Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone so today is August 3rd I don't know where July went but welcome back to our regular number of meetings today is our first meeting of the new the August August 3rd this is our work session dated August 3rd 2025 so I'm gonna read the public charge and Commissioner Burton would you be open to reading the land acknowledgement all right and then we'll continue on with our program the board of commissioners asked his members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful courteous manner both in the board with the board and fellow citizens at any time at any time should any member of the board or citizen failed observe this public charge the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to the public charge is observed. Commissioner Burton.

Yes, thank you, Chair Lee. Land acknowledgement. As we convene for the Durham County Commissioners' Meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Catawba Eno, Okanichi, Shikori, and Tuscarora peoples, whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred, leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit. May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, both past and present, by committing ourselves to fostering understanding, healing, and justice for all who inhabit this land. Let us walk forward together with open hearts, acknowledging the past and embracing a future guided by compassion, respect, and unity.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. okay so the first item on our agenda are citizen comments we have 30 minutes allotted for this we have slightly more than uh well we have i think 19 total two are virtual so um i'm going to allow i'm going to do the two minute thing you know to fit within the time limit itself or slightly go over it a little bit there and make sure people have their opportunity to speak so we will do two minutes two minutes each okay so what i'm going to do is i'm going to call three names at a time, and you can line up over here, and we'll just kind of make it go that way, okay? So the first is David Kuro, did I say that? Kuro, all right? Then we have Leslie St. Trey, and we have Scott Levitan, okay? And those are going to be our first three. Okay, and remember, we're going to have two minutes, okay? Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, Commissioners, and county staff. My name is David Kuro, founder and CEO of MHC Inc., which is Midtown Housing Coalition. And thank you for the opportunity to present. I'm here to introduce Forest Grove Homes, an affordable, inclusive housing community for being developed in Durham County for adults with developmental disabilities. plus veterans and first responders with disabilities. Adults with disabilities want the same thing that everybody else wants. They want a safe home, independence, friendships, and an opportunity to be part of a community. Unfortunately, people with developmental disabilities don't have that opportunity because of limited income. forest grove homes is our answer to that we've already taken the first step we have four acres of land off of guest road near carver to construct a community of about 20 homes and it's more than just a housing project it's a community where residents can participate in gardening cooking classes wellness activities social events volunteer opportunities And we believe that people thrive when they have both the home and community that encourages independence, dignity, and purpose. For families in Forest Grove homes, it provides something equally important, a peace of mind. And I will tell you, my son will live there. He's 38 years old and he has a developmental disability. So we all wonder what's going to happen to our kids when we can't take care of them anymore. So this is our answer. So we're working with community partners, donors, and foundations.

That was the two minutes. Thank you so very much.

So before I leave, I'd just like to invite you all. There's a packet. And then the end of it is we're having a festival. Commissioner Burton was there last year.

Thank you.

And thank you, thank you very much.

Yeah, Leslie St. Dre and then Scott Levitan.

Hello, I'm Leslie St. Dre, a resident of Durham, and I'm part of Community Land and Power, which is one of the 24 organizations that makes up the Stop Data Centers in Durham Coalition. So we're here today to protect ourselves, our kids, our neighbors, our water, our land, air, from your ongoing assaults on Durham. Be it through handing out 76 million to corporate landlords, which has gut our city and county budgets, or approving $16 million cop cities instead of housing. fair school salaries, or in today's case, considering making our public health, inequality, and climate crises worse by allowing racially biased, toxic, and even deadly AI and its toxic, deadly data centers in Durham. We have had enough. we are facing the worst crises that any most of us have ever lived through right the climate crises inequality people can't afford their basic needs people can't afford health care data centers make all of this worse we all need to drink water to eat food that's not poisoned to breathe air a moratorium is about stopping things right not allowing things to continue to happen that make things worse for us. So we ask that you pass a moratorium without loopholes and listen to your constituents. The majority who have begged you to pass a loophole free moratorium and that's includes 70% of the country. So standing against that is standing against democracy. And so we ask that you please

take a big pause and study the impacts that's the whole point of the moratorium thank you good morning mr chair commissioners county staff and fellow citizens my name is scott levitan research triangle foundation of north carolina i want to thank the commissioners and county staff for their careful consideration of the impact the data centers will have on our quality of life appropriate site selection, infrastructure capacity, utility rate impact, and tax revenue generation. It's important to plan thoroughly and I appreciate your efforts. Data centers come in all scales. RTP currently has at least six enterprise data centers that are purpose-built to support some of RTP's largest enterprises among multinational companies. Data centers are critical infrastructure for modern innovation and research companies that call RTP home and that RTP continues to attract to invest here in Durham County. We will need additional enterprise and commercially scale data centers to support existing and new companies in RTP. It is important that any moratorium on data centers include a pathway for these enterprise scale data centers to be permitted in Durham County. Because of land availability and cost, power grid capacity, and proximity to power generation, it is highly unlikely that RTP can ever accommodate a hyperscale data center. That dog just don't hunt. We support the recent legislation passed by the NC House and under consideration in the NC Senate that addresses the concern that the cost and burden to provide data center utility requirements not fall upon all of us who are existing rate payers and deploy environmentally responsible systems that do not overburden our water and sewer resources we hope our legislators will advance this legislation at the state level to address these important concerns on behalf of the 400 companies in rtp thank you for this opportunity to speak with you thank you mr levitan

All right, the next three speakers will be Samuel Scarborough, Gabriela Peterson.

Am I saying that right?

Oh, I'm sorry. That's my daughter's middle name, you'd think I'd be able to get that right, Gabrielle Peterson. And then Victoria Plant. Okay, all right. Mr. Scarborough.

Good morning and happy Black August to all those who celebrate.

Today I want to talk on two things that I saw on the agenda. The first is that I want to speak in opposition to the over $1 million in funding that looks to be allocated to the Sheriff's Office. It feels like every time I come here, there's more money for policing, less money towards youth programming. The last time I came here, there was over $16.5 million that went to a sheriff's training facility that was wildly unpopular. And instead, we have large crises such as federal and state level cuts to grants that will support youth programming. additionally while interning at the courthouse I also noticed that we only have one interpreter on staff that represents a courthouse serving over 200,000 people I feel like a million dollars would be better spent on youth programming and ensuring that we have a fully staffed translation service department in our courthouse the second thing is that we need a moratorium on data centers that is stronger than the city's one-year moratorium you all first charge here the Durham County Board of Commissioners is is representing us in ensuring that we have livable futures with clean air and fresh water. It's not representing these tech corporations. We already know that large-scale data centers consume large amounts of energy and that that will likely drive up our monthly light bills. We know that it's going to stretch our energy grid even more thin. And we also know that the priority of these tech companies is not pushing for large data centers that are going to primarily serve the community is for profit. And so I join everyone here in asking you all, as the AI industry continues expanding and as issues like climate change continue to become more disastrous, we need to give our county staff the necessary time to develop strategies to regulate how data centers will impact our community, and we need a moratorium. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Scarborough.

Good morning, Chairman and Board. My name is Gabby Patterson, and I am here today as a community advocate and Durham County resident to urge you to implement a countywide moratorium on costly and dangerous state dissenters. I am a community outreach specialist at NC Warren, a Durham-based nonprofit that has been advocating for environmental justice and community safety across the state for around 40 years. I have also called Durham home for more than two years, so I have a personal stake in the future of this community. I care deeply about all of Durham having clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, affordable power wells, and healthy, livable, pollution-free neighborhoods. As the Durham County Board of Commissioners, you have a responsibility to protect us, which is why it is essential that we pass a data center moratorium today. Not only do they use electricity, water, but they also contribute to pollution that affects our air, soil, and waterways. Their massive energy demand significantly drives up our power bills and is Duke Energy's primary justification for expanding polluting frack gas-fired power plants across North Carolina. In fact, Duke Energy plans to spend $63 billion in the Carolinas alone by 2030 to build new power plants to accommodate these incoming data centers. This massive build-out will raise our power bills and expand polluting power that worsens the climate crisis that is already being felt across Durham County, especially by our most vulnerable. These impacts include rising temperatures, droughts, polluted watersheds, and extreme weather events like Tropical Storm Chantal. Durham has been a long-time leader in tackling the climate crisis, and as you consider the future of this county, remember who is at stake and why you made climate commitments in the first place. Durham residents, we are already struggling with rising power bills, increasing temperatures, rising costs, and a worsening climate. Duke Energy is one of the country's worst polluters, and last year they reported a record profit of $5 billion. We cannot allow this corporation to continue

thank you thank you so very much miss patterson uh victoria plant then we have uh stephanie gans stephanie gans and then jade brooks jade brooks okay all right

Hi, everyone. My name is Victoria Plant. I'm speaking on behalf of the Sunrise Movement here today, the organization that took up the Green New Deal. And I'm going to talk a little bit differently, so I'm not super repetitive of the other speakers. But we could talk about the water usage, electricity usage, raising costs, the chemicals and potential PFAS in our waterways. the sound pollution and the impacts of AI and job loss and all that. But I would rather direct everyone's attention beyond those fears and maybe start talking about the problem solving we could be doing. I guess I understand that it's maybe not legally recommended to outright ban data centers and that's why we're talking about a moratorium here. But can we take some risk? Can we push it a little bit and have a conversation that goes beyond that? You know, this industry is moving incredibly fast, adapting incredibly fast. But we have an opportunity here to use the intense bipartisan political pressure to regulate data centers. to the best that we can, the strongest we can. We can have them pay for all of our utility costs. We can make them use all renewable energy. We can make them disclose their plans for what the data center's purpose is. Maybe it's not AI, maybe it's something else like powering YouTube, I don't know. I feel like that's okay. We can make sure they're not taking jobs from Durham residents and not doing things that are morally troubling to us. and regulate their cooling systems so that they're not using a ton of water or electricity and contributing to climate change. We can make sure that we're regulating PFAS and other chemicals that are put into the county water system. And yeah, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Plant.

Hi. Hello. My name is Stephanie Ganz. I'm executive director of an organization called Clean Water for North Carolina. I'm also a Durham County resident. And so some of the concerns with the sort of draft moratorium language as written, I think the big one is talking about allowing data centers to be exempt from what is really a nine-month pause or, you know, addition to what's already happened with the city you know that that exemption is a little bit starting to try to write the regulation that you all are supposed to be taking the nine months to do to really think carefully right the pause you know in terms of what the gentleman from RTP said previously A nine month pause to get these regulations right is not undermining whatever it is they're trying to do unless it's to get through some systems that wouldn't get through after that stronger scrutiny, right? So I would say the pause of saying, oh, well, ones that don't use diesel backup generation, okay, well, there are natural gas turbines. That is still air pollution for our communities. Why not have a special use permit process to have the data center developer actually have to prove that what they're going to do is going to protect our communities and actually have to have a public hearing in that process. Those exemptions are not sufficient, like allowing those to continue on are not sufficient to protect us. I would also say the closed-loop cooling, same thing. Closed-loop cooling systems often use PFAS, right? And there needs to be, those things should not just go forward when we don't have a process to say, let's have a public hearing, let's show the public how we are not going to allow additional PFAS to get into our water supply. The same water we're asking you guys to pay 12% more on, right, to clean.

Thank you so much. Ms. Brooks?

Good morning. My name is Jade Brooks, and I live here in Durham on North Roxborough. And I'm here with a group, Southerners on New Ground, SONG, who's part of the Coalition to Stop Data Center. So I'm also urging you to take action to pass the data center moratorium. And we'd like to see you pass a moratorium that's as strong or stronger than the city one that just came earlier this summer. I wanted to take a minute and use my time to share with you all the community groups who have joined in on our coalition and are in support of you all taking action around passing a moratorium here in Durham. So you've heard from some already, Community Land and Power, Clean Water and Sea, Sunrise. But in addition, this moratorium is also supported by people in the Durham People's Alliance, Merrick Moore CDC, Walltown Community Association, UE150, the Durham Association of Educators, Sound Rivers, Toxics Free NC, the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Mothers for Ceasefire, North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, Durham Art Guild, Durham Beyond Policing, Triangle Democratic Socialists of America, Carolina Jews for Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, Moms Clean Air Force, the Sunrise Movement, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Durham Youth Activists, Black Men Build, and more every day are joining in our effort. So we want you to really hear that people, not industries, are your constituents, and that we'd like to see you refocus this conversation on what the community wants and put our voices, concerns, and health before profit-making of an industry. So with that, thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next three that we have are Cole Paria-West. We have Rachel Meyer. And then Eva Page-Banook.

Hi, everyone. Good morning. My name is Cole Park West. I'm a resident of Durham County and a member of Southerners on New Ground, part of this coalition. I'm also the pastor of a community called Farm Church. Farm Church works to leverage our resources to address food insecurity in Durham. So we don't have a building. We have a garden and we grow as much food as we possibly can to share with our neighbors. Not having a building means that, especially on Sunday mornings, we are especially attuned to the land, the water and the air. With that attunement, I'm here to encourage you all as the decision makers elected by the people of this community, not by corporations, to pass a data center moratorium without loopholes that is even stronger than the city's year-long one. We need to push the brakes on this development in order to allow for proper due diligence that prioritizes our people, our shared ecosystems, and the economic health of our whole community, not just RTP. In Durham County and across the country, people are saying no to data centers. This isn't some sort of fringe Durham thing. It's a majority position here and across the country. Elected officials are meant to serve the will of the people, and the people of Durham County are clear that we do not want more data centers. At the start of this meeting, we took a moment to humbly honor the ancestors and elders of the Catawba, the Eno, the Okinichi, the Shikori, and the Tuscarora people, people who loved this land first. And I ask that we might build a future, as we have committed at the start of this meeting, that is guided by compassion, respect, and unity, that we might take our commitment to rectifying the wrongs that we have inherited on this land and build a better future that cares for our land, our water, and our people. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share my concerns about data centers in Durham County. My name is Rachel Meyer and I work with a statewide nonprofit of health professionals who are concerned about climate change. And I have learned about the health impacts of data centers through my work with them. That said, I'm speaking today as a health advocate, resident of Durham County, and as the mom of two young kids growing up here like I did. When I think about data centers and the health of my children and all our children across Durham, there are four health-related issues that I believe merit a strong moratorium and further study during that time. First is water contamination from PFAS. The second is air pollution from backup generators and the data centers themselves. The third is excessive or constant noise, which I don't think is talked about enough, but is the number one complaint of people who live near data centers. And constant or excessive industrial noise, even at low volumes, leads to cognitive alterations, chronic stress, headaches, vertigo, dental wear like grinding your teeth, hypertension, sleep disruption, and increased cardiovascular strain. Also, children in chronically noisy environments suffer from increased stress, behavioral issues, concentration deficits, and lower reading comprehension. And the fourth concern that I have is related to data center heat islands. Data centers create heat waste, which artificially inflates the local temperature, as though we need higher temperatures here in Durham. And that could also increase related heat illnesses. So we are already exposed to many environmental harms every day, and we know that the cumulative impact of more exposures to more harms is bad for our health. As a parent and health advocate, I believe we need the strong moratorium so that we can plan appropriate policies and protections because our children will carry the results in their hearts, lungs, kidneys, and brains.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Eva and I live in Durham County and I am also in favor of at least a one year moratorium on new data centers as strong or stronger than the city council moratorium. We need to take the time to develop and implement well researched regulations that will place strong limitations and transparency requirements before we pay a price that can't be refunded. As many of my fellow citizens have said, the whole point of a moratorium is to give us time to develop these regulations, to do the research, and putting carve-outs into it undermines the point of having one. According to Gallup polls, 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. These data centers emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and toxins, that can cause asthma and exacerbate heart disease. And even with temporary limits for each new individual data center, like if we had a 50 megawatt carve out, allowing multiple data centers through that carve out necessarily means cumulative effects. Some of the largest data centers being built now cover hundreds of acres with steel and concrete. We have a beautiful state. Why would we want to do that for something that gives very little benefit, very few permanent jobs? and makes a lot of noise. They're often incredibly loud. They use water with little to no transparency, typically drawing from a single source to satisfy AI inquiries from around the world. And we have been in a drought all year. I hope that you will support the moratorium and use that time to implement well-researched regulations that place strong limitations and transparency requirements that protect our county, the people, and the land. Anything worth having can stand up to the scrutiny of research and information gathering. Thank you.

