Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · January 2, 2024

m work session I'll get us started with the public charge the Board of Commissioners asks its members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful courteous 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 everyone turn off your phones uh during the meeting with that I will move us to our first agenda item which is citizen comments and we have three individuals signed up so I'll call you all up at the same time if you want to come where our clerk Monica in the green is standing with Kyle lampart first then John Davis and then Lin coffee cofy yes and you have three minutes each and please provide your name uh and address um good morning my name is Kyle Lampard I live at 400 West B Street um I've worked at Main Library for two years um we are here this morning to raise the issue of the library administration's current plan of opening on Sundays we understand the community's

need for the library to be open on Sundays but under current circumstances this would result in lower quality Library services and unsustainable conditions for Library staff at current Staffing levels we are already unable to keep all the library service points open during regular hours expanding these hours without additional staff will only exacerbate this issue and spread Library staff even thinner the proposed expansion of hours depends on a great number of unfilled positions some of which have been vacant for over a year as well as an over Reliance on temporary workers the library cannot expand its hours while maintaining a high level of service without filling empty positions and hiring additional staff to meet the increased workload to address this we request that Durham County perform an independent Staffing audit and increase Staffing levels accordingly before expanding hours due to the understaffing of the library staff have been told we will be required to work 7-Day rotations with no guarantee of a day off when scheduled to work on a Sunday the expectation of working seven days in a

row will only increase the staff turnover and burnout rates that Library staff are already experiencing the only solution proposed by Library Administration to avoid working seven Ray rotations is to use paid time off which is inherently punitive and effectively a reduction in library worker benefits working 7-Day rotations also impacts Library workers ability to spend time with loved ones and maintain a healthy work life balance this is an expectation that should not be levied on any County worker we ask the county to ensure that workers scheduled on a Sunday are guaranteed C time equal to that of a full day off which can be used regardless of pay period County Administration has the power to make these adjustments and we appreciate what it has done for us in the past we need that support now to ensure that Library workers are able to continue to provide the high level of service the people of durm deserve and that the library retains the talent ented and passionate staff that make it exemplary Library workers have been told over and over that we should continue doing more with

less because that's the way it's always been Durham aspires to be an example of progressive governance and forward thinking the justification of that's the way it's always been should not stand here we call upon the County Commission to uphold the values that make durm County a beacon for progress in North Carolina by recognizing the right of County workers to organize free from retaliation and providing our library with the resources we need to survive the people of Durham thank you thank you Kyle and John Davis Hi John if you want to take yourself off mute so we can make sure we can hear you John can you hear us John can you hear us I can okay wonderful um you have three minutes for your public comment please introduce yourself and share your

address thank you my name is John Davis and I'm a librarian at the downtown Maine Durham County Library I've been with the library for 14 years and I'm one of the staff who used to work seven days in a row every four weeks and I know that the quality of service I was providing on day seven wasn't the same as what I offered on day one I'm here to read a letter written by one of my colleagues one of the substitute staff who keep the library running by plugging gaps in the schedule who didn't feel comfortable being here themselves for reasons that they describe in the letter dear Durham Board of County Commissioners I write as a substitute librarian in support of the library workers union lwu we Subs are officially 1/10th of a County employee we are scheduled for termination forced resignation every 11 months with no guarantee of being hired back we travel around to all the library locations and see firsthand the results

of the short staffing that the lwu is asking the county to address permanent Library staff are always Pleasant to patrons rarely if ever showing the frustration we feel at canceled programs having to cover for absent workers and the general feelings of always being behind getting fired every 11 months has the effect of making us gig workers that is subject to the unclear human resource variables of our employer with little regard for our family and personal lives this situ um John um you got cut off I think as you were saying this situation wait give us one minute we can't hear you one second we're having some technical

difficulties that if you were able to hear us that uh we're having technical difficulties while they repair the issue we'll come back to you okay thank you so much but stay on um then we will go to Larin Kofi and same thing you have H three minutes please uh introduce yourself with your name and address okay um my name is LIN coffee I live at 309 Mard Avenue um I'm a librarian at main library and have worked at durm County for seven years I'm here to voice my concerns about the proposed expansion of Sunday hours which would degrade both the standard of service in the library as well as the quality of life of Library workers I am passionate about providing the best possible service to the people of Durham and about the mission of the library I want our services to be improved and expanded to fit our growing Dynamic community at the library we do a

tremendous amount with what we have both in terms of funding and Staffing but there is a limit to how much more we can do without additional support the community needs the library to be open on Sunday but it also deserves a library that is able to provide the level of service and quality programming we are known for at our current Staffing levels weekends will have very few if any staff available to coordinate the programs and events that are so popular with the community and so important to the mission of the library at the same time as we have been told to work more hours at service points to open on Sunday we have also been told to increase the number of programs we put on each month while many Department's programming budgets have been cut significantly finally staff have been told the expansion of hours will require us to work s days straight with no guarantee of a day off this appro approach cannot result in better Library

Services only more burnt out overworked staff who rapidly turn over as we have experienced too often recently as a librarian I know how important the library is to the Durham community and I know how much more we can do with the right resources I also care deeply about my co-workers the people who work hard to make durm County Library a leader in our state and who deserve to be listened to and supported I hope you will affirm this support by seriously investigating our staffing situation granting a full day of comp time to all staff who work on Sundays and recognizing the right of County workers to organize thank you for your time happy New Year thank you Lin

gov thank you and thank you so much for joining us John I apologize again for this inconvenience that concludes all of the individuals we have signed up for public comment I do you just want to pass uh the mic on to our County Manager uh

before we move on to our next agenda item yes ma'am happy to respond to the comments um that were made and so for context um the Board of Commissioners received emails um a few months ago from the community requesting that the library be open seven days um because other County libraries are now open on Sundays and we are a county that is not open on Sundays and so I was asked as the manager to begin exploring um how we could open on Sunday so that is why this situation has arisen and so um in speaking with our um ACM Tammy Hall and our director Tammy bagot I asked them to speak with staff to get input from staff on what it would look like to open on Sundays so there has been no decision there are a lot of inaccuracies and so I

want to make sure that people understand what the accurate and true statements are we have not decided to open on Sundays and we are doing what a prudent leader does is soliciting input from our staff to gain feedback about how we can open successfully and how we can open and make sure that we are taking care of Staff yes if we were to open on Sundays some staff would have to work on Sundays and based on um the proposed schedule staff would have to work three to four Sundays a year three to four Sundays a year that is not even one Sunday a month also I have requested that no staff would have to work seven days in a row that is something that I have asked them to to make sure in the schedule that we work out and so we are exploring that at the request of our commissioners

we have also engaged an external independent consultant to help us work through this not only for this situation but to help us improve the culture in the library if you all have been paying attention to how I lead a culture a thriving work culture is very important to me and I receive feedback on a weekly basis and thanks for improving the culture in Durham County that's not just for some departments that's for every Department in addition we have engaged the office of strategy and performance our internal office to do an operational assessment of the library and how we provide programs and services it is my opinion that we are operating in a traditional you know role and we're not looking at the trends as programs and services to be now we're operating pre pandemic trending things have changed the way people consume content and the way people request content has changed

