Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · February 5, 2024

good morning everyone thank you all so much for joining us this Monday February 5th for our work session uh of the Durham County Board of Commissioners I will get us started with our public charge the Board of Commissioners asks its members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful ious manner both with the board and fellow citizens at any time should any member of the board or any citizen fail to observe this public charge the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control should decorum fail to be restored the chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to the public charge is observed as a courtesy to others please turn off cell phones during the meeting um and I just have two quick announcements before we get started for folks to know that our February 12th meeting 13th meeting uh has been cancelled due to Commissioners attending

the no conference in DC so we will no longer have that meeting but we will still have our second regular session meeting later in the month and then um for folks to just be aware there has been an adjustment to the agenda for item 24-55 arpa up update is just going to be moved up to before lunch um so folks who would like to participate and listen into that conversation uh we will have that before that portion with that I will now move us into citizen comments we have four individuals signed up for citizen comments and so to address uh I would like to ask folks to come line up over on this right side where our clerk Monica is we will start with Heidi Joe hetland Christy CLM and George Robertson then Roberson and Amanda

Wallace and each of you will have two minutes each and please uh we ask that all speakers are refrain from addressing issues related to Personnel matters and naming any staff or making any direct comments related to staff thank you good morning my name is Heidi Joe hetland I'm a resident of Durham and I am a physical therapist in Durham Public Schools I am one of 1300 classified workers who have been affected by the recent salary issues and with this sudden unexplained change in salary schedules I have dropped from Step 33 to step one under the salary plan I'm not eligible for a raise for approximately 18 years at that time I will be in my 70s with this plan to therapists with less experience earn more than I do and if I were to remain with DPS with each year the passes increasing numbers of less experienced staff will be paid higher wages than me I and many others in the same position would be foolish to continue working for DPS I ask of you where else in Durham County would an employer be allowed to change the salary and qualifying years of experience in their staff overnight

to do so without warning discussion or policy I've come here today to plead for all assistance intervention and investigation that was is within the power and resources of Durham County Commissioners to prevent a mass Exodus of qualified employees who are the backbone of durh public school students who receive federally mandated special education services will be disproportionately affected by the major staff turnover that is on the horizon which will include instructional assistance personal care assistance nurses and occupational and physical therapists DPS has been underfunded and under staffed for years and now the salary Saga is on display in the media daily no one is going to want to apply to work in DPS the resignations have already started and if they continue and escalate DPS will have dire staffing issues like they have never seen and quite frankly from which they may never recover now more than 3 weeks later we the affected employees parents and Durham taxpayers do not have any answers on who is involved in the stacle and how it came to be DPS is having their own attorney rather than a neutral outside

firm investigate this matter given these unknowns how can DPS is Board of Education superintendent head of human resources or the finance department possibly be given the task of developing and deciding upon a solution to this crisis a crisis that some unknown person or persons among them has contributed or created was that my time yes thank you Heidi good morning my name is chrisy clim I'm also a physical therapist with derome Public Schools I'm one of those colleagues Heidi Joe just spoke about she's been a licensed therapist 24 years longer than I have but in just a handful of years I'm going to pass her and pay that's obviously going to impact our current salaries but that's also going to impact our retirement germ schools um pay schedules have been lower than Market rates for years the way DPS has been able to get qualified people and somewhat being comparable to surrounding counties is by

to honor private sector years of experience when we were hired those were the years that DPS said we needed to to be offered the positions and those are the years that made us agree to take the positions knowing that wages and DPA were lower than wake orange Chapel Hill now overnight those years are being removed once DPS finally decides to pay a market rate wage um if DPS Board of Education picks either of the current salary options that are on the table to fix this one of them being do nothing continue the pay with the inequitable raises and the years being removed there's going to be more walkouts there's going to be more days of protest and that's not about just employees in the the pay that's about the students the morale in schools is lower than I've ever experienced in any of my workplaces employees are M mentally emotionally and physically fatigued at this point employees are going through their own trauma response

to this I mean you walk into any building right now and the life gets sucked out of you Durham schools needs more money to fix this current crisis they need more money going forward Bo to make it um a market wage that's going to get employees to stay morale is not going to be fixed overnight employees do not trust what we're told right now and like Heidi Joe said people are leaving weekly thank you for your time thank you Christie Good morning George Robinson I'm here to talk about white collar crimes when there was a committed back in 2020 commissioner uh Jacob you asked me how did I know about what I knew three weeks prior to the last election in 2020 I was approached by one of my colleagues who was inquiring about who was I going to campaign for when I

alerted to who I was she said I shouldn't because some things were going to come down told me about a lawsuit I said are you sure he saides I said ' I don't care I'm going with who I believe in Miss Carter and commissioner Wendy Jacobs now that lie cost this County $375,000 behind a kilical lie an attempt to keep power it's unacceptable for me I am the chief executive officer of organization D Incorporated our retained attorney is rep retired representative and North Carolina veteran administrative director Larry de Hall I am D's number one political pundit probably North Carolina biggest one of the things I'm looking at

we're looking at is white color crimes that people get away with on the city council and in County Commissioners and I'm here today to let you know when I stand with you commissioner Carter there was a racist you telling him to do his job get money for those people for those children in public schools it's nothing racist about do your job and you work for the pleasure of the commissioner it's nothing racist about that at all but it was hyped up and I understand why a lot of you voted to passing on the reason why Miss Burns said no to the proposal thank you Mr Rob call is three policies policies for call for three thank you County thank you Mr Roberson I would be seeing the darkness before my two minute start isn't the rule three minutes did y'all change it we have usually it can be between two

and three minutes and because we have a sixh hour agenda uh we are going with two minutes today to accommodate the rest of the agenda oh okay ready right so it's the fifth day into black history month and black children are still being sold for profit by way of the family policing system you may not have heard of the family policing system and you may call this system the child welfare system but the child welfare system exercises the most terrifying power the power to forcibly remove children from their homes and permanently separate them from their families Durham County is the second slowest county in North Carolina to reunify families which shows that right here in this County with the money approved by this government body families are being torn apart with no hopes of ever being back together never having a chance to make memories or pass down their culture that is the definition of genocide based on your answers to the

People's Alliance questionnaires most of you are aware of the problem here in Durham but are doing nothing to uproot it from the very Foundation of our community if you understood this system's history you would immediately defund and abolish it not continue to dump billions of dollars into the modern-day Auction Block whose whose headquarters is at 414 East Main Street Dr Charles Nelson a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School concluded that the harm of involuntarily separating children from their parents is so over overwhelming that if people paid attention at all to the science they would never do it even brief separations change a child's brain chemistry in a way that cannot be undone the most popular argument against abolition is that well what will happen to the children who that are being abused you commissioner burn spoke to this in your questionnaire and your

answering you said I think the sentiments at times for many people in the public of majority is absent of the real context of the level of mutilations sexual assault broken bones and Drug uses that our staff sees on a daily basis as somebody who has been in this system for 10 years and worked in the system that's not the truth it's not rooted in any facts 97% of children who are found to be substantiated is for neglect and that is based on poverty not has it has nothing to do what the idea than you wety or even these Commissioners believe right and so how do we organize how do we move forward we organize minutes are over commission we organize in the community because this government body will never protect our families thank you so much for your comments that that concludes the individuals who have signed up for our citizen comments we haven't received any

comments virtually um thank you everyone who has shown up and provided your comments the Commissioners hear them and we do take them sincerely to heart and we want to thank also all the individuals who have been emailing us uh we are also reading those and we can't respond to each of those individually but know that our board and our staff have received them and have been reading them and are working uh with our colleagues at the school board um as best as we can with that I will move us into our consent agenda agenda and pass the mic over to our manager thank you so much Madam chair um we will begin with consent agenda item 23665 approval of easement agreement legal description and dedication plat with city of durm for a required sidewalk easement necessary for the 300 East Main Street mixed use development

project item 24 Wendy Jacobs I just had a quick question does that mean that there is going to be a covered buff shelter there which I don't think there is now so there is going to be that is awesome good morning good morning Commissioners thanks for your question uh yes there is going to be a new bus shelter placed up on Liberty Street to support the affordable housing project and this is just standard uh requirement the site plan requirement that uh required excuse me that we got this EAS met granted before the completion of the project fantastic yes ma'am okay item 24005 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0075 Public Health to recognize $20,000 from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health to support the regional

tobacco free collaborative 2427 authorize the increase of the owner's construction contingency for the semar contract to lechase construction by $1 14,197 to a total Construction contract not to exceed amount of 21 m6886 for the 300 East Main Street structured Park working deck commissioner Wendy Jacobs I just have a general question Perry since this is a semar construction manager at risk um obviously we enter into to these contracts so that we don't have to pay more money down the road but I understand there are circumstances that come up could you just explain a little bit about how um this was determined you

know what extra costs we would pay versus how much that they would absorb certainly so um again good morning Commissioners um when we bring our semar contracts or any other General Construction contract to the board we also bring the base bid amount plus contingencies and so with this one um we fell a little bit short on the contingency obviously trying to bring the project within budget um the money is available within the overall Capital project budget but we didn't authorize the contractor up to said amount and so with this one this one is a little unique um typically we have enough funding in the change order approvals not to bring each and every one of these back to you and that's the normal process but this one as you know with the um parking deck 90% of the construction cost is in the concrete and you know Associated uh um materials and

equipment and this one the concrete contractor is fesler Bowman and so with this one you may recall not to get too in Weeds but the county constructed a portion of the concrete Podium that is to support the affordable housing development and there was actually a 10-week delay in the startup of the concrete Podium due to coordination with neighboring Concepts who is the affordable housing designer and little our designer and so with that 10-week delay fesler Bowman had already mobilized equipment they had rental equipment with sun belting and things like that and so this 10 week delay caused them to have cost sporn associated with the rental equipment General conditions having their uh staff on site and so it it's it's Justified that that be they be paid for this due to that delay um again this is A4 ,000 that they're being um that they're

asking the county uh to to increase the contract by so we can get this closed out thank you for that explanation yes ma'am item 2430 approval to enter into a contract with corvil Enterprise comp Inc administrator claims services for an amount not to exceed $30,000 annually using existing risk management funds and I will say we were asked to provide a um summary of the three bids that were received and so we have given each of the Commissioners that summary item 2434 approval of a contract with Shi International Corp in the amount of 280,000 28,2 4 $17 for licenses and services for the

Enterprise agreement with Microsoft for the Durham County Sheriff's Office 24004 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0073 to recognize $15,000 from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and consumer services Farmland preservation division to the soil and water conservation department for the revision of the Durham County Farmland protection plan commissioner Wendy Jacobs I just want to say yay and congratulations to all of you uh for getting this Grant and doing this I mean 15 years since we last in did this I remember and yeah so thank you so much congratulations

can commissioner hon can you move the mic closer to you thank you enough um I got I got a little bit of horse here um my question was I saw it International the Shi for the um Microsoft licenses for the Durham County Sheriff's Office that so there was nothing local that could be used used interational company that I'll I'll ask the um someone from the Sheriff's Office to come up and respond to that but the question is was there anyone else available is there any other company available to provide this service the name of the company is Shi International courp I don't know where their headquarters but that's the name yeah I thought that was just the name that's that's my question could you answer that for me no as far as our licenses go uh and the county has that's that's who the

um that's the company that we both have been dealing with so is there someone else no we don't know no okay it's always interesting to to see who we're dealing with whether someone local or within North Carolina or we doal it with the national International companies so that was my that was where my my question came from this company is is us-based they are they deal on an international um scale uh is there someone locally no um they are part of the um the the the North Carolina contract for services so that's the reason that the County uh is&t uses them as well we follow suit behind them and use them as well okay thank you thank you very much just looking from online it looks like they're headquartered in New Jersey but

they have offices in North Carolina as well and Charlotte and Durham okay thank you all item 2442 budget ordinance amendment number 24b CCC 0079 recognizing $179,600 from the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice assistance BGA to the Durham County Sheriff's Office for the 2023 State Criminal Alien assistance program I just wanted to make a quick comment because this came up during agenda prep um manager soell raised that there was a comment made when we' previous L discussed this item about the naming of it and uh if there could be an adjustment to the naming I think it was commissioner Carter who had raised that um due to it being a federal uh Grant

they decide the naming of it and it's not something that we can adjust the terminology of alien even though we as a board recognize that that is not appropriate uh terminology to be using but it's not something that we can adjust commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah I would um it's yeah the the language is um confusing and also it seems when I read what it's being used for it doesn't seem to even be directly connected necessarily to um undocumented detainees but if you could clarify if somebody from the office of the sheriff could clarify what the funding is is going to be used for that would be helpful good morning um bringing up also Kesha Gaither our finance manager at durm County Sheriff's Office this is a

grant authorized by US Congress and the items that um our finance team and our jail staff determined was based upon the factors that US Congress has spelled out in federal legislation is something that is available to everything from localities all the way through Upstate prison systems um and we um use it based upon different categories that it can be used for based upon um an analysis an assessment done by the federal government of what funding is available to us um if you have questions about specific things good morning um So based off a uh formula that the federal government has laid out any funds used to house undocumented um detainees um can be used for specific uses in the correctional facility so those list of items that are listed in

the grant fall up under those Grant parameters listed by the federal government but maybe I'm I don't know if I'm misinterpreting it sounds like they're being used for General purpos purposes not specifically just for the number of undocumented detainees and I guess I also have a follow question is how many undocumented detainees do we have on an annual basis I can get those numbers for you okay um as far as the uses um it is The Stance of the federal government that any funds that were used to house undocumented uh detainees could have been used somewhere else within the the correctional facility so those funds that we use to um care for those undocumented detainees we get those back and through that formula and we can use it for different other purposes okay thank you okay item

2444 approval of contract with Med LLC in the amount of 37,5 for soul Source purchase of EOD 10e bomb suit and helmet for the Durham County Sheriff's Office Vice chair Burns I just you know hey y'all I I guess it's beat up on the brass today so I'm a jump in too um quick question is I'm thinking about the first tour that I had with commissional alarm and I'm wondering uh have we been able this is auxiliary have we been able to recruit a woman yet hey how you doing major Cody are you coming up here to take this hit I mean I knew what international meant I knew what the B I knew what the scap Grant was but uh I remember one of the issues we had with recruiting women we didn't have a helmet or a suit that could fit a woman much like NASA so you know can't hold y'all to a much higher standard than NASA but I am so uh who who is it

gonna fit so good morning everyone good morning Commissioners County Manager uh so yes commissioner Burns um we have a emale on the team um our team's very specific it's one of 14 teams across the state sanctioned by the FBI and um so we're we always actively recruit uh for females and and other candidates on our special teams so this one in in particular is a little bit smaller than our other Tech so um this suit that uh comes off of a Homeland Security Grant will help provide that equipment to that individual that's all I needed to know because you didn't say that but I remember that it's been like a process to make sure everybody has what they need and we train this indiv so thank you thank you commissioner they didn't say that commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah I I just have a followup um since I mean yeah reading about these suits um obviously it's really important that people have this protection um since you all are really providing Mutual Aid to many counties

and have this expertise do we get any other funding either from the state related to this since we're we're helping out other counties with this service um I think that's a yes and no answer right so uh when we reach out for other resources across the state obviously is contributory uh and there's a collaboration there I think that when we loan our resources out it's pretty much based on the same uh the Department of Homeland Security Grant is through what they call domestic preparedness Region 4 so it's a it's a grant that is funneled through the federal government to the state to us uh to provide things like this bomb suit uh so they're paying pretty much 98% of this the cost of this particular item so we do we do have some some funding sources that we can uh tap into to help support the teams we also tap into the jagran as well to to help fund some of those things as well great thank you yes ma'am okay thank you so much M Cody and

I will ask if someone else on this next item um from the Sheriff's Office can also come up and um give us some explanation on this one but um 2445 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 00000074 appropriating $110,000 in general fund committed fund balance to increase inmate welfare expenditure Authority for the Sheriff's Office and so we did have a question about how these funds would be used if there is a specific use um for which we are asking to increase the inmate welfare expenditure Authority And to clarify that was U my question that came up during agenda prep I was just wondering the definition of welfare of like can These funds be used for like Mental Health Resources or other services like that or is there a

specific definition that they make us it's statutory and contractual um there's a North Carolina General statute that I can't quote off the top of my head right now that spells out inmate welfare and how that funding is used is something that is across the industry Nationwide um state prisons have them local jails have them you have them throughout the nation so it is authorized through State legislation our internal policy um at the sheriff's office um allows the funding to be used for the health benefit education and Welfare of our detainees as well as to augment programs there are certain things of course that the county must provide to run a jail but it allows for us if we want to enhance those Services beyond what um we are regulatory required what regulations requir that we do um our policy is based off of state law um as well as looking

at what um industry practices are there is contractual in the sense of is that the funding comes from um Telephone commissary tablet things like that um that funding um when it comes back in instead of it going into the general fund to basically take the place of what we're required to do it is used for program programmatic reasons could it be used for mental health yes that's a very broad definition health education and Welfare it could be used for GED programs religious Services anything programmatically in the facility as well as hiring folks to come in to support those programs um major Spencer can speak more to what we're um looking at trying to do good morning so um these F funds that we're requesting is to increase um the things that we supply for the detainees and that is to in increase the sheets

blankets all of the day-to-day living um things that they need as residents of um 219 so that's why we ask for the increase in that way we don't have to keep coming back when we get low on items that we'll have these thing this money already available to us thank you so for that definition righty thank thank you all for that so next we'll move to 2446 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0076 Public Health to recognize $222,500 058 approval of an interlocal agreement

between central Pines Regional Council city of Durham and Durham County for cost sharing of the city of Durham Durham County Bicycle and pedestrian plan in the amount of $24,000 commissioner Carter well thank you I attended The bpack Retreat on Saturday and I just wanted to express the excitement of this group for um this plan that's being developed the the bike and pedestrian plan and uh and lift it lift up its importance I just wanted to mention that commissioner Wendy Jacobs yes and I also wanted to know this is the first ever uh comprehensive plan that the city and the county are doing together on for bike and pedestrian uh resources and so I I also want to lift it up I do I do have a question um I was looking at the list of the other plans

that will be looked at and I did not see a reference to the triangle bikeways plan and also to Durham County's open space plans and I I I want to lift that up because I was glad to see that land use is going to be incorporated into this and looking at um our new comprehensive land use plan I think that's really important that we need to be doing more and more of that linking together uh transportation and and land use so I just that's why I want to make sure that we are looking at that as well so if you could respond to that Ellen Ellen can you turn the mic on person okay Ellen Beckman Durham County transportation director um certainly we can look at that um we're we haven't written the contract yet so there's flexibility still in how we

exactly do the plan so we'll note that okay great that's really great and I noticed that you are going to look at this will help inform our MTP and you know a lot of our our other plans as well that are underway um and that you'll be looking at complet streets policies and opportunities to the the some of the pl projects that already have been approved for um State transportation funding as well yeah yeah um that's one of the critical parts of the plan is to uh develop a comprehensive Network that then gets adopted into the CTP the comprehensive Transportation plan by the no um because that's the document that ncdot kind of refers to when they do their complete streets analysis so okay great well thank you so much uh for your leadership on this and making this

happen yeah we're excited it'll be it'll be okay yes thank you great okay item 2459 FY 23 Durham County Transit progress report item 24 0 61 approval of the fiscal year 24 you raed I did have a quick question for Alan I didn't understand what the DG modes are um and and also I just want to say kudos to you for this also fantastic um annual work plan update and I was wondering how um we could make sure that the community sees this because um this has so much good information in it um so the the um item the FY 23

