to hear that and to consider it but I think with respect to the balance between density and affordability and trying to provide open space we've hit it as close as we can here and we'll be open to to considering other questions thank you Mr. Schweidler colleagues other questions for the applicant or the staff council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor Tim or Jamie forgive me if I overlooked it in in the supporting materials are you contemplating a contribution to our Fort of a Housing Fund and the DPS? Thank you Mr. Schweidler Middleton sorry this is Lydia Matthews I'm sorry speak over you Tim but we are the contribution is 28,400 dollars and that is based on a 100 dollar contribution per proposed unit thank you so much and I'm sorry I didn't I didn't call your name Ms. Matthews forgive me is that that's for the Housing Fund, correct? Have you considered anything for DPS? Yes in addition to the contribution to the dedicated Housing Fund there will be a five thousand dollar contribution to DPS thank you so much for that and to give my apologies for for overlooking your name forgive me no worries and I apologize to Tim for cutting him off thank you Mr. Mayor thank you very much council member other questions colleagues council member Reese thank you Mr. Mayor I don't have any questions but if this is a time for some remarks that I would love to do that are we there is that where we are? Thank you let me just make sure there are no more questions and then we'll head in that direction okay you know I think I might have closed the hearing but I've heard council member Carbiero's thought and so I'm just going to keep the hearing open and I'll now accept any comments from colleagues council member Reese thank you Mr. Mayor I wanted to thank our staff those planning and transportation for adding to the kind of the level of our discourse tonight having great staff is invaluable in hearings like this are just another prime example and so I want to thank the folks from planning and transportation who've helped us walk through some of these issues if I'm not mistaken this is also Ms. Matthew's first opportunity to lead a presentation for a hearing before the city council I just want to say Ms. Matthews regardless of how this matter ends up in terms of the the a's and a's you have done a fantastic job tonight representing your client and making the case for this particular annexation so I just wanted to tip my cap to you because we see a lot of these presentations as members of the city council and I can't remember many better so so great job for you um I I think it's not any it's no great surprise to my colleagues or anyone who's been paying attention to these cases that I've become more skeptical about residential annexations in this part of Durham over time nothing epitomizes epitomizes my growing skepticism more than the than the present case because I voted in favor of the the companion case not terribly long ago so often we are urged by well-meaning people that we need to be consistent in our annexation and reserving decisions and I'm here saying that I I don't I don't think that's right I think we have to be able to learn and grow and to change how we think about things and that's certainly what I've done in this part of Durham I want to thank the mayor and council members Middleton and Freeman for raising some really important concerns around the environmental sensitivities in this particular site the presence of a graveyard that will have to be removed the the price pressures on nearby neighborhoods I wanted to add one additional concern to the conversation and the Shredler again you also did a fantastic job Mr. Syvers you're always great at these things the Shredler put her finger directly on the need to increase the housing stock in the city of Durham and pointed to price pressures that will only continue to grow until we get more capacity within Durham I totally agree with that statement my question is where are so that as I understand it and as I certainly have have argued myself in other cases the argument goes something like this if we don't annex this these 80 acres and build these whatever the number of units are out here in Far Flung East Durham the folks who want to move to Durham won't have other places to buy and live in and so they'll buy houses in gentrifying neighbors in town and neighborhoods in town and so I think the theory is if we don't build a house for them way out on the whole branch road they're going to buy a house in Braggtown and I just want to say when you say it out loud like that I hope you can hear how that doesn't really make a lot of sense the people who want to live in a house like this in a townhouse on Olive Branch Road in Far East Durham are not the same kind of folks they're going to want to buy a house in Braggtown these are completely different neighborhoods completely different experiences of living in Durham if we annex this property it is Durham it is the city of Durham and they're just as much city residents as anybody else but who will be building this housing for I just in my most recent trip out there like the mayor I've been all over this these properties I wasn't able to find the graveyard but I did find a beautiful piece of land out there I just I don't I don't really think the logic holds necessarily on a macro level absolutely Ms. Schwiddler is correct if we add additional housing stock to Durham I think that does ameliorate to a certain extent the pressure on costs but the larger gentrification concern I'm not sure that housing way out here addresses that I don't think the competition is for is people wanting to buy houses out there versus a house in Waltown I think it's are they are people going to decide to buy a house in this newly annexed subdivision with hundreds of townhouses and single-family homes or are they going to buy a house in Carrier Apex or Morrisville Morrisville town town hall by the way almost exactly the same distance from this property as it is to the Durham City Hall all of which is to say I wonder that some of the premise that we have operated under may not quite hold up if we look at who the buy who the market is for the houses that we're considering allowing this developer to build on this property the last thing I will say is the owner of a piece of property has the right to put it to whatever use is currently allowed by law and the Mayor Pro Tem's question about could this property ever be put would it make a good be a good candidate for non-residential use seems to me to put the cart before the horse a little bit because it you know it can be used for a purpose now we may not like that use but that's what can be used for the only way it could be put to either the dense residential use that's before us today or some other mixed use is if we annex it we get to decide that that's our choice and absent seeing additional benefits to Durham from annexing this property into the city to build all these houses on this land that has all the environmental sensitivities that that the mayor was concerned about that is in proximity to neighborhoods that are highly cost burdened with housing as as Council Member Freeman points out and the the other issues that we have long talked about about adding additional density out here will be don't control a lot of the transportation infrastructure it just seems to me very very challenging to say that that is in the best interest of the city of Durham for me we all well we'll have seven different opinions on that question okay we'll probably only have two opinions on that question but we all get at it a different way anyway that's probably enough talking for me but that's kind of how I'm thinking about it right now thank you Mr. Mayor Thank you Council Member I'll make a few comments I am constantly struck by the complexity of these issues and appreciate all of my colleagues comments and the comments of staff and the applicant I want to I'm glad that Council Member Reese called out Ms. Matthews good job on the presentation I also felt exactly the same way Ms. Matthews and we know that you're stepping into this new role and you did a great job I usually vote for these on Isle Branch Road and in this area and I disagree with my esteemed colleague Council Member Reese about the impact of more supply on what it's going to do in our city both on a macro level and in particular neighborhoods I think that we really need supply and I disagree with one of my I'm going to a person who for whom my admiration is unbounded Larissa Sable who made comments tonight I fundamentally believe that we have to have more supply and that more supply in this area is relatively this putting this housing here is definitely of all the many places we could put this housing this plot in the middle of these parcels is one of the least gentrifying places that we can actually put housing I have no doubt about that however what makes this difference for me is the environmental concerns and it is true what Ms. Schweidler said about the fact and the cyber said about when you know the you know taking into consideration more tree save less mass grading that kind of thing is more expensive that's true when should you do those things when should you have that extra expense when should you make sure that you're that you are you know when does when does less density become a good thing when you have an environmentally sensitive piece of land and I just say again I don't remember reading I don't remember voting for a proposal that says something like not compatible with Eastern open space plan I understand that you know what Director Young said and Mr. Koucher said about the you know the fact that it is that the the Eastern open space plan is more a series of recommendations and a series of rules and I just want to say you know I as Ms. Young is a complete beast the fact that she's working to codify this and make it more usable for us is just awesome so let me just say I'm not persuaded by the concerns of people here in this area about about traffic I know that their the traffic concerns are real but I don't think they they outweigh the concerns about about the need for housing and but I am very concerned about what I read in terms of the what what the staff has had to say and about the environmental concerns this is an environmentally sensitive piece of property and so if we were voting right now I would I would be voting no I am open to Councilmember Caballero's idea of leaving this open we could certainly consider that but to see what the applicant could do in terms of meeting these environmental concerns Mayor Pro Tem Thank you Mr. Mayor I would also support Councilmember Caballero's proposal to leave the hearing open and allow the developer to try to resolve some of those questions I'm also very and increasingly concerned about our housing crisis it seems like it's worsening at an accelerating rate and so I don't want to say no to housing but also recognize that there are some very serious concerns that folks on the council have brought up and I'd like to give the developer a chance to come back to us with with some ideas to address those Thank you All right Why don't I give Councilmember Caballero just a chance to make any remarks about that that she would like and then I'll ask others Yes I mean which is why I we've gotten into some patterns on voting on these cases and often when the mayor starts raising deeper concerns then it's a good kind of bell weather where this case may go and which is why I said could we just continue it if my colleagues are open to it I don't know if I can put a motion on the floor without it but that that is my Yeah that wouldn't be necessary but thank you I appreciate that Let's hear from other colleagues on this question perhaps of of keeping the this open Councilmember Freeman Thank you Mr. Mayor I appreciate the comments you've made and Councilmember Caballero and Mayor Potem-Johnson's agreement towards you know keeping our hearing open I just wanted to note I want to make sure that I'm on the record and stating that I'm in full agreement