City Council · Regular Meeting · October 24, 2024

until he gets here uh good afternoon Madam clerk would you please call the rooll thank you Mr Mayor proam um mayor Williams is delayed mayor protm Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member cavayero here council member cook here council member Freeman has an excuse to absence and council member wris here thank you thank you madam clerk honorable colle it's good to see you to the staff and everyone in the room and to our residents and neighbors who on whatever platform you may be watching thank you for joining us today at this time I'm going to yal to my honorable colleagues for any announcements they may have council member cook thank you good to be with you all today just have a few quick announcements um the first is that you know sound like a broken record but early voting is still open so um I think it's great to check in with your friends and family to see if you have if they have a plan to vote um and I'm just going to tell you all that my plan is to early vote tomorrow morning for accountability so um remember you can always check to see if your friends have voted uh but you cannot see who anyone votes for but

whether or not you vote is public record so um please do go vote uh the next thing that I wanted to say was that um I had the pleasure this morning of meeting with some folks from uh our uh Regional Hood office as well as the Durham housing authority and some other activists in the community and some folks from nccu um happy homecoming to our Eagles uh they have nccu has been granted a partnership with HUD um there's going to be money available for a pilot program to do fair housing work um so I'm really excited about that partnership and excited to be involved and I think there was a lot of really good conversation about um how to elevate the voices of the people who are actually living in the Housing Community um sites and make sure that their interests are being correctly represented and um and it's something that I think that we've fallen short of

in the past and we have a lot of really cool upcoming projects in terms of development and new housing um but we have struggled to have good communication with our tenants particularly that are living there uh so I'm really hopeful about that pilot program and I'm excited to see where that goes I'm really really proud that our um in our own nccu is going to be heading that up with HUD so that's really awesome um the third thing is that there is a town hall this evening and I'm going to read the address because I want to make sure everyone has it so it's going to be tonight doors open at 6:30 it starts at 7 it's at the Walltown recreational center 1308 West Club Boulevard 1308 West Club Boulevard again doors at 6:30 um the program will start at 7 it'll be from 7: to 8: um and I think we've got lots of great staff folks coming to do presentations there tonight so excited to see yall at the Town Hall which I will be coming to

after um another meeting with HUD and nccu this afternoon and then the final thing is that I would be requesting a ABS an excused absence for the next work session so at the appropriate time I will ask for that motion to be made and those are my announcements thank you thank you council member council member Baker oh I'm sorry council member cabier good afternoon thank you good afternoon um it is that season remember to get your flu and covid shots ladies and gentlemen uh and also wash hands take vitamin C and whatever else uh I out of precaution not Co but just don't want to get anyone sick um and additionally yes go vote please vote Yes on your bond uh they're on the back of your ballot they're the last two questions for uh voters and I think I just saw somebody was right biking by okay there okay

ladies and gentlemen the mayor has arrived he's arrived on a bike anyway that's all thank you council member mariss thank you thank you may PM greetings greetings m city manager colleagues um citizens here and online um just a couple things there's always a lot going on in the Bull City I want to Echo my colleagues comments about um staying healthy in this time of year I'm also got a little bit of crud myself so I'm masking up as well to um be safe so um since Monday's Council meetings there have been more presentations to community groups on the upcoming Bond um this week on Monday it was the Coalition for affordable housing and Transit um and then on Tuesday the Watts hillindale um Watts Hospital hillindale neighborhood association also had a meeting online so thanks for those groups for inviting us to talk about the $200 million um two bonds for Street sidewalks and Parks um any other neighborhood or Civic groups that would like a presentation you can still sign up on the city's website uh the connecting Durham 2024 website um and finally I just got to thank the dedicated staff I see Tim Tim's been at like almost every meeting

right so thanks Tim for being there um but also all the other staff from from public works from Parks and Rec that have been in all these meetings to communicate to the residents the nuts and bolts of what's in these bonds so thank you so much for that um and most of all since early voting has already started please get out and vote uh vote Yes for both bonds the second thing is yesterday I had the honor of being part of the groundbreaking here's my little hard hat here um for Southside revital revitalization phases three and four thank you so much Reginal Johnson and Community Development um for those of that don't know this is a crucial Redevelopment U project for the city of Durham led by the Community Development Department um it's also the first time this first time right Regal that the city has partnered with the county on an affordable housing project really important so thanks to the county and all the other funding Partners together phases three and four um will include 100 affordable units some at some for households below 30% Ami the rest for households below 60% Ami so it's a big big uh completion of the Southside project can't be more excited about that

thank you Community Development and it'll be a big um a big project for the city of Durham so excitement about that um and with that the mayor's here having ridden in on his little bike so we saw you zoom by the door there so good to have you here thanks I Y thank you council member colleagues I don't have any announcements today I before I yield to the mayor for his announcement I'm going to um discharge of the matter of an excused absence for council member cook by my Reckoning I think that work session is November 7th so I'll entertain a motion to excuse council member cook for the November 7th work session moved I hear a motion in a second all in favor I I the motion carries unanimously you are excused ma'am Madame mayor uh Mr Mr Mayor I yield to you good afternoon and welcome all right I uh too would need an excuse absence uh December 5th that is a I'm not sure what it is the December 5th work session yeah

I'll entertain a motion to excuse the mayor from the December 5th work session moved I hear a motion in the second all in favor I I all right your excuse thank you you uh so I'm pretty sure because dur has been doing some pretty cool things lately so I'm pretty sure it's probably covered um all of the uh housing stuff the bus stuff did you all cover that okay but you talked about the uh affordable housing Southside okay that that was great um only end dor right where you uh break ground and cut ribbons all in the same vein um and just the amazing work that our staff is doing uh director Johnson thank you and your team for your leadership uh and this speaking program the agenda can actually tell you very well how intricate it is to make these things happen and all of the partners that play a role um I do wish it was simpler than that but um whatever it takes so thank you all um left that event and went over to Southern High School as full circle for

me because that is where I taught and uh during Public Schools um we were with uh uh the EPA administrator Michael rean and he was there and we uh along with others congresswoman Valerie fushi school board members um coun uh County uh Commissioners we were able to uh take a ride on one of the new electric school buses during Public Schools will be receiving 38 new electric school buses and you know being a country boy like myself um who used to ride an hour and a half on the bus uh to get to school because I was was the first one to get you know my mom was the bus driver so I've had to get up with her and do the entire route uh in the bus B is louder as it as it is and all the fumes it just feels good to have something quieter and you know not have to have the students screaming over one another um and then getting in a quiet classroom sitting in a straight row uh this just makes so

much more sense and to step in the right direction so grateful for the millions of dollars that we're getting from the federal government the Biden Harris Administration who helped make the affordable housing units happen as well as the body and hars administration who is helping to make um you know us get more school buses that are electric um it is homecoming um I would not make a new story I'll just have a little fun um but I'll be around having a good time so happy homecoming uh to all of the Eagles out there um and I just love U from the McNair Scholars um uh Gathering uh downtown Durham here and it just feels good to see so many HBCU students that are um they all they do is research research research research and I'm so grateful for that all right let's let's uh let's get to it yeah Ronald McNair he uh created that program for uh HBCU students to have the same access to n professional networks

and um yeah and and and and scholarship like they're counterparts yeah okay that's all right all right all right I will uh pass the priority items now to the m manager oh I'm sorry colleagues also uh just want to thank you all for a really really good meeting Monday night um I know it was a meeting like any other but it wasn't like any other it was just really efficient um council member Baker um I think Monday night also was a really good example of using your expertise to help push the envelope and the checks and balances on that council member cook council member rist just want to highlight and thank you all for uh just really pushing the envelope and being a very efficient Council um and pushing what we need to and being realistic and practical what we need to as well and being Innovative and getting

you know new standards you know but you know we we we are checks and balance process ourselves and I just want highlight that so thank you all right Madam manager good afternoon Mr Mayor Mr Mayor protim members of the Durham city council I have a couple of priority items for you this afternoon agenda item number two the American Rescue plan act arpa project fille Street Corridor planning and infrastructure community Assistance initiative this item is being referred back to the city manager's office agenda item number 14 recruitment of city manager position a supplemental item was added and includes a presentation for you this afternoon and the department expects that presentation to be about 20 minutes thank you those are the only two items I have thank you so much

um to uh Mr Council attorney good afternoon um Mr Mayor Williams mayor proam and members of the city council I'm um senior Deputy City Attorney Fred Lamar I'm in for the City Attorney Kim rayberg the city attorney's office does have a priority item today it's a a request a motion to go into Clos session I can read you that motion now or wait until the end of uh the regular business um to for you to vote on that it's your option I can okay I'll go I'll go ahead and um I'll go ahead and read the motion now which is um to hold a closed session for attorney client consultation pursuant to GS 143-30570

set now all right property second uh all in favor all right so at the end we'll just go directly into it and let me go back and uh go ahead and approve the uh manager's priority item I'll entertain a motion so move move to approve second okay thank you all in favor I I thank you all right Madam clerk good afternoon Mr Mayor Mr Mayor proam and council members I do have a few priority items I had reached out to you about Shifting the board and committee report to my priority item section I just wondered if there was um consensus to do that that's fine colleagues yeah y everyone's good with that okay um so I'll do that today and

then item nine a presentation has been updated presentation by the environmental Affairs board related to the EAB sustainable decision-making tool their presentation was updated and they will be presenting today for 30 minutes we do have a new timer I'll have you know with a consistent ring and um for the closed session today we need to to to stop the stream downstairs so you'll need to provide staff with with a few minutes as we transition to that and that's all I have oh gosh okay stream I thought you talk got a water stream no stop the um streaming of the of the meeting and so today for the boarding committee report the Durham bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission appointment Mary Ellen green has been nominated by Council for the recreation Urban trails and Greenways position and that's my report thank you thank you so much all right I will now read a consent agenda number one dur bicycle and

pedestrian advisory commission appointment number two American Rescue plan act arpa Project B Street Corridor planning and infrastructure community Assistance initiative number three oh it's been referred back okay number three uh sister cities agreement with Quang China which will be having yeah I have a question by that pull it just P yeah p yeah that maor call uh number four uh US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD Grant project ordinances fiscal year 2024 2025 cdbg fiscal year 2024 2025 home uh fiscal year 2024 2025 ESG fiscal year 2024 2025 Hawa 2023 Continuum of Care Program number five resolution authorizing the Virtual City auction number six Cooperative group purchase contract number seven Cooperative group purchase contract

automated refuse trucks number eight the Department of Justice Office of Justice programs Bureau of Justice assistance 2024 Justice and mental health collaboration program Grant project ordinance you oh I was just gonna say that I was excited about it but I don't want to pull it all right number nine presentation by the Environmental Affairs board related to the sustainable decision-making tool 10 American Rescue plan act update arpa uh number 11 zoning map change Lenley Town Homes town houses 12 Consolidated annexation Sharon Grove number 13 Consolidated annexation wiford at park at the park and uh we have a uh s matter no um yeah recruitment city manager position presentation all right right yeah number

30 all right yeah number three call Miss k k m wrist yeah I don't know I don't know whether it's Derek the person or is that you or I don't know who the resource person is on that this question who you are yeah yeah it was simple question it's just that I know we're talking about having a Sister St relationship with kunan we also have one currently with XA China so so what does that mean to have two I mean certainly the more of the mar right but what is it is it typical to have like two cister cities from one yeah these cities are they're millions of people um they are no yeah I'm just wondering about the sort of like what that means having in the same country to sister cities no no that's fine I Happ all the time yeah we um you Le you you have any remarks on yeah there's there's nothing that precludes uh from us from having two cities in in one country China of course a billion people it's a huge a nation so there's there's even cultural differences from from Province to Prov you know so but the short interest there's nothing that precludes us from having if we want to do another city in

England or Mexico we can certainly do that so hopefully we'll get more cities actually Derek you wna respond and I believe Mark good Willie from our sister Ci's Comm committee is here to and he can speak to oh I'm sorry Derek Stanfield Office of the mayor I believe Mark good will hear from Sister cities committee can speak to if that is a regularity with other cities have it multiple is he either in person or virtually we'll say what I will say while we're waiting I'm really looking forward to um I think this is you guys have had them come in person this timeo before yeah it'll be the first one under my Administration where we actually have them come in and and we'll we'll have a ceremonial signing uh to cify the relationship and uh we are in talks of kicking off Monrovia

