Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · September 3, 2024

however we've seen promising data through the month of August uh the average trip time uh since moving to the new system has reduced from 32 minutes to 26 minutes six minutes is pretty substantial when you talk about an average uh and then no shows which is uh basically another way of saying when a client or customer cancels their trip within uh an hour or less of their Reserve pickup time or doesn't show up uh that has actually gone down 40% which is very substantial and it provides a substantial cost savings godder access is also continuing to update policies and pro procedures to ensure a better customer experience so talk about the Consolidated Service delivery model uh sounds complicated but it really isn't with a software uh so this was explored as a way to support different trip types using multiple service providers the new scheduling system allows this to become a reality and will allow the to become more flexible and

m. m. so the key goals in looking at this aspect was to optimize the customer's trip experience minimize the overall trip cost obviously maximize productivity but also to provide an excellent customer experience and then uh to touch upon uh what we will be using this technology for uh when we talk about coordinated Service uh beyond what we do now so up until June of this year go triangle sponsored a microtransit pilot which was funded by the durm County Transit plan in two zones in East and North Durham uh thanks to continued funding in the 25 Durham County Transit work program goorm access will resume the pilot in October using goorm access vehicles

the microtransit pilot will be consistent will be fair free to be consistent with other transit services in Durham since the final report uh was provided which is attached to this with this presentation uh since it was completed in June we have conducted additional planning and forecasting uh the servic is expected to uh provide over 61,000 trips in F in the fiscal year 25 however by using a different cost model as well as greater software capabilities that are available through spare uh and to manage the program rules the servic is forecasted to be well within the $75,000 budget that is funded from the Durham County Transit plan the Consolidated Service delivery model also allows for more flexibility to provide new Innovative services to Durham County residents uh one example is one that Ellen and Curtis are working on uh with the Duram County Education and employment access so this project is funded by the transit

plan and is intended to provide Transit access to educational and employment opportunities are they are looking at ond demand service to Museum of Life and Science for ignite members receiving free or discounted memberships currently they're coordinating with the museum for planning and Outreach uh but the one of the very exciting things with the new platform and the new model that we are trying to move towards is there we can get other service providers besides GM access involved such as Uber lift uh there are also private providers that operate similarly to those um uh that they can contract with directly and they also integrate directly with the spare platform allowing the customer a seamless experience and allowing our team uh from the administration side to see real time and historical reporting for all services that are provided the final component of our study was to look at Travel training Mobility man management this was a primary recommendation and the recently

adopted Human Services coordinated plan as well as a key area of interest from our Riders and other stakeholders such as Human Service Providers most travel training programs assist users with riding the bus service as a branded new Transit Rider or an experienced rider to the local system or a pair of Transit Rider looking to expand their Mobility choices most programs consist of four steps to ensure the rider success this includes pre-training posttraining monitoring and assessments after the pre-training assessments are complete most agencies will conduct the training in their own chosen standard format the study provided best practices as well as tradeoffs for the following formats that you see here uh one one-on-one field training allows the practice of riding the bus under supervision leading to a more personalized experience group field this may be a preferred practice when agency doesn't have an employee dedicated to travel training uh or if oneone is not necessary uh classroom

training It's a combination of either individual or group is a good way to provide background information in a group setting ahead of field training the task force will be working with key stakeholders to develop the necessary components for a travel training Mobility Management program that will be included in the scope of work and procuring the next goorm access management operations and maintenance agreement which will be effective September 1st of 2025 as I'm trying to speed this along to keep you on schedule um I also just want to highlight what a pleasure this has been as far as my 24 years of working in transit this has probably been one of the most exciting projects I've been part of I've been involved in uh with God durm Access for almost nine years now and getting to work with our customers on a weekly basis and see the challenges they face it really uh gives you that desire to to make the service better for them uh and not just looking at the numbers so that I I have to say

the future is bright I think with the county and the city and the task force continuing work uh we have some key Milestones ahead of us uh those do include uh improving Communications and the customer experience that's going to be ongoing uh we have a a myriad of riders with different disabilities different challenges and we are also trying to manage uh four different transit services and over now eight funding sources uh that go durm access operates but we are in a position where we can do that obviously uh beginning the new microtransit program uh which is slated to start by mid October we're also laying the groundwork uh for a framework for a formal Transit advisory committee that would be for both gam and goorm access we'll be working with our stakeholders and the task force uh to progress that over the next six months uh finally we're actually procuring a new management operations and maintenance contract the current contract with we drive you expires uh on

August 31st of next year so we've actually uh we're receiving bids right now from Consultants to assist us in the pre-procurement and procurement activities this will be a very large contract and we want to make sure that our writers our stakeholders uh and are really uh involved in the scope devel development and evaluation uh for the next contract which could La last up to 7 years uh finally with this new procurement our goal is to expand third third party operators where goham access becomes more of a broker service while there will still be a component with goorm access vehicles uh our goal is not to increase the fleet size we have 53 Vehicles right now and our goal is to keep that the same and be able to bring more service providers on board to allow for flexib ility for our customers as well as making sure we can always offer same day service and same day requests uh regardless of the service or funding source and then we'll also be uh

including the scoping as I mentioned for travel training and Mobility Management Programs I would also uh while I didn't have this in here uh in time for the submitting the uh presentation I would like to end with a quote from Ed rudo he's a goham access customer as well as a member of our Paratransit task force it is good to see the real progress is being made with regard to modernizing and improving Goram access by enlisting participation and perspectives of members of the community who rely on the service the process and outcomes are certainly better informed and more meaningful but thank you very much and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you so much and thank you for your work and service I feel like it's fitting that this also came right after our uh Equity presentation from Dr Lewis and his team um I had a quick question before I move on to my colleagues does the goham access team are they also responsible for like if

people have concerns around not just like Transit options but like even if there's folks who are in wheelchairs uh having difficulties on the sidewalks or like traveling not in a Transit vehicle but um out about the city does that also come to the gorm access team or it can come through godder access however there are other paths uh we do uh coordinate with other stakeholder groups in the community plus there's also the mayor's committee with persons with disabil for persons with disabilities so a lot of times General feedback on other uh issues for persons with disabilities may come through that uh committee uh but we we do receive any that come through uh the way we look at it with our Mobility Services division of the transportation department we're talking about anything that moves okay and then actually one more question before we move on uh are there have we gotten feedback of like the types of services that folks that isn't available right now that

folks would like access to like destinations yeah like destinations yeah that that is the the number one thing and I mentioned that we are same day uh really where goorm access operates now I so go Duram access to pair of Transit service is available to eligible Riders anywhere within the city limits Durham County is um utilizing Durham County Transit funds as well as state funds provides uh that coverage to be able to provide trips anywhere within Durham County uh there are also opportunities for coordination outside of durm County which we do some right now with City of Raleigh and go triangle um but I think that is the number one request we've heard is same day I want to be able to make my reservation the same day and due to capacity issues that just wasn't a possibility now we're very close to that that's exciting thank you start on this side commissioner Jacobs thank you so much for the work

that you've been leading and this is I'm so excited about this um this is an area that we've really needed to improve in very greatly and um I mean I just you know have heard a lot of the complaints from people in our community um and some of it has been also Workforce Development related and the pandemic and all that but you know this is really fundamental to people's lives getting to doctor's appointments getting uh to where people need to go um and um so I really appreciate the progress you know you emphasize the Improvement also this is is an area where we have um for some of the newer board members we used to Durham County we used to operate this ourselves and so I'm I'm really glad to see that you're bringing back the TAC the transit advisory committee because that's where we used to get really the

direct involvement of residents and users um so we we they need to be at the table absolutely so really glad to hear that um I was wondering what um I have a few questions how are you working with employers um cuz that was one of the real that was one of the things that we had really been trying to focus on with the microtransit and especially um you know some of us were recently out at Corning and treyburn you've got all of the you know Factor out there they operate on a 24-hour clock on 12-hour shifts and so you know something like microtransit and then I asked at our visit you know what is the percentage of durm residence and do you remember chair alom they told us I think it was about

30% 30% of the workers are durm workers now of course we'd like that to be more but we know that getting there can be a barrier for people so um is this going to be something that is 24 hours available and also are we how are we working directly with employers sure that's a great question so with working with employers I think as a combination uh it's an approach I think alen can mentioned what's been done on the Durham County side but also with Transportation demand management and marketing activities that are really focused on uh what are the the key areas how we're trying to give people that education on what's available for them and then working directly with the employers that's what the transportation demand Management program does do U so right now it is not something that is operating 24 hours a day our hours are in line with the goham bus service so we do operate 364 days a year and for

m. m. m. 7 days a week however there are opportunities uh if the demand is there uh to look at funding options for expanding service so we can provide transportation to those critical workers yeah I I would really like you all to look at you know I think finding out from some of our Advanced manufacturing the 24-hour workplace even the hospitals I mean we have um a lot we do have employers that you know institutions that operate the the airport um a airport hospitals looking at workplaces where people are that are open 24 hours a day and uh you know just finding out

what their schedules are because you know it it may not obviously is not necessarily the same schedule as as the bus service but and seeing what other communities do um around this because it it's hard it's a chicken and egg thing too right because people may not even pursue these jobs or the education because they just don't have a way to get there um so I that would be really interested and I don't know if that's something that the Workforce Development board can help with or what what other partners um the other question I had was whether you were working um you know it was alluded to by our chair this discussion about Equitable you know Equity um you know working with groups Partners like our um Department of Equitable well-being but also um aging

well Durham are you all working with them yes okay great fantastic and we and just to answer that a little bit elaborate on that so aging well Durham we have worked with them in creating the senior shuttle which is another durm County Transit plan funded service that to enable transportation for individuals from the major housing centers uh to Walmart on Glen School and we actually have a planner right now who's conducting an analysis to look at how we could expand that program in the future which has been very successful wonderful and my last question is um I love the fact that you are using technology and data and trying to create an integrated kind of seamless system so how does it how is it going to work like right now you know I can go on Google Maps when I go somewhere and see how to do it if I'm going to use transit or walking or whatever you know where I want to go and it tells you exactly what

to get on and how to do it um is is that what it is that what it's like when you go on the App it tells that is yes so that and actually a Grand Vision we have for H providing a single source for Mobility information um but with Goram access uh it is the spare app so we have a uniquely branded app just for goorm Access and once you are uh an eligible client you're in the system you download the app put in your origin destination you can save favorites uh we did work with our task force and other Riders to test the system for over 3 weeks especially testing the accessibility features that was one thing we heard loud and clear from previous systems we used uh our customers found it very uh unuser friendly and a you know just even things as a screen reader reading it appropriately didn't work uh so that's uh we we did test that thoroughly and so the customer just enters their information it will then give them a message saying your trip is being

assigned then they get one when it's confirmed and then of course they are notifications if things update uh if you're doing it for the the next day or another day they will receive a reminder the day before that gives the customer the opportunity to cancel the trip if they don't need it and that helps us reduce the no shows um but then they also are to able to get uh notifications on when their vehicle is going to arrive up until about three minutes before the vehicle is there so this is all on people's phones on phones as well as and of course we we know when you you talking about you know making sure this is Equitable the vast majority of G Duram access customers uh well over 50% do not use a smartphone or not comfortable with that they are more comfortable with text messaging so we try to utilize that but also having the capabilities with the the phone center uh that that the staff has trained to be able to provide that assistance sorry somebody just came in with a baby that's fantastic okay thank you so

much you're welcome burn you're good mine is fairly quick uh do we cuz that one congratulations on the app congrats on the the really great work I can't remember in 19 and 20 that this was a significant question when a lot of us were running and then Co hit and then when we got surveys back we were over it was like Aus is clean and I think we went here like Ellen's like no I was still on everything but you know you know a lot people's directions and then well we want longer birth service I mean longer hours shorter this and so sometimes I was wondering when this was going to Bubble back up so happy to see that the work was ongoing even though it wasn't always right here in front of us so thank you for that um it's crazy um been doing some traveling lately with family and just really coming to terms what the steps you have to take to make sure that you as well as your family member can

