Ahead and call this meeting to order at 1 pm Madam Clerk can you please call the RO thank you Mr Mayor mayor Williams I'm here mayor Pro Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member cook here council member frean presid council member rest coun let the record show that CC member is here there he is all right colleagues any announcements chse oh sorry good afternoon everybody thanks for coming I might be speaking on the same thing as a couple of my colleagues we had the opportunity to go on a bus tour to see some of the trails that are in the planning stage and also in the development stage across the city yesterday something that I think was on a lot of people's minds was how great those are going to be when we have walkability through large swaths of Durham and some awesome the the theme of the day was connectivity is what I heard and so it's going to be really.
Great when we have access to all that green space and the ability to move by walking by biking alternatives to our our streets and alternatives to being in cars I should say and I think another thing that was on folks minds and that I just want to sort of bring awareness to was that we are a little bit behind the times I think on these developments and and it's awesome that we're starting them now and I think a lot of people expressed that we wish that we had started those things sooner obviously can't go back in time and fix that and I think it's important to just acknowledge that is changing it's a changing landscape and with that change comes a lot of things good and bad and that there is a is a lot of history of of hurt in some of these communities and and disproportionate resource distribution and so I just think that those are important things for us to think about even as we celebrate moving forward all.
Of the awesome work that is going on I'm just so impressed with the staff met folks who have been working on some of these Trail systems for six seven years that's their sole job and they are loving it so I'm so impressed with staff and I was so grateful to get to go on that tour yesterday but I did want to bring light to to the fact that of course those feelings are complicated and we have to keep all of that history in mind as we're thinking about those things that's all thank you Mr Mayor thank you madam attorney no council member profession is mixing in together here council member Baker all right council member cavier yes good afternoon I just want to associate myself with council member Cook's comments and just really thank dos open dur open spaces and trails commission they're one of our more active commissions and these are you know City and County residents who dedicate a lot of time volunteer time to make our city a better or our.
Community a better place to live and so just want to shout them out also want to remind folks it's bike month and and I did the brave thing and and rode a bike today to work next Thursday is ride ride your bike to work day and we are not in session next week so I went ahead and did it early to get it out of the way so before it gets too hot so just reminding folks it is a bike month bike deram has a lot of events BAC is also our bike pedestrian advisory commission is also really active in our ride of Silence which is to honor folks who have been killed in accidents is next Wednesday and we have had some recent tragedies around two pedestrian deaths so just want to remind folks to come on out it we start at CCB Plaza next Wednesday thank you that doesn't it doesn't include scooters and skateboards I think it's it it does include scooters and skateboards.
Yeah I do it every day then all right U council member Freeman any announcements all right r thank you Mr Mayor mayor PM Council colleagues Madam city manager also shout out to and and the staff and the general public also shout out to my son Jared wrist who's there in the audience.
Joining us for the public comment period so thanks for joining us Jared proud to see you here just a couple things so first of all I want to let you know I'm no hero but I did get up early on Tuesday after a long city council meeting on Monday to meet with Don where's Don in the back my my friend Don from waterm yeah yeah very early to go on a long tour of water treatment and water water management facilities that included the lake Mickey Dam which is kind of amazing to see little river dam where there were aerial and sect divorce I'll just point out the tear Quarry the brown the brown Water Management treatment plant brown Water Treatment Plant and the north THM Water Reclamation facility on Club Boulevard so again want to thank Don and his colleagues Joe and others for being so kind to me and and sharing so much during the day I mean the experience of some was hard to describe.
And I want to encourage all of you if you have the chance to go on one of these tours with Don and his staff the level of of complexity and Science and commitment and staff I mean this is our third largest staff group right City manag this so large number of Staff who were completely dedicated this work of providing clean water when we turn on the tap it's pretty amazing so I'm almost without words I guess I'll paraphrase Winston Churchill who said or said something like this never was so much owed by so many to so few and especially because the folks who work for water management mostly work out of sight of the public right we don't see them the the dams aren't accessible to the public so these are folks who working hard dayto day doing really incredible science again to make sure that when we get up in the morning we turn on the tap and there's clean water so it's pretty amazing so encourage you.
All to do that again thanks to Don and his staff who did an amazing job of of the Water Management Department second thing I want to say is the is the city's representative City council's representative to the recreation advisory committee we met again early morning meeting that was on Wednesday and so one of the things that happened with Wade and the staff was there's a presentation about all that this the DPR is doing with respect to Parks recreational opportunities and camps over the summer and so given our discussion on Monday about summer camps and the challenges of the needs I thought it'd be great for Wade or his staff to do that same presentation with the council and our next work session would be which would be on May the what is that like the 23d is the day that is is that correct yeah so if I get a thumbs up from from from members of the council love to have a way to bring that presentation to our work session on the.
23rd also if the manager is okay colleagues would let me first check with staff we can squeeze that in there on the agenda I'm sure we can I'm sure we can we y'all know how to make magic happen anyway but it would be on us to be here longer but I'm for it if if my colleagues are I think you'll be moved by what you'll see thank you thank you V mayor that's all I got you may Pro him all right and and council member C thank you colleagues I'm just really quickly sometimes our meetings go long I will have to leave by 5:00 pm if we're not done I'm just saying it let's hope not but you know we've had some record meetings lately all right we're here about 5 PM I'm leaving with you now we we'll get out of here I just one housekeeping thing we we have quite a few presentations today however they are all City like internal one of those presentations require engagement of members of the public.
That's item number 36 is that right yeah item just this matters yeah colleagues would you all be okay if we address that one first so that they don't have to sit through the entire meeting all right thank you Mr Mayor when do citizen comments when is that is that that would be oh that's yeah it's next okay all right thank you all and also this morning I had an opportunity other matters had an opportunity to attend and share remarks at the bright greater Futures breakfast for the boys and girls club and we do have a very historic Boys and Girls Club in in in Durham and was able to be there amongst other community members and just share remarks and many folks in the crowd was moved to tears after listening to the stories of presented by some of the youth I I didn't cry I you know I never really cry when it comes to kids I just my eyes got a little watery and I had to get some napkins or.
Whatever but just wanted to highlight the amazing work that they are doing over at the boys and girls club something that really stuck with me was you know kids aren't here because we are keeping them off the streets they just happen to not be on the streets and then this these camps and this after school program where they're learning to be leaders they're learning to be better people and I think that that is so vital you you know I I don't you know of course obviously we're engaging our youth in positive activity no they're not going to be on the streets but I I want to really just highlight the amazing work that has been done there and and in many other occasions and the reason why it was so personal is because once again you know we woke up this morning to more gunfire in the streets of Durham and any you know anytime this happens as I I said the other night you know you know as you all know colleagues we.
Receive a text message but there are folks that have to go out and deal with this you know in the streets without going into detail you know this particular time I received the Frantic phone call directly you know from someone said hey you know there's there's what do we do you know there's about to be retaliation you know just just really upset and I I appreciate you know Chief Andrews being able to just you know take that that information and and react but you know it's summertime we know the situation with our Parks you know we we know that we are mitigating that and again no one living today put lead in The Parks of Durham no one but the folks who are living today and working in the city today are the ones that are mitigating that and we're going to make it right but you know we want to make sure we have as many resources for our kids to be engaged and we want to make sure.
That we are prioritizing that just like we're prioritizing everything else and with our youth if not even more so and and I know that there as I st stated before also I I there is not a binary of protesting Israel and Gaza and you know addressing the situation with our youth there there is you'll find you know me being again being anti-war all the time but what you'll find me practically you know really focusing on and doing is try my best to proactively as well as in the most efficient way possible react to what's happening on the streets right here in Durham and so that's where my energy will will go and and that's what I plan to focus on because this this this is happening on a daily basis right before us and I just want to make sure that that's always top of mind all right so that being said we are going to have priority items by the city manager C matters good afternoon order okay good afternoon Mr Mayor Williams Mr.
Mayor protim Middleton and members of the Durham city counil I have several priority items for you and I will read them into the record and for for your consideration this afternoon agenda item number 18 Construction Services contract with Simon Roofing and Sheet Metal Corp for the Carolina Theater Roofing renovation project city council is being asked to suspend the rules and vote on this item during the May 9th 2024 work session so materials can be procured sooner for the Carolina Theater Roofing renovation project agenda item number 19 the intent to declare property as Surplus a presentation will be made during the May 9th 2024 city council work session agenda item number 27 resolution to support the upper noose River Bas Association unba fiscal year 2020 2025 budget a presentation will be made during the May 9th 2024 city council work session agenda it item number 35 fiscal year 20242 proposed budget and fisal year 2025 to3 Capital Improvement plan a presentation will be made during the May 20th 2024 city council meeting agenda.
Item number 38 Consolidated annexation sheffi Farms this item is being referred back to the city county plan Department agenda item number 42 American Rescue plan act arpa arpa interlocal agreement with Durham County to support culture and arts recovery efforts a supplemental item was added and finally agenda item number 43 contract with mythics LLC to replace the current enterprise resource planning Erp system with the Oracle Fusion Next Generation Erp solution a supplemental item was added to your agenda that is all I have this afternoon thank you very much Madam attorney have oh we need to yeah so right now I'll entertain a motion to approve the priority items by city manager page did I ask quick question about this I'll have the motion a second and in discussion okay yeah I'll so move okay all right any discussion this is just for my curiosity but number 38 was that on their own request or was that something the Sheffield that that was on their own request I'm getting a yes okay that was.
That was the only one I just want clarification thank you have a point of inquiry yes the May the manager ask us to suspend and vote on a particular item will will this vote just to approve the item satisfy that do we actually need to suspend the rules and vote on item number 18 can we do we need oh you know what so you didn't actually take the vote to accept her priority items that needs to be done first and then you need to suspend the rues take motion to vote on that and then you can vote on the actual item okay yeah in the past all right that's fine I'm sorry Kim rayberg City attorney and thank you for that because in my mind I'm thinking May night is the next work session that's actually today so all right if there no other discussion all in favor I I all oppos all right thank you Madam Clerk are you good good afternoon Mr Mayor and Mr Mayor proam City Council Members the.
City clerk's office has no priority items today I was just making sure you had that vote recorded and I do have the vote recorded 70 thank you gotta thank you all right now I entertain a motion to suspend the rules move to suspend second all all in favor please respond by i i i allst motion passes 70 all right thank you now we have to read that motion right.
Yeah all right I now entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the general Capital Improvement project ordinance fiscal year 2023 2024 as amended the same being ordinance number 16163 for the purpose of covering higher than anticipated bid prices for project code cc46 Carolina Theater roof and structural repairs in the amount of 22442 M is red second just point myself these are all separate correct okay there's been a motion and a second discussion also just noting I'm on the Carolina Theater board and I just want to make sure that I'm not voting on that right yep thanks for catching that M got a question on that if this is the time yes so we're not going to talk about this gen item later this is the time to talk about it cor right so as I understand from the from the the the background prepared by the city staff so we want to reallocate surplus funds from from deap upgrades to help pay for additional costs for the Carolina Theater roof is that correct.
The answer to that is yes the answer is yes and so my only question is like I want to make sure we're not sort of like taking funds from somewhere then getting in trouble elsewhere so like so what is the impact going to be on the dbap if anything so so staff is here to respond and that project is complete go.
Ahead the mic is now on and these are these are remaining funds they'll go back to to the city and because of the need for the for the budget we have recommended to reallocate to the need for the Carolina Theater so everything's completed at the dur Bulls Athletic Park project thank you appreciate that just is a matter of process I I do recall a couple months ago we did reallocate unused CIP funds right didn't so are we just now like voting didn't we I think we did that right didn't we talk about that so now we're just acting to sort of commit the dollars is that yes correct all right all in favor please respond by I right hand I I I all oppos all right the motion passes 60 thank you I'll now entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the ballpark Capital Improvement project ordinance fiscal year 2023 2024 as amended the same being Ordinance one number 11 16170 for the purpose of relocating surplus funds into durb durb dur Bull's.
Athletic part ofg grades project code cc50 to support additional costs to the Carolina Theater in the amount of $224,800 move is R second than for mov and propably second any the discussion yes oh yes just making the same note because it's in relation to Carolina thank you any other comment all right all in favor please respond by right hand and I I I'll oppose motion passes 60 thank you I'll now entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to execute a contract with Simon Roofing and sheep Metal Corporation for the construction of the Carolina Theater Roofing renovation in an amount not to exceed 900 38,2 19776 second been move the property second any discussion right all in favor please respond by saying I I I I motion passes 6 Z thank you and I'll now entertain a motion to establish a contingency fund and the am out of $140,000 74 144,000 14, 74424 so move second so moved and properly seconded any discussion all right all in favor please.
SP my right hand and I I all oppos motion passes 60 and now lastly I'll entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute modifications to the contract with sign Roofing Roofing and sheep Metal Corporation provided that the total contract amount including existing contingency funds does not exceed $1 m79 42 1,79 th42 is Right second it's been mov in proberbly second in discussion all right all in favor please respond by I I I all oppos all right thank you motion passes 60 thank you so much mam manager item 18 has been.
Addressed all right and now we will I'll read the consent agenda oh I'm sorry citizen.
Yeah I did priority items all right now I'm on consent. Agenda oh I'm sorry madam attorney no worries Mr Mayor the city attorney's office does not have any priority items today thank you I I I thought it all happened in my mind I really did gosh I also saw in my mind that the federal government gave us more oper fund so it's it's one of those days all right and Madam Clerk I did address your priority items all right all right feel like things are swimming around right now all right I'll Now read the consent agenda citizens matter.
Okay all right all these voices in my head got it all right number one Durham City County Environmental Affairs board appointment number two Duram affordable housing implementation committee number three Duram convention and visitors bureau discover Durham appointment number four dis Durham Convention and visitors bureau discover Durham mioro appointment number five approval of city council minutes number six March 2024 bid report number seven American Rescue plan act performance. Audit got it okay number eight US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration airport Improvement program Grant offer number nine City County Planning Department fiscal year 2025 work program sem number 10 American Rescue plan act Opera funds resol resolution providing approval of a multif family housing facility to be known as s k for landing in the city of Durham North Carolina and the financing thereof with multif family housing revenue.
Bonds number 11 resolution confirming approval of a multif family facility to be known as Commerce Street Apartments in the city of Durham North Carolina in the financing thereof with multif family housing revenue bonds in an amount not to exceed $27,800 number 12 approval of Durham County Land trustees Incorporated to receive a forgivable permanent construction loan to rehabilitate substandard rental units in Northeast Central Durham and execution of the construction financing commitment letter pull that you number 13 2022 Continuum of Care Program Grant project ordinance that one as well number 14 contract for locution Systems Incorporated Services agreement number 15 2024 obligation Bond referendum 16 Cooperative group purchase contract street sweeper number 17 Cooperative group purchase contract bucket truck number 18 we already address that one number 19 intent to declare property a surplus and number 20 American Rescue plan act project fville Street Corridor improvements that please 21 American Rescue plan act Revenue replacement project Federal Street Corridor improvements I'll pull that to and you deal with it in contract with 20 all right 2020 number.
22 contract WS 87c inspection and un person services for petition water sewer or installing and gear 2020 number 23 contract WS 87 petition Water and Sewer inst Stallings and gear 24 resolution accepting the local assistance for storm water infrastructure investment Grant award from the American Rescue plan act for the South El storm water restoration project Mr man I don't want to pull just one a big big shout out for that one that's the South Al Creek storm water restoration project that a lot of folks have been excited about so it's exciting news thank you thank you number 25 utility extension agreement with Healthy Start education Incorporated to serve the Healthy Start educational facility 26 egi storm water basin and retrofit retrofit opportunity evaluations 27 resolution to support the uper new Riv Basin Association Ur NBA fiscal year 2025 budget presentation number 28 contract with wildlands engineering Incorporated for the southeast storm Watershed Improvement plan number 29 amendment number five to the contract number 1 1994 assignment agreement for the management and.
Operations of the godum access service number 30 fiscal year 2025 Durham County Transit work program funding agreements 31 shared active Transportation shared Mo micromobility ordinance revision pull that one number 32 Award of bid term purchase contract for computer maintenance management system from brightly software Incorporated 33 Award of contract for Caterpillar methan engine overhaul from Gregory repol equipment company 34 blanket purchase order agreement with Ferguson Enterprises LLC for census water meters and components all and we have our presentations budget and Management Services number 35 fiscal year 2024 2025 proposed budget and fiscal year 2025 2030 Capital Improvement plan we have 36 presentation of the immigration legal defense pallet project from Justice matters we which we will be moving first presentation wise we have number 37 permanent closing of a47 of a 479 linear foot portion of dasan Avenue 38 Consolidated annexation Sheffield Farms which refer back to staff number 39 Consolidated anation fville Road multif family 40 zoning map change 4917 and 5005 chinpin Road 41 Consolidated annexation virtual Road assemblage number 42 American Rescue.
