City Council - workshop

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to go ahead and call us to order. The mayor is running late today. I think he'll be joining us sometime between 1.30 and 2 p.m. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Mayor Williams is en route. Mayor Pro Tem Caballero? Here. Council Member Baker?

Here.

Council Member Burris has an excused absence today. Council Member Cook? Here. Council Member Kopach? Is here.

Here.

And Council Member Rice. Here.

Thank you. Thank you. Colleagues, does anyone have any announcements? Okay, I see Council Member Baker and then Council Member Cook.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for being here. I just want to say thanks to, as always, to staff for all the work that you put in and our city workers. Yesterday in this room, I'm the chair of the Joint City County Planning Committee. We had a great meeting. There's our public and I would encourage folks to take a look at it. The agenda from yesterday we talked about. First of all, a reminder, on each agenda for JCCPC, there's a table that shows all the ongoing long-range planning projects that are happening, as well as their timelines. So if you're interested in all the different moving pieces for long-range projects, those are there. As you know, we're currently in the process of developing, the planning department's currently in the process of developing the Lakewood small area plan. And yesterday we received updates on the landscape manual that's being updated. It's actually an in-house project. We have the in-house expertise for that, which is fantastic. And plans for the beginning of the Braggtown small area plan. And then the third thing I wanted to mention is something that got a lot of excitement. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember Kopach, as you were there, was the launch of the urban design studio in the planning department, which would be a nimble group of planners working with local designers to democratize the shaping of the built environment and work closely with the community in shaping how we design our city. And then lastly, I've spoken with most of you. A couple months ago, I had proposed to bring a resolution to a subsequent work session for the Durham seniors who've organized around Ashton and Willard Street apartments. We actually placed it on an agenda. However, our May and June agendas were so long, they were taking us late in the evening, up at 1 in the morning, and so ended up not moving forward last fiscal cycle. So I'm restarting that process. I'm proposing to add that resolution back to the next work session so that we can discuss that and put that on the agenda. Simply recognizing the Ashton and Willard Street Apartments seniors who've organized and recognizing their valued tenant voices in those buildings. And I also think that it plays a larger role in a value statement, which is that every human being deserves a right to be in a union and have greater democracy in both their housing and their workplaces. So I'd like to place that resolution on the next work session's agenda. I've shared language with the city attorney, and I'm happy to accept suggestions from colleagues between now and the next work session.

Thank you. Just, Madam Clerk, in the future, when I'm presiding, it's two minutes per council member. Thank you. Since that was not done, obviously, Council Member Cook, yeah, we'll stay with three. Thank you. Go ahead, Council Member Cook.

Confirmed on putting it on the next work session?

Thank you. I would like to take that up after we let everyone have their announcements. Thank you.

I will be brief and will not take three minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. I just have spoken with everyone I think except for you, Mayor Pro Tem. Sorry about that. But I am hoping that we in the next work session or maybe two, but ideally I think in the next work session can ask DHA to come make a presentation to us regarding some action that's happening with Federal agencies and HUD specifically I've been getting a lot of questions from community as I'm sure all of my colleagues have as well about ongoing issues of the Housing Authority and Obviously, that's they're a partner They're not at our at our direction. Neither are we at their direction? but I do think that one thing we can do is hold public space and allow transparency for conversation and When there's major issues ongoing so I will be asking and my colleagues give a thumbs up for just having a presentation and I have spoken with Councilmember wrists who had reminded me that DHA is coming back this fall anyway to do an update on The loan that we had approved last year. I do think that this conversation is going to take a very long time and And I think it's it is timely and needs to be done pretty quickly because there is a an outstanding HUD decision that will be very impactful for us moving forward. So it's my request that these be two separate items. I think that if we do them together, we will be here for many hours. So that is my request that it be done in the next either this coming work session, I think would be more ideal, but I'd be happy to push it out one cycle as well.

Thank you. Any other council colleagues with announcements? I have none either. OK. So let's take up Council Member Baker's request first. Does anyone have any comments or questions? I know I do. So I'm just going to look. Go ahead, Council Member Cook.

We already gave the thumbs up for this to be on. And it is the same resolution that we saw before. OK. Thank you.

Thank you. I would just like to remind folks, and I did say this to Council Member Baker, we have a process for resolutions in our procedures manual. Our procedures manual is updated. other than council members Burris and Copac by this board. And so I would like folks to honor that process. It was not followed for the moratorium. And my understanding is language is supposed to be shared with the mayor and that that is where this starts. I don't believe that that's what happened here, but maybe I'm incorrect, Councilmember Baker. But I just want to remind folks that we did a lot of work to have a thorough, thoughtful, and intentional procedures update. And so that is what my ask of my colleagues is, is to follow the rules. Thank you.

And I'm very glad to have followed the rules on this. Thank you.

So there's a request to bring it at the next session so that we can discuss it. And then it would, so it's two cycles. Because we don't actually make a decision.

It's to place it on the next work session.

Yeah. I guess my question would be for city staff as to what does that agenda look like for next round?

So it would be on the agenda at the next work session to look at the work and look at the resolution.

To look at language and then we would make a decision on if there's the will of the council to put it on a subsequent cycle. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. Mary Grace Sunking with the City Manager's Office. So far, right now, we have 19 items for that agenda with no presentations and four public hearings. But the public hearings would be at our meeting meeting versus our work session.

So we don't have presentations currently? Currently, no. So I'm comfortable with putting it on the agenda since we don't have a bunch of presentations if that's where we are. Go ahead, Councilmember Rist.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, appreciate that Councilmember Baker bringing this forward. This is, I understand the sentiment where this comes from. I know we had talked about this before. And I've heard from both parties in this issue, both the Tenancy Union.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Rist, I am going to interrupt you because I want to see if staff has an update on that. Yes.

Sorry, we will also have a legislative update, which I was just informed of.

So it is a presentation? Yes. How many minutes are folks thinking? And then our Q&A after that. Okay. So it's 19 agenda items and one presentation, which will be between probably 20 and 40 minutes based on, because we have a lot on that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you.

So just to say, so understand where this comes from, the concern for our tenants. I think this council has been pretty clear in the work we do funding eviction diversion in our strategic plan of supporting both affordable housing and non-displacement and in our tenant protection ordinance. We've been very supportive of tenants. I've heard from both sides in this dispute. I just don't think this is the way to do government in the city of Durham. by a resolution. I think this is an issue of tenants and landlords who have a dispute. I think it's important we've directed them to like resolve this. Our housing director is aware of this dispute. She's involved in that. I don't think directing as a city sort of directing one side or other how to perform in this kind of negotiation negotiation is our role as a city or in setting policy. So again I think we support tenants absolutely to the work we've done. I just don't think this resolution as a policy matter is a way to address what is essentially to me a tenant landlord issue. So I will not be supporting this.

thank you council members go ahead council member yeah remember this was raised at a prior meeting uh and i had thumbs up wanting to learn more it sounds like maybe language was distributed but i haven't seen any resolution this point about what is in the resolution. I am meeting with representatives from the the tenants union tomorrow upon and talking to other parties as well. Thank you. Here's language. And so I think I'll be in a better position to evaluate and determine when it comes back. So all right, thanks.

So I'm hearing from two council members that they would like to wait before putting it on a work session, potentially, or not? And in one case, not interested at all. Okay. I just want to make sure. I didn't get a sense from you.

I mean, if you feel like there's space in the work session, I'm happy to evaluate it and then see and understand what is the role of local government in the situation.

Thank you. Council Member Cook?

i would agree with council member kopach i think that the point of putting it on the work session is to have that conversation whether or not the language is able to be modified for something that council members feel comfortable with and if it's not then that can be that conversation and also we can vote against it at that time to me it's already been agreed that we would put it on an agenda so i think that we should honor that and have it we've we have the procedural rules we have a pathway forward those have been followed i think then we are sort of owed the public the conversation publicly and reasons behind voting or not voting on behalf of it and doing the work to potentially change language if needed. So it would be my ask that we respect that decision that was already made and go ahead and hear it at a subsequent session.

Thank you. I guess there's two different conversations happening. There's a conversation on a resolution. There's a conversation on a policy, whether we should be entering into a policy discussion in this way. So I'm trying to understand how do we tease out those. At least that's what I'm hearing. So I'm trying to figure out how do we tease out those two to council member cook's point the resolution you know we hash out language in a resolution all the time that that's pretty straightforward i think the the question that council member wrist is raising is is this a space that we should even intercede in the first place and so i'm trying to figure out um what exactly would we be discussing i guess at this uh subsequent work session just resolution link i mean it seems kind of like um If the question is it's a policy conversation, that's not the same as a conversation on a resolution in language. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I mean, I think what I'm hearing from my colleagues is that it would be considering our role and then also discussing the resolution itself.

So I think we would have to answer the first question before we even get to a resolution. We could do both, right? We can have this conversation, but it would have to be, order of operations for me would be, is this a space we even go into? And then secondly, take up the language that Councilmember Baker has proposed, which I think is, that's a path forward. Councilmember Cook, then Councilmember Rest.

Yeah, and I think what I'm saying is that the language would potentially impact whether or not we feel that it is our role. So I feel like those two things can be taken up all at the same time. I think we had a similar resolution that we did previously with the baby bonds. That was sort of a space where we were determining whether or not that was used for a resolution. I mean, we had a whole conversation about whether or not it should be a resolution and what that did and whether we were giving direction to staff. And so that conversation came up naturally as a part of that. And I think that, again, that the language will impact sort of what we see as our role and then we can vote for or against it depending on if we agree.

Thank you, Councilmember Wrist.

Yeah, so if I understand what you're saying, Mayor Patem, so you're saying that we would, that the agenda item would be to have like sort of these two questions. First, the question about is this the way to, is this the proper item for a resolution by the City Council? If so, then do we agree with the language? Right, because again, to me this is not a policy issue. To me, resolutions are designed to address for the council to express themselves on a policy issue. To me, this is a matter of a tenant-landlord legitimate sort of dispute, and I think that needs to be resolved, but to me it's not a policy issue for the city to weigh in on.

thank you so yeah that is what i'm proposing as a way to answer both questions and if folks are comfortable with that which would then address your um your desire to put a resolution forward so so it'll be an agenda item but we have a in the context of is this the proper way to do that's how I'm interpreting it yes are you comfortable with that Councilmember placing it on the agenda and having that way sure is that okay because it's your you're bringing it forward so I want to make sure you're comfortable with that proposition it's going to be on the agenda and then we discuss it in that context yeah okay um does staff feel like they got what they needed for okay I'm getting a thumbs up thank you uh and then Councilmember Cook I think you had brought up another agenda item potential agenda item It's around a presentation from DHA earlier than what was being proposed, essentially.

Specifically regarding the most recent decisions that were made by the board and the default status with HUD.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Go ahead, Councilmember Kopach. And then I would actually like to hear from after you, Councilmember Rizk, because you are the liaison to DHA, and I also have something to say.

Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. So just an initial question. So by having them come forward with this topic separate from the other topics they would come to talk to us about and on the timing that you're talking about, Councilmember Cook, what would be the objective of having them come forward at that time and what would we be able to then do to kind of influence based on the timing that you've shared?

Sorry, even the buttons are a little bit, okay. Thank you for that question. Yes, so there is a pending decision right now that is more or less in the hands of HUD. There's been a recommendation that's been given by the DHA board. I think that this is something that impacts quite a lot of the residents that we serve. everyone that is impacted by this is a resident of ours that we serve. And I've been getting lots of questions about it. So this is really just an opportunity to have a conversation and make space for this. I think it would go on like many of our presentations, not necessarily with an action item attached to it, as we generally don't get from these informationals, but just an informational for the board to understand, this council to understand where the board is at, where we are in this process that is going to impact thousands of Durham residents and giving an opportunity for those residents to come speak and better understand sort of what our role is in this. If you're like me, you get questions from folks all the time asking me to do things about DHA properties and sometimes I don't have those powers as we as a council don't have power over the housing authority but in partnership I think that it's it's a good idea to have transparency so to understand where they are what decisions they've made what the next steps are that they're looking for and the timeliness is that that decision is coming down from HUD we don't know when is my understanding but There have been recommendations made. And I think that this is a pretty critical time. There potentially are a lot of changes on the horizon. And I think that we should hold space for that. That is one role that we can serve as a city council. We have so many limitations put on us by the state. But one thing that we can do is hold space for transparency and public discourse.

having to jump in yet. Thank you so much, Mayor Pro Tem. And thank you, Ms. Council Member Cook, for bringing this forward. Yeah, so this is, the Housing Authority is a serious and important partner for us, aligned partner around affordable housing. They are not part of the city. They don't report to us. They are a partner, a key partner for us. This is a serious matter before the Housing Authority. The Housing Authority, as many of you all know, has been in troubled status for many years, is working hard to get out of troubled status. This notice of substantial default is sort of like the next step before takeover. If HUD were to take over a Housing Authority, that's bad for City of Durham and for residents who live in housing properties. We don't want that. While we were on break, the staff, the board has been working incredibly hard in responding to HUD's notice of substantial default. In our last meeting in July, we did, the board voted to sort of approve the plan that DHA proposed to send back to HUD. So the staff's been working incredibly hard on this. The community certainly has a right to know what's going on and can know this is all very transparent on DHA's website. I think the matter of us sort of summoning DHA to come present on this from the perspective of the Housing Authority is not a simple informational request. And I'll be completely transparent. Councilmember Cook has been a frequent and vocal critic of the Housing Authority. And even from this diocese suggested mismanagement. So this is not a simple informational request from the perspective of DHA. So in talking with leadership there, they're happy to come as they've said they would do once a year to report back on the city's $1.5 million loan. But the idea that they're being summoned to report on this doesn't feel like a sort of friendly request, to be honest. The Housing Authority staff is happy to come and has been meeting with members of the council since Ms. Brown became the interim director. But I think this request is not received favorably by the Housing Authority. So I'd rather them come as planned later this fall to present on a range of things. We have time on our agendas to do. We can spend as much time as we need to. But yeah, I do not support this request.

Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead, Council Member Baker.

Yeah, I appreciate the proposal from Councilmember Cook and the comments from Councilmember wrist. I support the proposal. I think it is, as you mentioned, Councilmember wrist, DHA is incredibly important. They have autonomy. They are not under the city as as the agency in the way that they operate. And so I think that one way that we can interact with them is by asking questions, learning more, providing commentary, and I think doing that in an open and honest way is actually good government. Maybe there are some things that can be clarified. I think it's both ways. We can learn. We can ask questions, make comments. And so I think it's a very reasonable request given the enormity of the situation. And so that's where I stand. I support the request.

Here's a follow-up to my prior question is that by having an informational session before council, before decision by HUD on this notice of substantial default? What's the impact of having that discussion before or after that decision?