travel comfortably getting on off a plane going in and out of a restaurant parking a airport when I say all of this getting in and out of a football stadium um I cannot in in full transparency I'm the Miami Dolphins at this point have the letter went in the mail today like I probably will never be allowed back in that stadium with the complaints I made because their ad8 team I think has been the worst I've ever come in contact with and I do mean the worst so this one's kind of personal um I want from your vantage point I imagine we're doing everything we can and I know you probably can't answer this today but I would love to know who are some of the Bad actors in the community that are making your job harder and and so you know let's just say we are dropping somebody off but okay there's a door but it's 20 steps down to get to that door and that's the only door

that's open open at this hour or you pull up somewhere and now we have a driver that has to get out and help somebody because the ramp is not level enough or so Rocky the wheelchair literally cannot make it up this gravel to get on the sidewalk and we're consistently not seeing these things get fixed and while it's not necessarily A durm City County Transit issue it is becoming a very big issue and a hazard for the folks that we are trying to serve so if even if you can't answer that those would be things I would be interested in and and I mean what I'm about to say uh we got a city council that basically said we going to do whatever the developers that pay us do and not have parking requirements and I imagine that within a decade that is going to become a problem for y'all it's kind of like folks do not think ahead about and I won't say what city it was when they said you can no longer smoke in bars like 3 months later there was cigarette butts everywhere outside and nobody was throwing them in it's just cigarette butts everywhere

so every these cause and effect things that we're going to run into I want to be forward thinking because we are one of what five maybe Seven Cities in a nation of 10 thou 3,000 counties 10,000 15,000 cities that decided it was smart not to have parking requirements so I imagine you all are going to have more people riding with y'all if there anything if they have good family members like me you're going to have companions trying to ride them I can't tell you how many times I've said I will walk so that my person can go and you take that L and you hope and trust and pray that your person got where they needed to go because you didn't want to take up a space so again question what Bad actors do we have and if you can't give names give us some examples so that we can be more Vigilant about it and also what are some things that we should be forecasting and thinking about with these parking requirements getting going and you all being leveraged more so that was my question

that is a great question and thank you my list could be too long to provide in this meeting I would think uh but when I when you say Bad actors I I I some I don't think are intentional it's just you know the forecasting I think a lot goes into uh and you know based on what our task force has gone through what I had personally with a family member that uh recently uh had some issues that now she's permanently disabled so trying to find transportation for her in Wake County has been sometimes a strenuous process and I think some of those things uh infrastructure definely definitely limits us uh when we talk about sidewalks accessible areas to pick up and drop off customers that that's always a number one and then even uh older facilities uh you see where you we were trying to do a 50th anniversary party for my in-laws and uh we we're looking at a location here in Durham and uh it was perfect for everyone my wife's gluten free so we had to find something to has food for people with Celiac and

uh unfortunately they're on a second floor and have no accessibility they don't have an elevator no ramps so we had to take that one out so I think that facility designed there is also but we're happy to you know compile that as we go along I think there is quite a bit and I think uh in order to make sure we continue to to forecast appropriately is the communication uh both with customers obviously but with our planning department and more importantly with our stakeholders uh we do participate quite a bit with our healthc Care Partners uh the Seven Seas uh work group that we participate with uh and it's you know makeup of healthc care providers and other key areas in wake durm and Orange County you you tend to see what are some of the major barriers um both administratively but also just for our customers and our Healthcare Providers and getting everyone to talk uh that has always been a challenge I think in Paratransit in particular uh the taboo with parat Transit Transit when you come from a Transit perspective is move

everybody to the bus because it's cheaper uh you know bus service is cheaper and you can but you know it's not the reality for the people who who need the service and our our goal is to provide the highest quality service so um a lot of that is going to be just continued communication thank you and please let us know how we can be supportive because again we don't want to make it harder on people and if you all are doing your best effort we want our other neighbors to be doing the same thank you commissioner Carter thank you so much Brian I think I've heard part of this report before at the bpac meeting and I remember how well received it was there um by all of the appointees that the city and county have made to that commission um and I just was impressed then and continue to be really impressed with the improvements that are happening and the ones that you have presented to us that will be happening in the future it's it's really excellent work some of the um you know

some really difficult challenges to improve the system have been identified and you and are leading this effort to really make things better for people who need it the most so I feel really optimistic um and really hopeful about it which is great to be able to say and I'm really glad this is built into our our our Transit plan you know then that and and we're seeing how these tax dollars are um being being used effectively uh to improve life for our residents and I wanted to take just a minute to thank the county appointee to BAC I think we appointed this person maybe eight years ago one of the county appointees and that's Ed rudo you mentioned him he's really been um a champion of this type of work from the outset so engaged um he he you know just certainly very knowledgeable very outspoken and has really been a leader I think um in in that stakeholder group and just really wanted to thank him as

well publicly anyway thanks so much thank you commission Haron thank you madam chair I add my thanks to Brian Ellen and Sean just thank you for being here and bringing this report and you know I I get excited when I hear good things about Transportation um the one thing that you mentioned was about sidewalks and I know we had when um our male Elaine was when she was the mayor we went to bat for around sidewalks and I'm just wondering if you're still having issues around that um and Sean what is it that city and county can do to continue um to make that better sidewalks better for for our citizens and I know that usually with the city but I know with go triangle we got involved in as well to ensure that the sidewalks in particular

neighborhoods were taken care of so Ellen if there's anything that you know of um you know at least while I'm on go triangle let me know and I'll see what we can do to support that um yeah I can answer a few things so first of all um the city and County are coordinating on a new bike walk plan that's getting started right um this had been a city plan and this is really the first time the Count's participated in it yeah um so the contract's just getting started but that would you know identify uh future needs and and policy sort of recommendations for how to implement those improvements okay um in terms of the Durham County Transit plan there is some funding in the transit plan to provide access to Transit and there's a couple projects funded um on Junction Road and Horton Road uh that are in development right now um so there's some Transit plan

funding going toward sidewalks but it is a I I will say that there is a huge scale of Need for sidewalks and so we really have to be strategic about what funding sources can be used for what to make it all work hopefully working with our representatives in Congress will get more money coming in that's been exciting and also the $2 that will be it won't be effective until there's some stuff that we have to do at the transit board before those dollars can become come into go triangle so we'll be getting more money to be able to do some more things so but thank you so much for the work that you're doing thank you and I saw Andy Miracle actually joined us when if we want to ask you that question Wendy Jacobs was asking and we're pretty sure it was the Corning tour that we went on it was 30% employees they said were within Durham County up there in the tror area

for their location out of 450 Alex was in oh all right thank you for that um Andy Miracle director of econ Economic Development um I believe that is correct uh the number I recall hearing is 33% but we can certainly follow up on that to make sure we got that correct thank you yeah wondering yeah yeah um I mean I just to add to that um it was probably nine months ago I I went to the treyburn um Property Owners meeting and um at that time you know told them about the microtransit service for go triangle so they they were aware and um excited about that service I think I do need to reach out to them again to make sure that they know about the new service starting and have can um help share the the news about that thank you so much appreciate you y

um thank you Brian I I just do want to recognize Brian has done a great job and is a pleasure to work with in terms of this joint system thank you that moves us to our next presentation is the information report County Commissioner input on annexations with planning director Sarah Young and we have 30 minutes scheduled for this I want to ask colleagues let's try to get back on track uh and I know this is going to be a Hot Topic but let's try to be concise with our questions ahead good afternoon Commissioners thank you for having us I'm Sarah Young director of City County Planning Department I have with me Bo der brinsky um one of my assistant directors and so we just wanted to come and follow up on this item this was a topic that was raised at your may work session when we presented our annual work

program and uh it was raised by one of you all um and then I think there was some additional consensus to revisit the way that you all are participating in providing some input into the annexation process so what we did is as promised at that meeting we had uh the next Joint City County planning committee meeting coming up in June that next month we took the topic up there which uh is the body as you know JCC PC is the body per the interlocal agreement where the city and the county kind of work together to provide guidance to the planning department on issues of joint jurisdictional interest so we did that and at that meeting uh there was consensus to do the three things outlined in this cover memo which basically are to um uh stop bringing uh reports kind of these summary case reports of pending

cases to The JCC PC to uh stop providing uh we have been sending for about two years now emails to you all on a periodic basis for cases that are coming up to council um to seek any comments from you all that then would be passed to council so to stop doing that and instead to um focus e your efforts and time on cases that are within uh outside of the urban growth boundary so basically the comprehensive plan and this is I'm summarizing the conversation at JCC PC for those of you that were are not part of that group um because the comprehensive plans sets out the urban growth boundary is the extent the furthest extent that the city would Annex and both the city and the county agreed to that by their adoption of the plan it seemed um like focusing on cases that may come forward that are outside of the urban growth boundary so in areas

that we have said should stay Rural and should not be annexed and instead bring those cases to you all as a courtesy again because annexations um under state law do not go to you all they go to the municipality doing the annexing whether it's city of Durham or one of our other cities there are multiple cities and towns that Annex into Durham County not just the city of Durham um so to provide an informational item on those cases since those really would be a big change in policy right they would be things that deviate from the adopted comprehensive plan and give you all a chance to talk about them um put the applicant in the hot seat a little bit as to you know why do you want to do something um that really runs counter to the comprehensive plan and and allow a venue for you all to have that more direct conversation with the applicant um that would not be a public hearing so we talked about the importance of being clear um in terms of jurisdiction that that would just be an informational item U but there were a

few kind of logistical things at the time we had this conversation at JCC PC in June uh we had not talked through some of the details which now we have kind of fleshed out a little bit more and um for instance we propose that if you wanted to do this the appropriate time would be after the case has been to the Planning Commission so you have the benefit of the Planning Commission comments um and that then we would provide for council's full consideration kind of a direct link with a Tim stamp to your meeting so they can kind of hear the full conversation for themselves um so anyway so that is where think things kind of went and we are here to share that with the full body see if you have additional um comments concerns feedback that you want to share this item is back on the jcpc agenda tomorrow um so it's kind of good timing and we can wrap that up and finalize it hopefully tomorrow so

again we're here to answer any questions um about it that's it thank you um let's see is there anyone from JCC PC also that I know I'm an alternate but I'll start with you okay your BRS I just want to say you know I have nothing but the most respect for both of y'all like and the rest of your team Alexander Bo Sarah um but I I would I'm I'm not just an elected official in this space I'm a taxpayer too and not because of y'all clearly not because you all just you all are great leaders and great public administrators and you have a job to do and you make things that are really technical very consumable for somebody like me who four years ago it I was a novice at it and really got thrusted into JCC PC and ended up chairing it and I've learned a lot and while I recognize that everybody does not have the benefit

of getting the packets that we get and also some of the people that get the packets that we get still do not read them I personally feel like information is a good thing and and whether folks and that is this is not about my colleagues so before anyone takes offense whether people on this body whether people at the school board whether people at the city council want to take the individuals seriously who walk in here once a month and talk about their houses and homes being flooded and ceilings being cracked um I personally take those seriously I would have taken them seriously before I sat here I plan on taking them seriously after I sit here I can't I can't even tell you how many notices I've gotten just for construction around my home around like I already know we're sitting here almost like oh well this happen is at some point we are going to be those people that are like why is my backyard flooded why are all my trees down and each month is somebody

new so I I just won like tomorrow you know my vote will be that you know while I can appreciate and respectfully appreciate your recommend ation I I don't see a problem with us getting additional information because two things we like to sit here and say County County County County County and I know that we can't vote vote on what the city does but the city those are our residents too so we do hear a lot of the folks from the county come in here but there are City residents that are suffering under these same issues they are and I do think we've tried to put in buffers I do think that we've uh one of the things the manager did we uh she she was really good at saying we're going to send out notices and then when the fire Marsh everybody came you know I was like well what does the state outline as a decent notification time limit for this blasting and the law doesn't even speak to it so even as we Endeavor to make sure that people are better off the state doesn't speak to it and and I would like to think that in this position of privilege where these five people sit with three new ones next year

