Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · May 22, 2023

m at Durham Central Park located at 501 Foster Street the Durham County Cooperative Extension joins with the local Partners to host a day of friendship Music Arts and entertainment for the entire family there will be food trucks giveaways free snacks a bounce house and more for more information please contact Mary oxendine at 919-560-9228 volunteers are also needed for world hunger day are you service oriented the organizers of world hunger day Durham are in search of dedicated volunteers to help with this event on Sunday June 4th there is a link to sign up online enrich bookkeeping assistance pilot

program application is now open the Durham Black Chamber of Commerce has partnered with Durham County government to ensure that Durham is the best place to start and grow a small business in this partnership we are working to provide all the assistance and entrepreneur would need to start and build a business through feedback from local entrepreneurs we have learned that one of the most important areas that entrepreneurs need support in is bookkeeping this bookkeeping assistance pilot program is designed to test out theories on how best to implement a bookkeeping assistance program the pilot program will be from July 1st through December 31st of 2023 all applications are due by 11 59 pm on May 31st and there is a link to apply online Star Talk podcast with Durham County Sheriff the Durham County Sheriff's office has started a new podcast called Star Talk the DC so is excited to use

m at Durham County Main Library meeting room 4347 there is a link that you can follow for additional information there are also additional dates June 24th to July 27th August 31st September 28th and October 26th covid-19 vaccines and take-home test kits are available at the Durham County Department of Public Health

m at 2107 Hillandale Road there will be games snacks Tooth Fairy resource fair and much more to learn more about Durham Pre-K and start your application there

gov to see the services that are impacted by the closure that concludes

our announcement thank you so much Miss Wallace and are there any other announcements from board members commissioner Carter yes I wanted to announce that this Saturday is the animal protection Society walk for the animals and it's a fundraiser yellow there's some Advocates and the audience um it's a one and a half mile walk around East Campus it's a lot of fun they're very interesting and gorgeous animals mostly dogs maybe they're all dogs there will be contests like the best kisser the biggest dog the smallest dog the Best Dressed Dog um it's a lot of fun and I urge you to come out it raises money for Durham's animal protection Society they serve over five thousand I think that's the number homeless and neglected animals every year so so that's a great um way to have fun and participate in a great Community activity thank you and we happen to have the director of our shelter right here

tonight thank you any other announcements from board members thank you seeing none will move on to our minutes we have before us consideration of our April 24th board minute any revisions I would entertain a motion to approve my advice here I make a motion that we approve the mean that says second moved by commissioner Burnside Mom all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed the minutes are unanimously approved we have a number of ceremonial items and our first is a proclamation for Emergency Medical Services week in Durham County our board is requested to Proclaim May 21st through 27 2023 as EMS week in Durham County in recognition of the vital and essential Services provided by the Durham County Emergency

Medical Services System and we have with us tonight I see Mark Lockhart who is our chief paramedic and I don't know is Jim Groves here with us tonight so mark thank you so much for being with us tonight and I will ask commissioner Carter to please read the proclamation Durham Board of County Commissioners Proclamation Emergency Medical Services week 2023 whereas Emergency Medical Services is a vital and essential Public Service in Durham County and whereas the members of Emergency Medical Services team are ready to provide life-saving care to those in need 24 hours a day seven days a week and whereas the Durham County Emergency Medical Services System maintained their high level of service and response throughout the pandemic caring for and transporting a record number of patients and whereas access to Quality Emergency Care dramatically improves the survival

and recovery rate of those who experience sudden illness or injury and whereas Emergency Medical Services has grown to fill a gap by providing important out of hospital care including preventive medicine and follow-up care through our community paramedic and whereas the Emergency Medical Services System consists of First Responders emergency medical technicians Advanced emergency medical technicians paramedic Community paramedic 9-1-1 telecommunicators firefighters police officers Educators administrators emergency nurses pre-hospital nurses emergency physicians trained members of the public and other out of Hospital medical care providers and whereas the members of Emergency Medical Services teams whether career or volunteer engage in thousands of hours of specialized training and continuing education to enhance their patient care

and life-saving skills and whereas it is appropriate to recognize the value and the accomplishments of Emergency Medical Services providers in Durham County Emergency Medical Services System by designating Emergency Medical Services week now therefore be it resolved I Brenda Howerton chair and on behalf of the Durham Board of County Commissioners do hereby proclaim the week of May 21st through 27 2023 as Emergency Medical Services week in Durham County and call upon all citizens to join with us in recognizing this vital and essential service provided by members of the Durham County Emergency Medical Services System to care for our residents and visitors this the 22nd day of May 2023. thank you commissioner Carter and Mark please share any comments that you would like to at this moment thank you good evening Commissioners Mr attorney and Madam manager director Groves was a

little bit under the weather today and is unable to join us but sends his apologies on behalf of the incredible team at Durham County EMS we are grateful for the proclamation of EMS week recognizing the people who make our County EMS system not just functional but also exceptional the Fantastic Team at Durham County EMS the Durham County Sheriff's Office Durham emergency communications Center Durham Police Durham fire Bahama Volunteer Fire Department Lebanon volunteer fire department Redwood Volunteer Fire Department New Hope volunteer fire department Eno volunteer fire department Duke Life Flight and our partners at Duke hospital and Duke Regional Hospital this year's theme for EMS week is where Emergency Care Begins for nearly 48 years Durham County EMS has worked diligently to provide exceptional patient care to our residents and visitors serving as a gateway to emergency Health Care as well as a safety net for the Health Care System overall the Durham County EMS team responds 24 hours a day seven days a week to those in need regardless of when they call or where they are our role has

expanded in recent years to include mobile Integrated Health Care and our community paramedics fulfill a vital role in connecting patients with resources providing vaccinations doing follow-up care on opioid overdoses and now expanding into providing medication-assisted treatment for overdose patients we are proud of our team's work our Cardiac Arrest survival to hospital discharge rate continues to be higher than both the state and National averages we are working to advance our community risk reduction efforts through hands-only CPR and stop the bleed public Outreach programs and we continue to work with our partner agencies and stakeholders to advance the Durham County EMS system we are grateful for your continued support of our mission especially in addressing our retention and Fleet replacement plans over the last year thank you very much for recognizing and appreciating the work of the amazing people who are Durham County EMS we are grateful for the dedication they exhibit in the exceptional care and essential service they provide each and every day thank you Chief Lockhart for sharing

those words with us and for the essential Lifeline that each and every person who is a part of Durham County EMS provides every single day to countless people there are comments from board members commissioner Burns Matt will be really quick I can't speak for everybody up here but I just noticed since I've been in Durham I know many times I've had you call 9-1-1 um because a relative couldn't breathe or because somebody's heart stopped and I think the thing that has stuck out most of me is just how before I even sit in this chair it's just how calm and cool your team is um there have been times where I just I thought it was about to be one of my family members last breaths one of their last heartbeats couldn't get a line in and every time what Durham County EMS for the 20 years I've been here it has been nothing short of miraculous like it really seriously is not like there's a reason why your cardiac unit your cardiac numbers are

are so high you just have a very very well trained staff I know that people are often worried about some of the emergencies that we see happening Nationwide I can appreciate the fact that you all do tabletop exercises with other folks um uh in the Emergency Management Field whether it be dpd of the Sheriff's Office all in an effort to make sure that we're ready in the event there's a derailment of a train there's something that happens at a school that just just the work that you put in like I appreciate it not just as a county commissioner but as a resident who has been on the other side and really been looking for help so uh I heard y'all had a cookout yesterday I ain't get to make it I heard it was great yes ma'am we did we recognized over 80 of our employees with Awards right or Cardiac Arrest clinical saves meritorious service and several of our other medical director Awards and and commendations I'll be there next year so but thank you for everything that you all do and I hope you all had a great time yesterday and um I'll never be able

to say enough thank you thank you thank you commissioner Burns commissioner Carter well first of all I hate that I missed the cookout I had it on my calendar for this coming Sunday somehow or other I got that wrong um but I heard President Biden say something that's so appropriate here he said um recently in honor of this week that EMS providers are quote the steel spine of our nation and they give each of us the Peace of Mind of knowing that someone will be there to catch us if we fall and I that resonated with me and I just wanted to thank you again for being the spine of Durham County the steel spine of Durham County very much thank you commissioner Alam I don't know what I could add in addition to my colleagues but just adding into the thanks and gratitude for you and your team and the leadership that you and director Groves and our fire chief and Sheriff Burkhead all of

our First Responders provide of making sure that we have such a great team of individuals working here within Durham County because it takes that leadership also to be able to get these results that commissioner Burns is sharing about um so thanks to the leadership team as well as well everyone who made it possible thank you very much thank you and I'll just add that um in addition to everything that you would expect our our paramedics to do I don't know how many people realize that our Durham County paramedics are also on The Cutting Edge not just in the state but nationally related to um our response to overdose and substance use and non-non law enforcement approaches to crises and our paramedics are serving as part of the heart team one of the heart teams they are serving um there in that capacity and also are

you mentioned Chief Lockhart mentioned the overdose response teams that we have our community paramedics follow up with every single person who has overdosed and tried to provide them connection to treatment they also go out and do you know check on what we call who we call our familiar faces people who call 9-1-1 over and over and over again because they may need help with housing they may need help with a mental health issue and they will go and visit those people and see what's going on and connect them to help and most recently uh our our EMS staff received two samsa grants that are going to allow them to now offer induction in the field so when somebody has overdose be able to

literally offer them to start medication assisted treatment right there and I see commissioner Howerton I would like to make sure comments so I'll stop here um Mr Howerton chair Howerton yes hello everybody um and I just wanted to extend my congratulations as well and thank you for all that you and and your staff do because we really and just like all the other board members have said how much we appreciate you uh and also I also wanted to let the public know I I keep hearing a couple of people asking where's Brenda Howerton Brenda Howard is an EPA learning about what's going on with our water quality and um all the things that has to do with safe

and healthy communities so that's where I am right now uh been there all day and now I'm online so I'm taking care of County Business even though you don't see me there I'm I'm still taking care of County business so uh whoever the individuals were the just asking I appreciate you asking about me and wondering well I wasn't there so I'm here thank you and we did and I did announce at the beginning of our meeting that you were attending virtually thank you yeah but thank you so much and um thank you again Chief Lockhart thank you we now have a proclamation for memorial day 2023 and I will ask commissioner Alam to read that and we have our Director of Veterans Services with us tonight Lois Harvin Raven I think I saw

those and Jonathan crooms who is our Durham County Veterans Services officer welcome to both of you Durham Board of County Commissioners Proclamation Memorial Day 2023 whereas Memorial Day each year serves as a solemn reminder of the scourge of war and its bitter aftermath of sorrow and whereas on Memorial Day America undertakes its solemn duty to remember the courageous men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation and the cause of Freedom around the world and whereas on May 5th 1868 mayor General John A Logan established decoration day as a time to decorate the graves of War Dead with flowers and whereas in 1971

