City Council · Regular Meeting · June 5, 2023

will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you it's our practice to stand and salute the flag if you join us thank you all so much we will now have our roll call mayor O'Neal I am president mayor Pro tem Middleton I'm here councilmember Caballero here councilmember Freeman president councilmember Halsey Hyman President councilmember Johnson here councilmember Williams president thank you thank you all we have five ceremonial items tonight and we will take them in the order that they are appear on the agenda the first one is the Juneteenth weekend Proclamation which will be read by councilman Williams the second will

be the neighbor Works week Proclamation which will be read by councilwoman Freeman the lgbtq pride month Proclamation will be read by councilwoman Johnson I will read the gun violence Awareness Month Proclamation and councilwoman José Hamann will give us our Harmony month proclamation in that order without me interrupting further all right I thank you madam mayor we have Aya Shabu curator of cool and Village of wisdom and how that there you go friend come on over here [Applause] all right so you're representing everyone tonight all right it's good to see you so our Proclamation

whereas Durham is a city that takes pride in its Rich history and is willing to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions and achievements of its residents and whereas the city of Durham owes much to the indigenous and African ancestors whose bones blood sweats and tears were fertilizer to Tobacco fields in order to factory breaks the city of Durham agrees to create opportunities to tell those stories as well and whereas the proclamation of emancipation signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 was as Durham's own Saint Paulie Murray said a historical and documentary document documentary recognition of an accomplished fact for the human Spirit cannot be suppressed nor can it be truly liberated by the laws of man but by its own belief and the right to Freedom and whereas the presenting institutions of spectacular magazine bragtown Community Association True Heart Consulting be connected

Durham and Beyond and Village of wisdom Incorporated are unified by their pride and organized in and organize Juneteenth events and a wonderful celebration of human resistance and resilience now therefore I Elaine M O'Neill mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim June 16th through 19th 2023 as Juneteenth weekend [Applause] let's make it official by me finishing this up in Durham and hereby urge all residents to take notes of this observance witness my hand in corporate sill of the city of Durham North Carolina this fifth day of June 2023. [Applause]

thank you city council and mayor thank you for acknowledging Juneteenth weekend and the second year in a row I recognize the importance of including our elected officials as allies in the enormous fight for liberation this year Juneteenth weekend is from Friday June 16th through Monday June 19th for myself and my collaborators of the Durham Juneteenth Collective Juneteenth weekend is an expression of black unity and black sovereignty in Durham and both are necessary for black liberation in 2021 Three Sisters came together out of a desire to protect preserve and amplify two historic African-American neighborhoods bragtown and haytai rather than compete for significance resources or audiences we leaned into Durham's Legacy of mutual Aid and formed the Durham Juneteenth Collective it is under our motto unified by our pride that we

support one another this year the collaborations across Durham's Juneteenth Collective include a new celebration the West End Juneteenth on Monday June 19th as well as a limited edition Juneteenth candle with artwork by artavis Claire Alexander and scented by bright black there is also a Full Slate of Durham Juneteenth Collective celebrations from Friday to Monday across three neighborhoods with leadership from eight organizations that's collaboration these successes are examples of our mission to leverage the collective talent and resources of Durham's historically black neighborhoods to deliver high quality neighborhood-centered juneteen celebrations to the residents of Durham I am now honored to present to you the Durham Juneteenth leadership Miss Constance Sartor Walker of the West End lion Park Legacy project please stand

Donna y'all hold y'all Applause because there's a few of us thank you chair Miss Vanessa Mason of Bragg Town Community Association and Donna Frederick co-chair bragtown resident and owner of True Heart Consulting LLC Taylor Mary Weber Fields Angel Dozier of be connected Durham Beyond Gail belvitt of art chose me game Kata of free things in life and me Aya Shabu a village of wisdom [Applause] we are also we are also so grateful for our programming collaborators bump the triangle the magic of African Rhythm and comedian and MC D wish but the Durham Juneteenth Collective does not stand alone unlike Miss Phyllis Coley when she first celebrated North Carolina's first Juneteenth the djc stands on Miss

Coley's Legacy the annual North Carolina Juneteenth celebration celebrating its 18th year with our arms filled with pride they remain outstretched wide because we know that liberation takes all of us thank you [Applause] good evening everyone Adriana Freeman and I'll be presenting the neighborworks proclamation Labor Works week proclamation to Ms Sherry Taylor the executive director of Durham Community Land trustees

whereas neighborworks week celebrates the way neighbor works and neighbor neighbor Works Network organizations and residents work together to enhance lives and whereas neighbor Works week showcases the work of local organizations empowering people to act so they can achieve their goals for a safer more secure housing and healthier thriving communities and whereas neighborhood neighbor Works week was initiated in 1983 by the in the United States Congressional resolution co-sponsored by more than 240 members of Congress and whereas neighbor Works week is an annual initiative held each year the first through the second second Saturday in June and whereas neighbor Works week celebrates neighborhood success empowerment pride and unity among nearly 250 organizations and all 50 states Washington DC and Puerto Rico and

whereas Durham Community Land trustees have worked in the city of Durham for 36 years and the triangle region for almost 50 years and both our neighbor Works networks members now therefore I Elaine and moniel mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim June 3rd to the 10th 2023 and as neighbor Works week in Durham and hereby urge all residents to participate in neighborhood driven planning and Community Development such as the work performed by dclt and dhic our local neighbor Works network members witnessed my hand and corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this the fifth day of June 2023. and I I did want to just note that the work of neighborworks is more than just um building housing it's actually building people to actually do it for themselves and so they actually organize around the

people in the community being the community developer and so when I talk about that concept it's not foreign it's actually used very widely across the country and uh grateful to have a partner here in Durham thank you councilmember Freeman the mayor and the entire city council I would also invite representatives from dhic we have with us their CEO Yolanda Winstead and Tina diver to come up with me um as as council member Freeman said neighbor Works week and supporting that is supporting our Collective impact it's supporting organizations all over the country including dclt and dchic in our community work our Collective impact my name is Sherry Taylor I'm the executive director of dclt we've been in Durham since 1987 providing affordable

rentals and Home Ownership opportunities we believe in permanent affordability not 20 years not 30 years not 40 years forever [Applause] I know it's a powerful concept but it's what our community needs because low and moderate income families are facing displacement displacement is real but together we can combat that dclt operates 198 units of rental housing across eight neighborhoods we support 50 Land Trust homeowners with permanently affordable home ownership that means every time a home is resold it's resold affordably some of our homes have been resold three and four times but we can't rest we can't stop there and just celebrate what we've done we've got to push forward and so together we can do that

we're at a critical time in our City's history what we stand for who we stand for matters I'm standing for a Derm that can house everyone [Applause] I invite you to consider taking the stand for yourself all of us are needed to do this thank you [Applause] good evening everyone short here

um I'm excited to read our Proclamation this year for lgbtq pride month happy Pride [Applause] [Music] [Applause] whereas the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer lgbtq communities of Durham are an integral part of the vibrant culture and fabric of our city and whereas lgbtq pride month is celebrated nationally each year in June and commemorates the riots that took place at the Stonewall in Manhattan the morning of June 28 1969 often viewed as the birth of the modern lgbtq Rights Movement and whereas several major United States Supreme Court decisions impacting lgbtq rights in a positive way have been announced in the month of June including Lawrence V Texas USB Windsor O'Brien Pele V Hodges and pavin V Smith and whereas the city of Durham has a proud history of advancing the rights of lgbtq North Carolinians including being the location of North Carolina's first Pride March in June of 1981 passing a

resolution supporting lgbtq equality in June of 1986 hosting an annual pride parade and celebration in September of each year since 1986 and vehemently opposing Amendment one in 2012 and the passage of hb2 in 2016. and whereas while we celebrate progress made for lgbtq rights we also reflect on challenges that remain including efforts around the country including in the North Carolina General Assembly to ban transition care for minors require teachers to out lgbtq students to parents and prevent transgendered children from playing School sports and whereas unfortunately there is still much physical and psychological violence inflicted on lgbtq people both at home and abroad and there is increasing violence toward transgender transgender women of color lgbtq people continue to face discrimination and employment and public accommodations and there continues to be bullying and harassment of lgbtq Youth who make up a disproportionate number of homeless youth in the United States and whereas Durham is committed to standing with and supporting the lgbtq

community and working to ensure that all of its residents regardless of their sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression are treated with respect and dignity now therefore I Elaine M O'Neill mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby proclaim the month of June 2023 as lgbtq pride month in Durham and hereby urge all residents to take note of this observance thanks y'all and we have Natalie Watson uh executive director of the lgbtq center of Durham I'm here to say a few words welcome thank you hey y'all how's it going tonight um this is the second year I've had the opportunity to accept the proclamation for lgbtq pride month and it makes me my heart swell you know come second year in a row Lord have mercy y'all two times now my heart is swollen um and listening to the other proclamations that have been made they impact the work

that we do it's a part of why we exist the lgbtq center of Durham is constantly addressing issues when it comes to violence towards uh trans women of color specifically black Trans women providing stability and housing for folks the neighbor Works week we work with folks who are displaced because they're lgbtq and they don't have housing so thank you city council members for acknowledging and understanding the complexities and everything that's happening in Durham and individually recognizing our identities and how important those are but also noticing that like intersectionality is a thing right I'm a black queer trans person that also has been raised here in Durham and so it means a lot to see all aspects of myself being celebrated so I'm really excited for Juneteenth oh y'all can't clap on talking sorry really excited for Juneteenth [Applause] um while the lgbtq center of Durham will not be doing any particular programming this month we'll be celebrating everybody else's programming so feel

free to see us around the city but Pride will be September 23rd uh held on Duke's East Campus and then we'll have a concert again that night so we're really excited um this is a little bit of joy in the mess that's been happening Across the Nation impacting multiple sets of my identities and the fact that the city of Durham continues to take a stand and says we support our lgbtq residents we acknowledge that the laws that are trying to be passed it's not going to fly in our city and I really appreciate that so thanks y'all [Applause] hello everybody happy Tuesday again Monday again it is Monday right Hillside High School are you in the house somewhere all right here we go

Dr Logan you in the house he's outside you could bring them in for for me all the all the young people all the young people have your young people stand there and you don't have come up here I'm standing right in front of everybody so they can see y'all beautiful faces this is a face of Hillside High School drama Department [Applause] standing here tonight with me is the principal my nephew of what I call my nephew over at Hillside High School Dr Logan and also one of my great friends and brothers Mr Windell Tabb and they're

responsible for bringing these young people here for me to present this proclamation to you all if you have not seen the play that they participated in I'm going to ask our principal and our our drama I mean he's just a renaissance man in that in that field so I'm going to ask them to kind of tell us a little bit about that um and do whatever you need to do we're going to take a few minutes to celebrate our young people so here we go whereas gun violence continues to plague our communities with devastating effects on families and neighborhoods throughout the city and whereas it is crucial that we come together as a city to raise awareness about the impact of gun violence and work to prevent it from occurring in the future and whereas June is nationally recognized as gun violence awareness month with communities across the country coming together to promote greater awareness and understanding of

this critical issue and whereas by designating June as gun violence Awareness Month in this city we can join with other cities and states in promoting education advocacy and support for those affected by gun violence now therefore I Elaine M O'Neill mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim June 2023 as gun violence Awareness Month in Durham and urge all residents to participate in activities and events designed to raise awareness of this issue support those affected by gun violence and work towards ending this epidemic in our city and Beyond be it further resolved that during gun violence of awareness month we recognize the efforts of organizations and individuals who are working tirelessly to prevent gun violence and support survivors and we reaffirm our commitment to building

safer communities for all of Durham residents witnessed my hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham this is the fifth day of June 2023. I invited these young people here tonight along with their their actual caregivers during the day because they have been doing something that I have asked and encouraged every citizen in Durham to do and let's volunteer in some way in your community these young people have chosen to volunteer to help us to fight gun violence and I get calls every day we all do up on the diets emails calls people in the streets what are you doing about gun violence and what can you do to stop it and I turn back to them and I say what are you doing about gun violence and what are you doing to stop it because it's going to take all of us and so these young people serve as an example

of after they've had a hard hard day at school and they're progressing along they have been the recipient of seeing many things happen in their school good and bad but yeah they take the time to volunteer to show us a better way so thank you Dr Logan Dr tab for all y'all do and y'all got the mic great evening and uh to Mayor O'Neill I just want to say thank you for this opportunity and for giving us the opportunity to be a part of this Proclamation here in the city of Durham uh and the same holds true uh to all of the council members who are council members who are established assembled here this evening uh I take great pleasure and joy in being able to Shepherd uh these young individuals these young intelligent individuals

these young intelligent passionate Dynamic individuals as mayor O'Neill indicated they take time out of their busy schedules uh to not just participate in these theatrical uh events but to bring awareness to this epidemic that is plaguing our city and it hits home and so many in so many ways for so many of our children in Durham and to know that the children at Hillside High School are actually taking uh taking the reins and taking charge of their lives and the lives of their their their peers in such a way by bringing them information about what they can do to stop gun violence here in our city and again as the principal of Hillside High School I'm just delighted to be able to serve I could pass in this capacity and um I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce our uh we call them our professor emeritus because he's a retired teacher here in Durham Public Schools after 35 years and he's still giving back and still giving his time to work with our sons and daughters here in

Durham specifically at Hillside High School Mr Wendell tab who will tell you a little bit about the play the state of urgency thank you thank you so much uh Dr Logan to Mayor O'Neill and to the council thank you for giving us this opportunity to be here tonight this is a passion that many of us have but that passion is real when it comes to gun violence or social issues in our community you can have a passion about something but when it's affecting you each and every day and the lives of these young people it carries on a different meaning and so these young people took the calls of me having a play that I've been working on for at least the last probably seven or eight years because so many different issues was going on in our communities but they took that charge and staged that play for me and I want them to know that they are the ones who are making a difference and so state of urgency is a riveting as

a brutal play on social issues in America and we want these young people to continue to use their voices to make a difference in our society so if I would pause and let the theater director that's there now come Miss Tiffany Agustin so I can introduce her to all of you thank you Tiffany Agustin greetings to you all and thank you so much for having us here today giving honor to my principal Dr William T Logan and our former drama director Mr window tab I'm Tiffany Agustin and I am in awe of what these students can do when they come together to have their voices heard like many of us state of urgency hits home it is my hope that we continue to take this message to young people across the city of Durham and our state that we may be able to bring about change just by sounding the alarm and saying that this has to stop thank you

thank you thank you all so much foreign good evening good evening to the mayor good evening to my colleagues I don't know about you but I am just in order to disappear I'm just an or can I just get a clap for Durham can I

just get a clot for Durham I don't know about you but I'm happy to be a resident of Durham so I'm going to be reading the harmony uh month Proclamation whereas our daily lives are full with news regarding crime violence inequality and disaster and causing discard and imbalance and whereas by recognizing the need for cooperation Good Will and peace all members of our community will be made aware of the importance and whereas the purpose of the harmony month is to remember that similar to us creating music with various instruments our differences grant us the opportunity to come together to create Harmony whereas how many extends past tolerance in prioritizing understanding actively listening to build Synergy and whereas by showing humility we are striving for a sense of belonging and creating a

community that is welcoming inclusive kind and a safe place to live work and play and whereas the city of Durham honors those who positively influence our community now therefore I Elaine M O'Neill mayor of the city of Durham of North Carolina do hip-hop Acclaim the month of June 2023 as Harmony month in Durham and hereby urged all residents to work in Synergy self-control remain optimistic while always spreading kindness and treating one another with respect and generosity so that we can live in harmony witnessed by the hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham this day 5th of June 2023 mayor M O'Neill the mayor and let me just say not only Harmony but let's live with love a good spirit is free can I get yes

let's clap love a good and working together because a good spirit is free thank you thank you so much we are now moving to the announcements of my colleagues and I'll turn first to my left to see if we have any announcements on my left hand side councilman Williams uh thank you madam mayor what a weekend um I I the the Bull City was electric this weekend um got a chance to ride around and see a few events before heading out of town um the feedback from the door um but it was uh just shout out to Juneteenth I got you had to stop by briefly unfortunately had um some grief to deal with with friends who passed away but uh just this weekend there were so many events going on I hope that you'll go back I hope that you'll go back and just look at everything that

was happening and just take that as an example of the energy that we want in our city on a daily uh it was good for us culturally spiritually economically uh and just great to be amongst one another there was something for everyone um just wanted to shout that out and I hope that we can have many more thank you so much councilwoman José Harmon I'm still on a high from the weekend the Ben Bay this event was just I mean I will tell you this that I got my dance on and I haven't danced in many many years but when they bought out the hip-hop in the back of the 90s and the 80s and the 70s I would like to let you know that I had to sit in a whole tub of Bengay border for the whole weekend after that but it was just a blessing to be there to just see just the community and just how everybody was interacting the food was good the energy was good and that is really what we want to see in Durham again a good spirit is free and let's keep it up thank you

thank you so much to my right any announcements councilwoman free thank you madam mayor I um just want to appreciate my colleagues and in the city of Durham of course this this uh it's humbling every June as we come around to the budget season ending and get ready to go to a break of sorts I did want to thank the Juneteenth collaborative for making sure that we have a whole weekend and it's not just one day and uh run into every which spot and I do want to say happy Pride as an ally to our lgtbq community IA plus I am mindful of what that feels like and just noting like I've had the Saint Paulie um message in my heart all my life so I I also want to say to Dr Logan and professor emeritus tab thank you