I want those three people who are going to come in like novices like I did on day one I don't want them to be at an even further deficit and that's just I think that's fair I would say for Mike for Stephen for Michelle I think Stephen Valentine who's going to sit is the only one who's even set on the Planning Commission and has a law degree that doesn't take away from the knowledge base of Michelle Burton or Mike Lee but I don't see how less information is going to be helpful and I say this with all due respect um I do not trust some of the decisions I've been seen made by the city council especially when I get get the reports back from the Planning Commission after these hourlong meetings where they themselves have voted 10 to zero not to do this and then the city council comes right back and does it anyway with no Rhyme or Reason no full discussion and I do personally feel like there are times when commissioner Jacobs will sit in jcpc and make a very impassioned argument Brenda has sit in there excuse me commissioner Howton has

made a very impassionate argument and if nothing else that little bit that we give them at times put pressure on them and I would like for that pressure to continue absent me being here so I'm I'm okay with us continuing to get information and I thank you for your your our recommendation and in no way is this indicative of me thinking that your recommendation is not sound thank you commissioner Jacobs yes thank you um for putting together a proposal um I I just want to give a little a little bit of context and I I hopefully uh the residents who were here this morning are are listening and others as well just to to provide um a little bit of context because I think there also has been some confusion about this issue what our current practice well first of all as you stated sah legally in the state of North

Carolina and the state has made this decision we as County Commissioners have no Authority around annexations unfortunately and I understand their frustration I don't believe it's fair either and I think it's wrong but that is the reality so we do not have authority okay but what the way things have been currently working is that the reports we get a list for those of you who are not in J on JCC PC what has been the current practice is on our agenda we simply get a listing of projects that have been filed so they are at the very very very beginning there is no information it's literally just a list of the projects at the very

beginning and it's and also we're actually not really even encouraged to make any comments at that time we it's just like an information item so that is very limiting that that actually and also the community cannot actually it's not a discussion item so residents don't even get to have input at that point and and we don't really have that information that much information the second thing that's been happening is that the um Gracie from the planning department sends us the information after it's gone through the Planning Commission and says hey if you want to provide input by this date and then it will get included in the staff report well I'm going to fess up I've only given my written input one time I'd like to know how many times have all of you done it okay so that has been also

really not effective okay because it's like another email in our hundreds of emails that we get so the issue is really about how do we actually give the residents concerns more weight and importance and how do we actually make this more of a real process where we're talking about this publicly and having a discussion as a board and getting information as a board and then for formalizing something so that our comments can actually get incorporated into the report that then goes to the city council and we're also saying things on the record so actually we are trying the idea we were giving to the planning staff the mission of how do we actually improve the process I think what I'm hearing from residents

is that numbers one and two they would still okay two there doesn't need to be if we do this we don't need number two anymore which is okay but it seems like they really value having a list still being part of the JCC PC agenda so I guess one of my requests would be to put that back on again so that you know we all are aware at the get-go you know as an informational item so that the whole public as well as JCC PC can be aware of what has been submitted but my second question is and this came up from talking to commissioner Carter okay this whole idea is that we have now adopted all of us the city and the county our new um comp comprehensive plan and our future Place type map which shows where

the urban growth boundary is and so now what we're trying to assume is that if anything that gets brought forward outside the urban growth boundary we really need to hear about it because this is not following the plan but then there is another situation A Nuance here Sarah which is what about rezonings that are within the urban growth boundary that are also not being consistent with the comprehensive plan and with the adop with the future Play Type map because we still could get resoning now correct me but we still could get rezonings that are not consistent as well within the urban growth boundary am I correct so how how it seems like that should be also something somehow that is lifted up or I don't I want to hear your thoughts on

that yeah that is something that is actually uh it is not uncommon um we get plenty of uh reasoning requests that are not consistent with the place type map um in some cases they are also being annexed in other cases they're already within the city limits um and not consistent under state law any zoning request that is not consistent with a community's uh future land use map or in our case a place type map if the governing body approves that resoning the place type map or the future land use map is automatically amended to match so that is state law um so it it really falls to the the jurisdiction that it's under and their decision on the resoning so but okay with prop properties that are still in the unincorporated areas or

or let's say that have been County land that are now within the urban growth boundary okay with the new new Urban growth boundary I guess what I'm what I'm saying is for those County for you know basically County residents or formerly like people who are okay I I guess I'm just wondering about those whether those cases should be still be treated differently in terms of us knowing about them or because if we've all adopted this and it's and they're not going to be following what's in the future Place type map then that's another situation where the plan isn't being followed I does that make sense yeah can I make a I think it might be helpful if if we continue with the summary kind of case

reports to The JCC PC to really call out the ones where there is a difference this situation that you're talking about and maybe make sure that we build in some time there for you all to discuss that at those meetings um that might be a good way to kind of accomplish that that look um within the the framework that already exists so instead of just being a quick like here's the report any questions which is typically what happens um we could specifically um go over the ones that are um as you said in in in the county subject to being annexed but um having a different place type thank you commissioner Howton then commissioner C thank you madam chair um I concur with um both of my Commissioners here

I'm I I keep reading this over and over again uh number three um in the area where it says uh these presentations will be in informational only and will not be public not be public hearing um is there so is this saying that whatever comments or recommendations that the Commissioners have their comments are not included in the presentation no what that is saying is that just to make sure that we stay on the right side of the law because you are not the body with jurisdiction the city would be in those cases we need to make sure that if anything is presented to you all a case it does not look and feel like a public hearing meaning you

would not you know typically a public hearing staff makes a presentation the applicant makes kind of their pitch or presentation about their project and then you ask if there's anyone from the public that wants to speak and give their two cents so that's the part that could not happen should not happen um you the could still during your regular comment period make any comments and it could be related to that case or that item because it's on your agenda um but we want to make sure that there is Clarity that the County Commissioners are not holding a public hearing on an item that's not in their jurisdiction however you would still be discussing and providing comments that would then be included in the agenda item that would go to the city that would be part of their public record and their public hearing okay but the the citizens would not be able to speak during that time they I'm going to defer to um our attorney on

that uh you are correct ma'am the way it was being proposed m is it's coming to you as an informational item as our at a work session as our others um comments would be during public comment but there would not be the illusion that that was an actual public hearing being held where this board was making controlling decisions so so the residents in the county have simply all of their rights have been taken away that they have no they cannot have any input in the decision that's being made is that what is that what was saying I would say that as discussed it would be coming to the board for information after it's been before the Planning Commission so you'd have the

benefit of their input and of course the residents could speak at that so they can speak at the Planning Commission they just can't speak at the full at the full board here before count commiss board as designed they they can speak let's make it you know they can speak just a public comment not as part of an official public hearing we can hear from the public right and and I feel like that a really good way for us to get their input and to represent them um by expressing our concerns back but it's just not an official public here that's if I was if I lived in the county I'd say this sucks and I don't live in the county and i' say it sucks commissioner c um I really appreciate hearing everybody's perspective on this because I'm not on the Joint City County plan committee um

and um you know it is complicated nuanced and we have received really compelling and concerning emails from citizens who are displeased with these proposed changes but to me it really does taking everything into consideration it's I feel like I am under this new proposal I would have more opportunity as a commissioner to pay close attention to what the um annexation request entailed and connect that very directly to concerns from the resident by virtue of the fact that after uh these cases have gone to the Planning Commission they're then going to come to us officially you know in a really formal way through a work session where I will be prepared whereas now we do receive you know the email from staff and I look at it and then like Wendy Jacobs said it's like oh goodness okay I've got

this I don't have to reply to this right now I'm going to do all these other ones I really need to to reply to and it's it's just never um a situation where I feel like I'm fully informed enough to give any feedback to the city council I feel like this will be an improvement because this will um just formalize the this process in such a way that this is before me as a commissioner I'm responsible for knowing what this is all about now and learning about it and reading about it and being prepared to ask questions to staff when they come to our work session um so to me this really increases the um representation honestly of the of the County residents in the unincorporated areas who feel like they don't have representation I you know I hate that it feels like there's less for them I I I've heard their comments I've read all their emails and have really considered them carefully um and think this seems better I I would say the part about um planning

staff will ensure that the city council is aware of the board's discussion on the case by providing one of the following um I definitely think the time stamp so that city council can go and and listen but I also think it would be better to have some sort of summary con consolidating the feedback from the Commissioners I wonder what others think about that um just to be an additional point of support for the city council to make sure they're um you know just cluing in I guess to to what it is that the County Commissioners are are thinking after having had the presentation at the work session yeah we're we're happy to provide similarly with what we do with the Planning Commission planning Commissioners provide us written comments and we include those verbatim as an attachment to the city council good ide so if you all um what I just I don't want to be um I want to make sure that whatever comments are in are really your comments and I don't want to be in a position where staff is paraphrasing we get it

wrong or whatever so um our preference would be that you all provide us um comments and we are more than happy to put them in there like I said we do that for Planning Commission already I think that's a really good suggestion I what do you all what do you all think about that actually I thought we were doing that so I'm glad that you clarified it okay thank you I hear you don't want to try to translate what we say I wouldn't want to either god well commissioner Carter I think one of the issues present is if they start to create that record are they now basically making the minutes if there's discrepancy with what the clerk writes and y'all approve there could be a problem yeah um I'll also note ma'am you had talked about a formalized input you know in my capacity supporting planning I've been at these JCC PC meetings where this was discussed

and the consensus that I picked up from our board members who are part of that was that trying to move into a process where this board could hear and collectively communicate and make a decision and provide input was one of the goals um and it not just be about an individual commissioner or two or even all three but that the board saying okay we've got some thoughts on this to communicate to the city council uh before they make that decision well I mean I suppose that um if if it would somehow be more desirable to have well what is the body politic point of view on this case that you we couldn't vote but you know could uh right we couldn't vote I guess you're right okay never mind it's not about making a up down or anything on each and every one of these but to the extent

it's outside the urban growth boundary or it represents a zoning change that's inconsistent if the body had concerns to share they would have that mechanism if that makes sense yeah how would we have the mechanism this through this process yes ma'am MH got it yeah I think that's good enough yeah meaning good enough at getting what you and I were just talk what we were just talking yes so and overall I think it's good I think it's a good you know overall I I endorse this proposal I guess what I'm saying you in summary then we're moving number two the planning staff will no longer send the comments but Commissioners will be sending comments but planning staff won't be emailing us asking okay um we are going to keep number one except that when the summary comes to

I'm going kind of in order when the summary comes to JCC PC we will specifically highlight um cases that annexation cases that might be within the urban growth boundary but have a different place type right to are inconsistent with the place type and we will seek specific you know uh dialogue about that at jcpc so we will get that there um our clerk who is familiar with JCC PC can kind of summarize that um as part of the minutes and that that could be a way to include that information U moving forward we'll have to I need to think about that but um so we could capture that we would uh stop doing number two which is emailing for individual comments since that seems um not effective and with number three which is uh having applicants present informational items on cases that are outside the urban growth boundary um to you all at a work session

