City Council · Regular Meeting · August 22, 2024

good afternoon everyone and welcome to my honorable colleagues to those in chamber with us this afternoon to all of our residents our neighbors our friends watching on whatever platform I'm not repeating his honor of the mayor is with fellow North Carolinians still in Chicago participating in the Democratic National Convention we wish him well in accordance with statute and our Charter as mayor protim I'll be assuming the gavel today for our work session and I'd like to call this work session uh to order again thank you to my honor colleagues and staff uh good to see you all Madam clerk would you please call the role certainly mayor Williams has received an excused absence for today um mayor protim Middleton here council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member cook here council member Freeman presid council member rest here thank you thank you so much at this time I'm going to yield to my honorable colleagues for any announcements that they may have and we'll go around the uh War shoot council member cook good afternoon

cman Baker good good afternoon um no no announcements in particular but I've been having good conversations with staff colleagues and members of the community about um Street safety as we know the two biggest killers in our city are gun violence which we'll receive a a report on um later later this meeting and um traffic violence um we lose two to three times the number of pedestrians in our city um per capita as uh as our peers in other parts of the world we know that there's a variety of reasons for this um and part of that is land use and part of that is Street design and so I want us to make sure that we're being careful and thoughtful about our street designs um and I think that there are some ways that we can tackle it uh two budgets ago um the city council funded the vision zero coordinator who's been doing uh fabulous work um with with the city of Durham um and I think that there's some lwh hanging fruit rout as well as some um higher reaching

objectives that that we can embark on here here um at city council um part of that uh I want to explore a resolution that um further solidifies um our guidelines for nacto National Association of uh City and transportation officials I'm not going to bring that forward or try and place that on the agenda um for the next work session but I want to bring that up and continue to have this conversation with with each of you um and keep moving the ball forward on on Street thanks thank you council member Council cabier good afternoon good afternoon good to see everyone today um I'm eagerly a awaiting the presence of Sir siren I think siren's in the back of the room okay so at some point oh so that's really important I'm just gonna stop talking hello very sweet dog um kind of kind of made it made my day um I wanted to say thank you to um the

students and children who participated in Camp Destiny who came to visit us this morning in City Hall there were about 10 8 to 11 year olds who uh attend Burton elementary school normally uh they were excellent so respectful and they had a they had a lot of fun all getting to take turns to be mayor for a little bit um so that was uh just wanted to shout them out because they they were really great guests today um and finally Council colleagues I may have to leave between 3: or 3:30 to go pick up a vehicle at the mechanic thank you thank you council member council member Freeman good afternoon good afternoon I just want to share that tonight we're having the town hall at WD Hill just make sure to share a reminder looks like I had a little snapu with the email for city council only versus city council at durman C so um just making sure that you're all aware that that's all I have thank thank you council member council member RIS good afternoon good afternoon mayor PM nothing at this time thank you yes

sir thank you I'm not going to make any announcements but I'm I'm going to take a this point of gav's privilege and uh yield for a minute I'll use my announcements uh Chief if you'd like to have either you or the Handler introduce our special guest that's in chamber today so we can go ahead and pay attention to the rest of the meeting because everybody's kind of focus on the pooch good afternoon Council um it is my pleasure I want to to introduce you to siren that's why everybody is here but I do want to her Handler is uh is is Roger lafy Sergeant Roger lafy and um if you remember um Sergeant laferty was a previous Handler for our kanine unit and he transitioned well into um being a Handler for siren um it was the right time and she's a sweet girl so I'm going to yes you are yes you are so I'm going to let him just tell you a little bit about her and I'm going to grab her some ice cuz she's a little warm

I I'll let you all right hello everyone hello Council um yes this is a therapy dog siren she's uh assigned to me in the recruiting unit so she comes to a lot of recruiting events comes to the Bulls games she also goes to different substations and and uh she loves ice as you can see the chief gives her ice almost every day um but yeah we we make rounds to the different substations and and during Bulls games recruiting events so she provides therapy to officers who just want to pet a dog and kind of takes their mind off of work and and the stressful lives that we live so she came from a place out in Charlotte called uh yeah K9 responders academy uh who got her from lab pups um so they trained her up and they donated ated her to our department nice how how old is she she is just a year old and and tomorrow she

goes and gets spayed so she's she's growing up quickly she's growing up quickly well thank you so much I know I I know my colleagues want to just go pet and hug but we got some business and stay as long stay as long as you want absolutely but yeah should be back okay cool yeah whenever youall want her to come back she'll come back absolutely thank you so much thank you sir thank you I think I think we'll get unanimous consent today thank you so much and welcome siren appreciate what you do for us thank you colleagues at this time I'm going to yield to our uh staff or executive staff for any priority items and first I'll start with our city manager good afternoon Madam manager good afternoon Mr Mayor protim members of the Durham city council I do have a few priority items um the first item I have is um Miss clap from DSS is here to represent um a recognition of Durham emergency

communication Communications and Durham Police Department employees uh regarding a recent event so welcome thank you city council um my name is Maggie clap I'm the director of Durham Social Services I've been in this job for a little over a year um and every time that we have a child go missing I don't sleep well that night and so on Thursday July 25th 2024 an amber alert was issued for a youth that was in our custody from the moment that our agency learned that this youth was missing Durham Police Department employees stepped in to ensure that that youth was returned safely officers met with our staff at the last known location of the youth and immediately began to work to locate the youth as well as the adult that they suspected um they used to be with Durham Police Department maintained contact with my staff throughout the evening regarding the status of the investigation on Friday July 26 2024 investigator

Armstrong informed our agency that it was believed that the youth was still in Durham County Durham County CPS supervisor Laticia Martin and CPS program manager lavel chesne met with officers detectives and investigators at a mobile command post in the community throughout this time their 911 communicators shared the last known location of the adult and child based on cell phone activity Watch Commander T mlan investigator R Armstrong and Corporal I Haron worked diligently alongside DSS employees to ensure that the that they were breast of the situation the status of the youth due to the diligent efforts of Sergeant mlan Sergeant Schneider investigator Sterling senior officer Broadwell investigator Armstrong Corporal Harton Corporal day and 911 communicators Rose Padilla Jennifer KY Dwayne McIntyre and Oli wall the youth was safely located and returned within less than 24 hours from the issued Amber Alert the department of social services and I are grateful for the partnership with the

Durham Police Department as well as the tenacity and the dedication of the employees we truly appreciate all the efforts that were made thank you thank you mam manager before you go to your next would you please convey on behalf of the mayor of the in the entire city our gratefulness um at the diligence all those names you called Let each one of them know that this City's heart beats for them and that we're incredibly grateful for the work uh much times goes unheralded and unknown but we're glad that you brought this as a priority item today thank you so much thank God for the safety of that job thank you I do have two additional items agenda item number 14 the 2024 second quarter crime report a presentation will be made during the August 22nd 2024 city council work session and agenda item number 25 US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration airport Improvement program Grant offer

3-37 d56 d70 d224 is a supplemental item that has been added thank you very much that is all I have thank you so much madam manager I'll entertain a motion to receive the uh City manager's priority items I heard a motion in a second all in favor I those oppos all right the chair's opinion it's unanimous thank you madam manager we now hear from just one moment please I understand that all that some of the employees that were recognized in the first item are here and if we can ask them to stand absolutely please thank you so much absolutely I don't want to put you on the spot but can we can we have them each introduced if you don't mind coming up and just telling us who you are if you don't mind I want to ask any other

questions um I don't know what time of day it is it's afterno good afternoon city council um Madam city manager I'm Dwayne McIntyre and I was part of the 911 one team um with all my great co-workers over here so I thank you for the recognition and I'm glad the child is home safely good morning I'm Corporal Haron with Durham Police of course I'm a um I'm in the Special Victims Unit in our criminal investigations division nice to meet everybody good evening everyone my name is Sergeant TSA mlan um I was the sergeant in District before that day that the call came out so I want to accept this recognition on behalf of my squad because we worked diligently together that day to make sure that the child was safely returned good evening I'm Corporal day I was uh one of the original supervisors to respond to the DSs call so thank

you and also on behalf of the organized crime uh division investigators our selective enforcement team members that are not here but really do truly appreciate the the recognition Randy you want and it is a pleasure as a director of 911 Communications to have part of my stars here with us today there's a lot of stars in our organization but these people are very outstanding to me this staff of course Dwayne's already in introduced himself have Alicia uten have Jennifer KY and then I have Rosa padelli and I have Oli wall Olli was the supervisor that day Rosa of the group there standing is our youngest member who is full-time with us doing a great job has less than a year with us maybe and so we are very proud of all of them and the work they did that day in the collaborative effort with our law enforcement and with with social services and all it was a great success

these are good days to celebrate thank you so very much absolutely Bren if if you don't hear it often and I'm sure you don't hear it enough this entire city is grateful for what you do I don't know how many ride alongs I've done with police over the years and and have sat and listened to those calls uh in the 911 Center but what you do is just amazing and nothing short of heroic um and I know your names don't get called a lot but you need to know we see you uh and we couldn't be who we are as a City without you so thank you so much for just being Heroes on the regular uh as part of the job um thank you on behalf of the entire city let's give it to him again please Madam manager that that is all thank you madam manager Madame attorney good afternoon ma'am good afternoon May Pro Tim Middleton it's good to see you good to be with the city council today city attorney's office has no priority

items I'll now yield to the clerk Madam clerk good afternoon thank you Mr Mayor proam and good afternoon everyone I did want to remind you that tomorrow in City Hall we are having some HVAC work and um the the air will be off so if you're planning on coming into City Hall just be aware that it'll it'll be a little warmer than usual thank you thank you I'll just take that as advisory won't ask for a vote see this the city get they they power turned off sometimes too thank you for that Madam clerk right that's all for priority items at this time uh colleagues I'm going to term to our administrative consent items and read I did I did I not finish the vote yeah we took the vote and then you uh yeah we took I think we took the vote on the manager and then yeah we took we took a vote no no no worries no worries um I'm going to now read the administrative uh consent items and our entire agenda into the record item one under administrative consent items city clerk's office item one Durham workers right commission appointment item two during Planning

