 audio. I like that. Thank you, Karmisha. I don't see my dear friend and colleague, Stephen M. Shul, the mayor of the city of Durham on the call yet, but I do see Councilmember Mark Anthony Middleton. Good afternoon, sir. What's up, crew? How's everybody? My partner in crime is as Vice Chair of the Legislative Committee. Oh, hello, Representative Bernetta Alston. Back in the house. Hey, team. Hey, we miss you. Where's the baby? Sorry, I miss you, but I want to see the baby. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. There's a lot of priorities straight here. They're all out on some sort of adventure. I don't even know where they are to be honest. They went out somewhere. Well, if they get back in, they want to do a cameo. Well, I have my my do not enter screen up, but make it in for a moment. Madeline Murdoch has entered the chat and then she'll be back. Oh, Natalie. Hey, still here. He's grabbing the hello. We're gonna take a couple of minutes here for everybody to get connected. Get after any representative morning. Good to see you today. Hey, thank you, Mayor Shul and I were on another zoom with the criminal justice group. So he'll be coming. Sorry, I'm late. Fantastic. And I do know that manager page is wrapping up one meeting, but we'll be joining us momentarily as well. I'm sad we don't get to have our traditional breakfast together. And it is bad. I am so sorry that we don't have a grit scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, pork sausage, biscuits, and an open muffin for Abdullah power. You're making me hungry, Kermitian. Big bowl of chopped up fruit. That's mostly melon. Some member Freeman. Great to see you this afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. I just had to try to use those two minutes to wolf down some chicken noodle soup. Oh, Millie. Oh, the dog. Oh, how are you, Senator Murdock? Senator Woodard. Yes. Good to see you. Representative Austin. Hello. I love the haircut. Oh, thanks. Yeah, this is my nice and tight. Nice and tight. I like that. Okay. No bowtie bed. Representative Morey. Hey, DeDiana, how are you? I'm good. I haven't seen you in so long. It seems like forever ago. Like we used to see one another. You know, I miss it. We'll be back. Yeah, one day. Not too soon now. We might not get a baby cameo, but we're getting a puppy cameo, so. Oh, my dog passed out right next to me. It's like the fourth child. Did you really need a fourth child? How are you? Hello. Hello. Conversations that have a lot more than three and then we had the three and no more. Well, for the folks who are watching this streaming on YouTube, just want to let folks know that we're going to try to wait a couple more minutes so that more of our delegation and our mayor can join us before we get underway. So hang in there with us. I just received a message from Representative Hawkins that he's looking for his. One of my links had expired. I had to use the one that was sent. That's the one that you hear today was sent yesterday around 10. I'm sending one to Zach. I just saw a message from Representative Reeves. He said his link isn't working. I'll take care of him, Nally. Perfect. Thanks, y'all. Peter at work. You know how things are down in deep Chatham there. It's Chatham that just elected their first Latino county commissioner. And got rid of their last Republican I heard. It's looking up down there. Oh my goodness. Look at this guy. Welcome aboard. You are not, in fact, Bernadette Alston. Yes, yes. It is the Bearded Zach Hawkins. Understand you and my wife brought the house down with the big trivia fundraiser last night. Oh man. It was fantastic man. She killed it. You know I would have been there but someone had to make dinner, feed the kids, get them to bed. So you guys were, we could tell you your queen last night. She should run some of those trivia questions, why? We could hear her laughing all throughout the house. It was amazing actually. Really good time. Yeah, fun times. Fun times for a good cause. Durham Public Schools Foundation, if you haven't given, please give it in the right, Ms. Javier. Monthly Sustainer. Monthly Sustainers. Let's see. Okay, there's my council colleague Pierce Freelon. Good afternoon, Pierce. It's been about three hours since I was last on the Zoom with you. So long time no see. So this meeting is being reported and all of the conversation that's going on is streaming on to YouTube. Great. Well that was, I'm glad we started that way then. Yeah, absolutely. I was, it was not by accident my friend. That beard is something else boy. I tell you you got it coming on. Boy. We don't allow to alert the people of Durham to all the grayness in my beard. I did not mention a word of it. Not a word was heard. You look very distinguished. I hope you trust me when you get gray. Exactly. We are still waiting on the mayor and the minority leader, I believe. Let's see. My law school classmate, Representative Robert Reeves. There is our city manager, Wanda Page. Good afternoon. Good afternoon all. Red is definitely your color. Thank you very much. And here is the mayor of the city of Durham, Stephen M. Shwell. He was here. Left us. Hi Steve. Hi everybody. Have y'all started without me? Of course not. We're finished. We're all done. Good to see everybody. I couldn't find my link and it was on my gmail but I'm glad to see you and I apologize for being late. Mr. Mayor, we're still one legislator short, I believe. The bill can get the screen. Yes. Representative Reeves has not yet joined us. Still working. We'll work him in. It's great to see everybody. Thanks for being with us. Really great to see you. It is Wednesday and we have three other bowtie caucus members with no bowtie. I'll just note that. We'll let people know that because of the pandemic we decided to forgo this Wednesday. Well, we don't have to forego it. Just give me another minute here. It's still early, still early. Exactly. I can go whip one on real quick. It ain't a problem. Who can I? There you go. You're welcome. Oh, DJ, I was trying to step her game up. Oh, yeah. There are no good times in my house. I'm having a hard time getting Robert on the phone and talking through this and his mailbox is full. Big surprise. I'm hearing, yeah, the mailbox is going to stay full because all of our life now are texts and polls and Robert, Robert, we can hear you, my friend. I know. That's why I'm telling Mike. Oh, excellent. Awesome. Yeah, that's what it is. So I'm here now. Okay, good. My friend and law school classmate, the houseman or the leader Robert Reeves has finally joined us. Good to see you. Good to hear from you, Robert. Thank you. So we got everybody? Mr. Mayor, I think we're ready for you. Thank you. Representative Reeves, never mind. He did it. Well, good to see everybody. I'm glad we're finally all together. Took a minute or two, but it's great to be with the best legislative delegation in the state of North Carolina. Hands down. We are so grateful to all of you all. And councilmember Reeves already mentioned that Representative Reeves has a new position and we're all just really, really happy about that and grateful for him for taking on this responsibility and good luck over there. We are here for a special reason, which is to take up our legislative agenda with our legislative delegation. Madam clerk, do we need to do we need to call the roll? Are we okay? Mayor Schull, I believe we're okay. All right, good. All right, then we'll move right into it. As you all know, we are very fortunate in Durham to have Carmisha Wallace, our senior assistant to the city manager who has guided us over the years through this legislative process. And this year is no exception. So we're going to begin with a presentation by Ms. Wallace. Then I'm going to turn it over to councilmember Reeves to also do a little table setting. He's been the chair of our committee and councilmember Middleton has been the vice chair of our committee, our legislative committee and we'll take it from there. So Ms. Wallace, welcome. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Pertem Johnson, members of the Durham City Council and of course our esteemed members of our Durham delegation. I want to thank you for joining in the very first virtual legislative meeting, state delegation meeting. For those of you who've been a part of the delegation for a little bit longer now, you know that ordinarily we would schedule a meeting for 7.30. Mayor Bell would show up around 8.00 a.m. to 8.15. And then we would proceed with our grits and eggs and hash browns and bacon and sausage and biscuits. But because we are living in very unique times right now, we're not doing that today. But I do want to certainly thank you for being here on making it a priority to have this discussion with us. Typically we would have these discussions after the session began but I heard from several of you, let's go ahead and get this get this party started. So I've worked very closely with our interim city manager who I did not acknowledge but certainly want to acknowledge Wanda Page who greeted you earlier today. And so Wanda and I have been working very closely to make sure that we bring forward the items that are the utmost importance to the administration. I've also worked with council member Reece who's chair of the council's legislative subcommittee as well as council member Mark Anthony Middleton who's vice chair of that committee committee to bring four items that are important to the council and the community. So together we have developed an agenda with approximately 31 items. I must admit that I don't think that I've ever crossed that number but it's no surprise that in the Bull City we do things differently and you'll hear more about that a little bit later. We also have some items that we refer to as our advocacy items and I'll take this opportunity to share with you the legislative agenda items are the ones that we ask that you introduce legislation if at all possible on behalf of our community and or our organization. The advocacy items are the things that we ask that you support in the event that they come up throughout the general assembly but are not necessarily the priorities for us or the things of where we prefer that you invest your energy. I'm sure as many of you know that priorities will change as the session