 One minute till airtime, one minute till airtime. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you very much and good afternoon, colleagues, members of our staff and anyone who, members of our public who are watching today, we're very glad to have you with us. I wanna call this meeting of the Durham City Council, this work session of the Durham City Council to order at one o'clock PM on Thursday, August the 19th, 2021, and welcome everyone here today. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl, here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, here. Council Member Caballero, here. Council Member Freelon, here. Council Member Freeman, present. Council Member Middleton, I am here. Thank you, and Council Member Reese. Madam Clerk, thank you. Council Member Reese is not here today, as you all know, he had a family health matter to attend to in a different state, and he is there. And I'm gonna ask that we have a motion to give him an excused absence for today. So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, that we give Council Member Reese an excused absence for today. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Colleagues, we'll now move to announcements by members of the council, and I'm gonna first ask if there are announcements by my colleagues. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good afternoon colleagues and to everyone watching today. Mr. Mayor, last night was a horrific night in our city. For gun violence, absolutely heartbreaking and horrific. And I think last night just underscored, we've had other nights, but last night I think in particular underscored why we need to treat gun violence as a scourge that it is. I believe that we are at a position where it is an imminent threat to the lives of our children, particularly black and brown people, and it is a clear and present danger. It coupled along with COVID-19, COVID, the Delta variant of COVID-19, I believe, are the two greatest issues facing us as a city today. It also underscores the whiplash, I think that probably others, but I experienced as a leader in this city, and that is between elation for us making lists like being the second best place to live in the country, and yet also living with the reality of gunfire, so many cities in our country do. I used to be concerned that gun violence in our city, the narrative of gun violence in our city would eclipse our narrative of the city on the rise, our ascendancy. I'm not too fearful of that anymore. What I fear now- Recording in progress. What I fear now is that we're getting along just fine while people are getting shot. And I just wanna caution, particularly my brown and black brothers and sisters watching today, to be careful that we not allow it to be business as usual while it's us getting victimized. I think it's a very scary proposition that we can be making all of these great lists while this is going on, because what it signals is, we've baked in your victimization. We found a way to get along as long as it's just happening to certain folk, and I reject that. I think every citizen, every resident of the city should be focused on this issue. I wanna send prayers and best wishes in regards to the family of the deceased from last night. I also wanna pray for the speedy recovery of those who were injured last night, both physically and the emotional and psychological scars that were inflicted upon residents of our community last night. I also wanna say that we continue to hear and go to these stories of 9-1-1 not being responsive in a timely way when folk call 9-1-1. I know that we've had a report from the administration and staff about what we're doing in 9-1-1, but I'd like to officially request a revisitation of that conversation, whether it's at the next work session or whether we need to call a special meeting of the council to address this. I wanna know how is it, and I know we're bringing people online, but have we not or have we stopped punting to other cities helping us take those calls too early? Listen, there's no shame in our game. If we need help to staff 9-1-1 in the interim while we're building up our own personnel, then so be it. Do we need to invoke our mutual aid agreements with other cities to help us take these calls? So I'd like to have a revisitation of the conversation that we've had with the administration and staff about what's going on in 9-1-1. I know many of the stories are anecdotal, but some of the people I've heard from, I believe them, if they say they called and they didn't get an answer, I don't think they're making it up, but if they are, let's find that out, and if they're not, I'd like to know what's going on and if we need to take further action. Do we need to make an emergency appropriation as a council? Do we need to re-activate mutual aid agreements, whatever it is, but I'd like some conversation about that and just want to again, send out regards to those who were victimized last night, particularly to the family of the deceased and those who were injured, and pray that we will not become a city where we can celebrate making lists nationally and have just sensitized ourselves and incorporated into our way of being that we're going to make those lists while gunfire still rings out in certain neighborhoods on a bated night, after night, after night. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I yield back. Council Member, thank you for those important remarks. It was indeed a horrendous night in Durham last night. I'm going to call on our city manager, who I see has popped up on our screen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, for attending members of the council, particularly Council Member Middleton. We are planning to provide some online, real-time statistics and information for our community related to 9-1-1. I did, we've been working on it for the last few days, even before what happened last night happened, and you will see some of that transparent communication about exactly where we are and what we're doing with the 9-1-1 center, and we will be prepared at the next work session to bring an update. I've been texting with Deputy Manager Bo Ferguson if we can make a brief update directly to the city council, but until we get to the next work session, you will see some information in the next few days that we're going to be also pointing our residents to so that they can see exactly where we are related to the strategies of staffing up and being, you know, how many calls are being answered within the metrics that have been set out for, you know, effective call answering in North Carolina centers. So some of those things that you, you know, hear about anecdotally, we're going to make, you know, we're going to put that out for you factually, but we will certainly come here next work session with another thing. Thank you so much, Madam Manager. I appreciate that. And I know you were on it. I knew you were on it before I even raised a question. If I might ask specifically, Madam Manager, are we still using Raleigh to back us up for calls or is there a cease and desist on that totally? So we are not transferring calls from our call center to the Raleigh Wake call center at this time. We have not done that since June 1st. We were requested to end that routine operation. We do have them as an emergency backup, you know, backup center for us, which is, you know, slightly different than just, you know, rolling calls over on a daily basis. But we do not have a current arrangement to roll over active calls to another call center. We are answering those calls in our own center at this time, all calls. Madam Manager, have we made a mistake? Do we as a council need to take action to invoke a mutual aid agreement with other cities until we're staffed and ready to take them all within our own center? So, Council Member Milterson, I'd like to, you know, acknowledge that as, you know, as something that could be an action, but in order to have a mutual aid agreement of that type, the other center has to agree that they want to be on the other end of those calls. So the reason that we actually ended, one of the reasons, not all of them, but one of the reasons that we did end that roll over to Raleigh, you know, after a certain number of seconds had passed by, is because the Raleigh Call Center wanted us, desired us to end that particular kind of relationship. And so we were required to do it. It doesn't mean there are not other call centers that we cannot have such a conversation with, but some of the challenges that we had with a dispatcher, a call taker in another city, actually, you know, taking a call for Durham, you know, would be similar, likely to be similar if we, you know, used, you know, Wilmington or some other city that had a call center that could accept, you know, the volume, you know, we would have some of those same challenges. So without, you know, I certainly will respond to specific questions, but without getting into too, too much more details, I would like to bring the staff up at this next work session to answer, you know, some of the specific operating questions, but I did want to make it