Durham County Transit progress report is our uh report getting mixed up I'm getting mixed up with the um the next item so I guess since you're here sorry I skipped ahead okay so can I read that one yes go ahead right so we're talking about 2461 approval of the fisu 24 Durham Transit work program quarter three amendment in the amount of $26,250 for that's the one yeah okay y sorry so there's these two items um the progress report from FY 23 which is an annual report that go triangle provides every year and then this item is the fy4 quarter 3 Amendment work program amendment that modifies three projects um later today in the afternoon will be a presentation of the 25 draft work program um so is your question about the

Amendments specifically yes the the one for the city the DGI modes the modems yeah yeah modems yeah Jenny green is here from the city she could probably best explain what a digim modem is uh Jennifer Green City of Durham Transportation uh digim modems um are the modems just like on your computer that allow um the uh system to see where the buses are located when they're on the street okay sounds important yeah they are they yeah they are critical for the operation of the system and they also provide the Wi-Fi on board the buses okay awesome thank you um so that report will does it get sent out like to the PS and Inc Coalition for affordable housing and Transit uh folks like that does H how does that get distributed the annual report yes um

um I'm not sure um it's a go triangle go triangle creates it um we WE Post on our website every year um it's required by our Ila to be presented to the governing board so that's why it's on your agenda okay um I'm not sure if y'all sent it more extensively out to more groups but this is morning everyone uh Steven schlosberg I'm a tax District administration part of go triangle um we do put it on the go triangle website and we obviously send it to all the partners that being said if there's a desire we could work with Ellen and obviously the council here to uh send it to other um you know parties or itu I think it's a great report I think it really tells where the tax District really the the where the funds go but we could definitely work with Ellen and the group on on where uh and who else would should see it but it is posted on the websit and um we could give we can make copies if we want nice

glossy copies so yeah definitely yeah okay I yeah I don't I just don't think it's enough to just have it sitting on a website I a number of us were in a forum a pack one Forum last week and and that's one of the things that we heard is that people want more information about transportation funding and so I think sending it directly to the pack one coordinators the Inc Coalition for affordable housing and Transit the durm committee uh The People's Alliance these are all groups that work are working on these issues would really help and asking them to then send it out to their members yeah that would be great we'll work like I said with Ellen for this year and going forward we'll be very proactive and making sure that everybody has it uh super early great thank you thank you everyone okay any other questions all right thanks so

much let's see okay next we have 2463 award contract for velocity HS item 2464 approval of reallocation of juvenile crime prevention Council jcpc funds in the amount of $15,300 for additional programs and item 2467 Durham County matching grants program approval of fiscal year 2023 24 Grant cycle in the amount of $100,000 got some Applause commissioner Carter yeah this is a great program um clearly I wasn't on the board when it was created 33 years ago but um the people were Visionary at the time to um create this program and also recognize

the importance of our open space and real estate department and the amazing work it does and I just wanted to thank that group I see some in the audience Celeste I know you're going to be speaking to us brandan um thank you for being here I know you're on the agenda later and also thanks to the Doss to the Duram open space and trails commission for reviewing the applications I did have one quick question um I was just surprised there were only two applicants was that is is how anomalous is that or is that more typical than I'm realizing you can turn on your microphone sorry there's a button uh good morning Commissioners thank you for the kind words uh we did have a third applicant who withdrew their application a few weeks ago uh were not able to continue with their proposed project so we went back to the other groups who had already been approved by the committee and they were

able to um increase the size of their requests so that we could could use up the grant funding thanks it two out three so three down to two do we often have more you know 10 or does it just change from it's different every year we've had we've had 10 applicants in a year before um and we have had to turn applicants down in the past right I was thinking that was the case yeah correct it is it is different every year okay well these are certainly two very worthy applicants Zeno River and uturo who are doing really cool things with their outdoor space um so thanks again and this is also a program that has a great return on the investment I think it's about more than three to one you know over the over the life cycle of the grant so fantastic y'all do great work thank you so much so Madam chair that concludes the Cass agenda thank you so much County manager that moves us to our other business

which has three items that that are on a timely manner so they would require even though this is a work session for us to approve them at this work session through uh a suspension of the rules um I'll read the items and see if there's any questions from anyone regarding these items 24-38 approval of the contract with envir trol enviral trol LLC in the amount of $23,988 for the replacement of two cus reheat boilers at the detention center and the authority to execute change orders amendments to the contract as long as funds are available to this in the CIP fund no I was asking any questions on this item commissioner Wendy Jacobs Well I mean I I think you explained it but in in here but the fact

that we purchased these years ago Unfortunately they didn't last very long um are you feeling confident that that we're going to um get longer usage out of these it it sounded like there are going to be some differences um with these units good morning Madam chair County managers Commissioners uh yeah they're actually a little more than eight years old they were they were installed in 2011 with the per countywide performance Contracting um so we've had had about seven good years with them and then over the last five years we've had continuous issues uh the heat exchang is going out we've tested water to make sure it wasn't the water that was the issue uh yeah we've uh put out for bid for a different type of boiler so yes we we do feel the boilers that we're putting in they're going to be more efficient and they're going to last longer if there's no other questions we'll go through each of these items one by one suspending the rules than

entertaining a motion for approval for each one separately so with that I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules Madam chair so moved second okay moved by Vice chair Burn seconded by commissioner Howton all in favor say I I I any opposed okay rules have been suspended I will now entertain a motion for approval of 24-38 so moved second moved by commissioner J Wendy Jacobs second by commissioner Vice chair Burns all in favor say I I I any opposed okay 24-38 has been approved that moves us to our next item of 24-6 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 000077 Public Health to appropriate $ 283195541 Durham County Youth Home

contract to enhance Staffing do you have any questions regarding that item okay then I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules so move second move by Vice chair Burn seconded by commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor I any opposed rules have been suspended now entertain a motion to approve 24-6 so move second moved by Vice chair Burn seconded by Comm commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor say I I any opposed okay 24- 00006 is approved unanimously that moves us to the third and last item of 24- z47 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 000078 you gu shorter numbers Public Health to appropriate $122,800 33 of General fund balance to cover

increases to the county current County contract with wellpath to provide comprehensive medical services for inmates in the Durham County Detention Center and residents of the Durham County youth home any questions I'm make a motion to suspend the rules by I do have oh question from Vice shair don't nobody beat me up the difference between the two you see how this one is to increase um the current this one kind of broke it down by the FTE is what's the big difference between the two I mean I'm for it but is can anybody tell me the difference between the two director J hey director jenin how you doing doing well hope you are happy New Year happy New Year Rod jenin Public Health director good morning to you chair Al Vice chair Burns Commissioners County manager and staff um this increase is a result of the Consumer Price Index I can assure you that uh after heavy negotiation and

wrangling uh we settled on 3% which is usual on customary and yes this is different from the the first item okay thank you yes ma'am do I have a second commissioner okay so motion by commissioner Howton second by Vice chair Burns all in favor I any opposed the rules are suspended now I'll entertain a motion to approve 24- z47 s second moved by Vice chair burn second by commissioner Wendy Jacobs all in favor I I any opposed no okay 24- z47 has been approved thank you very much thank you Dr Jenkins now that moves us into our discussion items and we have a plethora of discussion items um so I'm going to just remind everyone of the times allocated to each discussion item before we get started so that we can move swiftly through them um the first item

is Santi Road Park project presentation there are 30 minutes allocated for this item and I believe it's about 20 minutes for the presentation 10 minutes for questions would that be appropriate okay cool good morning um I'm Celeste Burns I'm with the good morning I'm Celeste Burns I'm with your Open Space Program Brendan Moore is here with me with our open space staff and Christy with project management is here they're helping us with that project okay I'm have to get used to this and I'm just gonna see excellent so I'm a

scoop so our open space staff are responsible for the open space program that was established in 20 2003 um by the board we work with land owners nonprofit groups public entities and other partners to protect and Steward land natural resources waterways and cultural sites we protect and manage areas for public Recreation which includes Parks natural areas and nature trails and we also work with interested land owners to protect land through conservation easements um our County open space staff currently manag and Steward about 4,000 acres of land this includes almost 1300 Acres that Durham County owns we hold easements on about 2600 acres of land of which about 2400 acres are working land easement and right now we have five projects in in process to protect an additional 245 acres in

Durham okay um we currently have four open to the public nature parks Little River regional park is in the Northwest part of the county and is a partnership with Orange County's parks department holl Rock Nature Park and the newo bottomlands are further south holl rock Nature Park is also a partnership with Orange County parks department these Parks include about 12 miles of hiking trails and provide access to some beautiful and state significant natural areas now the Santi Road property is in East Durham and was purchased as part of the implementation of the East Durham open space plan it provides unique opportunities in East irum and the protection of these 268 Acres benefits water quality conserves plant and wildlife habitats and is an opportunity to provide nature-based public

Recreation the site is about uh six miles just east of downtown Durham and about a mile and a half north of um Highway 98 is a few driving miles from several Public Schools the closest being Neil Middle School there on 98 and the L between Falls Lake and the property is owned by the Army Corps managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and includes a section of the mountain to Sea Trail and is accessible from Santi road so um when we purchased this land we utilized funding from the city of Raleigh's Watershed Protection Program so there are some restrictive uses to the property stream buffers are protected impervious surface is limited to 2% and the majority of the property must remain wooded however even with these limitations that leaves us about 36 Acres that can be used for more developed recreational facilities and

amenities um this site provides an opportunity to create a welcoming and unique outdoor nature experience that could include hiking and walking trails camping provide space for nature-based outdoor education the site is a great place to model environmentally Progressive improvements and design and could be an opportunity to showcase state-of-the-art storm water management and Landscaping with native plants so what is our next step we would like to proceed with a request for quotes or an RFQ to engage with a consultant or a team of consultants for Community engagement and planning for preliminary design no new funds need to be allocated for this contract there is approximately $300,000 held in trust for the county by the Duram Parks Foundation that was a donation to the county back in 2017 from a WC Smith estate we also have

some additional funds in capital project and once we have um talked with the community and have a plan that documents what folks want we will be well informed and prepared to like access a number of state and federal grants uh we would also like to plan that part of the feasibility study would include exploring potential project partnership opportunities that could include working with Durham Public Schools Andor the city of Durham's parks and recck Department we've had preliminary conversations and site visits with both of these groups so to summarize um open space and project management staff will work with Consultants to on public engagement conceptual analysis and preliminary design to help us determine Community needs optimal Partnerships and desired and allowable property improvements with

a timeline and budget we are real excited to bring this welcoming and meaningful Outdoor Experience is to this of this beautiful spot um and feel that with Durham's rapid growth particularly in East Durham that the timing is appropriate okay thank you so much Celeste you're welcome I see by share Burns is already ready with her hand up so I'll go to her first celissa is my cousin we're both Burnes that's right I had to back her up so that's my one so really really quick I noted there you said there's like 300,000 in that fun and you all want to put RFP for a feasibility study do you know about how much a feasibility stud is gonna cost so the first item CHR r with project management um hi we'd be putting out an RFQ request for qualifications so we we'd be looking for a design team architect landscape architect Engineers so because it's an RFQ we don't know the

amount ahead of time that's right thank you so it's a cute thank you so much well just let us know if you got a I don't imagine it would be over $300,000 but don't let this that's my worry because it is such a big space but just let us know if you have to come back but I think this is an exciting project I'm a outdoorsy girl so I think I I and I like that you all are doing some partnership so I I'll I'll leave my questions to everyone else thank you can I can I add one thing just because you mentioned Partnerships we have a there's a list of other partners and stakeholders in the white paper right I believe so so um I think you probably have all seen But attached to the agenda is also a white paper that open space row with more information um and the the list of stakeholders that they currently have that they're planning to incorporate into the process thank you commissioner Wendy Jacobs first of first of all congratulations Celeste as the new manager for this department and I just want to say you

guys are like amazing the amount of work that you do and accomplish with a very small department and and I'm also glad that both this item the dust item and this item really highlighting these are very unique programs that were specifically created by this board um they are locally funded they are with other funding that you brought in but these are these are very unique programs to the Durham County Board of Commissioners very special programs um this is really exciting because I think this is the first Park effort that we been engaged in since holl Rock Nature Park which I'm very intimately knowledgeable about um and so um and and I know that the the park planning process is is is also just a very meaningful process I love the fact that you are there's so many

Partnerships here with um the city and also looking at that map all of the schools that are nearby um and also just thinking about the other benefits we know all of the development that is happening in East Durham and so people having Open Spaces like this as Durham our comprehensive land use plan uh continues to build out as we become more and more dense having Open Spaces like this that are so close to downtown so close to the urban growth boundary places where people can be in nature um is is really really important and then the water quality aspect of this protecting Falls Lake um I really appreciate how you all bring in so many other force uh so many other um sources of funding you always you guys are always maxing out that um one of my

questions was do you feel like and I'm also now chair of the upper New River Basin Association um and so this land purchase was really made possible because of of that partnership because the City of Raleigh financed this because we're protecting they drinking water do you feel like there may be other opportunities for us to do more of that um as we move forward with the IIA IIA I don't see Ryan here today but um you know this this could really also this model could really benefit us and also just regionally and just wondering it's it's very important and um we are in communication with Ryan EES and their work yeah

right yeah yeah um we are we do stay in regular communication with Ryan and their work with the IIA and the water quality that um protection that they're doing you know this this is funded by city of w Watershed protection money which used to be called uni um that program still exists they now call it the Watershed Protection Program the city of Durham has a very small amount of money that goes to the northern Durham that um our program is actually used on a small acquisition goodness back in 20 many along the Little River so we've got those two pots of watershed money now how that's going to change with upper news um un RBA stuff and I'm not sure but we we um Talk regularly with Ryan on that we'd like to see that simple land protection meet some of those state regulatory you know metrics that they're going to have um I think time will tell on that okay but more and

more people in the conservation world are optimistic than than I've ever heard them be yeah we that's part of the guiding principles now right for moving forward with the Falls Lake rules and so I just I hope that we'll actively be communicating and and building we will and I and I think most projects that we work on I usually call or email Ryan and say hey we're looking at this you know how might this fit in with the work that y'all are doing for the fals rules um we really we really integrate that stuff and can see more Partnerships with our swollen erosion folks colleagues as well fantastic yep thank you I just want to express excitement for this project as well um and and and also I want to say you learn a lot when you go to a um Retreat from our boards and commissions which I already mentioned that I did that on Saturday but I learned so much me one of the things that was asked at the retreat was

what do you love about dur and so many people mentioned the fact that we're a large city with a small town feel and that we have amazing amenities including all of our open spaces and places to walk and recreate and um you know and have an antidote to being cooped up inside like we are so much in front of electronic devices so um feel very excited about this and I know that this small and mighty Department sitting in front of us um it's it's because your of your ability to form relationships with people you know those who are willing to um you know participate in our conservation easement programs and the relationships you form with all the different partners it doesn't happen without people who are really good at forming relationships so just want to appreciate your work well as a risk sounding corny we don't do this work unless I mean this is a passion it

really is I mean protecting things that are going to be permanent assets to the community and you know we have to go back like in the early 90s there were people in Durham County who really cared for example about the new hook Creek Corridor and wanted to protect it and um develop the new hook Creek corridor open space plan which we're still working to implement today and um it just feels it just feels really meaningful so I am privileged to to serve you in this capacity thank you guys thank thank you so much Celeste and team and yeah I just want to jump in on the Kudos and thank you for your small and mighty team I do want to ask a related question because you know the 4,000 Acres also a huge thing to be managing so really amazing that our Durham County team is able to do that just wondering or so manager I guess question for the manager maybe Julio I know we have Jane has retired and she's still on Consulting do we know

like how when we'll be able to make this small team a little bit bigger oh yeah keep it at full size well and that's one thing that um ACM Delgato has been working on is to assess how this team worked and to leverage the positions that we have and make sure that the work that is happening complimentary in other departments that we can gain Synergy around the work that's happening in different departments so that it it doesn't create to much of a burden on one department and other departments don't have as much responsibility if you know what I'm saying so we're looking at how we can make sure that they are synergizing the work even though it's two different departments let's say we have environmental um priorities in soil and water how can those staff members complement the work that's happening with our open space in in um so we're looking to gain synergies around these different areas well I hope we can protect our

small and mighty team doing amazing things um and you'll hear more I think next month about our project at Orange Factory Road so more to come thank you thank you any more other question okay we're good to go thank you guys so much our next item is 24- z69 presentation from Durham Tech Community College capital projects update we have have 30 minutes allocated to this one president buckon will 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions work for you perfect am I on now there we go good morning chair alone members of the Commissioners and uh managers so well great to see you my trustee commissioner

