Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday, 03/10/2026 meeting of the Carrboro Town Council. And we will start this meeting, as we do every other meeting, with a poetry reading from our Carrboro poet laureate, Doctor. Amanda Bennett. Doctor. Bennett.

Hello. Good evening, everyone. I'm so glad to be back here again. I'm going to do something a little bit different tonight. So I will start with the usual poem.

But then I also wanted to walk us through a really simple creative writing exercise to kind of help us communicate with a bit more understanding and compassion. So for this first poem, I wrote it when I was working with students who were incarcerated at Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough. And I wanted to experiment with the idea of, what does it mean to imagine yourself in someone else's circumstances, even when they may appear drastically different from you? And how do we use the we as a site of commonality and connection? So we are the forgotten, but there is a world behind this wire.

We wait for the chance for tears because they are unexpected, often unwanted. We carry stories in our tattoos. We let the body speak. The story we share could unweave the fabric of fairness. We hope you tangle in our threads.

Okay. So that is the poem. Thanks. And I wanted us to kind of practice our own inner poetry by having each of us respond to this tiny prompt. So it's, we all win when. And so you can fill it with, we all win when we listen or when we come together. And so I'd love if the town council could each give an answer. And then if folks in the audience wanted to jump in, you're also welcome to do so. I can kick it off. We all win when we choose love over fear. Do you want to know?

We all win when we're honest.

Sorry, don't usually talk.

I won't. Bring up.

We all win when we learn.

We all win when we listen.

We all win when we choose harmony.

We all win when we support each other, especially in the hard times.

We all win when we work to grow joy.

We all win when we try hard things.

Did y'all want to try it, too?

We're looking around. Mr. Jones? Okay.

We all win when we choose love first.

We all win when we wear our crown.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone from the audience want to jump in? When we try our best? That's really good. Thank you. Anybody? We all really help each other. When we help each other? That's really good. Thank you.

Know I

when we show compassion.

Show compassion. Thank you. Anybody else wanna go? No. When we're nice? That's important. Thank you all for participating. You're all beautiful poets.

Thank you. Very good, Doctor. Bennett. Thank you for that. We are now down to the town manager's update. Town manager Tony, do you have an update? Oh, I almost forgot my own proclamation. Go ahead. So I do have one for Women's History Month. And we'll move to the town manager's update.

I think the proclamation is that decoded? I only had one. I usually have, like, 15. And so this is a proclamation in honor of Women's History Month and International Women's Day, which was on Sunday. And whereas the theme for Women's History Month in March 2026, as established by the National Women's History Alliance, is Leading the Change, Women Shaping a Sustainable Future.

This theme honors women who are rebuilding systems across environmental, economic, and social sectors to ensure long term sustainability and resilience and to create a more equitable and inclusive future. And whereas the United Nations Observance of International Women's Day twenty twenty six held on March 8 centers on the theme rights, justice, action for all women and girls. This campaign calls for dismantling barriers to equal justice and addressing legal gaps that disproportionately disadvantage women worldwide. The 2026 event aligns with the seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which focuses on strengthening access to justice and includes high level discussions on March 9. And whereas the history of International Women's Day and Women's History Month emerged from the labor and anti war movements of the early twentieth century with an emphasis on women's suffrage and workers' rights that later expanded to include equal pay and other fair labor practices, sexual and reproductive rights, and the prevention of gender based violence.

And whereas, International Women's Day and Women's History Month offer a reminder that all attempts to subjugate women, erode women's rights, and promote and defend gender based violence, whether in our homes, our workplaces, or our legislatures, must be resisted. And whereas, these observances also offer an opportunity to celebrate the contributions that women of every race, class, ethnic background, and gender identity have made to the social, cultural, and economic life of the community. And whereas women are serving in leadership roles throughout the town of Carrboro's organization, including town manager Patrice Toney, assistant town manager Marie Parker, and several department heads. Town manager Tony is the first African American woman to serve as town manager, stepping into the position in May 2024 after Marie Parker served as the interim town manager in 2023. Since the election of Alderman Mary Rigsby in 1971 and mayor Ruth West in 1975, the people of Carrboro have been proudly electing women to local office, including currently serving mayor Barbara Fouche.

And whereas, a great woman poet named Nikki Giovanni once said, Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way. Now, therefore, I, Barbara M. Fouche, mayor of the town of Carrboro, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim 03/08/2026, to be International Women's Day in Carrboro and the month of March 2026 to be Women's History Month in Carrboro. I encourage our residents to participate in Women's History Month events and to learn about and celebrate the lives, history, and contributions of women during this month and throughout the year. This is the March 2026, but we know today is March 10.

I'll hand it off to someone. I wanted to do a special acknowledgment this evening. I actually invited this group of young ladies here. They did visit our town hall about a month ago. And I wanted to invite them back for the Women's History Month proclamation.

