City Council · Regular Meeting · December 5, 2024

good afternoon everyone if we come to order in the room it is December 5th 1 pm I'm officially calling this count this durm city council work session to order his honor is absent today he's attending a meeting on City business in Wilmington I'll be joining him after this meeting actually so we will carry forward in his absence and we wish him well let me say good afternoon to all of my honorable colleagues those of you in room with us today and those of you watching on whatever platform uh you may be uh watching us on uh let's get to work madam would you please call the role sure mayor Williams is on leave today so mayor proen Middleton is presiding I'm here thank you um mayor council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member cook here council member Freeman pres council member rest here thank you thank you so much Madam clerk uh friends at this time I'm going to yield to my honorable colleagues for any announcements they may have today I'll start uh at the end of my left council member cook good afternoon I'm sorry

council member Baker council member cabier good afternoon good afternoon uh thank you mayor PM um I just wanted to shout out our budget staff over the fall they held a series of community conversations and leading up to the budget conversation I was able to attend I think one of the last ones at El futuro which was done uh fully in Spanish it was extremely well attended I feel like there were over 40 residents there and I just really want to shout out um uh Director Reavis and her team I know that that's a big lift for you all and so I think that the community is responding really well and I know that they were uh well attended throughout the fall thank you thank you council member council member freen good afternoon council member R good afternoon thank you M for Tim uh good even good afternoon everyone um I had one item and that is that I think in the the manager's priority memo for the last council meeting there was a memo that provided an update on the this is the bow hunting issue um additional research that I think um

attorney miles had done to address some of the questions that Council cook raised so we have the information um the city manager I think and the prior member said it's up to us to put that on the agenda or not I'd like to move i' like to get my colleague support you just put that on on our next um either the next one or the council meeting after that um this is not to say I don't know how I'm going to vote on the matter I don't have a preference either way I do think in the spirit of efficient and responsive government I think we owe them up or down vote so I'd move to put it on the next um Council I this a b hunding issue I would second that I I appreciate you bringing that because I had asked that question when the I thought it was coming back on so I'm glad that you raised it I would second that to have it put on the next work work session agenda well let let me f we're not entertaining any motions this is a work session so we will and this is announcements during this time so we will um under other matters at the end of the meeting uh we can take it up then but this is a work session we don't I thought we I thought we in the comments could also asked to put items on an agenda I thought I heard you use the

word move well whatever the process would be to put on the agenda I me going deal with yeah we're going to deal with it at other matters okay yeah absolutely but but during work sessions we don't unless we suspend the rules we don't we don't take votes during work sessions so um Council mavier I can deal with it at the end because it's about that issue okay all right thank you for bringing that up Council M council member Baker or uh council member cook right Council Baker did you have any uh all right thank you colleagues I don't have any announcements but just a bit of a teaser um something a little uh celebratory for us as a city this this year the song uh change is going to come by Sam Cook is turning 60 years old that song was actually written in durm while Sam Cook was here the his the death of his anniversary is coming up in December and also the anniversary of that song and it it was uh built as an Anthem for the Civil Rights Movement um we're a city that's Progressive and always on the cusp of change for our

country so I think it's a feather in our cap so just want to tease we are going to be having a proclamation A celebratory Proclamation marking not only uh Sam Cook's death but the place of Durham in music history since the lyrics of that song were first I I had thought about singing a little bit but I'm I'm G I'm not gonna I'm not going to do that uh but that that famous first line is I was born by the river um so y'all Google it if you want look it up on YouTube but that song was written in our city and we will be uh celebrating our place in history uh at a forthcoming meeting so just wanted to put that out there as a little lighthearted celebration with all that's going on uh that's it with uh respect to announcements at this time I'm going to yield to the city manager for any priority items she may have thank you and good afternoon Mr Mayor protm members of the Durham city council I do have a few priority items for you this afternoon uh agenda item number 18 the third amendment to contract for for durm freeway Community engagement services with idealisms

LLC this item is being referred back to the transportation department agenda item number 22 citizens matters Jack jaulin Jacobs canceled her request to speak and an agenda item number 23 a citizen's matter uh Margaret Chapman there is a response from the Transportation Department that has been added to your agenda today uh in in background for uh Margaret Chapman's item so that is all I have uh for you as priority items uh this afternoon thank you madam manager I'll now yield to the City attorney for any priority items you may have good afternoon counselor good afternoon mayor ptim uh the city attorney's office has no priority items this afternoon thank you so much I'll now yield to our city clerk for any priority items you may have good afternoon Madam clerk thank you good afternoon mayor proam and City Council Members I wanted

to go over the board committee and commission report the mayor's Hispanic Latino committee appointments you have nominated Junior a sarento and orle spots to the committee and then for the Durham Planning Commission appointment you have nominated Marina burn and that's the end of my report thank you so much for that Pon yes ma'am are you going to entertain a motion to to accept the manager's priority I will now I'll entertain a motion to accept the manager's priority items so move second I've heard a motion in second all in favor can I ask a question sure um manager page I I heard you say that item 18 and then you responded you were referring to one certain part of item 18 being referred back or the whole item it's being referred back the whole item the whole item 18 number okay thank you so much okay thank you for that clarification thank you Council any other questions all right we have a motion and a proper second uh all in favor please say I those oppos right

to manages item is received thank you um I'm sorry M sorry and I forgot to say this during announcements I will be leaving by 2:30 or 3M at this at our next work session um so I don't need an excuse to absence but I do want to let my colleagues know I'll have toly that day thank you all right at this time I'm going to turn to our administrative consent items which I'll read uh for uh the record administrative consent items are things that we we can vote on with one Fell Swoop but any member of the council or of the public can pull uh any one of these items for comment starting with city clerk's office item number one mayor's Hispanic Latino committee appointments item number two during planning committee during Planning Commission appointment item number three amendment to master Services agreement with paymentus Corporation for electronic bill payment services item number four 2024 General obligation Bond referendum and I believe the item is pulled we have a member of the public be speaking on that item number five north estate term

contract hybrid police patrol SUVs pull this one all right item number five is pulled item number six North Carolina State term contract police vehicle upfitting item number seven Cooperative group purchase contract shuttle buses under General Services Department item number eight Merck Moore Park amenity upgrades design contract with wns wns of North Carolina PC I don't know M pretend I don't want to pull it just want to say great stuff so excited about that at the entrance of the parks I'm really excited about what's developing there with meric Moore Park absolutely Council roer item number nine First Amendment to the contract with Oracle elevator hold C Inc for elevator maintenance and repair services item number 10 agreement to fund durm Symphony Incorporated for the 2024 2025 durm Symphony season Incorporated item number 11 contract for cultural planning Services between the city of durm and MJR Partners LLC item number 12 First Amendment to the 2022

durm cultural roadmap development interlocal cooperation agreement under the human resources department item number 13 amendments to City of Durham Police and Fire compensation plans oh yeah right item 13 is Pulled Under neighborhood of Improvement Services item number 14 contract between heti promise Community devel Community Development Corporation city of Durham and Rebuilding Together of the triangle for feable Street Corridor neighborhood stabilization partnership implementation number 14 is Pulled Under Technology Solutions Department item number 15 contract with pin link limited prangles open- Source intelligence software as a service platform for Durham Police Department item number 16 Second Amendment to the scope of services between Duke University and the City of Durham wa pull pull that one 17's pulled item number was it 16 my

bad 16 all right under transportation department under transportation department item number 17 Federal Transit Administration compliance updates item number 18 third amendment to contract for Durham freeway Community engagement services with idolism LLC that item's been referred back item number 19 First Amendment to supplemental agreement number three with wsp USA Inc for on call Professional Services for Durham freeway study I'm okay item number 20 FY 2024 through 2025 Transit Capital Improvement plan CIP budget ordinance Amendment pull that one it's 20 20's B and under public hearings that we will entertain at our Monday meeting City County Planning Department item number 21 Street renaming of Vivian Street and then citizen matters to be heard at one item number 22 Jacqueline