Commission appointment item three housing appeals board appointment item four four participatory budget steering committee appointment under General Services Department item five Durham po laurat mayoral appointment uh under departmental items City manager's office item six US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration airport Improvement program Grant offered 3-37 00560 69- -224 item seven American Rescue plant act arpa agreement with Durham Housing Authority right that item is full under Comm under Community Development Department item number eight approval of Grant agreement with legal aid of North Carolina lnc to continue administering the EV eviction diversion program and I'll be making a motion to recuse on that item as well we're not voting on it today is it's a work session no thank you for

that and who pulled item seven was it you Council remember okay all right all right under Community develop uh read number eight already under General Services Department item number nine interlocal cooperation agreement with the housing authority of the city of Durham to procure and install security and Equipment I'll be pulling that under the human resources department item number 10 second amendment to contract between the city of Durham and Cornerstone On Demand Inc for Cornerstone Learning Management sa saas Services Under office of Economic and Workforce Development item number 11 First Amendment to contract agreement between the city of Durham and M cubed in in company Global LLC under Parks and Recreation Department item number 12 application for great Trails State Grant American Tobacco Trail P that one mayor p is this the one we have

there's one we have to vote on right today don't we have to suspend the rule today with that party staff no no one's no one no member of the staff has asked for a suspension of rules vote item number 13 purchase contract with Bliss products and services Inc for the playground and surface replacement project at Sherwood Park the police the police department item number 14 2024 second quarter crime report this will be a presentation uh from our Police Department under Technology Solutions Department item 15 contract with leads online LLC LLC for power plus software as a service item number 16 plot box Inc software as a service item number 17 American Rescue plan act arpa project digital Equity delivers Equitable durm item number 18 Microsoft enterprise software licensing agreement under under the water management dep Department item number 19 resolution accepting a $1 million drinking water State revolving fund lead

service replacement no interest loan item number 20 2024 maintenance of utility easements uh under presentations from our city attorney's office there will be a presentation on quasi judicial procedure very important for us as we have a matter coming up before us we'll get that presentation today and for public hearings to be taken up at our next full council meeting from the city County Planning Department item number 22 Consolidated annexation Woodlands Preserve torage Road item number 23 consolidated annexation Woodlands preserve cobac Drive item number 24 Consolidated annexation Lee Valley and that ends the reading of our agenda Madame manager by my Reckoning the pulled items are 7 8 9 and 12 do you concur all right and I don't I haven't received any indication that we have any citizens matters today all right I um col let me pull do you do you think

we can knock out the pulled items before we do the presentations quickly do you anticipate uh quick question because I I don't want to hinder you if I don't want to I want you to be able to exhaust everything you have um but it looks like you shook your head so we'll we'll start with item number seven pulled item uh so our staff can get back American Rescue plan arpa agreement with Durham Housing Authority DHA and I believe that's council members cook and cabaya respectively um good afternoon I'm going to yield to my colleague in just a minute I I wanted to ask a couple clarifying questions and then I'm gonna um let council member cabier speak and then I might have more to say after she's finished um could you tell me in our last work session we heard this presentation the summary of arpa and there was a number given to us that there was an un obligated funds of 314,000

56 and my notes say that we were told that the city was recommending 305,000 about um for this purpose um but the number now is down to 280 and I'm just curious about the difference in those numbers good afternoon Berto W bush Deputy city manager um the number 305 included the possibility of giving the organization administrative overhead funding which is up to 10% and because this is not a program they're not doing anything outside of what they do normally posting payments and and creating uh payment agree agreements we would not be able to uh provide administrative overhead cost in him and so the number 280 is actually the actual number that would be applied to the accounts and is there a way for moving that roughly 15,000 to do more relief or can we not reallocate that not to more relief because we are paying 100% of the pass through balances that occurred during Co they're there's no other relief that qualifies I see okay so

these 172 households are the only ones currently on a payment plan with debt during the time frame that we are able to cover they are not all on payment plans or that have the that we've identifi that have pass through balances that include Co balances thank you correct um and so can you tell us the time frame that when Co ended so we actually used uh March 2020 through April 20 22 is that that was arpa designated okay you said it was March 2020 through April 2022 and I also have Ashanti Brown the CEO um with um DHA here if you all have questions that you think she might be able to answer for you yeah the next question U might be better for Miss Brown but I'll I'll let you determine that so my reading of this is that um outside of the covid specific time

frame those 172 households have an additional about $400,000 of a balance rate because I saw that the total was $6 96,4 23 and then we are able to only pay the part that is during that time frame you just gave us and so there would be a remainder on all of those or not necessarily all of them but is some remainder for these 172 families totaling roughly 400,000 is that your am I that that is not correct so the initial the original amount the total amount was 977 657 we are prepared to pay 2891 1773 which is this agenda item which would lead an outstanding balance of 696,000 C okay so the 696 is actually the outstanding balance so okay so the their total pass due alleged pass due is that number plus what we are

contributing that is correct and so my concern here and I'm going to just state it and then I'll pass it along to my colleague is that uh for these folks that is even larger of a remainder than I had previously understood and my my reading of this is that there's no requirement um on how DHA will handle the remainder for these families and so there was some some talk about that they could potentially enter into a a repayment agreement they might already be in one I understand um or they would be asked to pay their remaining balances and my concern there is that folks who are under DHA they've already had to do certifications they are paying what they are able to pay and so requiring them to pay an additional amount either in a one-time payment or even as a payment plan um runs the risk

of folks either not being able to follow their payment plan or not being able to pay their remaining balance um and there is no restriction that I see in this agreement that would protect them from facing an eviction almost immediately following our payment so I'm I'm concerned about the fact that we are going to pay this 280,000 and then people within a few months might immediately a risk of an eviction so that's my concern I'm going to pass it off to my colleague um who I think might have some things to say about that as well oh good hi good afternoon um just out of curiosity the 172 families those were how did we identify or how did DHA identify those families the families that have a balance a CO balance okay but that's not all families that have a balance that is not all families that have balance I think there were 182 families that have Balan okay so I would love to see the list of all families that are iners with DHA and what the

8 million ion dollar and then with that could you and I you may not have this off the top of your head and that's fine but could you provide to council kind of within those 690 you know who is like the most backlogged what's more recent um and obviously not with identifying information but just the breakdown of you know there's folks who obviously are in back payment between back to covid which we're trying to handle but then anyone after you know April 2022 basically right um and what the total amount uh I mean you gave me the total amount but I would just love to see who the who are the folks who are the most far behind for the longest amount of time I guess um just the basic number

yeah okay yeah and and like a breakdown of you know agent a percentage of these are the folks who have had back payment for a over a year or last six months or the last three months um so that's one question that I have and then for for staff another question that I have is uh to council member Cooks point uh I don't want to spend so this is an excellent use of arpa funds I think you heard that loud and clear from all of us what I don't want is that we use public money and then folks are evicted in the next three to six months because they weren't able to um you know if you're if you're already at 30% Ami Ami and you're okay we paid off part of your balance but that didn't clear everything and you don't I mean it's just you're still not going to bring enough in so my concern is as council member cook's concern is you know we use this public money and we didn't actually really help folks get out from under it and so um that's just a question is is there a way that we can

