City Council · Regular Meeting · January 23, 2025

all right good afternoon everyone it is uh 1 pm uh we have a few more colleagues that are coming in but we'll go ahead and get started um we'll call the meeting to order at 1M Madame clerk will you please call the rooll thank you Mr Mayor mayor Williams I'm here mayor protm Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member Caballero One Way council member cook One Way council member Freeman council member rist thank you um yeah they're coming all right announcements council member cook um good afternoon everyone I um I'm going to be requesting a an

an update for the following work session so just wanted to state that I don't know if you wanted to do it now or if we wanted to do it during other matters at the end I'll leave that up on of funding okay you can you can just I might hold off at least until our other council members or I don't think it's anything uh controversial you it's information so you can request it and but staff will take it from there okay great so my request is going to be for um a report on funding either state or federal around um the ending the HIV epidemic so that includes Hawa um and then there's some other funds in there as well just a a report about how those have been used um and um sort of what agencies are involved in the distribution of those funds so that is my request if I have support from my colleagues um I I don't think I don't think it's a big I don't

think it's a problem we also kind of addressed it we sort of talked about it on Monday night but uh I don't I mean it's just information uh getting what funding we have coming in right yeah how and how we're spending it yeah good okay and then my hop was specifically on is your request right I love it yes I'm I'm looking for any funding having to do with um that we get specifically having around HIV are you looking for I was yeah yeah I think I think if we were to add any of the other pots of money in it would be just a much bigger conversation um so that was haa and other HIV specific funding state and federal and then um I also am going to need to request a an excused absence for our next council meeting on the thir okay um you want to go ahead and do that now just right a motion to excuse absence

okay all in favor I all right all oppos good uh just to add to your request I will say that um uh Durham uh we are a member of the African-American Mayors Association and uh we received a uh we received support and resources to uh look at a uh a risk assessment as we're moving into the uh presidential administration of what uh funding we have coming in from the federal government this is not just specific specific to any one particular area but everything so our department heads have already been requested to provide what funding we're getting at the federal level and um just sort of assessing the risk on that you know how do we prepare how do we maneuver and how we can best navigate to additional funding how we should make uh adjustments to funding we're currently getting and uh if there

are if there's funding that we're getting on a recurring basis then you know just looking at whether we're going to keep getting it how do we maneuver or adjust to keep getting it or if we're not going to get it how do we better position ourselves so uh we're working with so Durham is the model City I'm working with uh a firm called ice Miller uh in the African-American mes Association so what that will do is it will will provide uh the the outline for an assessment that cities could take on uh they can Implement in their own cities to assess their risk levels and then uh also how to generate um recommendations on working with the new Administration did I miss anything um commiss so that uh so council member could you'll get your report but we just know that I'm I'm engaged in something that's going to do the entire higher city which would be really good for us so thank you have a quick question yes sir thank

you first off yeah I have no issues with it whatsoever I do want to just for just for um just so I'm understanding and we give each other great difference when it comes to putting issues on on the um work session so so you know I certainly honor that but I do is is would this be information that we have not just for staff have not already received in some form or fashion or is this something that is in regular course and in regular order would would normally come before us at at an appointed time or is there something um and also uh council member cook um it would this is this just pure information or are you looking for some type of policy action on on behalf of the council subsequent to it is this something in other words is something that's already readily available and is there something um that would have come before us in regular course anyway that that's for staff and I guess that's also asking are you clear on what you're being asked for thank you mayor proam uh so this is

not an item that was scheduled to come forward as a business item at this point the the use of these funds uh is generally I imagine set during the budget process and then we may have occasional conversations in front of council we would be responding to this in similar fashion to other requests that have been made from the Das and agreed to by members of council like the Vision zero uh update that is provided today that would be how we would receive that uh it is generally though our presumption that that comes with the endorsement of a majority of council members so um that either uh a consensus or a notd of heads that that represents the will of the council to bring a report forward we we we'll be happy to provide I feel like that's at the discretion of the council yeah Abol my question wasn't to process or or how we how we execute it I'm actually talking about the substance of what will be coming for us but you answered it thank you ABS I look forward to the report thank you yeah and to answer your second question there was not a policy request it is just information this does come

before a Citizens Council as well but it does not come in a recording set a recorded setting um and and we are Durham um uses that funding actually for multiple counties as well so I think it it would be good to have that conversation absolutely I think it's timely and I appreciate your you're requesting it absolutely thank you Mr Mayor thank you all thanks for that um um council member Baker thank you ready thank you good afternoon everyone I just have a few announcements I just wanted to thank um all city workers um with the winter storm I know that um many city workers don't get to stay home when it's cold and um so just want to thank everyone who's been working on our rows and and keeping um sidewalks clear and I also wanted to shout out Michelle sepes Gomez who was um was here with us in the audience uh she was our the city's first language access coordinator uh she's been with the city I think since 2020 and so I know she's uh moving on to another position but I just wanted

to say thank you to her and her service and uh the city just lifting up this work is seen as a leader in the state now because of our language access work uh the governor um Governor Cooper and now Governor Stein uh are trying to create a language access plan for the entire State and all agencies and the City of Durham has been active in that space partly because of Michelle's leadership and our Communications Department broadly so just wanted to say thank you that is all thank you council member Freeman thank you uh good afternoon everyone I also want to make sure to say thank you to all of our city employees who've been hard at work making sure that our roads are safe and um the trash is picked up I um also need to request an excused absence for the February 3rd meeting as well and um I'm not sure if I need an excused absence for the legislative meeting I think on the 30th I'm not sure how that works but no you'll just miss the food it's okay I'll be in New Orleans I'll get good okay you you don't have to brag you don't have to brag keep that to

yourself you know but um I I I did also want to just um I don't know if we should take it up in other matters but I do want to have a conversation about some of the Town Halls that need to come up in the next few months I know that there have been some requests around um housing and uh transportation again and so I just want to make sure that um figure out how to navigate that with all of us so um I can leave that to other matters um other than that I I do think I know there's something else but it'll come to me that's all for now thank you thank you R than Mr Mayor yeah again wanted to shout out City staff for all the work they've been doing with these these really cold temperatures on the roads warming shelters White Flag nights all this stuff it's it's um it's a old time it's dangerous time so I appreciate the staff and our partners who are doing the hard work at this time also want to say Hearts go out to the City of Raleigh there's been two um very H high-profile homicides in the last couple weeks um

and so our hearts go out to the families involved the folks in Raleigh and also our colleagues in fact our new new mayor in Raleigh mayor Janet cow who are all dealing with this very tragic and it's uh very upsetting and again Hearts go out to them in Raleigh thank you thank you Mr Mayor good afternoon honorable colleagues everyone one uh in chamber with us today and those who may be those who are watching on whatever platform you may be watching uh thank you for being with us today let me echo my colleagues ACC commendations and appreciation to our staff our First Responders those who are awake while we're sleeping and out in the cold while we're warm uh then a marvelous as usual a marvelous job um in not only preparing us for the weather but in responding as well so we are we are always grateful no announcement may I just want to um just as as the elected leader in this city reaffirm uh my personal commitment to the city's work on diversity equity and inclusion I I want to reaffirm my personal commitment as an elected leader to the city to our language Access program um the the White House's Spanish

website is now dark um other websites of gond dark uh we are a municipality and and while we give due difference what is due to the federal government um you know we're a republic so we we believe in local control um so I just want to reaffirm our commitment to to the values of of our city um and to our residents many of them who are experiencing great anxiety um today that's it thank you Mr Mayor thank you um council member Freeman I just want to make sure you do get the excused absence I'm happy to make a motion all right it's been mov and properly seconded all in favor all right all OPP post thank you all right um is that the same meeting that you're gonna be missing as well all right that's the that's the third right okay yep all right I just want to remind everyone and make sure I continue to invite folks to the state of the city February 18th um there's another event going on

at Duke that I'm not sure if the Embargo is released yet so I'll hold off on announcing it uh that is going to be really good for the D Community um and yeah I uh I sometimes I just love taking on adventures so uh I wrote my bike in the snow um I was safe went on that I came in you on the snow it was it was fun and I was safe uh but while I was riding around and also while walking my dog I saw our um city workers just like it like a rapid response mode like they are so good at what they do and I just wanted to shout them out because it was extremely cold out there and um while the city was dark and everyone is inside they were out and about doing their thing and um I just really wanted to shout them out and it's always cool to see them hey man hey what's going on man and they're out hard at it so uh thank you all to our entire uh City forest

this out there during those cold times um again just uh want to um remind our parents that um to please engage in our you know uh not only City website but into you know just uh just general Community organizations that are youth focused in our community and reach out for help if you need help uh if you are seeing a particular behavior that is not desirable to you and your child or your teenager please please do not wait until it's too late to say something uh I I keep keep saying you know we have to stop waiting 18 years to get involved with a child's life um because when they get to a point where they're dead then everyone want to throw their hands up and and and say you know we need to do this and we need to do that um so I employ our community to be

more proactive and getting engaged uh this is something that's personally passionate um that I'm personally passionate about and um I I I know I have a lot of folks reaching out to me right now about housing situations and trying to get out of leases and things and uh I can't respond to everybody as fast as I need to or want to uh but I am passing on those messages to the agencies uh and I am working uh behind the scenes right now as aggressively as I can to ensure that our systems are working with one another uh within our Public Safety apparatus and with our housing providers and um this morning council member cavier and I spent about an hour an hour and a half or two on a call with uh the triangle Apartment Association just looking at ways that we could find out uh how we can better house folks and and and that's with the challenges of the industry as well uh so let's just make sure we are

engaging as best as possible I know also that there are some fears around immigration I won't talk a lot about this publicly because I don't want to put Targets on anyone's back um I mentioned this on Monday uh Tuesday night but uh no I'm not going to hold a big town hall pulling folks together I know I've been there have been requests for that I don't think that's the safest approach um but if you are in our immig immigrant community and you are uh really afraid right now rightfully so uh I would ask you to reach out to uh your council members and myself and we can direct you to uh where some Community conversations are happening um obviously uh council member Caballero this is something that is personally uh a lived experience and uh she has a lot of knowledge around resources and conversations so uh not to throw you put you to work or whatever but yeah um but just just just know that

there's we're not quiet and not doing anything um but do know we have to be really strategic and how things happen that being said um let's get to priority items all right manager Ferguson good afternoon mayor mayor PRM members of city council uh the city manager's office does have several priority items first agenda item number eight contract for site evaluation and identification for the algo flow Way project and presentation there'll be a presentation made today during this January 23rd city council work session agenda item number 14 a contract with corporate facts to reconcile Community Development block grants cdbg emergency Solutions Grant ESG housing opportunities for persons with AIDS hwa allocations a supplemental item was added to your packet and will be on the agenda today uh an update on Vision zero will be made during the January 23rd

work session uh supporting materials are attached under the priority items by the city manager City attorney and city clerk section of your agenda uh my recommendation mayor is to receive that presentation at at the end of today's presentations and then not in my memo but I did want to announce to council that at our next work session on February 6 uh myself and Deputy city manager win Bush will both be at the North Carolina city county management association Deputy city manager Chadwell will be Staffing the meeting on behalf of the manager's office those are my priority items thank you uh I'll yeah go ahead yeah M approve man M approve can me get a second second thank you it's been moved and properly seconded to accept the city manager priority items all in favor I'll oppose thank you right Madame attorney good afternoon Mr Mayor Mr Mayor ptim members of the council city

attorney's office has no priority items today thank you very much mam Court good afternoon Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proem and City Council Members the same for the city CL office no items pardon me pardon me actually I have the board and committee report and um all of the nominations are in the workers Rights Commission appointment Cone Fennerty Ítalo Melo and Elizabeth reinstein have been nominated and for the housing appeals board TAA weor has also been nominated and that's the end of my report thank you all right all right I'll now uh address the consent agenda number one Durham rer Duram Durham workers Rights Commission appointments number two housing appeals board appointment number three approval

of city council me minutes number four audit Services oversight committee asoc calendar year 2024 annual report number five First Amendment to the interlocal cooperation agreement between the city of Durham and the county of Durham's contractor Joint Communications plan glad to see that uh number six fiscal year 2025 Capital Improvement plan project close out number seven amendments to the city of durhan police and fire compensation plans number eight just want to say great looks great yes indeed excited uh number eight contract for site evaluation and identification for the legal flow Way project and presentation number nine closing the American Rescue plan act funding for the Western intake partnership projects uh number 10 participatory budgeting cycle for launch update number 11 zoning map change picket Apartments 12 Consolidated annexation 2613 CER Road