Liberia uh so that's why we had the mayor here recently and uh then the president came shortly after and there are some others that are interested we just had um Council rist and I met with the German IND Embassy and um the mayor of Friberg is a good friend of mine and we're already kicking that conversation off Martin horn and uh so yeah maybe while we're waiting you could just speak a little bit to how we find these folks and and why we are choosing them just just give us a little bit of a for the folks at home just give us a little summary for whoever wants to do that sure sure no great question relationships oftentimes start off with a a delegation of our own residents um um in the city of Durham who who are connected um to the country or to the city um our sister city our leadership of our sister city they do great work in in kind of monitoring our demographics

in the city uh and trying to start relationships with folk from from different places it it's usually uh starts off with with informal conversations or or overtures from residents in our city who are from uh that country or that city um we had uh some of you may remember we put our relationship with krom Russia on hold after the war um and much of that was also because of of conversations with not only sister cities the the National Organization but um residents in our city as well there's always um uh a a prerequisite it's prerequisite but we we always look for a representative group of folk in our own City from that particular city um or country country and then a particular City and then build on it from there we're looking for more I I will say part of uh the conversation the other day with the German Embassy was what's the temperature in the United States right now specifically North Carolina you know um and it's easier to come down to the ground level you know

and speak with us um s you know City to city than trying to look at a national government um and you know so from potential trade opportunities to definitely cultural idea sharing cultural sharing um it just really I I my bias is I think that you know sister cities is one of the Avenues that's going to help save the world from the device of this that we're going through right now um but yeah it's it's really just developing a a relationship with other cultures and communities what we can just share ideas People to People is one of the uh principles I know our heart uh the whole heart team concept is a national I mean International sensation right now so uh I think we're good dere I yeah I think we're good thank you okay well we can now get to our

presentations all right item number nine EAB e n so uh welcome it's good to see you so you want to press the button on the right there that says on off there you

go now everybody can hear you now the world can hear you okay thank you thank you for having us my name is Jennifer carrian I am the chair of the environmental Affairs board this is Barrett dollar I'll be introducing um us more and a little bit she's a graduate student researcher that had assisted the EAB with this project I have served on the environmental Affairs board for five and a half years and this is my second term as chair and on behalf of the EAB we are very excited to be presenting this uh this tool to you today for your feedback so as a reminder to all the environmental Affair board is a City County Board we collaborate with community members businesses and organizations to provide guidance to you our elected officials and County Commissioners as well as staff on actions and policies that create a sustainable and safe environment for all residents and preserve our natural ecosystems and

resources so why are we presenting to you today the pread for you all was a lot more information than I'm going to be presenting in this presentation we uh provideed the full report as well as a short executive summary about the tool that I'll be talking to today right now I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the background about why we are bringing this tool and proposing it to you and how it was developed so you have a little bit more context about it so the environmental Affairs board was very involved in the creation of the environmental goals and actions for the comprehensive plan and we want our elected officials to have the tools and information necessary to make decisions that achieve that comprehensive plan so in conversations with several County Commissioners uh they expressed a desire to have more information available to them about the environmental impacts of decisions that they were making and how that aligns with theirm existing sustainability goals so we decided to uh engage in a research project to see if we could make a tool available that would uh provide that type of information so the EAB

engaged the help of a masters of Environmental Management student at Duke University to research what other cities across the United States have done to support elected officials in decision making to achieve environmental goals the result of that research is a Durham specific sustainable decision- Mak tool that I'm going to be presenting to you today um and also to the board of County Commissioners work session on November 4th so we're bringing this to you today to get your feedback on content and implementation of a tool like this as well as to ask staff for their feedback on content and implementation of a tool like this and we'll be asking the same of the County Commissioners on November 4th our goal here is a City W City countywide tool that would be attached to your agenda memos and provide the information at your fingertips when you are making decisions about all types of policies and actions not necessarily just land use decisions so to reiterate the purpose of

this sustainable decision-making framework or tool it's to support the elected officials you in evaluating the environmental implications of a proposed action policy or any project and to ensure that those decisions align with and help the city's uh sustainability goals that have already been outlined Durham is amazing we have tons of environmental goals and sustainability action plans already in place um this tool aligns with existing plans and goals and would support uh the elected officials in evaluating the environmental implications of any action policy or project that how that aligns with those existing plans and goals so I'm reiterating that just to make super clear the environmental Affairs board in this tool is not providing or proposing any new goals uh for the city of Durham we are simply making a tool to so that you would know whether or not a particular action or policy how well or it does or does not

align with our existing sustainability goals and environmental goals so how did we make the Tool uh we did a lot of research uh we uh assessed um dozens of cities uh we found them by looking at scores for sustainable cities cities that Durham might like to be like and then filtered based on region City size and resources available so for example we actually looked at which uh cities have part-time versus full-time city council to make sure that we were proposing a tool that would be reasonable for part-time elected officials to be able to to use so we did a WID skan of um Benny cities and then found ones that had tools similars to what we were proposing and then narrowed that down to 30 cities and we looked in depth that the specific tools used by 30 uh different cities and then categorize them based on the different types of tools so I'm just

going to give you some examples of the types of tools we found in other cities um there's three categories that those TOS F typically fill into either a sustainability or Equity checklist this type of tool most aligned with the type of structure that would likely be useful given the way that Durham has structured our plans and goals um they tend to be more succinct they tend to focus on similar topics that we like to focus on things like environmental justice or greenhouse gas emissions um the second type of tool was a land use criteria Tool uh these are intended only to be used used to evaluate City Planning or development projects uh this is very much narrower in Focus than what we were proposing for Durham uh because we wanted something that could be used for any type of decision not just land use decisions although in addition to land use decisions in addition our Planning Commission already has environmental impact criteria that they look at for the decisions that they make so we did not feel the need to duplicate their efforts

and then lastly sustainable plan addendums uh these tools were usually used as addendums to city or County's overall sustainability plans um they were usually used as general guiding principles um or guiding questions that policy makers should consider um but they weren't necessarily uh used or created in a way that um or excuse me they were often created in a way such that the policy maker was intended to answer the question themselves versus having somebody with the technical expertise answer it for the elected official and then present that information in front of them and that's what we were trying to do is prevent you provide you not so much with questions to answer but actually the information that answered those questions that you might want answered for you so finally this is where my presentation is going to end and where I'd like the questions and uh comments and feedback to begin so this is the tool itself there is a longer uh report that explains much more detail how each

question was developed which uh cities they were based on some more nuanced about the question wording and so happy to provide some more um detailed answers if that's um if that's requested but just to summarize we are proposing that this tool would be um used in such a way that these questions would be answered for the policy actions and projects that you are deciding on so that when you see them in your agenda memo these questions are answered for you and then you can make a decision based on those answers so question number one would be does this action increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions now or in the future this aligns with our comp plan as well as our Caro neutrality and renewable energy plans this question would be answered something like this might increase it by x amount now but overall in over the next 20 years it's uh going to decrease it and here's why that might be the kind of nuance that this question it gets to question number two is who benefits from this action and who is disproportionately imp acted and will this action further entrench any

existing unjust unjust environmental issues or systems this one's hard to give an example but the uh without reading page 94 of our comp plan but our page 94 of our comp plan has a really robust definition for Durham for environmental justice so we expect the answer to this would respond directly to that definition uh question number three is how a more um overall summary of environmental impacts um for water quality air quality heat Islands flooding habitat fragmentation and biodiversity just to make sure that we are not um being two one using only one lens when environment we're eval evaluating environmental impacts is obviously about more than just greenhouse gas emissions and frankly a lot of the decisions made at the local level have much more to do with these things so we wanted to make sure that these were answered and then lastly would the actions uh impact any ecologically sensitive or valuable natural areas or a land adjacent to those areas and again this is directly referencing a specific definition in the

comprehensive plan as well so to summarize um happy to answer questions about this some detail about how these questions are defined is taken directly from the comp plan so we made sure not to provide any new definitions or uh new ways of interpreting anything these would be directly um referenced in the comprehensive plan and we would uh propose this tool is used in your um as a decision-making tool for you as well as the County Commissioners and so our request here just to uh reiterate is any comments or feedback from you um about this as well as a direction from staff to provide us with more detailed feedback on content and implementation and we'll be taking all of that feedback from city council staff as well as County Commissioners and then um revising the tools based on that and then providing it back to you as a more final format thank you how about it um thank you so much for this

presentation uh and also I just want to appreciate how much work has gone into this and um the intentionality with which youall looked at all of these other cities and chose ones that fit with Durham I appreciate the idea that we work part-time I feel like I don't feel like I put way more hours than a part-time worker into this job but um but I do appreciate that all that work that went into that I think that the question that seems to be on everybody's mind when I hear about this tool and its use um is is how it is actually going to happen who's going to be doing the assessment and what is the impact going to be on staff um and so I know you've talked to staff a little bit about this so far and I know you are looking for feedback as well but I'm wondering if you could just speak a little bit to who's going to use this tool how does it get into our packet what resources are we going to expend as the city not to say one way or the other that it's not useful but just want to make sure that we have an understanding of that impact on our yeah absolutely I fig that's the mo that's the number one question right

so the first I'll answer this in a couple ways one is so this is not the first time this may be the first time it's presented to this particular staff that's in this room um but we presented it to the EAB first and got our liaison feedback U initially that was back in May and so we incorporated some of that feedback into this version that you see today so the EAB specifically ason have already seen this as well um in general we got a positive response with the understanding that there would be need to be some refinements or some thinking through about how to actually Implement so um when we proposed this and out of that EAB meeting we saw it uh kind of implemented in one of two ways and there's probably more ways that we're not thinking of this is again why we're looking for ideas um one would be in the same way that staff provide uh research or any uh context or background information that you all request on any agenda item when it's presented to you so one way this might be used is that you request this information is provided to you dur on your agendas so that you can see it when you prepare for your

decisions this is like right in front of you and that would be prepared by staff we have wonderful staff who all up a lot of technical expertise in a lot of these areas and which we know because a lot of those uh staff are Lea on to the environmental Affairs board so one option would be the staff uh provides the background information for this another option would be the environmental Affairs board provides the background information for this that's something the EAB would be very happy to take on um if provided that opportunity to do this research we have uh it's earlier in my slides but we have technical experts on all of these areas on the environmental Affairs board and we have access to a wide network of technical experts just based on our professional backgrounds to be able to answer any questions we wouldn't know so we would be happy to help assist either Council or assist staff and have it be a collaborative project to be able to for some of these things especially some of the more technical ones as it relates to like getting really into like air quality or getting really into biodiversity or something um that's what we would propose um is uh having staff

provide that background context and if it's something that staff doesn't feel is Possible having the EAB supplement that St that staff or just having the EAB do it I think is another option um again we do have the technical expertise to answer these questions and enough familiarity with the comprehensive plan to answer it for the comprehensive plan our goal here is so that you are not we don't have a comp plan and then you're making decisions and there's no connection between the decisions and the comp plan right we are just make giving you questions that help you say yes or no justes is this aligned with the comp plan that's basically the point of this is is this aligned with the environmental part of the comprehensive plan and have you have you had conversations with staff already we go ahead sorry yeah go ahead um we have not had uh I haven't had one-on-one conversations with staff we've had conversations with the staff as a group at that EAB meeting that would be my next step is um I would love to have one-on-one conversations with staff to get their direct feedback on

it first of all I just want to say thank you I think this is uh exactly the kind of work that we hope for from our boards and commissions is residents who are joining who are excited who want to step up and be proactive and do the work um do the work of the commission and I think that's exactly what what you're doing what what this is and I'm also just impressed having looked at the report with the thoroughness uh and professionalism of the report so I appreciate that um I appreciate the the questions posed by council member cook uh one question I have is um you know I and I'm very protective of of sort of Staff time so I definitely want you know you have staff leas on so and I'm also leaon to EAB having those conversations with staff to make sure that we're not loading up staff time um and then where where we would be loading up stff time EAB taking the lead on on reviewing um what it is so uh for so one thing here

is how would you select what the EAB would take a look at would there be criteria what are your initial thoughts on on how you would prioritize what you're actually taking a look at assuming you can't take a look at everything or evaluate everything um and then also kind of what you see as as next steps you know do are you going to do a taste a test case or um you know what what can we imagine would would come out of of this process um you know in the next several months yeah so I like the idea of uh you all providing us with a test case um that would be actually really a great idea saying like this decision is coming up let's use this tool for that and see how it goes um that would be the best way for us to uh refine it based on real world examples um in terms of which decisions I think that is one of the next steps and that's why I want to have those conversations with staff and with you all if you have specific ideas about scoping it what kinds of decisions this should be relevant to obviously in an