2 1 one so the number is growing so that is a concern as we pay off these the numbers their balances may be different from what I have obviously those wouldn't be Co balances because that was a point in time so I think what we agreed to is that um DHA will Um send a letter to the residents letting making them aware of this grant the city is providing to them and it is would be contingent upon them coming into the office setting up a payment agreement so that the residents at least know um that we want to they want to work with them they want to put them on a payment agreement and have the opportunity because some of the residents are not on payment agreements

yes and so we want to encourage them to do that I mean there are a lot of concerns obviously but we're hopeful that because we are paying a portion of their balances that will incentivize them to want to get into agreements obviously we don't know what how people are going to pay or not pay um after the period so this is our best effort to incentivize them to ENT into payment agreements because we are paying a chunk of their pass through balances and then I guess my my thing is if we're encouraging them to come in to get payment plans then it's also communicated to them this is a way for you to avoid eviction because abut okay so that because folks I don't think a lot of people necessarily know what the consequence could be right and so so you know people could be avoiding a thing and there could be fear associated with it and so even if you're offering them a good thing they're still going to be fearful so I think that there needs

to be clear communication hey come in get get on this plan and this helps avoid an eviction absolutely okay so that's the part that isn't clear here and so that's what I would like to have I guess additional language um before Monday's meeting so that it can be clear on on our side that that is what actually being communicated to Residents so we can work on that on what that would look like the letter that would go out to the residents again some of our residents I looked yesterday it will pay off their full balance some it's a very small amount remaining so for many residents this is really good but we can work on that language and I can share it with you all okay and then could we just have it as an attachment to the the item yes we can do that okay perfect thank you so much uh counis thank you m Pam um so first of all as the council's leaz on DHA I want to really thank staff and my colleagues for approving this this transaction or we're going to approve it on next meeting but but considering this approval this is one key piece of addressing the the substantial arear as you've heard in this conversation I just want to give Miss Brown maybe a chance to say more about this um this is I'm

glad this has come before the council this is not something that just we've just become aware of at DH something that's a long-standing issue we've been working on since the end of Co correct absolutely um during Co during Co yeah so this is something that we're very well aware of are working on um balancing that of course with the fact that DHA still is considered a troubled agency and part of that is making sure our finances are shored up so there's a bunch of things we're balancing here so I just want to give Miss Brown a chance to say more about how like how we've been thinking about this monitoring this and what the kind of plan is going forward because I think all these things these requests are correct but I just want to make sure we understand the larger context here so please absolutely thank you um so with our families that are behind on their rent we actually are one of the few Property Management entities that have not pursued any legal enforcement or legal action on our families since Co so many of our families that are behind on their rent have not seen any type of lease enforcement since before 2019 or since 2019 um and so what we did during Co recognizing the fact that there were so

many families falling behind because of just regular issues that we all encountered we created what we call the Fresh Start program where we employed 10 housing stability Specialists and we had fam um contacted directly by these Specialists via phone call text messages door knocking we sent Flyers we spammed people they hated us as the balances were growing and that was just to make sure that they all knew hey we're here to help we understand if you have lost your income we do allow you to request a rent decrease based on your income and um to the point around the um 30% of their income piece HUD does have regulatory guidance regarding repayment agreements where a person can enter into an agreement up to 40% of their income including their rent and so the amount that they would be required to repay would actually be up to 10% of their income they can enter into an agreement

for more but they can always adjust that anytime um and a repayment agreement does prevent eviction and that is simply the thing that we were advising folks of since the beginning of this is that if you are willing to work with us we are more than happy to work with you but we need you to contact us we need you to come into the office and if you don't want to talk to your manager you can actually call this separate team that's located at our central office for assistance and so we did that over the course I'm going to say two years and that group is still actually together now working it's a smaller group but we will say that we were able to get so many families applied for um emergency rental assistance and we were able to get a significant number of families into repayment agreements and so that's how we got to where we are today thank you for sharing that yeah thank thank you Sumiton Brown I um and I appreciate my colleagues um questions and observations I appreciate the heart and the spirit that's behind the

questions as well I do want to say that you know prior to covid there were folk that were behind on their rent and the the intervention that was occasioned by the pandemic had a a very particular purpose this money was not meant to fix all of the problems that existed before covid many of us in this room got stimulus checks from the government because of covid those stimulus checks didn't prevent our mortgage companies or others from stopping action if we didn't pay it was meant to help for that particular uh situation um so I I want to you know this is a good thing that we're doing with this money but I want to be sure to frame it for precisely what it is um while we in dha's business we got Durham residents who we cut off water you know we don't charge reconnect fees anymore but you know that's within our purview I mean if we want to bring that type of energy to folks problems maybe the city council should consider you

know and I don't know if we can even legally do this just saying we'll never cut off your water uh uh if you don't pay your bill I mean that's within our purview so while we're you know while we're advising DHA there's some things with our perview as well um that we can we can get into uh if we want to bring that energy to it um so I want to thank um you know our partners and friends at at DHA and I want to thank my colleagues for these very important questions around this money but this covid was a situation that impacted all of us a lot of us got Aid that was covid specific but was not framed to fix everything that was wrong before covid came and will still be here uh when this money is exhausted um so I appreciate it and I appreciate the uh the questions uh and concerns from my colleagues as well and I look forward to the uh supplemental information that Council M cabier and cook have both I requested thank you so much good to see you Council Mook please yeah so just to follow up and I and this might be uh what you're talking about Miss Brown which is I saw also in the

contract that there is a 60 days um that allows until DHA is forced to make the payments there's like a 60-day period um I mean and and we've talked about you just mentioned of course these amounts are going up every month as rent does um and so I'm just curious about that time frame and I know 60 days doesn't sound like a lot but if it's if it's your rent it is two months is a lot of that of that and so was that intentionally done so that y'all could have time to communicate with people is that is that why that 60 days is in there or I think it's well I believe it's more of a Saving Grace if you will um just to make sure that we can adequately um contact every family to make sure that they can come in and get the um assistance that they need for that time frame our goal is to make sure that the letters go out within the week that the money is um obtained and then to give the families the time to come in and enter into a pment agreement okay thank you so I have just a couple more

questions the first is um if folks will not enter into an agreement or they're not willing to participate um and that money does not get used what to it so we had a discussion about this yesterday um and obviously that was a concern of DHA that if they are not able to get all of the residents to an internate payment agreement um would they have an opportunity to come back to us with another proposal and I told them yes you can come back to us with another proposal of how you could use these fundings for eligible um purpose okay so the money would stay housed at DHA they would come forward with a covid specific purpose under arpa and we have some time frame for that because I know the obligation of these funds is like on a time limit so yes okay um I mean the funds are already obligated to them as the this agreement is approved so we are we're on the timeline of de December 31st 2026 after that okay and and I know you're just one

person but would DHA be willing to include language about if the tenants are willing to participate or are communicative that they would hold off on filing an eviction for some specific period of time absolutely and we could have that into the into that language in the contract if a family is entering into a repayment agreement that stops all lease enforcement action they comp with their lease so we certainly would include that link okay because like if you enter into an agreement and then you miss your extra payment the following month right like then there's no indication that you're protected then from so you I'm sorry that's all if they enter into an agreement and then they don't honor the agreement right don't evict them that I'm asking if y'all would be willing to S to to agree to not evict the families who are willing to participate for some period of time like six months even if they failed to to do their part right like my concern and and we've talked about this but my concern is that we

spend this money we help these folks and then I mean not to say that it's it's for not but um I'm not sure that the best use of paying off people's funds is anything other than keeping them hous right and so my concern is that if they don't follow the payment plan or something comes up then they're evicted and so that's what I I'm just curious if y'all be willing to to agree to a discreet time frame to not file an eviction for the folks who are willing to participate yes we can do that based on our policy um it does account for that in our policy so yes we can is there a policy that yes we have a repayment agreement policy um and that allows for a person to miss a payment and to contact us or even contact us and let us know that they're going to miss a payment and we allow that up to at least you know two times during that period but I can express that if a person contacts us we're in the housing business and so our goal is and our our goal and our interest is actually to keep a person in the unit and not to

evict them and so we more than we will be more than willing to assist a family if they know that they're going to miss that payment and they reach out to us but if they miss it without contacting us our policy allows for two of those months that's great to know thank you so much yeah and and Miss Brown and I have have worked together in the past and so um we definitely we have a a good relationship I think I just I want to add some context which is that um though it was like a policy that kept folks housed during the pandemic and people who are in public housing that's often the end of the line for them in terms of a place to go and so I think that that was really really effective and keeping folks safe during the global pandemic but also um not having eviction filings because of DSS's requirements that there be court filings in order to access some of the emergency funding it did keep a lot of people out of that emergency funding and so um it's sort of like a double-edged sword but I just do want to add that

context because I think it's important here that folks were not allowed to apply or they did qualify for the funding that other tenants in Durham did apply for because they did not have that filing now of course filings never get expunged from your record ever um and so there is a huge benefit to not having that filing but I just want to add that context because I think it's important to know um and also that DHA was severely underst staffed for a long time and that there were um many many reports of people calling and not being able to reach Folks at the agency and so I think that piece of it too is important because I know that y'all are willing to communicate and work with people um but it hasn't always been that folks are able to communicate with you and so um and I know that that is different now and and I appreciate the the upward trajectory but I just think that context is important here as well um but I appreciate those extra assurances and I really hope we can get these 172 folks

um yeah they're Bal is cleared up would be great thank you so much thank you council member thank you Miss Brown all right item number eight approval of Grant agreement with legal a of North Carolina to continue administering the eviction diversion program I believe that council member cabera yes thank you good afternoon mayor proam and council members kesma James Development Department we also have our assistant director on the line Tenya Coleman I believe she's going to take the lead and I'll be happy to fill in if needed thank you I just had a couple questions just to make sure that this was a conversation that came up during our budget work last year and so my understanding of this uh agreement in front of us is that uh the the ask from legal aid this past year was for a