Thank you. And I apologize, I said Eva as Eva, so no problem. All right, so we have Lauren Resnick. We have Ashley Daniels. And then Camille Leonard.

Hi, y'all.

Hello.

So my name is Lauren Resnick. I'm from Texas originally, lived all over the world in the country, but I've been in North Carolina for almost 30 years. So I want to put a moratorium on all big data centers in Durham County. I'm also calling for a statewide moratorium. on all big data centers in North Carolina. Why? One, these data centers are gambling with our water supply and quality, air, land, privacy, energy, and security. These are our birthrights, and as American citizens, we will not be placed in a position where big tech, big pharma, and any monolithic corporation put our natural resources we need to survive in jeopardy now or in future. NC's water table is already struggling. We're the third fastest growing state, never mind this drought and future droughts. Massive entities like these daily entities taking millions of gallons of our water we need to live and grow food have absolutely no right. no business to do that in this state or country secondly it's already been predicted with high confidence that much smaller unimpinging facilities will replace these fast hence the data center bubble discussion logic dictates moore's law applies to this So it would be very impolitic to forge ahead with these data centers, clear-cutting hundreds of acres of our precious trees unnecessarily for one. Thirdly, security. Look at the cyberattacks into seven of our state's water systems last week. 30 facilities targeted. Our current NC water infrastructure is not secure. Combined with massive water hogging data centers centered on AI everything, this spells suicide. We need a country and county and statewide moratorium on data centers. Lastly, I'm speaking as a human. I'm no longer political because it divides us. We're headed into the wrong direction with big tech, big pharma, and mega corporations all smothering and controlling every part of our lives.

Thank you. Thank you. We have Ashley Daniels, Camille Leonard, and Jennifer Griffith.

Good morning, commissioners.

Good morning.

My name is Ashley Daniels.

I work with North Carolina organization Toxic Free NC. I'm here today with members of the Durham community to emphasize the need for a complete moratorium with no carve outs for data centers in Durham County. Since a moratorium, unlike a ban, is a temporary stop or pause, commissioners should see this opportunity for a data center moratorium less as a threat to the business community. A moratorium is not a threat to the business community. It is an opportunity to perform the necessary due diligence to ensure that any business you choose to permit in the area will be compatible with the resources and health of Durham residents, which should be the top priority of commissioners. Since a one megawatt data center can use the energy of approximately 1,000 households and the water usage of approximately 300,000 people, How would Durham County manage the water consumption of data centers in another drought year? If Durham were to allow data centers access to the county, what percentage of residents would have increased respiratory illnesses? What would decreased air quality mean for childhood illness? According to the International Association of Firefighters, fires from data centers occur less frequently than in the past, but firefighters still require excessive training and planning to ensure they are prepared. If a large-scale data center were in Durham County, what would training and preparation for firefighters look like? How much would that cost the county? Environmental advocates often bring up the dangers of PFAS in data centers. PFAS is used in the cooling of machines and it's still unclear how much impact PFAS would have on the environment. What authority will Durham County have to require any potential data center to take responsibility and to dispose of PFAS waste? How would that look and what measures would you take to ensure protection for citizens? Calling on you to respect your land acknowledgement.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Camille Leonard. I'm a Durham County resident. And I think the things we need to look at instead of all these statistics is what's the difference between a data center and an AI super mega data center? Well, we need the data centers if you're using Google or whatever. We have data centers for that. Why do we need the big AI data centers? Because the billionaires want them. Because the government wants them. We don't want them. We don't need them. And there's no reason we should even be talking about this because we already are running out of water. We are already running out of resources. This is a ridiculous and unacceptable policy that we are following right now with these big, mega data centers. They are ridiculous and irresponsible, and that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Jennifer Griffith. I am a city of Durham resident. I just want to second pretty much everything that everyone else has said. The situation with the data centers, the moratorium needs to be extended. Whatever moratorium is being planned, it needs to be a longer term moratorium. There are too many concerns. We're having drought. We saw what kind of watering restrictions we had over the last few weeks. with the drought we had, what kind of situation, how much worse is it going to be if we have data centers that are using important resources? We've seen the commercials. I think everyone's seen the commercials. Oh, data centers are so important. They're so wonderful. We don't use that much water. And I think most of us know that that's misleading because they are talking about smaller scale data centers. And as everyone has pointed out, these are mega centers, which are going to be having a much larger impact on our environment, on our employment situation, and heaven knows how much water they're going to use, too. I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. Next, we have a fig tree. Jagoon, I hope I said that right, and Pete Eiselman, and Kimberly Lamb, I'm thinking that's what it is. Kimberly Lamb, okay.

Good morning, Durham County Board of Commissioners and fellow residents of Durham. My name is F. Yotu Jagoon, and I'm the Durham County Community Organizer for North Carolina Black Alliance. and a proud product of Durham Public Schools. The North Carolina Black Alliance works to enhance the wellbeing and advancement of black communities across the state. We collaborate with strategic partners to amplify collective impact and foster intentional, meaningful impact and engagement with black constituencies across North Carolina. Data centers have been around since the 1940s, but technological advances in the focus on generative AI have resulted in the high energy and water consumption, emissions, and noise pollution These projects produce a surge in short-term construction jobs, followed by a steady stream of tax revenue, although they receive federal, state, and local tax incentives and provide few additional benefits. As one of the organizations that signed on to the Stop Data Centers position, North Carolina Black Alliance is in support of a strong data center moratorium, such as the ordinance passed by the City of Durham. Moratoriums are a pause, not a permanent ban, on data centers that will allow our communities to develop guardrails against major issues such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, heat island effect, and noise pollution. This is especially important considering that there are already several data centers in Durham County, but the planning department has not assessed their water or energy usage or their environmental impact. Reference, a one megawatt data center, which is not considered hyperscale, has a power demand of about 500 to 1,000 homes. A moratorium on data centers will allow us time to answer important questions and develop requirements on power and water usage effectiveness, noise levels, and protection from elevated utility bills, as seen in the ongoing Duke Energy Rate High proposal, which is in large part due to significant power demand from data centers. A moratorium combined with a community-based agreement is advised to protect the interests of local communities. Please vote yes on the strongest moratorium possible. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning again, commissioners.

Good morning.

Now our muzzle goes from three to two minutes. How about that? Magic trick. Good morning, commissioners. I'm here today because data center policy cannot be discussed separately from taxation, housing, schools, family policing, climate, water, energy, and public accountability. Durham County is operating inside an economic model that gives corporations and large property owners access to tax breaks, incentives, appeals, favorable treatment, while telling ordinary people there's not enough money for housing, schools, public services, family support, health care, mental health care, worker protections, or real community safety. Indy Week's 2006 investigation found that billions in reduced assessed property value flowed overwhelmingly to commercial property owners and corporate landlords, with commercial property driving 93% of the $4.4 billion value lost. The money does not disappear. It was taken from somewhere. Public schools, housing stability, public health, climate resistance, direct family aid, transit, water protection, the basic material supports keeping families together. A data center is not just a building. It's a political choice about land, water, energy, taxation, labor, and who gets sacrificed for economic development. These definitions meet in the same households, the same families facing eviction of the families most likely to be investigated, the same neighborhoods carrying environmental burdens or the neighborhoods least likely to receive direct investment. The same residents who were told to participate in public comment are given two minutes while corporate interests sit at tables, receive meetings, staff time, incentives, appeals, and policy language. This is not democracy. This is managed extraction with a public comment window. I want to be clear, representation alone doesn't change this. A multicultural, queer, multi-gender, progressive commission can still produce extractive governance if the structure remains the same. Harm does not become less harmful because it's administered by people with progressive identities. The question is not whether this board has good intentions. The question is who benefits materially from your decisions and who pays for them. I'm asking you to stop treating data centers as isolated economic development projects, require full public accounting of tax impacts, water usage, energy demand, environmental burden, labor conditions, and displacement risk before any approval, rezoning, or incentive.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kimberly Lamb. I'm a resident of Durham. I've been one for the past 15 years. I also live in Western North Carolina. My husband is a professor at App State. I've seen the effects of Hurricane Helene. I live them. Our home was partially destroyed by Helene. And it seems pretty insane to me that we would be considering given the climate crisis that we're facing. Obviously we're still in the middle of a drought, I'm strongly in support of everything that everyone has said here so eloquently, and I really hope that the moratorium will hold, that it will be serious, and that the climate crisis will be at the center of considerations. Thank you.

Thank you. And so we had one that was virtual for Shanice Hamilton. We don't have Shanice Hamilton online, so we'll pass. Oh, is Shanice here? No, we have people online.

I've recently admitted people in, so no one has tried.

Okay. all right and that concludes our citizen comment if we have shanice come in i'll um i'll take a break between whatever and we'll we'll have the public comment from chinese okay make sure that is heard okay the next item on our agenda are the is the consent agenda i'll hand it to manager hager

Good morning, commissioners. We have several items for your consideration, many of which have been to the board over periods in the past. And this is now a time in which it's for formal approval. The first one is 260249. This is an approval of a capital project amendment and budget ordinance amendment reducing the Durham County Sheriff's Office completion Detention Center Food Doors Capital Project by $561,725. And the completed Sheriff IT Server Room Capital Project by $371,739.49. Transferring those funds. of $933,464.49 to the Durham County Sheriff's Office operating budget, as well as appropriating $142,587 in PAYGO funding to the Durham County Sheriff's Office operating budget to support a one year I'm sorry, to support year one of a five-year contract with Tritec Software Solutions, a Central Square Technologies company, and upgraded computer aid dispatch and report management systems.

Commissioner Jacobs.

I just have a clarification question. Sure. So this, we had already approved this capital purchase. we're just reallocating previous capital funding from other projects to go towards it. Is that correct? That is correct. Just for clarification.

Thank you. You're welcome. The next one is 260356. This is a budget ordinance amendment to recognize $28,153 in LSTA grant funding awarded by the State Library of North Carolina to fund the learning through play initiative the next one is to is 260358 is to authorize the county manager to enter to a contract with ardura not to exceed a hundred and fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars for construction oversight services for the whispering pine stream restoration and storm water improvement project The next one is 260379. This is an approval of the fiscal year 27 Durham Annual Transit Work Program Global Operating and Capital Agreement. The next one is 26, I'm sorry.

i just had a quick question i noticed that there there was in the global agreements there was nothing referring to our projects with the city of durham um so i was just wondering because it refers to triangle west and uh go triangle but did not refer to city of durham so

Good morning. Brandy Minor, Transit Program Administrator. So, yes, the City of Durham, they execute their own agreements.

GoTriangle is a party to all of their projects, and Triangle West for those capital projects that have federal funding. So the commissioners do not have to approve those.

Thank you for clarifying that.

You're welcome. Great. Thank you. The next one is 260383. This is approval of contract with Mariah Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department for Fire Rescue and First Responder Services in the Magnum Fire Protection Service District. The next one is 260385. This is an approval to enter into a service contract with Roth Staffing, a temporary agency in the amount of $255,747.66 to support the Board of Elections for the upcoming general election. The next one is 260387. This is an approval of purchase of goods contract with PMC Commercial Interiors Inc. For administrative office and miscellaneous furnishings from the North Carolina state contract. And our Omnia partners buying programs in a total amount not to exceed $134,600 for the training facility. The next one is 26- County Manager?

Yes. Before we proceed. So I just have a question, sort of tangential to that 260387. Are we going to be provided with an update regarding the status of the training center?

We can coordinate with the sheriff for that at another work session. Okay, yes sir.

Just really quickly, commissioners, if you all have questions, just jump in. It's kind of hard to make sure everybody gets there.

i don't have the call you just kind of jump in is that okay with you yeah that's perfect okay all right all right okay the next one some of these get really long title awards um the next one is 260389 approval to ensure contract to purchase paving stripping and concrete repair services from kph paving and landscaping inc using capital funds and ongoing Parking resurfacing program in the amount of $149,500. The following locations will be repaired with this contract. The first one, Durham County EMS 6 building. followed by remaining facilities at the Durham Center Access, EMS number one, Durham County Cooperative Extension Building, Foster Street parking lot, Durham County Main Library, the Durham County Community Shelter, the Durham County General Services Building, Durham County Main Fueling Station and number 10, Justice Services Center. Also, the board authorizes the county manager to approve any change orders or amendments as long as funding is available.

Yeah, I had a question. I was just wondering, is there like a cycle as to when all the parking lots get repaved? Like it's on a five-year cycle, 10-year cycle?

And we will have general services staff, Sean Shotaka, to answer that question. But for our facilities, we try to have a cycle for replacement, whether it's roofing,

paving and other services and sean will give a more detailed response so yeah for the paving side we do a cycle about every five years for resealing our parking lots unless we find repairs are needed but we try to do a cycle of every five years to prolong the preservation of the current pavement and try to minimize any repairs that are needed

And this is also a part of our pay-as-you-go funding that we have budgeted so that we can plan for those kinds of projects and protect our assets. This is asset management. Mr. Lane.

Manager Hager, I'll just take this brief moment to educate you. If you look in the budget document under the capital financing plan fund, it's somewhere in the middle of the document. You will see a list of pay-go projects, sort of cash that the county pays annually. And there are a number of projects out of general services, not only for HVAC systems, for paving roads. We have a lot of buildings, and we have a lot of space that needs to be kept up every year. And so they've developed a schedule, and we donate cash. We put cash in those projects every year to allow them to keep that schedule up. Thank you.

Thank you, Keith. The next item is 260390. This is an approval of a budget amendment to distribute the board approved 2% cost of living adjustment for fiscal year 26-27 to the respective budget ordinance approved functional areas. The next one is 260391. This is an award of Triangle Waste Water Treatment Plant Residuals Transport and Disposable to McGill Environmental Services of North Carolina, Inc. And the amount of $569,660 and to execute any other related contract amendments not to exceed 626 626 dollars the next one is 260392 this is the durham sports commission in a local agreements renewal i had a question about that one i was just wondering um the board of directors why did

It's going from nine members to 12. That was one of the recommendations. I was just curious as to why that decision was made or why. Or maybe that was the wrong one. I'm reading the wrong one.