Plan act interlocal agreement with dorm County to support culture and arts recovery efforts and 43 contract with Mythic mythics LLC to replace the current enterprise resource planning system with the Oracle Fusion Next Generation Erp solution Mr Mayor need to pull item five.
Yeah all right number five has been. Pulled and I have a question about number 43 so I'll pull that all right.
All right at this time we have I'm going to go ahead we I'll go back to the pulled items so we can just get right into that to the business but I'll go ahead and address the citizens matters I have online I have online Mr DW lingley Mr langle can you hear. Me Mr Langley can you hear me. Or we'll come back oh yes I I was waiting for the clerk thank you but good afternoon mayor Williams mayor protim Middleton as well as members of the City Council senior M members of Staff thank you all for the opportunity to share I did hear on Monday what organizations were sharing their needs around financial support from the city of Durham and I again come on behalf oh Mr Langley I'm going to interrupt you I see that you're talking if you will just hold on we see your close caption but we cannot hear it or see.
It I'm not sure can you all hear me now one moment Mr lley no we can not yet just hold on.
What about.
Now no not yet can't hear. Me say that one more time can you hear me now yeah I I guess well we move to iners inperson speakers we'll come back to online all right first person person I have is Jared.
Rist yep the button on the right and the mic will turn green. There you go that button all right excellent all right good afternoon Council my name is Jared rist and I the younger son of council member Carl rist first off these comments are my own and I do not intend to represent or speak for my dad I'm here to share some important information about the practice of adding fluoride to the to the Municipal Water Supply I'm not the foremost expert on this topic but I was well educated in Durham Public Schools and I received a master's degree from Duke's Nicholas School of the environment in Durham where amongst many things we discussed Water Quality Chemical exposure and learn to read scientific studies what Studies have shown in the last year about adding fluoride to drinking water is highly concerning the National Institute of Health reviewed the research on fluoride exposure and its impact on brain function in humans the final report was released in 2023 and showed that fluoride exposure was associated with.
Lower IQ in children in 52 of 55 studies in other words the more fluoride consumed by children the lower their IQ was for context Durham has added fluoride to its drinking water since 1957 while many communities in America add fluoride to their water the US is one of few countries in the world that chooses to do this in fact only 2% of Western Europe has chosen to add fluoride to their water part of the reason so few countries have followed America's lead on this practice is that the claims of oral health benefits on the population have proven negligible at best some American city some major American cities like Portland Oregon have voted in a referendum against adding fluide to their water So currently there is a federal court case between the fluoride Action Network and EPA that is debating whether the EPA needs to regulate fluoride as a toxic substance under the toxic substances Control Act many scientists have been called in as expert Witnesses to detail the dangers and multiple Health impacts.
Of adding fluoride to water including the lead scientists who helped the EPA develop its standards on lead while the fluoride Action Network versus EPA continues to play out in federal courts the decision to continue to add fluoride to Durham's City Water currently sits right here with city council one of the basic scientific principles I learned in during Public Schools was the precautionary principle if you are not absolutely sure that something is safe it is better to be cautious and protect people from potential harm and the people most vulnerable to being harmed from continued exposure to fluoride are those with less means and privilege many wealthier people will buy expensive water filters or bottled water from the store but this is not a choice that everyone can afford to make I encourage Council to consider ending this harmful practice of adding forehead to the water and move to protect the children particularly the disadvantaged children of our city thank you so much thank you.
And the next person I have Anita Keith.
F it's good to see you it's been a while miss F it's good to see you all.
I'm Anita Keith F my address is 323 West Trinity Avenue in Durham North Carolina I'm going to play you my.
Statement mayor Leonardo Williams and Durham City Council members I come before you today as a concerned citizen regarding the police budget in October 2023 a stranger was in our yard and approached our home setting foot on our porch my husband and I both called 911 after identifying myself as blind the 911 operator informed me there were no police to dispatch and advise me to do what I had to do if the man entered our home another 911 operator later explained that officers were unavailable because they we working 30-hour shifts I've been trying to obtain documentation of these conversations since October to confirm this it's shocking and unbelievable to be told there are no available police officers to respond to emergencies this situation highlights a critical shortage of police and Durham allegedly a direct result of the city council's decision not to hire additional officers while I understand the distrust in law enforcement stemming from cases like George Floyds this distrust cannot justify leaving citizens without protection two actions must be.
Taken to address this issue one allocate sufficient budget to hire more police officers to ensure adequate coverage for the city of Durham two train and deputize regular citizens including those who are blind like myself to protect ourselves when police are unavailable these measures will help restore safety and Trust in our community please consider my words and take the necessary steps to ensure that no citizen has to face a situation like mine without adequate police support thank you for your time and consideration thank you thank you so much and I'm sorry about that.
Experience all right. We are U are we ready for online speakers no okay can you all hear me now.
Okay can you all hear me all right Mr Langley we are going to makeshift this so I'm going to ask that you let me know if you can hear me yes I can hear. You all right one moment okay we're working on it can I get closer to the mic that's not gonna work I'll come back so yeah I will just come back to the all right I'll come back to the citizens matters online a little later the items. That the items that I.
Have are we good testing testing okay all right items that I have pulled our number five number seven 9 10 12 13 20 21 31.
43 all right and we will one second.
Colleagues I'm gonna move those presentations on up and and then we'll get to our our work all right so we'll address number 36 first justice.
Matters good afternoon mayor mayor protemp and members of council my name is Carlos Hernandez with the city attorney's office I'm here to introduce your presenters today but before I do that I wanted to give you some background on the Durham immigrant legal assistance program back August of 21 City entered into a two-year Grant agreement with Justice matters to implement the then Durham immigration legal defense pilot program this was a two-year Grant of $250,000 each year last month this Council approved a new Grant agreement for the third year of this program now titled Durham immigrant legal assistance program with us from Justice matters we have Libby koh's founder and executive director Cheryl Chu managing attorney Elizabeth heater senior staff attorney and Edith Galvan Lopez director of impact and engagement thank you than it's pleasure to have you thank you Assistant Attorney Hernandez I'm Libby koh's executive director of Justice matters mayor Williams mayor prent Middleton council members Madam city manager Paige thank you for your leadership and your service.
To Durham and for inviting us to present to you today council member cabier thank you for your leadership and for championing the well-being of our undocumented Neighbors and for your leadership in bringing the Durham immigrant legal assistance program to reality City attorney rayberg and assistant City attorney Hernandez we are grateful for your guidance and help thank you it's an honor to be here today with my colleagues who Carlos has introduced we'll share a brief overview of Justice matters and then an update for you on the program thank you for funding this program to promote equity and access to Legal relief and promote the well-being of our undocumented neighbors here in Durham I'm proud to live in a city that invests in this important work and we stand with you in commitment to the well-being of all Durham.
Residents this. One so I'll start with who we are Justice matters is a nonprofit Law Firm founded here in Durham in 2009 we recognize the expertise the lived experience and support invested by so many individuals and agencies like legal aid who have helped shape Justice matters to be what we are today we're proud to be a homegrown Durham nonprofit and we're committed to our community our mission is to address the roots and repercussions of human trafficking we do this by providing free trauma informed family law and immigration legal services to our low-income Neighbors in the triangle and to survivors of human trafficking across the state ilap is one of two programs we created and provide to Durham specifically the other is the family law Pro Center which we hold at the Durham County Courthouse there we serve Kinship Caregivers who have stepped up to care for children whose parents are unable or unavailable to do so our Legal Services provide foundational protections against exploitation and through our trauma informed approach we help our clients.
Overcome legal obstacles so they and their families can heal flourish and pursue their dreams I'm delighted to welcome our managing attorney Cheryl CH who will share a bit more about Justice matters and the history of isap thank you Libby thank you so much for having us here today and just to share a little bit more about who we serve one thing we really try to focus on at Justice matters is continuously seek Improvement to access to Justice by lowering barriers to entry for our services and being equipped to provide services to individuals who really represent a diversity of backgrounds experiences and abilities this is just a quick snapshot of some of our data representing the range of clients we serve since Justice matters started we've served clients from 80 nationalities representing 22 different languages and spanning all age ranges the bottom four percentages that you see up there represent data from our last fiscal year of note while some of our clients have survived human trafficking and other similar traumas.
Many more are at heightened risk of exploitation due to risk factors such as lack of legal status in the United States next slide please this is our immigration law team and I really would just want to highlight the individuals who make up this this isap program and so it is led by our immigration section lead Savannah best and in the past years our immigration team has really focused on serving survivors of crime such as human trafficking through affirmative Visa applications to us citizenship and Immigration Services thanks to the funding from the city we were able to launch these additional Immigration Services specifically removal defense or deportation relief for individuals who are facing removal from the US through the Immigrant legal assistance program which is led by senior staff attorney Elizabeth heat Dirks joined by K specialist chrisye Morell and our newest hire Taylor Reynolds who we were excited to Welcome to our team just last month next page please this program was a really critical addition to our services and it really.
Was a team effort involving the city and key collaborators to bring this to life just a little bit about the history in January of 2020 a working group of immigration attorneys and Advocates convened by council member cajero started a series of Roundtable discussions to consider the lack of access to Legal Services for undocumented residents of Durham and consequently the impact on these individuals there families and the community at large the group identified several key needs honing in on the need for and value of representation of non-detained individuals in Immigration Court who are facing removal from the United States some of what was discussed focused on the experience of clients shared with these various firms and nonprofits convened at these roundtables immigrant members of the Durham community who lack legal status in the US are at heightened risk of exploitation separation from from their families and other forms of trauma legal status and more temporary forms of relief from removal enable these individuals to remain here safely with their families.
And in their Community these factors are foundational protections against exploitation and other injustices however many individuals without immigration legal status lack access to these services that are needed to guard their due process rights and to secure their stability in their communities Justice matters was asked to host this program and we were honored to take on this opportunity in alignment with our commitments to traum informed legal services and access to Justice the city of Durham funded an initial two-year project through their budget the contract was formalized in August 2021 and the first funding dispersement was made in October 2021 we moved forward to staff and launch the project hiring our first staff in November 2021 and launching services in January 2022 we are one of just a small handful of organizations in the triangle and really in the state of North Carolina providing free immigration legal services to individuals in removal proceedings we've continued to grow and provide and serve clients over the past two years and now I would like to turn.
It over to Elizabeth who is going to share a bit more about our services through this. Program thanks Cheryl so my name is Elizabeth heks I'm the senior staff attorney for the ilap program I'm very excited because we're finally fully staffed we have two attorneys and one case specialist the Durham ilap promotes equity and access to Legal relief and demonstrates Durham's commitment to the well-being of all residents the program's primary goals as you can see are to increase identification of undocumented individuals in Durham County who are eligible for immigration relief including relief from removal which you may know more as deportation you may hear somebody's in deportation it's technically called removal proceedings our other goal is to increase access to trauma informed legal services and to protect the due process rights and secure immigration relief we provide Legal Services through a trauma informed approach to create opportunities for our undocumented neighbors and to secure these protections promoting their flourishing as well as the safety and shared social and economic prosperity of.
All residents in Durham County and this leads sort of to my next slide there are over U 4900 Durham residents in removal proceedings in the Charlotte Immigration Court and just as a background there are 69 immigration courts across the United States all of our residents in Durham go generally to the Charlotte Court they Charlotte Court serves the Carolinas for both North and South Carolina the next closest Court would be Atlanta or Sterling Virginia sometimes we get residents who move from those areas over so of the 4,900 4,000 are unrepresented a big number and so through ilap we have started to address this need by providing the free legal consultations and services so since our program has begun through March 2024 we've provided there's some statistics 220 consultations we've assisted 200 individuals in applying for immigration relief we have started Partnerships in the community with agencies like the Durham crisis response Center El santro Hispano aliro the lgbtq Center Courts schools social service providers and past clients when we are not able to help.
Potential clients we provide information and referrals we've provided over 100 160 referrals also in the course of an ilap consultation we may identify Family Law needs which Libby had talked about we have the Durham peray center located in the Durham courthouse and we have a family law team we have a attorney in Durham and in the Raleigh office who are able to meet these needs as well of the 200 individuals that we've helped 14 have been granted termination of removal meaning that their court cases have been terminated and then there are 60 applications currently pending if you're familiar with immigration law there's T's 's vas Asylum and prosecutorial discretion it's important to realize that immigration cases take a long time if you have read in the news Asylum cases are backlogged for years we have clients who come and they don't have a court hearing until 2026 or even 2027 so while our case outcome date is so far is promising many of the cases could remain U pending.
For years to come and I just want to give you a snapshot of sort of what these services mean to our clients I was recently hired in August and the past few months I've met some amazing clients and I was going to highlight three of them one was a young man who was referred from the lgbtq center he' been a victim of domestic violence in his own country had been kicked out of his household because of his sexual identity had suffered abuse made his way to the United States and our community unfortunately was a victim of domestic violence again we helped him work with the police the Durham Police to start the first part of his immigration visa process through that we worked with the victim's Advocate to help him secure more stable housing and then probably the most important thing is we gave him a referral to El to Al furo where he was able to get therapy and it was just a really rewarding experience for myself and our.
Case Specialists because he had never told anyone before about the abuse that he had suffered and it just shows that we were able to provide stability for him and get him started on his healing Journey another client is a young woman whose sister was the victim of rape her the whole family was in removal proceedings our other members of the immigration team were able to work with the police to help the the clients reported the crime and cooperated with the investigation but unfortunately because this young woman was 19 years old under the immigration laws she did not qualify for any type of relief so we were able to put a h packet together for prosecutorial discretion presented to the government and were able to get her immigration case terminated which then gave her stability and her family is that she's able to stay with her family the third case is a Afghan case this person I'm sure if you've read the news there was in 2021 75,000 Afghans were evacuated.
Many were not able to get out at that time but have made their way to the United States nonetheless we were able to file a complete Asylum application for this man who happened to be a doctor under the former Afghan regime and now he has his Asylum application pending in court and that brings me to the next slide I met that client through Community collaboration some of you may know there was the Afghan support center that was held at the Durham Ballroom in January it involved 75 service providers in the community there was about 1,300 Afghans in Durham I don't know if you're aware of that and about I think 700 of of them came to this support center and Justice matters had provided free legal screenings and we were able to identify this client during that process and then get him settled with an asylum case and services we also have partnered with church World Service another Durham organization to provide Asylum services for four of their clients and we continue connect.
With local schools we've met with ESL coordinator local sports programs if you know both city footall El santro Hispano Duram crisis response Center aluro who I've mentioned before and we plan to just keep increasing our Network to fulfill the goals of increasing identification for those who need these services and also access to trauma informed services for our Durham residents all right I'm going to turn it over to hi everyone hello city council members again my name is Edith Galvin Lopez I'm the director of impact and engagement on Justice matters and I oversee our program metrics evaluation and monitoring as well I'm the contact person for other organization contacts so I Justice matters as we mentioned before we provide from informed legal services and outside of just the time that they're in our office they those services and the time that we interact with them and Beyond it goes and impacts the lives of our clients and really Ripple out into the well-being of their families and our community as a whole iot makes it.
Makes it possible for our clients to secure work permits which opens doors to employment and other job opportunities that weren't available before to them and as well iot makes it possible for children and young adults to access higher education as they continue and grow it also makes it possible for victim or surv victim survivors of crime to access medical and Behavioral Health Services that also weren't available to them before and they can also more confidently engage within the criminal justice system and so as you can see the impact of our services really connect to the social determinance of health and really contribute to the city's strategic goals that they have that you all have put out they promote through our services we're promoting share economic Prosperity creating a safer community and helping ensure that all of our neighbors Can engage within our community and together we're helping Durham be more welcoming and exclusive place to work and live and so you can also see that the that the program meets a critical need.
As highlighted by Cheryl and Elizabeth prior in the prior slides need that our community needs of our community members and we continue to receive an increasing number of calls requesting Services and we're screening those screening those in as they come the data we presented has not substantially changed if anything immigration courts all around the country continue to deal with long processing times and huge backlogs as they have been highlighted before in for North Carolina what that means the number of pending immigration cases that Elizabeth mentioned and highlighted before in the immigration in the Charlotte Immigration Court has steadly increased over time specifically for Durham when it comes to removal cases as the at the end of March of this year there were a total of close to 5,000 pending cases in the in the Immigration Court with only 873 of them being represented by an attorney attorney on top of that the odds of having representation is quite low at 17.8% and we know that having an attorney is directly correlated to a.