13 Consolidated annexation Mariah Ridge and number 14 contract with corporate ta FCS to reconcile Community Development block grant cdbg emergency Solutions Grant ESG housing opportunities for persons with AIDS Hawa allocations I'll be buing 14 all right CC member C did I hear you as well y 14 just 14 right all right so that is our consent agenda with uh with the exception of item number 14 being pulled at this time I will go to our citizen matters first person I have is Mary Molina and after Mary Molina Ken

Pew thank you hi I'm Mary Molina uh my address is on file I have a few comments to make given the current situation in Durham this is called we are the homeless I lost my apartment I lost my job I lost my house to the bank I lost my husband I lost my wife my parents disowned me I lost my health to drugs to depression to PTSD to sudden illness I'm a veteran I'm a runaway I'm an addict I'm a victim of domestic violence I'm an old schoolmate you danced with it prom I just got out of jail I just got out of rehab out of a mental facility off suicide watch I was your neighbor and you knew me my kids went to school with yours I used to work for you in your office in your

restaurant in your school in your yard I'm homeless not worthless our parents taught us the same lessons about Justice and charity judge not lest you be judged do unto others and love thy neighbor I'm homeless can you see me now thank you Ken pu Pew welcome and if you don't mind pronouncing your name I want to make sure a PE okay like in a church good afternoon Mr Mayor and council members I'm Ken Pew address on file I'd like to thank you for your renewed commitment I've heard several council members make over the past year to the urban growth boundary through the Udo rewrite process I recognize you've had to make some tough decisions to honor that boundary which promotes the goals

of density and infill reduced infrastructure cost and enhanced transit AC you've probably heard of a broken window syndrome an abandoned building that may go on SCA s it until that first window is broken and then all the remaining Windows quickly become broken as well the first development that punches through the urban growth boundary is like that first broken window others will soon follow let us honor the the vision for growth that prioritizes thoughtful planning for the benefit of current and future Generations thank you thank you uh next I have Lisa cyel former council member welcome thank you very much mayor

council um I've been outside of the library this morning morning for hours waiting for it to open it um apparently was a three-hour delay back um of is continued and people are in the cold people who have to leave the shelter at 99: were not able to get into the library or a warming space um until noon and I would like us to try to be more careful of people who are homeless and I know there's lots going on with the with the snowstorm um but it was you know possible for me to drive around and check on uh homeless people and I would hope that the city and county um would do um more uh to protect our our people and um and I hope with some of the funds that

we do receive from HUD if we do get um some funds for people um to um get housing this is what people want they don't want to be homeless they don't want to be out in the cold but um it's it's very difficult in Durham to find a place to live affordably on a social security or a disability check so I I would um ask you um as you go through your budget to uh do as much as you possibly can to make sure that our people are are safe and warm this winter thank you thank you Angela Vic Lewis Angie hello good to you again Angela Vic Lewis uh 4215 Del Avenue Apartment 4D

Durham North Carolina and I come to all of you guys I J and all of you out here and my topic is what touches home with me it's homelessness you know me that from out that that's one I always talked about I'm lived the experience from being here and I can say that from starting in 2003 in Washington DC where I'm from at MIT Snider it's a difference from here as far as housing or helping the homeless heatwise um I've been on the board of AAC been on a couple other boards as far as helping the homeless out here I come to you all and everyone out here to help these people that are out in the street when it's this cold weather right now

Lissa and I have been for the last couple of years continuously hot or cold helping last week to see elderly people elderly man in a wheelchair with a little jacket on no gloves no hats nothing and nowhere to go not to live I'm not asking y'all to LIF them in a home but somewhere like a all these empty buildings open them up let some of them have somewhere to stay warm if not but a couple hours during the day before they can find shelter at night if I open up my yard I would open it up Point Blank these people need help before we be having bodies instead of bodies that be taken care of so I just ask each and every I challenge you stand out there in that

cold for about 3 hours with no gloves no hat no nothing and then maybe you can see how some of them because homelessness comes in all kind of categories out there in that street you can pick and choose which one that you could put on each person but no one no one needs to be found Frozen because of nowhere to go in this city with all these buildings coming up thank y'all thank you so much lastly I have Mr Dennis Garrett so what I want to do is uh I want to talk about this violence that's going on I mean we are I I commend y'all for all you're doing and also I like to say to Mr Ferguson welcome to Duram welcome back to Durham and H I want to say to you I truly understand the past but I like for the principle to go ahead or the personality right thank you for

what you've done lack of knowledge had me saying and doing some things in the past I want to I want to say in public I apologize right but what I want to talk about right now is that this violence that's going on to stop the violence I don't know what y'all movement is or what's next for y'all to do but I want to be included like I ain't up here to ask you for no money I'm actually I'm up here to ask you for what assistance I can give you to help stop this violence you know what can we do as a unit to make sure that these kids like I got kids coming to me all they want to do is to be able to go on the other side of town without wearing a hoodie you know like they just want to be able to go to the grocery store like what can we do like all the buildings y'all building this a great thing because we growing in Durham you know I'm born and red in Durham Angie Avenue that's where I'm from you know the the the the the regenify $88,000 houses to $700,000 homes that's cool but who going to live in them or those that live in them all you going to do is give the population that I'm talking about a bigger Target

to shoot because man if you ain't eating you ain't eating so the violence going come to your neighborhood so I'm asking you what can I do you know I want to introduce myself to some and reintroduce myself to others like I'm here to help DM you know east durm south side I can go any side of durm it don't matter you know I ain't trying to claim a set I'm trying to save a life right we talking about things that matter everything y'all saying it matters but none of that matters if we don't save the life so I'm asking every one of y'all I'm going leave these cards up here if it don't matter leave them up there throw them away it don't matter but if you care about I care about these kids that's not going to school these kids who they their mama smoking crack the daddy in jail they ain't got nobody to answer to except those that's giving them something let's give them an outlet I'm here to ask you what can I do to say these children life and if you concerned the way I'm concerned one of y'all call me thank you mayor for all you do thank you thank you mayor Pro Temp when you call me thank you uh D you know and and

I really want to say thank you you are making a major difference so I ioy Mr Ferguson and and the work that you're doing I know that y'all come together and make a better durm but I'm here to be in the middle like let me be the translator from the streets to the County Commissioners thank You' all for your time thank you all right uh we'll go ahead and um let's just knock out number 14 and then we can just do our presentations this item number 14 was pulled by uh mayor protim and council member cook I'll yield to council member cook for her questions often times you anticipate what I was going to ask anyways

uh good afternoon um I was actually just going to start by this was added um relatively late to our agenda so if you could just give us a brief synopsis so that folks listening at home um know what we're talking about because I think we've been hearing quite a bit about some of these vouchers but this is a a bit of a different piece of it so I was hoping you could just give us a a brief summary and then I'll have some specific questions as well oh be glad to uh council member Reginal J Johnson director Community Development Department for the city of dorm uh the purpose of this item is to engage uh firm corporate facts uh to to help us with some reconciliation of three of our uh entitlements uh emergency Solutions grants the um hot housing opportunities for persons with age as well as Community Development block grant the uh home funds which is actually part of our entitlement has already been reconciled uh we uh did that uh La last concluded that last year the purpose of

this is to uh ensure that the balances are exacted requires a certain degree of precision between the Idis which is the as I've shared with before you the federal checkbook and our uh general ledger the city's checkbook so it's more uh in some respects Technical and in Weeds but the balances do have to be uh precise um we uh need to have uh some more uh reconciliation to make sure those are are exact and so that's the purpose of this uh this uh contract in summary um so I have a couple questions about the contract I guess corporate facts is this an an organization that we have worked with before is this I know that sometimes the federal government has contractors that they recommend is that how we found them or have we worked with them in the past do we have other contracts ongoing with them actually it's both we have our work with number one we have worked with them in the past as I mentioned uh as mentioned in the

memo and I've shared before they have uh work with us to reconcile our home balances uh which was part of the uh $8 million that we use with the uh the uh Durham Housing Authority project and also provide a consultation in in that regard um we have used them probably about four years ago uh with uh issue related to uh some assistance with as that was paid for by Hood so it's actually been both of the examples that you Shar and forgive me if I'm misremembering but are there is there part of these grants that do go to the process of of um reconciliation do we when we get funding by from HUD for these grants part of it for administerial work so if I understand your question uh

some of the grants do have administrative uh portion that we use to defray salary cost okay that was going to be my question so all of that is all of that administerial cost or administerial part of that budget we have utilized for our staffing is that that's correct that's correct um and some other minor other administrative expenses but those are relatively minor and and sorry can you tell me one more time because I I know I've read this but it it's last minute um the ones the ones that we are looking for assistance in um reconciling are cdbg hwa and ESG emergency solution SC and what was it about those three or why was it these three that

that didn't we don't feel like we can meet the deadline in February well one the we did uh reconcile home so that's the reason there they four programs and we've already done home uh it took quite a bit of time for us to do that we've actually uh been working on it uh internally ourselves but we need to uh have some more expertise uh particularly as it relates to the technical uh regulations aspect there are two parts to it one is of course accounting uh but the other is that sits on the same plane is uh making sure that all of the rules are here to with the Idis and how um uh programs are entered into the Idis system from the start the federal that's the federal checkbook but we've used this system the Idis system is the same that we've used every year for yes it yes it is okay and have we in the past needed to contract out for um any of the four of those

grants um I'm trying to remember we've gotten assistance with Idis in terms of the work that we've done that has happened before so that is not new uh but I don't think we contracted by Grant I'm looking to my assistant director's okay no we haven't done it by Grant okay thank you those are all my questions for now but I might have some more thank you Mr Mayor thank you Regal good to see you um so just just a a couple of questions about our um internal bandwidth and capabilities the ESG um and hot cdbg are these aren't ad hoc things this has been kind of breed and butter for us for many years I I've been looking at these these funding sources coming to us from the feds for many years um so I guess my question is what what is my assumption is that we would have somebody internal we would already have the capacity to make sure we're compliant when it comes to Federal

funding uh we know that Federal funding comes with a lot of strings attached um so I guess my question is H how did we get here and do we need to make sure that we have of the expertise or a person internally since this is this isn't ad hoc money we're always dealing with these funding sources um rather than shopping on 100 grand for for Consulting do we need to do something to make sure that we have the internal capabilities to to reconcile balances with these federal funds that we we're constantly going after so I would say answer your question it's good question council member um one of the things that I would share is that all of that in terms of uh training and Staffing are needed it wasn't of the CH if you remember I did have a high vacancy rate uh particularly uh doing Co in terms of Staffing the two major uh divisions that uh helped with this or had high vacancies during um during covid and just just before going into covid and so

we've been able to feel those and that's one of the reasons that this is coming up is because we have the uh Firepower Electrical uh intellectual Firepower if you will and we can recognize the issues that we need to uh recognize and be able to focus in on them what that does not speak to is just all of the intense work with the other priorities that we need to uh follow to be able to uh B basically write the ship at one time and so once we get it right and we have our standard operating procedures and we have the people in place which we uh we do now but this is a recent uh recent phenomena I guess you say uh then we'll be able to go uh go forth uh uh continuously thank you appreciate you you're welcome thanks Mr Mayor and and thanks C member cook and and mayor ptim I think you anticipated a lot of my questions here thanks Mr Johnson I appreciate you being on the ball and sort of quickly moving to make sure we do hit this deadline I guess in February or whatever to make