Let's see. So, yeah, Marie, yes.

Marcus Manning, Executive Director Durham Sports Commission. First I wanna thank the Board of County Commissioners, county staff for your support of the Durham Sports Commission. I think that's a great question. And the rationale is we wanted to have additional people at the table in terms of representation. And so that was the thought process behind that as we look toward the future.

And I think that's a good thing. I was just curious as to why that decision was made. So thank you so much.

While you're up here, Mr. Manning, I was having an interesting conversation with Ms. Angelique Stallings about, we were at the Durham Bulls game and wondering, maybe this is a conversation for later, but that the sports commission could come to us of the work that y'all are doing with the study about the, you know, expanding like a larger sports facility, Where we're at in that conversation about like NCCU and a baseball, softball stadium, because when I was talking to Ms. Stallings, I learned that the NCCU baseball team or softball team actually travels all the way to Wake County to practice because there's not actually a facility for the students to be playing here.

great question uh and for context angelique stallings is our board chair and this is her second second term and in terms of uh north carolina central university and their softball team currently they do play and carry we are looking at the possibility of durham athletic park being a home site for them in the future thank you for that question

So I have an additional question, Marcus. Good to see you. You too. In part three of the interlocal agreement, it talks about funding going directly to Discover Durham from the state. Is that money in addition to what goes to Discover Durham in accordance with state law? Is that additional funding?

And I'm looking at our CFO here for that. He's going to come in and provide an answer for that.

Yeah, Tony Hale, CFO of Discover Durham. I think the intention of that language was really talking about the redistribution of the OSPI tax, and so the additional funding that is moving from the city and county, and therefore Discover Durham is picking up a large portion of the funding for the Sports Commission because that funding did move.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, the next item is 260393. I believe I may have read this already. And then I just went back. But I'll read it again. Award of Collection and Distribution System Emergency and Schedule Repair Services for the Utilities Division, RFP 26036R, Contract to Carolina Civil Works, Inc. and Access Utility, Inc. The next one is 260394, this is award of the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant Emergency and Scheduled Repair Services for the Utilities Division, RFP 26035R, contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc., Nikens Electrical Contracting LLC, and Axis Utility. The next one is 260397. This is an approval of capital project amendment 27 CPA 006 and budget ordinance amendment 008, decreasing the open space and farmland preservation capital project by $115,000. and transferring that funding to the Open Space and Real Estate Department's General Fund Operating Budget, as well as recognizing a 330,000 contribution from the Army National Guard's Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program to the OSRE to support the purchase of a 41-acre conservation easement from Billy and Tony Stevens for the total cost of $445,000.

I just wanted to jump in here really to speak to not only this item, but the next one, 26-0398, and also the last item, 26-0401. Again, I want to celebrate Uh, the great work of our open, our, um, open space and real estate staff, and just highlight these three different conservation easements and how, um, our, uh, we are using very creative partnerships to achieve the goals that we have in our community to protect land and water. farmland I also want to thank the property owners so in this case Billy and Tony Stevens for protecting their historic property and the fact that we are utilizing federal funding and it is a three-to-one match in this situation stretching Durham County taxpayer dollars the next one which we'll hear about is a partnership with the city of Durham to protect the watershed. And again, pulling in outside money to leverage county dollars. And thank you to Robin Davis. And then the third one is a complete donation. to Durham County government from the Dura-Acts worth half a million dollars. And so again, I don't think any of these things would be happening if we didn't have the trust of our community. So I want to thank our staff for your great work and just celebrate all three of these items. Thank you.

Commissioner Jacobs, I echo your comments. We are at this place because of relationships and grateful for all the efforts that have been in place for decades for our community to trust us and for residents to see conservation is important. So thank you to Celeste and the engineering team and many others. When you start calling out names, that's when you get in trouble, so I'll stop right there. Okay, the next item is 260398. This is approval of a capital project amendment and budget ordinance amendment decreasing the open space and farmland preservation capital project by 123,000, transferring that funding to open space and real estate department's general fund operating budget as well as recognizing a $117,500 contribution from the city of Durham's water supply protection program to support the purchase of a 19.27 acre conservation easement from Robin Davis at 505 Mason Road for a total cost of $240,500. The next one is 260400. This is an approval of capital project amendment 27 CPA 008 closing multiple capital projects that were completed in fiscal year 2526. The next one is 260401. This is to approve acceptance of a donated 22 acre conservation easement from David and Carmen Dorak at 1700 Woodstock Road and 3900 West Cornwallis Road for permanent open space protection.

commissioners this concludes our consent items and please let me know if you have questions all right thoughts from commissioners i know we did it kind of along the way but any further thoughts about the presentation of the consent agenda those items will be officially voted on in our work session on the 10th yeah it should be the 10th or the 24th depending on where it lands okay Next item on our agenda, we move into our discussion items. We have a couple discussion items, and the first one is the ordinance, the comprehensive plan amendment, 25, a bunch of zeros and two, evaluation and assessment report policy changes.

Sweet, all right. Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. I am Peyton Burgess with the Planning and Development Department, here to present the EAR policies this morning. So what is the EAR? That is the Evaluation and Assessment Report. It is something that is mandated by the UDO to be performed every two years to sort of monitor the progress on the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan implementation. The last EAR that we did was in 2018 due to the drafting of the newly adopted comprehensive plan. So this is the first one that you've seen in a little bit of time. The overall EAR process includes two phases. Phase one is the community goals and objectives report card. It also includes plan updates, so that's police type map changes, urban growth boundary amendments, and policy edits. Phase two is the implementation report on actions and also includes a technical analysis. What we're talking about this morning is just specifically the policy edits. You can see with the you are here star. That's what we're discussing. You guys have seen everything previous to that, and then the next steps would be that phase two. Now, the policy updates that we've worked on began in summer of 2025. Staff took our recommendation of policy changes to the Planning Commission in October of 2025, where it got deferred. So we brought it back in November of 2025, and then it was ultimately voted on at the Planning Commission in January of 2026. During that time, we worked with different community groups to gather feedback and made some sort of changes to the recommendations that we were suggesting. In April of 2026, we took our policy recommendations to JCCPC to seek guidance on how to proceed forward. After that, staff met with a subcommittee of the JCCPC to sort of workshop the policy changes, incorporated a few edits that were suggested during that workshop, and then ultimately brought those policies back to the June 2026 JCCPC meeting staff was getting directive to go ahead and proceed forward so now we are searching for an august 2026 adoption and this is something that you all will have in front of you next week on august 10th Now for the actual policy updates, what we did for the project was review the D policies and their commentary. So certain policies of the comprehensive plan have the D designation, and that means that those policies specifically are intended to address development. And as staff, we use them in our comprehensive plan consistency review report card that goes out with every case. So the rezonings and annexations that we take to you all and city council. And so staff looked through those policies and made edits to those de-designation policies. And we also made changes to the commentary of those policies. Now the actual policies themselves, the edits to those are required to be approved by elected bodies. The commentary is something that staff has created to sort of reflect the intention of the policies. It's something that we've included in this report because it's important to understand how the policy is supposed to be applied. And so those are sort of the changes that we made to the actual policies in the commentary. And then we've also recommended the removal of the de-designation of certain policies. And I do want to be clear that that does not mean that the policy would be removed from the comprehensive plan. It just would be removed from the development case review, that comprehensive plan consistency review that I mentioned. So no policies are being recommended for removal from the comprehensive plan. That's something I want to be clear on. And the goal of this whole project was to implement largely technical changes and make that comprehensive plan consistency review a little bit clearer and more concise and just a better tool to do case review. Again, I mentioned earlier through this process, we've had community feedback. We met with several groups, boards, and commissions that all provided feedback that have been incorporated into the edits that you have in front of you. A good example of that, I think, is policy 79, as you can read. We had initially proposed a staff, a larger scale of changes to this policy, and after meeting with the community, it became clear that those changes that we were proposing didn't reflect what they thought was the best interest of the policy. So we've worked to scale back the changes, and you can see they're really largely technical. and it really stays true to the original intention of the policy. Policy 50 also was updated with feedback from Parks and Rec so that we could be aligned with some new national park standards. And we've also included policies that staff initially recommended removal of the de-designation because again, we heard that community feedback and that those policies were important and so we wanted to make sure that we included those and it reflected the work that we did with the community throughout this process. I'm going to end on the summary of changes. So this really just kind of highlights the overview of what exactly has been done to which policies. I do want to remind you all that a lot of the changes are very technical, like you saw on that previous slide. And the changes to the commentary, especially with the place type policies, are oftentimes us adding commentary where there wasn't any before. So again, this is something that staff wanted to do and include with this process just so we can be transparent about how the policies are being applied and consistent across the application of the policies of different cases. So with that, I will take any questions that you all have about the edits to the policies, commentary, or the overall process.

Commissioner Jacobs?

Thank you, Peyton and Erin. I just wanted to share with our board, since I'm on the Joint City-County Planning Committee, just the process that we had, which was a really, really good process. The subcommittee that Peyton mentioned, Commissioner Valentine and I participated in that with two city council members. and we really went through line by line all of the areas that were of concern. And I also want to thank members of our community, Preserve Rural Durham, and also DOS members and other people and groups that gave input. As Peyton mentioned, there were a lot of changes in response, but I certainly... It helped me when we had the subcommittee understand that what was happening is that, especially with rezonings, which we don't see those staff reports, but basically, proposed developments were often getting credit for things that are just required. And it really was giving the wrong impression in the staff reports. that this relates to some of the things that have the D removed. They will still be addressed at the site plan, but won't make it look like a proposed rezoning is actually contributing something that has to be done anyway. That really helped me personally understand some of the rationale for the changes. I also, if you notice with the EAR, the proposed changes, the a lot of work the staff has put into the commentary and i thought that was really important too i appreciate that you all really focused on improving the commentary section so that people understand what is the applicants understand what is the intent of these policies so i think I support these changes. I do want to ask a question, which is how much of this is related to the fact that we are not able to approve our UDO? And how much of what is here will actually be dealt with once we can adopt our new ordinances? Because that's an important issue, so I'd love to hear Your response to that.

Thank you, Commissioner Jacobs. Aaron Cain with Planning and Development Department. I would say they're somewhat related, but This process was something we began a year ago now and is mandated by both UDO and the comprehensive plan. And so we were looking to do this independent of the new land development code. If and when the land development code is adopted, we will take another look at this document and see if there are other changes that need to be made. But we're trying to keep those two issues as separate as we can.

It just seems to me that a lot of the things that we're trying to address will really be better taken care of when we are able to move forward with our new ordinance. Because the comprehensive plan policies come from the community, what the community wants to see, and we're not It feels like we're trying to make a patchwork of trying to patch things together to make our current UDO meet the newly adopted policies when what we really need to do is pass our new LDO, Land Development Ordinance. And just to reiterate for the community, we are not able to move forward with that due to some statute that was passed by the state legislature that we're trying to address. Thank you.

Thank you, yes, I would agree with that. Land Development Code is intended to implement the comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2023. So I think we'll see a lot more of these policies met through requirements of the code rather than having to do something above and beyond the current UDO.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. I just have one really quick question about the process of community feedback. How much weight does community input have? If they suggest something, does it automatically go in as a change, or is that suggestion reviewed and then put forward as an item for the Planning Committee and so forth?

Um, we treated a lot of meetings with the community, uh, very conversationally. And so a lot of times there might have been a community feedback and we discussed why the change was being made and they, whoever we were working with at the time, um, sort of understood, you know, maybe it was coming from some legal reason. something and so a lot of issues sort of resolved themselves throughout the process but when there was something that was a community recommendation that we thought you know was reasonable we incorporated it so a little bit of both it wasn't not that any community feedback was automatically applied but we did want to make sure that we put significant emphasis on the feedback that we got okay thank you

All right, thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Okay, so the next item on our agenda is 260404, which is a data center moratorium discussion. We've allotted about 60 minutes for this topic.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Maurice Jones, Deputy County Manager, and we are here to present information related to a proposed temporary moratorium on the development of data centers in Durham County. Our goal today is to receive feedback from the board on this proposed moratorium and to advance an ordinance to a public hearing and possible vote on August 24th. We'll start by providing a general definition of a data center. They are physical facilities or buildings that house groups of networked computer service and data storage infrastructure used by companies to organize, process, store, and share large amounts of digital information. There are different types of data centers largely defined by their uses and their size. Here are four examples, a cloud or hyperscale. These are large facilities used by companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon to manage their data needs. AI focus, once again large facilities with a heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence. Enterprise data centers, those are smaller buildings used for internal use. Many times they're secondary uses for an institution like a hospital or university. And edge data centers, those are smaller sites used to speed up processes for local users. A few quick facts about data centers. There are an estimated 4,700 data centers in the United States. The US is by far the world leader in data center construction. Virginia leads the way with over 650 data centers. There are nearly 100 data centers in North Carolina. And we have an estimated 10 to 15 data centers here in Durham. Most of those are considered enterprise centers. Although data centers have become an important part of our everyday lives, there are, as you heard this morning, there are growing concerns about the impact on the environment, electricity use, water usage, and the impact of the noise that they generate on their neighbors. These issues have led to concerns about the future of data centers around the country and here in Durham. Especially because our current UDO does not address how data centers can be regulated, leaving us potentially vulnerable to the construction of hyperscale facilities. We currently do not have definitions for data centers, data processing facilities, cryptocurrency mining operations, or any other uses associated with data processing. And this issue is not exclusive to Durham County. Many local governments in North Carolina are now catching up with this growing use. leading to a significant increase in moratorium across the state. An estimated 30 have been passed in the last six months alone. In each case, like ours, a moratorium was passed to provide staff the time needed to research this complex issue and to engage in community engagement through regulatory processes. Our proposed moratorium will prohibit the new development of data centers during the next nine months in order to align with the City of Durham's moratorium, which they passed back in June. There is one exemption being proposed for smaller enterprise-scale data centers. There is initial interest in using megawatts to set a threshold for these data centers. However, we cannot use megawatts as a determinant for data centers, so staff turned our focus to square footage and settled on a suggested maximum of between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet during this moratorium. This would allow enterprise centers to possibly move forward while protecting against hyperscale projects, which tend to be much larger. So our next steps, we'll get guidance from the Board of Commissioners today. Once we receive that feedback, we'll move towards a public hearing and a vote on August 24th. And if approved, the regulatory process would continue. The Planning and Development Department has been working since the city passed their moratorium on this issue. And they plan to engage in the regulatory process with that, which would include regular updates to different bodies. I'll let Bo talk a little bit about that over the course of the next three to six, nine months, what we should expect to see from planning and development.

Sure. As you're all aware, Bodabrinsky Plan and Development, we've begun the research and engagement process, conducting analysis and digging into the potential impacts of data centers. We've been working with the Central Pines Regional Council. as well with a committee across the region on this topic. We'll be taking this information before the Joint City-County Planning Committee in the fall, continuing to take that feedback and analysis, and then beginning the adoption process early next year, December, January, most likely, Planning Commission with the hopes of having the adoption prior to May when the moratorium would end.

And with that, we will take your questions.

