as we convene for the dorm County Commissioner meeting it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history that we stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Kataba Eno okichi shakori and Tuscarora peoples whose deep connections to this land predates our arrival we acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands their resilience in the face of of adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit may we humbly honor the ancestors and Elders of these nations both past and present by committing ourselves to fostering understanding healing and justice for all who inhabit this land let us walk forward together with Open Hearts acknowledging the past and embracing a future Guided by compassion respect and unity I will now ask commissioner Vice chair Burns to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance
may we all rise I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all are there any adjustments to the agenda seeing none I will pass it off to clerk Wallace for announcements good evening everyone I will read the announcements published in tonight's agenda Durham residents in need of in need of a fan or air conditioner may be able to get one from the Durham County Department of Social Services there are eligibility requirements you can call 91 95608 to find out more information pickup is in lobby number 27 on the second floor of the Human Services building which is located at 4:14 East
m. m. m. org the Durham County Cooperative Extension
m. m. gov or you can call
m. m. m. on Tuesday July 30th or Tuesday August 13th these information uh informative and engaging Community sessions will provide community members a chance to learn about the new program
gov that concludes the announcements published in tonight's agenda thank you clerk Wallace are there any announcements from the board commissioner Howton thank you madam chair I have I want to talk a little bit about um go triangle and the um success that we've been having I serve uh as a chair of go triangle and there are such great things that um that's happening with the staff the board of directors and the staff at uh
25 million uh so there's a lot that's
happening with go triangle and its success and I know that most of our citizens don't hear about all the work that's being done um because go triangle is a regional is what's happening with go triangle is for the region um and we worked to try and bring in more federal dollars cuz City County Durham County Orange County cannot carry the burden of all the work that needs to get done and all the funds that need to get done so it's exciting to see these things happening and then the governor just signed off on the uh $2 uh tax um automobile uh tax for go triangle so there is so much and there will there was a press release regarding this so there's a lot of things that is happening around go triangle and
especially with getting the money and we do want to acknowledge I want to acknowledge Ellen uh Beckman and her uh hard work with her and her team that she helps us to get this money in um because it's needed to get the things done and to be able to have a regional transit that's needed in the area so that people can get to the jobs can get to um uh doctor's offices to there's so much that's needed around the mobility of Transit so I'm just I just wanted to bring this forward and talk a little bit about it and I passed out um copies of the grants to each one of my board members and just I'm just excited that we're able to to really make something happen so that a Citizens see that what the legislature did years ago in creating this entity is not going to
waste because it takes people committed it takes people willing to fight for making things like this happen for for uh for the region thank you madam chair thank you commissioner Haron and thank you for your leadership on the go triangle board and bringing that to us it's my pleasure commissioner Jacobs um yes so first of all very exciting for us to get the funding for the triangle Mobility Hub um is really really important for our region it's going to be a place where uh bus service train service are um local and bus Rapid Transit um passenger rail also triangle Bikeway can all meet up at one place um and also there are future plans for there to be um some type of service from there to the airport which we know we
hear over and over again that people want um an efficient effective transit to get to the airport so that is that is really really exciting um I just wanted to first of all um one item that I guess didn't make it into our announcements to let the manager speak for a minute about the announcement of this new certify and succeed program to help minority and women own businesses um that because that application process um is starting now um so and and it's um going to be available to people in the Community one-on-one sessions um through June 2025 so I have one other announcement but um m u Madam manager if you could just share um or whoever is appropriate just to let the community know about this we did put out a press release around it yes we did you did a really good job
sharing the details but it is a program that we are partnering um with Latasha best Gaddy um her company partnering with us and I'm sorry that the Name Escapes me if anyone can text me with infinity Bridges Infinity Bridges yes yes yes and so it is um to help um our small businesses and minority women business enterprises to become certified so that they are eligible to compete on contracts what a lot of people don't understand is in order for us to count mwbe utilization The Firm has to be be certified and so we want to get our firms as many firms as possible certified so that we can count them toward mwbe utilization numbers thank you and that's that's actually that was led by our economic development team so they worked in conjunction with our mwbe staff and so we're excited about the Partnerships that are happening okay well thank you so we'll um I'll forward
that we can include that in the announcements um and the other um item I just wanted to note that tonight is the 80th anniversary of the murder of private Booker T spicely um on July 8th 1944 private spicely was was a soldier who was stationed at Camp Butner and he was um shot and killed by a bus driver um Duke power was the uh bus service provider now Duke Energy at that time um and it involved um him being asked to be uh move further back in the bus um at that time and the jury at that time acquitted uh the best driver within 28 minutes um I see Shannon Shannon and I um were uh at a play a reading last
night there is going to be a play coming out so keep your um keep your uh ears and eyes open um it'll be November 14th through 17th in Durham and November 7th through 10th uh 2024 in Chapel Hill called uh the changing same the cold blooded murder of Booker T spicely by Mike Wy and Howard craft there was a reading last night at North Star church but tonight right now at 7:30 there is a vigil a silent vigil at the historic marker which is near the school of math and science at the corner of West club and Broad Street it is the only historic Mar marker in the state of North Carolina that references um Jim Crow laws uh because private spicely he died standing up against the Jim Crow law so I just want to acknowledge that is happening right now thank
you thank you CHR Jacob's Vice chair burds she got mine so yeah I don't I think when we publicized that I'm happy she said it is the intersection of uh West club and uh Broad Street because I think they kept saying West club and Berkeley so if anybody anybody who's watching that is the correct intersection and so we want to make sure folks do get that and we do want to acknowledge um that 80y year history here I did want to throw out uh two things there will be we've done significant Investments on this board in stagville there will be a descendants of stag panel on July 13th 2024 I know that we have the poster out so if you want to learn about some additional uh pieces of this Rich history the tapestry quilt uh a durm that does involve slavery um you know stagville I've said it up here before was not just a slave plantation it was a slave complex the average Plantation in those times had a small Plantation had three to four slaves average large Plantation had about 40 to
