City Council - workshop

Good morning everyone. Welcome back after I think about, I think it's the longest council break we've ever had. And we're going to kick off here in just a second. We were waiting on the mayor, but he is here.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Well, welcome back, colleagues. The July recess had me on hold. I was fighting to get in here. It's good to have everyone here and see everyone back. Call to order at 10. And Madam Clerk, will you go ahead and please call the roll?

Good morning and welcome back. Mayor Williams?

I'm here.

Mayor Pro Tem Caballero? Here. Council Member Baker?

Here.

Council Member Burris? Here. Council Member Cook? Council Member Kopach? Here. And Council Member Rich?

Here. Awesome. All right. Colleagues, I'll start to my left, any announcements?

Just good to see everybody. Thank you all, city staff and city workers for being here in the building. Nothing for me, but I'm looking forward to getting back to work.

Yeah, same. Just excited to be back with my colleagues, all of our staff and workers and community. There's a lot of important work ahead and I'm excited to get started.

Good morning. So happy to see all your smiling faces back in the work session. Super excited to be back. Some of us, I didn't always slow down, so we did do some work over the summer. I got to connect with some of my colleagues in various locations, such as Mayor Pro Tem. We did join a conference together, so good to see her offline and talk to her. I also want to introduce my summer intern, Ms. Michaela Russ, if you give us a little princess wave. Michaela is coming to us as a graduate student in CCU, my alma mater, and she will be with us for about two months and look forward to all the great work Michaela is doing and will continue to do. So thanks so much for joining our team.

I'll echo the comments of my colleagues. Good to see everyone here. The Dyess, also residents, staff, good to be back. It's been a nice long break, but we do have a lot to do. I just want to also recognize DCM Winbush. Good to see you in the chair today, taking over for Manager Ferguson. So thanks for being here.

Good morning, everyone. Good to see everyone. Thank you, staff, for always holding down the fort. I'm sure that it was also wonderful to get a break from us for a few weeks. I'll have more longer comments this evening at our council meeting.

Thank you, and yes, it's great to be back. Actually, there was a bit of work done over the last three to four weeks, but I did take some time down and went to the Northwest to visit my son. Unfortunately, they're dealing with wildfires again out there. Just missed that. But I had a great time. Just looking forward to getting back to work with everyone. And this refresher was needed. And I'm just really excited of what we're going to do together this year in implementing the budget. But as you all know, today is a make-up work session that we normally would have had in July. Hopefully, we're not here too long today. But... Ready to get to work, and Deputy City Manager Winbush, it's great to have you here. Holding it down, holding it down, and I'll check to see if Council Member Cook is coming. I haven't heard anything. Okay, all right, so I will pass it over to Madam Manager. I will introduce these folks tonight, but I do have a mayor of the day as the first one under my tenure, Mayor Mia. And you're going to have to remind me of the last name. Peritini. Peritini, Mia Peritini. She was sworn in this morning, and it's official. She's going to be working. We had our morning briefing this morning. And the only thing she's missing is the coffee that I normally get, but we'll make up for it. And also, I've been really intentional about the mayor's office bringing resources to the city. Part of some of those traveling places that I go is to bring resources back. And one of those resources, as you know, we're working with the community safety department to really focus on all of the work that the community service department is doing. We are fortunate to have been granted a two year fellowship from the Bloomberg Harvard Mayor's Program. So for the next two years, working out at the mayor's office and with community safety department, we will have Mrs. Hannah Sebastian. Hannah San Sebastian. So she's not mayor for today. She'll be in the mayor's office for the next two years. So serving as the liaison from our office to the community safety department to make sure that we have someone dedicated to this work. So really grateful for that fellowship. And I want to shout out Cam, Camila Smith, the executive assistant to the mayor who applied for that fellowship and was able to receive it. I think you're at about $300,000 that you've bought to the office, so really excited about the resources that we're getting in. But yeah, we'll talk more about that tonight. At this time, I'll pass it over to Madam Manager to get us going.

Good morning, Mayor, members of City Council. The City Manager's Office has no priority items.

Thank you. I see we have new devices here, so I'm getting a little used to it. Madam Attorney.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor Pertem and members of the council, it's good to see you back. The city attorney's office has no priority items today.

All right.

Madam Clerk.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Patemp, and members of City Council. I don't have any priority items, but I do have the appointments for our agenda items today. So I'm happy to announce that for the Racial Equity Commission, we have a majority appointment for Emily M. Chewy on the youth category. And for the Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board, representing youth as well, Zora H. Lentz was reappointed by a majority of the council.

Thank you. Give me one moment. All right, I have to consult with my Mayor Pro Tem on a matter. At this time, I will read the consent agenda and then I will come back for public comment. All right, you ready? All right, item number one, Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board appointment. Number two, Racial Equity Commission appointment. Number three, contract SD-2026-02, Acadia and Hammond stormwater infrastructure improvements. Number four, contract SD-2026-04, stormwater infrastructure improvements. Number five, correction to ordinance amendment number 16638, amending ordinance 16621. Number six, 2026 Appropriations Act, session law 2026-41, an equal business opportunity program ordinance repeal. Pull that one. Yeah, I'd like to pull that as well. Number six, yeah. Yep. Number seven, Fourth Amendment to Service Agreement for Project Management Consulting Service with Turner and Townsend, Hirey, LLC. Pull that one too, please. Number eight, resolution authorizing street closures for the 2026 movable city open streets in 2026 Durham Holiday Parade. I'd like to pull that one.

Yeah, me as well.

Number nine, agenda item, setting public hearing for confirmation of assessment roles. Number 10, 12th Amendment of Annual Support Agreement and License Agreement for Immunosoftware. Number 11, construction contract for bike lane vertical protection and neighborhood bike routes.

I'd like to pull this one.

Number 12, maintenance agreement with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for North Carolina 98 Mineral Springs project. Number 13, professional services contract award to Hazen and Sawyer PC for the maintenance of finished water storage tanks. engineering and inspections. Number 14, amendment three to professional engineering services contract with Highfield Infrastructure Engineering PC for the fiscal year 21 lift station improvements project. Contract number 18079. That's pull 14. Number 15, professional engineering services contract with CDM Smith Incorporated for the Ellaby Creek outfall project. Number 16, professional engineering services contract with McKim and Creed Incorporated for the Lick Creek Outfall Project. Number 17, these are public hearings that will be heard on tonight. Number 17, consolidated annexation entrance Chapel Road townhouses. Number 18, consolidated annexation Leesville Storage 2. Number 19, consolidated annexation 2106 Hensley. That is our consent agenda with exception with pulled items number six, seven, eight, 11 and 14.

Mr. Mayor, item two was also pulled by a member of the- Item two, I'm sorry, yes.

And item number two has been pulled as well, Racial Equity Commission appointment.

And that person is in person?

Yes. Say that one more time. Okay, that's in person. So, Madam Clerk, with the speaker list.

and this person just let me know that they were in person. Right, I saw her.

But what is this here?

This is your in person and this is your virtual up here. Okay.

So this is just public comment and this is the number 11 by John Poole? Mm-hmm, which Council Member Baker pulled as well. Okay, all right, sounds good. Now I get it now, thanks for the new format. All right, that is our consent agenda with the exception of items. 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 14. All right. What I'll do now is I'll go to public comment, and then I'll go to pooled items. And I'll start with my virtual speakers.

It's resource, resource.

All right, Ms. Wagstaff, Ms. Jacqueline Wagstaff, can you hear me? Okay.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Thank you. I can hear you. Welcome. You have three minutes.