so we need to look at that and address the needs as they have emerged with the new trends so our strategy and performance team will be going into the library looking at how we operate and assessing the impact that we're making what are the the most utilized programs and services what are the least utilized where can we streamline and where can we gain efficiencies so we are looking to rightsize the organization if we need more staff I will certainly come to you all and request that but I am not a person that will just ask for positions because people say we need more staff we need to make sure we are efficient and then we structure our human resources and our staffing to fit the proper the needs as they are properly properly aligned so that's where we are um we are still in the in the throws of that I do have some information from our library leadership that I am reading over now

but as it stands we have not decided and we will not make that decision until we have brought to you what the full proposal is after everything has been vetted and we've heard from our external Consultants as well as our office of strategy and performance and let me just end by saying I am an employee centered manager I think I have proven that to everyone so please do not believe the the inaccuracies and the misstatements that we don't care that I don't care about employees eight years ago I was a Frontline staff member I won't forget that and I work from that perspective so know that I care about employees and I'm not going to support something that mistreats employees thank you ma'am Dr SW um we're gonna move on to the next item because we typically don't in have commissioner conversation during citizen comments but I wanted to give an

opportunity for the manager to speak because I know her and I have spoken and she's shared but um so we're gonna move on if that's okay I I just have one question or comment about that if you if you will Madam chair it'll have to be very very quick because we have to move it is it my comments are always quick um I recall the libraries used to be open on Sundays um so for them not to be open has been due to the pandemic so they used to be open on Sundays yeah yes that was my com yeah um and I just want to thank all the citizens again for coming and our County Employees for coming and sharing their concerns and their Frontline experiences with us as well as County manager soell for taking these conversations seriously and continuing this work to have the external and internal uh look into our

entire operations of the county with that I will move to our consent agenda and I will once again pass it back to our County Manager to review this with us yes ma'am thank you all so much so we will begin with the first agenda item which is 23076 two budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 000044 appropriating $175,000 of general fund fund balance to support the creation creation and operation of a new dedicated Department slf fund center for the Durham County public information office and this simply is really just taking the expenses um for our Pio office out of the county County managers fund Center and separating it so that we can monitor and assess the spending for the Pio office

individually um thank you for that I if if it's just a move from the the county manager fund to the S Department fund why is it coming from fund balance rather than from the county manager line it and I will allow our budget team or either ACM Hager to explain that David if you couldn't open turn on the mic how about now there we much better thank you yes new F good morning and happy 2024 Commissioners and everyone uh this is coming from fund balance because as part of the annual budget process we're always trying to do our best to capture all of the known expenses with some of the reorganization that happened in administration there were some different pieces of cost that needed to be allocated differently and in this

case with the Pio separating out we were able to identify some specific areas that the Pio needed some funding for that wasn't necessarily in the original budget sometimes this is handled within internal departments but since this have needed to come to the board anyway it was at this point easier just to go on and ask for this relatively small amount of money for fund balance so it is indeed an additional expenditure I'm just trying to get clarity on that it's an additional expenditure yeah it's also somewhat of a reallocation to some others that hit top hit items that were needed earlier in the year as we've worked over the last two or three if not four years to kind of streamline budgets what we've assured departments and this goes from the county manager to mreo and general Services is that if we trim the budgets too thin we will as the budget office and in management We Believe come back and support the departments in replenishing funds if we've streamline

too much and excuse me and in this case that's probably what happened I'd have to look a little more detail at no that's great I was just trying to understand was it an additional expenditure or just a mere movement from One Fund to the other and if that were the case I didn't understand why it would be coming from fund balance but I I understand completely and I support the approach thank you I was just going to Echo David explained it perfectly a lot of times we always try to reallocate first um this is just unique so we just wanted to make sure we did the base adjustment so that we aren't having to do that later thank you all so much any other questions Al righty agenda item 23889 budget ordinance amendment number 24 BCC 0069 appropriating $259,000 in general fund fund balance

and approving a contract increase with faragate Systems Inc for the tax administration department 23910 approval to amend a contract with sap America to increase the total amount by 123771 And1 for a to a new total amount of $163,700 two 23911 approval to renew a contract with aella Inc in the amount of4 $2,770 [Music] 82 commissioner Jacobs yes I had a question about this um I guess one thing was I did not realize that the county was part of the Durham one call system

um I really associate that with the city um and so I guess I mean I'm glad to hear that we are part of it but then that leads me need to thinking about um how can we moving forward better promote the fact that we have an integrated Durham one call system and um I I'm really curious to know what what county services are are linked to that one call system um and and again how can we I mean I'm I think it's fantastic because we want to be a able to tell people just call one call but the fact that I don't even know that um um and I don't know off the top of my head the one call number um I think it just means that you know we need to take a look at that um so those are just some of my questions about it and yeah and to just

add to that also I think they have the one call app I also thought it was just a city function and I think when you download the app it says city of Durham run call function um and when I've downloaded it I've submitted it for like street light repairs and um signal repairs not signal lights not working so if we can add more County functions for people to request services so we will definitely do that and I'll ask our um Pio director Deborah if she can reach out to the city for us y absolutely okay 23920 approval of contract with Durham Center for Senior Life for supporting older adults to access needed services in the amount of $40,000 I have a question about that and I see Mary oxine is here and we are glad you're

5 FTE that's actually um in collaboration funded by Durham County Department of DSs um social services and so we're um in

collaboration with DSS and durm Center for Senior Life we're hoping to expand that position to be a full-time um one F ft or FTE sorry um and so that person assists older adults with accessing Services as it mentions such as um conducting assessments referrals particularly to food assistance services but we're also uh we would like to increase that person's time so that they can One support more older adults but then also potentially be able to refer them to other services um any services that help save money for that for older adults is money that they could be spending spending on food so if they're able to save money on medication Health Care housing um access any of the kind of services that they need to help them stay healthy and stay in their home um we'll be helpful to to make sure that they're healthy and and accessing the food that they need Mary will they be they will be stationed at the center yep that person

currently works at durm Center for Senior Life and they are stationed there and so instead of just being halftime it would be the same person and we would just be increasing their time to a full-time position okay all right thank you Jacob yeah I had follow up first of all and also Mary I want to say I'm sorry to hear that we're going to be losing you um so you know you've done amazing work here we're really going to miss you um yeah I was really glad to see this um because um you know every month we go over the waiting list for food food for our seniors at DSS and they the numbers have been steadily increasing as the co funding has gone away um and I I really appreciate what you mentioned Mary which is what DSS is Shifting even with the lowincome homeowner relief program is

looking at a holistic approach uh looking at all the social determinants and what are other uh needs that people have so I I'm really excited to hear that echoed again with this um my question is will this person be actively um looking at the weight list that we have at DSS for Meals on Wheels and doing Outreach it's it's over 400 people now um so will they do you know if they're going to actually look at that to see if any any people could possibly be served this way for their food needs um that's a great question and that's something that I can talk to um DSS with I know that there's um definitely some privacy um issues uh regarding sharing people's contact information but I in a separate um we we

are we do have a contract that's actually ended or just ended with millone WS but we're creating a profit Grant agreement with them to help take some of the folks off the waiting list it's it's not going to be a ton of folks um but we are working with Mills on Wheels directly to try to take some of the folks off the waiting list um but I can definitely Circle back with DSS and durm Center for Senior Life to to see if we can proactively reach out to the folks on the waiting list okay thank you thank you thank you so much Mary and I do want to make one quick comment she did promised me that in her new Venture we will see her more in this Chambers so we're going to hold you to that Mary I'm I'm excited to continue to be involved in Durham even if not as a staff but as a community member thank you it's been a pleasure working with you all and it's definitely mixed emotions leaving but I'm excited about new adventures coming in the future thank

you great job okay I item 23921 approval of a contract Amendment with Carolina Civil Works Inc for emergency and scheduled collection system repair services in the amount of $150,000 bringing the contract amount from 160,000 to 310,000 and to authorize the county manager to execute the amendment and any other related contract amendments not to exceed $400,000 item 23922 approval of contract with Tradesmen institutional Staffing services to provide skilled trade temporary labor for General services in the amount of $40,000 239 0924 approval of a contract amendment to increase the freeze and nickels project management Services FR number

