City Council · Regular Meeting · January 4, 2024

all right good afternoon everyone welcome to City Hall uh whether you're in person or online great to see everyone um I have a mask on because I've been sneezing but no fever tested negative for Co however I think that folks should start masking up anyway because there's something going around in this neighborhood uh so we'll wait till we get an official director from the health department but we do know that there is something going around wish everyone to be safe out there all right we'll uh have a moment of silence here nope that's the general body meeting Madame clerk will you please call the role mayor Williams I'm here may protm Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member Freeman present council member R present thank you thank you are there any announcements by my Council

colleagues yes council member cavier yeah thank you um mayor good afternoon everyone we will be taking up the appointment if it's not listed I I can't remember under other matters at the end thank you yes council member wrist uh Mr Mayor mayor prend uh Madam city manager and uh city council colleagues as many of you all know um the two large stimulus bills passed by the bid Administration contain massive federal funds to address climate sustainability environmental justice and support for consumers in reducing carbon consumption this is literally a one-time opportunity to access billions of federal dollars to address the city's goals for addressing climate change and creating a healthier environment for all residents what's more this is not just one Grant opportunity but rather multiple sources of funds across Federal seever several federal agencies it's critical that we here in Durham take advantage of this one-time opportunity

and act now given that with next year's presidential election it's not clear the long-term availability of these of these federal funds for that reason I'd like to ask the city staff in collaboration with the environmental Affairs board to come to an upcoming work session ideally the next one if we can organize that to share with the council the status of our efforts to access these federal funds um uh the multing funding the multiple funding opportunities going forward and what it will take for the city of Durham to maximize this fundraising opportunity thank you thank you council member W any other colleagues yeah do we need oh um so are you you want want to place on the agenda I want to place on the well I want to I want to I want to ask for a presentation on the next work session if we can if we can schedule that I think it's a question for the staff in part um thank you very much for that question uh certainly um you know we have up toate information on what we have been monitoring ourselves uh anything beyond

that it probably would take you know one additional work session to get it together but I'm going to ask staff that is here on their opinion whether or not it would be the next work session that we could come forward re just real quick is that is it better that we just ask staff to you know take a look at it and then bring it when you can or I just don't want us to micromanage but you know we set our expectations I appreciate that I think that that the again there's a certain amount of urgency involved here I think this is kind of in the next six months a lot of this is going to be happening um with election in the fall it's not clear whether These funds will be available long term even though it's it's money available now so we do need to act in the short term so I think with due haste but again appreciating that the the staff Mr Mayor for May thank you Mr Mayor thank you colleagues uh good afternoon everyone um I know that the staff as a matter of of standing practice regularly uh monitors any funds

available to the city be they federal or state so I'd like to ask staff is is this new information that the staff is getting today are you are you not aware of this is something that we need to be pursuing outside of our regular good afternoon mayor Williams uh City Council Members Beyer wimbush Deputy city manager uh we are very much aware of those opportunities that are available to cities some of which available to the city of Durham as the manager mentioned we do keep uh upto-date information on grant opportunities for which we have applied that are pending availability some they come out at different intervals and we um also ones that we have had our consultant um look at toer to determine whether we're eligible for those funds we've applied for many of those opportunities some we received some funding excuse me and some we have not received funding the deadline has not passed so we're happy to bring you an update um within the next few weeks I would say we would like some the

opportunity to make sure that if we need to have additional resources present with us to talk about some of those opportunities we have an opportunity to do that as well does that answer when you say additional resources do you mean additional staff or well our our consult U with us to uh explain um in some cases um we have it has been brought to our attention some of the grant opportunities and we it was determined that we're not eligible to receive those grants because they're specific to rural areas or certain populations um so we have we have a running uh database on all of that but we may want to have some additional resources here sort if there questions about why we hadn't applied for a grant to be able to make sure that our consultant can provide that information and we have multiple staff members in different departments um who have Grant resources in those departments who are also looking at Grants that are coming through our centralized uh City manager's office as well as Transportation General Services the police department uh Parks and

Recreation so there are other Grant um resources in departments working on grants as well and we're trying to capture all of that so we certainly want to have time um to make sure that we are prepared to answer your questions however I'm happy to come back with what we have of at an early a date if you feel that's necessary yeah I think if we can an update on that as soon as possible at the next work session or the at the at the next feasible work session that'd be great sure with any resources you need to bring absolutely we can do that as well that works thank you um Deputy city manager council member Baker similarly um so I've been speaking with members of the Walltown uh Community Association members uh residents in Walltown as well as uh residents in other parts of our community um and council members here about um small area planning which is something um that I've heard interest from uh ac across our community um one

uh one Avenue that that I've been exploring is potentially a a resolution um and and what that might look like we passed a resolution for expanding housing choices um in 2019 regarding um monitoring of the outcome of of that of that change in the ordinance um uh we the the rules of procedure are not uh particularly clear on this it's a little bit of a chart your own course um so I wanted to raise this as something to potentially add to the work session the next work session or a future work session um while continuing to have conversations with staff about the pet the the best Avenue uh forward on on this particular issue um and keeping it broad so that uh we wouldn't just restrict something to Northgate Mall but would also consider other parts of of the city um and in a time frame that is uh that is actually uh reasonable for for staff to be able to conduct something like that I want to raise that

with with um with the council tonight just for conversation would we want to put something like that on the next work session or on a f future work session or do you see a a separate path where we bring something to jcpc first um just wanted to hear your your opinion on that council member Caballero thank you uh I appreciate um council member Baker's uh request I think the appropriate place would be since land use issues are both the purview of city council and County Commission um normally or typically things of that nature go there first um um and council member Baker is part of JCC PC so I think making sure it gets added to the agenda in February and I'm I'm looking at staff right now um would um be a good Next Step thank you council member Freeman thank you I I think it might be a good idea to have

the conversation whether it's a resolution or not um because I'm not on JCC PC anymore I want to make sure that my voice is heard on that matter as a council so I think it would be good to bring it to work session protim thank you uh Mr Mayor and thank you to my colleague council member riss I think it's an important uh conversation to have I do want to associate myself with um uh council member caber's comments and and I think it speaks to council member Freeman's concerns as well um I I think when we did the resolution uh for EC it was it was it was part of a Continuum which included the conversation for with JC jcpc and um attending law ordinance as well resolutions I think for the for the purposes that the very important purposes that you're pursuing resolutions tend to be St they don't have to force a law there there's no they're not a directive to the staff um they're oftentimes they're aspirational what I would um suggest in association

with council member Cabo's comment is to start with the jcpc I'm glad you're on it council member um uh Baker uh I think council member Caballero is about to assume the chair of that and to council member Freeman's Point anything work product that comes out of jcpc ultimately has to come before us anyway so we will definitely have an opportunity as a council uh to discuss it um think it's an important conversation I think it should start with jcpc thank you Mr Mayor welcome any other comments that's good okay good thank you all so much all right at this time I uh I don't think I have any announcements if I did I forgot them um actually give me one

moment all right thank you uh at this time uh I'll acknowledge the city manager for any priority items good afternoon Mr Mayor Williams Mr Mayor protim Middleton and members of the Durham city council the city manager's office has no

priority items for you today thank you it's a new day that's what's happening uh Madam attorney thank you mayor Williams mayor ptim members of the council it's good to see you all the city attorney's office has two priority items today um so we're making up a little bit for the manager um the first is a time-sensitive legal request uh I sent each of you I sent all of you a memorandum late last night so you might not have seen it but I'm going to invite assistant City attorney and Marie tusco up um this is again a similar request to one that we brought you in uh December it's a friend of the court brief request from another municipality and amar's going to give you a quick overview of that good afternoon as attorney rayberg indicated I'm here today because our office received a request recently to submit an amicus brief and an ongoing litigation that a previous Council requested our office support the plaintiffs in this

litigation consist of 16 local restaurants who are seeking business Interruption insurance coverage from defendant insurance companies for losses they incurred while closed during the government orders related to the early months of the covid-19 pandemic um the Plaines were successful at the trial level in the first instance in the nation of a judgment in favor of these types of policy holders making such a claim but the insurance companies appealed the matter to the North Carolina court of appeals at which time plaintiff's council reached out to um this Council who reached out to our office to submit an amicus brief in support of these local restaurants uh This was done by the city of Portland in a similar litigation in the state of Oregon um as I've described to you before an amicus brief is one submitted by a person or group who's not a party to a case but has a strong interest in the litigation the court of appeals brief describe the city's interest in

5 million to local businesses the brief argued to the court of appeals that this type of support should be supplemental to insurance claims as opposed to a substitute for insurance cover coverage when companies deny these claims the city of Charlotte and former North Carolina insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin joined the city in its Amicus brief however the court of appeals ruled in favor of the defendant

insurance companies as I said this litigation is ongoing um and in late December our office received um a request to support an amicus brief to the North Carolina Supreme Court as it has approved the plaintiff request for review um given our uh given the previous a previous Council approved supporting this litigation by submitting an amicus brief to the court of appeals we wanted to bring it back to this new Council to determine if you all concurred with our office continuing to support the litigation in before the North Carolina Supreme Court and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have mayor ptim do you have questions no I thought we already greenlighted this didn't we we did too you did and so as anarie just described though that was at a different phase of the litigation this is now going up again and we've been asked to re we've been asked to submit a wholly new brief before a different Court and it was a different Council and so our practice as

you'll notice more recently has been to bring it back to make sure you all are still a majority of the council still agrees with the policy initiative behind this legal activity I'm sorry I thought this Council I thought we had thumbs up this I'm I'm I'm good I'm cool with it I mean yeah yeah we brought we brought a DACA issue to you we it's cool it's cool with me colleagues thank you very much thank you um Mr Mayor the second priority item that the city attorney's office has um is that the council entertain a brief Clos session at the close of regular business today um the motion required to authorize this closed session is to hold a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statute 143 38183 for attorney client consultation concerning the handling of a settlement demand for a yet to be filed liability claim thank you we have to me that motion now you can make it now or you can make it at the end of the

meeting uh wait if you let's let's wait until we are taking action on it okay thank you right just don't let me forget Madam clerk thank you Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proam City Council Members the city clerk's office has no priority items thank you at this time I will read the consent agenda the consent agenda cons consist of items uh for the council to address it can be pulled by any member of the council or member of the public item number one approval of city council minutes item number two Durham city council environmental Affairs board appointment item number three resolution and support of black teens and crisis I would like to pull that item and it's been asked to be pulled by President okay all right sounds good uh number four uh contract with Open Table Ministries Incorporated temporary

weather related emergency shelter and Supportive Services number five Cooperative group purchase contract rear mount lader fire Tru number six contract amendment number 12 for st- 264c Professional Services related to fville Road appointment improvements number seven contract Amendment one to St number one to st- 372 327c pavement Management Services number eight contract P that one uh is that number seven y right number eight contract st- 329 Street repairs and repaving 2024 number nine contract st- 329c pavement Management Services number 10 contract st330 pavement preservation 2024 number 11 contract st- 331 unpaved