Okay, I'm sure there's comments and questions all around, so I'll start with Commissioner Burton.

Yes, thank you, Chair Lee, and thank you, Deputy County Manager Jones and Bo, for this information. What I really appreciate is we're getting a definition around what data centers are. And being very clear and intentional about what the usages are. Because one of the things, and I can only speak for myself, is I'm a researcher. I like to read. I like to understand the issues. So when I get a bombardment of different information, you know, I'm like, okay, what is this? What are you talking about? And I think it's very important that we have to be clear about what it is that we don't want. I think we're all clear that we do not want these hyperscale AI generative data centers in Durham County. I think we're all on that one page. I think where it gets confusing is because we're hearing so much about this blanket thing about data centers and what because we already have, and I was looking at the email that Mr. Doyle, our tax administrator, sent us, I think 14 data centers that are already in Durham County. And let's just be clear that we use data centers. That's what we power YouTube, our email, what else? TikTok, everything, you know, we use data centers. So I think the question for me is this. the energy usage. I would like to know how much energy and the impact it's having on our county with these data centers. How much water are they using? Things of that nature to make sure that we are not putting ourselves at risk with environmental concerns. But I really am grateful that we're getting, okay, this is what a data center is. This is what they're used for, getting very specific. So when we write this, we'll know what it is that we don't want in our community, things of that nature. So I really will be interested into knowing how much energy these data centers that we have here now, the 14 that I counted, how much energy that they use.

Vice Chair and alum.

Thank you. Thank you, DCM Jones and Beau, for bringing this forward. When I brought this forward to the Board of Commissioners a few months ago, I think one of the main things that we were seeing and we're still continuing to see across the country is this boom of AI data centers and just these hyperscale centers without even necessarily a current need for this level of construction that we're seeing, but more so happening Because it's a profit-making industry where folks are building them now because as they wait, wait, wait, land is going to become more and more expensive. And so for us as a local government, we have, unfortunately, in North Carolina, very limited tools in our tool belt for regulating industries for land usage regulations but this is an opportunity for us to use the limited powers that we do have to actually say like what we as Durham County and our residents value and prioritizing for you know infrastructure investment as well as we know that these large-scale hyperscale centers are used for AI. And we can't necessarily say that we want to just target specific industries, but what we can do is looking at how much energy are they using? What is their actual purpose? Are they providing a benefit to our community? And I believe that, you know, having a more broad moratorium to actually let us go in and look at, okay, we have, as Commissioner Burns said, 14 data centers that are already here in Durham County, but as Bo mentioned, we don't have any sort of definition of what those data centers are when they applied for their permits, that a lot of them were applied as warehouses or just any sort of like large empty spaces. And so we have those 14 that we know of, but My concern is around having carve-outs that won't allow us to properly use these nine months to define what a data center is. what the different levels are for Durham County and our needs, and to use this time to properly go in and look at those 14 that already exist. What were their applications? How did they apply for them? With those past definitions in our UDO, how can we make sure moving forward that we have the proper definitions in place That yeah, as Commissioner Marin mentioned, as we heard Mr. Levitan mentioned, we have our research triangle part. We have IBM, Fidelity, lots of companies that create jobs here in Durham. That even Durham County has our own data centers, EMS, the hospitals. So I don't see how in nine months, putting carve-outs in place that will change the trajectory. I think that if we just keep it more broad, in my opinion, to make sure that we're able to have the definitions, because if we allow for those carve-outs, I don't see how nine months is gonna hurt the tech industry and these industries, because we don't see necessarily that they're, right now, do they have expansion needs? So I think that nine months to just allow us to properly define it, and in those nine months, Maybe we'll have those definitions in the hospital. I think we already have the cities does have hospitals in those needs, but like for the tech industry that we do have that creates jobs in these nine months, providing those definitions that make sure that they stay within the regulations that we want to put into place of not being hyperscale, having the right closed loop systems, making sure they're not emitting PFAS into our waterways, making sure that they're using all renewable energy if possible for their systems. And that is one of our small tool of power that we have as a local government to regulate an industry that unfortunately our federal government and our state government is not doing its job of regulating.

Thank you. Commissioner Valentine.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I want to go back to a statement made by a young lady earlier during the comment period and I believe she was from the Sunshine Movement and she said that we have an opportunity and the lead commissioner uh lam also alluded to that that same sort of theme and so i think we do have an opportunity and we don't want to to squander it and i mentioned before um from this uh dais that uh i thought that uh we all wanted to be on the right side of history and so opportunity gives us that ability to be thoughtful and so i just have several questions one Am I correct in assuming that the only loophole that we're being asked to consider is related to enterprise data centers?

The exemption that's proposed is square footage up to 80 to 100,000 square foot maximum. That's the exemption.

Okay, that's the exemption, okay. I think I had to mention this to you I'm having problems with that that sort of carve out I think that's something that we probably would want to consider as a board that we handle during the nine month period I'm just not comfortable with you know you know having the necessary information that I need in order to feel comfortable with any number at this particular moment. Are there any data centers of the enterprise variety that are in the queue that we might not know about?

Not that we've seen officially. I don't think there's been anything that's been submitted in terms of a site plan.

Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Just want to make sure. What will... What would be the impact on any existing data centers during this period as we contemplate the way forward?

I don't think there would be, aside from if there's an interest in expanding. That may limit their ability to do that during this nine-month period of time, but in terms of impact on the current data centers, I don't believe there is one.

and lastly um we've heard many of the uh considerations with respect to the environment uh energy usage and the like and that's weighing heavy with regards to the needs in our community on a decision that that we'll make but as a decider and i'm weighing the economic development and jobs on the one hand and other environmental considerations on the other, what do you think that we should be keeping up most in our minds as we move forward and make a decision on what's appropriate next?

I mean, I think trying to make sure we find an appropriate balance for our community. one to address the environmental needs and concerns and values of Durham County but also finding that right balance with the needs of our businesses as well and that's why this nine month period of time will allow us to do that to do the research that's necessary to to come back with with a good recommendation for moving forward with an ordinance but then also the community engagement part of this as well as going to be critical to hear from and then also hear from our business community as well.

Thank you. Sure.

Mr. Jacobs.

Thank you. I really appreciate this process and I appreciate all the work that our county attorney, our deputy county manager, planning staff, that everyone has put into this. I appreciate all the impact that we've had from our community, from RTP. also from the chamber this is a very complex issue and you know what we are facing in our country right now is is really it's unprecedented you know the impact that AI is having on our world is just, it's very hard to really deal with. And it's very challenging, it's very complex. So I appreciate that our board is really trying to take a very thoughtful, informed approach. So I have two comments and questions. One are related to the moratorium, but then I also have a lot of follow-up questions for planning staff because the whole purpose of this is around developing an ordinance. So related to the moratorium, I mean, obviously our whole board is supportive of the moratorium because we do need to develop an ordinance around these issues. I think and I support us tracking the time period with the city because we can only legally justify having a moratorium as our county attorney has laid out and as the draft ordinance shows, I'm sorry, the draft moratorium If you read it, it lays out the rationale because we have to have a legally defensible rationale for why we are doing a moratorium, and that is for the purpose of developing an ordinance. So I just want to be clear because we can't just say we want X number of months. It needs to be. tied to that so um and i support um the similar to what the city is doing um in part c of section four about exemptions and making sure that we um are not that the moratorium doesn't apply to the types of data centers that we have that support all kinds of activity in our community and as various commissioners have already mentioned you know data centers are a part of our world and I think that we also have to face up to how we are personally contributing to the need for data centers and that we they are here to stay so we are challenged I think as a community and in our world and our country is what is the way that we can move forward and regulate them and manage them, knowing that they are not going away. And I also, so my, one of my follow-up questions is related to the enterprise data centers that we have, and I want to highlight that The county is very different than the city in this situation because whereas the city is really focused on a lot of residential areas and where we are more densely populated, What's really unique to Durham County is we have our unincorporated area, which we really want to protect the watershed and the farmland. And has no, data centers would need access to utilities for that. But we have the responsibility for very two unique ecosystems, and that is Trayburn Industrial Park and RTP. And so what the county does is going to be very, it is going to be different than what the city does. And I want to really also emphasize that RTP and Treyburn, they are, the economic engines of Durham County and also for the state of North Carolina. We punch beyond our weight in Durham. And having a thriving community, having tax revenue, property tax revenue, sales tax revenue that fund everything that we care about. from our schools to our first responders, that all is tied and having good paying jobs is tied to having a thriving economy in Durham. And so I appreciate the comments about how we have to look at this holistically because we can't also, we can't disconnect talking about Durham County thriving and places like RTP thriving Um, and not talk about data centers and especially the enterprise and the smaller scale centers. So I really want to make sure we understand that. And so even related to my question to what commissioner long raise and what, um, commissioner Valentine has raised, I would like to, before we, we can, we discussed this again, um, or in the interim, I would like to understand from RTP. related to the square footage issue for the moratorium do we know for sure what is happening in RTP right now we just passed RTP 3.0 just got going do we know about any expansions needs or anything that's in the pipeline related to RTP 3.0 that will possibly be negatively impacted in the next nine months. I would like to know for sure. I don't want to just guess on that. So I would like to have that follow-up information.

We can certainly engage with RTP about that.

Okay. So that is my question about that. And then I just want to, I don't know if now is appropriate for me to ask follow-up questions about the ordinance, or is that appropriate to ask?

The ordinance or the moratorium?

Well, related, because Bo is here, and this, I think it's important that while he's here.

We have time. We have time.

Yeah. Should I, can I ask that now? Okay. So could you give us right now an update on where things are at with the ordinance related to all the issues, electrical usage, noise, square footage, setbacks? you know um air emissions uh water usage all of those issues that they those are all the issues that are going to need to be addressed and i would like to know for our board where where you all at with those issues yeah i would i would say that right now we're still you know researching what those impacts are look you know reading and obviously has been has been uh discussed uh significantly this morning um you know

researching what we legally can do, obviously looking at other jurisdictions. In addition, engaging with the community members. Just in the last couple days, we've released a survey out to the community, and I'll be posting that online, trying to hear residents' concerns. So we're really early on in terms of scoping out. We haven't begun drafting that ordinance. That's later in. So in terms of the actual details of what that ordinance will look like, we're not quite there yet. okay when do you think you will have at least a progress report or so we anticipate yeah we anticipate bringing uh some of this research to the joint city county planning committee as we do with uh all of our text amendments in september uh for an update and then later on in the year we'll be bringing forward uh draft language or an ordinance language okay

I mean, I really believe that we have the opportunity to lead on this issue. And in a conversation with Commissioner Valentine, he mentioned us also. I'm glad you're working with Central Pines and having a regional approach. I think stakeholder engagement is going to be really important. Commissioner Valentine had mentioned even working with the Nicholas School on this because there are state-of-the-art progressive approaches to all these issues that we could really lead an RTP with that. And also in Treyburn, so I hope that we will do that. And also we were just at a national conference And I know Commissioner Burton and I sat in on the session on data centers. And I've shared Loudoun County, Virginia, which has the most data centers per square footage of anywhere in the world. We can learn from those counties. And one of the commissioners there, supervisor, had put out 15 best practices, which I know I've shared with you all. But there are some really detailed recommendations in there, the 15 best practices that we definitely want to make sure we look at. And also, NACO is going to come out with a draft ordinance next month. And they also gave us recommendations for things that counties should look at related to land use and zoning, governance and economic impacts. infrastructure capacity that I think are really, really helpful. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you all for this. This is super important here. This is obviously the hot topic. I heard a couple things tonight that was actually really interesting to me, and I'm gonna start with, well, not tonight, this morning, I'm sorry. My back is to the windows. The moratorium, the time length, if the ordinance isn't complete, we'd have to continue it. Would there be a possibility of creating the moratorium at a length until the ordinance is complete? Or do we have to put a timeline?

Do we have to put a date on that? I think there's language in there that says that if it's nine months or until an ordinance is before you all are approved. So at that point, it doesn't have to go nine months. We chose nine months to align it with the city's work.

I just want to make sure if it goes past a nine month, we would be able, it would still be in place. It's not necessarily before.

That's not the concern. I'd want to talk, I'd want to get some advice from the county attorney on that.

That's just something to consider. I'm not saying we need to make a decision today.

Right, well I also just want to note that the statute requires justification if we were to extend it beyond whatever time limit you put on there. So we can't just extend it just to extend it. So we would have to have that justification in there. And there are some other requirements in the statute as well, but that's the biggest part.

Okay. And I too would like to understand what's here. And I would love to have the data centers that are currently in Durham classified under what our registrations are now. So if they were put here without a fully understanding, I'd like to classify them. Are they really enterprise? And what measurements do we consider enterprise versus small versus hyperscale? Because the size is one thing, But if that size, if it's a large size, but it only is using 25 megawatts, is that considered hyperscale? And I know we can't legislate energy uses, but I want to understand what's the actual uses and so forth. I've made my position clear that uh my concern is what impacts it would have for smaller companies i'm not talking about hyperscale and i have a statement that i'm going to read in just a little bit but the companies that we have here that are not ai that are not generous of ai that have server rooms or hospitals like Durham Public Schools, Durham County, I wanna make sure that this doesn't handicap them and handicap us in what we're trying to do as far as regular business. I think I wrote a statement, I usually talk off the top of my head But I think it was really important to kind of write a statement about this because there's a little bit more going on here than just a conversation about data centers. Okay. And so... Are there any other comments? Because I want this to be the last word and we move on. Go ahead.

Sorry. I did have one question for Bo. Also, so with that carve-out related to the square footage, I also want to know if related, and Chair Lee and I talked about this yesterday, of the fact that we have a joint city-county planning department. How, because I prefer that we pass the same one, the same moratorium that the city has has put forward because functionally it also makes sense of what city county planning staff have to deal with and wondering what impact do you all see of having two different moratoriums and how would it impact our planning staff if things would come forward

Yeah, I appreciate the question. So I think that staff, obviously we work at the will of each city council and county commissioners. So if the ordinance or the moratorium were different, we would just enforce those separately and have that documented. So it is manageable to do that. i i will say that obviously it you know may be more complicated you know at the staff level answering questions and uh but it's really it could be done if that's what you all decided so i can say that i personally support the language i know we have some areas we need clarification but the general language of our

Moratorium, I think, is a lot clearer legally. It lays out very clearly the rationale and also the definition of what is not included in terms of the secondary systems is much more detailed in ours than the city's because theirs is more focused on just educational institutions, hospitals, Ours actually includes related to economic development and our industries. So I personally support the county's wording. I just want to be clear on that because it's something I've looked at both of them side by side. I also wanted to just, to your point, Chair Lee, about it's very confusing because The three data centers that we know about, one is in Traeburn, one in RTP, one at the Tier Point, I guess two in RTP. There is no, the correlation between the square footage of the building, the actual data center sides, the number of acreage, and then the megawatts is, it doesn't track. So for instance, The Tier Point Compass data center is only on 12 acres, basically. The building size is the biggest that we know about. It's about 65,000 square feet. The data center size is 34,000 square feet. And the power capacity is only 3.6 megawatts. So it is really confusing. And of course, we can't even control electricity anyway when it comes to our ordinance, the future ordinance. But I think to your point, there's, yeah.