Okay. Thank you. Good morning. Morning. I'm coming to you this morning out of great concern about our unhoused population. On June, July 29th, there was an article that came out, but let me back, let me regress. The Oakwood Park situation of removing the homeless, the unhoused individual from the park seemed to be, I guess, I can't even explain how it was done. But I do understand that some residents came to the work session complaining about that park at several work session meetings. And then all of a sudden, the city of Durham doing your vacation funds They call it the flexible housing funds. I don't know where it came from, but it was $2 million worth of federal funds granted to the city and 500,000 that came from the county. And they were able, according to your city manager's press release, was able to remove those individuals from the park and put them in dignified housing, I guess, hotel accommodation. Don't know, the question is, where did these flexible funds come from? And this is my biggest concern. That location was cleared. Park was closed. I live right off of Fayetteville Street. There is a elementary school that sits 50 feet away from an encampment that is sitting on, I'm not sure, but I think it's constructed on the city right away on the trail. It sits behind the property of a convenience store. I am so disgusted with what I'm seeing on that property. That property has become the drop zone for all, seemed like all the unhoused people in Durham. There's a tent that was constructed two days ago that looks like the pallet house. It has a pallet and it looks like a circus tent that was constructed. People are coming there. They're just positing stuff there. Like, I guess they're making themselves feel good about helping the homeless, but they're depositing stuff. And this location is a eyesore. The way that they went in at Oakwood Park, and found dignified housing for those unhoused people. I want them to come to Fayetteville Street and find dignified housing and use some of that flexible housing fund to help these individuals get off that property. School is about to begin. We've had two murders on that trail. This should not be happening. This should not be what the people of Fayetteville Street have to look at. If you were, they did the quickness of removing the folks out of Oakwood Park because you had a young, a woman that lives across the street that came down to y'all and y'all made a decision or somebody made a decision to have that park closed. supposedly to do some restructuring of it, but you did. You were able to remove the people and find them housing. I want them to do the same thing for Fairmont Street. It's not fair to my community that we have to live with that.

Thank you, Ms. Wagstaff. And I know you don't hear this often, but thank you for bringing that point up. That's something I was going to talk about tonight. I've already spoken with a few community members over there, and you're exactly right. And something needs to be done immediately. All right, next up. Ritual speakers. Tanya Brelowskaya.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes. Could you repeat your name just for the record for me?

It's Brelowskaya.

Brelowskaya. Thank you. I'll welcome you in three minutes.

um yeah i would like to also comment on the um unhoused situation um yeah so this summer i have visited several of the encampments to drop off supplies and just chat with folks there and i would like to say that the people i've met there have all been peaceful and kind and they've appreciated the help the little help i could offer I've heard a lot of people say that the homeless population is a threat to their neighborhood. Some of the people who are saying this I think haven't really been to the encampments themselves. If you stop by and you talk to the people there, all you will find is people who are simply trying to survive. And personally, I find it unacceptable that in a city with so many empty apartment buildings, we have people sleeping on the street. Earlier this summer, the City Council gave millions of dollars in property tax breaks to commercial landlords whose luxury apartment buildings are vacant due to exorbitant rents that Durham's residents simply cannot afford. For instance, this tax revenue could easily be used to instead pay for housing the city's homeless population. I also would like to comment on the Oakwood Park situation. I was very disappointed to learn that the recent effort to provide shelter to the residents of the Oakwood Park encampment have been sort of disingenuous. I learned from some other community organizers who are in close contact with the unhoused population that even though folks there were promised 45 days of interim housing and, you know, in order to then transfer to a more stable situation, actually just a few days after folks were put back out on the street and the park was closed and the Yeah, they still have nowhere to go. And so I would really like to implore the city council to actually find a sustainable solution and use the two and a half million dollars that were mentioned by the earlier speaker to actually support the people in need in this city and especially our most vulnerable. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Emily Chu is not online.

Okay, thank you. All right. Welcome, you have three minutes.

Good morning, City Council. My name is Effio Tijagun. I grew up here in Durham. I lived here most of my life. And I was taught to avert my eyes when I saw people. begging for money on the side of the road. But after working at a shelter, that was pretty much no longer an option. I know we rolled out a new homeless plan that said we would deal with our homeless encampments differently. If you look at the news and the press release that the city released, you would think that all of the people from Oakwood Park were put into housing. They were in the hotel for a few nights and they were kicked out. People with disabilities, parents and their kids are back on the street and regular citizens are giving them food and water every day. They're using their limited salary to be doing what the city should be doing. And now the park is closed and no one can use the park. Yesterday, me and a few other citizens and community members used our own money to put on a cookout on Fayetteville Street, and most people were thankful and very nice to us, but two local business owners who were told to support with our dollars came and screamed at us and berated us. And I can't believe that this is the face of economic development in Durham. This is what our city is turning into. Is this our future? And I do believe that people deserve to be safe when they're walking to school, when they're conducting their business, when they're going to school or whatever. And within a mile of my apartment where I live, there are two encampments and people are already asking it to be cleared. Yeah, I just believe that there has to be a better solution than what we're doing right now, especially with all the money and grants and stuff that we're doing. And I think we can make this community a better place without making the most vulnerable people worse off. Thank you.

Thank you. Next I have Erica Pino. Welcome, you have three minutes.

Good morning. My name is Erica Pino, and I am a Durham resident, and I live adjacent to the new El Toro Loco swap meet and flea market that had their grand opening this weekend. It has been a journey for the past- Could you repeat that?

I'm sorry. El Toro. Which part? You said El Toro.

El Toro Loco. It's a new swap meet that is adjacent to multiple residential properties, including mine. This has been a journey for a few months. I've been working with planning and code enforcement because they have – they do not have an approved site plan to be operating. And this weekend, despite not having an operation plan, amplified music at more than 100 decibels for over eight hours each of two days. And this is not simply an inconvenience. This is a safety issue. The NIH actually has said that exposure to volumes of 85 decibels or higher for extended periods of time can result in permanent and irreversible hearing loss. And so with these volumes for these amounts of time, despite multiple calls to the non-emergency line, which I'm still waiting on responses from officers starting Saturday, these volumes were not controlled. It becomes impossible to enjoy any kind of peace in my home where I should reasonably be able to operate and enjoy my life. In addition, they also have hundreds of vehicles parked on the property, as well as on all of our residential streets on both sides, including where there are no parking signs. This has caused our roads to be one-way traffic only. which also makes it fairly difficult for emergency vehicles to pass through these roads. I actually have an email to you as well, footage and photos of vehicles parked at stop signs and in people's driveways, all over sidewalks. And so we're asking not for any special treatment, but for this business to be held to the code and the standards that all businesses in Durham are expected to comply by. We want local businesses to thrive. We want a sense of community, but this simply is a huge burden on the residents in the area. And so we're coming to you with those requests.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I deal with teeth.

Good morning. My name is Ideal Ortiz, and I live along Vail Street next to the new El Toro Loco on 311 South Plum Street. And as Erica mentioned before me, they had their grand opening. They were originally going to have their grand opening the weekend of June 28th. But when planning stepped in and said listen, you don't have a site plan yet slow your roll But this was all over social media all of the local announcers and radio stations and various folks and so we were kind of like like oh okay and so at that point we i was able to meet with the owner of the swap me and his investors and many people who have been helping them with the planning process and submitting paperwork they all assured me that parking would be managed and controlled that noise would only occur from like noonish to like four or five and that they would respect the rules and regulations around outdoor events. None of that happened. Their activities are right up against the fence line. They're throwing trash into neighbors' yards. They are harassing animals that should be allowed in our backyards to operate without worrying if someone's going to throw something over the fence to harm them. or to pollute our own yards that we spend a lot of time cleaning. And the decibels, as Erica said, 70 to 100 decibels starting with sound check at five in the morning. Okay, pyrotechnics in a drought, all of our houses are made of wood. This is a historic district. If any of those houses catch on fire, who is going to compensate me for that? And so I'm really disappointed in the organizers and owners of this venture because When they first put up their signs that they were coming, we were super excited at the potential for another business. Now, I will say the green flea market also has problems on Pettigrew Street. Love that all those businesses are there. I want us to all coexist peacefully. Let me say that. The only message that has been sent to the listserv is we're excited to have more businesses, more diversity in the area. The issue is the parking congestion at this point. from Pettigrew Street at the bridge towards the Greenflea Market and now Plum, Vail and Vine Street, we are subjected to one lane roads in or out of our own community with people popping up, yelling at neighbors because they feel like they should be able to park wherever they want to. East Arm already has a limited amount of biking and walking infrastructure. Now it belongs to their cars too. And so I want to know what regulatory solutions we have. I want to know what kind of fines are placed on this. As someone who plans events and attends other lots of beautiful events that, yes, create disturbance and noise, we all, myself included, spend months at a time working with different departments and submitting applications to make sure we're underneath proper regulations and coexistence.

