 I want to welcome all of you here tonight who are here with us in this room and also to those watching on Durham the Durham television network to this meeting of the Durham City Council and to this state of the city address. One year ago as the new mayor of this great city I said in these chambers that our community had come together to forge a common vision of our future and this is that vision we the people of Durham envision a prosperous innovative green and welcoming city that thrives on diversity and difference the city that puts racial and economic justice at the top of our civic agenda that defends the vulnerable among us the cherishes robust respectful debate on difficult questions that embraces non-violence that embodies the belief that all residents must have an opportunity to share in our newfound prosperity a city that serves as a progressive beacon for the south and for the nation I believe in that vision with all my heart and I want to talk about it tonight and what I think it means but first I want to tell you a story it starts in 1889 and a little shtetl in Lithuania then part of the russian empire the little town was called Linkava and there lived Elias and Bluma Shul Elias was a yeshiva bacher a student of the rabbinical teachings in the russian empire jews were barred from owning land or farming they were barred from the professions and from the universities they were confined to living in a certain part of the russian empire called the pale of settlement they were the victims of frequent pogroms violent riots that often happened just after Easter Elias Shul my great grandfather fled this anti-semitic religious persecution to come to this country crossing the atlantic alone and arriving in baltimore where he was met by a representative of the hebrew immigrant aid society who told him that a man with his skills as a schuchat a kosher a kosher butcher was needed to cut meat for the small jewish community in lynchburg virginia so Elias moved to lynchburg and you can imagine how small that jewish community was and six months later he sent for bluma his wife and their children to join him bluma's baby boy was my grandfather abraham and i imagine her joining a group of travelers some might call it a caravan traveling overland to the port of riga with her children she boarded a ship there and sailed for the new world to join her husband where they built a life together on the edge of the blue ridge mountains Elias and bluma were members of a despised minority fleeing persecution they were refugees they were undocumented immigrants with few skills and no english at all but they dreamed of a better life and they set out against all odds to find it here on these welcoming shores this could not happen today in durham the flow of refugees is slow to a trickle due to the policies of the trump administration an immigrant fleeing persecution arriving unannounced in baltimore harbor would be turned away without a second thought last year at this time i recognized the families and supporters of two men in sanctuary in durham churches this year one of those men is no longer with us here in durham some well oliver bruno a valued member of our community was lured out of sanctuary to sign immigration papers then snatched up violently by ice and deported what has happened to our country that we deport hard-working people who have lived among us as our friends and neighbors that we force have forcefully divide families and that even people with documents are driven underground in fear last week i organized seven north carolina mayors to sign a letter protesting the latest ice raids to sweep our cities but for our refugee and immigrant friends living in durham it isn't the protest that i want to emphasize today as important as that is what i want to emphasize today is the love in durham we do not build walls between nations or peoples in durham la bienvenida a durham con los brazos abiertos y corazones abiertos whatever message you're getting from washington dc in durham i want you to feel the welcoming embrace of a big hearted city i want to congratulate our new sheriff clarence burkhead for ending ice detainers in the durham jail in addition i'm so pleased that our police chief we have a wonderful police chief cj davis has greatly expanded the city's u visa certifications over the past year these certifications are granted to undocumented people who help our police solve crimes it is vitally important for our community's safety that undocumented immigrants who have observed crimes be able to trust the police enough to come forward out of the shadows to report these crimes u visas are designed to build that trust in 2018 our police department certified 144 people to be eligible to attain u visas and stay in this country and reward for their contribution to our common safety far more than we have ever certified before chief davis began the program with a four-year look back but tonight with her permission i'm announcing that any undocumented person who has contributed to solving crime in durham since 2011 will be eligible for consideration for use u visa certification thank you chief davis for this policy change this change that is both humane and a good way to fight violent crime in durham thank you to councilmember javiera cabillero and to public affairs director beverley thompson for your work on the city's language access plan so that we can make sure everyone can take advantage of all city government has to offer all of you assembled here today rebel as i do in durham's diversity so here is the question as new people pour into durham how are we going to make the city we love a city for all last year in my state of the city address i laid out a broad action for agenda for action and i'm proud of the progress we're making on many fronts but after i report to you now on a few of those things i will be asking you tonight our entire community to come together to take a bold step to secure our common future first though i want to report to you on some of that agenda and i will begin by reporting to you about crime and policing when it comes to policing we have to do two things at once we have to effectively fight violent crime at the same time that we win the trust of communities