Much more higher success rate in Immigration outcomes as you can see the access to Legal Services is so important much needed for those in our community and IAP meets that critical need for members of and neighbors that we interact with so thank you for funding this work together we are impacting the well-being of Duram residents their families and Community as a whole and together through this project we're helping drum become a more diverse and welcoming Community thank you and we do also have I think maybe a few moments for questions if there are any well just want to say thank you first of all for this work I'll pass it all to my colleagues first yes council member y'all this is a great presentation thank you so much and and actually the last slide touched on my question but I didn't see the actual answer there I was wondering because the the stats that yall provided of the 74 applications all of the ones who had actually moved through the system you.
Won essentially right those cases 14 of those were so what is what is the elevated chance of success when you have an attorney what is the difference between having an attorney and not having an attorney in these proceedings what are the statistics kind of show about that I think we'll have to get back to you on that but it's it's like a it is Stark but I don't have the the exact number with us get I mean I was just curious if you knew off the top of your head because I know we we hear this a lot of times in in various places right if you have representation your chances of success are so much more likely but I was just wondering do youall end up working with pro bono attorneys do youall have like a partnership program or anything that happens we oh sorry we work with the Duke Law School on several cases and what are some of the other you would know also that's that's our main partnership you.
Have the new volunteer attorney yes we do have a a new pro bono attorney in our office awesome yeah but truthfully there there are not many service is in our community in the Triangle in North Carolina that provide free legal Services there's a few in Charlotte because the court is based there and so that's where they tend to be right I was just wondering because we could I feel like I hear all the time people are you can practice in Immigration Court right depend no matter where your bar licensure is and and I hear people sort of wanting to get connected to this work but I think like you're saying that those the organizations haven't formerly existed before y'all really filled that need in our community so I'm glad to hear there's opportunities for volunteers and that you are working with students that's really awesome as well that's all my questions thank you thank you any other comments council member Baker just want to say thank you so much.
For all of your work wanted to come back to the number 1300 Afghans who live in Durham County and you all engage with how many it was 700 no no no sorry that was at the Afghan support center which was run by USCIS we interact with Afghans as they come through our program a lot of them were resettled by the resettlement organizations Church World Service Lutheran Services uscri and Raleigh so it just happened to be that USCIS chose Durham as one of the support centers but in doing some research on it I there IS300 that have been shown to be in the Durham area amazing yeah so Durham is an incredibly welcoming community and that takes many different forms and this is a critical form that that takes legal representation in so I want to commend Council for prioritizing the funding for this and commend you and and your team and all the work that you've put into it thank you thank you council member we do we did find that statistic.
For council member cook yeah thanks to one of my colleagues back there there so a 2016 study from AIC the American Immigration Council found that immigrants were five times more likely to obtain legal relief if they're represented by Council wow that's that's incredible thank you council member rist thank you Mr Mayor I just first of all I want to the comments from council member Baker about this the important work you're doing thank you for the presentation but the important work you're doing in providing the service to ensure that Durham can be a very welcoming and accommodating place for our immigrant community so that's really important that we lift that up my question is only with with only 177% odds of representation how do you how do you prioritize cases that come before you you can't take everything that comes before you right so how do you how do you prioritize that I'm sure it's not easy I'm probably these are tough choices but I'm just kind of curious what that looks like.
Thank you council member I will say we have not engaged in comprehensive strategic marketing and Outreach yet because we have been building this project and with that Cheryl so it really is based on organizational priorities which involve prioritizing individuals for I prior prioritizing individuals who are at more imminent risk of deportation or removal from the United States so if they don't already have any type of relief pending if they have an upcoming court date our our intake staff and also Elizabeth and our immigration team leads Savannah will will prioritize those that are more urgent in nature provide referrals to those that we cannot serve we really try to focus on cases where we know that we can submit something and that it has a higher potential chance of success and we will do our best to refer those who it seems like they do not have a form of relief to another immigration attorney who who may be able to help them and just want to understand the legal sort of terminology so.
Like relief in this case means relief from some kind of legal remedy from a potential removal correct yeah I use that really broadly so you're right it could be relief from removal it could take the form of an affirmative visa application to US citizenship and immigration services to grant them some some form of either temporary or permanent legal status in the US it could take the form of Simply getting their cases terminated in in Immigration Court so that they no longer have to go to Immigration Court and they're no longer at at risk of facing a hearing where they could potentially end up with a removal order thank you so much you're welcome thank you good to see you all I just wanted to say and this is just context obviously un like other forms of law you you are not granted an attorney with immigration so that's one of the critical components one of the reasons we also fund legal aid attorneys is because you also are not guaranteed representation in eviction proceedings.
Additionally I just want to add context the Charlotte court is probably one of the hardest courts to win asylum in in the United States it's it is notorious and so the fact that yall have won anything is just it's a Marvel and a miracle and so that means just super impressed with your work and dedication to our community and I also want to share that there were lots of folks who were involved in the creation which was now four years ago immigrant sorry Refugee resettlement organizations Community Advocates for-profit attorneys you know in the immigration World lots of folks know each other and so that brainstorming group was critical to the success of this program and that was a a collaborative and group effort to achieve I think the winds that we're seeing today so I just want to also shout out those folks that have who dedicated a lot of time and and energy towards this go ahead oh thank thank you Mr M thank you colle good to see you all I want to.
Firstly just publicly thank council member cier who's really leaned in on amplifying The Voice of our immigrant community and and pushing for Service delivery inside City Hall and as part of this body we've had activists in our community but representation matters so I just want to thank her for for not only doing it before she got in City Hall but for maintaining that voice and vigilance here in City Hall as part of this body it's good to see you I hear your voice your names a lot at dinner conversations you didn't out me so let me out myself very proud of the work this organization does if you look if you saw a screenshot of the staff you may have seen a a name a shared Ser name with one of your your employees senior K specialist inel middle inel Ortiz Middleton is my sister-in-law who works for justice marage I want to say for residents watching no money comes to my house from this and and so I'm I'm very proud and of the.
Work that Justice matters does very proud of the organization very proud to support and have supported it since its Inception since the Inception of this relationship and it's good to see you all and continue to do the great work that you do and very proud of being in support of this and again thank you councilman bab ER thank you your honor I'll yeld back all right and I just want to say thank you again I'm sorry I had to step out to deal with the matter but I'm very familiar with your work and highly supportive this court that she's talking about is the court that I when I'm talking about the traumatic experience of my sister-in-law when she self-de deported she just gave up she said I'm I'm done this is also the same court that there was a a a Mexican lady who was drinking a bottle of water at because she was drinking water the security guard the flashlight cup literally took her bottle from her and.
Made her get to the back of the line which was like an a two-hour wait so this this court is brutal and inhumane in some sense but DM is dope because we have folks like you so thank you for your work all right thank you mayor Williams thank you. Council yep all right we are going to have our Port items now number five City minutes council member Freeman just noting for the March 18th minutes either I was present or I was absent but I need to be added to those.
Minutes mam CL did you get that okay Al next seven all right number. Seven good afternoon mayor Williams mayor protim Middleton council members Jermaine bruinton director of the artst services department good afternoon y That's me okay there were so many of us talking at all on all of them so I will just start very briefly and and I kind of pulled this because I we have a lot of arpa stuff on this agenda moving forward and so I wanted I like the audit report I wanted to have a little bit of contextual understanding for some of the other questions that I'm going to have coming forward but I guess I just generally wanted to hear we have these sort of distinctions about like obligation and usage we have these deadlines to meet and are we on track with this does this look okay I mean these these numbers to me I these numbers to me look scary because I I feel we would have by the end of the year to obligate These funds.
I read in there that promisory letters don't quite cut it and so we have a majority of those funds to obligate by the end of the year from your professional standpoint how is this looking how how how's it going what do we need to be looking for what's important for us when we're looking at this report so thank you for the question the reason we in the audit report had an observation as opposed to a finding is because we were I won't say concerned but we you know we just wanted to highlight to management that we thought that the time was approaching quickly but I am very much assured with a lot of the items that are on this agenda today especially with the Fable Street Corridor project that will meet that particular project and then with several of the affordable housing projects that are online I feel really good about the fact that management is going to we've been assured that they are on top of it and.
That we will meet the deadline for December 31st 2024 for obligating all of the funds are there any other things that we should be looking at as Council when we are reviewing this report and I full faith in the city manager that she is doing her work that she needs to get done are there things that we need to be paying attention to as Council no I me I think the city manager is very much aware they're very much management is very much on top of these various projects that are that are key that we' pointed out in this report so I think I think City leadership is on top of what they need to be on top of and as far as you I think you know you're doing what you need to do is which is just staying on top of what's going on great thank you I'll leave my time council member Baker so we have until December 2024 to obligate and then December 2026 to.
Spend right and we've obligated 42% and spent 23% of that and so the plan is to be developed by June 2024 next next month to ensure funds are reallocated so that was a recommendation that was the accepted recommendation so does that mean that we should expect next month another report or presentation of a plan of how the funds are going to get obligated and spent so I will not come back to you with a report we do meet with the audit Services oversight committee quarterly and so until this report the recommendations or the the recommendation in this case is implemented we will report back to that body but we will not come back to you now Madam manager yes thank you for the opportunity speak so one of the things that we would do and we appreciate the work of the audit Services oversight committee it is it is one of the one of the functions in city government that makes us be such a well-run city but one of the things that.
We are working on as a contingency plan is if we need to reallocate any funding that has already been allocated what type of process we would use for that so we are not going to be coming back by June with reallocations but a proposed process to reallocate if there's funding to reallocate so in most cases we would deliver funding through some RFP process timing of the Federal government's schedules would influence whether or the amount that we may have to reallocate so that is what we will be working on for by the end of June just a process of reallocation we're not anticipating at this point any significant reallocation okay thanks so so there's allocating obligating and spending we're confident about obligating and spending if there if we need to we will come back with with plan in next month for reallocation if there is anything to reallocate that's my understanding is that right okay thank you Council Mist thank you Mr Mayor first of all I just want to give a shout out to Dr.
Brewington and her team at the audit Services you know sounds like a broken record but I'm also the City Council's representative on ASO so so we like we have these monthly meetings audit services does amazing work and this is just one example of that of keeping us focused on some really important business at the city of Durham so first of all thanks for the report and I wanted to go I G to my comments kind of follow my colleagues here I want to go deeper on that so I understand that we're developing well understand that your recommendation was this to sort of look at this right management concurred with that recommendation so my question is going deeper will we see that plan in June 2024 that's something the city council will see and I guess my my my main question is and my concern is that is the timeline of this because if we do have to reallocate funds at some point if we decide in December of 24 that we.
Need to reallocate that's probably not enough time to get an alternative proposal in and get a contract issued by the end of the month so like what does a timeline look like so that we can be assured that if there if there is money that needs to be reallocated that it can be reallocated in time to actually commit it by the end of the year so I'm going to speak not as a futurist but on what I actually know now so the so with the contracts that are on the council today that is a very significant portion of the ARP of funding that has not been already allocated the affordable housing projects that's the other portion that hasn't been allocated at this time our most recent updates is that those affordable housing con projects that are anticipated with that portion of arpa those projects will be closing toward the end of the summer and I see Mr Johnson here which is still you know three months or so before you.
Know we have to have the projects and that's like that's like 13.5 million just for the housing right that is correct we do not anticipate and we've had updates I mean we are we're looking at updates you know very very frequently that any of those housing projects are at risk of not of not going to closing their identified projects with multiple funding sources I believe one of them is on today for their first mortgage the San Kofa project so we we we do not see slippage you know certainly we need to have plans in place and we we will certainly have that but we do not anticipate not not obligating the funding by 2024 once the funding is obligated those those projects have until 2026 to be delivered thank you and again the so the the plan will be shared with the council this the plan that the that's being developed by June 2024 will that come before us so that is a question on the spot as as as Dr Brewington indicated the the.
Response to audit findings you know typically come to the audit Services oversight committee I'm not really sure at the moment when your next the next report will come at the August meeting for the June quarter quarter ending June 24 and and I will say you know certainly the coun it certainly you will be returning in August and any you know any any presentation or any information that we have around you know where we are with arpa we can we can schedule a presentation for very early after the council returns that'd be great and then the the the last thing I'll just note is that I appreciate what you said about the fa Street Corridor and the affordable housing but as I read the report there's also there's that sort of 30% of the of the grants of nonprofits right which is still about $6 million and that could be that's probably multiple I think the Max Grant was a million right so there could be multiple contracts in there that are.
Still need to be addressed right so that's one I want to watch as well yeah so so the answer to that is yes but what I would would say on the record that those contracts the ones that you've seen have been executed and those those some of those projects are you know happen fast some of them happen over time and we we are not seeing that we are behind in spending in contracts that we've already executed with with nonprofits or Partners we do have a whole monitoring team around those projects and what Dr Brewington has brought to the attention of us as management as well as to us Council that if any of those projects do not are not completed or are not progressing according to the agreements we have in place with them then we would we would want to be able to to to have a process to reallocate the funding we do not want to return the funding so I will will say again we we're committed to having an.
Update to council as to where we are in August our our folks who are listening or in the room who know kind of how these things work we will we will be back in August with with another update appreciate that thank you all right thank you all now move to thank you thank you Dr Bru I I I have grown as I told you Dr BR a great appreciation for your for your Department's work serving on that committee next want to number nine number nine all right number nine council member cook I I just think that Council cook fools all of them so Baker yeah thank you first of all I just wanted to mention that this is a new formatting of the work program from the plane Department that we typically see and Wanted to lift that up because it's much more accessible than I think previous formatting so I think that's a that's a good Improvement there's a a lot of content in in this in the work.
Program a lot of it is is sort of ongoing permits and then there are some like long range initiatives so I just wanted to pull those out the new UniFi development ordinance the RTP 3.0 resoning and there have been some presentations at various boards and commission meetings that I think would interest folks code updates for water and sewer connections the community goals and objectives report card and those are anticipated to be complete by the end of fiscal year 25 landscape manual tree canopy analysis and then there's the small area planning and the prioritized small area planning prioritized small area planning has the to be determined timeline and the small area planning is scoping and recommendations by the end of fiscal year 25 so want to ask where does where does wall the Walltown small area planning fit into that and then I've also spoken with other council members about interest in fitful Street Corridor and other parts other parts of the city so I'm just just curious about about that timeline because the.
Scoping and recommendations by the end of fiscal year 25 you know at what point are we actually developing small area plans and where does Walltown and some of the other some of the other small airplanes that we've discussed up here where do those fit into this scope good afternoon Sarah Young with the planning department so we have actually already begun work on the Walltown Northgate small area plan we don't have details in this work program yet because the conversations are ongoing kind of right sizing what that small area plan will be with the neighborhood that will in essence be kind of like a pilot small area plan that we're going to be working on at the same time that we are working on the scoping you know what what does a modern day small area plan look like what does it include what does engagement expectations look like the reason that we left at TBD in terms of working on prioritized plans is because once we identify through Community engagement through.
Work with JCC PC what are other areas where we should be spending our time with small area planning we will go to JCC PC and they will kind of rank order prioritize those with us and then we will start working on them they may vary in scope so it's hard to I don't have a crystal ball I can't predict you know how many will we be able to do two a year three a year one a year you know depending on resources timing other projects in the work program I do anticipate that we will be able to work on multiple at the same time but it does depend a little bit on kind of the scope and extent of them does that make sense okay and did I miss those are the main long range planning initiatives from the work program I just tried to pull them out to share with the public and share with my colleagues was that accurate or did I miss anything in there.
Yeah that's accurate but I do want to make one correction we've actually just fixed this we had a neighborhood meeting earlier this week about the formally RTP South that is not RTP 3.0 that would that is the initiative of the Research Triangle Foundation itself they will be coming in as a private text Amendment and a privately initiated rezoning so we have rebranded this to avoid confusion as the Miami page Design District which is an area just outside of RTP that on our comprehensive plan is a TOA a Transit opportunity area we will be rezoning to Design District so hopefully that helps with a little bit of branding confusion but yeah okay got it all right that's it for me thank you all right thank you all right on item number 10 all right this quite possibly could be me this me I think it was I think it was all three of you all all right hi so I this I'm just gonna ask some some pretty basic questions just continuing to become.
Really fluid in in my understanding of where all this money comes from and and how it gets distributed can you talk a little bit about the process of DHA issuing bonds that is this my understanding was that this was DHA began this process well Reginal Johnson director Community Development Department I wouldn't say that DHA the Durham Housing Authority began this process they have the legal authority to issue bonds and so people from around the country can come to our Housing Authority Duram housing authority to have their bonds issued we have people from other places just as well as here so that's so it's not necessarily them initiating this they to conduit it and then what happens in terms of the process once they issue and conduct do what they're supposed to do then the the IRS says that the legal jurisdiction that the authority lives resides in has to approve the the issuance and that's what comes before the city council it's really custodial in many respects so when when those requests come to.