I think there and you know we can do it a number of ways we we can um and I don't want to be putting words in any on you know but we could work with the clerk for instance and make sure that whatever you know is summarized is what is put into the council minutes to make sure that the the rec the Integrity of the record is there um you all could as part of this is something brand new you're going to be doing right so as part of your deliberations perhaps at the end of the conversation you know there's like a quick summary hey so these are our concerns you know right um and could be uh something fairly easy that we could work with the clerk to jot down and make sure that we're consistent um in how you know that is passed along to council so I think there's a little bit of and actually we do have we have our first case that was submitted um that is outside the urban growth boundary so we're going to be testing this out you know within uh who knows how many months um but I would I would suggest that that we likely um try and work with the clerk for the purposes of

making sure the Integrity of the record is consistent um does that help yeah and I think maybe even providing to make it easier also for our clerk staff like if we just have like a document or a piece of paper that all of us just write our comments and we could just pass it on to the clerk in written format as well that that is how the Planning Commission used to do it in our uh pre-digital age is we would set pieces of paper and with the case number and the comments and they would just fill them in and hand them in um at the end of the meeting and that would be compiled so I that would be good okay commissioner car Jacobs how do we make sure that we implement this before this new case moves forward oh there there'll be plenty of time it's not moving fast at all okay it's we have many many months don't worry okay thank you and I and cheram I really that's what I was going to suggest as a former fifth grade teacher like just a sheet of paper that that we can just cuz we won't do it afterwards and that we can jot

down our comments right then and there and hand them in like we do with when we vote for boards and commissions I don't want Monica and her team having to chase us down more than she already has to okay wonderful any more questions okay and I think we have a plan thank you Sarah thank you all so much okay yes I need to check where the JCC PC JC C PC members yall are going um cuz I'm alternate so if you need me to go let me know before we leave today um brings us to business recruitment program policy update with Andy miracle and Matt and DCM Jones maybe all right good afternoon

commissioner and to the de it is a um pleasure to be here with you all today um my name is Andy marle I'm the director of Economic Development and joining me is Matt felter who is the economic development manager um today we are going to speak with you uh the first of two conversations about updates to the business recruitment policy um so what we're going to talk about today we're going to run through uh background history and success of the program very briefly um recommended Framing and approach to the policy update as well as uh part three which is recommended topics and principles for the policy update so at Durham County Economic Development um the way we talk about the work that we do is we divide it up into three buckets uh we do Recruitment and Retention uh which we're going to talk about today uh we do small business work or small business ecosystem work as well as Workforce Development work and those last two components were added more recently I would say that Recruitment and Retention is really the Cornerstone

of the work of Durham County Economic Development that's what we've been doing the longest um but we are able to weave these programs together um I would say for small business work um we are able to accomplish mwb goals that we have as part of our uh business recruitment work and um for Workforce Development when you think about the Bulls program that was born out of um the success that we were having in life sciences recruitment right and so we needed a program uh to be able to help durm residents um compete for these jobs and so they're they're all three interrelated um to some degree and so here we are uh doing the work um site visits uh public hearings um announcements events um it takes many many forms and many shapes and um so to to briefly uh just give a little work on what got us here year um so really starting in

2019 um we uh one of the first things was part of my work here in this position was to revisit the policy um and look at how we we structured that and how we approached it and so not only did we look at um making technical adjustments to the policy as well to really make sure that we were um doing things in the most efficient manner uh but we're really looking to maximize the value that we can leverage through these Awards while also recognizing the the value of our local market right understanding that this is a very desired market for companies to be in and so using those things to really um understanding how we could put the best product forward so the three guiding principles that we had uh that we did that work and will'll continue uh to uphold these principles as we move forward again um how do we recruit companies that align with our strategic priorities and allow for Max maximizing Community Partnerships this was clearly uh one of the top interests of the board

was to understand how we can maximize Community benefits Community Partnerships and and alignment with our strategic priorities um but we also balance that out with making sure that we uh maintain uh legal parameters right is is what we're doing um within the the state constitution state law as well as most importantly maintaining our competitive Advantage right if we go too far in any One Direction with the things that we're asking for we understand that our County borders are very close right and so um companies could hop right over to a neighboring County if they wanted to uh the last point I'll make is that um this is where we partner with the greater DM Chamber of Commerce um they are the front door uh through the business recruitment process and this is part of the work that we do um the contracted work that we do with the chamber so there were a number of things that we built in to the policy um as we move forward right and and so these are

performance agreements first and foremost so if if companies do not perform they do not get paid it's it's very simple right and we also have um uh Tools in there to make sure that if if certain things are maintained we have uh Provisions to protect those Awards um and so not only do Awards pay for themselves but we actually have a 50% cap new tax revenue uh to govern that so basically for every dollar that goes out out $2 are coming in and that's $2 new dollars um to the property tax base and that's part of that competitive advantage that we have of Durham being a very desirable Community um Awards must maintain Community benefits um again this a high priority of the board um and then we have uh thresholds in there of $50 million uh minimum for capex if we go that route or 200 for jobs we have job standards um as well as uh effectively a 10-year um window to to uh see both the performance of the award as well as the

com you can also find it elsewhere as well but kind of just gives us a a

portrait of of the status of the the program and some of the key facts and figures which I'll just call out here just for uh a few seconds um this this is a program that supports almost $3 billion in in projected private investment here in the county uh 6,000 jobs um for every dollar that y'all put in um you you vote for we're seeing $633 back in taxable investment so um you know that's a pretty good uh partnership I would I would say that's my new favorite slide all right um just a few other things um you know this this information will update annually but you know our most recent performance year that everything is complete on um our company spent $72 million at mwbe businesses and the majority of that was was at U minority businesses um which was interesting to to see you don't always see in construction um our portfolio also did quite well uh the companies exceeded the amount of jobs they exceeded the amount

of capex uh and one thing that I know that we're really proud of and and you all have been huge advocates for is just making sure that we're bringing um companies that have a variety of entry-level positions so that people can grow at these companies uh come out of Durham Tech come out of central Duke wherever and start their career here and grow I I do have a question cuz I'm looking really far it says versus 6 and what is it 49 jobs for so we're a th jobs over yeah for that particular year so you know there may be some years where that is lower some years where that is higher um you know uh companies have uh usually seven years to make um targets so maybe they they've technically achieved year four and year one because they got the foot on on on the gas but at this point in time yeah there will be some companies exactly that do overperform that number may go down a little bit as the you know CU they might have overperformed in year one which you know year two they would just meet if that makes sense but um no

you that's a great question and so I'm going to turn it back over to Andy who's just going to kind of talk through the framing and approach of why we're here today yeah absolutely so as we mentioned you know we did the major uh revision to the policy about five years ago and we've really learned a lot in that time um we're really looking at the process over the next two months is just an opportunity to fine-tune the policy in the program um we're we're very happy with where a lot of the things are but we have learned some good things in the process that we feel like that we can kind of clean up and and streamline the approach um by and large we want to maintain uh where we are in terms of per uh principles and performance criteria um we continue to Benchmark and look at other counties and the approach that they're doing as as well as there are some opportunities where we see that they're adopting some of the things that that we have initiated which is reaffirming um and we've also continued

to maintain contact uh with companies as well uh local Partners industry experts it's been really helpful and understanding what works and what we may need to think about uh reconsidering as well um lastly I'll say you know just in terms of context we are small office we have three and fdes in addition to Matt and myself we have sria fut trial as our coordinator as as well as uh Brandy Miner A administrative officer who we share with transportation and so our approach for today and for the next um we're planning on coming back um at the October work session so for today we really just kind of want run through at a high level and share some of the things that we're thinking about um initiate the conversation start to get some feedback um and then in process of the next couple weeks uh start the uh markup of the policy um with the intent of coming back to the October work session uh for more detailed conversation and then hopefully be able to move forward with adoption um

of those changes all right so we have uh six recommended kind of topics and principles and um I I appreciate that that Framing and I think where we're we're hoping is just kind of talk high level here you know Matt why don't you guys look into this Andy why don't you look into this this direction is okay okay not necessarily like a line by line you know redlining or marking up but here are some of the things that we've heard from from you uh individually or collectively uh companies just things that we've seen as we've administered the agreements over the past few years so I think the first one is is pretty obvious but continue our work as leaders in community benefits agreements um there are some things that you know we ask for that are not in in in the policy officially I think 25% mwbe uh is an important one um an example you know would be to incorporate that you know officially into the policy right now it just says you know companies shall provide an mwbe uh uh goal um I think one other

thing we could potentially do is right now in the policy we have kind of a long list of of uh programs and suggested policies and ideas and things for companies to consider um keeping that but maybe pulling it out of the policy and having as kind of an appendix that we can kind of update in more real time as new programs and things come off and on names change you know Partnerships evolve you know we wouldn't no longer be asking those for but but we would um try to just make it a little bit more of a living document so if you if there's something that's really interesting to the board or something you've read about or you know new partnership you heard about we could kind of just add it in real time and not have to constantly kind of amend the policy and we already do a version of this we do have a hand out that we give companies so this isn't a huge deviation um second thing would be a just to simplify some of the language reorganize make it a little more user friendly a little easier to follow and administer uh third third thing would be to just re-review the legal framework uh

work with attorney Massie and his team to just make sure everything is is still um acceptable under case law state law Constitution are there any new tools that have come on that we should be thinking about ex Etc um we do have for example a$1 th000 an employee option in the policy uh we have not used that um you know if it doesn't case law requires uh counties and cities to recoup their investment in a period of s years if we did this but didn't recoup it is that something we're able to do so just an example of making sure that we we've thought through all of the tools and and that they're on the up and up um the fourth um evaluate a tiered approach based on award size or project size uh we have a wide range of of projects and a wide range of awards right you know you all have approved a $50,000 award we all have approved a $5 million Award right um and uh we currently treat those kind of all the same you know process contracts Administration Etc and so do we want to kind of break those out into

tiers in terms of how we calculate the award some of the annual reporting requirements Etc and just uh make it a little easier to administer and and allow you just greater um uh guidance um the fifth one um so removing unintended impediments towards achieving the goals of the policy so sometimes right you know we have these goals of things that we want to achieve but sometimes you know first time going about it we kind of some sometimes get in our own way or you know we haven't thought through things that are are new or that that come up as a result of Co Etc so you know an example here is we could allow the policy to um to allow professional employer organizations or peos this is when companies are kind of scaling up in the first couple years they don't have a lot of employees but they want to provide their employees health care so they essentially become co-employees of these organizations so that they're able to to obtain healthc care and other benefits you know in concert with kind of other uh companies

and organizations so you know we want people to have healthare uh and so you know maybe we would allow something like that um another example would be uh right now we require um companies to essentially submit a roster of all their employees their title their salary and then what how that compares to um a salary in the Durham Chapel Hill MSA for a position similar to that so the companies have to to look at the two lists compare them it requires a fair amount of analysis and so um maybe a more simplified way to get at what we're really trying to achieve here is just saying is it above a living wage in Durham County I don't know what that number is is it 40,000 is it 60 70 I don't know but you know Wake County does an example of that Wake County does that excuse me I think it is a logical thing uh for us to consider would reduce staff time we spent a lot of time reviewing that with companies and you know just as kind of a humorous anecdote right like I I looked at one of the recent submissions from a company and there was

someone who was a supervisor they earned $120,000 a year sounds great um but the uh corresponding position you know at the at the the MSA level was 128,000 so it didn't count you know and so I think that we would want to count the right that's a that's a good wage it's a good job you know it clearly exceeds what it what it costs to live in in Durham uh but right now we don't you know count that type of uh position um and just lastly for this section um we require uh companies to uh exceed 80% of the job thresholds for each year in order to get paid if you don't meet 80% of capital investment if you don't meet 80% of your job figures you don't you don't get paid um and so um maybe we allow for a little more flexibility here this has happened a fair amount with some of our companies kind of postco um where they've really blown the doors off with capital investment which is great they far exceeded you know all the the the promises that they've made so that's more tax revenue for us for our programs

and our services uh maybe some of the jobs just didn't manifest or maybe they're working remotely or maybe you know they're in the office just one day a week or something and so is there an opportunity to say well maybe it's it's a little lower for jobs you know there's a weighted opportunity if you do 120% capex could that weight against 70% of jobs Etc so just something to think about um those are just numbers that we picked as as examples uh and just the last one uh considering a special Lane for transformative project that can't meet the 200 jobs or $50 million capex requirements so you know we've seen some projects lately you know publicly and privately that are you know large you know kind of office type type jobs so there's not a lot of real property investment you know um but they um so not a lot of real property investment but they have a lot of jobs and so maybe they can't meet 50 million capex but there's 170 jobs for example is that something that we would want to consider I think it is but you know obviously

would you know seek your your direction and so this is just an opportunity for us to create a special Lane for kind of special projects as they come through so I will stop there try to power through it because I'm sure yall are hungry tired all of the things associated with long meetings and take any questions you may have thank you so much Matt and Andy for all of your work for bringing all of this money into Durham um for always seeking our feedback um I had one question that comes off of our tour at Corning was that something that came up was the government relations person was mentioning that there were several companies in that area that were looking to come together and make their own investment into Child Care uh for those companies um and I know that's come up in our conversations about there being that child care issue whether it's an RTP TR bur of like could that be something that we incorporate like that we're not you know obviously not