60 slaves stagville had 900 slaves in Durham so just to let you know like the kind of romanticized idea that we see on TV stagville which was here in Durham was a slave plantation and it will be doing a descendant panel I also want to at least acknowledge two people I see that we do have our president JB buckon here from the uh from the community college hello and uh as we always like to do this customary here I want to acknowledge our city councilwoman DJ Freeman is also here I see she's bought her better half so it's always welcome to our Chambers and the other thing I wanted to throw out there I'm super excited because I think sometimes we do these meetings in the public get to come in for just one but there's such a i i there's such an intersection of of the work that we do so when we sit here and we talk about um um uh the new succeed and certified certified succeed program uh this individual who has this company was also an individual who recently graduated from our innerwise program uh and she also used to be the former
director at the small small business technology Development Center at um at durm Tech so here we have an investment that we've made into a small business and this small business is now able to expand and do additional work another example um this week I had an opportunity to go to the women moving forward conference and a young man walked up to me and he wanted me to share my thanks with the staff as well as with my colleagues young man now has his own business I won't say his name he's a carpenter now his wife actually they both do a carpenter HB and he uh his wife also went through the Bulls initiative so she went through the Bulls Initiative for bow Works he actually now is an apprentice but the thing is they are both they they're both her Hub certified now but the big thing is they were grad he was a graduate in our first um hati reborn Justice movement class that young man walked up to me with a suit on and said commissioner Burns please tell your colleagues thank you because you saved my life and you saved my wife's life and
please continue to invest in this program so here he was oh he he he says you know we sell Pharmaceuticals the legal way now commissioner Burns and we're proud of that so I do want to share that and last but not least I see Andy Amica walking in right on time the last time I was up here and I think the manager what up here we uh shared that because we do have two uh additional public hearings tonight about our business and this will be my last announcement you know the Investments that we make in these so just as we open up this public hearing I think this time last year year we said that every dollar that we make uh in a tax investment for a company is something like $521 happy to tell you all now that every dollar we invest is actually 600 they we get $633 back for every dollar that we invest um in the new business in the in the businesses that we get to come here through our tax incentives so think about it would you not want to invest a dollar and get $633 back that is what we get to do on this board and this body when we bring companies in so
keep that in your back pocket as you see us trying to build back better right hand thank you thank you Vice chair Barn okay that will move us to our citizen comments uh since we only have one meeting this month uh we'll have citizen comments during this time and we have one individual Dwayne kite CR C yes if you want to come over to this side um to this microphone thank you and you'll have 3 minutes to address the board good evening commissioner Madam chair Madam manager my name is Dwayne kite I am the owner of krych Engineering Group we are located at 4900 KRA Boulevard Suite in Greensboro we are an 11 person minority
owned professional engineering firm uh we've been in business for 10 years and we have worked on a handful of projects for the county we're currently working on a project as a subc consultant to HDR uh that project is the comprehensive facility Assessment program and on that project uh krych were're responsible for performing the on-site assessments of your HVAC and mechanical equipment in 43 of your county maintained facilities including your libraries all your libraries we went through your EMS stations and even the courthouse we're in uh today and K committed 20% of our Workforce to the project over three consecutive months uh from January to March and we submitted a total of three invoices for our work and to date we have two outstanding invoices totaling nearly $50,000 of work completed dating back to January uh one invoice in the amount of
$33,750 days outstanding and another invoice in the amount of $1 155,156 35 is 106 days outstanding uh krych has performed outstanding service for to HDR in the county on this project and committed 20% of our Workforce doing so uh delivering our task on time and within budget however the con Financial consideration for for our hard work has not been uh maintained or delivered uh I'm sure you'll hear excuses from the prime consultant to why krych hasn't been paid for example you may hear that oh their invoice wasn't turned in on time or it was lost in the email or that we just for simply forgot about it but allow me to Reb uh rebut some of those comments before they start because we submitted our invoices the 135 38 day outstanding invoice we submitted on February 22nd 6 days before the month closed our 106 day outstanding
invoice we submitted on March 25th six days before the the month closed and also we've reached out to the prime project manager over seven times since April regarding payment twice in April three times in June and twice in July um but I feel it's in you know every last individual on this project has been paid including my two employees that worked on this job I'm sure all of hdr's employees that worked on the job has been paid and all the the county staff that supported the job but I haven't been paid and you know I hate to be here shedding light on this issue but I think it's important we hear about mwe inclusion and getting people paid and I I appreciate your time thank you thank you n and I spoke with the manager really briefly right now it seems like yeah as you mentioned that this this is a consultant the main Consulting Group that hasn't paid this invoice so the manager is going to follow up with them
um to ask them where the holdup is and why this hasn't been processed I apologize for the inconvenience that has caused I appreciate your time thank you so much thank you sirk you that concludes our citizen comments uh I will now ask for the approval of our minutes uh we have three work one work session and two regular session meeting minutes that need to be approved second okay moved by commissioner Haron second by Vice chair Burns all in favor say I I any opposed okay the motion passes 5 to zero now we will move to our ceremonial items with the introduction of the 2024 Durham County 4 AG youth delegate Amanda Davis for the NC Association of County Commissioners youth voice program good evening County
Commissioners and County Manager on behalf of Durham County Cooperative Extension I am pleased to present the 2024 youth voice 4 Delegate for Durham County Amanda Davis Amanda has been a very active and very valued youth leader within both our 4 and our kids voting programs and we are very very pleased that she will be representing our County at this important event I'm going to let Amanda introduce herself to you good evening everyone my name is Amanda Davis I'm a rising 10th grade homeschooler and I've been actively involved in 4 and kids voting dome for the last two years I'm excited to attend youth voice as I believe it will offer valuable opportunities to connect with fellow Youth and hone my leadership abilities my experence experience with 4 and kids voting Durham have prepared me for this opportunity through my participation in citizenship Focus