these two goals are deeply intertwined we can't do one without the other we know that every gunshot wound rips a hole not only in the victim but also in a family in a neighborhood and in our community i read the police watch reports every day and every day brings with it a violent crime we cannot let that stand of all the depredations visited upon us by our state legislature the most damaging in my mind is their prohibition of any common sense gun control so this means we have to use every other resource in our command let me tell you how under the leadership of chief davis we are changing the culture and practice of policing and Durham to win the trust of our community it starts with training all of our officers now receive annual training and racial equity domestic violence and de-escalation 45 percent of our patrol officers have received advanced crisis intervention training and beginning in the fall of 2019 every new officer who enters the department will receive this advanced crisis intervention training to support this crisis intervention work the police department Alice's staff clinical psychologist who has been instrumental in responding quickly to the many people with mental health crises that our officers encounter daily in many other ways we are undergoing a dramatic shift in the way Durham is engaging in police work traffic stops in recent years have dropped by two-thirds searches of cars have been cut in half as have charges for drug violations our new misdemeanor diversion court has kept hundreds of first time offenders free of a criminal record these reforms are today making a positive difference in the lives of thousands of people especially people of color but here's an important question are these reforms good for some people but just leading to more crime well listen to the numbers and you can judge for yourself crime in Durham is on an 18 year downward trend and in particular this last year 2018 saw a striking declining declining crime every time someone is shot with a gun it is a tragedy and in 2017 244 people in Durham were shocked in 2018 this fell by 16 percent to 204 people this is a remarkable remarkable decline and it affects lives in all violent crimes in which a gun was used including robberies and aggravated assaults declined by 20 percent in one year in 2018 property crime continued to decline to its lowest level in 23 years frankly it's highly unlikely that we can repeat these amazing results in 2019 but the trend in Durham is clear trust is up and crime is down so tonight I want to recognize some of the police officers who do this critical work and first I want to introduce officer michael suposnick sir could you please stand welcome in december of 2018 officer suposnick arrived on the scene of a traffic accident at the corner of austin avenue at holloway street when officer suposnick arrived on the scene it was evident that the driver of one of the vehicles sustained sustained life-threatening injuries was not conscious or breathing officer suposnick immediately jumped into action removing the victim from the vehicle and beginning chest compressions right in the middle of a hectic scene with bystanders and vehicles all around officer suposnick for your decisive actions that save this man's life sir we salute you could officer john wagstaff please stand officer wagstaff has distinguished himself by continuously demonstrating his commitment to the police department's crisis intervention mission many times officer wagstaff goes above and beyond the call of duty to get those in mental health crisis the help that they need we're setting the bar sir for our police department's crisis intervention intervention work officer wagstaff we salute you and finally with captain mary and bond sergeant jessica butler corkel kimberley de la cruz officer charles strickland and officer de wit graham please stand welcome these officers were among 18 Durham police personnel who spent a week in wilmington following hurricane florence assisting the wilmington community in the wake of that natural disaster that's the Durham way thank you for serving the people of the coast and for representing the people of Durham so well whatever we do about gun violence and crime we're not going to solve it without getting it root causes we will finally solve this problem for real only when everybody has good medical care warm dry affordable home to sleep in every night and a good school a good school the 33 000 students in Durham public schools today are our city's future and we need schools where every child can thrive my two sons flourished in Durham public schools and my city council colleagues jillian johnson charlie recent javier a caviaro have children attending our public school today so i believe that one of the most important things Durham residents can do for our shared future is send our children to school together in Durham public schools last year during my state of the city address i urge young parents to send their kids to Durham public schools this year with the support of the newly formed Durham public schools foundation i'm making an offer to help and all the school board members county commissioners and city council members with kids in Durham public schools volunteered to help as well and here's our offer if you can get together a group of five or more parents we're trying to decide where to send your children to school in Durham i or another one of these elected officials with kids in our schools will visit your home for a conversation about Durham public schools and tell you about what Durham public schools can offer to your family if you want to schedule a meeting with us we'd love to do it visit both city schools dot org and the Durham public schools foundation will hook you up i look forward to visiting with you if you are interested in thinking about Durham public schools for your kids send your kids to Durham public schools and fight for them fight for them on many nights when i leave city hall in the evenings which is often at 6 30 or 7 i see groups of people meeting in our conference rooms the dedicated members of our volunteer commissions and lately too the committed participants in our big sprawling initiative in grassroots democracy called