roads improvements 2024 number 12 contract SW9 d94 sidewalk repairs 2024 it's been pulled by mayor I don't it's been pulled by a resident I don't want to pull this I just want to name from 12 up through number just the amount the incredible amount uh that we are providing in Road improvements and sidewalk improvements and it was because the historic amounts that were included in this year's budget so I just want to thank staff because it's a realization of of some of our core goals as a city thank you thank you yeah this is this is great uh 13 contract sw- 94c inspection and um un buzzman Services 14 North Carolina department of Transportation schedule C and Schedule D Municipal agreements for the maintenance and operations of the durm traffic signal system 15 construction of a traffic

signal at South Miami Boulevard Juniper Street and North gy Avenue number 16 thisone say something g g three what did I say okay 17 fiscal year 2023 2024 Transit CIP ordinance amendment 18 supplemental agreement number two for on call Professional Services for the fville and hallay Transit emphasis corridors and we have a fin uh finance department presentation on an equal business opportunity program update and number 20 text Amendment tier query number 21 Zone zone map change T quy Watershed overlay 22 Zing map change corz Drive tow houses and we have a Citizens matter uh

number 23 by Yan Kahana this citizen item can we make let them go first or okay first okay good all right at this time we will uh address citizens matters uh first and I'll first call up yam Kahana and as they are coming up to the podium um I just want to remind uh just everyone uh and especially staff uh we want to make sure that we are holding um true to our process uh I did extend the amount of people who can U speak online uh there was a slight discrepancy of competing um unknowingly who can sign up to speak first between online and in person so what I've did is extended the

amount of people who can speak online as well as the amount of people who can speak in person being 10 each uh so uh today somehow we have a little more than 10 we have uh 13 so I'm going to honor that I just want to make sure that um as we tightening up our procedures that we'll follow suit with that way to make the presentation D should St yes my name is your name and you have three minutes can I start again hi my name is utam Kahana I'm here today to urge the city council to to deal with the anti-Semitism and the destruction of the city property by the prop Palestinians protester instead of the international Warfare the municipality is local and not Global the

city suffering again and again from the prop Palestinians destroying our city center blockage the high road of 147 by the way without charges up until today to the destruction of the St Starbucks walls and the walls all across the city and let me emphasize that the city council is local and not Global and it's not a place for international Warfare but if you yet to consider a international Warfare and divide our community please I would like to share with you a few things about my homeland Jewish people came from Judea it's a place in Israel this is our homeland Gaza citizen have been given this Gaza STP in 2005 and ever since they keep on shooting Rockets over my home with during ceasefire and off ceasefire Hamas is the one that started the war in 2008 2014 and right now in 20123 on October 7 they murdered US citizens Israelis Jews th Arabs Christians without distinction Hamas even kidnapped and beheaded babies

elderly rape and murder women and children and burn them alive and when and add to the crime when Israel tried to retrieve her her kidnapped citizens they used the the people of Gaza as human Shields another fact that during the war of Hamas they had opportunity to to agree to a ceasefire they refus again and again not everyone in that want ceasefire want to destroy annihilate Israel but everybody that want want to ask for ceas fire Hamas had and the Palestinian government group had the opportunity to become a Palestinian state in 1947 1949 1967 1978 2000 2001 2008 20149 19 and to become a state they refuse again and again because they say from The River To The Sea and iation all over Israel with no place for the Jewish people the leader of Hamas are very rich people they have 11 billion dollars they do not share it with the Palestinian people which create a nest of Terror in

Gaza the leader of Kamas sitting Qatar and understand that they cannot win the war against Israel so they invest throughout like calibration how we call it calibration a group in order to go ahead and come to the city council around the United States with very very detailed instructions to how to do this and what to say over there in order to United States to go ahead and back on their only friends in the Middle East let me be clear the war against Kamas is Hamas Israeli War not Palestinians Israeli War not Israel Arab war is Kamas Israeli War and such it should stay like this the city council should deal with the stuff that's important for our citizens thank you very much guys thank you I should add I um as someone who has engaged in um lots of advocacy work I've had my share of making signs and holding

them up but um we do not allowed in City Hall so please um thank you uh please make sure that you know you're fine to have your signs but let's not hold them up to block uh the rest of the view yeah PS okay sounds good all right um Madam clerk we're goingon to start with online um we're going to start with online uh the first person I have is Mimi Kesler Miss Kesler can you hear me do you see her on there okay next person I have is Emily price price can you hear

me okay uh next person Leslie St Dre all right yes yes sorry L can you hear me Adam CL do you see me she's there she's there Mr Mayor I think she was on and then she went off I don't oh I see her right now her I see her now okay hi can you hear me oh there you go all right you have three minutes thank you good afternoon I am Leslie St Dre a Durham resident here as a member of mothers for ceasefire and Durham beond policing we once again urge you to adopt and pass U1 15's drafted resolution um rather than a statement that holds much less weight in the eyes

7 more

people zionism's Founders have been plotting to ethnically cleanse the area since 1895 it is up to us to stop these nightmares Netanyahu recently said he is working to facilitate the quote voluntary migration of Gaza to other countries when the options are to leave or to have Israeli occupation forces Slaughter your entire family starve you to death or ensure you die of dehydration or preventable illness that is forc displacement which constitutes ethnic cleansing I ask that you all imagine your grandparents land and homes were stolen by settlers arriving from far away lands only 75 years ago they killed 15,000 of your people then destroying over 530 Villages and ethnically cleansing over 750,000 of your people from their land forcing them to live in refugee camps and never leave an area the size of a US city for Generations these settlers continue to limit your food water medical access and movement you aren't allowed to travel elsewhere or go home to the house that

your grandfather built for your family your nonviolent resistance has met with settler bullets and worsening aarth and now they've wiped out your entire family line they severed the limbs of over a thousand kids in your area forcing many to undergo amputations without anesthesia which led some to die from the pain these are the lived histories of Palestinians under Israeli occupation of parte and now genocide I want to remind you all that Durham passed a resolution against South African aparte in 1981 it is shameful that while occupation apartheid genocide and ethn cleansing are happening before our very eyes you aren't yet willing to even introduce a resolution for permanent ceasefire Palestine is the moral L test excuse me Palestine is the moral litness test thank you so much let know you can't really hear the uh notification but that is your three minutes thank you so much all right uh next I have Raina Raina Reno can you hear

me yes oh there you go thank you for joining us you have three minutes great thank you hi my name is Raina renko I'm a durm resident I grew up here and I first attended bethl synagogue 35 years ago I'm Jewish and a descendant of Holocaust Survivors and I have ties to Israel I also have a PhD in global history specifically on British Empire which I do plan to make relevant here uh I'm here to implore the council to adopt and pass the draft resolution for a permanent ceasefire and no Aid to Israel because such political action is imperative and the right thing to do my grandfather survived the Holocaust as a resistance fighter he smuggled weapons into his ghetto in Poland escaped when it was liquidated and spent the war sabotaging the German military I honor my family history by acknowledging the legitimacy and importance of resistance at 22 while in Israel I spent time

thinking about the the homelessness I saw there in an epiphany I began to see my capacity to walk by in disregard unhoused persons is analogous to how people must have walked by the Jewish ghettos in my grandfather's time my jewishness has led me to see homelessness differently and how it is connected to systems of mass death I've spent decades studying homelessness and its histories I know that anti vagrancy policies in late 19th century England primarily targeted Jewish people who are being cast out of Russia and Europe by pilgrims British and other Imperial powers found ways to arrest Deport and otherwise refuse Jewish refugees their distaste for growing Jewish communities in fact underlay their decision to help establish the state of Israel which they called a national home for Jewish people from its start Israel has relied on this exploitation of Jewish identity and this has been at the root of far-reaching Jewish opposition historically and today also many Jewish people recognize the

ongoing Mass displacement and deprivation clearly endured by Palestinians as a continuation of the same asymmetries of power and the same systemic harms our ancestors endured Frameworks that present Palestinians and Jews as at odds with each other are wrong we in fact face similar oppressions in our interests are intertwined this said under no circumstances should our tax dollars be used to prop up Israel's military or its broader aparti system these keep no one safe they endanger millions of Jews Palestinians and people around the world if we care about lessons from the holocost and other genocides then we must do the work of recognizing injustices that lead to mass death we can do that here in Durham Now by divesting our tax dollars from Israel's occupation and War and instead start investing in resources that sustain life like Health Care the heart program enhancing housing security and providing Fair wages and labor protections to workers is a Jewish American and Durham resident who has spent my entire

lifetime grappling with these issues I urge the city council to do right by adopting and passing this draft resolution and actively do more to end systemic Harms in Mass death thank you so much that is your time thanks for joining us next person I have is Marie Garlock can you hear me okay uh did you fill out a physical card as well did you fill out a physical card as well or just the online form okay gotcha you're thorough I see all right uh so what we'll do is when I move to in person I'll call you up at that time um she don't need to fill out a physical window okay all right uh next I have King Sage King can you hear us I can hear you can you hear me yes

yes you have three minutes wonderful what's up y'all my name is King Sage I'm a resident of East Durham as someone who voted to support the election of many of you who are sitting on the city council body I am disheartened and disappointed to witness the lack of urgency from our city council on the matter of calling for a ceasefire in Gaza which to be clear is merely a symbolic signaling to our larger nation state government of the necessary Sol solidarity that we have with the largely unarmed Palestinian Community who are being violently martyred since the genocidal campaign in Gaza was renewed I urge you to not succumb to the fear-mongering lies of earlier speakers that told A Narrative of hamas's so-called Terror instead I encourage you to sit with me in a place of Wonder I have held for the past three months I wonder often where the compassion for and commitment to advocating for the liberation of those who are suffering lies I wonder if it exists at all and if it does why must we beg for you to take a stand against

these very clear acts of genocide and apartheid which Leslie just so impactfully spoke to and Raina as well I wonder should you not want to do this of your own conviction should your duty not to be to protecting the freedom of all people or is occupying this seat just an ego boost for you if your own conviction and moral compass is not setting off blaring sirens in response to the multi front genocidal attacks we are witnessing if you live in the LIE of the gray area or complexity in the face of what is clearly the enactment and continuation of a genocidal campaign then I begin to wonder to what is your duty in this moment to whom do you offer your service your representation and your commitment to legislation this country Prides itself on democracy and then stalls out in the places where the appointment of elected officials could act actually make a change and bring forth great impact if only you were able to listen to your people in this moment

and I say your people in the we sense of the word that there is no ownership to be had in this relationship but think of the ways that we could know Liberation if there were in fact deep listening compassion and collaboration in how you heard our voices today and every other day don't make us beg you sign the resolution and start rebuilding the people's Fai faith in our elected leadership my comrades have even written out an eloquent and clear draft resolution so I am asking you to please sign on to the ue150 resolution ceasefire resolution which we have and will continue to plug your inboxes thank you thank you so much for your time next person I have is Anna UB hi thank you hi welcome you have three minutes wonderful thank you so much for having me my name is Anna U I'm the

co-chair of the North Carolina green party and I'm a member of Jewish voice for peace and mothers for ceasefire I have been horrified and moved to action at witnessing this genocide from my cell phone we have watched as our president and politicians on the left and the right as well as our government intelligence communities and media Outlets have repeated some of lies that we heard here today about what is happening I would encourage each of you to please look into the brave reporting of Jewish Ally Max Blumenthal or Gabor mate or Norman finklestein or the Israeli soldiers themselves who have come forward to tell the truth about what is actually happening and the evil of the apartheid and brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank that is taking place um I think it's important that we take the responsibility and use our privilege to find out what's actually happening and to take action unfortunately it's complicated to get to