Okay. Thank you for that question as well. And I do want to say that Though the DHA meetings are public, they happen once a month. They are not recorded. There are minutes. They are hard to access as a person who has attempted to access them previously. And I do think also that there is a misunderstanding in the city that DHA is aligned with the city in some way. And I think that that is also a fair misunderstanding because we do interact in a lot of ways. We are very entangled. but to me this is a space we hold a lot of with great power and responsibility whatever we have a lot of privilege here because people interact with these meetings they watch these meetings and they are recorded and i think it's important for folks to know what's going on so that they can voice their opinion And I think that they should have the ability to voice their opinion before a decision comes down. The default has already been established. That was several months ago. Now it is the actions that DHA has taken in response to that default. And I think that those should be presented. And at the very least, if we're not going to have a conversation, but honestly, that I think is the fairest way. to handle this and to give folks the transparency that they deserve, then at the very least the city should have already been sort of sharing these updates as they were coming out. And like council member Riz said, this is a massive deal. It's a massive deal. It is going to impact the city and our public housing moving forward. It's going to impact thousands of our residents. And I just think that they deserve the right to come and interact with that information and potentially pull that item and speak to it and that the council deserves the opportunity to interact with that item prior to the decision being made. So this is really a transparency request. the response from DHA has already been submitted to HUD, so it's not that we're going to impact that response, but HUD is also receptive to other, they will potentially listen to other entities and I think this is the opportunity before the decision comes down if other folks would like to have an opportunity to make their voices heard or even while we're still in this negotiation period to have their voices heard by DHA. I think it's really important. So to me this feels extremely timely and And as Council Member Riss said, this is a massive deal. It's a huge deal. And frankly, the fact that we haven't been sort of promoting it, I think, is problematic. And I'm trying my best to sort of make up for that now to provide this public forum. But this information should be, have been out and needs to continue to be out. And I think that people deserve to interact with it.

Thank you. So I have a few questions. I guess one question I have, and it's just based on what your comments just were, Councilmember Cook, is that some of the intent would be to potentially persuade HUD because of the, for lack of a better word, the application has been submitted. But based on what your comments were is that this could be a way to intercede, and that may not be correct. But that's what it sounded like.

I wish I had any insight into what HUD was doing, but I do not. And I'm not even going to, like, try and speak to this administration. But I do think that residents should understand what has been submitted. And if they would like to submit other things, then they can do that, too. I don't have any idea what HUD takes into account in their decisions. I don't think that maybe anyone has a great understanding of what this administration's HUD is taking into account or what they're even doing in result. It sounds like things have changed. So that is not the intent. The intent really is to just give that information and have meaningful interaction with it.

I have some follow-up questions out of curiosity. So I'll just say that this gives me pause in the sense that this is an independent board. We do not appoint this board. We do not oversee this board. And I would just be out of curiosity, during our break, did you meet with the board chair? Did you meet with board leadership? Were there any conversations that you had as a council member with DHA board members?

There we go I have previously met with board members about this issue. I haven't done it over the break but I'm not I'm not I'm not the liaison and I did speak with the council with council member wrist about this a couple of nights ago and Have been attending the board meetings and so I I don't know why we're talking about it like that we're like dragging them here. DHA is a partner and I would hope would be willing to come present on this massive, massive, massive issue that impacts a lot of our residents. It's not like they're just some random person in the Durham community that I'm like summoning up because they've done something that I don't like. A partner a board that governs quite a lot of buildings that we also interact with in a huge way we had major interactions with them during the city ordinance discussion in the fall and. We have many residents who are tenants of these of these buildings, so it is not it's not like that they're just like a random person that i'm like trying to bully in the world. I would hope that they would be happy to come by and present this information, because it is so critical and so timely right now.

Thank you. I think the fact that DHA is already coming this fall indicates that they're willing to cooperate and willing to come. I don't think that's the question. I'm just trying to understand, generally speaking, when there is a board that's independent, yes, all kinds of boards have come and presented before the city. That's routine, right, especially if there's funding involved, if there's an update to be provided. That is pretty straightforward, and that's actually already planned. So I don't see we can, I'm open to having them come sooner. That seems reasonable to me. I am very wary of being dictatorial. And I also am very wary of creating a space where it's just, what you're saying is that you would like a space for residents to potentially share their experience. I don't, I have not looked, I'm not on the DHA board, so I have not, i get my updates and council member risk provides updates pretty often during his comments here um so i'm open to seeing if they can come sooner on the agenda i'm open for staff to find out when when the original time and see if there's a time that they could come with a little bit more urgency i'm deeply uncomfortable um with with the with the proposal as it stands currently um and that's i'm one council member thank you council member wrist

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thanks, my colleague, for the comments. Yeah, so we talk a lot on this council about housing and in some ways also the need for social housing. This is social housing, y'all. 10,000 residents live in DHA properties every night. Our job as a partner, DHA is not perfect. We're not perfect as a city. To me, our job is to be a good partner to DHA. support them when we can, encourage them to do better if we have to, but not make their lives more difficult. This feels like the action plan is before HUD now. HUD will make a decision on this. DHA is getting support from the Greensboro office on this, has staff that have been assigned to DHA on this process. They're doing the work. For us to schedule a meeting, the plan is public. Anyone can come to any DHA meeting. For every full board meeting, for every committee meeting, there's always a period for public comment before the meeting. These are open public meetings. Anyone can come, and people do come and comment. And so the sense is somehow this is not transparent. We don't know what's going on. These are all open public meetings. This plan is public. And so I just don't want to make their job harder. HUD has to make a decision here. They've got a job to do to make sure they get the proper input. I don't think it's our job to make sure we provide input for HUD's process. We should respect their process. respect our partners, respect the board, and have that conversation, as Mayor Pro Tem said, when that's scheduled. But I don't want to make their lives harder.

thank you could staff just provide if if if sorry I'm not trying to I just want to know because it could help us just when it is because you know if it's November that seems late right if it is earlier in the fall and maybe that's how we kind of come to consensuses move it a little earlier they were going to come anyway on our council member Cook's request but then also not feel that we are interceding in a way that some of us might feel uncomfortable with Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, Bertha Wimbush, deputy city manager. We are actively working with Ashanti Brown at Durham Housing Authority to schedule that within the next few cycles. She is on vacation this week. She'll be back on the 13th, and so I expect to have a date when she returns.

Okay, Councilmember Kopach, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. So, I mean, this seems... like a monumental issue right now that's going to affect a lot of our residents' lives. And so I understand the desire for more conversation, for more information about it. You know, hearing from my colleague who's a liaison to DHA as well about their process, the opportunities for people to have public comment, it seems like the request is we kind of want to have a public forum for DHA, for people to come ask questions and get more information. I mean, have we asked or talked with Ms. Brown about doing a forum, something open about this? I mean, I remember under Director Scott, when there were major issues, when there was the explosion that happened in the MAC, You know, there were public forums that DHA did to invite people to come in to get more information about that specific topic and ask questions. You know, is that something that has been discussed? And perhaps we could give a sense of the council that like we think that would be helpful because it's it may be like During city council work session, you know, partner of DHA isn't the place for a public forum on DHA, but it sounds like there is a desire and a need for a more public discussion of this. So, I mean, I'd like to know if that's something we could suggest and maybe even have it be joint to the extent that it's not an official public meeting of the city council with a quorum of us there, but knowing that you would have members of council there also to be, you know, of support and be present to show that the council does take this seriously and does really care a lot about what's happening. That could be something to suggest as well.

So I'm hearing two suggestions.

As well as moving up their meeting to come to us as soon as we possibly can so they can address all their issues at once.

So I wonder if there's appetite on or ability on community engagement and partnerships department to reach out to DHA staff, see if there's an opportunity to create some kind of public forum so residents can get their answers. their questions answered, and then the second part of that could be to move our informational item closer in the fall, not later in the fall, and then address anything that is with the notice of substantial default. Do colleagues feel comfortable with that kind of approach?

Yes, I think that meets all of the needs. I think part of the conversation is also just for this council to be able to ask those questions, too, so I appreciate the both and. I think that having a public forum sounds like a really important thing, and I will hope that I saw some nodding over here, so I hope that that will be taken up by DHA as well. But, yes, I think it's comfortable to me, but I do think that it should I would like to see it on an agenda prior to the end of September. I think that's two months out, which seems like we should be able to get something in by then. And I think when I had originally said it, I had said either next cycle or the cycle after, and that's one more cycle. So that's not a huge amount of extra time, but I think that the sooner the better would be great.

I saw a head nod from acting manager Winbush that staff heard the request on getting it towards the end of September. Council Member Kopach and Council Member Riss. And then I'm going to wrap this up because we've been doing this for a minute.

And just to say that I have a meeting on the calendar with Ms. Brown. She reached out to talk with me. And so I'd love the opportunity, Council Member Cook, to chat with you in advance of that as well. So I'm even better prepared for that conversation.

Council Member Wrist.

Yeah, thanks for the discussion. Appreciate Council Member Kopech's suggestion of sort of some larger community conversation. I will say again, just so everyone's clear, like there may be, I don't know what concerns you've heard who that's coming from. Certainly for residents of public housing, there's a whole engagement department at DHA that has meetings regularly with all the communities. Not to say the communication is perfect or everybody's there, but they do have, there's a process where they're already communicating with their residents. if the if the question is for other residents outside of DHA properties that may there may be an issue of folks or a concern that folks want to learn more that's that's great so I think the idea of suggesting some kind of form so everyone whether residents or I mean residents of DHA or just residents of the city have their questions answered I think that sounds like a fine idea

Thank you. So can staff follow up with community engagement department? I saw you all back there. Sorry to tell you all stuff. And maybe aligning it with whenever that work session is so it's not that there's a forum so far outside of when there's a work session agenda item. I think it will be helpful to have those closer together than super far apart that's just a suggestion but we'll coordinate on that okay thank you anyone else anything else on announcements okay i'm gonna keep us going thank you all for all of those things items um madam acting manager priority items good good afternoon again mayor pro tem members of city council i have several priority items today for your consideration

The Department of Water Management is prepared to provide an update regarding the drought. Additional information requested during the August 3rd, 2026 work session regarding the following is attached to Granicus under priority items by the city manager, city attorney, and city clerk. Departmental responses to residents' concerns about noise, traffic, parking, permitting, pyrotechnics associated with El Toro Loco, swap meet at 311 South Palm Street, Plum Street, sorry. The additional information requested during the August 3rd, 2026 work session regarding the volumes attached in Granicus under priority items by city manager, city attorney, city clerk, the anticipated timeline for the study to evaluate project delivery services at the city, a comparison of how much other jurisdictions rely on contracting with consultants to augment project management staff. I also have an introduction today of our new audit services director, Vanessa Collins. Agenda item number eight, FY202729, strategic plan. This item includes a presentation. And finally, agenda item 22, development loan commitment for 505 West Chapel Hill Street in the amount not to exceed $6,300,000 with Laurel Street Residential LLC. A presentation is also scheduled for 15 minutes for that event.

Yes.

So I would like to start with the introduction of Vanessa Collins, our new Audit Services Director.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor Williams, Mayor Pertin, Caviera, and members of council. I'm Vanessa Collins. I am the new Audit Services Director. I started on June 29th, so I'm on week six. I come to you from NC State University, so down in Raleigh. I served in the internal audit division there for six and a half years and a variety of roles. And prior to that, I worked at the Office of the State Auditor for about four and a half years, also with an audit. I have experience in public accounting and also at the Real Estate Commission. I'm happy to be part of the city of Durham here. Thank you.

Welcome. Okay, I'm going to keep us going. Madam Attorney, do you have any priority items?

Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I do, but would you like to go ahead and receive a motion to approve the manager's item? Sorry.

Could I get a motion to approve the manager's priority item? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries.

Madam Attorney. Wonderful. Thank you. Mayor Williams, good to see you. Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of the council. The city attorney's office does have one priority item today for closed session. We will keep it very brief. And if you'd like to go ahead and prove the motion language now, I can read that to you. Yes, please. Okay. The motion is to hold a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143.13.1183 for attorney-client consultation concerning the handling or settlement of a claim for damage to city-owned property. Can I have a motion? Yes, I'll make a motion. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK. Motion carries. Thank you very much. And we will go right after our regular agenda items are done. Madam Clerk, do you have any priority items?

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, the city clerk's office does have one priority item. Item number two, participatory budgeting steering committee appointment will be referred back to our office. And that's it for my priority items. But I do have the board report as well. I'm happy to announce that the Durham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission appointment for at large is MacArthur C. Daniels. And for the recreation, urban trails and greenways appointment is Scott Powell. Thank you.

Thank you, good to see you. Okay, now we're gonna move on to public comment. We have several speakers today. I think many folks who registered are now here in person, but I am gonna go ahead and start with our online. I have Deidreana Freeman.

I don't believe she's speaking today, and I don't see her in the queue.

Okay, thank you. Next up, I have Jacqueline Wagstaff.

I'm here.

Good afternoon, Ms. Wagstaff. You have three minutes.

Okay, thank you. I just want to rehash what I brought to your attention on Monday at your work session. I want to... have a conversation and three minutes is not long enough to have it. But I do want to bring it up that the situation with these encampments, I understand and I empathize with the least of our citizens of Durham. But this situation here on Fayetteville Street has to be dealt with with the quickness, the same quickness that you dealt with Oakwood Park. We need to deal with this. And if there was money, according to the manager, city, both Ferguson, he said that The money that was used was called the flexible housing funds, and it's about $2 million. Well, they took some of that money, removed those individuals, put them in hotels, and for whatever reason, they didn't remain there, but that's neither here nor there. I think the same thing should happen here because we have a school, an elementary school, and I want to bring this to your attention. One of the things that I'm very clear on about our homeless population. A lot of our homeless population, when it comes to men, are unregistered sex offenders. And because they cannot find housing in communities, they tend to be a part of these encampments. When you have a school that close to an encampment, there should be a priority. We've had two murders on the trail on the same side of the school. And just a couple of days ago, probably a couple of blocks from there, there was another murder. So there has to be something done about this with the quickness. And I know I've heard Mayor Williams say that we can't, this takes time, but it didn't take that much time to get Oakwood Park shut down. And then also when you shut down Longmeadow Park for the renovation of part of the bond referendum, Nobody presented that to the residents that were living in Vaughn Meadow Park. I didn't see that presentation of finding them places to live and providing them with wraparound services. If you put people in the hotels and you know there are other things, substance abuse and things that go along with that, What are those wraparound services that Mr. Ferguson talks about in that press release that he put out? He talked about the money. He talked about putting them in dignified houses. And he also talked about wraparound services. So if they are wraparound services, why are they getting kicked out? Because they can't follow the rules. Those wraparound services should be helping these individuals. So that's just my take on that. And also, Councilwoman Cook, I'd like to thank you for bringing that up about the housing authority, they do need to come before the public so that we can ask questions. So just I'm going to give you kudos for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Those are all the online speakers I have. Wade Harris is the next person I have signed up for public comment. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. My name is Wade Harris. I'm the owner of the Carolina Firebirds, formerly the Raleigh Firebirds. I'm here to give you guys an invitation to an event that we are a part of over at Mount Zion Christian School on Friday night, November the 6th, beginning at 6 p.m. And it is a community event. We would love to have the mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, as many of the council members and members of the city as possible to come out and support the young people at that school. We became the Carolina Firebirds for the purpose of being able to extend our services and our reach outside of the county of Wake County in the city of Raleigh. And Durham is a close friend of the Carolina Firebirds. And so, you know, we wanted to make sure we took an opportunity to come over and introduce ourselves to this community to see if there are any ways that we can pour into the community that we might be able to support young people, mentoring young boys in the community, providing information related to STEM education, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. mental health and career readiness those are the pillars of success that we believe a professional men's basketball team can help provide to a community and the type of support our goal is to be a conduit between those that have resources with those that need the resources in the community since this is sort of a lighter note from the prior discussions you know we're talking about sports we're talking about young people we're talking about supporting those young people so I know that Durham has a heart for that so I wanted to take a few minutes to come out introduce myself introduce the team let you know if there's anything that we can do to support your city support your kids please reach out to us and we'll make ourselves available thank you if you have any questions I'll entertain them thank you so much for being here with us thank you for the invitation next up I have ideal Ortiz

And I don't know if this is... Okay, you are. Okay.