everyone's going to be able to build a child care facility in their uh new develop new buildings but something that they're willing to invest in for their Workforce or support in any way yeah absolutely so we we currently have child care as one of the um items in the checklist that that you know that we say that we're looking to um if if companies uh do offer that that's something we want certainly want to know so we can include that as part of our valuation so that's currently included with the information that we collect and that we you know in terms of articulating durm County values right which is effectively what that um list is and so we do currently capture that um we are seeing that as probably the hardest space to get Traction in just because the costs are so high um but as you mentioned there is a group of of Traer employers that are meeting and so we're going to continue to stay engaged with that just to understand um you know how that conversation

evolves start on this side commissioner Carter well thank you guys um I think that this board has been very pleased so very pleased with your work over the years um in uh enacting our Economic Development policy helping us to develop it in the first place and add all the community benefits um putting out the report the annual report and then the numbers look so great so thank you so much for your excellent work um I think all of the things that You' suggested that we should consider as policy revisions at a high level make sense the examples that you provided of each of of those please by all means do that and bring It Forward for consideration by us for changes um does this policy have to be in the form of a resolution like is is is that the way our policies are are all of our policies just resolutions I was just surprised to see this you know as a resolution rather than I don't know more

of traditional policy language but maybe it's just the way they all are and this is the one that I've had experience with as a commissioner I don't know not excuse me not all policies are adopted by the board or even presented to the board yeah but this one is somewhat different because you are defining how you will support and engage in economic incentives um so it represents a significant policy decision that does need to be adopted by the board well I see adopting a policy absolutely but is it does it have to be written as a resolution that just seemed odd to me I don't know we had policies you I think I don't know just I don't consider policy language to be resolution language necessarily but I'm I'm way off base here I'm sure it's just I just thought it was odd I think it's it's not you're telling me it it's not I accept

that but I said a policy such as this that is being adopted by the board typically the board adopts resolutions specifying what you're deciding okay um I mean all the recital in a resolution will not appear in the policy okay but that you are making findings because it's a legislative action here's how you are going to engage in economic incentives okay all right would there also be a policy manual where it would just have the policy written or it would also be in the it would be resolution let's talk about this later this is just a this is just a quirky thing I have in my own head um sorry about that um now in addition to all that driil that I was just saying I knew there was something really important I wanted to ask you um you may have to come back to me Madam

chair it was really please come back to me may I have a few more minutes later after IA my thoughts thank you yeah I mean okay icept that how yeah thank you m so what Heidi's looking for her what it was she wanted to remember I just want to say thank you thank you for all the work thank you so much for all the corporations and the jobs that you created for our citizens and that has been one of the major issues for me is that Durham citizens get these jobs and you've been very diligent about my that happen and we appreciate it thank you thank you and just just to follow up from the question earlier we were able to confirm that uh 32% of Corning employees are Durham County residents great do that great wonderful thank you that reminds me of what my um right this whole notion that we really want to recruit these great businesses that are bringing wonderful

job opportunities and you know how come we continue to do our best to ensure that Durham residents get those jobs is there a way either through this policy uh revision or aside from from it to get more information on who works for the company you know what what how many of where do they live you know um what what's the diversity of the workforce even you know we we alsoo want um as a sort of community value for our corporations we we hope that they value diversity of in the workforce it would just be nice to see some data on on that um if you all think that's a reasonable or even legal thing for us to ask about I'm not saying it's tied to the incentive just just we'd like to know I don't know I know we can't you know I know we can't say you have to meet these uh T you know you have to meet these required targets for who you employ and you have no recourse about you have to

hire dur County Employees but still could we see the data on who you do I wonder about that absolutely I think you know just as we've seen with the Corning example and understanding the significance as it relates to transportation and and the value in having that information we can we can certainly do that we can put the ask out yeah great and then I also think we should hit as hard as we can following up on n's comment about child care on familyfriendly policies that you have in your Workforce durm County really has that as a high value um in our own organization being sure we have policies that are supportive of families and so what are those you know if we could get more information from counties on our own companies how they plan to support their the ability of their Workforce to you know have have a family and and succeed with their families absolutely and we've we've tried to include that more particularly of late uh just in terms of understanding the full range of

benefits uh that companies do offer including that with the uh materials yes you have and I appreciate that let's just keep doing it and figuring out how we can do it even more more of that thank you y all right gentlemen uh taking over for just a second while chair has to step away uh my question is one y'all know how excited I get you know most uh elected officials don't like to go to close session and one of the Beautiful Things is I think at times the public gets really worried when we go to close session if they can't look they don't understand the paragraph and you see us coming back there smiling because we know that we're about to work on something with jobs for anybody who's listening you know this is not a deess you a Democrat or Republican issue I think we joked about that at coring the other day uh for most people a lot of that goes out the the door when it becomes a jobs bill so I am happy to say that you know we work really well together with our partners at the state and federal level with our partners at the chamber also our Junior partner at

the chamber who our the newest baby who is also in the audience uh but for me so two two things I I do want to concur with my uh colleagues about some of these family friendly policies we were at um and I know you all said that you will be looking at other counties and jurisdictions to see you know what they do because there's some things that they' mimic that we've liked and one of my questions will be you know and I only have two you know what are some things that you are looking at outside of this that maybe you're like meinburg did this or uh um Guilford did this or Randolph did this you know with Toyota um got to see one of their presentations the other day from Sean sugs and just how much they put back into the community and I know that these are not ours and I'm I'm always I don't want to get myself in trouble but I'm like how did what was the secret sauce for them to get it right as opposed for Google and vent fast who are now on these pauses and Toyotas Full Speed Ahead I think we all know what some of the issues are elections have uh consequences so people

are on certain causes but I um the uh NC impact actually did a study and sawed 36 different counties come into North Carolina every day to work and that's not counting the ones that come in Virginia so we do have people coming in here to work and I'm always like how do we get our folks in this County to work I was real happy at Corin when we saw everyday people working cuz that's what in these cleaning environments the same thing to be said for K power as far as some of the familyfriendly things I I want us to be also hopeful that we can look at the state the same way you know we were able to do our Crown act um change and our regulatory change before the state did we were able to do our juneth I think before the state did maybe not before the feds did I did not know this until I was at the Women's Conference last week and a few of y'all were there keep me honest as of August 1st the governor has passed um executive order and a new policy where if you miss

Mis carry a baby you are giv paid time off like we did not have that until August 1st so you know as we're looking at other jurisdictions are we mimicking that as a as a county but also looking at our partners and say are these things that you have in place uh I know I've talked to both of you about this before but uh the same thing that my other colleagues said about child care for the first time ever the Department of Commerce has hired a state um child care liaz in Commerce so and and she's actually she used to be in Durham I'm looking at in the face and cannot than her Cole Samantha Co she actually used to work in D I think she interned at the city so she now has this job where her only function is to Liaison with private companies on how they can better position themselves to provide more um more child care so the burden is not on parents and not on us what can we pull from that state partner be like okay you were in Arizona you were in Michigan what was the best practice so that we

can because I don't think they've come out with a booklet or a list of recommendations yet and I personally don't feel like we should wait on it like you know it takes a month or a year to put out policies and recommendations and um I don't want us to miss that moment because I think some of y'all saw we were best for business two years in a row and then the third year we were number two and when you look at the score sheet A lot of it had to do with infrastructure but for the first time and I've said this before we got Democrats and Republicans who are saying we need to inv invest in child care cuz duh they realize that now you bringing in all these jobs and folks don't have child care so they're putting policy behind it money behind it I don't want us to miss that boat so as we're codifying our language I would like to see if we could codify that because if the general assembly is doing it and the state is and the and commerce is doing the governor's office is doing it I think we're in a better position as a county to do it because now whoever is looking in is like at all three levels this is something that's important to them and if we want to do business here this is it but again um for uh the

question what are some things that you all see at other counties that you think that we should be doing I know you gave us this recommended list but are there some other things that you think might be too hard for us to Cy by November but might be nice for us to look at um so I'll take a whack at it first um so I actually think and and hopefully it's um okay to say I think other people are looking to us on this to y'all not not not us but to y'all um I think if you were to look at some of the policy updates in the state of North Carolina particular counties over the past few years you'd see them moving more in our Direction at least on uh Community benefits um and Partnerships um so I think there there's that which is which is really good um I think on some of the things that you referen you know child care you know daycare things of that nature that's that's really hard to do with an incentive because the incentive amount is not going to pay even if you look at our largest incentive that we've ever given uh probably wouldn't pay for

a daycare right and so I think we see and I think you all do too to some degree the incentives as an opportunity to reward good behavior you know bring bring companies and and reward companies for for um things they're already doing certainly suggesting and steering where we can if they're willing to to to work on that front but a lot of the companies we've brought recently have had I would say relatively family uh friendly policies um and but I think what I would say is a lot of the companies do want to work on it um and I think the incentive process allows us an opportunity to have an open door um with these respective companies but you know a lot of them are not in the daycare business right there's a couple companies in in in the park that have their own kind of child care service but but that's pretty rare and so you know they may be experts in manufacturing they may be experts in you know um research and development but you know the child care piece is a little bit hard uh for them to bite off for just themselves and so I think they that folks would welcome an opportunity to um have a larger conversation with different businesses and proximities on

child care whether or not Andy and I um are are are the best person for that or um able to do that I'm not sure but I'm certain that we could you know begin the conversation and make the right introductions and and continue to to stress its importance and and quick followup before I go to commissioner Jacobs I I won't say the two companies names you were with me for one of you know this company said you know oh yeah we did this in edcom county and we did this in uh Rocky Mount and I said well do you all have a significant presence they like why did you do that it was like yes we have a factory there and the footprint is this um and then I look at some of the other we we do have these things I'm trying to not say things that are actually in our community benefit statement that we work on I'm trying not to but I just feel like I'll look at another company and they are doing I'm use Toyota cuz that one was you know they've given $2 million back to like schools and nonprofits in Guilford

County I cannot think off the top of my head any of our companies who have said you know in two years we've done $2 million here and I bring that up because I know we ask for things but I actually think that folks really do want to be good corporate citizens and I think as one of my colleag said doing budget we are punching above our weight in Durham we really are and we are over taxing our um our residents and we do have these great companies here that I personally feel like it would not be a burden to them to help out um I almost said this other company's name we I think myself commissioner L and D were there for the ribbon cutting and it was right downtown and we said they said oh we love working in schools they had worked in six schools all the schools were in Orange County had not worked at one year um and I just I couldn't understand like and the footprint was just here so how we could just be a little bit more intentional I know you guys are doing tracking but as we're seeing folks make these additional Investments I remember

uh Fidelity goes they're good they do financial literacy in classrooms can't quantify that but qualitatively I like that but what are some of these other things that folks are doing to be good stewards that we are not capturing and what could we be getting them to do so that there could be a bit more of a cost share or burden share and I don't have to have the answer now but that's just I want to be really in intentional about that yeah without saying too much I think we've talked a lot about that internally and and how to um make make I'll just say do better make sure we have more time uh to get with these companies and uh make the right connections and facilitate the right relationships I I think it does go back to one of the previous slides is there's really just three of us and so just me really just me doing business recruitment you know Andy obviously as a supervisor and man and and director you know doing doing the work too but um I think we're thinking about ways to to to

better maximize that certainly we talk to the companies once or twice a year with their um with their reporting requirements um but how can we make sure that they they know the right people at the right places so that they can develop the relationships that can lead to those types of donations right they're not going to make a donation to some place that they don't have a relation ship with and so I do think there have been some companies in Durham I mean I think noo nordis um had a had a big donation couple years ago or a year ago um some of our other life sciences companies have done kind of nonmonetary Partnerships you know with Durham Tech uh and with Central as a result of our agreements but I think your point is well received and something we literally talk about probably at least every day I'll say the more specific level you know as it relates to bows you know we we have funding lined up for that through the end of 2025 and you know the conversations that we've had with all of our partners are that you know we're not going to be able to maintain that level local support and so you know we will have to transition into a philanthropic and a private model

