convene for the Durham Board of County Commissioners meeting it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of History we stand on the stolen ancestrial lands of the Kataba Eno okichi shakori and tuscaro peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our rival we acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the disposition of indigenous people from the from their homelands their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and their Spirit may we humbly honor the ancestors and Elders of those 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 and I will get commissioner Carter to start us off with the I have so many people to choose from I'm gonna get commissioner Carter to start us off with the Pledge of
Allegiance if we could all rise stes thank you all for your patience and your commitment um I'm going to move past any agenda adjustments lacking Quorum and we will move right into announcements and I will send those over to our Madam clerk good evening Commissioners I will read the announcements published in tonight's agenda Durham County is excited to announce the form of The Advisory board for the new resources for youth success and empowerment rise assessment center and invited residents to apply to volunteer this board will be instrumental in guiding the development
m Durham Refugee day is a CommunityWide event that celebrates the contributions and cultures of our Refugee and immigrant neighbors and provides an opportunity to stand in solidarity with these communities this is a free family friendly event with live music Community Education booths activities for kids food vendors and food vendors from around the world you
m. m. org when extreme heat hits our community please remember that all Durham County Library locations except for Stanford El Warren and bragtown operate as cooling centers for Durham County residents during their normal
gov and lastly interested in applying to enroll your child in high quality prek education from Durham prek if you live in Durham
org that concludes the announcements in tonight's agenda thank you so much Madam clerk I will go to the board to see if there any additional announcements or things they like to share okay well I actually did have one one um I don't for a lot of folks who who might not have been here I just want to really highlight the first announcement that she gave about um Durham County six applicants for Rise Assessment Center um there were a lot of folks who probably did not think that we were going to do uh what we said that we were going to do um the youth home um when we changed your name it's always
it's just a political Ploy and we said we're going to make 44% of it an assessment center and here it is build open brick and morar and there's an assessment center and we said we will get the communities advice on how we want to deal with that assessment center and look we built Advisory board so that the community can tell us how they feel about the assessment center and then um thank you so much to um our uh our manager um because she took someone off of her staff we all know um about our school to prison Pipeline and we all worry about it but we divert over 3,000 students a year in Durham County off from having to ever go through that cycle and now in this assessment center we have a diversion specialist that is going to be laser focused on that I don't think a lot of people know um it's not always law enforcement it is not always Educators there are parents who say I don't know what to do and they bring their children to us so just uh for everybody who two years ago went and bought turkeys and collard greens and
put my name and commissioner Jacob's names on them and said we were building a jail I just want y'all to know it's open and it is not a jail and it is open for all students and all parents who are seeking help so that they don't have to deal with the uh our school to prison pipeline so there's that one the other thing because we actually want to make sure that all children succeed at every level we didn't give out this announcement but the Durham success Summit also has applications that are open now so this is um a nonprofit that works with young men with they partner them with uh individuals at the Collegiate level so that we can start to build up mentorship and career development at an early age so their application is also open the application period for that one will be open until August 16th 2024 they're recipient of some of our ARA dollars and you might be saying why in the world is commissioner Al Burns always talking about kids because since our last meeting five more have been shot two of them were twoy olds this weekend two at my last meeting I moved money to
open up three classrooms at Murray massenberg some of them kids are never never going to see those three classrooms so I'm going to keep talking about all these other opportunities we have until we can start saving some more lives out here um that was uh the two that I wanted to highlight was again joint Advisory Board and also to make sure that we are highlighting the rise application process we will be moving past the minutes and move straight into our ceremonial items and I'm super excited because we got some of our superheroes here so we're moving on to our first ceremony item office of emergency services receives a Community impact award from CPI Security and W and I see that we have assistant County Manager Dwayne Bron up so I will give the floor to him thank you good evening Dwayne Brenson assistant County Manager our office of emergency services I am excited to recognize them for some great work that they've been doing they recently received the community impact award from CPI and
wrl this award recognizes First Responders to go above and beyond in their daily duties CPI Security chose Durham County EMS for the award because of their program to produce opioid overdoses which we just had our annual opioid meeting and talked about that too and treat people struggling with opioid addiction the award includes a $1,000 check which they've offered to donate to the Vic Pierce memorial fund which honors EMS employees who display the highest levels of competency and compassion to their patients during the year just want to congratulate OES Community Paramedic program uh director lockheart staff you want to offer a few
comments thank you Dwayne Commissioners m manager it's a pleasure to be with you this evening and just want to take a moment to recognize the folks uh from o who were recognized by the CPI award uh Dr anjany Joiner is our medical director assistant chief L van Fleet uh in charge of clinical Affairs and then joining me at the podium our captain Helen trip who heads the community Paramedic program and Lisa Smith one of our community paramedics we nominated uh the community Paramedic program for this award based on the diligent work that they have done with the medic ation for opioid use disorder uh Captain trip just detailed that program in the community meeting and the use of BU and orphan uh to help treat victims and patients who have suffered from an overdose Captain trip spearheaded the effort that uh got us uh some grant money in order to initiate that and she and Lisa Smith and Phil Keane uh Community paramedic who retired April 1 were instrumental in launching that program where they respond to