S Congress declared Memorial Day a federal holiday and decreed that it be observed on the last Monday of each May and whereas as we honor those who have died in our nation's service so that our war might end we understand and appreciate the values of patriotism citizenship commitment honor and Duty and whereas we must pledge to never forget the names of the 375 known soldiers Sailors Marines and Airmen of Durham County who gave the ultimate sacrifice in defending our freedoms now therefore I Brenda a Howerton on behalf of the Durham Board of County Commissioners who hereby Proclaim May 29 2023 as Memorial Day in Durham County we urge all citizens to observe Memorial Day 2023 by displaying respect and gratitude for our veterans both living and deceased participating in remembrance ceremonies and observing a

moment of silence at 3 pm during the national moment of remembrance this the 22nd day of May 2023 thank you commission ROM and welcome to you Lois and your team and we'd love to have you introduce everyone that you have with you and also to share comments with us thank you um good evening Commissioners County managers and our platform executive staff that is with us our audience and our listening audience at home thank you for this opportunity thank you for the recognition again I'm Louis Harvin Raven director for Durham County Department of Veterans Services um to my right it's Jonathan crooms he's our senior Outreach coordinator uh Shonda Fuller we if you heard the old um a few good mens we stole her from that law firm so she's been with us for three years and of course Lindsey Atkinson

m we're going to begin placing a wreath at the award Memorial site here in front of this location 200 East Main Street and then we will join the guests and our

guest speaker Larry Hall many of you know him he was for us the former Secretary of the North Carolina Department of military veterans affairs of course he was a legislator in the North Carolina assembly for many years he's also a former Marine officer and I'm sure he will give you all a great presentation on that day again please come out and join us and I'm going to let Jonathan conclude thank you all again let me add to the to my thing to Lois's thanks for this Proclamation this evening and just to put things a little bit more in perspective as a staff person this Memorial Day program is probably my favorite event that we plan because there are 375 known names there's probably more of service members who perished at War tonight we're all

here organizing ourselves talking about the issues to make our community better um we have the ability to be here in front of you all give you feedback as residents as staff members and we get that Liberty we get that right because 375 names don't and after this meeting is over I'm going to go home to my family as I'm sure everyone else will and we get to do that because those 375 names don't so come be with us on Monday we're going to be right across the street one change that'll be different this year is we're actually going to be up in the fourth floor conference room of admin too in the past we've had all sorts of interesting weather when we do it outside some years it's oppressively hot some years it's Misty and rainy that will not be an issue this year we will be up in the beautiful admin building 2 fourth floor reading the names of each of these 375 service members who perished at War

you're welcome to join us please be there thank you Jonathan anybody else Lindsay I've never shot away from a microphone I do I too want to say it as a former Marine and Veteran and citizen of this great County Durham how grateful I am to serve our veterans and their families um one of the when we think about a civilized insane Society one of the indicators is that of our ability to remember or to be mindful not to forget we we do if you are in Durham on this coming Monday around that time of nine please please we do ask that you will take some time um to be active participants uh in this year's Memorial Day

ceremony it is crucial and critical especially in light of the climate that we find ourselves in with such violence and just insensitivity all across the land this is a time to pause and reflect and be reminded that that Freedom really is not free it costs individuals their life and their Liberty we get to enjoy that and Jonathan has said it so eloquently so I do implore you if you are here you're not traveling please please come by and enjoy with us thank you so much thank you so much and I will Echo what what uh Jonathan said um it is really a beautiful service just reading people's names out loud and remembering um those whose lives who have been sacrificed and lost um it is it is a very simple but

m on Monday morning uh any other comments from board members let's just really quick um I will say one as always Lois y'all do put on a great program I've always enjoyed it I know that it seems like they're begging you and imploring you to come to this event but that's because it really isn't like it just this is not Veterans Day there's a difference between Veterans Day Memorial Day and I know that some people like to use it interchangeably but to be clear those 375 names are not people that get to walk on this Earth anymore and you know it's somebody you know my brother's got to come home all my classmates didn't

get to come home and and if you can't come to this there are opportunities to lay flags on graves uh there's an opportunity to do a plethora of things Friday May 12th with military spouse I don't even think knew there were such things as military spouse say but it is and there are husbands and wives whose spouses did not come home so figure out a way how we could support these individuals as they continue to raise their families so if you can't come out this whole month is somewhat of a military appreciation month just figure out a way where you can kind of sort of fit in I always remind people on Memorial Day on MLK Day on Juneteenth we like to think of these as a day off they are a day on these are opportunities for you to invest in the community that supports you so I hope if you can't come to hours that you find some way in your heart or within your time to go and support some family that is I've seen a loss and if you are fine if you if you don't know how I promise you those four individuals sitting on the wall they have a plethora of resources on how you

can be supportive to that community thank you thank you so much and we'll see we'll see you on Monday and finally we have a resolution honoring a day of remembrance um this is a resolution that we actually uh was read out loud by mayor O'Neal and also a school board chair Bettina Umstead and our chair Brenda Howerton last Monday was a day of remembrance also in Durham public schools there was a moment of silence um and our board had not actually approved the officially ceremoniously read and and adopted the resolution so we're that's what we're doing now and um I want to acknowledge commissioner Burns who was on our board helped lead that effort and in writing our our part

It's a collaborative effort between all three elected bodies and so um we're going to do a round robin reading this and we're going to start with commissioner Burns and cycle through two times because it's kind of an odd number so um I will ask you to please start us off they're on board of County Commissioners resolution day of remembrance whereas according to the National Association of school psychologists high profile acts of violence particularly in schools and confused and frighten children who may feel in danger or worry about or worry that their friends or loved ones are at risk they will look to adults for information and guidance on how to react parents and school Personnel can help children feel safe by establishing a sense of normalcy and security and talking with them about their fears and whereas the recent acts of violence in the community

have directly impacted Durham youth who attend Durham Public Schools and we uphold our strategic plan to support the whole child in which we are committed to create and Implement tiered support that provides standardized intervention strategies designed to address students social emotional and behavioral needs and whereas Durham County Health and Human Services seeks to strengthen our communities by advancing health safety and opportunity including preventing injury and death by promoting the use of gun locks encouraging responsible gun ownership sharing data and doing research to develop effective policies and Partnerships to reduce gun violence and whereas Firearms amplify violence and contribute to a growing Public

Health burden as a leading cause of fatalities and injuries with more than a hundred Americans killed by gun violence each day Durham Police shared latest data that 58 of guns stolen were stolen out of cars and 61 percent of these cars were unlocked we encourage all Durham's residents to support their local community's efforts to prevent the tragic efforts of gun violent effects of gun violence and to honor and value human lives and help educate their communities about safe storage of firearms in the home to raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives of gun violence victims and survivors and whereas the city of Durham pays tribute honors and remembers gun violence victims and lend support to survivors and family members it is a fact that every person in neighborhood needs and deserves safe to counteract gun violence the city of Durham is leveraging a collaboration between law enforcement violence and Crisis Intervention and Social Services for

places long experiencing structural racism disinvestment and high rates of gun violence to numerous neighborhoods and public venues affecting our community and in particular Our Youth and whereas we call on Durham residents Partners against Crime members local businesses and non-profit organizations along with community and youth groups consciously push back against the marketing and lobbying activities of the Firearms industry and gun lobby by encouraging state and federal elected officials to advocate in support of background checks for every firearm sale pass safe storage legislation and ban assault weapons no more silence and gun violence now therefore be it resolved Durham

Public Schools Board of Education emphasizes that it is all of our responsibility to ensure Durham's future by acknowledging where we are remembering those we have lost and supporting the wellness of those who have been impacted this can only be achieved when everyone in the Durham Community Works collectively and intentionally to embody our highest aspirations for our children be it further resolved in recognition of Durham's day of remembrance the Durham Board of County Commissioners renews our commitment to reduce gun violence pay tribute to the innocent victims of gang violence and pledge to do all we can to keep Firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our children safe be it further resolved that the Durham city council is committed to enhancing Public Safety through a community-centered approach that supports families and devises policies to confront historical harms while promoting community-based

safety and wellness be it further resolved that the Durham Public Schools Board of Education they're on board of County Commissioners and the Durham city council call upon the United States Congress and the North Carolina General Assembly to prioritize the protection of Youth families in our communities by passing legislation that more effectively regulates access to firearms in the interest of Public Safety funds public health research on firearm related issues and advances mental health support Don batina Umstead DPS board chair Brenda Howerton Durham County Commissioner chair and Elaine O'Neal Durham mayor thank you and uh for I know I see a number of people with us today tonight who were who were there present on uh Monday May 15th and it was it was really a very powerful moment uh for those who were there coming together and really recommitting ourselves to our youth

and doing all that we can to ensure that our youth are able to live free of the trauma of gun violence and there's a lot of work that we have to do there's a lot that we can do together as a community and we know all three of our elective bodies are committed to working together and it's going to take all of us together as a community and I see I'm chair Howerton on the line I know that you probably would like to make some comments thank you commissioner Jacobs you know this is something that's really really dear to my heart for on behalf of all of our citizens in Durham and all about children um as you were there or if you saw the quilt that was there you could not help but be touched and