Congress an internship and various camps I'm proud to share that I received a silver award at District activity day and will be assuming the role of North Central District president of 4 after Congress as a young person born and raised in Durham I'm aware of the significant impact the County Commissioners have on issues I care about such as gun violence and homelessness this understanding fuels my enthusiasm to participate and contribute meaningfully to these important discussion excuse me these important discussions I would like to hand a PIN to each of the County Commissioners on behalf of 4 and thank you all for your time and we'd also like to get a photo with you if possible the man yeah baby bought a gift [Applause]
you for e
congratulations again Amanda and thank you so much for representing Durham County uh that will now move us to our consent agenda we have a very very Hefty consent agenda because as I mentioned this is our only meeting for the month of July before we go on break are there any items that a commissioner would like to pull commissioner Carter you tell me if I need to pull it or if I can just ask a question about one um it's related to um item 24- 0388 the approval of the lease renewal with the animal protection Society I think you just ask it um I'm just curious about the timing of this approval and the fact that we haven't yet approved the contract for services with APS and um just wondering how that will work I mean in order for them to to meet the
qualifications for the lease they have to provide the services and yet there we haven't approved the contract yet for services and so I just am curious about that and I'm sorry I didn't ask earlier it's just I didn't get to it in time and I don't know who can answer M demands are you able to respond to that not necessarily about right um that's what they need I can offer one piece of information ma'am the contract for services came to me this morning it's scheduled for your August 5th work session now why it's coming off of different times I can't speak to that okay so maybe we can amend uh the the rules and approve it at the August 5th session okay yeah and and this is just a guess but it probably is related to the
ending date for the lease and so we probably need to get the lease renewed as soon as possible so that there's no Gap okay that sounds good I think the service contract also ends at the end of June so that needs to also be approved ASAP which is what we're going to do okay very good that's what I wanted to confirm thank you any other questions item commissioner Harton um and this also is not something I want to pull but I do want to make a comment about it and then there is one that I may need staff to talk on I want to just lift up the Strategic plan and talk and share a little bit about um strategic plan and the staff that worked on this a while back years ago you know I was here when we did not have a strategic plan we didn't have a
strategic plan and when it was brought before our board it was not something that the board wanted to embrace and we had to get uh someone from the school of government to come in and explain what it meant for this board to have a strategic plan so it is very exciting to see how this has warped into and the staff has worked on it consistently until now it's such a great uh plan that talks about our vision our mission and our values because it wasn't something that as County Commissioners as this board the former board uh was embracing so I'm excited to see this going forward thank you madam man manager thanks to the staff and all has worked on this uh the other one that I was looking at is 249
391 um man manager this is about the um the food and the how the community will receive it uh just for the public could we could we talk about that a little bit before we or do do we need to pull it um Madam chair or can we have just have the manager talk about a little bit if it's just an explanation I think the manager can respond to it it's 0391 and I'm not sure if Donna is still here um y don't want to steal her Thunder but yeah go all righty Le we still have a lot of food and security community and some people may not know how to access it and uh thanks Commissioners I'm Donar Walton the County Extension director I'm gonna let Raina goldon bag who's our uh
our food security coordinator answer this for you um so I'm sorry were you um just asking for a little more clarification on what the grant um how the grants will be administered was yeah so um the County um the food security grants um we have had for several years this is the second year I believe um that it's been funded um through arpa funds and um we've used an outside contractor to help um to actually administer that because that really helps us with our capacity to be able to do more food security work in Durham um so communities um in Partnership is the organization that that was um that were putting forward to be awarded the contract to um administer the grants to community organizations that are working on food security for our most pressing needs that we might
not be um able to fill through other um other programs and funding that we're working on through the county so Cien in the community not oh to receive the grant um yes so communities and partnership and this was part of the RFP um that we wrote is that it was important for the um the contractor to be able they put a um call out to the community for the grants um and um with um plenty of time for all Community organizations and anyone that wants to apply to under understand the grant um there's information sessions and then the organizations will fill out the applications um and CIP communities in Partnership will be the one that determines um the funding based on what
was outlined um from the county in the RFP based on the criteria yeah and I and I would add that they have a community uh so there's a community Advisory Group that that CIP coordinates as part of this RFP and um they also so um there's a range of Grants so there's also a lot of over the the time we've been doing this type of work we've moved from just straight emergency food which we started during covid to a little bit more of a systemic approach where we're also encouraging organizations to come forward through this this process with grants where they are working collaboratively with other organizations so that that's that's a priority for example or they're making systemic changes to their own work so perhaps maybe they're choosing to to use more culturally appropriate Foods in the communities that serve or they have they've also been asked as part of this grant process to make sure that they are connecting with and engaging the people that they actually serve so in some way um those folks who are receiving the food assistance through the organizations that win the grants are
also contributing to the betterment and the continuance of the food they are receiving and so it's not just an exchange where we're just giving out charitable food which I think is kind of a it was a place where we started um when we started this process but it's really evolved to a much more sophisticated um approach that really benefits community members more deeply and also the organizations because I will say that part of the RFP includes um the vendor supplying the organizations with capacity building efforts around their own capacity to get other grants not just relying for example on the county but also to look at other grant opportunities and to also build their their work um in ways that are more helpful and longstanding for them um because we know food serving organizations are also often on the margin as well um they're they're often kind of you know they're doing what they can do when they bring money in and then they they you know are always on the look so we are looking at that as a capacity building strategy within this broader Grant effort I hope that's helpful yeah that one question