million dollars and because of the way that the contracts basically lapsed into different fiscal years they essentially got it because there was carryover funds but moving forward so basically as of July 1 2025 it would revert back to that standard $650,000 which is what Community Development basically has programmed for legal aid I'm sorry I thought Miss Coleman was going to jump in but yes the um contract ended on June une 30th 2024 and we extended it to August 31st so you're absolutely right there was some residual funding left on the current contract that can be rolled over into the new one but yes when we go back to the drawing board for the next fiscal year then yes that 650,000 is on the table thank you so I just wanted to raise it for colleagues we will get to budget um items obviously early spring but that the the standard it reverts back it goes back to just the standard amount which

is what um Community Development has at 650,000 and if we want legal aid to receive more which is essentially currently a million then that will have to be something that comes from Council that's all those are my only that's my only question thank you so much thank thank you so much council member the next item is item number nine uh which I pulled good afternoon mayor Pro 10 members of city council Logan small General Services happy to answer any questions good afternoon thank you uh for being with us I understand this is this is pursuant to um results from our PB um cycle would would you there's as you know a great deal of concern about surveillance in Black communities um what what are the purposes of these security cameras and what will they do how will they help us so I have staff from THM Housing Authority here Representatives um they'll be in they'll be installing in the project I'll just be kind of

overseeing the procurement and afternoon my name is Don Elber the FR security manager for DHA so the purpose for the cameras would be to basically combat and assist dur dur PD with any kind of abnormalities and crime that's happening within the two identified communities corn Wallace and price steel all right yes sir where would the cameras be um apparently we using a tsunami camera there's a cheaply place where where Miss she if you just step to the mic close to Sor the cam will be a strategic place around the communities um to where where Prime is initially uh taking place so we have these tsunami cameras who have five additional cameras that's pointed in five different directions so we're plac them at a certain point of the community we can we can view five different directions at one time the cameras will be operating 247 yes sir will they be will someone be monitoring the feed live or will it just we have a a 60-day backup so no live

feed but sometimes I do have um I can monitor from home from my phone my device and also we have partners with dpd I monitor them as well so the system is meant to be preventative or just to help an investigation after something happens oh how how would they be preventative um well we they're big huge 2 by3 foot cameras so if you see this cameras with black uh domes looking down at you you would you would think to think twice before you act so so the the proposition is that if you know you're being surveilled you'll act differently yes sir and the cameras won't send help if anything happens they'll just capture images of of things happening correct okay that's all I have that's all I have thank you so much I appreciate it um I actually didn't want to pull this item but I did want to say that I'm excited to see our participatory budget um citizen input on this agenda item and and that it's it's coming to life so I

just want to again praise our participatory budget team they they did a really excellent job I think the submissions were like 700 projects or something it was so many um and and crunching all that data figuring out the priorities of the community putting that out for a vote um I thought that was just an amazing thing that we did and so I'm glad to to see it the b ball start rolling on those on those agenda or those uh priority items from the community absolutely I want to associate myself with council member Cook's Pro uh council member Cook's comments I think you should give the people what they ask for item number 12 application for great Trail State Grant American Tobacco Trail Le do pulled by Council M cook is me good afternoon Council mayor protm Emily Macintosh with Duram Parks and Recreation thank you um so I just had a couple of uh specific questions that I thought you might be best able to answer um I know that this is not a huge amount

of money uh but it is still a million dollars and it on the map looks like a pretty small portion of the trail so I'm curious um about how we prioritize that and I saw that there was some study done and and I'm assuming there's a safety issue there um but I know we have a lot of trails in the works in the city and and a lot of places that money could go and I don't know the the restrictions on this grant but it seems rather broad so I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how we prioritized um and and maybe why the cost is so great for that segment I will try my best I'm the grant writer so I don't come up with the projects um I just write the grant applications for them um but I worked with our um planning and our maintenance um units at in DPR and um the selection of that project was based on the 2017 um Trail study so um there was

2 miles of Trail but that slope failure was not addressed during that time and that is the highest priority item um for the funds so uh city council did um allocate CIP funds um in this last um this fiscal year for repairs if we don't get the grant this is still number one on the priority list for those funds this would just enable us to um use some State funds as well as City funds um so that we could do more repairs on other areas after we finish that slope failure project and you will never hear me say anything negatively about going for Grant so um I appreciate your work on that and and all of the grant writing that you do for the city um and those those are all my questions thank you thank you council member right thank you colleagues I think we've exhausted all of our pulled items by my Reckoning if

with if so and I think that is so we'll move on to our presentations and at this time I'm going to welcome our chief uh our chief of police and her Command Staff for our second quarter uh crime report that's item number 14 if you're following along the agenda Chief good afternoon good afternoon um so as you in previous um work session pre presentations um we I've introduced uh a member of my executive team um and so for this this particular report uh deputy chief Sher Montgomery she is our field operations deputy chief so when you think uniform patrol all of that is her shop so um she's going to be providing you with the with the second quarter report today so thank you thank you Chief Deputy Chief good afternoon welcome good to see you good

afternoon good afternoon mayor ptim council city manager paage um as Chief said I'm Sher mcgomery deput chief of operations today I'm going to present the police department second quarter report that covers the five performance measures part one violent crime part one property crime clearance rates response times to Priority One calls Staffing levels and some recruiting highlights okay first let's look at part one

4% through the second quarter there were 226 robbery offenses 74% of robberies were from persons which is up 3% 26% of robberies were commercial which is down 14% 62% of total robberies involved the

9% in all violent crime categories except rate this chart shows violent crimes through the second quarter over the last 10 years homicides are at a 10year high but consistent with previous three years 21 of the 24 homicides this year involved a firearm reported rapes have trended upwards are in a 10-year high this could be influenced by the agency's saki Grant and Associated efforts to encourage and support victims just over one of every four rapes reported in 2024 occurred in

Prior years robberies have trended downwards in are a 10-year low just over one of every four robberies are commercial with the remaining three Force being from persons Hispanic victims have been disportionately impacted with 44% of individual robberies through the second quarter having one or more such victims the vast majority of commercial robberies this year involve businesses I believe there was a question in reference to the potential for offenders to be Hispanic during the last report at this time there's insufficient data to answer this question although the of incidence with Hispanic offenders was higher this year than the comparison period there have only been seven such cases in 2024 there were no significant incidents in quarter 2 that we consider part of the Hispanic victim Trend we believe the robberies in Trend one from quarter one stopped when the Persons of Interest were picked up for other charges there are no conclusions that can be made about whether there's a correlation between Hispanic victims and offenders at this point in the year aggravated assaults are Ever

8% most of the increase was observed in a non-fatal category there were 458 gun seized and 315 incidents through the second quarter this chart shows the cumulative number of gunshot wounds by week through the second quarter and the previous five calendar years 2019 had the fewest gunshot wounds with 192 the most of the following year were 318 in 2020 year-over-year declines have occurred since then the 128 gunshot wounds through June 30 2024 are the most

3% through the second quarter there were 3,829 larsy offenses 42% of larsy were for motor vehicles and that is up

3% this chart shows property crimes through the second quarter over the last 10 years burglaries have trended significantly downward over the last 10 years with the three lowest totals occurring during the last three years residential burgers are slightly lower than average this year and burglar to

retail business are average burglers to construction sites with appliances have targeted after installation were ABN abnormally High through the second quarter larsy have trended up over the last two years and are in a 10-year high in addition to theft for motor vehicles and shoplifting those involving copper packages and construction sites are other trends that we've observed this year motor vehicle thefts had significantly increased over the last two years while they're down slightly from last year they are still up more than double previous years Kia and Hyundai continue to dominate the vehicle stolen which is a regional and National Trend that started in 2022 and increased in durm around 2023 attempts to seal these vehicles also contribute to Crime counts representing 23% of all incidents through the second quarter compared to 4% normally this chart shows the cumulative number of guns stolen by week through the second quarter in the previous five calendar years there have been year over year increases ever since 2019 and 2024 is

tracking higher with 268 through June 30th of this year of the guns stolen this year 71% were from Motor Vehicles this is a much higher ratio than what has typically been observed breaking the glass was a method of entry for 41% of the guns stolen from Vehicles dpd part one clearance rates through the second quarter were similar to FBI annual data for for 2022 in homicide robbery aggravated assault and burglary and slightly better than dpd annual data for 2023 in all categories other than homicide and ratee while the homicide clearance rate this year is lower than 2023 it is based on a smaller number of offenses which can be highly variable and change dramatically with just a couple changes in status for instance we had some clearances recently making our year-to dat clearance rate 60% the rape clearance rate was significantly lower than FBI 2022 and dpd 2023 annual data victim cooperation