moved when you think about all the names that was on that quilt and that wasn't all of the quilt so when you think about that happening in this community with that many names on it how could we not be moved and how can we not be committed to looking to see what can we do what is it that we can do and all of us can do something to help to save the lives of our children and I remember when I first moved to Durham and I was in front of the city council talking about guns and the Damage that it does to the lives of families when they're used improperly and somebody said

it's not guns well people don't just fall dead on their own unless they're ill sometimes they do but when someone takes a gun and take the life of another human being it impacts everybody in this community and it attacks the children in our schools so we're calling on everyone on this com in this community to see what can be done to save the lives of our children so that we are not waking up in the morning and saying there's another child that's been been murdered so I there's nothing more that I can say other than that because this is just um every time I think about that quote I it

is it's just my heart hurts so that's all I'm gonna say about this right now because I will get emotional but thank you so much uh for for that for reading that all of all of you Commissioners tonight because that means it means a lot and I I believe it means a lot to this community as well thank you thank you any comments from other board members commission Byrne yeah I usually I'm I'm good when they usually get all the all the ones in but I did one as much as I want to say thank you for commissioner I mean Vice chair Jacobs uh I did uh help with the portion uh that the county had to do and I did have help for my colleagues but I would be remiss if I did not sit here and state publicly that the anchor and the captain of this ship for this Proclamation for the press

conference for all the work with School Board member javonia Lewis um with all of these deaths going on I'm not going to get into it too deep but I can promise you when something bad happens we know about it first you know we will we get woken up at three and four in the morning and those calls never get easier and so when javonia said fourth to do and she wouldn't say this so I'ma say it when she set forth to do this there were a lot of people who really went out of their way to make sure that this day of remembrance didn't happen um anytime a family does a video anytime time we get out there I can guarantee you it is not performative it is because we are really seriously trying to find answers and solutions because quite frankly the children that are getting killed look like me um and so it was it looks like it went off really well but there were a lot of detractors that did not want it to happen at all and I only want to say that publicly because I need to remind folks of just one thing we really endure them are on our own and I said that that day the general assembly is passing laws

to expand access to guns Congress is not making any moves anything that we do to slow down expansion we're gonna have to do it ourselves it comes with us having more Volunteers in the classroom it comes with us having uh more that some of these young folks having more access to jobs I brought this up that day you know everybody comes to us and says you all are bringing so many jobs into Durham are you going out of your way to make sure that those jobs are accessible to Durham's youth I can tell you that every person is sitting up here and let me say this my entire board was present my entire boy that that wasn't the case for every other body my entire board was standing up there when I was making my comments when Brenda read what she had to read but even though we set up the best circumstances to make sure that you know through the Bulls initiative through Durham Tech working with the school board the individuals who live in Durham and working Durham get these jobs I actually want to put some of the pressure back on the community because we look 36 different counties for 10 years straight 36 different Counties

have come into Durham every day to work so you're asking us are we making sure that people are getting hired I see some business owners out here some folks who run non-profits I'm pushing it back on you are you hiring durma's best and brightest are you smiling at these children when they walk by you or are you clutching your purse are you looking at them with their clothes dirty and asking them whether or not they're unhoused because a lot of these kids that are walking around are actually Undercover unhoused and you all are asking these teachers to be the nurse the purse the psychologists the school resource officer it's 30 some thousand kids in Durham it's 300 000 adults and we need more volunteers so I'm I'm excited about this resolution but I actually am begging because we can throw as much money at this as we want to it is going to take bodies these kids need to know that somebody believes in them and I'm so proud of the fact that javonia had children to volunteer she didn't have to ask these children they volunteered to get up there and tell their own stories people say well we shouldn't talk about a day of remembrance because it traumatized

children well we bring that quilt out every time that quilt is a manifestation of their reality so there it's not traumatized and then we should be ashamed that that quilt keeps growing so I'm hopeful that this day of remembrance impacts you enough not to be sad but to start volunteering in these schools start to hire some young people or start to come up with something extracurricular they can do because they are brilliant they are beautiful and they are talented and they deserve our best thank you anyone else right thank you so much we now are have our consent agenda and we actually the the items that are on our consent agenda at uh the second meeting of the month are actually items that we did not review at our work session um so I would just want uh ask that the county manager could just we could take a moment and make sure that Commissioners do not have any questions

0 for Durham County um and this you know was run by our department of social services and if I understand this correctly this is what I'm asking really um this is not another round of funding this is funding we've already received and spent and and in it so well I guess my other question that would be for later is if we could get an overall accounting of the emergency rental assistance funds we've distributed and any that are in

this year's recommended budget thus far we absolutely can and and if it's amenable to the board we can bring It Forward at one of our work sessions great yes thank you and very timely commissioner Carter actually at our DSS board meeting last week we had a presentation from aging Adult Services on two sides of the coin one was on our low income homeowner relief grant program and some recommended policy changes for that on the other hand was actually an overview of all of the rental assistance that we have had over the past three years since the beginning of the pandemic city and county funding and they would like to do a presentation the county managers recommended that fee at our joint City County meeting on June 13th um so because both of these programs are

actually have been joined to but thank you for for raising that and we do have a Maggie uh savette teaching in our DSS directors here so she can keep me straight but I believe we still have about two million dollars worth of uh emergency rental assistance and it's recommend it's estimated that it's going to last about five or six months at this point and in terms of how we are trending so at this point so yeah we do need to discuss what happens jointly the city in the county we're planning for after that for sure there any other questions about any of these items from board members I just have one request related to the item um 23-0343 The Joint uh jccpc report

uh was was um uh if we could actually in an upcoming work session maybe after the summer uh have them come share and talk about the data in that report and maybe in conjunction with the gang reduction plan that we study that was just updated but there was definitely a lot of concerning data in that report and I really appreciate getting that and anything else I hate that the County Transit plan is on our consent agenda yeah yeah I I feel like myself out yeah I feel like we really need to Alan and you just come up to the mic for a minute because we can't just like have it on consent and not acknowledge all of your work

so Alan anything any words that you would like to share on this very very long I would say labor of love for you I'm sure but um something that you have really guided us through and this is a monumental result so thank you um no it's very exciting it's been in development for three years since the cancellation of the Durham orange light rail so very exciting to get to this point of adopting a new Durham County Transit plan to set the long-term vision for Transit investments in the county it has been quite a long effort involving extensive coordination with the city and go triangle and the mpo to get to this point also you know accompany the transit governance study which kind of sets a new framework for how the transit plan and the Investments are managed so it's a big it's a big

step forward a big change for the county um it started before I was a County employee and I became the project manager over time so um just excited to have the support of the community and the three boards that are asked to approve you're the first board that has to approve the plan it will go to the go triangle board on Wednesday this Wednesday and the mpo board on June 14th thank you any comments from commissioners related to this well I I would just say for those who have not who are with us tonight and listening tonight who have not been focusing on this item this is a plan for how we will spend over a billion dollars in County Transit revenues over the next 20 years so it's really really important

and it was this plan is the result of very very deep Community engagement and we are now at the point where we're going to be spending 75 percent of the money on bus related Investments for our residents many different types of Investments bus stops more frequent service focusing in on Fayetteville Street Holloway Street The Village our downtown bus station a multimodal hub in RTP lots of lots of really really exciting things and also fast Regional Transit and our first brt efforts at brt there's a lot in here and and especially for the community accountability we have a new interlocal agreement between all the partners and there will be a data dashboard that will show people in the community how the money is being spent and what you're getting for your money

so um those are just some of the highlights of this plan and thank you Alan yeah and I want to acknowledge Aaron Kane he's in the audience he started as the manager for the study so took over from him he put a lot of work into it too thank you to everyone thank you to everyone who has worked on this plan thank you so much all right so now I would oh commissioner alarm go ahead okay uh I would entertain a motion to approve our um items 23-0000 through 123-0380 on our consent agenda about invest here I make a motion if we approve the consent agenda as is second by commissioner Burns seconded by commissioner Lam all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed and the consent agenda item is you consent

agenda is unanimously approved Okay so next we have a public hearing on the FY fiscal year 2023-24 County managers recommended budget the board is requested to conduct a public hearing to receive citizen input on the county managers recommended budget for FY 2324 to be able to hear from all interested citizens the Commissioners usually set a time limit for three minutes for each speaker and that we will be able to do that tonight because we have about 20 people signed up to speak and that will be work out just perfectly with our 60-minute time period um comments received by the county clerk will be shared during the meeting added to the meeting minutes shared with the Commissioners and placed on the County

gov you can then look for the budget Department website and on the top of that page There's an opportunity to provide citizen feedback and it's a pretty open-ended excuse me open-ended opportunity to provide feedback we do ask you choose a topic and then right next to that button

you'll be able to see those previously submitted comments so you can look and see what other citizens have been recommending or providing feedback and then we review those with the County Commissioners during the budget work sessions and we'll send some more detailed reports thank you David and also to note that comments must be received um okay this is sorry this is must have been from our what is the deadline for when we need to get the comments for Florida will be open until you all approve the budget which is currently cited for June 12th I believe is the first fragile session so June 12th will be we'll keep it open until then and we'll provide you continuous feedback the item you're probably talking about was probably for tonight to be able to make sure people she had enough time to process any comments right thank you and also um comments can be sent to you as well is

gov so thank you and commissioner Alam you had a comment yeah before uh we open the public hearing I don't know if this was mentioned before I just went in the back and saw the woman behind the curtain I don't know if it was announced we actually have translation at this meeting and this is the first time we're having translation at our Board of County Commissioners meeting so maybe if uh Monica or um manager so I'll step aside if just give instructions for individuals who want to be able to utilize this service so we do have someone here that will be utilizing that service our public information team actually set all of that up so if Miss Deborah Craig Ray