overdose calls and once the patient has been treated then if they consent to being inducted with buban orphen are treated with that medication and then they conduct followup visits with that patient uh in the days uh afterward as well as getting them connected with Community Resources so I can't say enough good things about these two ladies behind me and and Mr Kean but also Dr Joiner and chief F Fleet who provide the supervision and Leadership and direction for this excuse me this program these are incredible individuals doing absolutely amazing work in the community each and every [Applause] day thank you we appreciate the recognition it was an honor to be awarded this reward from CPI Security and but I think the most important thing is the work that we're able to do as a result of our mud program and our Narcan program and that helping people in the
community to not die from an overdose you know EMS does this every day and we're able to do go a little bit farther than what they can do on a 911 call now and offer this medication to them so we're very proud and excited to be able to continue that program I shared in the meeting and I'm not going to talk a long time because I told them today I could go on for hours about this and we don't want to do that it's hot in here but we have had we started this program mud program back in in May of last year and we've had 26 inductions inductions when we start somebody on the medication eight of those were this past week eight because the program like any pilot takes time to start and we're starting to see some movement now we're starting to see it grow and we're really excited about I'm hoping to be able to report even higher numbers to you the next time I get a chance to speak but thank you again and appreciate the honor
[Applause] I didn't know if the young lady in the black shirt want to say something or no come we're enjoying the air condition take your time it's quite lovely in here thank you something that I've seen recently says nobody recovers from Six Feet Under and that struck home and so it's been an honor to serve Durham in this aspect that we can get people not only staying alive but thriving and it has been really an awesome experience for everybody involved so it is a blessing to have this opportunity in [Applause] room I'm going to bring it back to the board and so surpris surprise I'm going to start with commissioner Carter
yes well we just couldn't be prouder of this program this paramedicine program this program that works to um provide the buprenorphine and induction in the field so to speak it really is a groundbreaking program and clearly the life-saving program harm reduction at its finest how to reduce the harm of dying from an over dose and you all are doing that we we just have tremendous pride in you as individuals and in you as the paramedicine team that's out in the field doing this important important work every day what leadership you are showing um and it just it just really uh extends the high quality services that Durham County provides uh in a new uh and supremely important way we want to honor you today and congratulations on this award and thank you so much for what you do could never say thanks in a
big enough way I guess I'll go next um so mine is I I want to I try to be quick but you know I always talk about like what I see in my everyday life but um when we get to be with you all and I think that before I got on the County Commission like most residents I had a very narrow perception respectable but a very narrow perspective about what you know paramedics did you know this is rapid response and gonna get you okay and then we will get you to the doctor's office right we will get you to the hospital and it's just it's so much more than that like I could gush over y'all like all day you all are the epitome of what it means to be completely committed to making sure that every person in Durham outside of their social economic status is treated well and respected when they are trying to get help in one of the
scariest points in their life and I I I sincerely thank you for that um the other the other week just to show y'all how much they do I you did say that you went after the grant like you all went after the money so they we did our flags for Our Heroes shout out to uh ACM Brinson I did not get to say it on stage but he was there in attendance to show his support but we were thanking our first respondents so I'm on the program the the lock heart's on the program and I was I could stand there and everyone else like oh we have the best you know we we we want to respect our veterans and our First Responders and I said y'all can say that all day I want to respect we have the best I said we have an award-winning staff like when they come to pick you up you're getting the best hands on you so he stood up there made his speech and uh I said I got to go I got to go because it's elder abuse day I get over there there at elder abuse day trip right they're ready in the community they're everywhere I was my whole day I went back to work somebody passed out the ambulance pulled
up y'all were just everywhere all day with me on Friday and I don't think that we really think about that that it's not just they show up when things are bad they show up to say hey these are the services that we have ongoing in the event you need community support and so for that I just say thank you and um I'm super excited and before to show my own ignorance can somebody come up to the mic and say who Vic Pearson was for the public I could Google it but it's for the memorial award fun sure Vick Pearson was a paramedic that I I came to Durham County in 1991 he was there a couple years before I I was and uh he died after surgery from cancer and so once his family wanted to do something to honor his memory and they set up a fund with EMS to not just recognize our
paramedics who exceed above and beyond but also to help our paramedics or staff who experience hardships there's funding available if someone's house burns down or something happens and they need some assistance financially it's not a lot but every little bit help helps in a situation like that and this comes from the Vic Pearson fund so they they his family set this up for us so that we would have that that funding available in times of need so we were very grateful for the recognition that they gave well let's clap it up again cuz they won some money and gave it away like so thank you thank you thank you um thank you for being our protectors thank you for being our innovators thank you for being our Educators you all who are not here every night this is them all the time time when we were we didn't when we had to get ambulances what was it 3 years ago they came y'all came to us say it's a back order order them in advance when we were worried about how we were going to deliver babies it kind