I want to express gratitude for the memo that was written with some updates about how things are progressing. And I really appreciate the coordinated response across different departments for the concerns that were brought by my neighbors on Monday about our weekends. shenanigans with el toro loco i do want to reiterate that neighbors do want to continue to stay involved in these conversations with our law enforcement whether that be durham police department the sheriff's department planning transportation etc to have conversations about thinking through this as a long-term set of sustainable solutions because we do know that east durham is evolving with more businesses more activity and that does mean a change in the impact to the surrounding community in terms of what the fire marshals mentioned in the note i do want to Push back a little bit about there being no evidence. Sure, they may not have found evidence on the site, but you just had to go online and look up El Toro and you could see all the pyrotechnics on their own videos filmed from the stage posted by event promoters on Instagram and Facebook. I have forwarded those videos to each of you on Instagram in case the staff cannot find it. You can also notice in these videos crowds approaching excess of 1,000 attendees. Given the earlier discussion about carrying on the rules and how language is important, I'd like to insist that violations at these sites at 311 South Plum be documented with more thoroughness and specificity so that future accountability can be more clear and specific. It seems that there have been recurring issues about proper documentation along Pedigree Street by flea markets as evidenced in past court cases with the green flea market. That lack of documentation and specifics on planning does make it harder for business owners, landowners, and residents to resolve issues going forward. I also want to raise a concern that while the flea market may be what this business claims to be, I am deeply worried that what they really are is an outdoor concert venue. as evidenced by the third party ticketing platform where they are selling tickets for $25 to $50 for the first 500 people who come on and buy their ticket. It did not look in those videos like people were there to get great deals at flea market tables. I did not see a whole lot of vending going on as a flea market is. So I'd like us to be very clear to not allow this business to stretch the initial proposal of who they claim to be. in the use of this property, since that would change the impact to surrounding community. And lastly, I'll just say, I always and always have and always will invite you to our little corner of East Durham on Vale Plum and Pedigree Street so that you can see conditions for yourself as they evolve. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next up, I have Erica Pino.

Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be back. I'm Erica Pino. So I would also like to piggyback on the statements made by my neighbor, my friend, that these issues that we experienced at El Toro Loco this weekend affect more than those of us who are able to be here on Monday and today. We have a very diverse neighborhood who are all impacted. And while there were many neighbors who wanted to be here, some certainly could not afford to take multiple times off of work to make their voices heard. So we're taking on that responsibility for them. As we've mentioned, this market was incredibly disruptive to our entire neighborhood for stretches of more than 10 and 12 continuous hours on both days, Saturday and Sunday. Excessive volume, excessive crowds, unsafe road conditions that impacted not only us adults, but the children and the pets in our neighborhood too. I'd also like to take a definition straight from our Durham Unified Development Ordinance on the definition of industrial light zoning, specifically the line that says that few customers, particularly from the general public, come to the site. As evidenced by crowds of upwards of 1,000 people and tickets sold ahead of time, I certainly don't understand how those cannot be seen as members from the general public. Furthermore, specifically documented and uses not included in industrial light zoning are, and I begin the quote, any use that is potentially dangerous, noxious, or offensive to neighboring uses in the district or those who pass on public ways by reason of smoke, odor, noise, glare, fumes, gas, vibration, threat of fire or explosion, emission of particulate matter, interference with radio, TV reception, radiation, or any other likely cause, which therefore directs us to see the definitions for heavy industrial use. And so I ask, I don't understand how this particular use of this site can fit into the definition of industrial light. Please note that this is also adjacent to multiple residential properties. And so we ask that the UDO be enforced. We also ask that the major issues of noise, illegal parking, which caused very unsafe roadways, and especially in the case of pyrotechnics being present, would not allow for the passage of fire trucks and emergency services through the roads. our complaints be taken seriously and responded to because multiple of us did call the non-emergency line expecting a response or help. So, and then in conclusion, multiple of us residents have been involved since early March with planning on this issue and it has culminated in exactly what we were assured would not happen in both collaboration with planning, understanding the UDO and working with the business owners. Thank you so much.

you quick question on that real quick it was just for the record and i i'm being made aware of this rather recently is this the first time it's happened is it a recurring event and were there permits applied for i hadn't read the memo i don't know who can answer that question um would that be planning or events or And if no one is able to answer now, just if we can get that to me. I'm curious. I was just made aware of it.

Hi, Mary Grace Stoneking, city manager's office. I'm just speaking for what I do know based on collecting responses from the different departments. So I do know a site plan was required for the site and was approved on July 7, 2026. There were no permits for fireworks based on the response from fire. Additionally, there was no permit needed for this site for special events from DPD, although I believe But they are still subject, obviously, to the City of Durham noise ordinance. And then the owner did state to the police when they went to visit that they did have a permit issued by the Durham County Sheriff's Office. But that wasn't confirmed with the Sheriff's County

apartment from the Sheriff's Department for Okay, okay. All right. All right.

I probably have that.

But I don't even expect you to know. Listen, I get it. I was cursed out for canceling bartoberfest. And I just found out about that too. So is this the first time this has happened? Opening weekend. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. The next public speaker I have is Rachel Fryer.

Good afternoon, Mayor Williams, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, and members of council. My name is Rachel Fryer, and I am a long-term Durham resident. Glad to be here with you again after Monday's work session. A lot has already happened this morning, so I am abbreviating my comments, and I will follow up individually. I do want to thank the members of council who have been so responsive to our questions and concerns regarding noise complaints and safety violations at the corner of Vale Street and Plum Street. There are so many competing priorities for your attention, and we are so grateful for your time and support. There has been a lot of progress in the last few days in coordination with the police department, the fire department, and the planning department. I want to offer special thanks to Sarah Young and Kirk Archer, who were very gracious in answering a lot of questions. in the midst of very very long days filled with meetings it goes a long way to build trust with the city to connect with folks who are doing such a good job and listening to what we have to say we are a very active group of neighbors on vale street as you can see from my neighbors who live right across the street we ask for continued vigilance on noise complaints unsafe traffic conditions and the residential buffers that are so important to all of us living well together with so many mixed uses side by side, the approved site plan should be enforced. Lastly, I want to echo what Ideal said. We invite you to come and visit us in Old East Durham on a Saturday morning. So many of the biggest topics that are discussed here at Council are happening in real time on our streets, such as zoning changes, code enforcement, affordable housing, public safety, community building, and lots of creative local entrepreneurship and more. Please come and see what's happening for yourselves. We welcome you to come any time. And I do want to do a plug. We have a new coffee shop that just opened, Betty and Vi's, and they have the best London fog I have had in Durham. Ideal is the one who first told me about that. So come have a chat with us. We're happy to communicate more with you. Thank you so much for your time. I hope the rest of the meeting is just incredibly efficient and so fast. Good luck. Thank you for your time and care.

Thank you so much. Those are all the folks I have registered to provide public comment today. Next up, Madam Manager, do you want to do the water update? OK. I'm sorry. I'm realizing that we do have more folks in person. I'm going to go ahead and let the water report go, and then we'll go back to these other folks. Sorry. Two different pieces of paper. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, members of Council, Don Greeley, Water Management. I'm here to give an update on the water shortage that we currently have, the drought that's going on. um things have definitely improved the rains that we've seen the last several weeks have made a significant improvement to our water supply however we still have ways to go to improve our water storage and looking forward to having continual rains the rains that we have had have been able to saturate the soil that have allowed the other more recent storms to run off into our streams This is the current condition, the North Carolina Drought Management Council drought. In northern Durham County, Orange County, Roxborough is where our watersheds are. So that map has been exceptional drought in our watersheds for the last several weeks. And as you can see here, it's now moved into severe and extreme, so it's stepped down, which is tremendous for us. As I said, some of that rain has been coming. Although more rain has been hitting around our watersheds than what's been in our watersheds, it has made a significant improvement. As you can see here, the red line shows our storage the last few weeks, you can see it's gone up. So much improved as today we're about 55%. The blue line that you can see the solid blue line is our typical response outside of drought years. So you can see how far away we are from our typical years with how our lakes refill as we go through the water year. Over the last month or so, I'd like to send an appreciation to all the residents in Durham and all the commercial establishments for adhering to the Stage 2 restrictions. Those are a challenge for Durham because we have tremendous water-wise use in Durham. So we're in the top 10% of for the low water use for our residents in the country, and for our residents to cut back. I know it's been a challenge, but I want to reach out and thank all of our customers and all of our commercial customers as well. As you can see here, the trend is down over the last 30 days. Our goal was 20% reduction. We achieved 14%. which is still great. We would have liked to have seen more, but as I said, it's been a challenge to our customers, considering how well they, how wisely they used their water to start with. As of today, or yesterday, or two days ago, the running average for demand from our reservoirs is about 23 million. We currently have 219 days of supply, and that's up from 145, so a big change there. We are currently getting 9 million gallons a day from the town of Cary and 4 million gallons from the Tier Quarry. We were getting water from Owasa as well, but that was waiting for the town of Cary to finish their water plant improvements for maintenance before they could ramp up to up to nine. So now that Cary was able to start giving us the full nine MGD that we'd like, we were able to discontinue getting water from Owasa. And at this point, I also want to extend the city's appreciation to Owasso, the town of Chapel Hill in Carrboro, and the town of Cary for being able to supply water through this time. So we are currently doing the, because of the improvements, we are currently doing the analysis to see if we could start scaling back, getting the water from our neighboring utilities. And we should know a little bit more by the end of the week if we can start scaling back. To be able to come out of Stage 2 restrictions, we have to, through our modeling, there's a 95% chance that within the next 10 weeks that our usable storage would rise to 95%. So we're still waiting for that trigger to happen before we can move out of Stage 2. so and until if we have these steady rains that's probably not going to get us there if we have a heavy tropical storm or the residue of a storm come up through then that might bump us up so we can move out of stage two but we don't anticipate probably coming out of stage two till either early fall or later in the fall at the earliest so with that I just open it for questions

Thank you. Any questions? Go ahead, Mayor Williams.

Thank you. Thank you for that information. I have more of a legal question. So I'm getting a lot of calls from folks that are in communities, members of HLAs, and they are they're getting fined for not watering their lawn. Now, I have my personal thoughts on HOAs. For you all who live in HOAs, I don't know how you do it, but that's on you. But they're getting fined, and I know that they're governed by the state or something like that. I'm wondering if our restrictions supersede the HOA's bylaws or whatever, because folks are actually getting legally, financially fined by not watering their lawn. And they're saying, hey, look, I cannot water my lawn. The city has restrictions. The HRA president, this is on three occasions. Well, you can hire someone to come in and do it. It's still the water here locally. So how are we, how do we, what should I say to them out of authority?

Mr. Mayor, you know I love it when you spring a surprise on me. There's so much going on today, I'm sorry. So my inclination, I am not by any stretch well-versed in homeowners association law, and I don't follow it that closely, but I would think that an actual municipal ordinance would supersede a restrictive covenant that applies to a property. So my inclination is that these homeowners should be appealing any fines that their HOA is assessing and pointing to the law that would prohibit them from watering their lawns in compliance with HOA standards but these are private matters between private parties and I always hate to tell individuals that they need to retain their own counsel but that's that's the attorney's office cannot advise them on these matters

Council Member Cook. Can you share those slides with us? Absolutely. Thank you. That was very good. I mean, I knew we were going to say, so I'm not surprised by anything that was on there. But I thought that particularly the graph that showed where we are generally at in non-drought years was helpful for those of us who are visual learners. So thank you for the presentation. We'll get those to you later today.

Thank you.

And I just want to uplift the camaraderie amongst the other municipalities. We have stepped up and provided support to other municipalities in a time of need, especially Western North Carolina. So I just want to publicly thank our neighbors for supporting us on this water supply issue. Great.

Thank you. Go ahead, Council Member Baker.

Yeah, I want to second that as well. Thank you to Carrie and Chapel Hill. Just one question. First of all, thank you for all of this work that you've done. I remember early on in the drought, Raleigh put in place measures to cut back on water use. And we were delayed in that. Something wasn't triggered. We hadn't reached a point where we felt it was necessary. Do you think that was right? Do you think our policies around that are sufficient? Or do you think that we need to take a look at when we want to?

reevaluate when we want to enforce um more strict uh water uh restrictions yeah good good question um you know when we we have a water shortage response plan that we plan in advance based on the as much information that we've had and this is the plan that we invoked during this strip we will certainly be taking the information that we've learned and additional because it's been a couple years since we updated that and additional data that we'll have and we'll be taking another look and seeing how the response of our customers are to reevaluate our water shortage response plan. I think when you have an event like this and you have a plan in place, it's always good to follow your plan because that's what you think, the best information that you had to prepare the plan, you should follow that. Now you can try to adapt in the middle of it, but you should follow your plan. Once you come out of that, That's when you really sit down and re-evaluate what your plan was, how effective it was, how you tweak it, and that's what we fully intend to do. The City of Raleigh, they hit their trigger early before us, so they invoked their water storage response plan, and the rains have helped them, so their water supply is back up to 83%, ours is at 55%, so they were able to hit their trigger to come out of their drought. But we will definitely be looking at our plan and seeing where we can update it and tweak it. So.

Council Member Rust.

As part of the difference in triggers also, it's a different source of water, right? Raleigh, it's Falls Lake, we're higher up in the... We're higher up in the watershed.

Certainly both of our rivers supply Falls Lake. But there are other rivers and streams that feed Falls Lake as well. But also some of the storms that have come in have just kind of hit those other areas rather than our watersheds. So they've been able to bounce back faster. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the update. And thank you to all your staff and to residents for tightening their belts because we know it's hard. For all of us who have lots of gardens and plants, it was fun times this summer.

Absolutely. Thank you.

I have a series of speakers. I apologize that y'all were on two different sheets of paper and I missed the sheet of paper. So first, I'm just going to call folks because there's several folks. So I'm going to call you up by three. So first I have Tolvi Jackson, Cheryl Brown, and Yolanda Mitchell. Good afternoon. The micro... Is that the order that you... Did you have an order in mind? Oh, okay. Okay. So, yeah, that would be great. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. You have three minutes.