I want to just also remind us, and I hear you Commissioner Jacobs, I think it's also important to recognize that this moratorium is a temporary pause. The whole point of the moratorium and this conversation is what the UDO changes and the UDO language that we're going to put into place. And so I hear you on the expanded definitions and I think for me, The reason that I support the cities is functionally about what happens within the planning city, county planning staff to be able to make their jobs easier and also for us to work in unison with community stakeholders because there is a lot of confusion. I think there is a lot of unknowns because these data centers that exist did not have any definitions when they applied for their applications. And having this nine months to work with community partners to have these conversations about what data centers exist in Durham County, to your point about the sizing and the square footage and the megawatt usage, and also what functional benefit some of them provide to Durham County in relation to the jobs that are created and our Durham County residents who are able to work in Research Triangle Park. But I think it's important to have those conversations jointly with the community because to ease their concerns and to just build this general understanding amongst all of us at the same time moving forward. I think before, Chair Lee, you remind your comments, wondering what are our next steps for this process? I know for me, I would like us to move forward, but also maybe hearing from each of us of where we're at so that staff has an idea of where a majority of the board is leaning so that we can figure out when are we having the public hearing, when are we having the vote, what is the language that a majority of the board is leaning towards?

Well, the public hearing's on the 24th. The public hearing is on the 24th. I think, right?

So the intent was to hear board discussion and to determine if the desire was to proceed with the public hearing on the 24th. And sort of based on conversations, it sounds as though there is consensus to move forward in that direction. And so that was the earliest that the public hearing could occur.

But with which language, then? Because I, like, with the conversation of only, like, me and Commissioner Jacobs, for example, I think we're both on different, we may not be on the same page, so maybe if we hear from everyone, I'd like to hear from Commissioner Burton, Commissioner Valentine, I know Chair Lee is going to share where he's at.

So for me, with regards to the moratorium, is how do we take this time to write a clear ordinance around data centers and be very precise as to what we want and don't want in durham county all right so how do how do does the planning staff us whatever how do we get the precise language okay with regards to what we can put in there i don't know megawattage size They're just enterprise. How do we take this time, nine months, to write this ordinance? So we have this regulation. And one of the things that I got from NACO when we were in that room, we were in a room with over 500 county commissioners from across the country because it was such a hot-button topic. And the concern is there's just no regulation, like, around this issue so how do we regulate it what do we put in there in the ordinance i personally would like to just say okay like there's really no let's not put any loopholes leave that for the ordinance like what is it that we will see in durham county what we don't want to see and making that clear in the ordinance and not taking the extended time to do it. Because I do understand the impact on the economics of our county, and I wanna just say this, is that I think there are people who think that, well, one, we have data centers already. This is the society that we live in, right? But I also want our residents to understand that Durham County is one of the five economic engines in this state. So we cannot say we don't want business, right? We don't want that, but yet we want all these things. We want great schools. We want great communities. We want this, but we don't want this. We don't want business. We have the Research Triangle Park. We have Trayburn. Those are two big economic engines for not only Durham County, but for the Triangle and for the state, right? That's what we have. But I also recognize that there are concerns around the issues with the usage, the water, the electricity, and our residents have concerns about that. But also our residents understanding what data centers are and how they are utilized in our community. So I'm for the open, the public comment on the 24th so we can hear our residents. So let's take this nine months and write a clear ordinance.

Chair, I think I spoke through my comments about feeling uncomfortable with the language around the square footage. I'm not comfortable presently with making a determination regarding that. So to the extent that that would be one of the loopholes that are under consideration, I would be in favor of removing that. However, I do recognize that, um dorm i mean the board of county commissioners has a different set of equities than the city and so i'm very mindful of any actions that we make that would potentially impact on trayburn or the park and so um i'm going to take some additional time i'm fine with the 24th and moving forward but i need to take some additional time um just to scrub through the language that already been created in this draft to feel comfortable by the 24th i think i've already said it but um i um i think the only areas of questioning as um

Commissioner Valentine mentioned, I think is in section four about the exemptions. Section C is similar to what the city has, but is also more inclusive of what would be reflected in both Treyburn and RTP. We are not the same as the city. As I said, that's why it's important that our ordinance has slightly different language. And we have different land uses in the county. It's very, very different. And so I also think, I just want to applaud our staff because I think that our moratorium language is very clear, the way it's laid out, each of the sections. I want to thank the staff, our attorney, for your work on that and making sure that we are very clear in how it's worded, following the statutes. And so I support, again, our version and also, and I think, again, I think I understand people's concerns about the square footage and that's why I asked for follow-up information, but everything else I support with the ordinance. I just would like clarity on that.

okay well I would I would support the demarcation line of a hundred thousand simply because hundred thousand thousand square feet simply because in a nine month period anything that you can't build something like that and then in the nine month period you may plant may be able to plan for it but you may you may be in the process of planning for it but Back when I was a developer, there was a thing called an internet year. Internet year was three months. Because the amount of work that a normal job would have that could complete in a year, when you were a developer, when you were online, you had to do that in three months. That time scale has compressed. So if we have companies here who are innovating, they may not have the ability to wait. right for a small server room and some and a blanket moratorium can sweep up server rooms they could sweep up small needs we have american underground right here we have startups it could sweep all of that up and that's the challenge that i'm having And so there has to be some sort of demarcation line. You can say 75,000. I don't care, but I just wanna make sure that we're not handicapping those who have to move quickly. And most startups are not AI startups. They're people writing software. There are people building things, and each one of those things needs data stored in normal data centers, not AI data centers. An AI data center, hyperscale data center, can't fit in a 100,000 square foot facility. It can't. Physically, it can't. I think offline conversations, individual two by twos, whatever, It is gonna be important to make sure we have the language, but I think we need to make a vote. We need to have our public meeting by the end of this month and decide so that the staff feels comfortable with understanding what the guide rails of what we move forward, yes.

I just wanna say is because I know I'm visual, I would like to just see some data centers and what they look like.

when you say 100 000 square feet or 75 000 square feet that i know that would help me so i could have a better understanding we could certainly pull together some information like that and again i know we've got um travis here the planner from rtp and our our director of the foundation but i think we need to understand as rtp 3.0 is being laid is being implemented right now. It's really critical. We have lost thousands of jobs in RTP as a result of policies of our federal government and changes in our economy. And so to your point, Chair Lee, that's why I asked that question. I really want to understand. We have 400 companies in RTP. A lot of them are really small. They don't have their own data centers, but they may, you know, buy, you know, all participate in a data center that serves them together so um that's why i think if staff could follow up and as well with trayburn to understand what what was nine months mean to your point um chair lee what does that actually mean

And also, to that question, sorry, Chair Lee. Go ahead. From my understanding, and this is a question for Bo, the moratorium is more so, it's not that, I mean, to your comments, Chair Lee, that, you know, in the nine months, no one's going to construct a facility, but the moratorium is not about the overall construction of the project, but it's about just the permit application and whether they're even able to begin the process, correct? that's correct because if somebody's already applied for a more uh a permit before this moratorium goes into place that is not that will not be halted yeah it wouldn't stop construction on an existing approved which is why i say there needs to be a line um a level for us to consider um all right so

I want to take a moment and a personal privilege, and I'm hoping my commissioners will allow me and manager and attorney to speak just for a moment. So this is a first for me. I'm in my 10th year as an elected official here in Durham, and this is the first time I've been attacked while standing on the same side of an issue as the people attacking me. and the first time someone has flatly lied about my position. We'll hold a public hearing on the 24th on the data center moratorium. Before we get there, I'm going to state my position once, clearly and on the record, because one individual, a leader, a lead organizer of this moratorium campaign has chosen to purposely and maliciously misrepresent me, my career, and where I stand on data centers. Unfortunately, many people left who I wanted to hear this, so I'm hoping that they'll see the recording. I'm not gonna say their name tonight. They know exactly who they are. And everyone following this issue knows exactly who they are. And I will not give their name to place in this record, because it's never supposed to be about personalities, It is about a lie, and I intend to end that right now. Here is my position. From the very first conversation I've said, I've said that I support not just a moratorium on hyperscale data centers, but an outright ban. Full stop. I've said it on our Zoom calls, I've said it every single email exchange, and that entire written record exists and is available for everyone who wants to see it. and I'm saying it again in public, on the record, I support banning hyperscale centers in Durham, and I intend to act on that when it comes before us. No one gets to claim confusion about where I stand anymore. So what exactly happened? I asked a question. In every conversation, every communication, I asked a simple necessary question. How are we defining a data center? Because not every data center is hyperscale, And most have nothing at all to do with AI. Durham and RTP are the home of hundreds of companies that depend on smaller scale facilities every single day to store transactions, customer records, support tickets, testing environments. Every company operating today in technology or out of it has to store, retrieve data to survive, including the companies that people in this room work for. A blanket moratorium written loosely could sweep in the server room of nearly any business in the city. Asking how we avoid this is not opposition, it's the job of a County Commissioner. And understand what we're actually talking about. When you check your balance of the bank, when the pharmacy pulls your prescription, when a doctor at Duke opens your chart, when a 911 dispatcher routes an ambulance to your street, When this county runs payroll for its teachers, DPS runs payroll for its teachers, every one of these things happen because data is stored and retrieved from a data facility somewhere. This is not big tech. This is your daily life. And a carelessly written moratorium puts all of it in its blast radius. Apparently asking the question was my sin. because I would not rubber stamp a blanket moratorium on all data centers without due diligence this community elected me to do. The response was not a better argument. It was a campaign, a campaign to force me to recuse myself from this issue simply because I work at a technology company and a manufactured store that I support AI data centers and that somehow I profit from data centers. That is false. It has always been false and the person and persons spreading that, they know it's false. Since my career has been made the accusation, let me address it directly. Yes, I've spent 30 years in technology, a hard fought career in which I was often the only person who looked like me in the room as far as I could see. I've been a programmer, I've led database administrators, I've run project, program, product management, renewals, customer success, and much more. I've done rack and stack work in co-located data centers because the one thing every role had in common was the reliance on them. I'm not ashamed of a single line of that resume. not the awards, not the recognition, not the promotions. That career is what lets me provide a stable, decent life for my family, the family I chose to raise right here. I didn't have a home base growing up. Durham is home, is the home I built. It is why I ran for office in the first place. to build a Durham my children can keep calling home. I'm invested in every aspect of this community. And while I'm correcting the record, let me deal with one more narrative making rounds that I don't care about this community. let me tell you what caring looks like in my life i have a full-time job i'm the chair of this board the board of county commissioners and still every single school morning i'm up before dawn driving a school bus serving three schools of dps when the school day ends you'll find me on the field at northern high school as a head coach of j junior varsity soccer team and the assistant coach for varsity, which is why I was late this morning, because we have practice this morning. Nobody assigns me those things. I do them because this is my home and those are our kids. So if anyone wants to question my commitment to Durham and our community, they're welcome to come ride the bus with me at 530 in the mornings during school. 30 years of understanding exactly how this industry works is not a conflict of interest. It is precisely the expertise this board needs when the industry comes knocking. You do not silence the one person at the table who can read the fine print. A black man with more expertise in this industry than any elected official in this county and maybe even the state. And let me be just clear about the tactics, the lies, the coordinated attacks, the AI hearts pasted on my picture to intimidate me and to pressure other members of the board. I will not be bullied, not on this issue, not on any issue. As elected officials, we don't have the luxury of making decisions without understanding their consequences across Durham. In 10 years of elected service, I have led with integrity and pragmatism. I do the homework before I vote on anything that will shape this community, my community, my family's community, for the long term. And that's not gonna change because someone finds it inconvenient. So I'll close with this. Durham is different, or it's supposed to be. We do not lie and manufacture narratives to get our way. If your position is strong, you should never need to lie about mine. When we disagree in this community, we do it with honesty and integrity. Anyone who has to smear a colleague who agrees with them on the goal who insinuates corruption they know to be false is telling you everything you need to know about their leadership and Durham deserves better. On the 24th, I look forward to seeing the final proposed moratorium based on the facts, in the open, the way this community deserves. And that will be our last word. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is the update on the capital improvement plan.

Good morning, commissioners. We would like for some of our budget staff and individuals in our engineering department to give the board an update on our capital improvement plan refresh. This builds on a discussion we brought to the board this past spring when we talked about our ongoing capital needs. And the challenge for all the jurisdictions facing capital construction challenges and opportunities is the rising cost of goods and services, tariffs that have occurred, and lots of other inflationary pressures that have changed often the projected cost. Today's conversation will be kicked off by Mr. Keith Lane, our Budget and Management Services Director, and Perry Manns will share some highlights about the projects that are in the pipeline. This is the first conversation of many, so we don't plan to go into a lot of details and usual style. We start off with some recaps, so many of the slides may be familiar. So I'll pass it off to Keith and Perry who will share