participatory budgeting so here's my prediction about participatory budgeting when this year is over we will be able to say that Durham has created the best initiative and direct democracy of any city in this nation the council has set aside 2.4 million dollars to be spent on projects chosen directly by our residents 550 ideas were submitted the majority by people of color and now city staff and 100 volunteer budget delegates are vetting these projects and fleshing out some 50 fully 50 full project proposals with detailed descriptions and budgets to put before the voters some of the projects still in the running include bus shelters crosswalks tiny homes and park improvements and the budget delegates are prioritizing these projects which benefit our underserved communities beginning on may 1st coming soon and running that entire month I urge all residents and students who are at least 13 years old to vote for the projects you want to see funded voting will take place online and also at in-person voting sites across the city participatory budgeting steering committee has set an ambitious target of nearly 10 000 voters and I hope we can exceed that number with with voting sites established with dedicated city staff involved in outreach with budget delegates committed to turning out votes I know we can go do grassroots democracy better than anyplace else in America and I especially want to thank our mayor pro tem jillian johnson for her persistent advocacy of participatory budgeting and for her leadership of the process as well as for our fabulous budget director bertha johnson for embracing participatory budgeting and driving us to do it well this is way outside of the usual scope of work for a budget director isn't it bertha well I predict that our work and participatory budgeting and direct democracy will lead the nation I want to turn out to an area where we are already doing the best work of anybody where people are looking to emulate the incredible work that we and Durham are doing and that is the work driven by our city's innovation team our I team making the city we love a city for all means making the city we love a city of second chances I know about this because it has been the life's work of my wife leo ruber so we talk it over around the kitchen table every night for about the last 45 years they've been awesome years we all have a responsibility in this work if you are an employer we need you to ban the box and be willing to hire more people who have criminal backgrounds if you're a landlord we need you to be willing to rent to people with criminal backgrounds if our neighbors cannot find work and they cannot find housing how can we ever become the city we want to be I am proud tonight to share three examples the way our city government is taking seriously our own responsibility to make Durham the city of second chances the first is the Durham Expunction and Restoration Program referred to commonly as deer the city invested 250,000 this summer to create deer which aims to remove barriers to employment and housing for individuals who are just as involved having a criminal record or a suspended driver's license makes it much harder for residents to find work and housing and to share in Durham's prosperity these issues affect tens of thousands of Durham's residents specifically over 50,000 of our neighbors have a suspended driver's license there are only 300,000 people that live in Durham 50,000 have a suspended driver's license most for minor traffic violations not involving DWIs over 100,000 of our neighbors have a charge or conviction on their criminal record eligible for expungement it still shows up on background checks every time they apply for a job or go to rent an apartment and to understand why this is a racial justice matter let me tell you this statistic 80 percent of these people are people of color prior to the creation of deer our community was able to provide free legal assistance for driver's license restoration for expungements only to several hundred residents a year as a result thousands who live in low income households mostly black and latinx neighbors suffer worse consequences for longer periods of time than others who are charged with similar offenses how much longer there are over 11,000 people in Durham with a suspended driver's license due to unpaid traffic tickets that are on average 16 years old that is not and cannot be justice we must do more to ensure that the legal relief provided under law is available to all of our residents not just those who can afford a private attorney the deer program is doing just that as a result of deer any person in Durham can visit the courthouse monday through friday and meet with a free attorney to expunge criminal charges or to restore their driving privileges as a result of deer and this is truly worthy of our celebration i'm so proud to say this over 50,000 old traffic charges dating back to the 1980s but still leading to driver's license suspensions have been dismissed 50,000 charges dismissed for 35,000 people i am so proud of that work in addition to getting this these charges dismissed the program is working now to waive fines and fees for 15,000 old traffic tickets that are on average 16 years old this is transformative change for thousands of our neighbors in the coming months the program will work to achieve the same kind of success with expungement as we are seeing as we are seeing with driver's license restoration let me say that our deer network our deer work is also entirely consistent with holding people accountable for their actions everyone who is benefiting from the deer program has paid a very steep price they have lost their license for at least two years or they have served time in prison to be a city of second chances there must be an expiration date on what it means to hold someone accountable and finally as related to deer let me say this is a story about how we are better together the early and amazing success of this program is only possible because of a dynamic collaboration it's only possible and please rise if you are here when i call your name because of our district attorney's office including our former d.a roger eckles current d.a satana d.berry and a d.a dale moral our