Thank you so much. It's been brought to my attention that during Ms. Wagstaff's comments, my mic was on. My mic was hot. And I was actually making some comments. I was actually agreeing with her and I was saying that she's right. And I was also saying that I have spoken with some residents already over there and that I do plan to go back over there and that I will be asking for staff to give us an update on this matter. I do want to apologize for speaking while Ms. Wagstaff was speaking or any resident will be speaking. I was just simply agreeing with the point that she was making, but I did get the note that my mic was on when I was making those comments. So again, thank you, Ms. Wagsell, for being right about this matter. I agree with you, and for anyone else that took offense of me agreeing with what the speaker was saying, then I'm sorry. Thank you. Next, I have Alan Frayer. Welcome, you have three minutes.

Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, it's great to be with you all. It's always good to see you. Normally when you see me or I'm meeting with you, it's about People's Alliance of Business. I want to be clear, that is not the case. I don't want to get in trouble. I'm here with my fellow neighbors from Vail Street. We are really concerned about what we experienced in the past weekend with El Toro Loco. We're more concerned because their final words as they shut down the festival was, we'll see you next weekend. And so our concern is we're going to have weekend after weekend after weekend of 100-plus decibel noise inside our homes. I know that was true for Ideal and Erica. For us, we experienced 80 decibel inside noise. That's about 20 decibels above what the permit says is supposed to happen outside. So obviously, we're just asking for law to be enforced in this matter. There's no reason why any Durham residents should be subjected to this. And we appreciate your leadership, and we hope to work with you on this going forward.

Thank you. Thank you. Next I have Rachel Fryer. Hello and welcome. Thank you.

Can you all hear me?

Loud and clear. Perfect. You have three minutes.

Good morning, Mayor Williams, Madam Mayor Pro Tem Caballero, and members of council. I'm really glad to be with you all this morning. We have lived here in downtown Durham for about 20 years, and we have spent the last seven years living on Vail Street across the street from Erica and Ideal. And I am here with my neighbors to ask that the council make sure that our new neighborhood business, El Toro Loco, follows the law. particularly as it relates to noise ordinance violations, traffic concerns, and site plan requirements. This weekend, as you've heard, El Toro Loco had numerous violations, including noise ordinance violations with decibels registering from 70 to over 100. At our homes from very early morning until the evening, the legal limit is 60 decibels. This made our homes extremely uncomfortable. We do have children and animals and they are also impacted by this discomfort. We called in many noise complaints and no one got a call back even though officers did go to the site at least twice. There were numerous traffic violations and safety concerns, including dangerous parking on both sides of Pettigrew, Plum, and Vail streets, which created one narrow lane of traffic and serious congestion. People were like playing chicken on the road, which is not what we want to see, and I am very concerned that someone is going to get hurt. The site plan requirements have not been completed or approved in advance of the business opening. For example, no residential buffers such as proper fencing and plantings were in place. We also witnessed pyrotechnics multiple times, which is a safety concern as all of us live in over 100-year-old historic homes. My neighbors have spent about six months in contact with business owners and city departments to ensure a smooth and respectful transition. My neighbors Erica Pino and Ideal Ortiz have shared a lot of documentation with you via email, which includes emails, videos, photos, recorded phone calls, camera footage, and decibel monitoring to demonstrate how difficult it has been to get compliance to city code. Feel free to check your emails for more information on that. Durham is changing rapidly and a lot of that change is coming to Old East Durham. This is an opportunity to ensure that laws are enforced so that our neighbors and businesses can thrive together. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much. Those are all of our public comments. Did Emily Chu come back on? Okay. All right. Mr. Manager. Yes, sir.

I was going to request if we could get a little update from staff at some point in the next couple days to council members on the El Toro Loco situation. And then also, if there are any updates from Oakwood Park from what we have prior received from City Manager Ferguson, And then also if there have been any updates over the summer on the homelessness strategic plan. I know that's a bigger picture, that third item is a bigger picture item, but to Ms. Wagstaff's point, I'm curious if we've made any progress on that. Thank you.

Yeah, I was going to ask for those, a few updates. Also the water situation, I'd like that publicly updated. But Over the weekend and over the last couple of weeks, actually, I did run into an individual at the Food Lion on Fayetteville Street. And they brought to my attention just the struggle they were having on the trail in that area with the encampments. And the neighbors there have been doing what they can. But it is – actually, it's grown. And the thing that I will say is, you know, government always moves too slow for our patients. And we have put millions behind this work. It will take time, but we do have some really urgent matters as well. But what I will say is I'm not okay with people being in these conditions. And that means that we have to do something about it. So I hope that we don't stretch this to the point of, no, leave them alone and let them stay there. Or just kick them out and just move them somewhere else to another location. It's very complex, and we have to be methodical about it. And I trust the staff to be able to do that. But I want us, colleagues, if you don't mind, to apply pressure so that it doesn't take forever. We've allocated funds that I hope that we can just make some movement happen. Oakwood did not happen overnight. It did not happen because just one person came and spoke. It took time. It took time. Even with public pushback, it took time. And we see the urgent matter across the city. So yes, I'd like an update as well on the status of what we're doing with that. Because we didn't just close the park. The park has been cleaned so it'll be safely used again. And there will be programming, to my understanding. But we have not only just to you know, I don't want us to be overly just reactive to all right Someone came to speak and now we're moving to that point. There are other encampments that are in pretty dire Situations across the city and that's why we put this plan in place. So I'll trust the staff can move expeditiously about it and you have the resources and the initial resources so i know the staff is working on it but you hear the public pressure um from community members as well as through us as council members so i'd appreciate that update uh for all all of the accountments not just the ones that are bought to the like

Not to be a dead horse, but just as we're thinking about it, I just want to make sure that in the updates that we have the metrics and how we're tracking people in the services we're offering, whether people actually go through the service or we identify the deficits that are happening. Because what I am afraid of is that we're doing a one-size-fits-all approach. And I do understand the desire for it with a need for people to have dignified housing, but there's a lot of other barriers that people are facing. And so getting housing is one thing, being able to keep the housing is another thing. So I want to make sure that we're connecting people to resources to make sure they're living their best life. So Not sure if that's buried in the plan or who our partners are to ensure they get in support, but I think that's a critical need that we have as we're moving forward and understanding that as well.

So we will provide those updates. As a reminder, we have our strategic plan on Thursday's work session, and so that's a great opportunity to talk about that particular initiative. So we'll provide that update.

All right. Thank you. I mean, this is what local government is all about, so thank you to the folks that are bringing these issues forward. It's seven of us. We don't see everything, but I will say this is a very active council, so we do see most things, and I just really appreciate it. Bring it to light. All right. Back to the pulled items. Let's see, number two. Was yours for public comment or actually the item? The item, come on up.

Good morning, it's me again. My name is Effio Tijagun, and I was the former youth representative and secretary on the Racial Equity Commission. I'm here to explain why I resigned halfway through my term. The short version is that I've been an unwilling participant in the Community Partnership and Engagement Office drama since its inception in July of 2025. The long story is that the city and county stopped all communication with our commission, and we didn't meet for seven months. I knew staffing changes were coming because of the city's restructuring, but what I didn't expect was radio silence from city and county staff. Because of this silence, I made a public request. A reporter from the Indy Week also made a public records request about the status of the Racial Equity Commission. My public records request revealed that our commission had been put on pause, which I was never informed of, because the county hadn't bothered to appoint a new staff liaison. Somehow we were still able to meet this year without the county selecting a new liaison or appointing a county commissioner. So I don't truly understand why our commission was put on pause. The county manager also stated in an email to me that our commission would be discussed during the April joint city and county meeting, but that obviously never happened. However, I didn't want to make any more noise because I was in the change by youth program in the same department and I feared my actions would result in retaliation to staff and youth services division. I guess I didn't need to worry about that because the office on youth was defunded and dismantled anyway last fiscal year. And my program was cut short by months with no communication similar to this commission. Our first meeting in the year was March, where the city and county made presentations on the amazing work they were doing while not responding to my emails, and they were forwarding it to each other. I saw my public records request, so they definitely got it. Staff turnover was also identified as a cause of the commission's pause. This was the first time since I was appointed in August 2024 that an elected official attended any of our meetings. I joined this commission fresh out of college and ready to make a difference in the community that I grew up in. In Elizabeth Hinton's America on Fire, she describes a cycle where a black person is a victim of police brutality, protests erupt, and local officials form some type of commission, like the Racial Equity Commission or the Human Relations Commission. But all these commissions and reports rarely result in changing the material conditions of people on the ground. I don't think my presence on this commission will result in the change I want to see, and I hope the remaining commission members can carry on the work unimpeded. Lastly, I would ask that the council investigate why so many people are resigning from the community partnerships and engagement department and how turnover has affected their ability to carry out their mission. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Item number. That's the only speaker I have for that item. Next, I have item number six. And this was pulled by council members wrist and go back.

