City Council · Regular Meeting · March 7, 2024

Closed session at the end of all regular business for attorney client consultation Madam attorney it's been probably a bad practice of mine but I've been waiting until the end of the agenda to entertain your priority item and also it needs to be two separate requests two separate motions so I want to go ahead and entertain those when you make their request okay so the first request is a request to hold a closed session colleagues I'll entertain a motion to accept the request of the city attorneys Clos session so moved second right it's moved and properly second I please acknowledge by raising your left hand thank you thank you Mr Mayor and the actual motion language to go into closed session is to hold a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General statute 143 3181 A3 for attorney client consultation concerning the handling of a settlement demand for a yet to be filed liability action I'll entertain a motion on what she just said move second all right all in.

Favor thank you Madam Clerk does that work better okay thank you Mr Mayor good deal all right at this time I'll entertain priority items by the city clerk thank you Mr Mayor welcome to you and to the members of city council mayor proam and City Council Members the city clerk's office doesn't have any priority items today thank you so much all right at this time I'll.

Address the consent agenda any any item can be pulled by council member or member of the public item number one mayor's Hispanic Latino committee appointment item number two Durham workers rights commission appointment item number three approval of City County minuts four boards committees commissions and task force calendar year 2023 annual attendance report can you pull that one y I was actually going to to myself a good deal number four all right number five approval of a multifamily housing facility to be known as trails at Twin Lakes Apartment Homes in the city of Durham and the financing thereof with multif family housing revenue bonds not to exceed 5.1 million I have some questions on a few of these but I don't need to pull them go ahead and pull it we'll just five number five number six establishment of a 911 alternate call routing into local agreement with the city of Durham (appears to be a location reference error) you pull that please Mr Mayor number six number seven Second Amendment to the.

Professional Services contract with Unknown (context unclear) will Incorporated for the Durham station Transit Center improvements project number eight fire and Emergency Medical Services station 19 architectural services agreement with ADW architex PA number nine American Rescue plan act project right of way tree watering with jumping buddies LLC DBA Pit Stop pressure washing all right we'll pull that one number nine number 10 American Rescue plan act project right of way with in inary tree planting with Davis landscape LTD limited number 10 number 11 Durham station Transit Center improvements project construction manager at risk pre-qualification procedures resolution number 12 fire and Emergency Medical Services station 19 construction manager at risk agreement with seit Corporation number 13 amendment to mayor's Hispanic Latino committee bylaws 14 Governor's crime commission 2023 criminal justice Improvement program Grant project ordinance and 15 contract s-39 D pavement Asset Management plan programming 16 contract SW 96 PW Street Maintenance repairs 2024 17 contract s sw- 96c inspection services for PW Street Maintenance repairs 18 Street and infrastructure acceptances and for presentations we.

Have transportation department go Durham fifth gr year 2023 annual report and we have budget Management Services 20 public hearing on the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and 2020 fiscal year 2025 and 30 Capital Improvement plan Citywide planning department we have consolid we have Consolidated annexation 3411 to 3417 Picket Road 22 consolidation indexation Sharon Road departments all right and that is our agenda with items four five 6 nine and 10 pulled c all right. And we now address citizen matters citizens.

Matters this is an item this those are resource people all right Madam Clerk I do have folks online three just three where is it bottom three right here those are resour do you see Donna stand back Donna can you hear me yes hey there speak up just a little bit for me and I'm welcome you have three minutes okay I got to I thought I had the volume okay there are several council members that are being derogatory to a Citizens you know when we bring up issues of infrastructure environment or the comprehensive plan folks do not know my background and history and you know just FYI I am disabled and do require a car haven't been able to ride a bicycle in 30 years on because of arthritis and you know there was just a whole schmear of council members that were being derogatory to US during the March 4th meeting and I hope that we can keep from saying I like this about you or I don't like that but focus on.

The issues that we bring forward thank you thank you Miss stand back and I I'm sorry that that came off that way for whoever or whatever it was but thanks for bringing it to my attention all right next I have Jeremy. Bergren see Mr bergren in the queue all right and finally I have D waren Langley Mr Langley is in the queue he is or okay Mr Langley can you hear me yes I can good afternoon good afternoon welcome you have three minutes thank you Mr Mayor mayor Pro you can speak up a little bit for me though okay good afternoon Mr Mayor mayor protima members of the Durham city council as well as the senior administrative staff of the city of Durham as I was sitting in queue I be I the question I asked myself is what can I say today in order to get the council to make boys of color a budgetary and policy priority I mean the data is clear we see the crisis we know.

What organizations are doing the work in the community I was just before getting on to give this comment texting one of my Scholars who has an interview with Progressive Energy where he's going to be interviewing for an IT position and that is how you transform lives of boys and young men of color is by providing them with the consistent support nurturing environment and developmental opportunities that will allow them to transform their lives and I know you all have a six million do Surplus budget as well as some other discretionary funding you all could shift around and I repeatedly come to you all requesting investment in the work that I do voluntarily in our community no matter how much I love Durham and the voluntering that I do it does cost money to feed the boys that we serve to pay for opportunities for them to participate in camps and for them to participate in internship opportunities so I'm just really asking you all in this budget to make boys of color a.

Budgetary and policy priority and give us some money so that we can continue the great impactful work that we're doing and I'll be reaching out to each one of you via email to share more and to again make this appeal thank you thank you so much Mr Langley and I look forward to your email there's a great deal of work that's are that is already in motion may not happen as fast as we all prefer but there is a great deal that's happening and it is much more holistic than a single organization hope that you'll be a part of this overall movement thank you all right let's start with our pull pulled items.

Here all right number four this was pulled by council member wrist mayor good afternoon Mr Mayor Mr Mayor protemp members of city council Lola Roland here from the city clerk's office sitting in for Javiera Caballero (context suggests this may be misidentified) I'm here to have an answer any questions you might have about item four paa you can't roll up on me like that I didn't know what was happening I was like what's going on are We yeah all right coell council member oh thank you so Lola's here as on this one yeah yeah so I guess it's for paa PA yeah so my question paa is I see them I see the memo there with the I guess the names of folks who will be who are this is a list of folks who have fallen under 50% attendance and they will be they will be asked to exit they'll be they'll be removed from those committees right but as I reviewed the whole list of of boards and commissions that that that.

Was attached to that memo it seemed seems like there's a lot more names that have below 50% attendance and I know in your memo you said that if they're not on the the list on the first page but their attendance is below 50% then they've already maybe resigned but it just seemed like a lot of people I just want to make sure I understand what's here what the process is and and I want to make sure we're communicating this clearly to folks in boards and commissions so they understand that they're being they're being taken off the roles from these boards and commissions so a little more clarity on what's what all is here would be would be very helpful sure thank you so much for your inquiry council member wrist I just want to make sure you all can hear me can you yes okay just so this actual item was submitted by Javiera Caballero (context suggests this may be misidentified) it's her item but she's not here today so I'm.