goes forward and we will certainly try to pivot and do our best to be responsive as well as proactive when it's needed. At this point I want to turn it over to the chair of the legislative subcommittee Charlie Reese and he will provide some some highlights as well. Thank you. Thank you Karmisha. I appreciate that. Mr. Mayor did you want me to go through the items on the legislative agenda or were we going to ask Karmisha to read through the items or do you want or how do you want us to proceed at this point? I will defer to you all. Which would you rather do? I'm happy to go through the items. Why don't we do that real quick? Are you just listing them or are we starting? I don't know that I need a listing. I don't know about my colleagues but. All right. I'm happy not to do that. It's a lot of reading that's for sure. I think why don't I just do this. Why don't I talk a little bit about some of the things that are on here and then try to open us up for a bit of a conversation about what the session might bring. I think if you've had a chance to look at the legislative agenda as well as the advocacy agenda I think what you will find is that what we have put together is a list of legislative proposals that would in some make a huge difference in the lives of the people of Durham and whether you talk about changes to broaden the Circuit Baker property tax exemption measures that would increase our ability to promote affordable housing in Durham. The ability to change the way that we fix and enforce income-based water and sewer rates or some of the changes that we would ask to increase the ability of folks to get access to driver's licenses and have fines and fees waived for past incidents. There are a host of measures on this agenda that we as a body believe would make Durham a better place to live and would make our state a better place and really improve the lives of the people of this city. I think the advocacy issues are none of them will be a surprise to you. These are issues that many of you have championed long before any of us got that got here and the same is true of the legislative agenda. I think the most to my mind one of the most productive uses of this kind of session is less to talk about the items like to go through a laundry list of all the things on the agenda but really to ask you our legislative delegation how this agenda can be most helpful to you in the work that you have to do at the General Assembly and maybe help us understand what are the most productive ways for you to advocate on our behalf in the General Assembly. So maybe I'll ask the Dean of our delegation Senator Mike Woodard to kind of get us started by talking about a couple items on the agenda that you see that might be the most productive use of your legislative time in the General Assembly. Most productive use I'm sorry we're not going to go through each one of them is that what that I missed that part of the conversation that Renetta was talking about. I was just suggesting we didn't need a listing but I think it would make sense to go through you know each of them for a discussion but I didn't know Charlie. Okay then let's go ahead and do that let's go ahead and do that's a great idea. I did knowing my colleagues we've all looked at these and read them I know we had some preliminary conversation based on your committee meetings so and I know I've shared conversation or text with some of you on some of these so I just I think we should just dive in and at least understand some of these I think we may have I suspect council member Reese we've got some questions that we may need some information from you or your council colleagues I see a number of your staff folks particularly from the attorney's office and some of the departments on here as well so we may have some questions about that if they can join in as well so why don't we just dive in. Fantastic I'm sorry I misunderstood Renetta all representatives all since suggestion and we'll we'll go ahead and get started then number one on the legislative agenda is removing the age or disability restriction on the circuit breaker property tax exemption and you can read the description there I'm happy to get thoughts or questions from legislators about that item number one on our agenda. So I think one of the things for us to make sure that we share with you all and you all probably know this is some of these that will be local bills and some that will have to be state bills so any of the revenue taxation questions will be state bills and as such will obviously bring more scrutiny and attention than a local bill would so that's going to be the case here let me think this will be a state bill so I just want to make sure you all are aware of that. So I was going to share for the benefit of the group this was actually an item that was in our legislative agenda in 2019 it's not a new request for us and full disclosure we received some pushback from county partners specifically Durham County at that time but there's another item in the legislative agenda that might help us achieve some greater flexibility relative to property taxes. This has the county's feedback in 2020 for 2021 changed it all is substantially the same. It has changed. Okay for this item. No for a related item. Okay and then the next one is allow inclusionary zoning for affordable housing again that's an item that was in our legislative agenda in 2019 and the primary purpose of that or focus is to pretty much require affordable housing of course everybody on this participating in this meeting today is very much in support of affordable housing so this was just another tool that the council has been advocating for to increase the amount of affordable housing in our community again. We've gotten pushed back from the development community at the state level we suspect that that may happen again but of course because it is important to our community and to our elected officials we thought it'd be best to present it to the delegation again. The next item is. Can I stop you there let me just interject because I'd be curious to hear from you and the council members. On some of these that we know are state bills and will be a heavy lift for us. Can you all give us some indication of will there be other advocates for these other cities the legal municipalities are they going to be joining in these as part of their legislative packages so that it's not just Durham but perhaps we're going to hear from Greensboro or Goldsboro or Gastonia or other municipalities who might be working for these and you all can give us some idea of where the league is while developing its agenda for all the league members. Councilmember Middleton you want to share some thoughts about that for us. Thank you Mr. Chair and good afternoon everybody good to see you. Senator Wooder the league is still in process of developing our legislative agenda. The more flexibility the theme of more flexibility in terms of affordable housing and zoning has come up in discussions. I do not know that that will be codified in our final document but it's certainly being talked about within the ranks of the league. I'm not sure if it's going to make the cut though in terms of advocating for for legislation in upcoming sessions in the immediate upcoming sessions and that's helpful but we are talking about it. Okay or Mark Anthony everybody else who's had conversation or mayor through the mayor metro mayors or other groups y'all had conversations of other communities who are requesting this because I think you all I think most of you know the history of inclusionary zoning at the state legislature and that's always been a challenge Parmesha pointed out it's going to receive considerable opposition I think from the development community so I just want to know where you all thought other communities were in their advocacy of this again. I don't know if other cities are requesting it but I can check around. I know I know there are cities that want it but I don't know that in the current environment they're actually putting on their agenda but I can check around with the other mayors. This is Zach what's the temperature from the city attorney because I know that some of you that cities who like to move forward in this regard just go ahead and move forward right and without state approval meaning because again I'll go back to I think our Madam District Attorney who through states there's not anything explicit in the statute that prohibits not saying there's not a gamble but I did want to ask you know what those conversations have been like from the city attorney just to know and know how we potentially can proceed. This is Don O'Toole from the city attorney's office as council knows the city has very limited authority in the area of affordable housing. We do have a charter provision that the legislature gave the city years ago and all that does is allow the city to incentivize affordable housing but it doesn't necessarily allow us to require affordable housing and so the city has been working with the tools that we currently have which don't include inclusionary zoning. Thank you for that Don. The question is whether or not state statute specifically says you can't do it. There is a statute on the books that says it essentially says that unless the city has a financial interest in a project then we can't include rent requirements so for example the city currently has a project down near Durham station that's being constructed on city property in that context since it's city property being used the city can enforce affordable housing requirements on that development but other than that the answer is no. Thank you. Can I just add that we've all pushed that one pretty hard. We've been to the school of government about it several times to try to find some other alternative path and I think that I've appreciated very much Don O'Toole's work on this over the years but I think it's where we are. Thank you. So in a similar vein we have a we received a request a new request from the city department specifically our community development department this year asking for legislation to allow local governments to impose linkage fees for affordable housing and so full disclosure it is a fee and typically sometimes or sometimes referred to as an impact fee and the fee