collectively between the two of them for about 20 plus minutes and allow the board to to engage from that point keith thank you manager hager i will be quick and this will be an overview of sort of the conceptually why we do a cip and sort of an overview of the steps we take in developing a capital improvement plan then i'll hand it over to perry to go over some highlights some key projects that are in action now It does feel like I was just up here a few months ago talking about one side of the dollar work that you all do, which is the annual budget. This is the second side of things, the other side of that coin. This is high dollar estimates where we look out 10 years. We try to estimate the capital needs for the county. Capital needs include new buildings, building renovations, equipment we purchase, and a whole host of other things. And that will be dealt with and delved into later in the process and over the next several months. But we're looking at a capital improvement plan that's hovered around $1.5 billion to $2 billion over 10 years. That's not chump change. That's real money. And so it's an important part of the process you all have to understand and then vote on. so we're going to go over real quick the cip planning update the key next steps is this or of this particular presentation going to be the cip process overview sort of some key steps involved with capital planning basically explaining why we do it key update key upcoming dates and then ultimately board discussion you'll have after or questions you may have after perry and i show a few things some of the main capital planning elements that we have that make up a CFP and why we do it. It's essential that we look out up to 10 years. CFP largely focuses on the first five years, four to five years, because we can see that a lot more clearly than we can seven, eight, nine, 10 years out, but we like to put things on the radar screen, so we'll ask departments, look 10 years out and give us an estimate of what you think the needs are, and then we work with engineering and those departments to estimate key costs. How do we prioritize projects? Largely by the importance of those projects and their essentiality and long-term need. A potentially new or renovated jail or detention center over the street might take priority over an open space project if we have to make those hard choices. I'm not making that as some sort of actual comment. I'm just giving you an example. between choices because we have to pay for all of these things. There's always a strong emphasis on the timing of projects. The more expensive the project and the more urgent it needs to be done, that can push out some other projects to out years because we can't do everything at the same moment and we can't afford to pay for everything at the same time. so we kind of have to part of the puzzle is as we get project requests in fit them in a way in terms of their importance and need to be done versus how much money we can afford to pay in any given year to make all of that happen we blend different types of funding to pay for all of these things we talked about earlier briefly today pay as you go dollars that's essentially county cash for a project you have choices when you buy a car you can pay cash for a car You can take out a loan. You can do it in several different ways to pay for it. We do the same thing with capital projects. We decide what projects we're paying cash for, what projects we're going to do general obligation bonds for, what projects we're going to do LOBS financing for. All of those have ramifications. In terms of interest rates paid, some are harder to get. Geo bonds need voter approval. So we mix and match all of those things as well. And then the key part of this is we try to target improvements in operating efficiencies and service deliveries when we're considering capital projects. What needs to be done sooner rather than later because it costs less to do it and provides better services for departments. Youth home is an example, animal control facility or animal shelter facility, things like that about. How are we doing with the current capital item that we have, and how can we improve on that in a number of ways? So part of how we do a CIP that's important and different than other people is that we separate operating and capital resources in our CIP. As part of our CIP process, we will ask departments to say, not only are you asked to tell us how much you think it's going to cost to do a project three years from now, how much is it going to cost in operating increases? We have a fleet facility that Perry may discuss briefly that we're going to build out in Junction Road. That isn't built in a vacuum. It will have utility costs that will then be incurred by the county year after year after year. It may have security costs. It may have sort of infrastructure costs that become part of the operating budget you approve every year. These things don't happen in a vacuum when we increase the size. scope of facility we take on a new facility we do something different all of those things may have operating costs and what we try to do as part of the CIP is include those operating costs in the CIP so you're aware three years from now when you see the operating budget part of the process increase we will say yes that is related to a capital project you chose to take on as part of the CIP Then finally, as we're doing the capital financing side of all this, we have to do some debt affordability modeling. And that is where we work with our financial advisor and we work to figure out how much we can pay for in any given year. to do all of these projects, and that is important because our AAA bond rating is related to how much debt, how quickly we take on debt, and our ability to pay for that debt. Their confidence that you have done the modeling, be the county up in New York, they're confident that we have done that correctly, and that you are willing to raise the tax rate if necessary to take on some of this debt, or that you've proven you have other financial ways of paying for this. So, we use that comprehensive debt model as a mean of managing the constant change in the CIP. What I mean by that, there's projects, and we're gonna list those projects in terms of how important they are to get done earlier, but we also then have to overlay that, as I said earlier, how we can afford to pay for all of these things. So even if you have five projects that you really want done in the next two years, if it's $500 million to do those projects or $700 million to do those projects in the next two years, you may not be able to do that because you can't have a comprehensive debt model that allows you to keep your AAA bond rating to do those projects in two years. So you may have to take, even if they're high priority, and move them out two or three years. That's the tough decisions we have to make. So steps involved with capital planning. We talk about facility needs assessment. This is where we work with engineering department and other departments to assess what they need. In fact, I think the library will be coming to you soon to get a facility master plan funding so they can look at the library needs for the regional libraries and what we may need in that area is one example. Then we do the project prioritization and sequencing. I just explained that. What projects are most important and where can they be sequenced in a 10-year CIP? Then we take all those numbers and translate it down into a detailed cash flow projections. If we take on this purchase of a new building or we give Durham Public Schools a $300 million in geo bonds, how do we digest the cost of paying for that over 20 years? And then we add another project the next year and another project the next year. We evaluate that overall sense of financing of all these projects in terms of affordability. It would be tough politically and it would be tough on citizens to raise tax rate 7 cents in one year to do all these capital projects in one or two years. That's what we mean by affordability. That may not be the best way to do it. So we may stretch out projects in terms of our 10-year CIP to keep it affordable for citizens who are ultimately paying for this. Ultimately, we will present that plan and or some variations of that to the board for your approval as a new updated 10-year capital improvement plan phases we talked about this and kind of already gone over this phase one is project request and project prioritization that's starting just now we've been talking with departments and like i said perry is going to show you some existing projects that are already updated but within the next month i'm going to be sending out to departments a request for new up new projects and or updated projects Then we'll come phase two. After I gather all those project requests, we'll then complete the cash flow projections. Then in phase three, I'll take those two things, our office will, ours with the manager and engineering, and we'll evaluate affordability along with talking with Doug Carter and Associates, our financial advisor. And then phase four is the program adoption. What are the time frame on this? March through September, we're continually updating the CIP with new information related to CIP. Much like the animal shelter project, we finally have an updated price on that. So that number's changed from what we had in existing CIP. And we will continue that through September formally when I go and ask departments for new information. After that, in September to October, we're going to assess the shovel readiness of capital projects. and determine the approach of project financing. Project financing is the affordability issue. I will emphasize the shovel readiness of capital projects is so important. You'll hear Manager Hager say that term a million times and get mildly frustrated with All of us, when we say you said this project was going to be ready to be done this year, but here we are a year and a half later and you haven't started on it. The problem with that is it messes up our financial plan and it also generally increases the cost of projects. So we try to be. very diligent with departments when they request. When you come to us and say you need this project done a year and a half or two years from now or to get started, that you are actually prepared to start it a year and a half or two years from now. I don't think we have as much of a problem in-house, and that problem's too strong a word. Perry and his group does a great job, but other outside agencies, we need to make sure that when they say they're ready to move on something, they're ready to move on that.

Thank you so much, Keith. That is such a Great segue to some of the remarks I was gonna make about the whole shovel readiness. In this market especially, it's most important to understand when a project is ready to move forward. We've had examples in the past. I'll talk about one many years ago. We put it on the referendum and then it was twice as much as we thought it was going to be based on. the plans at that time. And we've done a lot to change how we've evaluated project readiness and made funds available to scope out design work, etc. So on both sides, the county and our partner organizations are working collectively to help make sure we understand what those projected costs will be. now more than ever it's important the other challenge right now that we face is just the pent-up needs and so as we look at identifying what we support to become shovel readiness that will require some compromise and and for the county as well as partner organizations and keith will talk about that a little bit later as far as What does this look like when you have needs at the county, needs at Durham Technical Community College, at public schools? How do we balance all those needs with the already robust capital improvement plan? And so collectively, we will make some choices, but also take small bites looking at prioritization of what's most pressing for various reasons. So I'll stop right there.

Thank you, Manager Hager. Last but not least, in October and November, we'll be finalizing the financing strategy and then coming to the board in November and December to approve the capital improvement plan. Just some important reminders. A balanced and affordable CIP supports political priorities. reinforces the county's AAA bond rating, and that is super important, limits property tax pressures on Durham County residents, and promotes realistic project implementation and completion. That key realistic project implementation and completion is related to shovel readiness. Management and the board will need to determine how these priorities fit together to shape an approved CIP. That's your job is to look at the end after management recommends a CIP and you have some questions, we move some things around. Just as a note, the county's AAA bond rating was reaffirmed by Moody's and Standards Report in the spring of 2026 when we went to issue some 22 GO bonds. So we're happy to say that's been re-approved again, Once a recommended CIP is finalized, it will be reviewed by our financial consultant to confirm the county's financial capacity and stewardship as reflected in its bond ratings, while also monitoring regional economic and political factors that could affect the willingness and ability to support annual capital debt service. So to pay for property, to pay for capital improvement plan, And these improvements, we use property tax revenue. You all have dedicated Article 40 and 42 sales tax revenue, but that's economically viable and changeable. A good economy is great. A bad economy and that number could slow down, which would then turn around and put pressure on the property tax amount of money to go fund that so that I think that's part of why we know what's the economies in this area for the near term and a little bit out into the future to make sure we can continue to afford to pay for the CIP once the CIP passes this financial review it will be passed on to the board for further review Now, real quick, I just wanted to give you an indication of where the current CIP stands right now. And we haven't really had significant updates from departments like the library going to do their facility master plan. I'm sure some other departments have some ideas. All I'm showing you here is the debt load increase from 2025. It's the tiny little down there at the fiscal year. to fiscal year 2030, which is the next one, there's existing debt. That blue debt is going down. Those are things we've already been paying for. Think of it as amortization on a house you've had for 10 years. You have less and less debt you owe as you pay down on it, but you're also buying new houses metaphorically. You're paying for a new animal shelter. You're paying for the 22 GO bonds, the money that we've already spent and just issued. What I'm pointing out in that green area is we're taking on a lot of new debt already in the current CIP. That's a pretty steep hill. Just letting you know, these are some of the things that are already in place right now that we're going to have to consider on the financial side of things. Just wanted to say that we don't have an empty CIP waiting to be filled up with a bunch of new projects. We've got a current CIP that's pretty heavy. It's a pretty heavy lift for the county already, and that's all I wanted to show. This is another way of showing that. What I wanted to show you are the circles on the side. The key takeaway here is as our debt amount grows, so does our pressure on the property tax rate to fund it. sales tax growth can only grow at a certain amount unless we get an entirely new sales tax three four five percent a year if we're doing good and we haven't done that good over the last couple of years with sale tax so where are we going to find the money to pay for all that debt service you just saw growing at such a steep rate is the property tax rate what does that mean with the current cip right now if you want to change a thing in the cip that we have right now none of the updates i'm getting ready to talk about you will probably need a four cent tax rate increase over the next three years. We're currently at 7.57 cents of the current tax rate dedicated for capital improvement plan. Next year, I might need one cent. That's before you even consider tax rate increase for the operating budget I'm probably going to need our office the county you all are going to need at least one cent to pay for increased debt service next year then another one sent the next year and then another couple of cents for the year after that that's with no updated CIP excuse me change that we may be taking on. So just showing you the pressures that are already there that will have to play into what we consider new projects or increased costs for existing projects. This is just the environment we are in. It's not terrible. This has been noted before to the board, but just letting you know what's coming and some of the pressures we have. And I think that may end it for my side. Reminder, August through September, continued capital project evaluation. and evaluating shovel readiness and affordability. November, we will have a CIP overview at the joint BOCC Board of Education meeting. That will be interesting. Early indications of Board of Education have noted $2 billion worth of inventory updates that they need. That's a generous application of their view of their stuff, which is fine, but we're going to have to have conversations. If our total CIP is 1.8 billion and they've identified DPS needs of 2 billion of their own, those two things are not compatible with affordability as we understand that word. But we'll have to have hard choices and discussions between those two groups, November, December 2026. bocc work session and a cf cfp which is the capital financing side of the plan uh update and then hopefully approvals of the cip after that are there any questions on my side in that overview okay we do have questions so let's did uh commissioner burton did you have one

no i just really had a comment i wanted to thank you for this presentation about the schools and where that fit in but you already answered it two billion dollars And, yeah, that's going to have some tough decisions that are going to have to be made.

That's not necessarily what they will come to us as an ask for. They are cognizant that we have severe limitations on what they have just recognized amongst themselves, $2 billion worth of potential needs. I have no idea what they will come to us with, but it will be significant, I'm sure.

Vice Chair Alonzo?

When are we having our next conversation about school bonds?

The school bond conversation would have to occur for the next cycle, which would be for 2028. We cannot do it for 2026. The school had not finished. The schools were in process of evaluating their capital needs and they were targeting a timeframe of October in the fall when they would complete some work. So it would have to be for 2028. However, as we've always shared, there are other, it has to be an election where all citizens can vote. And so it was 26 and then the next one is 28.

It can't be an off-year election?

Oh, because... Yeah, it has to be every month. But we have worked through those issues in the past. We have other financing options, limited obligation bonds, which we've used more frequently with the schools. And so from where we sit... And we've done it well, in my opinion. As we identify well fleshed out affordable needs, staff will come back and say, well, this is how we can move forward with them. Ideally, we would have cycles that there are referendums every four years or a period. So for planning, we can do some catch up, but I do feel that we're better than where we used to be from a cycle perspective, and then this, and Durham Public Schools are also spending at a level that more closely aligns with funds allocated, which is also positive because one of the areas communities have to sort of cross when they, vet these bonds, is the rigor, at least for North Carolina, with the local government commission as well as rating agencies, will you be able to spend all those dollars in a timeframe that's allowed? And we're doing a much better job with that, with our bonds. Great question.

And then also wondering on another piece is the Museum of History, that conversation and the funding, where those, I know Commissioner Burton is our representative for that board, where the conversations are with the city on supporting the city and the county putting forward funds for their new building?

That is one that we will have to discuss at a joint meeting. I know there's been forward movement. There are many different approaches that can occur for financing. The design work for this space, I believe, should be happening soon. And that's a major first step to determine cost, to then determine, well, what's the financing approach and shared responsibility with the city and the county? So that is in process.

And then my last question, it's Mr. Perry's favorite question that I ask of mine, and I see Tobin is in the back also wondering, I know I had asked this a while ago, and I think Tobin came and presented at our meeting, but I was absent during that one, I was sick, of looking into solar bond campaigns of that infrastructure of investing in more solar and getting all of our county facilities and buildings, DPS facilities, to be on renewable energy. Has that been something that, as a county, we've been able to look at what would that potential expense look like and how it could be on a bond?

so uh good morning commissioner perry manns deputy director for county engineering tobin has mentioned in the past you know we have the comprehensive renewable energy plan implementation that is a project that the county specifically will be pursuing to take 12 facilities just some of our i guess higher end users of energy water just whatever utility consumption and focus on those. But we are in conversations with DPS to get a better understanding of how we can work collectively with them to sort of meet that objective. And so we'll have more conversation on that in the future. So, yes, ma'am.

That'd be great. If you could send us the list of which properties you guys are looking at for Durham County.

We can send those to you. We have the plan that's already fleshed out, and we can refresh the board's memory on that. And I know part of your question may have been, too, about an isolated bond just for those sustainability efforts. And we've talked with our financial advisor on that and many different jurisdictions may use different approaches their recommendation is in your development of your cip when those projects are bundled as a part of your overall plan whether it's county projects that are funded with limited obligation bonds or for instance with durham public schools they did have some sustainability type projects in their last bond for solar panels and some other kinds of things. And so that has been the approach that's been recommended. And so we, whether the financing of those bonds are cheaper, I would say your general obligation bonds will always be the cheapest. And so from their perspective, the approach we're doing sort of the best return on the investment at the moment. But we definitely can come back and give more information on that.

Thank you. Sorry, one final question on that. And this is more so like legislatively. So we have like the tax of like the transit tax. I'm wondering what other uses or does the state legislature allow local governments to implement taxes like that that are for specific uses like transit that could Durham County look at a specific tax? I know we would have to go to the state to get it approved and I'm thinking, but like a specific tax for funding school projects, a specific tax for funding renewable energy sustainability projects.

I will have Keith help me with this, but I will say this. I am hopeful that the General Assembly shifts its position and supports a bond referendum for our public schools. That has not happened in some time and it's caused more pressure on local governments who don't have as many options. And so I will say that's important and as individuals try to figure out a path forward as a state and looking at that economic upward mobility for our next generation, that's real important. There are limited options counties have from a taxing authority perspective. We do use some of our sales tax dollars to dedicate to support our debt service. That was established back in the late 80s and has been the foundation of how we support our debt. And I'll have Keith weigh in further.