very clear and transparent the reason that we don't have the auto roll over. And the reason that it ended on June 1st. Well, I appreciate that. And I'll put a fine point here and I'm sorry that we wore out our welcome with Raleigh. And if there are other cities who might be willing to take up slack, I'll speak for me. Between now and the next work session, I can't imagine governing a city where folk are calling 911 and they're not getting a response. And I think that's an emergency situation that requires immediate attention. If we, I don't care if it's Chapel Hill or wherever who can help us until we get to staffing. I think for each of us, it should absolutely be unacceptable an issue number one that our residents and citizens in their darkest hours and most challenging times are calling 911 and have to keep calling back. That should be issue number one for the city at this moment. And I will just, I'll put it there and there's no better leadership team than we've got right now to help us do this. But I would hope that between this meeting and the next work session where we get a response from or report from staff that all necessary action be taken to make sure those calls are being answered. I don't know how else to say it. That's an emergency situation to me. It's an imminent threat to clear and present danger added to what we're already dealing with a gunfire in COVID. So I'll put it there. Thank you, Madam Manager. And I look forward to hearing from staff. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll yield that. Thank you, council member. This is indeed critically important for all of us and for our entire city. So I appreciate your questions. Looking forward to our staff's response. I do want to caution all of us to remember that media reports are just that. And so I'm looking forward to seeing the facts and figures that we get from our staff. And I appreciate that very much. Thank you for your important questions. Other announcements, colleagues? All right, we'll now move on to priority items by the city manager, Madam Manager. Any priority items today? Again, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem members of the Durham City Council, for the first time in a really long time, maybe ever, the city manager has no priority items. Thank you, Madam Manager. Madam Attorney, any priority items today? That is a first. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem and members of the city council. The Durham City Attorney's office has no priority items either. Madam attorney, before you disappear, we're going to have a closed session at the end of today's meeting. Should that be your priority item or how should we handle that? Ah, I forgot about that. Yes, sure. It can be my priority item. So the city council will need to entertain a motion to go into closed session at the close at the end of today's work session for the purposes of conducting personnel evaluations for the city attorney and the city clerk. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Colleagues, you have heard the city attorney's priority item. Can I have a motion for its acceptance? So moved, second. Moved by Council Member Caballero, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I will die. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes six to zero. Madam Clerk, any priority items today? Good afternoon, everyone. The city clerk's office has no priority items. Thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. Colleagues, we'll now move to the administrative consent items. City clerk's office item one, Durham Cultural Advisory Board appointment. Item two, under the city clerk's office, discussion of in-person board committee, commission and task force meetings. Colleagues, this is a discussion for us. I'm going to put this on my list of discussion items. I'm going to pull that item. Item three, Department of Transportation, interlocal agreement with Durham County and Orange County regarding call sharing for transit plan, governance study. No, none of them. Okay. I'm going to pull it. Yeah, thanks. We can happy to take your comments, then Council Member. Department of Water Management, item four, master service agreements for the 2021-2024 on-call professional services for water, wastewater and utility management. I'm not going to pull this, but I am going to let colleagues know that if you have not had your recently met with Manager Page, what she told me about this item, which I think is important. As you know, there's a lot, there are a lot of companies here. We had a huge number of attachments because we're doing these on-call agreements with so many companies. And one of the things that they're, these are mainly majority-owned companies. And not minority-owned companies, but the manager and the staff are looking at, some of these have, do have subcontracting opportunities to the tune of perhaps up to $400,000. And I wanted you to let you know that the manager is being proactive with the staff in terms of thinking about these, how these subcontracting opportunities could be made available to our minority firm. So I just wanted to say that, and I'm sure the manager, when you meet with her, if you have other questions about that, we'll be happy to tell you more. Item five, we're the Finance Department, Resolution Authorizing Participation North Carolina Investment Pool. I'm gonna call, I'm gonna pull that item. Under Public Works Department, item six, Intergovernmental Agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey for Operation and Maintenance of City Derm, Rainfall and Streamflow Network. Under Presentations, Community Development Department, item seven, planned to develop a citywide long-time home on a grant program. Under Public Hearing City County Planning Department, Consolidated Annexation 1051 Isle Branch Road. Citizens' Matters to be heard at one o'clock. Item nine, Brandon Williams. I believe that there is another speaker who would also like to be heard. It was listed on my sheet just as Merrick Moore. So my guess is this might be Ms. Bonita Green if Ms. Green is here. We're of course happy to hear from her as well. So Madam Manager, I have discussion of item two and then the presentation item seven and then pulled items are three and five. Is that what you have as well? Mr. Mayor, that is what I have also. Thank you, Madam Manager. All right, colleagues, we're now going to move to our Citizens' Matters and I'm going to first call on Brandon Williams. Mr. Williams, are you available to be heard? Yes, I am, Mr. Mayor. We're really glad that you're here and we look forward to your comments. You have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members here on behalf of the Wattown Community Association today to follow up with requests that we sent to the council back in May regarding the redevelopment of Northgate Mall and helping to kind of preserve wealth for long-time Wattown residents, homeowners. First, just want to express gratitude for the work that the council have done to push for a citywide long-time homeowners property tax grant program looking forward to hear what is proposed by the community development department today and hope that that really extends resources to our neighbors who need it most. Secondly, want to just follow up also, recently, Northwood investors, the primary developer at the mall has conducted a pre-submiddle meeting with the city county planning department as it prepares to put forth a site plan for the redevelopment. And as you've heard from other Durham residents that preliminary design submitted fails to kind of align with some of the goals that we have put forward that would really benefit the community. And even some of the things that Northwood discussed that they would include like a walking trail, the kind of size of the park they were gonna have even in the center of their space seemed to be different than what has been originally put forward. So here to really kind of encourage you all and request that you continue to maintain support for community's request and some specific things that we want to follow up today regard the request that we asked about exploring a rezoning of the property. We think that there are some options that council has to exercise a rezoning that would help facilitate a conversation and process that would achieve both kind of the density that the developer wants and the public goods that we've put forward. We want to hear, I think in my signing up today I was told that the planning department had briefed a council with some information to help respond to that. So it would be helpful to hear that. We wanna continue just to say that we wanna kind of refuse any special accommodations for Northwood as they continue to prepare to roll out their site plan. We know none have been given so far but once you remind and encourage that we still stand wanting the site plan to be within the 50 feet limit and don't want to have any rezoning happen until we know what's gonna be included in terms of community benefits. And some requests specifically to this process depending on how what council's kind of responses to exploring the