20398 for the snowhill road Pump Station project RFQ 1940 in the amount of $416 360 bringing the total contract amount from $45,000 to $821,000 lot of commissioner Howton if you could turn on your microphone I'm laughing because I know when we hear that snoow hill and money attached that has to do with a county I know that Wendy's antenna is like does does it's like well if you all don't mind um DCM

Hager if you don't mind just providing update I know we are having discussions with the city before the questions come and then any other [Laughter] questions good morning um we are in conversation with the city for um to finalize the amount of commitment and how that will work to support the snoow hill project uh the impact of that project is over a billion dollars to the state um much of that is um also reflected of course in Durham County um when we started on this project it was to help um protect market share um in order to expand in that region of the county we needed the infrastructure and as it is with other uh entities around the state aging infrastructure or infrastructure that is

um not adequate to support growth are big ticket items so um that gives some context we will come back we have a white paper that um we're updating and we'll get that to you within the next few weeks um as well as give you some more insight on those conversations with the city I guess the the one question that I do have is that 8 41 is that is that All County or is that split between the city and the County right now that that the project in general is being managed by the county so um when we talk about cost split and their support we will flesh out how that reimbursement will occur or how they will support debt service payment so we we will come back with those recommendations so right now any expense that you see is one that the county is absorbing but with the

understanding the city is going to support it in some way thank you commissioner Carter then commissioner Jacobs thanks I'm just wondering what the source of funding is is you know more than double what we had budgeted sure yeah what what we um did with this project it is um funded out of our Capital Improvement plan um this is a a lob support and limited obligation Bond project as a matter of fact um we will um in a upcoming meeting bring to the for to a board um an item because we uh the way we do many of our lob funded projects we will expend the dollars and then we will go out to the market um to get the actual debt financing for it that way you aren't prematurely borrowing and so this will be one of the projects on the list it's not a fund balance expenditure it's no ma it's

coming from Capital it is it is something right now is County cash but it will be supported by by um limited obligation bonds when we reimburse ourselves that that makes sense yes it does that does make sense and my only other question was related to one of the attachments that mentioned the Cabin Branch neighborhood which made me I wasn't sure why that was mentioned deteriorating soils will The snowhill Pump Station be supporting residential um you know operations I I think of it as supporting the treyburn businesses but will it also be supporting residences in the county that have been here to for operating on septic systems yes there are currently some residential neighborhoods that uh drain to the the Snow Hill lift station uh The Cabin Branch was identified through um Environmental Health Services as an area where uh the a lot of the septic fields out there are aging um the Lots may not be large enough or have uh backups sept septic areas um to reconstruct their

septic fields um so we did uh account for a large area of the C Branch Basin uh residential area to be able to drain to the snow LIF station uh in a future date when infrastructure can be extended to that area okay great thank you commission jaob thank you um I have a few followup questions um first of all glad to hear that you you all are doing a white paper on this because I'm really interested just to understand um you know we're making an investment and what what the return on the investment is uh for you know the economic benefit for for try burn um and also what the benefit is to the city as well um so I I I assume that will be included in that and you mentioned there's a$1 billion impact to the state can you explain what you meant by that sure and I don't have all of that in

front of me but um when we look at Investments that happened with morc and Corning and some other major businesses they were not able to expand unless there was a commitment years ago that we moved forward with Snow Hill and so um over the course of a certain period of time and I don't know that number exactly I don't have it right in front of me right um but that we do have that and much of those numbers are also documented in the press releases that the state did as well as the companies did with their fiscal impact great thank you um yeah and related to Cabin Branch um residents that was one of my questions was um just do we have an assessment of exactly how many uh people have failing septic systems there and could be um possibly um helped by this investment I

don't have those numbers but we can certainly pull those up and get um and then my other question was with the investment that we are making um because you know in this item it explains that we are actually we thought we were going to that the investment was going to give us a certain lifespan but it's already you know running out um um so my question was with our with the ultimate investment that we're making will this serve the full development potential left in Trey bur yes there was a full uh preliminary engineering report done on that area where we looked at Future buildout uh the current configuration of list station accounts for uh the current uh sites that drain to the lift station plus some additional room for uh economic development in that area there's additional space um for

additional pumps uh to account for ultimate buildout for that okay so this will this will be serve the full buildout of TR bur yes fantastic great news on that okay I will say it it will to the best that we can estimate um there there may be instances where you get an industry in there where they might be a high water user higher than what a typical industry would use that's something that we can't predict but we took um industry standards for what these sites would typically use yeah we might not want to have silicon carbide batteries out there thank you thank you so much if there's no other questions back to you manager yes ma'am Madam chair okay 24001 approv of contract with Express Employment Services to provide an 11-month contract position for the

public Arts coordinator for engineering in the amount of $74,200 2413 approval of quality Mortuary and cremation services Inc contract amendment in the amount of $52,000 bringing the total contract to14 ,000 2415 approval of a change in vehicle purchases for the Durham County Sheriff's Office fiscal year 2023 24 Fleet acquisition plan to replace the purchase of 17 Ford hybrid interceptors with 17 Ford ecob boosts I just want to say thank you for saving us $159,000 and I would like to ask my colleagues not dis spended by tomorrow commissioner Carter um yes I was just curious about

this item and um wanted to know if the Sheriff's Office believes that the Ford Ecco boosts are you know of equal environmental value do they believe that the protection to the environment with a ecoboost engine is pretty much equivalent to what we would have had with the high hybrids you feel like it's the cost benefit analysis is that it's it's it's worth it it's worth the savings even though there will be costs to the environment or good morning actually commissioner Carter this is all Market driven the other vehicles were not available due to the market uh my preference would have been to purchase the original uh vehicles just not available just curious about all these car engines and environmental impact thank you Sheriff sure commissioner merch yes sir I have a