sure HUD gets the needed needed reports um I guess my question is simply so so where do we get the $100,000 from how do we how do we find that money to pay for these Consultants so we have used uh uh operating budget the City Community developments operating budget where we have uh funding for special contractual Services uh we do keep um money uh available for things such as this one of the challenges of engaging in federal funds uh is that you do run the risk of things happening that you need some uh consultants and so we do uh keep money uh for for this so it's use our operating budget and then just to go back to Mayor PM's comment so so you're confident that going forward next year that you have the capacity in place you got the people and the training needed so that we don't have to so we can avoid this kind of expense in coming years yes I'm not um don't think that we necessarily need more people of course we need U some more training but once we

can write it then we'll be able to uh keep going forward colleagues any other questions go ahead all right any other comments questions all right so that is item number 14 thank you thank you director Johnson right so we'll go ahead and uh go to our um presentations item number eight contract for site evaluation and identification for Al floway project and presentation is this uh monitor working in front of us at

all I could also not be lazy and follow along on my iPad yeah oh biggy we don't have to hold it up if you figure it out that's fine but follow along on the iPad good

okay all right good afternoon mayor Williams mayor proen Middleton members of council and uh manager Ferguson John Baker with the public works department um also here with uh staff from gradient which is a consultant that we've selected for this uh contract um so I'm here today to to talk about the the Alo floway project a contract that we have for the Alo FL project this is an Innovative project that we've been working on for many years in public works and uh it is a a project that will help the city comply with state regulatory requirements in a in a cost-effective manner so I'll talk about the what an algo flow way is how it works why we were searching for a site uh to build one um and then I'll I'll go into the the the proposed contract uh that we bringing to you today the uh scope of work and the proposed budget

and and uh schedule okay so an alal flow away is an engineered treatment system that uses algae to remove excess nutrients from water and the the image on the left here uh is uh I guess behind you now is a a a schematic of a of what an Alo flow way looks like so basically the water is pumped from a a river or lake it's sent across this uh large pad which is called the flow way algae grows it it removes the nitrogen and phosphorus the nutrients in the water and then the cleaner water is returned back to the same water body further Downstream alows can vary in size uh depending on how much water needs to be treated uh the the photo on the right is is a fullscale alof flow way that's in

Florida um it's approximately 4 acres in size it's about 500 ft long and it can treat up to 10 million gallons of water per day so I'll go into a little bit more about how this works as I mentioned uh water is pumped from a river stream or lake and it's distributed across the flow way through this row of pipes at one end and then naturally occurring algae um in the water will grow on the the flow way the pad and in the second photo you can see this dense mat of algae that gets established and it absorbs the excess nutrients in the water and that's how it gets removed to continue this process of alal growth and nutrient removal the algae actually has to be removed every one to two weeks and so they do that by essentially driving a tractor with a plow over the flow way and it scrapes It

Off it gets directed to this Flume and then a screen and a rake pulls it off the flow way and then it gets set aside in piles to dry out and then lastly um it can be turned into compost um put into potting soil mixture uh reused in some way um it can also it would also uh could also be disposed of in a landfill however the city would prefer to to reuse this of course course um so this is the continual process that happens um on the system so we we are uh seeking to build an Alo flow way because uh we think it is a time and cost effective way to uh comply with the the state Falls Lake nutrient management strategy also known as The Falls Lake rules

um as you know the fsck rules are going to be very costly for for the city and so we've been looking at uh the algo floway technology since about 2013 and through feasibility studies and and pilot study we've determined this uh the Nal flow way to be more time and cost effective than uh common storm water control measures or scms and so uh because if we build one flow way um and versus many SCS to remove the same amount of nutrients um we can save the city on millions of dollars on uh Construction and design costs um we can save staff time uh and Consulting costs on managing um we won't have to manage as many projects and properties and also this would lead to shorter time to comply with the Falls Lake

rules the contract that we bringing to council is a Professional Services contract to search for um and identify a suitable site for an algo flow way within Durham County and the Falls Lake Watershed um so we're only looking within the city and county limits uh for properties the consultant would be U performing tasks such as uh leading uh public Outreach and communic uh Community engagement tasks such as you know uh developing press releases and fact sheets leading um public information meetings for residents uh and and getting feedback from residents also communicating with land owners and neighbors uh where we would doing be doing the site search so they would do a detailed site search with GIS mapping and using a lot of different criteria a lot of different data such as stream water quality data

Stream flow data and then narrow in on a site and then they would do more field assessment of environmental conditions engineering considerations such as stream buffers and wetlands um where where were the the the Alo flow way would be cited and uh where you know the intch pipe would be in the those kinds of things they're also going to do an estimated uh construction costs for the site and a schedule for the future design and permitting and construction of an alof flow at that site and we have three optional tasks in the budget um one is a 30% site plan so this would Aid the city with those future design permitting and construction um phases if there's enough uh space on the site then they could evaluate for solar power and then let's say that we do not

find one large site for a 4 acre algo flow way but maybe we find two smaller sites for two smaller algo flow ways we have this additional site evaluation task which would um allow us to look at two sites versus one and then the final report would summarize all these tasks and um the methods and calculations and findings and this is the proposed uh project schedule and budget um the optional tasks are accounted for in the schedule and the budget and I just wanted to point out that um the additional site evaluation task would add about $320,000 uh to the the contract amount um and the the difference between the total cost and with and without ta the optional tases about $420,000 um and so you can see that the

total cost there is 1,233 32 and that includes the optional tasks and 15% in contract contingencies all right thank thank you for your time I know that was a lot of information um but I'm here to answer any questions thank you colleagues have C uh thank you that was a great presentation I um have not been around for the kind of buildup for this so it's it's very exciting to learn about and um so I just had a couple of quick questions I think for me when I hear about these projects that feel like so awesome I'm always in the back of my head like worried about any sort of potential negative impacts and I'm particularly thinking about that in terms of um environmental justice concerns right because in in the past I feel like we've always had these

innovative solutions we've done some like preliminary Community engagement we've talked to people about what's going in there and then we end up with a dump that is the second largest methane gas producer in the world in the country so um I'm I'm particularly just worried about any potential um sense or any potential I mean it's naturally occurring algae so I I assume that we aren't looking at a large potential for I don't know any sort of things coming out of the water that would potentially come through the ground or any smells through the air or anything like that but I'm just wondering if there's anything that I would be missing or I should be thinking about in terms of the impact of where this might go in does that make sense sure thing yeah um you know some of the questions and concerns that have been raised you know about this in in previous uh phases of this project have

been you know what is the odor what is the noise nuisances um and I can so I can speak from just actually my own experience I was able to go down to Florida and visit this is one of the flow ways that I visited they have two in in Vero Beach Indian River County Florida so I was able to see it I did see it in the winter time um but uh there to me there was not uh a consider like a nuisance odor the algae does smell like you know we can keep it on the site to compost it there or it can be removed right away um when it's drier uh it's less heavy and so it's easier to to move it um but the staff in in Florida have said that you know it sounds like it smells sort of like organic material um but it doesn't travel very far so they they

don't have any complaints from Neighbors um they their their neighbors are not right next to it so there are residential areas but they're not right next to it um but I did not smell any any bad or foul o odors there um there's no issues with mosquitoes um you know some of the piles could have maybe some flies around them because it is organic material um but the goal would be to uh turn these piles you know into composts and move them off the site obviously this is a continuous process though um those are some of the main concerns that we've heard before um there there are a lot of other benefit benefits to to it um like it actually will improve dissolved oxygen it'll also remove uh sediment or suspended sediment in the water because it gets trapped in

that that alal mat um yeah those are some of the I think bigger concerns obviously this the size we need a large size for it um but could you know in in Florida they had a lot of uh tree buffer vegetation from the road I couldn't see it from the street um and they've also added other amenities to it um like trails and that kind of things yeah I mean it it does sound like something that could potentially like be a nice usable space in addition to to serving a f a purpose which would be great um um um yeah I guess the other only other thing would be the truck you know trucks coming on and off the site to um to pick up and transport the the dried algae or

the composted algae um and that you know that estimate that we've gotten from previous uh contracts um a 10 MGD facility would is would produce 21 to 28 truckloads of material per year which averages to about one to two truckloads every every two weeks um but that would probably be less visits you know they could combine the visits um because of the the alal depends on the on the composting process and then I saw that the scheduled in the project schedule we talk about the public Outreach and Community engagement pretty early on yes and that would be prior to selecting a site will there be continued Community engagement throughout the process once a

site is identified because I I just want to make sure that particularly folks who are going to be neighboring understand what's coming in yes yeah the the community engagement will be through the whole life of this this contract and we have um after a site is selected we we have a you know a public information meeting planned and then we have we've built in to have one to two additional meetings uh if more feedback or or answers are needed for the public and my final question is that you might have said this already is this request in um FY 20526 budget have you is this coming for us this year yes yes okay I figured it just do didn't say that um those are all my questions thanks thank you I'm just gonna come around I'll be quick because I think um

the externalities of the site were my main um source of interest I'm curious about this um it's slightly industrial it's slightly an amenity kind of space so in whatever way it's possible to menze it I think that would that would be something that that I would be interested in um and it seems like I mean you visited this this is the one in Vero Beach this is one of the two yeah they're they're close by I'm sorry okay would you say this kind of one of the better one of the Cadillac version sort of versions of of this uh facility I I mean this is the only one I've been to but it is a very nice facility um you so I haven't seen many others so I it's hard for me to say about that I was just curious are there what other um what other facilities are there like this in in North Carolina to my knowledge there are no other alof flow ways in North Carolina um there are some

other smaller scale pilot studies that have been run and tested in north of here in Virginia in uh the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Baltimore um there's been some uh they've been studying it up there as well even as far north as as New York there's been some pilot studies um but full scale ones uh have been mainly in Florida to my knowledge yeah well I appreciate I appreciate you giving this presentation I think um I'm I'm glad that there aren't there don't appear to be enormous negative externalities that come from something like this um and any any possibility that there is to to create a an amenity out of it I think that that would be beneficial so thank you great thank you counselor thank you thank you for the presentation um we did a pilot of this before right because we've we've gotten a presentation about this yes probably

three or four years ago now the the we the previous contract was was actually a site search um and so we're coming back around to try to find another well to find site again okay um but before that was the pilot study right I remember when this initially came to council and it was pretty kind of oh this is cool um uh so I I had a moment of you know Groundhog Day um uh so I think this is really great I I'd like to hear a little bit more about the the solar opportunities like I saw it in the in the um more kind of more expensive but probably still worth it so that's just the question I had yeah we left that as an optional task um um just it there's so much uncertainty with the final site that we will find um so it depends on the space um for solar panels um but it's something we're interested in exploring if if it's

feasible thank you I just want to say as a as one council member that that is actually really important to me I think one of the um big success successes of our Water Management Facility is that it is geothermal and we we put it all in there and um you know the movement on our fire stations just having you know just standardized solar panels on top I I think it meets our um our goals as a city um on energy usage so I just want to say I know that that's an optional task and I know it's site specific but I it is an important one for for me as an individual council member um that that that's about it I think this is great I think it um I I know that I I see Michelle back there I know yall have been working I used to be the unba um liaison uh a few years ago and so I know how important this work is I know um we we do really incredible uh water work in general as a city um and I I think the fact that there is another one of these in North Carolina is a testament to that so thank you thank you thank you and I would just continue those accolades um as well I just had a

couple questions um just on on the side of is there a reason why it's a larger site as opposed to like smaller sites is that is that more beneficial and has that been explored at all it's it's more cost effective um to to build a larger site like this you get more nutrient removal um dollars per pounds nutrient removed um we we are trying this time around we are thinking about if we cannot find the perfect site then we would look at two two smaller sites for example a a 3 million gallon per day uh facility would be about a little over an acre in size the the the pad the flow way footprint and I think the the one that we did see previously was like a longer strip um a lot of strips as opposed to like a a large yeah the pilot the pilot was um basically it was one