Empower, Her Crown, is a mentoring program for girls in grades three through five that focuses on building confidence, leadership, and character through community experiences and positive mentorship. The girls get the opportunity to witness and see women doing great things in our community and allows them to experience those moments firsthand. So I want to just acknowledge Empower Her Crown and the lovely young ladies that are here with us, along with their leaders. If everyone could stand. We're just going to look at you and clap.

We're very grateful to have you with us this evening. And thank you so much for coming. Yes. You're welcome. And so that is the only proclamation I have.

Yes. Good evening, mayor and council members. Join us on Saturday, March 14, from eleven to 03:00 at the Drakeford Library Complex for Women's History Month program called Rise and Rhythm. It's a series of speakers and poetry. Our own poet laureate will be there.

The mayor will have a portion of the program, and a vendor fair will be part. So come out to help us celebrate Women's History Month. Also, many people in the community will be receiving a letter for a resident survey. And so every other year, we conduct a community resident survey so that we can get some feedback on our town services and how you're feeling about services. And we use that to identify improvements in our organization so that we can continue to provide a high level of service in our community.

So, if you're randomly selected for the survey, please fill it out. And there's a prepaid postage in the envelope. But you can also go to carburlsurvey.org and fill out your survey online. We use ETC Institute to administer the survey and they will randomly select one respondent to receive a $500 gift card. So, that's an incentive to fill out the survey. So, thank you all for your feedback and we constantly are trying to continue to provide excellent, beyond excellent service to our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Town Manager Tony, for that update. We are now down to our public comment period. I think, Mr. Joyner, was there anyone signed up?

No one signed up, at least at the beginning. I don't know if anybody

has Is there anyone for public comment this evening? All right. Thank you so much. We will now move down to our consent agenda. So we have two items on our consent agenda this evening. We have approval of minutes from 02/17/2026, and our condominium agreement and condominium deeds with Orange County for the operation of the Dreckford Library Complex. These items are part of normal town business. We will not discuss these items unless council members have questions and want to pull this item for discussion. I know Council Member Palmer had some questions. I think you did get those answered via email.

So I think that I can go ahead and ask for a motion to pass the consent agenda, please. I'd like to move the consent agenda. Thank you so much. All right. So it's been moved and properly seconded that we move the consent agenda. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Seven-zero, the consent agenda is finished. Town Manager Tony, we are at the only item we have left on the agenda.

Yes, Mayor. There's no general agenda items for this meeting, but we do have a need for board appointments. So I'll turn that over to our town clerk, Omar Joyner.

Good evening. We have a couple of appointments. These appointments are for the planning board and the Northern Transition Area Advisory Committee, And these are Orange County appointees. Orange County sends these individuals to us as part our town code to say that two representatives from Orange County need to be appointed. They have sent these individuals for reappointment they have served previously, and we just need to either reappoint them or make decisions on these appointments. If there are any questions, please let me know.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Joyner. So just for public knowledge, the Planning Board and NTTAC have been consolidated, even though they appear here separately. The NTTAC has become a subcommittee of the planning board. So we have two names for the planning board, one for the Northern Transition Area Advisory Committee.

I will also make notation for Sorry, Mr. Joyner. Go ahead. No problem. Excuse me. For the council, there is no term limit or amount for the planning board. Just so you see that on your sheet, has five terms served. There is term limits for the Nordson transition area committee. They can only serve two consecutive terms. So I just wanted to clear that up if there were any questions, and if anybody is watching, if there were any concerns with that.

All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Jordan. It's my understanding that these particular seats can be hard to fill. But I will say there is no diversity in this applicant pool. We have all female applicants, but there is no diversity as it relates to race and ethnicity. And so that is part of our Advisory Board and Commission's recruitment policy. So what is your pleasure, council members? I am fine with whatever you decide. I don't think this will create a quorum issue, but I'm not sure.

And I think I see Councilmember Frey's hand.

Please, I'm actually curious about the answer to that question as well.

Oh, about the quorum? Yeah, I don't I feel like it won't matter about the quorum.

Not in my experience, but I believe Mr. Joyner is authority there.

I don't think it will, but There I don't

has not been a quorum issue raised by the staff liaison with this particular appointment. And these are reappointments. Just so for clarity, these were sent to us by Orange County for reappointment. And then I went to the staff liaison to make sure that these individuals did want to be reappointed, and these individuals did say that they wanted to be reappointed. But there was no issue raised with whether a quorum would be an issue if these individuals weren't reappointed.

And then it becomes a question of whether we would be able to get diversity in the applicant pool based on these seats. I don't want to use the word specialized, but the folks that sit in these seats come from various areas in town. And we may or may not be able to get diversity in the applicant pool if we put it back out. Yes, Councilmember Maffray.