DHA is there a conversation with the city before any of those bonds are issued what what does that look like since we we will be required on the back end to no we we are notified that what they're contemplating because we have to schedule it on your agenda and so that's how we know if it's a project that we're involved in with financial as part of the financial stacking of course we would we would know that because we having conversations with them earlier about that but their projects I would say most often that we don't know about that that are coming to the housing authority and are they normally coming locally or they do you see you said anyone can apply to our Housing Authority are they coming from other places they have come from other places I can't speak to the their frequent see and I'm not going to be able to do that recollection I just can remember Sometimes some come from other places in the country but then there a lot that.
Are here too okay and so I mean I think that a lot of my questions are going to sort of be based off of this is in the memo it was said that it's that we do secure this but it's not considered a debt can you explain how that is differentiated yeah let me let me see if I can have Eric Belle who on the line to come on oh I've run us into a tech problem haven't I. Oh and while he's coming Eric prelle is the attorney for the banks Law Firm great and handles a l.
Yeah Madam manager can also speak I will speak specifically to the conduit debt you know as we are wa and I see I'm on I see the finance director here too but you know certainly as it stated in the memo the city has no obligation for repayment of any you know any conduit debt primarily what you have for you is is due to IRS regulations as to where resolutions you know of authority have to take place when this this is considered First Mortgage for a project in this particular project as item number 10 these revenue bonds would be considered the first mortgage for the what North Carolina Housing Finance agency's 4% tax credit that would provide the 28 this may be a 9% I'm not sure which T but it will will provide the the debt for this 28 million the city also has is is a partner in the financing of this project through what we were just referring to as arpa funding so the project has multiple funding sources and this resolution.
Regarding these revenue bonds is one of the funding sources gotcha yeah so I mean I I think I think what's getting what I'm getting tripped on is we are securing the bond but it's not considered a debt so we but we are putting up the money to secure we are not no no we're not putting up we are not outside of our part of the arpa funds this this bond this is a separate this is a separate okay funding source in order for the project to be built and delivered okay as as part of then the arpa funding we categorized it I've noticed in a few different ones sometimes it's a loan and sometimes it's a grant and this one specifically we categorize it as a loan so is this one of the ones where we have a forgiveness of the loan after some amount of time or are we planning to will we see money back from this so on this one I'm going to going to punt.
It back to Reginal Johnson because he actually is going to be more more succinct in determining when we are expected to receive any funding back from you know from cash flows over an extended period of time and when it is considered a grant so Mr Johnson thank you I think Eric Pell is available but one of the things I will answer just generally the general question whether it's a grant or a loan it depends upon the loan structure I mean the financing structure of that particular deal and it can be some it depends upon what the other financing requires whether our loan or our grant needs to be a loan or Grant and sometimes it's a for a forgivable loan which is the basically the equivalent of a grant but it has to be labeled and structured and called a loan depending upon what the needs are for that particular deal and so that's how we kind of decide whether it needs to be a loan or a grant but Mr prell are.
You on I am can you hear me hello he's on but we can't hear him I can read his yeah comments but you cannot hear me now oh great okay I've been talking to you but you haven't heard me that's correct yes right all right how are you I'm Eric prell I'm a a partner at the the banks law firm and we represent the Durham Housing Authority in connection with their real estate development activities so if you could restate your question councilwoman I'd be happy to answer it sure thank you so we were just discussing the difference between arpa funing as a loan versus as a grant this one particularly we're looking at item number 10 is structured as a loan and I was wondering if you could speak to the repayment structure there right I think Mr Johnson can speak to the repayment terms on the arper funding because it is city funding my main focuses on the Housing Authority as the issuer of the bonds and.
As has been noted by Mr Johnson and the city manager the Housing Authority nor the city of Durham have any Financial liability in connection with the issuance of of these bonds can you talk a little bit more about the process of issuing those bonds I think that was the original question that we were hoping to get you online for exactly and that's what I heard so let me let me tell a story that's the best way to to do it so as you know affordable housing is a big issue around the country there are developers all around the country that are producing affordable hous housing preserving it North Carolina is a very attractive state for a variety of reasons there's high demand there's a statutory property tax exemption Etc so the Housing Authority has a policies related to the issuance of bonds a developer will reach out to the housing authority to the real estate development department and say hey look I've I've got a contract on some property I want to purch the the.
Property I want to build affordable housing or I want to preserve it I'm going to submit an application which will explain my project financials will be attached upon that submission that application is analized by a professional financial analyst that application is also underwritten by the state of North Carolina because there are tax credits involved as well as the financial partners that may be purchasing the bonds or the bonds being underwritten to the market so there's several layers of underwriting that go on and then that application goes to the Housing Authority development committee and subsequently to the larger board for approval through a resolution and at some point in the process there is a public hearing where the public is invited to speak concerning the bonds if they have any issues ETC once that public hearing takes place the next step is for the transaction to be approved by the City Council as was noted earlier that is a requirement of the Internal Revenue code and once you sign off on.
The the project not not necessarily putting your money in all the time this one is different but once you sign off on Project then the the transaction can go ahead and and close within short order after your approval sometimes the local government commission is required to approve the transaction that is the U entity within state government and the treasurer's office that whose main mission is to you know guard the Financial austerity of of local municipalities so generally speaking that is the the process of the issuance of bonds okay that's very helpful thank you sir and I think I was getting stuck on who was underwriting it but when I'm hearing you say that it is often state of North Carolina potentially others if that is the case is it the public that is invited to comment on it is that is that localized or is that it is it is local and when I say underwriting that that's not necessarily synonymous with putting their own money in the state of North.
Carolina obviously issues Awards tax credits right but when I say underwriting meaning analyzing it confirming that it's a legitimate it's legitimate financially Etc but to answer your question regarding public input there are several bites at the Apple as you know the DHA committee meetings and board meetings they're all public meetings so the public does have the right to provide input there's a hearing that that takes place regarding this specific Bond issuance at DHA that has occurred and now the public has another opportunity to weigh in on this transaction through your consideration of the matter okay great thank you that's very helpful thank you I think then my next question might be for Mr Johnson again so I'm wondering if you can talk about why this or the particular structure of this loan as the second part the arpa funding that the city is actually giving to this project are we gonna see money back on that what is the I'm going to I'm not going to be able to answer that only because I don't.
Know in this particular instance as I mentioned earlier one of the times sometimes it's a grant sometimes it's a loan but when it's a loan that does not mean that we're going to receive money back right okay and so I'll have to provide additional information on this particular one because I don't have it floating in my head okay yeah if we oh I also want to say even if it is a loan or for of or a forgivable loan it will be an extended period of time before of it we will receive any of it back which would be 30 years right yeah I was just curious some of the other ones have marked their forgivable not say that so I just didn't know if it was different I would just say that most of the time the deals are structured such that we will not even though it's a loan there are thresholds that we will we would receive money but we're never going to meet those thresholds by the.
Design of the deal okay so because this bond is getting issued through DHA so this is back to the bond money I'm assuming that the like Max amounts and the time restraints on those are all set that's outside of our control we are literally just saying yes or no they've done all of the time that it's going to be affordable all of the other restrictions that's correct that's correct and then they do all of the actual ex like the developers ex are able to access the money through DHA then the money never comes through the city we don't ever house it that's correct it does not come through US great thank you so much approve that it's it's going on we oftentimes don't see it again the deal again councilwoman are you still there yes yeah glad you can still hear me so DHA doesn't touch the money they're a conduit to ensure that the interest rates are tax exempt lower right makes the deal work more times than not the money is.
Sitting with a third party instit tion like a trustee and on a draw down basis right so if I'm if I'm putting in the foundation and fixtures Etc and I need $5 million for this month then you know you apply with requisitions and you draw down that money or it may be a private lender like Chase or or something like that but DHA does not hold the money great thank you I think those are actually all my questions that will yield my time you got it I know what's about to happen when you start out hi that's your signature and here we go councilman Marist thank you Mr Mayor thanks Mr Johnson I was good to see you so so first of all I just want to say like sanova Landing is an amazing project I'm excited about that and actually as you may all recall who the folks on the Dos tour traal last night that's part of the what's happening in the in the bragtown area so it's.
Exciting stuff there the next thing I just want to not is and as others have said so I I know the motion for us is to approve the housing revenue bonds I just want to ask a question because we talked earlier about arpa about the arpa connection right so I know that we had as as Dr burington reported 13.5 million in Opera funds for affordable houses this this item mentioned as my colleague council member cook said n a $9.7 million loan for Arbor funds the background didn't say much about about the loan so that's that's why I just want to ask so is that 9.7 is that part of the 13.5 million in affordable housing funds yes sir it is and so so then my question follow is then so to satisfy the arpa requirement that we have a commitment not just an obligation at what point does that $9.7 million loan get closed or committed when when will that happen they're shooting for a seeking a closing sometime in.
The early fall the piece that they're working on right now as we speak it's not our money but remember these deals have a lot of different stacking lot of different financing one of the things that they're working on is having some vouchers that are going to be included in the in the dealing because that's Federal there's going to be need to be an environmental review where we're responsible for helping with the environmental review which we're working on now but it's not going to be done until in July and so that's one of the pieces so most of the deals that we have well all of them are fairly complex but I'm not have any concern as I shared with the councel at the last meeting we have met or financially all of the deals are going to move forward we're in a good place and so they're going through the different technical parts of what it takes to be able to get to closure to get to a closing and we we.
Are not concerned that they won't be able to close this fall so just a confirm so the 9.7 million loan is part of the 13.5 million yes and and the loan closure will satisfy the federal government yes requirements that right that that it's now committed not just obligated that's correct okay that's what so then we have there's another chunk of maybe three or four million that still needs to be obligated yes that's correct that's some that's some other projects okay that's that's very helpful thank you so.
Much all right any other comments or that all righte thank you all right item. 12 council did you pull that sure I'm sure it was me okay just one second because I want to pull up yes all of those were me okay great all right.
Okay just a few brief questions on this one I don't think it's too too long but in the in the agreement and I'm want to pull up these things so I can be talking about them but it does say that the borrower has an interest in fee simple but I understood the borrower in this context to be the Durham Community Land Trust do they also own the land we have so my understanding is they do because that's the land trust model but we do have Miss Sherry Taylor here who's executive director of the dur dclt and she can speak more specifically to.
That hi welcome Sherry thank you good afternoon mayor City Council Members yes so we do own the land already be simple okay and and so y'all have owned the land for some time these are just Renovations and that is the the money is just going to renovate yes that's correct so can you just give me an understand how we got to the 50 year it's just a different one than we normally see in terms of affordability and I'm just curious how that one got there well all of our rentals are permanently affordable including our home ownership opportunities so committing to 50 years wasn't anything unusual because our units are going to be affordable forever okay so that's that was my understanding and that's kind of why I was confused so that's not it's not gonna sunset at that point in time okay and yeah I guess the question was because I think the loan is for governable in 30 years so the 50y year do we why did that number get put on.
Well that means that compliance yearly compliance will continue for an additional 20 years so when we have these situations in Partnerships with the city every year our our tenant files get audited there's yearly inspections of the unit so that'll continue for another 20 years okay and then this might be a question for staff the City put out on the YouTube channel yesterday two days ago something about Surplus properties was that relevant to this agenda item I'll just say that we we have a lot of things out on the YouTube channel we do have several matters regarding Sur plus properties that are that are part of of what what you will be dealing with today so that's probably the city Surplus properties that you're going to see later that that is that is about not not this particular contract with dclt okay that's what I had thought but then the descriptions were like really similar to these it talked about dclc receiving I think the exact same amount of money is.
Is lo listed in this one and I they I'll double check but I thought that they had the they might have the addresses on here but I just was wondering because we hadn't actually approved it yet but we think that this might be the further down agenda item that we're going to talk about so I'm I'm gonna say again we we have had some Surplus property agenda items with habitat and DT previously so I I don't want to you know we we pick up our staff picks up you know things that are being that have mostly been approved by Council in order to amplify so without being pointed to the specific promotional item that you saw I would rather speak about it once one second but we always have the addresses the addresses the locations are always present in the items that whenever it is Surplus property that's going to be redeveloped or developed for affordable housing or other initiatives that we have okay council member and I would also remind the.
Council that you did approve the latest RFP that we had y'all just approved Monday night approved the properties for Surplus properties this past Monday night right that's right okay yeah I just couldn't I was the numbers were so similar I was just confused because it sounded like it was this one and I didn't think that it was and I'm just going to go back I apologize because you sat down but you said that it was for an additional 20 years I I'm still confused about the 50-year thing this is not a huge deal but I for some reason I'm a little bit still confused about this so are the 50 years starting now the 50 years are have already started the 50 Years start once the project is complete so that is after the renovation after the renovation we do the lease up or we bring residents back obviously we need to relocate them once as we're doing the the renovations and then it it begins okay and so the.
Loan is forgivable after 30 years there's an additional 20 years after that is what you were saying we don't have a reason for that 50y year affordability necessarily but it's going to be affordable in perpetuity so I'm don't need to be stickler on this I'm just like so wondering how these numbers came up it's it's not that important but I do think that as council is looking at affordability periods you know the land trust model is permanently affordable but you have do have other providers that come before you and so the 50 years is very inspirational I love that thank you thank you for inspiring okay that is all my questions I will yield good I want to put a PA's hearing go to Citizens matters online now that we have the audio working the first person I have is dor Langley Mr Langley can you hear me good afternoon can you hear me I can welcome you have three minutes great and since I've had to wait I would like to take a.
Moment of privilege to speak to Mr Hernandez he was my tutor when I was in law school my first year and it's great to see him as a member of the City attorney staff he's a great addition and so great to see you Mr Hernandez but the Charles Hamilton Houston Foundation is requesting $250,000 from the city to deepen our commitment to fostering the academic leadership and professional development of boys and youngen of color our mission is rooted in delivering a comprehensive Continuum of strategy centered skill-based and career focused program services and mentorship that transcend theoretical learning prioritizing practical and strategic approaches to equip our participants for academic achievement and success in a competitive Workforce together in partnership with the city we can Bridge opportunity and Workforce ready to ready gaps creating Pathways to expanded career opportunities that we all know will diminish some of the very things that this counil grapple with the gun violence the murder rate the unfortunate statistics that we often see associated with our boys of color our commitment.
Extends to delivering continuous highquality programming and targeted mentoring to Foster this type of success we understand the importance of guiding our Scholars and fellows toward the most suitable pathway for their career objectives whether that's College Community College or some specialized training programs we've had young people who have went through the electrical line technician program he's currently in his third year we take great pride in our track record of success as evident by the outcomes of our young in of Excellence program and career pathway program since 2019 100% of our Scholars of the young men of Excellence have cited our program as empowering them with the confidence knowledge and support needed to succeed in College and Career similarly our career pathway program has had remarkable outcomes with 99% of our fellows securing career oriented employment before or within three months of graduation earning on average $69,700.
Engagement in the drug Enterprise and ultimately would diminish the gun violence that we're seeing in our communities mayor Pro Mark Anthony Middleton participated in a program that we had in North Carolina Central University councilwoman Freeman was able to join in the L talk with kids voting where she saw a number of our Scholars and even took pictures with them and mayor Williams you even saw and had one of our Scholars most recently Shadow you so you all have seen firsthand the transformational impact our programming has I have been doing this now for since 2019 and with our young men of exence program but the foundation started in 2016 without any investment from the city and we're asking you all to make this investment so that we can expand our impact thank you thank you thank you so much Madam Clerk I'm going to have us have a practice r on that alarm so I can do what to expect thank you next I have Miss Jacqueline Wagstaff swep can you hear.
Me okay all right you have three minutes I can hear you good afternoon I want to voice the concern that I have and after sitting through a bunch a lot of this meeting I have several questions about some agenda items but I'll just wait until the next city council meeting address those but I specifically came on today to address two things one is on Monday night there were several Community people that came before this body to talk about programs that they had and they were they have had for years in Duram that addresses mentoring young people especially these young people that are in these streets out here that are dying in these streets to gun violence and just last night we had four people shot one murdered one may it may be two we don't know a after today but when I keep looking at this and I keep hearing some of the comments that Mr Williams you making about this is not going to be an effort that the city.
Council or or the police department or that can do alone and you want this involvement from the community these people are involved in the community they've been involved in the community for 20 plus years most of them I know because I've been involved with them and I've done programs and to see you say this even just today the involvement that you want out of the community to help prevent some of this violence in these streets with our young people and then these people come down to City Hall and ask for a small a small portion of the budget to go towards programs to just keep these kids off the street during the summer and then to watch the vote take place Monday night where you along with three other council members voted against that funding it it just it behooves me to understand what it is that you're trying to accomplish when you tell us you want us to be involved I've been doing summer camps and Durham.