rezoning, our belief is that there are some options as I've stated and we would love to kind of be able to bring a plan forward and want to ask council to commit to attending a public meeting and explore the options that we present for that rezoning. So I put that question to you all today and the last thing that I'll state is that in the conversation that the planning department had with the developer planning staff had recommended the pursuit of a development agreement with Northwood to try and accomplish some of these goals. And we just wanna put some caution on a development agreement process as that's a much more private deal between council and developers and we really want something that's going to be more public facing where residents can have input and believe that exploring a rezoning where a development plan might be in place would allow for that. So just more transparency in terms of what goes into the changes on the zoning for the property. So those are my comments for today. And just again, whenever you get that question, we believe council has the legal authority to rezone would love to be able to present some options to you all and to the rest of the public about that. And we'd love for you all to commit to being at a meeting where we can do that. Mr. Williams, thank you very much for your comments. We really appreciate you being here and thank you for your fantastic leadership in the Walltown community. Let me just respond to a couple of things. First of all, I know I can speak for all of my colleagues and saying that we're always happy to meet in terms of your proposal for a meeting about your plans. I know that I and many of my colleagues have attended other meetings are glad to do so. Within the, we do have open meetings, restrictions. Only a certain number of us can be there at once but we are glad to at least to participate but in terms of listening, we're all glad to be there if we can and look forward to that. I think staff, as you mentioned, staff has done a response to some of your comments which I was appreciative of. I do wanna say that I have been for this, for Northgate, the thing about a development agreement, it is a formal and legal way in which an agreement can be structured. I don't think anybody on this council would accept a development agreement which did not totally involve the Walltown community and other neighborhoods around Northgate. I just wanna assure you of that but it is our one legally binding, as I see it, avenue towards an agreement. And so I wanna, I continue to wanna encourage that but this would not happen and would never be supported by the council without significant neighborhood involvement. We've had one other agreement like this where there was essentially no neighborhood nearby but this is a very different situation. So I just wanna assure you on that. I'm not gonna be on this council but for a few more months but I know my colleagues and I know that there would not accept a development agreement in this situation without your participation, the participation of other neighborhoods. And I think those are the main points I wanted to respond to. Ms. Green is not here. This is the only participant so I'm not sure if she perhaps wanted to make written comments or not. All right, colleagues, we will now move on to item two. No, I'm sorry, item three is an item that I pulled and I can get that up here. Interlocal agreement with Durham County and Orange County regarding call sharing for the transit plan governance study. Hi, Mr. Egan. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, Pro Tem, members of council, Sean Egan, director of transportation for the city. So my questions really are about what is the city's role in this. I am unhappy with the scoping document mentions interviews with county commissioners not city council members and I see that our staff is to be interviewed, that's good. But I would, and MPO board members would be interviewed. But I would think that they would want to be doing interviews with city council members and I was unhappy to see that that was not in the scoping document. Also something that you and I have talked about recently we have been told previously that the city would have a formal seat at the table with the county transit plan working group. That has not happened to my knowledge and I was wondering how this study would impact that because I think that's very important as the city is the major provider of transit in the city that we have a place on the staff working group. And I wondered what the, you could just report to us what the current status that is. So I'll speak to the first question. I can confer with our county colleagues. Ellen Beckman is leading the study for Durham County about the inclusion of additional stakeholder interviews. I think we can make a very compelling case for the value of including some of those and we should be able to find a way within the scope and budget to do that. So I will certainly make that request. In terms of the inclusion of the city with a formal role in the staff working group the objective here is to draft a new interlocal agreement that would replace the current interlocal agreement that specifically excludes the city's participation in the staff working group. And the understanding among the partners is that the new interlocal agreement will include a formal seat for the city of Durham in the staff working group. The only way to execute that is to draft and execute a new interlocal agreement. And so that's one of the key deliverables from the consultant is to draft the interlocal agreement that can then can be ratified by the governing bodies. And we'll at long last give the city of Durham the largest transit provider in Durham County by far. We're providing about 80% of the transit service in Durham County will give the city of Durham a formal role in that staff working group process. So that is the shared understanding that we go into this process with that this will give us the document that we can then get ratified by the governing bodies to make that long awaited change possible. Super. That was the answer I was having to hear. Thank you. Council Member Caballero. I just wanted to thank staff. I'm the alternate to the MPO and this has been an issue that has come up consistently since I was appointed to that board probably a year ago now. And I just thank you for your hard work on that. I know it wasn't an easy lift and it's but it's absolutely necessary if we're gonna get the kind of transit that we need. Thank you, Council Member. Colleagues, any other questions or comments from Mr. Egan? Mr. Egan, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Colleagues, the next pull item is item five and I also pulled this item. This is the resolution authorizing participation in North Carolina Investment Pool and I see Ms. Taylor is with us. Ms. Taylor, I sent you a question about this and you gave me a great answer but I thought I would ask you here just so my colleagues were able to hear it. And that is, how does the NCIP fund have advantages over the NCMMT fund we're currently investing in? We're looking for higher yields. What about this new fund will be able to allow us to realize them in a way that is not, doesn't provide too much risk. And again, I appreciated your written response and I think it'd be important for a colleague to hear that. Good afternoon, Mayor. Mayor Potem, members of Council. So in answer to your question, the NCIP and NCMMT are both very similar in terms of the security and liquidity that they provide as well as the types of investments that they have in their portfolios. There are two main differences between the two that we think could offer the potential for higher yields with the city. Overall, the main, or one of the key benefits of authorizing us to join the NCIP is for diversification of the city's investment portfolio. It's another tool in our toolbox but as far as the potential for higher yields, the yields that the city receives from these investment pools are net of fees. And so even with similar investments between the two polls, the NCIP is anticipated to charge a lower fees than the NCMMT, which would help our yields. And then they do have similar investments in their portfolios, but the NCIP also does include certificates of deposit in their portfolio as well, which distinct is a little bit different from what's in the NCMMT. Thank you so much for that answer, Ms. Taylor and that information, I really appreciate it. Colleagues, any other questions for Ms. Taylor? Ms. Taylor, how long have you been in the Treasury role? Since April, I've been with the city since 2017. Well, congratulations. Thank you very much. Great, thank you for being with us. Colleagues, so much goes on behind the scenes, doesn't it? That we, you know, these are folks who figured out how to make us a little more money on our very passive investments, which is great. All right, now we'll move to two discussion items. The first is item two. I think this will be pretty easy. I think when we first put it on the agenda and I'll just thank the clerk for helping us think this through, this is discussion of in-person board committee commission and task force meetings before the Delta variant and we and everybody else has gone back into Zoom meetings across the state. We had been thinking about having a board, you know, should our boards be able to meet in person? I thought, I don't know if you all had a chance to look at the attachment, but the amazing richness of the answers from board members and this again was prior to the Delta variant about whether or not they wanted to go back, their concerns, their fears, their desires. It was a really useful survey, Madam Clerk, and I want to appreciate you and your staff for conducting it, it's very, very interesting. But now that we're back into virtual only, my assumption would be colleagues that we want our committees and boards to do the same. Of course, I'm happy to hear any countervailing ideas, but just wanted to get your thoughts so we can offer them so we can get some direction to the clerk. Any thoughts? Madam Mayor, pretend. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree. I think our boards continuing to meet virtually is preferable to folks trying to come back in person and especially since the survey. I also was excited to read all the survey answers and a lot of people seemed like they were interested in coming back, but since that was pre-Delta, there's really no way to know how people feel about it now and I imagine a lot of people feel more concerned and tentative about doing in-person meetings at the moment. I don't remember which one, but there was one board that was gonna meet in person to deal with a particular legal matter and I just wanted to get an update on that. But overall, I think that continuing to meet virtually is great and our boards and commissions have done great work in the virtual environment and there's no reason to have folks come back. We might, you know, we can do what we need to do over Zoom. Thank you. Exactly though, you're right. There is one of our quasi-judicial boards and maybe I think one that really needs to meet in person for legal reasons and Ms. Young, are you able to hear me, Sarah Young? I am, I'm right here. Can you explain Ms. Young to the council? One of our boards does need to meet in person. Can you just explain that? Sure, good afternoon, Mayor, Madam Mayor, pretend members of council. We have the Board of Adjustment has, it's actually a couple of cases where folks have not consented to the virtual hearing and so it's kind of held in limbo. Right now we are in discussions with staff and the attorney's office about whether we need to try and pursue kind of a special exception for an in-person meeting to dispose of those or whether we will continue to kind of just stay on hold indefinitely with those. So it is nice to have the flexibility should we need to use it. Thank you, Ms. Young. Colleagues, other comments? Madam Mayor, Madam Clark. Mr. Mayor, on the housing appeals board also has had the need to meet in person and we may wanna take some comments from NIS. Thank you, Madam Clark. Let's see if there's anyone here from NIS who might want to comment. Don't see Ms. Stansel, but we could provide that flexibility for those boards that need to do that. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Other comments, colleagues? Councilor Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, outside of unavoidable legal compulsion, I think they should stay virtual. Thanks. Thank you. I see, let's see thumbs then. Councilor Member Freeman, are you good? Okay, great, thank you. Madam Clerk, and thank you, Council Member Freelon. I'm sorry. Thank you. I think Council Member Caviar put up two thumbs. I just counted both of hers as one of yours. The Madam Clerk and Madam Manager and Madam Attorney, I think you've heard the council that we are in favor of keeping our boards in the virtual environment, except for those that have some sort of quasi-legal function that really need to meet, and we'll leave that to the judgment of staff to make those exceptions. Is everybody good with that? Okay. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much. Thank you, colleagues, for giving that guidance and God willing, this will not last too much longer, but we really don't know. Okay, and now we're gonna move to item seven, which is our final item before we move into closed session, which is the long-time, let me see what it's called on our agenda in a second. It is the Planned to Develop a Citywide Long-time Homeowner Grant Program, and this is a presentation by Community Development Department, and I see Mr. Johnson. Welcome, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem, members of City Council, Reginald Johnson, Director of Department of Community Development. My task before you is to share with you the plan that we have to develop a citywide long-time homeowner grant program, and based upon the discussion that we had in June, I'm going to share my screen, hoping this is the right one, but one of the things that I wanted to share with you is that it based upon the discussion that we had the last time, which was in June, our task before you was to share with you how we would think about and approach developing a citywide long-time homeowner grant program and talk about the plan for that. And so that's the purpose of this. This is not the plan or the options for plans. So the goal for this presentation is to develop a plan to implement the long-time homeowner grant program citywide, to also provide a framework needed to develop options for a citywide program. I would also add that in thinking about this, that it's really a bifurcation because we have what we're doing now was the final year in terms of FY19 taxes. If you remember, we had a three-year pilot. We extended it for a year, which was this year. And so we're underway with the application process for this year. Then that's done on the reimbursement basis. And so that's for FY19, then FY20, clearly everyone knows we're under tax season underway and then also for FY21. As we approach this and develop these key elements, this is clearly for FY22 going forward in terms of developing a citywide program. In terms of dealing with FY2021 and 2021, we have some similar issues, but not the same issues in making it citywide. So just a refresh, and I'm not gonna go through all of these in detail, but to give you a picture of the current program, a person must own a live in the home as a primary residence, live in the house since July 1, 2020, 2012, experienced an increase in property tax obligation based upon the 2016 property tax assessment and the 2019 property taxes are higher than the property taxes were in 2015. And that's where we get to 2019. We operate a year behind. And so it's on the reimbursement basis. Own a property located in Southside, Northeast Central Durham, or Southwest Central Durham target areas. And when we say target areas, meaning that the property must be located within proximity to a city of Durham housing investment that had occurred between 2010 and 2015. And the city uses a geographic information system GIS platform to determine if the property is within the boundary that qualifies for the assistance. Program numbers we have now, as of August the 3rd, we had 63 applications were received. The application deadline is August the 31st, 2021. So it's still underway, still have a few days left before the end of the application season for the current program. So just the areas of consideration for the, had developing a citywide program. We have some legal recommendations from our city attorney's office. Then in terms of program and policy design, we look up, look at the eligible households, income thresholds, income calculations, the amount of the assistance, staffing and administrative costs, i.e. whether the in-house are outsourced and of course developing some cost estimates for the council to consider. And then the process and timeline for the proposed development. In terms of legal recommendations, the city attorney's office, in terms of their recommendations have advised us that the program should either be citywide as we are discussed and are targeted to areas where the city has distinctive housing investment has occurred as we are doing. And of course, if need be, they can speak to that, but their position is that we need to do one or the other. And they also advise in the program's defensibility that payments are made directly to the tax collector on behalf of the qualified applicant. As I mentioned earlier, of course, this can't be done on the reimbursement basis for the past year, the program underway, but we're talking about going forward. So in terms of policy and program design, eligible households, the only purpose of this slide is to give a picture of the amount of eligible home-owning households below 80% AMI area median income residing in the city of Durham. There are just under 20,000 below 80% of the area median income. And then there are about 14,500 home-owning households below 60% of the area median income residing in Durham. And those are the figures that we're using for this particular data. So in terms of threshold, remember, this