having those students in this in this space this evening is calming and reinforcing and the work that's ahead I do want to share that this evening I am going to ask for a resolution to be added to our work session agenda I've shared with my colleagues and just sharing publicly honoring the life of Conan Morgan who was lost in an accident at the age of 42 it's been heartbreaking I'll leave it at that I um on a lighter note do want to extend a very happy happy Caribbean Heritage Month um just uh just noting all the folks from the Caribbean who have blessed us with their soul it's great to have and yeah that's all thank you thank you so much councilwoman Gabriela thank you good evening everyone it's good to see everyone I just wanted to shout out happy Pride y'all more than anything this month um I I can say as a as a parent to a

generation that honestly doesn't care what older folks think to see uh their bravery around gender expression gender identity uh you know as I'm in my mid-40s we did not have that growing up we grew up in a world with a lot of fear and a lot of intolerance and let me just say we're never going back I don't care what rules or or whatever you're going to push we're not going back and I know these kids aren't going back so happy Pride thank you Mia pro team thank you madam mayor good evening to you ma'am and to my honorable colleagues everyone in the chamber let me extend my congratulations to these young people who were here before us in Hillside High what an amazing night of proclamations happy pride month to all of our residents and citizens and to the family and friends and allies as well I also want to say a happy hip-hop appreciation month hey we uh issued a proclamation at an

incredible bimbe celebration this past week and so for all this month you are ordered to get your hands up and to keep them there all month long happy hip-hop appreciation month I also would average all residents uh and neighbors if you get a chance uh make a chance uh take the opportunity to drive by the Durham County courthouse today we had an amazing ceremony where the Juneteenth flag was raised at the Durham County courthouse and will fly until Monday June 19th two anthems were sung today the our nation's anthem national anthem and lift every voice and sing and two flags there are three out there but the the Juneteenth flag is flying next to the American flag I hope that it will encourage us all to continue the conversation and to lean into the tension that it requires for us to become truly a more perfect union it was a wonderful day today finally a wonderful day today finally colleagues I'm asking for an excused absence this week I'll be traveling to Chicago to participate in a guaranteed income

conference I'm going to take opportunity to brag a little bit on the successful pilot that we've run here in Durham and to learn also from colleagues and Friends absolutely best practices from around of the country so I'm going to ask you a honorable colleagues for an excuse absence for this Thursday's work session that I might attend that conference thank you madam Mary yield back thank you councilman Williams I did forget one comment um back to Hillside High School and I'm hoping we can do this city and county-wide I went to Hillside High School last week to be a judge for their civic engagement activity this was an opportunity for the students at Hillside to come up with solutions for some of the most impactful uh Community issues and things that I saw was mental illness for youth mental health for youth uh gun violence gun violence gun violence gun violence also some technology technological solutions you would be amazed at The Innovation that these kids

are coming up with it's beyond probably what anyone in this room can even think of so let's give them some light and let's give them some attention and take them very seriously this is our future and I'm going to post some of those uh some of those Billboards today they are created you'll be amazed I just wanted to shout out those I said they were all winners so I'm not going to name the competition winners but check out the Civic engagement project at Hillside High School it was amazing thank you Mia thank you I think councilwoman Friedman had something additional to say yes sorry madam mayor Because by the next time that we meet will be after Father's Day I do want to send a very special shout out to all the folks in the community who serve as fathers to our children and and just say Happy Father's Day especially to my dear dear husband and my father especially thank you clap for all the fathers now all right I have a number of announcements and we do have to I think vote on your excuse absence I don't

think we did it is that correct and we didn't we didn't vote okay so we'll come back to that in just a second I have been still having going around to different city facilities for tours and so last week I had the opportunity to visit with waste management and also with Public Public Works I started about quarter of six on um last week one early one morning early one morning and went out to um Camden Road if you've ever been in if you've been in Durham for a while I encourage you to go out on Camden Road and you will see a lot of Durham facilities that are kind of hidden back there and so I get in there and um when I tell you those uh those gentlemen and men they roll out at 5 30 they were already pulling up by the time I got there it was almost um most all of them were in the trucks and they rolled out and I had the opportunity to get in a a recycling

truck and ride with um Chris Benjamin who has a very clean truck by the way a very neat nice sound system in it too I have the community out there so he's listening to Tom Joyner Morning Show and we're going out and he's picking up they pick up about 80 000. 80 000 um beings a week and on his shift on his route he has about 1100 that he picks up so they are out there and it is a dangerous job they're actually two steering wheels in that Trump and they get on the left side and they're operating a joystick to pick up your bins and then he's also driving and people like we all do go are going around him and the children are waiting at the bus stop so it was amazing to me how peaceful all of that was in the midst of all of this kind of chaos that he has no control over so my my hat's

off to all of them um Mr I'm trying to think of Mr Wayne Fenton who took me over to the main building he's the supervisor out there and it was just a a very it was a very peaceful morning I was really pleased with seeing what they do and how well they do it so just wanted to give them a shout out at the end that afternoon went on Martin Luther King to probably what you all have all passed and that's Public Works with Public Works is the first First Responders the police or the firemen they can't move unless Public Works after a disaster after bad weather the potholes Public Works comes in and they clear the way and once again very quiet very quiet um facility where they are doing all kinds of work and they have all manner of equipment they had one truck out there that um has a couple of robots in it that

actually and a camera of course and they actually on those robots are able to put those uh car little robotic cars down under the ground and whenever something goes around so they can get a clear picture of what needs to happen and it's just one God man in that there's one young lady who actually fixes potholes without ever getting out the truck without ever getting out the truck she is able to maneuver all of the equipment that's on her truck and fix potholes so when I tell you that we have some great city workers who are moving in places that you don't even think about and what they're doing is making sure that we can do the stuff that we do and we take for granted so I have to give a shout out to Marvin Williams and Mr Philip power and all of those workers over in both of those places man Durham

2 million dollars for a project that will develop plans support planning and project development activities to grade separate or close close three adjacent Crossings in East Durham everybody know where that is in eastern where those railroads are y'all know that exchange station down on East Durham and on um at

the corner of Ellis on one side and Angela they're coming to work on it I've been waiting all my life for that moment I live on that side of town thank you Lord they're coming to work on it so congratulations to go triangle Durham County government and Durham city government for that Grant also we did have a beautiful weekend I didn't want to mention that keep Durham beautiful one of my favorite organizations was out on Linwood and Lincoln over over the weekend also for gun violence events they were they were over there cleaning uh two a couple of streets over there with a mother who lost her son on Saturday and I was able to drop by and see some of them we also had the beaver Fest pageant I don't know if people went to to that at Duke at Duke park over the weekend and of course we had the bimby where it was just an All-Star lineup out there I spent about five hours out there and it was just a great time so Durham has a lot of great things going on we do have

our issues but the is still the greatest city in the United States of America as far as I'm concerned all right [Applause] there you have it I didn't even know that we're the only city in the state that got the money yep dad that's what I'm trying to tell you we had our issues now but we're a good City a good group okay so now we're going to recognize our city manager for any priority items she may have good evening Madam mayor Mr Mayor Pro tem and members of the Durham city council I have two priority items to bring to your attention this evening agenda item number 18 which is a Construction contract with eagle solar and light LLC for design and installation of photovoltaic electrical generation systems at Water Management Miss Lake facility this item has been referred back to the general Services Department

agenda item number 25 contract with WM recycle America LLC for recycling processing and marketing of recyclable materials section two of the contract which is attachment number two was modified to incorporate an agreement about managing non-sellable recyclable materials that is all I have for you this evening and thank you very much thank you so much I now turned to our City attorney to see if she has any priority items attorney Robert good evening mayor O'Neill Murphy Thornton Middleton and members of the city council and members of the Durham community and Durham employees it's good to be with you this evening the City attorney says has no priority items tonight I can get that out thank you thank you to our city clerk thank you madam mayor I have a couple things the first one is we need to vote on the excused absence for mayor Pro tem and I'm ready to entertain that motion moved second the move by councilman Williams

and seconded by councilwoman copier all those in favor but assigned by saying aye aye all those opposed have the same right hearing none that motion carries thank you and Madam mayor I have one other priority item well it's not exactly a priority item but I would like to request a point of personal privilege okay thank you I'm really pleased to welcome and introduce to the city of Durham our new Deputy clerk her name is Paola Roland and Paola has worked in the city clerk's office as assistant Clerk and she's done such an outstanding job that she's been promoted to Deputy Clerk and I'm really happy to have her here with us and I wish her much success as Deputy Clerk thank you so glad to see you in your new position tonight and we know that you will do it quite well as you've done so far I did forgot to I forgot to mention

one thing that Chris Benjamin asked me to mention to you all when you put your uh recycling receptacles and your trash can out they need to be they like for them to be three feet apart makes sense right most of us do what Jam them together don't do it keep them apart please he says at least three feet because what the arms have to go out and come back in so please spread the word when you see your neighbors put your cards three feet apart for us okay so I told him I would say that all right so now we will we will now go through our agenda our consent agenda first the next order of business is the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of items that the counselor has previously considered in a work session all items on the consent agenda may be approved by a single vote of the counseling items may be removed from the consent agenda by a council member or a member of the public

and those items will be considered separately at the end of the meeting I will go through the entire agenda agenda beginning with the consent agenda item number one the citizens advisory committee appointments two Workforce Development board appointment item three the Durham open space and trails commission appointments item four Durham City County Environmental Affairs board appointment number five human relations commission appointment number six Durham Sports commission appointment item seven the Durham cultural Advisory Board appointment number eight April 2023 bid report item nine disciplinary actions process performance audit April 2023 item 10 the amendment to the FY 2022-23 budget eleventh the charter Amendment renaming triangle

J Council of governments to Central Pines Regional Council I am 12. I'm married National Community Services LLC doing business as a Mary not Nat for affordable housing loan Portfolio Servicing contract number 13 the Second Amendment to the contract with housing for New Hope to serve as the uncheltered coordinating agency item 14 annual insurance plan FY 24 number 15 Construction contract with DW award Construction Company Inc for the Morgan Rigsby parking garage Suite 103 tenant outfit 16. North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Volkswagen settlement fast charger replacement Grant project ordinance and financial assistance agreement 17. Fellowship plate men agree placement agreement between the city of Durham infused fuse Corps for Designing Equitable strategies for vehicle

electrication item 18 Construction contract with eagle soaring light LLC for design and installation of photovoltiac electrical generation systems that water management Miss Lake facility go back that's cool that's what was pool that's been referred back I'm sorry thank you you did say that thank you item 19. the change order number one to the Construction contract with bar Construction Company Inc for the athletic Court Renovations Piney Wood Park pickleball project item 20 is a request for qualifications for redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street 21 contract agreement with M cubed and company Global LLC to provide Economic Development consulting services to create a business registry and Legacy program item 22 item 22 is the 2023 first

quarter crime report and that presentation was made at the May 18 2023 city council work session item 23 . okay and there is a person online Mr Cox who is asking to speak for that item sir that will probably need to be done on Thursday doing public comment as we've already had that presentation sir if you're online if you if we would know to come back a Thursday if you can at one o'clock where you will be allowed to speak during citizens Manner and his name is Mr Drew Cox if he's on the line item 23 is to Duke blanket Stone water control measure easement agreement item 24. Construction contract with prism Contractors Inc for trenchless pipe repairs

sd-2023-03 and stonewater capital Improvement project ordinance Amendment foreign contract with WM recycle America LLC for recycling processing and marketing of recyclable materials 26. First Amendment to the contract with Lex air Electronics Sales Corporation for completion of last mild fiber Construction 27 is the First Amendment to the contract with gns Communications and Technical Services Inc for completion of Last Mile fiber Construction item 28 is a comprehensive participation agreement for the implementation of the Durham County Transit plan 29 is a memorandum of agreement for the Western intake partnership amendment number two item 30 is a change order number two with ta loving company for construction of the South Durham Water Reclamation

facility process improvements Phase 2 project item 31 is the award of professional Engineering Services contract with brown and Caldwell Inc for the varsia park sewer improvements project 32. change order number two Brady Integrated Security Inc for the site and building security system at the Department of Water Management facilities conflicts phase two item 36 the public hearing for the city managers proposed fiscal year 2023 2024 budget and fiscal year 2024 2029 Capital Improvement plan CIP item 37 is the Consolidated annexation 418 Clayton Road item 38 is the Consolidated annexation L parcel item 39

the Consolidated zoning map chain Streets at Southpoint Mall 2. item 40 is a public hearing and economic development incentive agreement with Eagle Landing Partners LLC that will conclude the reading of the entire agenda we're just checking to see if someone is online do we so this was Drew Cox do you see him online at all Miss Diana yes he's not alone he's here he's here Mr oh you're here Mr cause I'm sorry all right okay and you okay Mr

Cox we will pull that item for you but Port items are last so just know you're in for a stay tonight if just so you know and I believe that there is another person that would like item 20 foreign all right now and also you all these are the number of cards we have for speakers tonight so we're going to be here for a while but I'm going to ask if you sign up to speak if you would bring your speech time down we normally say three minutes but if you could do it in two so that we can make sure that the bulk of people stay with us the entire time and get their time okay so I'll just keep that in mind I am going to reduce it down to

two just so we can be accommodating and I'm not going to cut you off or anything but if you could just try to work with us so that we can make sure we can hear from everybody yes Madam mayor you need to vote on the consent agenda I haven't forgotten I'm just trying to get there all right now I'm ready to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of item 18. and 22. who all right we have moved that I think it was council member Williams and I seconded all right thank you all those in favor with you signed by just saying aye aye all those opposed have the same right hearing none the eyes have it and the consent agenda is approved unanimously and items 22 and

what was the other food items 18 and 18. referred back thank you so much now we are on to our public hearings and I believe the first one up is we have the bulk of our speakers tonight and that is going to be item 36. so this is our public hearing for the city managers proposed fiscal year 2023 to 2024 budget and fiscal year 2024 through 2029 Capital Improvement plan and I have we're going to call everybody up maybe five people at a time at this point so our first five people after we hear from Staff first I just tell folk how they're coming Ms Stella Adams Mr John Talmadge Julia

Springer mayor Rose fantana and some all I'm not sure if I can read that last thing so you'll be coming in that order but first we will hear from staff just try and give people a lot of people outside just trying to get people opportunity to make sure they're in place but we will hear from Staff first good evening mayor mayor Pro tem members of council Christina Reardon interim budget and Management Services director um tonight this agenda item is to as you have said to conduct a public hearing to receive comments regarding the city manager's proposed fiscal year 2023-24 budget and fiscal year 2024 through 2029 Capital Improvement plan all required public hearing commitments have been fulfilled you have heard the report from our staff I will now declare this public hearing to be open and will first entertaining the questions and comments that we have

with Council none all right we will move now to those persons is Stella Adams Mr Don Talmage good evening everyone here Rose Fontana thank you oh good evening everyone y'all need to give me two because you know I'm gonna take three um good evening everyone Madam mayor Madam Mr protea City Council Members I'm speaking this evening to advocate for a number of needs faced by our community I asked first that the council viewed the proposed budget through an equity lens

and ensure that we are not just meeting the needs of new residents but we are also meeting the needs of those of us who have called Durham home for decades those of us who grew up here raised a family here and hope to retire here I hope that the council will continue to prioritize affordable housing programs and I'm a deviate from my for just one moment do you know that according to HUD a single person household in Durham making fifty five thousand five hundred dollars fifty three thousand five hundred dollars is considered low income is there anyone in this chamber that thinks that a person that makes 55 000 is low income or that a person making forty thousand one hundred and forty thousand dollars is very low income a single person

so when we talk about affordable housing we are talking about meeting the needs of the we need to talk about facts I'm running out of time I also want to talk about Transit Transit Transit get those sidewalks bus stops shelters bikeways and I want to again reiterate affordable housing fight for fund evictions Services fund our Parks and Recreation services fund our community thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] never noticed this note before don't adjust the microphone it does not lift you break it you buy it good evening I'm John Talmadge resident of Durham at 910 Virgie Street

and executive director of bike Durham thank you madam mayor members of the council for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the book on about the budget I want to start by taking a moment to acknowledge the death of Sean McDaniel on May 22nd 40 year old man who was Crossing Fayetteville Street near East Cornwallis when he was hit by a driver once every on average about every 16 days someone who's walking or riding their bike is killed or seriously injured in a traffic crash in Durham we don't think that that's acceptable and we appreciate that this Council through the the budget you have an opportunity to support the manager's proposal in moving toward Vision zero with a future of Transportation with zero deaths and serious injuries uh we called for funding of a vision zero coordinator that's in the budget we

called for funding of complete networks of sidewalks and bicycle facilities safe Crossings and traffic coming in neighborhoods and there's a good start for that in this Capital Improvement program proposal we thank the manager for including these and we urge the council to adopt the budget includes these Investments and to continue making these Investments year after year until we've achieved Vision zero we also support the extension of zero fares on go Durham bus service and go Durham access Paratransit and finally we support the expansion of the heart program thank you for such a great budget [Applause] can I start great hi I'm Julia Springer good evening everyone I'm here with Durham for all tonight and I'm here in strong support

of the expansion of the heart program and all the folks who showed out for it but I'm going to use my two minutes to talk about the budget item for regular Community engagement funding for the last three years I've been organizing with Durham for all and talking to our people about the current political climate elections and what they need and want from our community as we all know Durham has changed a lot and is struggling deeply with affordable housing and gentrification in so many of these conversations with long-term Durham residents people describe a sense of their home slipping away from them both literally and figuratively it's hard to feel a sense of belonging in the city including in how it's governed one woman said she'd all be given up on this place we also talked about pride in Durham we talked about the budget our city government about being treated by with dignity by our leaders and about how different it would feel to be meaningfully involved in this process we talked about preemption and how to be in solidarity with our local government to tackle bigger issues at the state and federal levels