Ideal World with all the time in the world we could get these kind of questions answered for everything that you all are deciding on right um but I want to make sure that we are scoping it appropriately so that my answer to that is first I'd like like to ask some of the key staff departments um like I'm thinking storm water for example and planning department both come to mind um as ones that I would want to ask them which which of these answers do they feel like they have staff already on hand that could answer those questions versus which ones would they want the EAB to support um I will say when we researched the other cities for this this and Barett please correct me if I'm wrong but for the most part the staff were answering these question and that's also partly why we um based this on existing research is because we didn't want to come up with something that was completely unreasonable to ask staff to do um but based on our research the tools are created in such a way that the staff do answer it right yeah so these are uh based on cities where the staff is answering these questions for the

councils or the County Commissioners um so we expect that our staff is um Can can do that obviously every city has different capacities um so without trying to sound like I'm uh giving you the runaround I want to ask Staff first um which types of decisions or policies or uh maybe even just types of questions they'd like to take on first versus want EAB support and if it's we want the EAB support for all of the technical areas like a through G that's fine um we have I'm sure we have plenty of staff that can answer question one for example we have sustainability departments that I know can answer that my mic's not on so the presentation I think the presentation showed up as the report in our packet we didn't get what you have in front of you so if I'm happy to send this to you as well please it thank you so I have I have lcks uh first of

all I'd love to know if you actually called any of the elected official offices to find out if they're actually using the tool I don't think Chicago is a part-time Council system I think it's full-time uh any strong mayor system is going to have a full-time Council that kind of tracks um so would love to know if there's been any conversation with actual electeds and if they're using the tool or if they're just requiring staff to do a lot of extra work and it's not actually impacting their decision making I would love to know I have a lot of questions uh would love to know I I would write them all down because this is what's going to happen uh with me anyway um would love to know so on average we have 20 to 40 agenda items uh contracts uh not just the memos uh is the plan have have folks thought through have folks had conversations around the agenda Cycles so even if we move forward on this uh understanding our agenda Cycles when you would have to be able to provide staff uh Insight uh would the

tool be used for every agenda item and I know you're saying test case would it what are you what's the scope that hasn't been answered I know you want to talk to staff but my I would have appreciated a little bit more understanding the scope on on how you would use this tool I think additionally um let me see I'm looking this up right now sorry with some of the questions um I think in the case of like the comp plan we're already answering all these questions with like how is it aligning on our zoning cases there's a I think it's one of our last attachments that puts that case with whatever measure whatever policy it's supposed to line up and it's saying if the policy is met or not met so I'm trying to understand what the difference would be with this tool and I think the other question that I have is a lot of the things and I guess this is where the scope comes into play you know there isn't a

sustainability piece to it it's a contract or it's a contract for heavy Fleet equipment there is no alternative for that equipment it is right right so I guess those are the questions is like how how how do we not make the tool not become a cumbersome thing absolutely and that's the kind of feedback that we want so to answer them in no particular order um so use your example of the heavy Fleet I want to be clear that um scoring low on a tool like this doesn't mean you necessarily say no it's about information so that you can make an appropriate decision and maybe that this is the only thing available and because of what we need as a city we still have to buy that heavy Fleet equipment great we go in knowing what the environmental impacts of those are um so that we can make it for informed decision I just want to be clear that this is not like a yes no type of thing it's an information providing type of tool because there may be tradeoffs that

we want to make and that's useful for us um we may need to cut down some trees to build a house that may be a tradeoff that we want to make um or may be a trade-off that we don't want to make depending on you know what what kind of information is provided so just want to be clear about that um to your first question I think it's a great next step and a great suggestion to call some of the city councilors involved what we did do is we only used tools that we found were actively in use based on agendas so these were ones that we found on agendas actively in use that's how we evaluated whether or not they were being used or not I think the qualitative um evaluation of calling City councilors and asking how they feel about it is also a good suggestion so thank you for that one council member um regarding your question about scoping the types of decisions that's actually the kind of feedback I'm asking of you is what type of decision should this be required for what type of a decision does this make sense for um what we don't want is only think about sustainability or environmental impacts when it's a sustainability type type decision the

point is to be able to evaluate environmental impacts for all types of decisions because many of them have environmental impacts whether or not we consider to them like sustainable stuff um but to your question about the type of uh scoping we are going to be asking staff that but I also want feedback from you as Council about what kinds of decisions it makes the most sense for you to have this kind of information about so that's why we didn't come in here with us with already having it scoped to the type of questions we wanted to get that information from you so that we can then scope it thank you I have more um so looking at the sustainab sustainability principles they're very Broad and I understand there's um kind of sub bullets underneath are you looking at the comprehensive plan you mean or where you hold on it's page and remember we don't have that this is just the report so it's on page six of the uh framework and I think it's a tool from California and so this is just an example of their tool I'm just curious

you know what is the context because what we run into in North Carolina is consistently like the city can do what it wants we can do whatever we want for the most part obviously we can we can mandate affordable housing we can mandate that our thing has to use solar power or some kind of other you know uh green whatever sustainable thing but we can't mandate that I mean this is what we ran into an EAB was you know extreme extremely involved in our carbon neutrality plan from you know several years ago um we certainly used your expertise on that um but what becomes clear in North Carolina is that we don't have local power to demand any of those things broadly we kind of use the bully pulpit so you know we can't have a living wage ordinance for the city what we can do is pay our workers as as the best that we can and and hope that that creates pressure in the market more broadly so would a tool like this just really be for internal

purposes because we can't mandate it for external purposes I'm not sure I totally understand the question so I'm going to respond but then I may I may be missing the Mark um so the example that you provided is the proposal consistent with the sustainability principles um that is the the purpose there is to answer kind of the same questions here it's like is are is the goal is the policy is the action consistent with XYZ policy rather than just asking that question broadly this breaks down that pulls out the specific parts of the policy that it might need to be consistent to if we are talking about environmental impacts and just makes it more specific it's not necessarily mandating yes or no whether or not we pass the policy or not pass the policy because of the answer to that question I yeah I guess what I'm saying is that most of this decision can only affect what we do as a city with our own internal work it cannot affect what we do externally because we don't have the power to do that in most of in most

cases does that make sense like we can say we can use this tool internally yeah if it moves forward right you could get all the feedback you want from for agenda items you could decide what the scope is certain agenda items don't fit right like we're going to fund whatever nonprofit doing whatever work but that is all internally focused it's only going to do what the carbon neut plan already does because all of our carbon neutrality like that plan is for city city work yeah yeah it's not for anything that we can do externally but the comprehensive plan is not comprehensive plan is a plan it is not local ordinance there's no en that's why we can suggest you meet the policy but there's no enforcement mechanism around it so it's just does do we just are we just overco complicating a thing because we don't actually we don't have any real power to push on the envelope other than the POC the power of persuasion like Hey we're

doing this thing internally other folks should try and do it but we can't tell you to do it but isn't it useful to understand whether or not an action is or is not aligned with the comprehensive plan it is helpful but I'm already saying I have a tool that tells me that that's all thank you okay I don't okay council member wrist Miss Barett well well thank you for coming Jennifer is always good to see it's good to have the environmental Affairs board in the house and Barett thanks for your good work on this a lot of deep research there I guess I maybe I want to pick up on that I think where you're going I guess I think there's a lot of questions about like some of the nuts and bolts how this would be executed implemented that's clear staff who's going to do EAB staff which what's the scope but I guess what I'm wrestling with with is like what's the L on a larger higher level like what are we trying to solve for you this tool like what's What's missing this tool because my my colleague is right we have a lot of detail certainly in our packet for for land use cases on a range of environmental impacts that

that relate to specific criteria in the Udo right so we have that so like like what's and I know for example the city of Providence has like a sustainability evaluation tool we don't have like a detailed environmental impact tool for everything we do in durm certainly don't right so like yeah what is like on a high level what's what are we solving for here yeah so what we're solving for I think from the environmental Affairs boards perspective is that we have great plans and great goals in Durham but we don't necessarily have a way to evaluate whether the decisions we make decision by decision by decision are achieving or reaching towards those goals or actively pushing us away from those goals um and that's really what we're trying to do is put the information in front of the people who we think need it um because it's not us um we're not the ones in making the decision decision by decision that's all that's the elected officials and this um and the staff support those decisions by providing that background context as well um we want to be able to connect the dot from

each decision to the goals that have already been created and so that's why we try to distill down into a short um into a short format rather than an envir we can't do an environmental impact assessment for every single uh um decision right obviously environmental impact assessment is for like really really large infrastructure projects or something where it's really huge and is a lot of detail to that this is you could think of it as like a teeny tiny environmental in fact snapshot for different things that don't otherwise have a tool available to provide that information right absolutely yeah and bringing some of those plant together in one format because we do you

do think about the carbon neutrality plan for example and if there's a particular decision that has to do with carbon neutrality obviously then the answer is what does it or does it not meet a carbon neutrality plan but there are many many decisions that affect our ability to achieve carbon neutrality that have nothing on the surface to do with carbon for example and that's really what we're trying to um achieve here and another example is something like uh flooding or heat islands for example you may have uh decisions that come across your desk that are like really directly affected excuse me um related to flooding or heat Islands but there's also a very large number of things that you deciding on that are not directly related to that but do impact those things and so that's what we're trying to solve for is that these are multifaceted issues and so keeping that information in front of you so that you we can see whether or not we're moving towards our goals or away from them sorry about that um so when you were describing earlier the sort of like the scoring

process so this tool won't say like do don't do corre so it's it's one more input that we have as part of the packet of things we're gonna get this is not a sort of designed to be determinative it just sort of like more it's just more information absolutely yes correct and to council member point this I just want to reiterate this is not telling Council to vote for or against something obviously I as an environmental Affairs board chair might say that but as the tool itself is not telling you to do something or not to do something it is helping you put putting the information of whether or not this is um in line with existing agreed upon plans and goals that Durham already has for the environment and I do also want from the implementation standpoint um the complexity of that I if again if there are existing tools are PL um parts of Frameworks that this could be integrated with rather than being separate if there's existing tools that you think are already achieving this that is the kind of feedback that we

want thank you Mr Mayor thank you colleagues for great discussion thank you good to see you all and thanks for the work uh that the EAB uh does for us um it's a tool uh and uh we know that tools aren't self- deploying they they are picked up sometimes you need to pick up a hammer sometimes you need to pick up a screwdriver depending upon the job that's before you um you know and I I really appreciate my colleagues uh leaning in on this and bringing up some important points but for me as as a policy maker decision maker it when I for example this question will this action will this Action Impact ecolog ecologically sensitive or valuable natural areas or land into those areas let's say the answer is yes okay okay the tool stops there and policy makers have to determine now so what how much is the impact worse what is the nature of the impact and that can't take the place of of policy makers so I I just want to stress that

it it's valuable as a tool correct and and and many of these questions this is kind of a if I can use a jazz metaphor kind of riffing off of what we asked in racial Equity it's the same type of questions appli to the environment um but we've known for Generations you know one tool is when people say ouch I mean there there have been communities that have been railing about impact and we know that they were hurting long before these tools were employed so so I you know um these are good questions for leaders to ask yes when they're making decisions whether they're codified or not who's getting impacted but but at the end of the day what this tool cannot answer is how much we think that impact is worth how much we're willing to take uh and Council M mook thank you for inviting them uh to be with us today I appreciate um you you're having them here um and and no we can't take the and we may have a council that's elected one day hopefully not Durham that doesn't believe in climate change and they don't care about you know drill baby drill

just just just you know um but I think this council is not not that Council so the tool is is useful to me in terms of more information but as it's already been said it cannot take the place of a value judgment on the part of a leader um or what we can do or or or or or what we should or should not do the the very word mitigation itself implies that we are going to be an active engage there's nothing we humans do that don't have an impact the question is is it worth it do we think the impact is is is too felt by more felt um indiscriminately by more by one Community as opposed to another or or or or you know should we or shouldn't we do it those are questions that the tools can't take our place we have to as As Leaders so I take it for what it's worth um I want to know what's happening obviously to our water and our air but the the assumption is that as humans we are going to continue to do be humaning

and and and that is a constant conversation on on where is the line between you know our humaning and and impacting where we live and that's ongoing yeah um and you know a tool can answer the question for us but but I'm very grateful for the tool and I hope that contentious leaders will be asking themselves these questions anyway as they approach uh decisions whether it's codified or not so thank you good to see you all and I appreciate the work thank you for the comment and I want to just pull out some key points there that um appreciate you pointing them out um this tool does not take the place of policy maker discretion thank you for making that really explicit this is information in front of you to then make use your discretion of how you would like to make that decision that is the purpose of a policy maker um so thank you for making that point I think more clearly than I was making it um I think some of these these are the things that we know you all are asking yourselves a lot because we elected you to think about these questions right um what we are trying to do is then say we don't expect council members to necessarily have some of the