Jacobs would not be here item number 23 Margaret Chapman and I have a card I believe for a speaker kedra Campbell and uh Chris it looks like Chris [Music] penstein perlstein okay all right uh colleagues that ends the reading of the agenda uh as published at this time I will turn now to our public comments be heard at 1M and we will start with Margaret Chapman who I believe is online if we can make her hearable please hi hi can you hear me yes ma'am good afternoon thank you for being with us you'll have three minutes thank you so much thank you for giving me time to speak on behalf of the Trinity Park neighborhood association's Transportation committee I want to also thank the transportation department and Shan Egan for responding to our inquiries as you may be aware on October

30th a school bus driven down Gregson Street hit an SUV and the bus also hit two houses after hitting a house facing Gregson the bus crossed the street and came to rest in the back of a house facing Urban Street this is at least the fourth time in recent years that collisions at intersections on Gregson have led to Vehicles crashing into people's homes again I want to thank the transportation department and the council for pursuing any and all possible remedies for this including an upcoming feasibility study on converting Gregson and Duke into two-way streets and putting an additional stoplight at Knox and greggson we think additional measures are warranted including additional lights however we are concerned that in the time it will take to implement two Implement two-way conversion and or finally get an additional stoplight more collisions will occur putting more D Neighbors in danger I don't think you will understand how dangerous it feels living next to a street where cars routinely drive off

the road and into houses um because we've seen the discussions around 2-way conversions dragging on for many years the neighborhood association would also like to put forward the idea of a road diet or reducing Gregson and Duke to one lane with turn lanes and bus pullover Lanes which would be cheaper and take less repaving um than doing a full two-way uh conversion and would not require additional lights but would also slow traffic in fact slowing traffic is the only way to prevent these accidents and we are very concerned that the State Department of Transportation is not interested in slowing traffic at all so we're excited for the possibilities for the future we are concerned they're taking too long and in the meantime we have a question for you we would like to know what can we as neighbors over the next year or so before any official changes are implemented do to keep ourselves safe and to keep cars out of our houses thank you so

much thank you so much for being with us this afternoon next uh kedra Campbell is is kedra here with us I have a note that says that she may not appear she on okay ja is not appearing kedra Campbell mam cler do we have anyone by that name in Q virtually all right moving on we'll now uh welcome Chris pearlstein good afternoon sir thank you for being with us you have three minutes thank you um City Council Members you know I normally like to come before you uh talking about roxb Street and I would love to take this time to to reiterate my concerns living on Roxboro we have uh many of the same issues I was also really hoping to to spend a lot of time talking to today about data I've gathered after uh the street has been repaved but has not been uh addressed in terms of safety concerns um punch line is it's gotten a lot worse um I'd also like to talk to you today about uh things that I have done to try to make

things better on my own um so I uh in the course of the data that I've gathered as part of the Reckless rockboro project um have observed that one of the fact is uh Vehicles parked in the parallel parking spots along rockboro and so what I decided to do is build a utility trailer it has a plate this is all legal um and park it permanently in one of the parking spots and measure the effect that that has I put some plants on it try to make it look nice um and this has been helpful in reducing speeds um and I I can actually quantify how much it's done that um but unfortunately I have other priority items to talk to you about um one of them was going to also be uh the safety issues in the American Tobacco Trail at the fville street Crossing I've heard from a lot of neighbors and personally experienced safety issues due to encampments um along the American Tobacco Trail uh including sanitary issues and fires uh that have actually gotten out of control and burned down encampments um this has happened multiple times and I've also heard from some of my neighbors who live in that area that this has been a significant problem and impacts them day-to-day um

I'm also not talking about that today uh what I actually want to talk about is the U Public School Bus situation that's happening with the county obviously this is a county issue um hopefully you all are aware of it uh there's such a shortage that they are only busing uh I think it's it's 80% of the routes currently and come January the intention is to actually uh increase the the enforcement of like the the concept of a walk zone or a family responsibility Zone I think the name's changing because obviously it's not safe to walk in a lot of the areas within that radius that they're trying to do which I think is a mile mile and a half um so if I recall correctly it's going to be something like 21 Schools they're going to start enforcing this and having children either walk to school or the families are going to have to figure out a solution other than busing um so what I'd like for you all to considering especially the public works and transportation department is what can we do to facilitate that by January and what can we do longterm to make this a viable option for our families and children moving forward um if we don't have busing uh available to these folks

uh they're going to have to walk or bike to school and in a lot of these areas we do not have crosswalks or streets are safe to cross due to speeds sight lines various other issues and I think there's a lot of things we can do in the interim we can paint every crosswalk in these zones it doesn't have to be perfect we can get out there with volunteers just get something down we can get flexi posts in to sort of narrow where those crosswalks are um slow cars down make it more visible I think we need to consider any and all actions we can do to address this um if this policy comes to pass and I think we have to think a lot about the the tech that we have uh this concept in in the tech street is that my time okay thank you thank you so much for being with us there's another all right colleagues thank you that ends our public um comments I have uh by my Reckoning Madam manager pulled items items items number four five 13 14

16 19 and 20 you concur all right thank you much we'll start with item number four and we do have a speaker one of our neighbors Thomas Crow alberon who has um he good afternoon how are you friend thank you for being with us you have three minutes hi everybody oh thank you uh firstly I'd like to say like many others very excited to see Park Innovations at Long Meadow eastn and Mer Moore uh East durum deserves quality infrastructure and public spaces that we do not have right now however as it stands now the city is not doing enough to combat the negative impact of development property taxes are estimated to go up by $346 for every $100,000 of property tax value to pay for these bonds however

7 78 times more likely to experience eviction than tenants under this context the number of unsheltered people here in Durham has increased by nearly 300% since 2016 that data points from 2022 it is likely significantly higher than that today over this summer city council received a report saying that there is more than 400 unhoused people here in Durham anybody who works with unhoused people here in Durham will tell you that it is significantly higher and it is growing higher our and house neighbors

are the first to suffer the brutal effects of gentrification just days after this Bond referendum was approved police began violently displacing East durm residents at Long Meadow Park on November 12th uh Durham Police Department evicted dozens of people from encampments near the near and around the park destroying most of their belongings the only justification that was provided to people at the time was that the area was under investigation this type of sweep is a common tactic to scatter people ahead of construction and it is devastating for people experiencing homelessness I've come to say that it doesn't have to be like this there is another way there are many ways we can go about this we know prices are going to Skyrocket because of both bonds especially in East Durham as a largely low-income neighborhood with a very large unhoused population why is there no initiative from the city to combat the negative impacts again we all want to see these new parks but we know that

there is a negative impact cost of living is going to go up there are things that we can do um last I checked on the annual financial report there was an $18 million surplus of unassigned funds we have the resources to take action thank you so much for being with us thank you appreciate you being with us yeah did you pull this item I yeah yeah thanks I'm sorry I'm Sor want to thank the resident for the comments yeah thank you so much for the comments certainly generification is an issue we need to be concerned about uh 247 with the city of Durham as we grow um I also just wanted to say I'm so excited that more than 100,000 voters voted for each of those Bonds in last election it's exciting and I think it's exciting for Durham I think we want nice things we need to address the the impacts but I think having those bonds and the way we've done that with equity

for the parks is really exciting so thank you to the voters thank you council member colleagues anyone else council member um yeah I just I we've talked about this a lot um and uh yeah I want to thank the speaker as well and as a person who does work with folks who are housing insecure and actively um unsheltered uh he's totally correct in that uh we are underestimating those numbers and that is we can only do what is reported um there are more people that are unsheltered in this city than we know and uh we can't even really deal with the people that we do know um and I also do work in eviction Court every single day and see those statistics that we just talked about and the racial implication of those issues I see that daily um so that is we've talked about it we've talked about it when we have looked at uh redoing several of our Trails we've looked at um how to recapture the wealth