this brings council members cabiro and Johnson have been talking at Durham for all events to better explain our budget to folks they showed up as real people to teach about a complex process explain bureaucratic terms and long game Visions for our community the people of Durham want and deserve more chances like this to be heard in their questions share their experiences go back and forth with our city leaders and collaborate to make this the Durham we all want full of resource and dignity I strongly support the city council's inclusion of regular Community engagement funding in the budget this year and look forward to more opportunities to create access and belonging for everyone in Durham thank you [Applause] hello my name is Mary Fontana I live at 809 Cook Road in Durham thank you mayor O'Neill and city council for allowing me to speak today I'm very thankful that manager page included the vision zero coordinator in the city's budget as an

environmental engineer I am a proud supporter of alternative modes of transportation including bicycling walking and using public transit investing in a vision zero coordinator is investing in better safer infrastructure with benefit which benefits Durham's environmentally and economically I primarily bicycle to get around the city and the city's culture around safe bicycling infrastructure and prioritization is the main reason I live here however there's lots of room for improvement on my easy Four Mile ride here this evening I experienced two near misses along the ride one of which was just down the street on the protected bike Lanes with the green paint and I was wearing my hive is vest thankfully the driver turning right at the insert section I was crossing saw me in time to stop but even the best bike Lanes can't replace separated bike ped infrastructure traffic calming or a shift to people first mindsets and drivers a city cannot be a City without its people and we cannot keep tolerating the

loss of 22 lives per year due to unsafe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure so I encourage the city council to vote for a budget that invests in its people and keeps the city safe for everyone thank you [Applause] hi my name is samadh ranganwala I live at 104 Brewer Lane which is actually in Carrboro I'm an intern at bike Durham and I've had the privilege of spending the last three weeks looking over this budget proposal um at bike Durham we're happy that the city is responding to our advocacy efforts over the last spring we've asked for the hiring of a vision zero coordinator to developed the vision zero action plan for those who don't know Vision zero calls for a shift to a Safe Systems approach to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe healthy and Equitable Mobility for all it acknowledges that humans inevitably make mistakes and calls for streets and Roads

to be designed to accommodate these mistakes this means designing for slower speeds and protected spaces for all Street users as part of this agenda for Durham we also asked for funding for sidewalk repairs protected bike lanes and other bike infrastructure and traffic calming measures we're happy that we're happy to say that all of this and more is present in the budget proposal and as a result bike Durham is proud to ask that the council implement this budget proposal in the vision zero Durham agenda we also recognize that this is one step in a very long journey toward Vision zero we'll need more investment more energy and more support in the coming years to get to zero deaths due to traffic violence zero carbon emissions and zero disparity of access in Durham thank you thank you thank you so much and Mr Mr Drew Cox Mr Cox I think we had the you're on the wrong item so you will

not be last you may come now sir we are home all right hello I'm Drew Cox I serve over 60 of our members they're officers of the Durham Police Department as president of the Tobacco Road chapter of the North Carolina police benevolent Association we represent over 16 000 members Statewide and I'm here to speak on matters of public concern thank you madam mayor and members of this Council this city is known as the city of medicine but your Police Department is suffering from trauma and it is bleeding its most loyal experienced and talented officers week after week on February 1st of this year I spoke to councilman Leonardo Williams to arrange a time that my organization can meet and give a presentation to this body on the looming Staffing and pay crisis that has been ongoing in the Durham Police Department for several years I was given an assurance he would bring

the prospect up in open form for consideration but it has been four months now and I've seen no such measure given in this chamber the Durham Police Department's starting recruit pays 42 593 dollars and starting officer pays at forty six thousand nine ninety eight and those same new recruits enjoy up to thirteen thousand in signing bonuses in their first year while officers that have gotten you through the coveted pandemic had their step pay Frozen for the last three years these pay rates remain the same while in Greensboro Rocky Mount Chapel Hill Hillsborough and most other agencies immediately surrounding Durham have brought their starting pay to 60 000 or more the Durham Police Department has at least a 70 percent Staffing rate on paper and the reality in day-to-day Patrol Staffing is mostly under 60 percent we all know it the people that are perpetuating gun violence know it and the citizens of this city continue to suffer for it meanwhile you vote for more and more annexations which will further stretch the police department to the brink

your proposed budget of a two percent increase in pay a reinstatement of Step pay and a one-time bonus of three hundred dollars makes it so you can say you're doing something good for the department but it's more like putting a SpongeBob Band-Aid over a bullet wound in fact that 300 after tax might pay back a few months of the vaccine surcharge you took from your officer's paychecks 65 000 starting pay now to stop the bleeding on this crisis or it will end in a catastrophe and I hope that you will partner with our organization and the Fraternal Order of Police to help end this pay crisis with bold and decisive actions I have you have run out of time thank you madam you're hearing you sir I am calling five more names in the order that they have been presented to

me uh sue me adata will be next Shanice Hamilton Manju rajadam m-a-n-j-u-r-a-j-e-n-d-r-a-n [Music] Mr Cedric Craig and Mr Jonathan lease l-e-i-s-s in those orders I can begin yes ma'am okay hello good evening council members my name is shumi I'm a member of Durham for all and I'm here tonight to support the 160 million dollar budget for affordable housing I was born and raised in Durham I'm a middle class South Asian person and I earn about 72

000 a year thankfully I don't struggle to pay my rent but given the high cost of living in Durham it doesn't leave a lot of room for me to save for a down payment without generational wealth or winning the lottery I still cannot afford a down payment to buy a house in Durham without being a part of the gentrification of a historically black neighborhood such as East Durham I'm highly privileged and yet even I can't see a future where I'm able to live long term in the city that made me who I am if my housing future in Durham is uncertain that says a lot about what the state of housing is for low-income and working-class folks in our city I think of the people of Durham who shape me like my middle school counselor who supported me through an intense season of depression when my immigrant parents struggled to understand my

experience or my social studies teacher who taught me the real history of Columbus a native genocide which planted the seed in me to become the community organizer I am today these are the folks behind the greatness of our city and they're the same folks who are being pushed out from even renting let alone buying a home here I want to affirm your decision to invest abundantly and immediately in increasing affordable housing I urge you to engage these folks about what housing security would look like for them so that change and rapid growth doesn't mean the displacement of the very people behind our greatness thank you thank you so much thank you [Applause] this Miss Hamilton Chinese Hamilton on

m-a-n-j-u r-a-j-e-n-d-a-m will be next followed by Mrs Cedric Craig followed by Mr Jonathan Lees l-e-i-s-s thank you hello um I'm here to speak on behalf of Shanice my name is nandi Smith I've been in Durham since 2009 since I attended high school here at Southern and Hillside High School and so many times I've seen my classmates navigating Mental Health crisis and being met with cruelty sometimes pepper spray instead of some of the compassion and the Curiosity of what's going on in their life that's at the root and so I'm here today to ask that you pour into the heart of our city and expand the heart program and so many other folks have already spoken to Citywide for 24 hours seven days a week so many of the young people I know have experienced themselves or have loved ones that have had violent experiences with police and we see it a lot on the news folks experiencing violence and we know in our communities

and across the globe where our neighbors are experiencing Mental Health crisis a lot of the time they're met with choke holds tasers guns and not the dignity that I know we all want to experience when we're navigating crisis in emergency situations we need options for safety to expand instead of responding with limited one sites fits all approaches and our people need other options that are unarmed compassionate and skilled in responding in care and so I'm here to urge you to prioritize ensuring all of our neighbors have access to care um yeah because we know our crisis can't be scheduled and the whole 24 hours a day and so the pilot that we all so deeply love of the heart program has been going on for about a year now and I know it's had flying colors in their work many of us have been witnesses to it responding to over 6 000 calls and feeling safe in 99 of those interactions with our neighbors and over the past three months myself and others and they have a heart Coalition made up of over 50 Community

organizations local businesses and houses of Faith as well as the neighbors of this city over 1700 have signed the petition asking y'all for to expand it 24 7. and so I'm here today asking y'all to follow through with that that commitment for expanding the heart program city-wide for 24 hours a day seven days a week and I also have some of the folks who are your neighbors here in the city of Durham um who've signed this in the businesses and organizations so you can be able to see some of what has been on paper that we want you all to follow through with thank you so much for each of you all as well as uh city manager if you give it to the clerk yes you will pass it to us thank you yes ma'am if you state your name good evening our mayor our mayor Pro tem our city council my name is Manju rajendran I'm

here to speak about expanding heart all of Durham deserves access to Skilled compassionate unarmed care in moments of Crisis City of Durham's Community safety department heart programs have been incredibly effective in this pilot year scaling the Durham Community safety department Heart Project Citywide with availability 24 7. 8 million dollars but that minimal funding and Staffing would likely not enable the community safety department to maintain the high service levels that we've seen in this incredible pilot due to the additional challenges of Staffing and operating 24 7. so our recommendation as the havahart Coalition is to recommend Staffing and expansion level to 70 full-time

7 million to sustainably fund and staff the community safety department over the next three years to operate those heart programs Citywide 24 7 365 at the high service levels that we've seen during this incredible it and if passed as is city manager Wanda Page's proposed budget for fiscal year 2324 which contains so many amazing exciting things that we're really proud of Durham for pushing forward would put Durham on track for a three-year expansion from 2023 to 24 through the end of 26 that would meet the community's need as reflected in the community safety Department's data dashboard and is echoed in the stories that we've heard from Community residents out on the street and here in City Council in the public budget hearings we have laid out the details of how we did this math and I'll pass it on to city clerk Diana Schreiber to share with y'all thank you so much thank you so much

[Applause] you just state your name sir good evening remember the city council my name is Sergeant Craig 1803 Chapel Hill Road I am the community organizer for Durham for all and I'm here to affirm your advocacy for the budget item of regular Community engagement funding over the last three months I've came with hundreds of residents around Durham through my conversations I have heard their frustration the vulnerability and their belief and sorry and they're believed that they are left out and in the dark around city government it is vexing to one change and not having the opportunity to regularly voice your concerns oops the past few months my organization has held communities in the wood council member sitting right here there we discussed in the educated residents on the budget and politics within Durham with the calls I would make after folks would come out and describe a feeling of authenticity a feeling of an inclusive

space for the for the views of our residents and that progress can be made in the city if a small organization such as Durham for all can organize meetings like this just imagine what the city could do with their budget you can reach a much wider and diverse audience and hear from a more significant number of residents allowing them to be seen and help create meaningful and engaging relationships government and residents should be on the same team simply put I believe the rather than the Durham they're to be heard appreciated and the concerned they acted upon thank you for your time [Applause] what's the least if he will come forward and say your name for me please sir then your time will stop Jonathan Leese members of the city council my name is Jonathan lease I am a captain with 12 years of service in the Durham Fire Department in my 12 years I've only known one firefighter to leave Durham to go work for another local Department we take pride in being Durham firefighters

we take pride in our Department's reputation for skillful and aggressive tactics and firefighting none of us want to leave Durham but still people are so far this year 17 Durham firefighters have left to pursue other opportunities five of them are now working for a neighboring Department this is new and this is different and this is not good when a firefighter leaves it doesn't just cost money to train a replacement it also costs time in fact depending on what time of year someone leaves it costs 12 to 18 months of reduced Staffing to replace them our Academy is seven and a half months of training and only happens once a year it is a long process simply to replace an experienced firefighter with a rookie and that does not count the years of experience on the job training and advanced certifications that our members bring to other departments when they leave Durham I have spoken with even more members of our department who are considering leaving for other local departments because of low morale and compression at the bottom of the pay scale and because

of being in the wrong pay step especially among members with fewer than six years of service these are our current firefighters and the future drivers and officers without which a department cannot function they are the future of this department but they can't see their future here in Durham the recruits who just graduated are filling vacancies created in 2021 and 2022 the 17 new vacancies won't be filled in the field until mid-2024. and if you do nothing there will be more vacancies please take action now to reduce turnover please eliminate compression Now by putting firefighters in the correct Pay Band as local 668 has proposed because it is better cheaper and more effective to have an experienced firefighter on the truck now than an empty seat responding to emergencies for the next year as we train new recruits thank you thank you

all right the Knicks five names Kyle O'Connor Neil short or shout I'm sorry shout near shout Meredith Carter Jason fry liquor and Jonathan Amara in that order good evening my name is Kyle O'Connor I'm a member of the human Relations Committee with the local 668 I've been with the department for seven years I'm currently in the upper 40 percent of seniority in the department we have 30-year retirement I want to talk to you about the retention problem you keep hearing pay that's the first step what Durham has done is create a perfect uh is create the perfect employees to be

poached by other departments between the call volume the training the culture we create the best firefighters here in Durham you've even mentioned it yourself we're proud of that and other departments see that leadership 101 says that in order to run a successful organization you need to invest in your people the fact that we're trying to hire 60 firefighters or 15 percent of our Workforce right now for forty thousand dollars a year should be very telling we're creating a younger and more inexperienced Department which if continues is liable to get somebody hurt or worse real quick I'd like to tell you about some of our firefighters I'm going to tell you about Kendrick he graduated from Central and stayed here for 11 years working for the Durham fire department he's currently with another department making more money as a promoted driver a driver who sometimes bumps up to act Captain but does not get paid for it until his sixth consecutive 24-hour shift but that's another story Angelo Angelo is a two-year firefighter here with Durham and recently became a Georgia smoke diver which is a 60-day a

Six-Day 60-hour program designed for high-level firefighters he is the first person from North Carolina to complete this training people from all over the country come here go to Georgia in order to complete that training he's the first person from North Carolina in 62 classes since 1978 to complete it he's in the process for another department right now Aaron a uh immigrant from Venezuela and the hardest working person I've ever worked with as far as knowledge skills and abilities out of any job he told me something really profound before he put in his resignation to go to Ohio he said I never thought I would feel embarrassed to tell somebody I was a firefighter uh last thing these people that I just told you about that's one station one shift that is my crew multiply that by 19 stations and three shifts please as a unit to be consistent with the Union please put us in the right steps but as a resident I'd like to ask you to

please invest in your employees thank you [Applause] if you will state your name for me uh thank you for this opportunity to speak my name is Neil shout I'm a captain with the city I've served for 21 years 11 as a captain I'd like to share a letter that the driver of my truck wrote when he left to go to work for the city of Cary and it's Kendrick it's the one I'm talking about my name is Kendrick Campbell I started my career with the Durham fire department on June 25th 2012. almost 11 years ago I've enjoyed my career here the DFD offers great training staff and an incredible workplace experience unfortunately I had little option but to leave the DFD for a department that values its firefighters and shows that with better pay benefits and career opportunities and resources I am at the point in my life where my family's needs come first and I will be making more as

a lateral entry firefighter than I am currently making as a promoted driver I love the city of Durham and during my time with the city I've owned multiple homes around here however none of them were within the city itself my DFD salary was never enough to pay for rent or mortgage inside the city that I served that's a problem we should be able to afford to live in the city we protect right now Durham has the opportunity to make a difference and make necessary changes to retain fire department staff we need City leadership to be proactive not reactive the DFD offers a higher level of service than any of the surrounding departments and our reputation precedes us but that reputation should be appreciated by competitive pay and benefits instead we have a record number of firefighters leaving the fire department because they cannot pay their bills without working one or more part-time jobs we are already away from home um are away from our families more than other city employees having to either

work overtime shifts or a second job is simply make ends meet um and I'm sorry to make ends meet should be embarrassing to our city leaders our neighbors our neighboring departments are showing their appreciation by hiring well well-trained highly experienced Durham firefighters Durham has experienced outstanding economic growth while your firefighters struggle to keep up with an Ever existing cost of living for a city claiming to be so Progressive our leaders should be ashamed of how low pay and benefits are afforded to your public servants thank you Mr chef [Applause] good evening my name is Meredith Carter and I'm a firefighter and also Executive Board member of the local 668. I want to share with you the frustration that many of our firefighters felt watching the budget session on May 24th while we appreciate director Wynn's

2 percent while this is true it is lacking critical context over that same time period the Durham livable wage increased from 15 per hour to 1846 per hour I am using the fiscal year 24 livable wage in this calculation since most firefighters with that particular higher date will not receive their next Merit raise until

November well into fiscal year 24. this demonstrates that the city of Durham had an increase in the cost of living of 23 percent since 2019. 2 percent more than their very first day in the fire academy as a probationary recruit you may be thinking well it's still a raise but I'd like to remind you that I am currently being paid forty five thousand one hundred and fifteen dollars I want to share with you some of our neighboring Department salaries I would make more money if I left tomorrow and started over as a recruit at any of the following cities than I do now with Durham after more than four years of service Knightdale fifty seven thousand dollars Apex 51 Wake Forest 50 carry 48 Charlotte 48 Morrisville 48 Raleigh 46 Zebulon 46 Wilson forty five thousand one hundred and seventy dollars a five Department station or five station Department serving a community of less than 50 000

people Market raises and Merit raises are two separate types of salary increases and they cannot be conflated they cannot be combined and passed off as a huge increase we deserve fair market value as well as material acknowledgment of our use of service thank you thank you foreign ER I'm a firefighter with local 668 thank you Council Madam mayor I'm not going to get through my speech it takes three minutes I timed it I talk as fast as I can fellow New Yorker it's not going to happen so I'm just going to highlight one point we're proud of this Department's standards those standards are being lowered we're going to introduce 38 of our department in the next two academies think about that 38 120 people are going to be introduced in the next 18 to 2 18 months to two years is that the service

the city deserves all right I Echo the police benevolent Association I I believe they deserve it we see what they do we support them but we're here because in that information that uh firefighter Carter shared as well we're being considered greedy because we're seeking raises is it greedy to put more food on the table for your kids is it greedy to send your kids to a daycare is it greedy to try to get them better clothes a secondary education is it greedy to hear the council member Hyman and Middleton and Miss Aya Shabu sorry if I said it wrong they're talking about all these great things we don't get to participate in them we show up on something goes wrong and that's our experience in Durham we can't call you neighbors we can't call you friends we can't call you family we're simply here for your worst day and we'll never see the best day we are told that we are greedy greed is an intense and selfish desire for something

what about what we're trying to do is selfish what about the job we do is selfish what about putting others before yourself is is selfish so I'm asking you when you consider this when you tell me two percent and three hundred dollars where's the selfishness in us to say I want more for my family I want my kids to go to school I would love to see that play those students did never gonna say it I didn't even know what was happening I'm not part of the community the reason I'm not part of the community is because as she previously stated we are below low income at our starting pay if we can't afford two firefighters renting the same apartment how are we going to afford a family of four five even sniffing the county line we want to be here it's y'all that's stopping us from being here we're asking you to look at this we know you want us here we know you appreciate us we appreciate everything you do but what's stopping us is unless we get competitive pay we are going to be serving other communities thank you