Deep dive information about some of these issues so if if helpful providing some of that more uh technical information in front of you that you may or may not be able to answer for yourself would help you with that discretion um the other point you made that I think was um quite important is you know the part about ecologically sensitive or valuable natural areas if it's the answer is yes should that be a like does that mean the the conversation stops not necessarily maybe the answer is you know what it's still worth it because XYZ reasons but now we're really thinking about it like yes it's still worth it to do it or well maybe not you know what if we changed this part of it it would no longer impact that area but now we know because we've answered the question and now we know we can move it over here and it won't impact that area or who benefits from the action who's disproportionately impacted maybe it's still worth it but now we know who we need to talk to because we've really thought about who it's impacting and now we know the kind of community engagement we need so it's a it's to provide you with information that provides you with

the discretion needed but potentially also the ability to adjust the decision or make different actions after that because you know now it's going to impact things a little bit differently than expected M so I'll pass it to her afterward I I think most of my um my interest or concern was shared I um we have a very competent staff absolutely very comp staff and I think what happens uh I first of all I think this is a great tool um but as I'm listening to it I'm getting tired and I feel like I'm getting tired because I'm like wait a minute gosh you know this is seems like it's adding another step you know and and I get it but I think what happens is we have a one thing that's unique about Durham that I think we do better than other places is we have so many folks from the community that are engaged and we have a much more active Council as

well um but sometimes in that process we Overlook the actual people who are operationalizing these things and and I think that we missed that point because right now the EAB you all as a board have come up with an idea and you're coming to policy makers and I guess the next step is policy makers direct the staff on what to do without considering well no direct the staff to give us feedback so we can adjust it not just implement it yeah I think but I think from my perspective I would love to have our boards committees and commissions you know advise I think and I think you guys are advising but this is something that would be operational whereas I would love to see more position positional approaches rather than we we need you now to do this because that to my am my that's the manager's job and staff's job you know and when it comes to planning you know planning there's such a significant process that they go through before it even gets to us and and it takes forever

you know and and I think what we're doing is we're we're you know in good with good intent we're just with densifying the bureaucracy even more that's what it feels like and I think that's why I'm getting a little tired so we have to find this delicate balance of how do we do something that has good intentions without it being just additional work you know and and so I could appreciate the openness of wanting to get feedback but at the same time I think that you know it would be great if I could hear like okay the city is functioning in this way when it comes to whatever decisions we're making let's say development you know when zoning Quest are coming to us um here is eab's position on this and this is what we think should be addressed I would appreciate that even more rather than hey uh staff I think you should function in this way and and there was some of the we had some of this conversation around uh nacto standards uh and that's why we had to make some of those adjustments of you know moving it from like Stu you will do

this and this only now um I something else I appreciate is it's really simple you know when applicants are coming to us uh they're just giving us a score on the comp plan you know uh the comp standards like it meets x amount out of the however many uh however many standards yeah and it's that simple you know and they're sort of doing that and staff just verifies it um so I think this is really good I think it's a uh it's it's it means well um but I think it's so much more complex than than just you know hey here's a new tool we think you guys should use right more so I think it's you know staff here's something we'd like you to consider and I which I think you are going to do that part of the process right it's also to respond to council ciera's point we don't want to propose something that staff does if it's not helpful to the people that are ultimately going to use it which is why our strategy was to start first start with the decision makers is this kind of information in front end of you helpful if it's not there's no reason for me to talk to

staff about doing at least that was our that was our thought process there you know we could have gone the other way around as well I just want to explain that was our reasoning for coming to council first is this information in front of you helpful if yes let's figure out a way to make that possible is it that staff does it is it that EAB provides it to you in our research a lot of the times the staff were doing it but we have a very engaged citizen group that could do it too so that's kind of our reasoning to coming to the decision makers first yeah gotcha I and and I my preference will be the other way first because again I I sell chicken for a living right and so I rely on staff to provide this package of information and so I read that report I go through all of those things and I know that it's been properly vetted and you know in in due time the EAB board is going to look very different you know and so the elected or decision makers as we say uh I I would say policy makers we come and go but sad you know the institution is here so I think that's where you should start because that's where the

foundation is going to be yeah that's that's great feedback I just wanted to explain why we came to you first I think that's also valuable to do the other way around it's dur it's dur I understand in nature you know um we we Flex above what we actually can do in durum so I get it I wish I was as powerful as folks think I am but you know go ahead thank you so I have a suggestion um if folks are open to it I would love to see a test case with staff input and I would love for staff to be honest about extra work absolutely yes um as a as a Next Step um and I just want to push back a little bit I mean I appreciate this you know EAB has always been a very active I mean I was liaison for many years yes you are um uh always been a very active board um and we always appreciate that involvement I do want to push back a little bit when when you ask us questions around I I can't remember it was you know who who what community has been impacted and things like that I will say to think that the folks in

these seats and that staff don't already think that way especially when we think about and how we do it in this city it becomes I will say at least on my ears it lands like all of the work that staff and elected here currently and before either residents aren't absorbing the work that's been done or they don't believe the work that's been done and so then how do we need to communicate more effectively but as a decision maker who's been here for many years watching these just happen our CIP has an equity tool involved our budget has an equity tool involved so many of our decisions already incorporate this maybe you don't see a separate tool it's kind of like when you approach language access what sometimes people add language access as the end oh we got to get this translated we got to get this interpreted if you're doing language access appropriately it's embedded in all of the work right it's not a separate tool if you're doing Equity

appropriately it's not a separate tool there's no Equity tool if you're doing it the right way it's just the culture everyone has absorbed a lesson and it's how everyone is oriented to the work and I really want to lift up staff specifically on the equity piece around it because to share or think that the city of Drome and almost every single staff member who works for this organization hasn't done that work that we haven't fundamentally shifted how we do business and that it took a lot of effort it took money it took change ing really hard you know um you know changing a culture in an organization I will say that I am slightly offended because it means that either we're not communicating it effectively or folks aren't believing what we're saying I will say that staff consistently get asked to go to communities all over the place to share how we're doing it and additionally so many communities three and four years ago so many cities so

many government governments three or four years ago who were screaming Equity at the top of their lungs they've abandoned it they don't do it anymore the minute it wasn't trendy the minute it was going to be hard the minute was going to cost them something they stopped doing it so I will say that that is not how we've done it here and I hope that residents who are [Music] listening uh I can honestly say we do it differently in Durham and it is an embedded part of how we do everything it doesn't need to be a sep tool because it's how we've shifted the culture and I'm not saying we can't improve but at least with that piece I want to really emphasize how critical it is for folks to understand how fundamentally different decisions are made today than they were in 2018 thank you I think that's good feedback for me as a presenter because I think we wanted to include question to about the disproportionate impacts because we felt it would be incomplete to have an environmental tool that did not touch about talk about environmental justice not because we think that there's a

problem with decision- making about that now again I want to reiterate a lot of these decisions and things you all are already thinking about we are trying to put it together to you in a digestible format um I've lived in Durham for what year is it almost 15 years I've seen tremendous strides in the equity work and environmental justice work in Durham so I want to acknowledge what you're saying uh council member cabier and apologize if the way that I presented that information was saying that the EAB does not think that is what you were already doing we put this in here for completeness not because we think it is needs to be called out special we have a whole section in the comprehensive plan about environmental justice to to the credit of the point that it's really elevated which is why it's part of this tool not because we think it needs to be put in front of your faces because you've never thought about it before this moment I'll be I'll be brief um as mayor protm said I mean it's a it's a tool we we can look at it um coun Council K cabayo said um let's let's do a test case let's see what it looks like is it

helpful is it not does it need to be changed does it not um I think I think that's that's the um next step I think that'll be useful um and I appreciate the the work that has has gone into this and uh from from the EAB for me if I could take all of this and summarize it it's just taking existing policies and goals and doing a little bit of a deeper dive on sustainability um I think that's that's it and so I look forward to what whatever you guys come back with as the EAB liaison I will also be happy to um so that we don't have to you know do this kind of presentation um come back and and Lea's do my job um and uh bring the information between Council and and the EAB so thank you for your work Jen thanks um I I'm gonna just Echo what my colleagues have said and I want to say that I I hear and agree with uh both with the protm and the mayor were saying for me this tool when I hear about it it

sounds like standardization and that feels really really useful for both transparency and also just for us as policy makers because um as you stated before I do not have a background in this in this so I am not able to assess everything that comes before me and I'm not able I just I cannot do it I don't have the expertise um and we are doing this I think in all of these different departments like we are weighing these things and there to council member Cabo's point there in many of our departments that some of these questions are the first questions that we ask um but we don't really have something that sort of standardizes across departments the impact and I do think that that is uniquely useful for us as policy makers because we can then actually look and see are the things that are coming in front of us meeting these goals each and every time do we need to adjust our policies in the long run not only for specific projects that we're approving but like do we need to actually like

shift our policies moving forward for everything right I mean and this is something that we won't be able to see unless we have the data yall know that I love having data in front of me but this is what we won't be able to see until we actually have that data in front of us and it will be so much more useful If instead of coming Department by Department by Department um it's coming in a standardized way and we're seeing that with our pilot program uh for vision zero we're seeing the the just how much we can accomplish when we like really have set plans and we're able to like have interde departmental um cohesiveness not that the Departments don't work together anyway but it's really easy if you have a set five questions to be able to work together that way as opposed to having to like initiate some sort of work together for me it is it is a no-brainer if I feel like um the the idea of like who is going to do it and and do we have the capacity in our staff to do it and is it going to burden exactly what the mayor was saying is it going to burden um

people that with these things that we don't need to burden them with right so for me it's a no-brainer the tool sounds great I would love to have it um I would love to do a test case as well that sounds great I would also love to hear next time um when we get sort of a a presentation about how the test case went I would love to hear from Key staff um on how that went in their departments as well uh and if we need to do that in in separate meetings too I'm happy to to sort of speak with people along the way uh to see how it's going but for me that is the biggest thing which is like can we do it timely can we do it in a way that like correctly utilizes the capacity that we already have in the city where is EAB going to plug in and how much and is that going to be functional um I think the tool is a great idea thanks um for the type of uh test case I think that's a great next step for us at the EAB thank you all for the suggestion we'll work with our staff Leons to kind of come up with a good test case unless you all have suggestions please send them my way if there's something in particular you want us to try it on I'm also open to that

thank you I I'm GNA add to it um if the council's pleasure is to do a test case and I'm going to ask I'm gonna emphasize what council member cavier Ro's uh comment was is to be brutally honest um but I'm going to say blatantly I don't want to test case yet oh okay I I prefer you all do it the appropriate way that's go and work directly with staff I I think when we are I don't want to say outside but when we are skipping over staff to get you know to get information on something before even going to staff for me I I the reason I I'm a little fous when I say I sell chicken right but my point is is trying to break it down to the simplest terms of you know um I I've been on Council three years now I I pretty much understand this stuff now you know it's it's is is you know you you when I first got on I used to look at these case reports and I would be so overwhelmed and I'll be in the office to