sliver of this large this large flow way so it was one foot wide by and I would say I think that might be a way to move forward I'm just one person but I'm just trying to figure out and explore because I want to say that this is like almost too good to be true because we're talking about going from like n million to one mill it just feels like just while we're talking about it not acknowledging that we're cost cutting a lot there may be some other ways to think about it that are multi-site so that it's not all in one area right because that's where the environmental like Injustice occurs it's like you just dump it all in one neighborhood right so if there's ways to spread it out because it is a necessary need um so that it's kind of weighted across our community I think that would be helpful and then I would also concur with Caballero coun m caber's point about solar that is a great way to offset our carbon footprint and so if there's any any ways to to do that and I would also contend if there's

any way to combine it with some of the search sites I guess or renewed sites for fire department I know that the need for new fire you know stations is on the rise and if there are some that could come into this because you were doing a smaller site or what have you I think that should also be something that we're exploring um those are just a few thoughts are you meaning adding adding something like this to a new fire station site okay I mean it's something it hasn't been done it hasn't been done and because we're doing it first it doesn't mean we need to do it exactly as they did in Bureau Florida right we need to think about what we need and how we would want to do that here thank you for those comments I also one additional thing I was just and I didn't want to throw it out but I do think it's important to know with the Duke diet and fitness center site being as large as it is is that large enough for something like this uh yeah like I said it's sizable so

something like that potentially could be large enough um I'd have to defer to the the engineers that not be in the right flow way and I mean that yeah you're talking about a site like that yeah yes and then also to to council member Baker's point about the amenities just kind of keeping that Duke diet Fitness amenity site in Mind Correct parus like yeah the the one of the sites in Florida has uh um it this flows into like a stream restoration Wetland restoration that has Trails um which is very nice that's a m mayor um yeah appreciate the question for my colleagues thanks for the presentations I love the Innovative idea um though I do have a little bit of like council member cook and others a little bit of like well this sounds like sounds like we all remember Jordan Lake and what

were they the solar bees that were a complete disaster right so like but this sounds like a little bit more Sound Idea um I wonder just to start with I wonder if you could because I am I'm also the unba representative right now as you probably know so I wonder if you just for the record State I know that we are currently in the we're in the phase one rules right we're getting it ready to to get to go to phase two which would require even increased uh nutrient reduction right can you just just for the council and for the record identify what that cost would be given where where it looks like phase two would go what the cost of the city of Duram would be to meet those phase two rules I'm looking over at Michelle because she's um all this do you know the the actual cost man I know it's substantial that's why I just want to make sure for the record hey Michelle Michelle wol John is great U Michelle wol with public works department water quality manager so we

haven't done another cost estimate for state stage two since stage two was adopted and at the time it was adopted both Public Works and water management came to council and gave estimates of what we thought the rules were going to cost at that time that would have been 2010 um so long time a lot of inflation since then at that time um at least a billion right we're yeah I'm sorry at least a billion right it was it was a billion a piece so it was about a billion for water management and our estimate for storm water was about 800,000 that was based on the knowledge that we had at the time and we also recognized that that would not have gotten us to the reductions that were required so it would have gotten us a long way but not to where we were supposed to get thank you appreciate that yeah yeah um right as we as you know so we're we're going through this sort of we're trying to redo the rules in phase two and part of it is to go more towards this investment type

2 million in the current budget this is um as part of our Capital Improvement program um so it it is it's in the CIP it is in the CIP yeah that's great and then so for these Pilots you talked about I appreciate the questions from coun Baker so it sounds like there Vero Beach is one maybe in Virginia has this been commonly used in in cities and communities across the country or is this a pretty still pretty new and Innovative idea the idea of Alo Flow Away I would say it's still new and Innovative um again the the full scale size ones uh that I know of are in Florida um and there are smaller uh smaller scale ones in that have either been shorter term or have been used for research purposes they're in

6 million gallons over that year um the detention time is about 10 10 to 12 minutes

6 million

gallons that came in yeah that was the average yes and do you have a sense of what that what that and because the obviously Falls Lake's large right so what would that how does that translate into sort of nutrient reduction in Falls Lake is that sort of like a microscopic or does that make a does that make a significant dent in Falls Lake it it would make a big dent in the amount that the city would be required to remove as far as um um under the the new rules yeah yeah so for example um the estimates from from the pilot study um let's see I don't have this okay so they they they did estimates with our our previous site selection process and the the nutrient reduction range was 3,000 to 6,000 pounds of nitrogen depends on um a lot of factors

temperature flow those kinds of things um the the nutrient content in the water um the phosphorus reduction range was 508 to 656 pounds per year and obviously we get more removal during the warmer months because you have more alal growth and less removal during the the cold winter months because the AL algae are not growing um as fast again so what's that is a percentage of our um expected nitrogen our nutrient reduction targets for those two uh nutrients yeah um so the let's see the city of Durham so this is as of 2018 um our removal requirements was 2,859 pounds of nitrogen and 297 pounds

of phosphorus per year um so you this would be in a in a very effective year it could be helping us comply with those would help us meet those goals the whole goal yeah right that's great um thank you and then my last question is so just to compare this to Vero Beach again so so in Vero they're they're taking water out of is this a lake on the western side of or is it sort of more closer to the coast like what's the what's the body of water they working with good question it's actually a canal um you know they have a lot of canals down there so it's a a canal that's very nearby um I don't remember how far they have to pump um they actually have a submersible pump in the canal or adjacent to the canal and um that's the that's the source water right so presumably they and that's a 4 acre side in Vera right the one we're looking at uh yeah this one this one is actually also pulling water from a a uh a brine reverse osmosis brine

facility so it's some water from there but it's it's also Canal water yeah so it's it's a much smaller body of water I guess then then Falls Lake with that they're that they're drawing from right that's correct yeah and and with this site search we would be looking at the the streams rivers and uh like around our reservoirs so um Little River reservoir uh Lake Mickey we would not be pulling water directly from Falls Lake so it would be either the little river or lake Mickey is what you're looking at those are those are areas so anywhere north of well in within the Falls Lake Watershed in Durham County in the city but it all would it all would meet the Falls Lake rules right that's correct okay thank you yeah thank you thank you Mr May thank you colleagues for some some excellent engagement and questions um so this isn't a commitment to build this is a this is a find find the spot um and and I'm glad that um I

mean the public Outreach and engagement and there there will be an environmental assessment and Engineering analysis that will have the ability to sink our teeth into we it may not be next to anybody we don't know where this is going to be which which leads me to some some questions about the uh scope of work my my assumption is that the our already existing uh uh real estate portfolio the city or county has been precluded the fact that that we already know based upon our own internal assessment of our real estate holdings that we do not currently hold land in our name that would meet this the uh that would be suitable for this project correct so one of the big um factors is the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water and the volume of water those are the two big factors for where we we would site this and so we we do we are going to be looking at uh city property around those Lakes as I

mentioned um as possibility the reason why I asked I I imagine the the it it would be a less intensive search if if we knew that we had real estate in proximity to this to where we need to be so I guess guess my question is I mean we know what we own today correct is there anything that's even from a thumbnail assessment po potentially within the range uh of of of usability or utility for this project I staff would know that do do we do we own anything there where we need to be a lot of money to look for land I'm just curious to do we know we already own some near it anybody the um we would we would I think the the important thing is to still look at what's the water quality today so this was done um a couple years ago and um we did look at City sites in the last time

um but we're we're going to relook at them again to see if basically there there's more nutrients um so got you the um so the you want to answer more okay and Michelle will hook again so I just wanted to add to what John said during the first round of looking for sites we were very focused on getting something close to Falls Lake kind of getting at what council member rist was talking about so we looked at properties that were kind of within a certain mileage distance from the border of Falls Lake and yes we did include City properties in those some of actually most of the City properties didn't meet some other criteria um so this project would go beyond that so we would be obviously Lake Mickey and Little River Reservoir are not really close to Falls Lake that's a lot further away um so we're going to look a lot farther away this time and we haven't actually looked at City properties in that kind of boundary

previously it was all very close to the lake got you does that answer your question absolutely do we have anything though that far out is Is We I don't know okay fair enough that that'd be good to know um so there there could potentially be real estate acquisition needed for this project yes and and in doing an engineering analysis it once the site uh because it looks like the the final report will be keyed in on a particular site we're not going to get a menu of sites correct as I read this report so um assuming an engineering analysis is done on that site um environmental assessment and it's something we have to eventually buy with that will that involve placing it under cont contct is there Authority in this contract to to contract land or if we communicate that we're interested in buying the land I don't want to Telegraph to other potential buyers that that you know so I guess once we identify the site what is the process in terms of us having access to do engineering analysis and does that require some type of

contractual um commitment by the city and is there we would have to obviously get permission from the property owners to for the the Consultants to go on site to to do uh assessments um the the acquisition would happen after this contract so it would not be part of this contract no I understand that but to access the site we're going to communicate our intent while we're looking at yes will that not will they not will that not require some type of earnest money or some type of of they're just gonna let us on out of out of magnanimity I'm just curious as to you know in improving this contract what once you identify the site if that's going to be the site ultimately I how do we protect against it getting snatched from us before you get back to us and we say go ahead and buy it that's a good that's a good question um happens every once in a while yeah we don't have anything in the contract for that right now um the

previous contract anything uh with acquisition was was attempted after right yeah okay um all right I'm just yeah and again a lot of these questions are just just you know from a lay person's point of view you you you get a piece of land presumably somebody owns it what what's the conversation hey we're we're thinking about buying this we'd like to come on and dig up and do some work and you know as a city how how how does that conversation happen and what do we do but um I'm excited about the project and um these questions you don't have to answer them now the staff can get back um with the details um on that just a Tik Tock uh Question Time T what is what is the uh the date certain for compliance with with um uh the new rules I imagine it's years away yeah yeah originally it's 2040 um that's still is that still holding um but they're re reexamining so the unrb RBA did a reexamination

submitted a report um as well as the What's called the NC collaboratory which was UNC uh and they submitted reports to the state that the state is now reviewing um and so it's currently delayed until they approve that or they they uh reissue the the the new rules okay cool and let me just say editorially thank you for the work the it's a tough thing where nutrient management is a good thing the ultimate end is a good thing but even as we're working to get to a good end we're still worried about not doing as we want to save the water hey don't poison the water don't don't so it's the these decisions are are tough I hope folk that are watching uh have an appreciation for how how Nuance the decision-making process can be so thank you uh for the work appreciate thank you Mr Mayor just one more quick question I know in the slide it looks like the E

and influ pipes are pretty pretty short right but what what are we talking about like what's a sweet spot for the land you're looking at like how far could you run from a cost perspective like the influent and effluent pipes what are we looking at mile or is it like no more than a quarter mile what's the uh I mean we were the in the previous uh site selection process we were looking at things that were within you know a couple hundred feet so um that's a question for pumping requirements my my supervisor JV is here I don't know if you have any thoughts on that yeah um so I would say within a couple hundred feet would be ideal thank you thank you all colleagues um councilor m c you have an additional comments I actually was going to ask that exact follow-up question um and just curious if we maybe because I I following what may protm said I I do does make me a little anxious if we are kind of outp poking on land that's

already Waterfront which feels like it might be more valuable anyway and then with the possibility of the city buying it I feel like we we might be looking at a lot more cost there um though in thinking about our the piping that we already do um in the city both for drinking water and and waste management I know that laying that is expensive and also maintaining that is expensive and then there's also easements that have to occur so I don't know if that becomes more cost effective but it is an interesting conversation I I just wanted to add one more piece which is that um council member kabier stated that she was just one council person I also am interested in the Solar I think that's a great piece of this if that could all come together um but I also was thinking about the um I know the intent is to reuse that reuse the Alie um and to not have that go to a landfill and that is like a big priority of mine um but I'm also remembering that we contract for the