with Councilmember Reese's comments and noting how difficult this has been noting that there've been so many cases where I've been the one vote against items like this this area where there's nine other projects looming and the weight of that I just want to make sure that the developer understands just how much even an additional 60 or 90 days would mean and coming back with with a stream crossing or with a tree safe only at the you know at the stream and not like there needs to be a specific conversation around what it means to actually add the housing and what it costs and so it's not just one or the other it's really just the harm that's created acknowledging that these sites are off in the county where there isn't public transportation and so there is a larger carbon footprint and also noting like when there is mask rating that huge impact on our climate change those are nine different projects that have been approved through this council and I know that I've probably voted yes on maybe one or two but these these projects are all having an impact and I'm just grateful that the council is finally seeing this and acknowledging that the developers can do more to kind of meet us at the environmental needs of our of our community to council member Reese's point it has to be a benefit to the city of Durham it cannot just be a developer's you know you know pocket or bottom line being the conversation that we're having and it's not just the cost of the housing or the price point of the housing it's also the cost to our land, earth and water like means in this community and as a whole across the country and the world so I'm grateful that the conversation is shifting a little bit as I'm hearing it tonight and I just wanted to make sure that I'm on the record noting that I appreciate the shift thank you thank you council member council member you did not express an opinion on whether or not you would like to hold this open I would like to hear from the developer on whether on whether or not they would even be making any additional I'll ask them to comment on that do you have any opinion on whether or not you'd like to hold it open you want to express I'm fine as long as they're actually going to do something about Treesie and the stream crossing okay council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor let me express my deep appreciation to my colleagues for just the depth and substance of this debate and discussion I want to associate well I want to say to him said well all of you have all said something things that I think are critically important and of course is a discussion I think I resonate with Mayor Tim Johnson and you Mr. Mayor and in terms of needs up and increasing our supply I really was intrigued by council member Reese's observations and I actually did the thought exercise saying it out loud when we said it and I I don't know what kind of people are buying houses in Bractown and I don't I don't know if there's any qualitative difference between the people buying houses in southeast Durham or Bractown or in the other gentrifying area I do know that folk when they live in Durham the Durham is hot and there's a certain swag and panache that comes with just saying I live in Durham I have access to all of these great things because all of these great things are moving to Durham to be able to say I live in forget about what they see on the news and what you know trolls say on social media folk when they live in Durham Durham is a hot place to be so there is definitely that they can impact whatever happens on one side of the city is that there are ripple effects throughout the city so I'm not really I can't speak with any degree of authority as to what kind of people are living where I just know folk want to live here so I think it's important to increase housing stock I also my Mr. Mayor was a bit challenged by Ms. Seibel's remarks so I have deep respect for she's a long-term long-time worker an advocate in this area and I deeply appreciate her corpus of work in the area but you know when we say 300,000 is not affordable without saying what is affordable you know I talk to folk every day a school administrator whose partner is a captain in the fire department the police department buying her second home that's the $300,000 level we're not talking wealthy people we're not talking you know to be multi-millionaires and despite what you know folk may think all black folk game broke all brown folk game broke you know there is an aspiring class of folk in this city as well maybe not for the first time home buyer but there is that second and third level home that folk are aspiring to who are working who are partnered together who are our teachers who are firefighters who are police officers who are nurses working class folk who are partnered who are pooling their resources and trying to build wealth and sustainability for their family so I don't when you know it seems like when we say affordable housing without putting the number in what we mean if it's not 300 is it 200 is affordable is it 150 is it 95 I don't know but I will say that with respect to this case I totally resonate with council Caballero's recommendation if in fact the developer even wants it maybe they want to roll the dice and have a vote tonight I don't know if they're going to seriously look at tree coverage because for me that's what the main distinction between this phase of olive branch and I too voted for that I think I did yeah the first phase difference for me that the grave site and the environmental issues but barring those issues there there seems to be an organic and natural extension of that project from the first one was with substance difference or not and I'm deeply concerned about the grave site and I think that the state may have something to say about it even if whoever owns that land I don't think you can just from my recollection I don't think you're going to have to deal with some state regulation in terms of grave sites if I recall in past experiences dealing with folk burying folk but with that said I am concerned also about the environmental concerns the other piece that I want to say is that when we have a small area plan when that day comes for southeast Durham it's not going to insulate us from having to make hard decisions I mean those plans and those statements are only as impactful as the political will of the council that has we have a future land use map but when the future gets here we can change it you know we vote to change things that we said we would do 25 years ago all the time so and I even see now that some of our planning commissions are using the word moratorium out loud old pining out loud using the word about trying to determine what we're going to do in this area and I think it's important for us to have a plan but that's not going to unless we're going to say we're not going to build anything else out in this area until we build a four-lane highway on Leesville Road or whatever the transportation or road butchers thing we need to do if we're going to codify that and say until that day happens we're not going to build anything else I just don't see that happening there's just a lot of moving parts you know we've got to make decisions as they happen I think there's no middle ground between moratorium and struggling and making hard decisions you're either going to do a moratorium or you're going to make the hard decisions and my friend councillor Reese says we got to do what's hard and these are hard decisions he says it all the time and I resonate with that deeply so for me I guess I'm open to the developer if the developer wants more time to look at you know increasing that tree covered I think 20 to 21 percent is negligible tree coverage be honest but but I also see a very organic and natural extension of what we already voted for with olive ranch and that coupled with the need for more housing stock I think also the need for more discussion about you know when does affordable not become affordable and more what's the price point what's that magic number where it's no longer affordable housing 200, 250, 300, half a million so so yes I say all I have to say I'm inclined to support it at by virtue of its organic connection to the previous case but there is hesitancy for me around the gray site and around the tree coverage so I resonate deeply with council copy arrows recommendation if the developer in fact wants to do anything substantive with that delay so I yield back thank you Mr. Mayor thank you any other comments colleagues I'm going to ask Ms. Seibel if she would like to make some additional comments Madam clerk can you make a recess Seibel available to be heard and while she's being brought on I want to thank her for her service as a former city council member I try to make sure I acknowledge if it's not been acknowledged thank you council member exactly right thank you city council and mayor this is Larissa Seibel I've had my name called out a couple of times and I think it's Larissa we can't we can't hear you can you turn up your mic or get closer to your microphone oh can you hear me now and still really low pretty low maybe you maybe you could talk louder hi this is Larissa Seibel can you hear me great thank you so my name is called out a couple times so about affordable housing but you may have noticed that I led with the environmental impact of this development and I feel that it's not worth destroying our environment our water our tributaries lead into creeks and lead to the water that we and our neighbors drink is important to protect and then if you're building homes you need to be in a place that is a good environment that where you haven't cleared all the trees with mass grading and expose people to the heat and sun you need to have that tree protection for people as well as for wildlife so I think it is it is a balancing act that you have but there are certain areas certain natural areas that we need to preserve even if it means fewer homes can be built and perhaps the homes may be a little more expensive but I think we need to have these conversations with the public and not just you know with the developers about what they're willing to do but let them know what we want and what we need and I think that when you talk about affordable housing yes 200,000 is what the first time home buyer might be able to afford and some not even that much and that's not being built there's no affordable housing except what is being built by habitat but in this case I think it's really important to put the protection of all the people and in this in this consideration and look for ways to to build more affordable housing higher density housing in other areas thank you oh and other process yes we need small area plans we need them we need the public to be and actually engaged in every step of the process when a development gets proposed the public should be there every step of the way and I hope that in them in the meeting when you do talk about this that the public is somehow informed about how to engage in this process from tonight to your next meeting when this is heard thank you so much for listening I appreciate the opportunity to speak again thank you very much Ms. Seibel Mr. Seibers do you have any additional comments you've heard the discussion yes Mayor Schuyl thank you for the opportunity our development team is willing to ask for the deferral or whatever the correct language is I would like to ask if we can potentially set it as early as possible if the first available meeting in August is available I don't know scheduling reasons I will defer to staff on that but we are willing to take a take a look at it thank you Mr. Seibers let me ask Ms. Young what she would recommend in terms of if we need to date certain that we would continue this too can you please advise us Ms. Young certainly I apologize if I'm looking off screen I have another screen pulled up with our potential cases moving forward and where we're trying to balance you all's evenings and workload as well right now we do have some cases anticipated on August the 2nd and