the truth apparently quote Hamas was there has been used as justification to bomb hospitals refugee camps and the same people who have been moved to compassionate uh action around the violence in Ukraine um are not taking the time to look at what's really going on um I think with the circumstances and the acts where a child is dying every 10 minutes um and the blatant calls for genocide and annihilation of the gazen People by Israeli politicians and their leaders these are facts that are undeniable and clear please take the time to look at what's really happening we are being told to ignore what's in front of our faces we are being told to deny what we're seeing in real time and when that happens we have to wonder what would we have done during Jim Crow era or during slavery or when the indigenous people were being forced off their land and murdered in the genocide that took place on these lands so I think it's

really important that as our leaders you take the time to find out what's really going on it isn't hard but you will have to dig a little bit deeper than what has been said um by a lot of the folks in the media as well as Biden and blinkin uh mothers in Gaza right now are marking their children's bodies in hopes that their remains can be identified to be laid together um there are children having limbs amputated and women undergoing C-sections without anesthesia the war crimes of not allowing water or electricity or needed Medical Care to fight the disease that is slowly killing the survivors left in Gaza um it's it's a horror that I think we have to take the time to understand what's happening the silence that is allowing this to go on by our tax dollars is your responsibility as our elected officials so I think that um in this position of power the collective rage and heartbreak

that we're experiencing thank you so much uh thank you for your time uh next up we have Raina Mai ma Raina can is it Raina or Ria R if you can hear me yes I can hear you and you can pronounce your name I want to make sure I get it right thank you I appreciate that just think of Tanya Tucker so think think of me as the country singer um so it's ra like Tanya um thank you um minutes yes thank you um thank you uh to the durm city council for offering this virtual space for comment my name is Ria musi I'm co-director of the North Carolina environmental justice Network I am also deeply heartbroken as my friends and family have been brutalized and starved in reso I look up to Durham City's courageous pioneering stances particularly that Durham is the first city in the country to protect its

Police Department from militarization and military training by adopting a policy statement against police training with the Israeli military and thus clearly recognizing the impact of international policies on our local lives to continue this tradition of standing with Justice I ask you to adopt and pass the submitted draft resolution for a permanent ceasefire this draft resolution has been supported by more than a dozen local community and labor groups and has already been submitted to the city council let us agree there is no neutral position regarding genocide oppression and Injustice saying no to a ceasefire means saying yes to bombing entire neighborhoods burying families under the rubble killing one child every two minutes and killing two mothers every hour power that's what it means to reject a ceasefire this is not a conflict between two Nations this is an ongoing genocide made with clear genocidal intent by an occupying State against an occupied population as

evidenced by South Africa's application to the international court of justice charging Israel with genocide let us agree nothing could justify this brutality absolutely nothing and yes this is both an international and a local issue issue it is our taxpayer dollars our weapons our support and our Durham residents and civilians who are crying out for your support and your outcry more Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza than all the children killed in all the conflicts since 2019 combined and today four fifths of all the people worldwide who are starving are in Gaza today if we can just imagine that so calling for a ceasefire would be an affirmation of the equality of Life an affirmation of national international law let us stand with the vast majority of Americans who want to ceasefire with the 32 cities Nationwide including carbo that have

called for a public ceasefire and as you debate this resolution I appeal to each one of you to check your emails because I sent you a statement written by members of the North Carolina General Assembly that asks for each and every elected official in the state to call for a permanent ceasefire we already have four members of the Raleigh city council that have signed the statement so while you as a city council together debate this resolution I urge individually each one of you to sign the statement thank you again for your time and I appeal to your humanity and your courage as Durham has showed us that you do have thank you thank you so much and I uh I also just in between I I uh want to thank you all for cooperating with the signs um not to get too technical but if we could just not let it go above our heads just right here in front of us is good you hold it in front of you which is fine but just not up blocking the view of

others where Toby lipin uh Toby liin can you hear me yes can you hear me yes I can you have three minutes thanks for joining us thank you for creating this opportunity and I also want to thank those of you that are wearing masks to preent prevent the continuation of the pandemic that is going on right now um I'm a 69-year-old white Jewish woman who is a non-zionist since I was in Middle School when my middle school teacher explained in 1967 what was going on in Israel and I thought this is not true what she's saying it just a smacked of racism and um inauthenticity and I'm sorry to say that here we are more than 50 years later and um I've watched Israel continue to uh

morph into an oppressor and now a perpetrator of genocide um the I urge you to pass a resolution and as um all of the speakers that have spoken before me in favor of a ceasefire resolution and I think we're talking about a permanent ceasefire resolution there needs to be a change in what's going on in Israel and unfortunately um we all have blood on our hands because our tax dollars have been paying to prop this up for many many many many many many years years and our tax dollars are way disproportionately spent on the military I think about what could be done with more tax dollars federal tax dollars here in Durham for affordable housing public health programs for young

people and on and on um and so what Hamas did on October 7th I agree was horrendous however Israel aggression Israel's aggression now as people have said has killed over 20,000 Palestinians starving people withholding water and electricity I mean this is I think the person that said think about I think it was Anna about looking away many people looked away when the Nazi Holocaust was happening and said oh I don't believe that's happening even people here in the US and if we do that we are doing the same thing as it would be looking away from oh we're going to have two water fountains or we're going to etc etc um and so I urge you uh to pass a permanen sees by resolution the one you have in front of you is great uh I imagine you

all will want to create your own but passing a ceasefire resolution is essential and I would add that those thank you so much Miss Toby that is your time and thanks for joining us next I have blue Miller blue can you hear me yes I can can you hear me yes you have three minutes thanks for joining us thank you hello city council thank you for your time I am a Durham resident and I work for southern Vision Alliance in student you I would like to make clear that the people of Durham want permanent ceasefire in Palestine and a new Aid or arms to Israel resolution this war did not begin on October 7th and it began far before the existence of Hamas this is not a Israel Hamas War as the person who spoke first claimed but Collective punishment towards the Palestinian people the over 10,000 children and Counting brutally

murdered are not Hamas and neither are these hospitals they claim that the War Began in the 2000s and that Israel gave Palestinians Gaza how can settlers give land to indigenous people The War Began in 1948 and even beforehand when Israel and Israelis first violently displaced Palestinians from their homes and have carried out a 75y year violent military occupation and eth ethnic cleansing campaign I believe that if we citizens of Durham were displaced from our homes at gunpoint forced into refugee camps bombed in Mass at hospitals and churches and forced to move through checkpoints in our own Homeland starved and deprived of any water and subject to mass shootings and torture that we would resist zionists will call any resistance to this horror terrorism and Israel has disallowed criminalized and violently taken out any Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the occupation myself and countless other people have sent you all emails and spoken at other work sessions condemning City council's complacency to this genocide I'm not sure if youall have

attended or witnessed but each month and each week uh citizens of Durham are turning out in the hundreds to demand Justice in Palestine those of us demanding the end to ethnic cleansing Collective punishment torture of children and civilians Mass displacement white phosphorus and dumb bombs the mass shootings of schools places of worship and refugee camps we are not radicals we are just people unwilling to stand inly by and complacent to atrocities beyond our imagination as I drive through Durham I imagine If This Were Us I imagine that folks were displaced from their homes in Lakewood and forced into a rural area only to be bombed and massed there I think about Duke hospital being bombed I Drive pass downtown and think about what it would look like in rubble I imagine this Were Us and I ask that you do the same and understand your power here to put an end to the terror in Gaza passing a permanent sear resolution which requires very little of you would create a powerful call to Washington DC letting them know that North Carolina wants an end to this genocide that these are not our values imagine if hundreds of City councils

around the US pass these fire resolutions I imagine the president and White House might feel compelled to listen I imagine that you all might to want to be one of those City councils that ended a genocide I am disappointed that we have to turn out to work session after work session to demand that y'all take a stance on genocide we should be disagreeing about the discrepancies of zoning policies in the city budget not whether or not Palestinians should be killed in mass as Leslie pointed out Gaza is a moral litness test if you will not stand the end genocide what will you stand thank you so much thank you so much blue thank you next up I have uh lingley D can you hear me yes I can can you hear me uh yes I can thank you you have three minutes thank you so very much on behalf of the board of director staff Scholars of the Charles Foundation de do you mind speaking um just a little clearer into the mic it's it's a bit uh muffled yes is that

better a bit better okay on behalf of the Charles Hamilton houon Foundation I would like to thank you Mr Mayor for proclaiming January as National mentoring month the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation is dedicated to fostering the academic leadership and professional development of boys and young menen of color our mission is to provide a comprehensive Continuum of strategy centered skill-based and career focused programs services and mentorship that go beyond theoretical knowledge emphasizing a practical and strategic approach to prepare prare our participants for academic success and success in the competitive Workforce at the core of our initiatives is strategy centered methodology we believe in the power of carefully devised plan of action to achieve specific goals our programs involve a meticulous analysis of the current educational and professional landscape we work to set priorities make inform decisions and allocate resources

to maximize the chances of success for the boys and youngen of color that we serve on average the young men who complete our career pathway program graduate college and secure career oriented employment earning $66,872 on average that is how you transform the lives of boys and youngen of color this guidance helped them navigate their career path make informed decisions and to work towards achieving their professional goals the reason I'm here today is because as you all be begin to embark on your budget deliberations we need the city of Durham to be a partner with us in this work my volunteerism along with the other volunteers with this organization is not enough we need additional resources to expand the programming that we offer implement the programming and services that we provide and really continue to make transformative impacts in our community thank

you thank you so much for your time next person I have is Virginia wman jinia can you hear me no don't okay next I have and lastly I have Maya ganam Maya can you hear me hi can you hear me yes you have three minutes thank you hi um so I've been to the Past um few work sessions and City Council meetings in December and from what I understand the Durham city council wants to write their own resolution um for a ceasefire and that um that they will have be having a private meeting um to discuss this but I have not heard anything about a timeline during that meeting um some transparency on how long this would take would be

really beneficial especially given the urgency of what is happening in Palestine right now I sent um y'all an email over the break and I did get a response um on behalf of cabayo um basically saying that there would be a small group of community members who have perspectives on this issue um that will come together with the city council to make this resolution I'm wondering who those community members are and how they're being chosen um and I'm seeing that it will happen this week so I appreciate the email thank you very much but again transparency in regards to how this resolution is being drafted um and how long it will take would be very beneficial um I also understand that the council would not want to adopt a resolution because it would set a precedent um for other organizations to submit their resolutions I'm personally

not really seeing the issue with that um because the city council still has the power to approve or decline those resolutions so I still think that ue1 15's resolution would be um very beneficial to at least look at um what if you're going to draft your own resolution um finally I wanted to say that at the last work session it was lovely to see um the Survivor care um work that is happening and to hear from Allen who is um a Community member that I've met in the past few weeks I did want to say that mayor Williams and um Mr Middleton your comments on there need to be front-end work um in terms of gun violence and then claiming that shot spotter would be one of those is very misleading uh policing is not preventative work actually Health Care programs like heart is so I would ask that you please do not trying to mislead

anyone into thinking that policing is preventative work um instead raising city worker wages would be for sure so um once again I'm asking for more transparency on the ceasefire resolution and for preventative care um in our communities it's not uh policing so um thank you that's it thank you for your comments and opinions and I will be addressing um that process right after all of the the comments today thank you thank you oh this is in person all right uh we'll now move to inperson comments um the first I have is Maria Garlock thank you if you can state your name for the record and you have three minutes okay my name is Dr Marie Garlock