the recommendation is that the fee applies to private market or market rate residential as well as commercial development and so we noted some other communities that are doing it. Boston being one as well as Denver and Seattle of course we anticipate pushback from the development community real estate so but this is an item that the community development department has brought for as a request. So for council members or Karmisha if you speak for the staff have you all had conversations with the home builders and the realtors associations on this topic? I am not aware of those conversations occurring with home builders or any other community group. So I mean so you all have not gauged whether they're supportive of something like this or not because I know in some of the communities that were cited I did a little work on this and there have some in some communities municipality worked with their home builders and realtors to develop a good linkage fee policy on this so I didn't know if y'all had had conversations beyond just the administration and the council on this. I can check with Carol Lotto and our community development to get more details about the extent of her communication on it. I was curious the list of cities that you all cited is that exhaustive or are there other cities or cities in comparable size kind of imposing a linkage fee? I don't think that was an exhaustive list I think that's just some detailed information that the staff had more information on those particular cities but certainly not exhaustive. Okay. Yeah Bernetta I can say again just my look at it it's not exhaustive at all and a number of cities have this but as many cities as there are that have linkage fees there are probably that many different flavors of linkage fee to how they came about how they were developed and then of course I think you all had a note in here I don't know if y'all have got a few hours to talk about what a potential rate might be either for the linkage fee because they have varied I've seen them as love is 50 cents a square foot I've seen them as high one community within their business improvement district had them at hold on to your hat here folks $20 a square foot which is but again that was very carefully negotiated so most of them I've seen a dollar to two per square foot and then some communities had them for both commercial and residential some have left commercial out so I'd be curious if which all thoughts were on that or they left office they specifically left office out as well so I just have the same question Mike and if someone's going to answer that I'd also just be curious if y'all thought about where you want the where you want the revenue to go or if you just want the flexibility to kind of figure that out later well I definitely staff definitely indicated that more work would need to be done to determine what the fee amount would be but the the revenues would be used for affordable housing generation by the city my sense I think and I don't want to I hope the council will certainly jump in you all are certainly in my senses are looking for every tool you've got to address the affordable housing situation and this is a tool that a number of cities particularly hours that are progressive in their thinking have used so that's my sense is what you're trying to do here I think we've got some questions and probably just need some more information from staff on this one absolutely so let me just jump in real quick it was it's it has been our intent as as we have put items on our legislative agenda to try as little as possible to not to box in our legislative delegation to a particular form of an idea but to give y'all maximum flexibility to work with various stakeholders obviously representatives from the other party to come up with something that will that you think can can pass muster but that also achieve some of the goals we're trying to achieve which with each of these items and so if if the suggestion is that the city should try to engage directly with the developer community to come up with a particular plan that might work and then come back to you and engage with the legislative process in that way we can certainly take we can certainly take that project on but I think our our what we were trying to do is say this is the kind of thing we'd like to have it exactly as you said senator that this is the kind of flexibility this is one of the ideas that we've read about across the country that other communities like ours are using to promote to promote the development of affordable housing but as legislators y'all are maybe better situated to help us figure out what's what's possible or most helpful but but we're happy to to take it however you want us to to work on it well I think we can work collaboratively because they're gonna on a number of these a state the stakeholders are going to engage with us or with you it's just a matter of what point the stakeholders engage and I'm one who always likes to build my stakeholder group early before you know and build that support before we oh let's pause for baby time look at these opportunities these opportunities are fleeting so I just wanted to bring him in oh my goodness he's getting so chubby already oh my gosh I'm getting those cheeks I'm getting those oh my gosh is there also an innovative way I mean you know that they'll come against the urban areas that we could link it with some incentives for the rural counties so it's a package deal but there's the benefit for our own linkage fee but somehow there's something that will help benefit and draw in some of the rural communities I don't know how that can be done but we don't want to see what happened when they took away the Chapel Hill impact fee and you know we have a tough road to go with the Republican majority and yeah and and beyond that there is there is uh there are a number of sections of the statutes that clearly say local governments cannot regulate um and the attorneys could help me here but they they lay out labor trade mining and manufacturing those are the sections of the stat that I looked at I don't think mining and manufacturing apply here but the restrictions on that and I suspect we'll have to work through the clear statutory restrictions on labor and trade so unless I mean I I think the next thing is and then thinking about how we work with our stakeholders on this one I guess I'm surprised to hear and happy to hear you think there might be some potential for that I mean I uh you know we when we made this uh this legislative list we were this was before the election and we knew that there were different possibilities for that election but this one in particular it would be great if it could advance and we can certainly do some more work on it I'm surprised to hear you all think that there's a realistic chance that it might advance well mayor I don't want to give you too much optimism here I think it's going to hit a lot of opposition and I think there are going to be challenges in the statutory as well but I guess I wanted you know I guess my thing is you all hand us something that we know is gonna the lobbyists will be in our door as soon as we draft the bill of course so uh you know I would rather have the conversation now and find out if there's some way to achieve the laudable council goal here um uh if there's some way to do that before we draft a bill that's just going to yeah die in rules committee so yeah I think that you know for the uh for the 31 items we are not realistically looking for you all to draft 31 bills we're asking you all to look at it and think you know these are the five that we think we might really have a chance to advance give us give us your full backing of that or you know those kinds of things so all that guidance will be helpful yeah and as I listened to to the your two committee meetings that I attended and read through these you know I think what you all have done are incredible I mean the work you all have done on this Karmisha mentioned it have 31 solid items on this list plus your advocacy items is unbelievable I mean I've I've been there I've chaired this committee back in the day and so that's just impressive I just I know when you all sleep I have to be honest with you so I think rather than drafting 31 bills you know what I would hope and I'm glad we're doing this in December rather than February um is understanding your um policy goals is there a way to get there um with our help um whether that's legislatively administratively or working with stakeholder groups to achieve what I think you're trying to achieve that's clearly you're trying to get every tool you can and we're supportive I will I say me I shouldn't speak for my five colleagues but um you know well I will I say we're supportive of affordable housing it's just trying to figure out the way to get there and um here's just yet another tool that that you all have discovered that I think it's an interesting tool I've read some really interesting stuff about this how do we get there thank you so senator that's very helpful um feedback and I guess along those same um lines of uh improving affordability options in Durham the community development department submitted another request um that I referenced earlier um about a local option to provide property tax relief for low income homeowners so if you might recall we had an item in the agenda from 2019 that the county was not Durham County was not in favor of however this local option would would not require cities to offer um tax assistance programs to low income homeowners but provides the option for cities to to make to offer that um Durham County has a similar item in their legislative agenda that are going to be sharing with you I think um in the month of January but I will tell you that the tax administrator Dwayne Benson has been in communication with community development staff on this very proposal so I think it looks like we're going to have this could be a joint effort they haven't worked out all the details I know with the city's proposal we were recommending a a cap amount I think it was one percentage and then the county was recommending it was a difference of three percent and five percent so we hadn't worked through those those details but certainly recognizing that um like you said tax