Filling in for her as I've submitted this item previously so if the member isn't listed on this on the first page that is because they have already resigned or their term has expired that is why the 50% % has already been noted if they fall under that 50% so they're actually no longer part of the actual commission or committee I will the list of members that's listed on the first page submitted by Javon now these won't be automatically removed so the clerk's office follows the removal process before actually removing the member so it's in the in the motion of this item it says for Diana to start the removal process so that will start with an email phone call and actual physical letters sent to the member to inquire about whether or not they'd like to keep on serving and to discuss what their obstacles are for attending the meetings and how we can assist so if no correspondence is received from the member that's on that first page then.

Diana will continue through that removal process and formally remove them if they do reply and if there are some obstacles that we can assist with we will definitely help or or if they reply and say hey I've been very busy I apologize I've missed you know the past two meetings but I'm I'm definitely interested in continuing to served and then they will continue to be part of the board or committee that they've been appointed to I appreciate that I guess my other question is I assume the the board chairs are sort of in touch with you on a regular basis so they understand this issue of who may be falling below the 50% so they can remind folks right so I want to make sure that process is in place also want to ask about if there's if if the number of folks who are below 50% and not showing up is causing any difficulty in in establishing Quorum at these boards and commissions so do we have a does that something we need to.

Look into further I just want to make sure that's not in any way hampering the ability of chairs to to do the business of their boards and commissions as we've been instructed in the past for the clerk's office as we've been instructed so typically the majority of our boards have a staff Le on house within their respective departments that communicate directly with the board chairs and their members so typically the clerk's office only communicates directly with that liaison if they do not have an assigned staff member that's a city employee now in regards of Quorum a lot of these boards the members can range anywhere between four to 17 members and as you'll see on the summary page it's Max of two people who are falling underneath this attendance so I I can't speak directly on every single board as there's 29 of them that we manage the vacancies for but I'm I'm unsure if if the the ones that are noted on this first summary page are affecting Quorum or.

Not I guess the last thing is just for the and this is this is just a sort of comment to the rest of my colleagues you know again given the number of folks who were who were look like on those lists were falling below those those marks and maybe have already been removed it does make me wonder with so many boards and commissions if this is if is this the right number of commissions we need and boards and commissions or or are there are some here that are no longer as if we're having trouble filling spots right are there some that are no longer as important so I just want to flag that as something to to potentially take up at a further conversation thank you and that that is defin one of the items that I ultimately would like to look at we do have a lot of boards committees and commissions and I think an audit of needs could be something we look at soon.

Council member I I I that was one of the first things I noticed when I got on Council I think it's 27 and 29 29 and you know the question is are they all you know efficient or necessary in this time not saying they not necessary but they were created for a reason at one point that's that need still exist Madam Clerk thank you Mr Mayor I did want to add for Miss Roland that we also explained the attendance policy upfront when people join the boards and committees so it's it's not as if they they have no idea that this regulation applies to them so they are aware from the get-go yes thank you appreciate that yeah I I definitely appreciate the city's diligence the city staff their diligence in it also when it comes to us as council members as you all know in which we could Madam attorney we could get an update you can just send an email that legislation that came about the voting on boards could you just send that.

Refresher to us or you want to just kind of talk about it but where I'm going is because council members can can no longer be voting members on boards and commissions I believe or what is it we can't vote on nonprofit boards anyway yeah that's what it is not our own internal we're not voting members on our internal ones anyway we're xfo for the most part except for maybe dos which has weird bylaws but like the Museum of History whatever yeah they we're supposed to be listed as XF members right okay so you don't mind giving a not to put you on the spot you can send an email if you'd like or if you want to just kind of briefly talk about it but that that that that change in policy sort of informed my assignments to you all on Council which how how many you get assigned to and you know the whether you must be there to make a vote or if you could just be the liaison really in practice.

Between those different groups sure Mr Mayor so the provision that you're referring to I think it's 14 2 34.3 I'm going to look at Fred and see if he remembers I'll follow up with the specific provision for sure but it was a a modification made to the conflict of interest rules I think it went into effect at the beginning of 2020 2022 maybe January 1 and it's not that you can't vote on nonprofit boards at all it's that you can't vote on a contract between the city of Durham and a nonprofit and there are a number of organizations that do have contracts with the city mayor Pim I think serves on downtown dorm Inc and they often bring items to us and so in that instance the council member needs to recuse themselves from participating in the vote that would transfer money from the organization for which you are an elected official to the nonprofit I thought yeah that's was pretty clear okay thank you I went to.

Law school on YouTube so I not as thorough as you are all right so are we all good council member R good good deal all right item number five council member Baker yeah just one one one question and then one question sort of tangential to that I think I know the answer to this but the the language here says a minimum of 30 years I think I I think we've talked about this before but the the intent is that this is permanently affordable correct Reginal Johnson director Community Development Department yes the intention is that is long-term affordability but that's up to the developer that's not up to the city so oh it could just be a minimum of 30 years affordability runs out yes that's correct because you're following and we do I do have Eric Pell who is the representing the twin Lakes LLC on the line he can elaborate a little bit more but you're following the guide guidelines of the qualified allocation plan of the North Carolina.

Housing Finance Agency okay yeah I mean I just as always it concerns me that public dollars go to something to we the affordability run runs out so so I guess my next question to that is this is the tangential question to that issue is do we maintain a database of all the units in in our city where there's only temporary affordability and then we know how much longer they are affordable and when that affordability runs out when we're losing units to to Temporary affordability temporary affordability so when you what are you referencing when you mean temporary so 30 years of affordability and then it and then it's goes back to market rate so the no we don't have a database of those that we do not have financing with financing relationships there are other developers like like Twin Lakes that we don't have any money in in terms of our contribution that's one of the outstanding projects that we have in terms of Community developers work is.

To try to find all of the the housing affordable housing that we do not have relationships with that have affordability requirements on them okay so we so public dollars go for 30 year a 30 years of affordability we know where those units are and how much longer they are intended to remain affordable is that correct no we don't know we don't know even for the public dollars that are being used no we know the ones that have used City funds yeah we know those we know those they are some everything else we don't we don't is correct okay and but you said that's that's in the cue of a project yes it is is to do you know the timeline of that project and how much we'll have to develop a timeline for that okay okay that would that would that would definitely be good to know just so that we're prepared to spend more money to try and purchase those or whatever needs to happen to make sure that they we don't lose all.

That affordability those are my questions thanks May appro him thank you Mr Mar I thank council member Baker for for always keeping our eye on the prize when it comes to affordable housing I I do want to point out this particular item though does not involve City funds this is a an item this is one of those and I know because I I dealt with the same things when I first got on Council asking the same question so I appreciate council member Baker's antenna being up one of those perfunctory things we we need to do just to satisfy a legal requirement through a resolution but but am I correct in saying this does not involved any indebtedness to the city or or the state the issuance of these bonds per per the memo May mayor protim you are absolutely correct this is actually a conial in nature for the city the Durham Housing Authority is the issue of the bonds right what the IRS requires is that the local jurisdiction in which the.