would like to say something briefly she can but we do have someone that is here tonight that will be utilizing the interpretation Services I'm just very excited about this because it's the first time we've had it and this is really great good evening Commissioners manager so well thank you everyone um yes we received a request to provide translation services and as part of our language Equity program we try to have funding available so that we can respond to that demand our ultimate goal of course would be to fund in a way that we would be able to provide it on a normal regular basis but tonight is um by request but certainly we're hoping to advance that going forward but thank you for your support and thank you for mentioning that we're very pleased thank you and thank you for commissioner long for making us all aware of that and

so for the future so that we make sure people in the community know that please request this service if you need it and we will be thrilled to provide it thank you okay so um we are going to begin our public hearing and we have an in-person speaker who first is Cheryl navalinski if you could please come up to this mic over here and please for all speakers please state your name and address first and you have three minutes my name is Cheryl navalinski I live at 3 Elm Ridge Court in Durham 27713 I'm both a DPS parent and an exceptional children instructional assistant at Durham School of the Arts I'm here to speak from my own experience as to why classified staff need to be paid more at DSA I work with students with severe and profound autism and please don't let the term exceptional children lead you to think that our students are all little kids these students can stay in

the program until they're 22 years old they're all full they're not all but a lot of them are full-fledged adults some of our students have the cognitive ability of a toddler which can mean toddler style Tantrums from an adult-sized person this can be dangerous to everyone involved I've had black eyes been bitten scratched slapped and kicked I've had my hair pulled out I have scars some of our students also need toileting and feeding assistance some of our students are lower need but have problems regulating their emotions and can become violent we are required to get special certifications for non-crisis Intervention which includes de-escalation practices as well as how to do holds to keep students from hurting themselves or other we're trained in administering medications to students who need them it's a very strenuous job and I often leave feeling both physically and mentally drained I'm fortunate that I am not the sole Breadwinner in my family I bring home about 1500 a month spread out over 12 months I've been doing this for five years my insurance my insurance comes out of my paycheck but not that of

my two children if I were a single parent trying to make ends meet I'd never make it some of my co-workers have at least one extra job if not two and I don't know how they do it we sometimes leave work bruised and bloody literally to have to put on a smile and work retailer to go to a group home type setting to work leaves you with no reset time it makes it hard to spend time with your loved ones it's not good for a person's Mental Health due to our low pay we have challenging time keeping good people I love my job but it's a hard job and our pay does not reflect that classified staff keep our schools running what would a special resources classroom look like if there were no IAS or the cafeteria with no staff who would serve lunches who would keep our offices running and stop the phones from ringing off the hook who would keep our schools clean and even get our students to and from the schools classified staff do all of that we've already lost enough good people to better paying jobs and hopefully you'll work towards making our pay something we can survive on we're important we're essential in our paintings to start

reflecting that or there's not going to be any one left thank you so much for your time thank you and we have a few virtual speakers first is dwaran Langley good evening Mr members of the board of County Commissioners particularly our vice chair chair Howard and last year uh Jacobs as well as County Manager Dr soulwell first I would like to thank you for Dr Sowell thank you for your recommended budget which included over a hundred thousand dollars for the Durham County Juvenile crime prevention Council our service chair and the data that we've seen over the past few months indicate a increase in juvenile petitions around our young people and these funds will help us invest in additional programs for our community in order to support our young people now I'm going to switch hats to my role as the volunteer executive director of The

Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation um I appreciated all of the comments and and that were stated as a result of the day of remembrance and I'm here to ask for you all support and an investment in an investment in the programming of the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation we have a young man Investments program working with middle one high school boys of color and a career pathway program working with young men 18 to 25 and this program has been transformational in that we've operated solely for the past six years with volunteers however in order to meet the demand that we're seeing with our programming as well as the human capital uh Investments we're going to need in order to continue our high quality programming and impact for outcomes we're going to need your support so I'll be reaching out to each one of you because as I've talked to staff about getting this investment from the county it will require the board of County Commissioners to make that decision so I'll be reaching out to each one of you to share about our program and the impact it has had for boys and

young men of our community so that you all can make this investment the data tells us what we already know the boys of color need to be a budget and public policy priority thank you thank you into Warren if you could just State your address for the record the Warren Langley 1030 Moreland Avenue Durham North Carolina 27707 thank you thank you next we have online Angie keel County Commissioner my name is Angie and I'm a very well educated second grader thanks to my teacher at Lions Farm Elementary I am writing to you because I think you should give raises to DPS classified staff members they deserve raises because they try to hold back yelling so they won't accidentally scare the children with it I think is super thoughtful also because they appreciate our work no

matter if we're their favorite or not email them one classified staff member who was really important to me is Miss Salazar because she pulls groups for kids that need help learning and she's also an assistant for Miss Willy's kindergarten class and they can be a real hand so please give GPS workers races and once again I'm Angie and thank you for listening to my suggestions thank you so much Angie for your comments thank you next we have Claire deshong my name is Claire and I'm a second grader at Lions Farm Elementary in Durham I am speaking to you because I think you should give raises to DPS classified staff members they deserve raises because when teachers are out

they make sure students have teachers they make sure kids get home safely and they make sure they have good food to eat when we don't have any but one classified staff member who is really important to me is Miss justiniano one reason is because she helps kids learn when teachers are out also she makes sure the kids are happy having a great learning experience and she helps kids whenever they need it she even pulls out certain kids and puts them in our group and helps them in whatever way they need it so I think classified staff members should get a raise for everything they do for us thank you for listening and thank you Claire for being with us tonight wow [Laughter] so next we are going I'm going to read three names in a row and I ask people to please come line up over here on the side uh Larissa Seibel Marie Hill Faison

and Jim James Jim savara and we'll start with Larissa Seibel please foreign place in Durham 27705. and I'm gonna try a recording in Spanish and I have three daughters and I would like an apartment that was the oldest child 10 years old let me try the other one who I think is the mom hi my name is

I have three daughters and I would like an apartment okay that was an experiment to um I was trying to get a family to come over with the kids to talk about the budget because uh this family is actually living in one room with two bunk beds at the Durham Rescue Mission and they've been homeless for a year since they got evicted a year ago in May as a result of covid and loss of income they were not able to pay their rent it was very traumatic for the family and the children especially fortunately EK post School helped them with renting a hotel room where another child was already homeless in the hotel and the bus was already taking kids to school so they got to finish out their school year they're now at Eastway doing really well well the youngest one will

be coming along in pre-k and they say it's a good place to be but what they really want is a home um some kind of apartment that they can afford but they don't have the income any income right now to afford that so we hope that you will allocate some of your funds that you have allocated for rent assistance and for eviction diversion funds to help families especially families with children stay in their homes and the other folks I hope you really look out for our seniors and disabled renters who are really struggling because their checks are not keeping up with these rents and I've worked with a number of them we go to the courthouse and help people who are in eviction and I've seen people get sick from the stress and and from the trauma of losing their homes and not

knowing where they're going to live if they do get evicted so we really do need to be doing more right now in Durham with this housing crisis a lack of affordable housing I know you're working on that but we also need that rent assistance and I was really worried when you said that those funds may run out after five to six months so thank you for your consideration thank you Marie Hill Faison oh good evening County Commissioners my name is Marie Hill Faison and I reside at 202 West Enterprise Street about five minutes away from here and my community South Side Community there's a lot of things going on there changes their gentrification homelessness it's rampant and if we can keep people in there where they live at

that would be great because uh it affects the whole unit it doesn't just affect one person it affects the parent and you got mental health issues and the children and I can speak from experience I had the experience of being evicted and it wasn't even monetary so but the fact that evictions happen to single parents is is very traumatizing and we need to do whatever we can to keep that from happening because it's much harder to climb out of that hole than it is if we supplement or whatever uh needs that family might have whether it be counseling or legal guidance or monetary uh uh subsidies that's what what we need to do so I encourage that we continue

to help people that are experiencing experiencing evictions homelessness that is running rapid in our communities and I felt it was important for me to come tonight to express the need that I see uh within our community I am a Paratransit driver for go Durham and I've been doing that for 21 years and I I talk to the people on these vehicles and this is the community that we we need to help you know by whatever means necessary we need to support people that are in crisis and and when you're evicted you are in crisis and I I support uh whatever Endeavors you have in store in the budget and and hope that you continue funding uh until you know we

have a resolution or a move to a resolution of this issue that we're having in Durham so uh like I said my community I see it firsthand we're struggling there are families struggling there's some families not struggling you know but we need to help the ones that are thank you thank you and I'm going to ask um Angela Angel Vic Lewis John Davis and Michelle Burton to come forward as uh upcoming speakers Angel Vic Lewis um John Davis and Michelle Burton and go ahead yes my name is Jim savara 12 Susanna Drive 27705. I want to State my support for the counties guaranteed income pilot program to assess low-income families with children under 18. the Coalition for affordable affordable housing and Transit and People's Alliance have been

advocating a rental assistance guaranteed income program to prevent evictions for 250 rental households I have not had the opportunity since learning about the proposed pilot program last Tuesday to discuss details with Coalition members but given the conditions that led us to design our program as we did I would argue that there are four features that should be included in the county pilot program first the income limit of households with children receiving monthly grants should be at or below 30 percent of the area median income not 50 or 80 percent second the monthly stipend should be six hundred dollars this would be a total attainment of seventy two hundred dollars for the year not 500 or a thousand third housing expenses exceeding 50 percent of income should be added to the qualifications for

selection to receive a stipend or to be in the comparison group keep in mind that the Community Development Department has reported that there are over 8 000 rental households with income under 30 percent of the area meeting income in Durham that pay over half of their income for housing that leaves very little left over for other living expenses and then fourth in view of that number the county pilot should help more than 125 households I'd recommend that you increase this this the stipend recipients to 200 a month with 100 In the comparison group I we would be happy to confer with the pilot program planners about the details of the program the uh I think one other housing matter that I want to uh to support uh is supporting