Good morning, Sheila Fawcett, Deputy CFO, as well as good morning to Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tem, and council members here to answer any questions you may have today.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm happy to kick off, but I know a lot of folks, I'm sure, have questions. Thanks, Ms. Fossett, for being here. It seems like a month ago, weren't we just here? We completed a new disparity study. This is really critical work for the city, setting participation goals for minority-owned firms, women-owned firms. So I'm just personally, like, I'm incredibly disappointed. I understand what the legislature, with the new law that's passed, eliminated the Office of Minority, what's it called, at the state level. So this is really, really... real a real blow to the city um and so i guess my question is like what and i know that we that if the federal government requires us as part of contracts there we can use goals otherwise i guess we can't i guess the question is i know there's been discussions about this since we heard about this legislation what are what are our options as a city what can we do given this really um

yeah really real blood of the city and our goals for for economic development we concur we are very disappointed as well but what we can do is again for the legislation states that we have to we can only do it if there's federal law requirements on any contracts and currently that is how the EBOC program works all EBOC projects that are federally funded are not a part of the EBOP program. So it's basically status quo from that point when it comes to federal grants, if that makes sense.

So any project with federal funding, so we still have those goals can still be in place, that's still operating as it's been operating?

And that part is always exempt from EBOP because we didn't operate that way.

So it's outside of EBOP?

Correct.

That's good. How are we going forward? Yeah, exactly.

So in other ways, we still have our small local business program, and that's how we'll be operating, and that operates in MSA, our four-county area, Durham, Chatham, Person, and Orange counties. And so that's how the state is moving, and that's how the city will move as well at this point, unless, of course, we have other directions.

I'm also wondering if the city attorney might, I know you've been looking at this carefully, any other sort of options you're looking at, can share with us, strategies?

Sure, Councilmember. Is this on? Can you hear me? So what the legislature did is it essentially struck all references to minority gender, you know, from the provisions that authorized us to encourage and promote participation by those types of businesses. But it doesn't prohibit us from educating our public, from letting them know about city projects and opportunities to work with the city. And I think that's where we should shift our focus is on that education piece and really encouraging contractors and businesses that might have otherwise been captured in our business in our in that language we can still have a special focus on making sure that they have information and encouraging to to bid apply i think that's where we are right now and we're still looking at some other appreciate that issues

Just to echo my colleague, Councilmember Rist, I mean, I think we all agree this is terribly disappointing and also harmful to our city. I think the EVOP program went a long way to promoting a healthier, more dynamic, more equitable local economy, and that was good for our city. And so this is just very frustrating to see that this step was taken, and then we have to take this step as a city to stop work on this program. I just want to clarify, just your response to council member wrist it's that federal requirements are outside the ebops so those are not affected but what i'm hearing correctly like there are no federal requirements and so is there anything from the federal government that we are affirmatively responding to in the same vein or does that not exist at this point and what we can do is what the city attorney said which is focus on education getting more folks to work with and partner with the city JUST TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THAT EBOP AND FEDERAL REQUIREMENT DISTINCTION.

SO OUR EBOP ORDINANCE EXCLUDED ANY PROJECTS THAT WERE FUNDED WITH FEDERAL FUNDS. AND THAT'S HOW THE PROGRAM OPERATED. SO WE LEFT SO THAT PROJECTS COULD CONTINUE TO FOLLOW FEDERAL REGULATIONS ON THOSE PROJECTS, WHICH THEY'RE BASICALLY DEI OR THOSE TYPES OF, I SHOULD SAY, PARTICIPATION PROGRAMS.

Yeah, and so are there federal projects we're working on at this point? That we do have some projects. That have those requirements?

That do have those requirements, yes. But they're outside of, they're throughout the departments in the cities that have those applicable grants.

Okay, thank you for clarifying.

And I will also add that, again, we will be moving forward, and we encourage all small businesses or anybody who is certified through the hub office to apply for our small local business program because, again, the small local business program, there are a lot of the historically underutilized businesses will fit into that. Our program is for those four counties, and we encourage them to contact our underutilized business compliance division and sign up with us today.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. I understand. I mean, I agree with what's been shared. And just out of curiosity, I understand, like, we can't require things, but is it still going to be worth us collecting data around demographic data? Are we allowed to do that still?

I was going to say, I'll defer to the... My understanding is that they removed all reporting requirements as well.

I'm not talking about reporting requirements. I'm talking about from the city's perspective. At some point, this stuff's going to go away, right? Like, all of this is cyclical. Fascism will get defeated because it's been defeated before, and I'm just going to say this is, to me, an extension of fascism and white supremacy. And so... That was...

I was not getting an agreement. I'm sorry.

Yeah. I was like, Tony Rayburn's looking at me, and I'm like, what? It is. So I just... It will still be, in my opinion, important for us to track because we did the disparity study. We understand it. Just because you don't have to turn something in does not mean you don't collect the data. And so unless there's somebody saying we can't collect the data, I would like us to continue to have an understanding of who is applying to these um the city funding right um even if we can't say we have these participation goals because i think it is important for us to track it so that when we flip the state even if it's 10 years down the road uh we have um we're not starting from scratch right and i i'm deeply proud of the work the city of durham got ahead of this years ago uh equity work i think about um is it gare all of it's been 10 years like this isn't actually longer since we have diligently worked as a city government to turn a ship right and start doing business differently and so i don't it's like a waste of taxpayer money at this point um this is just how we do business uh and so i don't want us to rip everything down and then in five years seven years like we have to re-spend right money i want us to continue doing the good work even if we're limited and have the thing ready to go all the way back on when we sunset this BS that's happening. Thank you.

Good morning. Carlos Hernandez with the City Attorney's Office. So yes, you have the authority to collect data, but I'd caution to not be tempted to act on that data because that's what we don't have authority to do. But yes, you can collect data, but as with our previous program with the diversity questionnaires. Sometimes in these deliberations, people have asked, well, why are we selecting this vendor if they don't have the diversity we're looking for? And that's where we have to caution not to do that because we don't have that authority. We can collect. We can act on.

Thank you. I would just like to note that we also don't have the authority to do inclusionary zoning and yet we get a ton of affordable housing proffers. There's a whole bunch of ways to do the work. And so I just hope that we are as creative as we've often said. Durham will figure it out. And so I just super disappointing and makes it harder but not impossible. Thank you.

Just a follow-up for city attorney, well, not you, but your representative.

So as we're thinking about it, and to Mayor Pro Tem's point, is there any, like, are we prohibited from any language? Like, we ask for demographic information from folks, or, like, just think about how North Carolina operates. Like, I know we can't, we can collect, we can't act on it, but will we be, like, prohibited from, like, saying, like, we ask if, like, the racial makeup or the gender or those things like that. So, like, do we have to carefully curate what we're collecting so it doesn't still feel like we're following down there? I just want to, understand it a little bit more?

Our system still has the ability to collect the data. So we can continue but not report as the attorney states. Okay, thank you so much.

Go ahead. Just to follow up on that. So that means when we get – usually we get contracts and we see that data. We see sort of like diversity tables for like employees or whatever. So are you saying we won't see that anymore on those – when we get those agenda items, when there's a contract for whatever it is?

That's correct because as of this cycle here, that equal business opportunity summary has been removed.

Are we allowed to still – even if it's not associated with a contract, are we still allowed to get, like, a report of sorts at some point?

Madam Mayor Pro Tem, we're still researching the extent to which we can request information and how that information can be packaged and delivered back out to the council. We had a couple of conversations at our annual meeting this weekend and I'm following up with some of our peer jurisdictions to make sure we're kind of aligned with how everyone is moving forward.