Housing Authority sits that we have to approve this as a part of the IRS requirements which basically means that we recognize right and we and we've done this a number of time we've done it for Central and other organizations and interest in the city it is a way to while not using the direct lever of City funds or Municipal funds it is a way to kind of Contour the environment for affordable housing projects and of course to to council member Baker's point when it's when it's not under our direct purview the ter terms may not be as stable or as as desirable as we want but it is still forwarding the environment still forwarding the the the the the plausibility if you will of affordable housing to be in our mix so but I I I think to council member Baker point we definitely do need to to keep our antenna up and and keep Vigilant but I did I did want to make sure that we said this wasn't City this.

Isn't City funds it this is just a kind of a perfunctory legal check mark that we're called to do on from time to time so thank you Mr Mayor Mr Mayor if I could also just to build on that point so Point very well taken my colleague council member Middleton to council member Baker I think this is this is all important background on this Finance question I think the additional piece is that this this 30-year period of affordability which has kind of been ingrained in these federal tax credits right low-income housing tax credits those are as well to your point those are federal tax credits so it's not tax credits we usually at the city so it's federal tax credit it is public dollars but I think your point is well taken that we should have a good sense of how many properties are on this you know 30y year or whether it's 30 or 15 year affordability sort of period and have a good sort of line of sight so that when.

These are coming out of their period of affordability that we have knowledge well in advance maybe five or more years in advance so we can both let the residents know but also potentially consider are these properties we might want to try to acquire right to maintain the affordability so these are all I think the the the point you raised about having some kind of database or sensus of all these properties is really well taken and I would very much support that idea thank you council member Freeman thank you and I would also second that as well I think that in the past we've had conversations about setting up databases around even for the development cases that come forward and they profer affordable housing units and making sure that those are lined up I would also add that it's important to make sure the details of that whether it's 1 2 3 4 or five bedrooms is also included in that as well so I I don't know where you.

Are in the work plan but it would be good to get a grip on making sure that that's a priority in this year or within this year because I think you know as affordability is is lessened and we keep losing affordable housing units and and more units are being added our housing mix has changed a lot and I noticed on the US Census data the county has information but the city does not and I don't know where the disconnect is but I want to make sure that we can figure that out thank you so any other comments questions all right thank you director thank you that all right all right next item number six council member Baker actually I think that was me Mr Mayor that was mdon Council mayor president Middleton thank you Mr Mayor you want to say hi and introduce yourself who are you sir excuse me sir good afternoon Randy Bean director of Emergen Communications good to be here good to see you Randy thank you so much.

And as always we appreciate what you and that incredible team that work on you do for us in the city please extend our regards to them so there there's there's some banter about in the media about this item and I I actually spoke to somebody from the media yesterday so I just want to get some clarity as to what this is the one of the spins out there is that this is in response to our immediate kind of tactical needs with Staffing when my this is actually in the event of a cataclysmic breakdown of our of our system correct just tell us what this is and what this is not if you would I I will be glad too so this is an inter local agreement so in the n one Community that's across the state we have a system called an EET that's the Emergency Services internet system so there's 127 paaps involved each of those paaps we being one of those needs to have an interlocal agreement what that.

Interlocal agreement is for is for those catastrophic situations those emergencies where the center itself is incapacitated which means cannot receive calls nor can it dispatch so in this particular interlocal agreement that is specifically the language that's contain within it is when our Center is incapacitated in an emergency status and we are relocating to our backup facility so this interlocal agreement would then allow for the calls to be answered by the agreeing party that being the city of failable who will answer those calls while we are in transit to the backup center thank you so much for that and and the the operable term is is a catastrophic event that takes us offline this is not during the day of a regular course of events our operators our call takers responders can't respond to calling it gets bumped to Chapel Hill or bumped to this is not what that is that is not what that is at all it has nothing whatsoever to do with Staffing got you all right thank you and I hope that.

Our our friends in the public in the media get that understanding because some of the some of the the spin I don't mean spin in the pejorative sense some of the way the the framing of the story is that this is because of staffing issues when this is actually something quite strategic and and big and in the event of we're totally offline absolutely and and we in the city of Durham merch Communications are just like the other paaps in the state they are required we are required to have that arrangement in our local agreement got you that's it thank you so much for for clearing that up for us thank you Mr mayor council member when are you when are you going to invite us out there when's you's week for appreciation where Council gets to come thank you so very much for actually council member we are preparing a proclamation for the 15th board meeting and that is actually the week of national telecommunicators week and we will be sending invitations.

Out it begins on a Saturday and ends on a Sunday so 14 April through that in in entire week so we look forward to your visit thank you and for Council for new Council colleagues when we get that invite is always a a fabulous tour and getting to meet some of our 911 911 call dispatchers and just seeing the the great facility we have and some of our core city workers doing excellent work thank you so very much and and I will share with you and a few of you cancel members have done this previously we will actually give you the opportunity to put a headset on and listen listen to the callers as it comes into the center be you're more than welcome we would invite you and it's quite an interesting opportunity to learn more about emergency communications and how it functions and operates that's also a reminder as well to make sure that my new colleagues understand that our call takers have not been identified as First.

Responders and so they do not receive the same type of benefits that First Responders receive and it's a good chance to advocate for our First Responders who are on the calls to be acknowledged as First Responders and their benefits thank you thank you council member thank you council member R you are acknowledged Mr bman thanks for the presentation and the clarification there just one question about in this kind of risk management framework so I imagine that Durham (appears to be a location reference error) who's our now partner with his interlocal agreement assuming we passes in the next meeting right that they they also have an alternate routing relationsship themselves right so in the rare occurrence where there was a catastrophic thing happening in Durham and a fable at the same time I imagine our routing relationship if we're routing to them and they're also in a catastrophic situation their alternate would also then kick in for us right is that is that correct that would that would occur similarly yes so there's.

There's like a chain there where there're sort of like where at some point someone will be available to in a in a incredibly rare moment someone would be there backup to backup to answer the calls we have here right and the a the significance of the network that I was speaking about for the interconnectivity of the various P apps thank you all right great and you you you said it Con you you said it conly colleagues when you do go over there if you haven't and you put on a headset it is a very anxious experience so just make sure your nerves are in check and you'll have a greater appreciation at how our 911 Center call takers keep their cool May Pro Mr Mayor thank you I I you you are 100% right brace yourselves you may hear some things sometimes that are quite quite riveting I do want to however associate myself and and celebrate what council member Freeman said about the recognition of responders.