is not, we have not designed a program, but we're looking at the options that we have to consider. We're looking at a 30% area median income limit that will focus benefit on the highest need of homeowners and where the impact would be the greatest. Then you have the 50 to 60% AMI, which would be more generous but still focused on lowest income populations consistent with Durham County welfare statute requirements, which actually is important. And then the 80% AMI for Durham approaches the Durham County median income. So that's something just to consider in terms of policy considerations. AMI, area median income is a relative measure and would increase as incomes in the major policy statistical area, MSA rise. And then one point to make note of that the AMI limit set forth with Durham Chapel Hill, MSA because Durham County, the median income is below Orange County is the actual percentage of Durham household served would be higher because the MSA numbers are combined and just not Durham alone. In terms of income calculation, this is just something that we should also look at whether it's the household income or the individual income. Some programs use individual income in the community development world. We traditionally use household income, but household income is more time consuming verified than individual income, but does give a more accurate picture of the household financial position for non-elderly households. Income may vary significantly from year to year based on employment situation, of course, and changes in household composition. And as with all programs that provide financial benefits, there's a risk of fraud, applicants indicating that their household is larger than it is, which lowers their AMI or not providing documentations of all sources of income and that's something that's programmatically we have to consider. And of course, there are some ways to mitigate against that risk and requiring some identification of people and persons in the household and bank statements and all those sorts of things that we normally do, but the risk cannot be completely mitigated without making some programs highly onerous to both the homeowner and well as the administrator. So that's something to consider as well. The amount of the assistance in the equal to the amount of taxes owed above a fixed percentage of the household income, similar to the current circuit breaker program, or a fixed percent could be the same for all eligible households or vary with income. You know, it's important for these, the amount of assistance is important to the discussion because that's along with household AMI affects how much money, when your particular program will cost and based upon the amount of assistance on the percentage of household income is more equitable than basing upon the amount of taxes owed on providing a flat benefit equal to everyone's received the same benefit. Staffing and administrative costs, the question here is whether the house are outsourced and it will depend upon the overall utilization of the program, particularly the number of ineligible applications. And that's important because ineligible applications take just as much time to analyze as eligible applications in terms of time. And so that's something that's relevant. The volume of work for the proposed tax relief program will be significantly higher for the current state property tax relief programs, given the larger number of eligible applicants in the greater complexity involved in calculating based upon household income, if that's the way that we start to use, the state property tax relief programs only considered incomes of the homeowner and spouse regardless of the actual household composition. Then also in terms of cost estimates, in order to develop the cost estimates assumptions on the number of factors that will affect the program and the estimated program costs. Some of them we just talked about but we'll be looking at the household size, the average income, the average home price, the average property tax bill, the application utilization rate, ineligible applications as we just discussed and of course the program delivery cost. The process and timeline for the proposed development will develop a range of options for the council to consider. And over the next three months staff will conduct some research and evaluate options and with a target date of sharing the options with you in November of 2021. And with that presentation, I'll stop sharing my screen and entertain any questions that you have. Thank you so much, Mr. Johnson. Colleagues, questions for Mr. Johnson? Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just one question came to mind really quickly. The 2015 date that it's limited to for investment, is there a reason why it hasn't been expanded I guess since, because we're at 2021 now. And just imagine that there's been more and investments made and just making sure that that's not missed. Well, we appreciate you raising that question, Council Member. If you remember when the program was designed, we were looking at and council approved the parameters of the program and those are the dates that were chosen. Of course, when we look at it, we may need to make some adjustments, but the program has been consistent with the council adopted parameters from the outset. Just a follow-up. So for the 2019, 2020 and 2021, we're not looking at any of the city's investments around those areas. Well, the question is, we will have to come back with you with you with recommendations to change the programs or the parameters we can't do there as staff. Just change the program parameters on our own that requires council approval. And so what this entire engagement is about is what do we need to bring to you to change the program? We're not able to change it on our own. Okay. And so Mr. Mayor, I just want to know what the process would be to bring that back just to make sure that we're at least capturing the current real estate investments that are happening. So I think that what Mr. Johnson is proposing that is there's a date in November, I can't remember the date in his slide, that they will be back to us, I think is the current plan with their recommendations. Is that right, Mr. Johnson? Yes, yes, sir, it is. And we'll take that in any other discussion between now and the interim as we're doing our work to incorporate. Just for clarity, in November, do you want to have what we're interested in moving forward or are you saying like, we're going to wait from now until November and then discuss what we'll try to do? And the member of our plan is to present to you some options for you to choose. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Other questions, colleagues? Council member Freelon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and greetings, Mr. Johnson. Thank you for the presentation. I had a question about the income threshold slide when you mentioned kind of Chapel Hills, meeting income terms being below orange counties, but somehow we're kind of coupled in with them as far as the MSA is concerned. Can you explain that in a little more detail? I've heard something like that before but just like a little clarity on what that means. Be glad to don't have all the numbers other than what I share with you on my slide in my head, but this is conceptual at work. The census in the federal government divides the state up in metropolitan areas into statistical areas that they use for analysis. And there, in the case of Durham, in the place of the triangle, is actually two or three different statistical areas. The one that we're in, Durham is partnered and paired with Chapel Orange County. And that's where the data and a lot of the herd data is generated from using that analysis. We're not in with Raleigh. Used to be a time that that was the case, but it's not now. Raleigh and other counties to the east or in another area. So, but what that means, if we're in the area with Orange County that it's analysis of the data and the census data and the income data for residents who live in both of those areas and they combine them together. And because Orange and Chapel Hill is higher than we are, though they are combined together, the weight of the average tilt will tilt higher than what we are individually. But we're not necessarily able to just peel off ours because ours is going to be lower. Cause that we'll present some challenges on how we do consistently across our analysis. If we start trying to pull ours out versus using the metropolitan statistical analysis data. Got it. So that data is a little bit. And then I would also share that it is what, though we are combined with Orange, it is weighted because we have more people that does tilt it kind of back our way, but it's higher than us being alone if that makes sense. I understand. Yeah, thank you for explaining that. I'd heard that before that some of the, yeah, the census data, that's what it was, couples us with Orange. So you have metrics in place to decouple that information or are we just going to take it as is and do our best to- We take it as is. Okay. It would be a challenge for us to start a habit of decoupling it. Right. Because there are other things we have to be consistent across. Okay. Okay. Thank you for explaining that, Mr. Johnson. You're welcome. Thank you, council member, Mayor Pro-Tam. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Johnson for the presentation and all the thought y'all are putting into what we should do with this program. We are doing two different things right now, right? We're doing our own extension of our grant program for the target areas that we had previously established and we're participating in the county's county-wide program for the portion, for the city tax portion of that. Is that correct? For this year? Yes, that is correct. So our program that we administering, remember, stops with 2019. We are only taking taxes for the 2019 because remember, we operate in a rear. We operate behind. Right. The county program, which I appreciated and don't know all the intimate details, is starting now with going forward that we are participating with them again. Starting with 2021 tax here. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So this program that this proposal would be, like would this replace us participating in the county program or would this be on top of that? Good question, Mayor Pro Tem, as I have listened to the discussion that we had on June, I forgot to date, and I've listened to it and I've listened to it again. It sounds like this program will be in addition to not in substitute of. Okay. And so we, I know the county program right now only goes up to 30% of AMI, but so there would be people between 30 and 60 that will qualify for ours and not theirs, but what happens to the people who qualify for both? So that's something that we would have to look at in terms of, you know, for example, in our program now, we have to have documentation or have people have to certify that they applied for the other state programs. Okay. That's part of our current application process now. So what you're asking is, can somebody participate in both programs? We don't know the answer to that. That's part of the analysis that we would have to do and bring back to you. I can answer that right now, you know, except for conceptually. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it seems like, if that feels like a duplication of efforts for those folks below 30% of AMI, but I am, I'm concerned. I think the county threshold is too low. I think that there should be a program for folks between 30 and 60% of AMI. And I know, you know, many of us have lobbied the county to try to get them to increase their threshold. And we'll see, you know, if we're successful with that, that seems like the easiest solution seems like the county establishes a program that covers all of our residents. It goes up to 60% of AMI and then we don't have to, you know, then we don't have to do this on our own. But in the absence of the county, having a program for folks up to 60%, I feel like it would make sense. It would make sense for us to cover that gap if we can figure out how to, you know, but not duplicate for folks who qualify for the county program. Thank you. We'll take that into consideration again, as we develop this plan and are considering and all the method for a developing plan, we're not necessarily reacting to what the county is doing. We are trying to develop a program as you are directed to be a city program. And we'll have that to present to you. Now, what the county does or doesn't do is what the county decides to do or doesn't. Sure. We are trying to proceed with a citywide program with the best information and provide you with some options. Let's assume that they don't. Right. You'll still have some options to consider. If they do, you know, you'll still have some options to consider. That sounds great. Yeah, and we'll continue to lobby our colleagues on the county commission to expand their program to make a more of an impact. I just wanted to speak to a couple of the considerations that you had listed in your memo on the question of income threshold, should it be absolute or relative? Personally, I think it should be relative. It should be based on AMI rather than on an income level because then it can adjust each year based on, you know, what's happening with the AMI and we've seen it, the AMI going up really quickly in our community, mostly because of, you know, lots of higher income folks moving here, but it allows more people to be eligible if we stick it to AMI. For other eligibility requirements, I think tenure is important. Folks who have lived in their homes and own their homes for a long time. I'm not sure what the tenure should be, but yeah, I think that we should have some requirement so that folks are not able to, you know, buy a house, live in it for a year and then, you know, apply for tax assistance. It should be folks who, for whom the tax increases have come through no, they haven't made a decision to renovate or to buy a more expensive house. They've seen their value go up because of gentrification. And the question, I found the questions about like amount of assistance and duration of assistance challenging. And I was just wondering what y'all were thinking like if you have thoughts about whether, you know, how many years, how long this should go or how much money people should get, those seem, I didn't really have clear, it felt like it could go either way. So I was just wondering what y'all were thinking. Well, don't have an answer for you now because we, you know, don't necessarily have any preferences to be honest with you. It's gonna have to look at the entire allocation. That's the reason we're gonna have some options to present for you in November. So we have the data that will show if it's one way what it will look like, if it's another way what it will look like and then we can have a discussion at that point. We don't necessarily have preferences to articulate to you right now. Your thoughts are just as good as our thoughts and our thoughts just as good as yours right now. Cool, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I know the circuit breaker bases on the percentage of your income, so that you're never paying more than a certain percentage of your income and taxes. And that's, I mean, that seems like a reasonable approach that has worked. And I think you can get the circuit breaker indefinitely, right? There's not like a maximum number. My understanding is that Ms. Lotto is on the phone on my line to correct me, but I don't think that there's a limit on it. And that's something that we, you know, we'll need to look at as well and have for your consideration. Great, yeah, I think thinking about this is kind of a local version of the circuit breaker since we, and it's in our legislative agenda actually to expand the circuit breaker, but since we haven't been able to figure out a state solution that is along those lines to do it locally. And I really wish the county would expand their program. I think that would make things a lot easier for us, but and we'll, you know, we'll keep trying to to make that happen. Appreciate all the work that y'all are doing and look forward to hearing more in November. Thank you. Thank you. Your comments are very helpful. Thank you, Mayor Procello. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, I just had a very quick follow-up that was all really helpful context. Even if we were able to get our county partners to the AMI that I think everyone on council wants, which is I think 60% AMI, I know that's what I want. There would still be a gap because of when they're rolling out their program versus our program. So there would still have to be some, you know, and obviously that's up to us, but I was just curious, even if we were able to get them to commit to a different AMI, the timeline doesn't completely line up, correct? No, it doesn't line up, but remember we have different types of programs as we do now. Ours is on the reimbursement basis. That's what I started out with. And so for 20 this year, if we did a program, clearly it's on being a reimbursement basis and we operate behind. And so, you know, if it's 2021, we probably, by the time it would get us a program up and going, we was probably gonna be behind at that point as well. And so we're not gonna, it's gonna take us a while to, if you're trying to look at it, when we'll all be even, it'll take us a while to get there, you know, a couple of years because we operate and we have to transition. Okay, thank you. Does that make, does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I thank my colleagues for their questions, really probing, substantive questions and engagement. Brother Reginald, good to see you. Thank you for being here and to work. I wanna, in his absence, just kind of shout out Councilor Reese in honor of his work on this issue. He's really leaned in on this kind of been Vanguard in pushing this. And I share his desire to really do as much as we can for as many people as we can. Of course, as a government, we have to do it in effective and efficient ways with an eye towards the person and people power. I wanna firstly, Reginald, I