howon good to see you we're excited to be here and provide an update uh on our Capital construction projects we're going to give you an update on two I think many of you know our Chief Financial Officer Andy kch who joins us and many of you may have met vice president of Campus operations chief of Campus operations Dr Susan Bowen Dr Bowen's our lead on all uh facilities projects at the college and she and I are going to do some presentations and Financial Mr CL back us up on budget numbers as we need it first before we get into this let me just express my thanks to this board for your support and leadership in putting these projects on uh the bond referendum and thanks to the voters of this County for approving them we know that that investment in Durham Tech this capital investment was an investment in the people of this County and the workforce and economic development this County and we're proud to be carrying that Banner uh on behalf of this board in the county and doing this work I'm going to give you a a little bit of uh the background on these projects and then Dr

bone will give you an update on where we stand and and how we are moving forward the first thing I draw your attention to this is a map we showed you back when we were talking about putting these projects on the bond our map of Main Campus both these projects are on our main campus here in Durham you are looking uh North down to South and both these projects are going to front on Lawson Street so if you think of Briggs going to the right or the east on this map and then bacon uh on the left or western edge of the campus here numbers 12 and 13 are the two projects we're looking at uh inciting both the Health Sciences and Life Sciences building on those sites you see a roughly 35,000 Life Sciences facility roughly 86,000 uh Health Sciences facility both of those will be complete not only with classrooms lab facilities but perhaps most importantly simulation settings where our students will be able to be in

the the very kind of environments they'll be in in Industry also student spaces faculty student collaborative spaces and the like little bit of a rendition uh that I think we showed you before this is now looking South Briggs now to the left and the East bacon to the right uh this is looking on LW and again you'll see the massing and the scale that we're looking looking at with these two projects and its relationship to campus and what it's going to create on campus in addition to the buildings themselves the kind of collaborative quad spaces that you see here I also want you to see in the upper kind of left side we recently announced a Bloomberg philanthropy's investment into Duke Duke Health Duram Tech and Durham public schools that is where that is the building it's an existing building that holds all of our Health Sciences programs currently that we will renovate to house the new early college life scence excuse me Health Sciences Early College so as all of our Health Sciences programming moves out into the

new building and we put additional program in the new building that is where the Early College site will be and we're thankful to have those renovation dollars from a private fund funding source one more before I pass the tort here to Dr Bowen uh we have been through two robust uh now actually Four robust selection processes for our architectural partners and our construction manager at risk Partners we are about to take our recommendations for the construction managers at risk to our board next Tuesday uh commissioner Howton will be part of uh that approval process we don't have that firm name those firm names for you at this time but we do want to tell you a little bit about architectural partners and a little bit about our mwbe participation in both first thing I want you to know know we had a significant amount of interest in both these projects 37 firms submitted proposals for life science and health

sciences 20 firms on the construction side for both of these we decided in the architectural process we wanted to beef up some of our capacity in choosing architectural partners and so I'm very pleased that North Carolina Central University UNCC Chapel Hill and Duke University the four years who do a lot of construction projects in our backyard actually participated as advisers on our selection proced to make sure we had uh as much information and experience expertise as we wanted on these committees we also had 35 degrees north who is our construction project management firm that we've brought on to help Guild build our capacity to ensure we get these projects done under budget and on time and so we're going to talk share a little bit about the two architectural firms that we're working with uh in this in this process and then and also we'll share a little bit about uh our expectation on mwbe participation with our construction firms these were

excellent processes and we've got very strong Partners to work with us so Dr Bowen let me advance it and then pass this to you good thank you and good morning Commissioners it's a pleasure to be here um I'm happy to share with you that for Life Sciences Our Life Sciences building The Architects that we chose were Andre Johnson Architects um as you can see we tried to share with you what their team looks like um they have made the decision and we've begun working with them to um pair up with O'Brien Atkins who is familiar with our campus and also has um some very good expertise in lab design um and Consulting in that in the Triangle actually so we'll be using them um I will tell you um and Johnson presented during the evaluation period and the interview period um substantial experience in working in Durham also with the state Construction office and had significant experience in life sciences so that's why they were chosen

for that and you can see their team here for our Health Sciences building we chose the architects of Lord ax Sergeant um a quite large firm that comes to us with a good amount of experience in the Health Sciences area and also I would say again has is familiar with Durham County and also the state Construction office as you can see here this is their complete team that they brought with us an experienced team that have worked quite extensively together and that's why they were chosen I'm G skip this for a minute and go directly to our um mwbe participation with our life science is building um it is as president buckon mentioned a $35 million project um when we look at Architects um that we have chosen for this their mwbe participation

for this project is 36% for our construction manager at risk which is currently as president buckson mentioned getting ready to go in front of our board for our selection um we are waiting to see what that will be and who our selection is but we did want to share with you that um much like Durham we've decided to make the commitment to at least a minimum of 25% so um The Architects I'm Excuse me the seor that were interviewed um during interview we we talked about that at Great length of how they were going to reach that what Workforce Development programs they have um and spent a good amount of time in both their proposal and also questioning them during the interview for our health scientist building that's a $77 million project Lord Atkin Sergeant has an mwe participation of 177% and again for our semar we are looking at the minimum of a 25% participation

rate I'm going to try to go back I'm trying it it's not going up how about the clerk is going to help you thank you so much here we go great so what we wanted to share with you is our Gant chart currently for our two Durham projects um and as you can see here the top project is our Health Sciences project and our life sciences is below on both of those projects we have reached 100% completion on our architect selection we have moved forward with um such exciting things as our engineering for our Sue survey and Geotech um we have selected our commissioning managers for both projects projects and have now entered our Advanced planning design phase um as you can see from this chart if you can read it it's a little bit I catching here um what we're looking to do or what we anticipate is that we will

be starting construction for our Health Sciences building we're hopeful that will begin in February of 25 with completion and ready for operation in January 28 for our Life Sciences building similarly we're looking at starting that project in December of 25 and ready for operation in October of 27 um the bulk of the time you're going to see here in addition to the construction is the design phase which we're in the process of starting right now um and are working not only with our academic programs but also our Architects and their team thank you Madam chair we'd like take any questions well thank you so much for this presentation thank you for the thoughtfulness uh in your processes I'm really glad to see that you're modeling our Durham County goals for 25% mwbe

thank you commissioner Howton for representing us on durm Tex board and participating in this process see if there's any questions commissioner Carter commissioner yeah thank you so much for this presentation um for your vision for the campus and for Durham Tech in this area with Health Sciences and Life Sciences um and uh just you're very thoughtful and careful planning um and and the way this is moving forward it's very exciting the programming is exciting um you got to have the buildings in the space to do the programming which brings me to my one of my questions is about I know you're not presenting on the early college program but Good Golly that was exciting to read about and to hear about um um just just wonderful news uh for our community and um for the future of Health Science Workforce Development um if the life sciences side or the Health Sciences the new buildings won't be completed until

28 when does the early college program start fall of 25 okay is our plan start so we are looking at uh a couple different interim locations between when it will start in the fall 25 and when will be ready to move programming in do some renovation and move programming into what is currently building nine on our campus where I showed you that site uh between DPS Duke and Durham Tech we are looking at a couple locations where we might do an educational Village also known as modulars we might do in the short term I like the name good but there are also euphemism yeah there are also a few properties uh that Duke health may have available our preference is to have those students on our campus not only with to get them uh used to being Durham Tech students but also they take classes they'll begin taking classes on the campus and so we want them to have access to advisors and faculty but we'll

look at the best fit for the interim period okay well great I'm just I'm glad it's getting started in 25 not we don't have to wait till we can vacate that site but this this is another example though of the benefit of that Bond right is we are moving current programming in from one site to the new site which frees up that space anyway very exciting all of it is very exciting thank you so much thanks commissioner commissioner Wendy Jacobs then commissioner Howton yes I really appreciate you all bringing us this update and keeping us in the loop and there by the public um and it is really exciting uh to see the the vision of the campus the development of a quad concept and um and also the Partnerships that are happening around all of these job sector areas um and I think this is also a great going to be a great benefit to

Duram public schools with the Bloomberg Grant and the healthc care um pipeline fantastic um I was wondering on this map the going back to the picture Could you um I have two questions one is what is the exact amount that that duke or the bloom gra Camp will contribute to the Health Sciences building and kind of not just the capital but also just kind of that whole if you could talk a little bit more about that how that will contribute to this structure but also where the affordable housing project is in relation to this as well sure Child Care sure let me let me give you a couple different updates on that so we have from from the 30 m roughly $30 million just shy Grant from Bloomberg philanthropies is about 18 and a half million of that comes to us dermtech 15

of that is allocated for Capital and that's the renovation Capital will'll use to redo what is now building nine that says the Early College site on this map uh we believe that will be sufficient to do the renovations assuming that nothing crazy happens with construction costs in the next couple of years uh but we also then have funding from Bloomer to do the startup phases around personel Furniture equipment Etc they won't contribute to the new Health Sciences building they will contribute to the Early College site although we'll have equipment that we'll be able to use for students who are work in both sites there is also there are also resources that uh Durham Tech Durham public schools and especially Duke Health are contributing in kind and a lot of policy work I do want to mention this that Duke Health has done to ensure that students younger than 18 are able to get into the hospital settings and do clinical rotations apprenti ships internships

that is often not the case because of age restrictions they are waving that so that we can create this pipeline it's it's a it's a nationally in inovative program and and again we're proud to be the only Community College among the 10 healthc care sites around the country if you if you went from that early college site now building nine and went straight East and maybe a little bit South through those woods you'd get to our affordable housing site on Briggs not on two South Briggs right now we have submitted our 4% low-income housing tax credit uh application we're confident that that will move through but we're waiting for that to get through because of what you and the city have done we now have the financing in place that once we get that 4% tax credit we have an equity an equity investor in place that we can then move into the of planning permitting construction phases and so we're kind of knocking on the door of that waiting for that final 4%

tax credit to come through and then we are moving child care if I can move to that last one on child care thank you for the resources this body invested in us together with Kate's Corner that allowed us to provide uh free tuition no cost child care to our students chiefly and some of our faculty and staff uh we are now working with Kate's corner to look at what could be a permanent solution uh would be on our campus but available more broadly we I don't have much detail beyond that to say we're kind of in the early phases of thinking about what what a facility uh might look like in that area that we have that has some space that we might use that is a really critical issue for our students and our faculty and staff and uh it is a place where we feel like we can provide access to child care that just is very hard to come by in in that geographic area and

we can be part of that larger solution but it's going to take some it's going to take some uh strong partnership together with Kate scorn to help figure it out thank you so much um for that followup information and I just think that you all are really modeling what we are what we're also trying to model too in Durham County you know we're supporting affordable housing we're building a child care center and the you're doing that too and I think that's we're you know I I appreciate that you also are trying to you know connect all of the pieces that the social determinants and and all of the elements that we know is important for people in our community to thrive and succeed so appreciate that you the partnership and the values that you and priorities that you're also following through on thank you well thank you and

thank you for your support and partnership on every one of these items commissioner Howton thank you madam chair and hello everyone good to see you JB I what I want to lift up you know the work that you're like the I guess you're the the Eng engine and your staff is a vehicle to keep you moving somebody's got to keep you moving so I just wanted for you to let your staff know how much we appreciate the work you do um you know I'm I'm um on the board so I get to see but in front of this board I want to acknowledge your staff and all the folks that are working to make all this stuff happen because it doesn't happen by itself so thank you commissioner I appreciate that acknowledging we will certainly bring that back to our colleagues thank you thank you thank you so much president buckon and team appreciate your time and your

thoughtfulness and transparency with us throughout this entire process thank you that moves us to sure we are gonna do a little Switcheroo and have a arpa update next uh from uh assistant County Manager Deputy County Manager uh Claudia Hager and her team and I know she mentioned that it's going to be a 30 minute item instead of 45 so do you think the same 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions 15 15 perfect I wasn't in the room when you mentioned about the break for going over to the graduation what did you say about that I didn't hear it we did not discuss for the graduation okay I thought I heard you said something about taking a break no we we switched um the arpa update was going to be after lunch but because uh the

presenters for this item needed to be somewhere at one we were moving this item up before lunch okay I guess I heard you wrong good morning Commissioners it's a pleasure seeing you today and to have a um continued

conversation on arpa we will change the um flow a little bit different today to accommodate the time constraints so we can allow most of it to cover a very important topic on the housing Loan Fund in Durham and I have two um individuals who will assist today Christy Ry who is a project manager uh with the organization as well as um John Frolic with Self-Help Credit Union and again we are excited to share we'll give a quick recap of the January meeting stirring committee recommendations and then we'll get right into an overview on the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund at the board session back in January we did a quick recap of um efforts that haveen

happened over the past I guess 18 months as we've looked at how should we invest arpa dollars and um out of that process a u affordable H well a housing steering committee was developed and we looked at strategies on how we move forward with the maximization and optimization of oper fund use leveraging those dollars with the city as well as um a a the task force devel a white paper which we went over last time and with that white paper there were three recommendations one of which was to consider the investment into the existing housing loan fund and there was a dollar amount identified as potentially an initial allocation the second was to evaluate the post pandemic needs and look at Best Practices to determine where we should um do things differently as related to housing

security and we we are the big players in that space and we have many partners as well then the third one was to look at ways to develop a concise metric that um is a scorecard for the county because we we do invest in a lot of spaces but we do have funding limitations and so the desire is over time for us to refine those those spaces that which we so now I will transition to the area in which um we wanted to follow up on with the housing loan fund and um Mr Frolic will go into that presentation you've seen headlines recently where self-help is u a partner with other jurisdictions and excited about that and so again our board started this discussion back in 2022 in November and um we're we're

grateful that we're at this stage thank you thank youer and thank you Commissioners um first of all your your staff chrisy and Jay Perry and Miss Hager here have doing a fantastic job and I'd love to take them on the road with me to Florida Western North Carolina West Winston Salem other municipalities that are looking for us to consider doing a housing Loan Fund it really we're great in helping it evaluate this um so I'll try to be brief and really uh make this your time for your questions on the Loan Fund here um self-help uh did our initial housing Loan Fund here in Durham with the city of Durham uh in 2019 that fund is now fully deployed and we're inviting other folks lot of you FKS I know about self-help but just as a quick primer the center for Community self-help is an umbrella organization we have two credit unions across the country the center of responsible lending and then we have the self-help Ventures fund which is an affiliate of selfhelp and that's do our non-regulated lending such as affordable

6 million fund that we launched in late 2022 uh and that has both um Bridge financing and GAP financing for preservation of ordable housing so that's the focus for that uh that fund

has started deployment we have one loan made and two others en closing the Greensboro housing fund the most recent fund to launch um that fund uh we are co-administering that with the National Institute minor economic development through parallel funding um and we have initial self-help has initial 13 million trunch out of a what we're expecting to be a $20 million fund by the end of this year and that's gap financing and we talk little bit the specifics of that for both preservation and creation of a flexible fund oh sorry normally people like it when I'm not so loud uh town of Chapel Hill is the last uh um the last jurisdiction so we awarded the town of Chapel Hill administrator role in late excuse me um in in late last year here and was a winning response to the town's request for proposal uh that's a combination of UNCC Health Systems dollars and the town of Chapel Hill dollars we anticipate launching a $2 million fund again for creation and preservation of affordable housing by

mid year uh the Durham fund brief history here I talked about it launching in 2019 really out of organic convening convened by by Duke looking at problems in the community and uh and that fund that partnership between Duke University the city of Durham and then for-profit and nonprofit financial institutions really was key to the success of uh pulling that data to make an impact in the community uh over 10 years we're anticipating that the fund will preserve 500 affordable units here uh really enabling local affordable housing developers to stabilize and expand the housing stock um it's great news that the fund is fully deployed that's also the bad news the fund is fully deployed and we have a growing need so delighted to have Durham County considered participating in the fund uh just briefly I talked about the the different folks involved it was a city of Durham Duke University uh Sun Trust at the time now trist and then Institute Capital which again was formerly the initiative so how does the fund work it's it's composed of what we call Senior debt and

then second loss and first loss investors and the whole idea is as as a as a lender in order for us to take those risk to help do very high loan to value loans where your lending may be 100% or 110% of the value of the property or to take deeply subordinate loans on a property to and and do that at low cost uh we need risk Capital to come in and so that's where the city of durman du University provided some risk capital and then Senior lenders like truist and the initiative came in to provide what we call Senior debt and that senior debt uh is then um self-help provides a guarantee for that senior debt as where the top loss Capital enables us to take that additional risk uh the idea was to create loan terms to borrowers that would make sense for them to take a little risk on properties take manageable risk uh acquire those and hold those and prevent them from becoming uh market rate housing so market rate housing isn't a terrible thing but uh we have very limited stock of affordable housing and the idea is to to keep that from going away so what we're really looking at is new first loss Investments are required to grow

the fund and any Community we go to there's two key things it's top loss capital and then it's uh the ability that the community knowing what it's needs the good news is we know what we need in Durham what we really need next is some more top loss Capital can I ask I I just don't really quite understand the first loss second loss sure uh so a good example of um I'll go back this slide here so in terms of first and second loss think of that as one bucket that's risk capital and um selfhelp I should say is very good at not losing anybody's money that's that's how we've been successful we we have rigorous underwriting to do that um but the idea here is as these funds come in to self-help Ventures fund and then we deploy them as loans for affordable housing um if the fund experiences losses so if some of these loans go bad essentially then the top loss so in this case the first and second loss funders they will absorb some of those losses and so in this case in the current makeup of the fund the top 30% is this first and second loss so we could lose

up to 30% uh in loans that went bad and still selfa Ventures fund then we would still not be tapping into our own capital and then uh at that point after that we're at risk so we're at full risk and at lenders typically will take 70 you maybe 70% to 80% risk uh so in this case the top l enables us to go all the way up to 100% uh in terms of the uh the max amount of the loans the 100% of the value of the property or in the case of these other loan funds to do subordinate financing where we're in second position behind another lender and in that case we really have complete exposure and so this first and second loss uh this risk Capital enables us to take those additional risks to make those type of loans um so that's that's how that top loss Works um I'll speak a little to it more in the next SL but was that helpful that is helpful sure that's very it's it's difficult I know I'm relatively new to lending it's difficult to think of the think of it from a lender's perspective where A lender we're we are