quick followup along those same lines I read somewhere and since you're up here I'm going to ask um it's car related I promise you it's not a got you is it true that and somebody correct Me Maybe you or someone on your staff that they are no longer going to do um the Dodge Chargers as uh law enforcement vehicles I see some affirmative nods so they're even taking out like this I don't I I know you can put a Hemi in a Dodge I don't think that's what we're driving but are we is that us just seeing the rotation of them not using these very supercharged cars anymore that is correct the the market is changing quickly and and law enforcement Across the Nation are struggling to keep up so as a matter of fact the two-year forecast is very uncertain as to what vehicles will be in the police feet or first responder Fleet for that matter within the next two years so we'll probably see more purchases with availability of like smaller engines and so hence we tried the hybrids couldn't

get those get the EcoBoost but it's not like we can go into the market and get the big engine anymore because they're even rotating those out that is correct okay that's what I was I'm just curious okay well the smaller engines all around thank you sir thank you sherff madam chair that concludes the consent agenda wonderful are there any other questions or comments regarding the consent agenda or I will entertain a motion for approval no wait no sorry we will approve that at the regular session are there any other questions or comments regarding the uh consent agenda okay then that moves us to our discussion items with the first one uh being the approval of public official bonds which after we discuss we will be um suspending the rules for approval if the board uh would allow so I will pass this along to County attorney Andrews good morning Madam chair fellow

members of the uh Board of County Commissioners this item is an annual item it's approval of P well it's a item that we get to regularly it's approval of public official bonds as required by General statutes and typically this happens in December but we had new uh Personnel take both the CFO and tax administ Trader positions and these are performance bonds uh that are basically to serve somewhat as insurance or guarantors a performance of faithful duties for various officers um when you look in the statutes different positions are are uh mentioned like treasur Sheriff coroner register Deets and some others and these are included within that so this is simply to approve these bonds these bonds um serve in a way to guarantee the performance meaning there'll be funds available if there was some issue in the performance or mal feance but of course

if there are greater liabilities um those will be borne by the responsible um party including the county but because of the timing you're being asked to suspend the rules to vote today so that we can get them filed with the clerk of court and they be properly listed um um there with I will say just a a minor point of order or point of notice uh some of the language in the statute and here is dated they use words like chairman and his where we're able to we will correct that so we have a document here we're going to adjust that to a different term but otherwise it's as you see it before you and I'm glad to answer any questions about it I have one mine is really quick so I know that we done this before um and I'm looking at the agenda text and then I looked at the attachments um and so in the agenda text because I want to make sure that when we suspend the rules that we read the motion correctly it references the CFO

on the tax administrator but then in the attachments we also have of course the registered deeds and we have of course mentioned the sheriff so in that motion are we capturing all four because I want to well just could you throw us some language that says and once we suspend The Roots cuz I I was sitting here thinking about the motion in my head and I was just going to do it for the CFO and the tax administrator but we got to umbrella for all four correct yeah good point mad Vice chair so because we normally would do it in December we held it off for these yes you will be approving the bonds for all the various officers listed in the attachment so not just to CFO and tax administrator but also uh the the registered deeds and the sheriff as well commissioner cter just curious about this how I know it's just a routine matter but how do we decide the amount of the bond I find it curious how variable they are the North Carolina General um the North Carolina General

Assembly has certain statutes that identify either a formula or an amount some of them are at your discretion and you get to pick and where you see lower amounts those are at your discretion because theoretically the liability will fall into the county and this is just a gap filler but when you get higher you pay more so it's like a risk assessment and our risk manager is done this but basically for your question it's by like the finance officer is the highest one because it's capped at 1 million if it were by the pure formula it be more than 1 million interesting thank you any other questions comments okay and I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules so move Madam J second okay there's been a motion and second to suspend the rules all in favor say I I any opposed okay the eyes have it 5 to zero I will now entertain a motion for the

approval of the bonds um Madam chair I move that we approve the bonds uh to meet the statutory requirements it's been moved by commissioner Jacob seconded by commissioner howon all in favor I any opposed okay the eyes have it 5 to zero and I will now move us along to the next item uh no other action needs to be taken correct attorney Andrews on that item no other action needs to be taken thank you we will move to our arpa update and I'll call up our Deputy County Manager Claudia Hager for this presentation

happy New Year what would a meeting be without ARA just men um I trust that you all are well this will um be a high level discussion bring you up to speed where we are as well as um talk some about an area that the board um charged us to um dive deeper in uh during a strategic Retreat back in November of 2022 so uh we are excited to give that update to you and we'll um walk through um where we are with spending I always have these slides um to show priority areas that were initially established the the treasury did expand some of those categories as well uh we U of course started way back in March with guiding principles 2022 of may we adopted the strategy for funds use and over the past year uh we

4 million and this alignment was with the Strategic goals at that time and uh we also as you know uh set aside um some dollars to potentially allocate from the use of fund balance and as we've implemented this you will note we've also moved forward with that along our journey at this juncture 71% as of um November 30th 2023 71% of the dollars are encumbered or committed and um we have 57 projects the remaining will happen over the next uh few months uh we still are working with the city uh with a few areas of focus related to um that

note is housing but we finished those housing agreements but the digital Equity as well the Arts and we will have we have a goal of encumbering off funds by Spring 2024 and as you know all dollars must be encumbered by the 21st of December of this year and uh realignments we're proposing if there's some that need to happen because dollars aren't uh moving as quickly or the targets are reshing or whatever the case may be um because it's the state of doing business we are recommending that we try to do all of those realignments um mid year um really looking at it in May and trying to wrap up things by um that Target of December um the grants uh are staggered the community grants are stagged staggered um for completion through the summer of 2025 uh remaining projects uh will finish um with a target of September of

2026 which will allow us the close out period um and we uh are expanding our compliance infrastructure and we'll do what we have to do to support our partners along the way and um this bullet is from the last one that I did not update but um and we're here we are today with another update wanted to share um real highly a high level overview of some areas that we still will um bring forth over the next couple of board meetings um the RFP for planning and infrastructure funds for home security and it should be housing um security efforts um the Land Trust dollars uh that we had allocated and then funding to support uh seniors um that are at or below the average meaning income for home repairs and we'll have more details

about that the Broadband realignments we'll bring some recommendations on that there was an allocation for youth programming which we will um bring the budget forward as I mentioned as well the Arts investment and digital Equity as well we will bring that for by the last meeting in January the grants Administration that's the real key and we've talked about that a little bit the last time and we're fleshing out what does that look like um not only um when the aror dollars run out but beyond that point because um the audit cycle review cycle is um for many years beyond that PL point so we'll look at what that looks like uh as well um the the remaining balance that's available although it's all targeted um there was dollars that we need to not at this meeting but talk about um the set aside we did for the eight health nurses there was an allocation for the Criminal