that is generated from these infrastructure Investments and make sure that it stays with the community that's there so I just want to flag that I do think that there are Creative Solutions there um this Bond passing is only the first step I think um and and like my colleague said this was something that went to General to to a referenda so it was voted on by the general population um but that doesn't resolve absolve us from having to Bear the responsibility for the consequences that we know are coming from this so um just want to Echo what's been said here today and and want us to really think critically uh once we see the impacts it's too late to deal with them once people are being displaced it's going to be too late so we really need to be working on this issue um right at the beginning thank you thank you council member anyone else all I would just Echo council member cook thank you council member all right thank you colleagues moving on to item number five council member Baker will

yield to you yes thank you just had a few questions on this one um I wanted to know broadly y for just one second is there a staff uh person here for this item yeah they are okay gotcha you can both come if you want some high Lev questions here I just wanted to get your sense of what are the upsides and downsides of um hybrid police patrol uh vehicles uh what kind of cost savings are there um and then do we have uh infrastructure including maintenance infrastructure that's currently available or do we need additional types of infrastructure for for maintenance of these kinds of vehicles sure thank you uh councilman R my name name is Michael boy Fleet Maintenance um So currently we're running Charger police vehicles uh for a vast majority of these Replacements these are direct Replacements um on

these vehicles we've in the past switch we're running V6 gasoline engines these are all hybrid engines on these of you mentioned um with that one real benefit is while the police are doing their uh work whether it's on the computer is they enter or look at data or feeds coming in or whatever or they're at a scene running lights these vehicles for a while will run strictly off the battery of the car when the charge gets to a low point it then allows you know the car will crank up use the alternator charge the batteries whatever to re-energize to make sure those lights or whatever stay current or stay on all the time with the current cars they just have to idle all the time although it's a six and it may be running only on three cylinders for a while this is you know it's gas during that time so that's really your biggest savings um there are some new technologies uh as they stop at

stop lights onoff technology and stuff like that but it there's not a quantifiable thing right now because wind the sticker only says wind the sticker real world it's more real world but we think that's where a lot of those savings are going to come okay and then just the the last part um in terms of the infrastructure available particularly maintenance infrastructure is that something that we're going to need more of do we have a lot of that already we the um current our our staff is well staffed and has been working on uh hybrid vehicles we've moved toward hybrid over the years in many places as many as we could in the city uh and so we're well staffed and well capable of working on anything however did we got okay thank you that's all my questions thank you council member col anyone else on this item all right we'll move on to item 13 council member cook I'll yeld to

you hi I actually just wanted you to give a quick synopsis because I think that this is something that's been coming up for um I I I know I've been getting and I imagine some of my colleagues too have been getting direct responses to this if you could just explain why this is on our agenda this close to when we've just done um a an increase in salaries um and and what it what it is meant to address that would just be helpful thank you certainly Jim R grber Assistant Director of Human Resources uh let's see where to begin um so you're all well aware we did the class and comp study and adopted all that back in uh June um and at that time we indicated that we would be also looking at um especially in in police and fire um uh the effects of of any bypassing that took place so um a lot of moving Parts up until the the original um pay plan was adopted um in

June and once that all those kind of moving parts settled and we were able to um start analysis on um on that bypassing piece that that's what we started doing and um as we as we analyzed the effects or what we what we were discovering um was basically a pattern so we were noticing that the people who were bypassed happened to be the you know they were the relationship was was the same regardless it was you on fire it was it was people three steps um above in the in the firefighter level then than the fire driver level that had bypassed and in police it was similar it a little more complicated because it was higher in the ranks but uh we we saw patterns there and so a pattern indicated a structure issue as opposed to just kind of random happenings or you know effects of the of the uh adoption of the plan so um

the structure uh we determined that you know minor these minor changes to the structure so uh you know minor change to the fire driver uh the in in in um fire was was a little more simple than than police with that we were able to propose one minor change to the to the fire driver um pay grade and uh a 7% increase that would basically take those who had been bypassed and put them back ahead of those who had bypassed them um the reason that we're coming back before council is because this is a requirement that Council approves the um pay structure so this wasn't something we could just do administratively and say oh we're good we're done um and this was what we determined to be sort of the most responsible uh step to take to do this it's

wasn't you know our first you know we weren't like oh great let's go back to council with this it's going to be exciting so um but we did we did we did feel like it was it was the it was the responsible thing to do so that's that's why we're back here before you today fun oh I know you are it's uh it's side it's interesting I I can just say that so thank you for that summary so and I just I think this is important for for folks to realize that it took implementing the plan to see where the issues were and once they were identified it's come up pretty pretty immediately I mean we've only been in that new plan for a few months and it's possible that we might need to make adjustments in the future if we see other patterns that arise um as people fill positions or don't fill positions we can't we can't assume that we know all of the different patterns because we don't know who really warm bodies are in all of those places so I I will say it is highly unlikely

we'll be back before you requesting more structure changes but yes there are other ongoing issues that that could be handled administratively great thank you those all my questions thank you council member council member please uh yeah thanks Mr Ryan grber and staff for doing the hard work of sort of addressing these bypassing issues I just have one question and that is will this be back paid to July or what's the what what's the sort of like the start date of of this so the the uh proposed start date is the 11th of January um and there are reasons that that we propose not doing the back dating um including administratively it's it's very challenging um that would we have 196 employees affected by this action and it would require for example going back through each of their um actions through through that you know period and uh through their overtime um it would it would take a lot of of effort admin administratively for um to to make that

happen um and it would also require there have been you know there's been um business has been happening since then too so actions have been taken under the current pay structure and if you're making something retroactive you know you kind of have to go back and look at those actions and make sure that things were in um within policy with you know within that so it's administratively it's a lot cleaner I'll just I'll say that I guess I'd like to ask more about that so first of all so do we have a sense of what this would cost to to due to the back pay is this a major expense or a fairly modest it would it would start um again it would take some time to calculate all of it because of the overtime involved and and some of the halftime and the the different types of pays that the public safety groups have but um the starting number would be around 995,000 and that that's for the so 95,000 is is the cost the base like salary yep if if there were no other

overtime but that's the cost from from the date you're suggesting June I mean January till the end of the fiscal year that's the additional cost to take it from what we're proposing so it would be I think it was I think it was around 188,000 something like that for the full year and so you're proposing essentially half of that roughly half of that yes manager I'm sorry yeah so so one of the things I did want to jump in as we start to talk about numbers we we are we are certainly not in a position to recalculate numbers in the work session but even the annualized amount that you're showing here that annualized amount is is a point forward and it is not recalculating what would have happened if this would have been effective July 1 both of those numbers could be significantly different because every time there's an adjustment to pay then that adjustment

has an effective date and anything that happens changes from that point on so we do have an annualized rate but Jim can can back me up if if he needs to that's right that annualized rate is also being calculated from the January date forward would that be would it be accurate yes um I guess I guess so I I appreciate the extra effort it would take the potential cost I know from the presentation we had at the last work session on the budget we're looking at a significant uh Surplus and Staffing cost at the end of this year at least projected right it seems to me for folks who've been bypassed that to make them whole and actually going back to the beginning of the fiscal year would be the right thing to do so thank you so I would like to uh speak uh regarding the projections so whenever you have uh a projection and that projection is for