[Applause] people say your name for me sir um I'm firefighter Jonathan Armada I was one of 19 firefighters that graduated with fire academy 31. 60 an hour this shows the city does not value my time and abilities at the same minimum level as other city employees along with the city not valuing me as an employee deserving a liveable wage I'm seeing how the city let lets the pay compression continue to negatively affect the firefighters of Durham the compression issue that the city has not addressed correctly is already affecting firefighters of my Academy and the two years since being sworn five

firefighters from my Academy have left the department because the step increases and accompanying pay raise that were promised to us have not been delivered there was no pay incentive offered to them to stay the five firefighters that left cost the city 350 000 in training in order to fill the vacancies of those firefighters the city will spend over 750 000 in overtime a year to further demonstrate how the compression issue is affecting the department Academy 32 the academy that graduated after my Academy are paid step one a probationary firefighter from Academy 32 was assigned to my station I spent countless hours training and guiding the probationary firefighter during my two years I've been cleared by the department State and Durham County EMS to provide Advanced EMT care I become technical Rescuers certified and I'm on my way to become a fire driver for the Department the firefighter I train currently has none of those qualifications yet is that pay step one while I'm still at pay Step Zero a group of lateral firefighters hired in July of 2021 are also at pay step one soon they will be at pay step two

currently the 13 remaining firefighters that were sworn with me or steps behind those with less experience and less time of the city these are two various very obvious examples of the compression issue that we're asking the city to correct I'm going all right I love being a firefighter for Durham Durham also has also provided me with everything I need to be hired by neighboring departments there must provide me with a reputation of a knowledgeable and skilled firefighter a knowledgeable and skilled Advanced EMT a certified technical rescuer in the training become a fire driver the one thing that is missing from the city is what was promised to all of us when we started our careers help raise the low morale put us in our correct step fix the compression issue thank you we turn now to Phil Wiggins but need a green Vanessa Mason Evans

AJ Williams Dede fields mayor members of the council I appreciate this opportunity to come before you and speak today my name is Phil Wiggins and I'm a retired Captain with the city of Durham Police Department 27 years of service with the city of Durham and I came to work in 1983 as a public safety officer and served in Durham since then just retired in 1983. as an officer moving up through the ranks in the Durham Police Department also became a Chapman with Durham Police Department I have personal experience and been part of abuse pay compression moving of action anniversary dates uh to prevent raises

I watched officers benefits disappear where when they retire they lose the health care benefits since my retirement 2003 I have watched Good officers leaving Durham Police Department for other agencies for better pay and these departments that are leaving and going to are not as busy it is in Durham and uh these officers you know don't want to leave they want to stay in Durham and serve but they can't afford to stay in Durham on the salaries that they're making so they're leaving going to other agencies Durham is definitely in a crisis I really don't have to tell you this I thank you from what you've heard so far and what you've reserved just being on Council that you know what's happening in the city of Durham with the police department and also with the fire department I don't believe the big issue is recruiting trying to get new people to come in but I think the big issue is

retention keeping officers here with people seeing officers leaving in record numbers from early retirement trying to transfer into other agencies getting out of law enforcement altogether who wants to jump on a sinking ship until you fix retention it's going to get a lot worse for Durham as chaplain of I love Durham Police Department I love law enforcement the 911 operators citizens of Durham and day doesn't go by that I'm not on my knees asking God to guide me first to make help make Durham a better place and I pray for our leadership in this in the department in our city and county leaders I pray and hope that you as leaders in the city government will trust in the Lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding but trust in him and he will direct your path thank you so much thank you thank you

[Applause] [Applause] Miss Green good evening mayor O'Neill mayor Pro Tim Middleton and all members of the diocese my name is Bonita green and I am president of the Merit Moore Community Development Corporation the Mary Moore Community Development Corporation formerly known as Americorps Community Club mission is the Merrick Moore CDC in its diverse Community exists for charitable and educational purposes to improve the overall quality of life for the poor underprivileged and disenfranchised by strengthening the bonds amongst our residents some of the things that this organization has been advocating for for many years since I was a child and my father was president of the organization was sidewalks and infrastructure improvements along cheek road which is a very narrow road

that is lacking sidewalks yet we have people who walk these roads every day because there's no public transportation in our community so they have to walk these very narrow paths on the side of the road which are typically covered by vegetation and we have all sorts of traffic coming through driving very aggressively so I'm here tonight to ask for your support in providing these much needed infrastructure updates along Chic Road in America Community which also housing houses in elementary school and I see children walk into that school on a very dangerous road so I'm asking for your support and approving the infrastructure updates and sidewalks and Street calming devices in the Merit more community and I want to say my last few seconds is I am full support of the policeman's organization and the firefighters they deserve their pay they put their lives on the line every day to save all of your lives and mine thank you

good evening O'Neill and city council I'm Vanessa Mason Evans the chair of the bradtown Community Association I come to you in hopes that y'all will say vote Yes on the sidewalks and the traffic calming assessments we need more stoplights in our community crosswalks with safety lights and crossing for streets of course you know we have a lot of new developments that are coming to bragtown which we're happy to see coming to Bragg town we also have schools that need safe walking spaces we have people right now who are walking in the street with strollers as well as wheelchairs that are riding in the streets because we have a lack of sidewalks so we're hoping that with this funding we're able to get more sidewalks we know it's not going to all come at one time but we hope each year that we can have funding to come into our community to help build more sidewalks to make the community more safe we also know through talking with um go triangle and um the transit system that we can't have bus stops or shelters without sidewalks they're not

going to put them in the dirt so these side sidewalks will help to put more bus stops and shelters within our community and we thank y'all for coming out when y'all did come out to view the community and their needs and seeing that there are a lot of people who walk on Goat paths um in the bradtown area I also too want to support our Police Department as well as our fire department it's these people here who go into the fires when we're running from the fires so please keep these things in mind thank you [Applause] uh good evening council members my name is AJ Williams I'm a resident of Durham 27707. um I'm here to share with you and begin with a word from asada Shakur it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win I'm starting off with that word because

it's sacred in fact to me it's a mandate and it speaks to the Angelic troublemaking that I deem as my life's work as an asthma calling um and so often it feels like our people are arriving to this podium in particular to tell their their trauma uh their most devastating stories during the moment of Crisis where I'm actually here to offer us a chance to celebrate [Music] um the heart program can be a real manifestation of a win for our city and we need to win right now in Durham and the nation is looking to us and we have a really special opportunity how many people know I'm the co-director of the organization called darn Beyond policing um in our formation undeniably audaciously AJ sorry to interrupt if you back away from the mic a little bit we'll hear you better just like yeah maybe not quite that far if you get too close it just gets garbly we can't understand you yeah thanks sorry

y'all get him all right um I'm part of a formation called Daring Beyond on policing and we undeniably believe in dreaming and imagining not only what's possible but the means by which we can manifest and actualize that reality and safety is a reality that uh needs to be a reality for our people nearly every black person I know my age has been triggered by the blue and red lights of cop cars and the howling shrill of sirens whether we were actually engaging in criminalized Behavior or not we've all felt traumatized by those lights and so one day as our staff was audaciously dreaming we said wouldn't it be cool if the heart Vehicles had soft green and purple lights and when they went through traffic that the vehicles played melodic music that actually reassured our spirits and when we saw one pass we could celebrate with gladness in our hearts that one of our folks sacred lives would be saved it's also true that we are the ones we've been waiting for and heart to me is a manifestation of that the list you

saw earlier was a list of over 1700 Durham residents Faith leaders businesses just regular everyday people who support the full expansion of the heart program so thank you in advance for helping us secure the bag for our people [Applause] good evening everybody can you hear me yes um mayor O'Neill and distinguished guests and mayor Pro tem4 I don't have a speech or anything but what I do have is a testimony about the heart and if you would just state your name for me DD fields and I'm a resident of Durham County I'm a single mom 54 year old of four kids so I want to speak to this program and why I think that um they definitely should keep it funded and it should be an ongoing thing um I have a 20 year old son living at home um I tend to talk fast when I get nervous so and I'm very passionate about

this young black he's 20 years old and we've already had our our running when I say with the law my only hope at that time was I don't care what you did at that time can you just come home and thank God he made it home I said we'll deal with the repercussions later but at that time when I could hear the officer talking to him on the phone I'm scared to death so we made it through that now fast forward I have a 15 year old son at home he was born nine pounds and he's uh 274 pounds right now so he's big he has a lot of hair on his head he's very bulky he's muscular his bow legs and when he walks he's very gentle but he's he walks just like you know it may scare somebody so um the heart program I think they had only been in existence for about six months at the time so my son was going through some things and I saw a very kind of like scary side of him so I took him to the police station I said can you please please help me now what I like most is that yes he came out had his gun all of that stuff but that's not

what my son responded to that didn't even phase him he didn't care at that time but what I did end up getting was these two cards because they were armed with something else they were on with resources and information they had a whole team waiting on me which is the what's the heart program is the heart program they stayed with us they didn't they respected my feelings respected his feelings eight seconds and they followed us through they didn't just turn me loose once they were finished they followed up within 24 hours they walked with me they didn't walk in my shoes but they walk with us so what I'm saying to you is I want you to take that into consideration that if the policing doesn't change you have to arm them with something different all these kids set up here that you talked about today if you don't change then they're going to keep killing them they won't be here to do the work that needs to be done so we need it we want it we're asking for transformation keep and support the heart program and I'm leaving you with this what if it was your kid how would

you want him to be treated or her if they were approached in that manner think about that what if it was your child thank you so much [Applause] the next the next five names Virginia wurtman K Cole Atwood a-t-w-o-o-d I believe Joe manzolds Rebecca bratcher and Anita Scott Neville good evening council members I'm Virginia wertman of zip code 27705. I'm here to request that the

council make definitive plans to expand the heart program both city-wide and 24 7. as part of the campaign to expand awareness and support for the heart program I've spoken to many many residents who voiced unequivocal support for the work this program is doing several residents also gave me permission to relay their stories because they were unable to be here tonight I hope these stories highlight the desperate need for programs of care a mother of two told me her older daughter suffered suffered a mental health crisis but when she called 9-1-1 to get help an officer arrived and tackled her 80 pound 14 year old child to the ground she said her younger daughter witnessed this and it still wakes from nightmares screaming about her older sister being dragged Away by police a resident of North State Park said he didn't have anyone to call when his brother is having a mental health crisis as he is terrified of his brother being institutionalized according to the heart pilot Northgate Park is not covered

a person working at a local business mentioned they had been repeatedly followed and harassed by a visibly unwell individual they are scared for their own safety but also for this other person who is clearly suffering they don't want this person to be jailed for mental illness and repeatedly mentioned that they wish the heart program could help them in addition to the expansion of heart I beg you to consider the simultaneous expansion and Improvement of yet more affordable housing better for infrastructure and public health public Mental Health Resources while I am genuinely elated to see and hear the success of This brilliant program I do not believe it will be sustainable unless we invest in all aspects of compassionate care for the people thank you [Applause] how are y'all doing uh my name is Cole Atwood I'm a I live I'm a Durham

resident I live at 2707 the sorry I'm kind of nervous but um yeah so I'm going to talk to y'all about an experience that I had in Durham with the police and but before that I want to say I have a personal investment in the heart program because I have family members who have had drug problems and have had mental health crises but we didn't have anything like that I'm from Mount Olive North Carolina we don't have anything like that in that small town but um so I love the heart program for that and also I would like to give a trigger warning for this because I'll be talking about police violence so on May 17th driving around to the roundabout between Hope Valley Road and University Drive eyewitness DP dpd officers pulling a black man out of his car results in five to six officers kneeling on his head and body on the hot concrete of the street um I was horrified of what could happen because of this incident um sorry I'm getting kind of worked up

but um I approached him recording telling them I was recording just in case anything happened and to get their attention calling for them to stop um they did not stop one of them places hands on me and told me he was arrest me if I kept talking um for what I was doing I don't know perfectly legal to record the police North Carolina it appeared to be over a drug possession as one of the officers arrogantly held out and showed me a container potentially containing drugs so as to justify this instant of dpd's brutality against Durham's black community but it's not my concern about whether or not this individual had or hadn't done anything wrong that does not justify that brutality this reminded me and was a demonstration of the ways in which police are neither equipped nor intend to mitigate harm not only that but how they exacerbate create violence and harm and how the how policing as an institution will not allow compassionate caring response therefore the heart program needs to be funded 24 7 and available Citywide so

thank you thank you hello mayor city council my name is Joe meinholtz I'm new to Durham and I want to speak in support of the heart program being fully funded also in my part of the city 27705. I came here to be at Duke Divinity School and I came here from Minneapolis and and earlier council member outside spoke to how we can be a leader in Durham for the country and I coming from Minneapolis and the Litany of killings by police that we marched in March three times a year I've talked to people back there about heart and they see hope coming from here and so I encourage you and invite you to that Vision that other people have spoke of the vision not just to do a pilot but to fund three years and then sit down again with groups like Durham Beyond policing to invest in even more

non-violent strategies to make sure that citizens don't have a path to jail but instead have a path to health have a path to affordable housing all these things give me so much hope for living here and I'm so grateful to meet you all tonight supporting the heart program to be in all parts of the city for many years to come so that we can have peacemakers on the streets with resources thank you thank you sir Ms brancher and I just want to let everybody know after Miss Neville we have to take a a 10-minute break for our closed captioning folk so we still have about these many cards for folks who are waiting to speak okay all right thank you you may foresee Miss Pratchett hi I'm Rebecca bratcher I'm a resident of Durham 27701 I'd also like to give a trigger warning before I start my brother Charlie experienced his first

episode of psychosis on New Year's Eve 2016. because it was the middle of the night on a holiday my mom didn't know what to do besides call the police my brother and will and I did our best to keep Charlie calm for over an hour while we waited for them to arrive when the three armed cops walked into the house they made us leave Charlie alone with them and we could hear that he was starting to get worked up again as they walked him to the police car all I could do was watch tensely and pray that none of their hands moved toward a gun my brothers and I are members of the Chickasaw Nation and I can only imagine how much scarier it would have been if we were born with darker skin I can only imagine how much scarier this situation would be for anyone with darker skin than me they told us that they were taking him to a hospital but Charlie ended up in jail that night no one deserves to be in jail during a mental health crisis he deserved better care than that we all deserve access to compassionate skilled unarmed care in the event of a crisis no matter when it may happen since then Charlie has continued to

struggle with his mental health and has had more interactions with law enforcement during times of crisis I live in fear of the day that I'll get a call that a police officer has ended Charlie's life when what he really just needed was help everyone deserves access to care that can help us rather than make things worse the people of Durham deserve the Safety and Security of knowing that we can access a crisis response team at any time that will lead to support healing and Recovery y'all are the ones that have the power to make this happen for us we need the heart program 24 7 we need it Citywide we need it fully funded thanks [Applause] good evening Durham my beloved community and a special greeting to the firefighter who lamented earlier about not feeling a part of this community in fact you are mayor O'Neill mayor Pro tem Middleton

and esteemed members of the city council I am Anita Scott Neville a Durham native and the director of hetai reborn it is a privilege to come before you this evening to offer encouragement for an affirmative vote for the proposed 10 million dollars in your budget for the benefit of rebuilding haytai census creation more than two years ago Hayti reborn strives to work with and in alignment of Durham's comprehensive plan that is rooted in principles of equity and well-being for all of its citizens with an emphasis on the restoration of the historic hatai district to that end we recognize that all actions that are a part of that restoration must reflect responsibility and demonstrate a community-led process the healing that will result will effectively drown out residual pain from

the urban removal of the 1960s and Echo resurrection of our heritage for generations to come in fact through a unified effort with other organizations who share our vision we will be able to identify and advocate for the city's response to the repair of spiritual and physical harm done to hetai and its residents your approval of this funding for the revitalization of hatai will write a good word on the pages of history and will reflect your effort to seize this time of opportunity in the midst of Rapid change for our city if not now when Durham's leadership mirrors that of the founding leaders who made haytai a flagship community in a pivotal time in history when thank you for your consideration and

affirmative vote thank you [Applause] all right everybody we'll take about a 10 minute break to give our closed captioners the time to regroup and we'll start back at nine to 9 15 9 14 9 14 9 15. you're invited to attend an upcoming one-of-a-kind Art Gallery recordings option featuring Pieces by Durham's long-term residents immigrants and refugees the exhibit is called piece by