wanna speak to the framing of this discussion because I think my memory might be a little different on your goal list. You have two bullet points for goal. The second one really comports more with what I remember the charge to staff being the first one to develop a plan to implement the long-time homeowner grant program city-wide. I don't really recall it being a Fed-a-Con player or it's actually saying develop the plan. I do, however, remember more of the second one which is to provide options and to give a framework as to what it would look like moving forward. So I don't recall an absolute go order on it. It may very well turn into that, but that was just my recollection of the conversation. And notwithstanding that, you've accomplished that. You've given us options and things to consider if we were to decide to go city-wide with this, which resonates with me, but I think I said at the last discussion, I think there's some other low-hanging fruit that we can look at as well if we're ready to start kind of aggressively attacking wealth issues and issues, and particularly in legacy black communities around the city. I mean, if this is triggering or at least telegraphing our willingness to do that, there may be some other things that we want to look at as well with that amount of boldness and willingness to commit city resources and funds to, which leads me to asking you a couple of nuts and bolts questions about moving forward. One, let's say we do do this program city-wide. Do you anticipate us doing any data mining? And by that, I mean looking at records of folk who maybe have not gotten as far as foreclosure, but are in arrears on taxes, and rather than waiting for folk to self-identify, do you see us kind of sending out letters to folk or reaching out to folk who are already showing symptoms or perhaps having issues with their taxes within a particular income bracket? And again, I don't know what type of data mining we would need to do or it's just going to be, do you anticipate this just being self-identifying totally? And then that's how the process kicks off. Well, we don't have any determinations on that right now, council member. I will tell you one, what we do now, we do send letters actually to people in the target areas in addition to the traditional ways of us promoting through a website, through associations, through we actually send letters to people in the target. I can imagine we may consider something like that, but again, remember, it's a difference between sending the cost of sending communications to everyone and a household in an area, then doing the same thing cities-wide. We would have to look at water bills and the expense, just all those sorts of things which fall under the administrative piece. I know that it would be promoted broadly and everybody would know about it. Would we send letters, separate letters to every household? I don't know, that's something that we would have to consider and do the cost benefit analysis on that. When we have water bills that go to almost every household in the cities, those types of things that we have to figure in is that helps to answer your question. I mean, we have our media, TV station and all those sorts of things, but I can't narrow any of that down for you right now in this conversation, but know that it would be promoted. That is helpful and it actually provides a rather organic segue into my next issue, which is kind of staffing and resources and return on our investment. I mean, even if somebody goes through the application process, even if it's a no, it's labor-intensive to even get to a no, a person that we're not going to be helping. So I'm wondering if, and of course you're just kind of, I know spitballing this, but what kind of stat, can you anticipate what kind of staffing ramp up or architecture we'd have to put in place to do this program city-wide? And as our community development director, I'm asking for your opinion, you can on your professional opinion, are there better ways or efforts, other areas you think we can better use our resources and people power or be ramping up to do some other things? That's an excellent question. Of course, I'm not going to commit to that right now. That's the reason we had the slide between in-house and outsource that was in the presentation. In terms of what does it take to be able to do that, particularly if we're going city-wide, I will share with you, know the community development does not, staff does not have the bandwidth to be able to implement it right now. But that's the analysis that we'll be doing into interim to come up with you with some recommendations for you. It works the same with the emergency rental assistance program that we receive the funding for, but the city government and the city community development department cannot implement that program. That's the reason we contract in that instance with the county because they have the infrastructure to be able to do it. We don't have that infrastructure today. As a matter of fact, to be honest with you, we're behind on what we have. And so that's kind of where we are, but we're going to proceed as best that we can, but that's the analysis that will happen over the next several months that we'll present some options for you. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I appreciate that. No, it's extremely helpful. Extremely helpful. The animating spirit of this is to helpful and to a person, that's what we all want to do. I don't want to back ourselves into a corner as a city or have fits and starts and programs and want them spending more than we, on administrating something without having the maximal impact that we want to help people. And that's my concern. And I know that's all of our concerns if I do shares of the city. But thank you so much. It's so helpful, Reg and your team. Thank your team for us as well. And I thank my colleagues for abiding me this time to ask questions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I'll yield back. Thank you, Council Member. Colleagues, other questions for Mr. Johnson? Any other comments or questions for Mr. Johnson? Council Member Freeman. And Mr. Johnson, we'll get back to you for sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to express the concern for the new, this year, last year and a previous year and just making sure that we're aware that this is not actually like expanding out for any neighborhoods this year or next year until 2022 fiscal year starts. And so I'm just trying to note that this was the conversation that was meant to attack the issue now, like understanding the new waiting circumstances with COVID. And then also just to make sure that I'm clear, the program that the county has set up is a deferral, right? It's not a grant. And so at some point it becomes payable, it becomes due, I guess, and so it's a whole lot of differences between the county program and the city program. So I just want to make sure that I'm clear. If we're trying to figure out how to not have a city program, there's a whole lot more that needs to happen on the county side. Madam Manager, did you want to comment? Just very, very briefly, the county does have the deferral program as far as I know, as Councilwoman Freeman has mentioned, but the new program that we have also committed in our current year's budget of $500,000 is a tax grant program. Thank you, Madam Manager. I actually have both. For the city and the county, the city's portion is to be funded with the $500,000 that is in the current budget that was approved for fiscal year 22, and realizing that the county is still working on the details of implementation of that grant program. I think they put about 750,000 in their budget. We put 500,000 in our budget, plus there's going to be some administrative costs involved on the county side in order to administer it. But it was both in the county manager's budget and the city manager's budget proposal for the county-wide tax grant program. It is just one of the key things that has been mentioned here numerous times. That program pilot is for 30% or below of the area median income is a key component to qualification. Thank you, Madam Manager. Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. And I just wanted to, of course, always thank the council members and you and Mayor Pro Tem for taking time to listen. I also wanted to thank the community development department staff who worked on this presentation and also for the work that they're going to do as we over the course of the next three months in addition to the city manager's office staff, the city attorney's staff, city attorney's office staff as well as the I team in the budget and management services division. They've all chimed in to help. So this is a cross-departmental effort and I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank all those who've been involved for the work they've done and the work they will do. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Johnson, thank you. Don't leave yet. I have a comment and appreciate everybody's comments. I think it's been a very valuable discussion as well as your presentation. I'll just tell you that I'm very worried about us setting up a large infrastructure that will do for a city-wide program when I think that by far the best thing that we could do is to get this county to expand its grant program from 30% to 60% of AMI. That would, I think, take care of what we need. And I think that we should mount a community-wide effort to help make that happen and I think we can. I really am worried about us setting up an administrative structure and then when they go ahead and do that, we've set up something big. We've hired people or we've got a big contract. We've made you guys do a whole ton of work. And the county has other big, big advantages in this regard. They're already pre-qualifying people income-wise, not just for the new program, but have previously been qualifying thousands of people for the state programs. They have the tax office. All those things, it's just gonna be an enormous lift and a big bureaucracy to do this work. It's gonna be expensive. And I just wanna say I have a lot of doubts about that. I do think that we ought to be thinking in the interim before they have their before they move to 60% AMI and we could work with them as soon as we want to on that. That I do think that we should think a little bit more broadly. Council Member Freeman mentioned this about what, how a neighborhood might qualify for the, what the city attorney outlined as the other option besides city-wide. So I think example, for example, about wall town the investments made in wall town by the city through self-help and others back 15 years ago, maybe longer 20, that have definitely in my mind been gentrifying, contributed to gentrification there. So I think if we could think a little bit more broadly about some of the neighborhoods that have been impacted by city investment in the interim, expand the program in that way. And then at the same time that we're lobbying our county colleagues and working with our county colleagues to expand the city and county joint grant program to 60% of the AMI, to me that would be, I'm very interested in that route. And so I know you're gonna look at that but I just wanna encourage you to look at that moving forward. Okay, yeah, I didn't wanna get you, let you get away without saying that. Colleagues, any other comments? I'm gonna, Kezra Freeman. Just a second, what Mayor Schull has just explained and acknowledging that that's the point of having the conversation. I don't think it was to move us forward with a citywide tax grant program, but this was the direction that staff that kind of shifted us towards with the legal recommendations. And so acknowledging that this was specifically around expanding to specific neighborhoods as Councilman Milton mentioned, I think it would be really helpful or beneficial to just kind of talk about why we're living next to 2015 and doing the lobbying and then also talking about what other neighborhoods have also been impacted because that impact is now and 2022, they may not own the home anymore. Thank you, Council Member. Mr. Johnson, I've said it before and I'll say it again. In my years on the council, you've come in front of us for more work sessions than any other departmental director and I don't even think it's close. I don't think there's anything we've done that more than all the work that you've done in community development has been more important. And thank you for the great job you're doing and that your department is doing. We appreciate you and I think you probably, you're used to us by now, we appreciate you. Thank you, appreciate you as well. Colleagues, pursuant to this discussion, I think that I'm going to suggest that we have a couple of our colleagues have some informal discussions with our county commissioners about the, go ahead and get that discussion moving around the, around the, trying to get the county to think about expanding their program. And so we can try to, maybe we can even get some information that'll be useful to us by the time of our November discussion. Do you all like that idea to go ahead and get started on that? Can I see some thumbs? Okay. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I think what I'll do is, if you don't mind, I'll ask you and council member Reese to begin to have some discussions with our county colleagues. Some of our other colleagues are busy this fall with other things. So I think if you wouldn't mind being a two-person committee, would you be willing? Okay. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Because I think we've talked about this as lobbying, but I really think it's more of a discussion and to sort of feel out where they are, help them think that through. So if you would do that and be in touch with our manager and with the rest of the council over time, that would be great. Happy to do it. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Okay, colleagues. Those are the, that's the final item on our agenda until we move into closed session. I'm gonna ask, we've got, could the clerk and the attorney please come onto the screen? Oh, right. We've got an item, don't we? Then we're gonna have to settle the agenda and stuff. Right. Madam clerk, go ahead. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and council members. There was one validated item this afternoon and it was for the Durham Cultural Advisory Board appointment. We do not have consensus on that. There were three votes for Elias JJ Torre, two votes for Abraham Gonzalez-Brendes and two votes for Angelique Stallings. And I wanted to ask, how did you want to proceed? Thank you. Three votes for Elias Torre. Two votes for Abraham Gonzalez-Brendes and two votes for Angelique Stallings. That's correct. All right. Mr. Torre has the most. Is anyone interested in changing a vote to give their vote to Mr. Torre? If not. Mr. Mayor, I'll change my vote to Mr. Torre. All right, thank you, council member. Absolutely. Madam clerk, so Mr. Torre then has four votes. That is correct. Thank you. Colleagues, we'll now need to settle the agenda and then once we've done that, we'll talk about the closed session. Madam manager. Again, good afternoon, Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of the council, I have for your upcoming agenda for consent item one and items three through six and GBA public hearing item eight. My kind of agenda. Colleagues, you have heard the manager's suggestion for settling the agenda. Can I have a motion for its approval? So moved before any items are added. Is there a basketball game that night? Pardon me? Is there a basketball game that night? Maybe football. Thank you. Council member Freeman for the motion. Council member Freelon for the second. Madam clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Shul. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. I vote aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Madam clerk. Thank you, Madam manager. All right. Colleagues, I'm going to ask the clerk and the attorney to come on the screen for a minute. We have to discuss some logistics around the closed session before we take the motion. So as you all know, we're moving into a closed session for evaluative personnel evaluation. These are follow-up sessions with the city attorney and the city clerk. And Madam Mayor Pro Tem will ask you to help us out here. The usual thing we do is move into closed session that we lock the meeting and then no one else can get back in. We're going to do these individually. So let's say we'll start with the city attorney and then we'll need to let the clerk in for a second after that. Can anybody talk to me through the technology about how we can make that happen? Do we have to completely quit or can we unlock a meeting? Anybody got any thoughts? We can unlock it, Mr. Mayor. Tell the clerk to come in and then once she's in, lock it again. All right. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, will you host at the appropriate time? I'm happy to. Right now the host is just someone called host. I don't know who that is, but they could transfer it over to me and I could take care of the rest. Okay. So before we do that, thank you very much. So what we'll do then, Madam Attorney, we'll start with your session and then you can leave. We will unlock and Madam Clerk, I will be in touch with you by text. So just watch out for that. Yeah, these are my, yeah. Okay. So Madam Attorney, do you want to give us the motion? Sure. The motion is for council to recess to close session for the consideration of personnel evaluation of the city attorney and the city clerk. So move. Second. Second. Moved by council member Freeman, seconded by council member Cavaierra that we go into closed session for the purposes outlined by the city attorney. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Mayor Shul. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Cavaierra. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it and the motion passes six to zero. All right. We are now going to move into closed session and can someone switch the hosting to Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? We'll wait until we have that affirmed.