I am a 16-year resident of Durham married to an 18-year resident of Durham who is a local business owner has brought jobs here we've paid our taxes um in all of that time we're also parents to a 2 and a half-year-old child and I speak from that place I'm also an educator of medical students and professionals who have been horrified by what is happening um for healthcare workers and healthcare providers in um Gaza and Beyond um in Palestine as well as in Israel and I'm coming here to speak about three things money ethics and the change that we can make here amidst trauma repeating itself over and over and over again and we have heard from people on all sides of this about the trauma that is repeating itself over and over again and there are very practical ways that this Council can intervene and make tangible steps so I want also to orient us to three ways of thinking I grew up as Methodist and I have been holding the Luke 2 1-20 story of Christmas that I grew up doing his

biblical storytelling as a child and I bring that place of Faith here not as something that should be interwoven with the state very clearly but as something that gets us to orient to children who are persecuted and pursued by state violence and displaced right now in Gaza and Beyond when Mary was pregnant and needed a place to give birth to her child there was no room for them at the in when Angels Came to them and said glory to God in the highest heaven and on Earth peace among all those whom God favors I know that each of you whether you are oriented to a Divine or something else that is larger than you that inspires you and your ethical Compass know that includes all human beings and what we are dealing with here is a hierarchy of life when 1,00 to 1400 people killed in Israel and nearly 30,000 people killed in Gaza and the West Bank are held unequally why are so many tens of thousands of people considered to be ex acceptable collateral damage for others deaths why

are these Innocents considered to be acceptable collateral damage for others deaths we've got to intervene on that logic in our own communities here in Durham and the ways that brutality and state violence happen against our people because they are black and brown and poor when that happens in those ways and we've got to intervene on that violence happening in a global way because our money is funding it there are three ways of thinking that a Baptist preacher Brian Mclaren talks about there's onethird of us who have an orientation to be Progressive to look for the helpers to intervene when violence is happening there's onethird of us who respond to stress and Trauma by saying there's got to be Law and Order there's got to be blood in the streets doesn't matter who's killed there's onethird of us who are a swayable middle who can listen and be moved and we ask for you all to be that bridge we ask for you to be that bridge for a permanent ceasefire resolution now and to hold in your hearts the children that you may hold every night or have held in your life knowing that you give thanks to God for their safety and that they are not in white body bags in your arms instead

thank you so much and next up we have Mo Brady and after Mo we're going to have [Music] Victor equa thank you please take your name for the recording you have three minutes good afternoon my name is Mo Brady I live in Durham zip code 27707 I'm so glad to have an opportunity to directly address so many of those I voted for in the last election and I ask you to adopt a resolution calling for a Perman ceasefire in Gaza I think the horrific violence being inflicted on the Palestinian people since the Noba in 1948 speaks for itself and in fact it doesn't just speak for itself it screams this violence has been ongoing for decades not since October 7th and Durham has a moral responsibility to end our

complicity and genocide I believe you have the moral responsibility as our representatives to end the flow of support and tax dollars to this Relentless violence I ask you to see each of the 22,000 people murdered and thousands more missing and mutilated as your siblings on this Earth despite what some may say innocent people do not deserve deserve to die and the citizens of Durham deserve a city that is working towards a better world not supporting ethnic cleansing with our tax dollars in this profoundly interconnected world that we all share there is no such thing as disconnection from our duty to one another as human beings throughout the world there is no reality where ethnic cleansing and indiscriminate Slaughter makes a society more safe genocide against one people will never create safety for another grounded in knowledge of this fact I ask you to please Ally the city of Durham with organizations such as Amnesty International the United Nations the World Health Organization

Doctors Without Borders UNICEF and the municipality Municipality of carboro North Carolina in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza I remind you that the end of Apartheid in South Africa began with Grassroots movements and with universities and cities agreeing to divest and boycott I ask you to please adopt or your own own a ceas fire resolution immediately thank you thank you so much after Victor which you will have three minutes we will have Jasmina noo you have three minutes thank you good afternoon my name is Victor and I live in Durham I work as a workers rights organizer with United for a fair economy and I'm also a member of the party for socialism and Liberation I came here today to ask the Durham city council to pass the ceasefire resolution presented by ue150 and endorsed by over a dozen labor and Community organizations since October 7th Israel

3 million in taxes annually to Israel's military while North Carolinian sent over 91 million while I understand that this city council has no control over the allocation of federal tax dollars this is even more reason to pass a a ceasefire resolution is your moral

legal and ethical duty to not remain silent as our tax dollars fund genocide ethnic cleansing we need to invest our resources into programs that alleviate violence we need to improve the quality of life for all durm residents this means spending to improve access to food Healthcare emotional and mental health support and housing the kids in our city deserve to have fun and affordable after school and summer programs we need a $25 minimum wage for city workers invest in our workers and communities here and divest from war and attack on black and brown people here and across the world in 1981 the Durham city council passed a boycott resolution opposing South African apartheid so his whole notion that cities cannot make resolutions on International Affairs is false many prominent academics political scientists diplomats and political leaders have stated that the apartheid system of Israel is much worse than the apartheid of South Africa no one in the right mind here refuse to condemn South African apartheid so why is it so controversial when it comes to Israel how was the mass murder of innocent Palestinians paid with our tax dollars a controversial stance please explain this to me I can't wrap my head around this okay

um why has there not been a ceasefire resolution by the Durham city council after almost 3 months of war crimes and atrocities over 28 cities I think it's 32 now actually across the country have passed a ceasefire resolution over 64 members of Congress have called for a ceasefire and over 150 countries voted for a ceasefire at the UN if you refuse to pass this ceasefire resolution which is a bare minimum you will also have blood on your hands free Palestine call for a Seas fire now thank you thank you for joining us uh right after you we'll have Mary and Lambert you have three minutes welcome thank you hi my name is yasmina noo and I have been a resident of the city of Durham since I fled the Bosnian genocide in 1996 I was 10 years old and I was lucky I think you all agree with me that no child no human should ever have to suffer the kind of harm that war

inflicts I'm standing here before you today as the Israeli Defense Force One of the most powerful militaries in the entire world attempts to obliterate an entire community of unarmed and Indigenous people by bombing schools hospitals residential buildings and refugee camps it has been nearly 3 months since the genocidal escalation of the war on Palestine more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed as of today and that number doesn't include those bodies that haven't been found beneath the rubble I'm asking you to see each of those people as our own people those children those grandparents those parents those lovers those doctors those artists those friends those dancers those basketball players those Palestinian babies and those Palestinian Elders they are our children their breaths are our breaths they are human and they deserve to live we as residents of Durham as United Stations as taxpayers as not are not only witnessing

this genocide but we are the direct aiders and ab betters of this war our hands are dropping those bombs on those Palestinian parents who just like you and me deserve to kiss their children good night and know that when they wake up they will still be there can you imagine I'm asking you to imagine to actually feel in your body what it must be like and I'm asking you to do something about it how can we go home tonight to our families to our friends to our children how can we e food with them sleep in at home with them tell them we love them knowing that there are human kin in Gaza who are never going to get to do that again I still feel the reverberations of war in my body and it's been more almost 30 years since I survived I still have dreams about what it feels like to be hungry what it feels like to be afraid of losing my parents every single day

every second every minute every hour that we allow for this to continue is colossal and contributes to a lifelong intergenerational and dire harm we are the ones who can do something about this and it is our responsibility I'm asking you to refuse to go home tonight without doing something as one of your constituents as someone who volunteered for some of your campaigns because I was excited about your promises I implore you to do the bare minimum and to adopt a ceasefire resolution to end the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza as a city that is so proudly made up of immigrants of black and brown revolutionaries of workers all of whom deserve adequately compensated thank you for your time I ask you to do the right thing with your heart have Mar and Lambert Maran lbert yep you have three minutes thank you so joining us joining

us if you will just state your name for the record and you have three minutes my name is Maran Lambert I emailed this morning to M shriber to request that my daughter and I come to speak so I would like to defer my time to my daughter because the issue is directly now we have sat through an hour and 15 minutes of every of everything I I can't as you're speaking and I'm listening I'm trying to refer to our procedures on whether I can defer your time to someone who didn't sign up I'm sorry I'm sorry what I was saying was I was referring to our procedures to determine whether I can defer your time to someone who did not sign

up she she okay so we don't defer time but she can speak if she did sign up she signed up right right she so you signed up and she signed up all right so you have them you have the floor at this time right what is your daughter's name yep so she'll be right after you yes all I want to say is my daughter would like to speak with you regarding the city of durm home firsttime home buyer assistance program please listen thank you Miss

[Music] Marian next I have Blair Carrington and if you could also state your name for the record you have three minutes thank you so much to the council my name is Blair Carrington I'm a long um life resident of uh Durham County um more specifically District 5 here downtown um I have uh applied for several um down payment assistance programs and firsttime home buyer programs through the city um without any fruition um so my question is to the council which I do have documentation that I can provide to you Mr Mayor and Mr um mayor protim that um what is the status of the current down payment assistance program with the Durham um with the city of Durham now offering I believe up to $80,000 of down

payment assistance um I did apply by um back in 2022 when you guys were offering $20,000 worth of assistance and of course that program um got shut down and then once it was reinstated back in August of 2023 I applied once again and um I have not heard back from any um any um City Council Members I have emailed I have called I have not heard back from Community Development I have emailed and I've called and I've also um emailed called everything with the um approved lenders um for the program and I applied back in September of 2023 and now it is January 2024 and I have no status update of my application thank you all right and Duran uh just so you'll know just doing citizen matters you've made it aware on record we don't

necessarily engage a respons find back but I I I'm sure staff heard you and you see the guy over there waving his hand go speak to him we'll get you taken care of thank you you're welcome next I have Katie Crow thank you for joining us I have Emily wils after Katie Crow and uh this Crow good to see you if you don't mind stating your name for the record and you have 3 minutes certainly Katie Crow and uh thank you Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proen members of city council for your committed service to our city and to all of you who are here for your engagement in Civic process I speak only for myself today bringing the vantage point of a person gutted by the horrors experienced by Israelis on October 7 and by Palestinians since speaking as a pastor who at once stands in a denomination that advocates for Palestinian rights and who sits at the feet of a Jewish Community as senior p pastor of Trinity