let me scroll down a little bit as well as the 16th I would say either meeting is probably neither one is better than the other at this point you're muted well thank you thank you I'm sorry how about the first one in September right now we are all clear for that one thank you then my suggestion is that we that date is what date is that September meeting that is September 7th September 7th all right then we're going to continue the this case until we'll go home public hearing open and we will hear this again on September 7th Mr. Seibers thank you to all the people Ms. Matthews all the people who were the proponents thank you Ms. Seibel and thank you colleagues for I think what was a valuable discussion so we will see you all back on September 7th you'd like to be with us thank you mayor thank you all right we will now move to item 44 we've got three more public hearing items got three more public hearing items three other items after that and a partridge in a pear tree actually is part of it as well all right we're going to move to item 44 consolidated annexation project sweet one lift away and I look forward to hearing the report from staff and good evening again Mayor Shul Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson honorable council members Alexander Cale here representing the planning department we did receive a request for utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and an additional city zoning from maruga inch for a portion of one parcel of land totaling five and a half acres and this is located at one lethal way this annexation is for a non-contiguous expansion of the existing satellite corporate limits however you will remember that previously tonight Lumley Road was approved which is just south of this project the remaining portion of this site is approximately nine acres so the total site is about 15 acres the current site that's nine acres in size has an existing hundred thousand square foot industrial and manufacturing building with associated drives and parking five and a half acres that's the remainder of the site is the portion that's being included in this annexation petition tonight the area petition for annexation is proposed to contain a future 41,000 square foot industrial and manufacturing facility with supporting surface parking and loading docks there is a concurrent level four site plan under administrative review with the planning department for this site this annexation does not have a concurrent zoning map change request like the Lumley case instead this is a request for a direct translation in which the existing zoning in the county translates to the same zoning in the city effective upon the annexation the site is presently zoned industrial light so if approved tonight the zoning would be industrial light in the city jurisdiction staff is recommending that the city council approve the utility extension agreement and voluntary annexation petition for this proposed consolidated annexation we're recommending this approval based on some key findings including the minimal impacts to city services the revenue positive result of the cause of benefit analysis the high quality industrial development in this area and the geographic nature of this annexation while it is non-contiguous to the primary city limits it does serve as infills annexation to previously approved satellite annexations in the area as a reminder there are two motions that are required for this application this evening the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property into the city and entering into utility extension agreement and the second is to approve the translation of zoning ordinance itself thank you very much for your time this evening staff and the applicant team are available for questions tonight you're on thank you Mr. Cahill colleagues you have heard the report from staff I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and I'm going to ask first of all if there are any questions for staff by members of the council all right there being none I'm going to now ask Mr. Cahill I don't have anyone signed up to speak on this item as the applicant you said they're here they're present who is here for the applicant yes I believe David Bergmark who was unable to be here tonight was registered and his team it's the same applicant team as Lumley Rood yeah okay so Mr. Bone and Mr. Bone are you going to speak on this item Mr. Mayor this is actually Justin Parker without an iron no sir I just want to say thank you very much for your time this evening thank you for the hard work by staff on this project and we're happy to answer answering any questions you matter ma'am Mayor Pro Tem or council may have for us thank you thank you Mr. Parker colleagues any questions for Mr. Parker all right is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item if not I'm going to clear this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council we would need two motions one would be first would be to adopt Norman's annexing project speak one lifts that way so moved second moved by council member Reese seconded by council member Freelon Madam clerk we please call the roll Mayor Shul Mayor Pro Tem Johnson aye Mr. Member Caballero aye Mr. Member Freelon aye Mr. Member Freeman aye Mr. Member Middleton I will die Mr. Member Reese aye thank you thank you Madam Clerk the ayes have it the motion passes unanimously we'll now move to motion two to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO Mr. Mayor yes this is Kim Rayberg the city attorney yes Madam Attorney I just noted the motion number one is compound and remember it has that utility extension agreement it would be helpful for the record if if you all could also vote to authorize the manager to enter into the UEA all right thank you Madam Attorney that's why we that's why you're that's why we are who you are Mr. Mayor Mr. Chairman Councilmember Reese Mr. Mayor I'd like to make a motion to authorize the city manager into into a utility extension agreement with A.L. Nyer LLC thank you is there a second second I think that was Mayor Pro Tem thank you a second made by Councilmember Reese seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson Madam Clerk will you please call the roll you soon Mayor Pro Tem Johnson aye Councilmember Caballero aye Councilmember Freeland aye Councilmember Freeman aye Councilmember Middleton I go to aye Councilmember Reese aye thank you thank you and the motion passes unanimously we'll now move to motion two is listed here to adopt in order to amend the UDO so moved second moved by Councilmember Reese seconded by Councilmember Freelon Madam Clerk will you please call the roll Mayor Schuyl aye Mayor Pro Tem Johnson aye Councilmember Caballero aye Councilmember Freeland aye Councilmember Freeman aye Councilmember Middleton I will die Councilmember Reese aye thank you thank you Madam Clerk the motion passes unanimously thank you Mr. Parker we appreciate your being here we hope that you'll do something really good for the City of Durham on this property so thank you I said thank you Mr. Mayor we'll now move to item 46 Economic Development and Set of Agreement with cars gen therapeutics limited signed up to speak on this item are Brian Fox George Smith and G. Gia and I see that Mr. Hughes would also like to speak on this item Mr. let me just let me just Mr. Fox are you leading the presentation of this on this item good evening I believe Adrienne oh good I almost forgot about asking staff to speak I'm Ms. Graham Scott forgive me it just it's just it's late at night thank you Mr. Mayor and I hope you guys and then Councilmember Freeman makes me realize not only that but I already missed item 45 I see that's sort of Ms. Desiderio did as well Ms. Graham Scott come back to us in a moment when I when I have it back together okay my apologies to you Mr. Fox and everybody else concerned Ms. Desiderio thank you Madam Clerk all those people who corrected me yeah good job Ms. Desiderio I will now go to item 45 resolution approving the issues by the Public Finance Authority and Education Facilities Revenue Bond and I'll turn it over to you good evening Mr. Mayor Mayor Pro Tem and members of Council Emily Desiderio Deputy Finance Director this is a public hearing to consider a resolution for the purpose of the Federal Tax Equity and Physical Responsibility Act also known as TEFRA as required by section 147F of the Internal Revenue Code regarding the issuance by the Public Finance Authority of its Educational Facility Revenue Bond Series 2021 in an amount not to exceed $10 million on behalf of Duke School the proceeds of the bonds will be used to refinancing to refinance existing outstanding debt to pay financing costs and to make improvements and acquisitions of equipment for a new innovation art and discovery center and various other capital improvement at the school's campus located at 7116 or 3716 Irwin Rowan Durham notice that this public hearing was published in the Durham Herald Sun as required by a applicable law the city has no obligation to repay any of these bonds nor will the issuance of these bonds have any financial impact on the city the city council is being asked to approve this item only because of federal tax law and the fact that the project being financed is financed is located within Durham city limits as such the staff has not reviewed the details of the project nor evaluated its financial feasibility representatives from the applicants financing team are here and available answer any questions that you may have thank you miss Desiderio miss Desiderio you have a new position I do and you've been in it for how long since January early January we're very pleased and it's always great when we have terrific talent inside the house that can move up into a bigger job and we're really appreciative of you thank you very much colleagues you have heard the report from staff I will now declare this public hearing open I see two people here to speak on this Jeff Pauley and Russell Rabinowitz and I'm just going to look on the list here for a minute and just make sure yes Mr. Pauley or Mr. Rabinowitz I see Mr. Pauley is available to be heard as is Mr. Rabinowitz I'm not sure which of you all would like to are both of you all here on the same team yes this is Jeff Pauley bond council to the Duke school appreciate the city council hearing us this evening the Duke school as stated by Miss Desiderio is seeking to refinance and build new facilities on their campus and this is the lowest cost of funds that they can do this I'll note that the Duke school is a private school it does not get any monies from Durham County or whatnot and so almost that is a ministerial act we do ask that the city council because of the federal tax law requirements approve the bond issuance and the project the project is not intended to increase the student body enrollment it's just to enhance the the education of the students that are already go to the school and I'm happy to answer any technical questions that you might have Russell Rabinowitz is the director of finance and operations at the Duke school and he too can answer any questions you might have mine or more on the legal side and his might be more on the Duke school project side so thank you Mr. Paul Mr. Rabinowitz would you like to be heard at this time here to answer any questions thank you very much all right colleagues any questions for the applicant council member Freelon yeah just for briefly a full disclosure first of all my kids went to Duke school so just wanted to put that out there but if I understood this correctly when I was reading the memo you know there wasn't really any analysis because this is just a formality right there's no implication to the city or risk or anything like that well there's just a Dario comment on that yes that is correct okay yeah thank you for confirming other questions or comments colleagues council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor this is a pro forma vote not I intend to support it but I did want to take the opportunity just think it was Mr. Rabinowitz from the school yes