compost that comes from our um Water Management Facility already and that that compost is not we have we are producing more than the companies are able to use by like a lot um and then this has the possibility for like a lot more of that and so I just want to make sure that there are some conversations happening between departments about possibilities before we sort of end up adding to that I mean it's it's one thing to say that it's compost but it's another thing to have it just sitting there not being used it's not in the landfill which is better than nothing but it also if we can't get it to go anywhere or if it's going to cost an exuberant amount to go somewhere that that's also something I think I'd like to at least balance in way okay thank you thank you thank you um I I uh as I was looking at this initially and council member Baker actually mentioned that just the amenities that could come with it I've mentioned before how Raleigh actually it

mines some of their landfills um where it's like walking trails and parks and things like that um I would be interested in that as well if you were measuring uh our compliance with the false Lake rules with this the best case scenario how what percentage of that those rules and compliance you think we would actually get to well it's a hard question to ask because the new rules are not out yet um well I'm only asking because I and council member R you may be able to answer this better uh when I was uh at some of the UN RBA meetings um we were talking about Falls Lake the rules were the rules were being created or discussed with knowing we were not ever want to be able to meet the actual

compliance rate but we would do our best effort in meeting it uh does that sound about right no I think that's right so like so we're trying to revise those stage two rules because because we right this is what I think Michelle said we we know we're not gonna be able to meet them yeah um so that that's part of the process as well but regardless like we we if we can revise the rules we would be as part of unba obliged to do our our investment on our side to reduce nutrients coming in from from Durham and this is one appears to be one strong way we could do that so yeah it is sort of right it is in the context of these rules that are not that are we're trying to revise real yeah being revived to be more I get that right does that make sense is that are we on yes this is a um big piece of the pie uh but there's the South HBY Wetland project there's um other projects that will need to to comply sounds good okay um in regarding

uh the community engagement Community uh public Outreach and community and public Outreach and engagement I know you said it will go on throughout um do we like what is that look like what what what do you imagine that looking like and what percentage of the budget will go toward that uh that's a good question you're with me um yeah I don't have the actual percentage that the total on that is 80

$889,000 um so yeah we we it will be they're they're also going to be developing a social media plan as well so we will be trying to push this information out from the beginning there's going to be a kickoff meeting to invite the the public to attend um and we'll have virtual options um we're also going to be putting information out on Facebook and Instagram and um they will be also working closely we have a staff member um that does our community engagement internally um so they'll be working with them and um yeah there'll be fact sheets that people can read about the project um and then information sessions uh at different uh points in the project so that people can ask questions provide feedback we're

going to do an online survey as well for people that can't attend the meetings that that want um answer questions answered you know addressed um okay that kind of thing so yeah we want to get buyin from from the community and where it is going to go hopefully thank you um so as a fiduciary of the city uh and this is not necessarily specific to this project but more so a practice Mr manager I'm GNA throw you on the spot here and I know you probably won't be able to answer it because you're like few days in but I have to communicate why we're gonna end up spending nearly $100,000 to do that and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars doing that on just about everything we do and it is really it's a really hard

case to make and I know sometimes it feels like governments you know and weddings are in the same category it's like you know I you know this sounds really it could sound ignorant the way I'm saying it or overly simplified but you know people post on social media all the time you know or do social media plans but when it comes to government it's nearly 100K so I I I know may be oversimplifying it but it's something that we have to communicate to the public and we tend to do community engagement longer than we actually do projects and you know we end up getting you know this paralysis and that's something I'm going to start putting a lot more attention on I I do think that Community engagement and Outreach is extremely important I don't think it should take years um I don't think it should cost $100,000 to just answer answer questions or provide fact sheets um so that's something I think we should definitely look into as a practice in the city um and I'm I'm

almost and Mr manager I'm almost to the point of if we're going to continue spending millions and Outreach then why don't we have that as an internal capacity uh with the city to tackle on each project so that we're not having to rely on external contractors come in to come into a community that they don't know so would you like a response it you know what I don't need a response but uh it's something that I think you and I should probably talk about uh moving forward uh I would say the thank you uh mayor thank you council member Freeman that the the city's approach towards engagement I believe has U evolved over time in response to uh I think what the staff what guidance we've received from Council as far as expectations on the the depth and target audience of Engagement efforts I think uh it's fair to say for a project like this um there is both an element that is true

engagement and an element that is more marketing and Communications so uh perhaps we could be more specific about you know what efforts we use to to get people to come out and talk to us versus those efforts that we use to inform people about what we're doing um and we are happy to be responsive to direction from Council about both the uh length of Engagement how we use engagement I think we want our engagement program to always be responsive to where the council is at I think um certainly there are I believe we receive a lot of feedback from the community about their expectations around engagement uh frequently those expectations are probably in excess of of what we have the capacity to provide uh but I think there are definitely strategies that that we've developed over time that I think have been effective um you know the the council does have uh a blueprint uh that that uh NIS uh developed and brought forward

that really serves as our guiding document if Council would like to revisit that that is something that that you know is de facto City policy around engagement uh and if we wanted to come back and take a look at that and make sure it does uh reflect council's wishes and if not uh bring options for revising that i' be happy to do that do you could you send me a copy of that or send it to the council rather on the website the blue is that the equity blueprint thing green Equity okay yep council member yeah I just wanted to speak to that because I think mayor protm council member Freeman and I were all on Council um when that blueprint was created and it I think it was in 2018 there was a project I think it was the um well good lord it's been named the Beltline um the Durham rail trail right um it was around that and it was around Community feedback that folks had not been engaged with and um at the time mayor schul directed staff very

clearly to bring back some kind of blueprint so that departments had a way to engage and I think it at the time the the the Mandate quite frankly was 90 days and and NIS was able to uh meet that request uh from from mayor SCH and and Council so I just wanted to provide that um institutional knowledge moment just for for new council members and and why we we started there happy to have a conversation on does it need to be updated what needs to be tweaked or changed I know that NIS has Community engagement ambassadors is that a question that we need to um to your point mayor Williams you know if we don't want to contract it out then is it do we need to increase their their capacity to do more happy to have those conversations but wanted to share that um for colleagues and the public thank you what's the plan called again I'm sorry what what's the plan called that's what it is yeah green and Equitable Equitable engagement blueprint yeah Equitable and now and I'll just add I think I I was a very big

proponent for making sure that the community is engaged in the process um especially around the greenway Trail but also in third fourth Creek like there were a number of projects that the city is conducted that folks felt like they were not involved in nor informed about and so I do not want us to lose that thread of making sure that folks and it's not just um the people who come to the meetings it's the people who don't ever come to the meetings don't even usually know there is a meeting and don't know that the project is happening in their neighborhood and so just making sure that people don't get lost in that I I I felt like NIS was really helpful in making sure that the resources being um essentially the layons through the pack and the districts and so those five districts have have each person is in involved and they can make sure that folks are aware and engaged um that attend those pack meetings but the folks who do not that's where you get lost and so always making sure that you know there's mailings um directly to not just

the property owner but the renter and making sure that there was um updates because I think when you're when you're saying things like over a course of the year like there is a need to go back out because things change um in a project and so you may start with you know this project being in near Falls Lake and then it ends up being in a whole another section of town and you have to do a whole new Outreach around it and I do think that that it can be expensive but it is very necessary and so those parts I I I love to bring to the conversation as well as Legacy um for why we do it this way um I'm not opposed to having a conversation about updates but I do think that it's important to continue to do those do the Outreach I will say that that is where a lot of the language access pieces were put into like put into practice and making sure that you were talking to people not just by um speaking in English but also being culturally aware and culturally sensitive to who you're talking to in the neighborhood and what it means when you're talking about

gentrification or um all the other things that come up uh historically with u big projects in the city or city or federally or Statewide funded projects and so it was a good tool to have in place I will say that NIS has been very open to being um involved with other departments and I'm hoping that other departments are using that that resource thank you all um for that commentary I I wanted to revisit the conversation because I thought that you can do a significant amount of community engagement within 90 days and that's what this document says I have not seen that in several projects it's been years um and we've seen requests for extension and so I I think it's just probably a matter of holding you know just a matter of fidelity to what our policies but I think that's what I'm trying to say is that the 90 days might be where you're starting but if there are updates changes like that becomes a whole another round of Outreach engagement so

as long as the project is running years there's going to be years of Engagement it's not just one I I get it I I think what I want to make sure it's not happening is if we are Outsourcing this it's not being abused and that that's my main concern uh we we have to communicate why we're spending a million dollars sometimes you know not a million that's in design but we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on community engagement while asking for affordable housing um we have to make sense of these arguments why they're all necessary um if there are ways that we could actually make it more efficient and I would yeah thank you I look forward to having that conversation as a Council I think it is time we have also moved in a in different ways in better ways than 2018 I think that was the initial moment I I would say that PB has been um which we're about to get a presentation about that um we've also moved having Community conversations every fall so we are doing other things that that had not

either kicked off or were not being done at all in 2018 yeah then we were in that moment and so um happy to have um that conversation when when we have it thank you would just say that I I do want to make sure we're careful because I do think that um often folks have a a tendency to underestimate what it takes to do that type of Outreach and so if you say it's a $100,000 for a million doll project talking about 10% and I do think that it's worth 10 per. got it yeah yeah thank thanks colleagues and and um thank you council member cabier for your your historical context on when this kind of got uh kicked off to to his Honor's point I I think you know I mean we're all elected officials so community outreach and engagement are like our bread and but I mean we we should be doing that all the time and it's a pure and it's a noble concept I think to his Honor's point is that we have seen a cottage industry kind of grow up around it I mean if you're in your car every five minutes you hear these tax help commercials

right you know if you're buying your taxes will help you and and when you know you got to professionalize the service and there has been a a professional uh service industry that has grown up in here uh and I think it you know it behooves us to kind of look at how we're spending the money because I I don't know how many um projects I voted on that had Community engagement and inevitably somebody shows up and still say I ain't know um you know well you didn't you didn't contact us after we spent a couple hundred thousand dollar so there's always that um to come cover's point with with PB I think is is a great initiative the qualitative difference how however is those people are actually voting that Community engagement is actually leading to to actually concrete results that they are you know democratically choosing whereas I've oftentimes found that you know Community engagement when we ultimately make a decision if the decisions on the opposite side of what you wanted then the community engagement failed because there's an expectation that Community

engagement is going to have a causal and direct effect on the outcome uh many people read Community engagement as we're going to do do exactly what you told us to do and that's not always the case um you know it's an informed decision it's a Nexus of of conversations that inform the decision so I'm sensitive to to what the mayor is saying because I have watched um you know it get pretty lucrative and we still get pummeled for not doing community engagement um when we should be doing it as elected officials to begin with um so I look forward uh to the conversation uh as well obviously we're all pro Community engagement that's how we got our jobs uh on this is but but I think it's worth looking at and and perhaps revisiting um the the structure and Anatomy around it particularly when it comes uh to spending money so I thank his honor for for at least bro uh bringing up the subject and thank you all for your you know your historical um perspective on it as well thank you Mr Mayor are we gonna go ahead and set aside some time on a future agenda to talk about Community engagement sounds

like an issue that we're sort of off topic here but sounds like an issue with with a lot of interest um I have a lot to say but I'd rather say it in in a forum where we're actually focused on community engagement is that something we can do we can work on that I can take lead on getting some time to talk about it I'll um work with you carisha cool all right well are there any more questions for your topic sorry about that no problem I do have one final question I started out with not your project specifically but I do have a question question for Council um is is there would it would it serve us well to have some type of of of apparatus in place or or I mean since they're going to be bringing us back a singular parcel um for us to consideration is there a way that we can um lock that down via contract and I I know sometimes you got to put up earn his money or whatever but but I'm I'm