6% of these calls

4% vacant nine new officers graduated from the basic Law Enforcement Training Academy number 59 on August 9th we currently have 16 recruits scheduled to start in Academy 60 on August the 26th recruiting efforts are underway for Academy 61 that is scheduled to begin in February in the second quarter of this year we had 90 applicants which is more than the number of applicants we have had in the second quarter last year and it's the highest number of applicants we've seen during a second quarter in the last 10 years during the second quarter our recruiting unit initiated multiple

marketing campaigns for recruitment which included our collaboration with the DAR Bulls in June we filmed different recruiting rules reels and videos featuring willly Bull and some of our officers in those videos wiie bull is encouraged individuals to apply for a job with the DOR Police Department those reals and videos will be posted our social media Pages throughout this month and next month we're also contining our coffee shops and local business initiative through this initiative our our recruiters meet with local business and place recruiting flyers in these establishments the recruiting unit is also part of a docy sign pilot program for the city of Durham this program enables applicants to submit their applications prior to testing to make the process move along smoother recruiting has reported that has been beneficial so far we are also scheduling researching new software to streamline the background investigation phase as the much appreciated pay increase came at the end of the second quarter it's still a little too early to tell the impact it's had on recruiting and application submitting however the recruiting unit has reported an increase

in interest telephone calls and an increase at career fair attendees there's also been an increase from latter officers expressing interest hopefully by the next quarter we'll be able to provide more information on how the pay has impacted recruiting efforts we're also moving forward with planning different recruiting events funded by the cops 30x30 Grant to help our female recruiting efforts we are continue to build our representation of female officers as we were a member of the 30x30 initiative the goal is to increase the representation of women in police recruit classes to 30% by 2030 177% of Duram police sworn officers are female which is above the national average of 12 we currently have 68 sworn female officers out of 395 officers in the second quarter of 2024 we had 19 female applicants apply to becomes foreign police officers th the most female applicant we've had during a quarter since 2018 so we're continue to see an increase in female applicants we had one female graduate in Academy 59 early this month we currently

have four females in Academy 60 so 24% of the recruiting class is female our rec recruiting unit work Works year round to recruit more female officers they attend female college fairs and we're continue to highlight different female officers on our social media Pages we've also been approved for our cops 30 by3 Grant we're using the funding from the grant to two events focused on female Recruitment and Retention one is a hiring event for female officers and the second event is focused on retaining our current dpd female officers both events are tely scheduled for the fall of 2024 the first event Women's Law Enforcement exploration day will be held on headquarters September 21st this is a recruiting event where where we're inviting any women in the community who are considering becom a police officer to come and learn more about the department and the different career opportunities that we offer in law enforcement during this event we'll give opportunities for ride alongs and for participants to go through our Simulator the second event is the dpd Leadership Retreat for sworn female officers it's

designed to help with retention and provide professional develop for our current female officers at dpd this event will include discussions about career growth and networking lastly an overview of our U Visa request during the second quarter the D Police Department received 94 U Visa requests 57 or 61% of the U Visa requests submitted were approved and 37 were denied we currently do not have a backlog of VI visas and request are processed as they come in this concludes my presentation please make sure you follow us on our social media platforms deputy chief thank you so much you're you're a pro at that excellent job thank you appreciate you at this time uh colleagues I'm going to yield to the rosom for any questions or comments from the council counc member R please thank you Deb Chief Montgomery for the presentation I just had a couple questions um first thing on Staffing you you mentioned that there was we had 74% of our sworn staff

positions filled as of the end of the second quarter of 2024 what did that look like let's say a year ago what was that corresponding number I don't have those numbers for what it looked like a year ago but we can get those for you is it in in your sense a significant change slight change any it's it's about the same about the same okay um thank you for that second question was on if you go back to the Chart about um this was on um shooting incidents January through June just trying to understand the math or the sort of how you calculate these numbers so um as I see on the screen so there was a 25% decrease in shooting incidents but you had a big increase in person shot fatalities and non fatalities so does that mean there's less incidents more people shot per incident is that what was going on that's correct it's not yeah it's awful to hear but I appreciate the the sharing the data thank you thank you council member

colleages fre thank you I was just just appreciating uh the presentation thank you uh Deputy deputy chief Montgomery yes but yes um I would just say that I I did want to just congratulate um some of the folks that were highlighted in the report um and I noted the West Point leadership program the women's Institute and then all of those who received the advanced law enforcement certificates I didn't want to uh also just make sure to highlight um appreciation around a number of Investigations that have yielded a felony uh rest on a hit and run and then um the the application of attorne it it seems like um our officers are really um doing a lot of EMS support as well and so saving lives and being able to apply those turn kits to uh folks I wanted to just highlight in District Two

6 so I do foresee that as we are

looking for the evidence it's a little harder when it's reported in previous years because it's a little harder to find the evidence the crime scenes the witnesses so it takes a little longer to make sure that those cases are solid so we can prosecute so I do expect that that would continue to rise thank you um the um priority One average response times um we are not not meeting that goal you think that goal is realistic um is it an unrealistic goal you talked about how it's difficult to achieve that goal if we are not at 80 80% of Staffing um you know if we reach that 80% you think it's it's possible to get closer to that goal I do um when you have more resources right now with Staffing being limited and the growth in the city of Durham it's it's a lot more traffic on the roadways it does delay the responses a little bit but if you have more officers in the area so right now they're having to come from father places from the city you get there which delays their response time slightly so yes if we had more Staffing I do believe we get closer to that thank you um and then one of the concerning trends that I'm seeing here is of course the stolen

guns um you talked a little bit about uh the percentage that's being stolen from Vehicles the Kia um Hyundai's um and and the trend there what can you tell us any more about what's behind that trend to the best of your knowledge um and are there any state laws that have changed that have made it more difficult to for for police departments to be able to um you know keep that keep that number um within reason that's good question um no no changes there but I think it's in being a target-rich environment so if they know that they can get guns from smashing windows they're going to continue to do that so that's why there's more smash Windows versus attempts at stealing cars that's why it's down a little so you they're basically going for those Vehicles just for the guns okay thank you thank you council member council member C did you have anything um I I think that my colleagues have really touched on all the points that jumped out to me but I wanted to say thank you also for that presentation um I think we

all knew that this report was going to be hard to listen to um like tearing up I'm try not to cry um because we lived it we were all here during that quarter and um it's just really hard to hear the numbers and know that each of those um gun violence victims you know as a as a person with a whole family and um as a whole world to themselves so anyway that's I'm just uh the reason I'm not asking a lot of questions is because I'm I'm just uh trying to process and and um and again we knew this was coming and and I looked at the report ahead of time but uh yeah it is it's difficult and um so I want to say thank you to to y'all and also to the 911 response team and we had them in the room earlier and we gave them props um but sitting in that call center night after night or day after day is also um a really difficult job and and then we've got First Responders fire as well as um obviously we've got

ambulance which isn't under the city's purview but lots of First Responders and then also um I talked about this before but hospital staff that end up having to treat those um gun wounds and and it's just the trauma just a little Pebble and it really just um it can really Ripple out uh in a broad way and affect a lot of this Comm the whole Community is impacted every time somebody is is a victim of gun violence um and I think that this Council has talked a lot about crime and we know that this is something that's on a lot of people's minds and so I just want to acknowledge um that many of us and myself included are behind the scenes here really working on Creative Solutions and ideas um to tackle this which is I think the number one concern on a lot of people's list this and affordable housing we know um and I and I asked the police chief last time at our last quarter report and and I've

heard a lot from the community in response to that that the main thing that we can do really is to support our youth in the community right because we know that a lot of the folks that are both perpetrating and our victims of this um are young people um so we've tried some tools out we haven't found them to be effective I think that we are I'm speak for myself make I statements here um really looking to contribute in a way that's meaningful to the community with those goals in mind so thank you so much for the presentation thank you council member Council cabier thank you I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation you did a great job um as always uh and I I appreciate the kind of added data that you are slowly adding to the deck it gives us um some uh perspective on different um data points and so that's always appreciated and I uh like that they're easy to understand visuals and it's helpful for the public as well so thank you for your presentation and uh

good to hear that we're seeing some tweaks on the it's been a quieter summer I think a lot of us were really hoping that it would be a quieter summer was not a great spring at all and so I think many of us were approaching summer which is often one of our um uh everybody loves loves to be outside and it also creates lots of things within the community itself um so uh it's been quieter and and I think many of us have read the S of relief and let's just hope that that continues thank you thank you council member counc m you had a final question thanks M Tim um following up on council member Baker's question about clearance R just one last question I see that the uh motor vehicle theft clear rate is much below the FBI's rate can you say more about why that's been difficult to clear those cases in durm so I know it's different um bu my notes other thefts are clearance rates are much lower than FBI coverage um it's

it's these thefts are nationalwide problem that do mean it's evenly distributed across all jurisdictions um even if someone is later found to be in possession of a vehicle we must prove that they originally stole a vehicle so as it becomes a little bit more difficult in addition offenses um for durm also includes attempts so that makes our numbers a little bit higher that that's higher than than is that different from the way the FBI calculates it or I believe so yes so we calculate so we have a so we have we we're including more in the in the pool in the sort of denominator there I believe the SC defer to Jason is that correct that is correct okay thank you all right thank you colleagues deputy chief thank you so much I um want to say on behalf of the mayor who who who isn't here but he would want me to First extend thanks uh to you and Chief and and the men and women under your command for for running towards what most of us run from um there's not a day that goes by that the mayor and I don't discuss this this topic um about gun