sir what's the tuition at the Duke school it ranges from about 20,000 to 23,000 depending on the grade level what's the demographic breakdown of your student body we're about 36 percent students of color the rest are Caucasian does the Duke school provide transportation we do not free or reduced lunch we do not do you have your own police force or fire department or would it be Durham responding to any emergencies at your school uh this the Durham Durham does respond okay thank you I appreciate you thank you Mr. Mayor thank you council member other colleagues council member Reese thank you Mr. Mayor like like council member Freelon I once had kids at Duke school and I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that and just say that I think this is the kind of proposal that we ought to support especially because we don't we're not actually responsible for the bonds on the other side thank you Mr. Mayor any other comments or questions council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor I'm going to associate myself with my colleagues uh council member Reese and just extend that that we're not responsible for the bonds for anyone that we do this performer vote for for any organization or institution thank you Mr. Mayor I'll just say to Mr. Polly you think this is ministerial when you get to the Durham City Council it isn't always I understand council member Freelon I was just going to say if you're ready for the motion I will read the motion thank you I believe uh I want to first ask if there any other there's a public hearing is there anyone else who would like to be heard on the item I don't believe so all right I'm going to declare this public hearing open I'm sorry closed Mayor Pro Tem if I do this for a little bit longer you're definitely going to have to preside I think we're almost done I'm going to declare this public hearing closed matters back before the council and we would need a resolution to approve the issuance of the public finance authority of its educational facilities revenue bond council member Freeman if you would like to make that motion go ahead don't move thank you seconded by council member Milton Madam Clerk can you please call the roll Mayor Schuyl Mayor Pro Tem Johnson aye council member Caballero no council member Freelon aye council member Freeman aye council member Middleton both aye council member Reese aye thank you thank you everyone thank you good luck to you all Mr. Rabinowitz and Mr. Poli we appreciate your being with us all right now we will move to item 46 my apologies and let me ask again Mr. Fox are you let me ask well first of all Ms. Graham Scott I'm losing it Ms. Graham Scott welcome we're glad to see you the whole family's been here tonight we're glad to see you yes you have we're glad to see you and I look forward to the report from staff and then I will ask who's like yeah all right thank you Mr. Mayor good evening good evening to you as well as to Madam Mayor Pro Tempton and honorable council members I'm Adriah Graham Scott of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and I'm here this evening to request that the council conduct the public hearing to receive comments on the proposed allocation of $256,000 in economic development funds to the CarsGen Therapeutics Corporation LTD and to authorize this city manager to enter into negotiations and execute an agreement with the company founded in 2014 CarsGen Therapeutics is based in Shanghai with operations in both China and the US CarsGen is a clinical stage biotechnology company following the consideration of locations in both Houston, Texas as well as throughout the state of New Jersey CarsGen has committed to locate a facility in the city of Durham in its proposed phase one the company plans to add 128 new full-time jobs and to invest a cost to be invested at least $97 million over the course of the first three years of the project that would include real property improvements and business and personal property improvements to develop an approximate 335,000 square feet of clinical manufacturing facility in the city of Durham this the company has agreed to permit the hiring of associate degree and community college professionals for certain operator and technicians positions which is a key thing to consider because as they're bringing these jobs into our community to be able to offer a full range of skill sets and to build those skill sets within our workforce and that talent pipeline is critical and important the phase two portion of this project will be a 100,000 square feet commercial manufacturing facility this CarsGen product will be facilitated in part by the County of Durham which has approved a $1 million incentive as well as a job development investment grant a JDIG approved by the state's Economic Investment Committee in June of this year of over $1.2 million and over a $400,000 customized training grant over the course of the 12 year term of the grant the project is estimated to grow the state's economy by more than $1 billion payments for all JDIG and local awards only occur following performance verifications that the company has met is incremental job creation and investment targets JDIG projects result in positive net tax revenue even after taking into consideration the grant reimbursement payments to a given company staff is recommending that the city provide $256,000 in economic development investment funds through the CarsGen's therapeutic company subject to performance goals being met by the company related to timing and amount of investment employment creation and maintenance of created jobs as well as workforce development partnership engagement criteria this public hearing has been advertised as required by law thank you for your time staff and representatives of our economic development partners with the chamber as well as representatives from the company are here to answer your questions thank you so much miss Graham Scott we really appreciate you being here even if I missed it a couple of times thank you apologize colleagues you've now heard the report from staff and I'm going to clear this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask if there are any questions for Ms. Graham Scott by members of the council I don't see any Ms. Graham Scott so now I'm going to ask if there are people who are here to speak on this item again I do see some people who have signed up to speak Mr. Fox are you is there a team of speakers that you are leading can you discuss that with us sure good evening Brian Fox with the greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and I'll just thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly in support of this partnership with the state I'll be followed by Dr. Gia with the company but as you heard this is a good partnership with the county with the state and with some new neighbors that is both physically responsible and helps solidify some important partnerships in workforce development education and diverse purchasing that the Durham business community they're joining here shares so that's it for me but also available for questions thank you very much Mr. Fox I will now ask if Gia would like to speak oh yes hi this is Gia thank you Mr. Mayor and the council members I truly appreciate your work so late and gave courage in this opportunity to meet with you all in past few months and we have very active conversation with local community college and city county and state representatives courage really appreciate we have this opportunity to relocate our business from Houston from Shanghai to Durham and we are quite confident and we will be a good neighbor and to join the Durham community and provide job opportunities to young generation here and also we are anticipating to engage more activities to support the local development again I would like to appreciate everyone and it's my great pleasure to see you all thank you very much Mr. Gia all right uh Mr. Smith uh I don't is Mr. Smith planning to speak Mr. Fox or Mr. Smith are you planning to speak on this item this is George Smith just here to answer any questions thank you for having me Mr. Mayor thank you all right I see Mr. Donald Hughes would like to speak Mr. Hughes welcome Madam Clark you've made him available to speak go ahead Mr. Hughes yes thank you again Mr. Mayor I just want to raise a couple of thoughts first I think Carson is going to be an incredible neighbor and partner when they relocate here to Durham but I would challenge us as a community to really lift up those values that are important to us in terms of preparing our young people for opportunities of today as well as tomorrow I think this is a great example of how we could really steer some of our Viola youth so those youth that are 14 to 24 particularly on the higher end of that scale so the 21 to 24 year olds down pathways that will lead them to opportunities and careers with organizations and companies like Carson so I would just implore you all to really think about what specific training programs look like how we can invest more funding into our youth work program to create again industry specific training that will connect our young people to opportunities while I was in Washington DC working for the city's labor agency the department of employment services this is one of the things that we did time and time again when companies were relocating to our areas while it's great that they choose Durham and as council member Middleton said Durham is a hot spot for a number of reasons one being the amazing talent that exists in our community we still have to think about those individuals that don't possess bachelor's degrees or master's degrees or even associate degrees and make sure that we're creating opportunities and pathways for their success and what we know is becoming an increasingly expensive city to live but I'm just pleased that the state has chosen to invest in this partnership the county and that the city hopefully will do the same thing but I just ask that we are a little bit more intentional about the training opportunities that we have for our community members that may not be equipped with the skills right now but if we train them properly they will be able to assume some of those positions and then finally when we look at the job salary data that's always provided while it's great to see a number close to 80,000 I would encourage us also to disaggregate that number so that we can see for the jobs that are lower skill what that will look like in terms of salaries and how that will impact our community and our residents Thank you Mr. Hughes All right colleagues any questions for the applicant or for Ms. Graham Scott okay then I'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matter is back before the council we need a motion to authorize the city manager negotiate and execute an economic development incentive agreement with cars gen therapeutics consistent with the terms discussed in the public hearing Mr. Williams do you have a question? Sure I'm sorry Council Member Middleton and I think I missed about Council Member Reese with seeking recognition as well the staff do we have any projections on when this deal hits its sweet spot where our tax revenue or anticipated tax revenue will be? Yes thank you for the question Council Member Middleton according to projections from our finance department let's see how he cloaked it that the expected property tax generated in the first three years exceeds the estimated $250,000 offer however the receipt of the revenue in excess of the payment of the incentive will likely not happen unless the payout is linked to some type of metrics that would tie them to being open and operating which they are so according to their analysis we'll start to see we will actually start to receive the revenue from generated from the attacks the property tax that will exceed the amount of the incentive payment Thank you very much for that thank you Mr. Mayor Thank you Council Member and thank you Ms. Graham Scott Council Member Reese you have a question I didn't have a question I had some comments Sure Thank you