Article 40 and 42 sales tax that we collect, you as a board currently allocate that as part of board policy, all of it to pay for Durham public school-related debt and county-related debt, but Durham public school debt dominates it. There's some state law in those Article 40 and 42, like 60% of one and 30% of the other has to be for school-related debt to encourage counties to support long-term capital planning for schools. We do that, plus we allocate even more. Article 46 sales tax, I think, which is what was for transportation, that is the state law. Voters had to vote on it to approve it. article 43 sales tax maybe article 43 is oh my goodness i'm forgetting is the transportation one article 46 you all voter voters approved is support specifically during public schools that's an additional several million dollars a year for what you're asking to happen the the board would have to get enough legislators at the state level in the house and the senate which would be interesting to see if that's possible to say hey give Durham County another sales tax. It is possible Mecklenburg County's had their own special sales tax, but it has to be approved by the whole state legislature to have that happen. I am not confident that the legislature as currently set up would be willing to give Durham County another one. But there's no reason you couldn't try to say we would love a dedicated tax for sustainability options. I will say you're in an environment where the state is actually looking to take money away from sales tax related to potential Medicaid or SNAP benefit error rate issues. And we're estimated to lose $1.7 million potentially of sales tax depending on error rates. of the current sales tax we collect that the state's taking back. So they're kind of going in the opposite direction of being magnanimous and giving us choices. They're taking money away. But it is always a possibility if you can get that many people in the legislature to agree to a new sales tax.

A girl can dream.

Well, I will say that counties across the state, jurisdictions across the state are facing the same challenge. So you never know, a shift could occur.

If the state follows through with some sort of constitutional amendment on property tax limitation, I don't know that there's going to be significant pressure for the state to then turn around and give counties and or cities the option to find revenue in other ways, which might be a looser or easier application of increased sales tax. That would be the only other choice. So it'll be an interesting environment over the next five years to see that.

yes thank you director Lane thank you so a moment ago or several moments ago you had mentioned that you'll be coming to us and ask for a one cent increase for the next four years more like a four cent increase over the next three years over the next right over the next four years And that's based on current projections or forecasts consistent with sales tax revenues. And is that subject to change based on trends? How are we looking?

Yes, sir. It's always subject to, when I look out, our office looks out three to five years, we base on some very basic trends three to five percent growth but I have no idea if the economies were to tank at the national level the state level and particularly at the local level then I would have to revise that and the amount of property tax needed would have to go up to to support the CIP or you choose to put off a key project or projects so it's on the revenue side but also expenditure so if you look at

inflation and the percent of growth in this period over the last two years is tracked higher. COVID was another place where we saw lots of goods and services spike, and it's never reset to pre-COVID level areas. So it's the expenditure side plus the revenue side that causes the angst. And we track it quite carefully. And so when we can, We try to lessen the pressure as much as we defer those costs as much as possible. However, when we have a bond referendum and we project what amount is needed to support those expenses, we do raise taxes to support those expenses that following year so we can start saving the dollars so doesn't have such a huge spike in need. But we'll spend more time on that further.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad we're having this update. I know, Perry, you still have a presentation. But I think when I reviewed this, what came to mind for me is the constitutional amendment that is going to be on the ballot. So when I look at this balloon, if you go back to the graph that showed the ballooning debt over the next three years, peaking in 2030, and then the projected amount of increased property tax that we will need to finance. This is not just new things. This is the existing parts of our CFP. I am really worried, and I think that we need to think about how do we communicate with our community and with voters to help them understand that if people vote for the constitutional amendment to limit property tax authority for local governments, we will not be able to build new things in our community. We will not be able to build new schools, EMS stations, animal shelters, the things that we need. You know, Durham Tech, we won't be able to do it because the way that we do it is by borrowing money and then we have to pay it back. And the way we do it, one of the ways we finance it is through increasing our property tax. to your point, Vice Chair Alam, even thinking about a future bond in 2028, when we go out to the voters, we have to say, this bond will cost this amount of property tax revenue. Well, what happens if we don't even have the ability to actually even implement that? So I think our bond, This is something, again, was a theme at the NACO conference at the mid-sized county caucus, which Commissioner Burton and I were both at. This is an issue across the United States. There are ballot initiatives to limit local governments' authority to able to pay for things and it's it's a national issue and my one of my takeaways from that is incumbent on us at the local level we have to figure out how to talk about this and how to tell our story and i'm and i'm wondering and you know we have an upcoming joint city county meeting i believe next week because i think this is something we have to talk about together with the city council with durham public schools board of education how do we all talk about this together and educate our community about what the impact because what i one of my takeaways from that conversation is that we have to educate voters if you vote for this constitutional amendment this is what the impact will be and this is the choice you're going to have to make so if you vote for this then you're also to understand that you're voting for not having, what are the things that you don't want to fund at our local government? And so, again, that is going to be up to us to be able to explain that and communicate that. And so that's what I'm thinking about when I'm looking at this conversation about our CIP. Because we're assuming we're going to be able to

actually implement these property tax increases what happens if we can't i would say right off the bat your triple a bond rating is whether you do anything else could be jeopardized go ahead i would just say this it it what's on what's at jeopardy too is your operating side of the budget programming because just like your mortgage you must pay your mortgage but I don't have to have some of these other things that are not required. So that's also what's on the line. We will have to evaluate programming and what levels can we afford, because at the end of the day, we must pay our debt service. And there are some things down the pipeline that we're already on the hook for it may not have showed up yet but all of those projects that we plan for in the 2022 bond referendum we're on the hook for part of the tax rates yeah so part of the tax rate that we're talking about those are for projects that are in the pipeline okay and so the question then becomes on the operating side what can absorb that if there are some limits on the taxing ability. But we'll save that for September.

But those are real concerns, absolutely.

Those are things that concern us, and that's part of the reason we've been going through this deep dive in our base budget operations to look at efficiencies, to look at, well, what can we streamline, and some other areas. there are so many hits that we're experiencing from the state of revenue cuts, but now with the potential cap and how local governments are able to generate revenue for services that our residents desire, and for some that we're mandated to do, we are at a crossroads.

And I have some other comments related to this, but I'll wait until after Perry's presentation.

So good morning again, commissioners. This is going to be very brief. We wanted to take the opportunity to give you a quick overview of sort of what's really coming, I guess, over the next six months to the board for action. That's the primary focus here. We also abbreviated some of this information. The last time we came to you, we had a list of about 70 plus capital projects where we brought the entire team to sort of go through and give you an update on each one. Now we just want to focus on the projects that are, um, you know, um, like I said, critical with, with action sort of moving forward or, or, or wrapping up. There's a lot of projects, uh, that were, that are not listed here that the board has previously authorized us to move forward with. As you guys know, our engineering has been on a tear in terms of, uh, the items that we've been bringing forward to the board for approval whether it's design programming some construction what what have you and so thanks thanks to the board for allowing those progress projects to progress but as a quick uh summary we've sort of broken down the presentation into two pieces we got the general fund projects and then i think jay is online is going to be going over the enterprise fund capital project so just as a quick overview quick reminder quick recap projects in construction, Lincoln Community Health Center parking lot expansion. We just finalized that last week. The actual final resurfacing of the asphalt at the intersection of Linwood and Fayetteville was wrapped up. You guys are staying in tune to what we're doing with the 500 East Main Street affordable housing. That project is anticipated to be completed in June of 2027, so the contractor is... remaining on schedule and pushing ahead with that you know recently approved the ila and the um well the ila and the joint use agreement for the joint fire and ems station 19 that's being managed by the city but it's a joint partnership between the city and county we're probably about 18 months out on that we're hot and heavy with grading and utility infrastructure uh you may have noticed some of the work going on next door at DSS main with the health hazard mitigation simply we're just getting the asbestos out of the floor tile and mastic and removing the surplus contents the combustible contents in the building to make it safe if a issue occurred uh in response to the fire marshal's request the project bill renovation project uh you all know we're uh upfitting 5 000 square feet over at shops at hope valley It's slated to be completed next month, possibly occupancy October-November timeframe, so it's moving ahead. Commissioner Alam, you asked about the Sheriff's Training Facility updates. Staff tried to highlight some of that in the agenda action item for the furniture. We're actually slated for completion, construction completion in November. And so we'll be occupying hopefully by the end of the year, uh, with that one. So that is, uh, moving progressively. We just mentioned that our staff is supporting, uh, the sheriff's office with their detention center, critical infrastructure upgrades for safety and security, um, projects in design. You all know, you recently approved the animal shelter design contract, which we sort of outlined a schedule for that for you previously. Staff is also hot and heavy in design with Santee Road Park and getting ready to kick off things with the Orange Factory Road Farm Campus Project in collaboration with Cooperative Extension. So Triangle Wastewater Treatment Utilities and EOC, I'll talk about those in a minute. And Commissioner Alam asked about the comprehensive fleet maintenance, excuse me, comprehensive facilities energy assessment, which we'll be bringing to the board Uh, from direction from the manager, either at two, two and ones or at upcoming work session for discussion. I also highlighted several studies that are underway. Um, pre-development processes with DFI, uh, UNC school of government's development finance initiatives for DSS main shops at Hope Valley. Uh, we're also partnering with DPS on looking at what we can do with the old Lowe's Grove school site, um, We're also working with EMS to do a long range space plan update for them. Keith mentioned that the library is also will be coming to you all requesting, I guess, funding for a study for their long range service delivery for the library. We all know about the 911 consolidation and heart integration study, which we hope to have wrapped up September, October. We'll receive direction from management on how to present that to you all as well. And then the 8080s Pettigrew Street Facilities Study. I think we'll be coming to you all with two two-and-ones on that, as well as the shops at Hope Valley Shopping Center simultaneously. Just as a quick update, again, I wanted to highlight just a couple of projects that will be coming to you over the next couple of months. The EOC and Backup 911 Call Center. recently went out to bid with that bids were successful we actually came in uh slightly under budget which is good news and so we hope to bring the interlocal agreement and the construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price contract to you all possibly in september this is just a breakdown of the schedule and the cost share allocations so Uh, the utilities admin building, uh, it's managed by our project managers, but the funding is, will come out of the enterprise fund. So that shows up twice in the presentation. Um, and that's really a summary of what we have for, for general fund, not going into great detail in light of the fact that we came to you all in March with an update on the entire list. And so, Monica, if possible, I can turn it over to Jay to wrap this up. Okay, great.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is our good morning. I guess we're still morning. Pleasure to be with you today. Just a few shovel-ready projects through the Enterprise Fund. One important thing for this morning's discussion, and we're very appreciative of both your support and Manager Hager and DCM Jones' support on these projects, These enterprise fund projects will help us drive more revenue through ongoing development in the Research Triangle Park service area. So while they will not offset this potential moratoria on property taxes, they will help in some ways blunt it potentially across the long haul. To that end, the Triangle Utilities Admin Building, as Perry mentioned a moment ago, This one, we are ready to go. We anticipate going out for bids in the next month or so, one to two months. We expect this to leverage us towards the future to serve RTP 3.0 and the dramatic changes that we'll see coming across time from that. We are working with the manager, CFO and budget to finalize funding. This will be retired. However, it's funded from revenues related to the enterprise fund. So our rate payers and things like that as a direct benefit back to the utility, if you will. Next slide, please. The Chin Page Lift Station is one we have spoken with you about before. We are working to get before the local government commission, again, with the CFO and with Manager Hager, so that we can release certain funding from the state revolving fund we secured. We had also secured a grant through representative through she's office to help with some of it. This is a very critical project for us as it'll carry us 30 to 50 years into the future and leverage the stirrup iron basin, which is far and away our largest sewerage basin in the utility system and ensure that capacity in both these basins for many for decades to come. Next slide, please. And then finally we'll highlight the triangle wastewater treatment plant phase four upgrades. The last major upgrade on the plant. Some of you may remember this from when you visited with us a few months ago, uh, out at the facilities, our last major upgrades were about 20 years ago. So many of those elements are now reaching end of life cycle. Uh, it is a severe duty as you can imagine with things that come into the plant. Part of this fund right here will go for our ultraviolet system. We use ultraviolet radiation to disinfect our effluent after we've treated everything to ensure there are no pathogens in that effluent, viruses, bacteria, things that can be injurious to Northeast Creek and the aquatic life and to humans. Any of us, we use, they basically get a really good suntan through our UV system. That system is now well beyond end of life. While we're keeping it functioning and it's functioning within parameter, it is past time to update it. So the first $15 million tranche will go to update that system and ensure that we continue performing at a very high level and managing things in an environmentally responsible manner. Now, these are the projects we chose to highlight today as they are all shovel-ready, and if there's other questions, we're glad to certainly entertain those.

Well, Commissioners, I will say we will entertain your questions, but we will be back often. And so... If you have questions beyond today, please let us know. I know there are several projects that we've been talking about for some time and it's great to see them come to fruition. I would like to thank Perry and Jay for their leadership as we work through our robust capital improvement program. I do feel we have such a rock star team and we've worked hard to meet the community's goals. climate that is often tricky when you're talking about a season where project costs are going up because of labor shortages or tariffs or just inflation so i just want to acknowledge that because that does make for some real-time issues for that team

Yes, thank you for your presentation. I just had a clarifying question. The 808 East Pettigrew, that's the old John Avery Boys and Girls Club, correct?

Yes, Commissioner, that's correct.

Thank you. Because we've been getting a lot of community folks are very interested in that property, so thank you. Yep, absolutely.

Thank you. Yeah, a few things I wanted to mention. One is... related to the investments in RTP, the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant, the existing, the new Chimpage Road lift station. I think it also ties back into the conversation about data centers. Again, the unique position that we are in, we've invested heavily in infrastructure in RTP because of the importance of RTP to our overall economy in Durham County, and we continue to make those investments. So we have to be very thoughtful, careful, and make well-informed decisions when it's around issues like the data centers because, again, we have made and we continue to make big investments in RTP. Related to the projects that are in construction and, you know, in design and then studies underway. And what I was going to say, Perry, we're also doing a stadium study. Okay. which that's being done in partnership with the Sports Commission, Durham Next, and the county, right? So that's another study to go on the list, right? But I was wondering about just the realities, especially when I look at a lot of those studies underway, is... and looking at the constrained environment that we're in, and then again worrying about these constitutional, the constitutional amendment, just about how, God bless you, what are, you know, how will we be able to make decisions going forward? And I was thinking about the rubric that staff helped us develop around ARPA money and thinking about that related to capital improvement projects. It seems like in the future we're going to need some type of decision-making rubric like things like what projects are related to essential mandated services, things that we absolutely have to do versus what are the things that, you know, are not essential, but things that we are tied to our strategic plan or things that we really value, but they're not essential. Because we've done a lot of that, our 300 and 500 East Main Street projects. And then I was thinking about things like, well, what are revenue generating CIP projects? like the enterprise, right, versus not. What projects could... We have the opportunity for consolidation or other approaches. Anyway, I'm just thinking that it would be great in the future for you all to help us with some decision-making rubric because it seems like we're going to have some very difficult choices to make and I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. That's a great comment.

A couple of years ago, we did put a framework together to help us identify areas of focus, and we looked at other jurisdictions. We can dust that off, bring that back, because we're at a stage now with so many factors shifting what affordability looks like, because affordability is much different now than what it looked like even last year when there are some revenues that may not be on the table at the levels that they used to be and it's not again just the capital side but it's also the pressures we have on the operating budget um looking at what's mandated what's required so it would be a lot of those similar types of prioritization strategies, what's required by law, what are we mandated to do? Prime example, there's lots of thoughts about the detention center, but by law, we are required to maintain a detention center. Same thing with courts. By law, we're required. If not, we can get sued. So there are places that distinctly we can show where it's required but then there are some that is a community priority such as our libraries and so those are those are the balancing acts that the board will have to face but as staff we will definitely bring forth a rubric that would help you with that prioritization that sounds good and there's you know the issue

what is the cost if we don't make this investment? Oh, absolutely.