Avenue Presbyterian a congregation that has close bonds with a local synagogue as this body discerns its role and its voice in This Global matter I want to elevate the need to be agents of healing to traumatize communities here locally many of whom stand in different places relative to this issue all of whom need to know that Durham cares there is a swath of the Jewish community that hears and calls for a ceasefire a willingness to Forfeit the lives of hostages some of whom have Durham ties they hear rejection of their pain canceling of their experience and Concession to the powers that would see them annihilated and have been very nearly effective in the modern era powers that hit home again 8 and a half weeks ago that they fear that Durham will no longer be a safe place to call home amidst an already Rising tide of anti-Semitism and islamophobia that we must all work proactively against Durham has a special sauce of of community that is and can be our

greatest asset in this crisis if we are intentional in allowing it to be a response that is sensitized to and holds space for historically and presently traumatized people in our Durham home will go far in not only helping us to heal realtime wounds and meet this terrible moment but in strengthening our relational fabric so that we're all the more equipped to rise to meet the next one thank you for your time thank you so much next I have Emily wils thank you for joining us you have three minutes good afternoon my name is Emily wils and I'm the associate pastor for public witness at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian church and I'm not here to speak on behalf of the congregation that I serve but as a citizen of Durham it is my faith and conscience that lead leads me to call in this city council to draft and sign a resolution calling for an

immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza immediate and sufficient Aid to be allowed into Gaza release of all hostages held in Gaza and the prisoners held without a trial in Israel and an end to all us Aid and arms to Israel first I'd like to address why I think this is an appropriate matter to bring before city council we've heard some arguments that a city council shouldn't be weighing in on International concerns not only is there a precedent in the boycott resolution that Durham city council passed in opposition to South African apartheid in the ' 80s but in an era when the federal government feels less and less responsive to the will of the populace and the average Citizens Voice matters less and less city council is actually one of the last bastions of democracy city council represents the exhortation to think globally and act locally among one of the last avenues that average citizens like ourselves can trust that our voices will be heard city councils across the country have begun signing ceasefire resolutions our hope is that a critical mass of local gestures will ultimately conveyed to the White House that it has lost support for the continued backing of Israel's

military especially if those resolutions come from democratic strongholds that serve as President Biden's base and anticipation of the 2024 election cycle there is a particular role that city council's across the country can play in this moment and I urge you to consider joining other city councils across the country and listening to the voices of the citizens that you serve second following in that vein it's important that the Democratic process is followed here as well I'm speak speaking both to the city council and also to my fellow activists calling for a ceasefire in the volatility of this moment it's vital to remember that Israel is a state that was born in response to a genocide and therefore it's Central it is a central part of the Zionist story that this is a state that exists in order to protect Jews from another Holocaust and as Naomi kleene a Jewish Pro Palestinian author and activist has said if the way you talk about Israel makes Jews feel more afraid you're messing it up we need to be rigorous in fighting all forms of hate islamophobia anti-arab racism anti-palestinian racism and

anti-Semitism too we need to not give into our own anger and it invert Shore up the Zionist project with ways of speaking that make people unable to listen this is an opportunity to build broad solidarity and not give supporters of Israel and our community reason to feel even more justified in their support of the state and to not feel alienated from their Community for years to come if or when you do decide to draft a resolution My Hope Is that you will be similarly rigorous in uh combating all forms of hate so even Beyond Gaza violence in the West Bank uh taking place uh is taking place in the West Bank being despite homas having a limited presence in the territory isra Israeli forces attacked a refugee camp Bethlehem was hit we're seeing Christ Cru thank you so much for being with us Reverend we appreciate your time Madam Madam clerk please be advis I'm assuming to gavel momentarily while his honor is off the de uh the final card we have is for Ricardo Cora if he

is here good afternoon thank you for being with us sir you'll have three minutes if we just get your name H good afternoon bues my name is Ricardo and uh I have lived in Durham for 20 years and currently I live in District 1 I am the pastor of ministerio Mont and I speak only for myself as a concerned citizen of Durham and a local Faith leader I know some groups are asking for you to weigh the Middle East polit politics and I ask please don't there's no need to get involved either symbolic or not about eight weeks ago I witnessed 45 minutes of footage of the Tres that hamous did on October 7th while watching this footage some were crying others praying in lower voice and most surprised for the barbaric images that we were witnessing like for example I

saw a woman she was pregnant and her womb was cut open and the baby was beheaded I saw that image as a man of the cloth I come with the humble Spirit stating that this petition to get involved in international matters is completely out of the scope of the practice of this governmental body please consider the issues that really matter you know last year's gone violence numbers for example half of 2023 the shootings increased by 20% of Youth you know the genfic is taking place the issues that in our schools where students are stabbing each other other community needs needs to be focused on local matters stay focused on what really matters Our lives our children's our home I going to say some names and if any of you know this individuals please raise your hand uh Anthony fiser 17 years old n Nicole bollock 29 years old Mario caneso Lopez 23 years old anel Canal 16 years old osar banega 16 years old Jose Manuel casares M you 64 years old you

know who were they people that were killed last year Jose Manuel he used to sell hot dogs on the street in Durham if you don't know your citizens and you don't know that they've been killed we should be concerned about that I do pray for the peace between Israel and Palestine especially Gaza I pray for their peace I engage in community conversations but I don't impose myself or any matter to distract you elected officials from what the cities of durhams elect you to do to keep us safe safe and prosper please stay focused and work to our community thank you very much thank you thank you so much I'll you back to the mayor okay I'll just make a few comments real quick so uh thank you all for your comments today uh obviously the ceasefire um matter has been at the top of many of our minds I will say that if you all

have sent an email recently uh please have Grace with the council as we receed thousands of emails and uh we're not a council where that just goes into a junk folder we are literally working and having to sort can't respond to everything um but we try to communicate amongst one another as much as possible and we try and uh you know respond as much as we can if you've sent an email um we got it uh if you've sent an email about another matter uh and you have not received the response just have a little Grace as we are trying to get to it um but in regards to uh this matter I think that it's appropriate for me to say something uh at this time um you know there are a few things about you know leadership that I've learned um one is sometimes you have to make decisions that will affect the people really close to you that you care about and it may make them

upset uh and that is the same as people who may not even know you um another thing is you're never going to make everyone happy um another thing I've learned is you know action is necessity it's a necessity you have to take action you have to do something uh and so part of leading this Council I could easily just take one email and respond and say this is how we're going to move and there's a thousand others that's saying the other thing or I can go one email from the other side and there's a thousand that's saying another thing there is no just just because you come here or you sign up or you say something to us and say I voted for you this is what I expect of you there's just as many saying the same thing thing so what what you have to do is is you you have to trust that we're going to do we're going to do what we can do the best we can and you'll have a choice how you want to engage with that decision moving

forward but that is our reality now as I'm listening as I've said before I have my personal preference I've talked to my colleagues we have varying views or our approaches on how we should address this and what I've done is I've asked people who I've engaged with on one side of this issue I've asked people that I've engaged with on the other side of this issue and I've asked people I've engaged with people that are just in the middle that are really focused here in Durham you know as I believe all people are and what I've done is I've asked a small group of people and when we meet next week uh now and it's taken a little time everyone has agreed to uh to actually meet and when when we meet next week we're going to have a small group conversation I'm going to ask that group hey would you like to allow me to publicly announce you some people have already said they're fine but I want to give Grace to that group and allow us to sit down and actually talk I chose to bring this group together because this group is going to advise me on how I'm going to approach this with my colleagues and then we're going to do

what we need to do amongst one another to to respond to this issue and that is how I'm choosing to do it and I think that is the best way to do it and it may not make everybody happy that is not why I was elected but trust me the advocacy on this issue is just as loud on all sides all sides and that is not saying one way or the other but I am asking you just please let us have a little time so that we can respond but as I said when we do respond it will be it will come from this Council it would not be authored by anyone else okay um and at this time thank you uh at this time we are going to move on with the agenda three p items we have three pull items item number three 7 and

12 um and it's all important stuff you guys don't have to leave all right uh item number three uh there was it was pulled by Resident as well as myself I I pulled this item simply because I wanted to address it I colleagues I've already spoken with you all about it for most of you um but I also wanted to make sure we have it on the record uh this item ended up on the agenda just by a little miscommunication uh the process to bring items on the agenda is we all deliber deliberate amongst one another whether we uh would like to add it to the agenda and then we will we'll discuss it and then we'll take action on it uh as I was asking about clarification on this and the process of getting things to the agenda I I think that uh it was miscommunicated and it was placed on the agenda without full consent of everyone it's nothing really controversial about it at least in my opinion I do agree with it uh and and

and stand in solidarity with it it is a matter that addresses here at home um but I did not want to take action on this without getting uh without one following that process and um I just want to hold true to that if we're okay with addressing this today uh we can move it to GBA I mean I'm sorry we can go ahead and uh just have it in the regular process or uh just out of respect of the process uh moving forward I can you know um just have it moved on uh it's up to you all council member Caballero thank you Mr Mayor um just I'm just a little confused I hear what you're saying that usually we bring it informally and then the language is provided so we have a chance for feedback I think that's the only piece that I would want is the space to provide feedback on the language so I don't however that works logistically is fine but normally we send the language so folks have that opportunity as colleagues since it's a resolution not a proclamation which is

your purview right so would we like more time uh or would we I would like just to be able to send feedback on okay to your point I don't think it's controversial but there's you know I think it it merits like aces in there a lot of folks don't know what a aces are things like that yeah yeah thank you y I can I can ask for ask thank you gbaa okay um Mr may I want affirm those comments and also ask just a simple question this may just be semantics is this is this a resolution or is it a proclamation uh it would be a it would be a resolution it says it's a resol yeah it would be a resolution which means we actually will take a vote on it thank verifying it would be on the next work session yeah it could be on the next work session or it could be in um I

think if we did GBA then we'll be discussing it as is next work session we'll be able to make some language adjustments so um yeah next work session is probably the best is everybody okay with that okay and I'll reach out to the uh the person who submitted it all right Mr Mayor can I just clarify so we can from this since we're having this conversation typically what would happen is kind of what council member rist and Baker did during comments bringing either an item or a resolution saying hey I would like to bring X whatever that is if there's a thumbs up then at a and often we'll discuss because staff has to fit that within their work on a work session I'm saying this for the benefit of new colleagues um that then the pre uh forthcoming work session date is is decided draft language is provided as that work session or for that work session agenda and then if it moves forward it just shows up as a as part of

the consent agenda that's typically how it's done um so I'm just sharing that time or that process um for for our new council members thank you okay okay uh Leticia Fon can you hear me yes I can hear you okay did you just hear the discussion from us yes you said next work session okay is would you would you mind coming back to speak with us at that

time it's fine okay I really appreciate that sorry about the confusion um we're figuring this out all right thank you so much colleagues we will move on item number seven council member Baker actually um pulled this item for a similar reason as that that um councilwoman kabier spoke up about earlier which is just to highlight the enormous amount of money that's going to repaving and sidewalk projects um something just to take note of just because it's worth our time to think about um infrastructure is extremely expensive um and sometimes uh these repaving projects um they're not always taking places on streets that desperately need them and so I do think that it's an area where we can take take a close look and and and uh apply some

scrutiny um but I also think it's an important part obviously uh this is one of those areas where when we um when we uh have surveys conducted of the community um street repaving is one of the higher priorities that we hear from people um but I also think that the way that that question is asked is not necessarily weighing um trade-offs between repaving streets and for example you know uh investing in homelessness services so um just something I wanted to highlight was was the amount of money going towards towards these projects s um and I had I I was going to ask one question but I think I'm actually going to ask it outside of the meeting because I don't think that we need to hear it here so that's that's all that I have on this item thank you thank you very much the next item I have is item number 12 who P that