Thank you. At some point, once that research has been completed, I'd love to have that as a follow up on a work session agenda, just so we have a better understanding ourselves of like, what is the lay of the land and how do we operate within it while still You know, just because people don't want to hear about equity doesn't mean that it's not important. And so that we're still a listening to our residents in Durham who are also voters who have said very loud and clear like this is a community value. And so we are responding to our constituents. This isn't just magic, whatever nonsense that we're thinking. And but still understanding the complexity of the law. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, colleagues, for those comments. I totally agree. I mean, you think about it. If these policies that they are enforcing on us right now existed, then the culture of the city wouldn't even exist as we know it today. You know, the Black Wall Street that we have would not exist. And I can say, as far as I'm concerned, Durham would not be silenced. We should be aggressively creative in how we continue to do what it is that we do and what... I think that it's safe to say that this council supports you all being as creative as possible. Durham is going to get it right. We won't be silenced. We're going to continue to be and live out our true values and be who we are. DC will be changing and hopefully sooner than later. And yes. raleigh and dc but let's let's do what we need to do uh and let's let's also let's document i've been doing this personally but let's document all of the the the pullbacks that have you know that have happened since this current administration has been in place and let's make sure when things change we're ready to put things back in place but even better than they were before um we'll hold our breath for now but we'll breathe again thank you All right. Item number seven. Council Member Rist.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Good morning. Henry Prospera, General Services.

Hey, Mr. Prospera. Thanks for being here. So I have a number of questions about this item. So as I understand it, this is an additional, I think we maybe six months ago approved money for Turnitin Townsend to do project management for General Services, right? So this is an extension of that contract.

Yep, it's an existing contract. The last time we brought it to City Council was October of last year, and that was the amendment we did for the trails addition for their management.

Right. Okay, so it's another $2 million in contracting services with Townsend and Erie? Correct. Okay. So my question, first of all, is like, so do we – so from the last six months, there's the memo references sort of increasing sort of speed of delivery. And I appreciate all the work that General Services is doing to speed up delivery of all kinds of projects around the city. do we have, what kind of evidence do we have that that contract for the last six months has sped things up?

Well, I mean, I think, you know, we all still have to go through the same steps, whether it's staff project managers or consultant project managers. I mean, Turner Townsend has, you know, specifically with the trails, I mean, I think they've been very attentive with some of our external stakeholders and just being a little bit more transparent with respect to reporting. But with respect to overall schedules, I mean, they're very conscientious. They're very attentive to the projects. But we still have to go through the same steps. you know milestones and steps to get the projects to the finish line.

Okay. Again, I would love to, I guess part of my question is it seems like there's a strategy here about how do we do project management in the city, right? So do we, and I know there's been a decision years ago to move that function within general services. So most of the departments don't have project managers, as I understand. And so my question is, is that strategy, do we know that's working? And I guess one other thing is that in the memo it talked about we always get the alternatives from the department. The alternative was we don't advance projects, we can't advance as timely. It seems like one alternative is we would hire folks internally to do this work, either at General Services or in the departments. So I guess what I would like is a little more understanding of what's the strategy here and what's the sort of trade-offs we face as a council for another $2 million for project management. And I know that we have more things coming forward to us through the CIP and elsewhere, whether it's like parks or transportation or whatever. So that's not gonna slow down, that's gonna continue. And so as we go forward, what's the most effective strategy to make sure across the whole city that we're managing stuff as fast as we can?

Yeah, I think it's a great question. I mean, I think right now where we're at with staffing and the proportion of projects that we have, we have like 132 projects valued at like $430 million. We only have four staff project managers currently. And one of those just started about five weeks ago. So really, I think where we're at now strategically, it's based on the volume of the projects that we have. Turner Townsend provides a mechanism for us to augment staff kind of in a very quick, nimble way. We only have seven full-time employees within the project management division. Again, four staff project managers. Really the sweet spot for project management is 10 to 12 projects per project management. So if we have four staff project managers and they're managing let's say 12 projects, that's only 48 projects that conceivably we can manage in-house. Again, we have 132 projects, so this contract, and it's used in public works, it's used in water management, it's a way to respond to a growing portfolio in a very nimble way to augment our staff. But I mean, ideally, you know, and I've been at the city for over 20 years, our division has had as many as 13 people. Currently, again, we only have seven FTEs, so I mean, that's the next reality is to supplement and to gain additional staff members That's the direction that we want to go.

I'm going to call up Deputy City Manager.

Good morning. Gina Probst, Deputy City Manager. Additionally, we're also, to your question, what is the future? How are we going to manage this? What is the strategy? We also are working on a project delivery consultancy. We've got solicitation underway right now. It's part of the strategic plan as well. to understand our staffing, to have a staffing review as well as some best practices to evaluate how to prepare ourselves, whether or not it is good to continue to have augmented contract services in addition to the seven FTEs. There's a total of seven FTEs within project management. so that we can evaluate that and understand moving forward as these projects complete. For Turner, Towns, and Harry, they are providing the multi-year capital projects. So of that number, I believe it was 47. And the balance of the projects are through general services project management staff, which gives us a little bit more ability to add – things come up. Projects come out of nowhere sometimes when it comes to things that we need to – move staffing around you can do that more quickly with your in-house staff and then you can assign contracted staff to project management services consultancies so as I understood this correctly so there's some kind of study that's going on within general service about project management it is imminently to be initiated we're reviewing on proposals right now to evaluates to have a consultant to evaluate project delivery

No, that's good. I guess that my question would be as we're. I mean, I guess as Mr prosperity was saying, we have, we've only got like, what, 7 staff we need more. So, like, I get using consultants for, like, short term stuff to have, like, flexibility. But if this is a long term structural thing of the city that we need more capacity, and maybe that's what this study is moving towards.

Correct. That will help evaluate what's the best way for us to deploy that. I can give you some additional metrics, and this is a question that came from one of your council members as well. The percentage value of the projects, the value for Turner Towns and Harry's Consulting Services, about 3.5% of the project budget. Right. smooth that over the project the project um lifespan and then kind of and you can see the full cost of project delivery for um general services staff it's about two percent if you apply the same methodology so we're paying about a one one and a half percent differential differential um for additional capacity to deliver our projects if we didn't have these resources now we'd have to put some projects on hold allows you to be able to ebb and flow with projects and when they close out And we've assigned Turner Townsend here to the multi-year project so that we have them available. If we have turnover, they're quickly able to provide additional resources quickly. And we've seen the projects that they've been assigned to to progress in a way that we feel good about their role.

yeah i guess i guess i mean colleagues i'm a little bit uncomfortable with like it feels like we just keep sort of like okay another two million for consultants like i feel like we need to address this as a structural issue with the city to make sure that we can continue delivering and so i would love to send this back to staff and get a little more conversation about like what like what are the options here what are like if we were to add staff to do to like in the next year what how does that how does that what what does that option look like and and because i'm i'm worried we're just kind of every six months we're another and so I want to make sure we have a clear plan that we're acting on that and not just sort of providing sort of short-term stopgap stuff because we do have so much stuff we want to complete. So I want to make sure we have a real discussion about that.

And some of the additional funding is because there was additional funding added to the projects through additional scope. So there's an adjustment that these are for that reason as opposed to shore that up. So we got new money in July. We got...

New money was allocated to projects in July.

And also there were some new projects that were assigned. So with that, because of cost increases or escalation or time commitment, this is an adjustment to shore up assignments that were also already on their list for that reason.

Councilmember, also this is a part of our, this is one of our requests for the strategic plan. Can you just?

yes so so one of the um priorities for uh city council as part of our visioning sessions for the plan was to manage and complete infrastructure projects and services effectively and efficiently and that's why we are completing the study which will help us determine the right mix the right allocation of in-person in-house staff versus consultants as was mentioned earlier by Deputy City Manager Probst, is that we have added many projects, some very complex, like the trails. And so that is what we are trying to get to, to figure out what the best way is to deliver our projects. You all have talked about and we've heard from the community about timeliness, about scope change, about, you know, schedules. And so that's what we're trying to do is come back and make the best recommendations that will help us meet the strategic priority that you all set for the staff.

So what's the timeline of that? When can we expect that study to be done? Because it sounds like you've sort of put out a bid.