I think it was last year maybe a year ago I had an opportunity the the great honor of introducing the resolution to recognize our call take as First Responders it's actually a a a a Statewide initiative to do that I know one of the things that we've had conversations within the North Carol League of municipalities to put some muscle behind changing that designation precisely for the reasons that council member Freeman has pointed out in terms of not only just the proper recognition but there are some implications in terms of of compensation and participation in various funds and pools of that nature so that's something that that we hope to get beyond the resolution stage and I I plan on certainly pushing that with the league as well in the coming year so thank you good to see you thank you Mr May thank you got it thanks for being here and thank you Mr Mayor for your kind words there sir your adventure on the headset was quite.

Enlightening and it was good to see and hope to see all of you all we will be sending out invitations and and don't worry about the time because we're there 7:24 so anytime you're available will be ready thank you thank you what was the next one no all right next item P that Baker Baker all right item number nine council member Baker you pulled this yeah just a real quick question first of all I'm glad that we're not pressure washing our trees tree watering sounds routine enough that we might do that inhouse can you just explain to me why why we need a contract this out and whether you know in the future we're looking at being able to bring something like this inhouse or what what what requires us in this situation to contract this out good afternoon council members Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proam my name is Kevin Unknown (unclear if this is a name being referenced) assistant director with General services and with me is Dan hickey urban forestry.

Supervisor Hey Kevin would you pull a mic just a little closer please I'm sorry certainly I'm a little shorter than most we're in the same Club D there we go here how's that typically what we find is the watering that we do for our trees is done during the summer months and that's the time when both our urban forestry staff and our landscape staff are at their full capacity with their daily activities we have attempted to do this in in various stages of looking at part-time labor seasonal labor and nothing has been successful for us in the past so we opted to go with a contract Ed route with a company that owns a water truck and has the ability to travel throughout all of our streets to apply the water while our teams our inhouse staff are actually out doing their their daily work okay so there's just sort of a surge of need in these summer months and then that goes away yeah all of the rights of way are either contracted out.

Or done by our internal house staff for mowing and so that's done by us and it's typically when our Urban forestry team is at their busiest cutting and pruning trees okay thank you welcome Madam manager thank thank you I would just also like to add one you know one point of information around the this particular project it was funded with arpa funding which was additional funding that we all know is is onetime funding so often when we have one-time funding it is is very much more efficient to try to do a request for proposal get those one-time resources in to deploy those funds but we are constantly looking at you know to to make or bu and efficiencies all across our organization and this this cycle is is no different so just wanted to add.

That all right thank you all right and thank you director Unknown (unclear if this is a name being referenced) it's good to see you again see you too sir remember going out to Oakland Avenue and I learned more about trees than I thought I'd ever would including resident mitigation and you are welcome to join us anytime all right item number 10 yeah this one I was just I was just curious I was looking at the number of trees and and the cost and it came out to I know this isn't how it's how it's actually calculated but about $900 per tree so I was just curious is that normal why are these really nice trees why is it why is it so why is it such a high price the trees that we're bringing in are bald and burlap trees which are larger than what the city typically plants we usually go with be root or we'll go with containerized trees bald and burlap tree gives us a better record for survival and we felt.

That that was the better product to put out on our city streets the cost of $900 includes the purchase the transportation the warehousing the installation and a one-year warranty so that if the tree happens to die during that one year it will be replaced prior to putting this out to bid we had contacted several landscape companies and tree nurseries and the estimates we were working with initially was about $1,000 a tree installed cost and warranted so the $900 did not surprise us when it came in that's great thank you you're very welcome all right thank you all so much guys one follow question there yeah sorry just one more question so just to give us a s a good question Council Baker so what would be the alternate cost if you were just going be root trees so the $900 would how would that compare to the bear rout I'm going to ask that Dan may have that information but I believe the cost would be about a third of the cost if we.

Were go to a much smaller tree but the likelihood of Sur survival would be diminished yeah that that is correct it's a little apples and oranges it's definitely more expensive to contract out planting and and we kind of knew that going in this was through the arpa funding again so it's kind of a one time just in addition to the planting where already do inhouse but yeah what Kevin Lil has said is is correct about onethird the price thank you all right thank you all colleagues I believe that's it we will now move to our presentation with director Sean Ean we go.

Duram welcome good afternoon Mr Mayor mayor PRM and members of the City Council Shan Ean director of transportation for the city and I'm proud to bring you the 2023 go Durham annual report today for the go Durham transit system fiscal year 2023 was defined by continued recovery from the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic and transition to a new management approach this approach focuses on performance and accountability while establishing a strong foundation for delivery of major service and facility improvements in the years ahead in May 20123 the council authorized a new service contract with financial penalties and incentives tied to the concerns voiced by Riders during Community engagement such as ontime performance cleanliness and customer service the new contract is managed directly by the city transportation Department's new Mobility Services team led by two of our Region's most respected Transit professionals Brian fahe and Jennifer green fairf free service in 2023 ease the burden for those ESS poal workers our community relied on throughout the pandemic at hospitals skilled nursing facilities pharmacies.

And grocery stores and it enables access for the 77% of our Riders who do not otherwise have access to a vehicle for transportation we also laid the foundation for the expansion of our zero emission bus program we joined the zero emissions bus resource Alliance to share data and best practices with our peers across the country and we are providing training to our bus operators and mechanics so they have the skills to maximize the benefits of this clean energy technology for our Riders and our community our senior shuttle funded by the Durham County Transit plan addresses the importance of access to Fresh Foods for residents in senior living communities who have limited Transportation options we expanded the program in 2023 adding new sites at Carver Creek Morehead Hills 519 East Main Street and the witted.

School in February 2023 the Durham city council recognized 16 inductees to the million Mile Club recognizing the extraordinary achievement of bus operators who safely navigated a 40ft bus through our streets for 1 million miles without a preventable. Collision in 2023 we provided over 910,000 more annual passenger trips compared to 2022 a 19% increase average daily passenger trips increase by over 2400 compared to 22 and as shown in the chart we're now regularly providing half a million trips each month on Pace for more than 6 million trips in 2024 by population the city of Durham is the fourth largest city in North Carolina but our transit system has the second most ridership in the state this is the clearest demonstration of how much Durham residents count on transit for their daily Transportation needs it also indicates a strong appetite for more and better Services we can provide thanks to support from the Durham County Transit plan the remainder of this presentation shows key performance indicators we have established for the god Durham system.

City of Durham and God Durham operations staff meet monthly to review progress and identify opportunities to improve performance safety is our top priority so we'll start with these kpis we track incidents at our Durham station terminal where we have nearly 12,000 daily boardings as well as onboard incidents on all of our routes across the system as shown here rates are consistently below Target but we continue to develop training and customer engagement tools to reduce the frequency of safety incidents on our system.

We also continue to closely track operator assault incidents and even the one we experienced in fiscal year 2023 is one too many improved training and coordination with law enforcement have helped to limit the number of assaults and threats to bus operators what you can also see here with onboard incidents is that the majority of these are minor General disturbances or rule violations such as playing music without headphones what we call preventa bles can be a major Collision or something as minor as a side mirror striking a sign or a tree branch note that in September of 2021 we had zero preventable crashes we are working to make that a regular feature rather than an exception we created the million mile program to recognize those bus operators who have logged 1 million miles without a preventable crash due to the importance of transfers at Durham station the target for ontime arrivals at Durham station is 99% or better for all time points across our system the target is 90% or better and.