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all right we are back in the uh nine o'clock no I never used a gavel as a judge but we seem to have to use it in the council chambers yep we are ready to get started our next five speakers we will begin Mr Robert E Gaddy Sarah de Amato Walter Jackson Katie Craig and Nancy Lauer and if you just say your name and then you can begin two minutes trying to let I know I cut you all down so I'm not going to cut you off but we're not going to go into the three minute we'll give you a few extra seconds to counter finish up I won't cut you off but uh bro Mr Gaddy greetings about a mayor yes distinguished members of the city council my name is Robert gadding

and tonight I stand before you as the president of the Durham County Fraternal Order of Police representing over 500 members I also stand to you for four years of retired police captain but moreover a resident and a citizen of Durham we are wanting to discuss and talk about the very urgent matter as it relates to Staffing as it relates to retention and recruitment of qualified police officers this critical issue is important to us because we're in Dire Straits we're losing officers in the one to zero to four year range also now we're seeing highly experienced officers with 10 years of experience or more attracting qualified personnel has become an increasingly challenged task as we're losing as our neighbors around us in Wake County Orange County um have offered more highly competitive bonuses they've offered higher higher entry level pay

this alarm and Trend needs your immediate attention right now the Durham Police Department is minus 146 officers six of the officers left last month five of them went to another agency my Lodge conducted a survey over 500 members we had 116 responses of those 116 responses 32 of these people are looking for other employment speaking with the Department of spokesperson by the end of the year there's 31 officers projected to leave Durham Police Department either leaving altogether or just retirement we need to rectify the situation and I think what you heard from the fire department we're experiencing the same exact thing we need for you to look at our start and pay for the recruits raising it at implementing the appropriate Market adjustments for all ranks addressing the pay compression issue revised proposed increases while we're preaching for the 300 and the two

percent increase that's not going to help retain folks number five compare the compensation with other agencies we need to make sure that we're doing as much as Wake County is doing as Orange County is doing Wade County Orange weekend orange both did a six percent increase and orange actually reduced the medical benefits and also recognize the work disparities as everybody you've heard our folks work hard they work hard and even despite everything going on they give you this same amount of service and last address to step plan um the plan can be adjusted for minimal uh impact Financial impact on the citizens but at the end of the day we need to get as many police officers at to keep them and also attract new ones and so I appeal to you to do what we entrusted you to do as a Citizens when we voted you in office and take care of us take care of our folks and take care of ourselves thank you Mr Gaddy

[Applause] Mr Yamato Mr Jackson Miss Craig Miss Lauer good evening Mary O'Neill and members of the city council I am Sarah D'Amato I am the program director of the legal aid eviction diversion program um in the Durham office we are I am here to ask you to continue to fund our program we've here I always come in here with my notes and then I'm I know I'm going to change based on what I hear the people talk before me and one of the things that I keep hearing people say is we can't afford to live in Durham it's not just the salaries it's the rising rents and one of the things that our program does by keeping people in their homes it helps to stabilize that rental market every eviction means that a rent is going to go up so if we can keep people housed then their rents don't go up so that is

one thing that while we have the city of this budget is funding all of these programs to build new projects and build new housing and to maintain and help preserve tendencies in Durham one of the things that's really vital is our program and the way in which we reach tenants who are facing housing insecurity the city council has funded our Courthouse clinic and for members of the community who are not aware of this Courthouse Clinic every day that court is open in the Durham Courthouse from 9 to 12 we have attorneys and intake Specialists available to meet with people to determine if they're eligible in order to represent them in many cases we are able to represent them that same day that doesn't always mean we win a lot of times what that means is that we give them another two weeks to get paid to move out a lot of what we do is giving folks extra time one thing of note is that this program are

success in it has not come overnight this program has been funded for the past since 2017 it's continued to be expanded and one of the things that is happening these days is that just as a few notes um and and we're asking you to continue funding our program um last month we had in Durham Court there were 84 cases that were on for District Court appeals and of those 84 tenants facing evictions 61 of them had legal representation and so in that case we're going to ask for you to continue our funding thank you thank you so much good evening Madam mayor mayor Pro tem members of the city council my name is Walter Jackson I'm a proud resident of the city of Durham I do not envy you your task I want to commend the manager for the budget that she has submitted it's a budget that recognizes

the many challenges facing us here in Durham and also the many needs that we have as I've listened tonight I've listened to people advocate for a number of pressing needs and I support many of those needs to include the hot program the need to continue to compensate our city employees well who do such a great job and I meant to particularly commend both the employees of the city manager the City attorney and the city clerk for the outstanding work you do it is not an un it is not an enviable task my primary Mission this evening however is to speak to the need for restoration and revitalization of the Hayti community and Hayti reborn I grew up in Durham and every year from the fourth grade through the 12th grade I walked either along

Fayetteville Street or across Fayetteville Street to school and saw the many businesses that were in that community and the the economic vitality and jobs that they represented it's a hurtful to me at this time to see the current state of Fayetteville Street so I ask that you in your juggling of all these priorities please keep Fayetteville Street and the need to revitalize that community in mind I thank you [Applause] hello good evening my name is Katie Craig I'm the state director with NC perg a Statewide Public interest advocacy organization that works to build a healthier safer and cleaner future for all North Carolinians I'm here today speaking as a representative of our over 2 000 supporters that reside here in Durham as well as a former Durham resident myself to ask that city

council include the funding requested by the city's Solid Waste Management Department for two key positions including public information and communication analysts as well as a code enforcement officer as a critical first step to addressing the cities in our state's plastic pollution problem as many of you may know we live in a society that loves our stuff and loves convenience but the combination means that we are constantly creating waste some of which has major consequences on our communities our health and our environment in particular single-use Plastics are handed to us pretty much everywhere you go from a bag at the store to utensils in your takeout to your morning coffee cup all these things we use for just a few minutes before tossing them away only when it comes to plastic there is no away Plastics do not biodegrade in our environment which means that they last for hundreds of years and to make matters worse less than nine percent of all plastic ever created has actually been recycled meaning the other 90 is

overfilling our landfills littering our streets and parks and ending up in our waterways as well as harming our own wildlife and our own health luckily the solution is actually quite simple we just need to use less plastic starting by eliminating the worst types and moving towards implementing reusable infrastructure where we can the funding requested by the city's Solid Waste Management Department for these positions would go towards coordinating waste reduction reuse and recycling initiatives and campaigns to address single-use items and other waste so I urge members of this committee to fund this position as important for a step in the process to address plastic and other single-use waste thank you so much for my time and your consideration [Applause] hello mayor Neil mayor Pro tem Milton and council members my name is Nancy Lauer I'm speaking here today to urge you to fund the solid

waste management Department's request for two positions a public information and Communications analyst and a code enforcement officer in fiscal year 2021-2022 Durham threw away 365 556 tons of Municipal trash that's just over two thousand pounds of trash for each person living in Durham two thousand pounds of trash for Me 2 000 pounds of trash for each of you and two thousand pounds of trash for each person in this room it's easy and convenient to throw our trash away until we reckon with where away is for us that place is not in Durham but over 90 miles away in the small historically black community of Snow Hill in Sampson County it's easy and convenient to throw our trash away because someone else is bearing the burden of the truck traffic the reduced property values the rodents the odors the buzzards the air and water pollution and the loss of community that

comes with living next to the largest or one of the largest landfills in the United States at a Sampson County Board of Commissioners meeting this past April a Community member expressed Sampson County is not the trash dump of the United States however it's been the trash dump of the United States the month before Larry Sutton the president of the Sampson County NAACP NAACP chapter initiated a moment of silence for people who have died with health effects believed to be from the landfill in Sampson County the Sampson County landfill has somewhere between 10 and 20 years of operating life left before it reaches its capacity history and research tell us what happens next we fill up the Sampson County Landfill and a new landfill will be permitted and opened in another community of color I'm speaking here today to urge you to do everything you can to move Durham away from needless landfilling and to expand the capabilities of Durham Solid

Waste Management Department the solid waste management Department's requested positions are the first step in this transition the public information and Communications analyst would develop coordinate waste develop and coordinate waste reduction reuse and recycling initiatives and campaigns the code enforcement officer would Implement an enforced Miss Lowry um I see these positions as the first step in this transition and I thank you for your time and consideration thank you thank you Nick's five names Michelle Nowlin on Virgie Street first name Michelle Nolan Nolan Miss fake Calhoun Allison Simpson Casey Road Kate Gonzalez ready

good evening thank you very much for taking the time to listen to the community this evening I'm here to ask the council to add two positions to the budget that were requested by the Solid Waste Management Department the public information and Communications analyst and the code enforcement officer and I'd like you to consider four justifications for adding these positions to the budget first there is much confusion across the community regarding what can be disposed of what can be recycled and what alternatives for responsible reuse and substitutes for single-use Plastics are available secondly Durham is growing rapidly and our Solid Waste Management infrastructure is not keeping up we know this because litter is everywhere across the city of Durham we have only one code enforcement officer for nearly 300 000 residents and nearly 8 000 businesses and we have no staff that are dedicated to public Outreach and education on this topic a point that perhaps mayor O'Neill made this evening by asking all of us to

properly place our recycling bins on waste pickup day these positions are needed to reduce waste improve the quality of life and improve the health of our community number three trash is expensive cleanups by hired staff downtown and hundreds of volunteers across the community including keep Durham beautiful and Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association are part of that expense and here in Durham we pay twice for our trash first for carting things to the landfill and second through increased recycling fees that are necessitated by the extra labor required to remove inappropriately recycled materials and truck that to the very same landfill in Sampson County fourth these positions further the city's climate goals of reducing greenhouse gases and its commitment to environmental justice I'd like to note that plastic manufacturing landfills and waste incinerators are located in environmental justice communities and we

cannot improve their health without reducing the generation of waste these positions have been requested for four years by the Solid Waste Management Department the EAB the environmental Affairs board has supported this request and these positions are necessary to educate the public about waste reduction proper Recycling and Disposal work with businesses and where necessary enforce the law thank you very much for your time thank you [Applause] Miss faith it's fake care home my name is fake Al horn I'm a Hayti Community homeowner and an advocate for what is extremely important to the African-American community in this city and maybe even across the country we uh haytai is a such a unique area it's African-American Heritage a

Heritage that we must be proud of we must preserve and we must recognize and acknowledge I'm so happy today that funding is being considered for the rebuilding and the upgrading of this community specifically to Fayetteville Street corridor a document describing the desires needs plans and intentions of community stakeholders has been submitted the strength and dedication of each community group was included in that in that document speaking with one voice we are dedicated to assure that this funding if we receive it will repair and restore structures that have been neglected and abandoned due to the loss of generational wealth the loss of homes and over a hundred businesses in our

area this loss as a result of policies and laws well described in a book by Richard Rothstein entitled the color of law is acknowledged by this budget request and appreciated by those that will benefit including all the citizens of Durham that will finally have an improved destination to increase the economy attract visitors sustain commercial development and improve the security of this historic area hey Ty We Salute this uh possible funding as a partnership with the city that will benefit City residents especially the youth that may choose to pursue lucrative careers either in the trades or to pursue

studies on the effect of budget allocations and policy changes on communities thank you I thank you for that Ms Calhoun we appreciate it [Applause] this is Miss Allison Simpson Casey Road and Kate Gonzalez reading hi my name is Casey Rowe I've been a Durham resident for 14 years and I love this city I wanted to Echo the calls for affordable housing living wages for all hey Ty reborn and safe public transit but I came here tonight in support of the heart program I'm very proud that Durham has embraced the heart pilot program and that we have the opportunity to be a leader on the national stage in compassionate skilled unarmed crisis response

we know that not all disabilities are visible we know that mental health issues cannot always be quickly identified I want to feel that I can call for help and resources when I see someone in need in Durham and feel confident that this will not put them in any additional danger or risk of escalating the situation I believe the heart program has shown that in many cases skilled unarmed responders are the appropriate response and I ask for the council to make heart fully funded and available Citywide and 24 7. thank you thank you [Applause] good evening good evening I'm Kate Gonzalez reading I'm a resident of Durham I'm here to express my deepest gratitude for the heart program and ask that it be fully funded 24 7 and in all areas of Durham I've spent much of the last 10 years journeying with people experiencing homelessness and educating others about trauma-informed care I've seen too many people I care about

handcuffed and put in the back of a police car to be taken to the hospital to receive mental health care that is trauma I'm asking that the heart program be fully funded and in all areas of Durham because you cannot schedule a crisis I'm also here to ask that you prioritize the vision zero Durham plan funding both of these initiatives will save lives of our neighbors thank you we start with Miss Larissa Seibel followed by Katrina bernaus John orth Andrea Miele m-i-e-l-e and Leticia fascia good evening mayor and city council and city manager you have a big job before you to meet all the needs of our community and to and I want to

recognize all the citizens who have spoken so eloquently I do want to bring up something in addition with legal aid at the courthouse I've been going for two years we at least weekly to help people negotiate navigate the courts and we've got just an extraordinary group of young attorneys who can represent people the same day the same morning the same few minutes before their court date they are flying it around those courtrooms and helping people get a continuance just a few weeks to get some money together to wait for social services and other groups for help to be able to save their homes and people are coming more and more are coming it used to be in Durham years ago you could get another part if you lost your home you can't do that anymore people are coming almost you know I think about three quarters of

the people on the list that 72 people were on the list it seemed like about three quarters of them showed up the other day and it's because there's nowhere else for them to go they've got to hang on to that apartment and so having an additional attorney at legal aid would be extremely helpful to the people who've gone through the loss of homes due to eviction and some have lost their homes and they're actually homeless and so I hope that you will fund the requests from legal aid in Durham they are doing amazing work thank you for your support thank you [Applause] this burnouts Katrina bernales hello Madam mayor Mayo pro tempore and council members I'm Katrina varnaus I'm a student at Duke and I encourage you to support the solid waste management Department's request to hire a public

information and Communications analyst and a code enforcement officer I grew up five miles from Chester Pennsylvania the location of the nation's largest waste incineration plant where black and low wealth residents have been forced to breathe toxic chemicals in their air for decades it wasn't until University that I learned more about the vast quantity of waste that we each produce and the ways in which plastic waste has negatively impacted our communities in the health of communities like Chester and Sampson County where Durham sends its waste I wish my local government had supported our community and taught us and educated us on the negative impacts of single-use plastics and how to property properly reduce and recycle waste Durham has the chance to do better by its residents around 90 percent of plastic is sent to landfill or incineration or ends up in our waterways and marine environment Plastics impose unnecessary costs on Durham's government and local businesses plastic bags alone cost over two million dollars annually to Durham businesses

and the government to purchase landfill and cleanup to avoid these outcomes and reduce certain solid waste and Associate environmental health and in financial costs Durham needs clear communication on waste reduction Recycling and the why Behind these actions effective communication strategies requiring higher require hiring trained and dedicated individuals a Communications professional can create materials that provide Durham residents with specific actions to reduce waste like properly sorting Recycling and bringing their own reusable bags to the store similar transition programs like in Charleston South Carolina have already proven to actively reduced plastic waste consumption and reduce the prevalence of plastic in the local environment I hope that you take the time to invest in Durham's well-being and funniest positions thank you thank you

5 million dollars focused on sidewalks and traffic calming in the Equitable and green infrastructure priority neighborhoods I've traveled to other communities throughout the world that have made a

decision to design their streets for people biking and walking and I truly hope Durham can get there I believe it can this budget proposal is an important step forward for our safety climate change individual and Collective health and our community I urge you to please support these investments in this budget and to continue funding these projects as we have come as we complete networks of protected bike Lanes sidewalks slow streets and safe Crossings throughout Durham thank you so much for your time thank you good evening John orth an 11 18 guest in Manor Drive and Carolina Arbors in Durham I'm here to support additional funding for your First Responders both Police

7 percent increase in a police budget when inflation is six or more percent is unsustainable it's not real we don't really understand how you can justify that

there's a major change necessary to look at how you finance police and how you finance your first responder services there's over 2 000 retired Professionals in Carolina Arbors many of whom would love to volunteer to help in some capacity dozens of law enforcement people Professionals of all nature And yet when we propose it it's blown off rejected not really considered I'd like to support and propose that you have a task force of retired law enforcement people from all sources retired police from Durham from all parts of the country that live in Carolina Arbors and recommend to you how you can not only improve your police force and your ability attract new officers and be able to retain those that you have but how are you going to fund them

7 percent thank you we can help out with that and just on a positive note the First Responders we have from the fire department in our neighborhood are the only First Responders we have they do excellent job if I can be of help to organize a task force like that I'm more than willing to try thank you for your time thank you so much participation and we'll call the next group of names hi my name is Leticia face and I'm an Eastern native of 43 years I currently stay at 277 um one three I'm sorry I'm kind of nervous y'all in support of expanding the heart program 24 hours fully funding and

um because when my son had a crisis in 2021 the heart program was not there I had to call 9-1-1 and I thought the ambulance was coming but instead I got four officers that came running to my house with their hands on their gun my son had currently just got out of prison from doing 11 and a half years so I did not let them get them the first time but the second time I did and when they came to pick them up they put him in the back of the police car to take him to the hospital when all he needed was some help he was having a psychotic episode um so yeah that's why I'm for the fully funding of the heart program um I just want to use my last minutes as a mom of gun violence um to say that I hear I appreciate everything y'all have been doing for us trying to prevent the gun violence and stuff but um y'all also come and say that y'all want the community to speak out on the gun violence but um I have heard from several people that we don't get

responses responses me myself I have reached out to several of the community councils um Mr Mark Anthony Miss Elaine on December 2021 I haven't got a response back um I would just say that let's all hold each other accountability let's all be accountable um if you want the community to respond could we please get a response back because we're all in this together with our next set of names Miss Allison Simpson going back to her you're not here no one days I'm sorry she did Mr Simpson left okay all right um no n h a w n d i Smith Donna