judges including judge amanda marris josephine car davis shamica ronhardt and pat evans our public defender's office our clerk's office including our clerks of court archie smith ashley croon and melissa hopkins daniel bows from the nc justice center jenna rhyman from legal aid of north carolina our dear team of attorneys and staff are netta herring laura holland joseph lasier henry reva palacio and lauren robbins representing the city attorney's office the north carolina justice center in legal aid whitley carpenter dear advisory board the equal access to justice commission and the north carolina pro bono resource center north carolina and and north carolina central and duke law schools joseph mackentire and the durham bar association the george eight white bar the criminal justice resource center alex williams and members of all of us are none dan ririk and students from code for the dream volunteers from code for durham and our city's innovation team erin perish chuck manning darin johnson charen delaney and the brilliant driven leader of the deer program has brought all this together i team director ryan smith if you want to know what better together looks like look no further thank you all so much another way the city is demonstrating that we are a city of second chances is how we are welcoming people back home who have served time in our prisons these people will either be successful reintegrating into our city or we will all be so we need to help them do it 700 people come back home to durham every year from prison and as part of a new program we are piloting i have started writing letters to each of our residents returning from prison prison to welcome them back home reentry is hard i share but you are not alone the letters are just one part of a larger program called welcome home developed by our city's innovation team in partnership with durham's local reentry council in november the program began welcoming welcoming back residents returning home from three nearby prisons the city provides returning residents with care packages that include food clothing bus passes and other basic necessities we have also hired two peer support specialists who have lived experience of reentry and who work one-on-one with our returning residents to provide a trusted source of support and mentorship and to help connect them more quickly to resources at our local reentry council we are starting to receive commitments from faith communities and other organizations to provide an ongoing supply of welcome home care packages so if you are a member of an organization interested in welcoming back our returning residents by providing welcome home care packages we need you to be in touch with our i team tonight it is my pleasure to recognize reginald mumford is mr mumford here please stand the very first participant in our welcome home program mr mr mumford welcome home sir in another effort to give people a second chance this april the city will pilot a new transitional jobs program these jobs are specifically intended for returning residents and are designed to build job readiness while providing employment and wraparound services this program will try to provide a bridge to sustainable employment our city will work to serve as a model for other employers to follow and after our first cohort completes the transitional jobs program in september we will be looking to private employers to step up and give these job-ready candidates a chance to make the city we love a city for all we must become a city that embraces second chances i ask all of you to consider what you can do to help us advance this important work advancing the innovations team work has required resources and i want to give a shout out here to the bloomberg foundation an incredible partner which is funded our i team it's funded the mayor's transportation challenge it's also funded a training cohort for new mayors to which i was invited this last year and i will tell you a secret there were 40 new mayors in this cohort and i was the oldest while i'm on the subject of criminal justice reform i want to talk a moment about the money bail system we know that money bail creates a two-tiered system of justice in which those with money are able to purchase their freedom while those without money stay in jail often for months awaiting their day in court durham's newly sworn district attorney satana d berry has recommended an ambitious new pretrial release policy to senior resident superior court judge orlando hudson to combat this inequitable system the policy takes wealth out of the equation and focuses on what truly matters in deciding who goes home and who is jailed pending trial danger to our community and risk of flight i wholeheartedly support this measure and i hope you all will as well what i have described with the city's police reforms our participatory budgeting and our i team work is a culture of innovation in durham city government tom bonfield has just passed his tenth anniversary as our city manager everyone knows he has done a spectacular spectacular job managing our city's finances and services what you might know about not know about tom is that he encourages nourishes and protects innovation and that is why we have the culture that we do tom i know that our activist city council can at times be a challenge for you and your staff and i really appreciate the way you offer the stability and the reality checks that we all need i want you to know that you continue to have my full confidence my admiration and my daily gratitude the city managers aside we all know that it's the city's frontline workers who make our city go and tonight i want to recognize three of our employees for their response to the 12 inch snowstorm we had this past week many of our employees did yeoman's work during the stow and if you listen to city council meetings ever i'm not recommending it um you'll know that we our city manager regularly reports on that terrific work but tonight i want to recognize daniel austin nate marbury and michael norwood will you all please stand thank you keep standing thank you keeping city hall functioning is vital to our residents and twice during december whether threatened our ability to do that nate marbury michael and