And that's when you start getting, especially in our enterprise fund spaces, what's the opportunity cost if you don't make those investments? Return on investment.

That's exactly right.

And so although meeting environmental requirements, they also will fall in those categories of investments that we must make to meet those

thresholds manager and Commissioner I will add that I think the question is sort of highlights the beauty in our process because from the engineering perspective we're charged with getting the information from the park from departments on what they need we hire the best consultants we can possibly get through our solicitation process they have done this stuff nationally, regionally. They know what the benchmarks are, what questions to ask our departments as to how they're operating, how they can be more efficient. And I always take this opportunity at every turn that I'm presenting to remind everyone that our new projects are primarily focused on public safety. Because in the past, CIPs, we had a strong focus on administration needs. We address human services, the courthouse functions and renovated admin one, admin two. And so now we're really picking up trying to bring public safety up to where it needs to be in the community. And so when you talk about what's needed, what's required by law, I think that's gonna help us significantly when we talk about, well, EMS wants to meet the demand out in East Durham with all the growth out there. So that's kind of the way I see things. But it's a great question, and certainly we will help the manager get you that information in terms of what we're required to do statutorily, lawfully, or whatever.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I also have one more question. It also makes me think about, and I've seen us implement this over time, but the strategies to help us manage our CIP, like having project management... you know, a whole program now that we implement and that we've helped Durham Public Schools with. The CMAR, which now we do regularly. I remember when we started implementing that. Preventative maintenance. And I'm just like wondering what are other strategies. I mean, I think one of them, and we're doing that with our studies, is around duplication or possible partnership consolidation like the 911 Center, partnering with HEART, things like that. We have to be looking at when we're facing these challenges. Any other strategies come to mind?

Those are the basic framework for what we typically focus on. You nailed it. If there are others, we'll certainly

uh bring it to everyone's attention but um i think you've got a a good grasp of uh you know what our focus is so um yeah thank you thank you mr perry yes sir and also uh your emphasis on uh public safety the cip plan moving forward i think that's consistent with the needs in our community particularly in light of our exponential growth correct So I think we're pointing our azimuths in the correct direction. But back to managing our CIP, I heard moments ago about stadium study. I didn't know anything about it. It's not mentioned in your presentation, but it appears like it's something that's in the pipeline.

I'm not a part of it thus far. I think General Services managed the stadium, so That's why I didn't highlight it here.

Well, and I will say there will be places in our CIP that we will refresh and integrate. And there are places, for instance, like transit. You don't see it on our CIP, but if there are gaps in transit, the pressure will be on our CIP. And those are, that's why it's important we have these conversations so that we can make sure that we have a comprehensive list of what we know, and then those things that may be in the stratosphere that may become a pressure. And right now, transit is fine, so I don't want to cause any issues. But I do recall years ago when we were talking about light rail, and there were some huge gaps. And that gap would have put pressure on Durham County's capital improvement plan. And so to your point, there are lots of studies happening right now that are community-facing, and some may have the potential of landing at the county, but the Board of County Commissioners, if it's our debt, would have to determine if we were to in fact move forward. And the guiding principles that we put together would help determine if that's something that is appropriate and timing-wise something that we could afford.

Well, transit seems to always be before us, and so I have a lot of information on that. But to the extent there is a stadium study ongoing, is that consistent with Commissioner Lam's presentation today about the Sports Commission?

No, I'm not sure. I know there was a presentation made some time ago from representatives from NCCU about some needs related to stadium and other areas that's not something that is before us statutorily counties local governments have spaces in which we are authorized to to cover so whatever we do and i used to everybody knows i used to work for the unc system and so i'm very familiar who pays for what in that space and so if it's anything the county would do it would have to be something that is um in a space in fact that the county can statutorily support unless it was about voter referendum well i just asked because both of those things seem to in my mind anyway seem to be tied together in some kind of way but thank you for that yeah

Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much, Jay and Perry, for your presentation. We have a few more shorter items on the agenda, I believe, and our commissioners, colleagues, are you guys okay with us pushing through and completing these items rather than taking a break?

Okay, wonderful.

Yes. Okay, and I believe the next presentation agenda closed. We have Ms. Deborah, yes, Ms. Deborah Craig-Ray to talk about our legislative priorities. Oh, no, this is about our appointing. Yeah, legislative priorities process, yes, yes.

Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to be before you for Really the beginning of our legislative process for the upcoming biennium. Thank you very much for all of your support. Vice Chair and law members of the board, Manager Hager. This is, as I said, the start of the 2027 legislative process. These items will be for statewide impact. And we will be supporting in CACC's legislative process. I'll talk about that in a minute. But first, I wanted to begin my remarks with a quick update from Mr. Tillett, our lobbyist, about what's still going on in this session currently. Under the new resolution, which is still subject to House approval, and after adjourning pretty soon on August 6th, the General Assembly will convene on the following dates. August 31st through September 2nd, September 28th through 30th, October 26th through 28th, November 16th through 19th. You'll note this right after the election, they will be coming back. And again, November 30th through December 18th. Per Senate rules, Chairman Rayburn has said no votes are anticipated in the Senate until November. But of course, anything can change. The adjournment resolution limits the business that can be taken up to the following. Veto overrides, legislative and gubernatorial appointments and confirmation. Legislation related to litigation challenges, legislative enactments, impeachment matters, constitutional amendments and any necessary conforming legislation. House and Senate organization resolutions, conference reports for bills in conference, conference votes on bills returned to their chamber of origin, and further adjournment resolutions. And so that's basically what is happening with the current legislators. And I would just also note that When several of you newer commissioners came in before, this legislative process in CACC had already started. You may recall, I'm not sure if any of you all attended the legislative goals conference when you were just becoming commissioners, but the issues had already been implemented. So that just kind of speaks to the timeline that is used. So as I said, every two years as we are preparing for the long session, the county commissioners associations ask all counties to bring forward any legislative goal proposals that they have. And of course, all of them have to be voted on by the county boards. Once those items are put together, I actually have to go into their portal and put in the information basically in this format. the name of the goal, describe how the proposal is applicable to all 100 counties, any additional context information, and then if there are any supporting files, I'll have to update those. Typically they ask us to sort of limit our numbers, but whatever goals that we come up with are fine. Now in this package, three departments have actually sent in information and we'll go through those very briefly, but this is really your chance to let me know if you have some statewide legislative goals that you want us to add to the list. Since I did the agenda action form, the deadline has shifted. It was the 14th, it's now the 27th, so ideally I'd plan to bring this item back to you on the 10th for approval, but hopefully we can make that deadline But if not, we could still come back for the second meeting because we still would have time to get it in to end CACC's deadline. So the first item I'll just very quickly mention came from Veterans Services, create veterans treatment courts across the state. And I don't know if anybody's here from Veterans Services, but it was submitted by Jonathan Crooms. And basically, they're looking to establish veterans treatment courts across the state. They're specialized voluntary court programs designed for justice-involved veterans. Instead of incarceration, they focus on rehabilitation. And by combining judicial supervision with vigorous treatment and peer mentoring, these courts will address the underlying mental health and substance use issues linked to a veteran's military services and so again we're just introducing these items if there are additional questions i will get those answered for you before you vote whether or not to add that to the list that you want to submit the next item would be from engineering increase allowable and permitted uses of reclaimed water for county and municipal utilities and the communities they serve. And I know Jay was on earlier, and I'm not sure if he wants to talk about that. Is Jay still on?

Right here.

Jay, I'm sorry.

Can you repeat yourself? You were muted on our end. Yeah.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. We are proposing this. It seems very appropriate given we're hopefully coming out of a drought right now. We obviously see how important and fragile our potable water supplies are. And currently, the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant, because of the investments made by yourselves and your predecessors across time, can produce almost 6 million gallons a day of reclaimed water, highly treated water. It's already used for certain things. We have a partnership with the town of Cary where it's used to water the USA baseball complex. However, those uses really need to be expanded in current state law. State rules have a lot of hurdles and a lot of restrictions that are unnecessary for a water that has been so highly treated like reclaimed water has. And so we're asking that certain definitions be considered for amendment as part of the legislative process to broaden the uses, which in turn helps leverage our scarce potable supplies further by making better use of this valuable resource in reclaimed water.

Thank you, Jay. And again, it is primarily a change in statute, just adding some additional information, and we certainly would work with our attorney to make sure we have everything in order when we submit that goal. The final goal is also from engineering authorized counties to charge user fees for public electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And I think Tobin is here to talk about that one. Tobin or Haley? Yeah. Sounds like we might get some money here. Just hit that button. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Tobin Fried, Sustainability Manager for Durham County. The county does own and manage several public electric vehicle charging stations. We just put in 12 dual ports at our new DAC 500 block right next to Health and Human Services as well as at several of our libraries and at the courthouse parking deck as well and a few years ago there was a law that was passed that allowed for cities to charge people who use those electric vehicle charging stations it was an oversight to not include counties and so there is currently an effort to get some legislative corrections to that language to allow counties to charge fees. And so this item would just be in support of those efforts. And allowing us to charge those fees would allow us to recoup some cost to supplying electric vehicle charging stations, especially the electricity charges, as well as allow us to better manage the stations where we could charge, for example, after you've been there for three hours, the cost goes up to encourage people to leave the space so that other users can come in.

Thank you. So again, we're looking at trying to recoup some money. These three items that have come from our departments would be of statewide impact, which is what is being sought. And, of course, if you have your ideas, I'm ready to take notes.

Yes, thank you so much. I'm glad that this is our first one that we give as new commissioners input to. So I kind of have a broad one. And it's related to the schools. How do we increase school funding with a statewide bond issue that affects all 100 counties? How can we get one on the ballot? And thinking about how do we increase school-based worker employee wages? A lot of times we think about the classroom teachers, the instructional staff, but a lot of times the classified staff are left out. They tend to be lumped in with state employees, right? Because one of the issues that I'm seeing is that because the state sets the salary schedule, the pay for classified staff on the state schedule, it's low. And so we have to, people come to us as commissioners wanting those wages increase so getting more money for all school-based employees not just not only the class of the certified teacher but the classified staff the bus drivers teacher assistants etc and that is a statewide issue so thank you thank you

thank you first i want to thank our staff for the three goals that were submitted i think they're all really innovative and really good for in terms of addressing important issues and i think would would have in terms of countywide and that's what's really key about these NCACC goals is we have to think, be strategic and think about things that are going to be of interest to all counties, rural and urban. In addition to what Commissioner Burton said, I was thinking of two other legislative goals related to school funding. one is around the use of the lottery funds this has been a sticking point for the 14 years that i have been a county commissioner is that the education lottery and i don't know the exact wording of this how to be strategic but actually making sure that the originally adopted, approved percentage that was supposed to be going for capital funding for counties, for schools, that that is implemented. Because basically we are not following what we said we were going to do when voters approved the lottery funds. So I think that is something that I hope that we could get support on. And the other is related to the funding that is supposed to be saved that is supposed to be the savings from the voucher, the quote-unquote savings from the voucher program that was supposed to go back to all of the public schools across the state, ensuring that that funding actually is going back into the public school systems. And I don't remember the exact amount, but... I think that's something else that I would like for us to look at. And then related to what's happening with SNAP, asking that the state cover the administrative cost burden for the additional 25% administrative cost burden for SNAP be covered by the state legislature. that is going to have a devastating impact on rural counties. And for us, I think it's going to be several million dollars, and they're going to take it out of our sales tax revenue. So, and then I think, you know, I'd like to see us have a goal around protecting Medicaid and Medicaid expansion. And then another one, I know I'm throwing a lot out and we can't do all these, but asking the state to do a study or to come up with proposed ways that they're going to help counties with revenue shortfalls due to if the constitutional amendment is approved that limits our property tax revenue. How is the state going to help us fill the gap with mandated services? And whether that we're saying we want to study or whatever, I think we need to raise that issue as an association. And then the last is related to the cost for jail mental health and the cost of implementing arena's law at the local level is we're going to have more and more people in our jails who are suffering from severe mental illness. And again, how is the state going to help us with the costs for more mental health treatment and facilities for people suffering from mental illness who are just as involved.

Thank you. So let me just go ahead and associate myself with many of the proposals that have already been made, particularly around Medicaid and SNAP and revenue shortfalls that we face. And also to say, with respect to the three that have already been submitted, that I definitely support those, specifically one dealing with the Veteran Treatment Court. North Carolina has about half a million veterans in our population, and 14,000 of them reside right here in Durham County. And we know that there's consequences to putting our men and women into harm's way. And so any way that we can support them in our community, and one being with the Veterans Treatment Court, I would be definitely in favor of.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Coe-Gray. I feel like every time you come, I always give you all my Pine Sky ideas, which I will just say, I bring forward again, you have my list of items that from the past five years of all the things that we need our legislature to actually be doing of funding our public education, not stripping away our ability to raise revenue to fund the vital services and programs, and also not eliminating corporate tax cuts that are going to have a detrimental impact on the working families across North Carolina who actually make these corporations their profits. as well as not eliminating the income tax for high wealth individuals. And ditto to everything my colleague said. Anything else you have for us?

well i will work with our attorney to try to get these in a legislative format and bring them back to the board for approval and with approval then i can move forward and put them into the ncacc's portal so that they can be considered by the nine committees that they have each one goes into a committee based on the subject matter as you know and they go through sometimes a goal that comes from one county might be merged with one from another if they're similar and once that list gets together it goes before the board of directors and the body for voting to get the final book that we will work with for the next two years thank you thank you

And now our final item is the appointing of a voting delegate for NCACC. And we have Commissioner Burton as the voting delegate and Commissioner Wendy Jacobs as the voting alternate for the NCACC conference. Any discussion or I'll hear a motion.

So moved.

Second. Okay, moved by Commissioner Valentine, seconded by, do we have to actually, do we need to suspend the rules first? Yes. Okay, I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules.

I move that we suspend the rules.

Second.

Moved by Commissioner Valentine to suspend the rules, seconded by Commissioner Jacobs. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the rules are suspended four to zero. Now I'll entertain a motion to appoint the voting delegate of Commissioner Burton with alternate delegate Commissioner Jacobs.

I move that Commissioner Burton serve as the delegate and the alternate Commissioner Jacobs.

Second. Moved by Commissioner Valentine, seconded by Commissioner Burton. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the delegates are appointed four to zero. We will now move into closed session. This is our final item. We are moving into closed session for General Statute 143-318.11a6. Do I hear a motion to move?

So moved.

Second.

Moved by Commissioner Burton, seconded by Commissioner Valentine. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are in closed session, four to zero. Dr. Lee, we're ready.

Okay, all right. We met in closed session and now I'll entertain a motion to increase the salary of the DSS director by 15.7% to align with market fairness and rates.

So moved.

Second. Or you have a motion on the floor that's been properly moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Without any further business on our agenda, we are adjourned. Thank you.