We're trending in the right direction here but more work is needed analyzing delays adjusting schedules and hiring more bus operators to reach our reliability goals and on that note our current starting wage is $19.65 with generous benefits that'll be going up on July 1st and anyone interested can visit God Duram transit.org careers for more information about our hiring the red line here showing scheduled hours is used to measure the share of published 2020 service levels provided taking into account announced service reductions due to Staffing shortages we are consistently around 100% on this measure the blue bars show the difference between budgeted service and actual service delivered reflecting the reduction to Approximately 80% of the budgeted service levels for 2023 this is due to the consistent bus operator shortages that we experienced in 2023 but I'm pleased to report that as of January of this year we increased service to 100% of 2020 service levels and hiring continues to enable service expansion to begin in April each month I have the pleasure of.

Meeting with some of the most recent graduates from from our training program to thank them for making these service Restorations and expansions. Possible we've set an aggressive Target of more than 20,000 miles between failures and we fell short of this goal repeatedly in 2023 as onethird of our Fleet is at the end of its useful life and scheduled for replacement with the arrival of 18 new buses in 2020 6 keeping the fleet in a state of good repair is critical to avoid service disruptions that can impose a significant hardship on our Riders an important change we made with our new contract was to add a senior director of customer engagement and marketing focused on the customer experience at God Durham (appears to be a transit system reference) since taking on this role in July Brenda Jones has brought a strong f Focus to addressing the complaints and using customer feedback to improve training and procedures to provide a better customer experience including the QR code initiative we announced this week to enable Riders to report.

Cleanliness and other concerns at our. Stops this is a standout indicator for us because we want our customers to know that concerns are being addressed so we consistently respond to 100% of our customer concerns within five business days looking ahead our future is bright with the support of unprecedented funding for God Durham in the 2023 Durham County Transit plan design is underway for bus stop and access to Transit improvements on the Holloway and Durham (appears to be a location reference error) corridors and the Rev vitalization of Durham station as well as dramatic increases in system service levels of more than 50% in the years ahead the full Durham County fiscal year 2025 draft Transit work program is included as an attachment to your materials and is available on the Durham County website the draft budget includes $27 million for the city of Durham's projects and some of the highlight are increases to go Durham service frequency and new cross town RADS a $7 million increase for Durham station to.

Make the gorgeous image you see there a reality an additional $4 million for go Durham and God Durham access operations and maintenance facility improvements and $374,000 for the direct investment and Mobility Equity dime Grant to support continued fairf free service on go Durham as I close I want to take a moment to thank our partners at go triangle at the Durham Chapel Hill carboro Metropolitan planning organization whose support makes these improvements possible but in particular I want to recognize Durham County transportation director Ellen Beckman who's joining us here today and who has been instrumental in advancing this critical work and with that I'm happy to answer any questions thank you thank you director and if anyone needs any tips on how to hire that's pretty Savvy in your coat pocket there colleagues council member Freeman thank you I will will just say I love the tie as well as the pocket square and I just appreciate the presentation I think we've come a long way and I I appreciate.

Your creativ it and coming up with that million MERS bus program or drivers program and I don't have any questions I just want to say thank you thank you council member rist Mr Ean thanks for the presentation really enjoyed it appreciate the the focus on customer service the real intentional intentionality there I really appreciate that and I appreciate your presentation with clear goals you set for yourself and your colleagues and sort of how you've performed against those I really appreciate that that transparency my one question is about and I for the most part you're performing at or above those metrics which is really exciting the one that I wanted to ask about was the safety one the the the crashes per 100,000 miles and that seems like for many months is above that Target I think that's I don't know what slide number that is but I wonder if you just have any thoughts on like what's what's happening there and what's what's needed to sort of reduce the those preventable.

Crashes so we're putting a really strong focus on training we're also adopting some new technologies so one of the new technologies is a it's a gyroscope that's loaded on the vehicle that tracks if there's sudden braking or sudden turning movements that are outside of what we would see and so we've added that technology and we're capturing the data for those sudden breaking or sudden turning movements and we're having our supervisors and trainers review that data with the operator who was behind the wheel at the time and in many cases that results in additional training for those operators because we want to identify the risk of a crash before we actually have an incident and so that technology that's measuring those sudden movements is a tool that we're using it's one of the many tools that we're using to improve the training of our operators to identify those those risks and improve make sure that they have the skills that they need the training that they need to be on the lookout for.

Those risks and prevent those collisions from happening great thank you council member m cook thank you so much for this presentation I also was at the community presentation that you did a few weeks ago and we had a lot more numbers going on in front of us at that point in time so I do know that some of this exists out in the world but I just had a couple questions about the things that you put in front of us today the first one and actually council member rist asked one of my questions so the first one I have on my list is you talked about that you were in that we're actually increasing the salary from 1965 and and that there are great benefits are you have are you seeing issues with a low number of applicants or is it an issue of retention what what's going on there there with with folks so we've been successful in attracting applicants but one point that I emphasize when I meet with our.

Operations team and especially when I'm at those graduation lunches is that we have a very rigorous training program that's focused on the safety of our system and the safety of our Riders and so most of the applicants Who start our training program program they never get to the graduation lunch they are unable to meet the requirements that we've set for the safety of our system and what I've told our management team is we are not going to compromise on the safety of our system in order to get our bus operator count up we are going to maintain high standards for safety and for service quality and many of the applicants coming through our training programs cannot reach those standards and so they're they're unable to complete the program I see so instead of instead of doing anything to to increase the percentage of folks who make it through you're just looking to increase the applicant pool so that we hopefully get some more drivers through we provide retraining opportunities when.

Folks are struggling in the program and in many cases I I hear it from the folks who are at the graduation lunch they were ready to walk away they were very frustrated they felt like they weren't going to be able to do it it's too hard it is I often say it's the toughest job in transportation is driving a bus it is very challenging work those of you who spent time on our streets know they're very challenging so we work with our training team to do some Outreach to folks who are getting discouraged to give them additional time additional training opportunities but there are some folks who just can't can't meet those standards and so we we we've made a a decision to maintain those standards but we are seeing significant growth in our operator account we wouldn't be back at 100% in January of this year without that growth we wouldn't be talking about a service expansion in April without growth U so we've put a very attractive compensation package.

Into place and it's yielding result results we're getting good candidates who can meet all of our all of our standards and requirements awesome and then you had also you had you had quite a few kind of goals under the reliability category and I understand the need for more drivers and and for folks to complete that training but what else is needed besides staff to meet those reliability goals well some of it is the service levels and the crowding that we're seeing on our system so I was I tried to get just down the street here I tried to get on the Route 4 bus a few months ago it's about 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the bus stopped and they told me it's full there's no room there were there were a few of us at the stop we're seeing significant crowding on many of our routs and that degrades reliability and ontime performance the more crowded the bus is the longer it takes at each stop for people to get on.