2 am you know trying to get it but now I can all right let me take a look at for an hour and it's like all right I get it you know because you start to know what to look for the reason why I'm much more um equipped is because I have an entire staff that prepares these things for me and I think that you know when it comes to just making the city more robust in these ways you know in instead of skipping the experts and coming directly to policy makers uh my my first trade is music education the second is selling chicken you know uh and the reason why I've gotten really good at is because I do have departments filled with experts but I I feel when we skip that part you know and you know folks have a few great ideas and they come directly to us what does it say even in Goodwill what does it say to the folks that have gone to school gotten degrees and they're Experts of these things you know like it's still a great idea but there is a process in which we can follow and I I think it demoralizes in a sense the

folks who are are supposed to provide us like hey we've worked with community members we worked with our boards committees and commissions we have this new approach we'd like you to consider it I do think Durham has gotten so out of order that we get these all types of ways you know so now um and that's not to you just today that's you should have seen the last two years you know I mean there were times where we were about to add $18 million in the budget the night we were passing the budget you know so you will hear me sort of have a bit more Fidelity to process for the sake of longev longevity sustainab sustainability of it um so that's what I'm thinking you know I I if the council chooses to do a test subject I I don't want staff to um manager paig I I don't want your staff to just approach it in trying to appease us as council members but more so from their daily work you know uh but I do trust you know I I don't know if you've

ever met Sarah Young she's one of the most smartest people I've ever met in my oh she's here oh hey um when I call her literally every question or concern or anything she can answer she can't she knows exactly who to give it to uh direct me to so uh I I'm not ready to see a test subject yet I'm ready to see you guys go and work with staff work together on proposing something if there's a need to and then bringing that for us to consider as policy but I I get a little uncomfortable when it comes to operationalizing something when staff is the afterthought it's coming directly to us as policy makers so that's just my personal perspective thank you and when I apologize when I said test case I meant pick a thing and have that thing work with the appropriate staff yeah that's also what I meant to be clear was work with saying the same thing okay yeah I meant also work with staff to be clear yeah however you choose it whichever department or folks and and and I know

manager Paige will do an excellent job uh synthesizing all the things that were heard uh today but that that's what I meant so thanks yeah to your point Mr Mayor I think you're right like it's not like the information is not out there me the information like we call is Young right we talk to Mr Williams we talk to the folks in um uh uh water management so like the information is there right and maybe it would be better as my colleague council member cook said to have like one tool what's all there in front of you but the truth is the information is there you know and it's whether we go and get it you know or if there's a tool that sort of provides in front of us but the information is out there and EAB in the resum so yeah I mean the staff have right that's the the staff can't answer these questions because the staff are already providing this kind of complexity on a regular basis I'm sorry you said the staff the the staff can answer these absolutely yeah thanks M Mar again thanks colleagues I I'll just say very

quickly whatever the time lapse is between the staff doing their case study we're free to ask ourselves these questions as well and make them part of our culture of inquiry as as decision makers I will say um and and and council member kier's U comments really really really hit home with me um but I will say that I think that re- rehearsing what we stand for and codifying it is is really really important there are members of this community right now who think that some of us are at war with the environment today there are communities who even today despite our work with racial Equity think that there are disparities they see some communities with protected bike lanes and others who kids are jumping off bikes to hide from gunfire M I had a comment to I was at lunch a couple weeks ago and they said oh y'all y'all going to take care of the deer what about my kids gunfire every night so even today there are folk you know at you know

sometimes I think City Hall can be an echo chamber and and we think we're doing a good job and we are but in the real world you know there are folk who think that we are not addressing the issues so I I think re- rehearsing and and trumpeting as often as we can that we're going to be you know decisive and deliberate about keeping these things before us we have a Voting Rights Act that was passed in 1965 in light of a constitution that that already guaranteed the right to vote why do we have to do that because you know people are jacked up and and and folk humans be humaning so I I I I think it's not a bad thing for us to to let the public know even as they're calling us names and saying we're not into it to to continually rehearse and rehearse outloud out who we are uh and what we stand for because there are folk outside the city hall who do not think their communities are getting equal treatment and that we're not championing racial Equity even today even with the work that we're doing so um yeah again

thank you uh for the work and and while we're waiting on that test case I'm gonna I'm going to incorporate this into my decision-making Matrix today uh and start asking this kind of questions so thank you thanks welcome to the deliberation of the Durham city council this how we do it thank you thank you yeah go ahead um the other thing is that I would also love to hear I mean we can also watch it but I would love to hear also County's um responses as well okay yeah thank you and email that presentation we didn't get that what you had just directly council's email address yeah you have more information in yours than we had in ours okay great all right thank you so much all right DCM Bera Johnson Winbush and Madam arer SAR ARA SAR uh Victoria some Sam oh my

gosh I need to see it to say it Sam cool okay good afternoon everyone uh Bertha wiish Deputy City Manager for operations we are here to provide an update um to you all on the arper funds um I have with me here today Victoria seoa um who is our program coordinator as you all know this program is managed by multiple departments it came to us and it wasn't really a fit for it and so we have the manager's office as well as our budget Department you have Christina and Andrew here today finance department 10 FL CFO a city attorney's office I saw Carlos uh earlier but he is a great support to us as well and so we have a lot of uh Cooks in the kitchen uh with this uh program we came to you in August and we talked about where we are with the funds and you all asked us to come back and share with you uh again um in October the funds that would be

remaining that may we may be able to reallocate and you wanted us to come back to you in time to be able to do that reallocation um if necessary so as a reminder uh the approved projects here the categories that were selected by our community Through Community engagement and uh you've seen this chart several times we just updated the obligated to date amount and also the spent to date amount so here again are the projects that were approved by city council you approved 34 projects the organizations are listed here um three of the organizations withdrew withdrew from the process and we reallocated those funding those funds to the affordable housing projects and so just to remind you of the projects that you approved so here's our reconciliation you saw this Slide the last time uh we presented um we have actually moved some of the projects if you looked at the if you look at the approved proposals about uh the third line and the second uh grouping um that number was a larger

05 million matches the number that Council approved so we had moved that in that category still the the same numbers um except for what we've updated um and again those projects that project is now in other projects so let's talk about the remaining funds we have $249,000 remaining um what I asked before the presentation is I asked the finance staff to make sure that first of all we could cover the salaries of the employees that we have working in the program as you all know we gave pay increases in July we also when we initially um plan on the staff we planned for three staff members that was before the US Treasury final rules where we saw all the compliance work that had to be done and so we added an additional staff person um for the program we also

um bought software some other things that were not in the original budget we now know um based on when we are actually completing the contracts that some of them will come the last payments will come at the very end and we know compliance work still has to occur after that we also didn't uh anticipate taking on an additional the additional funds from the county the affordable housing dollars that have to be managed by the staff and so the additional costs really the projections are um vastly different from what we projected from the beginning what we recommend one option um the staff we're going to fund salaries obviously of the staff who are currently employed by the city one option is to retain These funds in the program to cover those salaries so that as and as we continue to earn interest on the dollars that are still in the bank we would apply those dollars to the Staffing so that we don't have to find an additional uh additional funds to support the staff so that is our uh recommendation for for today um we are

happy to take um any questions um I think we just had yeah that was the last slide very short presentation right thank you so much colleagues any comments mck okay Baker thank you I just wanted to say thank you all this was this was a lot of work and I know that the way that we approached it was was different than many other communities we did give you know when the when the money first initially got announced and we realized what a transformative moment it was um our remember manager page at the time was like we're going to try and get you know a large amount back in community and that's exactly what we did so the fact that we are you know we have like a little bit less than $250,000 obligated right that was a huge undertaking um and so I just want to say thank you to everyone I know that to get some of these organizations up to the place that they needed to be to basically contract with

federal dollars was a huge lift and that there had to be a lot of conversations with those organizations so that they could accept the dollars right so I know that there was a ton of work that went into this um and I also want to say that many of our affordable housing projects had we not had those arpa dollars they would not be getting built that's how much more expensive we've seen you know construction costs so I'm really happy that all you know between the city and the county pretty much anything extra that we had we put towards affordable housing so that we could build many of the things that we're that are coming online or will be in the next few years so that that's all I have thank you I when Echo those comments I mean first of all thank you staff you know we had a presentation what a couple months ago and we said come back we want to make sure we're using all the money so thanks you for all the work you've done this is transformative in investments in our community right and and around the country this has been the stimulus has been a big way that we sort of rebuilt from the depths of covid so we're part of this every community in America is part of this so thank you for to the administration for these dollars to you

all for like using it wisely and putting the dollars on the ground people and and projects I would say I know it's not a huge amount of money but I I would love to see both for the impact on our community but also for the Optics in our in our community to me like putting it back I mean we're going to cover the staff's cost anyway right that is correct yeah so I would say I'd love to see this money actually used again for people in the community or like in the ground of the community somehow that we continue to impact because it is onetime dollars so that'd be my preference um so all right I um so I'm along the same ve I have reached out to a couple of you all uh I know that we're going to cover the staff anyway I think today was a prime example of how we uh prioritize the the care of Staff um I think this is an opportunity though where we take a little bit of money and make a really big difference

uh so uh colleagues I'm going to throw this out there uh you think about our community you think about the kindergarteners um that we have now they were born during the pandemic in the in the heat of it um I think this is an opportunity to do something quite significant I would love to use this to make one more big jab in the way Durham has done things in the past and um I'd love to uh use these funds to do something external such as maybe College bonds uh for every kindergartener in this city of Durham in the entire school system uh I think there's an opportunity for us to have this as seed money and make it available to be matched I know that we have to expend this money by December um but I I think that it can I think it's something that can be done so we've been some of us been talking about it uh this kind of came up right at the last minute so you know that's why we're kind of

bringing it up now um I would love to hear what you all think about that if you have some ideas throw it out there I'm happy to jump in yeah I'm happy to jump in and second that as mayor I have been talking about this and as the mayor knows and others may know this is something I spent about 20 years working on the idea of Building Wealth for all kids starting even as early at Birth or where kindergarten it was so amazing to be in St Paul on the um on the inner city visit to hear the mayor of St Paul Melvin Carter talk about um College Bound baby in St Paul it's a program I I can be so proud to say that I and my staff helped the signed that from May Carter back in the day so I think this is a wonderful way to take one time dollars and make a big investment in the Next Generation so and I'm happy to bring all the best expertise from around the country to help us do that in a quick way so yeah love it um well this is a surprise to me so that makes I will say I tell May prot him everything before I haven't even

talked to him about this so this um yeah so I mean and sorry about that and to be fair the the idea of a bond I mean it's an awesome idea I this you're not going to hear anything else from me I think it's great um to me I'm just like I understand seed funding um but I I have a hard time without any without any preparation for this meeting understanding the next steps the sort of go from there this does seem like a pretty small amount of money in comparison to what we would need to fund every kid or Gardener um and also um I do appreciate that it's sort of a a random group but also like yeah I would I would be curious to know how that was the group that was selected and I I heard what you said about Co but there were lots of folks that were impacted by covid um so I I actually thought you were G to say something different so I was just taking a back by that um the other organization that I would like to point out that um

is doing really awesome work in our community and has asking for um about this amount of money who does get contributions from every other local municipality except for the city of Durham is alut toro um and uh council member Baker and the mayor and I had the opportunity to go on a tour there a few months ago and they are providing some really really needed Mental Health Services in our community um this would be I think an also a nice place for this one time donation to go or donation that's not the right word but one time um movement of money sorry my brain happens when you work a full day before you come here um so that that would be another thing that I would just point put out into the world um I again I'm not opposed to bond but I just don't I don't really know much about it so if you wanted to yeah let me let me just go a little deeper here um I did reach out to and I I was hesitant on mentioning it this way

because I literally when I when I was going through AG genda review and I saw this uh the first thing I did was I looked to see if it was already happening and you know uh Latino cred G is doing something similar uh so that's a segment of the population um they're doing it with with book book Harvest yeah uh so the first thing I did was literally uh I called Wells Fargo and some of our corporate uh just some of the folks that I've been engaged with corporately and I said hey would you be willing to match this uh or help us meet a certain goal to cover all of the students and just consider this 249 uh a a seed investment into this initiative and uh we're getting some pretty favorable responses on that um but time you know Thursday got here before I can get some confirmation so I consider we have it on the work session tonight today uh I'll more than likely ask for it to be on GBA before we uh kind of make any decisions on it anyway

just so I can get some more concrete information but it's a presentation I'm sorry not even an item however um I would need a little more time to get concrete on that but uh depending on how much we can get from it which is really loose right now I could we could potentially do both I I met with Luke a Dr Smith afterward after we went over there and I know that they are looking for some stuff as well so uh the thing is we would have to expend this by December and I have that in mind as well but it's just an opportunity to do something huge um and and this is like CommunityWide for uh the reason why I said kindergarten is because yes they were born In the Heat of the pandemic and I'm just thinking you know uh what would happen 12 years from now if they had a an account that would really help you know give them a hand up uh from the disadvantages they were born in uh and it obviously will be you know a credit owner account so idea for the this to

become a normal thing then that would happen what yeah can you can you tell me what the long vision would be yeah so so as you know we also launched the Bull City future fund which would be an ongoing you know account for the community to just holistically invest in you know and that would be directly back into the youth uh of the city of Durham and this is just another one of those initiatives that could support it thank you um so traditionally in and Carl can speak or council member R can speak to this a lot more than I can but the two times that these kinds of programs often kind of kick in is at Birth or in the first year of public school um and that just happens to be because those are big Milestones um for for kids and so many of the other communities that have done similar things that those are just the two kind of Landing spots at least the research that I've done around it uh Latin lccu Latino credit Cooperative uh has extensive experience in this um this is one of their uh kind of in