property tax is a state law um and here's we know the end event that the state law doesn't change in that regard we cities would at least like the option um to pursue this or at least elect into this option so if there are no questions um on that uh there was an item that was not in our legislative agenda um but came before the general assembly back in 2019 to support affordable rental housing for Durham public schools um and many of you on this call um signed on to that that bill was a local bill I think it was at the request of the Durham public schools board of education so this the bill bills were filed um but it was not um adopted and so um this city council just wanted to signal support of the legislation in the event that desire is still there to make that happen um in this upcoming session yeah um I'll speak for the for the house side um and uh the primary bill sponsor Mary and Black was able to get a lot of support um for this bill internally and there was if I can remember correctly I think Berthee County um you know which was filed by a Republican actually wanted to there was an amendment to this bill at Berthee County and so she did she was able to get some movement some traction um on this and I do believe in the um with the option to have this become you know a local opportunity we can move that a little bit we can move that forward a little bit more this year too so I feel confident that it's something that we can um file probably we may need to consider whether or not a um a Republican either um will file a similar bill for their county so that you know both look attractive going forward together or if we need to file one that has both um members of our delegation members of another delegation so I don't know what um um Mike or Natalie think about in the Senate but I do think that we we were successful in you know getting that ball rolling the House last session yeah this is one where uh representative Black's bill passed the House actually um and uh Senator Kissick at the time and and I filed the companion bill uh but the House bill died in the Senate um because of Senate leadership's opposition to this um so the roadblock's going to be in the Senate um again so I think our strategy this time I this is something I think we should favor and I think I may have mentioned to somebody I was talking to maybe I was I can't remember I was talking about this but I think this is something every local government ought to have the ability to use when you you know I think the since the county was to use this property next to the old Lowes Grove School was the fight they had first picked out for this and I think if it's in the hands of government you've got a developer uh who's ready to do this then you ought to be able to do what you want with your property city or county owned that just seems logical to me uh but um so I almost wish we could make that a state thing and let every you know all 100 counties all 500 municipalities choose to do what they want with their land and something like this not just for teachers but for first responders for law enforcement officers you know we could continue to expand it for those kinds of workers we would like to keep and attract in our city I mean it's a great affordable housing thing here um particularly for those public servants but I think we filed this one and Zach said work to find that I've had conversations with Republican Senate colleagues who are interested in this and this is one we take up and go back to go back to work on okay sounds good um we received a rather um interesting request from our water management department and I say interesting just because um the the our organization has been spending a lot of time addressing um working with others other cities to address fines and fees that can be viewed as regressive and so as a result of that work which I think office of performance and innovation as well as our water management department took the lead um in the work for the organization and one of the results of that work um was an ask to allow North Carolina public utilities to implement either an income-based or a sliding fee rate structure for utility customers and in essence it's um pretty much attempting to make water affordable based on income and so there are some options to get at that one like I said based on income sorry yeah basic income and the other could be a tiered structure approach so that is a state law change I do believe um as it relates to that and so um right now the water rate is set it's adopted by the council and everybody pays based on their usage this proposal would allow us some flexibility um if you have a lower income obviously the income if your the income would have to be documented but if you have a lower income then your water rate would be a lower water rate which also means if you have a higher income then your water rate would be a higher rate so um there may be some people who would object to paying a higher rate in an effort to create affordability throughout um the system for us but certainly um thought that it was good work and at least worthy um you know worthy ask here so there are any questions or concerns on that proposal and uh Charlie is this another place where you know you all are kind of just leaving both options on the table and you know uh do y'all reference for either these methods or discussion highlights that you could share on your thoughts on income based versus tiered anything you know I think it's whatever whatever can work um I think that you know the as I said earlier what we've tried to do is give y'all um an idea about one option where we'd love to pursue and give you kind of the landscape of here are some different ways it's been handled in other places um and leave y'all to figure out what is the best strategy with the folks who set agendas in the general assembly and again if if it's more productive for us to figure out exactly how we think something ought to be structured um and work with the various stakeholders to do that and then come back to you with a more specific proposal I think we'd be happy to do that but you know my my sense was given what we now know about the realities and Raleigh and the leadership uh that's going to control agendas and bill movement that that more flexibility was probably a better idea let me say here's one that I think we probably need to take the lead on the stakeholder group with this one because your stakeholder group um is uh well one um you're going to have a potential legal issue that we've got to work through and that courts in North Carolina have generally held that this is a user fee and generally user fees have not had sliding scales so we've got to get around that legal question on on courts have generally found unless your legal staff has point me somewhere else we'll also have another issue that I've got to track track down with the local government commission um and um they tend to look at because I guess this would all be enterprise monies that right karmisha this would be enterprise fund money so the lgc's always going to look very carefully at when you're playing around with rates in enterprise funds so um so I think this is one that we probably need to take in research um with our folks in Raleigh and get back to you on that one so that sounds good um the next item is one that was in our 2019 legislative agenda and that was to issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants um that one was not filed um by the delegation at that time um but you will note that many of the items that are in that was kind of our starting point full disclosure for this year's let's go back to the items from 2019 um that were not passed and free visit though so this is one of those items I think philosophically we all agree with this and would like to do it as of yet we haven't been assigned any committees and so once we get our committee assignment that'll help a lot which committee this would go through but I know we're on board you know we we fought the immigration and the sheriff's role the last two years uh for it's Louie the governor's veto stopped that but I know I'm pledged to work on this too so once we get the committee assignments I don't sure help where we can traffic this through and same view thank you and representative Mori I know you've done a lot with this so uh just uh want to share my appreciation for you Mr. Sheriff I might think you're muted go right ahead Mark Anthony I was trying to read your lips um with respect to this uh this issue I remember and I'm going to get the delegation's thoughts on this uh briefly I remember years ago lobbying members of the legislature with the North Carolina Latino Congress for provisional licenses and we had an interesting ally a lot of the farmers in small towns and folks who you wouldn't expect were actually allied with us because it was those undocumented workers oftentimes that were driving their produce and their products into market areas I'm wondering if if this and I know we're not talking provisional here I assume we're talking about full driving privileges but I'm wondering if couching it as an economic development issue could still hold that coalition uh together that was on board when it was provisional for purposes of you know developing there or expanding their economic um well-being so that's just a thought uh Mark Anthony it's a good thought um and you're absolutely right um another interesting ally on this has been the insurance industry the automobile insurance industry as well so um it's uh you know sometimes I always say politics but policy makes interesting bedfellows and it's interesting to see the business interests that have been supportive of doing something like this so y'all know this issue well and and Marsha among others have been has been a champion on this so um I think we'll certainly find the avenues to have that conversation particularly with um our Latinx community uh who's sort of taking a lead on a lot of this stuff as well so yeah I just want to quickly chime in and say with this and you know in state tuition or the two issues that I hear consistently yeah I think it's in this is uh this is Zach I think you know it's honestly just starting to socialize the idea with you know the stakeholders just to just to sort of take the