Madam Mayor, I had a question for Mr. Joyner. Mr. Joyner, do you know to what extent did Carrboro list and promote these roles? I couldn't find, when I looked, an indication that Carrboro had advertised these positions? I know that it's the county that recommends them to us. But I wasn't sure if these had actually been listed so that other folks might have had the opportunity to apply.

They were not. These are Orange County appointees, so these are generated by Orange County. Orange County would be the ones that actually would advertise for them as their Orange County appointees.

Do you know if Orange County advertised them?

I'm not aware of that. And possibly not because they are for reappointment. And I could see them not I don't want to speak for them, but I can see them not advertising because these are requests for reappointment.

That certainly makes sense, except as you noted, sir, that since there's no term limit, there's no point at which they would if that were the policy, there's no point at which they would stop just putting them up for reappointment without advertising the seats.

Unless they said that they weren't interested in reappointments. Being reappointed. Correct. I'm with you there.

I have one other question. I think in one of the original emails, there was also a non Orange County appointee. Is there another vacancy on the planning board aside from the Orange County appointments?

I'm not aware of that. I did ask for information from the staff liaison. I haven't received that information back. There were just to give counsel some information there were 15 applicants since 2023 that were sent to the staff liaison for them to have a pool of applicants, not for these positions, not for the Orange County positions, but for the regular planning board position and not for the Northern Transition Area Advisory Committee. But no, there was not any conversation or any information sent to me stating, as of yet, that these appointments, vacancies were there.

Do you know how many vacancies there are currently on the planning board?

I do not. Once again, I have inquired through the staff liaison and haven't received a return email currently.

I'm double checking this because I think we have it looks to me one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 9. I see nine persons listed on the town website, including the current Orange County appointees, which would suggest that there's two vacancies. I don't know for sure if that's accurate or not. I'm just going off the town website. But you mentioned that there have been, I think you said, 15 applicants for the other for the Orange County, twenty twenty three.

So before I started, the council had paused the reviewing of application. Once we did our appointment process update, we did that. That information was sent to the staff liaisons. And I went back and gathered all these applications that had come in prior to the pause of addressing application and vacancies. And since then, most of the boards have addressed that situation.

The planning board, if they have any vacancies, have not let me know. And that was information sent to the staff liaison. And once again, hopefully I will receive some information there shortly. But if we need to hold off on these appointments, if that is the concern, we can. But these were actually driven by Orange County and not by our staff liaison.

No, and I thank you for that. I'm just trying to make sure that I understand the situation. Colleagues, I think we are probably going to end up making these appointments as they're written. But I would be interested, if you'd consider it with me, in delaying this to one of our April meetings so that we have the opportunity to find out, have these been advertised at the county level? If they have not, perhaps Carbro can help since we're close by.

And to find out what's going on with the other vacancies. One of the reasons I'm mentioning this is because I've spoken to at least one person who's applied whose application has been pending two years. So I just want to make sure that we have a clear idea of what's happening with the planning board, especially because it is a statutory board and has an important role.

Thank you so much.

We'd really like to hear what you all think, colleagues.

I appreciate that. Councilmember Palmer, did you have a comment? Else?

I just want to yes and that, because when I saw this in the packet, I went looking and I wondered to myself, since this comes from the county, why does it come from the county? What is the structure of the planning board? If I'm watching this at home on YouTube two, three days from now, I might wonder, do I qualify? And I wouldn't know exactly where to look. Like, which map do I look at? How do I know if my address is in that? And so getting the right advertisement in the right way so that people know, even if they qualify, which of their maybe one street over their neighbor does and they think they'd be good.

Any other comments or questions, council members? Councilmember Pesado Orozco.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Joyner, quick question. Just to make this as easy for you as possible, because I'm also in line of delaying this and hearing a little bit more about that. Would you need a formal motion for a delay, or just our conversation appear enough?

Conversation is enough.

Just so for clarity, so we will not be making any reappointments this evening. We are seeking clarity about the process and qualifications for these seats. And we will get that between Mr. Joyner and probably Orange County. Anything else, Councilmember Fritz?

Madam Mayor, one more thought. Just in case any of these folks are watching and are concerned, the bylaws for the planning board say that if someone is not appointed when a term ends, the person in the seat just continues

to sort They just

this stay on. Nobody's leaving the board. We're getting a chance to figure out what's going on.

Thank you so much for that. And that is the last item on the agenda. So council members, we have a closed session, attorney client privilege. So we need a motion.

So moved.

Mayor, excuse

me. There is an additional closed session. And because we advertise as attorney client privilege, Nick told me we'll add another, which is statute 143, three eighteen, eleven fifteen. And this is a discussion about negotiation of potential contract regarding real property that just came to my attention.

All right. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, could I ask that we, on either side of this, that we take a three minute recess, just a brief one?

Oh, yeah. In between. Thank you. For sure. So we had the motion on the floor for the closed session? Second. And second? Yep. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed? Motion carries, seven-zero. We need to move to closed session.