Fred she already okay okay Donna Fred followed by Alton Holloway someone did not put their name but they stay at 622 Delaware Avenue Tony Mason and Rachel kerosene ready good evening Council mayor it's been a long night for all of us and I'm here in support of the budget for Bragg town with the increased need for sidewalks and safety just today I was meeting someone on Roxboro Road and I walked and actually I had to wait for about two light cycles because it is so dangerous to cross Roxboro Road with

a sidewalk now imagine the areas in bragtown that does not have sidewalk we have to really pay attention as we're increasing Motor Cars bicycles and people walking the safety and it is really imperative areas that never had sidewalk and there's a lot of areas so I'm in support of all of those in the budget that need sidewalk especially in bragtown and also in support of the officers and the firefighters who when we need them they show up and we really need to support them so that's my request tonight and thank you so much thank you good evening I am Elgin Holloway uh born reared in Durham and my family's been here since pretty much forever

I'm proud dear mate and I'm speaking on behalf of the American Moore community and the improvements that need to be done there in and I'd like to commit the commit the manager for proposing these improvements and I'd like to also speak in favor of the firefighters who my brother was one and my uncle was a one of the original members of uh station four and also the uh the police people that that used to be out when I used to work down there in Durham is unique in their police a lot of is I've not made a real study of it but I believe Durham has more people with cottage agrees on the police force and it pretty much anywhere else and uh also like I said I like to speak on behalf of the improvements that especially uh Benita green has has worked so hard for and got me to help her and also

Fayetteville Street uh or Walter Jackson who was my schoolmate and that Community is pretty much 100 years old and my granddaughter has recently moved into that community and also as I said I'm a very proud member of Durham North Carolina and and Durham need to be people need to remember what Durham was like you know favorite street now between uh Roxboro Street and Dillard street right it's it's a lot that used to happen in in that block that a lot of people don't know anything about and right now you cannot see any trace of what that used to used to happen in the in that space that uh I also had a business I had in the name of it so I I would like to uh tell YouTube fund the proposals that we have because the cities that were that were called

out were small cities all the same Riley you know and and they don't work as hard as down people do I know it's as far as firefighters and as far as the police people go I got two cousins that the police from now wonder whose father just retired Mr Holloway I'm all in this minute I try to let it go on for about 10 seconds but once you start hitting the 10 second over Mark I have to kind of cut you a little bit thank you so much for coming tonight appreciate you [Applause] uh I'm looking at at the card the person lives at 622 Delaware Avenue but you didn't put your name on it and I'm gonna ask you to once you finish speaking to come and pick it up and put your name on it and if you would just state your name thank you um sorry about that I am not sure how I did that um my name is Nora Weston I live at 1622 Delaware Avenue

here in Durham I am here representing the Durham Hub of the sunrise movement Sunrise Durham wholeheartedly supports the heart program we thank the council for piloting this program and ask that you continue to expand it to create 24 7 access across Durham we believe that health care including Mental Health Care is a human right this program has been working to close a major Gap in access to care it keeps our neighbors safe it makes all of us more safe makes it possible to access emergency services for our neighbors in crisis without worrying that we are going to put them in further Danger all Durham deserves the safety every city deserves the safety please expand this program thank you [Applause] good evening city councilors mayor O'Neill City staff and members of the public I'm here tonight to respectfully ask the city council to fund the two new

6 percent is well above the national average

in Durham Waste also ends up in our streets and waterways it decreases the value of our homes and it costs taxpayer dollars to clean up because of preemption laws and the political landscape in North Carolina addressing plastic pollution will be tricky and require creativity and creativity needs resources and the adopted budget must reflect that reality a public information and communication analyst would coordinate waste reduction reuse and recycling initiatives to address single-use items and waste and this position has been requested for years and denied now is the time to Grant it the signs has been clear for a long time the status quo to address waste is not working and we can't recycle our way out of this alone but we have a path for reversing the harm caused by plastic it starts with these two positions and though I am here to talk about my favorite topic which is trash I also want to voice my support for the expansion of the heart program I stand in solidarity with my comrades who

have built a coalition recognizing that Community safety keeps all of us safe thank you all right Miss and your name was Miss Mason right is that great I'm Rachel carrising okay Tony Mason Tony Mason okay thank you so much I will now address just the people in the audience remaining if there's anyone else who's here in person that would like to speak on this item and they will turn to our persons on the internet anyone else in the audience right sir I want to speak if you fill out a card as well if you please state your name my name is Gordon matthewson I live at 612 price Avenue and I'm speaking in

reference to Hayti Reborn baby Street area that um Mr Holloway mentioned about historically Fayetteville Street area a lifetime that that only the people who lived here would know about it and some of you may be aware of it and the preservation of that area the preservation of what was created by black entrepreneurs neighborhoods people who attended the public schools in the area Fayetteville Street was probably the most probably the most active black street with black people as well as Pettigrew Street it's kind of difficult for you to see the the vision of what took place to actually see the economics of staying in your own community and and also working with your own people but whatever you needed because that was what was

provided and to know that there were so many Artisans the uh the brick masons the Carpenters people whose skills now that that rather rare because you don't get those skills anymore at training in high schools you have to go to a community college but these things made a big difference in the community and what people had and the safety of it all that you could walk the streets at night or at any time and some of you may may not ever get to know that to have that that you could walk the street at night and you know you were going home everybody knew you was going home and nothing was going to happen to you and we didn't even have as much lights that they have on the streets now might be a light on the corner then you got to go so many more blocks before you see another Street line but this is something that's still a part of Durham and it's the making of Durham so I would we would appreciate any efforts towards monies that would

help to restore it because it is a legacy and once it's gone we'll never we'll never get it back thank you thank you I fill out a card good evening mayor O'Neill mayor Pro tem Mark Middleton and the extinguished City Council Members thank you for giving us the opportunity to make remarks even though we did not sign up I really greatly appreciate it I am Dietrich MacMillan managing attorney of legal aid of North Carolina you've formally heard from my esteemed colleague attorney Sarah de Amato concerning extra funding and maintaining funding for the eviction diversion program and I am in all of the teammates of legal aid of North Carolina and the excellent work that they do and I really just came here to support them

but I want to let the settle count city council know that home is where the heart is and when you are being evicted because you ask for a habitable home or you're being evicted because you have lost your job or even through the pandemic crisis these esteemed women and men of legal aid continued to work tirelessly and effortlessly I want the city council to understand that we do not take this request lightly when I hear of one of my teammates having to go to court on a Friday and have 18 cases to try and has successfully been able to continue or win 16 of those cases I think it would be impressed that we

should have more funding to help people maintain the homes in which their heart is and I just want to First also will also thank you for the funding that you have already given to us for it is very very much appreciated and we hope that you will continue to fund us as well as give us extra funding so that we can continue to help people preserve their hearts thank you thank you [Applause] we now turn to our speakers on the internet and we will start with Miss Gwen silver it's Miss silver there we'll check with the clerk she's not there we now turn to Trisha smart s-m-a-r Trisha easier Miss smart if you can hear me you would

have two minutes to speak hi can you all hear me and we can hear you yes ma'am you will have two minutes thank you and if you just state your name just to make sure yes thank you good evening everyone my name is Trisha smart and I'm both a city of Durham resident and tonight I'm here as the injury prevention coordinator with the Trauma Center at Duke University Hospital my role is to provide education Outreach and collaboration with Community groups and agencies to prevent the injuries that we're seeing in the trauma center motor vehicle crashes are one of the most common causes of injury that we see patients for and those along with bicycle pedestrian crashes Encompass hundreds of preventable deaths and serious injuries every year in Durham in this proposed budget the city of Durham is making a financial commitment to keep all roadway users safe by including funding for a full-time Vision zero coordinator I will now have a point person within Durham Transportation with whom to collaborate on roadway safety programs we can work

together to understand the scope of this preventable issue of roadway death and injury and advocate for better policies and projects within our city the staff person has been the missing piece in Durham's visions of your commitment for several years and I'm thrilled as a partner agency to see this position in the budget Additionally the 34 million dollar proposed investments in sidewalks bike facilities and traffic calming especially in divested neighborhoods like bragtown and Merrick Moore speaks volumes to Durham's commitment to saving lives on our streets these types of Investments and better options for walking biking and public transit are so necessary to keep our children and all of our residents safe we still have a long way to go beyond this budget cycle to create a complete network of sidewalks and protected bikeable streets Citywide but I'm encouraged by this proposed budget and encourage council members to vote to support these and future safe Street Investments thank you so much thank you Miss Marr we now turn our attention to Mr Stephen Neal and you'll be followed by Mr D Warren Langley

Mr Neal can you hear me sir yes thank you thank you mayor uh and uh thank you to council council person Middleton and the rest of the council people um I support the budget for expanding sidewalks in the urban tier I also support expansion of multimodal meaning bike lanes and public transportation together in the urban tier and I realized that busing is a county function but it seems like it's it's a something that needs to be connected to everything that we do with all types uh multimodal Transportation uh Bonita and Vanessa spoke very clearly about the needs of their neighborhood and the fact that we need sidewalks in order to get bus shelters so it seems like a better coordination between the city and the county and there that area is very much warranted um being in uh being being in Suburban Southeast Durham with the Leesville Road Coalition we don't really need what they need as we've been developed to be car

Centric and continue to be with almost 10 000 a new single family and Townhomes mostly too far to walk to uh or from Commercial Services so please spend the money on the urban tier especially prioritizing sidewalks because it is a gateway to to public transportation and compensate our firefighters and police well enough to protect our expanding community in the manner that Durham's current and incoming Services uh citizens deserve thank you very much thank you Mr Neal Mr Langley and as he's coming on if there are others on the internet who would like to speak on this item number 36 if you would raise your virtual hand so we can recognize you after Mr Langley Mr Langley can you hear me sir yes I can good evening Madam mayor mayor pro team Mark Anthony Middle 10

members of the city council as well as city manager page City attorney ray burn as well as city clerk Schreiber thank you all for this opportunity to speak I'm speaking to my requesting an investment of 250 000 to strengthen the capacity and programming of the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation we are a non-profit organization dedicated to providing and test so skill and career focused programs services and mentorship to boys and young men of color our goal is to facilitate their academic success and prepare them for the competitive Workforce the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation takes pride in our commitment to ensuring the academic success goes beyond theoretical knowledge we have designed our programs with a practical Focus equipping boys and young men of color with the tangible skills that are directly applicable in the competitive Workforce by aligning our curriculum with real world demands and Industry Trends we prepare them to meet the evolving needs of the job market

ultimately securing their economic stability and Mobility with an investment of 250 000 we can significantly enhance our capacity to deliver and pack for programming and expand our reach within the Durham Community specifically These funds allocated will be used in order to enhance our capacity because currently we operate with six volunteers in addition to expanding the number of young boys and young men that we serve through the gentleman of Excellence as well as the career pathway program by supporting the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation you'll be invested in the academic success leadership development and economic empowerment of boys and young men of color in our community together we can create a more inclusive and Equitable society and change that data point that our police chief mentioned what she most notably said between the ages of 16 and 25 specifically here in Durham you're as a

black boy or young man you are likely to be a victim or perpetrator of gun violence thank you Mr Langley thank you I'll turn my attention to our clerk to see if there were any hands raised for folks who wanted to speak on this item yes Madam mayor Jacqueline Wagstaff would like three minutes or two minutes all right Ms wag staff if you can hear me you have two minutes if you state your name can you hear me yeah you're on all right my name is Chapman Wagstaff good afternoon Madam mayor council members um just like to speak on this item and support of most of the items on that the budget is reflective of now but I do have a concern and my concern is not to say I'm speaking against the budget Appropriations for the heart team but what I want to say is that the

same way that you're taking a pilot program and that's been in existence for only about a year and you're ready to fully fund it to make it a 24-hour Day program I would like for you to take that same put that same effort into funding our First Responders who have been in this for over a hundred years we've had First Responders from the fire department to the police department to whomever that's the first responder and they need to be funded it makes no sense that city council members are now making just about as much as the first First Responders and that vote only took you about 30 days to get through and these firefighters and these First Responders are still waiting for their their Improvement in their finances and I think that this Council has the ability to do that now and I think they should do that with the same this that they did when they gave themselves the raise last year just recently so I'm in support of the

firefighters and I'm in support of the heart team but I want to see the same effort put into making sure that our First Responders again in the same attention that you're given to the heart team which our First Responders have a proven history and right now I'm still debating on the heart team I want to see what it is they do I want to see how it's done I want accountability I want to see how many interactions they have and with these cases I I would like to see all that information so just letting you know that full support Oh Our First Responders thank you thank you I believe we have recognized all who are in the on the internet and all who are here and let the record reflect that no one else has requested to speak on this item I now declare the public hearing to be closed and the matter is back before the council for any comments that you all may have at

m you are free to join us at that time please also remember that we will pass a budget uh before the deadline is mandated by State Statute which is in July but we Pro we would hope to have our budget ready for passage at our final city council meeting before the break on June 20th so keep those dates in mind and we now turn to item number 37 which is the Consolidated annexation 418 Clayton Road this is this public hearing is a zoning case and we will now receive the report from Miss Roper our staff our Neil mayor Pro tem Middleton and honorable council members before I begin staff would like to State for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law

69 acres and located at 418 Clayton Road the annexation petition is for contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits the intent of the annexation is to build two single-family homes the properties are currently designated low density residential on the future land use map the existing residential Suburban 10 zoning is consistent with the future land use map designation of low density residential as part of this annexation petition the applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning District a direct translational zoning is one in which the existing County zoning is translated to The Identical City Zoning District upon the annexation of their

property into city limits a translational zoning does not include a development plan and any future development May proceed according to what the zoning would allow while the property is currently vacant future development under the existing zoning of residential Suburban 10 allows for agricultural activities single-family residential development community services and daycares commercial and Industrial Development is prohibited in the residential Suburban 10 zoning District as a reminder three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into utility extension agreement the second is to approve the zoning ordinance and the third is to approve the consistency statement thank you staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you Miss Romper you have heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open first are there any questions for staff or members of the council

seeing none check without clerk to make sure we have no speakers signed up for this item as at all either on the Internet or here in person all right I will now declare the public hearing to be closed and this matter is now uh before Council as you know we have three motions for our consideration this evening of this matter the first being motion number one to adopt an ordinance annexing 418 Clinton Road into the city of Durham effective June 30th 2023 and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension agreement with property resolution Services LLC mood is red second been moved by mayor Pro tem and seconded by councilwoman Johnson Madam clerk if you open the vote if you will close the vote and Report out

the motion passes six to one with council member Halsey Hyman voting no the second motion for our consideration is to adopt an ordinance amending the youth unified development ordinance by taking property out of the residential Suburban dash 10 rs-10 follow slash Jordan District b f slash J dash B County jurisdiction and then establishing the same as residential suburban-10 rs-10 follow slash Jordan District b f Jack Dash J that's B City jurisdiction I've made it through it didn't I moved is red then moved by mayor Pro Tim and seconded by councilwoman Johnson Madam clerk if you open the vote if you close the vote and please report out the motion passes unanimously 7-0 the third motion for our consideration

S Highway 70 and 4903 Leesville Road this

annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits the intent of the annexation is to develop a maximum of 400 single-family and townhouse units with a minimum of 200 of the units units being townhouse units the previous annexation requests case number bdg to quadruple 0-25 was denied by City Council on August 15 2022 by a vote of three to three the applicant submitted a new annexation petition after the accounts the city council vote additional commitments were made at the time of resubmittal which seek to address Planning Commission comments and concerns regarding density erosion and sedimentation control and affordable housing the current zoning is residential Rural and Industrial for the initials City Zoning of this site if annexation is approved the applicant proposes to change this designation to plan

950 zoning is consistent with the designated use shown on the flum if the proposed zoning is approved there will be no change to the Future land use map designation while the current use of the property is undeveloped future development under the existing zoning of residential Rural and Industrial allows for agricultural activities single-family residential development on lots of one acre or greater conservation subdivisions and

Industrial uses commercial development is prohibited in the residential Rural and Industrial zoning districts as a reminder three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement the second is to approve the zoning ordinance and the third is to approve the consistency statement thank you staff and the applicant are available for questions thank you Miss Roper you have heard the report from staff and I am going to declare this public hearing open first are there any questions for staff from members of the council all right we will now turn to our speakers I believe Mr Steve George is here as a proponent and I believe he may also be the developer and also we have as a proponent Mr Anthony catalino online as well so Mr George

if you would come sir I think we have we have about five speakers who are signed up as opponents so we'll start you off with what do you think you need 10 minutes 10 how about 12 minutes just in case yep yes sir good evening mayor and Council my name is Steve George I am with the CSC group and we are the owners of the property and will be the developers if this project is approved I just wanted to hit some highlights of the report and what we've proposed for this project um we firmly believe this is a great area for residential and will serve the the Durham Community very well if approved we did change from the first meeting of the storm water control what we've proffered is we've adopted all the new

techniques that have been approved into new ordinances which include the use of flocculants the double row silt fencing everywhere on the site and 150 percent increase in the retention areas so what that is making all those retention areas 150 larger than they used to be and be used to be required um this actually results in the in that our post-development runoff off this site will never exceed 80 percent of what's current so it actually is improving the runoff of the site and not making it any worse not even making it the same it's making it better um also the through very careful design of this site we've minimized the crossing of the flood Plains and floodway areas to only the construction areas of the northern Durham Parkway the required public utility Crossings and the greenway easement in that area

we have kept Crossings to a minimum everywhere on this site we're making numerous uh traffic improvements to the area which includes the extension of the northern Durham Parkway all the way across the project along with a key collector road that is part of the Durham Transportation plan in this area our Tia indicates that these improvements will provide a long-term help solving the congestion in the area especially as the northern Durham Parkway becomes more and more important we have proffered 12 affordable townhome units to be set aside to for affordable in the community and we have I think we mentioned last time we have talked with habitat and humanity and the Durham Community Land Trust to get ideas of how the best way to do this so we're partnering with Will partner with one of those you those groups are another one as we move