of stunned me a little bit when we bought those cabers that could breathe cuz I don't I ain't want to see uh uh it wasn't a cadabra CU it's not a dead body what is it there it is the well it talked to me and I didn't like it director lockart I ran and then I found out we had a mannequin that could give birth I've never seen that one don't need to see it thanks though I'm happy we were able to buy it and then the same thing when we need to think about a clean way to clean out our ambulances and take the uh boxes and take them off of Ford Chassis and put them mer y' listen when y'all talk so they always come to us with these really innovative ideas so that when you call 911 there are no glitches that is not the people up here that's them being proactive every day so thank you thank you thank you commissioner Burns just so you know the ambulances you spoke of from three years ago were delivered us last [Applause] Friday chief Communications officer Craig Ray will we be doing a press
4 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of 2023 as a result of persecution conflict
violence human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order and whereas the United States and Durham County have a proud humanitarian tradition since the late 1970s of welcoming refugees and immigrants of all nationalities and religions and whereas the Durham County Community knows that inclusion respect and understanding of all those that work play worship and live here promotes a community that we can be proud of now therefore I nishina Burns Vice chair and on behalf of the Durham Board of County Commissioners do hereby proclaimed June 29th 2024 as Durham Refugee day in Durham County and hereby urge all residents to take note of this observance and this the 24th day of June 2024 and a line for vice chair Burn's signature thank you so much commissioner Carter and I see noo has made it up and
he has um another visitor I don't have the other resource person so I'm going to give you the floor sir thank you thank you so much uh there are many reasons why Durham has the is uh foreign born living here and one of those reason is because of your leadership and uh the work that we're doing to make sure that we make Durham a more inclusive community so usually I'm the one that talk a lot so I'm going to let uh Usman who is one of uh the leaders in the community and also part of uh the dorham refugee day organizing team uh have a work hi good evening everyone share commission my name is Osman Abdullah and one Refugee leader work in na long time couple years ago uh and great pleasure to be here tonight to receive Proclamation and Bo
of refugee and immigrant called Duram KY home the proclamation is like birthday or anniversary gift for immigrant and Refugee Community also uh a statement for being welcome to integral part of doram family both Refugee and immigrant will to say appreciate sh you all you working for doram can looking forv to doram refug Celebration and 209 thank you for your good job for Duram can thank you so much um I would like to add that uh Usman just became a new us uh citizen so uh thank you so much thank [Applause] you you want to I'll go for and then I'm gonna come to you Commission because you
had to read the proclamation so one um you say it's because of our leadership this was a role um even before before I got on the board of County Commissioners at we break cor like commissioner alarm and I sat out at on a park bench and it was June of 2020 and she talked about how she said you know she said what are some things you want to work on and what are some things and then our first conversation this position was one of the first things that uh we wanted to work on and we went through some trial and error but we got it and as much as I want to say it's our leadership it really has been yours each time I get a chance to talk to you I kind of learned learn something new I didn't know correct me if I'm wrong the second biggest immigrant population is Haitian here am I wrong or or third it's in like top three I likeed fourth okay I just didn't even know that like okay I'm way off but I didn't even know that you know and and he was talking about like where we want to have meetings I'm like have the meeting here I want people to you know so they'll know about government you don't know what you don't know you
don't know what to Google what you don't want to Google and it can be a not a scary place but anything that you don't know so we open these doors because we know that you're doing the best that you can also clap it up for you I know that you and commissioner alarm uh we're at the governor's mansion uh this week uh for their Refugee day so thank you so much for representing us and um I I will close my comments there I know that we have a couple of events coming up one this weekend but something else in September so please you all when we think about our neighbors and who we and how we want to feel welcome somewhere if you ever want to know what it's like to roll out the red carpet this is the man to tell you how to do it well I say I just want to be uh I just want to make sure that everyone know it's not just Nao I cannot really do this work without your support without the uh Refugee and immigrant communities support I'm just the mouthpiece so I do what they tell me to do so uh yes I just want to make
sure oh Mr Carter well yes I thank you both for being here tonight and for the work that you're doing to organize this important celebration on Saturday um it it gives us an opportunity to pause and to reaffirm our commitment as a community to being a welcoming place no matter where you're from or what language you speak or what religion you um participate in um no matter what your differences or similarities and it will be a day of a lot of fun I've attended in the past um and a lot of cultural learning opportunities um so I hope that the community will come and take advantage of it uh and and I want to thank you sir I'm sorry I don't remember your name and how to pronounce itman thank you for being here tonight and for your words and for the advice
that you give to nio and and and the the help that that gives Durham County in trying to be sure that all newcomers in our community have access to the resources they need so they can settle here and Thrive here and um and contribute to our community in so many important ways which we know that they will do so thank you very much thank you thank you so much thank you so much um Mr director thank you director na thank you so much to everybody who did come out tonight um I at this time we as you all have realized we have gone as far as we could go apps in a quorum um on advice from the clerk and we are reaching out to find out where folks are uh we will be moving the minute approvals the consent agenda approvals the excuse absences the public hearing the Clos session and uh all other items that require a quum to
the July 8th meeting uh that being said I respectfully thank you for coming tonight and I call this meeting adjourned for