violence in our city it is it is on people's mind um anecdotal believe this report um I guess in a scientific way kind of concretizes what we've been hearing um anecdotally out there there's no Solace or comfort in in us as elected officials telling folk well you know the incidents are down when the number of people um that are hit uh go up for any victim of of crime or gunfire in this city um they don't want to hear statistics they want to hear what their government is doing um we know that this is a national problem there are more guns in America than than people um we know that we are often times hamstring by the state and the federal government but that does not exempt us as Leaders local elected leaders to do everything within our power uh to combat um this issue um I've said time and time again it really doesn't matter how tall our buildings get how great our restaurants are get get what's playing at deac um it will always be an aster our our celebrations will always be muted um because we will be judged how well we do and protecting the most vulnerable uh amongst us um this is a problem that

does not you're not insulated by ZIP code or if you're cloistered away in a certain area we've had gunfire break out in our Mall downtown on our roads everywhere in the city so this is a Derm uh problem um so I want to just you know say for whatever it's worth I I think that with everything else we do um you know platitudes towards this is is is just that's all they are platitudes and anything we can do as a government uh to combat this issue and what is e I don't know what efficacy means if efficacy means reducing gun violence or saving lives or or making sure that the impact um it can be blunted in any way uh that we can because we know we've got a gun problem in America um I do want to ask about the the uh the weapons that we've been taking off the street I want to ask about um the caliber uh of the weapons I remember a couple of years ago um I forget who told me but we we were finding that perpetrators were younger

and the caliber of the weapons were getting much larger can you talk to me about what we've been finding lately rocket Propel grenades anti-aircraft that's a good question I don't think we've gotten those yet but I do think that's it's about the same caliber we are seeing the larger caliber guns we're seeing a wide variety of all guns are we finding that they are are are are these guns that were legally bought and stolen were they are they from do we know where they're coming from I don't think in all cases because a lot of times guns that are stolen the victims aren't providing serial number so it's a little hard to trace exactly where they're coming from got you you um um and I appreciate the the uh your um caution and not wanting to attribute um impact to the pay raise too much first thing I want to say cool commercials was uh some of the offer I saw one with Loki where the guy was showed his phone to Loki that was pretty cool so I don't know who who put commercials

together but I've gotten calls about how cool they are um and and I'm want to venture to say that that you you said something earlier about the number of folk who have applied for this next BL B is with what's the numbers larger than uh it's been in what was the comment you said we had 90 applicants during the second quarter which is the highest we've had in the last 10 years yeah I'm going to attribute that to the P I'm going to go ahead and if not causally certainly correlated uh uh to it um I'm I'm I'm heartened to hear about the number of female officers as well in in the interest uh that we're getting from fale female office I see the chief has risen to her feet Chief you wanted to add something please yes sir I I do just want to put a just a little Aster and say that while we we it's a little too premature right now to be able to and we know to to be able to say the IM how big the impact is on our act actual applications and hiring in the filling

theems we also look at retention so we had probably um close to 20 officers that were looking at leaving the department and so the pay raise so we can IM immediately say that those officers were no longer looking to leave the the department um and um and so that's kind of what we look at right now right um and that is completely outside of separation for you know just retirement or disciplinary actions but the retention of officers that were with us that were looking at other agencies we had other agencies come and look at their packets and then the pay raise um kicked in and then there was almost a there was a reversal of that intent outstanding I'm I'm I'm glad to hear that so so it it is doing something uh uh thus far I want to ask about um finally our I know a lot of our successes in terms of of getting guns drugs arrests are are attributed to our

participation in Joint Task Force DEA FBI others how how has our has our has our staffing issue impacted our participation in those task force or have those task force actually augmented us or been helpful because of Staffing shortages I know sometimes folk resident say to me and why are we working with the feds or I've seen uniforms or badges that aren't durm badges or uniforms in the street and I'll explain to well you know we have these Joint Task Force but if you would give me an assessment on are is that helpful given a shortage or does it hinder us participating in those task force giving our staffing issues it it definitely helps because when they're on the task force then we get other task force members from other agencies that can come in and help with operations so it definitely helps okay finally is there anything else we can do as a council to in your assessment to be I know rather than equipment and money um anything we need to be telling the public is anything else we can do to be helpful this your support goes a very long way so we greatly appreciate that

absolutely all right council member Freeman thank you I I do want to appreciate my colleagues comments and just acknowledge uh I don't know if it's been shared in this space or not but I do want to just um rifting off of council member Cook's comment around how the support of the youth is important that the mayor's um initial fund has been set up um with I don't want I don't want to get it wrong with United Way and I think that'll be a big help in supporting those folks who are um youth facing and making sure that there are funding or funding resources available for those who are youth facing and I do want to make sure that we as a council um express our strong support for that fund and acknowledging that that could be a very beneficial piece to what we can do as a council um for the folks who are going out uh as uh mayor prum says uh going in a direction that we all want to avoid um and I just want to say that

that this is just one step in that I think there the mayor mentioned trying to raise a million dollars to address some of the needs and just acknowledging that that is a very low number and so there will be a lot of other um needs that'll that'll come up and I did want to add that to council member Cook's point I know that there are two proposals that the council has received that I've not heard anything about and I would love to get some followup on around Advanced peace and the Gang transitional housing and just make sure that we don't lose sight of the resources we have in our community who are trying to address the youth violence and the and the gun violence um concerns that we have and that's all thank you thank you councilman frean and I I appreciate you bringing up that initiative I didn't want to steal a mayor's Thunder and we talked about this before uh this meeting but but indeed yeah they're I mean there's a lot of folk who talk about root cause um interventions in our city interestingly enough over the years we've had a number of groups and players in our Public Square that have said that without

actually ever bringing forth a multi-million dollar plan for it um over the years and there's been things that we've been done done and I'm glad to see now that there there's meaty kind of real money being put on the table towards those things rather than just saying no to something actually presenting something um that's funded um that that and but with that said and I'll end here I want to shout out those that have you know been stopping headlines for years there are people in this city who who we will never hear the headline because the headline got stopped I mean I've had young men come into my office and put guns on my not my office here at City Hall my other office guns on my desk um and decided not to go do something that's not going to make the news uh and folk out here who who who mentor and tutor and run pantries every day uh in our city whose names don't make it in the paper they don't they don't make it on the news but they stop headlines and the mayor's fund is is hopefully going to to to buttress and muscular we're not really doing anything new we're just trying to bring support

to folk who are already out here stopping headlines and sometimes on their own uh resources and with their own um gumption and strength so with that finally thank you uh uh on behalf of the entire city for what you do please give our regards to the men and women under your command and we appreciate it uh we look forward to seeing how that pay raise impacts uh further down the rows thank you so much Chief thank you deputy chief thank you so much and thank you colleagues all right colleagues finally um we have a really really important presentation particularly for our newer colleagues um on the Quasi judicial uh presentation we have a sometimes we act like a court uh as a city council and there's some things we can do and can't do in those cases that looks a bit different than a public hearing uh so I'm going to yield now to our city attorney's office for our final presentation today thank you

I do that every single time good afternoon city council May for uh B brinsky with the plan Department um here with a presentation about the Quasi udal hearing process I'm almost ready we're making sure our C of Parts on Zoom can see the presentation all right let's uh get rolling again uh bo to Brin with the plan Department um colleague Aaron miles is going to give a presentation on the question a Judicial procedure I just wanted to sort of introduce and maybe explain a bit about uh why we're here and uh what we're

doing so on uh September 16th um city council will be hearing an application for a special use permit and a major site plan that'll be considered in front of you um according to the use table in article five uh there are a few limited uses that require uh special use permits um these are described and want to use this language because I think it's uh very helpful um special uses within zoning districts are considered to be uses which are appropriate in a particular District but because of their potential for incompatibility with surrounding uses they require individual review U the most common example of this uh would be like a daycare center or a place of worship in a residential district these are those are examples of minor special use permits that are heard by the board of adjustment um there are major special use permits um these are typically uh especially noxious uses um those go to city council and there are Transportation special use permits um

which are heard by city council those are required when a development is expected to have more than 600 daily Peak trips um when when these use permits are required a major site plan is uh reviewed by city council and that is an administrative approval so that is why we're here um as one of these Consolidated cases will be on the September uh 16th agenda good afternoon mayor Pim members of council and mam city manager my name is Aon miles I'm with the city attorney's office and I'm going to be talking to you about the very exciting um quasa judicial procedure so there are three types of of approvals that happen in the governmental space legislative um approvals that you all see regular those are your zoning decisions your annexations um are set that you don't see as of you don't get to see except for when there's a major site plan is Administrative approvals those happen