All right, good afternoon. First, I would like to thank the Mayor, members of Durham City Council, City Manager, Officer Butler, of Precinct Four, in his absence, special shout out to Mr. Emmanuel, and members of our great community for entrusting and assisting me in being able to speak today. My name is Tavi Jackson and I'm here just basically as a concerned citizen of the city of Durham. I'm a parent, an educator, a community advocate regarding, and I'm here regarding the growing homeless encampment on Fayetteville Street. I'm pretty sure we all know that it's a concern because I have heard it brought up a couple of times. and the interest on American Tobacco Trail near Fayetteville Street School. The issue is no longer simply about homelessness. It's become a serious public safety crisis that needs immediate action. Everyday children, teachers, parents, NCCU students, residents, bus riders, travelers, travelers use travel through this area. Instead of feeling safe, they are forced to walk through tents, open drug use, drug paraphernalia, excessive traffic and behavior that creates fear and uncertainty. Families should not have to question whether it is safe for their children to walk to school, walk to and from school, or use one of Durham's most treasured public trails. within the past several within the past several months. This area has experienced multiple drug overdoses, one that I have personally experienced myself and homicides on March 9th, 2026. A man was fatally stabbed on Feville Street and a couple of months later another man was stabbed. What we're saying, I know that this is an ongoing issue and I know that the city did address it after the first murder, but I want to be clear that this is not a statement against the individuals experiencing homelessness. Every person that wants it deserves dignity, compassion, and access to mental health, housing, health services, and addiction treatment. The city of Durham, I feel, has an obligation to make safe access to public parks, greenways, and respond to public health hazards. What I am requesting, respectfully, is that we do something about the criminal activity, we remove the hazardous waste and trash, we restore safe public access, and most importantly, I respectfully request the immediate removal of the unsafe homeless encampment, which is 50 to 100 yards of Fayetteville Street Elementary School. As an educator, I spend every day teaching students about safety, responsibility, and community. yet I cannot explain why our community continues to allow conditions that place children and families and residents at unnecessary risk. As children deserve to be safe in their route to school, our teachers deserve to be safe in their workspaces. I do know that there is a problem, and now that we all have realized that it's a problem, I'm willing to do whatever I can. I don't know if there's a citizen community, but whatever I can in order to help resolve the issue. Mr. Emanuel has my information. If y'all need me for anything, let me know because I really think people in the community needs to join you guys and try to figure this out.

Thank you so much for being with us here today.

Thank you.

Thanks. Next, I have Cheryl Brown.

Good afternoon. I'm Cheryl Brown. I'm a lifelong resident of the Fifth Street Corridor and a business owner and the owner of a five-star preschool. in the NC Pre-K system. I'm here to express concerns around the encampments at Fayetteville Street and Pilot Street entrance to the American Tobacco Trail, and I request a coordinated action. The conditions at this location are impacting public safety, trail access, and economic development. While the city has made important investments in revitalizing the Fayetteville Street corridor, and additional improvements are planned, current conditions at this gateway undermine those efforts. Residents have long raised concerns about loitering near the bus stops in this area. More recently, there have been serious safety incidents that have been mentioned several times today. There is not one encampment, though. I want us to be clear. There are two encampments. One is very visual from Fayetteville Street traveling south to the right. There is another closer to Elmira Park that is a little bit more hidden to the left. So I want us to be clear about both of those. I pass through this corridor multiple times a day and remain concerned about safety and the perception that this key community entrance. And as a preschool owner, I also see the impacts on families considering enrollment at my school. Some parents have expressed hesitation after driving through this area, which directly affects early access to early childhood education and local business vitality. I do want to say that I appreciate the city's efforts in cleaning it up. And you have done it so far, I know within the last month, twice. Yesterday, it was cleaned, and about a couple of weeks before, it was cleaned. There were sofas. There was all kind of furniture that was blocking the trail. So I do appreciate those efforts. I would like, if necessary, for us to do a cross-departmental review so that we understand Councilman Cook, COPAC, what police services and fire and EMS calls are within this radius? How much are we expending in services for this situation? I would like for us to provide this information so that it gives us data to understand the priority that this area deserves. My intent is to support a constructive path forward. The issues affect public safety, public health, economic opportunity, and equitable access to a valued community asset. With collaboration between residents, businesses, and the city and county, based on mental health services, I believe we can develop solutions that support the individual's needs and the broader community. The residents, children, families, and businesses in the corridor deserve a safe and welcoming environment. I respectfully ask that this matter be treated as a priority. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here. Next up, I have Yolanda Mitchell, Italo Medelios, Mary Rogers. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

You have three minutes.

Yes. On to Mayor Williams, Pro Tem Mayor, and the rest of the council members. My name is Yolanda Mitchell. I have been a resident of Durham all of my life. I love Durham. And when I moved downtown, my daughter actually found the apartment complex. I was really excited about it. But since I've been there since 2022, I've been fighting along with others for safety and cleanliness and other issues. And what I'd like to do is to first get to the meat of the matter. What we presented to DHIC is a memorandum of agreement. Collective bargaining, and I'll read it very short. DHIC hereby agrees to engage in a good faith collective bargaining process with the DHIC, with the tenant union, to reach a mutually beneficial agreement within a reasonable time frame. Number two, no-fault evictions and lease non-renewals. DHIC hereby agrees not to issue no-fault evictions or non-renewals of existing tenant lease agreements during the collective bargaining process. And this was denied. Let's flip a few years back. We started meeting in our community. We invited management to come. They did not choose to come to the meetings that we started. Later, I had a community in safety for about six years. access to funds to help out with the community had different ones to come from the city to talk to the tenants to basic concerns the management did not continue did not decide to come to the meetings until we reached out to the community until we reached out to other people who were willing to listen to us then they started their own monthly meetings where we were given sometimes promises fluff. They would do a little bit to appease us, but it was not enough for concrete things to be put in place where we were guaranteed that we get what we would like. And therefore, um, we have been continuing to fight when I say fight. I mean, literally having gang members trying to take over the building, asking the police being told that this was the building where they got more police calls than anywhere else in Durham. Do you know how that made me feel as a Durhamite and raised up in this area? And I want to be and we want to be a part of the solution to the problem. So the Patan was passed from me to Ms. Cynthia Hopkins, who encouraged us to go to the Tenant Union Association, whereby we worked hard to form a tenant union. And we ask for your support in helping us to reach the goal that we need for the memorandum to be considered. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. You have three minutes.

Good afternoon. Hi, everybody. So I won't take up the whole three minutes, but my name is Idole Medelius. I'm a general counsel for North Carolina Tenants Union. And I'll speak a little bit about the resolution. I'm very glad that we're going to be opening up the discussions and talking about it in the next agenda. So I know. Thank you, Councilmember Kopach. We're meeting tomorrow. Senora Mayor Pro Tem, we're meeting, I think, on the 20th. So I'm excited to start those conversations. The resolution, I want to be very clear, we drafted that in a way that doesn't take a side. All we're asking for in the resolution is that negotiations between the seniors and DHIC should be done in good faith. that there is no retaliation right now. We have an eviction that's been clearly retaliatory right now. Somebody just got served this morning who's in this room right now. Somebody actually died in that building after being locked in a laundry room and had a heart attack. So this is about life and death. This is very, very serious stuff. And all we're asking for the city council is to make a statement that unions are good, that there should be good faith negotiations, and that those negotiations should be memorialized in the lease. That is it. That's all we're asking for. So we're excited to have these conversations. I hope that we can get to the next work session. And if there's some language that we need to modify, let's talk about it. Most of you have known me for a few years now. I'm a reasonable person. I'm not here to scream and yell. Let's get into a room, discuss it, and I hope this thing gets passed. So thank you all so much.

Thank you. I have Mary Rogers, Valeria Ramos, and Shelva Washington. Good afternoon. You have three minutes.

Good afternoon and thank you for having us and I say us because I'm representing not only myself but a community, a community of people who want to have a say, who want to be represented, who want to speak out loud and say we are on a mission. We are on a mission for a safe, clean, vibrant, and healthy environment, a healthy community, a mission where we are involved, a mission where we have a say, a mission where we are involved, a mission that help us and other generations to come and other communities like ours I represent Ashton Seniors in Action. We developed this because we were getting a lot of lip service. We were getting a lot of promises and all of that ended up saying nothing. Nothing was happening. But however, we kept pushing forward and now we do see progress. But guess what? We want more. We want the community to be involved. We want our union members to be involved, which we are. We want the city council to pass this resolution because it helps bridge a gap between management, tenants, and it brings us all together. We are a bull city. And we want to keep it clean, safe and an environment that we can trust each other. And by building this resolution and by passing this resolution, it brings us together. It brings us united. It makes us safe because we're scared. Some people are scared to come forward and say, Hey, I'm having this problem. I'm having this problem. But we're here to stand up and we're here to say, Let's get it together. Let's make it happen. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Valeria Ramos? Good afternoon. You have three minutes.

All right. Hello. Thank you. Salutations to Mary Williams and the council. My name is Valeria Thompson Ramos, and I'm a 72-year-old resident at the Ashton apartments and i'm also a member of the action uh ashton seniors in action tenant union that we formed and um i want to really just hone in that we formed this union because we needed a voice we had to speak up some of us as mayor said are afraid but we We made the hard work of organizing our neighbors because we care about our homes and we care about our community. But management refuses to respect our collective voice or meet us at the negotiating table. So, therefore, we need a moral majority of a city resolution. A formal resolution from the city of Durham sends a powerful message to corporate landlords and property managers. You cannot ignore organized tenants, and you cannot retaliate against people who are asking for basic human dignity. There are several things that are happening in our building in terms of faulty doors. We have a growing rodent infestation that we can see right from our windows. We have delayed regular housekeeping and only even recently we've had an issue of making matters worse with management recently weaponizing paperwork, giving elderly, disabled, and fixed income residents only a single week to complete complex recertification documents. This severe administration burden causes intense panic and threatens our fragile neighbors with sudden homelessness. homelessness. When we speak out, we face threats and retaliation. We need more. We need your support. We need you to review this resolution and spur us on it so we can have conversations and have pride in our living spaces that We hold on to right now. It has been the history of this council to be supportive of tenant protections, and we're asking you to do so again today and in the future. We do not. We need the majority authority of a city resolution to help us in our situation. Thank you.

Thank you. Excuse me, Shelva Washington, and then Greg Warren, Amanda Wallace, and Reyna Rusenko.

Thank you for having me. We appreciate it. Just want to reiterate that we all need your support for this resolution. You have spent many dollars to ensure that citizens of Durham have affordable housing and we want to keep that what we can see today from different ones that this is needed in the city of Durham. But we also need to be respected as citizens, as taxpayers that we once were. We also, it's a human rights that we have affordable housing and that we be respected and have clean, safe, and secure housing. That is our issue. We have had a major security breach. Some of our tenants are, have disabilities and also some are visually impaired which would cause problems of this nature because of the doors malfunctioning as well as access to EMS and emergency services which they do not have. as far as entering the building because it's supposed to be a secure building. So what we are fighting for as this union is that all our residents be safe, secure, and also dignified in their living spaces. So again, we look to City Council to help us to pass this resolution, hold accountability to developers who are giving these contracts to build affordable housing to make sure that they're in operation as far as making it really affordable and also secure and also coming to the table to negotiate our needs since we are the residents that live there. Thank you.

Thank you. Greg Warren, Amanda Wallace, and then Raina Rusenko.

Good afternoon, Mayor Williams, Madam Rotem.

Good afternoon.

And members of council. I'm here as a member of your 505 working group to endorse the proposal that you're going to hear shortly from Sarah Venas. We met, I think, for six times in a very short period of time. I think that it was really a great process that we went through, working with a number of different city staff and departments to come up with a proposal that we think was viable for the 505 site for affordable housing. And you'll hear more about that from Ms. Venus shortly, but I think that it hits on all of our recommendations. We propose that, first of all, that the city move quickly to select a developer with a proven track record in Durham, and they have done so. They've selected Laurel Street Residential, which some of you are familiar with, has done some very good work in Durham recently. We also recommended that basically you develop roughly around 80 apartments with structured parking so that we'd minimize the footprint of the affordable housing, giving the city more options down the road for additional uses on the site. And again, that's what you have before you. So I think the process really worked well, and I'm delighted to see that hopefully with your approval that you'll be able to move forward with new affordable housing on this site. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Amanda Wallace? Good afternoon.

Okay, so my name is Amanda Wallace, and I really hate being here, as you all know, but I have to remember that I have to come and talk, not just for, well, I'm not really talking to you, but the people online and the people in the room. And I also heard that people were gonna be coming today to push, to sweep the Fayetteville Street encampment, which will further harm more people, so I'm here. And it looks like Cheryl Brown already left, but she spoke about trying to sweep the Fayetteville Street encampment, but she also did not name that she was the chair of the Hayti Promise CDC. So I'm wondering why they can't use that $10 million that they got to help people versus coming in here telling the city to remove them. But I guess that's a crazy question. So the city's PR machine has been busy trying to paint a narrative that the people who were calling Oakwood Park home were helped by the city and provided temporary housing. I'm here to call bullshit. On the morning of July 21 city staff forcibly swept Oakwood Park and put a makeshift gate up and displaced people and help people's belonging belongings hostage. People still have not gotten their belongings back. I also want to note that no one from the city reached out to have any meaningful engagement with people who have been organizing at the park. And again, Hart, in collaboration with the city, dangled the hope of housing over people's head to lure them out of the park just long enough to put the fence up. And so my question that I hope people are asking is how many people who the city says that they helped are still in this temporary housing? I saw that y'all paid for a little sign that said that y'all did something and put it on the fence. But how many people did you actually help and that are still being helped? And from what I'm hearing, people have already been kicked out of those temporary housing and put on a waiting list. So again, what did you really do? I also have a question for the people who came to these meetings crying about the park needing to be cleared, like the wife of the scrap exchange, the person that owns the scrap exchange. How many of their kids are playing at the park with the fence up? So how did this solve the problem that you were coming to cry about? So I know people are in their feelings about encampments, and it's inconvenient, and it's an eyesore. But if people had the resources that they needed, we wouldn't be here. And it's this government that's hoarding it. And so people who come and they say, this is what we need and our kids need to be safe, we really need to stop turning on each other and we need to understand who our enemy is, which is you, which is this government that's hoarding the resources. So in summary, if the city says that they did it, they're probably lying.