funding model um after 2025 thank y'all and I know y'all are punching above your weight too commissioner Jacob thank you so much I'm really proud of the work that we've done in Durham County and I think that that slide that shows all the companies and um really speaks to it uh the the teamwork that we have going on with the chamber as well um I really um I totally support your recommendations about developing a policy that's more flexible and that's really rightsizing um you know what things based on really what is the different types of companies that we're seeing happening and I think also In This Moment looking at the chips act and you know the inflation reduction Act and the

bipartisan infrastructure Bill we're we're we're we are benefiting directly from that and so we're we're seeing different types of companies that are coming to Durham internationally directly because of this so I think we have to we have to adapt as well uh to take advantage and leverage the opportunities um and especially also around things like headquarters um I agree with what we've all been hearing how if you you know if you have to pick if we had to pick one maybe what are the most important Community benefits that and I don't know maybe maybe I guess one of the thoughts I had is would we be more effective if we really streamline our what we what our priorities are in terms of community benefits so you know the things that come to mind for me are obviously child

care and you know family supportive policies and you know it may be that people can't afford to do an on-site child care center but can they partner with other companies um can they provide a subsidy um you know those are some of the things so like zeroing in on that um and then also the work the education to jobs pipeline I think this is something that takes is so difficult and I know we kind of you know we we we talk about the internships and apprenticeships and the job but like I would really like to know like what does it really take and um like is there something and and hear from the companies too like I would you know maybe maybe this is an opportunity to even have a conversation with companies and like you also looking at

the flexibility around meeting the goals us being more adaptable as well because we've had to go back and amend some of our things related to covid and things like that but um like really understanding with companies like how's it going are you really able to connect with Central and Durham Tech and Duke and Durham Public Schools like what is it that we really what is it going to take to really create that pipeline um so that we know that our residents really can be prepared for these jobs like I I would really like to understand that and the that's a great um question and point something we think about a lot I mean I think for a lot of our companies there's kind of two buckets there's kind of the big folks you know who have I'm not going to name names but you know they have offices all over the world they have facilities all over the world they have people on staff trained and um resourced to to do that type of work

then you have some of the other companies that we work with which are big companies and the fact they're not like a mom and pop but um you know they may be starting from scratch or from five to 10 people hoping to get to 200 over seven years you know they're just trying to get their patent approved or their clinical trial you know complete you know they don't quite know how to make connections or create programs pipeline Associated things with um some of our local partners and so I think that's where Andy and I have really thought about you know trying to put some of our our focuses with some of these these these growing companies um who may not have the resources or time or expertise really kind of focusing on them supporting the other companies certainly but uh they just tend to have more infrastructure already in place right and you know the HR I mean a lot of this is right their HR departments or who their HR director is and I know also a lot of this comes down to relationships too being able to pick up the phone and you know call somebody and

say hey I've got this many positions to fill you know how do I find people or even we want want Durham residents to go into those jobs um and then I know we've kind of struggled with people like justice involved folks and um so yeah um and then I think the other thing I totally agree like the living wage issue like we don't want to what are things that are burdensome and aren't really important to get away from that and and in our current policy obviously it says $15 an hour so we we definitely need to we need to update that language I think to be something that we is um it's not even a fixed number but it should be something that's even connected to what Durham Cy's doing because we can't expect companies to even do more than we're doing right um

so well you I don't know I I just I mean that's something to think about right certainly um um we can think about what that number is I envisioned it would kind of be a living number it would say you know the companies much exceed this amount published by Durham County this month you know every year and you know that allow it to evolve with inflation wave wage growth Etc you said a better than me a living a living number that doesn't happen very often so I'll right a living number for The Living wage um and also I like your idea of doing something more in a um a data I mean like a chart form and also even with our our our tracking system uh for annually um reporting to the community and on our on the website that you're doing um some of the other like the big picture of all these different um benefits the jobs the tax

revenue um even that being all just in more of a data form that's easy for somebody like a snapshot um that people could look at like you did on the these slides for us um no problem yeah so but thank you thank you thank you can I just go back to one thing I wanted to just say thanks to Brian if he's still here in the greater Durham chamber I know Andy called it out but Brian and Matt and you know Jeff and Angelique and their staff have just been great partners and are really the front door for a lot of our our work so I just wanted to highlight them again and just say thanks for all the work they do um with us all right thanks so much thanks thank you so much um manager I want to are we going to do Aran next Aran next as opposed to tax okay no well you can dox are you sure because I know okay okay if we could ladies and

gentlemen I would like to have the folks from um our tax administration office we will be getting a re praisal update come forward you all look so happy to be here and then I think that's it yeah cuz what's her name is next welcome welcome and you all can go when you want to I see that the PowerPoint presentation is already up in the clicker still you live good afternoon Commissioners thank you for having us um

we been working hard and we're dying to share this information so thank you for having us and um hopefully we will not bore you it was a wonderful lunch all right so um we're basically here today just to make sure that we are keeping you all the breast of what's going on and what we're seeing in the market um nothing we are sharing is going to be uh final numbers at this point but it is a reflection of what we're seeing and this is the data that's being collected that will formulate these final numbers all right so I just want to make sure that we're clear in regards to what you're actually seeing um this first slide is a illustration of really the importance of doing reappraisals all right um if you see the First Column is the final ratio and the last column is the actual year of the appraisal so if you notice the further away from your re appraisal date the lower that number is

in that First Column the final ratio all right um if you see us towards the bottom of the First Column Durham County is at 61% um that's very low but as you see the last re appraisal was 2019 so when you base it on how many years have have have have passed since our last re appraisal given the market we're in you see these types of numbers um and if you notice I believe as Cumberland County above us is even lower they were two years prior in regards to their reappraisal um fory County two years after us and not too much far not not too far from our number um mecklinburg County I got highlighted over to the right and as you see they are 2023 rear appraisal and they're still above 90% weight County was this year and they are just below 100% um the goal of course for reappraisal is to try to be as close

to 100% as possible but it's to make sure that you are readjusting and getting away from these numbers you see that are further away from the reappraisal date 2019 this was Durham's market for Residential Properties roughly $240,000 the market 2024 as of July 2024 to be exact um you see the DraStic change so this is Durham County this is the city of Durham so this is the new market that we are dealing with and this is where these values are coming from that we are reviewing um these sales we are in abundance we have a lot of data so um um these are real numbers and as you

see the difference the uh real property division decided to give you all a few examples of what they're seeing so they collected a few sales so you could actually see some of the things that they're coming across um here we have a 2018 sale for $270,000 uh by 2024 Fe February 2024 that property sold for $440,000 63% increase um they intentionally didn't pick the worst Properties or the best properties these are kind of middle of the road just so you can get a feel for what type of um transactions are taking place here's another property uh South Durham area 2018 sale $325,000 here we are in 2024 February again $560,000 72%

increase Forest Hills 2018 sale and as you can see this isn't a typical Forest Hill property I guess how I say so um it's pretty average normal type of sale so for $210,000 in 2018 2024 $441,000 it's 110% increase and this is closer to home closer to where we are now uh Watts Hill Andale 2018 sale $300,000 and 2024 sale $710,000 it's 136% increase as you notice most of these sales are 2018 meaning they were a part of the sales that were used to create the 2019 values for the last re appraisal the sales you're looking at that are more current these 2024 sales will in turn help us create the values for these

20 this 2025 re appraisal current market statistics for the Residential Properties and this is just an illustration to kind of show you where the data is coming from um we have that middle column is the count so it's showing you it's 335 sales below 100,000 um I would assume a lot of those sales are raw land um just being in that price range a lot of them the median sales ratio to the left is again giving you a good idea in regards to where those sales are coming in um and the percent of the sales in the far right column is just showing you how much of that making up the total in regards to what's being reviewed so out of all the the sales being reviewed that's the breakdown of what we're coming

across current statistics for the commercial it's the exact same thing it's just showing you giving you an idea of the types of properties that are being reviewed where those numbers are coming from and the amount of what's making up that data below 250,000 250,000 to 500,000 and so on the next few slides are commercial and I will make sure that give uh James Roberts the floor he's the commercial supervisor in the office hello there we go how's that all right so I want to reiterate what uh K said earlier on that this data

4 which are both better than what's going on in the nation I would caution though that because this is single Source data that we have to be careful that it's not skewed and that's why we use some of these sources because it would be very easy to skew this data the the

4% um across all five property types you will see that there is a similar um Trend and that is is that

sales have slowed down over the last few years and that is directly related to high interest rates the the banks with commercial can actually require even larger down payments on top of the interest rate problems because they want developers to put more of their own money in to deter bankruptcies and things like that um they do indicate the values have continued to decline but forecasters are showing that bot that office properties will probably bottom out in early 2025 uh where they are now they're about $10 to15 higher than the 2019 average per square foot the the value sales sales price yes I'm I'm just um wondering if we have

this presentation so I could see it on my computer instead of on this screen right here and if not I know we'll get it later and that's fine just I don't have it do am I the only one that doesn't have it I'm I'm just on the um email with the agenda link okay thanks I'm sorry to interrupt it's okay okay so the next group that we'll look at is retail um retails at a very tight Market the demand is at actually at record levels for retail um we have again below normal Sal sales volume but that's interest rate related uh the rents are up 4 and a half% over the past 12 months which is almost twice the national average and our sales price per square foot is nearly $50 higher than the 2019

6% um delivery have deliveries have outpaced demand which has caused a slight decline in rental rates so there are positives and negatives the rental rates have gone down some which is better for those who who pay those rental rates but it will reduce the property value on the tax side um absorption has been positive for through the last four quarters the class A and the downtown multif family are doing the best in the county uh the developed parcel I'm sorry developed unit count so apartment units over the past year have been double of what we've historically developed so that's part of what's contributing to the higher

vacancy is the number of apartments that are being built um absorption expected to remain solid um but with 6,600 units under construction demand's not going to keep up with that number so we're going to see continued increases in vacancy rates um a little and reduction in rental rates we are build we're filling up with all of our new apartment correct Apartments being built right but one so are you saying what are the impacts though is to help um keep down the actual rent correct yeah it should help apply downward pressure on the rent uh right it it is your your

[Music] mic yes the the asking rent growth 12 months um what's that one two three four five six seven from the bottom excuse me did everybody get the email yeah Heidi I couldn't hear your question you have people who are hard of hearing on your board I promise it wasn't worth everyone hearing was mostly I just was trying to read the um the slide but now I I have it right in front of me here so I'll be able to um I'll be a better list listener now thank you okay um so the value per unit is expected to Contin continue to decline into 25 but will still be higher than the 2019 values um I believe that the differences around $40,000 a unit right now on average that's the difference between