the acquisition and expansion of the Carver Creek Apartments uh that will provide Supportive Services to its residents uh this is an episode that alerts us that affordable housing can run out and the this acquiring these this property will keep it affordable and additional services will be will be added I would also say about the the support programs that will be important in the future to provide support to elderly and handicapped households as well thank you thank you Miss Angel Vic Lewis I was going to say good morning good afternoon I'm sorry I just want to piggyback on the eviction Court I have experienced homelessness here since

being in Durham I've experienced living in a shelter being in Durham I've experienced most of all by giving back coming through those accommodations that were so right but anyway um I get up Mondays and Fridays not every day not a pay job but to go and help and thank you for starting with you and it's to help the residents that come in here for eviction Court so first of all um they get there and they already said you know you get a note on your door you got to get moving and you get from there you ignore the letter you ignore the letter you ignore the letter until the letter comes to you and say you better get here so then by that time you're there and people don't know which direction really to go in first you got to know where you're going upstairs get into the

courtroom and one time before they call your name or you're going to be held in contempt or your case dismissed so I piggyback with Larissa to come up there on days that we can and um assist the people as they come in ask them like what do you need you know people don't want you to know their business oh do you need rent oh no but then they do and they end but then they see that you're just trying to help them and not be in their business so that's number one pride gets in people's way I understand they've been there done that so moving forward to as they come in and they don't know which way to go so they have legal aid in there and please pour into that they're there to assist with people who cannot assist theirselves so they go in there they you know speak their case and a lot of times you know it's not always the tenants it's some of these shanky landlords that are in Durham and they're living in deplorable homes

but it's nowhere else for them to live so they stay there and try not to have to pay the rent because it's not it's it's maybe affordable but it's not livable and still have to go to court to be eviction for living might as well live in the street so I'm just asking to please consider any and everything you can for the eviction courts during the day because the last thing you want to see is more people that are homeless it's no woman it's no room in the woods for homeless people I've seen them getting evicted out of the woods and where are they going nowhere nowhere they say well they can't live it's private property but who's gonna go all the way back in the woods to get somebody please help those who can't help themselves thank you thank you Miss Lewis and do you mind just also stating your address thank you for the record

I'm sorry have we just asked everyone to State their name and address oh if you just State your address Angela Vic Lewis 4215 dalbert Avenue Apartment 4D Durham North Carolina 27704 might as well get it all thank you so much John Davis thank you hi my name is John Davis address 4449 Murphy School Road Durham North Carolina 27705 I'm here to express my heartfelt appreciation to the county manager for including a raise suggested raise for the classified staff and the DPS budget today in science class our final science unit of the year is on health and I taught the words the word essential to my students and we heard a lot about essential workers during the pandemic but too often in our society people who are called essential on the one hand seem to be invisible and I believe that students I teach they

may not know if people are under what people are paid in the building but I think on some level they they pick up on things about how people are treated we know children learn from what we do and not from what we say and I'm really looking forward to going back to my class when this budget passes and to be able to tell them that people like the instructional assistance the cafeteria workers the bus drivers that take care of them every day have been recognized for their hard work and given a increase in wage this is my eighth year on the board of the Durham Association of educators been the treasurer for eight years and it's been a long journey to work for classified wages there's been times when I've enjoyed his Treasure of bringing pizza to Gatherings and paying for child care for organizing so I just want to pay respect to people that have uh walk before us on this path and I hope we keep working on this path and this time of inflation and um I I think that the more that we

8 million dollars for Durham

public schools in the budget the county managers budget proposal to increase the wages of our most valued valued classified staff members one thing I do want to say is this is that you may not see a lot of classified staff at these meetings and the reason is because many of them because they can't afford to live in Durham they live outside of Durham County and have been hearing about the rents are so high here and also many of our classified staff members work two and three jobs to make a living so this raise this money is going to help tremendously for them to you know live and to you know take care of their families and things like that I just want to keep saying and I know it was said by others that Durham Public Schools would not be able to function without classified staff there are teacher assistants our bus drivers our Child Nutrition workers the mechanics the people who work in the front office

they are a valuable part of kids education we could not do it without them DPS would not function at all and we have to figure out how do we pay these important employees a livable wage and we have to continue to put pressure on the North Carolina General Assembly because they're not doing their job to fund public education in our state so I want to say thank you Commissioners County Manager soil for making making this commitment and you know we're just going to keep pushing to make sure everyone has what they need to live a promising valuable life here in Durham County thank you thank you Juliet Gomes I live in Windcrest Road 5 15. dear County Commissioners my name is

Juliet I am a second grader at Lions Farm Elementary I'm here to ask you to give raises to the DPS classified staff members they needed serve raises because they work so hard one classified staff improves very important to me is Miss P my bus driver she has the hard job it's hard because she brings a bunch of kids to school and home safely it's hard because it's loud in the afternoon she has to focus Miss p is careful safe and kind she gives us snacks when we are good she gives kids small gifts on their birthday and sing a happy birthday to them please give raise it to our wonderful classified staff members thank you for your time thank you so much Juliet team Gryffindor all right Jenny Jones cauldron good evening Commissioners I'm Jenny Jones cauldron I live at 2706 Duke

Homestead Road every Wednesday I walk into Holt Elementary to pick up my child early to take him to his occupational therapy and I'm greeted by Miss Purvis the school secretary who is almost always giving supplies to one student to take back to their classroom and putting a Band-Aid on another student with a scrape from the playground and often taking the temperature of another child and calling their parents to let them know that they are not feeling well and Miss Purvis can't be here because she doesn't live in Durham and it's quite a trek for her because she can't afford to live in Durham and each morning my child gets picked up by bus taken to a school and each day my children are served lunch and breakfast by our incredible nutrition staff and when my daughter who's a little bit clumsy inevitably spills the janitorial staff cleans it up

and they do it with a smile that if I'm being completely honest I often struggle to put on when it happens at home at dinner and as the parent of children with widely varying needs it can be really scary to leave my children in the care of literal strangers one thing I've learned as a Public School parent is this they aren't strangers for long as a parent of three DPS students I appreciate your efforts in funding DPS over the years but I also recognize how important it is to pay every single DPS staff member a living wage and I urge you to fully fund the DPS budget especially including the classified salary study and I did want to also mention commissioner Alam you made a point of saying that this is the first meeting with interpretive services and while I agree that's really really exciting I also want to note that the interpreters and DPS who do such

incredible work day in and day out they're part of this and they can't afford to live here without multiple jobs so thank you so much thank you and I'm gonna also ask if Kimberly McRae Vanessa Barnett Doro and Abigail Mulligan would also come forward and thank you Elizabeth Jones good evening my name is Elizabeth Jones 1609 Maryland Avenue Durham North Carolina that's 27705. and I'm here also asking you to fully fund the Durham Public Schools budget request since our state refuses to fully fund our schools DPS needs your support to meet the needs of students and staff this budget includes very necessary salary increases for our classified staff these staff members work do some

of the most important work in our schools and have stepped up to do even more this year in the midst of shortages yet they are not yet paid a living wage which is unacceptable in a county that calls itself Progressive please fully fund the budget and raise salaries for our classified staff thank you thank you Kimberly McRae good evening my name is Kimberly McRae and I live at 112 Hidden Oaks Drive in Cary North Carolina I came tonight because my family goes Generations deep in Durham my great-grandmother raised my father and his two cousins and they were one of the first families to live in McDouble Terrace when it opened up so I have a great commitment to making sure that Durham is the place that those of us who call ourselves termites love and cherish and want to see flourish I do work with grown in Durham which is

focused on the Durham Early Childhood action plan and grown in Durham has been a great experience for me I raised four children in Durham and I have found that some of the same issues that I had my children are now ranging from ages 22 to 31 and I find that some of the same issues I had in obtaining child in obtaining early childhood education for my children are still existent for parents here in Durham which is hugely problematic so I found that in working with grown in Durham it is a coalition of community-based organizations community members some of the childhood providers in Durham it's a very generic group of people that have come that have come together to make sure that Durham is providing in all of the ways the children need not just in education but that all of the places in Durham have access and have the resources that

children in the early childhood area need so I just came to Advocate that money be intentionally appropriated towards Early Childhood in the every child NC Coalition one of the colleagues there said at one of the meetings Early Childhood happens to be the only education educational Endeavor that always has to prove that it's worthy of being on the budget so early childhood deserves if we're looking at having this future that Durham is building towards all of these wonderful resources that are now available and the Beautiful Things that we see happening around Durham why not so into the children who will be utilizing those resources and continuing those resources and sitting on the County Commission one day and being the mayor and being presidents of organizations and doing the work that we're doing now why not sow into those children at a point in time where it's their formative years so that they can then have the tools that they need to be

able to make sure they continue the work and that they improve the work as they get older so thank you for your time thank you Vanessa good evening Commissioners my name is Vanessa Barnett lauro 4100 Thetford Road Durham 27707 I'm a fourth grade teacher at ignite Online Academy in Durham Public Schools I'm a former DPS student did grow up here a future DPS parent my kiddos 18 months old today so not yet but soon um I'm here tonight to urge you to vote to fully fund the DPS budget I'm here specifically to speak in favor of the proposed salary increases for classified staff because while I do teach fourth grade this year last year I taught kindergarten and then first grade and our IA Miss Sarah was indispensable instructionally logistically relationally she helped with everything literacy small group instruction proctoring assessments chaperoning field trips subbing short-term she sub long-term and short-term she subbed the

entire year when we needed her she wore so many different hats um Miss Sarah is a rock star she's a professional she's not paid like one but she is one and like so many other classified staff in DPS she's a hard-working mom who's trying to race her kids in an increasingly expensive Durham I also have to shout out our amazing data manager Dottie and our incredible Treasurer Kim and I personally personally rely on their Technical and business expertise daily probably daily um and in a broader sense their institutional knowledge is just foundational and makes it possible for our school to function all three of these women are essential they are beloved they deserve more than what the district is giving them right now so I'm asking you to take care of our people I'm asking you to vote to fully fund the DPS budget and to pay Miss Sarah and Dottie and Kim and all of the other incredible classified staff something a little bit closer to a living wage thank you thank you and Abigail would you Abigail would you

like to come up here hello County Commissioner my name is Abby and I'm a second grader at Lions Farm Elementary I'm here today because I think you should give pay raises to the DPS classified staff member they deserve races because they work hard to make sure students have safe and clean place to learn one staff member who is really important to me is my bus driver one reason is because he helped many students get to school and put up with the noise also you make sure everyone's sitting down and not switching seats please give races to our amazing classified work thank you so much Abigail [Applause]

hey and last we have um Yesenia carlone and I know we're going to have our translation services come out as well for Yesenia while we wait for Yesenia while we wait for Yesenia can I just say that I think I see the future Florida County Commissioners yes you're speaking tonight absolutely we could just go sit down they can just come up here my name is a Commissioners good evening my name is