curious as to how the conversation goes we're going to have a public conversation about a piece of land that could be pretty lucrative and folk going to be listening to us um talk about a piece of land that we might be potentially spending millions of dollars on that we have not locked down yet and I mean if I were a Speculator and I was here you know listening to the conversation I had a few million line around I'd go buy it and make you come talk to me so I'm wondering is if can we um if the council is aable to it and if you have any counsel or or recommendation what can we do to protect ourselves during that deliberative process when they had identify this piece of land and bring it back to us that we have no legal claims on at that point is there any way we can protect ourselves or or lock it sort of option is that what you're asking for Tim I'd need to discuss that with Real Estate Council and also with the real estate staff to figure out what tools are available to us I can't answer that sure here okay um but certainly that's also the purposes of Clos session you also

have opportunities to discuss issues in close session when you are um obtaining real property as well so we we can talk about that cool thank you so much all right yeah well we just talked about an open though now yeah so they know we shopping now so thank you counselor thank you Mr Mayor thank you all right thank you all for your you're out of the hot seat no more people sh thanks for your interest all right uh next up I item number 10 participatory budgeting cycle 4 launch date update hello and welcome we'll try not to be so longwinded on this [Laughter]

one you have more slots than the last one all [Laughter] right all right I'm not going to say anything on this one okay I'll take that back I'll take that back good afternoon welcome and you can tilt it down if you need to yes thank you all right good afternoon everyone um mayor mayor prmt and members of council my name is Carmen Ortiz and I am the community development manager overseeing PB and I'm here to make a presentation with my colleague Fallon Thompson and we're here to update you on our PB cycle for launch all right perfect and so before we get started um PB is really a team effort and so I always like to highlight my team before we get started um and so

here we start with Andrew Holland he's our assistant budget director over the office of performance and Innovation a lot more hair now right he has a lot more hair and a lot older yes I am too that that's why I recently changed my photos um and so Andrew joined us back in 2018 um when we launched our first cycle of PB and you already know my name I'm Carmen Ortiz um and as I've mentioned just like Andrew I joined uh the city back in 2018 when we started our first uh uh uh cycle love participatory budgeting um and I have the privilege to lead and work alongside the most amazing team in the city it's one thing I love to brag about um and Fon Thompson um our senior budget engagement analyst um joined uh PB back in 22 right before we launched our third cycle of PB however she's been with the city for nine years she's faithful um and Lis bean and uh Cameron Brown just recently joined us um we are

super excited to have them both on board they bring so much talent and skill and experience that we're just so excited to have them and see um their contributions to PB um and carara Matthews um will be joining us um in two weeks from now so we're pretty eager to have her join us and she's going to be focusing on design all right and so today we are as I've mentioned we're here to talk about PB um what is PB how it works uh why PB matters and we'll briefly touch on our previous Cycles um and then we'll go over the details of our PB cycle 4 launch that we're super excited about and then I'll ask uh you know I'll answer any questions that you may have all right so PB uh what is participatory budgeting it is a uh it was a process that was first developed in Brazil in 1989 and there are now 1,500 PB programs around the world um it is a democratic process in which community members get to decide together

how to spend part of their public budget it allows residents to come together to identify discuss and really come together and make decisions about public spending um and so as I've mentioned PB has been implemented in cities and counties across um the state um nor Durham PB was uh PB was actually s sorry Durham was the Second City to bring PB in the state of North Carolina in mburg county or Charlotte um just launch their um first cycle of PB um two fun facts that we learned uh very recently we're super excited about um with the first one as I've mentioned PB is um also in schools um a group of students at Carolina fren School were inspired by our first cycle of PB back in 2018 then they went back to their school put a proposal to bring PB into their schools and so Administration loved the idea and approved their proposal and you know granted them a yearly budget of $1,500 for them to have

a student PB program and they're now in their fourth cycle so we were super excited to go back in the fall and see what they're doing another fun fact that we recently learned that we're super excited about was the city of Richmond just launched uh their first cycle of PB this fall of 2024 and we've had conversations with them over the last couple of years um they've done a lot of research meeting with cities across the country and we're excited to learn that they decided to mirror a lot of what durm PB is doing I me I was just so proud of our team and the work happening in Durham that they decided to mirror um the PB Durham PB cycle um and so I've mentioned um there are many different PB programs around the world um and while there are slight differences obviously from City to County to schools there are sort of of General themes that have in common um with the first one is sort of being an idea collection or or process where residents come and share the ideas of how they would like to see the funds implemented um then the next stage is

after these proposals are uh brought in by residents uh residents and City staff work together to vet these ideas durm specifically vets uh the proposals uh for feasibility equity and impact with the proposals moving on going into a ballot uh these proposals are then voted by residents and the winning projects will then be implemented by the city we then go into the next phase which is to analyze and evaluate our current uh process and then prepare and reflect for the next cycle now why does PB matter so PB is is a very unique program because it's not a program that just goes to the community to ask questions we engage residents throughout the entire process going from submitting ideas to working together imp to working together to develop these ideas to see are they feasible are they not feasible what potential impact they have in our community Through the voting process where again we work with

residents to help us you know speak to their neighbors speak to the residents and get support for these projects ideas that they've worked hard for through also the implementation process you know one thing that we love doing is as projects are being implemented is going back to the community to celebrate you know their hard work um during this process and as PB durm specifically has a goal to implement projects within a two-year time frame which is pretty exciting because residents get to see the fruition of their hard work as projects are implement M so it's one thing that we're really proud here in Durham in compared to other cities that are you know 10 years behind project implementation that's one thing that's pretty special and unique to Durham um and then another thing is uh through the proposed development phase we engage residents for about you know 12 weeks and so during this time residents get to work with our technical departments with us and really get to learn um you know how City operates what is feasible what is not feasible they get to learn about project cost which is one of the things that we hear when we go back to the

community I had no idea a sidewalk is this so expensive or why it's so hard to build these certain things that was my first concern that's that's the most common thing when we go but you know when we speak back to our delegates they actually you know share with community members like you have no idea how expensive it is to build certain things this is why you know City can't do everything we ask right away and so I think that's part one of the neatest things about PB that residents um learn and then they go and speak to other residents and sort of inform them things that otherwise they wouldn't know and then finally through um their experience in the proposed development they're able to build skills and advocate for their communities and continue to be engaged in other various capacities um and through that um you know we increase uh Civic engagement we build strong relationships between residents and City staff in the city and we see residents come together and and make decisions that are important for their communities

4 million budget that is applied Citywide um and any Duram resident or student 13 years or Oro can participate and uh what you see here are our past Cycles as I've mentioned we're launching our our fourth cycle of PB and so these here are our past cycles and so our first Cycles I've mentioned was 2018 when we have gathered over 500 ideas and 10,000 resident votes our second cycle was a little bit different we were in the middle of a pandemic so our Council approved a million dollars to support those most impacted by the pandemic and our most recent cycle PB cycle 3 um we've gathered over 700 ideas and over 12,000 resident

votes um and here are just a sample of the things that have been funded and so PB Durham funds um capital projects it's the way we like to say to Residents think about something you can buy you can build or you can upgrade um and so here are some samples of things that PB dorm has funded in the past we've added Ada equipment to the playground we've added bicycle pump tracks Street trees um lighting at parks it's also a very popular one we've added security camera I'm sidewalk Improvement sustainable Improvement to parks and so these are among um the most popular projects submitted over the you know the hundreds of projects that have been submitted by residents and here are just some highlights from our most recent cycle PB cycle 3 and so as I've mentioned we've um collected over 700 ideas um our budget delegates it's a a committee of 25 volunteer residents vetted over 260 proposals that they reviewed on worked on and we've gathered over 12,000 vots

with about 2800 of those being from Durham public school students all right and so uh for the last few months we've been working with our PB steering committee our PB steering committee is a committee of 15 volunteer residents this is a great diverse group of residents um including two students that oversee the implementation and design of PB and so we uh had our retre in the fall when we sort of got together and started designing and having conversations on what they want to focus during PB cycle for so some of the other things that our PB steering committee does is they oversee the design and implementation um to ensure it aligns with Council priorities they also participate in various trainings including Equity uh data management and facilitation in this is because they do a lot of sort of the engagement they go to the to the community to hear firsthand what are the concerns of the residents they also participate in different events and so

as I've mentioned they also go to the community to hear firsthand the concerns and voices of the residents um and so they are also part of different committees so our PB steering committee um has three committees the first one is Communications Outreach and evaluation and lastly um they work they function as a self-governing group um who make decisions through a majority vote all right and here are the three goals that were worked on and voted by our PB steering committee for us to focus during our PB cycle for and so the first one is to engage derms to engage derms diverse population and increase participation for those who face barriers or are excluded from traditional government budgeting decision-making process the second goal is to implement projects that are impactful Equitable and benefit the most underserved communities in Durham and third uh to provide an Avenue for residents to engage with City staff in resource building longterm relationships

through meaningful engagement all right and felon is GNA take a take it over sorry for the Changing of the Guard okay we are going to shift a little bit and focus on Equity our PB staring committee continues to um want to have a strong focus with Equity um by upholding the PB cycle 3 goal of having 60% of the project the collected project ideas and projects implemented to come from a specific geographic area identified through an equity landens the categories we will again focus on are areas that have a high percentage of people of color areas that have a househ home incomes that are $40,000 and below and areas that have a high percent of residents taking public transit to work you may remember that in PB we had over 70% of the projects fall within the criteria set by our Equity map that I'm discussing here um to also help us

determine the equity of our proposals that Karma talked about for our proposal development phase we want to focus on quantitative data to identify undeserved neighborhoods income Transit ridership and areas that may be food deserts we also want to determine how to um make our proposals impactful and we're want to use qualitative analysis to do that will ask such questions as how does this proposal provide a missing resource in the area or does it serve a Citywide population despite its location moving on as we prepare for Pb cycle 4 one of our main goals is to create spaces for Meaningful engagement to support this we piloted PB mock sessions in Legacy neighborhoods including one for youth the goal of the mock the PB mock session was to create a space where residents could better understand PB and how the city functions so they could be better informed when

brainstorming ideas during the mock sessions residents had discussions with other community members and learn how to develop realistic project ideas that are feasible and impactful okay we are excited to share with you our timeline for Pb cycle 4 we plan to launch this spring with idea collection um we will start proposal development May June of this year with Community engagement happening in August September we plan to start voting in October and be ready for Council approval of the winning projects in January February of 2026 our PV steering committee has set an ambitious goal for Pb cycle 4 to get 14,000 votes our primary goal is to hear from our Target populations which are DM's most undeserved and underrepresented residents for cycle four again we want to incorporate evaluation through each

phase of PB and we will partner with our department of equity and inclusion to continue to strengthen the equity in our processes we will again partner with our Innovation team here at the city to continue improving our efficiency and effectiveness let's talk a little bit about some research from PB cycle 3 during PB cycle 3 we work with that Innovation team and the Duke center for advanced hindsight to develop a survey about the impact of PB the survey ask a series of questions of how um such as how does having the opportunity to vote in PB affect residents trust in and attitudes towards government the survey method was launched online and randomly asked some respond about trust fairness transparency and budgeting so we want to share a little bit of the results from that study um we learned that those who were prompted to vote in PB feel more positively about

their local government and feel more strongly that they have input into decision making those who were prompted to vote in PB were more likely to vote in upcoming elections and those who were prompted to vote in TB have higher trust in governments especially local government so like Carmen said before he matters that's our presentation for today we are available to answer any questions you may have thank you much colleagues um I'll be really brief I just want to say thank you to your team you'all have done such excellent work and also a big shout out to the volunteers it is a a really big lift for residents and so um we really appreciate it I know that this program really wouldn't work without their input so a big thank you to to folks who have put time and effort into this um I was just hoping that you had just said the goal and I just missed it and I don't see it on the 14,000 votes for 14,000 okay