2019 and and now all right so now we're going to talk about industrial uh we have had a strong new construction it is outpacing demand currently and vacancies are rising it will probably continue for the next few quarters uh the annual wal growth has slowed over the past two years and it's going to continue to slow as new projects are completed and the vacancy rate Rises sales volume is down again High interest rates demand is expected to remain positive but large number of the new construction projects means vacancy levels will continue to climb and currently the sales price per square foot average is $125 and it was $70 in 2019 per

foot I we look at Hospitality which is hotels and motels um we have the highest revenue per available room and best occupancy in the state over the last 12 [Laughter] months um growth is continue is is expected to continue and it has been bolstered by corporate travel I'm sorry that's by percentage correct you said Mo say the sentence again the the triangle has had the highest revenue per avail able room and lowest occupancy which is a percentage okay I was okay thank you I was about to say because it's more hotels in some of these count so it's by that's still great like I'm still there but yeah um right uh in let's see 2024 we will see 5% increase in rooms due to completion of 13 new

properties um the sales slowed again because of higher interest rates uh the 2019 average sale per room was 125,000 and the current average per room is about 130,000 and I that is it for the commercial numbers good afternoon uh this is just a uh sort of a a timeline to let you know where we started and where we are presently of course we started in January of 23 uh we did our reappraisal plan and sent to do and uh they sent back to us um and we did an internal uh sent back and said we were okay to go and so we did the uh started actually doing our fieldwork in the same month uh the internal reappraisal process began all right so

we started there doing our fieldwork and as we're starting to do these things if you notice we have three little things up there in January well this the beginning so we start a lot of things at one time and so we started analyzing our sales all right so in analyzing those sales that leads us into February which analyzing those sales starts giving us an idea of what our land our land is selling for uh which you kind of saw in the other uh one of the other slides uh the L low values we had were those uh were mostly uh vacant land vacant lots and those were the things that sell under $100,000 it's just a lot you know so if we got lot selling for close to a 100 we're rising in values uh so then we started looking as we doing those uh U analyzing we start looking at land prices but we then we start looking at what our improved properties are so now we're starting to try to figure out what

what these houses are selling for once they're built and and what when when the current resident decides to move on and what are they uh the old stuff selling for so we started doing that and we've gotten uh an idea at this point of what's the dollars per square foot in certain types of structures that's residential as well as commercial so we're starting to get an idea in April of this year what we're going to be doing which one is this one yes sir all right and then we continue on until we get into July of uh this year and now we're starting to work on uh constructing what is known as the schedule of values the the book that determines the numbers that we use and apply to different types of properties different type of structures that sit on those properties and the different type of uses of property and we start organizing that stuff and trying to find out breaking everything down into

numbers and that's what goes into the schedule of values numbers and so we started on that and so now we're get starting to get into October which is when you all are going to come into play and you're going to adopt the schedule of value so we'll present that to you for you all to do your questioning the values or to allow the schedule to lay open for members of the community in the county to start looking at it and see if they see something that needs to be questioned or they want to question and and get back to us and we start responding and and making sure that everyone understands the schedule of values and how those things went into it and so then we get into November and we start doing what we consider our final review we've got the schedule of values laying out for you all to analyze and to look at and to stress over and so then we uh go into November and in the final review we're actually going back over the things that we we've already

reviewed all so you say well why would you need a final review well you can never review too much uh because the sales are changing constantly and we want to have our information to be as close to December 31 of 2024 as possible because if we don't continue to look over the um the uh the properties that change hands we may not be at the most accurate value that we can if we just did it one time and say that's all we need to do uh we would be at maybe not a good place but the more we do it the more we can get to being confident in what we're doing and to make sure that we think that our numbers are as good as we can get them with the information we have and so and then of course as we get through uh November you say well that was the final review no we will still be reviewing even into January because guess what happens in December people still buy houses or sell land and that thing in December so we need to look at

that in January so we get into the beginning of the year in January through March is when we'll be doing those final final things and uh at some point in between late January early March we hope to send the change of value notices and I say these things as not being Inc concrete because we don't know we may be able to send them January and we may not be able to send them January but we know that will be sent before March so we know that some point in there we'll be getting those uh notices of change of value out to the public so that we can start hearing uh their thoughts and we can start getting um uh appeals scheduled uh and so that we can start getting ready to do the thing that no one wants to do which is to hold these hearings and to hear these uh uh questions or to experience these complaints according to who it's coming from some will be questions most will be complaints so uh we'll get there and we'll be there in in in March

and okay there you go all right so that was kind of a timeline and this is kind of a uh the schedule the C calendar schedule of the things that we want to do starting in in in October and that would be as I said earlier present the schedule of values to you all for you all to go over and look at question us get in general information and at some point maybe even specific information and then in October also we want to start advertising that the schedule of values are open for public inspection in our office people can come up if they choose and just take a look at it ask questions about it uh just get information out of it and see how it fits their life and their properties and their things and then of course in October we'll start he having the public hearing and that'll be it'll begin at first one doing a regularly scheduled meeting I'm pretty sure you have had those before and you're very excited about going into this game I can just feel it and so the in November in

November the you should you all should then after it's laid out for a while and you should uh consider uh adopting the schedule and you all to go through and do your uh uh legal things that you have to do to make sure that it becomes the the information that is used to value the county and it has met you all expectations and hopefully the expectations of the citizens of the county so we'll be getting excited at that point and so the first date for us to advertise that notice uh we plan for it to be November the 13th in the in the local paper and so then it'll be going around uh we we'll have it uh a number of times advertised but that'll be the beginning of it so that everybody will get to know that we are doing these things and that their time is ready to uh for them to examine this stuff and that they can come in and see it and uh if someone is going to appeal it uh from November to 13th you got to

have 30 days for them to appeal it in so they've got to have that appeal in within those 30 days and hopefully no one appeal it and so then we go into December and uh the last date the schedule of values can be challenged so they're going to be looking at that and but we're going to have everything uh lined up so there will be no challenges to it everything is going to be perfect so in mid-February uh we will create a file for the notices to change the values so hopefully we'll be getting that sent to our printer in in mid-February so that he can get those things printed out they can get them printed out and we'll be getting ready to uh send those notices out and everybody will be anticipating it so it'll be a big thing in the county and uh the last week of February we hope to mail those uh change of value notices so if we do and get them and and uh mailed it by the end of February then

one week after that we'll have a stack of appeals so uh Wendy Jacobs that was a schedule of value not their individual values yeah that was the schedule of values so no one's going to appeal the schedule of value but they are going to appeal some individual houses and properties you know so so uh mid-February we'll send that notice of value change and last week we'll mail it out to the public and uh then in March we'll open the appeal module so people can start going into our electronic appeal system and start putting in their information in their appeal and we'll start getting that stuff and we so that we will be able to start lining up and scheduling those appeals so um hopefully that'll start in the beginning of March and everything will run smoothly with the software which it typically does uh so that won't be an issue and then we'll come into uh

mid-march and we'll start holding some informal hearings and meetings not not hearings but meetings in the uh designated Library so those people can come in start talking about things that they may not know about start asking questions and we can start getting them lined up so that if they really have problems or issues with their properties uh we can get them set up for a a uh hearing and get it scheduled and they can get ready to meet to the uh meet before the Board of Equalization and review which is the board you all appointed that handles those uh questions or issues with property values and then in uh April we will advertise for the Board of Equalization and review we get that we've got to advertise it three weeks and so we'll advertis it probably two weeks before the schedule of the first meeting and then we'll probably advertise the week of the uh following the uh first meeting so that

everyone will have a chance to make sure that they get to see that advertisement and no one will miss miss that advertisement and then by May uh May the U uh we will the board of equal Equalization and review will convene and hopefully it will be adjourned by June the 16th now that does not mean that we'll probably be heard all of the issues but we'll be adjourning as a matter of people having the timelines haven't been met for people to set their appeals or get their appeals set in so we have now we have uh a little something from Horton she'd like to add to that those were all our slides but we've got some something for Kim to uh say to you all she want to give us a little bit of of information that only the best of us have she's going to tell us she's found a secret pot of money for us

no no there was just a couple of items that I think we failed to including the slid on one of them is the public meetings that we're currently attend attending at the request of some of the citizens out in the community I think we have five scheduled to date and we've already done a couple so if there's any Community event or um organization that you would like for us to go and speak to by all means please let um K know and would' be happy to attend um as the notices go out as Starin has stated it is very important to K and the rest of us in the office that um we're there for the community so that they can understand the values that we've assigned to the property we're going to have mechan mechanisms in place to allow them to easily appeal their value not make it hard or cumbers on the taxpayers um and then just show them how

our values were arrived at and share that with them so the customer service part of it after all the work is done you know the customer service part of it is a big item for K and the rest of us in the office so we welcome that interaction with the taxpayers thank you all so much we know this has been a lot especially with the new software implementation with the budget I know kiar had a lot of anxieties along with our budget staff about the budget we passed P um and how it's going to impact our residents when they get their reevaluations next year um but really thank you to all of the work and especially your field team um that's out there every day uh driving around Durham and doing these valuations especially during these warmer months and when it gets to the colder months I guess all year round um I'll bring you back to the board for questions commissioner Carter

I'll start with you you know I like to formulate my questions but I'll try to jump right in I can go to commissioner Jacob go ahead oh Vice chair Burns okay I have a random I got a do dis appointment so I was trying to hold off for y'all um one thank you so much for this timeline I did learn a lot um I it's interesting because I know people are watching and I hope that they do see it's not just us like this is what the market is driving and and thank you for showing so many different types of homes and houses to show that this is happening across the board and thank you for geographically showcasing that it is also happening across the county so this it's not germine to just to one group and I think even some of the numbers were surprising to us uh as we sit here uh the March 11th through the 25th where you're going to have these series of public meetings and I know this is far off that kind of 14-day time period do you can you imagine how many of those you might have so those were based on historically so

the last three Re appraisals we kind of looked at the timelines that we offer these informational meeting and they were two weeks they were they were either in mid February or March but they were always following that mailing so you want to give time to the taxpayers to actually receive a mail um review it get confused and need to sit down and talk to somebody so that's fair um if if we determine or if we see a need for more there's always you know opportunity to increase the visits but we usually historically we've always done two days at each library to kind of make sure we're in each part of durh and available for taxpayers to come out the um the past experience I've had the the issue is usually advertising um we're there and we're usually there all day so we'll be I mean I've been in Stanford L Warren I've been in north durm at the library near

Northern High School um the traffic was dependent upon who knew did we get the word out were they aware that we were going to be there on these days um so some of them are very very very impactful and some of them we didn't get enough we didn't feel like we got enough traffic but U we'll try to do our best to advertise but if depending on how many appeals we're seeing um what types of thoughts we're thinking about in regards to the impact we might need to do more but two weeks is usually what what has been done in the past no that's helpful and quick follow up to that cuz I'm imagining I mean people who even got their tax bills this year you know not we a talking about that next year you know like well why is it this why is it not that and then the sticker shock of maybe next year I'm imagining in this public room you'll probably have some information that you want to present much like you did to us but there is that one person that wants a pound of

Flesh and then there's the other person that doesn't necessarily want they just it is disc concerned like they're now very nervous I don't know how to pay will you all have a room set cuz the libraries are good for that like here's this big room and then here's this study room where maybe someone from your staff can be in that that person so that this room does not go off the rails and also so that person who's kind of nervous doesn't have to wait until the very end and say Hey sir can I see you to the side are we in a position to take them away right so so in the past oh I mean not take them away but give give them the Privacy that they I do not know if the Privacy was always available it depends on the library itself right um some of them have are set up so they do have those types of spaces but in general it's usually um an environment where it's like six six tables set up individually and um a taxpayer has the ability to sit down with an appraiser and it's it's not private cuz it's not closed off okay but they are isolated enough where they

should be able to have a conversation that oneone there's usually a laptop set up so they can actually look at the property together go over whatever type of issues or concerns they might have these are not set up for actual appeals okay but they are set up for you to actually discuss the property so we we usually have a pretty um individualized session with each taxpayer that comes in so they they have their ability to sit down with someone whether it's an appraiser a supervisor they they'll have one on-one time and last question is first come first serve as opposed to registered 3:15 I'mma sit here so people could potentially be waiting in line as a or the other option is to make an appointment and come to the office so so in the past we've had appointments okay okay um depending on how things play out sometimes you can squeeze somebody into a a spot but um normally we go by appointments okay if if it's done prior

to them coming or if it's done at the door it's usually by appointment this I'm thinking more maybe public meeting was what was throwing me off because I'm thinking you are but no this that this gives me a much better visual I'm done I will leave it to my colleagues I do not envy you at all but those are good questions but yes they are individual sessions for each taxpayer commissioner Jacobs y thank you so much um I the information about um the timeline is really helpful it's a really detailed and very intense timeline um I'm wondering how will this be shared publicly where where where will the timeline live it live like where yeah where will it live will it be on the tax office website or just What would I'm just thinking about how do we make share this information publicly