3 million dollars in fees to pay for the Searles of the Southeast Regional lift station and the brightleaf outfall which runs to this site by the way this outfall was built for the exact purpose and used that we are proposing for this area we have dedication of Greenway East Mitchell to provide Greenway connectivity in the area and further out as this area projects more development we have seven active open space areas on the site average each of them averaging over half acre we think this is a very important and should be very unique uh and very useful for all the residents in this area um we do meet or exceed all requirements of

the Udo including open space and tree safe areas the open space and tree safe areas we are projecting are in excess of the required by the ordinance okay as it was mentioned this property is zoned industrial right now and we have been approached by several industrial type users storage users Warehouse users that are looking at this site we don't think this is the best use of the site I think staff agrees with that it should be should go residential we believe this is the highest and best use and it is continuing the flow of residential that is from bright leaf k parcel down to Leesville Road the use and density is consistent with the future land use map which has this area transforming to Suburban style development as contemplated when the Searles was built and the bright leaf sewer outfall was extended to this area

again it seems like this was the the outlook for this area from day one when Searles was put in and we think this will be a great project for the Durham area and I'm happy to answer any questions and we have some representatives from our engineering and transportation team also thank you so much Mr George and you you have about seven minutes left for rebuttal if you'd like okay thank you we have one two three four now did your colleague Mr Catalano did he want to speak no that's fine he will not be here okay all right thank you all right we now turn to miss Pamela Williams Miss Donna stanback is Robin Barefoot and last name I believe is Ross you will each have three minutes

slide okay my name is Donna Steinbeck I live at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road in Durham North Carolina I'm a lifelong resident um what you see on the slide is a Topography of the L parcel and pointed out are the two tributaries to lick Creek that are running very close to where they joined Lick Creek and El parcel is situated between these tributaries and has an elevation that varies because of the creeks and you can see the the color from 419 feet to 324. this steeper terrain will require

massive grading deforestation and Blasting based on historical data Northwest tributary is designated as the Eastern Wildlife Corridor um the two ponds will be drained let me see oops okay the Matrix for this particular project was mostly minimums the except for the forestry but that was because there is a lot of wetland and on the Middle Creek bottom um land runs through there and a lot of steep slopes that you know with the tributaries have to have a lot of trees um the mass grading right now we would request that this be at a 20 acre maximum because uh over 80 acres would

have to be used at one time if we follow with just one phase and this is aligning with the nearby municipalities and um the blasting is probable due to the elevation changes and we would ask that the developer owner will be responsible for the damages to people's property this has not been occurring it's an ongoing issue and you know there has to be a stop in place and that should be with the developer owner and this also includes well checks after the blasting um now uh one area that was done a little bit better was the storm water plan that again was there the open space was at minimum the um impervious soil was at minimum at 70 percent the repair and the buffers were

minimal and the borders and buffers were minimal this entire area is this is an example of the mass grading and deforestation the basins are next to the perennial stream and this would happen with this particular project to stand back okay thank you very much oh thank you so much turned to Miss Williams good evening all my name is Pam Williams I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County I live with within a half a mile of this area and everything and as Donna was saying uh there are basins the proposed basins on this Mass grading is right next to the creek that's what's proposed on the next one also uh oh well we're assume it's going to be right next to

Creek and although the amended ordinance will be a helpful start uh there uh but will not go far enough to address a serious sedimentation issues that we have been documenting in southeast Durham Lick Creek Watershed per the sound Rivers okay again our request we're requesting developer to minimize the mass grading to 20 to 25 acres per phase that surrounding municipalities to provide the East Durham Wildlife Corridor on the southwest side with a 300 non-graded um uh buffer uh it's the blue area up there and right now they're showing that they're building uh about 150 feet inside that 300 foot fur that you would have for the Wildlife quarter we're requesting uh blasting responsibility for all damages from the developer and a minimum of 500 for each of the 220 additional students I believe they're only proposing around twenty one

thousand um consequences with the violations continuing with minor fines and not enough staff to monitor monitor on a regular basis should the explosive development continue to allow Mass grading over 20 acres deforestation up to property line sediment filling streams environmental deacons uh the construction of creeks and wildlife habitat creation of heat Islands blasting damage to homes and Wells gentrification inspectors firefighters police EMS personnel and infrastructure stretch Beyond capacity and I believe y'all heard that multiple times tonight a cumulative impact study determination of secondary consequences to human and natural environment should be completed prior to approving any other subdivisions and as you see there is an allegedly more to act pending right now this is the area I like for you to look at the the picture up in the upper right hand

corner this development has been developed over 10 years ago can you see any trees in it the only place there's any mature trees is where the Creeks were there's 142 acres in this development this is what I would call a heat Allen all this that you see on this map in orange and yellow it's going to be looking just like this if we continue to design to minimum standards and I want to say that I support all the police and fire department they have been helped me when I was taking care of my elderly parents and I thank them so much and y'all have a good evening thank you okay let me see so I returned to miss Sam air foot and Ross on the last name Ross okay sorry okay mayor O'Neill council members my name is Robin Barefoot and I came tonight prepared to read to you from the North Carolina State Constitution which tells

you that the policy of the state and you all as political subdivisions are supposed to control and limit the pollution of air and water and in every other appropriate way preserve is part of the common Heritage of this state it's forests Wetlands estuaries beaches and open lands I was going to remind you that there's a lawsuit coming from the southern environmental law Center regarding the pollution of Lick Creek I'm a plaintiff in a lawsuit in Northern Durham against the county regarding a conservation subdivision which we believe is wrongly interpreted and applied by the city and the county there are owners who are suing Developers for failed construction for blasting for water loss I was going to remind you that as my colleagues my friends showed those conservation subdivisions and this property development the annexations are being clear-cut from top to bottom and from left to right there is nothing being conserved and I sent those photographs to you mayor O'Neal and I also to Brenda Howerton and also to Wendy Jacobs

because I know she's been a very loud proponent of I won't say that word she has been a favorable proponent of conservation subdivisions as was I when I first saw the one it was supposed to be at the end of Preston Andrews Road wet rock it was a completely different model than Mason Farms which is proposed out there now I was going to tell you all that stuff but then I came tonight and I was so impressed with the citizenry that showed up tonight I was on fire seeing the citizenry here and what I want to tell you instead of all that stuff that I was going to tell you is that in this room tonight you had the organizations the coalitions the individuals and the land trusts who can do the work with you to address the fire fighters needs the police needs the sanitation needs and the affordable housing developers that are represented in this room who do the kind of devastating development that we're seeing all across and I got those

photographs off y'all's map that Durham County holds that those developments are what are causing our our affordable housing shortage they are building garbage homes for five hundred thousand dollars for sale and they are not building affordable housing for the people who were in this room today telling us that they made forty thousand dollars a year because they're protecting our lives and so I oppose this subdivision and I want you all to stop approving these developments so that we can take a breath we can do the work with the citizenry of this community so that we can get this done right thank you very much for your time thank you also for your work foreign [Applause] if you would once you're done if you put your first name we actually have to keep these cards as a party I will I'm sorry I was on some kind of weird bump over

there okay I'll put it right here write my name down okay so my name is Katie Ross 8135 Lowell Valley Drive Bahama uh North Carolina which is in Durham County but not Durham city limits so what I'd like to talk with you about tonight is reasons that I think that you should put a pause at least for a few months on approval of new developments I I think pause is maybe more appropriate than moratorium because moratorium seems to last longer but at least a pause and the reason I think you should put a pause on is I believe you need more expert opinions more information uh is the foundation of your decisions because I'm you know must lead a pretty boring life one of my hobbies is listening to you guys is videos after the fact I often cannot be here but I

look back and see what's going on and one of the things I've been looking at this week is the Deep dive series into affordable housing I must have looked at about six of them not I don't listen to every second but I I'm kind of scanned through them and and see what each speaker is basically talking about um what I didn't see in there was any environmental experts on that I saw a lot of developers a lot of people from the real estate Community um I saw some um people with with the homeless people but no one there with expertise in hydrology that's being impacted by all of this blasting or even just some Mass grading I saw no experts coming and talking to you about the the deforestation and the

Damage that that is doing to our environment with specific attention to these kinds of great developments I did find a couple of interesting comments though which make me believe you all should revisit your fundamental understanding of of why you are some of you are pushing all of this development and that's this fiction of this huge influx of workers that is going to you hope would come to Durham I think that that information is maybe two three years old maybe pre-pandemic things are changing and I think that your approach to development needs to change just quickly Dustin Ingleton from the real estate the rental Community he testified in the Deep dive that there's an eight percent vacancy rate in rentals in Durham right now that

is very high he said three is ideal two is too low which would cause higher rents four is a little high eight percent you should be seeing these rents coming down you might want to ask why you're not instead of addressing that he put his hand out and was asking for more maybe you should pay more than rent maybe the taxpayer should pay more in the rent maybe you should remove all um ma'am your all regulations to allow them to good times thank you thank you so much I believe those are all the speakers in uh opposition at this time and we will turn back to Mr George for the remainder of your time for a bottle cert thank you um I don't know where to start here actually um let me address I'm probably not going to be in order here but let me try to address the best I can blasting we will

do pre-surveys Post surveys we will really do all require meet all requirements of the blasting codes that are in place we've done that for years but but there will be pre-surveys and post surveys to take care of any damage that would possibly occur um I would ask if staff could address does our plan meet or exceed all the requirements of the Udo can someone address that hey Brooke Roper planning I can confirm that the plan either meets or exceeds the Udo requirements and the udl requirements were put into place to be common sense in Common Sense were to Mel for development and to meet the needs the term has put in place right that's correct okay

um this is some just general comments because I don't know how to address some of the stuff but there was a comment about no experts or being used utilized in this process Durham's planning staff has reviewed this plan for a year and a half to two years probably 10 different reviews at least okay and believe me they are more expert in this than anybody about any other towns I've ever seen hydrology the rock the glass and everything like that they look at all of this okay that's when we go through this review for so to say there's no experts involved in this I think of the fallacy Timmins engineering who's doing this work they're very very professional so I take a little bit of offense to the no expert rule or comment

um I'd ask the staff also a CSC development CSC group ever been cited for any damaging destroying development Brook Roper planning not to my knowledge um I've also addressed the fiction of new workers coming so never mind I won't even address it okay is there anything I've missed any other questions not of the council I don't see anyone asking any further questions of the council did you have no matter I have questions but I was

waiting for the public because you're done with your rebuttal they they may have questions are you are you done with it yes all right we'll turn to councilman Williams and we'll return the council one with copper in that order without me interrupting this this is my first question is for staff excuse me properties that have uh industrialized uses usages next to them are they usually valued as far as land value are they usually lower than properties that are more commercialized or residential is that something you can answer right now no I'm that's a hard question for me to answer I don't know I'll let Sarah Young and if we for context we're serving

across our city and we're looking at I guess land value I guess based on pricing is it fair to say that residential neighborhoods that are attached or um adjacent to industrialized zones are lower value than rather than other like more residential areas good evening Sarah Young with the planning department if I'm understanding your question you're asking generally our residential developments near adjacent to Industrial do they have tend to have lower property values is that so if I'm looking at Merrick Moore with the cement or junkyard next to it versus brightleaf at the park so I can tell you and we are not experts in property appraisal but what we can tell you anecdotally is that it does appear that properties adjacent to Industrial have do have tend to have

lower property values thank you to the applicant as its own right now you've stated that you've had folks that have approached you all for these industrial type usages yes uh in light industrial but but there's there's been a lot of interest for storage type and warehousing type facilities that seems to be something that a lot of businesses are looking for in this area of Durham gotcha I um I know when it gets to housing I could be a bit um loose lip so I I just want to say thank you to our staff um I think that you all are great experts I too take offense when it is looked at less than but thank you all for what you went to

college to get an education for and what the taxpayers pay you to do um but thank you thank you good evening just had a question around the piece that one of the residents raised with a little bit more of buffer in that back corner around the wildlife Corridor and just curious if that's something y'all have thought about or is that something that could be could be proffered I would have to think about it and I guess I would ask we have Beth Blackman from Timmins here maybe she can I didn't actually maybe we need a little more information too unless Beth did you catch what that was

um good I mean so we so we've adhered to everything best Blackman with Timmons group so yes that came up in our last review as staff and they asked us to show it on the plans and so it as shown on the existing condition sheet but was not a requirement of staying out of it entire in its entirety thank you I understand that I was just curious if you were willing to proffer a little bit more around that could I have one minute yeah absolutely thank you

foreign thank you um I'm sorry we're trying to work on the wording so if the specific area that we were discussing is the Eastern Durham Wildlife Corridor and if that was added into the no build area for homes for lots and roads but stormwater control measures Greenway shared access pass would still be allowed in that area is that I think that's a question for sounds reasonable as a wording so it could still be used for site development but lots and Roads would not be in it Sarah Young with the planning department again yes that can be made as a proffer I just want to clarify that your

proposed wording would be that lots and homes would not be in the expanded buffer yeah or in the I'm sorry the wildlife Corridor area yes okay I just want to be clear about that warning that that would be the wording you're proposing that's what we were trying to figure out and then what was the what was the profit for DPS I know it's in my packet I just don't know um we actually it's thirty three thousand dollars okay because I think it's less maybe I just read okay it's 33 000. it shows us 20 but it should yeah okay we did 33 last time we were here yeah perfect thank you I thought it was higher and that's why I was confused I appreciate it those were the the two questions I had thank you madam mayor thank you um mayor Pro tem followed by councilwoman Freeman thank you madam mayor thank you uh for being with us tonight Mr I have a question about the the tick tock the evolution of the proffer subsequent to the councils of

the the decision not to move forward could you tell me um because they seem considerably more muscular after uh the council vote uh talk to me about the the rationale uh behind not doing this in the first place and what made you add these commitments well actually um the storm water commitments we had we had verbally agreed with staff you know that that whole storm water thing sort of you say verbally agree with that I think we mentioned it that night I can't remember if we did or not um Neil might be able to help me but uh I believe we mentioned we mentioned it that night also that we were going to do those and and if not but that was sort of in flux that whole week was a little you know we were looking at different different items and yeah I thought that last meeting we had mentioned that at the meeting but subsequently after that we cemented that with staff saying yes we will definitely do those things subsequent so subsequent the formal commitment was subsequent could be yes yeah I don't want to miscarry is that is

that a fair characterization I think so yes all right um the the I'm gonna the last speaker um our neighbor uh the last speaker who who spoke about the pause would you mind I'm going to ask you a question if you don't mind thank you if you don't mind so everybody at home can hear you so I want to I take very seriously the the comments from from our residents and the neighbors I do thank you um and I I I I resist out the box labeling groups or people um no matter how much it comes back towards us so I I don't call all developers bad and I don't call all people residents who come here nimbiest who don't want development I I take that serious so I try and listen to each um point and and and you know try and resonate with the things that that people say when so this is this is a

question when you call for a pause yes what threshold would we have to cross in order for us to unpause the threshold of feeling totally comfortable with your knowledge if I and I three minutes um cut me off a little it's totally fair everybody got that but I would have gone on to say hey I did appreciate Sarah Young's uh presentation when she showed the um polluted water and things like that I did see that and I appreciated it I I believe the things that you need to be comfortable with and to really learn about is what I was saying there is the population it doesn't look from everything I've read that is going to grow the way you thought it was I mean you generally as a counsel not each individual but a couple of years ago or three years ago the tech industry and I come from Seattle I moved here in 2020

from Seattle Seattle bent over so far for tech for Amazon for Google and now their downtown is decimated I worked downtown I was a public defender for 15 years so and my friends are still there because it's still just a few years since I left uh the downtown is decimated they uh high tech they laid off tens of thousands of people now they're not even coming into the office on a small percentage are required to come back and work in town so they don't need to live right downtown where they were and I believe if you could my idea is not to believe me because I'm not an expert in this but to have a session where you would have somebody from these wonderful universities we have here who are experts somebody from the business school what's happening with this tech industry are these people really going to be coming we're building everything

for them but what's going to happen if we don't if they don't come and we have these many thousands of homes that have been thrown up and are just sitting there and have have destroyed the environment where they're sitting so if that can be enough so that's one thing just how many people are really coming somebody you know that would be something to have a session on sure and the environmental thing so the the I didn't the hydrologist I I don't believe there is an environmental hydrologist working at the planning department right now that's not a comment on them but they are here at the universities why not have one come in and explain what the blasting does to to the water tables to the uh neighboring Wells that are being destroyed you know 10 at a time apparently in one area why not have that it wouldn't take that long you could have a day of testimony and then you would know take the pause and then you would be better informed to examine these uh site plans and the

presentations of the Developers with really pointed questions to protect yourselves and and the people I think I think I think I've gleaned to discern the the the thrust of your answer so um a pause until we get more knowledge and if if I might say respectfully because I'm none of this is personal respectfully um we're the government we we have some of the best experts in any field at our disposal at any given time uh universities aren't speed dial uh with us and so I I respect you know differences and and I really do differences of opinion and difference and what data points we want to latch on to and what experts we favor as opposed to others my second question was um I remember one of uh several of your colleagues saying pause at least until we adopt the amendment that would be good too here's here's the here's the challenge for me we have developer who has actually Incorporated

almost to a fine point what's in the Amendments and and I've heard someone say tonight they don't go far enough though the very amendments that we were commended to us to pause until those were formally adopted we have developers voluntarily and again I because I resist calling people NIMBY but understand the chat the intellectual challenge when we're told wait until those amendments are adopted then when we have de facto adoption even before formal adoption by developers then we're told that they don't go far enough which is challenging in terms of finding where the goal post uh is uh I'll be honest with you I was not really excited about the first iteration uh which is why I asked about the the kind of tick tock after the vote um but it's gotten I mean as I look they've addressed what our and I've read the plan I read all the Planning Commission comments what they've you know planted plant is brought up the very amendments that have been commended to us they have adopted