general their approach to wealth building within communities that often struggle to wealth build um and so uh had a had a relationship with book Harvest and have had this kind of um Vision uh for many years just to name one institution in in Durham that has pretty extensive knowledge on on how these things run but maybe council member rist has more yeah well um der children's initiative is also working with self-help on this you know actually the mayor may know um Anthony Scott has also talked to Derma Housing Authority about doing this for all the kids in durma Housing Authority property this is a growing movement I mean there's cities that we sort of that we look to as peers including St Paul but also San Francisco New York City LA all do this for all kids every year so it's it's a this is a growing movement to address wealth inequality starting from the earliest levels helping kids begin to build wealth from birth um so have to have some kind of wealth as you get to the college goinging process to have some ability to have agency as you think

about going to college or postsecondary I can show you actually data I was involved in San Francisco when they first launched a program there there's great data that shows the impact of kids who've got an account way back in 2002 in kindergarten and San Francisco and what the difference has been in college going for them following there because they're now they've now sort of some of them those kids have graduated from college so the impacts are profound I can share that report with you so it's well documented and something we'd be really proud and durm to be able to to do for our kids if you want to have a 5our conversation throw at a quarter million dollars and have an elected body have a conversation about it um now I'm I'm also sounds like some conversations have have been have been had um I agree with uh council member cook on on some of her comments and $250,000 there's a lot a lot of different things that that you can do with that um I would probably do something around homelessness or tackle food deserts um but I'm also not going to go to war and destroy relationships

if if there's momentum in in a certain direction so um I don't know maybe there's a way of of splitting up the funds um if there are a couple ideas that that are latching on here I will say I like I said I talked to usually when I go around and talk to each of you about whatever the first person I speak to is Mayor protim I have even got a chance to talk to him about it only person I talked to was coun RIS because he has experience in it because this literally came up what yesterday or or Tuesday evening or whatever uh so I was hoping that we could have some dialogue here today otherwise it was just the recommendation that was coming from staff and I just me personally I thought about it I was like what could we do that would be like CommunityWide and quite significant uh and while 249,000 is not enough to truly impact a lot it makes it available to be matched and supported by so many other organizations that are that are ready to go right now so this

could easily turn into you know uh Millions you know um and that so that's the idea behind it um yeah thank you Mr May and but what I'll just quickly say I you know to nobody's gonna come up with a bad idea for this money I I mean I I I'm sure I can get behind everything and I would everything said everything that's been said I am intrigued by the uh and when I visited with book Harvest I was really excited about the uh the um accounts for for babies as they come I remember when my mom took me to open up my fat cat account they were called fat cat accounts back in well it was dime it was in Brooklyn it was Dime Savings Bank back then um and I every week I asked let me see my bank B let me check I like $2 or something uh but but I remember the feeling that I had um from seeing that if you know with everything that's been said it it would include latino children black children white children Asian children children who are from housing distress situations if if if we're talking about every child then

every if if we can reach the child of every idea that that's been thrown out I that certainly would resonate with me and particularly if we can get matching fund so for whatever that's worth um that's something I'd be interested it's about $25 to start the account uh for each uh kindergarten in the city which is about 2,000 and if we're reaching kids from every type of household or demographic or strata in a city um that would be something that would resonate with me so for for whatever it's worth I'm I'm gonna push back on that a little bit because I'm wondering if and it might be too much to say it here on a public meeting but I'm going to say it anyway which is that um if we were to prioritize this as a budget item and increase the amount could we potentially have better matches and so I'm kind of looking at this as 249 um I mean I think this is a great idea I I don't want to speak against it but I'm I think it's such a good idea that I'm like I'd be willing to put more money into it even um and I also I am also

curious about the legality of it um because I know it is not exactly handing out money but the all of the organizations that were and I know other states have done it but not in North Carolina I didn't hear anybody um the organizations were not municipalities that are handing out that money and I know that there are issues about how money gets distributed and arpa had different stuff but I would like to hear a little bit more about that specific part as well yeah I don't I don't think yeah I I I don't know if there are any legal restrictions uh just based on how many times it's been uh it's been done um but um gosh what was your first point I forgot oh um the yeah we I think we could and I think we still can do I think it we both in um I I just think it's always best if you can use use one time money use it and then uh tap into the tax base if needed um but you know we can use one time money to spark something significant then that was that was my

logic so so one of the things that we do we always listening that's one of the things that staff I see the attorney is back as well but one of the things that we we we like to keep in focus is what actually has to happen once a a consensus decision is made even about a topic then once you have the idea or the topic down pack you got to have a vendor to actually or a a partner to actually execute an agreement with negotiate an agreement and execute the agreement as a matter of fact you had an agreement on your agenda for today that we are now sending back uh to for further uh further discussion and um you know further um negotiation so because we are in October we're at the end of October and the times that we're going to be able to receive direction from you is going to be limited we will actually

have to execute an agreement for this funding by December 31st uh with a subrecipient or grantee and I invite the staff to to um you know talk about what that timeline looks in terms of the decisions that the council need or the direction that you need to give us today so so I would start out by saying that is the reason that we wanted to narrowly focus these dollars because there is a lot of work in contract negotiation there is a lot of work in and having a an organization that's eligible to receive funding with us without having a fiscal sponsor there is also means testing and every things that need to the city attorney's office can talk about when we're talking about providing resources so we are okay with going in a different direction we would prefer not to have to negotiate with multiple organizations in this time frame an organization that already has uh

accepted this type of funding that would be eligible to receive it from us um where there's low risk so those are some of the issues and concerns which is why we said earlier to you all the last presentation unless it's a lot of money we would not want to go through a process of negotiating contracts again just because of the timing and the number of contracts that we're managing already I would I would um just to get us down just trying to make some decision or Direction here uh is United Way one of the organizations that we're already working with yes okay I would I would suggest that we we uh and colleagues out invite you all to uh because this is the first time any of us are talking about this I'd invite you to if you see something a different direction state that case uh but I I'd love to work with them in establishing uh these types of accounts there an organization that's already working with the city uh I think the as

far as the operationalizing of it it would we would need to have those details I guess that will you know the working agreement is already in place in a sense to I guess we would have to have anou around these dollars with whoever we would work with an agreement an agreement yeah yes um I I my suggestion is to do what do we call this what I just want to get these kids kicked off yeah baby Bond children sa baby Bond children sa I mean are so you're saying is it easier since we already have a relationship with youit way to to go there because the other other group we could potentially work with would be like college Foundation of North Carolina right that does you know colge shens count so like if if that's like if that makes it slower then then United Way would else United Way has been part of conversations about this idea going back several years Eric uh you know way go ahead good afternoon U senior assistant City attorney Carlos Hernandez uh so

with the child bond that you guys mentioned it wouldn't necessarily be something that we can just give a financial gift to every child usually uh our state Authority allows us um for low income um for the welfare of our low-income residents we could tailor it but we can't just give a blanket cash infusion to everyone and with arpa we there's restrictions on what we can fund but uh the city still has available Revenue replacement then we can use that money to for anything that the city already has State authority to spend on so it would need to be a revenue replacement contract as well I just want to say that I would be super psyched to work on this with you if you wanted to work on it I do think it's going to take a little bit longer than December 31st unfortunately um and that's what I was saying is exactly that about about who we distribute money to

and we might be able to I talk with the city attorney's office and and figure out when money goes into bonds there are different restrictions and there might be other things that we can talk about but I do think it might take us a little bit longer but I would be like super excited to work with you on this I'm super super supportive of it um but to me it sounds like we've got this time restriction we've already seen these contracts um come back to us have to be reallocated like there's already been even within the years worth of arpa allocations we've already seen like getting down to the last minute um we've just got one that's been referred back tonight um and so to me it feels like if we we can identify an organization that is already approved and it's like the money goes it would be better and easier I don't I definitely don't want to lose the money I think everyone's sort of on board with that so I'm happy to meet as soon as the meeting ends and like go for the home run so that that's that's how I feel I'm just gonna let my colleagues decide and come back with a really great

idea that's where I'm at I'm like yall can go do some work um um I will say that but uh this was I mean it sounds similar to how we had to do the small business um small business oh I forgot what the fund during covid where like the city could do low interest loans and then the money came from the free money came from duke I mean like there's ways to structure it where we means test it City dollars or public dollars are going to those students but then the folks that the private dollars could go to the right so there's all kinds of ways to structure right so to council member Cook's point the time not may not work but the workaround we've certainly had to figure that out for other issues and so I I know staff is going to work diligently and come back if we don't get it done with this money I'm sure that I'm glad to see that folks are eager either way have fun working I wanted a helicopter but but y'all lack courage so may Pro I would have thought you wanted a fire

engine so I don't think you have any directions on um could we I I'm crazy enough to think it's possible [Laughter] but I I because I I'm crazy enough to think that it's possible if we work with the organization it's already there's already a working relationship there is what I'm I'm thinking of I think it you know based on what I'm hearing you all say it would take a lot more if it's if it's establishing a new relationship you know so either we do this with an organization that we're already you know working with or we give more money to uh an organization we've already worked with or we go with the original recommendation yeah so second I don't I

don't we need V what the process is a second so we um when we talk about an organization we're already working with or that we already have an agreement with um you know certainly you speak about it sort of generally but anytime we have a new a new pro project or a new initiative then we actually have to create a new agreement or amend an agreement that we already have um whether it's subrecipient agreement or a grant agreement um so in terms of the 249 that we're discussing today and would that would actually not be on the agenda um 11 days from today because it's a presentation it's not an action item um I see our staff smiling everybody smiling everybody's ready to ready to go out and work but if we really had you know at least something to to work with until

you another meeting to discuss it it would it would give us a little more comfort that we could make the right decisions about the two the 249 and I would also add like having the working with the organization but creating an entire new scope of work that you normally negotiate and send back and forth and you're looking at the number of cycles that we have in front of council it takes a tremendous amount of time to go through and I I don't disagree this is a great opportunity brought forward what we did because we want to be prudent in terms of making sure we take care of the staff that is already working on this program but we would need to have something very soon that someone has agreed to take this on and then start negotiating a an agreement that have would have to go through the entire workflow in the organization and land on a council work session cycle you should see the amount of faith I have in you guys I mean y'all already proven that you're superhuman

well it starts with you Al though you'd have to identify an organization who's willing to do this to take this on I mean I would be prepared to at least say that I think we all are in agreement that our employees are going to get taken care of in our budget with our tax dollars and I would like to see this money going out to the community as well so that does it sounds like that is what everyone is sort of learn leaning towards so for that part of it i' I'd be willing to say that do staff need to yeah I guess that's a follow-up question I have like it seems like and to council member Cook's point doesn't it seems like the the recommendation to use the dollars internally is not one that the seven of us are on board with I think there's differences on what we want to do heard on the not sure if we can get the baby Bond thing kicked off

but there are other um I mean aludo was named there's other right like there's can these dollars be deployed quickly to a ex a a another entity that the city has already contracted with so they're basically in the pipeline if it's clear that the baby Bond dollars idea is just there's not enough Runway right there's just not enough Runway to pull it off before December 31st I guess like what you all need like a you know one in a two right do this try this if it doesn't work this is where it's going right like so we have organizations who have completed their work who've also asked for additional funding um you see the list of 31 organizations so we are happy to look at those organizations that already have an agreement extend their agreement provide additional funding for those

organizations um again we would prefer not to negotiate with multiple organizations and again the idea the baby bond is a great idea just the amount of work that would be required to do that if we can get it done we'll try but it would start with us starting from scratch with an agreement with with an organization and negotiating that so we have several organizations I think KNX Street was one who's done a great job with their work off the top of my head book Harvest there are other organizations who have fulfilled that contract they were early on and so they've completed their their deliverables and they've asked us if you have additional funding let us know because we can use it that is that is an option so you're saying those are so like that's a that's a fallback if we if we try our best on baby bonds and it timing is not going to work out we do have fallbacks it's kind to your point right yeah I just want to know from the staff perspective we I think it's G to be pretty clear in the next few days like yo this is too big it's not going