Thank you. Last speaker I have is Reyna Rusenko.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Raina Rusenko. I'm here to speak about the clearance at Oakwood Park on July 21st. For two months, I regularly spent time at the encampment and know many people there. After the clearance, the city of Durham posted signs and made statements saying that they will restore and safely reopen the park. The city's use of words like safe has implied that the presence of unhoused people makes parks dangerous and unusable. This feeds into tropes that fuel prejudice. Signs posted at the park also state that all park residents are in interim housing, which I and city staff involved know to not be true. First, many people from the park did not receive interim housing only because they were not in the park at the few times the city staff visited. Second, people given interim housing were placed in hotels far from the park with no food or other resources. It doesn't take an expert to know that such a situation is not sustainable. And many people were forced to leave the hotels in less than a week. It seems they were being set up to fail. To be clear, I am deeply supportive of programs for housing, and I believe all people unhoused in Durham should have immediate access to safe housing, basic necessities and much more. I am upset about the clearance at Oakwood because it appears that the city has adopted a strategy of selectively and haphazardly housing people as a means to distract from a practice of clearing public spaces. The fact that Durham pays for hotels but not food or necessities, all while buying glossy signage for the park falsely advertising that all people are in housing, suggests that the hotels are PR. It seems that there is more concern for the palatability of the clearance than for the dignity of the people displaced. Because I support programs for housing, I want honesty and accountability for how they're being implemented. When they're poorly done, the people with the least suffer the most. i verified with one household that although they were forced to leave the hotel the city has indeed kept its promise to put them on a wait list for housing they did wonder why they couldn't have been put on the wait list months ago while they had a place to stay in the park instead now they've been displaced twice it's cruel for the city to clear public spaces housing can be provided without clearances and it is a wrongful flawed approach to think that providing housing to a select few makes clearances affecting the many all right In the message, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, an inhumane system demands inhumans and so it produces them in stories. The people displaced from Oakwood Park can tell us about inhumane systems and how they have been treated as if they were inhuman each time the city has cast them out. It is not our unhoused neighbors who are dangerous. People who tell stories about them to make them seem so in an effort to erase them are dangerous. And that includes a city government that finds ways to hastily erase unhoused persons from public spaces rather than ensure each and every person first has the resources needed for their own dignity and survival. Thank you.

Thank you. Now that is actually all the public speakers I had today.

Yeah, thank you. First, let me just say I appreciate living in a country where we have a freedom of speech and you can say whatever it is that you'd like to say. But I do think that there needs to be, I can appreciate multiple perspectives. That's just a part of the public process. But I want to also, when I think about the messages that I get after certain comments are made in public comment, or whether it's an email or any other time, the messages that I get They're very impactful, what's said and also in response. People really care in this city. I don't appreciate the hard work that folks put in, whether they're in this government or elected to make policy for this government. And also the folks that actually are working in these really you know, tough spaces on a daily basis. As it was said earlier, the city is not perfect and no individual is perfect. But I do think that part of our job is to protect the integrity of public policy and also protect the public domain for the ability to have these open dialogues and conversations. Ryan, are you in the room? Could you could you come up here, please? Because what I don't want is I could appreciate the comments that were just recently made because that's their perspective. The other side of it is we don't want folks living in those conditions. The other side of it is how do we keep folks from being in those conditions? you know, measures in place and funding in place, but public policy just does not move as fast as the urgency exists. But we should also be able to have, you know, things in place to have rapid response. The residents that have come in today to speak about Oakwood have valid points. The residents that have come in today to speak about Fedville and the ATC Trail at Pallet Street entry, they have valid points. And to be fully transparent, I agree with it all. But I don't want to skew the conversation as if where the resources are lying, then that's the issue. Where the resources are, that's the issue. So if you could just please talk about the work that you all are doing and have done so we can have that as factual record.

Happy to. Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Madam Manager, Members of Council, Ryan Smith, Director of the Community Safety Department. I'll start by talking about Oakwood Park, then I can go a little more broad. So first let's talk about Oakwood Park. Our staff began engaging Oakwood Park a week before the decision to close the park. We sent street outreach multiple times in order to understand who was staying at the park. On the morning of the park closure, our staff arrived at 630 a.m. without any force and offered people the voluntary option of going to hotels. We partnered with the transportation department and had an access van. The people who were at Oakwood Park were very supportive and appreciative of the idea of going into hotels. And without any pressure or force, everyone boarded a bus by 9.30, was transported to the hotel. Our staff, street outreach, have been at that hotel at least five days a week and on call over the weekends and on nights. As we transported folks to the hotel, the staff were very clear about understanding what the rules in that hotel are. They are not our hotels. They're not our rules. It is true of every part of our system, whether we like it or not, whether we agree with each of them or not, that in our shelters and our public supportive housing and in our hotels, there are rules that people are asked to comply with. Our job in that was to make sure people were clear and to be there every day and to try to be a buffer between the hotel where we could at communicating expectations to staff and problem solving where we could. The hotel was not quick in that it did not put people out on the first instance. There were multiple instances. And we'll start with the numbers. We provided hotels to 18 people representing 11 households. A majority of folks that we put into hotels are still in hotels. Double check my answers. So we currently have seven households and 10 people who are still in the hotels. Four households were asked by the hotel to leave. When that happened, there was one household that involved children. We worked with that family to make sure that those children were able to find housing with other family members who were in this area and they were housed. Let me keep going. We are continuing to work. One thing I want to underscore is the commitment that we made when we approached folks at Oakwood is that they would be part of the next housing sprint, which is starting next week. That commitment holds whether or not the hotel asked them to leave or not. We are continuing to work with folks. That housing sprint will begin next week, and our goal is everyone who is a part of that will find housing within four to six weeks of the housing sprint starting. We have already conducted one of these. We've conducted one sprint with families back in the spring, and we conducted another one at the outset of this work over the summer. And the last one that we just held, we were able to provide, there were 15 people we were working with who were living unsheltered, and 14 out of 15 were able to find housing, housing that we are paying for for a full year and providing housing stabilization case managers. The other person wanted to go at a slower pace, and we have honored that. In the previous one with families, we had 11 families who were at a hotel during the winter storm. We got all of those families into housing. They are still in housing, and we also got five more families as a result of that sprint. This work started in earnest on July 1st. Someone asked the question, why weren't these resources provided earlier? Because we had a plan in place and we asked council to fund it and those funds became available to us on July 1st. And our staff, who I'm incredibly proud of, have been working very diligently to put in place a program. I want to be very clear about our goals. The North Star of the Community Safety Department is that everyone who is unhoused finds housing. We have put a timeline on that. We put that timeline, which we transparently said to you is based on resources that are not only the resources of the city and the county, but also that we will need from community. We want to make sure that homelessness is rare and brief within five years, by which I will define as if anyone is experiencing homelessness, we have a system that is robust and funded well enough that we can move them into housing within 30 days. We have work to do there. It cannot all happen at once as much as we would like it to. We have over 140 encampments. We have also stated publicly in our plan that we have asked council and the county and others to fund that if funded in full, we believe that we can provide the same type of support across every encampment in three years. That's gonna take a lot of work. That goal is for every, the goal is not hotels. Hotels is a bridge to housing. Our commitment is housing and that's what we're working on. I wish, I wish everyone in our department would prefer that we could find a solution today for everyone who is encamped and move everyone into interim housing and the people would be able to stay there. I'm just here to tell you that the practical realities are complicated. Sometimes as much as we're working on that, we're not able to do that in every occasion. We're very humble about this work. I think this is difficult work and work that we're continued to commit to to learn about and to do better. We're doing this with our partners as we are conducting these housing sprints. We're working with families moving forward with housing, with urban ministries. to do this work. It's going to take a system-wide work. I'm very proud of the work our department has done. I'm proud of the fact that no one was forcibly removed from Oakwood Park, and no one was arrested as a part, and we gave at least everyone a chance to be in a hotel. I want to keep doing better at this work, but I'm very clear on what our North Star is. I feel that we're living into that North Star in as much as we can all get better at this work. But the facts are that most people that we put into hotels are still there, that anyone that was asked to leave the hotel, our staff is still working through in this next sprint to find housing. The next topic that has come up is about Fayetteville. So we are aware of that encampment and many other encampments. Our staff is trying to work as quickly as we can through encampments to get to housing. We can't do that all at once. I will tell you why Oakwood as opposed to other. Oakwood had by far and away more 311 and 911 calls than any other encampment in the city. Oakwood Park has also been around for a long time too. This is not to debate the merits of which encampment. Every single encampment and every person who is living unhoused and unsheltered deserves safe, dignified housing, and we are working on that. We do not have the resources or capacity to do it all at once, but if council and the county and others want to do that, we'll put everyone in hotels as quickly as we can. We could buy hotels, but these are a matter of resources and resources that we have to divide among many other competing issues. But in terms of anything that is, there are multiple paths to get into the housing sprints. The main one is we have a single entry point that people who are unhoused can be a part of, the Homeless Management Information System and Durham entry point. Everyone in that goes through what's called a housing barriers assessment that looks over a variety of different needs. And based on the level of need, those folks are higher up on the list to get into housing. And then we have to match their need with the kind of units that we have available because not every type of unit is a good fit based on the level of need. I will tell you that we're struggling with permanent supportive housing, and we're going to need more permanent supportive housing that is really robust, that we simply do not have in Durham, and that's for another day. That is the main path, and I think that is the fairest path, given that it is assessing of need and based on need. We also have the path available around public safety and public health needs around encampments. In the case of Oakwood, there were so many 911 calls, but that is ultimately, if it is an encampment on city-owned land, then the jurisdiction for that is the city manager. The city manager has to... I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Is everything okay? Go ahead.

Okay.

Thank you. You can continue. Thank you.

Sorry, I'm just trying to regather my thoughts.

That's fine. We can also go ahead and bring it to a close, but yeah. Sure.

Yeah. Sorry, I can't remember what I was saying. Maybe you do. Someone could remind me what I was in the middle of saying, but. Oh, we'll need more permanent support. So the other thing I was just saying is to be clear, if an encampment is on in public right of way or on city land, the city manager has the authority to trespass or to ask for an encampment to be removed. The options available for city council to discuss Our path, what community safety is trying to do is to work to identify paths as quickly as we can into interim housing and housing for as many people who have been sheltered. The other path available to any city is to take a law enforcement approach because the public safety risks are that high. The city has done that. There has been an encampment in the last year in the Fayetteville Street corridor where there was a homicide. where the city made the determination in the public safety interest to close that encampment, and that was a law enforcement action. I'm just aiming for you all. You all have different options to direct staff and to set the policy. Right now, the understanding of the community safety department is our role is to work as quickly as we can with the resources that we have available, with the timeline that we have laid out for you, to put paths toward interim housing and housing. I'm happy to answer any questions now or later. Go ahead.

No, you're good. I just wanted to just get that out there. There's too many people, there's too many resources, too much work that's going into addressing a very complex issue for it to be skewed. And I appreciate the work you all are doing. I know how complicated it is. That doesn't discount any of the concerns around this, but I think it's very important that we do just really stay focused on what is actually happening. I appreciate the compassionate approach to this, but also compassion doesn't mean that people are allowed to just do whatever and just steal things or commit whatever criminal infractions. So we have to be realistic here. We're not living in a dream world, but we do have a very complex matter on our hands, and I appreciate what you all are doing so far. That also doesn't mean we're going to discount the pressure that we're going to continue to apply, especially around where Every encampment is something we don't want to exist, but I think it's a very valid point where it's a high traffic area, kids are going by. We've already had several occasions where children were in very unsafe situations. It still baffles me that folks are okay with it being like it is. So I want to make sure that we do continue to address what we can as soon as possible, especially having an encampment next to a school. So I appreciate that. I'm going to also ask that the public not continue to speak out and interrupt the session, the work session. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember?

Yes, thank you for walking through that. My question is, so when we voted on the budget, we didn't have a number, a total number of how much might be dedicated to implementing the framework. Also, the framework is just a framework. It's not a blueprint. There's not a timeline. There aren't specific actions in it. So I'm just curious when we might be able to expect or a timeline for when we might be able to expect an update on that.

Sure. I mean, we can work on providing you we've been working on an estimate for based on the data that we have today, what we think it will take to execute that full plan over five years, which, of course, has many moving parts and require a certain amount of like educated guesses. Right. Right. About a variety of things that could change the landscape. But we have put forward a timeline. report a timeline with specific reduction percentages across every five years. We've named the primary strategies that we want to pursue that. But we can provide more detail on that. Also, we'll share with I'll share with every member of council a library that we've created that contains a ton of new documents. It contains stories from recent sprints. It contains additional descriptions of all of the different programs that we're running. provide that and also welcome to meet individually with any member of Council to provide additional detail, but we will continue to share more about that and work on a five year budget. The housing sprint that we're about to launch next week is working to get 60. There's two different components. There's a family part of the sprint and then a adults without family part of that sprint across those were aiming to get 60 people into housing over the next four to six weeks.

Thank you. And just for the record, I'm not asking you to make any changes to what we've already approved, but more detail would be helpful if you have those timelines. Also, you guys have been doing a lot of work lately. I'd like to hear about that within that update as well. I understand the moment we decide, all right, we're being reactive, we're going to address justice, then it's going to be another issue just as bad. So I do want to have fidelity to the actual plans that are in place. Not ask you to change that, but just an update would be helpful. Yes, sir. Thank you. Madam Pro Tem.

Are you giving it back to me?

I'm enjoying this.

You go ahead. I'm going to go ahead and take us to our administrative consent items. Under administrative consent items under the city clerk's office, I have item number two, participatory budgeting steering committee appointment. That's been referred back. Item number three, Durham bicycle pedestrian advisory commission appointment. Item number four, approval of city council minutes. Under departmental items, under audit services department, item number five, down payment assistance program performance audit, April 2026. I pulled that one. That item's been pulled by council member Cook. Sorry, I'm going to take it down to. OK. Item number six, fire inspection fees performance audit June 2026. Item number seven, general services department inventory management performance audit June 2026. Under budget and management services department, item number eight, FY 2027 to 2029 strategic plan. That is a presentation that we'll take at the end. Under city manager's office, item number nine, 2027 city council meeting schedule. I'm going to pull that one. Item number 10, grant budget ordinance accepting an African-American Mayor's Association Economic Mobility Leadership Institute estate planning cohort grant. Under community safety department, item number 11, resolution to accept donations to support the strategic framework to make homelessness rare and brief. Under emergency communications department, item number 12, priority dispatch corporation quality performance review service agreement. Under environmental and street services department, item number 13, contract with ACOM, Technical Services of North Carolina Inc. for municipal separate storm sewer system technical support. Under General Services Department, item number 14, First Amendment to the Professional Services Design Contract for the Environmental and Street Services Administration Building Roof and Envelope Repairs Project. Item number 15, Third Amendment to the Contract for the Third Fork Creek Phase II Trail Professional Design Services Contract with Kimley Horne and Associates Inc. pull that one okay item number 15 has been pulled by both council members copac and wrist item number 16 third amendment to the contract for the r kelly bryant bridge trail professional design services contract with kimley horn and associates inc same pull that one also councilman copac are you wanting to pull that one too um Okay. Item number 17, proposed sale of surplus property located at 103 South Driver Street to Communities in Partnership. I think we have a speaker on that item. So that item is getting pulled.