Mr. Mayor my colleagues will have heard some version of this before first let me say I think Carson Therapeutics is a fantastic company they're based in China they're doing some really great clinical trials work on some really difficult to treat forms of cancer using some really cutting edge genetic technology and so I'm really glad that we'll be welcoming them to Durham and I think these are the kinds of jobs that we can prepare our young folks for with a little bit of intentionality look forward to working with our Office of Economic and Workforce Development to make sure that those opportunities exist for our youth the reason I'm speaking now is because I simply refuse to believe I cannot believe that a company that by the way Carson Therapeutics just got listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week congratulations to Carson at the close of the last close of the market their market value and US dollars is someone worth of two billion dollars I just refuse to believe I cannot believe that this company needs two hundred and sixty five thousand dollars of Durham's money in order to put their factory here but I also know that until we have state national reform of these types of programs these incentive programs that pit local governments against each other and often often constitute a race to the top in terms of the amount of dollars that local governments are and state governments are putting in the hands of good companies like Carson to make these citing decisions we will continue to be at the mercy of the of that cycle and for that reason I intend to vote for it but only under protest Mr. Mayor deep deep protest thank you thank you council member Mayor Pro Tem I agree with Charlie thank you thank you Madam Mayor Pro Tem all right colleagues other comments or questions Councilor Milton thank you Mr. Mayor I always look forward to council member Reese's exposition with these things I guess I have a and I respected and much of it I resonate but I guess I have a slightly different take it I just want I I don't see this as me participating in moral turpitude or some kind of degenerate kind of activity it you know the national and state regulation we're looking for is basically the abolishment of capitalism as a government we don't make anything we don't make widgets we don't we don't all we can do is collect money and spend it and make things happen through leveraging our money should corporate citizens be you know possessed of no bless oblige and largesse and do just do cool stuff because it's cool yeah but the world doesn't work that way I think from a mathematical point of view we're going to get more money than we put out if if corporations want to go through this dance you know kind of like you know mortgage companies could finance you a hundred percent why do they make us you know spend 20 put 20 percent you know down they could just finances but you know they make us put something down you know I mean it could be argued in the city this wealthy you know we have a 20 percent poverty rate in Durham we can write checks to everybody in Durham you know on a regular basis just do guaranteed income from our own coffers it's going to cost us in some other areas so I think all told that you know if something is is objectionable I'm you know I have some familiarity with the six to one vote I'm not I'm not afraid to the six to one vote it's not that bad if if you take something as objectionable you should vote against it so so and I mean I'm being playful and I deeply I seriously I really do respect council members risk take on this but I I I guess I just see it differently all things clear I I don't consider myself participating in something morally degenerate I see myself as a as an elected person the only tool I have is to leverage my money our money as a people and if I thought something where I'd vote against it I'm not afraid of a six to one vote obviously so thank you Mr. Mayor I'll tell you your money and your looks council member Reese I guess I have to say something now I don't remember calling this a morally degenerate process if I did I apologize I didn't mean to say that race to the bottom didn't mean to say that I would participate willingly in a morally degenerate process don't think I said that either but if I did I apologize what I think I was trying to say was I know and perhaps in artfully and I again I apologize is that the constitutional legal premise by which the North Carolina Supreme Court has decided that this is the only situation where a local government can give a private entity cash literally is because there is some necessity that but for the government's money the project wouldn't happen like it just mathematically wouldn't pencil out and that decision that legal decision from North Carolina Supreme Court 30 40 years ago is the foundation on all of our economic incentive programs and I'm simply suggesting that it's fundamentally flawed from a logic perspective that it that we there are lots of other ways I would choose to spend $265,000 if I could but I also understand that you know towns in Texas or Massachusetts or Pennsylvania or wherever are also putting these packages together and as long as that's the case I will continue to vote for them but I will also complain mightily as I do it that's that's my position so thank you Mr. Mayor I'm going to be doing in your mild to generate t-shirt I'm going to make for you Mr. Mayor if I might I'm not suggesting the the comment that my colleague made some time ago was a race to the bottom so I'm I'm equating the well actually said race to the bottom in the previous debate that would mean I said I said race to the bottom well I actually both did so but since he made the speech tonight yeah I was you know but yeah you both did um and yeah I'm I'm in no way suggesting that by my friend would participate knowingly and willingly in a morally degenerate situation but you know in my community when you hear race to the bottom it evokes certain images and I totally agree that listen there's a whole bunch of frauds in our system that we participate in regularly again as as a person I'm not the best math student but ultimately we're going to get more back than the 256,000 I don't know who that makes smarter us or the company that we're giving the money to but you know from a mathematical point of view the soulless I take is that ultimately we will get more money back and I do want to thank the comments he made because I said time and time again when we we get excited about these jobs coming to our city but we know that for a lot of our constituents these ain't the jobs we're talking about that they're ready for so this is why we keep talking about our shared economic press project plan about partnering with corporate citizens for vocational training and internships making the workforce and Durham ready so we can all get excited when these type of deals come so with that said and Charlie we will never participate in anything morally degenerate I'm saying it now put my last dollar on it and I don't have many of them but I will thank you Mr. Bearer colleagues thank you I'll now accept a motion to authorize a city manager to negotiate and execute an economic development incentive agreement with cars gen therapeutics so I'll see what I can agree with council member Middleton did I have a motion there yes some of moved by council member Freeman seconded by council member Freeland Madam Clerk please call the roll Mayor Hsu Mayor Pritchin-Johnson aye Council member Cumber Yerro aye Council member Freeland aye Council member Freeman aye Council member Middleton aye Council member Reese aye vote aye thank you very much colleagues the motion passes Ms. Graham Scott thank you for being with us we very much appreciate it thank you Mr. Mayor good night everyone good night colleagues it's now 11-03 we're going to take a five-minute break for our closed caption friends we'll be back at 11-08 remember to mute your microphone thank you all right colleagues it is now 11-08 we are back at it thank you all for hanging in here I'm hoping the next couple of items can be done with dispatch the next item is item 49 resolution and support of the American Jobs Plan and unless there is discussion I'll accept a motion to adopt the resolution to support the American Jobs Plan then move second second move Council member Freeman seconded by Council member Caballero that we support American Jobs Plan Madam Clerk will you please call the roll Mayor Schuhl aye Mayor Putin Johnson aye Council member Caballero aye Council member Freelon aye Council member Freeman aye Council member Middleton I will die Council member Ruiz aye thank you thank you Madam Clerk the ayes have it the motion passes unanimously when I move to item 50 resolution and support of Durham Public School Board of Education opposing bill HB324 and I'll say the same unless there is discussion I'm happy to adopt to accept the motion to adopt the resolution in support of Durham Public School's Board of Education opposing NCHB324 second move by Council member Freeman seconded by Council member Freelon Madam Clerk will you please call the roll Mayor Schuhl aye Mayor Putin Johnson aye Council member Caballero aye Council member Freelon aye Council member Freeman aye Council member Middleton I will die Council member Ruiz aye thank you thank you Madam Clerk the ayes have it the motion passes unanimously we have one further item Council member Reese raised an announcement that we held to the end of the meeting Council member would you like to address us on this subject yes Mr. Mayor thank you and I appreciate my colleagues for their patience it's been a long night this won't take long I'm asking for your support tonight that we direct staff to do two things with respect to the long-time homeowner grant program first I'd like us to direct staff to extend the application deadline to some date beyond what it is now I originally proposed September 30th I don't know that it has to be that long but that's but the gist is to extend the application deadline and keep it open long enough so the second thing can happen and the second thing is to ask our staff to come back to us as soon as possible with a plan to expand the long-time homeowner grant program citywide I was not present for the portion of the budget work session where this was discussed two weeks ago but I absolutely appreciated the obstacles that that were in in the way of the council for making that that expansion a citywide happen between that date and this date totally get it and so my proposal is for is to ask staff to try to figure out a way to make it happen and to hold the application period open such that if and when the council does agree to a plan to expand the program citywide that folks can still apply for it for the current tax year so that's my proposal that's what I'm asking us to do and I see that the city manager has turned on her camera to address us now I'll stop now Madam manager yes so good good evening or is it morning no still eating I'm good evening Mr. Mayor Mayor Pro Tem members council one of the things that I would like to enter into the conversation at this time really is about the timing of the of the actions that you're requesting of staff first of all we certainly intend to extend the deadline for the current program that the council has approved for the selected neighborhoods primarily because we want to make sure that the residents who are covered by this program have an opportunity to get their applications in I spoke to staff today and I'm sure some of them are still on and they can join to to to help me you know provide a response to to the conversations this evening and that particular deadline that they recommended to be through August 31st I think that was another day that we were given consideration to but certainly the extension of the deadline for the program that we currently receiving applications for there was a it was you know there was a goal to bring a report back to council to let the city council know about the progress in that particular cycle so that we could