kind of restricted to how much risk we can take to be sustainable and so when you get Beyond lending 70% of a value of a project or you get into a second position behind another lender that's a very risky position for a lender and hence most lenders don't do that type of lending and that's where this risk risk Capital comes in to enable us to say okay we can sustainably take that risk our goal is to return all the money and to keep all the loans good we have an excellent track record of that but in order to do that we need that uh that other Capital JJ over here um would it be accurate to say that any government or Foundation money going into the greater fund is at a higher risk than the self-help money that's correct the uh we we have not had any challenges raising the what we call the senior lender money so those for example the the truest and The Institute Capital money that's in the fund uh or if you go to Greensboro where we have Wells Fargo and Pinnacle oftentimes we're having Banks providing Community reinvestment act dollars into the funds

um but they can't tolerate losing those dollars they they're they're going to give them at a very low interest rate long term but they need to know at the end of the fund someone's standing behind that and so in that case self-help Ventures fund balance sheet is standing behind those Investments thank you so this uh this slide I find this very helpful communicating with folks kind of on on all sides of a Loan Fund on the left side you can see investors there and I've I've circled local government so that's Durham County city of Durham uh city of Greensboro those type of funders Foundations Regional employers or bank community reinvestment act investors and those folks provide loans and grants it's been loans to date into the fund and the whole whole idea is that these are 0% to very low interest rate loans uh for the life of the fund um so we're hoping to do with the Derm fund is expanded to a 20-year life so 20 years and those come into self- up Ventures fund those loans

and self- up Ventures fund then holds that money and that's the fund is the funds at self-held ventures fund and then from there we make loans to borrowers we already have a very robust origination team and servicing team so it's a One-Stop shop uh self-help uh takes care of all that we do independent underwriting within the the confines of the the product that we've described and agreed to with the funders uh and in this slide I'm showing example of bridge financing so the idea with Bridge financing is um when a property comes available on the market oftentimes a developer that wants to do affordable housing it may take two to five years to assemble the rest of the capital to make that work and so the idea of bridge financing is to provide that financing UPF front close to 100% of the need because we know a lot of developers especially nonprofits don't have Capital sitting around enables them to then acquire the property and hold it while they work to assemble tax credits philanthropy uh government sources whatever those are to make the property sustainable for the long term um and the

idea is that these are shortterm loans maybe up to five years and then when they get paid off which some of the Derm fund loans have been paying off they revolve back into the fund and we make more loans uh and then the bridge takeout sources there's a kind of an alphabet soup there of takeout out sources in terms of uh different methods to do long-term financing uh properties and people that's it's really all about people at the end of the day in durm the durm fund is really targeting serving uh households that earn 60% of the area mean income or below uh or homeowners that are earning 80% or below in the vent of properties developed for home ownership uh many of the properties that we financed to date with the Durham fund are serving extremely low-income families making 30% area income or below uh we preserved 243 units thus far and maybe about 30 to be created so a couple of the properties were for future creation of housing uh and um we're targeting about 500 units over the life of the fund with the existing fund without growing the fund at

all and I think that's my last slide oh here we go far so recommendations uh we'd like to expand the geography that's currently limited the city of Durham we'd like to expand the geography to the county um refine the fund goals and that's really what the fund are input to say what's what are new challenges facing the city of Durham ideas that we have are creating a uh a subordinate debt or Gap financing product to be like we're doing in Wake County and in Greensboro uh and the target for new fund we'd really want the fund to grow uh to at least you know by $ 15 million and to grow the existing fund of 10 uh if we have a $2 million investment that can uh translate to an $8 million addition to the fund um I kind of note here 500,000 is a good start we could temporarily deploy that outside the fund if we had 500,000 coming in today so we could get it right into affordable housing and then re circulate that back into the actual Loan

Fund uh once we get to a $2 million point the need for the additional one and a half million of commitments whether it be from Durham County or from other uh funders such as philanthropy uh is really that bears to go back to the senior debt funders or to bring in new funders we need to show that we can grow the fund in a in a meaningful way and so that's where um $500,000 is plenty of money it certainly means a lot to me but two million would be able enable us to really then take that two million create $8 million more of investment into the fund and we could have $18 million um through affordable housing Loan Fund current fund matures in 2029 and this investment could really catalyze us then working with the other funders to extend it on out to another 20 years yes I have a question uh what is your what does your applicant look like I'm sorry say again the what would your applicant look like oh the applicant for the Derm affordable housing Loan Fund yes these These are uh developers with recent and relevant affordable housing experience and so that's either folks

that are operating affordable housing and maybe acquiring existing units or they could be uh again nonprofits or we could expand the fund to for-profits that are creating new housing but it's really for folks that have uh recent relevant experience in doing the scope of work they're doing um it's it's what it's not and it's helpful to emphasiz to to your constituency it's not for individuals who are looking for affordable housing they're really the people that these developers by acquiring these properties and then whether they're renovating them or just preserving them or creating them that the developers of those units are then serving the uh the individuals that need the affordable housing okay and thank you for that and you mentioned something else that County's dollars would be at risk that's correct that the County's dollars are would be in what we call it the the the first or second loss position and so the risk for those dollars is if you know selfhelp is going to make good loans as we we do with all our loans our charge

off rate is extremely low but in order to do the type of loans that are more than 70% the value of the property or to be in a second position to another lender we need need uh we need funders into the fund to be able to take potential losses and so that's where for example in the case of the current fund it's the city of Durham and Duke that have stepped up to a a a risk Capital position or top loss position so that we do experience losses in the fund you know we make the loans as best we can in terms of being good lenders if those loans go bad that there can be some that initial loss is absorbed by those funders thank you did you have one more slide this is just a quick summary here um the I talked about additional two million in these top loss dollars that Miss Howton talked about uh we can multiply that times four by bringing in the senior lenders for $8 million in the

fund we think that we create a preserve a range of 200 to 400 more affordable units depends on the type of unit and use case of the fund and then contact information for my colle James rerro who's the director of capital development he'd be responsible for bringing in the other funders and myself is up there so always welcome questions now or or later our door is always open thank you so much presentations like these always make me grateful that we have subject matter experts like Deputy County Manager Hagar and y'all and our Partnerships um I will see commissioner Wendy Jacobs I see your hand up for question thank you so much um for the present and again for the partnership um we are really fortunate to have self-help as one of our community partners with an outstanding track record and I'm really excited about the county contributing to this affordable housing Loan Fund um this is a great

example of something where we do not have to recreate the wheel it's already in existence we can plug into it it can can be um expanded to be countywide and frankly when the slide that you showed about how this is being deployed in other counties um if you go back to that slide um ours is really underfunded um because you know when you look at our population um and we're only at 10 million Chapel Hill is starting out with 20 and then way County which is about three times as us has 61 million where where're ours is really underfunded and as we know we've talked about this a lot on our board is that County government cannot solve the problem of providing affordable housing on our own we need to be looking at every single possible tool and strategy

and this is a really successful strategy and Tool as you explained to us Claudia in your first presentation that this is a way to leverage other funding that this this helps to bring in um additional funding sources for developers um so I guess I I fully support us moving forward as quickly as possible with our participation um I would like to know about a few things one is the role of and related to to the policies um for this program the role of protecting and preserving existing affordable housing um versus building new affordable housing because one thing that we learned with the Carver Creek project where we actually provided that full funding right away so that housing for

New Hope did not have to go through this process and possibly lose even the opportunity because it takes a long time as you explained to put together these deals are very complicated um so but we would have lost an existing affordable housing property if we had not acted quickly and you know the second part recommendation Claudia that you guys had from the group was basically we need a plan we need to be tracking uh so I I would really like to understand that that because preserving can often be cheaper also which we saw with caror Creek than building new um so that's one of my question second question is the policies around these properties do we have requirements such as they need to be affordable for at least 30 years and

then after that the right of first refusal goes back to the public entities because that's another way we can prevent these properties from then going back onto the open market or back into the market rate after 30 years so that's one thing and then my third question is what are we doing to um reach out to employers um to for them to participate in this um revolving housing fund because it benefits our local employers to have affordable housing for their workers uh so I think to the first question commissioner Wendy Jacobs the role of protecting and preserving um uh preservation one of the Wake County staff members talks about you have a bucket and it's very important to plug the holes in the bucket before you keep pouring more water in and so the idea of

preserving houses that's a very I think it's a great analogy for me that said I I encourage the Commissioners to to consider as as we think about the Loan Fund uh both creation and preservation um preservation opportunities when they come they come quickly and it's important to take advantage in the right way but they can be rare it can take a long time to get preservation and so if you have a flexible fund that can do both the preservation side and provide funding for creation of new units um I think you have the best of both worlds that's what we advocated for Greensboro for example their their main need was preservation particularly of Aging housing stock but we encouraged them to say hey think about New Creation as well and I I can't talk specifically to developers that we're in in stages with with the Greensboro fund but suffices to say there's new creation of units involved with some of our early both preservation and new creation of units with our early loans that we anticipate closing in that fund uh the second question policies around the properties with the affordable housing Loan Fund there may be deed restrictions associated with other funding coming in

but in addition to those uh the the fund um what we've done with the durm affordable housing Loan Fund is that uh because it was really targeted at nonprofits we've said that the nonprofit will accept deed restrictions upon permanent financing um with the adaptation with with Wake County and other funds uh if you have a a for-profit involved uh in the bridge financing then we're going to say you need at least a 10year deed restriction so your max loan term is five years and then you need a 10year deed restriction and that's to prevent um even though a for profit may have good intent it prevents the for-profit from holding the property under cheap financing for five years and then saying well I'm going to make this market right now so it gives at least another five years beyond the term uh the same thing with gap financing we haven't talked as much about Gap financing but those terms are typically 15-year loan terms so the Greensboro housing fund for example those are 15-year loan terms designed to sit next to a a senior lender in the project and we have a requirement for a

20-year deed restriction for those um the deed restrictions that we have on the funds are um aside from the Durham from the other funds it's affordable to 80% area median income households and we found that was important to provide some flexibility uh so that you maybe have a mix of units potentially involved um and uh and of course as you know the the the Gap is getting wider with increasing uh cost higher interest rates and stagnant incomes and so sometimes it can be hard to to serve all 60% area Medi income households um so the right of first refusal there uh that's a that's a good point and something we could integrate into the fund is the idea of the county leading with this uh initiative and saying hey we'd really like to see a right of first refusal for the county to be able to acquire the properties at the expiration of the The Loan Fund or the refinancing Point um I should say a sale point of the properties um to help preserve the the properties for for longer so that's a good thing to think on for us and then lastly employers we would

love to get more employers involved in the fund we're we're talking in a couple municipalities in Florida one of whom is really trying to Target employ local employers um we were interested and continu of interest in doing that as we are already thinking about growing the Wake affordable housing preservation fund and I think the the method that could work well is really a joint method working with the local government and the administrator um to to reach out to those employers and uh and to really you know explain to them how it helps their business by making sure that there's affordable housing in the area well I would like to suggest that if we do move forward with this that we bring in um Andy Miracle on this and also I know um Madam chair and Madame manager with your conversations with the chamber and the leadership Circle um and the new nonprofit that's being formed at the chamber level whether this could be another way to pull in the private sector and even with our economic incentive

contracts consideration of participation in this directly in this fund so correct me if I'm wrong isn't Andy's on the working group right Andy is on a working group he's also behind the scenes making sure that we're in the direction that blends well with our overall economic and I just want to say in response to your answer about the term the length of the affordability I would be very concerned about investing in projects that only have a 10-year time period affordability I mean for me that's just not worth the investment of a public fund so I I really think it's important that we're investing in things that have long-term affordability with private public money do we have any commissioner C well I just also wanted to say I I'm excited about the possibility of Durham County participating in this fund and agree that the 10 million is too low for

Durham County um and will the um Administration be recommending a level of contribution to us um is there a specific ask is this is the specific ask two two million or well we wanted to have the discussion this morning yeah because um we um there were lots of different conversations last time the potenti potential of using some arpa dollars and we are decoupling that for various reasons and so today we wanted to hear the board's thoughts and also get the experts to share what's happening at other um communities because it's that was very interesting to see other helpful and so what we will do is come back with additional information and further recommendations we know um our desire is to um present options to the board for consideration I know in the last conversation also chair

Howard um commissioner Howton asked about um the city's involvement as well and they are partners and have invested and and so um we want to come back and share what their prior participation has been and the potential of future Investments um right now uh we had identified 500,000 um two million is needed for them to move forward but again we'll come back with further conversation so we maybe um so that two million could could we could have contributors from the city from we could contrib increase contributions perhaps from the city maybe increased contributions from duke for example or other of other partners that's correct commissioner car the the it's but the key is that they're the the top loss funders that first and second law set of funders so as long as we have those totaling $2 million that's where we can go out and raise the other

six million to make the 8 million increase in the fund Duke wasn't one of the top loss Duke yeah Duke is involved as a um and I I ideally agree that we want to have public investment in affordable housing be linked to long-term affordability in the way that um Wendy was mentioning um but I would be open to some flexibility on that because I you know I do think that if we put too many restrictions we may not get the developers who are willing to move forward and I want it's better to have one than zero you know what I'm saying if if the restrictions are too limited so anyway I would be open to flexibility and you know you know just uh additional input from you all as to what works we want it to work um and then the only

other thought I have is are with this kind of loan is self-help working at all with school districts who have land as you know part of the contribution towards the affordability we had the opportunity in the past to have affordable housing for teachers sort of Workforce housing um at one of the sort of you know School sites School District sites that's just there with a old building dilapidated building nothing's happening on that site you know we We There was an opportunity in the past and we sort of lost out on the ability to move forward with that and I'm just wondering if um you know you you're you're doing any work anywhere in the country with that kind of project we haven't to date that I'm aware of it's certainly a model that we've seen and uh it seems encouraging it's always great land is often the the scarce part of the equation and so if uh there's an entity that has land um we have considered in the near vicinity uh a similar project

to that that ended up getting funded in different ways but I think it's a it's a very promising one and and that's where again the if if the there's a community effort to be able to um you know if the land is there but the money is not that's where the affordable housing Loan Fund can come in to help provide either the bridge financing that may be needed or in the case of U if they're U Gap financing in terms of just needing to fill out that whole Capital stack and when you say Gap financing are you talking about the gap between what the market rate would be and what the affordable rate is a great qu in this case the Gap financing is uh your your first mortgage loan or your senior loan coming to the the borrower that's the developer that loan is typically not going to be more than 70% of the total needs of the project in fact many times because that market rate debt is relatively expensive um the project can't afford maybe more than 40 or50 % um so the idea with gap financing is that U with relatively scarce Equity let's say maybe only 10% of of cash

Equity from the borrower and uh maybe 60 to 70 say 70% uh Standard Market rate First Mortgage Debt there's a gap between there so you've got I'm doing my math right you've got a 20% Gap and so that's where Gap financing that can provide 20 to 30% of the total Capital comes in it's it's subordinate it's in a riskier position than the first mortgage and that's why it's often times not available but coming out of a Loan Fund it can be both subordinate and low cost and really supportive of the project so that's the Gap we're talking about you're right there is also a big gap between availability of market rate versus affordable housing okay thank you indeed complicated thank you commissioner Carter thank you so I had to get my equipment straight so I'm sorry for that little Gap I but I did get to see Derm Tech I did get to listen in so I'm here now one you already know like I'm a huge proponent of this I'mma Be a bull about it um I was a little bit jealous that

last Thursday Thursday before when Greensboro did their press release and say that they had already moved on with theirs so we are literally seeing every other major Market move forward with these funds because it works right like we literally are seeing it work um W I know CH thought about it I don't know where they are I haven't talked to Karen Howard or anybody but um I didn't know until I guess today that the RFQ um they actually had a win in RFP or RFQ for um uh Chapel Hill the only thing I would say um I get it we're sitting here talk about restrictions I I personally feel like uh this will give us a better opportunity to um work towards building more naturally organic affordable housing because when we put some Gap funding in that also gives responsible developers and I'm going keep saying that because we know what irresponsible development looks like we've seen it in

these Chambers and folks in here voted for it um we know what like a responsible developer would do there are actually people out there who are in affordable housing market we know this because we work with them this board works with them and if they need if the difference between them being able to do uh apartments and town homes is $2 million in gap funding if the difference between them being able to offer a better mortgage rate is $3 million from us and so I don't know how many of y'all looked at that 90 page packet I was okay with the fact a bank is the only place where money can magically be made and what we're we're honestly saying I want y'all y'all the experts get me right here from what I got in the packet we would invest a dollar developer would come back and invest a dollar go to the bank to get $3 of community revitalization act funding if I the CRA money then they would take that $5 do go out into the market and get a construction loan of 15 we the

county invested a dollar and got $19 back where does that mask not work for our residents that's all I'm saying so I'm a proponent of it um I do want to see what our City's going to do but what I don't want us to do is build a fund that is so different from our surrounding areas that ours fails and that I think is what my worry kind of sort of is because if this is what wake is doing if this is what Greensboro is doing if this is what Chapel Hill is doing this is what Austin's doing and we're doing something widely different it's not that we won't have a program that they want they can go and get business elsewhere because the perimeter counties are doing it a certain way and we're doing it different so that IDE did just want to throw that out there I like I said I was um listening uh I not I'mma hold my question because cuz I don't have anybody but again I don't want our fund level to be so low can we do the 60 million that Wake County did no but I don't see why we can't get up to 20 and so those are just my thoughts on the fun thank you by share Burns I just had uh

one question from myself and this may be like a pie in Sky idea of just thinking about you know what the the triangle solar program that ran a few uh months ago and I think they're doing the second round of that has anyone and you don't have to answer now because obviously you have to look into it has anyone done a model like that around housing where it was basically community members bought into going solar and like the more people that bought into it it brought the rate lower um of seeing has there been any model like that into housing where individuals say like we want to invest in affordable housing we want to you know build or have a house at that help helps bring the rate down by coming in collectively uh of going in for that uh thank you commissioner Alam um not on the we haven't funded anything on the individual level aside from for example there's a model called a limited Equity housing cooperative and there are some

of those around the country so there there is a model out there in terms of the Loan Fund um we haven't seen an application for that um that type of model there um a a bit of a tangent to that is that oftentimes a lot of individuals want to do something about affordable housing in terms of being philanthropic and so the challenge we have is it's often very difficult like for us to our you know I kind of mentioned $2 million being the minimum that we have to then activate other parts of the fund I'll give the example of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro which is our our our top loss funer in the Greensboro fund for the self-help product um that is a lot of of smaller donors that wanted to make a meaningful impact in their community so it's not housing for themselves but they're wanting to make housing for others and those smaller uh donors or investors really have invested into a Community Foundation pool that then was a they were able to aggregate that and then invest that at self-help Ventures fund through a loan to self-help