Madam Mayor, that resident does not want to speak. I think they're actually a resource person.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So number 17 is getting pulled, but it isn't getting pulled. Yeah, but she doesn't want to speak. OK. So council members Wrist and Kopach on item number 17. Item number 18, acquisition of property at North Pea Ridge Road and Seaforth Road, parcel number 0066855 and 0017538 for the Western Intake Partnership. Item number 19, acquisition of one permanent maintenance easement for the University Weymouth Traffic Signal Project. Item number 20, Durham Station Transit Center improvements project authorization to increase the contingency fund for the construction manager at risk CMAR contract for construction services. Under Housing and Neighborhood Services Department, item number 21, HUD grant project ordinances, GPOs for CDBG, HOME, HOPWA, and Fair Housing. That's been pulled by Council Member Cook. Item number 22, development loan commitment for 505 West Chapel Hill Street in an amount not to exceed $6,300,000 with Laurel Street Residential LLC. That is also a presentation which will follow item number eight. Actually, maybe, are there outside folks for that one? Is that staff? Okay, so maybe we'll do the opposite so that the developer can leave. We'll take item number 22 and then item number, sorry, excuse me, item number eight. And under planning and development department, oh, are we? 23, sorry. Oh yeah, we're still going, okay. Utility extension agreement. Sorry, I thought I was under public hearings for a second there. Utility extension agreement with Ashley's Corner LLC to serve 2019 Andrew Avenue under police department. Item number 24, supersedes grant project ordinance number 16524, the executive office of the president, office of national drug control policy, 2025 high intensity drug trafficking area. HIDTA grant project ordinance under item number 25, 2025 National Police Athletic League's mentoring grant project ordinance. Under Transportation Department, item number 26, Second Amendment to Contract Number 22041, Supplemental Agreement Number 1 to Governing Agreement Number 21533 with A. Morton, Thomas & Associates, Inc. for design of multimodal improvements on city-maintained streets. Item number 27, municipal agreements with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for 12 locally administered projects in Durham. I don't want to pull it. I'm just so very excited to see those. I do want to pull it. Oh, you do want to pull it. OK. We are never getting out of here, ladies and gentlemen. Underwater management department. Item number 28, award of services contractor Hearns Real Estate Solutions LLC for easement acquisition services for various utility projects under, excuse me, item number 29, interlocal agreement for the Western Intake Partnership raw water intake facility. Item number 30, professional services contract award to Highfield Infrastructure Engineering PC for the Huckleberry finished water storage tank rehabilitation. And then under public hearings, that will get taken up at our next Monday night meeting. The finance department item number, under finance department item number 21, extension of 2019 affordable housing go bond order. And then under planning and development department, item number 32, comprehensive plan amendment, A2500002, evaluation assessment report policy changes, EAR. Glad to see that on our agenda. Item number three, zoning map change 505 West Chapel Hill. Item number 34, confirmation of assessment role for curb, gutter, and paving on Amber Place from Humphrey Street North to East Pettigrew Street. Item number 35, confirmation of assessment role for ribbon paving on Brunson Street from South Miami Boulevard West to the west property line of REID 163690. Item number 36, confirmation of assessment rules for curved gutter paving and water and sewer laterals on Chalmers Street from Hemlock Avenue to the North property line of REID 133231. Item number 37, confirmation of assessment rules for ribbon paving water main and water and sewer laterals on Lang Street from Glencoe Road East to the East property line of REID 164518. And then we're done. Okay. I have items number 5, 9, 15, 16, 17, 21, and 27 pulled. Madam Acting Manager. And then I have presentations, and we're taking it reverse, presentation number 22 and then number 8. I concur. Thank you. Do you want me to keep going?

Let's take a break.

Okay. We're going to take a break.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, guys. I don't remember the last time. It's taken us two hours to get to the consent agenda. And it's not as if this one has a short section. So we'll get through it as best we possibly can. All right. What's the next one? All right, so we'll come back to item 5, pulled by Councilmember Cook, and just go to item number 9, pulled by Mayor Pro Tem.

Yeah, I just... Oh, you did?

I thought we were going to presentations first.

Okay.

Yeah, we have a lot of port items and then presentations. So we'll go with number nine. And as soon as Councilmember Cook gets back, well, okay, we'll just go ahead and start with number five. Sorry, Mary Grace.

She pulls it up here.

Pulled it up. Hi. And welcome. I came in with your introduction.

Thank you. Vanessa Collins, Audit Services Director.

Is that on?

Yeah. It says it is.

It's okay, we're all still learning, so don't worry. Thank you, welcome. Thank you for being here. I just had a couple of questions about this. The first was that I saw that there was only a partial agreement with the recommendation of number four, and I was wondering if you could discuss that a little bit more.

Yeah, and actually what I'd like to do is welcome Director Vena so she can speak to the recommendation or to the management response.

Great, thank you.

Good afternoon, Council. Sean White, Down Payment Program Administrator.

So my question was that there was a only partial agreement with the fourth recommendation, and I was wondering why that was.

Which was the fourth recommendation?

I will pull it up. I have about 7,000 tabs open, so one moment.

Yes, the program eligibility requirements.

That's right.

So I think one of the questions that did come up as part of this recommendation was our evaluation of program guidelines, which we have evaluated and implemented back in April of this year. We uploaded new guidelines to allow for greater access to homeownership. with an increase to the front housing ratio. We also increased our combined loan-to-value ratio, which allowed for more closing costs to be rolled into the loan, as well as a flat sale price across the board for existing and new construction properties. I think the partial was in question to if we are better serving our low to moderate income homeowners at 80% AMI and if we should consider greater than 80% AMI. The intention of the program obviously is to service low to moderate income home buyers. So at 80% is where we would like to stay, but we will continue to evaluate that as we go forward.

So the recommendation was to sort of re-evaluate. And it sounds like y'all had done a re-evaluation just right before the results of this audit came out. Correct. And could you just speak a little bit more about that 80% AMI cap? And I know it's a little bit tricky, because we also want people to be able to actually utilize the grant. and houses are expensive in Durham. And so to be able to actually utilize the grant and be able to afford at least some part of the housing, you do have to have some income. And I know we're seeing people sort of like right at that 80% AMI cap. Can you talk a little bit about why y'all decided to keep that there?

We decided to keep it there because, like you said, the program is to service low to moderate income. If we wanted to look at going above 80%, I believe that's probably more of a measure that council would probably have to recommend and take up with. But at 80%, what we did to allow for those homeowners who are doing the responsible things and who do qualify by increasing their front end ratio from 32% to 35%, for example, They can qualify for more house that previously at 32% we capped it and said this is where you should be at to qualify. So we're seeing increased qualifications. As of today, we've approved 73 homeowners. We've had 13 applications submitted since the top of the fiscal year this month. So we're catching momentum and we're seeing some benefits to the changes that we've made.

Yeah, and I appreciate it. And I actually wanted to give you an opportunity to say those statistics as well, because I know that we've seen a majority of the year's approvals were in the past several months. Could you just say those numbers for us quickly?

yeah actually so for the fiscal year that just ended july 1st through june 30th of 2026 we approved a total of 42 homeowners 40 of which did close before the end of the fiscal year and so we're continuing to build momentum so hopefully you know the trust that we've rebuilt with our lenders, with our realtors and in our community partners, we're seeing some benefits of that taking place now.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I know that this program has seen a lot of changes, and I appreciate that you all have taken in a lot of community input and made some of those modifications. Can you talk a little bit about the funding that came from the bond? And I don't know if this is something you or Director Benitez wants to tackle, but I know that there was some movement in that money, and I was wondering if we could speak to the history of that bond funding.

Sure. Good afternoon. Sarah Venius, Director of Housing and Neighborhood Services. I do not have those numbers right in front of me, but Councilmember Koch, there was an original amount dedicated to down payment assistance of the $95 million bond. And at a certain point over the last several years, a portion of that that was originally planned for DPA was used instead for a development-related project. And so there was a slightly reduced amount available, which at the time, the development project I believe it was a DHA development project was prioritized given the time sensitivity of the need for funding to move that forward and the DPA program was not as active at the time. So we've now, as Shawn mentioned, the program is picking up. We've exhausted that bond funding now that was originally allocated through Forever Home and are now using a new allocation of dedicated housing fund for this fiscal year.

And so are we supplementing what sort of portion was taken out of that bond funding from the dedicated housing fund? That's correct. And those are all my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, Council Member Cook, for your questions. I just wanted to say, also for Ms. Collins, I know you weren't here. As one of the ASOC members of the council, and I'm looking forward to our meeting soon, I know you weren't here when this was presented to the ASOC. But I just want to say, you know, since I've been on council, we've been talking a lot about down payment assistance. This is a critical tool that most cities have to build wealth and to expand homeowners. opportunity. So I know there's been a lot of attention on this and the desire for the council to use these dollars more effectively. So I just want to thank Audit Services for doing the performance audit and for shedding some light on that. And I want to note that the recommendations included a couple things around tightening up record keeping, which the department concurred with. But the recommendations also included some comments about strengthening marketing. And so I know you partially concur with that, partly because you guys are doing a lot more to market this. So I just want to hold up what you've done in the last fiscal year to really increase the uptake of this. I know there was a recent session with city workers to sort of help to clarify this so thank you so much for doing that again it's a critical tool that we have for our city workers and residents and i'm glad to see much more attention on this and many more deals going through so that's where we appropriate the money and we'll probably appropriate more money to have more down payment assistance in the future so thank you so much

Thank you. I just wanted to say that I know this is the part of the bond program that was the trickiest, that we saw the most lag on, honestly heard the most complaints about. So just to see that folks are really starting to take us up on those dollars is really great. So thank you for all of the department's work. I know you're working on a housing plan. We're expected to see that later this fall. I'm hoping that there will also be recommendations there because we're using dedicated housing fund dollars now. That's going to be an open question about do we keep doing it that way? Is there a different mechanism or a better way to do it? So I'm just curious, is that part of the plan as well as just a recommendation on how to move this program forward?

Yes, they will be evaluating all of our existing programs and also making recommendations for funding sources to support those that will be a part of our plan over the next five years.

Thank you so much, Sato.

over bond funds, but not dedicated housing funds. Do we anticipate spending down all of the dedicated housing funds for down payment assistance this year?

That is the goal. That would definitely be a nice problem to have. With what has been budgeted for the down from the dedicated housing funds, we're looking at somewhere between 35 to 37 units this year. So once that's exhausted, I guess we'll figure out how to keep it moving forward from there.

Good and it's great to hear the momentum on the uptake we're seeing. In the case that there are remaining funds, what's the process then? Does that get applied toward other housing programs within the city? How do we act on that?

If the funding is encumbered, it can be carried forward to the next fiscal year. However, we don't anticipate at the pace that we're going that being an issue. I think that with the added outreach that Sean is doing, he did six sessions for GoTriangle bus operators recently. We did the city employee lunch and learn, which was a packed house the other week. We've gotten 11 applications this last month alone so far. So at that pace, I think, if anything, we will be coming back to you for additional funding requests, if anything, that we don't anticipate not expending the full amount.

I just want to highlight that here in the city of Durham, we are thriving to get as close as we can to a realistic living wage, while also providing workshops for people to get assistance to buy their own home. I'm not sure where that's happening or how much is happening, and I think that's phenomenal work. So thank you all, and thanks council and past councils for this level of pedigree and policy.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, you all good? Item number nine.

That was me. I just had a quick question. This came up next year's municipal election year. And it came up that there was maybe going to be a change of when council members are sworn in. And so I just don't want to miss that conversation. That was it. I think last time when this came up, it was discussed of The wonkiness of the old council sees the work session agenda, but the new council is the one who actually acts on that, and that was a little bit of, you know, just an interesting practice. And so we had talked about maybe changing the day that new council was sworn in, and at that time, unfortunately, the candidates hadn't planned on it because they were relying on old, you know, the way it had always been done. And so as we're thinking about the calendar, I just want staff to be clear. I think it would have to be after the first meeting, basically the second work session in November, that would be new council.

Sorry, taking notes. Yeah, that's it.

That was the only I just wanted to flag it since we were talking about the calendar.

Yeah, and we will also reach out to our county folks to I remember last time some of it was logistics of waiting for those to be verified results. So we'll reach out to them and start those conversations.

Yeah, it was a very tight window certification and and then the the little bit of time that there was. Yeah.

Council Member Kopach.

Well, this could be an overwhelming first day for a new council member. We also could consider stacking them like we had to recently to start the new fiscal in August to have the work session and council be the same day if you can't figure out the calendar.

Yeah, go ahead.

So just to confirm, so does that mean we may consider further changes based on what you find out from the county in terms of verifying results, all those timelines? Are we maybe going to come back with a change to this? What are we deciding here?

Yep. So I think it would be hard to commit to getting that information before the council adopts this schedule. We can always come back and change the schedule later on. just because with our county like I want to make sure we give enough time to coordinate with them and get answers from them but we'll definitely start working that as soon as we can and if we can come back during the council meeting and provide more information around that specific meeting we will definitely do that then that's fine with me yeah that sounds good all right thank you

All right. Councilmember Wrist, number 15. And Copac.

Good afternoon. Mike Oresko with General Services.

Good afternoon, thanks for being here. So I know there's been a lot of conversation in Durham about trails and sort of developing on trails. I think I've got a meeting next week with, and I think Councilman Kopek is on the sort of group that's looking at sort of how do we speed up delivery of trails. So I just, just high level, I know this is, for 34th Creek, we're talking a two mile extension that's taking us probably, or will in the end, given the timeline you've given us, will take more than 10 years to build. And so sometimes people get frustrated because the city government can't move faster. It seems like 10 years for two miles, and I know there's a lot of reasons why, but that's one of the, I think people get frustrated. So what I want to do, and I've asked this question before, but part of our job on the council is the way, sort of understand trade-offs, ways, sort of like competing priorities. My question is, well, like, what would it take to deliver this a year faster? Like, what would it take? AND I'M NOT SAYING THESE ARE ALL THINGS WE NECESSARILY CONTROL, BUT SOME WE COULD. SO, LIKE, WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO DO IT FASTER?

CERTAINLY. AND IN THE BIMONTHLY TRAILS COMMITTEE MEETING THAT WE DO HAVE, SOME OF THOSE DISCUSSIONS ARE TAKING PLACE. CURRENTLY, AT THIS POINT, WE ARE ABOUT TWO MONTHS AWAY FROM RED HOI AUTHORIZATION, WHICH IS, FROM THERE, IT WILL BE AN 18-TO-24-MONTH PROCESS. There would have been a mechanism previously where we could bypass right-of-way authorization by footing the bill 100% and not getting reimbursement from NCDOT. However, at this point, with being two months away, the recommendation would be to continue moving forward for the reimbursement.

So again, so that's one step in the process. So we can sort of speed it up by two months if we went ahead without the reimbursement right away.

Correct, yes. That would be at a cost of roughly $2 million for R. Kelly Bryant and $600,000 for Third Fork Creek.

So that's the total cost. It's not that we'd have to delay receiving that. That would be our cost. Correct.

Okay, so it's $2 million for Third Fork Creek. $2 million for R. Kelly Bryant, $600,000 for Third Fork Creek.