voluntarily what what more what what would make this what would make you vote Yes if you had my job well one thing would be what we've heard tonight uh from the police fire mental health commitments the reason I'm saying this is because I think you need to have infrastructure in place before you put the homes out there I'm not an expert on this area of the county okay so I'm I I'm not saying I'm an expert in this geographical area but listening tonight it was so impressive to me that when we talk about infrastructure it's way more than a pump station the infrastructure is the people if for the fire department for the police department and I know I have watched some of these tips and been here at times when the police chief or the uh the fire chief has come in and said Joe sure we can handle that but the boots on the ground they're the ones that are

really handling it and they're telling you tonight that they they will do their best to handle it and I believe that they're all heroes to me but if they don't have enough people if they can't fully staff their stations if they don't have they can't recruit because they don't have high enough uh pay grades all of that means that that's infrastructure human infrastructure that's not there for even the current residents let alone an influx of residents so that would be something that I think you'd have to be sure or if I was Voting I'd have to be sure that infrastructure that human infrastructure was going to be there before I started building for a a whole bunch more people to come in it's already overbuilt I mean the other I just quickly say this because I was up here and it was in my notes the other person that spoke uh that I was that

made an impression on me and the Deep Dives was the guy from dataworks who I'd never heard of before but what he was saying was this this population growth and it hasn't been counting the people that are leaving so instead of whatever has been predicted a 30 increase or something it's really only two percent per year when you net it against the people that are people die people move out so there's a coming and going like an ebb and flow and so that guy you know he had a a very interesting point to make and that's why I was saying not that I know the answer but that it would be good for our elected officials to find that out what's really happening how many people can we really expect to come in here now like I said tech companies are going down they're downsizing thank you thank you I I remember that presentation well he used Tax records was a bit strange for for population statistician not me sorry no I I appreciate you uh engaging with me thank

you so much thank you no thank you for calling me back thank you thank you madam Mary you're back foreign Friedman first and then back to you Council uh just a couple questions for staff and for the applicant as well but just um I know that one of the residents shared that there were an additional 220 students that would be added with this project I didn't see that though and I was trying to get a verification on it so let me just quickly check thank you apologies I was looking at the old

staff report that we have thank you Sarah so there I'm looking at too many screens now so yeah there's going to be in in the staff report it says an estimated School demand increase by 137 Elementary School students 44 middle school students and 49 high school students so 220 sounds about right and previously we've been accepting profits at about 500 per student that is hard to say and I don't have the data in front of me right now but that's something we can look into so that would be about a hundred and ten thousand not thirty three thousand so I believe that the applicant has proffered tonight thirty three thousand dollars for Durham Public Schools thank you and and just just for the sake of of um the conversation I think it's improper

for staff to advise counsel that an industrial site would lower your property value I just want to make that clear I don't think that's a good idea to start down that direction I think that's what appraisers are for and it's already a problem that we assume that a sale price will be the sale price when it goes to Market I just want to make that clear and then for the applicant I am just trying to understand how you figured your numbers for the 33 000 and then also for the 12 units I just acknowledging you increased from 380 to 400 which is an additional 20 so I'm assuming those 12 units kind of come in there so you're adding eight units and so just help me understand where you got to 33 000 and then also how you got to 12 units the 33 000 is my understanding 33 000 was done at the 500 times the delta in the students that we're going to to be

added if that's incorrect we we will probably we will agree to pay 500 for for the Delta of the students from that are being added to the site and that's 220 students if that's what if that's what it is that I mean does that work yes you can make that proper and we'll just calculate what that would come out to be yeah because you know I mean there's a difference of where you start from I think maybe not it started zero there's nothing on the land we start at zero that's yeah so it's 500 times whatever that number is yeah absolutely okay I don't think you're understanding that

the numbers zero to 220. I apologize is there a question for staff can you specify how many students would be added yes so after calculating it it would be 230 students 230 students at 500 each student that's what I was just trying to make sure you understood that no I understand if that if that's the number we'll do the 500 per student yes and then on the affordable housing the 12 units yeah so your question is basically that's three percent of the total so so we were using that three percent Baseline as as the number we were looking at and where'd you get the three percent from it's just that seemed to be a number that we've kicked around and I've heard and different developers have used so yeah and just just to say very clearly I

think that 15 would be more respectful but I understand that 12 is where you're at 15 would be around 60 units and so when we're talking about doing development in sensitive areas the trade-off is really high and so it's an insult to me when folks come in talking about minimum standards are common sense because they're not because they're still runoff with some of those minimum standards and it's also an insult to say 12 units three percent of 400 is an is a fair trade-off for this property and so I do want to make that um abundantly clear as um some of the comments made were really off-putting I I do know that proper in the animal preserve is helpful if that happens and I'm not opposed to having storage units or warehouses you know on the site so I I don't feel like that's a pressure point to push towards having 400 additional units on this site so

that you can capitalize and take the profits from all of it back home I'm not familiar with any projects that you've done in the past so I I can't give you a pass or not on the blasting but I do know that that has been a problem and so pre and post is like it's incredibly important at this time as it has been very well documented that many Wells have been falling apart based on some of the development that's been occurring in these areas I I do know that as was mentioned a number of times tonight that we are it's not that we're at capacity is that we're losing our officers in our fire folks and so it does create a different calculation in what the cost benefit is for the city of Durham to continue to grow at this speed and so for that I do want to note that I'm not in support of moving this forward at this at this time it doesn't mean it's not a good project it doesn't mean that it would be it wouldn't be a great site to build but I do think that

there is a there is a lot of credence to actually having more conversation about what it looks like to do a development that is that is not going to cause greater harm and would also bring more affordable housing that's it seems simple to me I'm I'm you know I'm not the one trying to make the money I'm sorry but I do think that we could do better thank you all right thank you um staff thanks for answering all of my questions um and you know they're what what we you know as a government what we can't do is wait until something happens and then respond what I do know is there are contracts that are signed and apple is coming and it's not 3 000 jobs it's more between 10 and 14 000. now if they come I mean if they don't come

they don't come but if they do something's going to happen and what's happening right now in the number three best place to live in the country in the number one state for business in the country is people are coming here and that's a fact I would invite you to come to more City Council meetings because I'm compelled about a lot of things including tonight but there's a lot more than what you see on the surface and I do see a lot of people clapping and amen but when you get in this position where you have to spend 60 to 70 hours a week for thirty five thousand dollars yes getting paid very little but this is your full commitment and in addition to your full-time job trust me you live this information all day every day so my colleagues vote their conscience whatever way they want we we receive the information the way that it compels us and that's why I'll always be respectful for each person's concern but I'm also

very accessible because the biggest thing that's plaguing our community I don't mean this in a disrespectful way is ignorance I don't know everything but I know for sure a lot of my constituents don't know everything either and we come in here and we say what we should do and we say what we don't know and we totally forget that we have an entire governmental staff that does this work eight to whenever they finish every single day so as I said earlier I do take offense when we dilute that or decrease it but as a government we we as elected officials as a matter of fact we can't govern based on imagination we can't govern based on personal preference we have to govern on the law you know we have a problem with that then we should change the law we should evolve the law the law may not be good enough for us personally but that doesn't mean that we're going to do it on something else

and that happens a lot in here it happens a whole lot so I respect I respect every comment that is that has been stated in here I definitely respect the staff who are doing this work every single day I'm going to respect my colleagues myself for living this every single day but to act as if we are ignorant to this it's not a good look so I invite conversation I invite engagement we may be on different sides of the decision but I'm sure that we can get at least to a basis of fat in understanding because even the firefighters there's more to it than what you hear that was not mentioned not once in here tonight so thank you for everybody's comments including my colleagues yeah Pro tem and this will be the last go-round thank you madam mayor

um I want to I have a question for staffers I I councilman Freeman I thought your your work was brilliant on securing um a more robust offer per student I I I'm sorry you're not going to support um this development after doing such great work to make it better um staff I I do are we tracking documented cases of damage that has been causally linked by blasting because if if I want there there's already a legal um burden for these developers to make folk whole and I want to lean into that as a government I I want to go after developers that have caused damage to folks property so are we are we or how how robust is is our is our our data points are we are we tracking that what's the current state of of developers that are are ruining people's property I do not believe that the planning department is tracking that

um but I see Sarah youngis stepping forward to speak yeah that is not information that the planning department tracks that is information that we could seek to obtain from the Fire Marshal's Office I also do not know for a fact how and if they track that because typically damage as a result of blasting is a private civil matter between the property owner and the blasting company that is insured and they are the ones that are liable for any damage so I would have we would have to do a little more homework before you cross the threshold of taking legal action I I mean I've heard any number of developers say proactively say that we we will assume responsibility for um damage uh you know that's caused by blasting we don't we don't track that either so so we need to talk to I need to talk to the fire Marsh all right thank you thank you madam mayor anybody else

all right and I do not believe that we have anyone else on the internet either so at this time I will declare the public hearing to be closed and the matter is back before the council with any further comments just a quick question ma'am yes did we capture staff if we captured the universe the proper yes so we have two proffers tonight essentially the first one is lots and structures will not be constructed in the Eastern Durham Wildlife Corridor the second is the contribution to Durham Public Schools um in the in an amount of 500 per student which would amount to a total of 115 000 contribution thank you just a logistical question um is your clicker working at this time

councilman my whole son okay and we'll return back to that all right uh all right we have three motions for our consideration at this time and the first motion is to adopt an ordinance annexing ill parcel into the city of Durham effective June 30th 2023 and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension agreement with the CSC Group LLC moved is red the move by mayor Pro tem seconded by councilman Williams Madam clerk if you open the vote if you will close the vote and Report out the motion passes four to three with mayor O'Neal and council members Halsey Hyman and council member Freeman voting no we now turn to motion number two and

950 file slash Jordan Lake Watershed Protection District Dash b f slash J dash B move this red okay the move by Council mayor Pro tem Middleton and seconded by councilman Williams Madam Clerk if you would open the vote if you will close the vote and Report out and the motion passes four to three with mayor O'Neill and council members Halsey Hyman and Freeman voting now

and the last motion for this item is to adopt the consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute 160 djs605 to adopt consistency second the move by mayor Pro Tim seconded by councilman Williams Madam clerk if you will open the vote foreign report out the motion passes 7-0 all right thank you so much we will need to return briefly to item 37 our clerk indicated that um councilwoman José Hamann's uh clicker was having some difficulties and so on the motion number one I think it came up on the screen that there was actually a no vote but you want to change that vote to a yes vote

57 acres and located generally at the South Point mall area at the

445 million square fee maximum of commercial uses including existing floor area up to 300 000 square feet of office uses up to 200 000 square feet of hotel with up to 200 rooms and up to 1 382 Apartments a utility extension agreement has also been received with the zoning map change

request their properties are currently designated commercial on the future land use map the proposed commercial center with the development plan zoning is consistent with the designated future land use this request received recommendation of denial from the Planning Commission on March 14 2023 by a vote of 10 to 3. as a reminder three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement the second is to approve the zoning ordinance and the third is to approve the consistency statement thank you staff and the applicant are available for questions thank you so much Miss Ropo you have heard the report from staff I am now going to declare this public hearing open first are there any questions for staff from members of the council seeing none we will call forth our developer we have actually two proponents and two opponents

um Mr biker that means you all have Eagle time six minutes a piece Mr Andre Banks is he going to speak I think he's listed as a proponent but he's on the internet right um mayor mayor Pro town so the public hearings open mayor yes we're here respectfully to ask a continuance of the public hearing now that it's open uh we spoke with the plan director we respectfully ask for this be continued to June 20th uh Tuesday June 20th I did speak with two affordable housing developers today about assisting us with this agenda item unfortunately due to family and travel conflicts they could not attend this evening we think they can attend on June 20th and therefore we respectfully ask for this public hearing to be continued until Tuesday the 20th I'll be happy to answer any questions thank you Mr biker I'm going to look through the planning staff to see if we can make that accommodation as I know

that's going to be the final um item so if we can then it will be up to the council to just vote it and we can do about hand raise yeah so you've spoken with Mr Riker previously and we can accommodate the June 20th meeting thank you we appreciate that are there any objections to a motion to continue from any member of the council to June 20th everybody's okay with that all right June 20th is thank you thank you so much tonight we will see you and Miss Adams we have your car here so if you'd like to come back also Mr Severa um that will be the last council meeting before the break so if you all can make yourselves available they say there's only one item so it won't be a long meeting a long one public hearing I'm sorry on public hearing we now turn to item 40 which is a public hearing and economic development incentive agreement

with Eagle Landing Partners LLC and this is a non-zoning hearing and we will receive the staff report from Mr Dickey Merrill Neal and members of council my name is Chris Dickey with the office of economic Workforce Development for you is an item to consider approval of a proposed agreement between the city of Durham and Eagles Landing LLC Eagles Landing Partners LLC proposes to fully restore an Adaptive reuse the 8 500 square foot property at 1406 Fayetteville Street better known as the Scarborough house into a boutique hotel it will have eight guest rooms ten bathrooms a commercial kitchen and a formal dining dining area that seats 25 people to help Hotel will also feature a 5 000 square foot conference room event space Eagles Landing Partners is requesting 500 000 of incentive funding from the city of Durham to cover Capital expenses to improve the property

the blighted property is listed in the National registered historic district which is in need of extensive renovations to restore it to his historic state this area along Fayetteville Street has a blights of depression and his reflective drug use and depressed living conditions in some cases is located less than a mile from downtown Durham Lincoln Community Center and North Carolina Central University traveling this route down Fayetteville Street traveling this route down Fayetteville Street the property excuse a dark move due to the criminal activity and instability due to extensive work that is required to get the property to a hadlow state restoration would be unfeasible without financial assistance from the city of Durham the project went completed will be the area's only Boutique Hotel on Fayetteville streets will assist in further Business Development providing job opportunities for local residents Hospitality training opportunities from nccu students in addition to being used by the community for public and Community related activities a major prior of the city of Durham is

6 million dollars in private Investments with the city contributing a half a million dollars staff endorses this project which will be an asset in promoting the continued revitalization and vitality of Fayetteville Street commercial Corridor and surrounding neighborhoods finished thank you Mr Dickey you have heard the report from staff I will now declare this public hearing to be open and we'll first entertain questions and comments from the council hearing none

is there anyone else that feels the need to speak tonight all right let the record reflect that no one else has requested to speak on this item I now declare this public hearing to be closed and this matters back before the council we have now had the public hearing and we are ready to entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to execute an economic develop incentive agreement with Eagle Landing Partners LLC in an amount now Tech exceed five hundred thousand dollars for building renovation project Scarborough house 1406 Fayetteville Street Durham North Carolina second it has been moved by councilman Williams and seconded by councilman councilwoman Freeman let's open this vote Madame clear now watch this one How We Do It

can you report out for me the motion's unanimous 7-0 that's the way to do it yay go family Street know my typing teacher that's my teacher out there doing a great job okay now we have one more item that we got to vote on we have a pool to item people we had one pulled item remember before y'all start moving it was a pull of one pulled item and that was item number uh 20 22. yeah so we need to vote yeah you sign up for the wrong thing so so we need to vote um on item number two which was a part of the consent agenda 22 which is let me get that what it was item 22. also don't forget I think it was the other item please report it was a yeah it was a crime report I believe I

want to see it was the police the first quarter crime 2023 first quarter crime report um Madame clerk if he will open the vote yes I'm sorry I can't somebody okay everybody's sleeping there so moved by councilwoman uh Johnson seconded by councilman Williams okay can you open the vote for us Madam Madam mayor there's a speaker in the queue with their hand raised can you open the vote though sure I'll open the books is the same person yes Mr Cox we are about to vote did you want to be heard sir

Mr Cox I see your hand is raised Mr Drew Cox yes Madam mayor I'm here can you hear me yes sir yes ma'am um I appreciate the time that you offered to me earlier today uh to speak on these matters uh with the police department I just had a few Bible verses that I'd like to share and some anecdotes as if that would please the council speak twice I'm sorry but sir we we are these this is from a presentation from the 2023 first quarter crime report is there some comments that you want to make about that report yes ma'am okay you have uh two minutes yes ma'am uh first of all I would like to thank and commend our police chief Patrice Andrews whom you've entrusted with the Department

the police department and I I'd like to commend her efforts to support her officers and um manage her Department as she sees fit and a few months ago there were a series of memos that were sent to the city manager's office in regards to managing her pay scale for officers to try to rectify some of the issues the department has been experiencing and those all of those measures were denied um I'll close with a few passages of scripture whether or not you're religious I hope you'll find beauty and Truth in them habakkuk 1 verse 4. the law has become paralyzed and there is no justice in the courts the wicked far outnumber the righteous so that justice has become perverted Amos 5 15.

hate evil and love what is good turn your courts into true Halls of Justice perhaps even yet the Lord God will have mercy on the remnant of his people with that time I'd like to thank the council and I look forward to partnering with you to determine how the police department is going to move forward through this crisis thank you thank you Mr cause I'm Madam Clerk we have motioned and we have seconded and we are now ready to vote if he will close the vote and Report out the motion is unanimous thank you it is now 11 34 on May 5th that's where you close I still need to bring the other item I'm sorry I still need to do the other item the

resolution on Thursday though I'm sorry I just need to make sure that we're all in accord the revolution thumbs up thumbs down all right all thumbs up thank you for that yeah thank you all right everybody Adam mayor I'm sorry I will not be at this session in the morning on Thursday okay okay thank you all right kids are graduating okay hopefully it'll be a short session okay right all right y'all we did good 11 35 June 5th we are now adjourned Food City strong June 5th 2023 my pastor um thingy sound your clicker