Justice Resource Center and one for the dco on the go um is currently for instance that one's currently funded with local funds we may choose to um keep it with local funds and then release those dollars for another priority um there is dollars that we had budgeted for um pre expansion beyond what we already have and then there is an allocation in the current budget year for Revenue replacement um that is a another option as well um there are uh many um I know desires as we look at getting to the Finish Line we ask that the board um continue with their current strategy of thinking of the long-term impact and trying to make sure that we um do more one-time commitments or areas that does not result in a burden once those dollars um leave us and um this shows the the dollars

again what's committed or encumbered and some of that committed encumbered categories are areas where in RFP is underway such as the dollars that are allocated for um one of the um water sewer projects we just approved that budget and so that allocation is there but um we anticipate that contract will be encumbered within um spring um if not before uh there are impending rfps and budget allocations that are just referenced and the other list so that gives you a total sort of accounting as to where we are with all the dollars now uh a lot of the focus today is a followup conversation on the board's um discussion um back in November of 2022 a policy Retreat that we held um if you may recall uh that Retreat covered many

topics we talked about arpa but there was a focus on affordable housing as well um in that uh discussion there were updates on the County's past and current afford housing efforts including 300 to 500 um projects and staff also shared the opportunities and challenges associated with um trying to meet the and address affordable housing needs while balancing fiscal limitations I have with me um Perry mans um Jay Gibson is also on um the zoom as well and they LED those discussions we also had uh Representatives um at that time from DFI who were also a part of that conversation and as you may recall there were some um charges that uh were given to staff at that meeting one was to leverage Partnerships with the city

of durm to address affordable housing needs with the goal of optimizing arpa funds if you may recall we were um sort of uh we had a set aside of 10 million and we were trying to figure out what's the best way to leverage the dollars to get the biggest bang for our buck and um we listened to the board and um moved forward with some staff recommendations that were made at that time and in 2023 as you know the city and of Durham and the county um of Durham um partnered to invest $27 million in gap funding to support new affordable housing um units using arpa dollars and that was leveraged with additional um funds from um Federal developmental Investments and other funding um those dollars will support affordable housing for residents at or below 80% of the area median

income um based on federal guidelines um with the dollars that are from the city uh they have to stay and remain affordable for at least 30 years so what a huge investment and the balloons need to come down um so we're excited about that and so another recommendation and I will um segue to also have um Parry share as well um this was a recommendation to establish a task force to evaluate potential approaches for the county to support housing security security efforts and um based on that effort um a task force a staff task force was established and um you see the many partners that are in that have been involved and were involved over the course of a year um and I highlighted

the the the folks in engineering um Jay Gibson Perry mans and Christy really L um because they carried the ball and helped us get to this point and so um many thanks to them for their efforts and facilitation um across um this this um important work um there were many different meetings held uh many topics in in your resource materials there are are supportive documents that show the various topics covered um um Cherry uh Perry was named chair and um it carried us through the the the the process and a great Taskmaster and facilitator delegator and all of that exactly that's right you know T per

you know he he he keeps everybody on point you know because it's a bunch of when you look at that list it's a lot of us that can you know really talk and so he he would always you know help us stay on point and so we had many um topics and and um Perry did you want to pick up or you mad Madam chair before you chair before you move to Perry I have a question regarding the the nonprofits um when people in the community are ask the question um why they have not received their money what responses should we be giving them at this point which um I would say that we need to see why they have not I it would vary by entity so some may have um contractual parts that have not been

fully done they said that they've been notified that they will receive fing but they still have not received anything okay so um should we be getting their names and give get their names and get I just like to know what response we should be yes ma'am giving them yes you should get their names to us because we have followed up with um entities and then there are steps they have to do to receive the dollars and um so I I would just need to understand which entities they are yes ma'am all right I will direct them to you okay please do yeah okay thank you because most of them are calling us and so um if there are issues so I I would be curious as to which ones and and our and our processes are very exact so if for instance we need a Certificate of

Insurance M and if it's not there we can't move forward or well you know they don't they don't give they don't give us all that they just say they haven't gotten their money and they want to know why yes ma'am yes ma'am so we we can follow up and understand and make sure nothing didn't slip through the cracks but okay for yeah I would be curious all right thanks all right so good morning Commissioners I would again like to reiterate What U Miss Hager just stated regarding um the outstanding work and the the verse group of folks that we put together for this task force um I'd also like to really highlight um Christy Riley from Durham County engineering she did the heavy lifting and uh putting all of this together obviously she has a background uh and affordable housing development and that was very instrumental um in us getting to these recommendations and so I just want to put that plug in for her

um again this is a a lot of work being done throughout the D from Community around affordable housing and so this task or this charge um is very complicated in trying to funnel or Channel everything in and so uh what Claudia has highlighted here we did a asset mapping exercise for session one you know really looking at uh who are the organizations or people working on affordable housing in Durham what are the services resources provided in Durham to address affordable housing and what assets does Durham County Government have to help address the affordable housing crisis um the second uh asset mapping exercise were what are the gaps trying to figure out what are the gaps in affordable housing in Durham what are the ideas and opportunities for the the county to support affordable housing and what else do we want or need to do uh we also had a virtual watch party where the committee actually went back and look at the presentation at um

Anthony Scott the um executive director for Durham Housing Authority put together for the city we had panel uh discussions with folks like Reginal Johnson from um Community Development Anthony snail from the Durham Housing Authority uh we had presentations from um self-help particularly Dan LaVine and JJ Frolic um we possibly could get them back to do some type of presentation to you uh to help you kind of better understand how the the leveraging of funding actually works and so we develop a white paper I think Claudia that white paper has been issued and um so um the white paper draft is is was presented to senior leadership it's being presented to you all I think the intent is for us to come back at the February work session with a deep dive uh in affordable housing and and sort of review the recommendations in the white paper what's that introduce someone that

okay go Ahad you want to take this one sure okay and and as Perry shared we will come back in February to give additional information but the draft um uh does reflect a few that we wanted to highlight at this juncture uh one was a recommendation that the county should res U devote resources to the expand the dorham affordable housing Loan Fund um this fund makes loans I'm sorry that okay this how this fund makes loans that would um leverage County funding and um we we are seeing that it could also support um land purchase or construction for of affordable housing projects as well as the retention of existing affordable housing and so um there's a recommendation to make an initial investment to towards that effort with an additional commit commment level

identified in 2425 um and here's a an example of of the the affordable housing Loan Fund model and the the current fund is a partnership between Duke University Self-Help Credit Union and the City of dorham and all of contributors um the city of dorham has intentions of um contributing additional fund soon but right now all of the dollars um have been lent out so there's a a a need to um increase the pool of available dollars and I will walk through this and Perry can correct me as I move through it but the first bullet will show the local government will invest $1 into the Loan Fund this is just a very simple um example and then the dollar is matched by the developers and the bank um which would fund an additional