inform so there will be so when the RF so when the request for proposals is released um there will be um communication information about their requirements within within the RFP about what the what the vendor is providing in terms of that information so they'll first be providing information about the information sessions and the application um and there's also a lot of support one of the things we want to do is we don't want to keep organizations that maybe traditionally have been have found grants less accessible to them to get access to those grants so um so there will be a lot of communication I'm sure this will be part of your announce ments at an upcoming meeting I feel quite certain so yes so there will be a lot of information out there thank you so you are so welcome commissioner Jacobs yeah I just wanted to follow up on that because I had sent a question um to Donna and just to clarify that the the because it's not clear from the way the item is worded in
our agenda but there is going to be $400,000 available to to the community for the grants um so that that I just want to make sure that that's very clear for everyone thank you thank you for that clarification are there any questions about this item or the consent agenda okay then I will entertain a motion for approval so move second okay move by Vice chair Burn seconded by commissioner Carter all in favor say I I any against any extensions okay nope all motion the consent agenda is passed 5 to Zer that now brings us to our public hearings with the first one being the public hearing to adopt the resolution related to not to exceed $40 million Revenue bond series 2024 for RTI let's believe we have Jim T is going to
be oh there you go good evening um this is a hearing to approve a bond a teer hearing to approve a uh Bond issuance for RTI I'm sure many of you on the board and everyone here is familiar with RTI a leading nonprofit research and Technology Institute um headquartered here in Durham County they have 6,000 employees many of which live and work here in Durham County um and this Bond issuance is to approve financing to acquire uh software and enterprise resource planning software that is essentially a business tool that tracks business processes like procurement Finance HR and similar uh
metrics um across the entirety of the RTI organization this uh tea hearing and resolution are only for purposes of satisfying the requirements of the tax code and it does not reflect this Bond issuance does not reflect the County's debt it is not the County's debt um but I'm happy to to um take any questions before we do the hearing are there any questions for commissioner Jacobs um yes could you or I don't know the County Attorney clarify we have not done something like this in a long time um so I think it would be good at least from our attorney or whoever is appropriate to just clarify why this is coming to us for approval and that it does not um convey any type of liability um financially on the county yeah I can I can certainly answer that
the essentially the tax because of the way the tax code is set up it ensures that there is this type of public hearing and approval from the jurisdiction in which the project is located and so because RTI is headquartered here this is where the hearing is is meant to be under the tax code um so it's just a way for the for the public to be aware of the project since it is located here um however the the debt is issued ued by an external um Wisconsin based in this case um entity and therefore the debt is not is not the County's debt thank you commissioner Carter the vice shair Burns I'm just curious in approving this are we affirming uh a set of criteria or or anything in any way why might one not approve this why might an elected body not approve it I mean I I'm just
wondering what does the law say that by approving this we are saying XYZ I just not sure what it means yeah that that's a a very understandable question there there's really no criteria I suppose that you're you're affirming in any way um again it's really just to give the public that is in the location of wherever the project is located in this case here in Durham County um notice really of the of the event um it's really uh I can't tell you why someone might disapprove it it's it's I suppose a fairly routine um Hearing in the sense that again it it just doesn't reflect the County's St are are do you think we're we're at least affirming that we believe this is in the best interest of Durham County residents or something like that certain certainly that's true of course if if the board found any particular project under these circumstances to not be in the best interest that the tax code is also providing you an opportunity to to vote precisely so so in that sense yes so
E here so it really is like federal law and Wisconsin's law that says hey we need to make sure that the people where this office is located are okay with that so is that what is
kind of the guiding principle for why this came in front of us in the first place yes that's precisely correct I I think you've you've um summed it up very very well and and as we were look flaty will get you everywhere but yeah that's I think that's the idea is that again we are approving the principle of the matter that it's um that we think it's you think it's in the best interest of the county thank you so much sir commissioner Howton can you turn your mic on commissioner on and back off but good time with his mic um does it impact all of the businesses in in the Research Triangle in sorry in what sense I suppose do you mean that the the actual the actual issuance of this debt um I suppose that's particularly for this project for RTI but this in theory could apply to any any business in the Research Triangle
Park so if they want to do a bond it would any of the businesses could apply for what under the if they meet the criteria that is necessary for the like in this case um RTI is a nonprofit organization for example and so these are qualified um private activity bonds that can only be issued by nonprofit organizations um so there's certainly very there's a lot of requirements for different types of bond issuances so it certainly depends on what the structure of the business is for example what they're going to use the bonds for um but in this case because it is a nonprofit um organization that's issuing the bonds they can take advantage of these tax incentives to um issue the bonds and get get at least some of them in a tax exempt um cont text if that makes sense okay if there's no further questions
then I will open the tefra hearing for the purposes of meeting the requirements of the Public Finance Authority and section 147f of the Internal Revenue code AS amended regarding the possible issuance by the public Finance Authority of one or more series of its revenue bonds RTI series 2024 in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $40 million and since we've had the explanation from Mr Twitty do we need to repeat the explanation okay wonderful then uh now that the public hearing is open are there any persons who wish to speak for or against the bonds or the project okay here heing none I will hereby close this public hearing and we will move uh to the approval of a resolution uh for this