We've got to get someone to do that.

So how long is that going to take?

We're in that negotiation process right now. I can follow back up with the staff that's leading that right now and provide an update on Thursday about what timeline we expect that to be.

We have the proposals in hand, correct?

We have proposals. We had some recent interviews as well.

But is that like six months? Is that a year, two years? What are we talking about?

I'm happy to know. I do not think so. But I don't want to give you the incorrect information. And I can provide that information by Thursday when we discuss it as a strategic plan. So it will be within the fiscal year. I can commit to that.

So we will revisit that item on Thursday as we go through the initiatives and the plan. And so that will be the opportunity for them to give you an update on that.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Kobach also pulled this and then I'll go to Council Member Cook.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Probst and Mr. Pressberry. And I appreciate you addressing the question I had posed about the cost differential. I'm excited this study is happening in response to the feedback that council has given. I think I would hesitate to delay and put it on another agenda because it seems like right now the fastest way to project delivery is to continue with our current operating model. But I am looking forward to seeing the results and hopefully we can move that as fast as possible to what kind of best practice shows for that Internal in-house staff versus consulting balance should be. It seems like with the amount that we're dedicating to projects. There's a long term trajectory here, right? Where we're going to be doing a lot of projects now, perhaps there's a difference in terms of flexibility around expertise. Versus just number of people that still makes contract services make sense, but it seems in terms of the number of total projects. you know, we're going to have the work to do for in-house folks. And so I look forward to seeing the results of that. One question I have about the current operating model with contract services is, is Turner Townsend Heery like in addition to just executing against our policies, do they also recommend ways to move projects faster? And I ask because like we've assigned them some of the thorniest projects that have been going on the longest, you know, so whether it's like when do we seek right-of-way permission from residents in the design process or something else, are they giving us feedback or are they just executing against our current policies?

I mean, they're definitely giving us feedback. I mean, it's an international company, so they're bringing with them years of experience and lots of bench strength, if you will. So, I mean, they're absolutely helping us to augment not only our staff, but also just our processes for the most efficient delivery.

okay are they involved in the trails working group that the city currently has going forward they are going on yeah they're leading that they're leading that all right i'd miss the first meeting but i'll be at the meeting next week so glad to hear that they're uh involved with that as well and um those are my my questions right now thank you councilmember cook

Thank you. And y'all answered quite a lot of my questions in the back and forth. But just a couple of things to clarify, because I was going back and reading to Council Member Riff's point, the conversation that we had literally, like, I think it was in October. So it's been about eight months ago. And at that time, y'all had more folks that were spearheading projects you had more project managers and I heard you say that you just brought one online so now we have four but that insinuates that we had three pretty recently and back in the end of 2025 it seems like we had five is that true are we seeing a lot of turnover in project managers on our staff we had four project managers we had one turnover and we've since filled that and then we have another project manager that's starting next week so we'll have a total of five in-house project managers Okay, so we will be back to five. And has that been turning over more frequently? Is there?

I wouldn't say we've had any more turnover than we've had in the past. I think the biggest turnover we had was kind of post pandemic.

Okay.

So we're slowly building staff back up.

And then I guess my other question is that to Councilmember Kopach's point, we do continue to contract with Turner and Townsend. I know that they're already deeply embedded in our projects and it makes sense. But at what point do we have a competitive process to look at other consultants? And I assume that we have our eyes on the market and that these are relatively comparable rates. But at what point do we look at other potential consultants for this?

I mean, this is a five-year contract, so, I mean, certainly at the end of that five-year, we definitely looked at peer institutions to see what percentages they were using, and it's very competitive, the 3.5%. Like, we looked to Duke and to the City of Raleigh and any other of our peer municipalities that were helping document staff, so it's well within those ranges, and it's very competitive. But, you know, within that five years, definitely, we could look at additional firms.

Yeah, I mean, you're not saying that they're doing a bad job, but just as we are looking into this study and to Council Member Copac's point, if we can have consultants that are actively like helping us speed projects up in addition to just following our metrics, I think that that would be helpful to know as well. And then I was just wondering if we could get a clarification on that extra like one and a half percent of the project budget. And I don't know if Deputy City Manager wants to step back up.

The clarification about the percentage that they're getting. Yes. So. They get 3.5% of the total project budget. Right. We did a calculation to see what proportion of city staff salaries would be of the project budget. So a fully loaded salary with benefits comes out to be 2%. So it's about a percent and a half cost differential between what staff would be paid to manage projects versus what the consultant's being paid.

Okay, and we are going to wait for the results of the study to sort of understand what the benefits potentially are of that 1%. We don't have enough, outside of that 1.5%, we don't have any more information about if that's contributing to any benefits to the project.

Yeah, I mean, I think the purpose of this study is to try to find out what the most efficient project delivery methodology is going to be. We did one of these probably 20 years ago, maybe. And it's just good to refresh just to see what the best strategies are, whether, again, it's some proportion of in-house staff versus augmented staff. Again, this model has been used in other departments, water management, public works. So I think it's a really good time just to refresh and see what makes sense. And, you know, we're looking forward to the results of that study.

And so we did a study like this 20 years ago, which things have drastically changed. So I'm not sure how much we could put on that study. But I assume other municipalities are also doing studies. And do we sort of have a sense of how other municipalities that are maybe on faster timelines than we are in project delivery, how they're distributing their project management?

I don't really have anything anecdotal about other municipalities, but again, looking at some of our it's really based on volume. I mean, I think. If we could manage these projects within how staff that would probably be preferable. But really, we've had such an increase in volume of like. probably just in the last year, over $100 million just in volume of projects and number of projects. We always kind of do some metrics, and probably in the last six years, it's gone from like maybe $150 million portfolio to about a $430 million portfolio. So I would think, you know, really the augmenting of staff is by and large due to the number of projects we have and being able to act on it very nimbly with this service.

Thank you.

That's helpful. Thank you.

If I can just add, like during public schools, they sometimes use project management augmented services. There's other places throughout the state as well. We can work with Turner Townsend just to provide some comps and some other information. For example, I know the City of Raleigh is using some project management services for their convention center projects. So it is a tool that many municipalities use to augment staff based on ebbs and flows of project delivery and volume and capacity.

Yeah, I mean, part of me is like I don't want to continue upping the contract to ask them to do to provide more services to us. But I am curious about this because the example that you gave, that's one large project as opposed to what we're doing, which is like a lot of our just sort of run-of-the-mill, I mean, not run-of-the-mill, they're all large projects, but they're not as large as a convention center rate. So I am curious to know how other communities are doing it, but maybe not to the point where I would be interested in, like, contracting with Turner Townsend to spend more dollars to do that.

It would be through our informal discussions with our peers. Happy to do that. I mean, it's ways that people ebb and flow with their project workload.

Yeah, I do think that that would be helpful for us to see some comparisons on, and particularly keeping in mind, like, the scale of the projects and the timeline of delivery.

And it's something that we're doing even with our right-of-way acquisition. There's only X number of FTEs in real estate within general services, so you'll find where environmental street services or water management will also include in their consultancy right-of-way acquisition as just another way to do the large volume of work that we have and to

accomplish it which is which is which is what our goal is the full court press to deliver our projects thank you mr mayor yeah no i really appreciate the conversation this morning and appreciate the work you all are doing to speed up the work we're doing um i think ultimately this is a good problem to have right we're a growing city our residents are demanding more and more services parks roads so water management right And they've been generous to respond to increases in property taxes, to bonds and stuff. So they're helping to fund this. And so I think this is part of a growing city. Again, it's a good problem to have. And I look forward and appreciate the study. I think it's a good way to think about refreshing our strategy if we haven't looked at this in 20 years. So I look forward to that. And again, I look forward to working with you all to sort of deliver on this. These are important projects for the future of our city, and I'm excited about them.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right, next is item number eight. I was pulled by Copac and Williams. Mr. Copac, you can start us off.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tem Cavallaro, Council, Kirk Archer, Special Event Manager with Parks and Recreation.