behind the scenes with all of our amazing staff members that is a non-discretionary check the box did you do this you get it type of uh approval and then where we're going to live in this presentation is that quasi judicial procedure which is an evidentiary discretionary decision um based um hearing process that you all are going to go through with the um applications coming before you on September 16th there are good so wait go back sorry um the the board of adjustment and the historic preservation commission regularly hear quasi judicial hearing so there are boards who who do this regularly um and so this is a a regular process that happens monthly you all just just only get to see them when they um are major special use perents um or Transportation next um I've already given a little bit

about administrative decision- making but again it is very compliance-based it is non-discretionary and this is generally what staff does legislative you are very very familiar with this process this happens at almost every city council um city council meeting you get to speak with the community the community gets to weigh in you get to ask questions of the developers um and provide um comment as well as this also occurs when you're doing code Provisions um approving plans and other matters so quasa judicial decision- making is a is a statutorily defined process it is the decision involving the findings of Acts regarding a specific application of an ordinance and exercise of discretion when applying standards of the ordinance so this is again an evidentiary based decision so as I stated the historic preservation commission and the board of adjustment see these regularly HPC receives them as certificate of appropriateness when

weighing our um historic um criteria Board of adjustment uses the Udo when they're applying it to variances administrative decision approvals reasonable accommodation requests and then minor special use permits and then you all get to see them um again with a major special use per application like the one coming before you on September 16th so when it comes to the Quasi judicial portion of this expart communication which means speaking to individuals or anyone about the matter before the hearing is not permitted the decision has to be made based off of the evidence and the testimony presented at the specific hearing so there will the staff report will be posted prior to um the hearing but you are not permitted to speak to anyone about the information that is provided you can drive by the site for example but you're you cannot speak to anyone at the site um if you

wanted to to take a look at it so you're sitting as both the jury who's weighing the evidence and then also as the judge who's presiding um so you're priding for findings and facts and you're also sitting there to make sure that the procedure is followed appropriately so when it comes to uh special use permits within Udo it does require that you provide um specific findings and those findings are one um that the action is in harmony with the area and not substantially in jurus to the value of the properties in the general vicinity two in conformance with all special requirements applicable to the use and three will not adversely affect the health or safety of the public and will adequately address review factors identified below and I'll go through those factors on the next slide I will note the beginning of the hearing staff will provide a staff analysis of both the findings and the review factors for

you all and then additionally at the close of testimony staff will then provide a recommendation um on on the application so when it comes to the factors so these are the factors that will be weighed during the hearing um circulation and it looks at and I'm going to read directly from the Udo so you um have context it looks at the number and location of access points on the property proposed structures and uses with particular reference to Automotive bicycle mass transit and pedestrian safety convenience traffic flow and control access in case of fire and um in fire so I will I'm not going to read each one of them but I just wanted to kind of give you an example of you are weighing um some different information on each of these particular factors and again staff will be providing some will be providing their analysis prior to that hearing so again evidence is going to be

presented um the applicant will have an opportunity and any opponent so at the beginning of the hearing um the mayor will Pro be provided a script and he will read um that the applicant the staff will go first the applicant will have the opportunity to put on the case because it is their burden to meet those F those factors and provide evidence for those findings and then any opponent to the matter may have the opportunity to put on um evidence as well the um the City attorney will be present um to help with any evidentiary questions and the Rules of Evidence apply in that the clerk will be swearing in all Witnesses um to testify truthfully Witnesses must have standing to testify um and there is um there is a specific Statute in 160d which provides um that what that

standing is and that it falls under whether or not someone has a personal ownership interest um IE a lease an easement um in that particular parcel that the applicant is the one before the body or possibly has maybe some special damages or can show um that they would be harmed in some way by this application so that's kind of the standard for and that standard has to be met by the individual providing that testimony um and Witnesses are subject to cross examination by both the applicant if they um are the opponent providing that specific testimony or by um an opponent um if they are the applicant um evidence has to be material competent and substantial and what does that mean material is is it relevant to the general findings and review factors that you guys you all are waiting um whether or not that evidence is competent is it

admissible um does it go to the relevance factor in that material um in that material evidence and is it substantial will it adequately support the findings of fact that has be a part of the decision and either a approving or not approving a specific application um in these type of hearings hearsay evidence is not admissible hearsay is an outof Court statement offer for the truth of the matter asserted therein um Witnesses must be present to testify and they have to be available for cross examination if necessary um general information download from the internet is not um should not be admitted um and again you're looking at the re the material competent substantial evidence is it relevant is it admissible and is it adequate to support the findings a fact in order to make the decision in special use permits there is

an opportunity for opinion testimony for by experts um those areas will fall into whether or not an impact on the value of neighboring property owners for example in appraiser um would be an expert who could testify as to that information in addition to traffic impacts someone who has um is an expert in in those type of impacts and those type of studies would be someone who's available and potentially noise so in order to provide that type of testimony that person would need to be qualified based off their education and experience and then tendered as an expert and accepted as an expert by the mayor so in making the termination if an applicant offers that Council uh offers the EV evidence that Council finds be material competent and substantial with regard to the general findings and review factors then the applicant has met its legal burden and application must be approved however opponents can similarly offer evidence and if Council

7 c um the general the governing body May Place conditions on the use as part of the approval to ensure that adequate measures are associated with that use and the condition should be a part of the major special use permit appli um approval the applicant must agree to those conditions on the record prior to

conditions being adopted in the motion for approval so before any condition can be put on a particular application that applicant will need to agree affirmatively agree to that on the record prior to um it being added into the motion and the final determination after conducting the public hearing the hearing and hearing the recommendations of the planning director Transportation director or design the governing body shall either approve the requests approve the request with conditions deny the request or continue the hearing to a date certain these matters can be appealed if an applicant or an opponent they're allowed to appeal by filing a petition of Sir Shori with the dur Superior Court that concludes my presentation if there are any question thank you so much for very concise uh presentation I'll yield now to my colleagues any questions on this important function of the council council member cook right thank

you attorney miles um I do have a couple of questions I was first wondering about um you don't have to go back to the slide but they were talk uh you were talking about uh what evidence is allowed and there was a hearsay is not allowed and some other things that were noted are those issues that have to be raised by the opposing party are we as the um folks hearing this are we able to say that something is here say and not consider it I'm curious because this I've only seen it happen in an actual court of law where you have an opposing Council that is able to object to hear say and often times you'll have a judge that will say I'm not considering this because it's heay so in this case because you were sitting as both the jury and the judge it it can happen both ways so an opponent yes could could raise that this is information is hearsay additionally because you all are also sitting as the judge in the matter if if it is hearsay information say a

report that has is being submitted um and that individual is not present to testify that support that would be hear saying and you all will be in your perview to not allow that um evidence to be admitted um as part of your consideration wow that is a that's a high bar for people who haven't taken a class on what hearsay is I think but I I would agree yeah okay yeah I mean that's uh I I find that even my colleagues don't always maybe understand what he say is so that's that's exciting okay um my other question is about the burden on the the determination slide um I maybe I just this is like different than what I'm used to so there's there's no like these this material competent and substantial with regard to the general findings like that is the burden of proof is that how we or is there like preponderance of the evidence sort of standard like do we have standards that underly this like so

you're so I will go back to the finding slide I don't know pull the presentation back up just so you're using the evidence that's that material substantial evidence and applying it to the findings the evidence that has been presented and applying it to the findings to determine if one uh to to make these determinations these four determinations and it it is a totality of the circumstances to everything that's been presented during the hearing in that and has been admitted into evidence do all of those things taken together meet these four Bings okay but there's no like actual standard that's designated because I would imagine it's not black or white in terms of like whether it meets it or it doesn't right no um okay so this is just a it is a it is a subjective process which is which is why we go through this this training to explain in what

instances that evidence will be presented what can be admitted and then what you all are weighing um when reviewing these Ty of applications thank you those are my questions council member Baker please yeah I've been a I've been a planner for almost 15 years and I've never participated in a quasi judicial hearing so it was just a matter of time I knew this day would come um my my only question is um regarding conditions can we expect the planning department in recommendation to to offer recommended conditions or is that something that we should and potentially we could come up with conditions anyway but is that something that we should anticipate thinking about during the hearing I'll let Bo take that one okay yeah uh typically yes um and just as an example uh our most common condition a lot of times with uh special use permits that are heard by the board of adjustment will say that the uh the development um should be

substantially consistent with the application that is put before you in terms of the site plan and so a lot of times that would um address a lot of the the details that the applicant has provided um to help meet those review factors whether it be you know the location of the parking or location of the lighting uh size of the building and things of that nature so that's the most common condition that we that we've seen obviously at times there are other conditions um whether it be hours of operation or additional buffering things of that nature okay thank you thank you coun question I understand the answer so so your question was will the will staff propose conditions and I'm so that your answer is at times yes I'm trying not to speak about any individual case yeah so at times okay my question is more about also this is my first hearing as well so so my question is about the process so I understand the evidence is presented by both the opponent or the applicant and opponents are there often attorneys