For so many years I've just kind of just forgotten how to do it and did it without any help from the city just went into communities like mag corn Wallace oord M and just got with some people and decided to do some summer camp work and it worked and we never had any money but the money that came out of our pockets we put our own money in our own Sweat Equity into it and for these people to come before this Council and ask for just a small portion when you're giving millions of dollars I just saw where you you voted April the 1 on a million dollars to go towards the the domestic workers program and those those programs are good and everything and I support them but none of them are based in Durham the only partner in Durham that's associated with that million dollars with we dreaming black and when I looked at what they going to do with the money again I can't understand why the people.
Here that on the ground doing the work can't get assistance and I hope that those t-shirts that you're selling I hope they go towards some of these projects that are out here these people are putting their Sweat Equity into I hope that we can get an update on how much money you're receiving from that and when can we see the benefit of it going into the community thank you so much thank you very much Miss wag staff I you have any other questions feel free to just email the office all right.
This is a item yeah 26 26. Pool oh okay yeah yeah got it all right all right so we are back to the business item 13 believe that was council member cook as well. M yes all right Mr Johnson and I are we're gonna be good at this soon okay so this is the Continuum of Care so yes so not a lot of specifics in this contract so I just wanted to ask about that did we submit some sort of statement of work or something along those lines or is this one of those things that comes from HUD as like here are your directives and we are like yes thank you we will take this money how did this so they offer us offers us the opportunity to receive and we agree that we would like to receive it what I would share with Council reminder some when it comes to our work and homelessness the community devel Department city of Doom you thank you thank you I was just.
Sharing a a repeat of what I've shared before and the the the work that we do in homelessness has two components to it we wear two hats one is that we directly fund activities in nonprofit organizations with our entitlements the other and other in local funding the other is that we're the administrators of the continum care which is a recommend a HUD identified group of about 50 organizations large and small that work to in homelessness and we serve as the administrator this goes to the administrator hat okay okay that as a collaborative applicant which is means that we prepare the application on behalf of the Continuum to hood they make funding available to collaborative applicants because we are not paid for a reimburse for the staff time or or any training that's needed to serve as a collaborative applicant or the administrator this is what that is and so it allows us to have resources for staff that are working as the administrator for the continue of care also allows us resources to help.
With for example the homeless Services advisory committee in planning for the COC to continue care okay this actually goes perfectly to my next question which is that I saw that under the under the actual contract that was listed all of the money was under Continuum of Care planning activities and there were like I think 10 or 11 other categories that had zero dollars next to them I I hear what you're saying about the administration and and having and being a resource in that in in the actual Administration piece but why what is the what are like planning activities and I guess my more specific question is are we applying for the other the other types of funding separately and what yeah what is what is under planning and why have we not been planning well we have been planning before and we continuously plan so that that's number number one so the role of the Continuum of Care is to approve policies for all of the organizations that work and receive.
Funding most of which fun comes directly from HUD to the organizations doesn't come through the city okay that's number one but there's a governance structure for the Continuum of Care and there policies that need to be in place and the Continuum has to be focused on goals and Achieve outcomes because that's how we're evaluated and the Continuum receives funding based upon how we rank with all of the other coc's in the country oh that's and so that's where the planning part comes in because we have to make sure that we have at least some resources else the city is gonna be C we kind of be part of the cost now because we partly of the administrators but designing and focusing What policies need to be in place what analysis needs to be in place for example on the Home Services advisory committee we have a subcommittee on performance that it rates and looks at what organizations are doing with regard to homelessness furthermore the Continuum of Care is responsible for.
Recommending to HUD what organizations should be funded or what organizations they should move funding from into another organization based upon the data but the data also has to go toward what are goals that we're trying to achieve that's where the planning comes in it's pretty involved and extensive we've been successful and moving our Contin of care I think we might be in the top 100 to top 80 in the country and we were not that me a few years ago and and is who is selected to be a Continuum of Care how how many are there s it's about 50 and it's self-identified okay so Duke is a member Duke Duke health is a member Continuum but you may have a church that works with one B they're a member of the Continuum nccu is a member of the Continuum there it's a range of organizations in the self self-identified okay thank you council member thank you hi reinal good to see you could it be maybe after our summer.
Break it's been a minute since we've heard from from folks could it be that you come and give us a presentation on on the work today for for new council members yes be glad to okay and then that way and maybe invite some of our Community Partners to attend and that way folks can put names to faces and U get an update on how like you know do Point time count there's a lot of the impact team there's a lot of pieces to that and if you're a new council member you may not see all the puzzle pieces thank you yes we'll be glad to thank you all right item number 20 thank you Mr Mayor.
This is our mayor proam and council member cook good afternoon Madam manager mayor council summer aluson special projects manager for the faville street Corridor project good afternoon summer thank you so much for being with us and the entire a team firstly this this is exciting that we've come to this threshold where where money's actually going to start moving on this project I I do have a a question but I firstly just want to I guess kind of trumpet to our residents and citizens watching $10 million in any context is a lot of money but relative to the historic disinvestment we're trying to address is to drop in the bucket and and I hope that this will not be viewed as an end but as a beginning to a long sustained commitment on our City's part to that Corridor not just for the folk in the corridor but for the the the good of the city totally I mean if if we have folk from our country and around the world who are making.
Pilgrimage to come to Durham to see the historic hati District then that that that translates to economic good for our city as a whole so this is a this is an exciting I think threshold for us to be Crossing as a city again this a lot of stakeholders in the faithful Street Corridor and I want to say to them that that part of our commitment is to make sure as many voices as possible are at the table that this particular pot of money is not in any way intended to address all of the concerns or demands in that Corridor but it is a historic step and it is a significant I think investment I want to thank my colleagues on the City Council for for seeing their way to to approving this this $1 million investment in that corridor with an eye towards what has happened in the past and another eye towards what we can do in the future in the present in the future to address the.
Disinvestment one I want to ask about the population of the board of directors of the of the CDC and because I know there's been some concern and talk in the community about populating the board of directors and secondly I know the UL report is is has been kind of a guiding post as to what would happen and what should happen in that Corridor but if you can just give us a sense of some of the types of concrete projects we could potentially see down the road I know we've talked about beautification we've talked about incubators for for small business spurring development in that area but without you know getting too committ as to what exactly might happen just kind of in Broad strr talk about what could the type of things we could possibly see in the corridor as as a result of this investment one and two if you would talk about just the process of populating that board happy too council member I'm going to borrow from the manager Playbook.
Today and say I am not going to attempt to be a futurist nor am I board member but what I can do from a storytelling standpoint is I can paint a picture of a possibility of a thing sure you could pick dclt you could pick preservation Dural and a partnership there whereby residential housing is able to be rehabed and able to be kept in local ownership and able to be affordable in many cases or put back into use that's not currently in use now Visa V the partnership between the CDC and other local partners that have the infrastructure and are already active in communities like this one throughout the city you're giving me the more look oh no I was and as far as the board of directors so there is an initial process of establishing a board and the folks that and the folks that are in those seats currently understand that they're signing on as the inaugural members of something that could be transformative for the corridor there.
Are bylaws and there will be change over time as the actual work of the CDC you know is fleshed out and broadens but for right now there there is a seed board to go with this seed funding and they stand ready to to get through this very very early initial phase how many folk are on that seab board my understanding currently is as seven seven okay I yeah I I I think I think that's all I ask for and I appreciate you not venturing into the the futurist realm and that's good I I think for us as thanks for us as policy makers there and this isn't you this is us as policy makers going to sit on the day there are some things that we've we've telegraphed about the future and about certainly the hope that this this funding will begin a process of not only addressing historic inequities and disinvestment but positioning this community as as a a must visit in Durham as a place that's added when you think.
About those places around the country that are have historic value that you must see when you come to durman and so not you being Futures us being Futures that this certainly is one of the hopes that that these type of things will this type of investment will will spur again knowing that $10 million is only a beginning and what that looks like in terms of City investment or philanthropic or other partners I know the mayor is really big on private Public Partnerships and we all are actually down the road so thank you for the work and and I want to particularly thank those voices in the community and that Corridor who just simply would not be quiet for no reason whatsoever over the years and have really brought us to this point where alas there's there's significant money on the table for this Corridor significant money to address this this historic inequity and and may it just be the beginning so I'll put that out there thank you so much thank you Mr Mayor.
Councilor M. Cook I'm blue okay great all right thank you for that information and and I agree with a lot of what my colleague has talked about my my actual question is just to Echo back to the arpa funds stuff so this might be a I see manager page already smiling at me and I'm gonna take that as she loves these questions smile so this is the this is a this and the next item I guess are large amounts and this is my understanding was that it was coming both from our arpa Federal Grant and also our arpa match match funding is that true it's coming from both pieces so what you see here really is all arpa it is just the policies around the funding that we received which I believe was 52 plus million some of that funding could characterized as Revenue replacement but and we made a decision to use two different agreements for the same work because primarily of the time the time constraints that are part of.
The arpa funding the staff and I see many of them sitting in this room because of the collaboration that has been going on around this investment City leadership the city attorney's office support I I see the transportation director I believe I saw the Water Management director in the back Deputy city manager Winbush Deputy city manager Kei Chadwell I'm just calling a lot of names but one of the one of the things we've been really really conscious of is making sure that we receive the benefit from every single dollar that came to the city for arpa and that we do not need to return any of that funding we're bringing these contracts in May and we we know that we once we enter into these agreements we will have fulfilled our you know our responsibility to the federal government as having commit you know the funds being committed and we will have a time frame to implement implement the projects what we what we want to make sure is that we do have the engagement.
That we're really really careful as we walk into this project that is is once you know it is once in our time here investment there you know a lot of people before us and there'll be people coming after us but that we have carved the money up so that it is the rules around it the IRS rules around it permit us to have a higher level a percentage of complete success with the investment of this $10 million so that's why you see it into contracts it's nothing magical about it whenever we talk about Revenue replacement it is just part of the rules that came with arpa okay that they permit us to use a portion of it as as if we were replac ing our own City revenues oh okay that's kind of a simple way of looking at it and I'm looking at the finance director who's shaking his head back there that makes sense to me so because I think when I was reading about Revenue replacement and and this kind of Echoes.
Back to my my former question on one of the earlier ones about the loans versus the grants I was kind of wondering if that was if it was this was structured as a loan and that was because I didn't really understand how that would work with the arpa funding but okay that makes a lot of sense and so in doing this and I think this question might have been previously addressed but I just want to make sure that I understand just for my own context we talked about in the audit report of the obligation the requirement of the obligation of funds once we pass this is that considered obligated for the purposes of arpa it is okay cool those are all my questions thank you great project I'm really excited to see it thank you and I I too am really excited this is one of those I'm sorry yeah go ahead councilman Baker I'm gonna echo my my colleagues very excited about to to see this to.
Echo the mayor proem it's a lot of money it's also a fraction of a fraction of what would be a just amount of reinvestment in in the corridor and it's a lot of money and it being a lot of money just looking through the scope it's kind of a slim scope they there there are a lot it seems like there is still a lot to be done so it feels like we're at the very beginning and allocating a whole lot of money and so I'm curious about what we get to see next as Council does this go straight to the CDC and the CDC let me just ask the CDC to confirm is not yet formed is that correct CDC is formed is formed but we don't know who all the individuals on the CDC are yet is that correct CDC is formed and has a board of seven and has a board of seven okay so we're gonna allocate 10 million and then it's kind of out of council's hands at that point.
Is except there there are in this contract in the scope I see report outs of potentially quarterly report outs is that correct I'm going to let the County city manager respond okay so so as you what you see in front of you is you know subrecipient Grant agreements that involve the St Joseph's historic Foundation incorporated as well as the ha tha promise Community Development Corporation U the ha tha the St Joseph Joseph's historic Foundation Inc is the Fiscal Agent so there there are many there many pieces to the way we determine the structure of agreements and the accountability around the funding as it as there is an interplay with what is being delivered for the funding and our requirements the requirements we have with for arpa in in terms of the the performance indicators the reporting back out and it is while it is the sum that you see here is really not very much different than the other contracts that you've seen in terms of what we are we we have.
You know site visits there's you know there are a lot of different ways that we have to provide oversight and your question is will Council see it again you know certainly you know everything that we do we we we bring back periodic report reports to the darham city council whether that be you know update reports when we bring arpa items the last time you had a report was when we had our budget work sessions but I I'm making sure that I'm providing information but I'm very hopeful that I'm answering the question if you are asking if you're going to approve additional contracts this the answer is this is the contract this is the contract and then I see metrics in ually or more frequently upon request by the city and then and then there are lists of of metrics under different categories here right so annually unless we requested more frequent than annual report outs on these listed metrics but this is essentially the last chance that we as Council sort of have.
The opportunity to shape what happens the rest is upon the CDC is that correct the when you say the rest is upon the CDC the council's contract with the CDC is in totality what what you see here okay and then there's there's a small area plan component in here which is something that would be contracted or sub subcontract contracted but that wouldn't be through our own planning department that would be through a separate entity is that correct the items listed council member are aspirational they they are meant to give you a sense of the priorities of the entities involved but there would be nothing that would move forward that we would not work in concert with our own staff departments regardless of what the work is okay so so when they're working they'll work closely with you all on these items intimately yes sir okay and do you think there would be any work that could would you I know you're not a futurist would there be potential to work for example if they.
Did bring in a contractor to do a small area plan which is specifically listed in the scope would you for see a possibility that they work also with the Durham planning department on said small area plan so that we could have sort of staff and whatever outside consultant come in and work together and have that collaboration I want to be careful about how we categorize work together would there be collaboration and consultation absolutely but I don't want to commit the planning department falsely in terms of what their responsibility would be to this effort we're going to Avail ourselves of every potential resource and our planning staff is absolutely a resour had there been any conversations there and and I I should have raised this actually earlier when Sarah was here about the work program has have there been any conversations about collaboration between the planning department and and this initiative in as much as this all exists in the portfolio of the community building Deputy city manager and even beyond that all of the.
Departments of the city are aware of the focus that Council has directed on this effort and they've all made themselves available to assist as need. Okay okay good afternoon Keith Chadwell Deputy city manager council member just like to add this one dimension on that point the efficacy that's associated with the opportunity to do small area planning of any type is an opportunity to kind of be predictive of how things go forward and be predictive and strategic about what's to be delivered the challenge we have here is have a resource to start development developments projects are going to appear so one of you one of my favorite statements my colleagues get tired of hear me saying there's a little bit of we're G have to paint this train while it's rolling okay and we think that's extremely possible we've gotten to the point where we are today for what kind the finding of Staffing support that this is going to need in association with the city's responsibilities with this contract that includes the position.
That Miss Austin holes and the entirety of the portfolio that I have a responsibility with to it we've gotten as far as we've gotten today because of the kinds of collaboration she's talking about so there have been prospective conversations with planning with our infrastructure teams with transportation and a variety of things like that we fully anticipate that there going to be some things in that we leverage and and have Cooperative project planning with that are outside the bounds of this particular Grant opportunity so we hope there'll be some leveraging coming right out of the gate but it will H there will have to be strategic considerations I'll call it just short of the specificity of what a small area plan is as you make reference to it only because development is going to come out of the gate instantly so it'll be guided by those principles and we can certainly make you comfortable with understanding how that would work w w with respect to the outcome so that we're not having.
A Haj pod approach to these kinds of things and certainly to do it strategically what also emanate from the necessity that we do strong Community engagement both directly with the folks who are own businesses there live there and to have that kind of inclusion as a part of the board roster okay I appreciate that yeah I think what I'm getting at which I think you referenced is just how all of the pieces fit together and maximizing that 10 million and how it interacts with zoning and capital Investments and the private sector and land use and all of those different pieces together our ability to watch that play out and then also true you know bottomup Community engagement that is truly rooted in the community and engaging the the community and so that there's a feeling of ownership over the process and I did attend the a couple years ago the Uli presentation was very good and the report that came out of UL Uli was really good it wasn't adopted by the.
City council it's it's a Uli report I thought it was good they did do some engagement but I just want to I guess that's that's what I'm getting at is just I hope that moving forward there's this opportunity to work with the planning department which is interested in doing small area planning and has that on the work program and also continue to engage with the council and work in such a way that it's bottom up bottom up engagement with the community in that area understand the challenge sir thank you all right thank you thank you so much I I want to associate myself with the spirit of council member Baker's comments I a couple things I the Uli report I think it at least my reading of it anticipates interaction with the city by virtue of the type of things that they're they're proposing they're going to have to come to us I also want to say that this the formation of this Community Development corpor coration and the continued work of St Joseph.