And off and the slower that bus goes so the solution that we're bringing and that we're able to do because of the funding in the Durham County Transit plan is to add service frequency on the route four so right now it's a 30 minute frequency route we're going to bring that up to 15minute service frequency so we're going to double the service frequency on the route four and what that's going to do is going to distribute the passengers it's going to reduce crowding and improve reliability for the system so that's one of the initiatives that we have underway great thank you and then my next question was you you mentioned in 2026 that we have a lot of new buses incoming could you talk a little bit more about where that funding is coming from and and just tell me one more time the number of new buses that we have coming on line so we've had we have 18 new buses each bus cost about $1.1 million so these are zero emissions.

Battery electric buses we're able to purchase these buses because we've been very aggressive in pursuing funding from our funding Partners so we wanton a $5.7 million Grant from the Federal Transit Administration through their low and no emissions bus program we worked with Congressman David Price who submitted a $2 million Community Project funding request for the city we worked with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality that's administering the Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement funding and we were able to secure funding from ncdeq and the VW settlement as well as the Federal Highway congestion mitigation and air quality program so we have been aggressively pursuing every dollar from every external partner that we can and we put that funding package together and that's how we were able to order the 180 emissions buses I me that is awesome to hear I love I love hearing about folks going after specific grants because I think that's such a good way to finance this and we're getting these zero emission buses for.

We need to replace the buses anyway is what I heard you saying and so that's right we're replacing them with high quality zero emission buses which I love do we have the infrastructure to support those buses at this time we are that's our next Federal Grant application is actually we're going back to the low and no emissions Federal Transit Administration and we'll be applying for additional funding for charging equipment so that we have all of the equipment online in 2026 when those buses arrive so Mr Mayor I'll be reaching out for a letter of support and add a manager as well thank you those are all my questions just one question maintaining the the fairf free bus system I think is important to mean many my colleagues up here can you just talk a little bit about any hurdles we Face moving forward I know there's some Revenue sources that might be running out do do you foresee any challenges or do you think that for the foreseeable.

Future we have a clear path towards U maintaining fairf free buses so we were very fortunate to get Federal funding with the covid-19 pandemic and we have been working to draw down all of that that funding the remnants of that funding enable us to continue the fair free into 2025 but once we look at 2026 and Beyond the combination of the very generous compensation that we're offering to our staff that's really the biggest Financial driver long term for us is that we've raised wages and benefits retirement Healthcare for the employees that's driving a cost profile that's that's increasing and we're going to exhaust the all the remaining Federal funding in fiscal year 25 and so we'll be coming back in 26 looking at that expected Gap that's caused by the fair free as well as U to a larger extent the employee compensation thank you you have anything guess one follow up real quick yeah just a follow up on that so you mentioned u m Regan that the Durham County Transit plan with.

Respect to the fair fre buses so can you describe what the what the balance of like what's the how do we how are we sharing funding with the county to provide the fair free buses what's that look like sure so we submitted a project to the Durham County Transit plan for fiscal year 25 we looked at that the funding that had been allocated for special pass programs like the youth Go pass as well as funding for technology to to do mobile ticketing and funding for fair capping which basically gives customers the benefit of a monthly pass without having to pay Upfront for the monthly pass so funding for all of those Fair related initiatives was programmed in the 20-year Durham County Transit plan but we couldn't access any of those dollars without charging fairs so what we proposed was to turn those multiple streams into a single block grant that would be available the value of those streams was $374,000 that covers about 20% of our expected Fair Revenue loss and so.

What what we proposed was that those funding streams be converted into that block grant and very pleased to say that that proposal was was included in the work program and and we we're looking forward to that getting approved this year so it's like 8020 share 80 80 City 20 County okay all. Right thank you Mr Mayor strong good to see you man thank you so much for a great presentation the gold buses are clean they're comfortable and they have Wi-Fi they're free absolutely and I want to congratulate you on on pulling off the Small Miracle of making it excellent and keeping it fair free so no pressure on there how we we ask for greatness and and we want to keep it free at the same time I do want to maybe two questions and maybe a bit of a commercial for go Durham as well firstly on the slide the fair free Transit the surveys it says the source is the 2022 go Durham onboard survey is that right.

It was in the field in 2022 the survey the results were were published in 2023 but it was based on what we call intercepts right talking to customers on board the buses in 2022 so this is you know in the full impact of the pandemic this survey was taken right the reason I asked I took a survey but I I was I was I think it was on the number two but it was during 2023 so when of those surveys so they were in the field I think in like November December and I think some of them may have spilled into January I can get the specific dates but I definitely took a survey on a on the number two in 2023 and I was curious about the possibility or how we guard it against repeats because I another time I was on the number five and a worker asked me to take it I told him I already took it but some somebody else on the.

Bus told me that yeah I've taken it like two or three times already on different you know buses and I don't know if they were capturing folk that had already taken it so I'm I'm I'm wondering because I my susp this is unscientific my suspicion that it's probably higher than 77% the folk that ride who don't have access to cars but that's unscientific as is Middleton do do we know or did we try and capture possible repeat surveys or multiple survey takers I'd have to look into the The Firm that conducted that survey and what what controls they had into place but I can certainly look into that cool I want to again this is really exciting because any anyone that has a vision of Durham being walkable and and is concerned about car Centric development without also bolstering our transportation capabilities and supporting it and advocating for it those are really kind of at odd of Visions but I know that that it can be challenging I know I know that when I.

You have to be very deliberate in planning trips sometimes for for for connectivity sake and and getting you know I be very clear it's very easy to be car Centric in this town and sometimes planning trips if you've got to go downtown to get to the mall from your neighborhood you know to to the to to the downtown Center but I will I do want to maybe just just just gently advocate for intentionality on using our system particularly if you want it to to to measure the view we have of ourselves as a city and the trajectory we have on ourselves as a city and it will take some intentionality you know I I I look at it perhaps you know for my colleagues if if you're going to do a ride along with the police or fire or go sit with 911 First Responders ride gold Duram as well put gold Durham on that list as as a something just to do which which leads me to as on-ramp to.

My next point I with respect to driver safety trying to be Incognito but when I got off at the you're very recognizable well well those post office shots are really good at the The Hub downtown going to take a trip to to South I think number five got off and of of course got into some conversation with some folk and some of the drivers and I this is anecdotal but one driver told me about getting getting a substance thrown on them and having to clean it you probably know about this case having to clean it up themselves concerned about weapons being fired at the bus you spoke about assaults on drivers as well so I I want to and I'm I'm glad that we're looking more at compensation but could you just say a little more without divulging any that's proprietary or or needs to be you know kept from public hearing but say a little more about what we're doing to to keep our drivers who work so hard doing an incredible job.