temperature and see what the pushback will be right and to you know because every session um uh seems like every day sometimes you have to check your allies in the general assembly and um and I think that um this is one that we would we would want to pull those folks together and and as we move forward with we'd like to include you right because this is not a I would hope that we all realize this is not a one-time you give us the agenda but I would hope that we would check in from time to time to gauge and potentially include you as we talk to the insurance industry and the other interested stakeholders because I know a lot of bills that I'm working on I'm doing some of the same things and it's an interesting process to go ahead and have your ducks in a row so I think this is one of those bills I definitely want to work on too so and I think to representative Maury's point earlier regarding um kind of those rural partnerships I know in the senate that's also really critical so um I've definitely heard the same thing from you know the agricultural and farming community that they see the the benefit to this and regarding allies um representative Maury or senator Woodard where was the farm bureau with this when it was um kind of really really being pushed for by a number of groups do we know I don't know but it's worth looking into yeah they would be a group that I would I would look out to I know that um they get a lot of what they asked for so I definitely think it would it would be worth having that that conversation with them I think it is definitely one of those issues um that that could be bipartisan if it's approached in the right way sounds good that's very um very very helpful um the next item was also in our 2019 legislative agenda which was to allow electronic speed enforcement to improve safety in the school zones and high pedestrian high pedestrian priority zones um and and at that time senators McKissick and Woodard filed legislation at the request of our transportation department um this part of our vision zero um pedestrian safety plan um we we at that time we had a different transportation director but I have engaged our current transportation director whose name is Sean Egan he was supportive of the concept um as as well so senator Woodard I don't know if um if you think that the appetite might be any different as it relates to this this go around yeah and I think related to that is the next item as well to reduce speed limits 25 miles an hour on local residential streets so um these did get some conversation and we just couldn't find enough traction but I'm I'm interested in filing both of these again and trying to work on these now that I'm back on the transportation committee and um and work to find some help uh on these so I think I think for me again I'd speak you for the delegation but I I think we'd like to work on these because I think they're both good ideas yeah and I share that you know as Martha mentioned I don't know if I'll stay on the transportation on the house side but I'm happy to work with senator Woodard and the rest of my colleagues on all those the kind of cluster they're transportation related to yeah so good so so the next item was providing local authority to acquire or condemn property um and fee or appropriate easements for the relocation of non-mutant municipal utilities that conflict with municipal road projects technical terminology um but wasn't our 2019 legislative agenda this was at the request of our public works department and the late layperson's version of that is um if we are able to get a legislation um that would allow us to acquire um easements as well as rights away which I think we have the ability to acquire rights away but this is specific to easement then that will help us when with our public works projects which are typically our roadway projects um the challenge with and not having that is typically a delay in the project because we have to work with the various utilities who have lines in the rights of way um to acquire or condemn that and so that tends to extend the process significantly so senators um because again Woodard did file legislation um in support of that request and so again this is an item that did not pass last time and so we wanted to present it to this delegation as well. Hermesia if I could put in a plug for this one as well as those two uh of the traffic ones um they um well that one the the utility question it has to be a state bill just because of the way we do our utility uh right ways in the state um so I would just urge perhaps uh councilmember Middleton or others of you um who have conversations with colleagues and other municipalities to see if if the league could adopt this or if other cities might want to get on board with this um I think we introduced this in a typical Durham fashion there were a lot of other communities who said oh that's a great idea but you know didn't get on board with it and if we could get four or five other municipalities or the whole league behind it that um that would help us on these so just as you all are having conversations with your peers in the league or metro mayors or just with other cities when you talk with folks say hey if y'all thought about this in your community wouldn't it be a great idea so this strengthened numbers I think would help us on all three of these absolutely that sounds good we have a another one uh from public works department that's similar to that um just relative to making the um development process on more efficient and this one was about reimbursing utility owners for the cost of utility relocation without a competitive bid so um this was something again that was looking to get at efficiencies with the with the road project so Senator McKinsey and Woodard filed legislation for that um as well I do want to point out that um Bo Mills who's with the um league which is part of metro mayor's part of league is on the call today and so um I participate in the league and metro mayors calls and have been an active member of their their policy public policy committee as councillor Middleton mentioned earlier I'm trying to work so we don't keep people too long um the league has not adopted their legislative agenda but um I will certainly continue to have some conversation with our partners to see if we can uh if there's any appetite for support from other other cities I will say some of the larger cities um are taking an approach of just kind of staying low and not not bringing attention and there have been times where the league has been very straightforward with us and say we don't support something but we won't come out in opposition of it but I'm certainly willing to do some follow-up work um with the league metro mayors to see what the appetite is there so um let me just say anything that this body thinks should be brought before the league I will dutifully and rigorously bring it up in that context so please just let me down so the next item before you move forward permission I'm sorry this this is um councilmember Freeman I just wanted to ask if you could put a kind of a list I think you're noting a few of them and I'm I'm losing track because it was like five different ones and if I could I could definitely have that conversation with some of the ladies across the state and different um rural communities so um just make sure that you know which one so that I think I'll miss two of them I am keeping a list but just for everybody's uh purpose our city clerks office is taking minutes for this meeting and the meeting will also be posted it's actually streaming on YouTube now first for anybody's pleasure you can go back and watch so the next item was around law enforcement recordings and I know that many of you know the discussions that have occurred around accessibility of law enforcement reporting um at one point it was the conversation was specific to body cam footage um for police officers um but it was changed to law enforcement recording to include um dash cam video as well as any other uh reporting and so the law that was ultimately passed requires um a magistrate I think to provide permission for the elected official to be able to view it and so this was something that came up in 2019 as well um I think councilmember Reese certainly uh led the charge on this item but we're back asking um to not to have to uh go before a magistrate to get access to the law enforcement recordings that are in possession of our the city's police department essentially I have not heard from um the league asked about that being an agenda item um I'm not aware of that being in the the league's legislative agenda but this again was something that was of concern in 2019 and um remains a priority for for this for the council if um I uh I found a body cam deal along with uh one of my colleagues from gulfwood county last year and we'll gladly send around that draft to the chair and vice chair of the legislative committee so that we can work on on the language to include your current request that sounds good governor's task force report is addressing the body cam footage the man's door use the civilian review boards things like that but this is one of the recommendations and the use mandatory use of body cams so I think this will flow right in along with that report this has definitely been debated uh from the league I I don't remember whether it was 17 or 18 when we were we're debating it it's going to come up again this year I remember uh a particularly poignant um salient point that uh representatives of michelle may in that in its current configuration the council who are who's essentially the boss of the city manager can't do what a city manager can do and the police chief and that just from a chain of command point of view doesn't make sense and I know I find that my republican colleagues in the league respond to chain of command arguments and the quorum arguments when it comes to things like that so I I just put that out there that that I found some some um warmth to those type of arguments so but it is being debated within the league so thank you um thank you for that um the next item um was submitted by former council member vernetta austin now state representative vernetta austin um to prevent repair of therapy for minor children so this is a item that