the first quarter it is our it is our we are projecting three quarters out so when the closer we the more we get into the budget season the more accurate those projections become um in in my conversations with budget staff you get a snapshot but we also are seeing our sales tax numbers not grow as quickly as we had anticipated them to grow in this fiscal year that we are in so just because we see a surplus on a snap point in time that does not mean it's going to persist throughout the fiscal year even though we're projecting I I wanted to get that clear in this conversation council member you you exhausted your question sorry council member cabier yeah this is just a question for staff when we did the pay I guess maybe

it was I don't know if it was 23 or 22 where we knew we were going to have to move fire and police uh midyear and we had allotted for that retroactive back I know this is different because it's individuals but we were able to figure it out is it because it was the the whole it was everyone does that make sense sense and and there would have been overtime included in that moment so I don't understand how we were able to do it then but not now and I don't know if my question is clear because I know this was like two budget Cycles ago I think it was few more than two budget Cycles before but but anytime we are anticipating making um you know making an adjustment at a particular time in a budget season then we're going to try to use the information we have in front of us to anticipate what that is going to cost and we're going to put it in the budget cycle that we're in when we're talking about bypassing we we were we did not we did not know what the

amount was going to be because we had to wait till we implement it in order to determine you know what that estimate might be so there there is not a project there was not budget allocation considered for the bypassing adjustment in the current budget in the year that you're speaking of we were we considered it and we built it into uh our projections when we develop the budget okay thank I'll come to you in minute conf sorry I just had a couple I I completely understand that but we did I mean everyone was aware that that was going to potentially be an issue right I mean that was a conversation that we had and it's not a lot I guess I I would say I'm in agreement with council member rist I would like to see uh some investigation and if there's a possibility of maybe it isn't overtime it's just base pay but I do feel like it seems unfair to me so I will just state

that thank you thank you council member council member Freeman thank you and just starting from that point I think I agree and I'm I'm just wondering if it makes if what you're saying is is that it would make make it simpler to even hold till the end of the year to just to see what what the numbers would be in order to go back to July um I would like to respond to that because what I what I would like to put on the record is we we we work every day if you know pay changes happen promotions happen all of that is is ongoing so at any time that a decision is made for an implementation then we we have to if we say Well it it doesn't like the council member here has said maybe we don't consider we cannot consider overtime if we if if a if an employee salary is is established for a certain date then we have to carry that salary

through the actions that have happened for that employee we can certainly calculate the number but we have to calculate the number it is not something that we swag or that we can just do in a few days just like these numbers were calculated over a period of time I'm not guessing exactly what the period of time would be but it would not be between now and when the when the council meeting is going to occur it would have to be referred back to the administration if we were directed to use another date other than the date that's in this item then we would have to have time to do that analysis and I would think it would it would probably behoove us to take the more time to do it correctly I just want to clarify would we be able to go ahead and do those as of January with them with the numbers that we have set and also ask for the numbers for the

previous six months so any any any time that we make a change to an employees pay and we make another decision that is retroactive doesn't matter when we do it all of the analysis has to be done for the affected individuals so in this case I believe the staff has said it's approximately 200 employees and a lot of different things have happened in you know those 200 employees pay you know during during a time frame so I'm just really really trying to be clear that whenever we're talking about setting a salary and going forward that's easily we can easily estimate what that is going to be because it's going forward when we start talking about making it retroactive then you have to start with the retroactive date and move it up to

whatever date that you know we're talking about so if we made an adjustment at the point in time going forward and you wanted us to look at what would have happened if those employees would have gotten that adjustment on July 1 you're going to still have to look at everyone who is similarly situated so you still have to analyze again there's no shortcut to to analyzing I understand that I just I want to make sure that there is there is a world in which we leave today and and the folks go ahead and see that they will have their increase starting in January they do not have to wait for the for the the when what we just heard was going to be pretty burdensome work to figure out all 196 of their back pay and all of the numbers that go along with that I just want to make sure that they

are being addressed immediately as quickly as we can that starting date in January and also that we could in addition to that look at the retroactive pay I just want to make sure both and could happen yeah so so so what we do what what you're looking at is a structure change it is not a change that while it does there are very specific people who have been impacted for this structure change because they happen to be in the job on the date that we're making the change that is why you can see the amount that has been calculated to actually implement the new structure so if we if we if we did that you don't necessarily have the same employees or the same conditions if you in the future if you if you were to

say we really really want um this to be retroactive then we actually have to start with July 1 and redo the analysis that's what we have to do and you may see something very different than it's not GNA be very different but it's it could be different than what you see not so because we it will be different because the money the amount would be different and that's what we're looking at here an amount but we don't know what that amount would be councilman Freeman thank you and so the the analysis is of the pay structure not of the employees salary and so that's why I suggested that even if it took another cycle or two it would be worth having a full analysis because I do think that July one would be the appropriate time to start from um understanding that it could take a lot of staff's time if if if at all possible to bring in a

resource um externally that does that on a regular basis that we've worked with that might be a possibility as well so so these are these are calculations that are not complex calculations but they're calculations that have to be done correctly so it doesn't need additional staff resource what took the time was determining who was bypassed and why they were bypassed on you know on a Case by casee basis because ultimately the market the Market is the market so whenever we make adjustments to structures we are we're deciding to move the structure above what the market is for reasons that are morale and other values that we have you know we we we we we promised to you all that we would bring back a market study that market study generated what it generated yes it generated a

24 or like that type of analysis is level that you're talking about can be very tricky well it is it is numbers you see here because once all of the the pay adjustments were made you can look at the employees that you have at that time and see exactly what happened with those employees and that is why these percentages that you see in this in this um agenda item

that's why you see the percentages because those are the percentages that it actually took and to move so that you did not have it for a moment you do not have bypassing for for for a set time frame you do not have bypassing in the structure but it's but but things are changing it well it's not so much higher dat is it more it has more to do with promotions and PE you know people leaving you know bringing in new people it has more to do with that than um you know it's a snapshot thank you council member call council member cier yeah I just but you've already got the folks in a spreadsheet somewhere with a formula attached to it so I don't understand and I I'm not saying it's not labor I'm not negating that what I'm saying is that if you've got a if you've got a point in time from from January 11 moving forward you already know who got what where and when that has already been done so folks have resigned you pull them out right

you pull them out of your you you you you blank out that uh that cell in that Excel spreadsheet right like there's a formula you you figure that out and you move the date instead of starting from January 11 your date is July 1 and again I'm not saying it's not labor but I think it would have been January 2022 so it would have been January 2022 so it would have been fiscal year 2223 where we did the mid- rate Market adjustment for police fire and we did it back and we were told in that budget we're going to a lot this money and we did it back to July 1 because we knew that we were going to have to make those employees whole and I'm not saying that that example is exactly identical what I'm saying that that would have been for the entire group which means more individuals so I guess what I'm saying is I trust staff to be able to do that analysis I don't have an opinion on do we do it um

um what council member cook is suggesting I don't really have an opinion on that I just find it I guess what I'm saying is it it it doesn't seem like that it's not information that can be gotten that's all thank you it's certainly information that can be gotten absolutely it it it certainly can be gotten um the the it is known of the employees I think you said 96 employees most of are in police it is known um exactly who was bypassed when the analysis was done and the part of this that has not been done is if the effective date of that was back to July 1 then the retroactive adjustments would be based upon if they gotten overtime or

other promotions so you have to do all of those calculations and then determine if there's bypassing thank you and I and I guess and I this is just me understanding that overtime would make it more complex I am okay with it just being base pay we cannot do that cannot do that no okay thank you thank you so so actually what we're talking about here is a dollar figure that we do not have in front of us today and the work the time that it would take to redo the calculations that's that's really all that we're we're we're talking about if you all give us direction to do it a different way then we would take the item back and make those uh calculations so you see what it is that you are approving and you can see what impact it may or may not have on the current Year's budget because that's all the money that we actually