Ventures fund so that's that's one where we have uh folks in the community to include potentially maybe smaller employers or uh just individuals that say I'd like to do something about it but I don't have a lot self-help is an equip to handle those smaller dollar donations uh or I shouldn't say donations Investments but if there's a Community Foundation that would be willing to aggregate those that's a way to to add so individual want to take part so I'm sorry I didn't answer your uh or give you really a solution to the uh individuals coming together in a Cooperative sense there are models for that Cooperative housing uh but it's beyond the scope of what we're we're currently doing in the fund there's there's also co-housing models that are similar but not exactly the same as Cooperative housing um typically just a private sector tool but um your description sort of perfectly described what they're trying to do as a sort of separate private sector model thank you all so much again I had one quick one it's just a

question you all might have went over in I see board discussion I'm going back to Greensboro real quick because and maybe the RFP really it's just a question um because the last time we had discussion said open RP but I noted there's a partnership in Greensboro so is the difference and this slide is a good one to describe here um in the case of the Derm the initial launch of the Derm of foral housing Loan Fund I said an organic convening because there was not a formal request for proposal it was really self-help was brought as a a trusted nonprofit Community partner um and and not not uh saying one model is better than the other in Wake County's approach they put out a formal request for proposal uh that was about a six six Monon process or so and then is about a year to get the fund closed from there so much longer timeline with the formal request for proposal process Greensboro the Community Foundation um they again brought in ourselves to administer and fund one product and then Institute Capital to administer another one that was more that kind of organic convening

where um it was a very quick launch from the time that I think from the time greensbor started talking to us at the time we actually were were ready with funds was less than a year um so yeah thank you thank you so much for your presentation again and I look forward to the followup that brings us now we're gonna as we have some time come back to our 24- z666 update on the strategic planning process um so I know Shannon our chief of staff and Josh director of strategy G and performance will be presenting with their teams y'all are right before break so I expect lots of fireworks get us fired up no pressure at all and I see we have allocated 30 minutes so 20 minute presentation 10 minute questions

Perfect all right well um are we at afternoon no morning good morning Madam chair Madam Vice chair Commissioners and County Manager also our attorney Massie um thank you for receiving this presentation today this is to bring you an update on Deco forward and that is the U name we have given our new strategic plan and so at that I will turn it over to our director of strategy and performance Josh who will introduce his team and they will lead this presentation thank you Shannon good morning Commissioners my name is Josh Edwards I'm the director of strategy performance for Durham County I'm excited to share with you an update on Durham County's new strategic plan Deco forward 2029 first I would like to introduce the office of strategy performance team with me I have Adriana Johnson strategic initiatives analyst CG Garner strategic initiatives analyst and Pat M strategic plan

manager also I'd like to take a moment to say how proud I am of my team they've done an amazing job getting to this point and working together as a team with a goal in mind so thank you very much as of today we're at the drafting phase of the strategic planning process what we present today is not final and will change with the valuable feedback that are received today and during future listening sessions next steps will be discussed at the end of the update but once we get there the strategic planning process will be once it's approved OSP office of strategy and performance will move on to the next phase which will be the departmental business plan development we are steadily making progress forward as part of the strategic planning process the office of strategy and performance has consulted with County leadership presented at the board

of County Commissioners policy Retreat and held individual and group executive leadership feedback sessions additionally SWAT sessions were conducted with all County departments except for the sheriff these sessions resulted in 152 objective goals 219 actionable initiatives and 25% of all employees responded to the survey and then 505 residents responded to the County resident survey these engagement sessions are only the first phase of Engagement with the community and employees and now I'll turn the presentation over to Pat M to discuss the results of the survey good morning so the purpose of our resident survey was to gauge resident sentiment around our proposed Focus areas in the new strategic plan and we also wanted to just gain some feedback around what their General concerns were as Durham residents so our survey was available in English and Spanish and was open to all Durham residents between early November through mid January uh we

would like to thank our Pio and budget department they helped us share it out on some social media platforms we also shared this survey directly with some Community groups and encouraged to share with their memberships and the survey was available in hard copy form in our library branches and some other County offices which sof foot traffic so we were happy to see we got a responses in a mix of different formats and we closed the survey two weeks ago so we could analyze the results and present you what we found so you'll find on this Slide the demographics of the residents who responded to our survey we were happy to see that with 505 total responses that U at a uh confidence level of 95 5% and about 5% margin of error this is statistically significant but the demographics here don't precisely reflect the demographics of the Duram community so for instance we saw some over representation in white respondents and female respondents and if you go to the next slide we also asked zip codes so we could see where in Durham we were hearing from so you could see on this map the zip codes which which are shaded

darker blue saw more responses and the lighter one saw less responses and this relatively matched up to the population um plus or minus like 3 or 4% depending on the ZIP code the most over representation we saw here was in that South Durham 27713 zip code and the downtown 2771 zip code so the main takeaway here as we go through these results is that the results are statistically significant but there are potential biases in the data to the degree which the community and the survey respondents don't necessarily match up demographic wise so we we asked residents which of our proposed strategic Plan Focus areas were most important to them so residents were presented with these seven options as well as the Departments which were in them and they were given the option to check as many or as few as they liked so on average residents selected about four of these and here you can see the number of respondents who selected each one as well as uh the percentage so for

instance Regional leadership was selected by 72% of residents but a lot of people selected that as well as a few other ones and we also asked a couple of open-ended questions and residents could write whatever they wanted here so we asked what they hope to see durm County accomplish over the next five years and just any other thoughts they have as r as of Durham County uh we our team went through 451 of these comments and parsed out themes and tried to group them based on how similar they were and what you see here is basically the frequency which which some topics were mentioned so for instance somebody could have mentioned planning and the libraries in the same comment so each of these columns would have a mention there durd during the initial presentation of The Deco forward 2029 strategy to the

the county Mission Vision and core values was discussed and the issue of lack of deib language was raised the office of strategy and performance in collaboration with the office of equity well-being Revis the Mission Vision and core values to be inclusive and Equitable to all Durham County residents and the future of Durham County the recommended Mission Vision and core values is the culmination of voices from the community employees executive leadership and feedback from the swap meetings and I'd like to read those to you right now these are our recommended mission statement Durham County aims to to cultivate responsible Public Service vital for all residents to experience a high quality of life and amplify the diverse Heritage of the community our recommendation for the vision is Durham County is an empowered and Vibrant Community with opportunities for all residents to live grow and Thrive and our recommendation for core values to serve with Integrity engage with empathy build trust and accountability provide

equable customer experence experiences nurture belonging and inclusion and Foster teamwork and collaboration and we welcome feedback on these recommendations from the board sorry we have one slide that's actually missing I apologize I'm going to read my notes on if that's okay and we can send you over the revised uh presentation after this okay as discussed during the November board retreat the transitioning of the pre previous strategic plan goals into Focus areas so the previous plan had five goal areas this shift in language from goals to focus areas was intentional to suggest rather than hitting a goal that has a endpoint we would structure the Strategic plan around areas which we'll

continuously focus on over time the seven Focus areas also reflect the new County organizational structure implemented in 2023 in our previous goal oriented plan the general managers aligned with the County's goals to promote accountability through the transition of Durham County's organizational structure we've aligned executive leaders to focus areas to promote collaboration between the Departments Project based work and accountability in moving the need forward on High level objectives exec itive sponsorship does not always align to organizational structure and as you can see from the slide of course it's not up here I apologize uh there are now seven strategic Focus areas which will have strategically focused objectives and action oriented initiatives we will go through all seven Focus areas with you today now I turn the presentation over to CG Garner I I just want to interject it is on if we click on the link that slide is

uploaded good morning um I am CG gonner one of the Strategic initiatives analysts for the office of strategy and performance um on this slide you will see the high performing organization Focus area the objectives in this Focus area are captured by um our budget Department Finance Grants Administration and the tax administration department this Focus area area is described as collecting funding and managing resources for the highquality service that delivery um the executive sponsor for this would be depy County Manager Claudia Hager um in the interest of time today we will be discussing only the high level objectives and what you can see in front of you and on the screen are the action oriented um initiatives that are

listed so the high level objectives are effectively allocate resources to meet Community needs and maintain a resilient Diversified financial position create systems which Foster timely accurate and effective Financial Service delivery across the county and promote education on County finances and tax programs to residents I I just have a quick question if when do you want to hear any input from us like related to each of these areas like do you want us to wait till the end or do you want to go through Section by section I think if we would it be easier for y'all if we had it all at the end in case there's questions that yall answer throughout the presentation yes for ease of collecting notes yes that'd be best

thank you for that question um moving to the next Focus area we have the regional leadership um the objectives in this focused area are captured by um transportation the city county departments Economic Development Board of Elections and public information this Focus area is described as being a regional leader at the Forefront of Service delivery that improves the quality of life for residents and the ex excutive sponsor for this one would be Deputy County Manager Maurice Jones the high level objectives are create increase and connect all D residents to equable e economic opportunities enhance access to Regional multimodal Transportation offerings and Empower and equip County departments to celebrate achievements and success stories and moving to the next Focus area we have the safe and resilient

Community um and this is captured by our Sheriff's Department emergency services youth home Justice Services and ciss which is community invention and support services this Focus area described as creating a community where all residents feel safe and can Thrive and the executive sponsor for this one would be um assistant County Manager Dwayne Bron the high level objectives are increase Equitable account outcomes and opportunities for Youth and durm create thriving healthy and safe environments for residents and County employees and equally invest in and increase restorative and wraparound services for employees and residents and I will be passing it on to my phenomenal teammate Adriana Johnson thank you good morning everyone this um focus area is community

infrastructure and the objectives of this Focus area are captured by Register of Deeds can okay let's um the Departments that are capturing this Focus area our Register of Deeds oh we're good all right that's fine no wores I got it engineering is Register of Deeds engineering Soil and Water and general Services thank you so much manager uh the focus area is described as maintaining and improving the foundational structure needed to build a sustainable future for all residents and the executive sponsor is assistant County Manager Julio Delgado the objectives in this area are plan for the long-term Equitable use of County Land facilities and equipment increase the physical safety of the county and strengthen diverse external Partnerships

to prepare for growth creating a better quality of life for Durham's Community the next Focus area is community empowerment Community empowerment objectives are captured by Library veteran services and Cooperative Extension this Focus area is described as empowering the community to enhance their opportunities to thrive the executive sponsor for this area is assistant County Manager Tammy Hall and the objectives are promote available Services educational resources and support networks to diverse communities and to improve the chances for all residents in Durham to thrive in the community our next Focus area is healthy and inclusive community this Focus area's objectives are captured by Social Services Public Health and Equitable well-being this Focus area is described as engaging a community in Equitable and inclusive services that support the

health and well-being for all the executive sponsor for this area is assistant County Manager Joanne Pierce and the high level objectives are equitably increase healthy outcomes and quality of life for all and identify opportunities to increase Equitable outcomes in County operations and services for our final Focus area we have responsible governance the objectives in this area are captured by strategy and performance Human Resources internal audit County attorney clerk to the board and Information Services in technology or isnt this Focus area is described as streamlining government processes and increasing trust with the community the executive sponsor for this area is Chief of Staff Shannon trap and the four high level objectives are review and develop well-defined policies and procceed procures that effectively address organizational needs develop retain and recruit diverse qualified and

knowledgeable staff establish and sustain a countywide culture of data informed decisionmaking and continuous Improvement and to create public facing content for accountability and transparency around County Focus areas that slide concludes the presentation of the high level objectives and action oriented initiatives thank you Commissioners thank you again for the time to present the update of Deco forward 2029 moving on from today the office of strategy and performance is engaging with the community in at least two forums one in person and one virtually and will be a collaboration with the budget office Additionally the office of strategy performance is meeting with Department directors and their staff to further refine the objectives and initiatives presented here and start the pre-planning process for the new performance management system that will be developed in fiscal year 2025 last the office of strategy and

performance plans to work with our consultant to survey the employees and residents to gather as many voices as we can the office of strategy performance plans a final draft to be before the board for approval no later than June 24th therefore we can have a July 1 implementation date again thank you for your time and attention and we welcome any questions regarding the Strat planning process thank you so much this is an amazing presentation y'all brought the fireworks that I asked for um but thank you for the intentionality y'all put behind this of serving so many staff members the community members and showing us the demographics of where we've gotten responses from I think that's really really valuable information for us as a board uh to see uh where our residents are really engaged and also gives us an idea for areas that we need to get our residents a little bit more uh involved in these processes um before I pass it on I just

had one quick question um the Departments listed under each executive sponsor specifically like the last one they don't necessarily report to that department just fall under okay yeah that makes sense um then I will say we have about 10 15 minutes for this this item for questions I'll start on this side ask folks to be cognizant of their colleagues being able to answer ask questions too so commissioner Howton thank you madam chair I don't particularly have questions today um I need to as I say chew on it a bit more uh but I just want to say thank you for all the hard work that you've done this is amazing and I appreciate it Mr cter yes thanks for being a great team you guys and um you know coming forward with work that I can tell you are proud of yourselves and you should be than so thank you very much um I'm gonna say

just a couple of things um one at a high level and one more specific and I'm only saying a couple of things because these couple things really matter to me um at a high level I think less words is better and I also think that Simplicity is really important so that the community can understand it can regurgitate it even um and right now I couldn't do that and so you know just looking at it one time or a couple of times because over the weekend but you know what I mean um so there's that and then second of all I think it's imperative that we have as a focus area something that we call out explicitly Rel relateded to EnV the environment um and you know I just think that every other problem that we deal with pales in comparison and really if

we don't get a handle on environmental sustainability all of our other challenges are moot because we're not going to be here to deal with them so I just really want us to call that out explicitly um if there's a way to to combine any of the focus areas so that there's fewer of them I don't know seven to me feels like a lot I liked five I feel like I'm being critical and I don't want to be basically the work is great and I just really think those two things matter a lot to me and I just want to say them please know though that I really appreciate your work and think it's excellent so far this is really hard to do well and you guys are doing a great job I don't know if you wanted to respond or go to Vice chair Burns thank you very much uh I I don't know why people raising their hands um we going in order um I just wanted to say I want to Echo

the sentiments of commissioner Carter um for a couple of reasons I when I first uh got elected you know we had these go areas right like they made sense to me because I was running for office so I looked them up and I knew what they were and I knew what I was coming into and I said with the manager I get that we're coming away from that because the public didn't know what these gold areas were like they say okay this uh assistant County managers over this goal where the community know what the goal was so it didn't you know but I kind of got to lean in with commissioner Carter just a little bit to say this would also be somewhat difficult to consume I'm not saying that we take anything away I I I actually don't have a problem with it like this because this is how we would have an em manuals I would just be interested seeing as how you all are doing a minimum of two I hope that that minimum is like you're saying we're going to do another one I would be really interested to see how the public would chew on this so that's the like I don't have a problem with this in a manual that I get I don't have a problem

with it if this is what we have uh out in our offices but to sit and go through because quite frankly you know some people have no idea what the register these goes through does or what facilities does and that is under an umbrella of an umbrella and then we going give them all these things so I I it would just be interesting to see what those public comment periods would go back if and maybe you all are not going to give them to to the public the way you gave it to us but I know we've seen pieces of this when we were doing our public policy Retreat and now we're seeing it again so I I just want you to be cognizant of like uh of the folks that we're working with I am I it's you you only hit another one I was going to hit I was I was somewhat concerned there are two things that I think should be in here here um that I didn't necessarily see but it's one of those things it's no different from our community benefits agreement that we do with companies that come in uh we have a myriad of things in there but people can pick and choose what they want to deal what they want to

do based on how much tax incented they want to get with us and we put a lot in there because we want people to know what's in our marrow I personally feel like two things that are in this board's marrow and that I would hope would be in the board's marrow going forward are one Environmental environmental sustainability and two minority and women participation on the contracts so those are the two things I just do not see explicitly highlighted if I am if we have done a disparity study and we are moving into implementation stage and we have project managers and now we are working with all these companies that we come in to hit a goal of 25% I personally whether that's Pion Sky I know we can't necessarily have quotas but if we are demanding that folks uh have that that we want people to do that who are coming in here we ourselves have to do it and we have to say it in everything that we put out that when we are doing business we are trying to work within the community with women with people of color because they make up a significant demographic in this County if we know that the city