to we can't make it go in the timeline with these dollars so what's what what is the what's the next option and I think we're going to have that answer sooner than later and and so I I don't want to have to go through a whole other agenda cycle to figure out well what's the two right or the three or what that's what I'm trying to figure out here do you think that we could get a list of organizations that have requested more that we've already worked with and then potentially you can oh um and then potentially we can send you other ideas and we could we could so we could actually like see who would be if the bonds don't work out like who would be a someone that would be easy for y'all to negotiate with possible so we have two cycles agenda Cycles so to clarify you're saying we would send you organizations of quest funding you all are going to send us back other ideas and then what's going to be the vetting process for that it seems like it seems like we should ask staff to come recommend to us what are some options as a fallback that's like

more well you had just mentioned that some people that we've already had oura funds have asked for more I I just am curious to know like what those are but I don't need them I guess I just thought might make this easier we got to go down a rabit hole we want it we want I I mean I would just say it clearly I'd love to try the baby bonds um uh and if it doesn't work then follow your recommendation I just follow up on that I I want this to go to to kids I think that's maybe that's something that we could all get on board with is this this should go to to young people and there are a number of uh nonprofits on here that are that are serving children it feels like that's kind of a priority that's emerging from up here if the baby bonds are not an option that it goes to an organization that serves children is that fair to say yeah well we also Latino Credit Union is doing a version of this and I think we if we with our money if we add the means test concept

to it it still opens it up for matching funds and we could we can enhance this 249 to be whatever that may be I should be getting a report from Wells Fargo today but Capital One is already doing this self-help is doing some uh some version of it as well uh working with DPS Foundation you know I think I think that there there's a greater opportunity for this to grow and uh if we can't you know just do it flat out with you know an organiz a that we're working with in another capacity we still have to create an agreement I would suggest maybe going through Latino Credit Union um to expand the scope in which we cover it and that means working with DPS Foundation um that way we don't have to do a whole vetting process it's already there yep thank you yeah and and the reason why I had uh Council the reason why I didn't initially say say uh the credit union because I didn't want any

precondition uh preconditions but I think if I don't think they I mean they're pretty flexible I think they would open it up um but to the attorney's office uh regarding just um let's say a family is facing or they face negative Financial impact as a result of the pandemic does that meet the muster what are you talking about arpa generally or AR specifically a revenue replacement generally yeah well the point came up earlier when you were saying yeah about the uh ARA yeah so yes uh there's um several categories that can be interpreted to include uh financial hardship okay that's enough for me y thank you so much thank you uh colleagues let's take a let's take a quick break and uh y we have one more presentation and then we'll uh we'll

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e e uh I guess we can go ahead and get started um well I'd like Council mariss to be here fun fact over two million people have early voted in North Carolina over two million so showing up

2, 8,168 people let's go ahead and get started there he is okay good afternoon everyone um to the mayor mayor protim and council members thank you for the opportunity to present a executive recruitment plan for the city manager um position today I'm joined by two other colleagues um montique McClary who is joining us online and uh Monte is our assistant director of the employee experience

teams and then Jim O'Donald uh who is behind me uh he said he's a pip today he's he's singing backup uh he is a talent acquisition manager so he'll be uh he's here as well in case you ask any questions that um he will need to answer uh our goal today oh and by the way my name is Robin WN I'm the Director of Human Resources uh for the city of Durham um our goal today is to present a a very transparent executive recruitment process um we have it's our hope that we're going to provide date estimates goals and process with the hope that the process is very clear um and it answers um many of your questions uh today uh however during the course of this presentation if you should have questions uh please feel free to ask um with can we go to next slide next slide okay so we're going to just kind

of Jump Right In uh I want to be mindful of everyone's time um with the assistance of our uh great Communications Department HR intends to draft a job posting in the form of an executive recruitment brochure for the city manager position now what is a brochure um a brochure is really aimed at attracting and engaging potential executive level candidates by presenting the um the city uh presenting all of the desirable traits of the city um it typically helps us with our branding um it also helps us with job and or role Clarity uh because we also list uh some of the responsibilities within that job uh it'll also help us with promoting the city's culture uh we do a piece on communication that we would like to to share there um it also allows us to highlight benefits and opportunities

that uh the incumbent could experience uh such as uh a compensation package and that would include you know whatever uh Council instructs us to include in terms of that compensation package and then lastly a brochure typically um has a what we call a call to action and that is um to encourage the potential candidate to apply or to provide them information on where they would like to inquire uh if they should have questions um and then prompting them to really quickly engage in the recruitment process by really um identifying when the position should close so we uh typically in in my experience in doing this and I've been around the block a couple of times I've been in HR for about 37 years and have done this type of recruitment many many times and whenever I put together a brochure um we my recommendations usually would include um City information as well as

demographics uh as I said before information about the role uh certainly qualifications uh as well as a salary range and benefits um next slide please as I said um HR recommends that uh oh in your packet you'll see that HR is recommending the position to post for about 30 days and the reason why we're recommending 30 days is because it will go over a holiday period um so why is that important that's important for a couple of reasons um if we uh typically I found much success in posting positions over a holiday because it allows a person to really kind of take their time um on their submission and that submission includes their resume their cover letter and their application or whatever supporting documents that they would like to include but it it really gives them time as opposed to that that typical weekend um to really work on it and so you typically see some

pretty quality um submissions so we want to uh recommend a 30-day uh period over the Thanksgiving holiday next um I'm sorry it is our plan to uh post through post on National channels uh these are some of the ones that we typically use um but you know of course there there may be others um government jobs is is where all of our positions land uh certainly LinkedIn um for more executive level positions icma we do have a relationship with them uh so we would post there national uh North Carolina leag of municipalities we have posted there on occasion and then diversity and diversity jobs are another um two sites that we would want to consider um because again we want to have a diverse posting and a diverse pool of candidates am I going too fast okay just

want to make sure good okay um the next we're already at candidate screening so let's say we've posted that position for 30 days and now we have uh over 3 candidates right um so now we need someone needs to screen those candidates whenever a candidate applies they would actually be applying to our Neo site which is the city's regular website uh we would actually we're not going to wait until December the 10th to really go through all of those resumés we're actually going to be looking at them regularly throughout that 30-day period uh and what we're looking at them for is to determine whether or not that person meets some minimal qualifications uh our system is such that you know certainly you can apply and answer questions the way you like to but we we we're going to be looking at resumés to ensure that that person's qualifications um line up with with our with our needs so we will um it it would

be if we do go this route it would be our plan to look at résumés on a regular basis during that 30-day period uh HR it would be our intent to narrow that pool of applicants um um for further review by the council and in order for us to do that uh we would want to build a SharePoint site and if a candidate is qualified we would create a folder with that candidate's information on that SharePoint site and then all of that person's uh information would go in that one folder based on that person's name uh we would alert Council that those position um that we do have candidates on the SharePoint site we would actually send a link to all of you so that you would know um uh that you know we do have candidates on SharePoint and you would be able to go in at any time and take a look at them okay any

questions about that okay great so now we've looked at all of the candidates and we've decided okay it's interview time the question we would come back to this group and and ask what are your desires around the interview process do you want to do phone screens do you want uh HR to do phone screens or would you would someone with this group like to do them would you like to just go straight to the interview process and if you decide to do the interview process would you like to do that virtually or would you like to do that in person we would work with um uh thank you Jim we would work with um your your staff to coordinate those interviews one of the things that you know with an interview um it's really important to really take a more systematic approach so by that mean we mean we would want to have a structured program um for that meaning that we would want to have predefined questions so not just you know why are

you interested but maybe some key questions that get at the qualifications um that this group would identify uh we would also certainly want to make that Competency Based and that's very typical when you're looking at leadership or problems solving uh technical expertise um budgeting types of questions and then we would want to also recommend a consistent scoring mechanism so that all candidates are scored against the same criteria so that we don't run into any um any problems later and then we would also want to make sure that we're working with our legal department to make sure that whatever we're doing um in terms of questions that you know we're that they are all job related so that we're staying focused um on what we said we would do or what we were looking for in the brochure so that would allow us to work with uh again we would work with the Department I'm sorry your coordinators to work on that interview coordination uh Jim montique and I would work with your your

folks to do that U next slide Jim once we are uh further along in the process uh we would want to certainly reference check and um background check people uh that's very important uh so we would want to verify the candidates experience their education as as well as their qualifications and we have a mechanism by which to do that and then also we would want to do uh standard background checks to include the the city's um criminal and employment history background check um uh also we would like to um we could also assist city council with you know uh city council and legal with um putting together uh job information for example if you wanted the average salaries um for city managers uh within you know a 50- mile

radius we can certainly pull that information and have that available to you and in fact it's that's a probably a discussion Point um in the for our next meeting or our next recommended meeting um because again we're we're putting a range in the rore so we would want to talk through that next slide Jim um here are just a few of the vendors that we would use um for some of the work that we would need to to to do although the work would be done internally so like the recruitment process these are some of the vendors here's vendor costs um for some of the vendors that we use and they're they're nominal costs and um because we already have agreements in place with with these vendors next the following the next two slides are really based on the timeline and the the timeline uh is subject to change uh based on availability based on other variables um and directions that we receive from Council uh I wanted to

make sure in putting together the timeline and working with several folks to do that I want to make sure that you all are are very much aware of of everything you know some of the commitments that we would need in terms of meetings and things of that nature so we um put together this uh timeline uh to discuss and I I kind of want to walk through this with you um so skipping today um if we you know if we get direction from Council to certainly proceed then uh we would come back to you on 117 with a job description uh and the brochure that would go out to um that we would use to post a position and then on 1110 we would want to advertise the position in those some of those diverse sites that I mentioned before um as you will see on 1210 the position position expires at 1159 which means that you can't it would

actually come down and no one would be able to apply after that um and then on 1212 um you know we would again make sure that all of you have the link uh to the SharePoint site so that you can go out and take a look see what's out there um initially this was a 1212 date but you certainly we can get that um as we get go through the process um on 1219 we are recommending a closed session to discuss and determine which candidates will advance to the next phase whether it's a phone screen or something else uh we we are making that recommendation that it would be a phone screen uh HR can complete the phone screen on your behalf the only thing that we would ask is that we get questions um from all of you so that we know what we're asking during these screens uh and then we would want to finish up our screens by 13 of 2025 uh so that we can come back to council with the information once we do

the phone screen again all of that information goes into that that person's folder so once that phone screen is complete we'll automatically just kind of keep putting things in that person's folder online um next slide thank you Jim um we would be asking for another Clos session on one n so that we can um better understand how Council would like to proceed with the interview process um do they want them do you all want them to be in person or do you want them to be virtual um we would want to uh work get guidance from you on how you would want to do that and then between 13 and 210 and and again that that could float a little but we were um ask that we could uh conduct candidate interviews during that period of time um we we're giving ourselves really about uh three weeks to do that um understanding that sometimes we may have to make flights hotel accommodations so we want to make sure

that we have ample time to to get candidates in and then um on 220 of 2025 we are recommending a another closed session to to review the finalists and and to get salary information or to get the you know what you would like us to do uh next uh and then on 221 we would actually start the background check process um for the finalists using the city approved vendors that I mentioned before next slide um so with that hopefully I didn't go too fast but I wanted to uh give you as much information as possible about our process so uh you can excuse me you can inform us on next steps You' like us to take thank you so much um colleagues we have the presentation before us um I manager paage just whispered in my ear that there's no need for this because she's going to stay another

year oh thank thank you so much I thought I saw your mouth moving thank you um October surprise right um okay no thank you uh obviously colleagues the first thing we see here is uh we will have to revisit the interim conversation um so we'll get there but in regards to this process uh let's uh let's go around um I just want to say thank you the director wi this is I mean we always talk about how great our staff is but I'm like looking at this timeline and it is stressing me out how quickly it's going but in a good way like in a good way I'm just like y'all have really I know that you can get it done and I'm also like this is three months from now and that is incredible I just want to say like it's just incredible it's a great staff we have a great staff I I I know that to be true so I I'm not surprised I'm just like wow this is

amazing um just just for my understanding the um results of or the phone interviews and then the actual interviews whether in person or virtual um y'all I know you said that there was like y'all were going to have a rubric or something and so we'll just get those reports um at some point before we meet in close session what is the what does that look like yes so if you decide to do phone screens um and based on those phone screen results will have that rubric that would actually be included in that person's folder so you can go out and see it so once that's done we print it off we upload it so that's um immediately available right after that phone is that phone screen is complete and it wouldn't be the same if there was a an inperson or no it's it would be different competencies um typically a phone screen we're screening to make sure that person meets the minimum qualifications so if you ask for you know 15 years of experience we're going to ask them tell us about their 15 years