present to yes they're they're generally in in these type of hearings there will be attorneys present at least for the applicant um and often times if there is an opponent they will bring an attorney um or there maybe individuals um who were representing themselves as an opponent and so then the process of like if Witnesses are subject to cross-examination the attorneys are the ones cross-examining I assume yeah okay and then unlike our typical council meeting so we're as in the role of jury and judge both right yes we're not really asking questions we're just we're hearing right we're listening you you can ask questions yes so you do have the opportunity during the applic the applicant will put on their case and then you can ask questions throughout throughout that hearing process to see as to whether or not to make sure that they meet those findings that you that you have to meet so yes you do have the opportunity to ask questions but it's around sort of like meeting those standards it's not sort of probing right it's just like asking more

like factual questions yes whether or not the standards are being met gotcha thank you and and I will add that's also some where the conditions may come in so through your through the questioning um say you're looking at a particular Factor say like um noise or or that's where the time the business hours may come in right because that would affect maybe another um a neighboring property so that's the example that uh bo provided that's where those conditions may come up during those questions during the hearing excellent question colleagues council member Freeman thank you I just wanted to ask um and I'm just trying to understand if there's been any update or changes to the way in which an opponent's timeline is is kind of balanced so I understand that the applicant is probably already in in process but is the opp like for the opponents in the community are there or is a neighborhood aware of what's happening so this is a public hearing so it does go through the traditional

public hearing process there are mailings that go out there it is posted as well on the site but but not for the hearing so and I and I only know this based on the case that I had with the board of adjustments and the Quasi judicial hearing um didn't allow for the for my neighborhood enough time to actually get an attorney in place who could actually be the one to ask the questions and to make sure that the community was getting its essentially its questions answer answered um before the board of adjustments approved or denied the case like an advocate for exactly so I I just want to make sure that if if there's anything I don't know what what we can do as a city to make sure that that's in place so that the um if there is a community advocate in place or if there needs to be a community ADV advocate in place like how much time are we giving the community because the hearing is not enough the notice of a hearing is not enough time

yeah that uh council member that's a great great question um we recognize and and I think that answer was adequate in terms of the the timing but we do recognize there is a bit of an advantage given to the applicant in in this realm because they know they're coming forward with the application and if I'm a neighbor um a concerned neighbor and an opponent I'm only finding out whenever that notification occurs and so I think you're absolutely correct um and so for that reason um we have reduced some um uses that require use permits in some instances because as I started out the presentation you know sort of this is allowed it depends right um so we want to be a little more transparent with community on some uses and as we go I know you guys are already tired of hearing me say this but as we're looking at the Udo rewrite um this is also something that we're going to be um reviewing uh when we go through our use table um just just because we recognize that the the use permit process itself or even the variance process um doesn't give equal timing to both the the

opponent anyone else just just making sure that we're all clear that that there is a remedy that we could look at and trying to address it and I just want to make sure that if there's a possibility um of figuring out how to make sure that the community has a chance to even know before the hearing like I don't know what that looks like but I think our City attorney might be the best person to answer that question and I'm sure it wouldn't be today but yeah thank you thank you Council thank you colleagues for excellent questions I I think um having gone through a few of these I think the last one was North Car Central for their their uh was it their new student center I think may have been the last one and before that was it yeah I can we can count on one hand the number of times we've done them but I think to to council member Freeman's Point um we in so far as as we're directed to Grant it if they meet their burden we

become the community's voice it it it's unlike you know a regular public hearing we're not asking for affordable housing units we're not asking for donations to the uh the education fund um this these quasa judicial hearings they're it's interesting it's kind of a a a paradox because they're they're intimidating by virtue of the veneer on them but I actually find them a little easier less stress on me me because you're either going to meet the burden or not uh and the folk who come in the attorneys that usually come in are they know what they've got to do so they'll bring their traffic impact studies they'll bring their experts on environmental impact they'll bring their experts on real estate uh how it's going to impact so you know a lot of the burden is on them to come and meet their burden um and it's not just a perfunctory checking of boxes but for us we've got a in unlike in other matters that come before this Council we've got kind of a clear-cut stand standard as to what needs to be met um and we are obligated to Grant if

they meet it or not uh uh if they don't so you know I guess I say that to say um with however many under my belt not a whole lot I'm not an expert by any measure but I've been through a couple of them that you can just take a breath and we'll get through it um and and if those if the attorneys do their job they know what's at stake if they come in and do their job then it'll make ours a whole lot easier um if they meet the standard that they don't it'll make it easier also to say no um so yeah I do want to say for the record to the staff I want to alert whether he likes it or not I'm going to make sure the mayor gets sat down and goes through this uh primer as well so I want to alert the staff that we're gonna we're going to Commander his schedule and make him sit through it uh uh so if you're listening aha um when he gets back so I just want to alert staff that we'll we we'll be making sure the mayor gets this primer as well colleagues anything else if I can just add I just wanted to provide one one more um comment regarding um council member Freeman um we at Board of adjustment we have had

instances where an opponent has come and rais the exact concern that you have and the board of adjustment has continued the case to allow for those opponents to provide to have those experts to have that attorney in place so that we do recognize that concern and we have done that in other instances to allow for that for that time thank you I appreciate that I think that's why I'm bringing it up because I do know that um we are the judge and jury in the case and I mean I'd love to think that I know more than I know but that's not the case I can't tell you what the health and safety of a neighborhood um what the impact will be based on you know the witnesses that come before us without the input of those people that live in a community and the way that the system is structured is to prevent them from actually doing just that and so I do want to just highlight that for my colleagues because um it sucks that's a the best no no absolutely and I and and listen I appreciate Amen to everything

you're saying and I appreciate the spirit of what you're coming um I'm just simply saying in these particular cases if they meet the standard uh you know whether it's noise or light or whatever and they they produce evidence that's credible that they're dealing with light they're dealing with noise we we we approve I mean that legally um so so but I appreciate what you're saying and we definitely want the community to be aware and just to be as transparent um as possible Council sure yeah thank you I just want to thank staff and just say I look forward to I know that this already happened because um DPS was in a minor special use permit process and they specifically asked to be moved to a rezoning process around um around some of the issues that they've had with neighborhoods wanting more input uh with school building so we've already seen movement and I'm glad that planning department is is looking at the list of what qualifies and what doesn't our Udo um so I just want to lift that up as an example to council member Freeman's Point uh where there has been movement in that needed movement um uh exactly

for what we're raising today so again thanks for the presentation I'm gonna have to go back and remember where the other one was because it was Central and I can't remember the other one but um were Northern High School no because it was a that was where we got that was a minor that's where we got all the emails that's what changed the the process there um um so um yeah I'm going to have to go back and figure out which the first one was but yeah even as a council I remember being slightly being like oh this is different so I appreciate the presentation um from uh from um our presenters today thank you we were added by we were aided by the constraints that were on us just one more so when it comes to decision time are we gonna have our clickers is that what what this looks like like we do on a usual vote on the council or so there would after the motion yes you would then make a vote um at the end of the hearing but then is it like one of those you said there's four options approve approve the conditions turn down or continue so is that what we'll have on our like what are our or we'll be clear at that time that will be clear on the motion so the motion language would either have it would be

it would be an affirmative motion um but if there are conditions those conditions would be added to the motion language and that's what you you all will be voting on colleagues anything else thank you so much councel good to see you good to see all of you I think we've exhausted our published agenda for the day if if that be the case nothing else on my colleagues mind I'm going to turn to the city manager to settle the agenda I'm sorry the clerk my bad the clerk's a report sorry madam clerk problem thank you presiding chair um I've got four sets of nominations the Durham's Durham workers Rights Commission appointment for the category of low AG is Jesse Ivon for the housing appeals board appointment for the category of at large alternate member Jenna K Hopkins then there are two that have not reached consensus the Durham Planning Commission appointment um there is a tie

between tyun and khila kareim two each and then Mitch Heath received one vote council member Freeman didn't vote turn your mic on please can I I think I submitted it after but uh I picked Ty hun [Music] and the Orland Thomas was that what you okay for Tai hun we now have three votes for Tai hun and two for khila kareim and one for Mitch Heath does the mayor okay all right thank you mayor poon and for the final one for the participatory budgeting

steering committee appointment at large category is Orlando R Thomas and that's the end of my report thank you so much Madam clerk thank you colleagues Madame manager now I will turn to you to settle the agenda good afternoon Mr Mayor protim members of the Durham city council have for your agenda U at your next city council meeting consent items 1 through 20 and item 25 uh GBA public hearing hearings items 22 through 24 um can I ask a question just to clarify if it do I need to pull number eight off of the consent agenda this is what I was trying to do so that I can recuse myself so that I don't have to recuse myself on the entire consent agenda you can do that so I would like to hold that item okay yeah you you either way yeah we can we can put it on GBA um as a restatement for consent I have items one through seven and items N

9 through 20 and 25 GBA item 8 and GBA public hearings items 22 through 24 okay and council member cook that evening if if we don't say it whoever is holding the gav would you just remind us that night on the record that while you're not voting thanks much appreciate it all right with that I will entertain a motion to settle the agenda second I have a motion in second all in favor anyone oppose shar's opinion it's unanimous uh and I think that brings us to the end of our agenda it's August 22nd 3M we are adjourned thank you all God bless Durham