michael norwood are both electricians in the general service department and daniel austin is a newly promoted facilities division manager during the snow mr marbury worked through the freezing night with duke energy assisting in the replacement of a damaged transformer located in a vault beneath city hall mr marbury i'm sorry several weeks later when the transformer failed at the at city hall mr marbury mr norwood and mr austin worked with a borrowed generator to keep city hall functioning until the transformer could be replaced and power power restored thank you for your resourcefulness on those cold cold nights thank you for your dedication to our city i would also like to ask acting fire captain jerald wittington driver entwine burton and firefighter juan verdine to stand this past october engine company six was the first unit to the fatal fire that occurred in the oak creek village community captain wittington mr burton and mr verdine arrived to find a roaring blaze where many people were trapped in a two-story apartment these firefighters put their lives on the line to protect others as they fought the fire but that's not all the firefighters understood the needs and vulnerabilities of the people of oak creek village a few days after the fire they returned and met with community leaders they truly took their outreach to the next level with a community safety event smoke alarm canvassing and continued homes continued home safety visits their efforts provided much needed healing and they continue in oak creek village to this day we applaud you sirs the city council itself only only directly employs three people the city manager the city clerk and the city attorney diana schreiber has been our city clerk for about a year now and i want to thank you diana for a job very well done i appreciate your leadership and responsiveness so much and you have my full faith and confidence as many of you know our city attorney patrick baker is leaving us in a few short weeks to become the city attorney in charlotte we'll have a lot more to say about patrick not all of it good in his final city council meeting in durham but let me say tonight what a great privilege it has been for me patrick to work with you for the past seven years you have rendered truly extraordinary service to our city government and to our community both as our city manager and as our city attorney we wish you well we will miss you and we thank you now i want to talk about the future of our city and the opportunity to shape that future rather than simply to submit to it the issue that i hear about every day in somewhere another the issue that is on everyone's mind is the issue of gentrification and housing affordability sometimes i hear the statistics but much more often i hear the stories people tell me all the time they can't afford their rent and have to leave their neighborhood and move farther away from downtown young couples with middle-class jobs can't afford to buy a home in durham our homeless advocates and rapid rehousing partners tell me they can't find places for their clients to live anymore how can the city we love be a city for all if many low-income people predominantly people of color and no longer afford to live in the neighborhoods they have lived in for years even decades so as the bull city turns 150 this year we face two possible futures and we get to choose between them one future is to continue doing all the good work on affordable housing that we're doing now to know that it is not even remotely enough and to watch as our downtown neighborhoods slip away becoming even less affordable and richer and whiter but there's another possible future that i want to show you tonight and that's the future where we choose to fight back i'm going to tell you about the plan i'm going to tell you how we can pay for it it's going to take a lot of money and a lot of years but i believe this future is worth fighting for and i'm here tonight to ask you to fight for it with me we're already doing a lot of affordable housing work city funds are supporting the Durham Housing Authority as it renovates 336 units at Daymark Court and Marion Road to keep them permanently affordable city funds are supporting DHIC and self-help in their joint venture to build 82 affordable units adjacent to Durham station we're supporting the renovation and permanent affordability of the first phase of 54 units owned by the Durham Community Land Trustees in East Durham we are funding CASA to keep the 44 units at Maplewood Underwood Apartments permanently affordable we're funding habitat we're putting significant city dollars into home repairs which are critical to helping long-term low-income homeowners stay in their homes i applaud our county commissioners for stepping up to fund affordable housing on two of their downtown parking lots there's lots more i could tell you but here's the main thing i want to tell you all that good work it's not nearly enough if we do the affordable housing work we're doing now funded at the same level good as it is we will not significantly alter the future of downtown as the province of upper middle-class white people while people of color are pushed to the margins farther and farther from good jobs and the public transit to get them to those jobs tonight i'm going to outline a transformational plan and i'm thrilled to announce that the first step in that plan is underway last february in my state of the city address i recognize dr. phail winn vice president of duke university for taking the lead on the formation of a Durham affordable housing loan fund this fund will allow our nonprofit affordable housing developers to move quickly to compete in the market when a property comes up for sale and will allow the nonprofit to hold the property for up to five years at a very low interest rate while it arranges a subsidy to create permanent affordability dr. winn my good friend and a great friend to Durham has to wait tragically before this work could be finished but in his honor others led by our own Karen Lotto and talker Bartlett of the self-help credit union picked up the effort and would not let it die tonight i'm so happy to announce in honor of dr. phail winn the launch this spring of the Durham