oh David BR Brad okay David Bradley can you hear me David can you hear me hello can you hear me hey David how are you thanks for joining us you have three minutes Mr Mayor mayor protm and members of the council my name is David Bradway I've been a Durham resident since 2005 thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak I'm encouraged to see so many items on this agenda for sidewalk repairs Transit corridors and go Durham Transit studies I'm grateful to the council and staff for funding these and other infrastructure improvements in our budget during the pandemic I ran all 4200 plus streets in the city of Durham and I saw firsthand that many sidewalks are in bad shape and I saw that many more sidewalks need to be constructed in neighborhoods that are most dependent on our transit system I urge you I urge you to continue to increase funding and capacity to deliver these infrastructure

projects some that were outlined as far back as the 2006 and 2017 bike and walk plans and that may come via an infrastructure Bond or some other means but there have been over hundred million doar in sidewalk repair projects already identified so it's going to take continued effort to deliver these to people that need them I want to also thank you for your recent vote to hold developers accountable to higher standards for Transit opportunity zones and our approved comprehensive plan finally I hope you will consider your responses to the supplemental surveys and questionnaires both that you uh submitted and that bike Durham submitted for the candidates for the ward 3 appointment they cover Transit working with ncdot housing and climate so thank you for serving the city and for your time today thank you so much thank you so much Mr brat way for joining

us yeah looking for there it is all right and we'll uh now we have our presentation by the finance department equal business opportunity program we have uh allocated 30 minutes uh for this item don't feel like you have to take all of it but you have 30 minutes thanks for joining us so good afternoon mayor Williams mayor uh mayor protim Middleton and council members I am Sheila faet the deputy CFO and I reside and work in the finance department and today you will receive a presentation on the equal business opportunity

program so we're going to start with an abbreviation guide for our as a part of our agenda the current over overview of our current organizational chart and Staffing the purpose of the ebot program we're going to talk about disparity studies goal setting our fiscal year 2023 annual report we'll have some vendor spotlights a little bit of data program Improvement efforts that we are working on and we'll talk about our 2024 2026 priorities along with uh we'll wrap it up with our Med week of 2023 celebration and we'll have an opportunity for some questions as well so uh I added an abbreviation guide because you may be familiar with some or um none of some of the terms that I'll be using today so I want to highlight just a few of those that I will uh most frequently speak on and first is ebop and that's our equal business

opportunity program that is our City's race gender Supplier Diversity Program you'll hear me say Hub which is historically under realized businesses and that refers to the North Carolina's certification program as well as the database that um houses the underutilized businesses for North Carolina you will also see or hear me talk about mwbe and that stands for minority women owned business and Enterprise and you will also hear SLB e which is our small local business Enterprise program and that's the city's program which is a race and gender neutral Supplier Diversity Program and last but not least you will hear UBC and that refers to the underutilized business compliance division within finance and that is the division that handles the administration of both those programs which is ebop and slbe so we want to start with the

organization chart and uh for ebop and it falls under the finance director's purview Mr Tim flora and also the um the administration over the day today management of the program starts a part of is part of my vertical as the deputy CFO and UBC it has three FTE uh that actually do the day-to-day work in implementing the ebop as well as the S SOB program so here are the faces of uh UBC of course you see me uh the deputy CFO and we have Sydney Anderson who is our business services administrator as well as Nathan Rivers who is our business services analyst we also have a UBC manager who is responsible for the administration of ebop as well as s Sobe and that position reports directly to me and it's currently vacant but we are

active recruiting for that position in the presentation I also provided for you a link to the UBC website I invite you to go there and learn a little bit more about UBC as well as our programs when you have the opportunity so what is ebop so ebop Works to prevent discrimination and to maintain equal opportunities for historically underutilized businesses and that's done by informing businesses of City Contracting opport unities providing information and assistance to those underutilized businesses as it relates to City procurement practices procedures as well as bid specifications it's done by setting mwbe participation goals for eligible contracts in this is key that are $30,000 or greater and by evaluating biders and contractors achievement of those contract specific goals along with good faith efforts to meet those goals

by working with City departments to ensure prompt payments to our underutilized businesses as well as to access the compliance of those contract specific commitments that those vendors will make and by reviewing and addressing in any complaints and suggestions along with the program as well as collecting data and the to evaluate the program and any City Contracting initiatives so I'm providing for you today also a little bit of a timeline to go over some of the historical um points as it relates to our ebot program and I wanted to start and go back to 2014 which is when we conducted our last uh disparity study along with the county of Durham and in 2016 the city of Durham actually adopted a new ordin ordinance and in that ordinance it was a part of those recommendations from that 2014 disparity study

in 2019 the Equal Opportunity e and Equity Assurance Department became the equity and inclusion department and at that time we created the compliance excuse me the contracts in compliance division in 2022 the contracts and compliance division became UBC and it moved over to the finance department so that we could have better coordination within the purchasing Division and in 22 we created an interdepartmental work group to work on ebop initiatives and improvements so I also wanted to give you a little bit of a timeline on what we've been doing over the last year and some of those improvements so in October of 2022 we started implementing those recommendations from the workg group and we also did a number of reporting enhancements for the program also in 202 three we uh reinstated the project

management training and where we bring those project managers in and we tell them what their responsibilities are as it relates to the ebop program we also in 2023 reinstated the ebop steering committee that committee now meets on a quarterly basis and they provide feedback and review our reports as relates to the program and to make any recommendations to help us to continue um improving ebop in September 2023 we actually published our first ebop annual report and you will hear and I will outline a little bit more about that later in the presentation and we also will talk about um our 2024 2026 uh program priorities we have a number of improvements that we're planning on the horizon and we're going to highlight some of those of what how we plan to go forward so let's talk about disparity

studies what is a disparity study a disparity study determines if inequities exist in public procurement and Contracting that adversely affects disadvantaged businesses minorities and or women and it helps to ensure that any race or gender-based program can withstand scrutiny in a court of law there's no mandated expect time expect excuse me expectation of time between the studies and those studies are usually uh handled or um established every 5 to seven years the length of the study is really determined by the scope of the research the condition and the availability of the data and the scope of services and the numberers of entities that are involved and a study will normally last about 12 months and study requirements are based off a 1989 US Supreme Court decision and

that decision impose legal requirements to establish a compelling interest to support the establishment of actually having a minority and Women Business program and those the study results should determine if that compelling interest exists to have that particular Supplier Diversity Program that's why we do disparity studies so I wanted to highlight um our most recent disparity study which was conducted in 2014 and it was uh conducted by Griffin and strong which was out of Atlanta Georgia and again that study was together with the city and the county and we had diff excuse me separate recommendations as well as analysis and the study consisted of legal analysis statistical analysis data and recommendations and the objectives there were two main objectives in that study and one was to determine if the city or county has engaged or was engaging in discriminatory practices in the

solicitation of a w of contracts and they're in those specific areas of construction engineering which is Professional Services services and goods and I'll highlight a little bit more about those later and as well as determining if a legally Justified need continue to exist in the city or in the county for a Supplier Diversity Program as set forth in those guidelines set by the Supreme Court so go setting the city of Durham has aspirational goals for the ebop program aspirational goals are not quotas they're not set asides and the city sets those Project Specific goals for eligible projects with a value of $30,000 or higher on the and it's based on the availability of the amount of certified minority and women contractors that are actually available to complete

that scope of work and So currently the goals that we have is for construction as a minority goal it's 11% the woman goal is actually 7% for Professional Services it's 8 and six Services 7 and five and goods we have a 2 and a 4% goal so how do we set goals within the UBC team how does UBC do their daily responsibilities and so we set Project Specific goals by the team will receive a project of scope from the project manager and the UBC team will take that project scope and they'll go to that North Carolina Hub database and they will search ubbe in those 22 counties that can perform that scope of work that's been provided the team will then validate to ensure that list is accurate and then the team will set goals based on the

number of opportunities within the scope and contractors that are available to do the work in each category and then the team will actually go back to the department and they'll have those discussions and if possible or if need be they may be adjusted up or down based on the feedback from the project manager so we're going to move into the fiscal year 2023 annual report again that was the first time we've um actually produced an annual report here at the city and we had a few goals in mind when we did that and we wanted to have transparency and accountability we wanted to highlight improved data collection we wanted to share process Improvement stories and we wanted to highlight important contributions of mwbe vendors and I've also provided a link for you in the presentation to that report and when you have the opportunity I invite you to go and read a little bit more about it so here's a vendor Spotlight from the report that I felt it was very very

important that I highlight and I'll quickly read it Three Oaks Suzanne Young Three Oaks engineering uh is grateful to the city of Durham for providing us with the opportunities as women-owned a women-owned hub in DB dbe Vendor by establishing goals for Hub and dbe participation in contracts and maintaining a list of certified firms for the use in requests for proposals we have been approached by Prime firms who may not have known of our business otherwise and so why I really wanted to highlight that is because that explains or shows how important it is for the city to have the programs that we have so I wanted to also talk about a little bit of the data in the report today in the charts that you have before you represent Prime and subcontractor mwbe payments from 2021 to 2023 while it is difficult to discern the trends as it because of the disruption from covid-19 the data does

show a decline in the MW mwbe payments for Prime but it also shows an increase in mwbe subcontractor payments and we do meaning we Finance have plans to engage with those vendors to understand the barriers that they that they actually face when it comes to competing for those contracts and we're going to use this data as a benchmark to um make additional ebop improvements and I want to highlight and note so you'll know that when we're talking about ebop there's specific uh criteria for the ebop and this does not include any federal funded contracts um any contracts less than $30,000 and other types of agreements so we're really focused on on just contracts that come from solicitations so what has UBC been doing

and again this slide highlights some of those improvements that we've made over the last year we've improved our website we've streamlined our reporting we've uh reinstated the ebop steering committee and the picture that you have before you is actually the team at work in improving those forms making their userfriendly PDF fillable and we're very proud of those improvements and we will continue to move that process forward so I'm going to talk about the 2024 2026 priorities we have a number of items that we plan to do to improve this program and one again is we're going to plan to focus on improving data collection and Reporting we're going to collect vendor feedback through surveys to see again how can we help and identify those barrias that uh minority vendors may be having and getting our contracts most importantly and what you will see in the next couple of months will be a new ordinance rewrite uh and

review that we've been working on since uh November and also we're going to continue to enhance our Outreach and Business Development so want to highlight our minority Enterprise development week again Med week is a celebration of achievements and contribution for minority businesses it takes place each October and I provided a link to the video for my 2023 Med week and it was a celebration of keynote speakers panels networking a lunch and a business expo and we have a couple pictures there of the ribbon cutting uh also uh Dr pedig grew was in the picture at the OE Workforce panel that we had a picture of our business expo and of course our wonderful mayor and uh Deputy City manager is in a picture there when we were given an award to one of our local vendors so I'm going to conclude today I hope I didn't take too much of your time but this is my favorite picture from Med