8 million for uh battery uh charging stations if we know that the school board the school is now trying to um do is now trying to have more lectur buses if we see bus Rapid Transit is going to natural gas if we have now said that we want to be carbon neutral by 80 80% carbon neutral by 2030 100% by 2050 all of that needs to be in there somewhere so that people know that these are our values so those are the two I agree with environmental sustainability but um yeah I I I really need to see something about minority women in participation and some form of goal and I mean that is across the board and I'll stop here the reason why I'm throwing it out there it is not to bully any of the CMAs it is not to bully any of the dmas it is literally to say that we give out a billion dollars a year and I get it nobody saying that you haven't been doing your part nobody saying you haven't been making a best faith effort but we now Tammy's not even in the room we now have a person here who has

rebranded our mwb office and we need to make sure that everybody across the board is making best efforts to recruit locally and recruit equitably that's all I'm saying so those are my two that I I I just need to see it in there bigger than this commissioner Wendy Jacobs thank you Vice chairs thank you I me this is really important the work that you are doing um we have not updated our strategic plan in a long time and frankly we're at a very different time uh within the trajectory you know me being part of uh this organization for 11 years I feel like we're at a really pivotal time when there's all these things happening and we're really looking towards you know the next 20 years and all of these opportunities that we have with our growth um I think I'm going to just speak high level right now because I would like the opportunity to actually meet with you all to kind of go more

into detail but I mean I think echoing what everybody said that um because this is so complicated um um I I get it and um so one of one of my questions is is every single County department included or represented in specifically under each of these goal areas I mean I haven't counted them up and I see some listed but is that reflected are all the Departments literally listed in one of these areas you're going to see all the Departments listed as part of it but they may not be represented each individual objective area because these are our five year two to five year high overarching goals to reach and so every Department not might not be tied directly to it uh through the objective now there may be a measurement inside of the initiative level or at the business plan level where each department will be connected to it but you may not be represented directly by the objective

okay so under the goal focus areas I see like here responsible governance there's departments listed would we find every Department listed okay under under a focus area right yes okay I just want to make sure I just want to I think that's really important correct yes um and I want to Echo what um my fellow board members have said is I think the language needs to be as clear and simple and concrete and direct as possible um this is something I have trouble with personally so I know how hard it is um and I think like for me actually this one uh does a really good job of that um when I look at the objectives and then the initiatives underneath like the initiatives here are very concrete like they look like things that can be

measured but I don't necessarily see that in the other areas um I think it's important that we get away from some of the more abstract language and um and also you know really what are what are things that we initiatives that we can actually measure um and then also thinking about things that are already priorities of this board and that we're also investing in syst systemically and some of our adopted plans so I I do want to also lift up that I didn't see enough specifics about protecting our natural resources you know environmental you know um energy sustainability and resiliency um the other thing is I also want to ask you are you also reaching out specifically when you get when to each of the Departments to get their

direct feedback on the language that's really important because like I noticed for instance the one on there's a reference to for instance uh under I think it's Health go back is that Health oh there we are okay okay so I've you know again language is so important um number one c um related to substance use and opioid dependency like we wouldn't say dependency we would say opioid use disorder um so I think I think making sure that we reach out directly to the folks that are working in these areas about what is what is the best language to use to be sensitive to that um is going to be really really important um and and then I noticed even um related to the first one about

um uh forget the first item but um that we looked at if you could go back to the first one oh yeah High performing like the first one number one like for me one of the priorities needs to be diversify invest making Investments That diversify our tax base you know we talk about like we need to you know do a Sports plex expanded Convention Center so like those are that's like something I would want to see reflected in there first ifying our revenues so anyway I I that's what I say I would love to sit down and meet with you one onone um but I think this is this is a really great start because we we have to have something to all respond to um and this is really challenging and I appreciate the way you uh are digging into this and I I think this is a great start and I look forward to um working on this further thank you

thank you commissioner Jos you thank you all again very much for your feedback and yes we would love to meet one-on-one with each commissioner um in the near future thank you I have one last thing also I noticed that there's the other elected bodies like the shareff there City County departments and regor of Deeds um where would can we also integrate education somewhere to this like where that relationship is or yeah thank you thank you all so much again for this amazing presentation and all of the work I know hours and hours and hours went into this so thank you and I look forward to our individual conversations thank you so much with that we are going to be taking our break um we do have two items after break and then some Clos session so I want to ask do folks think a 20 minute break is good to get us uh 12:05 we

return okay so we will see everyone back at 12:05

e

e

e

e thank you everyone for staying with us during our break we are now going to move on to our next agenda item which is 24-65 the draft fy2 Durham annual Transit work program presentation uh with our Transit director Ellen Beckman and Ellen we have let's see one hour allocated to this item so I'm thinking do you need 40 minute presentation 20 minute questions sound good to you or okay 20 minute wait we're GNA do 20 minute presentation 20 minute questions

we'll do 2020 then okay ready to go all right um I'm Ellen Beckman Transportation director for Durham County I'm here to present the TW fy2 draft work program for the Durham County Transit plan um I have a team here and online actually um to help answer questions um Steve slosberg from go triangle he's our tax District administrator so doing the financial side of the development of this work program um and Jenny green again from the city of Durham who manages uh godder uh Mobility Services planning um online uh Jay hikis from go triangle is also on there he's a Services planner for go triangle and not sure his exact title and um lastly I know Brandy Miner Durham County's staff

working group administrator is on listening um unfortunately she has covid so she would be here presenting and we certainly couldn't have gotten here without her help so I want to acknowledge her her work all right so the work program is the annual budget for the Durham County Transit plan um those of you know that we adopted the new Durham County trans a plan last spring um so this is kind of our first time going through the budget process under that new framework um our our um governance policy says that the the work program now needs to be adopted by both the Durham County Board of Commissioners and the go triangle board so I want to um emphasize that throughout this work program we're trying to operationalize that Transit plan and we're not trying to change major things it was just adopted um this is really putting that plan into action with specific projects for the next year so similar to that we are

maintaining the key themes of that plan um those were improving the current system uh we did a lot of public engagement with the plan and you'll remember that what we heard from bus riders was how important it was to improve the bus system so more routes more frequency you know more reliability so that's maintained in this work program also so uh connecting the region with quick and reliable service and we have a placeholder in the plan and we have a placeholder in this work program for projects that help connect Durham to the region uh through you know be it bus rapid transit or Comm passenger rail or other types of major um Investments and then thirdly uh better experience at stops and stations so improving bus stops throughout the county and improving our Transit centers and then lastly um more projects sooner you know we're we're trying to accomplish both short-term projects that can be done more quickly and reserving

the capacity for longer term projects uh so this is my favorite pie chart in the whole plan um this kind of shows how uh the uh funding is allocated to specific projects and the top is from the Durham County Transit plan and the bottom is the updated version with these work program projects so they're very similar which is good uh first and foremost enhancing and extending bus services so more buses on the streets and then secondly that quick and reliable Regional connections and thirdly the bus stop improvements um there are some changes after that though uh that I'll talk about more as we talk about the specific projects but for the most part a lot of this is very consistent with that prioritization balance of projects that we set in the trains of plan um one other part of the Durham County Transit plan was um improving

Community Trust and improving Community Trust through more kind of uh better budget documents and uh transparency about what we're funding as well as an accountability structure so this work program starts to put that into action uh we have our Transit plan which is our vision plan and then the work program again the budget um you'll notice that the project sheets um incl for each project now include some um implementation and performance metrics um so that's a new element that was required by our new governance agreements um those project sheets will then go into project agreements that are approved and um we intend to track those implementation metrics uh we're developing a website transit tracker to keep track of all this um and it'll be displayed to the public and to words so this all kind of fits together um where we go from Vision plan

to specific projects and implementation and then of course the results hope will inform our next transit plan and our next budget uh so this is an example of those project sheets in the implementation metrics and performance metrics um I will say that this part is a work in progress like in some of the project sheets you'll see in development um so we'll be working with all of our partners to refine those over the next couple months um this is the draft document the final will come back in two months uh but here's an example uh the bus stop improvements program which is managed by go triangle um you remember last year uh we talked a lot about this and there were some goals set to deliver 50 stop improvements in fy2 and then 75 stop improvements uh in 26 and thereafter till all the bus stops and Duram are improved all right so by the numbers here's our uh fy2 work program budget so the vast

majority of the funding comes from the hasson sales tax for public transit and Durham um you'll notice compared to the Durham County Transit plan there is no vehicle rental tax included here as a revenue so this reflects the go triangle board's decision to retain that U so our total funding estimated for next year for revenue is about 45 million um when we updated the sales tax number for to reflect the actuals in the past year um and then um applied that long term in the financial model it resulted in about an 8% increase in overall revenues so that's good news we have more funding than what we anticipated during the transit plan a quick question Ellen with the 8% overall in increase in revenue does that reflect also the decrease of losing the vehicle registration the the vehicle rental tax I mean the rental tax yes it does okay

so that was about two and a half% of the revenues in the transit plan so that has gone away all right so um the overall um forecasted expenditures are shown here we have both capital projects and operating projects um you know a lot of the capital projects are infrastructure like bus stops vehicle acquisition and then we have a placeholder for regional connections we wanted to make sure that we had a placeholder in this work program for opportunities for um grants or um other opportunities that might arise uh to P to continue to pursue that and then uh secondly on the operating side we have a lot of Staff that's Transit plan Administration and tax District administration and then Transit operations is the running of the buses by um go triangle go Durham and Durham County access so here's the um expenditures by agency uh city of Durham and go triangle are the largest you know entities as

6 million fund balance transfer um I do want to note though that of course we modeled longterm all of our commitments of operations and uh capital projects through 2040 um one other enhancement to this work program is that we're now including a multi-year operating program and a capital Improvement program that wasn't there last year so that those are shown um in some tables in the back that show uh what we expect to need to spend through 2040 um Steve helps us model all this revenues and expenditures uh to make sure we can afford it long term and that any decisions today aren't precluding our ability to do projects later so um

that's the the cash flow kind of diagram shown here uh we are um meeting our adopted Financial policy for um all of the kind of reserves and that the um excess liquidity that we required in the transit plant so we're not changing any of that all of those financial policies are the same um and we we did want to make sure it was known that there are anticipated expenditures into the future especially as we do larger capital projects that um the fund balance today will be needed so by policy is that the fund balance line yeah so we had adopt a policy that said we would have a $10 million minimum fund balance oh my God but we have so much we have over 10 times that much today but you see that the the chart dips into the future I guess it does get close to the line um and

between fiscal year 35 and fiscal year 40 I guess it does get close to the line but it jumps right back up again you know which is good but I just like to spend the taxpayers dollars not every single penny but I don't know I just it's my thing fund balances always worry worries me anyway just point noted yeah and Alan I was going to jump in because I think that this slide can be misleading if you don't understand that the liquidity is because it is being budgeted for different projects along the way so I think that that's there needs to be some explanation about what liquidity is that is the money that's being used to actually fund all of these uh Investments so it's not like when and and also around the fund balance transfers that is because we have to have money at different points in time to actually Implement what's in the plan and especially some of the big Regional infrastructure projects are going to

take a huge amount of money so I would just say if you could give some thought to how to better like be able to explain the complexity of this and that it's just just not money just sitting there it's actually already been programmed in the budget yeah um certainly can U modify this slide um again like the multi-year operating program and capital Improvement program go through 2040 so that we are anticipating those costs and we did model it and that and we we actually had to revise it several times to get a model that worked um there were you know more requests than what is in this uh document we had to cut it back a little bit to make it work so I wouldn't say that we are hanging on to any funding unnecessarily like there is definitely a plan for it that's why the that's what the multi-year operating program and CIP

represent not to believe the point but why is our policy that you know that we are only going to have 10 million in fund balance if we need so much more than that maybe we need change our policy so one thing with the with the um policy is so we actually have a capital reserve fund balance that that authorizes that 5% of whatever rolling 10year capital is already reserved so on top of that for example this year we around 29 million will be reserved for the capital fund balance so the the financial policy that we all discussed was a 5% capital reserve fund balance and the equivalent of 90 days operating expens then on top of that working with the partners we discussed just in case there was ever recession let's say to have an an excess of another 10 million on top that's what that minimum fund balance policy is so there is a a fund balance already baked in and plus another 10 on top of that so it's actually adding very

conservative extra kind of cushion just in case so we wanted to make sure that you already have this amount that's allocated plus an extra 10 million so as you see in it looks like FY 35 36 the low point is 22 million but out of that 22 million excess liquidity is only another 12 million that you could spend on new projects uh the other thing I would say through FY 40 and Beyond part of as elen mentioned we only budgeted through 40 Projects so as the process uh the vision plan keeps going we will be obviously looking at 40 to 45 and that's where those excess funds will be drawn down so obviously continuation of Transit operations will the new capital projects and things like that so it grows but then the assumption is there'll be new projects to take its place okay all right um so talking about specific projects um we have a whole lot of continuing projects projects that

have already been funding funded and that will continue um and the operating projects are included in the document we are working working on the carryover capital project sheets they will be added that's um the appendix that says in development so I want to note that that will be coming forward with the final plan um and then U we updated some projects you know maybe the costs went up um maybe the scope changed and in some cases the project sponsor changed um and then there's some new projects and by new meaning they um weren't in a previous work program um they most of them were in our Transit plan though we expected them to happen they're just now starting this year um there are two proposed projects that were not so I'll talk about those a little bit later um so going back to the themes first of all um improving the current system so uh one of our big categories of funding are those bus operating

projects uh this work program uh reflects the priorities of the short range Transit plans so you know we velop the the vision plan and then go dur and go triangle look really closely at the specific services and do public Outreach with their Riders and determine like how exactly to to run the routes and what how how exactly number of buses are needed for which route and so like when they did that work it did change um the the fund the specific funding from the trains of plan to this work program so this I guess this work program incorporates those updates but in general it is consistent with those goals that we had to provide more frequency and more routes um it did it did result in a small change to those wedges so if you looked at that pie chart that's that's what resulted in those changes um for the enhanc and extend service in the more routes to more

places um and I I'll note that most of the changes here are on the G Durham system um the Durham system was able to restore ridership or restore service recently um you know those of you know we've had a bus driver shortage for long time um they they're making progress on that and they were able to restore ridership or restore service um in January and so now um with continued um additional uh bus drivers they'll be able to add more services so that that's reflected here um so as we U add more service we're going to need more U maintenance capacity so one of the significant changes here is to increase the transit plan share for improvements to the um godor fa Street bus operations and maintenance facility and um plan for the construction of a new separate PA

Transit maintenance facility so uh due to you know additional work work on the on the analysis about what is needed there the the cost has risen risen and we uh were able to increase the transit plan share from 5 million to 30 million for those two projects collectively um this would represent about 50% of the total estimated project cost so it will require additional funding either Federal funding or local funding to make up the other 50% um and that's resulted in a change to that operations and maintenance wedge um go triangle has also imp has plans to improve their maintenance facility U there really was no change though in the funding from the transit plant so I just wanted to note that both systems are working on making sure that the maintenance facilities are sufficient for the anticipated increased service um so the other one of the other

8 million Federal grant for that project so it's about you know 5050 or so uh Transit plan and Federal grant funding so that will improve the main downtown bus station um ad like um more covering uh to protect Riders from the element um Safety and Security upgrades and other types of things like that um the city of dorm is also uh starting a planning study to look at the Village Mobility Hub so Mobility Hub is kind of like the buzzword for major bus stop um everyone uses that term now it's like so if you hear that it's just it's a big bus stop uh where multiple routes maybe come together and you need you

5 million um and then thirdly um we we had funding in the work program for access to Transit projects in other words sidewalks that get provide you access to those bus stops and we also anticipated more um funding in the future years of the transit plan so this city of Durham has identified two projects for the for that those funds um a sidewalk on Junction Road and a sidewalk on Horton Road um the budget is consistent with the um previously adopted and forecasted Transit plan funding overall but now we kind of have specific projects identified and then um thirdly there are many other improvements being made to stops and stations um go triangle is

continuing to do the bus stop improvements program there was no real significant changes there but I just wanted to make sure it's known that that project long-term project will continue also go triangle um is working on improving their uh Regional Mobility Hub in RTP where the main hub for their system and then the city of Durham is continuing work on the fville and Holloway Corridor projects so uh fast and reliable regional service so this again was like the second biggest wedge in that pie chart um we have a placeholder in the model for a long-term project or projects uh we did extend the timeline um you know doing a a project like this takes a lot of time um there's a lot of planning work and design work that has to take place before construction can start um so we did reflect that in what is in the model um and then we're also reserving some annual funding for planning or Grant matching opportunities

2 million Federal grant for planning um I just received like draft agreements from F they've been kind of slow I think they got a lot of money and their processes are a little

slow in getting it out the door but um as soon as we get those agreements you know they'll come to this board and that project will get underway um we also in the fall we discussed that we could use potentially use some of this money as a match for an ncdot RTP Inner City passenger rail station so that's kind of an example of what that that um planning and Grant matching placeholder could be used for um opportunities like that arise we want to be able to contribute all right so there's two new projects that really were not contemplated in the transit plan uh but have been requested by the city of Durham and go triangle um they're both related to bus Fair subsidies so the city of Durham's project is called direct investment in Mobility Equity program um and they're asking us to um well I should say the city intends to continue fair for fre in fy2 but hasn't