affordable housing loan fund with initial funding of ten million dollars on top on top of the two million dollars in city funds in this fund the north carolina community development initiative is lending two million dollars duke university is lending three million dollars and our final investor is sun trust bank which is lending three million dollars at a very low rate of interest to the fund so can i ask the following people to please stand Karen Lotto and talker Bartlett Tara Kenshin executive director of the initiative has been so supportive of this effort stelfany williams the new vice president for Durham affairs at duke was kept and strengthened all of dr. winn's affordable housing commitments and chris bell and aughtry's camp along of sun trust which is setting a crucial example for other banks as we seek to expand the fund we are so grateful to all of you i might add that aughtry's camp along is married to our solid waste director donal long it's good to have at least one power couple in the house tonight over the last year our community development department under direction of reginald johnson has been putting together a comprehensive five year affordable housing plan for our city they have done a fabulous job i want to fund the plan the whole plan if we fund the whole plan here is what we can do in five years we can develop 30 acres of Durham housing authority property right in the core of downtown at jj henderson oldham towers liberty street the housing authority office itself that property on main street and forest hills heights we can replace all 387 of the aging housing authority units for residents who are most in need and we can keep them living downtown we will make these properties mixed income of communities ending the isolated poverty of these derma housing authority residents currently these residents are bearing the double burden of poverty not only are they poor but everyone in their neighborhood is poor so they have no common resources to rely on we will change this we will fund the housing authority to build 863 new affordable units or their downtown properties most of the units affordable to a family of four with an income of 48 000 or less plus the housing authority will add 405 market rate units to create truly mixed income communities on their properties instead of the future where we surrender downtown to the richest buyers we will create a multi-racial downtown where people of limited means can live work and play we will also prevent homelessness and we will house our homeless instead of a future of more and more homeless encampments we will build out our new coordinated entry system so that there's a central front door a homeless services and Durham that is low barrier and accessible seven days a week we will invest in diversion that helps people in moments of housing crisis tap into their own resources we will create a landlord incentive program to encourage landlords to house homeless people and people with section 8 vouchers we will expand street outreach so that single adults sleeping outside and get the resources they need we will expand our rapid rehousing funding and we will increase our supply of permanent supportive housing to house our chronically homeless homeless people with disabilities we will grow the Durham affordable housing loan fund to at least 15 million dollars for those nonprofits who make use of the affordable housing loan fund to purchase property to keep it permanently affordable our five-year housing plan includes funds to take out those loans once a plan for permanent affordability is in place we will make gap financing available to developers including the housing authority who make use of the four percent tax credit to build affordable units we will double our support for small-scale multifamily projects either preservation or new projects by our local nonprofits we'll increase supply for affordable single family and duplex rental park projects and target neighborhoods including neighborhoods in our key bus corridors our light rail corridor and along the belt line and other downtown trails we will strengthen the home repair program to keep more long-term low-income homeowners in their homes we will build partnerships to reach out to these homeowners to significantly increase the number of people availing themselves of the state property tax credits and to educate them about the dangers of predatory acquisition and the alternatives that they can pursue we will create a citywide down payment assistance program offering $20,000 second mortgages to help low-income people purchase a home we will continue our new funding of attorneys working with legal aid to represent renters in eviction cases so we can reduce our community's too high eviction rates and to keep people in their homes we will work with local lenders to make loans available to families who want to develop their own accessory dwelling units adding it all up here is what we will do in the next five years we will support the creation of more than 1,800 new affordable rental units with a great majority of them downtown we will support the preservation of more than 800 affordable rental units most of them downtown we will move at least 1,700 homeless households into permanent housing we will create at least 190 home ownership opportunities including construction of 100 new units and down payment assistance to 90 low-income households we will stabilize more than 1,800 low-income renters in their homes through eviction diversion emergency rental assistance property tax assistance and repairs we will act on a scale that few if any other cities in this country are doing certainly no other city of our size but this isn't just about scale it's also about where the housing will be we will create an inclusive downtown in Durham a racially diverse downtown the impossible dream for growing American cities we will choose the future that is worthy of a city that wants to live up its lived up to its claim to be a progressive beacon for the south and the nation what will it what will it cost for us to become the city we want to become in addition to our current local and federal funds the cost of this work will be 95 million dollars over the next five years so i will be asking