week it's really showed the celebration and all the hard work of the city and the county and the staff that we did to put together that wonderful event in 2023 and at this moment I will take any questions that you may have yes thank you so much for your presentation Madam manager uh thank you for a a moment of privilege I really would like to say thank you uh to Sheila she is a fairly new employee even though uh it doesn't seem that way with one of her first major presentations to city council uh but from this seat I did want to appreciate her for being here today to make the presentation but most importantly for being a key leader in the Improvement and forward looking of our uh ebop and slbe programs so thank you Sheila thank you city manager Paige have a great day any other questions not rushing you

colleagues all right council member Freeman thank you I appreciate the presentation and I think it's a great framework um to view the discrimination and practices that have been so long held um in Contracting and I do think it's a good tool to have I do want to ask if you felt there were gaps in how you could track your minority um I guess your minority um own business owners yes we do have um some gaps in that and that's why we're focusing on data collection and in January which is now January we the team and I will be focusing on um Outreach to vendors making sure that we have them coded properly in our system we're going to be going out there making sure hey you're in our system but you're not showing that you're certified we're going to reach out to them and see if we can't get them certified so we have a number of initiatives that we're planning to move forward with to make sure that we can enhance our participation goals by just really making sure that our data is

correct and then I I wasn't sure if there's any tie into the federal study program with the socially economically disadvantaged initiative but I feel like it's a it's a cross reference point that probably could be helpful and it may need we need to have more conversations about it but um I do know that in addition to looking at you know historically under underused or underutilized there's also aspect of this that could kind of pick up in um lowincome um folks as well so that we're tracking that and then just specifically where uh minority women are specifically if you're not tracking it you're not going to be able to tell us what we're whether or not we're discriminating or not against minority women and I do know that that's a specific area that that has always been pinged that I always ping um in these conversations because it is you know it is specifically for women and that is white women that does not include women of color and outside of that I do want to I

do want to um like I do want to understand if if we're staying at 11 and 7% how that is determined and when that determination will be shifting right so that those goals were a little bit higher from the disparity study it's really a basis of the disparity study they make recommendations based on uh the analysis that they've actually done to determine where the disparity is so when we actually do our new rewrite which will be coming before you we will be assessing the goals at that time and if we can determine that we can increase or decrease those goals we will go from that point at that time will there be an an opportunity to increase the goals or increase the the type of goals so that there are specifically calling out minority women on businesses uh one moment Madam manager um I wanted to kind of respond to that because one of the um and and looking at

the evaluation of the current ordinance and the rewrite all of those considerations will be take you know be taken into consideration but because we actually use the commerce's Hub database we are you know we may not have specific information that is not collected by The Hub database in order to classify the vendors so we want to make sure we look really closely at that we're not we're not taking anything off the table uh but whenever a business is Hub certified whatever they provide or what we can glean from that certification is really what we can use in our programs thank you and that does kind of give a precursor to the reason I asked the question is because uh it would be nice to make sure that in our legislative agenda we include that request that our Hub databases actually include minority U women owned businesses not just limiting it to minority and I would also say that there's probably an opportunity

for more than just um women own it's also people with disabilities and uh people with language access concern so that that's where that kind of steady conversation comes in and I think that we can there's a lot there to broaden to than where we were 10 years ago so that's all and the Hub database does include all of those they are all in that database currently currently they are in the hub database thank you council member R uh Miss fet first of all thank you for the presentation really appreciate your you're sharing that information um and I want to just just for the council as you all know I spent a career in economic development for taking this job um and this issue of ensuring that our Contracting practices provide equal opportunity to historically underutilize businesses is a critical tool in our Economic Development tool case so this is actually a critical tool and I appreciate the update you've shared here and the work you're doing so I just have a couple questions so one is that the disparity study you referenced it to the

basis of these goals in this program was in 2014 and you noted that the sort of best practi is every 5 to seven years to redo that so do we have we're 10 years pass that old disparity study are we due to renew our disparity study or what's the plan for making sure that we have that that documentation to to justify the work we're doing yes um we are working on that now um we planning to on the horizon to work towards a new study um I was going to say how would you like to you to respond to that one I'm going to let director I'll jump in respond uh so yes so we we are working on a budget request for a new disparity study but one of the things that um um Sheila had pointed out was improved data collection and so the importance of a getting a good disparity study would be having the good data to support um the conclusions of that study and um we are working hard to ensure

that the Integrity of our data is going to be there for when we actually get to a new study so what I will say a disparity study is on the horizon for what we are looking at we are just working to make sure that once we get to that point where we want to contract with someone that we are going to have uh the data that is needed for that study great thank you um so my second question thank you is um so thanks for the goal setting I guess my question was how are we doing against those goals and is that you referenced something about assessing our goals so is that still in process or how do we know how we're doing yes we have room for opportunity there and again that surrounds the our data set that we are improving so uh we again we have opportunities for improvement and I have a number of areas like uh increasing the number of vendors in our program and uh updating our Erp system so that we can capture and make sure that we are Meeting those goals and exceeding them but you don't have the data right now no I do not have that

readily available other than the charts that I have provided for you however we can get that inform back for you that'd be really would love to see that data yeah and the last thing is this sort of picks up on councilwoman Freeman's questions about um the gaps I just want to ask the question again so what if if we're not potentially meeting the goals what are the key what do we need to do to improve this and make sure we're hitting our goals is it both an issue of making sure we do Outreach to vendors does it mean actually trying to encourage new folks to enter um different fields that have opportunities to to be vendor so what's a little bit of all of that again is uh one improving our data because we believe that we have a lot of um more minority participation it's just us actually making sure our data is correct correct we plan to do more Outreach to those vendors and um if they are not certified get them certified because that's key we can't count you in our numbers unless you're a certified vendor so you can be a minority vendor with the city but unless

you're certified based on our ordinance unless you're certified through that Hub database or North Carolina do we don't we can't count you in our reporting so it's key to get those vendors certified get them updated in our system and we'll be doing that through Outreach with vendor surveys so again we have a number of priorities on the horizon so that we can make sure that we are increasing our participation with minority vendors great thank you this is a big big priority so I appreciate the presentation and look forward to hearing more as as as the project gets more data and and we can learn more thank you thank you pro thank you uh Mr Mayor I'm going to thank council member R and council member Freeman for their great questions congratulations on on a really brilliant uh uh entry into this world this orbit here in uh city durm government and for a great uh presentation today want to thank council member riss for his inquiry about uh a disparity study I think I know what it's going to show uh when when we do the next disparity uh

study um so much so that I want to kind of of of create a coraly between this and another effort that we've got underway here in Durham our shared economic Prosperity plan and our buil to last program which is which is directly aimed at this same Target um on the outside there some obviously for legal reasons some things we can't do with our money internally so we've set up this not for profit and I hope to be hearing about their progress uh sometime uh this year so I guess my question is do is there overlap do you communicate with our folk who are doing shared economic Prosperity uh for the city and and are there is there goal sharing is there overlap or or duplication if you and if this you know this question is far field just just let me know but um or staff yeah sure whoever mam manager so I would just say Sheila's going to respond to that but who you see in this audience today is very few people but you do see our um Mr Andre pedig here as part of

the team that is um you know part of the steering committee uh that we put together and he he's here you know specifically to respond to questions but the short answer is there is collaboration and I wanted to jump in and recognize uh both Andre and Tim in the support of this work in the chamber today but Sheila has the details so city manager page said it all reallying yes we do collaborate to each other U we we parti anticipated in events when it came to like the med week celebrations he was a part of our one of our panelists so yes we do collaborate on those efforts tell me what what the um the buil to last is where your where your border ends and they pick up to amp just to amplify a little bit on what they're doing that the part that you're not doing or where they they complement you in a way that's different from what we're doing internally and if see and I'm more on

the compliance side in accounting and accumulating the numbers and increasing the minority bu [Music] businesses good to see you man Andre pedigree the director of the office of Economic and Workforce Development uh thank you for the question and thank you for your interest on this topic um again uh as the head of the office of Economic Development uh it is important that our businesses be able to access the city as a market and while my work oftentimes involves a lot of the external corporate and other areas uh this particular effort that Sheila and Tim are controlling is really about how we participate in that in terms of where built the last and other Economic Development agencies begin and end is that again they are out providing technical assistance and Outreach um uh they are engaging mostly

other corporate um you know organizations to stimulate that market again we have far less access or control to that market and so uh when other advocacy organizations and service providers are doing Outreach they help us by generating opportunities in that broader category and guess what those BMS can also serve us and so again one of the big things that I'm interested in as the head of the office of economic development is how we raise the capacity and Outreach in market supply for all of our businesses uh and again built the last is is an organization that's focused in on that broader area absolutely and I and I hope that the uh the work will directly reflect in some of that data we start collecting uh in terms of who we're Contracting with um as a city um good to see you always happy New Year to both and and really

excited about this work this work really will be it doesn't get as much attention and some other things but this is really where the transformative part of the work is done where we get all of our residents participating in the wealth that is Durham and Durham is doing well just not everybody's participating in it so we we want to make sure that happens um his honors left the podium uh for a moment Madam clerk I'm assuming the gavl again I want to thank my colleagues that have gone so far y to any other colleagues questions com council member Caballero thank you thank you good afternoon thank you for the presentation um it did not seem like it was your first presentation to council so wonderfully done um I had a couple questions and it's going to be for both um for you and for o um I want to thank my colleagues because I had the disparity question as one so thank you um and then um I I was curious who all is on the steering committee oh we have about 22 people um let's see we if you want just send it that be great but we have a a collaboration of the

Departments uh o uh let's see um General Services all internal are there any folks who are all internal okay right now they all internal okay I think my next question so there's a couple questions and I'm hearing a little bit of it and I I know Andre and I have had these conversations a lot um you know oewd does the outward facing it's it's getting folks to build capacity it's helping them with their certification so that they can even bid on government contracts and so I just want that like basically I see it as a pipeline we help people on the outside but we also are providing an Avenue for them to make money with our with our city dollars and I think that in many cases uh that is because we have these goals and the market outside doesn't necessarily have those goals um it's a really it's a it has the potential to really help us meet that goal of shared economic prosperity um and obviously as an immigrant in Latina I'm particularly interested in

what are we doing and it's conversations that I think some of you have had with some of our community members some of our Latino own businesses um how are we ensuring that that pipeline is happening how are we providing culturally competent uh expertise in that's multilingual potentially uh especially if we know it's like familyowned first generation is retiring second generation wants to really level up and so then what are we doing to get those folks to be able to level up so um um councilwoman uh you you know that we last year put together uh a Hispanic entrepreneurs advisory committee and again that was to provide the set of relationships and infrastructure to better serve that community and uh we meet monthly with them uh and um it has ramped up uh our Outreach effort in terms of culturally competent Communications our website is

bilingual uh and when we talk about cultur competence what we want to do is make sure that we're establishing a trusted relationship in delivering information because business is about trust um on that Advisory Board uh we have the president of the Hispanic contractors Association and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for North Carolina has joined the committee as well as El Central and the Latino Credit Union uh we have some of the strongest organizations to help guide us in better serving uh the Hispanic business Community uh they are giving us really an opportunity to build a strong competent relationship which I think is the most important from a long-term standpoint um we did do a a bidding the bid uh Workshop uh for Hispanic Contracting companies uh during the uh 2223 fiscal year and again we'll