9 million of city funding that's you know as you all will be working its way through their budget process um and then secondly go triangle go triangle does um intend to return to fairs in fy2 and they have proposed this Regional low-income Fair program so it would be across the whole region um from the transit plan funded 70% wake 20% Durham 10% orange and it would add 78,000 starting in fy2 25 um so this this would uh provide free bus passes to

people who are already receiving like public assistance um through various programs so um they would return to fairs but those who qualify for that would receive a a fairf free pass so these are new um and you know for the draft you know we're seeking any feedback on policies or principles you have around these two um programs okay so those are the projects um our process is that this work program was released for public comment last week uh we require a 21-day public comment period so it's open for the next three weeks um we um are going to be presenting to other boards as well to get their feedback uh the staff working group which is kind of the staff committee that develops this uh will be voting uh on a final version in a and it will come back to you in April for approval and then it will go to the go

triangle Board of Trustees so it has to be approved by the two boards um so it's on the durm County website it's on the go triangle go forward website um we're also doing some popup events at Durham station to engage with Transit writers over the next few weeks thank you so much questions thank you Ellen and team very detailed report uh I will see I'll start it on this end for questions starting with commissioner Wendy Jacobs yeah well first of all I just want to say fantastic work I mean 143 page uh update to the work plan I mean I I've just never seen anything like this so I am so impressed essed with all of the collaboration and all of the great work

um that is being done really in accordance with our new Transit plan it's it's just really exciting to see it being implemented um so one of my questions is around again similar to the update um or the 2023 report is um I know we're going to have these three popups at Durham station but I think it's important that we send this out directly to again the packs um the Coalition for affordable housing and Transit um Durham committee uh People's Alliance Inc um and ask people specifically please send this out to your membership um with that request so that we can get it out um so one of great to see that we're have higher revenues that we thought we were going to have even with the loss of some of our revenues um the budget for

this year even though it's higher is are the are the are we keeping are we basically following the plan in terms of generally what we had budgeted for that's that was one of my questions um on an annual like on a just a one year at a time basis we didn't I guess I don't think we ran those numbers specifically um we're more looking at the um through 2040 you know okay because you know in some years you may have be heavy in one area especially if you're doing one big Capital project right um and and light in another area but in the end um it evens out to be mostly consistent with that Transit plan okay well I just I guess I think that's going to be really important that we think about how we how we are tracking that to make sure that we CU you know we just saw that there you know the the amount doubled for Durham

station I mean you know there's just we're being asked to um contribute to some other things which is fine but I I was that was one of my questions when I was reading this and I also did look through the 143 page plan and I looked at the budgets and I was you know so I think that tracking if that we can have some way of really tracking uh because it's so complicated even even the budget that you have in there that compares last year um last year's budget and this year's expenditure I noticed like the capital was a lot lower this year than it was last year uh for the city um but anyway so I think just trying to I I'll feel better knowing that we are somehow have some way keep making sure we're staying in the ballpark and I think the whole concept of the putting money aside

to the fund balance is going to be really important to communicate with people because what you're going to get is you're going to get well why why are we not spending that money now and I think explaining that that is intentional so that we can afford some of these really really big infrastructure needs that we're going to have especially you know hopefully we're going to be able to do brt after we do this uh bests speed and reliability project and hopefully we're going to keep having some opportunities to match some federal Railway Railway grants to implement passenger rail but we I think it's that's going to be important to communicate um on the slides and in the presentation um so um and you know in terms of the two new things that you were asking about for possible funding I totally support us supporting um Fair equity and

making sure that Transit is accessible and affordable to all people so I I think that's great um um the project pages that you have at the end I noticed there's still it's in progress but especially around the ad administrative positions like kind of tracking that I think is going to be really important for us to show how is that money being used and how are we measuring that it's money well spent and all that um I I wanted to also lift up that with the region uh the regional transit um the RTP Regional hub that there's also ncdot rail division has included funding for that um for that Hub as part of one of their

grants and then the um ncrr actually is also included in one of their Grant proposals studying double tracking from RTP to East in um to the E I guess I don't know how far goes into East Durham but the East Durham tracking doing double tracking so I think that's really significant that we also are seeing this partnership and and other agencies um helping us and having that Outlook so um I I think that's that's really exciting um and also the Derm Transit track when do you think that might be up and running I hope to bring a contract for approval next month I'm we're close you know we've selected a consultant and

we're we're working on the agenda item so wow should that is fantastic you know we'll be using a consultant that has developed these sorts of um dashboards and other communities and um has a lot of experience so they had a lot of good ideas on excited about that I mean that that could be to get to your points on this um you know we intend to that that could incorporate the actual expenditure of dollars and report on that you know every uh what we we said we were going to update that twice a year so you'll have that once we get this all in place hopefully we'll have that um up and in a kind of easily accessible um website fantastic great work and I love the map maps on the bus routs too so great work at Durham County also worked on those so great thank you to everyone who's made such done such great work for our community thank you commissioner

Wendy Jacobs by sh burs I'll be really quick and um because I know we got other presentations and other folks want to go uh so I'mma try to do yes and no questions if that's helpful for y'all and not pontificate um number one I know that we have um our transit public comment that's open I know you highlighted that it closes on like the 21st I just want to know like how is it going are we seeing people engage with it because I agree with the suggestions we have but are we seeing people click on it are we seeing comments coming in I do not know that information I can get back to you it was went live late last week right um so you know the first week is usually when people want to jump on something and then like the last week we so I'm all about ramping up our efforts but I was just curious to see what it was so far my next one um so I asked this SL the other week at the special tax board meeting for go triangle and I know that we braid funding for all of these projects that we work on but what I did want to ask was so one of the vehicle

tax has been sitting at $5 since like 1970 80 something whatever um it doesn't reflect like inflationary uh costs that have gone up and so if it was um indexed based on inflation it' probably be $122 right thank you for the affirmative nod did my homework before I came um so it would be $12 but go triangle is trying to Lobby the general assembly to bring it up to $7 because of course folks would have sticker shock if we shot it up to 12 so my question here I know that I'm in support of it I know some of the other County Commissioners on other boards when we were talking about it it was somewhat foreign to them my question kind of sort of for y'all or at least for the transit the staff uh the staff committee that makes recommendations are you all working with gold triangle to also put forth a position that we need to move it up to seven because that's like $2 million that we're leaving on the table I think just that additional $2 would net us $2 million more annually so are we as a staff working group uh pushing

that narrative also so go triangle um currently the Durham Transit plant does have a $7 registration fee and a $3 right we could bring back that was comment to go triangle staff or a leadership to let them know that if as they're going through that process to think about the transit plans too I don't know that answer if that's part of the conversation so we can definitely relay that right so that one is seven there's one that's five that should be 12 and we're trying to up at seven maybe I'm getting that one wrong but no thank you for that that's helpful but I do think we all should be on the same page and go triangle just shouldn't be going over to the general assembly without it's one thing if our board does it it's another thing if our working group does it I think we'll get some we'll get some more traction if collectively the entire region agrees we need to move this feet up because we haven't changed it since before I was born I will take that message back that's something to be said um I think the only other thing I want to throw out there I noted you gave us a chart last time Ellen on uh the and it was I

2 million for um for uh the East Durham um uh project with our our train stops I guess I know I'm saying it wrong um but just from you what do you envision the end go being um that's a pretty busy one like every every time I drive over this

gonna sound weird I think to myself Ellen going to figure this out with that $1 million that she had like I go through that you know to head home and there some days we we had a question about what were some of the improvements we were making um we were at H and career center and we had some questions like what improvements are being made in East dur we talked about housing commissioner Wendy Jacobs brought up the the grocery store and I brought up and I did bring up um this stop but I was like I don't even know what the end goal would be and not that we have to have one but it's a thought process that you know we're gonna women a Bruce to place this thing and like put up a wall or is it that we're just going to make it safer or we're going to cut off some of the tracks like what are the I saw some of y'all laughing y'all got my reference so yeah to put up a wall but what what is the thought process what do we think comes out of that feasibility St uh study for that intersection because it's rough yeah uh well the intention is to improve safety the three railroad crossings right there's a history of crashes at those three Crossings um the train causes delays um you know

unreliable travel times for people as well um so Our intention is to improve safety first and foremost that's how the funding was um identified um you know we are going to do a planning study right and that involves a lot of community engagement right right starting with Community engagement about what those goals are um of course safety we know is going to be one of them but um we want to also understand the bigger context that we're working in and how uh changes to those Crossings could affect um residents businesses um other aspects you know um so so you know I can't say definitively today what the outcome is going to be right but you're my expert so I got to ask you sometimes like what do you foresee because I don't have the lens that you have right so y'all would not with us in Indiana I asked about two questions about bus Rapid Transit and Ellen said do you want to geek out about bus Rapid Transit I

said yeah I couldn't join in but then I realized well if I have any questions this is who I need to ask so but no um I I will um I'mma stop there uh this one I will throw out I will I was going to hold on this one but we got to see some of the bus rapid TR I know we're doing our study to figure out how we're going to connect with it I would IM imagine that maybe we would connect the same way that way county is do you envision and because this is what I'm envisioning I got to see one of the buses it was ran off of natural gas do you envision that that's what our bus Rapid Transit might look like at the end of the study and let me know if I'm getting you in trouble by asking that the public buses um yeah the articulated bus the yes I saw I saw that as well all right um yeah that could be what ends up being a place in Durham County like we we are not sure at this point like we have to do the study um I do know that um and Jenny can can confirm this um that the improvements at Durham station could accommodate buses like that that's my

understanding in the future get in trouble Jenny get in trouble yeah Jenny green um city of Durham Transportation uh the improvements at Durham station are set up for future um electrification and and charging if needed and U the longer articulated buses oh yes yes there isace articulated because that was weird to look at okay I will leave it alone now but thank you to answer all of M thank you Vice chair Burns commissioner Carter this has been a truly informative um report and really appreciate it agree with everything my colleagues have said along those lines so thank you um and I think the fact that we have an accountability structure is remarkable and I love it and you know it'd be great if we could figure out how to have more accountability structures for the things um not related to Transit but just you know related to other services that the county provides and other plans that we're trying to implement I love the project sheets and I wanted to ask one

question about those um and it's related to I'll start with this question question the project sheet question is a smaller subset of this question which is actually this is a work program and and the plan that we are have is I feel like it's not exactly a Transit plan it's more like a Transit tax plan but that be fair to say because we don't really know what else is planned right that the city is funding separately that's not included here is is that a fair yeah I mean this is the budget document that is specific to the three um countywide fees that we have that are required to be spent on public transit right so the sales tax the $3 vehicle registration fee and the $7 fee do you think we'll ever have is there any appetite for having an actual Transit plan that incorporates um all of the transit programming that we have in the city of Durham including go triangle go Durham

the city's funded you know programs over and under over and above this I guess existing Services um sidewalks includes all the sidewalks people ask all the time questions about sidewalks would be great if we have project sheets on sidewalks that was my other question was do we have any accountability structure for things like that that are somewhat outside of our Transit tax and other smaller um sources of income plan yeah I mean I would say the no's plans are the most most comprehensive that we have in the region they adopt a CTP which is unconstrained financially longterm that's a good point an MTP which is the next you know 20 to 30 years and incorporates all revenues um anticipated so that that might be the closest to what you're talking about and it also includes all modes Transportation yeah okay um Point well

taken yeah so you know there's other Revenue sources like the state funds City funds and um this is just related to the County Transit funds okay could um someone talk about the par Transit improvements that are in the work plan and um you know access and go Durham connects with microtransit I just have been hearing that I've been hearing some desire for uh faster you know P improve faster results around parat transit or maybe even increased investment uh sure I can speak to that um uh the city uh right now in the fy2 24 work program has um is is conducting a study um a Paratransit Improvement study um that study is going to conclude this summer with some recommendations um to come out of it and

um in future years the in this in this work program um there is funding um that has been set aside from the Durham County Transit plan for those improvements on the parat transit service the um Durham G Durham access and Durham County access programs and do you expect those will be enhanced services in the same way we're trying to enhance our bus you know service that there'll be more frequent and more routes um reaching more people that kind of thing is that what you expect to come out of the Transit parat Transit study we hear we hear a lot um from customers about um the need to improve customer service so um providing same day bookings providing um you know faster response time shorter rides things like that so those are um key areas where we're trying to improve the service can't wait to see the results of the study great thank you for that um good answer um

um so one other question um is there a way let's say a developer wants to profer a bus stop right as part of their development plan but the bus stop is not um one that's ongo triangles list um is there a way for the city of Durham and Durham County to receive that bus stop even though it's not on the list of bus stops that are um you targeted for improvement this will be a new new bus stop Yes this the question came up at a meeting I was at okay and um maybe later you could just let me know how what is that mechanism you don't have to necessarily tell me now but yes I don't I'm not familiar with the exact details of that but I can get you in touch with the right person great thank you and I mean I would say our goal is to improve every bus stop and D we said that throughout the trans of plan process so we can't do that all at once right go triangle is looking at specific stops each year um but our goal long term is

to improve improve all of them well this was actually a new bus stop that was you this is this is not a hypothetical question it came up um and so I'm glad to know there is a way that we can accept the construction of a bus stop by developer yeah we have um the the uh we have a construction team for Transit improvements and so they work directly um to do inspections and so that it's part of that acceptance process thank you thank you commissioner Carter commissioner Howton thank you madam chair so I get to see this twice on the seventh again um my question that I'll ask today is about your the revenue I wanted to know if the the tax dollars is included in that that the board voted on had to do with wake is it included in the total

amount so the vehicle rental uh fee is not included in next year's uh budget next year's Durham County budget um because of the decision of the go triangle board um I don't Stephen would have to speak to wake and orange but yeah so um right now with orange it is also not included uh uh based on the uh go triangle board's uh decision to retain it wake there's discussions to actually release their draft plan with the option of it in and out so included and excluded so when that gets released you'll see there will be financial data that shows with the inclusion and without the inclusion there's still discussion obviously between uh Wake County the Campo which is the capital area n and go triangle staff on um the path forward but the goal is to have a decision or just really a one clear path forward by the

recommended plan so it follows a very similar process where draft plan goes out public comment comes back in the technical committee the staff working group here the uh Tac which is Transit planning advisory Commission in uh wake we'll have a a conversation based on public feedback based on any adjustments and then put out a recommended plan so the goal and the hope is by the recommended plan to have a decision of what will be if it's included and not included okay thank you very much thanks for your presentation and thanks that I will get to see it again thank you policy around what policy around Transit Equity yeah Helen said she want some feedback on that but maybe that's for another day um I mean you can think about it as well I get back to yeah to me later um I know that was one of the new programs that was added yeah and it but the

4 million or so okay a year okay all right um I also support you know doing are making fair at a rate accessible I think we all do I guess the question would be do we make it fair free for everyone or is it like way Count's doing more or go triangles doing

on more of a sliding scale kind of thing so that would be the question and I don't know the answer yeah I mean the systems have approached this in different ways yeah so I could see merits to both and I don't know which one I would support at this point Thank You commissioner Carter um thank you so much Ellen again um I think yeah to commissioner Carter's point I'm sure we can all continue to be in conversation with you and share feedback around the transit Equity piece and all of it but this is really amazing to see all of the detail that has really gone in uh this and I concur with commissioner Wendy Jacobs about trying to get this information out as much as possible to different Community groups thank you right thank you we'll be back in couple months with the final version wonderful thanks thank you that brings us to our final discussion item for today 24-

z56 presentation from the Museum of Life and Science capital projects update um we have 30 minutes allocated for this presentation so we'll do the same we've been doing 20 minute presentation 10minute questions hello Carrie dish Simone Roy you'll have to press the button on your mic and you gotta get a little up close and personal with it this button all right well um I wanted to first start by thanking all of you the Commissioners County Manager Dr so and um all the county staff for the the intense support that you've offered this Museum not just in the years that I've been here which almost three years now kind of hard to believe but indeed since the museum um opened so we want to um

start by introducing the team I have with me today it's an amazing team um our newest member um Simone Guthrie is our new VP for marketing and we've got with us daa Jan who has recently been promoted to be RVP for advancement and I have with me somebody who I I believe may not need an intro um Roy Griffith who has been designing exhibitions at the museum for 30 years now I mean a moment of Applause and pause doesn't like that very much but it's well deserved so today we just wanted to give you a little bit of update on on um closing out the previous Bond um projects and give you a little bit of a taste of where we are to date on the most recent bond which we're very excited to kick off now do I have the ability to forward this well let me do

it then we're then gonna let you know um just a little bit of our um recent accomplishments we want to spend a bit of time talking about our community engagement a little peek at where we're going in the future and of course along the way any questions you have we're really excited to be here and share with you where we are so we have completed all of our 2016 Bond projects um as you'll remember those were um infrastructure upgrades um increasing some of our operational resources and of course expanding on our play-based learning ethos um I hope all of you have had a chance to come out and experience these firsthand or have something on the calendar to do so um we've got our studio Earth which is um an outdoor classroom um supporting um our Earth moves exhibit parking deck allowed us to take our um our guests cars from out of the surrounding neighborhoods and bring them

25 million in additional funding to support the projects that you invested in to start um of course those also helped us to finish out all of

these Bond projects which I don't need to tell you um but I'll remind you that those projects were all um budgeted for and and committed to long before covid and so we were able to complete all those projects through that those fundraising efforts as originally planned and we're incredibly proud of that those those costs went up in the range of 30% across the board we have a new Warehouse um play to learn is a huge hit with the under five crowd and explore the wild is allows our visitors to get out um a lot closer to our Urban Wetlands on campus um I called Roy out because um his team is exceptional and the whole Community um here should be aware of the amazing work that's done at the Museum of Life and Science um year in and year

out we were just awarded two major International Design Awards for two of the projects that um we completed thank thanks to bond dollars so we were awarded a silver um for Earth moves in cultural and Architectural design for a science center again that is an international award and our exhibits go up against any exhibits at any Museum anywhere in the world um I'd like to point out that those designs also go up against some of the most major exhibition design companies working today and we have our design team inhouse so these exhibits are designed for our guests for our community designed for um our campus to enhance the experience that we already have um and we are privileged to have the team working on them that we do have um our bronze medal was awarded for play to learn which um as you'll know essentially tripled the amount of space

that we're offering to Early Childhood Learners at the Museum um I think you'll see a little bit later the numbers coming in and taking advantage of our free under three um program um admissions effort has gone through the roof in the in the um in recent years all right what let's get on here so a little um a little look at what's coming up through the 2022 Bond projects um as you recall we're really looking at expanding our infrastructure to support our growing VIs visitorship um we've got a cafe coming up we are improving our meeting space on campus um taking on a couple of exhibitions that really need some some enhancement and some upgrading and we've got a lot of um sustainability efforts that we're leaning into as well putting on photovoltaic arrays and looking at um

enhancing our dark sky compliant lighting um we are we are well underway in developing Our Cafe um specifically looking at giving more Four Season um seating available for our guests but um one of the things that we're most excited or at least I am Roy are you most excited too great um we're pursuing the living building challenge with which is um the gold standard in executing building from a um climate from a sustainability perspective perspective across the world and we're looking to be certified um and in the process we're bringing in a lot of our vendors a lot of the folks that we work at work with locally and we're really looking for this building to be um an example for our community so that more people are building in this sustainable method and of course are being a learning

environment we look forward to sharing all the learnings that come out of this this building project we've got our climate and sustainability um exhibit um growth underway we've actually opened our Minimate exhibit which is a new way that we're approaching exhibit design and again I want to say for um somebody who's been doing this work for 30 years it never ceases to amaze me the level of innovation and openness to change and process that Roy and his team bring so this climate and sustainability exhibit is actually being designed in um in the moment we're opening up the design process to our community and so we're inviting um the public to come in to weigh in on the exhibits as we design them that's something we would normally do for two or three years behind the scenes we'd get it perfect and then we'd roll it out we're kind of leaning into a topic that is critical that's um very

it's resonating with our visitors right now and so we want to in explore that with them them right now second secondly we're working on our biotechnology exhibit you as a um as a and as as an educational institution sitting here in the the Research Triangle we're really looking forward to bringing all that this community has to offer in terms of the scientific and te technological advancements that are taking place on a regular basis we are in the process of building that exhibit working with a lot of local um local resources Lo local teams to help us with that that'll be on the second floor just to give you a little bit of a review over the last year it was a record-breaking year for attendance um 580,000 visitors that's up 880,000 from the previous year um we try to be as accessible as we can be and we're

looking for more ways to do that but in the meantime we continue to offer those 22 community days um we welcome in our Durham um Durham Public Schools field trips for free we welcome in Educators and I mentioned that we are free for those under three and with our new playto learn space we're really serving the community excessively in this way what was our number on that daa number free under three this year we'll bring it back um additionally we've got over a thousand IGN IGN um households ignite membership households to remind you these are the um memberships that we offer to um families that are Iden identified through our Community Partners those are $ five memberships you can see they led to 14,000 visits so those those members are visiting the museum 14 times a year on average the people who need to engage at

the Museum are being given access and then of course we've got our camps we've got our school programs and we do a lot of programming for the community this past weekend we just had our black excellence and science on Sunday we welcomed everybody in all right um again from a community engagement perspective really wanted to give you some more visibility to that um 20 ignite learning Partners we'll get to a slide that will show you um um the names of some of who those who those folks are but in addition we've been working with NASA we've been given a um a NASA grant for sparking interests we're raising um raising interest in stem education among Spanish-speaking families we have been engaging extensively in climate um Communications with our communities and of course we are always looking for more ways to lean in and support our colleagues at Durham