Historic Foundation does not preclude the city from still doing other things in that Corridor I mean we you know we're still going to have $10 million is not going to fix all the problems so we're still going to have plenty of opportunity to assert ourselves in that court or as a city whether it's it's it's Street beautification or more funding for Capital infusions for for small business people there the community engagement piece there have been a lot of activists at work for decades in that Community engaging what has been missing is the money so finally what we're doing now is actually putting money to all of that activity that has been going on and it is absolutely what is sacan for us and at least you know in in in having what you call a Marshall Plan whatever you want to call it and proposing it was precisely to add money to the Grassroots efforts that have been going on for decades the whole proposal of this $10 million is a result of the Grassroots.
Agitation that has been going on in that Corridor for decades they've been talking for years what just has been missing is the money and fortunately you know arpa has come along we've got an opportunity to start $10 million not from the city coffers but I think it's an invitation and onramp for us to certainly we're free to add more City dollars and do those things that just that you're talking about council member bacon and and I look forward to working with you on those things in in all of us in that area we are none of this precludes us doing in addition to what this this Community Development Corporation will do and St Joseph exor foundation will do relative to a whole slew of other projects it's going to take a whole lot of time and money and effort this $1 million will be spent very quickly in terms of you know projects that that are on the Uli menu so there's plenty plenty of War ramps for us as a.
City to get involved in that Corridor I'm just glad that finally finally some money's on the table to meet the energy of the activists in the area for decades thanks Mr Mayor Freeman thank you I I did want to just touch on a little bit of the conversation around I guess direction from the city it feels like and working with the city and I just want to be clear that these dollars are going to the CDC and the CDC will make the decisions on how it moves forward yes we are here in a support role and we're here to help with compliance as it relates to the source of the funds and compliance in relation to the source of the funds have been spelled out clearly around those UL kind of areas I want to say what I want to what I want to make sure is clear is that these dollars don't move out and then there's like all these extra extra compliance rules that come into place about how you need to.
Build a building or document hiring or or you know create a partnership later I want to make sure that that's all spelled out in the front on the front side I know there's been some conversations in the community and some questions about whether or not St Joseph historic foundation will actually lead in this as they are essentially the CDC members so if I may Mr Mayor let me offer a clarification in the time since the memo was drafted for this item and coming before you today one clarification is that the board at St Joseph's has asked that no member of their body hold a seat on this board and so they are in the process of making those adjustments that however does not impact the contractual obligation related to being the Fiscal Agent and the compliance requirements thereof and that request has been approved by the board the board of which entity of St Joseph's that was a request from that board and and and it's noted in their.
Minutes I can't speak to that okay unfortunately I just want to be clear that it was it was communicated that they asked and that action was taken on that that that's what I can represent okay and so the request for none of the current historic Foundation St Joseph's historic Foundation board members to serve on the CDC board is what you received as a point of of of kind of clarity that there shouldn't be any overlap in who those members are there are two things happening there and I'm going to answer both of them one is board seats the other is Staff of St Joseph's and I want to make a distinction between those two things but yes it is my understanding that we have a situation of checks and balances and because St Joseph's is responsible for making sure compliance happens in a fiscal space that they then can't be involved in the programmatic aspects of this particular Arrangement so everybody has a responsibility but they're different am I answering your.
Question you are and then on the staff side there could be overlap on the staff side that one is one that is is in a legal and policy space that I can't speak to I know that there is an interpretation that is out there in the space of the St Joseph's board but I can't represent whether that's proper or.
Not all right and so we just said a lot I just want to make sure that we are having some clarification for the folks that are listening when you're speaking of compliance one it has to be in compliance with the arpa compliance regulations there is a difference between Fiscal Agent and CDC yes right and the city is a resource yes to this to what the CDC would actually carry out which they will withdraw from the Fiscal Agent that will hold the funds yes the Fiscal Agent will be the Arbiter of the movement of the funds yes correct all right there's also been a significant amount of groundwork here from all of the hati groups to now you know the one CDC and I think it was I forgot who stated it but there's there's been a lot of a lot of work here and finally we have some money behind it in regards of other funds that can support it the reason why I keep talking about a public private partnership.
And Ja you councel cabier you might be able to help me with this or director Egan is here where are we with this Corridor in the no and.
Good afternoon Mr Mayor sha you again with the transportation department so the fville corridor Transit improvements so these are the bus stop sidewalk and other improvements we have requested and been awarded $6.7 million in funding through the Durham County Transit plan with that funding we did a solicitation for 100% design of those bus stop sidewalk and other pedestrian safety improvements that was authorized by Council earlier this year we had our kickoff meeting in February for that so we are moving forward and progressing the design we're going to have much better understanding of the RightWay properties that we would need to acquire as well as anticipated construction costs as we move through the design of that project and so we'll come back with our funding partners and review the costs and needs of the project as we progress it through design but I'm excited to say that we are underway and we have a contract that would take us to 100% design and construction documents and I know you're going to come back do you.
Have any ballpark figure around timeline so we're working to complete the designs by the end of calendar 25 so okay great summer so considering that there is a CDC already formed are those funds considered expended from the city okay city manager so I'm just making sure you're talking about the the trans the the transportation so no no so the transportation is I'm I'm bringing two things here to try and help us picture the overall investment of the area so back to the $10 million that we've already approved via arpa now that the CDC has been formed and they and there's a Fiscal Agent identified the those funds will be sitting there is it considered expended from the city considering the timeline of 2026 let me try to try to answer that you're when you're you're talking about these two contracts before you yeah the two contracts before you that total $10 million when when the City Council authorizes those these two contracts to be executed then that $10 million will.
Will be re reduced from the number that Dr bruington spoke to you about earlier as un committed arpa fund arpa funding arpa funed dollars or arpa funding so the answer is it will be committed the the the transfer of cash and and the way you know we actually operate whether it's reimbursement advances those kinds of things are laid out in the contracts but they will be committed funs when when the contracts are executed awesome and the reason why I'm asking these questions is because you know that's 6.7 million in transportation funding the 10 million that we've done that 6.6 6.7 million of you know whatever is going to happen via transportation that the scope of work does not have to consider in that 10 million so overall we have you know 16.7 right there of a combination of what the council has approved as well as the the no and and then we have you know some Housing Development that's happening over there already with the F Place Southside just the phase three.
That we are finishing up the 500,000 just came from Congress as well so we're starting to see funds you know starting to acrew in place that is going to ultimately hopefully catch up with with the the the work that's been done on the ground by community members it has been contentious because there are a lot of groups but what's consistent is everyone wants that neighborhood to be revitalized and I'm I'm very intentional about utilizing the word Revitalize and I I think that that's the that's the public side and then you know based on the scope and and and how they Implement everything there with the CDC they will be able to to manage those relationships with whatever private investment comes and my next question would be as far as you know reconnecting that neighborhood to downtown so director Egan this may be your space as well where are we in that.
Process so the city last year began a process planning study process the reimagined Durham freeway Pathways to connection process and that is looking at the Durham freeway from Swift Avenue on the west side to the East End connector on the East and looking at potentially changes to the Durham freeway Corridor that includes the fville crossing and the historic hati Community that could be could be a potential application for the US do reconnecting communities program so that work is underway we have both a a technical planning and engineering team as well as a a community engagement team working on that we submitted an application in September of 2023 for additional planning funding for future phases of that planning study that application was not selected by USD and the feedback that we got was that they were looking for additional definition on the specific changes that would be made to the corridor so we're working through those issues with both the the technical staff as well as the community engagement staff do we have a how long.
Have we been doing the the those two engagement components so we started about a year ago with those how long how long is it going to take until we're done so what we said at the outset of the process was U that we acknowledge that there is deep distrust for transportation planning and projects in this community and that the significant work would be needed to build trust in the community and so we would have to continue to gauge that and and work and build build trust and build consensus so that process is taking time we're continuing to move forward we're looking to complete activities in U 2025 related to that study and that would line up with another application to the reconnecting communities program that we expect U to be available in in mid 2025 okay so I'm I'm going to say the unpopular thing here I have no idea what's going to happen in November but what I can say is we have a lot more leverage now to Federal.
Funding than what leverage no matter who wins the presidency after November and if it's taken us what I think the biggest component of distrust is there has been nothing done in area and if I was a resident there what would give me more distrust is if it's taken us longer if it's taken us so long to do some type of Engagement that we miss out on the opportunity and that worries me because I I know for a fact and and that one thing I enjoy the luxury of being mayor is talking directly to the decision makers of these sources of funding at the federal level and it it it's just embarrassing when the Secretary of Transportation pulls me side and say hey where are you on the Hatt project and you know we we really like to support it and I have to say well we're still doing community engagement and and it's been a year so I not today but I know that I'm going to start requesting in these rfps that.
We have some type of timeline and if people can't do it then they can't get the contract because we're about to potentially lose out on millions of dollars because we're still you know do an engagement and I know folks don't want to hear that you know but the biggest source of distrust would be there's no investment and sometimes we die in the process and and I'm sick of that so thank you yes so Mr Mayor that you brought up some additional investment when you brought up the the transportation department I did want to as we were as were continuing the discussion or getting to the completion of the discussion just bring back to the table that we have had in the past year or so our Equitable and green infrastructure work and that work has projects that are in process and in some of our neighborhoods you know particularly the neighborhoods that you all have seen that have been identified the the area around the bille Street Corridor in that space.
Is part of projects that are prioritized in the water water utility for waterline replacement so I did want to bring up a additional collaboration around investment and the timing of having everybody at the table at the same time to make sure that the e effective delivery of these particularly the infrastructure projects are coordinated and the impact is is seen and and the dis disinvestment can be we can do some catch up while we are delivering this specific two contracts here there's additional City infrastructure work and transportation work that is being added to as well as investment in our small businesses and and just people investment in general so thank you and that that makes me feel even better that there's this 10 million has the opportunity to be on top of all of what's cued in that in that Corridor that's a really good thing council member Baker yeah I would just at some point like to see all of the different pieces and how they fit together I think that would be helpful.
For all of us thank you yeah summer I I know you hate speaking but you did a phenomenal job I I surprised her one day when we got the electric charge station Grant I got the phone call from secretary Buddha judge and I said all right press conference in two hours and well she she freaked out but great job all right thank you all thank you thank you all mayor protim I'm going to pass it over to you I need to unless you all want to take a break like five minutes or you want to keep going all right I'm GNA five minutes all right all right all right let's take a five minute break be back at 3:55 thank.
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We 31 now who would put up 31 council member all right what about 30 U oh okay 43 43 item 43 council member cook no that was you oh that was me I'm just teasing okay well here he is now all right I item 31 council member WR yeah 31 your Port.
Item and thank you for the information earlier director Egan yeah actually thank you director Egan I just want to pull this to say like this is super important stuff right and I appreciate the memo that that articulates that that things have changed dramatically since Co with respect to micr Mobility there's just a number important changes I want to highlight from my colleagues that you're making to ordinance to sort of make it easier for a range of micr Mobility options to be available so I think it's all good stuff and I just want to thank you for that that's.
It yeah yeah I I did thank you thank you so much just had a few questions only because of my I could just pull my I put my questions in my in my text here all right I I know that there have been some municipalities whove had serious issues with Oracle and I so whenever I see Oracle now I am just careful so this is not the RFP that I was initially going to reference but I still want to ask the same questions so in regards to in regards to the software you know is it just for Erp or is it for like building and planning and inspections everything else so first thank you mayor Williams mayor po temp city council city manager paage my name is Frederick Raven I'm Chief T officer for Technology Solutions regarding your question there there were two rfps that went out one was for the Erp enterprise resource planning solution which also includes HCM which is the human Capital Management EPM what which deals with the.
Performance Management and there is the utility Billings which is also in that Erp RFP then there's a separate one that was for inspections and planning that is a that is a separate one Oracle is a they were a proponent they submitted a response in both of those instances in this instance this is is specific to the one that's for the Erp EPM utility buildings and HCM okay gotcha so I I'm going I'm going to assume that if there are two rfps then we are not locked into use an Oracle in the other areas that you named for the second RFP that that is absolutely correct one of the things that actually happened was we had previously had a we had previously got the approval to move forward with a ldo replacement solution and that is related to the inspections and planning solution at that time once we realized that we were also going to be looking into moving forward with an Erp the recommendation of the CIO at that time.
Was to actually put the RFP out first for the Erp solution because that is your core business system and make it a requirement that any inspections and planning solution that we bring on board is able to be able to interface and communicate with that system so you can get whatever Erp that you want and whichever inspections and planning solution that we did choose would have to be able to be able to be communicating with that Erp solution so that that was a prerequisite gotcha thank you so much and we we pretty much outgrown M pretty much right I will say that our current solution we have grown some of the differences is the current mun system that we have is a on Prim solution right a city this size we are at the time when we first acquired units we would go to their conferences we were kind of like the flagship we had customarily been one of the largest municipalities utilizing that system and with the needs of the organization where we're going both.
Operationally and how we're trying to move strategically it this was definitely the time to move to a Erp solution which provides us those Cloud benefits which means you can be anywhere we we for security reasons we normally limited to USA but you could be anywhere around the world and you'll still be able to do the work that you need to do without any limitations so so that's just one of the first benefits that's available to just any regular user that's using it the the interface with being able to have a utility building system which is one of the prime usages of a lot of our residents they're going to be able to benefit from some of that information as well which deals with reporting and everything else and just out of curiosity how has the experience been with Tyler Technologies Tyler Technologies no as as as a support model Tyler technology has been amazingly responsive at at at every turn they did submit they did submit a proposal and as we communicated with everyone.
That did give a response they were not in the top three that's all right C remember Cook you hear that all right it sounds good he another issue Tyler Technologies is now over the e courts it's gonna be interesting for North Carolina so thank you I just want to make sure we spell out some of that Erp for Enterprise how to go back enterprise resource planning and then CIO meaning the Chief Information officer just want to make sure those cor correct the chief chief information officer is the director of Technology Solutions Our IT department which is car good thank you thank you all right well those are all of our pulled.
Items all right now we have presentations go order yeah we can go in order and Staff feel free to talk as fast as you want and number 19 is the first one. One.
Ready good afternoon good afternoon Mr Mayor mayor Pro Middleton and members of the city council my name is Alicia bass and I'm with General Services you saved the best presentation for last I'm here to oh I got one more okay well the next to last so that connect to last I'm here to I'm here to present the findings of phase one of our real property inventory and Analysis study. Okay right there it's not working okay I got it so General Services engage hrna advisers which is a consultant to examine a select inventory of properties that the city owns to identify if any of those Parcels were suitable for affordable housing development and we understand how important of an issue affordable housing is for our city so we wanted to look at what we had available and see if that could be deployed for the community we hrna advisers created a model that model was based on 19 specific and measurable criteria and then that model assigned each parcel that was studied a score.
At the time of this study the city had 1,134 Parcels in its portfolio and 711 of those Parcels are currently in use by the city or has a future use by the city and so those Parcels are for for instance our city hall our office buildings operations centers like Public Works cell phone land for cell phone towers tanks you name it we also have properties available for the benefit and the enjoyment of our residents so our parks and trails and Facilities like DPAC we also knew at the time that we had 188 Parcels that were not suitable for development at all those are slivers of property or remnants of property that too small to develop they're left over from maybe some Transportation projects or construction projects we also have Pro properties that have some restriction associated with them so maybe there's like a power line easement where you can't develop those properties so that's that's what that 188 represents so what we have left is 236 Parcels for evaluation and so this study focused on.
100 of those parcels and essentially what we did is we took the largest 100 of those 236 they applied this model and the model generated 15 high scoring sites we had some discussion with other City departments and we did physical site inspections and so the number of those sites got reduced from 15 down to 10 and then what I do want to point out is I say sites but if you look at for instance The fville Road Site contains six different parcels and this is a map of those 10 sites and as you can see they're Spread spread out nicely throughout the city our consultant anticipates that among those 10 sites the potential yield in affordable housing units is anywhere from 46 to 106 units I am here today to one present the information about these Parcels but to also see your approval to declare the properties associated with the study as Surplus and so we do want to move into a phase two but in order to.
Move into that we want to seek your approval to declare the properties in this in this grouping as Surplus and then we will collaborate with our colleagues in Community Development and planning to to determine what the next best steps are in our phase two then we're going to take on looking at the remaining 136 vacant Parcels that are left and we'll also address small sites so there's 16 small sites I'll talk about that in just a minute and so just briefly with the model hrna consulted with General Services we also brought in Community Development and planning and parts department and we all work together to help develop this model the first six criteria that you see here that determines whether the parcels are actually built and then you have criteria 7 through 19 and those Focus they're weighted in order of importance but they focus mostly on services and amenities that are located near these Parcels when you combine all 19 Parcels all 19 criteria together that generates a score for each.