have councilman Freeman did you have something else I think U City Manager made this suggestion and I'm okay if we do send it back and allow staff to figure out what the calculation difference would be along with the dollar amount council member Baker right I'm sorry we you I'm sorry colleagues anyone else listening thank you m Madam maner I've been listening uh to the conversation um I guess from from a parliamentary point of view we we we don't vote but we can certainly pull the house and get a sense uh of my colleagues I think we may have crossed a four person threshold to to send this back to staff so I'll just poll the house are there four folk who want to based on our conversation all right does staff have a clear understanding of what the council is is asking

for yes all right would you state that for the record what we're asking for so we have a a request now to go back and recalculate as if the adjustments were effective July 1 2024 okay thank you all right so item 13 is is being sent back all right all right thank you colleagues we'll move on now to item 14 council member cook I'll yield to you we have a I think they're coming up um Frederick Raven chief that officer with tech Technology Solutions and assistant director um good afternoon mayor poent Middleton city council and

city manager Paige um like speaking into this mic okay um I just have a I have a few questions about the sort of impact of this contract so um where to start so this is um part of a larger amount of money that has already been granted to hati promise oh oh I'm I'm on the wrong thing apparently sorry you not are okay I I was wondering about that but I was like if he wants to answer those questions that's cool um but it was nice to meet you thank you okay way more sense hi good to see you I was like oh I don't know that person okay great um yes so this is part

of a of an amount of money that has already been granted to heti promise um can you talk about where this money particularly is coming from out of that 10 mil grant that we already did and then um I I want to talk more specifically about some of the goals that are listed in the partnership objective um particularly around um assisting property owners in maintaining and improving their property and how this supports that so if you could just talk about the grant where this money is coming from um and then we can move into to those goals good afternoon Council summer Alon project manager F fill Street Corridor improvements project the first question I think is straightforward assuming I understand you it is coming out of the revenue replacement portion of the two grants that were made to hat bromas that $10 million was broken down

3 okay give or take if you for a moment the manager wants to interject something council member you can pick back up I'm sorry so I I did hear you talk about the split between the revenue replacement and the regular arpa but I thought that what you really were asking was sort of the breakdown of the 10 million overall in the different categories more more so just an estimate in the categories from the work plan the yes the categories from the re like residential commercial infrastructure just in general yeah okay so if you will allow me the moment of the technology because I don't keep those figures top of mind and the laptop doesn't like this

7 and it has some organizational development at about a quarter million and then in the second portion there is residential real estate improvements at about four and place keeping at about two and I am reading directly from the approved work plan and this would be coming out of the residential real estate for it would be coming out of the Revenue replacement portion in the tranch that is currently labeled residential real estate improvements but I mean there's blending

in there because we're not exclusively residential in the corridor at any given point but generally speaking right and so this this contract the structures that would be stabilized as a as a part of this contract would be potentially commercial and residential as it scoped right now that is correct okay um and then this partnership objective that's listed here assist long-term or Legacy Property Owners to maintain and improve their real property assets um and the surrounding neighborhood built environment by utilizing multiple resources etc etc etc can you just explain for folks who are watching at home what this does and how it how it affects that goal so if if you drill down to certain segments of the core territory there are we are fortunate to have what we Loosely refer to as Legacy Property Owners property owners who either they or their family

have owned these assets for in some cases decades that's not of course everybody um but in this case because we do have that clustering which I think we're fortunate to have um it it just is another the way of lifting up in the way that oewd typically does the fact that this is a historic Corridor with folks that have been in place for a long period of time obviously we can't discriminate but uh I think we put in a threshold of roughly seven years just as a legal marker so one is more um one is more emotionally driven one is less systematic and one is the actual you know legal marker that we suggested of seven years so this is going to be when we talk about stabilization or can you just explain what stabilization would mean in this context what stabilization means is the structure is no longer eroding it is no

longer opposing a public health hazard so these have already been identified properties that are opposing a health hazard or or in some way yes and yes and yes and okay and so this is a list of ones we do we already are the all the properties already identified the basis for this is an existing backlog of Code Enforcement cases that NIS has to maintain that's that's the Baseline okay but we are not at this stage suggesting that it would be exclusively the existing list because they're always you know working through their process and identifying things and so we did not want to say it had to be this list as of this day but it is predicated upon that list okay thank you for that as helpful um do we have an average cost of the stabilization we have very very rough numbers because we don't have a contractor yet that can go and do the analysis but based on the analysis that the team and NIS has been able to do and

they you know can speak to it better than I because code enforcement does this every day um the numbers that the NIS interim director um most recently spoke about were in the range of 20 to 70 or 20 to 80 were where the existing data led her okay and so just as we're I mean I just I know what this is because I do this stuff and also I said I get to come watch the housing appeals board um do their thing but just so folks understand when we're talking about this maintenance we're only talking about code enforcement structural things so there are other parts of bringing properties into um not necessarily into compliance but into like some sort of usable space that's not included in this number so can you just talk about the differences what we're doing and what what is going to be

left to the property owners to to supplement well it'll be a case- by casee basis based on the condition of the structure but as the plan is outlined in overview form it does indicate as do most of the programs that NIS um operates that not every single thing that might need to be done is guaranteed to be done because we are still in a POS a position of having to comply with our federal guidelines and even just local guidelines and precedents so yes it it does clearly State not every possible repair will be made um and the goal specifically here is to eliminate as many code violations as possible and this might be a better question for I would just love to hear from NIS um about the correspondence that goes on with the property owners I think it would just be helpful to hear I know that it happens but I think it

would just be helpful to hear what that looks like what your interactions have been with the property owners and I know some of it's going to differ of course because some of these cases have been open for quite some time and maybe some of them are newer but just what your normal procedures are and how that how that looks oh definitely uh good afternoon Clarence Harris neighborhood Improvement Services housing code administrator assist acting assistant director uh so as uh summer uh share it with us uh these are majority upwards of 20 plus uh properties along that major Corridor area that have code Code Enforcement violations uh do our process of citing these properties we do reach out to uh these Property Owners making them aware of the the conditions uh in some cases the owners are do have intentions on remediating the properties but not not necessarily having the funds to actually Implement such so this program will allow us to to move forward with both

assisting and correcting code enforcement violations so in most cases we'll enter into what we call a compliance agreement which is a me memorandum of understanding allowing the homeowners uh or the property owners additional time uh to bring the property into compliance and out of the 20 or so do you are there you said that there were some homeowner or property owners that were working with you is that do we have we talked to most of them do we are we able to identify owners for all those properties unfortunately we haven't been able to identify owners for all of the properties uh it is challenging some of the property owners are out of state unfortunately can't find a good contact information for them but the ones that are local we do work and communicate with them to share uh our perspective on on the violations and try to have conversations around the remediation I think those are all my questions thank you council member colleagues council member rist um thank

you council member cook for those questions if I can just kind of proceed on that so so as I understand from the memo it says the services provided will include let me pull this up here um include a combination of owner education technical assistance Coalition building and direct support to quickly address poor conditions so that direct support would include actually doing the construction to address the code violations is that correct yes it it'll consist of uh Consulting uh as it relates to how to bring the property into compliance I some speak a little bit more you you are he's exactly correct you're exactly correct and so thank you Miss Olson so then the further question is so that you you mentioned Mr Harris's compliance agreement what is what is what's the legal basis that of this sort of relationship is that just a compliance agreement or are we talking is there like a a LEP put on the property how to like what's the sort of actual legal uh um kind of foundations of this this of this transaction this relationship with

the property owners definitely so like as releas are ordinance for the housing code or non-residential code uh staff is given an opportunity to provide an additional time to for the owners to bring a property into compliance uh there is no lean attached to the property uh because there is no self-help Remedy or any repairs implemented at this time if in any case um neighborhood Improvement Services take a a property before the housing appeals board gain an ordinance for repair once that contract services and repairs are implemented for the work that's been performed laboring materials at that time a lean and invoice will be placed on the property okay I thought I thought repairs would also be considered as part of this this grant that we're approving it doesn't that include repairs as well yes that does include so if repairs were undertaken correct if repairs lead would be then placed on the property okay thank you thank you Council councilman