Yes, thank you. Good to see you, Mr. Archer. Great to see you yesterday at Fiesta Latina. Thanks for all the work you and your team did to put that on. This is super simple. I just want to just note what an incredible day I think Movable is, and I appreciate the support of staff to make this possible. I think it shows us what's possible when we prioritize pedestrians and bikes over cars in a city. And I personally would like to see us close a foster between at least Corporation and Morgan permanently to explore that and reclaim as much space in Durham for people as possible. But excited about Movable as well as the holiday party. Thank you. Yeah, and actually I would just say I'd like to speak with my staff about what it would take to have it on the agenda to make that possible. So I can reach out to you all separately. When I said staff, I meant colleagues.

I'm sort of broken record on this. I'm thinking about the way we can really heighten the experience of the Christmas parade, the holiday parade. And I see the time frame here, and I just would like to see what the economic impact would be, as well as an experiment. I don't know how we assess what an experiment would be, but really looking at the experience if the parade was an evening, tying into some of the other holiday events. Yeah. Yeah. It's cold in the morning with no one out there. All the stores are closed. And just a little bit of context here. Our holiday parade is early in the morning. It's freezing cold. No stores are open. We still close the streets, but the lights, the holiday lights are beaming and no one can see them. And Durham used to have an evening parade, and it was quite the experience. And when more businesses are open, more people can be served. And I think that it'll not only have an economic impact that would be significant or substantial, I think we get more people out because they don't have to get up out of the bed so early. If you think about the holiday tree lighting, I mean, it's probably 10,000 people downtown and the small businesses appreciate that. So I would love to, I see the timeframe is still in the morning. I'd love to see what it looks like to have it at night.

Definitely. We can definitely explore that. I do think there would be some positives and pros that would come out of that. So that is something that we can do. I do think that it would take some cooperation assistance from some of our stakeholders and partners and businesses downtown as well. But that is definitely something that we can look into.

Speaking of stakeholders and partners, I've been talking about tying this in with the tree lighting. Is that possible as well? I'm not sure if the date's right off, but I know we were talking budget at one point. I just want to make sure that those programs are at least still able to happen. The tree lighting, and I know ATC has theirs probably, but we have the city's tree lighting and then the holiday parade. Just trying to tie all those things in. A series of events that will really activate the community.

Definitely. I know we worked with DDI last year as well with that event, so that is something that I believe that they are working on for the programming of it for the event this year. But, yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. On that note, I appreciate all that. I know that last year, I know that the tree lighting got moved and it ended up happening on the same Saturday as a big event in Central Park. And I thought it was very well done. It was completely activated downtown from Central Park all the way through American Tobacco. And I agree with the mayor, whether it's a holiday parade or not, Really, we know that American tobacco has a thing. It was the German Christmas market, essentially, is what it was. And I think that we have these conversations a lot with DDI and Discover Durham and thinking through, yeah, We have two sources, sales tax or property tax, and so what are all the ways we can make sure that we are being really intentional about how we can increase sales tax revenue? Because that's just people going out and about and having those kind of regional events that draw neighbors from other communities I think is important and is a good way to generate revenue, especially as things get more and more expensive.

I love when neighbors and visitors pay IBOs. Yeah. Council Member Rust.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I think I seem to have a conversation this weekend about the tree lighting. So can you just give us an update there? So I know it's been a partnership historically between the city and DDI. So is that partnership still in place? I know DDI has got their own budgets. Is that... Is it going forward, or are there conversations about whether that can happen this year?

So I believe DDI is working on that. I believe some of the funding for that event may have been pulled from the tree lighting event. But for us, in regards to the event, we are working together with them again this year and collaborating with them on the event. So that is something that we're working towards. But as far as the funding, I don't know exactly how much is there currently with the event.

Well, if you could, you and Sam can keep us updated on that to know what the status of that is. I know that's a thing that a lot of folks really appreciate. So we just want to be clear what the implications are. And if there's, if it's not going to happen, then we know about that.

I believe it is happening though, but yes, just working towards it. And I believe the date identified as the 21st of November and December 12th is for the tree lighting for the parade. But I know we're talking about seeing those come together so we can explore that. I don't want to commit to anything, but definitely in the future, we can definitely look at seeing how we can make those mesh.

Could you, well, normally you have two weeks, but we have a couple hours to the general meeting. Yeah, let's look into that. I'd like an update on that. Sounds good. All right. Last year was moved because we had terrorizing coming into our city. Hopefully that doesn't happen this year.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Next, we have item number 11, which was pulled by Council Members Baker and Wrist.

Bill Judge, Assistant Transportation Director.

Hey, Mr. Judge. Thanks for being up here. A few questions. This is really exciting. It's good to see the vertical separation. This is a... two different projects bundled into one. So the contract for protected bike lanes on Main and also MLK and then also the neighborhood bike route. So I've got a few different questions for you. One is, are any of these improvements lined up with other kinds of improvements? Like is there a utility work or anything like that or is this a completely separate on its own project?

So most of these improvements are standalone and they're within basically the existing footprint. So there's no additional right of way, no utility relocations needed. So primarily on the vertical protection, we're utilizing existing painted buffered bike lanes and providing that vertical protection within those. And then on the neighborhood bike routes, that is primarily just signage and pavement markings on the existing pavement.

And I guess consistent with the theme of some of the earlier conversation, there's a contract, this is work that we're looking to do more of moving forward. And so bringing things in house, is that a conversation that you all have had about future bike lane improvements?

Well, yes, so particularly the neighborhood bike routes portion of this project was originally a federally funded project. We sought to de-federalize it about maybe 18 months ago now. With the adoption of last year's budget, that allowed us to expedite the design and the approval process by not having to get one categorical exclusion NEPA document, but also all the various approvals that are required by NCDOT through that. So it did allow us to basically accelerate the project.

And then there was a there was a bidder that actually bid too low Can you just talk with was that materials is that labor do we even know?

Yeah, that's it's a bit of a unusual circumstance the bidder bid well below the engineers estimate to the point that when we evaluated it we did not believe they could adequately perform the project and They were provided an opportunity to protest. They were informed of the decision. They chose not to protest when we pointed out to them that we were moving on. So I don't know the specific details of exactly where it was low, but it was significantly lower than the engineer's estimate.

Thank you. And then we, council adopted the NACDO and ITE guidelines and the city's in the process of working on a street design manual. So I'm curious if, to what extent this project is informed by or informing the future street design manual?

So it definitely, when we were incorporating the design, completing the design for this project, we utilized NACDO heavily and looked at those resources, guidelines, recommendations. So I believe it's consistent, not knowing exactly what we'll ultimately end up with with the city street design guidelines, but I would envision them all to be companion, consistent with each other.

And then as we put in place more protected bike lanes, that requires different kinds of maintenance and different street sweeping and all of that. Is that something that we're looking ahead at?

It is something that we are continuing to work with environmental and street services that is responsible for doing the street sweeping on options for people One, either contracting out or getting smaller equipment to where they can sweep the bike lane directly versus having to basically have our crews come back, either remove the equipment or reinstall it for the current equipment. This vertical protection will have some more robust protection than we've utilized in the past.

Yeah. Are there going to be any bicycle traffic signals as part of this? yeah not with this project those would have all been installed when the bicycle lanes were installed some of their current bike lane protected bike lanes that we have are wide which is great but I see a lot of like ubers will drop off there people will park their deliveries and those kinds of things is that consideration any of this thinking about how to exclude vehicles yes that's part of the reason for the more robust

But even with that, making sure that vehicles then don't basically still drive over the device. We've had some instances recently out on East Main Street at the new county building where they put in a concrete median. We're still having delivery vehicles drive across the median.

And then, especially in the neighborhoods, we talked about turn hardening and neighborhood traffic signals that'll use flex posts and other things. That's essentially just blocking off existing pavement. Has there been any conversation about not just creating dead space, but like making use of those areas, whether it's like for art or impermeable surfaces or anything like that, storm water, anything like that?

Not from the stormwater perspective. We have not incorporated that with this project. We do work with the city's public art opportunity, look for opportunities to incorporate asphalt art in the projects, but the primary purpose there is to sort of reduce the turn radius at the intersections to really slow the vehicles down as they're making those turns to better protect the cyclists and pedestrians.