Okay, then we'd have to essentially, like, we'd have to cover elsewhere. Correct, yes. Okay, that's obviously a tough tradeoff. What about other, like, reviews or, like, staff time? I mean, what if we all, everybody in general services stopped working on everything else and just spent time on these two trails? Could we do it faster? No.

Like, there's a variety of options. authorizations that have to be put forth. I can say, so NCDOT does control the process. I can say we do have a weekly meeting with NCDOT to continue pushing the process. So we're doing everything we can to move it as fast as possible. But there's not necessarily something we can do if you put more workforce behind it. It's not necessarily going to see, you won't see a translation to a quicker end product.

it just seems like with that like certainly money is one thing but it seems like it's hard to believe there's not some way to speed this up so and i again i'll have my conversation with the i appreciate councilman kopek and i was being part of that that conversation um but i know folks want to see this once he delivered and so i'm just urging if there's some way we can find a way to speed this up and deliver faster i think our residents would be delighted by that

Certainly, and I promise our group's doing the same thing as well as the Trails Committee trying to make sure we can find every avenue to even move it up month to month. Certainly.

And are there like reviews that we're doing internally at the city that are sort of part of our own internal process that we could sort of, you know, do concurrent to something else that could speed things up? Is that, you know, with other departments?

Not at the moment, no. If we do have any reviews that do come back, they'll be moving as quickly as possible.

So all the reviews are within, there's nothing within

rebel street services anything at the city attorney's office right at the moment there's not there is right-of-way authorization is controlled by by the by the city so it works for arkley right we are expecting two years of that right-of-way authorization you could expect in two two years for right-of-way authorization to be to be complete they have already begun a bunch of pre-work to try to minimize that as much as possible and then third fort creek is 18 to 24 months For right-of-way acquisition? Correct.

And there's nothing we can do to speed that up from sort of like 18 to 24 months to like a year?

Not necessarily. I can say that they're doing everything they can in their power. I'm not sure if there's someone here from real estate that is, if Alicia wants...

Good afternoon, Alicia Bass, General Services. So in terms of speeding up the process, so we've already kind of built in some processes to speed it up. So we've already done initial outreach to people on the trail to let them know the trail is coming, that we're going to come and... To landowners. To landowners, correct. We've also done some prioritizing in terms of the property owners that we think may... take a little bit longer. So those are other agencies. So we have Durham Housing Authority is on that list. So we've already started outreach for that. State of North Carolina is on that list. And then there are some other businesses. So we've already started trying to put together some conversations with those people on the front end so that we can try to shorten that process. But typically, it's going to take 18 to 24 months with DOT just because that's an added layer of approvals that have to occur. So right now, 18 to 24 months is the realistic timeline for acquiring these properties. But again, we're doing some outreach and some things on the front end to try to speed that up. we have started right away acquisition could we have started that earlier in the process is that something that was considered not with uh not with dot at this point because before we make an offer we have to get approval from dot so they have right-of-way eligibility uh that has to happen and then once real estate starts then we have a process that we also have to uh have dot approve as well so there's some we're trying to run those as uh as kind of alongside each other as we can But at this point, where we are, we're at 18 to 24 months.

So I get that with DOT, but what about the other properties that are non-DOT? Did you consider starting that process earlier?

We did outreach for everyone on the trail. So those letters went out to everyone to let them know we will be knocking on your door in the next few months. This is the project. Here's an overview. But again, we can't make offers to property owners until we have right-of-way eligibility from DOT. So we can't make an offer. The only thing we can do is have conversations and let people know that the trail, that we will be knocking on their doors.

And that authorization from DOT is expected to come?

In the next few months.

Isn't the council going to speed up that process with DOT?

I don't know I have an answer to that.

We're continuing to have weekly meetings with NCDOT. Just in this meeting, we were texting with personnel from NCDOT to continue to push and make sure that everything's moving forward as quickly as it possibly can. And if we do hit delays, we'll be sure to raise it.

Good afternoon, guys. The city entered into a municipal agreement with DOT to fund these projects. That is an 80% agreement. So we have to follow their processes and procedures every step of the way if we want to receive reimbursement of those exercises. Right now we're in design phase. We want to get reimbursement. We have to follow their processes to be reimbursed for our design.

From DOT?

Correct. So we have prolonged durations because we're subject to their review. Right Away cannot start until they approve the environmental documentation. Now that's an extra layer that is required as part of this funding mechanism. You asked the question, how could you speed it up? theoretically, if you were not in this program, you would not be subject to all of their oversight and processes and procedures and whatnot. So that would be one avenue to speed it up. But the trade-off is you don't get the funds, right? You're not getting 80% of that funding. So there's trade-offs there. Every step of the way.

This is the $200,000 or the... This is for every step of the way. The $2,600,000 that you're talking about.

2 million right now is the right away is the estimated cost so 80% of that would be subject to reimbursement from duty as long as we continue under that program to get that funded once you move into Construction same thing we have to still follow their processes to get the environmental documentation updated and all that stuff so that adds extra layer of oversight and duration to get that approval before we can proceed into that phase of work. Again, if you weren't in that program, you would just move into construction because you're footing the whole bill. You're not asking for them to reimburse anything. So if it was just a traditional project, you'd be just asking for typical easements for anything that's encroaching on their properties.

Okay, I appreciate that.

They have taken a long time, and we understand that, but there's many variables as to why that's.

Yeah, and again, I think this is the question residents are asking, like, why is it so, like, it's incredibly helpful to have you all lay out exactly what the tradeoffs are. I understand it's not easy. I know you all want to see this done as fast as possible, and I think the residents and other members of council feel the same, so I appreciate it.

Is that one working? Can you all hear me? No? How about now? Okay, that's much better. Great. Thank you for being here and for helping to shepherd and move this project forward. Councilmember Wrist touched on most of the questions that I had had, but just to focus a bit more on this, you know, at what stage in the design process we can seek out right away authorization? It sounds like through DOT there are some restrictions, right, where we can't seek it out earlier. Does that differ when it isn't a project that involves DOT or are there rights of way we can seek out earlier even though we can't go to DOT earlier? Help me think about, like, is there a way just, you know, from a policy standpoint to go earlier in design for some rights of way?

Right. So we could start earlier in the process in terms of, like, one of the things we've talked about is 65 percent design. The issue with that, and it's something that is under consideration, however, you have to have confidence that the alignment of the project is not going to change. and so this project the alignments changed once maybe twice um and so had we gone with the 65 percent design you're talking 34 creek on that the design changing yeah um then we that that presents some challenges so we're either buying too much property or we're not buying enough and then we're also starting a process over so if we've already gone out talked to a property owner um that creates a sense of mistrust because it looks like we don't know what we're doing. So one of the things that we have to really focus on is confidence in the trail alignment or whatever project it is that this is going to be the alignment. We can go, we can start in confidence with the with the acquisitions and that we can communicate clearly to our property owners what it is that we actually need to purchase. I need you to speak up if you can. Sure. So we need to be able to communicate to our property owners what it is that we're trying to purchase because all of our transactions are many real estate transactions. It has its own closing. It has its own document recordation. So we have to be clear. We just can't go out and say, oh, we just want to buy 100 square feet. We have to be able to pinpoint what it is that we need, and so there has to be a certain level of certainty with that. And so that's why we're further along and we're not doing 65 percent. It is something we could consider at some point, but I think it really does depend on how confident we are in the project design at that particular moment.

All right, so if I understand it, the risk of seeking right-of-way earlier in the design process is one, we may buy land we don't need.

Or we may not buy enough.

Or may not buy enough. Or there may be some distrust in the relationship with the landowners that we're transacting with.

That is correct.

Okay. You know, it'd be interesting as we talk about this to weigh that against the cost of delay. uh you know and what's the the cost of accidentally buying land we don't need or needing to buy more versus um you know adding years and millions of dollars to to projects and took away that cost benefit but i would be interested in in seeing what would it take to move it up earlier in design maybe it depends on the project so we can go earlier some that that we can't But I agree with my colleague Councilmember Wriste about finding those ways that we can try and go faster. You know, we talked a lot about DOT at this point, you know, and right away being one cause for delay, but obviously there's a lot of reasons why projects can take longer. Can you actually speak just so folks understand about one of the primary drivers of the change in Third Fork Creek, the time that it cost us and the amount of money that it cost us by making the change?

I can't speak to that. Okay.

I'm going to ask Tyler, do you want to come on up? Tyler's with Kimley Horne, our engineer.

Okay, thanks. Because you'd mentioned there was one change, right? So I'm curious to know, hear more about that.

Yeah, so Tyler White with Kimley Horne, the PM for the consultant firm. So for Third Fork Creek, right around about the 65% plan level, we looked at re-evaluating the alignment, which originally ran up Weaver Street and then tied into the American Tobacco Trail through the back of that community. At that time, I believe there was some community pushback and some, those opposed for the alignment running through that neighborhood. So at that time, we actually looked at rerouting the trail, running through, creating a new location trail through the wooded parcel down to Fayetteville Street and then connecting to the American Tobacco Trail through Fayetteville Street. So touching on kind of the delay for that, we did have to redesign the trail through that new parcel. And with that, there were some new environmental concerns, and there were also some additional stream crossings and environmental impacts that had to be considered as part of that. So there was some rework through there, along with doing some additional environmental studies and acquiring the additional survey that was needed for that trail design.

Okay. And so do you know about how much time and cost?

So I think when we ended up redesigning that, I think we lost probably about a year and a half from the time that the supplemental, some of the conversations for where the trail route wanted to run and what was feasible with some of the environmental impacts and how we were able to get the trail through there. I think it ended up being about a year and a half kind of delay.

Mm-hmm.

I'll add, we can get back with that information, go look into it and confirm the exact time delay and cost that was associated with that as well. Okay, I appreciate that.

It's just about what we can learn from this project going forward as well, and it's, you know, part of the tradeoffs that we have to weigh when we're trying to, you know, build out these amenities, you know, provide housing for neighbors, you know, work on these community-wide plans while also taking into consideration know neighbors who may live in proximity to some of these um you know this infrastructure we're trying to build and there are trade-offs there and you know there are kind of real costs as well to deciding to you know not put things put something somewhere as well as putting something somewhere and i think that's important for us to to to consider as well the impact it had on this this project and i imagine the rerouting is opening up other thorny rights of way conversations too it doesn't go away just because you you reroute it right So what are some of the thorniest ones that are left? You said DOT was one, the state. Anything else that you have in mind that you're trying to get ahead of?

So we do have the state of North Carolina. We have North Carolina Central University. We have Durham Housing Authority. That is one that will be a challenge for us. We have another project where we are working with HUD to try to get approval on that. So that could take some time. So those are the ones that we try to do outreach for first because we knew that those were going to present the most challenges. But we also have businesses. And so sometimes you'll have property owners who have attorneys. And so once attorneys get involved, we have attorneys talking to attorneys. So sometimes there are people who are opposed to the trail. So those are some of the things that we get into with negotiations. But the thorniest are the agencies that we will have to navigate with in this process.

Okay, all right, thank you. Let's keep moving it forward, appreciate it.

Thank you. I have a few questions as well. So first of all, I was on council when we made the third Fort Creek design. And it was when we had just implemented our equitable engagement blueprint. And so now the city is much better at getting community input way earlier in a process. So I think that's one thing. That was one lesson learned. I think it's fair to also tell residents, yes, when you don't want something, even though it's been you know, kind of down a path, there is a cost to it as far as tax dollars, right? In this case, it was a much more expensive design project, and I think that that's fair to tell folks, like, here are the tradeoffs. And I think that that was, like, in 2018, so we've learned a lot in almost a decade. I would like to know and I know this has happened at the TPO at a certain point like we aren't doing Federal grants for small projects because it's just not worth it and so we need to do that a same thing on trails and other things if if The Cary's and the Raleigh's and the Charlotte's have already determined that it's just not worth going after these grant programs through NCDOT because then you're stuck with their processes. Great, you put more money up from the city, but you got it built faster, and so it doesn't actually matter. It's like you're, you know, it's all out in the wash anyway, and then residents are happy because they have a trail. Whereas now, okay, maybe it was cheaper, but you don't have a trail. That's just something. And then I will just say this, because I was on DOST pre-council days when we were making these determinations, doing that analysis with our resident groups. Because the residents in that group, they are the ones who really are like, these are the trails that we think are are worth moving forward on, doing that education with them so that when they come and advocate for council, maybe this wasn't the trail out of the 11 priority trails we should have started with, right? This had a lot of tricky pieces. Maybe there was a trail that within those 11 priority trails that we were talking about back then would have been faster and easier to build, and we would have had something to show community and residents, hey, we built this thing. So those are my questions as somebody who's been in the trail world for now 10 plus years. So I think those are the questions that I have for staff. I also know that is it – I forget which council member is on DOS now. It's not me anymore. It's like the big trail thing next year, the big – so what are we going to deliver? What are we going to show folks? That's my question. Like what's the city of Durham? Yeah, there's a huge event in the city of Durham in the spring. So what are we going to be highlighting?

It's the International Trail Summit, and our goal is to be – starting construction in January for Durham Rail Trail, and that'll be our highlight for that meeting in April.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, because it's the rail trail, it's this one, it's our Kelly Bryant, and then there's a fourth one that I forget that is like, I just feel like I'm in purgatory at this point. I'm sure you all do too.

All right. Well, just to put a final point on that, so the other trade-off, as Councilmember or Mayor Pro Tem Caballero knows, so at the TPO level, you know, we disapproved those 12 LAP projects, right, of which these two are both in the LAP project, right? And so we're also getting flack from our colleagues in the TPO about how come projects are getting stalled in Durham, right? So there's trade-offs also with our colleagues around other transportation dollars. So just, I think you're right, like being aware of all these trade-offs and maybe sometimes we forego the whatever DOT funds, if we think we can do this like five years earlier. And ultimately, we'll save money in the end because we're not taking five years. And we'll delight people. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. Well, did we address number 16 in that dialogue? Are we good with 16, guys? All right. Number 17. I do have speakers for this one. No, she's no longer speaking. it's camera ernest are you all speaking or just for resource okay okay do you uh want to do it after or before okay good afternoon selena jones general services real estate He's shorter. He'll go first.

Yeah, no more questions on this one. I just want to give appreciation for the process that staff engaged in to work with the community partner to make this transaction possible. I think it's a good practice for the city to review our inventory of properties and evaluate I just want to give appreciation to staff for engaging in this process. I think it's worthwhile to evaluate our inventory of properties as a city and think about what is the best and highest use of those properties. And if it isn't in our hands to make them available to community partners, to businesses, to others. And so not only on this project, but, you know, I've been in conversation with Ms. Bass and others in general services on other possibilities of declaring properties a surplus and making it available. And I just want to thank, you know, staff for making this possible and also exploring other such transactions while, you know, working with really valued partners like Communities in Partnership. So just that's all I have. Thanks.