Public Schools this is just I think think an impressive slide that shows you just how deep our relationships go across the community um in terms of identifying those families that can best benefit from um from membership level um access level memberships um the Durham children's initiative just brought a group over to experience our black science in excellence yesterday we're always looking for more ways to develop further programming in in addition to um to offering memberships for this group we talked about that this NASA Grant um is allowed us most recently to bring 54 Spanish-speaking um Duram mites up to NASA Langley um that research center is only open to the public once every five years and through this NASA Grant we're partnering with El Centro espano and El futuro to help identif um create programs and programming with those

communities that will in turn be a model for organizations Ser serving Spanish speaking communities across the country um the importance of the work we're doing there is underlined by the fact that um NASA Deputy Administrator Dr Pamela melroy came down and visited the museum with um representative fushi this year so we're we're top of mind for our friends at Nasa again leadership and climate we've got our third um North Carolina wide youth climate Summit coming up this month um mayor uh mayor Leonardo is coming to welcome them as is um Reed Wilson from the state um this program is growing every year we're excited to make it um a beacon for ch um kids youth these are high school students from across the state who come um and explore um what's happening from a climate ter perspective um with University level um lectures they

are developing plans that they then bring home um to their home communities we're also working with Central pin's um Regional Council in developing our climate action plan for the region uh we welcomed members of the community just last week it was the largest of four Community engagement conversations that were put together and we're looking forward to supporting them and working with them to develop this EPA funded plan um and then finally the exhibition that I was talking about two programs I thought I'd highlight with um from Durham Public Schools our first our Sparks after school program which is a partnership with um bioc Christ Pharmaceuticals so it's a public private partnership in which um members of the team at bioc Christ are actually trained by by our our Educators and commit to working with Brogden middle schoolers for a whole year it's a mentorship program it's free for students um and it's a wonderful

partnership for us with um with local community um businesses and we're looking to expand that program as well another program we're working on with DPS um came out of a huge success last year um Museum Educators were brought into fifth grade science classrooms once a week they were teaching science on Wednesdays for three classes in those classrooms rooms the end of grade science efficiency proficiency grew anywhere from 8% to 38% depending on the classroom and that's compared to growth of 3% for um the rest of DPS or 2% growth North Carolina wide so we're expanding that program this year Museum educators are going to be coming into five fifth grade classes now across DPS and we're very excited about the outcomes for that program a little a little bit um of insight about where where we're heading um ironically maybe I don't know maybe

5 miles or 7 miles from the Museum of Life and science it's an opportunity for us to create accessibility for broader member

broader um swath of our community um we're also looking at additional ways to expand our accessibility um we're looking at um partnership programs that are National from a museum perspective and hope to have some news for you on that in the coming months as I mentioned we're looking at improving our dark sky compliant outdoor lighting we feel like that will allow us to potentially expand accessibility through changing our hours and offering um maybe hours that get into the evening after work for some folks and of course we're looking at expanding our teen and adult programming at the Museum as well well we're deeply grateful for the County's um financial support we are also not resting on that Laurel we we have invested in disa and her team we've got an amazing um development team in place and we're looking at growing those efforts we're stewarding donors um we're really seeking Grant support in an

outsized way I think our grant um our grant dollars have grown by 30% this year we're also as always looking at ways to ensure that we um we can increase our earned income for the museum and then you may have heard that um through support of Mike Woodard at the state level we did um we did receive a million doll State appropriation to help help us um keep the roof keep the roof working at The Butterfly House that Butterfly House is almost 25 years old so and then in addition from a future Focus perspective this handy little graph um just demonstrates um the the yellow bars are showing you where are um where our development the development is of our current campus and you'll see we've got a about 5% left of our campus to develop we're we're hitting um we're hitting

capacity there and you can see Museum of Life and science's growth trajectory has really been a combination of Durham County's growth and wake County's growth over the year and with that projection we're really um we really want to ensure that we're able to continue to support our growing and diversifying community and so um we're going to be exploring we're heading into a strategic planning process so we're going to be thinking about what are some of the ways that we can continue to grow despite our landlocked 84 acre campus that we've got there so just a little visibility for you on kind of where we are as an institution and um just to leave you with the thought of um the day which is deep gratitude to the county to all of you for supporting the museum um over the years and to open it up for any comments or questions you might have for us we'd appreciate your your input thank you so much Carrie for this

presentation so great to see y'all Roy disa Simone um I'm a huge supporter of the museum outside of even the commission just personally for a family love that we have this community resource probably been there almost like every other weekend for the past couple of months because of that Play and Learn space um is so convenient and safe uh for the little one so thank you to that also just wanted to before I pass it off to any questions you guys condolences I know I follow your social media very closely I know you've had a couple of passings uh on the animal team so condolences for Gus and Miss Piggy uh I'm going to miss seeing them also but glad that we have Murray joining the family he's very sweet to see uh playing in the new enclosure um I didn't have any questions I think this is amazing I'm just really excited to see how y'all implement the

new Bond uh and create more spaces because I think even as a member I haven't even explored every single part of the museum I feel like I'm seeing a new exhibit every single time um so this G to be really great to see how you guys use the new Bond funding Vice chair Burns well one um I I I can't go every weekend like commissioner Al because my niece actually believes that that really big spider is real and I haven't burst a bubble yet so um it's going to come a day where I'mma come a calling and I'mma need y'all to just make up a spider cuz she actually thinks that it's real from a photo and wants to see it but um if y'all have a phone number for Harry Potter I'd appreciate it um but I I do want to highlight just a couple of things really quickly because y'all are last and then y'all can run one of course we going to give like a big shout out to Roy for all he's done but K we kind of got to give you one too like I remember when we I was on the interview team I I was I was newly elected but I I

don't think y'all I want to just highlight for the public and everybody else that 580,000 uh uh visitation rate that's up 880,000 that really has a lot to do with you just being very open I can remember you know after the first couple of meetings I think when you and I had our first one onone I mean it's black history month so I'mma Be black like she was the first person to invite the Chancellor from nccu to the museum that makes absolutely no sense to me that we brought somebody in from the outside and she was the first person to say what do you mean you haven't been to this Museum what do you mean nobody's ever invited you there and so she came in here with this really culturally competent lens and when when Javon uh elevated to you yes it's one of those this museum is open to All Families but there are some teachers who never brought their kids to the museum didn't even know that access was possible and we said okay if we do a full court press so look what happened these $5 memberships you right it's only a th000 14,000 visits if you give people

access they will come and I I was on my that I had to do a bunch of a bunch of different churches but my sister and two of my nieces they were at the black Excellence event it was amazing like I literally got there at the end and so just thank you for all that culturally confident work I have a million other questions but since you have a a captive audience I just want you to speak to two things number one you and I both know what Bill I'm talking about at the general assembly where there's another Children's Museum that is trying to position themselves as the Children's Museum of choice in the state of North Carolina no it is not Marbles and it's not us but it should be us and how do you how do you want us to help you engage and move the needle at a general assembly so that you all are not pushed I'll say it it's the kids zone in Chapel Hill which is nowhere near as big as our music museum has nowhere near as much work and um and in programs and animals just it's not it's not our Museum so they they're trying to position themselves as a museum of choice car needs our help because they're going after a big chunk of money and I

personally think we're in a better position to get it so that's one and then number two uh and I bring that up because I do remember that million dollars that Mike Wood went out and got for us we went to a bunch of people in the delegation but that's who went and got it and then I guess the second part of that I I I'll let you do that one and then if we have time I'll come back to it but that's the one I want you to kind of elevate here how we can be more supportive because you've been a good Steward of our money I believe in my heart you're going to be a great Steward of State money and how can we help you position yourself to get access to it well thank you for bringing that up commissioner Burns and thank you for your service on the board um we're still exploring exactly the way we want to approach the the Kid Zoo um um um effort to um to become a state the state Children's Museum my understanding is that they are not looking for um the dollars to support they're not looking

to operationally be the state Children's Museum in other words they would not come up under read or report in they're just they're looking for a designation in the same way there's a designation of as a theater I actually have an invitation out to the Kid Zoo executive director to come over the museum and walk and talk and offer them the opportunity to share a little bit more but what I would encourage everyone to do who maybe hasn't is to just look at the um at the statement that is on the kidso website um in terms of their stating where they're they're looking to go and it they they Northstar sounds a lot like the Museum of Life and Science and I believe that you know as a community we should invest our dollars appropriately for the for the community so that more can go to programming less to overhead so I'm interested in in being a partner with them to understand

how we can we can ensure we're we're we're serving the broadest amount of the community without doubling doubling down on dollars that um that are redundant Goa so no that's helpful and that's a really political way to say that that's why they pay you the big bucks and so I I do want to throw out there this one last thing cuz you did say something about the bus stops and I'm trying to think about where that closest bus stop is at the top of the hill where you can't go down I hate Ellen's not here so any direction that you can give us on that one because adding additional bus stops like we kind of already have track the improvements we're gonna make I don't know I can't speak for Ellen because she's not here but I I actually think it's closer cuz the uh the Chapel Hill Durham Express rest if I'm not mistaken is actually a block closer than what you think it is so it is less than S miles if somebody from downtown dur want to get to that one so how is it that we're make it's a lot easier to get there than elsewhere and my last thing on access since you've been there I can remember there was a time and I think I

told you this people would have parties at the Museum and then they kind of locked a lot of that down and then under your leadership I just want to say thank you publicly for opening up the museum to nonprofit no matter what size a lot of y'all don't know this the durm success Summit which we gave funding to they did a fundraiser there uh Equity before birth which is ran by Joy um gosh I'm I'm Joy Spencer one of the joy Spencer thank you had their fundraiser that's a party party and then you did a fashion show for Mark Taylor designs and I don't know if a lot of y'all know that based on the photos he got there he's now presenting at Fashion week next week we do not have a lot of really great fany spaces that open up their doors to small and mediumsized black entrepreneurs and nonprofits and you have had absolutely no problem opening up your doors and letting folks raise money in there and also highlight the good work that they're doing so I just want to publicly say thank you for that because that is not something that Dar has been used to uh before you got here

and I'm done thank you commissioner Burns it's our pleasure thank you sh burs missionary Wendy Jacobs thank thank you so much for this report it's really great um similar to Durham Tech uh for us to be able to get this check in with you all and see how the bond money is being used and so that the public can see uh that you are being great stewards of that money and making really great Investments and congratulations on the well-deserved awards that you have gotten um I'm really thrilled to see um you know the performance metrics that you I mean the outcomes and and the data that you're sharing with us um it is fantastic um so related to the under three population know a lot of also a lot of again alignment with what you all are doing with our uh goals and values and

priorities you know around you know our early childhood action plan and supporting early childhood and and um all of that so I was wondering do you know that what the participation is like for insurance um or what if you could tell us more about the relationship with like Durham prek providers and um Early Head Start and just kind of the child care centers um that we have in Durham because that's of course for foury olds uh the Durham prek is foury olds right and and um Early Head Start is one of our ignite Partners um and so in addition to offering those memberships we do um offer we've been developing programming I think it's on a quarterly basis for our ignite um members to bring groups of those families together because um a lot um what we find is um there I call it

The Thomas Crown effect where people think oh I can't bring this two-year-old it's a it's a glamorous Museum and and no you should bring your two-year-old it's made for your two-year-old so our ignite Community Partners are critical in bringing um in bringing those families in and giving them access and have and giving them visibility to the fact that that museum is a place they belong and their young child belongs um so we're doing that we provide as soon as um Universal prek went into effect we we extended the same um free field trip accessibility to those groups um as we did with um Durham public schools and um we've we've been actively working to um help um even before we opened play to learn we were offering to do um we shared signage about how to register for for Durham prek um and we

have been speaking with um Durham uh dur Public Schools about um supporting us putting a full-time facilitator in that space um to help with that is that answering your question about yeah I just I just you know I think it's important that we keep maintaining those relationships and especially as new providers come into durm prek and um you know I just want to make I think that's a great way for us to really connect um you know across systems sure Comm yeah commissioner Wendy Jacobs you also mentioned the Early Childhood action plan and I do not believe the museum in the past uh was sitting on in that group or and so that would be something that we would love to have somebody represent the museum in those discussions we want to be wherever there's discussion going on about education most particularly early childhood education we'd love to

be at the table to support and we have a new new Early Childhood um coordinator so if um Madam manager if we could make sure that those The Early Childhood coordinator gets the connection um because I was also wondering about the ignite referrals how many are coming from Durham County social workers um folks in Cooperative Extension who are working with families Public Health uh staff who are working with families um and even our immigrant and Refugee coordinator um I just think there could be a really good pipeline yes I can't tell you off the top of my head how many are coming through those channels but we can certainly look into it and we can we can follow up with you on that okay great um I was also I looked up the living building challenge that is the coolest thing right I yes like you all can now be setting an example for us you know because we do like the lead and all of that but that is that is just even so

here you are setting setting the bar for for everybody um do you in terms of revenues and I hear what you're saying you guys need other sources revenues do you feel like the cafe will be a potential um I don't know how you guys have thought about the cafe but even and and you know I went to you guys had a holiday thing you know the adult programming like just I don't know is there a potential for that to be a good Revenue Source uh well it is already a good Revenue Source in the last year we did add a beer and wine Garden at the Museum and so um people have been availing themselves of that and with little to know disturbance that we've identified um I think having seating that is more amendable to people all year round so when it gets very cold and when it's very hot will probably lead to more sales at the

cafe we're we're envisioning projections over the the growth of the um the five years after which we opened to almost double fantastic um and also just want to throw I really love your focus now also on Youth and teens and I just want to mention we have a Durham city county office on youth that to connect with them um on that um uh Laura Kil is the director of that and they have you know another opportunity for connections and also suggest that you do follow up with Ellen Beckman our transportation director because one of the things that's was in our new transer program that we just looked at and I didn't ask about this today but there is in there was a new on demand service for

Durham and it had education listed on there the purpose was one of the purposes was education so and this is to like pay for Lift rides so you know is there an opportunity that for certain parents um who may be within meet some of these eligibility could you know get a free Uber lift ride for them and their children to the museum um so that's that's something that I suggest you talk to Ellen about this is a new program uh for the work plan thank you commissioner Carter then commissioner howon well thanks for the fun and fascinating presentation um I can honestly say that I think that you all are doing the best job with sort of community outreach and um all the different ways in which you're trying to increase accessibility to the opportunities that the museum provides um it it's it's the it's the

best Outreach and effort I've seen since I've been a commissioner and I really really appreciate that very much you know it is publicly funded as you say and should be accessible and really think you all believe in that and are um making it happen so thanks um and I love everything you're doing around the climate and sustainability and the the livings building you know setting the bar higher for us all um and your future Focus I mean you clearly are Visionaries and you love science and you love people and you love making it happen and thank you so much we're proud we're proud to be part of a community that has you thank you commissioner Carter thank you so hello hello thank you so much for your presentation is absolutely fabulous um there's one question I had the the ignite program I'm glad that to hear that that's still in operation what I didn't hear and you

probably said it I what's the percentage of kids that are showing up do you have a number of young people that's using that program the number of the total people at the museum for the ignite program program the ignite program I think we said we had 14,000 family visits through the our ignite membership um so that's 14,000 visits out of 580,000 visits um that doesn't include Durham County days I there are a lot of other um um accessibility programs that we have in place but for that one particular the measure that we're I I will say that we are trying to um live up to for ignite um memberships is we had set the goal of having our ignite memberships at about 10% of our total memberships um The Challenge has been

7 um so we should be at 1700 um ignite households and we're working with our partners again putting in place these quarterly um these quarterly program visits where our ignite Partners can come in and demonstrate to the people that they serve that this is a resource that they should Avail themselves of um so we're working with those com with those Partners to try to raise the number of um of families taking advantage of th of those we're also um looking at expanding our Partnerships um in order to identify more families to bring into the fold but we're running we're running slightly behind on that because our memberships have grown so much recently thank you for that thank you again for all the work that you do I love you thank you commissioner

11 A3 and again that's for two items so moved okay moved by commissioner Jacob seconded by commissioner Carter

all in favor I any opposed okay we are in close session thank you everyone for joining

e

e

e e

e

e e

we have met in close session and uh we've given direction to staff with that that brings us to the end of our work session so we are adjourned