make a determination or receive guidance on whether to extend it one an additional year or stop it at the time because we are on an extension right now any extension of time leaving that particular application program open doesn't really give us the authority to add any additional you know any additional neighborhoods or or qualified residents to that process that would have to take a different form and I also asked the city attorney's office to help with that response because that discussion was part of what we what we had in your absence so the particular program that we currently have is is very specific and leaving it open doesn't get the additional get the additional folks in thank you very much matter manager see yeah madam mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor I'm wondering if we could get type like a timeline from the manager or from someone in community development about how the program works now in terms of people that how people are applying and what tax year it's being applied for like I know people have to pay their taxes and then get a rebate so are the people who are applying for the program now applying for a grant to offset their taxes from 2020 or are they applying for a grant to offset their taxes for 2021 it is 2020 okay so they've paid their 2020 taxes and in 2021 they're applying for a grant for that that's correct okay um great thank you council member freeman thank you I just wanted to take up the second half of the proposal that council member Reese proposed in that the timing is great the extension is great and then just making sure to add the additional neighborhoods however we need to specify for 2020 well I'm hearing the manager say that in her opinion we can't do that and so maybe she could talk a little bit more about that or if we need to hear the attorney we can do that as well so it was the city attorney's office that made the presentation that women's women's had the the last conversation about this particular program you know it doesn't mean another type of program can't you know can't be created it is just that the council approved a specific program with specific requirements and the city attorney's office did recommend that you know we not be able to just add additional neighborhoods under those circumstances council member race yeah thank you city manager page I definitely heard the representative from the city attorney's office explain that adding additional neighborhoods was legally problematic totally understand I don't want to do that I don't expand the program citywide which the representative from the city attorney's office also said would be acceptable and legally defensible I made this proposal when we first approved this program in 2016 unfortunately I didn't get the majority of my colleagues to agree with me then I'm asking and I'm not even asking my colleagues to vote for that tonight I'm simply asking my colleagues to direct staff to come back to us with a plan to do that and then we can decide as a body if that's what we want to do and so that's what I'm asking for tonight and an extension of the deadline so that if we did expand the program that folks could actually apply during the current year thank you council member let me ask our attorney madam attorney it's been my understanding that the legal justification for this program was the investment by the city in certain neighborhoods which caused or at least was a major factor in the creation of the judgeification in those neighborhoods that's correct Mr. and so is there do we have is you know can we expand this program to something that is citywide sure so I think you all may remember recall that senior assistant city attorney crucica grow was the attorney from the office who had this discussion with you all on june 10th and she explained some of the history behind the program and I think there were a specific request to add particular neighborhoods like walltown like bogtown that while experiencing you know pressures gentrification pressures preservation issues did not have that tie of city investment in the area that was causing those specific pressures so they're very different communities than the original three communities that were included in the program and so in our opinion when we looked at that we were like you know it would be difficult to defend the program if the council is just kind of adding neighborhoods ad hoc that didn't share the same characteristics as the original neighborhoods in the program however if if the council wants to expand the program to cover the entire city and I believe Christa also mentioned this to you all we do have some concerns about you know how the particular structure of the program might work and we would like to see some things administratively be changed for instance payments being made directly to the tax office rather than to property owners that sort of thing we could certainly you know assist the administration and coming up with a platform for having a city-wide program that can be done legally thank you administratively of course that's a completely different question and I'd have to defer to the city manager on you know how much they could make that happen and what could be absorbed and what the cost issues are and things like that thank you madam materny thank you for that refresher madam manager yes so the so we certainly can I did get a comment from Reginald Johnson that indicated the cycle we're currently in is for valuation change between 2015 and 2019 the valuation change and those final bills were being in january of 2020 so it is it is payments that could potentially have been paid as late as january 2020 but some were paid in 2019 so I do want to correct that before we started talking about the the city-wide a city-wide program we can certainly look we have not done any analysis of you know potentially how many qualified applicants that might be you know what kind of administrative structure we would need to to put in a place to to process those applications all of that would have to be done um you know and we would have to bring you back you know that information because we have not been able you know we haven't had an opportunity or time or weren't asked in the past to to create a program such as as we're discussing here tonight councilmember meddleton thank you mr. marion I'm going to thank councilmember reese for his leaning in on this and for challenging us uh to to take up this issue I I the we all know the neighborhoods we want to we want to address and if if we're in legal jeopardy by picking neighborhoods at hot if the fix is to go city-wide when we really know the issue if and we're only doing that um to give us legal cover I'm wondering maybe if we have the wrong tool for the right problem and I fully resonate with the spiritual the spirit of councilmember reese's argument and push we've got to do something about gentrification but we've got to do something about wealth and the quality of life in these neighborhoods as well I I think we need a Marshall plan a Marshall type plan for the city for these for these specific neighborhoods not for the entire city of Durham for these specific neighborhoods so perhaps right problem maybe this isn't the best tool I remember um when Reginald you know when when Reginald's shop was not advocating but but recommending cessation because of the incredible amount of person power it took for a limited amount of cases and all the time we put into a few applications with targeted neighborhoods and I think to task the administration now to come back with a recommendation for a city-wide initiative with you know we have no idea what kind of you know if we throw open those flood gates what is going to do to us in terms of administration in terms of person power particularly and again I'm keeping in mind you know the the the caution we got and the advisory we got from the staff with just a few cases back then how much time it took so much so that they were recommending cessation um so now we want to go bigger and ramp up I'm just concerned that um if we're doing that primarily to avoid legal jeopardy we might and you know we might experience some unanticipated consequences um there might be some people you know applying who don't really need it some neighborhoods we weren't trying to impact so I and again I agree with that I think we need to do something city-wide I think we do but I also know that there's some part of the city that don't need this intervention we know the neighborhoods we need to help we know the neighborhoods we need to fix and and and we need to I think be specific I you know I I would I would defer to the the city managers council and stewardship over this and whatever time they need to give us I don't want to quick fix I'm going to right fix whatever time they need to assess how taxing this may be from a workload point of view how much money are we going to put in it I mean our you know if we go city-wide how much this could the city potentially be on a hook for I don't know but these are questions I'd like to see you know the answers to or at least some projected answers to and you know I'd rather be more liberal with the timetable for the staff to do all that due diligence given our experience with this initiative thus far as opposed to kind of giving them a drop dead date to come back with us but I totally agree that you know with the spirit of council member Reese's charge to us but I just want to make sure we you know we don't have the wrong tool for the right problem and it is a problem so whatever that's worth thank you Mr. Mayor thank you council member council member Freeman I think council member Reese had his hand up so I'll defer you're on me I'll call the new council member Freeman go ahead thank you I just wanted to to just highlight a few things just acknowledging that the I agree with council member Middleton that we should give staff the time to figure those things out unfortunately I'm concerned based on the conversation with our city attorney Cooper just noting that if we're shifting if the plan is to shift towards a tax office payment and folks have already paid their taxes they miss out and those dollars are dollars that they would put towards food or you know clothing and other basic needs and so I am I am concerned about not giving a date and not being specific about who will be included because I am specifically talking about Bradtown Merrickmore and Waltown who have made that request very clearly a number of times and have poured in so much time and effort into our processes to get to that point and have not been included and so I appreciate council member Reese bringing it forward this evening I did share with staff a few of the areas of investments that could be denoted for Bradtown Merrickmore and Waltown specifically and I think that those those three should be included now so that they have an understanding of what's coming and then we can come back and address it moving forward with a citywide prop you know a Marshall plan or what have you I think that's a great idea thank you thank you council member other colleagues anybody else Mayor Procheb thank you Mr. Mayor so I'm not sure if we're going to be able to resolve this tonight and wouldn't like to think about what our next steps are in terms of moving this down making giving some sort of direction to staff I feel like the there's a question of whether we I feel like there's some questions that we're going to need staff's research and input to answer and so I don't know whether whether we can make the decision tonight about how to about whether and how to continue the program without having a little bit more information I would support I support expanding the program citywide I'm not as worried about folks from these additional neighborhoods being able to apply this year especially given that the credits that are being given out this year are for taxes in 2019 I thought they were for taxes from 2020 I think that we could take some time to allow staff to think through in a citywide expansion of the program and allow people to start