Yesenia Carlon I thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight I thank you for having an interpreter for giving me the opportunity and for giving me this chance to speak for my community is endurance in this case I am coming and giving you information first I will talk about my kids I have three kids 18 14 and 7 and I would like to ask your support for our program growth in Durham grown in Durham um

I am part of this team and I think it's important to include our children specifically from the age zero to eight it give them some an opportunity to get them involved in Early Education a Tengo una Nina or book babies community assistance I have a girl that has been graduated from book babies and I would like for other kids to have this opportunity an inclusive environment for all children no matter where they are where they come from how they look they deserve a good educational opportunity Valencia

[Music] um foreign we want our kids to have a good education to have a future if they are in situations of violence or their parents are in situations of imprisonment they need our community support children need to be supported and one day they can be sitting where you the Commissioners are foreign so that's why I ask for your support so you so we can have a continuing

supporting the community for the children I thank you for your time and for listening to me tonight thank you Muchos Gracias Yesenia that completes uh our comments tonight for the public hearing I really want to thank everyone um who's come tonight to make comments also to be here in support and we we encourage everyone to continue those who are listening and are not here to not be here in person uh to keep sharing your feedback with us as we will adopt the final Budget on June 12th uh will be the uh the meeting that we adopt the budget so there's still plenty of time to provide your feedback and again thank you so much to everyone for being here tonight commissioner Burns yeah this is a really quick one of our chair I see I'm gonna be I'm gonna pick on somebody in the audience hey Sunny how you doing so a lot of people don't know sunny but

Sunny has been an honest and selfless advocate for our EC staff and IA staff I want to say that again honest and selfless and the reason why I'm highlighting her you know everybody can't always come out but this she's been had an opportunity to come out I think sometime this year last year but she is an example and a walking manifestation of why it's important to invest in these teachers so I will shout you out girl because right now she's an assistant but she is doing I'm gonna mess it up uh the TA to ba program at nccu so you are working right now because you love the kids so much you've been in the classroom so much you are now working on your bachelor's to become a teacher in Durham public school so I just want to say shout out to you and to everybody in the community who kind of sort of has this false narrative that this board doesn't support teachers if when you have she she just she's just a perfect example of um of of what an investment looks like

and if we do invest and make these additional raises that we can have a steady pipeline of teachers who know these students love these students and care about these students her husband nod in the head she's not moving y'all that's her right there in the back uh in the corner this is her so thank you so much for your selfless advocacy for um the teachers assistance for um the EC staff and the Ia staff and thank you for seeing the worth in our students and I cannot wait to see you as an Alum as an eagle thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and congratulations [Applause] hey thank you we'll move on to item 23-0321 update on proposed trap neuter vaccinate release program otherwise known as tvnr oh sorry I got it wrong tnvr but this is also something else

that a lot of people have been working very hard on for a very long time and um on September 9th 2021 just to give some history a pro proposal was made to amend the county ordinances to remove barriers to a community cat Management program this resulted in a proposed amendment being presented to the board at our May 23rd 22 meeting and along with it an alternative was presented at the July 11th 22 2022 meeting and so this has been a long process um and we are now hearing back what the results of a lot of work going on behind the scenes and thank you to uh Curtis Massey with the county attorney's office our senior assistant County attorney for your efforts and we look

forward to this update for our board evening um and you want to talk about misnomers the name tnvr omits saying so you can extend that thing on out if needed um as you mentioned there were presentations in May and July of last year and I am here tonight to get some Direction because I'm sorry to say we don't have a final answer yet um and I need to know what my client thinks because I've not been able to achieve Harmony amongst all the stakeholders um as you may recall when you heard this matter back in July there was a proposal made from May

about tnvr and y'all endorsed it in principle but you had two questions you wanted to know how that program was going to be funded and how it was going to be administered um because what you kept hearing is going back to September 2021 remove the barriers in the ordinance so that a community solution could be provided to a community program problem that there were groups out there ready to make tnvr happen and there was some concern in fact I think the quote was you wanted to make sure you did not impose an unfunded liability on the county by just adopting The Proposal from May of last year

um and I'm sorry to say those questions remain largely unanswered I've had a lot of trouble uh getting engagement on those topics and in fact it got to a point in December where I really started to doubt there was good answers to be had and I was also concerned because the more I had looked at that may proposal well you only talked a lot about you were adopting an ordinance or looking to adopt an ordinance that would allow tnvr by removing barriers the details of that may proposal would mandate tnvr is the only option that you would take these free roaming cats they could not be Strays abandoned at Large they were excluded from ever being a nuisance they could only be trapped as part of a

tnvr program and that was explicit especially as to the sheriff so if somebody had a complaint and called for service the only thing they would be told is we'll come get them get them fixed and bring them right back to you um and as I looked at that I said this really brings home the need for answers to the questions that were asked by the board how is it funded how is it administered and the answers I got were basically which all were told back in July of last year that groups were ready to step up but were unwilling to commit as long as it was not explicitly legal in Durham and I kept pushing and I said you know we can't go back to them with those same answers that's why they deferred action um as I began to doubt I was going to get those answers

and recognizing and look you all know I wasn't involved with any of this until October so I've had to go back and basically learn the history and I did that by looking at the meetings from September forward by reviewing the minutes from awac from January of 2024. and I looked at the issues they said mattered and that's where I came back to they were looking to remove barriers and I reached out to some folk awac has a community cat committee run by Jan Paul I happen to know Miss Paul who's also an attorney I've dealt with her occasionally over the years and so I reached out to her and talk to her about some of the concerns I had and the desire to find a way forward um I'm sorry before I called her

I had done some looking and I found that Wake County had a program which seemed to mirror what was being proposed and that it was largely run by non-profits in fact exclusively it was adopted in 2011. I talked to our Animal Control director and got very good feedback that it's been successful for him and they adopted that even before a plan was in place because I know y'all were looking at a plan and I said well if the concerns are funding an Administration and I can't get answers to that but we've got a clear path that talks about how it can be done by the community groups that we kept hearing about I said perhaps that will overcome and I get away from the Mandate of tnvr that's going to force things that have to happen and I talked with her I met with

the director of the animal shelter shafanda Allen Davis I talked with the sheriff's Council Miss Lovelace and I said I'd like you know can we come together at the local level and see what we can do and uh Jan said she'd be glad to participate comma butt I really needed to get somebody involved who understands tnvr and the animal advocacy and Durham and she recommended a lady named Sarah reichman and so I kind of met with the four of them and talked about what I saw and what I thought was workable and wrote up an ordinance modeled on what they had in Wake County I won't say it's exact but modeled on it largely and we had a lot of back and forth and give and take and I think it's fair to

say that well I didn't care what it said I was trying to make you all happy but of those who were representing clients everybody gave up some everybody got some and we came up with a compromise that would allow T and VR and that addressed the initial concerns removing the barriers and the barriers that were there were this let me just take a look at my note one is getting rid of rabies tags for cats and the reason for that is under the Raby statue and I said statute not ordinance if an animal's supposed to have a rabies tag on and they're not they're supposed to be picked up taken to the shelter so if you remove that rabies tag obligation you don't have an automatic trip to the shelter they were worried about ownership so that people who participate in tnvr

do not get tagged as the owner some of that has to do with liability some of it has to do with being criminally liable for abandonment of the animal now some of that state level but at the local level we said for our purposes you're not the owner they also wanted to get rid of the trapping permit now that's not a state requirement that's something in Durham that to trap domestic animals and this comes from before the Sheriff's Office had Animal Control you were required to get a permit to trap domestic animals and they wanted to exempt Community cats tnvr from that because there is concern about the government having knowledge of where these animals are where these colonies are they want to operate without a lot of government involvement and knowledge

and they also wanted to do away with the requirement that animals that were trapped or impounded would have to go to the shelter in fact what they said is just have a reporting only requirement in the September 2021. presentation and we did that and we also put in there that free roaming cats which are ear tipped and that's how you can tell they've been part of tnvr will not be trapped or impounded unless they've been the subject of a complaint such as causing a nuisance um and following Wake County set it up that if we have a non-profit that will serve as a referral because if they don't want the government to know about these cat colonies but somebody calls to complain well the first thing is can you engage whoever is supporting these cops these cats kind of bringing the neighbors can we

deconflict this and for that reason looking at a non-profit as opposed to the Sheriff's Office because the sheriff always has to go out there then yes they're going to try to figure out where the cats are coming from what the issues are and that seems to take away some of the anonymity that Community wants to maintain we set in some guidance and standards for caregivers things to try to hopefully deconflict with neighbors and this is separate from TN VR but this is something that goes back to September 21 APS had asked that we reduced the shelter hold time from five days to 72 hours so 72 hours is the state minimum it's what I understand every other shelter has for whatever reason Durham set a five-day hold um now I know from talking with and is it properly Miss Allen or Miss Davis