continue to do that and in doing so we will always partner with those types of organizations particularly in the Hispanic Community to move that forward thank you I really appreciate that information um and I look forward to like further updates and then the Lessons Learned as we as we are seeing increases in other language High language use groups that the Lessons Learned within the Latino Community can then be applied um I I will say that one place that I hope we build some deeper relationships with is within the Immigrant um well hopefully office of immigrant Refugee Affairs which is you know housed in the county and and so that when folks go there like that we are tightening up that alignment within the city and the county um we want everyone to do well I think everybody um and we and we have to rise to that occasion of pivoting so that everyone can do well um I think I think that's it thank you thank

you council member Freeman thank you I do appreciate the bilingual aspect of it but I do think it's important to highlight the culturally competent side of it and making sure that it's not limited to just Spanish um I will repeat um again Spanish is not the only language as Hispanic folks speak or Latino folks speak and then also there are folks who is French speaking um and then Muslim Arab speaking like there are there are a multitude of languages that have to be covered and which is why I said women of color it's not just black women there are women who are in business who are not getting the supports that they need and I feel like I feel a whole responsibility around that as a woman of color in business and so that socially economically disadvantaged um initiative that I talked about is specific I think if we were to look that and Target in our next disparity study who we're talking to that have businesses under $330,000 like if that aspect of of what we're doing around goals could be spelled out um I'll just say in advance

that's the level of detail that I think we have to get to to actually get to the population of people who are in business that um are discriminated against okay and again we'll work with the finance to make sure that you know we get to the level of detail and I'm sure bring it back to you guys as we move forward to set those relationships and and build those opportunities successful opportunities yes so I know I feel confident that the compliance of where we are from 2014 we're getting there and then what I'm concerned about is that we're not yet identifying those other areas that that are there and so yes a disparity study will be helpful to have but there are things we know right now like there are women in business who are not English speaking who need supports and how are we as a city um identifying those groups whether it's through built to last or uh shared economic Prosperity so that they actually do have access because they are in the hub

database and if they're and if our database is not matching the Hub database I have a lot more questions because that's kind of what I heard which which is what what I'm going to follow up on thank you okay council member cavier yeah this is just in general b basically few weeks ago and this is not pertaining to y'all's presentation per se but a few weeks ago we had a Latino owned a younger um a younger man who I think his father was a drywaller and now he was they were getting into development and um local folks kids had gone to Riverside and I want to make sure that those kinds of folks are getting the support that they need with public dollars um and and that that's not an anomaly that in the six years that we've done that I've been doing rezoning cases I think that's the only one where somebody's shown up as the actual applicant that that is just how we do business and Durham that that is not a rarity and I think that applies to several different groups that we can name um so I think that that when I when

I think about this work that's what I want to know is happening thank you thank you so much all right colleagues are we all clear all right thank you all so much it we have to do the discussion after war three right all right all right next up and I think this um maybe our final item before the close session uh so under other other matters we do need to address the war three process um and colleagues you should have the schedule uh before you uh councilor M would you like to lead us through this sure thank you Mr Mayor uh thanks everyone I I want to First want to thank um our city clerk and and her staff because I know that

m. um so those are just kind of like the housekeeping items Mar Williams sorry yes I have a monkey wrench for you of course you do all right um I wanted to request our uh ask our colleagues if you could look at your calendar to see if the morning of the 16th and I'd like to have us have a special session to discuss that to make our to submit our final vote it'll be quick uh I will not be here that evening oh on my you said the morning

the 16th right yeah so we would move both the interviews and the supporter meeting because we have the supporter meeting on the 10th there's uh we select the finalist on the 16th the is that an ual actionable Vote or is it just an announce that is how it's been done historically the the person is named and sworn in that night is what we've done historically P that up but and I I mean I think we can update it um I just want to make sure we're all here I didn't realize I wasn't going to be here until no that's fine are you also out of town on the 16th because I thought that's what I'm talking about the day of the 16th the 16th oh just to that piece yeah I'll be here on the 16th in the morning but not in the evening okay so for the vote for the for the vacancy the reg we would just you're not asking to move everything next week no no no I'm asking if we could come together to hold that like it's a special meeting can can we manage to wrap it in the June on the January 10th meeting is that wa because

you'll you'll still be here and we'll all be together that would uh let's see hold on a second that's a public comment right yes the t is the opportunity for I mean we would maybe need need to I mean I guess it depends if people need more time or not that's that's the question that we could just take some we could take some time after discussing it or the interviews and then come back and make a decision we we don't the the decision like we can't leave and discuss all seven right like we have to do that in an open session it's just whether people are going to be ready to make it like it could be and I have no idea it could be that you have the interview you have the supporter meeting you need some time to think you're going to kind of be forced to make a decision then I I don't so uh we have I don't have an opinion one way or the other today is January 4th so we have January 8th which will be the interview finalist uh today we're choosing the

finalist to be interviewed then we interview them on the 8th on the 10th we'll conduct the public comment period on the 16th we actually make the final selection that is what we had or originally right so we could call a special meeting on the 16th we could call a special meeting previously to the 16th if we wanted we could yeah um I just don't know I don't want to assume folks are going to be ready to make a decision Wednesday night I feel like that might be a little a little much but that's just my thought so I was uh if you all could we could do it that morning of the 16th or we can do it another day after the 10th it could be the day after we anytime between that the 10th and the uh 16th but would be unless you know does it'll be great to take some time after we actually go through that whole process does anyone have a problem with the 16th hold on I'm sorry let me pull

m. m. we will have made the decision that morning and so applicants will need to um be informed so Madam clerk to be clear the 16th is being moved that that instead of that instead of making a decision at that meeting that night it'll be that morning at 9:30 we're going to have to call a

m to make a to to take a formal vote on the appointment 9:30 9:30 thank you okay everything else stays the same everything else stays the same yes thank

you I'm gonna get a thumbs up yes thumbs up okay that is unanimous one last question so so we're going to submit i' I've already submitted my my uh choices we submit those by by four today yeah but then what's the procedure by Madam clerk so we've all we can choose between three and seven people so that's what we're going to discuss right now okay I'm sorry yeah it's okay um so thank you council member wrist um our next order of business is a we have to make a decision on how many and Council procedures is between 3 and seven we could um make a different decision uh I think we have done between three and seven every other previous round so I think my first question is does anyone have um a number between three and seven that they would like to interview and then I'm going to finish my thought before I call on you thank you um and then we'll go from from there because I think that'll affect people's ballots

correct okay does anyone mayor Williams you your hand was up yeah no I we I think this question came up came up last time um and we ended up choosing I think we looked at the common um I think we allowed our our balance to determine like okay because we we we're not predetermining we're based on how many names we come up with we can we can we can do however you guys prends thank thank you uh Madam chair Mr Mayor I think anybody who gets four votes um acrosses the four votes threshold should should yeah should yeah should just be you know move on um and if you don't get four votes you don't move on you don't move on that's my recommendation thank you is everyone comfortable with that I have a yes from council member Baker y okay so Madam is it possible that no one gets four votes it's POS yes and then we will have to read Reb balot and it is possible that someone gets seven votes yeah sure yeah I'm just

want to just to avoid re re redoing the whole process I think there's going to be folks who get four votes we'll we'll list so I think Madam clerk has resent our link I'm going to give us an opportunity everyone just take a moment and go ahead and submit if folks are unless of you already done it and you feel good about it I need to I need to sit mine real quick I came no I came prepared to talk about it I already know who I'm going to go with though are we taking a moment for you to do that yes we are thank you yes thank you Mr Mayor Mr Mayor yes ma'am I'm sorry to interrupt would you like me to do the board and committee report while you're you know what yeah let's do that okay

let's do that all right there was one nomination and that's to the Durham City County Environmental Affairs board and the nomination is Anna B Keeley she is the youth category with a term to expire September 6 2024 and that's the end of my report thank you yes ma'am I had a question for the clerk is is there a process that allows for the environmental Affairs board to submit their recommended applicant I believe they updated their bylaws okay to state that they would like to be making recommendation okay thank you but they they did they did um endorse the candidate correct yeah yes they did we're just waiting on council member Baker to submit his ballot and then we'll be ready thanks all right sounds good um we can just take a quick uh

break and we'll be back in about five uh set the agend on close session okay all right let's uh what we'll do is set the agenda and then we'll take a break thank you manager thank you uh Mr Mayor uh Mr Mayor prend members of the council for your uh upcoming city council meeting I have for consent items 1 and two and items 4 through 18 and GBA public hearings items 20 through 22 thank you thank you Madam manager uh and I'll entertain a motion to settle the agenda move to settle second and move then properly second all in favor left hand up thank you madam Clark clerk has it recorded all right let's just take a let's take a quick break uh let's come

back in 5 minutes it is now 3:30 I'll see you back at 3:35

computer's not working yeah Madam clerk you just give us a heads up when you're ready I know we're waiting on some synchronization

e for

you just give us a heads up when you're ready Madam clerk well what did make a little news today is the amount of investment we've made in infrastructure and uh I hope that the public you know goes back and see what that is uh council member Baker do we know what the total was it's a lot it was uh about 16 million for Street repaving and about 6 million for sidewalk repair wow in this that we just approve yep approve on before make sure the media caught that um just wanted to make sure the media caught that uh $16 million investment Street in street street

1 million per mile per foot it's crazy expensive say it again it's not it's you don't get a lot for it's very very that's crazy I remember report uh when they uh cuz I know we have enough Street on uh Street uh City on streets from Duram to Dallas and it was like I think 19 billion or something to fix to fix all of

them the have sidewalks along every street I know this it's painfully quiet if you're watching at home online but we are awaiting uh the tab uh a waiting to tab tab uh to tablate all of the uh votes so that we can choose final list in which we will be interviewing uh for um to fill the vacant seat I just clerk grabb the microphone yes Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proam and City Council Members we do have um a variety

of nominations that have received four or more nominations by Council the first is Amanda borer the second is Shalia Huggins the third is Chelsea cook and the fourth is chaston Swain could you read those one more time certainly Amanda borer received four Shalia Huggins received five Chelsea cook received four and chaston Swain received four okay so we have four finalists to be interview thank you madam Kirk you're welcome good counc mavier we all good thank you chairman yep all right so Madam clerk you will alert our our four finalists about interviews on on Monday night to everyone who did apply and send in questionnaires thank you having personally been through this process I think along with council member Baker is

uh is it intimidating so thank you it definitely is intimidating and mayor Williams oh yeah I went through I went through it as well it is a very intimidating process but uh thank you all so much um at this time I will entertain a motion to proceed into closed session move to go on closed session second um well before we I'm sorry let let me suspend that uh entertain entertaining of the motion to allow um the motion to be read by City attorney Kimberly Ray bur thank you mayor Williams the motion is to hold a Clos session pursuant to North Carolina General statute 143 3181 A3 for attorney client consultation concerning the handling of a settlement demand for a yet to be filed liability claim so move move to Dre second it's been moved in properly second all in favor please show by your sign of your

hand thank you uh we will proceed to close session and we will go up to the committee room we'll come back here to do we need to come back downstairs all right so thank you all for joining us if you're in the chambers no one and I will now preser proceed to close session