Safe specifically with with the physical assaults and and concern about weapons I know we had looked at barriers at some point we we've implemented those protective barriers on 100% of our Fleet 100% so that's one of the initiatives we also have Duram police officer at Durham station if you've been down there you'll see them patrolling the station and we work also on patrols on some of the routes where we've had reports of incidents and issues and so there's there's careful coordination with dpd we're also in conversations with Community safety about bringing to Bear some of the resources like the heart team to respond to crisis needs on the system that don't require a law enforcement response but do require a response and we want trained professionals to be able to respond to a crisis like that and that'll provide better protection and better Safety and Security for our our bus operators coordinating those responses as well right and I I know this may have reached your desk as well and I know I've spoken.

To a couple of drivers we we do not we do not want our drivers armed we do not allow the drivers even if they have a concealed carry permit to carry weapons on them and I know some of our drivers were but just to be clear we it's prohibited yeah it's prohibited absolutely we don't want guns on the bus by anybody finally I I'll just say it it you know it's really staggering statistic that we're forth in the state population but we're number two in terms of ridership Charlotte we're coming for you yeah yeah exactly and and and think about that we're number two even given all of the challenges we have even and you know and and you know we in Durham we have a higher bar than a lot of folk in the state because we'll talk about you know car Centric development and we need to do more with Transit and and but we're sitting here the number two users in the state for population.

Which I think is an invitation to do even more not the rest on our Laurels but do any more and I just want to encourage everybody listening all of our residents and citizens to you know use them use the bus part of what we got to do is destigmatize our system you know it's got to be egalitarian it's got to be folk working at Google and Facebook along with folk working at Duke whether you're doing surgery or cleaning floors at Duke if we're going to become that City that we envision so yeah keep writing and and and keep doing what you're do and congratulations on a great report and I look forward to getting back to you on that survey information and looking forward to seeing those new buses rolling in the streets thank you thank you Mr Mayor thank you director this is quite impressive our bus Network here and our drivers and just all of the data that supporting this I I wanted to I.

Serve on the board well first of all let me shout out Transportation director for the county Ellen Beckman who's in the audience thanks for joining us that's my train buddy you know we ride the train somehow in up at the train station at the same time sometimes when heading to Raleigh we are basically we our our transit system is is doing extremely well and as I've stated one thing I want to do as mayor is just build Federal build National relationships Federal relationships to continue to bring resources to Durham one was the recent 4.88 million for the electric charge stations now it said it's going to happen over 12 years we want that to be a lot sooner so we'll look into that the other is all of the grants that you've that you your your team have bought in for Durham Central Station and I I just I got to say on the record how excited I am about the vision for our Transit Network being able to.

Instead of going from point A downtown to point B that will eventually be able to go from point A to point B and if downtown is not a year route you don't have to come downtown which would make our overall Network much more efficient and as you know we already talked about we now have bipartisan relationships at the federal level and state level to where whenever we are you know putting forth in application that we will have significant push at all levels that is when you see me going to DC folks that's what I'm working on so really excited about that considering I also serve on the board for go triangle and go triangle is bringing back rates Fair rates as well as Wake County there is some sense of logic behind it I am one to I think Transit should be like public schools free and accessible what should we but also know in you know in the real world we have you know we got to be practical I.

Am always going to try and I mean we now you I've been bit by the bug now I want to keep Free Fair free Transit but is there anything that we should be on the radar for just not catching us off guard in the upcoming years considering Raleigh Wake County and go triangle have rein or incorporating fees again that my question is is there anything we should be on the look for that would pressure us or require us to incor reincorporate fees fairs so it does need to be I think part of a larger conversation about funding for Transit in our community what we're trying to demonstrate is that we're pursuing as much funding as possible from every available source so from the FTA Capital grants from the Volkswagen settlement from the County Transit plan the dime program for Fair free and so we're we've been Relentless in pursuing those funds but the council will need to make a decision at some point going forward we're we're about the future of.

Fair free and the future of the the level of operator compensation that we have we're also looking at other states Virginia for example has a state supported fairf free bus program where the state supports agencies that are offering free fair so like Richmond for example is one of the participating systems there and we're interested in in talking to some of our Regional and state Partners about could we try something like that maybe not at this maybe at the state level potentially at the regional level there's Federal funding available to reduce vehicle miles traveled so one one of the best ways to reduce vehicle miles traveled is by getting more people on on our buses so we're we're exploring some of those opportunities is are there additional sources that we can develop to support fairf free Transit and so we'll be coming back to you as as we're able to develop those but we're going to leave no stone unturned in terms of finding additional funding for this thank you so much.

Well considering colleagues that our mayor proen will be State president of the league of municipalities hopefully we can enlist him to convince our state Partners no pressure convince our state Partners to consider the fact that you know when our region which is a hot spot in the nation is strong so is the state and this could be a benefit that they they see as a win as well but I do know at some point we will have to make a political decision because those grants are not necessarily going to be last funding the most part right so right now you guys are doing a heck of a job bringing in Grants and and support but I do know that at some point we're going to have to make a decision and that's going to be significant so just want to put that on there council member ciero just really briefly I just wanted to say thank you I know this contract with Gorham was a big part of 2023 work.

For your department and I remember at the beginning at the time it was mayor Williams and I were no members and so that's where a lot of these conversations were initially happening was in our Mo prep calls and I thought it was super ambitious and was eager that it would happen but wasn't sure how it was going to turn out so I just think that it was a really good call it has L us really embark on the journey that we need to on transit in the city so thank you and I'm look forward to keep I like to win so I keep looking forward to winning more dollars talking about you behind your back that's what I was up here saying I was like you know we used to talk about this stuff and he's actually bringing it forth that it's working now all so good comment Council Cy council member Freeman thank you and I think to that point it's really important to note that the I guess the cost around us running.

This system and service is around $147 and I had to go in and note that and 51 cents and so for less than per hour and so for $150 per hour I think we can figure out how to increase compensation and keep the fair free because I think that is a good rate to be at and we can we can figure it out so I'm not concerned I will also note I had not had a chance to share I know I asked the Communications Department to share I am currently serving as the vice chair for the transportation infrastructure committee for the national league of cities and it is my hope to have a few conversations over the hill day next week to if I could clear up a little bit more I feel a little bit more comfortable but to have a few conversations with folks in transportation and and figuring out some of our bus Rapid Transit conversations some of the funding that needs to be in place for that and then.

Also just making sure that we're not forgetting how all this works together I I really did want to ask though while you're here if you're seeing a a if the communication is working out around construction and bus service because I know that the incident level is kind of high but but are you seeing any any increase in incidents with the construction because there's a lot of construction happening in the in our downtown core it's it's a real challenge for us keeping up with all of the construction if you look at our service alerts you will routinely see services that are being disrupted rerouted because of construction so for example on Lakewood Avenue right now there's a major water line project that is disrupting the route five and has been so we are working very hard to make sure that we're providing that service alert information to our Riders you can find it if you use Google Maps and you click on the transit button in Google maps you can get real time.