was in the 2019 legislative agenda um to my knowledge there was no legislation that was filed regarding this but in short it makes it um unprofessional um for a fair of licensed therapists to practice uh what's what's also known as conversion therapy and so um council uh no longer council member representative austin um I don't know I know you've been doing a tremendous amount of work in this arena so if if this is something that you think we might be able to get some traction on please let us know yeah and I think we you know we kind of tabled it uh or didn't table it you know the stakeholders had a firm grip on that in 19 and I think they didn't do as well this year so I think it's great to kind of establish as a important kind of policy objective and I think we'll follow the lead of our stakeholders on kind of how that gets filed so um I know there were some some briefings earlier this week and you know I'll follow up with them and if they if if they need leadership on something like that obviously I'm I'm happy to do it but we'll see how that shapes up okay also last August the governor signed an executive order to ban any conversion therapy with use of state or federal dollars that executive order at least still stands with any uh of those monies the next one is uh repeal the general statute that bans public employee uh collective bargaining um this item was included in 2019 um as well and does just that eliminates the prohibition of public employee unions for collective bargaining this one I think came from council member Johnson at that time yeah uh yeah this is uh this is uh sorry I have kids yelling back um we filed I filed a bill uh let's go around and I was joined by then city councilwoman uh Ulster uh now my dear colleague in the house along with city council colleagues um and I plan to file this bill until it becomes a reality and I'll I'll I'll help Zach let me join him on that so rank choice voting is something that's been discussed um recently as well as in 2019 um to allow candidates to rank their their preference on the ballot and so this was a uh old item from 2019 but on this year's agenda as well and I don't know that anything was filed relative to this I don't think so there's a lot of popular support for it going forward whosoever on the elections committee will take that out but uh there's a strong movement I know we get a lot of emails about this Carmisha can you remember Chapel Hill had this right didn't they do one or two election cycles with this but then I think I heard reference of Chapel Hill um I think so okay there was an authorization several years back that was in place for a few years that allowed cities to use right choice voting for municipal elections and a couple of cities did it I don't um I don't remember Chapel Hill but there were there were a couple um that chose to use it for their elections and then that authorization expired and so no one's been able to use it for at least 10 years I think um it was just like a a several year period where people were allowed to to do rank choice it was uh I think I remember Perry was Kerry one of those cities that tried it too I seemed to recall there was an election um Kerry I thought came to mind too so anyway well it was a pilot as as Mayor Pertin mentioned and the pilot was from 2007 to 2012 then it it expired and did not renew after that point yeah so precedent has been set um on that particular item the next item is self-explanatory the criminalized cannabis so um 2019 oh Representative Hawkins that mean it's done well yeah I think uh from your lips to God's ear the um uh we I did file a bill with Representative Autry um and Representative Allison Dahl out of Wheat County uh on on this bill and um there are a lot of champions for for this for this effort and I think the national trend as you all know is is growing to decriminalize specifically um so this this is another one that I think it will be a little bit further along I did participate in conversations with um Senator Jackson who was I think the author of the the farm bill just to sort of gauge what conversations others were having on that side of the aisle but I we're going to file it again um because we do think that um the more we do it the more stakeholders that are come around the table so I will include my colleagues or any other Republicans who want to join me and I will say this is part of the governor's task force on racial equity because of the data on the racial equity arrests almost four times the blacks arrested for cannabis so it is to decriminalize or make it a citation or infraction at the very most but it was unanimously supported so we'll see where it goes so Representative Murray you've made reference to the governor's task force and I and you mentioned also the next one which is allowing uh well in some cities of allowing civilian police review boards to be created which Durham is one of the four communities in North Carolina that has a civilian police review board this request um it's I guess is specific to Durham since we already have one to allow subpoena power um and I know that um I've heard both sides or multiple arguments relative to that um but this is a I think this is a new item I don't know that we discussed this in 2019 it is a request uh Mayor Pertin Johnson submitted but um pretty self explanatory there's been a lot of conversation going on and full disclosure um I have been in communication with my counterpart at City of Charlotte and it's my understanding that they're going to be making some similar ass so I know Senator Woodard you've asked about how what some other cities are thinking and doing and quite frankly from what I understand from Charlotte it's going to be in their legislative agenda um the next item is a new item which is to require all employers to provide at least 10 days of paid sick leave any objections uh no no objections um I filed uh along I think some other colleagues filed this one as well for paid sick leave the governor did um move forward with the executive order 121 um and uh and that well not sorry not 121 but um an executive order to move forward with it for a stated um and so um I think this is you know I think we will get continued traction on that uh type of that bill but I don't know um for all employees if um you know we will we will get a lot of pushback on that but I do think it's worth continuing to sort of socialize with the business and the chamber community um to see what uh their thoughts are because I mean everyone sort of understands given the pandemic that um you know essential workers and and folks who are um you know moving our company along um need need some rest and rest process so what we we definitely want to um keep this going and the plan on filing again um and again I'll I'll work with the chair and the vice chair and yourself as well as to get the specific language you guys would like to include thank you yeah just this is another of my requests and I just wanted to you know add on the subject of striking why the iron is hot right the pandemic I think really highlights the need for workers to have access to paid sick leave and there's a movement among a number of cities um that have been able to pass paid sick leave but of course because of preemption we're not able to do that as a as a city at a city level so um yeah it feels like if it's if there's a if there's gonna be a time to move it like now is is the time so thanks act so I want to do a time check it's 412 um our goal was to uh get through this discussion um by 430 so I want to respect um everyone's time and so I won't rush but I will um ask that you stop me if I if I need to slow down the next item um was an ask to create statewide reparations commission we've had a fair bit of conversation um within our community among this among the council in particular um as well of some of our volunteer groups and boards about statewide reparations um actually our council adopted a resolution regarding our reparations and we have another resolution that mentions the council's position in support of reparations so we want to ask our state delegation to pursue a statewide reparations commission if there are no questions on that then I'll transition to the next item and that was a request of council member uh Freeman this next one is also a request from council member Freeman which is to develop a trust fund for disaster recovery and flood mitigation so council member Freeman you want to um talk a little bit about that or if are there any questions on on that well I have questions I I guess I'm trying to understand how this is different than the the funds that exist now uh in various department and particularly the state's rainy day fund um so I'm just trying to understand I I think that mechanisms there but maybe I'm not grasping what council member Freeman's intent is here uh thank you for the opportunity to to share some insights I actually um was made aware of the resiliency study and in the mechanism being in place but it doesn't affect it doesn't actually it's not a resource for the resiliency work around flooding uh so just noting just that slight change might be all that's needed um I can definitely follow up with you on it with some of the resources that I've been in contact with but it is um definitely work that's happening across the cog and I think the cog the tj cog is also working with the cog down east and so we can um talk more that'd be great we yeah if you'll follow up that'd be helpful to understand I think the tools there and it sounds like based on what you're saying you've heard from tj cog and and the council's down east we just maybe need to tweak what we're doing now so that'd be great and making sure the resources are there yeah okay yeah so the next item was a request for support hands free that was some legislation that was was previously filed in the last session specifically house bill 144 it makes it unlawful to use wireless communication device I don't remember I can't recall exactly where this legislation landed if I recall um we did have members of the delegation did support this I think maybe you and I had some conversation about this yeah I was the senate sponsor of the companion bill um that got voted out of the house um and I'll be the uh senate sponsor again we've already put