applying for that program as soon as it's figured out for their 2020 taxes and start the citywide program with that tax year that would give the staff some time to answer to give us some more information to help us answer the questions about citywide or certain neighborhoods tax office or not you know some some of those points that I don't think we're going to be able to resolve tonight that would allow the folks who have applied now for 2019 tax grants to be able to get those more expeditiously under the current parameters of the program rather than having rather than having to wait for us to figure out what we're doing for this tax year so my my suggestion would be to leave the program as is for the applications that are coming in now for 2019 taxes and ask staff to come back to us as soon as possible with answers to some of the questions we would need to expand the program in some way starting with taxes due in 2020 thank you let me ask a question about the thought about a citywide expansion we're already engaged in a citywide plan with the county countywide plan at a lower AMI than we believe is it all to be and also at a lower or at least in my opinion a lower cap than we want to have but it is the structure that we want in the sense that it'll be administered by the tax tax office and has that tremendous advantage for those of you who are talking about a citywide plan now what is your thought about the relationship between you know between a different citywide plan what is your is your thought about the relationship between those two are you thinking that we would only do this one you know for a short period of time until we get the other one to look like we want it to look or are you thinking that there will be two programs that exist side by side or what is your thinking now I ask councilmember Reese since he raised this for us thank you mr mayor I had talked a little bit about that in my email last week but yes that's exactly what I'm thinking I want the joint city county program to be much more robust needs a higher AMI needs a higher cap and until we get there it leaves out a significant number of longtime low-income homeowners who need our support the needs of those longtime low-income homeowners are the reason we started this program in the first place I advocated then for a citywide program the reason I advocated for it for it now is the same reason I advocated for it then because the city our city government has made millions and millions of dollars of investments in public money throughout this city especially downtown but throughout the city and those investments have made Durham a very attractive place to live and that has overheated our real estate market as a result I think we have compelling legal justification for the program that we started five years ago in those three targeted neighborhoods I think we have legal justification for a program citywide if we had legal justification for just adding the three neighborhoods that councilmember Freeman talked about I guess I would accept that as a half measure moving toward a citywide program but since our city attorneys said we can't do that this is what I'm proposing the thing that I actually want to do and have wanted to do for a long time I understand that there are folks who only want to help those neighborhoods but my concern is for every long time low income homeowner who's having a hard time paying their tax bill those folks deserve relief we're not getting it from the state the county hasn't designed the program sufficiently to meet all of the need and so I'm asking the city to at least ask our staff to come up with a plan for us to step in temporarily until we can convince our colleagues at the county to do better that's the proposal so back to my question are you proposing that we would do this for a year and then when we got the assuming we got the county went up to a higher AMI on a higher cap this one would disappear I'll take that deal if you're offering it well I'm wondering what you're thinking that sounds great that sounds great Mr. Mayor absolutely okay council member Freeman thank you Mr. Mayor and I want to wholeheartedly put my support behind that plan and also just note that to council member Reese's point I think it is about the entire city and all of the residents it's just that these neighborhoods have been experiencing hundreds of percent of harm and acknowledging how much investment has happened and how much of the tax rate has been increased and so that's the only reason I would specifically call those neighborhoods out as they have been left out of the initial plan I actually also was advocating for it on behalf of that on the resident side as a community member and advocate around affordable housing and I just want to make sure that they're not left out of this this year's tax cycle specifically because I don't want to push it kick the can down the road and then they end up waiting and waiting and then we come up with a whole different plan and they have no handles to hold on to it and so I appreciate council member Reese's comments and I would I appreciate your suggestion I would support that thank you other comments let me go back to Mayor Pro Tem's comment can you talk a little bit more I was I was trying to stay with you around the timing maybe you could re-describe that sure yeah I think it's a little confusing because people are applying the application that's open now are to help like reimburse people for what they paid in taxes for tax year 2019 so my proposal would be to just allow this year of the program to play out as the staff originally intended with the few neighborhoods that are already authorized and then ask them to come back to us with a proposal for a citywide program that would allow people to begin applying as soon as possible for for help with the taxes that they paid starting in tax year 2020 and that would give the staff time to come back with some of the questions with answers to some of the questions that we have and additional research and like a fully fleshed out proposal with a little bit more time while the folks who are applying right now for taxes for their taxes that they already paid in 2019 would continue to have access to the current program and wouldn't be and it wouldn't be extended beyond the current deadline unless this actually wanted to say they were thinking about extending the deadline anyway to get more to allow more people to apply under the original program so but whatever the staff wants to do with what is currently set up for tax year 2019 when we start a new thing for tax year 2020 that would be in my opinion should be citywide okay all right so I think that we're I think one possibility is to say to the staff I mean so you know some things here some things that occur to me big administrative lift you know the the county had to hire three people just to do the thing that we're doing together so you know a much higher you know potentially much much larger number of people would be a lot of people to hire and potentially a whole lot of dollars out the door so those are things that are going to have to be thought about it and it's going to have to be thought about carefully I don't you know and and I also want our staff to get a vacation and I don't want to say to our staff you need to spend the next month doing this I feel very strongly about that yeah they're going to be working some and hopefully they're also going to be like us taking some time off and so I'm very uh I'm really concerned about that that we don't all of a sudden say you know you've got this big thing you need to give us in a month so um what are your thoughts colleagues about maybe maybe I'll I'll I'll ask the manager madam manager if we were to say to you that we would like to see what uh what the outlines of a or what more than outline what a what a uh a citywide program of tax relief similar to the parameters that we have around the current one our current one would look like in terms of cost administration and so forth what would it take you know how much time would it take to do that and and uh what what are your thoughts about that so I do believe that our original job son is still here his staff has been managing the city program that we currently have which I would like for him to come on the camera and and speak to this part of it what you know what I do you know do know is that you know you know we could potentially figure out a way to have you know administratively maybe get a partner that may be you know better better uh at you know intake and processing you know applications just scaling up from something that they're already doing compared to what Reginald is about to talk about on the numbers of applications and and what it takes to really process them by by community development so Reginald thank you our Madam Manager Mayor Mayor Pro Tem Reginald Johnson Director Community Development the first thing that I would say our first priority is to process the applications that we have incoming and the reason that we are proposing to extend the deadline is that we are have been challenged due to retirement as well as a medical leave staff member to complete applications that we have now that that's our challenge and that's our first priority it's going to take us through the summer to get that completed to be to be quite candid with you and that's what I have shared with the manager in terms of analysis from another type of program continuation as you remember that our plan was to prepare a report for you that would be in the fall that would detail the the pilots of the the four years that we've talked about but now we're talking about adding additional new program that I know that we won't be able to do by the end of summer it's going to have to be in the fall because simply we don't have the staff capacity to be able to do it so that's what I would share with you have it's in preliminary conversations with the manager about that as we prepare for this discussion Council Member Middleton thank you Mr. Johnson Thank you Madam Manager and thank you Mr. Johnson and Mr. Johnson that said there lies the rub of my concern about the right tool for the right problem I'm not in pursuit of equality I'm in pursuit of equity and equity is targeted equity is not a blanket that's a quality we know the neighborhood in our city that are being gentrified we know where they live we know which ones are being people are people are being priced out the listen just from an administrative point of view even an application from someone in the part of the city who's not qualified for the program still takes time to look at that application and say no and I'm just wondering is that a good use of our resources as a city that's already taxed processing application that gets rejected is still takes time to do that still has to be read still has to be given this due diligence more paper and how many hands you know are we going to have to do that an equity lens would compel us to look at where the actual problem is where the actual for this particular fix and if we need to do a Durham work around if there are folk that are living in wealthier neighborhoods that some for some reason their houses in disrepair they can't pay their taxes their income doesn't you know meets the income level but they just happen to live in a rich neighborhood then we are find a way to help them but we know the legacy neighborhoods we know the neighborhoods that have been historically disinvested in in Durham we know where our people are struggling in equity compels us to use our resources wisely and to target the problem again I resonate with with a citywide fix but I also resonate when I hear the staff say how much time it takes to process the few applications that we do have and I also resonate with all the talking we've been doing about equity everybody only here set sat through equity training and we know that that's different from equality and and and there are parts of Durham that need targeted diligent rigorous assistance from us as a city and there are parts of Durham doing just fine