my city council colleagues to place on our november election ballot a referendum on a 95 million dollar bond issue the fund affordable housing and change the future of our city forever 95 million dollars is a big number there's an even bigger number that's important here this city this city spending will leverage at least 445 million dollars in spending by other public and private entities on this affordable housing work and it will create thousands of jobs and what will this cost you the taxpayer we can fund this bond for about two and a quarter cents on the tax rate and here is what that means in plain english if you own a 250 thousand dollar house in Durham you will be paying 56 dollars more per year to help provide this housing for others and to help create the just community that we all want it's a big lift i know that but it's time one city in the nation did it and i know that city can be Durham over the next month i'll be putting together an advisory committee to help explain this plan to our community to reach out to every constituency between now and november we have to decide if we as a community really want to do something about gentrification and affordable housing or if we're just going to complain about it are we going to talk about racial equity a lot but ignore it when it comes to the biggest equity challenge that faces our city the stars are aligned we have a great plan we have the nonprofits who can do the work we have an anthony scott a terrific director of the Durham housing authority folks there's really only one question that's in front of us do we have the moral commitment and do we have the political people ask me all the time what you can do for Durham they ask me that all the time on the street this is what you can do you can join the campaign for this bond referendum for Durham's inclusive future look out for ways you can join and sign up before leaving the subject of housing i want to say that the subsidized affordable housing plan i have focused i've been discussing needs to be supplemented by thoughtful land-use planning if we are to do everything we can to create affordability in that regard i feel called upon tonight to make a few remarks about our expanding housing choices program our planning department zoning proposal that is making its way through the neighborhood forums and soon to the planning commission into our governing bodies i'll always reserve my final judgment on any public hearing matter like this until i've listened to all voices and until the hearing is over but at this point i haven't even seen and at this point i haven't even seen the proposed text changes but i do have a perspective a general perspective on this that i want to share with you tonight over 2 000 new housing units are needed each year in Durham just to keep up with our population growth population growth and we have missed this number in six of the last 10 years this lack of housing production is made worse by the fact that the average person that moves to Durham has 10 000 more in annual income than the average person that lives here now so newcomers are better able to compete for scarce housing resources that house i'm sorry scarce housing opportunities and that is the major cost of cause of displacement of longtime Durham residents city zoning rules are also part of the problem for example approximately 40 of our land is owned exclusively for single family housing which can be very costly and is increasingly inaccessible to our low and middle income residents these restricted housing opportunities didn't just arrive out of thin air they are a legacy they are a legacy of redlining and urban renewal that have contributed significantly to the racial wealth gap in Durham and across the country the planning department's expanding housing choices initiative is one important way to address that legacy of racism we need more affordable duplex small house and accessory dwelling unit opportunities particularly in the neighborhoods that have seen huge run-ups in housing prices such as east Durham wall town and south side if we fail to provide these opportunities in the near downtown neighborhoods close to jobs transit and all the great things Durham has to offer we will guarantee rising prices and more displacement and a historically stable lower and middle income neighborhoods these new housing opportunities can and must ensure that the character and quality of our neighborhoods is protected we have all seen the demand for housing in our near downtown neighborhoods lead to tear downs and conversions of affordable housing to unaffordable housing expanding choices initiative cannot stop this phenomenon but we've but we have to do something to address the supply demand aspect of our housing problem as my counsel colleague charlie reese wrote recently displacement isn't inevitable but newcomers to Durham are we have to make room for them somehow and that's what this initiative does we also need a light rail system we need it so that the thousands of people living in the mixed income neighborhoods we will be building in a near downtown will have affordable transportation to the good jobs throughout our region we needed to mitigate the highway gridlock that threatens our quality of life and we need it because it's a single most important thing we can do to fight climate change along with affordable housing the light rail is the issue i've worked on the most since i was elected mayor especially in the last several months the light rail 18 miles 19 stations will be the first crucial backbone of our regional transit system to be followed by commuter rail line from Durham to Raleigh the federal government is providing half of the 2.5 billion dollar cost of the light rail and that money is teed up and waiting for us to just meet our local deadlines Durham and orange county voters you all overwhelmingly approved the sales tax to fund the transit system and the state of north carolina is providing 190 million dollars some more local funding will be necessary but that's not the biggest challenge February 28th just 10 days from today is the deadline for go triangle to sign cooperative agreements with both the north carolina railroad and norfolk southern as well as duke university