Freeman would the are those repairs being done by the grant or by the city it because it shouldn't be a lean if it's done with the grant it's a yes and again okay because in order for this trilateral agreement to work the city's Authority has to be retained and so through and by this action there is actually putting grant money into this partnership and attaching it back to NIS so that that lean Authority is retained and and goes forward in the process as if it was general fund dollars and are there any private dollars going towards this at all if they can be raised certainly colleagues anyone else finally thank thank you so much I'm I'm really excited about this contract I have over the years watched millions of

dollars go out of the city to all kind of neighborhoods and all kinds of initiatives which I've gladly voted for with far less scrutiny um and I can list off things I I'm I'm proud of the money we sent to eviction diversion I'm proud of the money we spend on protected bike Lanes I'm proud of the money we spend on tree planting around um the city this the animating proposition behind all of this was a a realization of the the reason why some of those properties are in their condition is because of 147 destroyed that neighborhood because of historic disinvestment we can draw a causal line between some of the lack uh commercially and privately the the the descendants of the ancestors are no longer here that Corridor still live there this is actually one of the neighborhoods where where black folk are still air and you look at Walltown and other areas but but we significant amount are still there uh and the animating proposition behind this was to in a very concrete and substantive way

address um some of the historical that we can point to scientifically and empirically that led to some of the disrepair um in the area so so I'm very excited listen I'm excited when we can help um lowincome uh folk who are long-term residents help pay their taxes uh it's the same principle uh of helping those folk uh in ways that we can and and we've come up with a way uh that we can legally uh uh do it and morally also do it uh as well so and I know that all of the uh the the due diligence um more more due diligence in this area in the in the other area will be will be imposed there's a whole um CDC being stood up uh to to to do the work which you know other neighbors haven't had to do that uh whether they're doing npos or whatever but but I'm excited about the work I'm excited about the flow of money I didn't count Freeman raised an interesting point that it private money is welcome it's going to take a whole lot of money to address what's happened in that neighborhood historically $10 million is a drop in the bucket but I'm

glad to see finally that money is starting to move um because before we can even get to some of the bigger dreams in the area we do literally have to stabilize that neighborhood to to make some of those structures safe to make them to turn them from dens of of you know illicit activity and unsafe structures where our children are playing in there and things are happening so thank you so much for this work I'm excited about this contract and I know we will continue to it's a lot of money I know but we spent a lot of money on a whole lot of other things over the years in this city so I'm excited um about the contract summer please mayor Pro if I may um I just want to take one moment because I don't get this um I won't get this opportunity again I don't think I want to thank the N team because they have been um the best Partners as we've been trying to figure this out I'd also like to thank Deputy city manager Chadwell and manager pagee because um they they have been stal warts in helping us figure out some complexities and um helping us be brave in how we

structure things and it is privilege and um without n we wouldn't be here so I just I wanted to acknowledge those things thank you so much absolutely thank you and I'm glad they can smell their flowers now you know NIS when code enforcement usually shows up they usually show up with a bill and a list of things to do but for them to be showing up with checks actually I think is a refreshing uh change from from what they've historically been known for so thank you so much uh for the work thank you colleagues we'll move now to item number 16 I believe sure um director Austin just a just a question I I noticed I was trying to um locate where the seven years was in was in the document I cannot find that is that information else like am I missing it I will find it for you council member but it it's it's a placeholder it's not written in stone and it's not tied to a

spefic specific legal precedent it's anticipatory but I believe it's in the plan document okay and if I'm wrong I apologize that's look I'll find that's what's been discussed program team thank you council member thank you so much I apologize no thank you uh we'll move now to item 16 I believe council member Baker and rist pulled it at the same time almost so I'll yield to either one of you item number 16 thanks for coming up thank um part of this is just my interest in the city Broadband initiative and learning a little bit more about that and how this ties into that um and also just understanding this context because I know it goes back to 2017 and there's been a lot of work and I just want to understand all of that um because that's part of this this uh contract Amendment um so U my understanding so Duke established their own network the triangle fiber project uh in partnership with mcnc um they they uh reached out to to

4 um um million Amendment um so isn't that the broadly the correct understanding of the timeline what what else am I missing there and is there any other background and overview of the project I think I think you accurately portrayed it this has been a ongoing process since uh 2017 was when I got the call from my director Carrie G uh we sat in the office because the city Management's office had a proposition they thought would be favorable to the city and it was to work with both Duke the city and County so there was a cost sharing model that was

actually bed into that so you fast forward a year we're working on a plan to be able to submit it to council then you fast forward a little bit more and we actually are dealing with the pandemic um so that's when we pivoted and we used some of the arpa funds to prioritize making sure connectivity was made available to the durm housing authorities certain units there because at that time there was a there was a gap in making sure that our that our kids within the community had access to the internet so we prioritized that we made sure we had some of those funds go towards there and the thought was to still come home bring it right back to the city um and that is where we're at now because we need the additional allocation we while we may have the funds we need that additional allocation from city council to approve being able to spend this amount because it's gone over our Authority and again that Authority has exceeded because it's surpassed the original projections um as many of you all know Construction in durm can be fairly difficult at times

especially when you encounter Rock and that has been one of the driving for the cost of rock rock rock throughout durm so that has um kind of in certain areas blown the budget especially when you're talking about miles and miles of construction um that you're having to account for um can you just um help me understand the the motivation behind choosing this route of of working with Duke and also what kind of cost savings are there substantial cost savings to um the this working with Duke and and mcnc on um the fiber optic cable versus other options Google fiber or something like that city manager page so I did Fredick is doing a wonderful job but did want to jump in just to say I was part of the initial discussions with Duke I wasn't the city

manager but I I I was in the city manager's office and the or original proposal um was it was actually um very uh interesting to the city because we did not have to build the ring we did not have to build the fiber ring Duke is building that with all of their funds and they also provided the the city with dark fiber at no cost to the city for for the ring all of our costs which we have had to be really really you know careful about making sure that we're paying our share is for the last mile um implementation so if we would have had to actually build the the whole thing then it would have been extremely more costly to do this type of implementation what I heard you say is why we are doing building out or being a partner to having our own Municipal area network and not buying

fiber from from from from other providers and here I'll be a little careful first of all the other providers that you mentioned doesn't have that they don't have that type of presence or did not have it certainly didn't have it then in 17 uh the the one of the other providers uh does go everywhere and we do buy you know services from them but they were not interested in doing a robust uh Capital Improvement to permit gigabit fiber to locations that we need gigabit fiber just to do our jobs they have they had cable and they could make special Provisions to provide some highspeed but not not gigabit service and then um there was another competitor that came in the market providing gigabit service uh but it was uh it was decided at the time to partner and take advantage of

another a community uh partner building the the the whole fiber ring as well as giving us certain strands of dark fiber um to connect to so um how does this compare to something like what's in Wilson North Carolina with the I think it's called like green light or Greenlight and that's like Community own Community owned it was the first one with clients I'll speak to that so uh I'm very familiar with green light I actually uh my father has green light uh in in the city of Wilson um you know I start with you know legislative action that you know prohibited uh local governments from actually building and selling um internet service uh after the city of Wilson yeah after the city of Wilson and I can't remember other community that was one other community uh that had done that so A that is what Greenlight is it it sells it it it used you know it used