historically we haven't but I don't I'm not opposed to showing a schedule of some sort yeah I think it would be helpful we will coordinate um with Ki to determine the path forward um as well as with our colleagues at the city they're they're listening in yes and so I'm sure uh we we will confer to make okay um things very clear to the public and do you have plans to that was on my list here was do you have plans to present this to the city council if you would like I think it would be a good idea yeah I really recommend that um the the the information um that um don't want to get um James that you presented was really interesting and I mean I really want to study this but I

think that's also really important um for all the city council members to know as well um and for the community again would the trends is that something that would is going to be publicly shared or available for people to see not in that format that you saw okay those because those are raw that's raw data some of that data is I won't say I mean it's it's real data so it's changing all the time yeah right but it's collected data that's not necessarily been um sorted and analyzed to see the specifics of what's actually going to be finalized so giving raw data like that it's it's not a problem if people know what they're looking at if they don't know what they're looking at and they take that data and try to start formulating things that could get a little dangerous cuz it's including some

um Outcast some some extremes some some some highs some lows some medians some means so it's a lot of it's a lot of data to be reviewing and if it's just out there without proper um explanations and guidance it could mislead cuz one of the things that comes to mind and again I haven't had time to study this is we've heard a lot from the community community that oh we're we're not properly assessing commercial properties and ironically what we're going to see is because of what's happening with the market right now with you know still recovering from covid from because of the High um you know inflation and the and the high interest rates we're not going to actually see those values go up very much right compared to the individual um home sales I mean it looks to me very

different when you're seeing the increase in the value from 2019 it's not that much compare when you're comparing it to the residential so there yes there are totally two separate things going on so yes to to compare residential to commercial without taking in a whole lot of factors would not be wise but with that being said um commercial has been affected differently since 2019 than residential um we have vacancies that is different from pre2 the last reappraisal but definitely the pandemic um as we know we all take advantage of remote work remote work affects the private sector just as it affects us but they're paying taxes on those properties so if they build a property with the intentions of a certain type of rent certain types of sales certain types of things when they

built that property as a commercial developer and now they're in a position where those those buildings are 30% or 60% but they are not 100% being utilized right that's rent being lost those are projections that were because of a pandemic that turned out to be wrong so if if a building was built with a certain type of expectation we do sales we base things off sales and then they turn around and appeal it off of income that that's going to be a drastic difference in value and we we do utilize all three approaches to Value as appraisers we're doing all three so we look at sales we look at cost and we look at income so if your sale value was projected or expected to in a certain place but then your income value is in a different place because of vacancies because of remote work because of things

that they did not see prior to building this commercial property that's going to affect their value their projected value was one thing but the realistic value that they're living in and they're dealing with right now is another thing so um you don't see that with properties that people are buying to live in right these these properties are still selling for numbers we still aren't getting used to but it's a totally different thing when you compare a residential to commercial right and that's why I'm saying you know we've all heard from the community that you're undervaluing commercial and blah blah blah but I think that the irony is going to be that um it we're not going to see is maybe what people are expecting in those areas because of because of what you just explained and that's going to right right and but on top of that we're going to follow the sales we're AR

going to create anything so we're going to do what the sales show us right um and we have to see where that takes us and most of the the concerns of the public are real and I understand but they are also based on a 2019 Market we are not in that market we have to look at the market we're in we don't base numbers off of Trends we have to BAS Bas them off what we really see um we use trending methods we use a lot of things to kind of help us with the data that we're seeing but we're going to follow the market all right thank you you ready Mr Carter oh I did have one other thing sorry the the what the different terms that you're using that you were talking about James with I think it would be helpful I hate to say it but almost like a glossery or definition of those terms I I was trying to guess what some of them were but um I I think if you could provide us

with that that would be helpful we we don't know what James is saying and we we work those terms will be those terms will be defined in the schedule values there's an appendix I couldn't hear you Kim I'm sorry those terms are defined in the schedule values there's an appendex to okay there will an appendix that explains those okay yes ma'am okay that would be helpful and I noticed that what was missing Starin from your um timeline was the adoption of the tax rate I know you don't have anything to do with that the tax office has nothing to do with the tax rate um and and and I'm assuming so that you are going to be having the comps up there for people to see the online comps yes they will have that online by the

time appeals or Star roll yes thank you I'm done thank thank you commissioner Carter then commissioner howon and I know I don't want to speed you guys up but just oh believe me uh we'll talk about that later I hope actually how long this meeting has been going and similar meetings how long they've been going um for I just I really want to thank you guys I think that you all have as a superpower this ability to make our residents feel like you hear them and you care about their concerns I really have seen that in action from you already um and we haven't even been through the reappraisal process yet and I I can't tell you how important I think that is and really want to thank you so much for that it really matters um so if I don't say anything else that means anything today I want you to hear that it's just super important especially going into the reappraisal um so so that sort of um uh

service to the consumer or or whatever just you're you're great at it and thank you one question I do have is related to this whole notion of Are We assessing our commercial properties fairly compared to the Residential Properties just still back to that is it a reasonable conclusion to draw though right now from um the current market statistical data that you've given us if the mean if the if the median sales ratio for commercial properties is you know 53% and the same ratio for Residential Properties is 55% I mean they're both way off but they're sort of off by about the same amount it does that is a logical conclusion that well they're sort of equitably appraised do you see what I'm saying that would be my assumption you would draw that conclusion too okay yes

based off of what you what you've seen what I've seen um I believe that the people the company that did the last rear appraisal did a good job could they have done a better job possibly could we comb through the data and find some things to pick at sure um but I think overall we're talking about 126,000 Parcels I think they did a good job um I won't sit here and say that it was perfect so I think Hudson Vaughn's article pointed out some great things I think he did a good job of research but I think we're going to do our best to learn from some of the things that he brought up um the things that we can control within our office all of the things he brought up are not something that we can control some of that stuff is a role that's played after things leave um the tax office and you're going into the Board of Equalization and review you're going to the property tax commission and that's just like going to any Court um long money so um but I

think that what you've observed is a good point and I do believe that the last reappraisal was a pretty good reappraisal okay great um and my really only other comment today about all this is that anything we can do to make the schedule of values as userfriendly as possible I was just looking at our the one that we currently have on online and boy it's um I'd have to spend a lot of time you know trying to figure out how to use it um and I think I could figure it out but it would really take effort and um collaboration with others around me like can you help me with this you know that kind of thing so maybe it's not something that is very user friendly and maybe people don't use it but it seems like we would so anyway thanks for thanks for all the work that you're doing and that will you will be doing really appreciate it so I just want to say thank you I got a little distracted here with an

emergency email I need to take care of but I know that you guys are working hard to make sure that our citizens uh understand what's happening and what's going to happen so I just thank you for being so diligent in trying to make sure that the citizens understand because that's the biggest thing whether we understand it or not the folks out there need to understand what's happening um especially when they get those bills cuz they're not going to like you when they get those bills they don't like you now they'll like you even less then but but thank you you we got to tell the folks who ask us to fund more programs to go say thank you to the tax administration office for collecting the money that funds these programs um hey any other well there's only me and you left Heidi we're losing everyone one by one

um I'll pass it to thank you all so much again thank you for sticking around till the end with us I feel you Heidi on the long meetings I'm trying and I Claudia with arpa yes um commissioner Lum I know we're we have like 3 minutes left or so uh and what I wanted to do was point to the board just the attachments that are in the document uh over the past uh several months we've been working to well for the one the Ila with the city of dorham for digital Equity we've been working on that I think probably John see feels like a year almost but but but um the final version is in your documents to look at and um highlights are in the PowerPoint for that the other two ilas for your review are related to the dorham public schools um agreements that we did for um Capital Improvement for the $6 million

as well as the dollars to support prek which will uh occur throughout our support through title um funded schools and so um those three items are in your uh in your agenda we will also bring to the board um a um contract for review as it relates to the um housing I'm sorry for the homeless support effort and so we will also bring that to the board on the 9th that was my best effort to go really fast amazing we and if you have questions just let us know we'll we'll do some additional followup as as well ahead of the meeting I just have one quick question will we also get information about the um the RFP for the land trust yes um the land trust you approved that Ila um I think it was on the

5 million approximately 200,000 of it uh went towards that purchase which we're very excited about because

it's going to add I think it was 48 I don't have it in front of me I think 48 units of uh permanent affordable housing uh for multif family one to three bedroom units um so that was we're we're happy to see immediate effects from uh that contract's approval by the board yeah that is incredible that really is and it's also really CL close to Lakewood it's walking distance to Lakewood Elementary School and they were also able to purchase a parcel of land adjacent to the Anderson Street Department with a portion of our fund so that they can develop new um I think they were they're expecting to be able to do 48 additional units right there as well so that's it is yeah that's giving us a really we have to really celebrate that yes we do so we will be um we're in the process um Ella is is um in our office is helping us with this um we're reviewing as we shared in the past all of the um performance information

progress reports and trying to scale it down to a digestable document that we can share with the board to highlight all of our partner efforts and but we're most excited about this one I'll also forward um some information on this particular one and response or an information request that we did and so as I share the other two items um please let us know if you have questions yes ma'am is there so yeah I'm really excited also about the land trust one and but certainly don't want to um because of the lateness of the day and everything minimize how excited I also am about the new Murray massenberg Elementary School and the prek classes that are there um even though I see there's been sort of a shift because of arpa compliance issues because of compliance and that was one of the things that we shared with the board we would have to determine how we would do it so we're funding title one overall for the system okay so

um but those dollars being freed up will allow them to then support um Marie massenberg and John can can speak do we have something um in the Ila I know we have something in the Ila about how the Murray massenberg preschool will meet the high standards of Durham prek right we still have that yes so that will be in the Ila I do want to highlight and emphasize that the language that's being presented thus far is a starting point we are going to add more specifics so not just around the expectations at Murray massenberg but also uh to be more specific about what spec types of expenditures at the title one schools are being supported as well so we're still working with DPS on the language what you are seeing is really just the starting point um we are awaiting feedback on that particular Ila um from DPS to try to advance the conversation around the language but there will be language in the Ila that not only

commits DPS to providing those classrooms but also establishes um some specific uh quality and and um other expectations around the services themselves and we'll be working with I fully int have not send it over to Dr Chapelle yet but I'm going to seek her feedback um our early uh childhood coordinator Mall who was here until recently uh she has been a part of the process and then we're going to be obviously incorporating feedback from DPS as well so that language will continue to evolve before you approve it okay but we're just wanting to kind of share the Frameworks with where they are now so that you can see it's in progress that sounds good um I you know I would be interested in just being sure that we fill all the seats and so if there's anything that we can build into funding connected to full full fully enrolled spots or you know I don't I'm just throwing that out there as a Poss thing to consider certainly explore that this

is we have a lot more flexibility with when we're designing a Grandin agreement from scratch yeah so we can we can address any concerns that try to address any concerns that you or any of the other board members have through either of these agreements and we will endeavor to do so all right thank you so much okay so I'm just taking over from commission commiss chair Alam who had to leave for a um uh a work call um so we so the followup is going to be um any questions that anyone has to please get those to our acting manager C Hager and that we will take this up um for approval at our meeting next Monday night correct okay thank you the the DPS ones will probably be later on and and the either in in September or early October okay the digital Equity one will be on Monday night jenal Equity okay and we will also bring forth the

recommendation related to the homeless Services Services the intent to award to um for the home for the arpa homeless Services RFP that we put out in June will'll be bringing our recommendation as to the organization to be funded for your approval next Monday okay great thank you all right so the last item on our agenda is um review of county commissioner directives and and thank you Shannon I think you going you going to lose a COR in a minute we have a close session yeah we're about to we're about to end yeah we're going to end we're going to end in no with no closed session no close session yeah well good afternoon I have sent you all the link to our board directors and so if you have any questions or updates I'm happy happy to manage those at this time thank you so much Shannon for

sending those out and does anyone have any questions about any of the directives all right well seeing none then and thank you've done a great job I know Monica and Shannon of following up on those and getting us the information and thank you to the senior leadership team for getting their comments into us all yes thank you so much so with that I'd entertain a motion to adjourn move by commissioner Howton seconded by commissioner Carter all those in favor please say I I any opposed and we are adjourned thank you everyone e