Okay. And then last, I'll just say, yeah, I'm very excited about this. I like all that there's a lot of new kinds of materials that we're using, more robust separation between vehicles. I hate flex posts. And I like that this is going beyond flex posts, but it's still using some flex posts, but those tend to be knocked over, tend to not look good and be eyesores. So I just make that plug that those aren't always the best way to separate. If there is any way that we can use something different, that'd be great.

No, that's why we're trying some of these more robust. The flex posts are the most economical solution, but they may not work in every situation.

Okay, awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Council Member Kopach and then Council Member Arrest.

Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. This is great stuff. I guess bottom line is I'm super excited about this. As Council Member Baker said, I think our bike routes are... Huge opportunity in Durham. I've seen, I'm sure my colleagues have seen videos and stuff of bicycle boulevards elsewhere in this country and around the world. Exciting way to encourage more folks to bike, to get more bikers out, to really utilize those spaces we have. So I think it's exciting. And I just want to encourage you to continue experimenting with new ways to make the separation more robust. I think all this stuff is great. I think there's a huge opportunity from Durham. I guess my only question is, just from the memo, I couldn't quite tell, but I think this is the case. So the Neighborhood Bike Routes 2 project, these are new routes. It's not sort of like helping to kind of improve the existing ones, or is it both?

No, these are new locations. We did a Neighborhood Bike Routes 1 project about three years ago. We completed it. So this is primarily signage, sharrows, other markings on sort of lower stress parallel streets, maybe where we don't have a protected bike lane to encourage cyclists to utilize that, let's say, for lower speed, lower stress choice, lower volumes.

Yeah, so that's great. I love the fact that we're expanding the network. And, yeah, I just encourage you all to continue to innovate, think about new ways to make these bicycle routes even more attractive, safer, and all that. So exciting stuff. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Judge. Most of my questions have been asked by my colleagues. I appreciate your response and your team's work on all of this. So one, I just want to just make sure I have this right. Is it the case that two years ago we added, our council added money to this project? I think the number I got was like $60,000 to kind of bump up work on this project.

you know the exact number but yeah the exact number but yeah as i had indicated before it was uh the neighborhood bike routes would have been uh federally funded previously so 80 of that potentially we could have received federal funds through the tpo for but by um foregoing uh that reimbursement we were then able to use those federal funds on other more expensive higher uh

not higher priority but higher more complex projects where we're already having to go through all those federal requirements so we're able to ship those funds to those projects and and expedite this project okay great yeah and i just appreciate the work to expedite and we all i think know the cost of projects taking longer and so i think the quicker we can get them done done well right i think there's a benefit from a budgetary standpoint as well as just safety and access This is a little bit, you know, adjacent, but have we looked at closing some routes kind of more regularly? You know, not necessarily permanently, and I'd love, you know, talk of closing certain routes permanently, but, you know, finding certain routes that are, you know, could be heavily utilized by cyclists and by pedestrians that say, like, you know, one day a week, you know, or, you know, that would be just completely closed vehicular traffic, and it could extend through large parts of the city for pedestrian bikes. Is that something that the city has discussed, staff has discussed internally?

Not probably to the extent that you were contemplating. That is sort of the goal of the neighborhood bike routes project is to identify those lower volume, lower speed, lower stress roadways to encourage particularly cyclists but potentially even pedestrians where they might be safer walking on the edge of the pavement where we don't have sidewalks or other types of things protections for pedestrians in terms of like complete closures the vehicles that can get very challenging in terms of access for residents businesses deliveries yeah even yeah solid waste water management the service so so that those can be challenging

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. And I just want to say that I am pleased with the change that we made probably a year, year and a half ago of really using federal funds for the bigger projects and not using federal funds for these smaller projects. I think that that was a staff recommendation, transportation staff, and it's been a good adjustment. So thank you. The last item I have polled is- May I pretend?

I'm sorry. I have a public speaker for item 11.

Thank you. Oh, for 11. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, we should have let you go first. Sorry about that. Good morning. Thanks for being here with us. You have three minutes.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. My name is David Bradway. I'm the co-chair of the Bike Durham Advocacy Committee, and I'm here in support of Item 11. You've all done a great job asking the questions that I was going to bring up, but I'll just speak in support of it. It was two years ago that I was here with some other Bike Durham members with an oversized check that we presented to the city to add a small amount of funds to support this work for better protection on bike lanes. I THINK THIS PROJECT IS ALSO GOING TO HELP WITH TRAFFIC CALMING IN TERMS OF HAVING THE VERTICAL PROTECTION ON MLK IN PARTICULAR, I THINK IS GOING TO MAKE THE ROAD SAFER EVEN FOR DRIVERS THAT, YOU KNOW, THEY DON'T WANT THEIR CAR TO HIT THE POSTS. THEY'RE GOING TO POTENTIALLY ALSO BENEFIT FROM THESE KINDS OF DELINEATIONS. MAIN STREET IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY NEAR DUKE'S CAMPUS TO ADD THESE PROTECTIONS. WE'VE ALREADY SEEN SOME GOOD PROTECTION ON EAST MAINE, AND THERE'S EVEN OPPORTUNITIES FURTHER DOWN MAINE PAST 9TH STREET THAT AREN'T A PART OF THIS PROJECT, BUT WHEN THAT GETS RESURFACED, THAT'S GOING TO BE ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY. SO, YEAH, IN ADDITION TO ITEM 7 WHERE YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT, YOU KNOW, WHAT KINDS OF THINGS SHOULD BE DONE BY CONSULTANTS OR IN-HOUSE, You know, this project is pretty minor, and yet it's like, what, a $1.4 million consulting contract. So we're going to be doing more of this stuff if you can find a way to add staff capacity. I know everyone has too many projects and everybody's overworked, so, you know, it's difficult to add FTEs to the budget, especially in years when, you know, there's difficulties with the property reevaluations and all that. As you do the studies to look at what kinds of things you can do in-house, we're going to be doing more of this, and so hopefully we can do it quickly and more effectively. I'm excited with the prospect of having the street design manual and some of these things that we're paying on a one-off basis. You'll have a guidebook that you'll say this kind of street gets this kind of treatment. You'll have protected... um intersections or you know the shared um the shared routes like the neighborhood bike routes that are going to be a good opportunity so yeah just uh thank you for the work you're doing and uh appreciate the speaking time to speak thank you so much thank you david all right and last item is item number 14 pulled by council member wrist

Thank you. I just have a quick question. So it seems like I've been hearing a lot about lift stations recently. So I appreciate the work we're doing to make sure our lift stations are functioning properly, maintained. I guess my only question is, so I know there's, I've become aware of this, there are some public lift stations, but also private lift stations in Durham, right? Very few. Very few private. So there are some private ones. So this contract, this is for the public lift station. This is not for private ones, right?

That is correct.

Okay. I just want to make sure that was the case. Yeah, that's all. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Hi, colleagues. I need to ask for excused absence from Thursday's work session due to travel.

So moved.

It's been moved and properly seconded to approve an excused absence for Councilmember Burris. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right. Thank you. Well, colleagues, that is our agenda for the work session today. This was good. This was good. Good start back. Just some items that are coming before you. We're going to have some conversations regarding a series of things that are happening, colleagues. So just look for Tom to be requested on your calendar from the Mayor Pro Tem and I. We have a lot of work to do. a lot of moving parts and we just want to make sure we line those things up properly. So just be on the lookout for your admins to be receiving requests from us to have some small group meetings. May I approach them?

Thank you, and I do want to remind colleagues that August 20th, we do have a closed session after that work session. There had been one, a hold placed, and that hold has now been confirmed. It is going to take place. It's the first one. There had been a hold put on your calendars, I think maybe back in May, and that is now confirmed. So after our work session on August 20th, we will be going into closed session.

Yep. Thanks for bringing that up. But we will need to have conversations with each of you before that closed session. It will be a pretty important closed session. All right, I look forward to seeing you all tonight. It is, oh yeah, I need to settle the agenda. I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor Grace. I heard you whispering from all the way over there. All right, Madam Deputy City Manager.

May I have on consent items one through 16, GBA public hearings, items 17 through 19.

All right, I'll entertain a motion to settle the agenda.

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor? Aye. All opposed. All right. Thank you all so much. I look forward to seeing you all tonight. We'll have dinner at 6 p.m. I'm sorry. It'll probably get here around 5. All right. All right. Thank you. We're adjourned at 1139.