together the three senate sponsors of that so um and I think the language will probably be almost identical to what what it was in 144 so so that's that's coming back and we'll be working to pass that this time sounds good that was actually a request that came from a member of our community through council number three long who submitted it for consideration so that's we appreciate work on that the next item was a request so one of the things that we get different this year with the legislative process was to engage the city's board's committee's commission to ask them whether they had any requests or ideas for the legislative agenda so this next item was a request that we received from jacob rogers on behalf of the board of adjustment and this is as a result of meetings occurring virtually in during the the co-ed environment and so what this ask is to amend state law to continue a quasi judicial hearing for 30 days is my understanding that right now um there's a there's a possibility that someone could continue uh hearing indefinitely which essentially delays the project and so the concern is that folks are using that to their advantage to delay the project when it's when they have the ability to do that so this may no longer be an issue once um we return to normal whatever normally it will be um but given this is where we are right now and not sure when normal will return the uh this request was submitted well my take is uh i appreciate the board raising this i think it's it's definitely worth having the conversation to figure out um i think there may be a couple of legal things we got to work around on this but i think the intent is good um and i think this is one we ought to take and it's certainly at least research and again one of these where we got we understand what the goal is what council in in this case the board of adjustments intent is and how do we get there to achieve that goal so i really appreciate the board bringing this one forward because clearly there's a gap in well a loophole maybe is what i'm trying to say um in this that that we ought to address sounds good the next couple of items were submitted by ryan ryan smith who's one of a city employee that works in the office of performance and innovation um but along with ryan's work with the uh deer program in the nc justice center this uh next request is to eliminate driver's license suspension for non-public safety related matters and quite frankly you know referencing something that representative moray mentioned uh based on the data there's a core group that this impacts when they lose driver's license and there's been a significant amount of work done um by ryan and the team with office of performance innovation regarding restoring driver's license with criteria so this is looking to do away with or not eliminate driver's license for non-public safety related matters um the next item is to expand expunction relief to allow automatic expunction of eligible convictions so um i've mentioned there are certain expunctions that are automatic right now um but there are others other charges that are eligible for expunction but they are not automatically expunged so that's an area where we're looking to improve um that that work and primarily focus on the um target audience for who are most impacted by that um the next item is to repeal the nc drug tax so this was a eye opener for some of us who did not know that um when drugs are our control substances are confiscated that there's a tax that gets applied um and so um we're looking to repeal that tax that drug tax the next item is a fair chance um hiring um ban the box um which is something that Durham took the lead on many years ago but looking to expand that um for state jobs state contractors and private um employers um so not sure um if if there would be any concerns um well i know there would be some concern for some who do not know who feel like uh they need to know about um employment um background so but this is a push where nc justice center is saying that they think it's time to ban the box on job application so um the next item was actually um an item that Representative Hawkins and Maury um brought forward back in 2019 and uh we're just acknowledging support of the Dumb Balance Prevention Act so it's my understanding that i suspect that you all will bring this back um this go around okay so this and ERPO next one okay so yes ERP extreme risk protection protection orders and so this council has gone on record in support of those two items um the next one is is going back to an item from the NC justice center to eliminate permanent suspensions for non-DWI related convictions so again um just trying to reduce the number of people who are negatively impacted by having their driver's license suspended and so in the case of someone whose driver's license is suspended they're maybe not sure for court or something else that's not DWI related then we'd like to have that change so that their driver's license are not suspended um and then the next one is um a local charter amendment um to allow greater flexibility and filling um vacant council seats and so um this conversation came up most recently um when council member Austin um left the city council to go to the general assembly um and then the selection process for council member Freon and so our city attorney office has done a significant amount of work on this has presented some options um that could be considered but it is certainly a local would require a local charter change um and it's my understanding is not to take away what we currently have in place but to add the ability um for the council to have an election um at that point that it that it chooses this is our question council member um Middleton so council member Middleton would be having anything you want to add to that no I think we've we've had a pretty um in-depth conversation has been pretty well prosecuted in our ranks so if there are no questions for me I'll I'll let it stand on its own merits I I just had kind of a maybe a general uh question you know it seems like like it doesn't the proposal does um create more flexibility and it just it strikes me like a lot of flexibility and so I guess I'm to to not to not you don't mandate any particular course and I guess I'll be curious I didn't I didn't see your conversations about it there any highlights um you know I just wonder if by not kind of compelling some sort of like if not if not one then two no matter what those things are by making it so kind of maybe this maybe that if you're potentially just creating a making it complicated for this and future councils and um just yeah I'd be curious if you could flush that out maybe shortly briefly sure well in terms of the in terms of complications there there's only two choices uh select or elect and I think the compulsion is to fill the seat so we're compelled to fill the seat that the question is by you know which which method either selection or election and really what this was occasioned by was a prevailing reading of our current charter that I just happened to disagree with the the prevailing reading was that we had to under all you know uh uh you know under no circumstances could we not go through a selection process and I my reading was that you know who's to say that a good faith selection process part of that selection process is making a determination that at this time COVID we could not in good faith engage in a good selection process and therefore since election was contemplated already contemplated by the the charter that it was it was a remedy available to us I just I just didn't buy the notion that you know the sky was going to fall if we had an election because after looking at we were we were sitting already under emergency powers so I just felt that if we were challenged that we were on good grounds to defend our decision to have an election which is contemplated in the charter over a selection process the other thing is that you know I remember a previous selection process where um that gave us um counselor caviera where it seemed to me that there was a determination that we were not going to have an election period and even if in a good faith selection process it came down to a tie vote that the prevailing thought was one of us would change our vote so we would not go to an election now that might be within the letter of the charter but I just don't think that spiritually the document is meant for us to find ways to avoid an election at all course when it is clearly contemplated in the charter so you know as far as being complicated that there's only two things it's election or election I just think that for the sake of our democracy having more flexibility and particularly this is COVID particularly I feel like COVID is taught us this having that that greater flexibility would be a good thing because if future councils face god forbid a pandemic again or a pandemic or whatever famine uh uh that does not allow the type of engagement um uh full throated engagement public engagement that we're used to in Durham but we're under a clock as well that we have to select someone within 30 60 whatever 90 days but we're in the middle of a pandemic and we're fearful that we're going to get our charter snatched we don't do it within that 90 days to be able to default to another remedy which is clearly contemplated in the charter which is election again this isn't to do violence or eliminate the ability to select uh but to just augment our ability to to protect our democracy um and again I don't think that we should be in the business of figuring out ways creatively to avoid an election at all costs because we're going to change our vote at the time um I think we should have flexibility to determine you know uh okay this selection process at this time isn't feasible for whatever reason and then um go to an election so that that was and moreover finally this is something among you know a lot we have a lot of things on our legislative agenda this is something that actually a lot of people actually talk about a lot of things on their legislative agenda I don't hear they don't come up in in you know regular conversation with constituents and that's not just that's not to say that they're not reflective of our values because I think they are but