Bond so earlier this should I read this whole thing okay earlier this evening the Board of Commissioners held a public hearing for purposes of meeting the requirements of the Public Finance Authority and section 147f of the Internal Revenue code AS amended regarding the possible issuance by the public Finance Authority of one or more series of its revenue bonds series 2024 in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 40 million the proceeds of the bond will be loaned to RTI a nor Research Triangle Institute a North Carolina nonprofit corporation and used to finance including through reimbursement the acquisition and installation of cloud-based enterprise resource planning software and pay certain costs incurred in connection with the issuance of the bonds the project is or will be owned and operated by RTI and is or will be assessed through the principal office of RTI located at 3040 corn Wallace Road Durham North Carolina
27709 under the federal tax code and the Wisconsin statute creating the Public Finance Authority the bond must be approved in principle by the elected legislative body of a governmental unit with jurisdiction over the project after a public hearing because RT principal office is located in the county at 3040 car Wallis Road Durham North Carolina 27709 the Board of Commissioners can satisfy the requirement of the code and Wisconsin law by adopting a resolution approving in principle the issuance of the bonds by adopting such a resolution the county will have no liability whatsoever for the payment of principal premium if any or interest on the bonds and the bonds will not affect the County's legal debt limit RTI will be solely responsible for repayment of the bonds adoption of this resolution is solely to satisfy the requirements of the federal tax code and Wisconsin law now I'll introduce the resolution that Maguire Woods LLP is serving as
Bond Council and Council to RTI for this transaction with attorney Jim Twitty uh with McGuire Woods is present and can answer any questions that the Commissioners may have at this time if there are no questions I will entertain a motion to adopt the resolution entitled resolution approving in principle the issuance of not to exceed 40 million of Public Finance Authority revenue bonds RTI series 2024 for the benefit of Research Triangle Institute so moved moved by Vice chair Burns seconded by commissioner Carter um I'll will now ask for a vote all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions okay the resolution is approved 5 to zero thank you Mr twiy thank you that brings us to our next public hearing for a public hearing to consider a performance-based award for project high power with Iona and we have Matt
from our Economic Development Office good evening uh my name is Matt fter and I'm the economic development manager for Durham County uh the board tonight is requested to hold a public hearing to consider a performance-based incentive award for project high power in the amount of $170,000 and to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute a performance agreement for project high power project high power is the construction and operation of a new premium office headquarters for Iona which will create 203 jobs and invest approximately $10 million over five years the project was officially announced at a press conference last month in downtown Durham uh before I go into some of the details of the project I'd just like to recognize and thank several of the folks and organizations uh who worked closely with Durham County to bring this exciting uh project here at Iona uh Seth Cutler the CEO Richard
statti the chief product officer uh Derek rush I see him right there their Chief Financial Officer and their general counsel angel Allen um we'd also like to thank CBR um the site consultant um Sydney August and Seth marale uh Matt glaic at the Durham Chamber of Commerce worked really hard on this project and of course uh thanks to the whole edpnc Governor's team and state Commerce Department we're very appreciative of their hard work and their commitment Iona is a clean energy technology and electric vehicle charging company they will develop design build and oper operate a unique high-powered EV charging station network and customer experience that will lead to increased EV adoption in North America the network will support and be open to electric vehicles of all brands in addition to corporate functions iona's new state-of-the-art facility here in Durham will include a customer experience lab for research and development of software
and Hardware to create a network of more than 30,000 electric vehicle charging points the was founded by a partnership of major Automotive companies including BMW General Motors Honda Hyundai Ki Kia excuse me Mercedes-Benz and stellantis their selection of Durham County will allow for the continued diversification of our local and Regional economy growing our clean energy and Automotive sectors with approval of this award the company has agreed to make reasonable efforts to provide internships to Durham Tech students North Carolina Central students particip ipate in local hiring events and job fairs engage with the Durham public schools on a variety of partnership opportunities and commit to a 25% mwbe aspirational goal on their construction spending there's additional details in the briefing sheet attached to the agenda item all payments for this project will adhere to the Durham County Economic Development incentive policy and will only occur after annual
performance verification that the company has met its job creation and investment and Community Partnership Targets this includes maintaining that property taxes are paid at at least twice the scheduled payment staff recommends approval of this award the public hearing has been advertised as required by law uh happy to take any questions you may have for staff or if you'd prefer to hear from the company uh we have Derek Rush iona's CFO here uh to to speak to the project and address the board like sh oh so before the public hearing so one what welcome am I looking at this gentleman okay making sure and the you also had a title I'm yes'am G right the lawyer acknowledge the lawyer man like but yeah so one thank you all both we we are all of us I think cuz commissioner L had just had a beautiful little one had
the opportunity to meet uh Seth Cutler um one the things that I did want to ask I I because I stopped some of y'all on LinkedIn really cool thing that happened right after and this doesn't always happen this way as soon as we opened up uh as soon as we made the announcements uh that day Seth actually put up that we were already hiring right so even though you know we I don't work there you all are already hiring and so I know that the number is in here it's it was it's not 170 it's 203 so maybe for the public a couple of things you could answer because I I this was one I was excited about I don't want to say any other names but we have all of these companies popping up right now uh that are making Battery Systems and then this is a big deal because you got the car companies to come together and say n we're going to do this ourselves and I mean the fact that you know you chose Durham is is just huge for us because you saw the value in our people you saw the value in our Workforce and we certainly want to get folks there so the one thing I do
want to throw out because I think we have some of those details the public might not can we at least just do a a small kind of breakdown of like the jobs because I want people to know that these 203 jobs are not all like my CFO my general counsel so can Matt I think you yeah I can give a little bit of a a high level I'll let um Derek if you'd like to come up and speak a little bit more broadly um I I would say just from what the companies provided it's 203 uh total jobs it bumped up a little I think the number that we saw in close session was around 170 so that did increase um and so there's a range of positions kind of from the the more Junior kind of entry level analyst you know all the way up to kind of SE Suite type jobs um these are more traditional I would say white white collar jobs you know I don't know if we use that term anymore but that's you know um kind of a $100,000 or so average college education required a little different from some of the other projects that that we have but this is a headquarters project and so um you know