Information about how many minutes away your bus is from the stop but you can also get information about all right well is this stop was this stop taken out of service because there's a construction project happening and so that that stop can no longer be served and we're seeing some of that on East Main Street for example with the the county construction project so we're encouraging folks to sign up for those service alerts and we're trying to develop as much technology as possible but Durham is a is a very popular destination for major construction projects right now and we want to be a vibrant and growing city that Embraces that but we need to make sure that we're providing accurate up-to-date information to our Riders and that we're working with the development Community to minimize those disruptions as much as possible thank you that was all thank you and council member Freeman thanks for bringing that up the fact that you're on that National Committee not only collaborating Municipal wide with local officials.

Across the country mayor proam is going to be president of the league of municipalities for the entire state which is the most powerful group that can provide impact on the general assembly to to local progress and council member cook and Baker we need to get you all on some of these National groups as well and RIS so get ready for your memberships to just had an NLC call today by the way so yeah yep it' be great to have everybody on and you'll really love NLC I haven't been to local progress yet because council member cabier hasn't invited me just throwing you on the spot I know free and Middleton are members as well but thank you all thank you all so much director and and in closing I am still a proud card carrying CDL member I I hiring I'm not driving I see how difficult it is to drive those big buses in our streets but I kept my CDL from when I was teaching so.

Shout out to our drivers and let them know we really appreciate them just for the record you don't need a CDL to come work at God Durham just a regular driver's license and a clean driving record and we will train you we'll help you get your permit your CDL permit and then we'll take you through the whole training process to get your full CDL all right put me on the substitute list all right thank you all right all right thank you so much for that great information I did I did have a follow-up question for for our city manager I didn't know if if there was any way to find out I think for the bus system there's an alert but I don't know if there's an alert for our biking system like I don't know if there's anything in place or not but when those routes are offline if they're trying to bike through especially on Main Street if trying to bike through it's going to be on one side and making sure folks.

Know that in advance we we do not have that type of system in place at this at this time so we we belong to the National Association of city transportation officials we have a number of our staff are going to be at their annual meeting meeting in May and we can we we can do peer Outreach to find out what the best practices across the country are U for alerting cyclists about impacts alerting pedestrians about sidewalk closures and other impacts because it's it's really.

Important all right that's the agenda I had a few other items that we that I know Council cover and I both needed to get support for do you want to go first yeah thanks mayor Williams just real quickly Justice matters the organization that holds our immigrant legal defense fund would like to come to a work session either either work session in April and it's our practice to when we have organizations wanting to present to come to the full Council and make sure there's u a desire for that so that is my ask I just thumbs up thank you that's all and then so just for staff following up I think from the city attorneys hi Carlos I think you're the staff Lea on so do you mind just following up with them to get them on the work session for either one they said is fine in April thank you thank you and I had two items that I needed to bring forth for us as a presentation one is the Discover.

Duran presentation on the discover dur Pres presentation. For I'll come back to that one the one thing I needed to bring was the sister cities of Durham presentation it's time for theou renewal for cushan kushan kunan China reaffirming our friendship City relationship and it'll be a quick presentation but before we renew that OU we needed to have the presentation good.

Okay and also I discovered Durham had a presentation that they needed to bring to us that would pose a decision that we'll have to make ultimately but before we get to any policy changes or anything and they needed to provide a a presentation to the to the council can I get a thumbs up this discover Durham yes it's about their their their like master plan yeah yeah I yep okay cool deal thank you all oh yeah you want me to okay all right and also so the state of the city is coming up really excited about it we're putting a lot of work in it and a lot of what some of our one-on-one conversations have been will be incorporated in it because not only from what staff is doing also initiatives from Council it will be different this year it will be an event it will not be on the council meeting agenda in City Hall it will actually be at a city City owned facility in downtown Durham and it's.

Going to have we're going to have like a mini resource fair for folks to sign up and make sure they have access to the resources that the City offers it's going to have some guest presenters some of our youth throughout the city we're going to have live music going to have some light bites refreshments and then I'll provide a state of the city that's going to be quite the Vision projection for what's to come with that being said one of the things that we're going to be talking about is something that council ciero is working on right now you hear me talk about advisory councils directly and to help inform me but we're going to have some working groups and council member cavier has taking that on that's going to be quite the trifecta so she's going to give us a quick kind of intro to what she's working on on not only mine but our behalf thank you Mary Williams this is just a continuation of conversation that.

Was brought to Joint City County last week I'm pretty sure council member Freeman was there council member rist was there and mayor protm was there the the idea is to have a joint housing initiative with both the county and Durham Public Schools so that when we were talking about our housing strategies we are not doing it in silos we are doing it collaboratively I've also had conversations with manager Paige and so the the mayor commissioner board chair Alum and I should say County Commissioner chair Alum and board chair Umstead will be handling appointments to the task force and it will be a it'll be brought broad it will not be it'll include components like Workforce housing it'll include components around land use and Transit we're trying to make this as broad as possible and the reason we want it to be both County city and schools is we understand that the interconnectedness in all these spaces is crucial if we're actually going to chart a different future around housing in the city that we all.

Aware is a priority for residents and consistently gets put if not in the top top priority definitely the top three priority so that that's all thank you yep so I'm looking forward to really introducing that this will be I possibly the first time there's ever been a housing strategy put in place with multiple facets of our community from all three governing bodies in dorham County so I'm really excited about that council member Freeman just just following up you said the state of a city will that take place in place of the City Council meeting or is it in addition to the City Council meeting it would be a it would be a separate event so it'll be we'll have our regular council meeting but this will be off off the agenda you have a date already April April 9th April I'm glad you asked me that because I keep getting keep getting in trouble coun mavier keep saying she better let everybody know so we can be there so April 9th please colleagues make sure.

You have that in your yep all right April 9th and we we will we'll we'll we'll have a lot of marketing behind it all right I that's our agenda all right and also there's also been I'm ready Madame clerk I'm ready so we're going to settle the agenda and then make a motion to accept the agenda being settled right yep okay oh oh so I'm going to acknowledge Madam clerk for the appointments thank you Mr Mayor it's short the first nomination is for the mayor's Hispanic Latino committee and it is for the nominee of Heidi and Andino and the second and last is the dur Durham workers Rights Commission appointment in the category of low wage industry and the nominee is Gary Elwood and that's the end of the report thank you so much at this time Adam manager will settle the agenda thank you Mr Mayor for consent I have agenda items 1 through 18 and GBA public hearing items 20 through 22 thank you all right I'll now entertain a.

Motion to settle the agenda so move second all right all in favor I all right sounds good we will now recess to close session we will let's go straight on up there we will be in the committee. Room yeah let's let's let's all go on up but take a take a bathroom break if you need to so.