Allen that's no you we'll go for it now talking with Davis Allen I will tell you she does everything she can to run a no-kill shelter so it's not that getting this down to 72 hours means that they're going to be putting animals down at the same time once those 72 hours elapsed then ownership of the animal vest with the county and that makes it easier for them to deal with elective medical procedures or put the animal up for adoption now separate from tnvr but that was certainly a long-standing request now as I said the local Group which was and there's Jan sitting next to miss now I already forgot is it Alan Davis or Davis Alice Miss Allen he's still gonna slash my tires when we're done

and is that Miss reichmann next to Jan hi we've talked on the phone a lot you too ma'am um we came up with a compromise ordinance um I did reach out again to the National groups because I really and the other stakeholders because I really wanted to try to make sure what we could do or have in place for what are the elements of T and VR um not getting a lot of substantive feedback um but the feedback I did get is from three groups best friends who'd been very much involved in the May pre in the May ordinance of last year uh Humane Society and Alley Cat allies they really wanted to stick with the May proposal the mandating of tnvr and I understand that it's much more aggressive

um and they felt that because y'all had endorsed it in principle that that's where you are and it may be at the same time what I kept running into is that if you mandate tnvr which is what that proposal is then it goes right back to the questions you asked that we can't get answers to now I will I do want to correct one thing because I don't see the dowels here valves are not here I met with the Dows who Marion Allendale who are with independent animal rescue and I met them in early March very helpful very transparent and they said look our current capacity and they've got contracts with several surrounding counties for tnvr services with orange person and Warren and they said right now we can do about 25 a month in Durham

if tnvr were legalized they've got access to some grant funding they can kick it up to 50 a month which is 600 a year and they say that we've got a hundred traps we can loan so I do have that information and Miss reichmann God bless her sent me a list of other entities that may and I don't know their capacity or how much they do Gratis and how much they want to get paid for to offer tnvr but again that goes back to the question and of course as you know from some of the prior presentations I've seen estimates of anywhere from there being Thirty to sixty thousand Community cats currently in Durham and the last one of those was from July of last year so who knows where it is now um that's a lot of animals um I get the desire

I don't think anybody wants to put down a healthy animal at the same time I'm confronted with not having answers to the questions you asked about okay what is it going to take to do this and what is it going to cost where's all this coming from so it's a question of where y'all want to go at this point and and I'm not I'm not recommending anything but because like I said I'm your lawyer I'm here to find out what you want to do and I wish I didn't have to do it in Open Session but that's that's the problem with elected bodies um first off is do y'all want and I'm not trying to get everybody to do a poll just at this instant but I just want to make sure you know what my questions are do you want to go forward at all if you don't have answers to those two questions

or does that end the inquiry for you two assuming you want to go forward do you want to go with the well and just to keep them separate because when I talk about a May and a March proposal I know that starts to get confusing do you want to go with a mandatory tnvr or do you want to go with a proposal the one we worked out locally to allow tnvr and then do you just want me to keep talking with the national groups to see if we can find some more common ground and I don't know if that's possible but if they at least know that you're not Dead locked in on that mandatory program maybe they'll soften up but to be honest that's going to just mean more time too

and the thing I've been hearing particularly from my local working group is we need to get it adopted we're already behind the power curve on the breeding cycle which is no longer an annual cycle but seems to be continuous I'm good with any of it and I appreciate you all may have questions on the specifics and I'll do my best to answer any of them I just want to know where y'all want to go well thank you Curtis because it is quite evident how hard you have worked on this and how earnestly you have really approached this and reaching out to people talking to people doing your research and we really really appreciate it well thank you so much um I know we're gonna I'm gonna open it up for questions also from board members and then we also have two people to sign up to speak on this item so first I'm

going to start with any just questions um before we have any discussion just questions for Curtis any clarifying questions from anyone okay so I'm gonna pivot to our two speakers um first is Sarah reichmann and then um Janice Paul so if you would come up here and you each have three minutes to speak ma'am Vice chair are you are you open in a public hearing uh no they are just signed up to speak on the agenda okay thanks can you reach after three minutes just state your name and address good evening my name is Sarah reichman and my address is 406 West Markham 27701 first I want to say thank you Curtis

I do have a face um but you put a tremendous amount of time and heart and energy into this so I want you to to know that um obviously I'm currently working with the Animal Welfare advisory committee tnvr subcommittee to make recommendations to the board how to address the overpopulation of cats here in Durham I urge the board to vote tonight to accept and adopt the compromise ordinance amendments so we can move forward in Durham addressing Community cat overpopulation and reducing the hold time of animals in the shelter tnvr should be legal and Durham residents should be able to help reduce the population and control diseases by legally participating in tnvr without bringing animals to the shelter

um and changing our ordinance to make tnvr lawful is an important and necessary step to make it possible for non-profits to apply for funding grants and to recruit volunteers for tnbr programs so it's kind of the chicken or the egg we we kind of need to make it lawful for us to develop programs thank you for your time appreciate it thank you Janice Paul good evening Madam chair and members of the board my name is Jan Paul I've been a Durham resident since 1977 was on Animal Welfare advisory committee as the District Attorney's Office representative in for six years in the mid 80s when we were dealing with

anti-tethering so it was dogs in the 80s and now that I was the sheriff's appointee six years ago to Animal Welfare advisory committee it has been cats but one of the things that that Sarah mentioned specifically was the chicken or egg or the cart or horse um Community Resources are not going to raise their hands and come forward until and unless tnvr is no longer unlawful or at least not lawful in Durham County and I know Curtis says I have had discussions about actually is it unlawful or is it is it not unlawful and attorney to attorney we've we've had some interesting uh Technical and legal conversations about that but the Animal Welfare advisory committee's

Mission and I was chair of the subcommittee and somehow ended up being de facto chair of the animal welfare advisory committee for almost four years the past four years um this this is the mission of awac is to provide recommendations to the Border County Commissioners regarding Animal Welfare in Durham County and to make any other there's a mission statement to make any recommendations regarding animal welfare and this has been a priority on our agenda and in our meetings for the last four years and actually has been a very controversial and a very sometimes contentious and emotional issue in Durham since committees and subcommittees were formed on this issue back in 2010. so it has been going on for 13 years in

Durham County in Durham County is the largest county in the state of North Carolina not to have a TNR or TN VR program uh and is in the minority of counties in the state that don't permit it it's it's not permitted so awac's recommendation was remove the barriers remove the legal impediments remove the obstacles that currently deter individuals from openly engaging in tnvr allowing a chance for it to happen taking some of the burden off of the sheriff's department or the sheriff's office which currently is charged with the burden of taking care of feral or Community cats and making this a community project not to develop a fully operational program at its Inception

so we as as awac and I think as the I can't speak for APS but I speak for a number of community organizations which would ask you please to vote for this you voted to support the awac version back in July with some modifications Curtis Massey has worked I'm sure frustratingly tirelessly and heroically to arrange compromise at the direction of the County Manager between all of the community stakeholders not the national stakeholders this is a Durham Community issue it's a Durham Community request and we would ask that the wishes of the Durham Community as represented in the modified ordinance to be accepted and that you vote tonight thank you and Jan could you just State your address for

the record please 9509 South Lowell Road Bahama 27503 thank you okay thank you so much I'll bring this back to the board for discussion Mr Burns I'm sorry y'all it's late um you know long nights to talk about cats um I remember when we bought this for it last year and you know Curtis was looking at me when he said 30 to 60 000 cats because y'all remember last year I was like where are they at I you know and then I left this meeting and there was a stray cat on my street and he went into the sewer like he was chasing the clown Pennywise on it and I know y'all planted that cat at my house and I've been waiting to tell y'all I ain't afraid of cats man so um I do

just want to throw out you know I I know this has been brought forth I I actually am pulling my hair because I thought there would be a resolution but I get it it's a touchy issue there are a lot of nuances so not so much a question because in my heart I support moving forward because I remember one time last year somebody came forth and said they were euthanizing you know 88 cats one week I don't think nobody want to go to work and kill 88 cats right my brother worked in an animal shelter and my brother's not a quitter the only job he ever quit was an animal shelter because he could not deal with euthanizing dogs he just could not deal with it you know um for me and I just want to throw this out here you know the 72 hours down to five I set into five days down to 72 hours I did some research y'all I guess my only concern you know the shelters open 37 and a half hours a week right so if it's a weekend you know we we I think the reason why the five days was there to give folks a reasonable opportunity to come and retrieve their cat so I know

one of the recommendations is to take it from five down to 72 is that correct it is man but if I remember correctly because this did come up Curtis take take your bike with you thank you we're going to the audience [Laughter] how do you want my question answered no more believe me I get that the concern for euthanasian animals not being able to be redeemed we did do I'm sure found that the aps is AQ director we did do a study of other shelters and open hours and we are very we're sort of on track we don't count days when we're not open to the public in those hours like right now it's 72 hours for um for feral cats right if people can't see them we don't count those hours okay yeah so it's 72 hours in which they have the ability to see the animal or reclaim the animal and starting July 1st depending on what happens tonight we're probably going to shift our hours to being open later in the evenings and longer on Saturday okay that's that one

the other thing uh you know you gave a recommendation about 25 50 a month that's 600. y'all I just and then you said quite eloquently um that that we're that we're not in the maiden season because cats have a continuous breeding cycle so I'm sitting I'm thinking are we ever gonna catch up like I'm just being honest I'm not saying no if we can only do 500 of these a year and these things are for lack of a better phrase reproducing like rabbits I don't know if we're gonna ever catch it that's not me saying no that's not for common this commissioner Burns commenting and then um I guess my last thing is um I I get um I want to move forward but I know that there's some there's only a couple of folks who do this so like uh Ira iar does TN VR right like there's some groups who do it um my only struggle would be since

there's so few people who do it we don't have a sound recommendation um I feel like and I could be wrong in my research somebody clarify the same individuals have had this contract for 10 20 30 years if I'm not to work in this space and I just I'm curious you know do we do a RFP because this is so nuanced so that's my only question let me clarify something because I may have misled you with the way I put it iar does not have a contract with the county right you know I get that yeah no but I know that they do what they are doing I mean his APS with other counties um what we were discussing is what they were capable of doing if if somebody if I had Community cats in my back area and I captured them they would ask me for a donation of I think it's forty dollars a cat and if I said I ain't got it they still gonna fix them for free because they work off the donations they have but yes they hope people would be