Parcel so what did we find out the analysis of the 100 Parcels generated 15 High SC sites which as I mentioned went down to 10 after some internal discussion generated or showed that we had 16 small sites these sites are properties that are less than a quarter of an acre in size and they're focused on they're more suitable for single family development duplex development it also showed that there were 50 sites that are not optimized for development and those May those properties may be in the flood zone or have some other physical limitation that restricts us from from doing that if you're doing the math that does not equal 100 there are 19 Parcels that at the very beginning of this study were forwarded to Community Development and they issued an RFP for those night well I don't think there were all 19 of the parcels but they issued an RFP for that in September of 2023 this is a table of those small Parcels this is something that we do.
Want to address in phase two again these Parcels are less than a quarter of quarter of an acre in size and they are best suited for single family resident development this is something we want to do some further due diligence on in our our phase two and this again the table is the 15 high scoring sites just wanted to show you the five that were excluded the St Joseph site the Memphis Street site are already being evaluated for redevelop Redevelopment by Community Development the two Parcels at the Jersey Avenue site the parts department wishes to retain those for a future use the Pratt Street site was just not physically feasible for development and the two Parcels located at the Twin Lakes site the parts department also wants to hold those for future recreational use and the Jersey Avenue sites physically abuts the rightwood park and the Twin Lakes Road sites obviously are in the Twin Lakes Park so now just run through the the 10 properties again a map to just Orient.
You to where the the properties are located throughout the city the first site is located on fville Road in South Durham near the intersection of Sutton station and Woodcraft Parkway the combined there's six Parcels here combined they total 1.42 Acres if we left the zone in place we anticipate that there's we could develop maybe three units if we get the zoning changed to residential Suburban multifam with a small lot option or rezone it to commercial neighborhood with townhouse options that yield could be anywhere from 10 to 15 site number two is located at 103 South Driver Street this is at the intersection of driver and Main Street it's next door to The morine Joy charter school and it's in the East Durham historic district this site is approximately a third of an acre there's a 5,500 foot building on it that was constructed in 1960 and it actually used to be used as a as a fire station we anticipate that if we kept the existing structure we could the potential yield.
Would be four units if that structure was demolished and something else was built depending on what's built we anticipate the yield could be anywhere from 5 to 12 units site three is at 111 East Seminary Avenue this is in downtown Durham in the Cleveland Street historic district it is next door to the Mangum 506 Condominiums and across the street from Durham Public Schools this is a this this parcel is actually one of two Parcels that makes up City Parking Lot number 37 City employee parking lot 37 the parcel by itself is 31 Acres but if you combine it with the adjacent parcel which is also city-owned that puts us at half an acre and we anticipate that eight units could potentially be built here we would again need we would need to collaborate with our colleagues in transportation in terms of the the second parcel but this is an option for us here in downtown Durham site number four is located at 4238 University Drive in the South square.
Area this is at the intersection of University Drive and Martin Luther King Parkway this is a two Acre Site however there's some topography issues here and there's also some site access issues it's unlikely that we would get permitting to access the property from University or MLK Parkway so we would have to seek a easement for that we anticipate that we could potentially develop 20 to 30 units here you will notice that there's a parking lot at the southern end of this lot that lot is leased to the Durham Regional associations of Realtors and that is some further conversations we would need to have with them about what are the the best steps forward site number five is Roxboro Street those are four Parcels that are next door to the downtown Durham dog park the acreage there is 69 Acres the buildable size is probably closer to 042 acres because there are some topography issues there there's some storm water infrastructure issues that we need to address and potentially a strain but given the.
Current zoning we anticipate we could potentially develop anywhere from a 2 to six units on that that property depending on the type of housing structure that's chosen next is 400 Enterprise Street which is in the Forest Hills Community it's across the street from the Delta house the acreage there is26 but given the irregular shape of it the buildable area is probably closer to018 Acres probably about about half of that if we kept the current zoning at residential Suburban we could potentially get two to four units on that particular lot site number seven is located at the inter it's on at 4020 cheek Road at the intersection of red near the intersection of Redwood and Chek this parcel is 1.4 acres in size like the previous one with the IR regular shape the developable area developable area is probably closer to 1 acre currently it's zoned rural residential if we got that rezone to rural residential 20 we anticipate we could develop anywhere from two to four units on this particular.
Parcel site number eight 709 East mayor Avenue is in Northeast Durham this parcel is half an acre however there are some storm water is storm water infrastructure issues if we can get that rerouted we anticipate we could develop anywhere from one to three units site number nine is 152 Glenn Eden Road this is also in South Durham it's near the intersection of fville Road and Highway 54 although it's almost an acre it is very narrow it's about 48 feet wide and I know this is a challenging site to to develop but we put it herec one because it's a great location but two to also challenge us to think about think more creatively about the type of affordable housing units that we can offer and so if we could get this reson to like a tiny house option or a small housee option we have a potential to develop you know significant number of units on the site and our final site is 9303 NC Highway 751 this is donated to us by.
751 South development near South Point mall it is 87 Acres it's also in a regular shape and so the buildable area there will be limited by the shape but we anticipate that we could develop anywhere from 10 to 12 units we do need to confirm that the H that the current zoning can stay at mixed unit mixed use development but if we can it's the potential there for 10 to 12 units and so that concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any questions you have about these Parcels or about my request to declare them as Surplus thank you I know there are probably a lot of questions I will for lay in terms I'm going to ask a simple question first could you just in this context state for just the the public what do you mean about Surplus and are we talking development as a housing only or are there other types of development we can do we are talking about properties that the city no longer well that the city could deploy for.
Other uses within our community and then this we are seeking to declare a surplus for the intention of developing affordable housing well when was that determination made for affordable housing well that was the intention of our of our study okay gotcha all right council member cook just one brief question which is how how do we go about this might be a planning question but how do we go about rezoning on properties that we own what does that process look like it's the same process as so we we apply we apply to our own planning department correct oh they initiate it okay so it's like self initiated but would follow all the same requirements okay cool thanks we don't get to the front of the line either I was literally over here thinking like now I'm the angry neighbor like I want to do what I want on my own land council member Baker thank you first of all this is a really awesome presentation and kind of the flow and being able to understand.
How the process worked and how we arrived at these Parcels and the the analysis with hrna so one question I have is in in the scenario where they're redeveloped do we retain ownership of the land or is this anticipating sale to nonprofit Partners or Community Land Trust or other folks that is the best path forward that that was where I was referencing when I said we would collaborate with Community Development that we can do that through RFP we can also auction it off we could do bid so there's some options that we have available the last one we did was an RFP so that's and that and with the RFP that would be a nonprofit so we would seek nonprofit Partners to do that okay okay yeah I guess one one thing that I'm always thinking about is sort of permanent affordable housing and Sher Taylor was here a little bit earlier and she sort of spoke to the fact that the Durham community land trust is in the business of providing affordable housing.
One question I had few future land use class is that just the the future Place type map from the comprehensive plan the place type map I believe it is is what we ideally would want the property to be used for okay I was just curious because in in some cases the future Place type map is calling for in one case recreation in open space in another case neighborhood services so the future Place type map the actual plan is not necessarily calling for housing on all of these and so I think one one thing that comes to my mind is opportunities for mixes of uses or live work units or other creative options that can combine other uses on the same site as as housing based on based on what is reflected in in the plan and other than that I think there are a lot of opportunities to to rezone properties for some some higher densities especially you know if we're incorporating good good quality design into the units and Can can make.
Sure that you know there it's something to to be proud of and for the you know that's that's pedestrian and bike and Transit oriented and not just sort of autoc centric too so those are my questions thank you council member gabo. Thank you this was a great presentation I really enjoyed to report in all the maps in there they were really helpful did youall track it all if there's other like on any of the plots is there any other like public land close by like publicly held land like maybe the county owns something nearby maybe the schools own something nearby and I I get that that's beyond the scope but just like as folks were looking at maps that there would be potential collaboration with others Duke whoever right there there is an opportunity for us to do that with the county I mean that's something that's that we're working on currently because there are some County Properties that are adjacent to city-owned properties we're talking about having conversations.
With them about conveying that to the city thank you so that that's going to be the thing that I really want to see like I'm going to say yes make it Surplus and B make it as like obviously the things that parks and wreck has identified as you know that's already near Parks yes but as much as we can do housing think about what are the potentials around us you know with other partners I'm glad that we're already thinking about the county but any other institutional Partners that may want to work with the city so that we can maximize what that building envelope looks like especially if it makes it less irregular because to council member Baker's point if we have a little bit more land maybe we get both housing and thing and that could be a win-win for for all kinds of goals that we have as a community so that's that's my one you know hope I guess I should put I'm going to be a futurist I'm going.
To put it out in the universe that's what I want and so let's see if it happens otherwise this is excellent work I know that adjacent to this is the housing work that I'm trying to move forward and one of the things that folks were were looking at was what is all the publicly held land small and large and what's the opportunity there so this is great that this is the city's already moved forward on this piece of it so yeah us thanks C council member Freeman all right R again thank you for the presentation super fascinating and interesting I just have one question following up my colleague council member Baker so what we're approving today is simply putting this property into declaring it Sur as property correct that's all we're doing yeah so then this question about how it will be how we're gonna how we're gonna give this out or whatever we do with the pro like how does what does that like you said it could be an RFP it.
Could be other processes so when does that decision happen and what is our role in that I I'm sure would you like to yeah jump in so I think we would work in partnership with our I'm sorry Stacy post and general Services Department I think we'd work in partnership with the Community Development Department to determine based on the specific site what the best pathway is so if we've got a single site we might package a bunch of single sites together and issue an RFP like the one that y'all saw Monday night when you vote on that Surplus property for some of these that are more complex we might think about what the pathway might be maybe this is a midsize developer that's responding to a solicitation that isn't a nonprofit but that which for which we have some restrictive covenants related to affordability so I think there's a diversity of numbers of units and size of parcels here so it's going to be a little bit of framing of each individual.
Site or sites batches of sites i' I guess I just say i' just love to see as much of this in a community Land Trust as possible to address the issue of permanent affordability so I think that's a a big. Priority thank you I I was trying to figure out how to frame this as much of it as possible what I'm most drawn to respond to I want to say great presentation I think the report is helpful I'm wondering if we if we may have missed and what I'm there's like 12 different things going on first in the 1100 sites that we identified are we looking like for fire stations knowing that we need to rebuild a lot of them is that part of this conversation at all because before we go to Surplus make sure that we're not letting SES off that could be possible alternative places where we could house fire stations and then kind of so this study did not address that so we just we look we were solely looking.
At it from the lens of affordable housing okay and so based on that let me just some just add a little bit to Alicia's comments there so this year the fire station the fire department has got some software where they're going to be able to identify the best locations for fire stations based based on our growth and so we're going to be able to think about land banking places where we need to have fire stations for the future where the right size is going to be so for instance the one that we have up on the screen was supposed to be a fire station it was donated to the city and then you know the demand and the growth change so that that's not the ideal location for that fire station so that's sort of piece one is that we have a strategy for planning of what we need for the future second piece is that these are too small largely too small to put a fire station on when you talk.
About turning radiuses trucks things we're going to to do length of the vehicle so so for these as a part of what we were doing we intuitively knew that these were not going to be the locations for fire stations for the future so for the 18 you're talking about not for all 1100 yes so we we we do not currently have land in inventory other than the land for fire station 19 for which we are intending to put a fire station on we have software that we have just purchased or received approval for for future fire stations Beyond ones that we have for planning on a pacing of you know as the fire chief has sort of talked us about every three years sort of planning to build another fire station that and that pacing based on growth we will bake into the software and make smart decisions about where we need to purchase land for the future and land bank for what we think we need I.
Got that thank you and then just in general I'm noticing it's a very conservative number on the number of units I'm assuming you're assuming one two story as opposed to multi-story and is that because of the current zoning or is there some guidance you had got around that or yeah I think so the hrna Consulting team worked with our planning department specifically Aaron Kane and looked at what we thought the maximum density could do and this I was I would classify this as pre-development work right so once we get into these sites and we talk about topography and setbacks and variant is a things that we might need to have to really develop these sites and to achieve what we want to achieve on them there'll be some decisions about do keep a little bit for open space we keep a little bit for this how much density is the right amount of density so that that development work will come as we we begin to work through.
What we want to have on these or our partners do through the solicitation process where they come to us with ideas about how they might develop a particular site then just just noting I know with the current conversation around updating the U we're talking about multi-use are we looking at maybe having like a commercial with you know apartments above like making it more Community friendly because affordable housing is is about affordability and so where there are jobs and child care services and other things that people need that can decrease cost we can't just when we talk about affordable housing we got to talk about more than just the structure the building itself right and so what the uses are is important right and I'm not sure that was incorporated at all I'm that resonates with me I understand what you're doing yeah and I think the employee parking lot do our employees get to park in the new lot over here on not not what is that Mangum the yeah rby so there is.
Some so so our employees are you know can park in any of the garages that we have probably you know for a for a rental fee what what we do have free parking is the parking the parking lot that's next to the the church oh behind the fire fire station number one and we the city pays for that parking for employees to be able to park there free but we rent that parking space we do not we that parking area we don't own it so the the lot that you were proposing that's employee parking now is that free is there's a fee for that parking that one fre that one is right so I would just want to make sure if we did take that out of operation that we did figure out because I mean our employees don't make a lot of money that are parking in that lot that might need it and the the parking lot that city manager page reference is literally across the street but if it.
Was if it's already being used what's the likelihood of them being able to capture all of those other spot and that's what we're we want to collaborate with transportation to determine capacity yeah so you might want to talk to the county about how they did that parking deck with a wrap of Apartments that's more than eight units and then I think there was one other thing oh and I I agree I just want to Echo my the sentiment around the land banking I think that that's incredibly important and in that it's 50 years seems like a long time but it's not I will say when I sat on the vestri for the church and we had to do renew the urban ministries parking or the urban ministries lease we went from the 50 years to a 99 year just because that's what you want to see in the community so you want to make sure that service is available and so I would encourage us to really think about what.
That land banking looks like and the Partnerships that we develop that's all thank you thank you Mr thank you colleagues for your great question thank you for this presentation finally a lot of this has been demystified by this there there's a perception that the government's this all powerful you know land baren with all of this you know unused land and stuff and when folks say you you guys need to do this so here's the list of of of what's in our holding what we actually own I and it's been kind of alluded to it it is this list does not preclude us from going out and buying more land I mean we can still participate in the market and use money to do other real estate acquisition so while this might be finite in terms of what's actually in our portfolio this does not preclude us from Land Bing go out and buying if we need a fire station or whatever to I know that affordable housing kind of has been our animating.
Principle but this is an opportunity for us to you know to revisit the conversation of what do we want to do with our wealth and with our assets as a city some of these areas where these properties are located our our future land loose map doesn't even anticipate housing being there do we want to build a a a Youth Empowerment Center as a city do we want to have a a city-owned event space or that's gives subsidized opportunities for you know nonprofits and folk or to do business incubation or events housing of course is incredibly important should be a watch word but the fact that the memo also gave us the sort of clued us in on upset bid sales and private negotiated sale you know the the apparatus we can use to dispose of the property but you give us just a a really re brief Readers Digest primer on the upset bid sale what that looks like as opposed to a private negotiated sale and how we might want to employ that in.
Doing something maybe not housing related or or just how we can dispose of it the land right so the the upset bid process is it's kind of like when you go to the county and there's a a property that's you know going into foreclosure you basically we issue the RFP people can bid on people can bid on it and there's like a a 10day window where you can upset that bid and it keep continues going for like a 10day block until you get a high bidder then once you get that high bidder that's the the person that quote wins that property goes to them and it goes to them without restriction right okay and the private negotiated Sal is we just enter into conversations with right and those rfps they they could or could not be for housing I mean we could get an idea that may make a light bulb going and say hey we hadn't thought about that that might be a good idea for there for that.
Particular location again not not to in any way I can hear you guys back here not not to in any way devalue the the need for housing but or mission for housing but given how we've en envisioned the city through our flum our future land use map comp plan to at least be open to hearing some of the other ideas that that might be that we can use for this land keeping in mind that we are still free to purchase other land and still do affordable housing in other you know areas as well so I just want to to put that out there into the mix as we consider certainly I support declaring this as Surplus there's no doubt in my mind that all of the due diligence and checklist that our staff needed to go through to ask us to make these Surplus where you know we're done but I I am interested beyond that once we declare it Surplus and having a more robust and open conversation.