and if they can't get there on 15 then we would we would denote that in our notes gotcha so what um when we go to the uh January 13th through February 10th interviews what is that um what deliverables do y'all get from that where and where does it go we so that is if in the event you all wanted to hold interviews so whether that's in person or virtual I gave you about a three- week window to have that because of schedules you know know all of you are super busy so I wanted to give enough time you all may say hey we only wanted to see two people and you do it the first week then that pushes the timeline up um or you say hey I want to see 10 people that could make it longer so it just depends it depends on on you on the council um and I guess my my only other question in there is like does HR have a recommended rubric or is this like yes okay great yes we do we will I love this Council but I love that also for this Council specific yes um we will work very closely with

our legal team as well um just in case we're challenged on something we will definitely work with um uh our attorney our HR attorney to make sure that our rubic rubric um lines up with the job um with the brochure that we want to create great well I appreciate all of this information and I'm I'm looking forward to hopefully a great pool of candidates so those are my question awesome yeah thank you for putting all of this together I am happy with this timeline um I'm happy with what you've laid out for us um as far as the email for the feedback on the position information qualifications that has not gone out right no so we can expect to receive that in the next few days assuming this gets the thumbs up from so if you give me the thumbs up the next thing we would do is work with our Communications Department to start building out that brochure one of the things that we would need from you before we build out the brochure are your thoughts relative to the qualifications and the experience um it

would be our hope and I I don't think I even brought it up but it would be my hope that we would send out a survey to this group and you all would complete the survey we take that information meld it together and then we put that in the brochure and then okay and then you come back to us November 7th November 7th and we review the brochure we get a thumbs up or thumbs down whatever edits we need to make um we'll have a couple of days to do that we'll make those edits and then we'll post it okay great yeah I'm I'm comfortable with this process thank you doing the wrong one um hi uh thank you for this this is great um I just have a couple of questions so with your rubric that you're creating are you also going to use the responses to our survey okay absolutely will we get a chance to see that rubric at the at the time with the brochure oh yes absolutely can bu if we have feedback we can provide it then absolutely um when we

send you the survey they're going to be some open ended boxes there as well so we'll have qualifications competencies you'll pick you know what you what you is important to you and then I also want to give you a couple of boxes so you can type that type in your thoughts and and feelings and then we'll we'll convert that into the brochure and we'll work with Beverly's team to do that and then and legal of course um the other just quickly y'all I if we do a Clos session on the 19th it'll have to be in the morning I'm leaving like I'm leaving that work session early to catch a plane at 5 PM so um I just saw on the timeline um so I'm just flagging that now um I guess the other question I have is um during the interview process how are we imagining that you know how are we imagining that process to be are we just doing like Q a are we trying to think about uh a process where we create uh a simulated uh job and right

like assessment centers yeah well not I mean it's assessment centers I mean but yall could do it you don't need to hire somebody outside is what I'm trying to say Yes um that's a term we normally use is assessment centers we can we can do that but one of the things that we want to do kind of closer to the end of the process for the F the top two maybe three candidates if you will is we do want to do some sort of eqi type of assessment um where you they're they're really looking we're looking at their leadership abilities um skills and competencies and they're they're being um evaluated you know so they'll complete that they'll be evaluated against that um for those candidates that complete that process we will actually upload that information into the folder thank you and then my other question is around interviewing and and finalists my experience so I used to do that professionally um my EXP experiences that we often want to have at least two because somebody may decide not to take the job at the end of the day and so I don't want to be in a position where we've all picked one and

then that doesn't result yes and then I am curious uh often you can do around around a virtual and then get to your finalists and have them come in person uh and so that would be my my um my desire is if we get if we decide to do interviews virtually but then whoever the finalists are if we could get them to come in person to have that last piece uh where we get to meet them so that that's my only kind of adjustment on the on the timeline because it may impact the timeline I did not put it in this particular um presentation but in my past experience we've also had uh we've done exactly that where when the person actually came in the the top two they actually met with Community leaders as well and then they also met with council members so we can do that that I would just need to know the names of the the community members and we work with them to make sure that they have questions and they understand protocols and what they can ask and what they can't ask perfect so that would be my one um addition to this to this timeline

is to add that kind of component other than that this looks great appreciate all the work um that's it thank you thank you w thanks Dr W appreciate the uh the thought and the and the sort of like the the careful and and um complete timeline I guess my question maybe relas thism in part is that it seems like a lot of this hinges around that December 19 point where you're assuming we got a a bucket of folks who are all interested in interviewing and that could be like 20 people it could be like five people right and so your timeline has us doing either uh we or you all doing some phone screens first so so it seems like I mean I guess my question is it possible that if we got to that point and there were just like a small number of three to five candidates then we could speed up the process and just say we go straight to like interviews right yeah absolutely so it's all contingent on what we come up with on the 19th okay absolutely you're not obligated to phone screen if you if that's what you if you all want to go straight to interview you say hey Robin I want to do community uh meetings and uh and have a virtual interview and

then have them come back and do it in person absolutely we can make we can facilitate that front screens just a way to sort of like to to nail that pool and to make sure that that person really does meet the qualifications the other question is so so in ter I like the idea of engageing the community but is it is it also the case that in some cases maybe for the candidates they may need to keep things still confidential so that's so is that maybe not always possible if you've got a public meeting with someone that want to keeps that wants to keep their candidacy confidential in their own Community right we we let them know you know if there's going to be a community meeting that would actually be in the brochure so that way they would understand that if there if there is some level of confidentiality that they want us to maintain then you know if they're selected as a finalist they they know that it's very possible that that could get out okay okay thank you we try to make sure they know that very early in the process okay thank you much thank you Mr Mar thank you colleagues thank you madam director good to see you one

of the things that that's not reflected in this timeline and it's not it's not your wheelhouse is that this timeline as it's presented now takes us past the seat being vacant yes which which would speak to the need for an interim if this timeline goes as it's printed we would need to consider an interim um first point second point I I mean this looks great I'm I'm not at a place where I I I don't know if this is g to be from where I am and I don't think I would like I haven't had opportunity at least for me um and it would need to be in closed session to to discuss some other Alternatives with my my colleagues and that that that that has nothing to do with you this time so okay this looks great okay but from where I said I think with what um some of the big ticket items that are facing the city particularly in the new year after this coming election I I think there's some other things I'd like to talk about um with fully endorsing this this process if if we get to this

process but for me I think there's there's a at least one other conversation I'd like to have sure with my col this has nothing to do with you but this looks great but just a note of of um advisory to my colleagues that this timeline takes us past the seat being vacant and we would need to insert somewhere in here uh consideration for an inro if if this is the way we're going thank you Mr Mayor thank you I agree that was my initial Point starting out we we we're going to have to uh obviously um I I uh to my colleagues I think that you know their Community is a broad term I think you know uh well we represent the residents of Durham so that's that part of the community I think the other part is you know the community in which our key stakeholders are um the people that de does you know business and partnership with uh and the manager you know the folks that the manager her office and apparatus has to work with um I think uh establishing

that type of key stakeholder engagement Round Table um at a at a certain point in the process but I would say later when we get to like the finalists uh to help sort of inform um the other thing I was interested in is the the the the application just being General like is there are there some criteria we can put in just to kind of reduce and or be more specific uh when they're applying because I mean 300 people applying I mean no for for Derek the position Dereck is holding there was 180 applicants you know so is there a way we can uh that down a little bit like uh yes but it really depends on the um the person who completes it um uh we can we can post all sorts of criteria Jim is great at um asking those questions and we actually put them in the res um in the application um but then some people will say uh I got a little bit of that so they'll they'll check it and so that

means that it'll get through as um it'll get through our system as an approved or as a qualified candidate and that's why we have to look at all of them to ensure that it's not it's not the way they answer the questions but the person really is qualified we look at the resume we look at um the application as well um the screening part you can just leave that up to montique Jim and myself we will certainly take care of that okay Jim will get a 100 I'll get a 100 montique will get a 100 we'll split it up cool um and uh as far as the KE stakeholder engagement part that's something you can insert oh absolutely I mean we would put that in anyway because again uh to Council U councilman R's question they need to understand where confidentiality um where we may not be able to fully maintain confidentiality and when they're working with the key stakeholder I you know I can't have the key stakeholder sign a confidentiality agreement so we want to make sure that

the person knows that you know that is a part of our process that way that person can make the decision and again once we identify those top three people we or top five whatever number you all like then we will make sure that they are aware very much aware of of um how confidentiality will work throughout this process okay all right thank you I colleagues i' would also encourage that we do some stakeholder engagement um with our constituents because I asking HR to go out and do uh Community sessions like we do with the budget is I mean we're just not gonna get any consensus but also that's our job and again we have set president that the way we do our constituent engagement is through this proc through through coming to council uh and that's just one way um but I hope eventually we'll be able to get back to the retail politics of going out and talking to your constituents the ones who vote Us in um so that we don't overwhelm staff with getting outside of

their scope of work of you know going to do our job okay well thank you so much thank you um U please let us know what you need from us to from us um now I think we're planning to come back on the 7th uh with a brochure uh draft uh for your consideration so more to come at that time we need to determine second yeah I think so we need to determine also uh when we are going to discuss the interim U process colleagues and uh I need Fred is that a close session discussion that we need to uh I think would depend on what you're discussing exactly yeah it's going to be peoples I think it's Personnel so we're gonna have the request to close session maybe the next yeah um I I have a something at

2:30 I can probably be back by the end but it yeah if that's November 7th I I requested an absence on November 7th so if we're I'm just saying for timing wise if if we knew that the close session would not be until 4:30 that I could make it but before then I'm not probably not going to be able to you walking up here okay all right okay um so we're going to need to request to close session to discuss that and we'll do that as soon as possible so I'm going to say yes November 7th and um I'm going to hope get your back so we can make sure you're part of it and we'll just communicate and uh work on the timeline and you have not been the reason why we've been going having long meetings so we're actually doing really good and you're here as well so I think we're gonna be fine teasing

you uh yeah we need to do yeah before we get there because by December 19th is we also close session after the after the meeting on the 4th that Monday why not that night oh the the the night before election B I'm just that's one other option yeah a short agenda we could do a a short close session before the meeting as well on the fourth we can do a close session dinner meeting no no I November 4th we can come in early yeah okay all right so with but we can we can short up yeah so when is the next time we meet is is that the next time we meet so what I need to request that close session today FR you you can I mean you you can schedule it so that uh every for that's

m. yeah so we'll be up here okay uh so I'll I'll uh do I need to suspend the rules to request this or can I just request it okay you don't have to spend the rules announ that's your intent is to call the Clos session meeting for the discussing position so I'm going to request a close session to what we can do Council uh the council Suite conference room I'm sure we can find a venue all right uh colleagues I'll entertain a motion I just want to make so we were saying Monday November 4th at 6m okay I just want to make sure because colleagues I'm gonna uh entertain a a motion to go into close

session on November 4th at 6: pm we don't have to spend so mve you just yeah I don't need a motion okay so colleagues thumbs up November 4th 6 PM all right sounds good um and go into close session now right no we already did it we already did it so that'll be um and let's just say in the council Suite council site November 4th all right uh and thank you uh we'll look forward to meeting you soon uh and after close session we'll provide a report to you to follow that process because I know there will have to be a contract written up for the inter as well so we'll give you that direction all right colleagues at this time um we are going to go into close session we'll give it a

few minutes for us to lock down the building or the room oh um sorry all right I'll pass over to the city manager to settle the agenda thank you Mr Mayor I'm so sorry uh I wanted to quickly uh congratulate Erin I know she's not in here for receiving her award at the 89th uh Municipal Lawyers Association thingy um but she received uh the what did she receive it was a fellow as I understand it a fellow well no you go ahead and tell me exactly what the I was not there but um I had the pleasure to be the one to nominate Aaron miles our senior assistant City attorney and at the 89th International Municipal Lawyers Association conference that happened this month in Orlando she received the young public lawyer award um and it's

given to someone who um exemplifies good lawyering um public service and also maintains a work life balance to make retention in this profession long term that's awesome thank you congrats Erin if you're watching all right I'll now pass it over to manager P to manager P to settle the agenda thank you Mr Mayor Mr Mayor protim and members of the council I have for your uh city council meeting on consent item it one and items 3 through 8 GBA public hearings items 11 through 13 right I entertain a motion to approve the am I doing yeah I entertain motion to sub so mov oh second all right all in favor I I all oppose all right well now um give it a few minutes to go into close session colleagues let's get right

to it so staff