willing to help um I did point out some of the volume just so you understand it goes back to concern over the concerns that were expressed by the board about mandating pnvr because if you sit there and say if the sheriff goes out and Picks Them Up and brings them to the shelter on Mass what's going to be their capacity right process those animals um and I appreciate what you're saying if you take that there are 30 000 cats and you only have one organization doing 600 a year that's 50 years assuming no growth uh at the same time if you allow tea in VR then you have the ability to try to control the size of individual Colony right and if the non-profits are doing it and managing it hopefully successfully

one is that's no net harm the other thing is if you can get the community the co the cat caretakers to engage and hopefully minimize impacts on their neighbors it can be a very positive thing and I hope that Miss Paul is correct that once the Restriction is lifted groups will stand up and be more willing to engage and hopefully a program will develop such as they have in Wake County where they have I understand five or six have come together coordinating services I don't know if that's realistic but it's certainly proven in an adjacent jurisdiction thank you commissioner Carter yes um thanks to Curtis and Curtis I think

you have all the same amount of hair that you did the last time I saw you despite the fact this has been a hair pulling endeavor really also want to thank our community from the very beginning over a decade now has been working on this um I guess I started serving on awac in 2016. my first year as a county commissioner and this came up then as something you know again it came up again as new business or I think it was probably still old business so this has been going on for a while Curtis did a great job of describing the circum location of it all I don't know what to call it but it you know it is a little complex we did approve the T in VR um you know the idea of having a tmvr program we never adopted the ordinance for the reasons Curtis stated and I would like to move tonight and eventually I'll get there but I would like to move tonight that we um do adopt the most recent version that

Curtis described not because it's perfect but because it's it it helps us make forward movement it helps Advance our position on this helps us get started um it also removes the legal liability concerns that you raised that I think are very valid Curtis around Newton's cats and anything else um it well it it does the things that awac really wanted which was reducing the holding period to 72 hours and removing the requirement for a trapping permit so you know there's a lot about this that is very positive it's the result of negotiation of our stakeholders at the local level so we have you know those who are very passionate about the NVR and moving it forward we had some others that had some concerns we had the sheriff's department working with you as well um Keisha Lovelace and and so she was

part of this negotiated draft uh so I mean I think it's miraculous that you've all been able to come together and agree on an amendment and um and that's another reason why I want to support this one I think that's the benefit that it was negotiated by local stakeholders um and I think it will be great for the you know the community who would like to participate in the control of unowned outdoor cats to be able to feel like they can begin doing that um and to hopefully do something other than what we're doing now which we know is not effective at controlling the cat population and over time hopefully this will be effective at reducing the at-large cat population um so you know while it is not perfect I do think we should go ahead and adopt this most recent draft the May 2020 the March 2023 draft 2023

um and we may determine with implementation that we want to tweak some language or change some of the parameters um around the procedures we don't know yet but let's get going with it um and you know that I think this will be really good work and then we will continue to Value the advice from the national Partners best friends and and others they raise some really uh valid concerns as well I think um and you know at some point we might be at a place where we can have a model best practices policy according to everyone but right now we've we've got a policy I mean we've got an amendment that we we've got a draft ordinance that we can work with and I think we should move forward with that so my motion is that we approve if it's okay to move forward with approval um I'd like to I think I was looking for my adult supervision laughs

um and the reason I wanted to defer to the county attorney is because if I understand what you were just saying commissioner Carter is you want to move basically to adopt the red line version as actually amending the ordinance tonight now whether that's permissible or not I'm going to defer to the county attorney but I want to note something for you typically when an ordinance is amended a resolution comes forward and in the county ordinances in 1-11 they specifically talk about the form you're supposed to use to amend the ordinance now how binding that is right off the top I'm not going to offer an opinion Okay so we've uh we want to bring this forward because we were asked to it's morph into a work session which can happen um ideally if we're going to adopt for

passage and ordinance we would love to be able to do it and it's a tiny bit more clear and formal fashion with a some call it redlined it's publishing quality format with underlines and strikethroughs and Clarity because we have two on the agenda we'd have to be very very clear about which version why I love the spirit and apparently I was conferring because this is uh I've got a couple stops under my belt and I've got a bunch of rules in my head um you have a lot of latitude here in Durham County to do things kind of on the spot like this but um I think ideally we prepare it for you we create it in the format where it is clear we publish that and the way we do things and then you vote on it with the clear sort of version so there's no question

that's also good because we have not tackled the budget piece which was one of the core questions that was here tonight we had two core questions restated as three but we had some core ones yeah that was another benefit of this amended draft was that it it it it worked around the need to have a budget because it it's not really requiring any um you know action by the county that we have to fund so um you certainly you know I'm not a voting member you certainly are free to do whatever I'm absolutely glad to support my offering was merely for purposes of a Clarity and and just to be sure um so I'm you know I'm open to support whatever you all choose but we are capable of producing a clear single unitary document should it be your will um so I'd be I'd be fine with that I'm

looking at my colleagues and we can we can still give directions to staff or take a vote on that action that we're here well that is what directing the staff to do such and yeah I got you a draft hang on great well not of the final thing I mean I've got that up too on my computer um but well we would like to direct staff to bring back at the next meeting yeah the red line took a very clear version of the the um March 2023 amendment that we want to approve here it's going to really sound nice in the league see what we're doing so I move that the board direct the

County Attorney to prepare a resolution to amend chapter four of the Durham County ordinances to allow a trap neuter vaccinate release program as detailed in The Proposal created by the local working group dated March 21st 2023 Ernest is that clear enough I mean okay if you say in other words in other words I know what you want done yes ma'am all right that's what I won't do thank you swear I want it to be that draft that we read you know all that that's that's the draft that came out okay second okay we have a motion by uh commissioner Carter second by commissioner Alam all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed and the motion has passed unanimously yay save the key uh and I I just wanted to

make a few final comments and I know commissioner Alum hasn't had a chance to speak but um I I want to Echo everything that uh commissioner Carter just said and also to thank um everyone in the community for participating the stakeholder group I just think this is a wonderful model of what you have done Curtis is coming up with a compromise that really just helps our community move forward so thank you and I don't know if you had any comments for me the reason you know I'm supportive of this is because I really rely on the subject matter experts and I really appreciate Curtis for working so diligently to bring that subject matter experts to the table um and I feel like making it an easier vote for us because there was so much work laid out that you laid out today also that brought us to the point of being able to vote for it um and thank you to awac and all of the partners who are stepping up to do this

work and to hopefully you know not have to make a budget line item in the county so we always appreciate volunteer service and support thank you and just for clarification will this come back at our work session um and will we vote on it suspend the rules and vote then what what would be the timeline so if you're going to do a final vote we'll bring it back I mean you have the option here you can suspend the rules of the work session or we can bring it back at a regular session it'd be typical of an ordinance Amendment um we just need to get some sense there's another kind of big thing that's going on right around now budget so um I'd love to work with the county manager to find out when's the best to weave this in because that was a 10-minute presentation we just did right and this could be on our consent can it be on consent can it be on our consent agenda um meeting

I just wouldn't recommend it and so we could vote on it he can vote right I would like to request though that it be on the June 12th meeting and not any later than that okay yeah sure okay so it'll come back at the June 12th meeting for no I don't think we need to no I think we've talked about it enough you know after this is a two-year history that I read off in the beginning almost two years to the day May 23 2021 uh so let's um get it uh on our June 12th agenda for and just for clarity since there are no budgetary impacts uh I will make it have an effective date upon adoption just make sure nobody's going to Blanche at that I don't want to surprise nobody thank you thank you okay all of y'all and everyone there thank you

all right so um next we have board and commission appointments and uh County Mr attorney are you ready with those yes ma'am we're ready okay okay I'll turn it over to you okay so this is our regular time to talk about voted upon additions to the boards and commissions so I will read the results of the Palatine for the once a folks if y'all could clear the room if you don't mind okay so the Durham Convention Center Authority uh there's a vacant at large position the vote was for Susan Amy or Farmland protection Advisory Board at a two-person boat and the vote was for Nancy Herndon of Cape Fear vad and

William young under the business representative category for the Memorial Stadium Authority it's a vacant position the vote was for Tia Rawlings that concludes the balancing thank you Mr attorney and congratulations uh to everyone who has stepped up to serve uh we do not have any consent agenda items and now the board is requested to adjourn into closed session to establish or to instruct the public bodies staff for negotiating agents concerning the position to be taken by or on behalf of the public body and negotiating the price and other materials terms of a contract or proposed contract for the acquisition of real property by purchase option exchange or lease or the amount of compensation and other material terms of an employment contract or proposed Employment contract for to pursuant to General statute

11 A5 a move that we move into closed session for the reason stated second moved by commissioner long seconded by commissioner Burns all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed and we are unanimously adjourn into closed session thank you

all right all right you got the language right we we have adjourned uh from close session and um Mr attorney I will defer to you at this moment since we've agreed to come back into Open Session um we had a closed session discussion regarding some real estate Acquisitions for project and from what happened I believe at this time Madame Madame acting chair that you

are seeking from the board a motion granting Authority for up to I believe an additional 285 thousand dollars to be used uh as an increase in the um authorized expenditure from the Snow Hill Road Pump Station enforce main replacement project budget and as a part of that Grant you are also directing staff to take Direction giving and to exercise all power including the use of condemnation for some of the parcels involved but you are authorizing a total additional expenditure of no more than two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars uh thank you and I'll entertain a motion from the board to approve the stated language the county attorney

move by commissioner Burns seconded by commissioner LOM all those in favor please say I I and he opposed and the action has been unanimously approved and we are now adjourned thank you good night everyone we have to adjourn yeah okay Journey okay I would all right I would entertain a motion to adjourn we don't have moved by commissioner Burns seconded by commissioner Carter all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed we are adjourned okay