and we know that so I I you know from an equity point of view and again I I you know I want to help everybody feed feed the homie closing they can shelter the homeless as my mantra you know wherever you can find them but for this particular initiative for this particular case given staff resources given what we've heard from the manager and and the Mr. Johnson I'm you know I think the mayor pro tem made a great recommendation about doing what we're doing now for now is the staff wants to take a look at the city what it would look like for the city but I want the staff to to have the space and the time to to look us in the eye and say look it's going to cost this much we're going to we have we it takes this many people to do it at this level it's going to take this many more people to do it at that level and I think we have to be ask ourselves are we potentially taking resources away from the the pursuit of equity in the targeted areas that we know need attention I don't want the staff having to read an application to say no to someone who shouldn't have applied in the first place when we know where the areas are that need our help I'm not pursuing equality I'm pursuing equity at this point so but that's a thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you colleagues for this really important discussion it really is important I'm going to Council member Freelon Council member Caballero and then I'm going to have a proposal for how to move ahead on this we'll see how you all like it out but first let's hear from Council member Freelon and Caballero Thank you Mr. Mayor I appreciate the robust discussion and we'll try to be brief it's almost midnight um yeah I think um you know hearing Barbara Johnson really made it clear to me that they don't have the capacity to meet the deadline that that that was proposed I guess the already extending to August Charlie was recommending we push back to September and he's saying they need that time just to do the scope of work that's already on their plate in addition to your comments Mr. Mayor about you know just summer I mean I just don't think even with sounds like their summers already shot just doing what we've already asked them to do um and I want to be yeah empathetic to that reality around capacity and thank um Mayor Pro Tem Johnson has proposed an interesting alternative it's a bit of a compromise we take a little bit more time to uh give the staff the bandwidth to finish the scope of work that's immediately in front of them and then create a plan to do exactly what Charlie has asked of us to consider at a at a reasonable pace later in the fall or you know so anyway that's when my head's at and hearing from the city manager and Mr. Johnson really helped crystallize that choice for me because I think everyone's made really good points tonight thank you Mr. Mayor thank you Council Member Council Member Caballero I just had a quick question it was when does the county program kick in for which year is it for 2021 I couldn't remember for which for which tax year I'm sorry I'll show that it is for the tax year that we're budgeting for so for taxes that will be paid in 2021 2022 okay thank you so there is a substantial gap between what when this expires and when the even with the with the flawed parameters there's a there's a pretty big gap so I don't see a way I feel like we do have to do something to to fill that gap I think getting better information from staff is kind of the only alternative we're left with I hear my colleagues around the targeted neighborhoods and I also hear our city attorneys and and that will have to be something that staff you know helps us investigate I'm curious to hear what the mayor's proposal is the mayor's proposal is the same as council member freelance proposal I think that what I would like to propose colleagues and I don't think this is only because I'm you know I'm tired but I think that a good way to proceed would be to the staff is moving on the current program and they'll figure out how much time they need to do that and then that we say to the staff you know come back to us in you know let's say the first walk work session in August say with a plan for how you would make a plan I mean you know what would you what would what would we need to do what we need to find out what we need to look at what would be the important things that we would need to know and how would you do it and on what time you know what basically on what timetable I'm convinced that we can't ask our staff to do a good job now that they could do a good job now on you know setting up a program on some fast basis and I don't I don't want that personally but I think we could say to staff come back to us in early August at a work session tell us what it would take for you to make a plan you know what would the resources that you would need to do it what would the timetable you could do it on so that's my thought happy to hear your thoughts about that council member Freeman thank you Mr. Mayor I think that's a great compromise I would just add to that conversation that there's there's also this miss that I'm feeling in that there are folks who weren't able to cover their 2019 taxes and that they're kind of in limbo and I just wanted to just figure out if there's a way to add some support in place for folks who might be in that in between and then the gap as well so I think my tension the tension for me is that I know that there are folks who are experiencing the like experiencing the pandemic and having some difficulties and then also acknowledging the housing pressures the tax increases all of that is mounting and it feels like there's not going to be relief in 20 from 2019 to 2020 for those areas that we just mentioned which are Bradtown Merrickmore and Walltown and so I'm concerned mainly for 2019 and 2020 so 2021 and 2022 sound like we have a plan but what happens for now to get folks through to 2021 and 2022 is just the area that I'm hoping that staff might be able to offer some suggestions on thank you council member thank you other colleagues council member Middleton thank you mr. Marin and I'm I'm certain this will be my final comment of the night I would just you know want to intone and remod- intone the fact and remind my colleagues that the areas that council member Freeman just named have not only asked for help with taxes they've talked about crime they've talked about sidewalks they've talked about a whole number a list of other things so I just want to be clear that we don't distill this conversation just down to tax relief although that's critically important but there's a whole lot of other things they've asked for that we can take action on immediately we I mean we we can lob off a million or two million dollars and and direct it at some stuff tonight you know the see if we're getting ready to look at our CIP so you know the energy that we're putting in this tax program as well there's some low hanging fruit in some other areas as well that those neighborhoods have asked for as well so while we're asking the staff to do this I would just remind us that there's some other things we can do with much more agility than this tax program as well thank you Mr. Mayor thank you council member colleagues any other thoughts on what I have proposed I see a thumb up from a couple thumbs up I know some thumbs up council member Reese Mayor Pro Tem any thoughts I see thumbs elsewhere see a thumb all right I don't see a thumb from council member Reese but I'm seeing six thumbs so I'm just pretending yours is up Mr. Mayor I look forward to working with the staff to create a path for a citywide property tax relief program and I appreciate everyone's time and attention on that I know we don't have agreement on the merit of a citywide tax assistance program but I hope I could take the opportunity over the next several months to convince each and every one of you that it's a good idea in and of itself so thank you Mr. Mayor appreciate my colleagues and you agreeing to talk another got almost an hour about this sorry let me just add a couple things before the manager so I just I think about on the tour of Braggtown which the manager was on and and deputy city manager Chadwell and you know deputy city manager Johnson and and others planning director transportation director we had a whole raft of city employees and we saw a lot of what you called excuse me the low hanging fruit we saw a lot of that and our staff was taking notes and there are a lot of things that we can do now but we're also directing six million dollars to a green and equitable infrastructure program and that is aimed in the same direction so you can see him at the end of my voice Madam manager I was just going to make sure since this is our last night gathering that we have the direction that we need to work while while you all are away and we have pretty much made a decision to extend the deadline for the current application cycle through August 31st and that would I guess close out the one year extension that we had on the original program we would be looking to bring a plan for a citywide program and instead of extending the current program another year for the gap year between the city program and the county program we would be bringing a plan for a citywide program to occur in that gap year is that the direction that you all are given the administration and for that to happen at least the initial conversations about it in August well I would say something slightly different I don't think we've got agreement yet on a citywide plan I think some of us are more interested in that some are more interested in something slightly oriented towards certain neighborhoods so what I think I would like to see in August and I think what as council member Freeland stated and I think my colleagues agree is it in August you bring us a plan for how you're going to look at this you know what are the things that you're going to need to look at when you think you can do that we're not expecting in August that we'll have a citywide plan we're expecting in August that we'll have a you know how would you plan to move forward to look at this what are the things you need to look at and then we can have a discussion then about that and and move it forward but we're not I'm not expecting a plan I don't think we should expect a plan by then but I think we should expect movement in the direction of what it will take what will what will you need to get to that plan is that good enough Madam Manager yes okay do that okay all right colleagues thank you thank you for council member Reese for raising this thank you for all of you all for this very good discussion and I don't think we have anything else to do I think we've this is the last moment of the last meeting of our fiscal year we want to thank everybody I'm I see her deputy managers are hanging with us Ms. Wallace all of you all thank you so much why don't you turn your screens on if you feel like it we can wave at you here's Ms. Johnson and just Mr. Chadwell everybody we appreciate you thank you and Ms. Wallace good we'll see you very very soon but just huge gratitude to our city leadership you all are amazing and we know you we put you through it all the time but we don't do it on purpose we do it because we know you can handle it and you can do it better than anybody and just extreme extreme gratitude I will be taking some vacation but you can see me on video I'm doing my State of the City speech in a little a couple of little videos first we're on our where we are with COVID which I think might come out tomorrow and second one on our city budget which I did before we passed our city budget so I'm awfully glad we passed it and talking about all the great things we're doing so yeah see me on video all right colleagues thank you so much love you guys and happy to see you all all of really really soon it's that grand baby and thank you Mr. Hughes for hanging in with us as well yeah yeah have a good day care everybody yeah I did y'all at the beach night the recording has 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