that's kind of the the way that something like that shakes out Derek I'll I'll let you speak I I don't know that I have much to add to that but uh that that's it's the right description so um maybe maybe the one piece I can add is that part of this is not just putting a headquarters uh in Durham but putting our test lab so there's there's more work than meets the eye in terms of making sure the vehicles and the Chargers and the backend software all work together and so that's part of what we expect to be happening and probably um one of the key ways we'll draw interns into the program is to help them or have them work with the engineers who are working through all of those interoperability uh concerns right and the thank you so much sir and I'm G I'm going to go back to one may I will ask you I know that there were many things that we went over in the incentive project and we did say best efforts for um for uh some of the internships and we did outline you know
and these and we said at least one one paid internship at nccu and then Mr President I'm happy you hear internship over at durm Tech so that's your new best friend but I did want to also throw out did we do um yes you all make friends before this is over serving as uh dur Public School CTE advisor is that something that we were able to get in there if I'm not mistaken um we did have some language about um the Durham Public School Partnerships I I think I'll before I address that specifically everything that y'all asked for you know close session for us to go back to the company um they they agreed to so I can start with that um there are some specific um things in the commitments educational sessions with students to include guest speaking hosting teachers for career Readiness Etc um that's a a broad commitment that you know if there are specific programs we could certainly slip that in provided it was acceptable to the company no and if everybody please know I'm not picking on them because we did a press conference we did a press release we we did not know these
really great things that myself along with the women up here asked for and we did not get the Highlight in the press release that this company said yes to all of them so that is really what I'm trying to highlight I don't want y'all the ner I don't want the turny to get nervous like why is she asking all these questions it's because we we didn't get to say all of these things because uh the governor did that announcement Commerce did that announcement and a lot of those details were not in those bigger press releases so I do want y'all to know that when we go when companies come to us when we go out we really do ask for very specific things that are important to the people in this community and this is a company that said yes to all of them so that's all I'm trying to get to but that's all I got Madam thank you Vice chair Burns commissioner Jacobs um I just want to say um welcome to Durham County and we're just really thrilled this is um a transformative project not just for Durham County but for our for our entire our country and I
mean really for our world um the way that all of these different car companies uh International companies National companies are collaborating together is is really amazing and honestly gives me a lot of Hope um to see this type of collaboration and the fact that it's going to be happening right here in our community and it's so important for um our future um survival here on our planet and and really implementing what we the future that we know we need so I'm just really excited uh that this is happening uh this is a game Cher and um you know we just want to do whatever we can to make sure that people in our community are connected to this opportunity and that we're supplying you with The Talented Workforce uh that we have here in our community so again
thank you thank you it's very good summary of uh what we're excited about it's it's very good summary of uh why I joined the company and um uh we're we're we're equally thrilled to uh to be located in Durham it's someone else said it earlier we we see a lot of potential in terms of the skills the history of research and innovation technology in the area and that's uh that's how we ended up here so as I speak uh uh Seth our CEO is packing up his house in Minnesota uh to uh to drive down in a couple days thank you so much I Echo the sentiments of my colleagues and I apologize for missing the press conference as Vice chair Burns mentioned I had just had a baby and so I was out um taking a little break but we're very excited for Iona to be joining us thank you Matt and Andy as well for bringing this project to us for the board to support um really excited to see all of
the Innovation that comes out of it and all of the Durham County residents hopefully that'll be able to fill these positions thank you um so now I will if there's no other questions from colleagues I will open up may I Madam chair may I just say one more thing yes um sometimes when you do these public hearings they can kind of get lost like how amazing this project really is right and so the eight largest Automotive companies in the world got together and said we're going to you know form an electric vehicle charging company and any of all the places in the world we could put it we're going to put it in Durham County so I just think that that's a remarkable thing that we should celebrate and I know we all are but sometimes it kind of gets and and so just thank you to you for your support throughout this process to make make this happen so Madam chair sorry well thank you Matt thank you for bringing the enthusiasm I will now open the public hearing and there were no individuals signed up to
speak um are there any um i' would like to ask if it'd be acceptable for Mt ladic with the greater durm Chamber of Commerce we had him hoping to come and talk a little bit about the project yes Mr glad we have some questions about this project could you please answer those for us let me get my legal pen I feel like I think walking across the room is going to be longer than my comments so I apologize for elongating the meeting I was just also very grateful for uh this team that has come and has partnered with us and their willingness to meet with all of our local educational uh company or organizations and make sure they're connecting a Workforce and all the priorities we have so I just wanted again like the Matt highlighted this is a really big deal so it was a pleasure to work with Matt and Andy on this as well as the team at Ayana thank you madam CH I some of you all might not
remember this but I got to give Matt his flowers too in the same way I would give Andy his flowers both Matts cuz but I do want to say uh we were still in Co and we were on a screen when we had I think this first meeting and you know North Carolina wasn't getting car company after car company after car company and your predecessor Ryan I remember I asked on camera I said what are we going to be good at like like we've got to get something you know cuz we we're DM bof farer is like where we eat you know and I'll never forget he said on camera he said it's going to be autonomous vehicles Battery Systems it's going to be electric energy he said that on camera and then he left the chamber and I was just thinking and he told he gave like some really great reasons why and then I he got another job God bless him but he left but you came in and you picked up the rains and I just want to say thank you to you thank you to being able to work with our team thank you for being able to take our vision out into the community cuz some days I'll see you I'm really working hard on this