although intense negotiations are ongoing neither the railroads nor duke aside yet as this critical deadline approaches if we don't have these agreements by February 28th a 15 year effort to fund and build the light rail so close now that we can taste it will die a sudden death i've urged president price of duke and the railroad executives to sign the cooperative agreements so that we move meet we can move forward and solve any lingering concerns together and i call upon them again tonight to do so the future of our region depends there's so much more i want to tell you tonight i want to brag about our grant our neighborhood improvement services department sought and won to protect families from lead paint in 180 older houses about the mayor's challenge that we won from bloomberg to use behavioral economics to persuade commuters to come downtown in ways other than their car about parks and recs my Durham afterschool program for teens i want to brag about our solid waste departments organics recycling which will eventually have us creating compost right here in Durham from our yard waste our food waste and bio solids for our wastewater treatment plant i want to tell you how excited i am about the shared prosperity plan that our economic and workforce development office is building including plans for a debt and equity fund to provide badly needed working capital to minority businesses i want to tell you about the race equity work that our city staff will be doing in partnership with neighborhoods along the belt line trail a wonderful new asset for our city i want to tell you about trees Durham the new nonprofit that is driving us to meet our goals for a replenished and equitably distributed tree canopy i want to tell you about the community-led food justice work going on to ensure that no one in Durham goes hungry about our new racial equity task force about the terrific report of our committee on confederate monuments and memorials about the mayor's council on women and the even newer workers rights commission so much great work is going on in this in this city 150 years after its founding on april 13th we will hold the first big bash of our sesquicentennial year a family friendly event to which everyone is invited and i invite all of you to attend i'm very grateful to discover Durham the Durham history museum we're taking the lead on Durham 150 and i'm excited that this celebration will occur in true Durham fashion the plan is for a decentralized celebration between april and november when we hope that 150 groups will plan 150 different events some of them will be sheer fun some of them will take a hard look at the challenges of our first 150 years so we can learn from them as we move forward if your school or church or civic group wants to sign up to host an event check out Durham 150.org where you can also find out how to apply for a mini grant to support your group's event one thing i'm waiting for with bated breath is the recommendations from our sesquicentennial honors commission about the people in our history we want to honor during this special year which you heard from briefly dirt from from andre van we had a statue come down in Durham not long ago who in our history do we want to honor instead here then is the state of our city in this our 150th year we are a welcoming city a diverse city and a prosperous city determined that our prosperity be shared a city challenged to truly live up to our creed to our belief that we can be a progressive beacon for the south and the nation when i think about the world we want to build i'm drawn to a poem written during the women's suffrage movement then turned into a song sung by the immigrant women who led the great larence textal strike of 1912 goes like this as we go marching marching in the beauty of the day a million darkened kitchens a thousand mill lofts gray are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses it is bread we fight for bread and roses bread and roses as we go marching marching unnumbered women dead though crying through their singing their ancient song of bread small art and love and beauty their dredging spirits new it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses too as we go marching marching standing proud and tall the rising of the women means the rising of us all or the drudge the idler and the toil while one reposes but a sharing of life's glories bread and roses bread and roses let's make the city we love a city for all we have a video and there we're gonna have a five minute break i understand i understand um well this is a really busy time of year so let me get back with you as soon as i can sorry about that so what's going on tom it's that time of year again is both selling girl scout cookies already no it's time for us to create our annual report to tell people what we did last year this has been a really busy year i can barely remember last week what we accomplished more less everything we accomplished in 2018 well tom what are we gonna do i know who we can ask duramina what did we accomplish in 2018 tom i thought you would never ask here let me remind you monday january first 2018 woke up fresh tea took the dog out no not what did i accomplish what did we our city employees accomplish for our residents in 2018 hold on you have a minute by minute record of my entire never you mind tom let's get on with your original question in alphabetical order here are the top 10 accomplishments of the city of durham for 2018 a is for affordable housing the way to follow felicia dadez do you want me to play happy birth some directions for everyone to follow did you know the correct spelling team does not include the letter i signal boxes look fantastic these ceremonies duramina that's more than 10 i can count tom well duramina this is great but please remain quiet until transfer is complete wow duramina we accomplished a lot of great things i know tom that's what i was trying to show you all before you interrupted me we apologize for that duramina don't worry about it computers never forget well since you've been so helpful already do you have any ideas how we can make 2019 even better after all it is the city's 150th anniversary ask me nicely please duramina good humans now let me see