thank you that that's a big jump but it's a scary one okay okay I feel like we could do it we can it we could definitely I'm not gonna say yall have been working hard y'all can do it um those are all my questions thank you so much for this presentation thank you yeah real briefly just uh ditto uh thank you so much for all your work really appreciate it um you all have done you have shown the results here done fantastic uh work and um good luck with the next round thank you thank you I just want to shout out the whole PB team I've been going to y'all's meetings on and off for many years now um and to the steering committee both the current and previous ones every every cycle gets better better uh the votes increase and I think the the biggest impact to me for me is um I often go out into community events during voting and I love when the youth focused ones uh invite us out and so uh I will say having had lots of conversations with youth in front of their ballots about which which projects to pick or if they have questions that

is um one of uh the best parts of being a city council member and so uh I look forward to being in all the high schools and I know kids votes often has a thing uh you has had things in the past and so uh in the fall which is great because it'll be a municipal election uh it it does actually uh help folks understand how local government works I've had uh conversations with people who were people who submitted proposals and it it it is a there's not a lot of positive right now and this is one of the things that is really really positive and um something that Durham has done well and I do want to also thank my uh former colleague city council member Johnson because she's the um council member who brought this idea forward thank you thank you so much to the PB team uh on the side as well yeah really appreciate the presentation yeah I am so proud that Derm is one of the leading innovators in the space and so again

want to thank you on behalf of the newer members of the council excited about this and also want to really appreciate our colleagues who came before us some who are here some are no longer in Council who are the ones that brought this forward and made this happen durm so it's exciting stuff and want to thank you so much thank you from Freeman did you have anything thank you Mr Mar thank you colleagues let me make my colleagues commendations you built quite the dream team down in that shop we are we are absolutely I brag about that all the time awesome and uh like you know in Durham fashion other cities municipalities take note of what we're doing um PB whether it's PB or guaranteed income of the heart team other folk tend to to gravitate towards durm and and want to emulate what we're doing here so congratulations on a really really great uh job I do want to ask a couple of questions because I um this there's been a sea change in our country and in our state and some of my work outside of the council has me in conversations and initiatives like these

have been I'm having more and more conversations like these uh more and more conversations about initiatives like these around our state um and see change and how folk are are looking at them and scrutinizing them so I ask you a question regarding the equity um piece it says that the steering committee established a goal for 60% of collected projects project ideas and implemented projects to come from specific Geographic areas identified to an equity lens so in a one person one vote situation where nobody's vote is weighted how do you get 60% from a particular area without spending more time in that area as opposed to other areas or do you somehow um curate the number of ideas that are collected to skew to a particular area how do you operationalize that sure so that really comes to play during the proposal development phase and so um you know we obviously uh ask all residents in the city of Durham to submit their ideas um we put our boots in the ground that means this is where we physically go into the communities that are

underserved so we put a lot of emphasis in these communities so that we ensure we hear from these residents now uh this really takes play in The Proposal development phase when budget delegates are vetting all these ideas and so budget delegates of work on developing you know scoring for feasibility and so obviously the that question is is this project feasible can the city implement this project and so all the projects that move forward on the feasibility then they get scored for impact and equity and so our budget delegates um have a form that they complete where they look at you know where are the communities of color where are the you know incomes below 40,000 where are their students where are their food desert and so when our budget delegates are scoring these projects there is a rating so if it falls in for example a community of color there is a higher you know score or if it's you know Community where there is a $100,000 medium income versus 20 or $40,000 there is a higher score on that and so that is how um

that's sort of vetted and then there's an there's an impact form that they work on and so they ask questions for example um you know what is the potential impact this project has in a community um you know the some of the other questions are is you know if if this resource is available so for example um it's a playground you know in certain communities there are playgrounds but they're you know they're old they're not in good conditions so there's higher scores and so the projects that have the higher scores um Advan to the ballot now um so as we've mentioned the goal is for at least 60% and so some projects for example we had in the in the previous ballot um was a skateboard that did not have have a really high ranking on you know sort of equity per se because of the location but that really had a uh there was a lot of students in that area and a lot of students support and so when we also look at you know the potential impact of these projects you know who it's going to impact are there a lot of students who have this need and so this is where some of those projects that may not score as high on sort of

equity specifically but make it into the project and so that's how um you know Equity is sort of balanced um during does that answer your question it does and and and it's helpful and like in our mwbe work we're not allowed to set quotas we we can have goals and and those goals have to be met in kind of an organic right natural fashion and and it it sounds like that and the reason why I asked specifically about how how are you reaching that goal because it sounds like there's some operationalized um waiting yes going there is we need to be prepared to answer those questions and defend that moving forward um the the the actual weight uh uh of one neighborhood as opposed to another neighborhood particularly since we're spending Municipal uh dollars that's something that we're gonna have to be prepared um to to and I'm saying this as as the same team not not absolutely preparation sense it's definely Mak sense yeah in preparation for us I I remember the first iteration and this

now the the demographic breakdown on ideas collected do you have the demographic breakdown of who actually voted yes we do okay give me one second function voting um see combined so let's see how's this it raise so let's see I just want to double Che so yes so we have combined um so we had about 22% um wait give me one second just want to make sure I have this clear

so for our online voters we had 66% of our online voters were white um then for our black voters was 16% and our Hispanic voters were 5% and so those were on our online voters um our paper uh voters were very different uh those were should be here somewhere and so for our combined when that we combined the entire data um it was let's see give me one second that's not there online you're saying combining combining the online and we had we had them combined and separate um so our paper ballots let's see so our paper ballots um the data was we had 34% were black um then it was 32% Latinos and

14% um was mixed so the majority of our online voters were white with over 66% and then in our paper ballot it was the opposite the majority of our votes were people of color with 66% being people of color what percentage of your total votes were online of the of the entire um it was about half um I think I have it here on the presentation actually so it it was about a little bit under half were online so of your total votes period a little bit under half were online yes so out of the 12,000 votes we had 41% were online the other ones were paper ballot including 2,800 from students where were your would you now you there there three WS obviously were your polling stations um in pursuit of the 60% goal were they more heav were there a how were they e would you say they were

evenly distributed throughout the city or did you have more opportunities because you said you had boots on the ground in areas that were uh geographically identified but boots on so the opportunity for getting more votes in person paper bills would be higher in those areas where your your boots were is that is that a fair character yeah so it's very different to online voters we use all of our different platforms and so um you know we very quickly we had those 6,000 votes these were the residents that you know got this the survey or the voting ballot through our social medias through you know the communication channels um through different marketing uh you know um opportunities we sent out there so those were pretty easy to get right those just you know came up really quickly the harder ones were obviously going to um you know hearing from the underserved residents and so what we did we were you know every day at the Durham bus station we were at the um Department of Health and Human Services we were at basically every events in the city um we

did door knocking um we did a lot of different EV you know we went to a lot of events that were happening in the fall um especially you know one of the great things it was you know latinx you know heritage month so we went to all those events and so what our team did we were at the different you know small conveniences Stores um where residents naturally with physical ballots and you were actually physical ballots in those areas um and and the big difference with um just to sort of touch why we had a paper ballot uh paper bell it's a lot easier for residents to just you know fill um and so one of the things that was very important for us was security ensuring that each person can only vote once and so in order to vote online you needed to sort of you know enter a phone and information so you can get a code so that we know um each resident only had one vote versus in paper we went you know we also went to the Durham jail and so we were able to get you know about 230 um people at the jail to vote and so a lot of these people didn't have telephone numbers didn't have email and so when we went to the Durham bus station there were a lot of homeless

people who would not have a cell phone or an email to confirm and so with them we did a paper ballot together okay thank you um I appreciate I appreciate that that's very helpful and again um the conversations I'm having I I just need to be able to talk about with with certainty the the the methodological nuances we're using to reach our goals because there are folk looking right for for uh with a high degree of scrutiny final question about a statistical methodology um those who were prompted to vote in PB are more likely to vote in upcoming elections how did how did you determine that yes so um here Lindsay can um she worked on this with um so she can answer more of those questions good afternoon everyone uh I'm Lindsay Gavin I manage the IT team uh in the office of performance and Innovation with PB um so the way that we did this

study that has kind of those three or four points that Fallon mentioned one of them being intention to vote I should clarify that is a stated intention to vote so we did not pull the voter roles and compare them with PB voter rules but the way that we did this study was as you can imagine it's kind of hard to do a randomized control trial for Pb because you can't deny half of the potential voting population the ability to vote in PB so what we did was we launched a survey um that is that was about government trust people went into that survey uh and then half of those people were prompted first to vote in PB and then to answer all of these questions the other half just answered all of the questions so we're almost using that to vote if they hadn't voted already as a proxy for um exposure to PB versus the control group if that makes sense um okay yeah that that makes sense

I um given the way voting our voting trends are currently so 6 if 66% of white folk who voted online um you you you can't determine how many of them were asked were they going to vote in the next election you don't have that breakdown as opposed to getting the right um okay um all right magnificent work again this this is a jewel uh in our Crown in the city and and I'm I'm I'm prayerful that we'll be able to continue with unmolested and unbothered by folk who don't understand uh our ways here in Durham but thank you so much for your rep thank you for answering my questions thank you thank you Mr Mayor thank you all and our final item is Vision

zero good afternoon Sean Egan I'm the director of Transportation um so responding to uh the question that council member rist asked at the January 6th city council meeting um about the status of the completion of the vision zero action plan U so I want to start by saying we certainly appreciate the sense of urgency uh to move forward with this work uh as council member R pointed out uh in that January 6th meeting in the first six days of 2025 we've had two people killed on our streets so if we're going to cut traffic fatalities in half and by 2035 and get to Zero by 2045 which is what this Council committed to to uh in June of last year we've got to get fatalities down to less than once a month so having two in one week uh to start 2025 is a really troubling uh trend for us to be starting out on so uh

we certainly understand and appreciate the sense of urgency so one of the biggest pieces of the uh city of Durham Vision zero action plan is what we call the high Injury Network so that's looking at the crash history across our cities uh from 2017 to 20223 uh we have reports of about 55,000 crashes uh of those more than 350 resulted in a serious injury um and 170 resulted in a fatality so what the high injury network analysis does is it Maps out where did all these crashes happen 55,000 crash crashes and then what are the areas where we've seen the most incidents of serious injuries and fatalities on our roadway Network so as you can imagine compiling all that mapping all that uh for 55,000 crashes

was a big undertaking we worked in partnership with the Durham Chapel Hill carbo Metropolitan planning organization which is doing similar High inry network analys analysis from for other municipalities uh in its planning area uh so the benefit of working with the mo is that we get uh a consistent collection and Analysis and formatting with uh our neighbors other jurisdictions in the no so the no board can get an Apples to Apples comparison of uh what's happening with uh injuries and fatalities across the planning region um but there's also the benefit of 80% of the cost of that analysis uh can be applied to federal grants whereas the work that we're doing um is 100% locally funded with our staff uh so we worked with the mo we had uh set an initial Target of October of 2024 for that high injury network data analysis

to be completed uh it was not completed until December uh so the good news is that now that we have uh that uh High injury network analysis completed uh we're moving forward with um finalizing the U the vision zero action plan uh and we're right now doing final consultations uh with key stakeholders uh that we've partnered with on this work so we have our vision zero working group uh which includes designated staff from 10 City departments this initiative cannot be a transportation only uh initiative it really really requires for us to be successful in this work it requires uh partnership collaboration uh sharing of the of the workload uh and responsibility for these actions uh across uh City departments and that's why uh we want to make sure that uh we're getting uh that review from uh the

vision zero working group across 10 City departments we have a coalition that includes partner organizations and community members such as Duram public schools the Durham County partnership for a healthy Durham the bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission bike Durham uh and others uh the bicycle pedestrian advisory commission uh got a presentation actually on Tuesday night on the 21st uh it's available on the city's YouTube channel right now Lauren Grove our vision zero coordinator did a great job presenting kind of where we are um with all of the analysis and uh what What's been compiled to date so a big part of that work is now that we've done the full analysis of the high Injury Network when you exclude highways like 85 40 147 from the analysis and um the city does not play a decision making role uh on uh those uh limited access highways so when you exclude those from