this is an issue that we heard from a wide range of folk in our community on who wanted an election uh during that process because of COVID and I'm just simply parroting what I heard from a large number of constituents um and I think we could do it without doing any violence to our our obligation to select or elect uh a council member so I hope that I hope that addresses yeah thanks a lot yeah I just wanted to have a sense of it I appreciate it and so if there are no further questions uh on that the next item is also a charter a local charter amendment and this is to allow us a greater flexibility with us the city of Durham to provide greater flexibility um with issuing grants um and this is something that's come up as a result of of COVID and so of course cities across the state of North Carolina received or counties and in some cases cities received um CARES Act funding from the federal government um and has significant responsibility on getting those funds to the people that that needed them in a timely manner one of our um one of our neighboring communities was able to provide grants in namely the city of Raleigh um and so a council member Middleton submitted a request um to do it like do that like Raleigh did I think we're very comfortable with doing things how Durham does it but this is specific to to grants and so um and again it just came up that this organization provides grants on a very regular basis um as our city attorney pointed out uh Monday night during the council meeting um our language allows us uh has a process for us to provide grants to non-profits that are providing a certain service the concern that came up during COVID is providing grants to private um private entities I'm not an attorney our attorney Krista Kukaro has been very very involved in this um item as well as other items in the legislative agenda so are there any questions on that item Krista is on the call and can I'm sure respond um no no questions I think it's a great item I think uh surprise those haven't thought a lot before so some of the some of the feedback from Krista is that there's the charter amendment and then she did she did share um potential concerns regarding uh state constitution but uh looks like there's some some options to to address that so that got us through the 31 items in our legislative agenda so these are the items that this community this council this organization would like for the delegation to advance on our behalf it's now 430 we do have 10 items in our um advocacy agenda or advocacy items um and I won't walk you through those things but um I will say that a couple of them are from um our environmental affairs board just warning um this organization and this council and this delegation to be mindful um of energy efficiency measures um going forward um we did have a couple of council requests from council member Freeman included in their relative to COVID and two holidays are proposing two holidays one being Juneteenth the other indigenous peoples day and as well as expansion for Medicaid which is something that is certainly being talked about across the state of North Carolina which I know you're aware so um that that is the the entirety of what the council unanimously adopted um Monday night and if there are no further questions I'll turn it over um to the mayor thank you very much Miss Wallace and for a great job I can't believe you got us through all that all through them all that fast I have a few observations one is I'm sorry to say that my I have a little instability here with my internet service but the good news is the only person I miss talking with senator Woodard uh and so you know that's probably okay um the um this was uh I'm struck by the fact that if we could just if this delegation and this council could just um run the state we would have an awesome legislative agenda um I wanted to highlight on the advocacy items I hope that you all can find some common ground with some of the republicans on some of these energy issues uh some of these solar related deregulatory measures that would really help us um I know that there's a lot of interest amongst a number of republicans uh to do things that will uh you know that are anti-monopoly shall I say and those are things that we support in this uh you know with our that will help our ability to support solar so I hope you all will look for those opportunities I'm going to ask now any general comments uh from any of the legislators or any of my council colleagues I just want to say well sorry just thank y'all this is really impressive and I can't help but remark that uh last in 2019 uh I remember a fair bit of commentary on how long the legislative agenda was then and this is longer I just want to comment on that that wasn't our goal but okay too shaver net it's too shit council member any other I think council member freeman had a comment yeah thank you mr mayor I really wanted to thank you all and um appreciate that this process has been as painless as it possibly could have been for me as I missed a couple of the meetings um with some other priorities but I do appreciate my colleagues and pulling all of this together and I will say that it is much longer and it is much richer as well I do want to note uh similar to the mayor's comment that um COVID-19 is um wreaking havoc on our economic community or in our business community and I really would love to have more conversations about how to make sure that funding is available for our small businesses especially businesses of color and acknowledging that there's a lot of disparity there I acknowledge all of the difficult um navigating conversations um in that and I look forward to kind of surrounding you with great stakeholders um to support in that thank you other comments anybody council member Reese we are four minutes over our schedules uh and time so I don't want to um belabor these points but I did just want to mention how grateful I am to our legislative delegation for finding the time and the mental energy to meet with us um you know these kinds of meetings can be very mentally taxing because by the time you get to three o'clock in the afternoon most of us have been in three or four of these already and so I think we all understand uh what it's like to have to bear down for an hour and a half and really focus on this stuff and you got you all did that with us and I'm just so grateful the other thing I wanted to say um is uh you know as someone mentioned earlier this is not the end of the process for for this group uh this is really the beginning of our collaboration uh for the next session of the General Assembly and we want to keep these lines of communication open um and for individual members or a delegation if that means talking to individual council members I hope you will know that you're free to do that if it means you'd rather just talk to the mayor that's fine if you want to reach out to me as uh the chair of the legislative committee that's great too whatever works for y'all um but we hope that this can be the beginning of the process of us working in partnership uh to try to hit at least some of these goals that we have for the upcoming session so thanks again for taking the time uh congratulations to each of you by the way on the recent election results y'all did great um and so I look forward to working with you over the next two years on this agenda thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember mayor all right uh senator senator woodard uh let me say uh thank you uh first to uh on behalf of our delegation uh we this is the second of seven of these meetings that we're having so we are in for the long haul here we started yesterday with president buxton at eight a.m so um anyway but thank you all for making this a wonderful rich conversation I hope our remaining five uh go as well as this one did thanks to uh councilmember reese and the other members of the legislative committee I sat in virtually on your two committee meetings I had to leave one to go to a ribbon cutting with councilmember freeman but I came back and got it on youtube later and that was great and then I was live with you on your last one so I appreciate the work that went into this um by council members and of course the always amazing karmisha wallace who pulls this all together with help from um your incredible staff attorneys and all through the departments on 31 items um that that's just amazing to me so that y'all did that um I just say I would just what I want to say mayor is just next steps I mean I think what I um we've had some chat with the delegation about this I think we're gonna take the items back and to councilmember reese's point we'll certainly be reaching out through karmisha and and various members on those uh some we identified today and others we may have questions about um I think I kind of pushed this a little bit into December when historically it's happened in late january early february even after the um general assembly has started meeting and I wanted to get it up front um maybe an anticipation that y'all would give us 31 or give us some really interesting ones to talk about um so that we could have that dialogue um in advance and and be ready when bill filing starts so uh yeah this this continues the dial just begins the dialogue that I know will continue to have with you all so thank you for incredible work today and some incredibly um thoughtful uh suggestions for us thank you very much senator all right if there are no other uh final remarks I just want to express my appreciation to everybody especially to miss wildest for another year of a job well done we really put her through her paces this year um I want to thank uh I see dustin engelkin from the triangle department association has also been with us throughout a glutton for punishment uh as well as bow mills who uh we we really uh are glad you all are here all right friends thank you so much we love our delegation we are behind you 100 percent we are so grateful that we have the not only progressive but proactive delegation that we do and uh we we just please let us know how to support you as president obama always says we love you back thank you you guys have a great rest of your day I'm gonna now uh adjourn this meeting at 4 39 p.m. thanks everybody thanks for everything