Public Funding to build out a network it's a much smaller community and then they were able to sell that as a you know in competition with the providers some of which you've mentioned in your comments here so our Municipal area network is not intended to be sold to anyone it is it is it is for the the benefit of governmental facilities and the inclusion of the Housing Authority um for for our own purposes to provide um you know high-speed Network Internet services to to the facilities that we have to serve that's extremely helpful thank you um and so we're making these big upfront costs uh you know ex um payments and we're going to see long-term savings because of that right because we're not we're not buying a service we we own the fiber and so um so

we just have to pay for maintenance and that kind of thing is that correct understanding that Fredick that's correct that's correct that is correct and and if I could add just another um another benefit of being able to have this type of network that we're talking about I believe it was on Monday which was the second where you all um voted on the digital Equity um the digital Equity inter local agreement and that was with the partnership between the city and the county on how we're going to kind of work together on that there was roughly um $750,000 that was added allocated towards that and one of the things that we proposed and that the county agreed upon was being able to leverage this network once it stands up to be able to provide um wipe um Wi-Fi highspeed internet access to a lot of our on Parks and Rec sites um so we work with parks and wreck um and to be able to identify like what were the top 10 to 12 sites that they thought would be the most impactful locations to be able to have that highpe internet open to the public

because we're really looking at that digital inclusion process and making sure that we could address that digital divide so access is is one of the ways like you have to have access to the device but if you have the device without Internet it's still it's it's it could be a rock to an extent so we want to make sure that they are able to access this high-speed internet in addition to some of the other benefits that we're trying to bring into the community okay so um and we can't sell because of because of the legislation that happened after Wilson was so successful um but we can we can use it ourselves the county can use it what about the schools school system so so at this time for the cities it's it's only for the city facilities MH your not on C but that wouldn't be prohibited to to serve public facilities the county facilities City facilities and and public

schools so or should we have this conversation other time so anytime we have um a you know a partner that is a a local government uh and as Frederick has mentioned in his speaking here um it was Duram County who has libraries and other facilities they also are part or were a part of the um the agreement with Municipal area network where everyone that was a partner was paying for their own infrastructure Investments and so um I'm not certain if the if the schools were included in the Cy's um you know County's facilities or not but I know libraries were and I'm not really certain but they decided the buildings that they you know wanted to be and and I do want to say that the network um was primarily designed with all of us at the table but it Duke's portion of it they they had to have

facilities in the vicinity because they were building the the back the the back the overall fiber ring so it wasn't you know is pretty big so you know if it if you actually have public schools that are not nearby um you know Duke Duke facilities then you're going to be too far away to build a Last Mile so the P the county and the city and Duke were the primary Partners when the original design was made okay and then the I'm coming to the end here um the ownership is we own F the fiber but Duke and Ms msnc mcnc also own the fiber so I have actually have my director Carrie good he's actually online as well and this is getting a little bit more into that architecture piece okay um Carrie are you able to chime in on that question yes thank you

Frederick uh we own the SP fber to the facilities from the backbone and uh it's in separate conduit segregated from duke fiber so yes we own we own about 80% of the fber infrastructure okay does that mean we have to pay additional services on top of what we own no that's the beautiful part only maintenance is when a fiber is cut okay then we have to repair it and we we have contract with Duke to do the repairs on cuts on the fiber other than that it it gives a good Payback because the maintenance on the f is very low and and we should get a good return on the investment the longer we run on that fber okay thank you so much thank you council member council member just a couple followup questions so first of all thanks city manager I know you've worked on this for a long time thank you for working on this Mr Raven as well and

your your team for working on this um the I appreciate the connection to the DHA properties as well um and is that at the is that City expense or DHA expense so connection to um in the inclusion of DHA properties um in the it is I would say it's a city expense um the Housing Authority does have responsibility as it relates to the um the implementation uh we used cares act funding to facilitate the connection for DPS and to prioritize them to come online quicker and that uh funding overall was I believe it was near $2 million but the ongoing um infrastructure investment is going to be part of the city's um the city's

responsibility well yeah on on behalf of the DHA board I really appreciate the city's investment there this the big investment in our public housing community so appreciate that I just want to say I think this is uh obviously it's complicated but I think this is an amazing partnership there's been a lot of talk recently about the relationship between the city and Duke University I don't want to relitigate that that conversation here but I just want to say in this case this is a very powerful partnership um that leverages Duke's sort of position as well as the city's needs and I think I really appreciate the work we've done to to form that partnership so thank you thank you thank you colleague so much thank you good to see you man all right we'll move to item number 19 C cook I'll yeld to

you looking at the right one well we wait Sean Egan director of transportation for the city good afternoon mayor Pro and members are cancel yes sir your time see if it's a bus or a train or what is it Santa Claus right I was gonna say I like your jacket wsy coun if you're if you're still looking I had a question pleas go ahead absolutely so um Sean thank you uh for being with the so the Seven Grand roughly for translation was this not factored in from the what is this for so we were really focused when uh we were uh scoping the contract on making sure that we had interpretation and translation services available for all of the engagement activities throughout the

course of the project um but one of the key deliverables from the project is the final report report uh and then making sure that we have both the detailed final report and an executive summary of the final report we uh neglected to include the translation costs of those final deliverable documents in the original scope so we're going back now uh and requesting additional funding uh and contract authorization so that those final report materials the the full report and then the executive summary of the report are available in both English and Spanish so would would you subcontract those translation services out from that s or or so the the vendor will um contract out those Services they're already using a translation and interpretation um staff for uh all the materials that have been used for public engagement have been translated so I think they they'd be using the same uh

firm that they've been using so would it and then I'll yield the council so is it a fair characterization to say that we just overlooked that when we're finished report this stuff out that we a mistake I apologize $7,000 mistake we were able to get funding so 80% of the funding will be covered by federal funds gotcha council member so um I was actually gonna pull this in Tangent with 18 which has been referred back but I I'm just curious now that we have this deliverable and we've also shifted our occupancy tax to discovered Durham um and one of the projects that they've been looking at is this cap which the study is sort of also touching on I'm wondering how this how this information gets handed off what that process is going to look like this might be too much for this item and feel free to tell me if it is I

can give kind of a high level overview we are not at the point where have a final report we are not at the final phase of the project yet so we are concluding um the engagement phase where we've been working across the community to understand uh the uh values um and the goals uh of community members for what reconnecting uh across this Corridor would look like the next phase of the project that we'll be doing over the next six months is taking all of that input that we've gotten from stakeholders and across the community and then developing a set of Alternatives so one of those Alternatives could be a freeway cap for example uh so and then what we'll be doing is we'll be providing some context and narrative about to what extent the alternative addresses or does not address the goals that were articulated

uh by community members throughout the engagement process and the uh the kind of end product would be a presentation to City Council of those Alternatives uh for uh your consideration and to get direction from the Council on how to proceed uh with the Alternatives presented as well as the the context of what we heard throughout the project um yeah I guess I I'm just looking at this in particular because I know this is one of the things that the occupancy tax that we have now moved to discover Durham can be used to do which is par specifically engagement and stakeholder um discussions so I'm just trying to think about this as that transition happens and obviously I know this money is already obligated so we're going to continue doing that and getting a a final presentation um just thinking

of what that will look like because it's going to come to us um and kind of right at the same time that that money and and power is going to be moving outside of our control of the council so anyway I appreciate that I just wanted to have that brief conversation thanks thank you council member council member rist yeah just one just one thank you mran just one process question since since 18 is now referred back does that not that does impact 19 because that's connected to 18 right we think that uh we can reconfigure our approach uh and still maintain the the schedule that's been uh outlined for all of the technical work in the project so uh we're uh developing a revised approach uh but uh we want to maintain and and we're confident that we can maintain the the same schedule I guess I understand I guess I guess I'm wondering um isn't 19 the the the