$3 uh the developer then uses the $5 to um receive a construction loan of $15 and then a $20 project is fully funded with a $1 public investment and so it's a a way to create a long-term model um that will um help mitigate some of the challenges with um having um housing stock that is available from an affordable perspective and and just to jump in in terms of that model also the I assume that the um the entity who borrows the money has to also repay back the loan so hence hence it's a revolving fund as well that is correct I think is important yes that is right on point it does the entity pays the dollar back and currently it's at a zero interest um uh borrowing rate so that

helps the entity because they're trying to um balance a whole lot of factors with this I don't want to stop I was trying to stop her from saying it because you remember last year doing the policy Retreat I said I want a revolving Housing Trust fund cuz W kind of had one this year doing a policy Retreat and then she said revolving but I like how y didn't put revolving in the presentation so I have with the source we can use circulating orbiting there's a lot cuz I noticed weight county is using revolving we not GNA use revolving commissioner Jake so I I got a the sour I've seen about 20 words we'll figure out what we're going to call ours because I asked for this two years in a row I'm a hush but I just I don't know why y'all didn't use revolving in the in the presentation uh maybe you ain't want me to get credit or wait can of get but I have about 20 words C we that we can use we can use circulating circulating gyrating pure wedding like there's a whole bunch of words that we can but anyways go ahead

with a presentation but I'm happy that we are working on a revolving Housing Trust fund twoyear request y'all have made me the happiest person I'm be nice for the rest of the meeting no one has to worry about their safety for the rest of the day tomorrow perhaps um the second Rec are there any other comments uh the second recommendation was that the county should evaluate post post pandemic needs and best practices for delivery of County Services that support affordable housing um the committee feels that the County's uniquely positioned to play a key role in service provision and working collaboratively with other partners including the city the housing authority and Durham public schools and um again there were so many Lessons Learned and we continue to learn um post pandemic and just in general just addressing the housing gaps that are available and so uh a lot of what we

talked about a year ago was just our inability as a county to play in all the lanes and I'm trying to make sure we can address which is the appropriate place for us to um support in how we can do that in a very tactical way with our Community Partners and then the third recommendation was that the county should work with a partner organizations to determine a concise set of metrics for an affordable housing score card to track and report and the impact of housing resources and programs in the county and what gets measured gets done and also looking at um attainable um targets as well because we We There is a desire to um help in many ways fiscal limitations just makes it tricky and so we're just asking that some time is

spent on determining what that what those um measures should be and and for for the County's role you know what parts we will play in that and so as far as next steps if the board supports the recommendation um we're suggesting that um we develop an RFP to identify entity to manage the affordable housing loan funds dollars on behalf of County and funds may also include the use of arpa and local dollars to address Land Trust yes ma'am yeah I just have a question I don't understand this point yeah so this is the right yeah because the city already we already have so why wouldn't we just contribute County funding to the ex existing fund well so part of it the way it's framed that way is that if we decide for instance to use our land trust dollars that we had identified if you may recall we said we wanted to set

aside some dollars to support Land Trust efforts so we could um do frame that RFP so that the the dollars are targeted towards a loan effort um versus just Land Trust because it's still the same concept there's also does down payment assistant correct and so this is slightly different like that's not to disagree I felt like this was slightly different in some aspects from the two programs they had and that was how I justified in my head that hey we needed our own RFP am I like way off or well I would say the the main reason we and we can flesh this back out so it's it's a two-part thing so if we wanted to bolster a contribution to the existing fund we could definitely do that we could do that with with County dollars if we decide we want to use some of our arpa dollars to do that we're going to

have to do an RFP okay wa County did an RFP I'm not sure which dollar Source they used and and um self-help ended up being the entity to do it uh we would just need to figure out well what does that look like so uh um apologize that's not as clear but that was the the spirit of it when we looked at the land trust dollars because it's similar Concepts but different but you need the same type of manager when you're doing that and as we flesh the concept out more that that was um part of it and so I I don't know if that's no and could and to do a quick Jos also it wasn't my question but it's no different the city had uh a guaranteed income program right and they did a RFP and we didn't merge our dollars with theirs we did our own RFP and I get ours is slightly different because theirs was Justice involved and ours is not necessarily that Focus but the same way they have their own program we have our own and I get folks that want to be duplicative but I think from

the recommendations because it's 95 Pages if you haven't read it it's really beautiful I think there's some nuances to ours that would justify us doing an RFP so I just want to throw that out there well it is it is and and for clarification it is Main for to determine who would manage it cuz we're not going to do it I imagine the same partners that are doing it now would potentially apply to do it it say if we decide to use our aror dollars for this type of thing we would need to um consider that yeah and certainly it's up to the board if you all decide you know once you read the the white paper and you decide Well we'd rather just contribute right to the city we can certainly do that if that is what the board so desires that's why we we want to come back in February where we'll have a little bit more um get your reaction and then come back I know it feels like we're always coming back but we're

crossing the Finish L I think with um a great end product so so Claudia I know that there was a lot of work done by the city a lot of conversations a lot of meetings around affordable housing um I know the former mayor brought in people to have the conversation so are we collaborating on that or where are we as far as the the collaboration C in the county well with this city on all of our affordable housing efforts we are always talking to staff to see where they are and so we did uh the city does have plans to contribute to the Loan Fund that's exist in existence since now um just not sure the timing so whatever effort we do the intent is to leverage what's already in existence if that makes sense and so the only reason the RFP comes into play is if if we

decide we want to use some of these other dollars to help um get to that number a little faster okay thank you Jacobs then we'll keep I have some questions but I want to wait and make sure that you're finished with your presentation yes ma'am um I am finished this is the note that we'll be back in February oh okay all right um so first of all I I really appreciate um the approach that you all have used I read the white paper and um I just I just really appreciate that model bringing everyone together from different departments and also partnering with with the city because again we know that's where all the real experience and expertise is around housing um so I I I mean just related to this immediate issue um I absolutely

support us participating in a revolving Loan Fund that that's a best practice nationally and you know we do something um I I love the idea of L in um our local dollars we've seen that be really successful with our open space funding that we set aside for Farmland preservation and how we use that to leverage federal and state M money um and I would love to see this be something you know ongoing in our budget um if if we end up using um non arpa funding and that gives us the ability to just contribute to the city fund I would prefer that because just based on the idea of effective efficient government I don't see the need for us to create our own fund since it's already happening at this and we do we do we partner with the city all the time on things so that

would be my preference related to that um I think that the um supporting a land trust model to me is totally different different and um I really support the land trust model I'm really glad that we're going to have an RFP with the arpa dollars because the beauty of the land trust model is that it's a long-term investment in affordable housing and the Studies have shown that those those are the properties and Dwayne is the one who really taught me a lot about this when he was the tax administrator I know that he could speak to our board a lot about this that the and the data works when they did their assessment of the impact of gentrification and Market forces the West End Community in Durham had the least impact because that's where the Durham Community Land Trust has had the most investment so if we're looking for

a long-term strategy um that is really effective um and this gets back to you know we're already with The Gap funding that we're doing with the city so I'm jumping around here but the 35 the 27 million which I think is fantastic the city and county investing in these 600 units I'm really glad to see the 30-year restriction but one of my concerns is and it may be too late now but if we could also speak to the city and this goes to the county attorney about having in our agreements similar to what we're doing at 300 and 500 which is right of first refusal after the 30-year period going back to the city and the county because what just happened at Carver Creek is what we don't want to see happen which is that we are losing track of these properties for instance Carver Creek the city evidently originally invested in that

property and lost track of it and so if we don't have some mechanism in there that 30 years later they are required to come back to the local governments who have put in public dollars to say hey uh do you want to get control of this property do you want to buy this property we don't want to maintain it anymore you know 30 years is when people have to put in a lot of investment to maintain you know re rehabilitate a property and that's often when they offload it and then it goes back into the private you know the marketplace so that that's just one thing I would just ask if we could really look into going forward um how how we can not just be 30 years but some mechanism and that that would go for even the revolving Loan Fund properties I would say um but so anyway just just the feedback on on your recommendations love the metrics and scorecard I think that's