commissioner burs and so I I just really appreciate it but yeah somebody said it a couple of years ago you came into this seat and uh it's just been a force multiply everything around it and we've we've gotten so much so thank you so much thank Youk you since there's no other individuals sign up for comment I will close the public hearing and now Attorney D approve anything no okay that's wanted to make sure because I didn't get a script for this one so um so I will entertain a motion to approve the award uh in the amount of 170,000 to Iona moved by commissioner howon seconded by commissioner Carter all in oh can I think can we just amend that to the award and to authorize yes and authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute um commissioner
Howton do you accept the amended motion yes okay and I second it all in favor say I I any opposed any abstentions okay the motion passes 5 to zero congratulations thank you so much all right thank thank you very much now it brings us to our final public hearing for for to consider a performance-based award for project Foundry and we have Matt again uh good evening again um our second uh Economic Development public hearing this evening is for uh project Foundry uh we are so very excited uh to be able to announce tonight and welcome a $65 million uh expansion of the science Corporation here in Durham County to support their cuttingedge Foundry program science Corporation is a clinical stage medical technology company and a leader in the field of bra brain computer interfaces science is
working to restore the quality of life to those with dehabitation conditions for which there are currently no treatment options creating Innovative devices medical devices uh aimed at restoring Vision cognition and Mobility to patients that have lost it so this is really kind of lifechanging uh work that they're doing uh the 57,000 ft expansion and program investment here in Durham will be at their existing uh tww Alexander Drive location and it will support semi semiconductor manufacturing for new Cutting Edge Technologies including a groundbreaking visual prothesis um the company envisions that this facility will be their hub for manufacturing for their next generation of medical devices uh similar to the previous project kind of before I go into the details I just wanted to acknowledge and recognize just some the folks who really worked uh closely to bring this this project here um at science Corporation we have Jonathan Beck I think he's there he is um Cara
Cara Cara Cara uh zapali uh we have Richard Soares he's not with us but he's their their press person Adrien Don um Dave eford there's Dave their uh kind of site consultant um uh and counsel uh Matt glad again at the Durham chamber and um just the whole team at edpnc and the Commerce department just a lot of lot of work that went into this and so I just want to say thank you uh for the public hearing though the board is uh requested to hold a hearing to consider a performance-based award uh for science corporations project Foundry in the amount of $930,000 and to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute a performance agreement for project Foundry this new manufacturing project Pro will create 54 jobs and invest approximately $65 million within 5 years manufacturing projects with their great entry-level wages and benefits are a priority for
Durham County of the 54 new jobs uh 67% so more than 2third require only a 2-year degree or less uh and nearly 90% require 5 years of experience or less um so this is just fantastic for folks um in the community with approval of this award board the company has agreed to make reasonable efforts to provide internships to Durham Tech students North Carolina Central students uh to work with Durham Tech to identify coursework and certifications necessary for the entry-level positions participate in local hiring events and job fairs engage with Durham public schools on various partnership opportunities and commit to a 25% mwb be aspirational goal on construction spending there's additional information in the attachment um and just similar to what we talked about earlier everything that the board asked for when we went to close session we went back to science corporation uh they agreed to as well um all payments for the project will adhere to the
Durham County Economic Development incentive policy and will only occur following annual performance verification that the company has met its job creation investment and Community Partnerships Targets this includes maintaining that property taxes paid annually are at minimum twice the scheduled payment staff recommends approval of this award the public hearing has been uh advertised as required by law and I'd be happy to take any questions or um or invite the the the project Foundry uh science team up if that's uh your wish as well commissioner Jacobs you mentioned a visual prosthetic so now I'm really curious um I would just love to hear about what are some of I mean whatever you are able to talk about um but that um Jan that you are going to be working on that that sounds incredible all I will say is a non-scientist is it is absolutely incredible and once they describe what
it is they're doing um I'm going to quote my friend M glad here and say it's almost like science fiction it's something you used to read about and now it's becoming reality I'm a little short for this uh hi I'm Cara zappelli I'm the director of science corporation's chip manufacturing facility here in Durham um first of all I just want to thank uh the County Commission um for their support on our Expansion Project um so we actually have two uh visual proceses that we're working on uh designed to primarily treat age related macular degeneration which is one of the leading causes of uh blindness in uh today's today's Times um both of those have slightly different mechanisms but they would essentially be um implanted devices in the retina that replace the function of our rods and cones um so essentially replacing the um mechanism
to take in light and convert it into electricity to talk to the brain um and so we're working on two different ways of doing that they're in different sort of phases of development we have one that's more early stage and then another that's in uh late stage clinical trial um in humans in Europe um and we're really hoping to bring that manufacturing to the US and specifically to Durham County because we think that would be really amazing to do so wow well that's amazing so we're going to save the planet and we're going to save uh people's eyesight right here in Durham County to save the planet and make sure people can see it that's right we will be um copyrighting that immediately after this meeting Dave EP will you be assisting I will thank you so much are there any questions or comments by Shin I had a really quick one because uh I think what was the Sunset date somebody keep me
honest here for the chips sack was what June 30 so you all if it says here that you all the project is seeking chip sack funding do we know whether or not you know is there a timeline for you all and in the event that this passes tonight you know I I I know that those tax incentives have been helpful in being able to bring about business here because people get a j dig break they get a federal break they get a local break so in the event everything passes tonight um is there something that you all would need our additional support on even though the deadline is passed uh Madam commissioner thank you for the question my name is John Beck I'm the operations manager here in Duram for our Foundry Expansion Project and the answer to your question is we have submitted pre-application for chips and science act funding from the federal government and we have not yet received feedback from them on our particular project we are optimistic uh that we'll get good feedback and that we'll have to turn an application quite quickly back to the federal government but we did put an