the analysis 11% of Durham's roads account for 74% of traffic deaths and serious injuries so 11% of roadways 74% of deaths and serious injuries so that 11% effectively is our high Injury Network that is where uh we have the greatest opportunity to improve safety uh and eliminate fatalities and serious injuries uh from our roadway uh so really uh that's going to have that's going to be a focus and uh really guide this work we also have some key actions identified uh which are updating uh the unified development ordinance uh developing a street design manual conducting Road Safety audits implementing quick build safety treatments developing a speed management plan uh and creating reporting mechanisms to share traffic safety data

and insights so all of this is now being finalized with uh input from our stakeholders uh we look forward to bringing the final action plan with all of the richness of data um as well as detail behind uh each of the actions that will come forward uh we look forward to bringing that at the March 20th work session uh for city council review and approval and so that's the that's the interim update that we have right right now I'm happy to take any questions you're Happ to jump in so first of all thank you Sean really appreciate that appreciate the um the the sense of urgency on this um I guess my I mean I look forward to the the final report coming in March it's great we're gonna have that um I guess as I look at and um I guess you didn't bring the slides the BC slides here today they're yeah no they there the

presentation and all that is available uh online I just focused on the memo uh that was in your agenda packet I'm just looking at those right now so I guess my question is you know a lot of the vision zero theory is that it's not about individual Behavior sort of like structuring things so people aren't getting hurt right as I saw the data a lot of these crashes are happening at intersections right many four-lane roads or more right so so it's not smaller roads it's bigger roads so we see the the disproportionate share of multi-lane roadways so more than one lane in each Direction um as well as higher speed roadways so both of those uh are significantly over represented in the high Injury Network so I guess from the from the recommendations so it seems like a lot of what we need is we've got to we've got to rebuild these intersections roads or may not reengineer how we do this right how how how pedestrians and B bicycles interface or interact with with cars on the roads so how much of this is

sort of changes in sort of Street design manuals and so forth and you know speed limits I think is part of it how much of it is simply like redesigning stuff that we have to do so we really need hard engineering right we need to continue uh the type of work that we've been doing through the resurfacing program where every time a roadway is being resurfaced whether it's uh an ncdot roadway whether it's for a water management project or one of the Public Works um resurfacings for city streets we we use that as opportunity to improve safety uh and in many cases changing the design of the roadway so on um Irwin Road for example uh narrowing the travel Lanes adding uh a buffered bike lane adding vertical protection uh in the bike lane we but we also added leading pedestrian intervals um at the crosswalks near the hospital because it's one of the highest U pedestrian activity areas in Durham is um at at Duke hospital and the VA there so every one of those resurfacings needs

to be uh an opportunity uh but we also uh will need greater resources uh for some of those things like quick build like uh pavement markings and signposts are relatively low cost uh we have higher cost uh interventions that are needed to change the design of roadways like Mangum and Roxboro Duke and greggson so those are going to require not just the types of analysis um and the uh resources for quick build but they're going to require much more intensive resources for new traffic signals reconfiguring intersections as you talked about uh so all of that work uh is going to uh require a greater commitment of Financial Resources uh than we've been able to bring forward uh to this point so just on the phone actually yesterday uh with DPR folks and coincidentally one of the new hires DPR comes from New Jersey and has worked with Hoboken which is getting a lot of

attention nationally is one of the Cities it's it's it got to zero it got to zero right yeah and she said a big part of that is like what's called like daylighting intersections right so how much of that is part of is going to be part of our plan daylighting those intersections so intersections are going to be an area of focus uh so making sure that uh cars aren't parked too close to the intersection when cars are parked too close to the intersection it makes it really hard to see whether they're pedestrians or even other cars uh approaching or entering that intersection so making sure that we're uh providing sufficient space at those intersections particularly those intersections that have seen uh High numbers of crashes serious injuries and fatalities so those are uh those are actions that we can do relatively quickly with things like a No Parking sign and pavement markings so that's going to be critical but we're also seeing uh a high number of incidents from vehicles running off the road for

example so there's not as um simple of a quick build especially running off the road at um at high speeds uh so I think the the vehicle that uh ran off the road on Austin Avenue near uh the North Carolina Central Law School uh was going over 70 miles an hour um yeah and ran off the road so uh those uh there are guard rails and other things that can be effective treatments there but they're uh more uh intensive treatments but those have to be uh part of the analysis as well and then we're going to be looking at left turn um crashes so we're seeing a lot of uh crashes that involve a left turning movement um at an intersection so we we're not going to meet the aggressive goals that we have to to cut fatalities and serious injuries in half if we just focus on one of those crash types whether it's intersections run off

the road um left turn movements uh we've got to focus on all of them but we really have to make sure that um and that's why the the high Injury Network allows us to uh really bring detailed analysis to that 11% yeah um that's driving I'm actually looking at the map there it's the the map I see is pretty confusing I'm sure there's much more granular detail there but I guess of those of those 11% where 74% of the injuries happen I'm guessing that this is not a surprise I'm sure there all like a lot of quarters would probably know well right um I guess my question is of those 11% how much like how much of of those 11% how many have like sidewalks bike how is it like what's the what's the condition look like in those 11% is is it going to take a whole lot of work or those already do those already have some enhancements that that are that are pedestrian are friendly they have some enhancements but a lot of them where they have a sidewalk like NC 98 um going out um for um the um Antioch

Baptist Church for example so there's a sidewalk right in front of the church but then if you walk a block to the east there's a sidewalk Gap and you can see the dirt Path U so um that area of holway um is a high crash that's part of our high Injury Network so is sidewalk there but there's um not a complete sidewalk Network there so it's going to be a mix of different uh treatments that are needed U fortunately we have the resources with the bond referendum to complete that segment of sidewalk network uh that's one of the bond projects is to complete uh along Holloway uh there uh so it's it's going to take uh collaboration with bringing bringing to Bear those resources as well and looking uh at those projects as opportunities uh but those as I think this Council knows sidewalk projects

take years and years and years to do so with the action plan with the kind of reductions that we want that we need to make in the near term uh we need to be setting the table with things like the uh the bond projects uh for delivery uh over the next several years but we really need to look at examples like Hoboken and Alexandria Virginia where there were some uh quick build um implementation changes things some some of the things like even the frequency of um how frequently you see a speed limit sign there's some research that shows uh if they're spaced closer together and you're seeing more speed limit signs then um it can actually reduce the average speeds uh in a quter so putting up a speed limit sign is something we can do pretty quickly um so we're we're going to need to look at interventions

um that are effective uh that are being um implemented in that high Injury Network so not every uh neighborhood uh in Durham is going to get um the kind of Focus uh with this work so most neighborhoods uh fall outside of the high Injury Network um so I think that's something that we need to be clear with residents as we're communicating this we need to focus on the places where people are dying on a regular basis uh and that may not be your neighborhood um and so but that's where if we're going to uh get a 50% reduction and get to zero like hobok and Alexandria have that's the work that needs to happen great thanks I I really appreciate the fol on this the the data driven aspect of it um and I look forward to continuing conversations about this thanks thanks to Lauren as well for her work so thank you any other comments all

right I was looking for the you know Transportation tie didn't see it all right thank you colleagues I Tred to catch him slipping thank you uh thank you for that uh colleagues I I really appreciate our focus on Vision zero for transportation as I've said before uh I think that um it'll be very beneficial for us to take the S take a similar approach for gun violence in the city as well uh so um I'm I'm going to really put some attention to that I'm already putting attention to it and I plan to bring that before the council and I would hope that I would get your same energy yes sir yes sir yes ma'am thank you I was just going to add um it would be really good to hear I guess I don't I'm going to miss the legislative conversation but it'll be good to hear what they think about um that kind of vision zero look for the

state um and advocating for the daylight um or daylighting of the curbs I know in California they just passed it and I'm looking forward to seeing what the data looks like in there but um I think Statewide we need more support um for vision zero to actually work and for transportation for Trans for transportation specifically but it's not it's not lost on me that the dollars we use to focus on it now could be used to address gun violence and so if we could get more State support on addressing our vision General on needs especially on state roads with the stated like the stated comment I think you said it a number of times at 11% yeah so oh no that's where the problem is that it's on more state roads I do want to make sure that that point is made to our state legislators um that they need to push in and make sure that we're getting State support for addressing our vision zero needs and then we move more I don't think it's

sharing the dollars between gut violance and traffic I think it's we committing to the same we we making that just as much a priority I this this is more values than than dollars so I I don't have that problem my value is high my neighborhood's pretty gun violence all right um yeah we got the money I mean we we we we could do both this this is this is a matter of of I think um will and and Phil philosophy as well understanding but but be clear um we just heard a wonderful presentation on you know how we are using 2 point whatever million dollars for petitionary budgeting we got money we got cash here just a matter we can do both it's not either or um so I want to associate myself also with with uh the mayor's um concern I I'll yield in a minute I do I do want to I'll yield um do want to associate myself with the mayor's um concern that that we lean in as much we we have a a salaried employee whose job is to think about Zero

fatalities on the road notwithstanding whether it was caused by a drunk driver or or irresponsible bike rider we're not even parsing that we've just said whatever the call we want it to be zero and we somebody's getting benefits in the salary welld deserved uh for that effort um and I think we we we need to bring the same energy uh to to gun violence uh in our city so thank you I'll yield I was just gonna just note um I think previously the gentleman who was here earlier Dennis um Garrett has shared a proposal um that would would have essentially tried to address the gun violence needs in our community in a very um holistic way with a organization called Advanced peace and I know that the district attorney has also addressed it and mentioned the same resource and so hopefully we'll have a chance to look at that I know that we have not previously agreed to move forward with it um but it maybe it becomes a part of this conversation and I do know that folks in

our community are trying to figure out what what it is that needs to be done and I know that this Advanced peace model has worked in a number of other communities it takes funding and it takes the support of more than just the council so I do want to make sure that um I I just want to add into it that there are folks who have made proposals and it does take funding and it takes um us to make that decision so thank you if I might there there have been council members that have made proposals as well and funding's been given and funding's been taken away uh of certain things and I don't you know it I don't it'd be nice if Mr Garrett had an actual employee maybe a gun violent zero coordinator that he could submit his proposal to but bike Durham and other groups have a person on salary that they can submit their proposals to um which I think indicates our serious commitment to this issue we have no person on our unless you want talk about a police chief or whatever or or EMS folks so we have yeah we have First Responders and emergency responders but um you know there have been a lot of proposals brought before the council

over the years some of them depending upon the work of the council get taken up and funded and others don't um some of them if they have appropriate amounts of list serves connected to them and activists who show up get funded and others don't um I think it's instructive that when when folk were given a chance through PB and some of these communities to vote on something they voted on security cameras the people asked for security cameras not through list servers but through PB thought it was an interesting Jos what PB brought to the four what I think sometimes on the day we've missed um and as far as I'm concerned a a a video camera is the internationally recognized symbol of surveillance and one of the biggest arguments we have in the city is about increased surveillance well guess what when we asked the people what they wanted they chose the number one instrument for surveillance cameras don't call police they don't send um um ambulances all they do is record and

what we do is the next morning we get up and watch the video of you getting shot so it can go viral we didn't send help while it happened but we got high resolution pictures of it happening they chose that I appreciate that I I think it would really be a great um use of the time to figure out if we would like to move forward with some options I think um the Innovative team or the Innovative office would be really helpful in in helping us figure that out thank you uh I don't know if we need any colleagues I think we know where we all own this um any other comments on Vision zero if not I'm going to bring us to uh to close of the agenda Mr manager you have anything Adam clerk no we do that in the beginning those are all of the items I have here um y I am to settle the agenda uh I have items one through nine and item 14 on

consent and on GBA public hearing we have items 11 through 13 thank you you all right move to settle it's been moving properly second thank you um all in favor I'll oppose all right thank you all so much we are adjourned at 3:44