really important um I love the idea of the subcommittee about County Services I would actually um suggest calling it county Support Services subcommittee this again gets back to this model that I the systemic approach that we just heard Mary talk about um which is looking at and we've talked about this a lot I've heard the manager talk about this our board that how do we connect people to the resources that we have um and how do we have a wraparound approach and and this also gets back to the model of you know permanent Supportive Housing that Supportive Housing that we are we are taking this H holistic approach um so that would just be my suggestion about about the wording of that um and lastly and then I I'm going to stop and then I'll wait I have a few

other things but allow that other Commissioners can we ask Anthony Scott to come and give us an update had a future work session on the Durham Housing Authority plans and like we haven't had that in really a few years and I know one of the properties that he's really is in his portfolio involves County property you know the parking deck behind and parking lot at cjrc so I I just wanted to request that that he because you all had that session with him so it would be great if we could thank you I meet with him tomorrow so okay awesome thank you um and I don't know Claudia and Perry if you wanted to respond to any of those questions comments now I may notes to them and we will in our followup um bring bring those but we appreciate that feedback yes and I I think m m has questions I just had before we got deeper into the housing I

had a question about the prior portion of the presentation uh slide 15 where it was listing out the members of the task force I was wondering is there anyone on the task force or potentially going to be added to the task force who with within County government around Transit because I feel like that's going to be a key part of our conversations around affordable housing is how accessible are these locations to the rest of Durham County that is a great point and we will definitely take that into consideration going forward um as topics emerged we had other participants that joined the discussion and I can't remember if someone from Transportation was there or not but we will definitely and can I just pck you back that's a fantastic suggestion and and even somebody from the planning department because implementing the new comp plan it caused for 20% affordable

housing throughout the county and then my second question that I had was going back to the housing piece for these loans I think this is amazing idea um that we can move forward with I just had a question around because you know we always get so limited with General statute but wondering when we are providing loans like with this they sit in the fund how much power does the county have in selecting and approving developers like that apply for these loans like can we have uh restrictions on them that says like you know their development must be 80% Ami or must have like these requirements that's a great question uh chair Alam uh please note that these uh loans that we're talking about are actually provided by the Banks and so they determine which developers are eligible for those um if we do whatever

entity we select to manage that they'll be instrumental in sort of flushing that out and make sure that these developers are eligible uh but that's something certainly that we'll make sure gets added to the the list or the scorecard so to speak um to make sure that we have that covered because there is a minor risk associated with these loans uh obviously that first dollar that the county is providing is always the most at risk but we'll certainly make sure we keep that in mind through this whole process so so then because will there be any way to like protect the this loan and funds I don't see like major huge developers coming in and being like I want to take advantage of that but to also have that protection in place that we are supporting folks who share the same values and goals with us in affordable housing and having first access to these loans yes ma'am we'll make sure that we uh list that out in the metrics of scorecard that we're talking about um I don't know who will end up managing this for the county I

will say that uh um self-help has never had a default on any of the loans so that's something to keep in mind but there is a minor risk with that so thank you yours so we we can I I got a couple of things um I do we don't have to go back though um because this was a presentation that started out about General ARA and then went so I do want to throw out a couple of things that I saw in the beginning of the presentation so that we because there there's a lot of other work that's been done so as much as I get excited about affordable housing and again my recommendation that that is that y'all just I never forget last year when I talked to you uh manager Hager you was like we gonna come up with a task force we it's gonna be a whole task force and I just was like when they going to meet when we going to get up there when we going to meet I said well and then when the manager sent out the policy Retreat I said I'm going put the revolver task for revolver housing fun back in there cuz I even the other year when I talked to you about it um I called over to

shenik I talked to stormy Ford I really wanted to know because in Wake County uh they put in 10 million the city of R put in 4 million and I think with the private entities all told it end up being $61 million they got a place saer fund and that one is uh to help if I'm not mistaken to to to help folks uh with naturally organic uh affordable housing and then to her Point uh any expiring expiring um affordable housing it was so again the reason why I hear all these ideas bouncing around um this is not to take it away like the same way there are two people on here who've done a lot of work on um on guaranteed income I've done a lot of work looking at these revolving housing funds and I want to speak unequivocally I personally feel like it needs to be something new and even if it is a partnership with the city that's not to negate the work that the city has done and I also kind of sort of reject the notion that there any real experts

outside of like every this is something the reason why it's a best practice is because you see cities and counties coming together Chatham did something new Mech did something new wake did something new and the reason why these are new ideas um is this is not down payment assistance we might be we might help um the Builder as well as um as well as like an individual resident so there are a lot of nuances to this so I I will continue to encourage please do your research before you say yes we just need to pay Selma before before you leave I know you got somewhere to go come back I'm so sorry so I want to throw this out uh that was the point I was going to make how you doing Miss Thomas she works for uh congresswoman fushi I wanted to bring back at the beginning you see we done used up all our money all the $62 million that we got in ARA so we we spend really well I just want to tell you we need some more money could you tell congresswoman fushi that we need I'm serious that was it's written on this piece of paper I had we have $500,000 left tell her I would like to get 60 million more can you can you

relay that message praise God thank you I know you got a meeting to go to so I can check that out it's I really have this written Selma ask congresswoman fushi for more money because these five women done spend all of it uh according to Keith uh and oh see I made Perry smile uh I want to throw out there um for the other one the senior citizen home so the senior citizen properties I know we talked about that um the last time and we're putting out RFP and I was confused is we putting out $750,000 for RFP or we putting out RFP and that $750,000 would be beginner money whatever the answer to that is here's what I want to throw out there so if you go to Rouge Mountain Baha USDA will cover repairs for a senior's house like if there needs to be a rail a ramp some improvements so we do have like these geographically isolated repair programs for seniors then I cannot remember what it was called but I knew it was Drew cumins back when he was Chief of Staff

it was his last presentation and we thank you CL uh we had got some money from the Department of Commerce to do senior uh repairs but it was uh non repayable loan if you get right and but we had never had anybody to default all I'm throwing out there whatever we do with this RFP one I'm a big proponent of it because I can think of somebody a couple of months ago mom had a stroke they were trying to figure out how they were going to make repairs to house I went to like Rod I went to Joanne and we were just like how in the world we going to figure out how to do this because they're in this space where the Commerce money was gone they don't live out in southeast or anywhere else and now we don't have it so I would love for us if we're going to do this to kind of sort of do like dur pre and maybe have a braided approach so if the person does live within the city but there's this USDA option or there's this Eda option or a Commerce option like we can do all of those things um so that we don't run

out of money or that somebody's not geographically who is Whispering who wants to say something okay so those are my three things uh one ask for more money because we are down to 500,000 two I just want some clarification on the senior braids program three I'm a proponent of starting something different even after this RFP because even though Wake County is three four times our size I'm still locked in on that $20 million number for our affordable our revolving housing fund so this 500,000 is just a start and we're going to need a significant amount of money to be able to roll this thing out in a way that durm deserves so I'll stop there uh for this uh expand housing repair programs what we're planning to do is to U have an RFP and seek proposals from an entity that can give us different examples on how the program will work um the the initiative that you

talked about before that was managed um that were federal dollars that Drew PR shared that and and the manager even talked about her experiences that can often be so labor intensive and so we want to try to find a streamlined userfriendly approach that's not too buris bsome for um residents as well as um the entities that are managing it so we we will um put this in our Revenue um replacement category a flexibility uh for that reason but um we'll have that same end goal so um but we'll give you that draft language in in a week or so last thing I just want to say super duper thank you for all the work that was putting I did take the time to read it and I think the other thing I was happy about you all did a chart with occupation and affordable housing and I really don't think people know what 80% Ami looks like in that