As to what could possibly be on these Parcels moving forward so thank you thank you Mr Mayor council member cook yeah I mean and I correct me if I'm wrong with this study was designed specifically to enty Parcels that we thought would be good for housing so if we there might be great Parcels for other uses that wasn't the what this study would have identified is that is that true or did we sort of take all the largest ones we took the largest ones okay so okay interesting okay if I might thank you Mr Mayor and I I I think council member CL raises raises an excellent point but in so far as we put the upset bid apparatus in our memo we could see things that are not housing related just by nature of the process of getting those rfps and by definition if if we see those things then it may occasion a conversation again yeah that that's all I'm saying that because of because we it's in our.
Memo that we if we go the upset bid way folk out there might not know that hey we only want you to tell us how we use this for affordable housing they may come up with some some other ideas and I'm just particularly in areas where we haven't even anticipated it may not be a good fit just put people out there to live for the sake of affordable housing but it's not near anything or it's it's you know and I think council member Freeman raised some of these issues that just to the conversation that's all I'm saying but at this point you know I certainly would support declaring these as.
Surplus yeah this is more just around the resoning piece of it so and and like how and maybe this is going to just be a thing I have to follow up with Sarah from planning about because we're in the middle of a Udo rewrite and so like the rules around zoning and how we're going to proceed are kind of in are our influx and one of the things that I'm certainly interested in is if we if things are do if if it is bound to an affordable housing project I am certainly and I'm one person but certainly interested in that process moving much faster than if it's not and so I guess is there a potential test case in a way because this is city-owned you know like to to to put all that together right so that if we if okay I think everyone here is an agreement doing Surplus I think some of us are interested in and that there's various outcomes to that but in the affordable housing part of.
It that we could get the land res zoned or do whatever we need to do in a much quicker timeline than we traditionally see because it's going to be affordable housing and that the you and because of what's also happening adjacent with the udio and I think that that's going to more be a planning department question than anybody else's questions so I can just reach out to her yeah I just want to summarize my my own thoughts that I think are reflected by by some other council members but when it comes to the affordability some level of either permanent affordability or or at least very very long-term or permanent restrictions I think that that's something that I would support creative ideas is potential mixes of uses and also taking a close look at the the future Place type map because it is calling for different things in different places and sometimes that's for very strategic purpose high quality design and coming back to what council member ciero was.
Saying I I would support looking at the very best possible project on the site without allowing this current zoning to constru Trin us because of the Udo reite because of the potential and I hope that we will comprehensively rezone our entire city and also because I think the council would back whatever is the best use of of each of the sites I can't promise that and then thinking about each of these sites in a comprehensive and cohesive pattern the context in which they're located and and what's around them so that they make up the the fact fac of the community and the fabric of the neighborhood and and creating a complete community so those are that's four bullet points that kind of summarize my my thoughts on that but I also support making this Surplus property thank you all right I think I I was going to ask some questions but I think they've been addressed I was going to ask I know the study looked at you know.
What land is able for development but I was just really interested in how much we're tied to that you know some of the properties look a little weird obviously and it would be really hard to develop on if we do run into a situation where it's just complicated to build on are you know would we not be would we be restricted to being able to explore other options because this is also property that could be a Community Asset in some other way that's that's what I was thinking but I think we sort of addressed it all right You need direction from us or you good I just need your approval to declare to Surplus okay we'll we'll take it and move it from there yeah so so we we will okay then the general body meeting we'll we'll we'll ify that decision at that time okay all right all right thank you thank you all right all right we are we have one more right that we're gonna do in in 16 minutes I'm sorry.
Yeah7 27 item 27 yep so don't you leave all right item 27 you RBA and feel free to talk as fast as you. Want good afternoon Michelle wol folk from the public works storm water department and I will bet you that I can get through half of my presentation ah shoot she went too fast I thought I would be able to do it before she got it up all right I'm here to talk to you very briefly about the unba I am going to talk fast give a WRA there you go so just remember before I get going the part of the city that's north and east of 147 goes to Falls Lake or goes to the Noose River the part of the city that goes south and west of 147 goes to Jordan Lake so just remember those two things thank you there's a map those are all those local governments are members of the unrb a except for the city of Roxboro who is way up there in person County.
They are not a member in the last year there have been a lot of things that happened the consensus principles too were approved by City Council in November and then they turned around and went right to the state on November 22nd those principles came from the concepts and principles which was a much longer document that we briefed you on last year as well I'm not going to go over all of these again also happened in the last year the Watershed model that the unba developed was delivered to the as well as all the documentation so this is a picture of the Watershed model there are predictions for water quality in every one of those areas that's demarcated by gray lines okay now I'm going to slow down sources of nutrients since there are several new members who haven't seen previous presentations and council member rist asked about this earlier this year just wanted to briefly say that the sources of nutrients going to fall Falls Lake that is what we're.
Talking about Falls Lake are largely coming from forests for both nitrogen and phosphorus and then I've highlighted stream Banks because it goes from less than 1% we round it up of nitrogen to 15% of phosphorus and it's the second biggest source of phosphorus so that would be erosion that happens in the Stream Banks so when people say that it's all the city of Durham it's the only the city of Durham's problem we are not the biggest source we're not the second biggest source in both of those cases and again just for folks that haven't seen these presentations before the way that the model breaks down land use and predicts nitrogen and phosphorus coming from the different lands these this is a subset of probably about 50 different land uses that we look at but these are the ones that were relevant for the city of Durham so unmanaged land would be Parks it would be some of the vegetated right aways developed open space developed lands obviously were standing in the sitting sitting standing.
In the developed lands stream bank erosion would be the erosion that happens in the channel and that also undercuts the banks and pulls makes the channel wider and deeper sand filters are are a type of septic system so septic systems we have separately than sand filters sand filters are put in places where the charge from the septic tank can't be drained into something that that goes through the ground sand filters are places where the discharge from the septic tank goes to a pipe and goes to a conveyance a stream a ditch a whatever so those are very different and we regulate those very differently than septic systems so just to be clear on that this year some of the big things that are happening this year with unba we're voting we've already voted the directors voted at the last meeting to pursue a legislative change the unba has remade itself once already it's about to remake itself again under a different set of statutes that exists that has exist existed for a long time that.
Allows a local government group to implement water quality protection plans so if we are successful if the unba is successful the unba will be the first group to ever take advantage of this piece of legislation which is existed for more than 20 years as near as we can tell so if you hear something from our legislative team about this this is something that we do support schedule for rules re adoption this is a slide that we have been given many times I don't think it's actually going to happen this way but we have started making progress to some of the things that are in the January through May timeline I would not expect us to finish with rules read adoption in 2026 I would expect it in 202 27 and maybe even early 2028 it's just going to take that long for us to Coes on what we need to have in there and to agree on the words because the words matter there's the budget categories for next year nothing really super interesting.
There the budgets the budget came down for fy2 this is the first time since FY 2017 that the budget was under a million dollar so this is pretty significant and we're very happy about it and I believe yes that is all I have how's about that for Speed talking you deserve a raise right so there's the names of all your team you can ask any of us questions at any time I think Aaron's already gone so any questions any questions all right awesome thank you so much can I I have to do do have jump go ahead first of all I just want to thank Michelle Miss WL for this presentation she summarized a lot a lot of complex walk our science stuff and Regulatory Frameworks all that kind of stuff in a few slides this stuff is like really critical to all the conversations we having about development in southeast I just want to make sure that you all know this is like major stuff and that Michelle and our colleagues at storm.
Water as well the folks at Water Management are on top of this stuff but this is like I hope you all I mean I hope we have a chance to dig in this further because there's a lot here that's really important to what we're all wrestling with in this Council so just want to put that out there so can I ask if you have the same information for Jordan Lake Jordan Lake is not as far in their process as Falls Lake is they are actually quite a bit behind Falls Lake yeah so we don't have any of that information for Jordan we and that's pretty critical as well but we're just writing the rules for Jordan Lake I was the representative on that last year and they were just starting that I think they're now doing it yeah y all your might she said it was a bear what F here out there it's a lot going on out there basically the other thing to not too is like so so all the what.
Miss wolf just presented was largely about this issue of about nutrients going into Falls Lake right which is all about chlorophyll a and algae has nothing to do for the most part anything related to bacteria or sedimentation that's all a separate thing or large focus at right now unba on this issue of nutrient loads so that's I just want to put that again there that's one piece of Falls Lake that's the main thing our regulatory environment is telling us to look at but it doesn't there's other issues that are also important so say that all right thank you so much all right well we we do have one other matter I I I I need for the sake of Staff scheduling I need to go back and address out July live meeting because we're we're not as of right now I I found out I'm not going to be here I I really feel uncomfortable doing City business with so many people not being here and so did a little legal research we prior.
Understanding was we were required to have a meeting at least once a month but what we learned was as long as we address that meeting publicly with a rescheduled proposition in mind then we could we're notifying the public that that meeting will not happen so that means we're amending our calendar and we're doing that on public record so I need to basically the options would be August 1st 2nd or 5th and if we do it on the 5th we will have an all day meeting that means we would do the a work session that morning and we would do a council meeting that night I have spoken to some I know August 1 some of you may not be back yet so August 2nd based on my conversations seems to be the best day so far what does that look like we start.
There you're asking about the second August 2nd August 2nd yeah that would be a work session and then then the it's it's a Friday we would we would do it at at you know we could do it at we because it would be a rescheduled meeting we could schedule it whenever we want right it could be 10 so just a work session on the work session yeah now it'll be a quick turnaround for the the the general body meeting that that Monday night coming up Madam attorney you're giving me the look I look I'm a YouTube lawyer so if I spoke out of compliance let me know no no it's fine it's it's not the legal standard I did want to point out that so I'm already booked for some personal travel on August 1st and 2nd and the rest of the team is scheduled to be at the North Carolina Association of Municipal attorneys meeting on on August 1 and 2nd like the entire office which means.
That's fine one of us could stay behind we can we can probably negotiate that but I just wanted you to be aware of it Mr Mayor I'm out of town until the 3 of August so so it's one member I'm just letting youall know that the only out of the three dates that you listed the only option I have is August 5th because that that's when I had asked for that excuse absence a couple weeks ago and made my plans thank you you always say thank you so fast after your point you know like I'm gonna be out of town on the F on and I'll get back on the F thank you it's like a it's like a finger pop so does that mean that one option would be a work session and yeah we can start we can do like 9:00 a.m. that morning until we can go 9: to 12 9: to 1 and then we come back later that night at 7 sounds like it's better for the city.
Attorney's office as well that's on spot yeah it would be better for the city attorney's office because I could be president Goa and I also am only one member but I will not be available in the morning on the 5th so I apologize but I have district court and I already have and I already set my court dates around this calendar so I mean it's it's a longer we we could do like afternoon of the 5th and then that evening right she I could be available probably starting around noon or so we do one o00 possibly being a little bit late M Mr Mr Mayor we've done that before I mean it's not pleasant but we've certainly done employee evaluations for several hours a council meeting it's never fun but we've certainly had to have longer dayses on as council members I have a question from the staff point of view it wouldn't that that work session would constitute what we taking action on it that that that same is that.
Is that enough turnaround Tom from the staff point of view. Or so and and staff we'll jump in if I go go a but what we would do is we would actually have our our pre-schedule based upon what you all decide we would have you know our schedule adjusted for our staff you would still have the material in advance of the meeting that you're going to have that is delayed it would just be you you would be acting on it or you know discussing it in public on the same day that you have the Action meeting but you know you would have seen the information much earlier right I sometimes at works this Council sometimes at work session we may rewrite for stuff or ask for additional info or I mean I and and just for for y'all if if we did that on the same day as the meeting and something how would that affect our our productivity that night if we ask for something off script so if in my opinion.
If you were asking for something that required you know the staff to do additional additional work we would probably move the item to a future meeting if we were not able to provide that followup for you in the hours between the work session and and the meeting so we would set the agenda without without the item it will be referred back to the administration and words that we use I'll certainly defer to the to the will of of my colleagues but I'd prefer not to do a work session the same day as a general meeting look how long we've been in this one I I would just feel comfortable if we could if we have to then of course we'll make it work but I'd prefer not to do it on the same day all right so I can do a poll to see oh go ahead oh I just want to just to clarify attorney R bger are your folks out of town that whole week or is.
It just that Thursday and Friday so they're out of and myself as well we they are out of town Thursday Friday and I fly out Thursday morning as well okay because there is also that Wednesday before and I know that doesn't fix council member caber's issue but we' also do have the 31st as a potential option and then it would be in July. You you here on the 31st or you gone are you going I'm all right but you everyone else is here 31st of July are you in like Tanzania somewhere or China you know it's on a Wednesday I think for me the only thing is psychologically I feel like I'm still in July because I am like dang we don't have to jump the month of July off but we do so so we gonna vote I no yeah I just would that work you you guys because that's the Wednesday I can be present on Wednesday the 31st all right are we G we G to vote or we just.
We doing because it doesn't mean the one day we all can be there is the fifth do I need to suspend the rules and vote on this to amend the calendar I think you're giving direction to staff to prepare an ordinance to in the calendar all right staff put in your GPS directing you to we are looking at July 31st to that's the the work session that is the work session to replace the work session on the 25th one p.m. the 31st so wait AE just just real quick so real quick you're the only one that's missing on the fifth right no she's there I'm here on the fif who's missing on the F no one's missing on the fifth we just said it oh it was the same day people didn't want to do it that day I was this one person who said I didn't want but all decide obviously.
What okay let's do this what is your preference my preference would be Wednesday the 31st n first preference to this you go well I still have a preference yeah that's right theth just R me off Freeman.
The tie September I'm I'm GNA go with the fifth I I because I just don't want to rush back in town that's all Madam manager to your point though the agenda will be live when we we would normally have had it live so so I guess a qu a a a thing we could do as council is is be mindful look at your agenda and there's a resource person listed on your agenda reach out to the person so I'm just saying like it you know if folks to to the mayor prm's Point around the tight turnaround we're still going to have our materials and if folks have questions about those materials then Reach Out call or email the staff person associated with it to get your questions answered sure and I I also want to say that I can also get an excused absence from the work session if yall want to have it in the morning and have a break that it's it's your yeah we.
We'll we'll do we'll do 1 pm on on the 5th Madam Clerk we we. Recorded yes and then he's officially dropping the 25th so when're we're canceling that work session right we're resch yeah my comment was related to our internal schedule we would just keep our internal schedule for materials preparation as if the meeting was going to be on July 25th and then that's yes and then you all would just have it yeah early on all right that that is that's very helpful all right Madam attorney we're good we're gonna have you all here everyone is gonna be here we'll just be tired at night and council member cook is going to reach out to every resource person on the agenda get all her questions asked prior to the meeting oh she's pulling a Chelsea I and as we're getting out of here guys I did want to say on on on the record there was a news story recently published that the city of dorham is choosing not to support summer.
Camps and that is very that is that is not the case I I want to have respect for the rich debate that we had the other night and and and I also want to highlight why council member Freeman bought the point bought the the item up because there is not enough support and we want to make sure we do support even more so I I just want it's it's it's not I don't know if it ever be enough but to to Spectrum news please get it right don't do that again I should not have said that on the record sorry madam attorney I'll retract that comment to our media colleagues please please report accurately all right we are yes oh my gosh that's right all right Madame.
Clerk thank you Mr Mayor and welcome everybody to the five o'clock hour the council board committee and commission nominations are as follows the Durham City County Environmental Affairs board appointment Tammer H schlett the Durham affordable housing implementation committee appointment is tavan rhill the Durham Convention of visitors bureau discover Durham appointment is Sean Umstead and the Durham Convention and Visitor Bureau mayoral appointment is Crystal E Taylor and that's the end of the report thank you so just really quick the second and I know it's ultimately up to council but we do get recommendations from discover Durham on our appointees and so as the liais on I just want to raise that so that is a a matter that gets brought up during their board meetings with internal conversations as to why the recommendation was a recommendation obviously we get to do what we want but I just want folks to know that there were conversations in that board meeting that I was PR to around why the recommendation for.
The person was what it was Sydney Cove yeah Sydney Cove thank you and that was in that was in the material yeah it was in our material I'm just raising that for for folks including demographic breakup of the board okay all right thank you are there any changes or is that the final okay those are your nominations all right let us settle the agenda thank you Mr Mayor the agenda for the next council meeting is consent items 1 through 17 items 19 through 34 items 42 and 43 for GBA item 35 and GBA public hearings item 37 and items 39 through 41 all right thank you I will entertain motion to settle the agenda move to settle second all right all right all in favor please raise your right hand and say I I I right all oppos all right Madam Clerk passes unanimously thank you all I enjoy your evening and Welcome to our intern over there.
Counc for.