awful lot of work into the pre-application that explained what type of project we'd like to do here in Durham County so we're optimistic about that Federal funding but we're also very appreciative of Durham County for the incentives you've offered us which made the decision to expand our Foundry capacity here in Durham much easier um and we're excited about doing that in the near term so thank you for your question thank you so much commissioner Carter then commissioner Howton um I just wanted to express how grateful we are that companies like you and the one before you um really pay attention to what the commission ERS are asking for as far as Community benefits go um you know we spent a lot of time thinking about what the benefits our community wants to see uh in our incentive agreements and it's and we like getting everything we ask for so thank you very much for taking us seriously around that part of the
agreement um and we also like receiving at you know greater than or equal to twice the scheduled um incentive payment and property tax increases from you also that that's another part of this agreement that we um value clearly and and take very seriously and welcome to Durham your work sounds very exciting indeed um and I hope that we'll be successful with um programming that will connect durm residents to to your jobs and hope you enjoy living here hope you choose to live in durm and enjoy living here thank you commissioner Howton thank you I think my colleague just said exactly what I was going to say say the other thing is um I think we we have the wrong job you guys it starts out at over $100,000 a year plus benefits you know we got a wrong job so thank you for choosing Durham we look forward to working with you and
seeing what your next venture will be thank you commissioner appreciate that very much thank you thank you guys again for expanding here uh and already being here having chosen Durham in the past and deciding to grow in Durham uh we appreciate it um any other comments okay with that I will open the oh commissioner open the public hearing there were no individuals signed up to speak um I see Matt signaling to Matt a lot of people think we're the same person so we're both in person here today to prove that that there are indeed two of us uh Madam chairwomen and Commissioners thank you for having me again um I really wanted to highlight again this company just like with um Ayana this is a company that very quickly uh because of the chips act we started working with them and thanks to the County tax office
and Matt and Andy and yourselves very quickly put this on agenda to get through the incentive process so thank you for that also in that very short time um science Corporation has set up meetings with Duke with Durham Tech and with nccu they are committed to our community and they've shown that in the very short time in the actions they've had very excited to have them expanding here thank you thank you Matt thank commissioner Jacobs you add something yeah I first of all I want to acknowledge the partnership and the teamwork that this things like this do not happen without everyone working together and and we everyone will need to continue working together right for the long-term success and glad to have JB buckson here who's an important partner for Workforce Development um I just really want to highlight um also what not only what is special is that
the kind of meaningful work that you all are doing to improve people's lives um but also you know just how compliment these projects are we feel very strongly about supporting different sectors of our our economy um so you know this you know two very different sectors here and also focusing on different types of workers and education backgrounds and so what's also exciting to me about this project is the fact that these are jobs that are accessible to people with different education levels so out of the 54 jobs um 67% of them will only require a 2-year degree and or less um and 47% with um only 5 years of experience or less and so these are very good jobs good paying jobs for people in our community and that is a really big
priority for our our board as well so I'm really excited also to have you all growing here with these really um meaningful and important manufacturing jobs for people in our community uh so again thank you Matt and Matt and Andy and everybody who works together to make make these opportunities possible for all of us thank you I will now close the public hearing and I will bring it back to the board any final questions comments before I entertain a motion to approve the amount of 930,000 and to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute a performance agreement with project Foundry or with science Corporation for so moved second moved by Vice chair Burns seconded by commissioner Jacobs all in favor say I I any opposed any
extensions okay it is award is approved 5 Z thank you so much thank you for your time I do want to say um I know you all have said this but these gentlemen here were very very helpful to get us to this point and to get us in front of you and we very much appreciate not only their effort but your effort to to get us in here and and uh and hear us in in open session so thank you very much thank so that brings us to the end of our public hearings um I'll pass it to the attorney for the boards and commission's appointments are you good to go I am I didn't know if there was something more and there's 10 minutes allotted on the agenda for this and it may take that long to read the results for the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board oh one
second wait a minute I got five I haven't given you one so how you get r r here is just one yes ma'am let see but I'll ask attorney Massie did you already have for all of them a majority cuz then I think then we could you could just announce it since I did I love you commissioner Harton but it won't [Music] change what photo okay yeah okay while we wait we commissioner b i I'd like to uh while we're adding up these votes I do think we did two really historic announcements tonight so if we could get a camera and actually get an opportunity to take a photo uh with the individuals for
science Incorporated and also from Matt can you bring um science Corporation back in'll come back for
that and that for e
per are you ready attorney Messi yes ma' okay take it away all right your mic for the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board you have selected Gail Adin I'm going to mangle this one Ryan erat for the bicycle Andrian advisory commission Hannah bball and Trenton Cormier for the citizens advisory committee Jennifer ganzer and Seth candle for the criminal justice advisory committee breita Denning and Mike cyrm
for the dangerous dog appeal board Grace [Music] laws for the Durham Convention Center Authority Susan Amy for the Durham County women's commission Rita Denning MMA Kamara Tiffany Reeves Stacy Johnson and Kelly Lindsay Drayton for the Durham cultural Advisory Board Andrew nurkin for the Durham Planning Commission Sarah chagaris Zuri Williams and Matt copac for the three at large positions and Carrie woke for the Oak Grove car Township position for the Durham Sports commission Brendan Madigan for the Durham Technical Community College Board of trustees
Matthew glad for the environmental Affairs board toar Shel shelat Corey God Almighty I'm I'm sorry for for to you Ma'am Corey lvti and Sher Taylor for the industrial facilities and Pollution Authority Ivan Francis for the juvenile crime prevention Council Seth candle for the citizen position for the rep of parks and wreck Alex hurdle and for youth under 18 Houston Taft and for the Memorial Stadium Authority Derek McGee thank you so much attorney Massie uh thank you and congratulations to all the individuals who applied and were selected and thank you to all the individuals who weren't selected at this
11 A3 do I hear a motion enter close session for reason stated so moved moved by commissioner Howton second by commissioner Jacobs all in favor say I I any opposed okay we are in close session thank you everyone for joining us
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