agreement with wsp contingent on the continued engagement with idealisms right soes don't the two aren't they linked together and so if we have one on the consent agenda that we're approving and the other is sort of like going back for review does that make sense uh we have uh some engagement for example is scoped in the wsp contract we have the ability to do engagement with U City staff so there are a number of ways that uh we can address the engagement needs of the project so this isn't this still you're saying this there's still need for this regardless of what happens with the the contract that's now going back to staff correct okay thank you council member I would point out also that there we do already have data that we can report out on um I mean we're not going to stop engaging but even if we did see theoretically today there's a whole bunch of stuff still to report out on because engagement has been going on would still need to be translated it would still be uh so colle anything else Madam I'm going to request that this uh be put on G I'll get to you I'm going to request

it this be placed on jba item 19 all right council member Freeman I just wanted to follow up on council member Cook's question is there a process that's going to be in place to ensure that I guess somehow these Transportation projects that engagement piece does end up with discover D or do we need to have a conversation about that uh that's not part of our work plan is we've U done some Outreach and engagement with discover Durham but uh we're planning on using our resources and our staff to complete uh the Alternatives uh portion uh for over the next six to seven months um and so um we'll be uh looking forward to getting direction from the council once that process is complete once we've presented alternatives on on next steps so I think that would be the time to look at um uh those those types of next steps

decisions thank you thank you thank you colleagues for a great discussion I think it's also worth noting that the there's a qualitative there's a qualitative difference between types of Engagement we've done discover Durham's engagement while it certainly can touch on issues of equity has an eye towards profitability Revenue generation tourism but when we need to do engagement in terms of addressing historic inequities we we've always we'll always be able to do that even if if you know with the um rerouting of tax money to discover durm there's a there's a strategic kind of framework for that in terms of long-term building up our revenue from tourism but we will never sell ourselves short in terms of when we need to do community whether it's the belt line or whether it's anything else we we will we we have always provided for mechanisms um outside of disc discover discover Durham's um wheelhouse to do the type of Engagement uh and my suspicion is we will continue to do that because of our commitment to as a city as a core value of our city so

I appreciate the vigilance about that but I think it's important for folk listening to know that that's not where all our eggs are with discover durm in terms of community engagement when we need to do uh things in the city um sure absolutely just and I don't have any direct connection to discover DM do they not have a equity lens Focus as well absolutely just makeing sure up no ABS no AB every Everybody connected to Durham does I'm just simply saying that that's not our only tentacle to do community engagement and when discover Durham does it right with four point and when discover Durham does it there's always an eye towards tourism and stuff whereas sometimes we need to just fix folk whether the tourists come or not uh and that's that's oftentimes a different type of Engagement but I appreciate the the vigilance of this Council on it thank you so much good to see you Sean appreciate you oh count yeah item number 20 all right stay right there council member Baker I'll yield to you all right thank you um can you just speak to the two CIP

changes um the first one being the access maintenance facility um changing project ownership from go triangle to City of Durham and the second one being this small starts Grant project um for the viability of bus Rapid Transit really interested in that I think that's you know in addition to keeping buses free one of the most important things that we can be thinking about Transportation wise Transportation wise in the city so um sure so just to give a little bit of background uh in around 2020 uh the durm County Transit plan was looking at uh Regional uh Transit maintenance facilities uh and Fleet needs trying to identify if there were opportunities to uh coordinate or consolidate facilities um and so at that point go triangle was leading that study effort to look across Chapel Hill Durham carry Raleigh uh across everyone's

3 that had been previously set aside for future needs in the go triangle project uh and

7 million that was made available as new money in 25 so grand total that's available to us um through the plan and that will be shown in the project account is the 5 million uh with the adoption of this amendment so that's first one uh and then the second one is um I think most um folks know that um there has been a

brt bus Rapid Transit project the north south project in the works for over a decade in Chapel Hill there are four uh north south east and west projects bus Rapid Transit projects happening in Raleigh uh and there's been a persistent question you know when is Durham going to advance its first bus Rapid Transit project uh there is federal funding through the Federal Transit Administration for uh major uh bus Rapid Transit projects uh it is a uh very uh resource intensive process to go through uh to apply for that funding so typically the first step that is taken is uh for if you think you have a project uh you go through and you create uh you look at all of the criteria the scoring criteria that the the federal government uses you create kind of a mock report card how do you think you would score before you

even start the process the fed the officially start the federal process so that's what we propose to do over the next six months and the corridor that we're looking at starts uh at The Village at Holloway and Miami and East Durham it Pro seeds um along hallway into downtown and serves Durham station that's our highest ridership Corridor um and then the other one of the other uh they look at ridership um and as well as employment density so we'd be serving our downtown which is the dense employment center uh and then we'd be proceeding West out uh to Irwin road to the Duke Hospital VA medical complex along Irwin road which is a dense employment center so there's already 15minute service across this entire Corridor and what we're seeing is an appetite for considerably more service and better service so looking at what we

can do to improve bu speed and reliability travel times higher quality transfer facilities uh more Service uh and making uh making this our first bus Rapid Transit Corridor in Durham so the uh proposal that we presented to our partners was for $200,000 to do a feasibility study do we think that this uh quor is worth uh committing additional resources to pursue the Federal Transit Administration process uh and our partners in November approved that request and so we're now updating uh the the city CIP with this amendment uh to program that funding so that we can start U that work great thank you for that um again I think it's so important anything um that that we can do to to help support that and any updates we can

get as it's moving forward um I think it's again one of the most important um pieces of the transportation puzzle that that we can pursue uh with the dollars that that are available so thank you thank you council member council member Freeman council member cabier myad yeah thank you uh I just wanted to say I'm really excited to see this item uh on here I know there were several of us uh who worked throughout the fall and I just really want to thank you and your team uh for your tenacity to make this happen that's all thank you counc thank you for the comments yeah again thanks to U Mr rean and his staff also you know we should say that County's also involved this so we want to thank the county for their involvement as well so yeah this is a great part partnership and it's really exciting as council member baker said we this is a piece we got to um move towards as you mentioned Chapel Hill and rally are always move are ahead of us so we need to catch up and catch up fast than yeah we got a unanimous vote of support uh from the Durham border County Commissioners and we really appreciate uh their strong

support uh for us to be able to advance this work there's a lot of excitement that we've heard from uh the county from our partners at uh Durham Chap Hill carb no and go triangle um to support uh the city advancing this work so we're we're really proud proud of the partnership thank you councilman colleagues anyone else Mr director good to see you man thank you so much colleagues before we settle I'm going to circle back to the item that I said we would dispose of under other matters the so council member R I'll yield to you on the bow hunting issue you were uh yeah just just um seeking seeking I guess I don't know if it's a vote or consensus among my colleagues just to put this on um a gba at an upcoming meeting just to have a vote up or down on the on the on the changes that I think um deput manager at Ferguson had initially drafted we had some questions about it at a work session so we've got feedback from the attorneys sub I think we ought to put the revised ordinance on a meeting agenda so we can have it up down boat on that I'm wondering if we should put it on a work session I I don't think we've had opportunity to treat it in a work

session publicly since the uh I mean I will say like so we did have the work session conversation I think the from the memo that we got from from um attorney miles there's like I don't think there was whole lot of change that we could anticipate with and maybe attorney R if you could help with that that I don't think there's any changes suggested to the the the changes that uh bo Ferguson first presented at our original work there's no changes there it's the same ordinance right or same changes to the ordinance yeah so okay I just wanna I I mean I I but I'm happy if we want to bring it back to another well yeah let me explain my rational I I I don't want to I I try not to determine what's substantive or I just want to give council members an opportunity to treat it but if you're comfortable with with it going to I I'd prefer for it to appear back before us under regular order in a work session and then place it on that would be December 19th um if every if we're good with that right staff so if we could bring it back on to our December 19th work session um and it

m we are adjourned God bless dur thank y'all