69,000 just to show the occupations that would be eligible for this we don't do a good job of articulating that thank you for elevating this in that presentation that's all I got I want to see if commissioner Carter has comments questions yeah I um actually want to uh pull that imaginary uh lever and let the balloons fly through this auditor Claudia thank you I mean honestly this presentation feels like a culmination of a great process that led to Great outcomes with the arpa also the this board's discussion about affordable housing and the outcomes that you've given us with these recommendations and the process that you used I mean I really want to um say positive things about all of us here because I believe this is is a prime example of good governance when you have a manager Council form of government like we have in this case

manager commissioner formal government you all the administration the manager listened carefully all the way back at that um Retreat we had in 20122 and you've listened to us as individuals you know what we think as a body politic it's hard to figure that out and I feel like you all have done a fantastic job and then you've figured out a way to move forward in achieve our goals objectives and Implement our values and I that doesn't happen all the time and I really want to commend us all for that because it also involves board members not micromanaging right trying to find that line between oversight of administration and administration and in particular deciding to pull together a task force that was composed of solely administrators I think was brilliant and and is the way to go um and your recommendations are so sound and I support all of them um so I wanted to

5 million because I see that as a absolutely definite recurring expenditure yes yes and so and when we yeah so when we um s set aside dollars for arpa um we had dollars in there for prek that's in the regular budget so right the tent was to also continue funding so the question becomes do we do local funding or do we do arpa and um knowing now this is not the total price tag of what we've grown totally um but uh we knew this was would be a priority of the board and so um just again for that perspective want to thank you point that out yeah thank you so much and could you

5 million sure so in the the way that the treasury dollars are allocated there you know there's six categories and one of the categories is revenue replacement and and oh yes I remember that now so one of the one of the categories is revenue replacement like back from the pandemic back from the pandemic originally um treasury basically said it was a a dollar replacement if you lost revenues because of the pandemic they then expanded the rules to allow um dollars to be used up to10 million for um any type of of local government expense that um could carry out your your your business of doing um priorities and it didn't have to be

5 million to offset uh some of the costs of the current year budget so the question comes um do we continue to use that and and if our revenues are higher we may not need to use it so then we can use some of those dollars um for another purpose and so we just kept it there right now it is a plan purpose for it okay but we're watching it and David and Keith and I we um have like Hawks no doubt we look at where our exp I'm looking back at David because I'm sure he's got his eye on me we had a conversation right before Christmas Chistmas because we were going to do some things so we're going to watch because we've had that number before but the revenues came in higher so we didn't need to use it right and so we throughout this whole process have um

been you know transparent and iterative but try to be as tactical as possible so that if it's a a a a different Federal dollar that comes in or if we for instance over collect and sales taxes um then that means that we can save those our for dollars in that way so right now it is budgeted um in the current budget that we will use the dollars but if by chance um as we get closer to June um it's determined that we're not going to need them or whatever the case may be we may come back and say no we can use it spend on something perhaps okay sounds great thank you thank you so much we have come up I think overtime on this item and be respectful for everyone if there are any other final quick comments questions commissioner Jacobs and then we will end with that thank you um yeah I wanted to go back to the arpa the rfps for housing yes that that chart um yeah I I want to just go back

to the last joint City County meeting that we had we talked a lot about housing um we had a really good presentation um around homelessness and also uh from urban ministries about their vision and I just want to make sure that I know for me I I just want to make sure that the rfps I don't know what the wording of them is are going to be but for me it is a priority that they would be um able to address some of the concerns that we heard um at the Joint City County meeting and that we've heard from uh the need for a day Center the need to start moving towards a reenvisioning of the the um you know non- congregate housing model um and also um I'm you know I'm glad to see something around the land trust but and the other big housing need that we heard

at the Town Hall on the opioid Town Hall was the need for re-entry housing for women um I guess you know I mean the bottom line is that housing is the biggest issue for people in our community you can't we can't you can't do anything in life unless you've got a safe secure place to live that's like the the most essential need um so I I guess you know I I just want to I don't can I've see the rfps are going to go out and I just would like to hear a little bit more about you know how are some of these um needs going to be able to be addressed through these through these rfps um I don't know how much you can say about that but that that's just one of my questions I'll just um comment real quickly um Claud and I had a discussion over the the holiday break about this

and where I think it would be most beneficial for us is to craft an RFP that remains really open and flexible okay and just allow submitters to to present a proposal for how they would spend funds to address you know the needs of those who are unsheltered and just allow it to to be submitted and then we can review them as their that that sounds great and I understand because you know that's what I wanted just he um and the other thing is I do want to highlight like I totally support all the recommendations that you that the task force has come out of and but I understand that was you know started the process started a year ago I think what I heard from The Joint City County meeting is that we really need a City County housing plan I mean um commissioner Burns mentioned Wake County meinberg County and Wake County they both have

housing plans they have plans comprehensive plans to address all of the housing needs including how to end homelessness um and I think I'm totally in favor of some of these like let's get going and here are some things we can do but we we don't have enough money between the city and the county to solve this problem this has to be a problem that is solved by the entire Community the private sector developers you know our our universities um you know our our you know churches with their parking lots I mean we see what St Phillips is doing like we need and that's what the wake and the meinberg county plans do they bring in the foundations everybody is at the table taking responsibility for this we need our companies involved so um I I don't know you know I guess I would put

that back I know we kind of said that in the meeting right for the city manager and the county manager to come back so I hope at our next Joint City C meeting I guess it's in February that we could hear more about that and I think also including school board that was also included in the Joint City County okay yeah I thank you oh man is it very quick um is where we're up on time on this yeah let me um so I agree with Wendy so the conversation that I had asked about the city because they did bring in a lot of different organizations of Realtors uh to start this conversation to try to flush out housing a few months while um mayor O'Neal well she was the mayor so I'd like to know what came out of those conversations because they had in-depth conversations the other conversation that I want to have is has to do with

the federal dollars uh regarding commercial property you know what you're talking about Wendy with part par lots and and that but there is money available I received a document regarding federal dollars for um commercial properties to build affordable housing and that's why I was just outside talking a few minutes ago about following up on that information and who we need to have follow up on it um um and I can forward you the document that I received but um if we can have whoever needs to follow up on those dollars uh around um commercial properties I think that would be a good thing to to T touch into as well thank you thank you so much Deputy manager Hagar and Perry I appreciate all of your time and

1 A3 I'll entertain a motion to go into close session for the reason stated did second moved by commissioner Carter seconded by Vice chair Burns all in favor say I any opposed okay the eyes

have it 5 to zero thank you everyone we are now in close session for

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e okay thank you so much the board has met in Clos session um no action was taken we've given direction to staff um with that that concludes our meeting and so I will call this meeting adjourned thank you all so much

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