Yeah, I want to second Council Member Kovach's comments. I appreciate the process with the city and partners to find a sort of solution where we have surplus property and someone needs it and we sort of work out a solution. I just have a very basic process question. So on the motion, I see in the write-up it mentions a negotiated as-in sales price of $200,000. The motion doesn't mention a sales price. So is that – I mean, is that – Do we do it for, is the sales price 200,000 or what is the price and should that be in the motion or is that not appropriate for the motion? I just want to make sure we're clear what we're voting on.

That is the sales price. I'll let the city attorney's office just confirm. It's my belief that we are not required to state that in the motion.

yes i mean the agreement is included in the agenda item and so it would state the terms of the sale so you really don't have to identify all of the terms of the sale and the motion you can if you like it's elective it should be yeah i'd like to add this is beth highland city attorney's office it's also in the resolution yeah that's where the the purchase yeah yeah there it is okay perfect thank you thanks beth sorry i didn't see you there

That's it.

Cameron Smith, I'm one of the co-founders and the executive director of Communities in Partnership. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, city council members, I just want to thank the city for this process, starting off with Mrs. Winbush, our deputy manager. She's the one who is in the very beginnings of this whole process, kind of helped us get this along. I like to give credit where credit is due. So thank you. Ms. Wimbush and also as well as Selena Jones and Beth Highlands, who've worked tirelessly with us, along with our attorney, Jennifer Oxford, just done a wonderful, amazing job of helping us kind of navigate this. This has been a long time coming, and we really hope that this is we've had vaccination clinics there. We've even had a. partnered with Maureen Joy on countering, I don't know how you feel, but countering, making our citizens safe against some of the unfortunate circumstances that happened last fall. We want that building to be a safe building for everyone in the community, no matter where you come from, no matter who you love, no matter what your name, anything. We just want it to be a safe space for everyone. So thank you, city, partnering with us on this. And we look for continued opportunities. And I hope, to Councilman Copac's comment, I hope that you're able to replicate this with other organizations across the community. It's a really good process. And I don't know, maybe this could be a flagship, because I don't know if there's too many other cities that have been able to do something like this. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. I want to formally say Mr. Smith. I was about to say this is, again, you know, these are partnerships that have such impact that I'm just so grateful for. You don't find this model in many places. And I just want to also personally thank you all for the work you've been doing for a very long time. I remember when I first met you guys in Reece City, when you were starting out there. now you i mean come on look at where we are now so thank you all for the work you've been doing and continue to do thank you next 21. next up item number 21 pulled by councilman mccook

Good afternoon, Mayor Williams, Mayor Person, Cabrillo, members of council, Braden Corwitz, housing and neighborhood services department.

Hi, thank you. I was just curious, are there limitations on excess match amounts? I saw we were rolling over quite a bit.

Are there limitations? No. Are you referring to the home match? We have a backlog of in the 10, like $17 million of qualified home match. Right. And as far as I'm aware, there's no limitations there. Okay. As long as we keep an accurate record of them.

Okay, great. And having a reserve, does that impact further grants or is that something that's looked at at all?

No. These are kind of like... investments or made for qualified home projects not using home dollars so City Bond investments DHF investments um we can count those towards match okay and is there anywhere else that that money is coming from just curious Those are two main sources, maybe the general fund. Anything that the city has put money into that could be qualified as an eligible home activity, but not using home or other federal dollars qualifies as match.

OK. That's actually all my questions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next up is item number 27. Council Member Cook.

Yes, we had just talked about this. Actually, I pulled it because of the conversation that we were sort of just having about the reimbursements. And I know that we've talked it to death a little bit already, but I am curious because I've lost my place. My understanding was that we were sort of leaving the smaller projects out of the reimbursements. to allow ourselves sort of more flexibility around them. But there are some small projects listed in here, some sidewalk repairs and things. And I was just wondering about sort of the trade offs on that and and why those decisions are are made and why we sort of have these smaller projects on this list as well.

Certainly good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem members of Council Shawn Egan, director of transportation. So the projects that you see the 12 municipal agreement changes, many of these projects have been in development for the better part of a decade. We have come a long way. With these projects, we have followed the NCD ot and federal requirements with all of these processes. And as was discussed earlier, we've experienced a series of delays associated with following those processes. We're now at a point where we're pretty far down the line on these. And we've already kind of taken the schedule hit from what it costs us schedule-wise to accept federal funds and follow the NCDOT process. So what we are doing here is saying we're going to see these through, but we're going to have, you know, deliberations going forward about assigning federal funding to projects like this in the future in light of our experience. But for the ones that we've already advanced, we're pretty far down the line. We want to see them through.

Yeah, cost has sunk. OK, that is helpful. And can you talk a little bit about the bond interaction for some of these sidewalk projects? Because I thought a couple of them did have some overlapping pieces with ones that we had bond money for.

There was bond money on a number of federally funded projects. Some of those, like Sidewalk 66, are under construction right now. So if you walk up to Corporation Street from Mangum here, you'll see brand new sidewalk on Corporation that's being done through Sidewalk 66. projects that have a mix of funding from federal funds, but the federal funding wasn't sufficient to get those across the finish line and award a construction bid. So what we've focused on with the bond was identifying those gaps and getting those projects through to construction. None of these projects is at that construction point yet. So, these projects were not as construction ready two years ago when we were putting that bond list together. So, the bond list was really kind of a gap financing mechanism to get those projects that were really close, they just needed a little bit more funding to get across the finish line.

Okay. Thank you. And my final question is, can you talk a little bit more about the CBM and cost verification timing issue?

So as the memo points out, it's a real challenge. Every two years we are required by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to look at our project schedule, our project costs, what our escalation rates, what our materials will cost, all of those cost estimate variables. across an array of projects. We've got 11 of the 12 here. We've gone through that process. So it is a challenge for us to line up the timing of completing those updated cost estimates, that cost verification memo process, to line that up with NCDOT's their budget processes and their required schedule for budget approvals and then to line all of that up with the city's CIP review and approval process where What we've been working for the better part of the last year, transportation in partnership with finance, budget and management services, general services, environmental and street services, we've all been saying, all right, if we can get the cost verification memos done in the spring of 2026, and then we can line up the dollars in the CIP that gets approved by council in June of 2026, then as soon as that happens, we can come back in August in the early after the break and get these. So this is when we laid out all the different timelines and schedules, this was the sweet spot that we found where we could get everything all lined up.

Okay. Thank you. That is helpful because it's like...

It's a lot of different kind of game charts. Trying to find what's that right spot. August 2026 is what we identified. So we're really hopeful that this can move forward and we can execute all of these agreements and secure an additional $36 million in federal funds.

Cool. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right. Well, thank you. Those are all the pooled items. And we were at 4 p.m. Now it's time for presentations. And the first one is 22, so we should get out of here in about three and a half hours. uh item number 22 development loan commitment for 505 west chapel hill street in an amount not to exceed six million three hundred thousand dollars with law street residential can't wait to talk about this and how we're going to remove that graffiti from the top of the building that is quite vulgar uh just real quick colleagues i do have to leave at five all right mayor pro tem has to leave at five we should be out by eight

and uh okay good afternoon i'm sarah venius director of housing and neighborhood services and i will be providing you all with an update on the 505 west chapel hill street affordable housing project Today, this project represents an exciting opportunity to transform a city on site into a high quality affordable housing community, while preserving future development opportunities for the remainder of the property. With this agenda item, which council will consider on the 17th, we're asking council consider authorizing four actions, which are listed here. First, authorize a conditional funding commitment of up to $6.3 million to support development of 80 affordable rental units. Second, authorize staff to negotiate a ground lease of 99 years with Laurel Street Residential, who is our proposed development partner. Third, authorize a right of entry agreement so the developer can begin pre-development work. And finally, authorize the city manager to execute the necessary documents and make non-material changes that do not increase the city's financial obligation. I want to emphasize that the city's funding commitment is conditional upon the project successfully receiving a 9% low-income housing tax credit award from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. So this project, as you all know well, builds on several years of council discussion and community advocacy and planning. The city has long envisioned this property as a transformative redevelopment opportunity with a mix of future uses, including affordable housing. Council directed staff more recently in these conversations in late 2025 to convene an affordable housing working group to determine whether affordable housing would be feasible on the site. After completing that work, Council directed staff in March of this year to identify a qualified affordable housing development partner. Today's presentation is the culmination of that work. The entire city owned property as a reminder is about four acres. The affordable housing component as proposed would occupy up to no more than 1.25 acres, allowing the remainder of their property to remain available for future redevelopment opportunities. Importantly, the existing building remains under separate consideration by Preservation North Carolina, so this item focuses only on the affordable housing portion of the site. This approach allows us to move forward with the affordable housing while maintaining flexibility for the rest of the property. The working group established four key recommendations that guided the entire procurement process that staff led. First, they recommended that we consider developing at least 80 units of affordable rental housing. Second, serve households earning 60% of the area median income or below, which currently for the city of Durham is $76,000 a year for a family of four. Third, they recommended pursuing financing through North Carolina's highly competitive 9% low-income housing tax credit program, which provides the greatest leverage of outside funding available for the development of affordable rental housing. And finally, they recommended including structured parking to preserve redevelopment opportunities for the remainder of the site. The working group also anticipated that the project of this scope and scale would require about 6 million in gap funding. Every proposal that staff received was evaluated against these recommendations. Housing and Neighborhood Services issued a competitive request for proposals in May. We received three strong proposals from experienced affordable housing developers. An interdepartmental evaluation committee reviewed each submission using criteria that are listed here. After a comprehensive evaluation, Laurel Street Residential received the highest overall score. We are recommending Laurel Street because they demonstrated both the strongest qualifications and the greatest likelihood of success delivering this project. They have developed approximately 6,000 affordable housing units, including significant experience with both family and senior housing. They maintain in-house construction and property management capacity, giving them greater control over quality and long-term operations. They also have extensive experience in Durham and are currently partnering with Durham Housing Authority and have completed several other projects, which you all are familiar with Vanguard, Acadia, Elizabeth Street, Commerce Street and several other projects. Most importantly, Laurel Street has demonstrated a strong track record of successfully securing 9% tax credit awards, an essential factor in making this project a reality. The proposed concept put forward by Laurel Street includes 80 units of affordable apartments. The affordability mix intentionally serves households across a range of incomes. 25% of the apartments would serve households earning below 30% of the area median income, providing housing for some of Durham's lowest income residents. The remainder of the units would serve households at 50 and 60% AMI. The development primarily consists of one-bedroom apartments while also including two- and three-bedroom units to accommodate a variety of household sizes. I do want to note that we are showing the proposed development location in the southwest corner of the site, which would preserve the Duke Street and West Chapel Hill Street frontage for commercial development, as those have the best visibility, walkability, and streetscape opportunities. And this also would locate the residential for this project across existing residential, which would be beneficial. Overall, the proposal put forward by Law Street closely aligns with the working group's recommendations and the direction we received from Council at our work session in the spring. These preliminary renderings illustrate the type of high quality development Laurel Street proposes. While the design will continue to evolve, you can see that these image reflect the vision of attractive modern apartment communities that complement the surrounding redevelopment and create a welcoming place for residents. This shows you what the interior could look like with green space and a playground for families and children. So this project represents an excellent example of leveraging city investment. The total estimated development cost is $27 million. The city's requested contribution is up to $6.3 million, while approximately 77% of the total project costs would come from outside funding sources, including tax credit equity, conventional financing, and other deferred funding. This means every city dollar would attract significant outside investment into Durham. And our anticipated subsidy amount per unit would be about $78,000. An important feature of this proposal is that the city retains ownership of the land. Rather than selling the property, staff will negotiate a ground lease covering up to 1.25 acres, or not to exceed that amount, it could be slightly less closer to an acre. This structure allows Laurel Street to construct, own, and operate the housing while preserving the city's long-term ownership of the land. it also helps ensure permanent affordability objectives can be incorporated into the lease and future financing documents while maintaining public control of the site So assuming council approves the requested actions at your meeting on the 17th, Laurel Street would immediately begin pre-development activities. The project would then compete for the 9% housing tax credit in early 2027, and award announcements would come in August of 2027. If successful, construction would then begin in 2028, and the project would be completed in 2029. While this timeline depends on receiving tax credits, Council action is what positions the project to compete for those critical resources. So to conclude, staff is requesting council authorize the actions which are listed here for the 505 project. These actions will position Laurel Street to prepare a competitive tax credit application and, if awarded, deliver 80 units of permanently affordable rental housing on a city-owned site. This project reflects council's vision for expanding affordable housing while thoughtfully planning for the long-term redevelopment of the broader site that would include a mix of uses. As I close, I want to acknowledge Richard Velzanes, who's in the audience, who served as the project manager in Housing and Neighborhood Services, as well as several representatives from the 505 project team, from General Services, the city attorney's office. and planning who are here and available should you have questions for them. And finally, I want to acknowledge members of the Laurel Street team who are here with us today. President and CEO Dion Nelson is here, Executive Vice President of Development Lee Cochran, and Development Director Tisha Germany, as well as I believe we have a representative from Klein Design. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right, thank you, Director Veniz for that presentation and update. This is really exciting. So thank you to you, your staff, the Laurel team, the 505 Working Group that has representatives here. I think after years of patience by the community, community organizations, we met last December. We tasked a community group, the 505 Coalition, to come up with a recommendation that allowed us for action to prioritize affordable housing in the shorter term. We also had the partnership with Preservation North Carolina to move forward on the Milton Small Building, the former police headquarters. We've left open the possibility for future development of areas of that site that are the best for commercial development. You said, Director Vinyas, that you would come back in August with a plan and a recommendation and an identified affordable housing developer. And so thank you for doing that. Exciting to see that happen now. And I love seeing the housing availability also at 30% and 50% AMI as well as at 60%. So a real effort to meet some of our greatest affordability needs. And I just see it as a testament to community fortitude I think to counsel, being collaborative and creative, and also to staff for your guidance before we made those decisions, and then the execution. So really excited to see this moving forward. I know we're not done. I know there's some things that are out of our hands, including the 9% tax credit award. But I think we are where you said we would be, and I am excited about that. So thank you. My only question, because this is all super clear, is more just when you think we'll have an update around the Milton Small Building and Preservation North Carolina's steps they're taking, if they've found potential partners. That may be for you, it may be DCM Wimbush or someone else, but I just would be curious to know when that will be coming back to us.

Yes, that is a great question, and I will defer that to the Attorney's Office or General Services.

Mayor Miles of the City Attorney's Office. So in the option to purchase and the main outstanding piece on that piece is we're waiting for the appraisal to come back so we can put the purchase price in the option. But they have 12 months, PNC will have 12 months to market the site. In our last conversation, they've already had conversations with potential buyers related to the site. We're also working on a right of entry that will allow them to bring potential developers to the site so they can do kind of site assessments and look into that. But they would have 12 months to market the site and select a developer before we bring back the sale agreement before you go.

Thank you, Attorney Miles. And 12 months from which date? From the date of execution. From the date of execution. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, I want to just echo my colleague and just express my gratitude, both for the working group and for how hard staff has worked to make moves. I think for a really long time, this project was really frustrating for community, for a lot of us up here. And it's really, really awesome to see rendering I mean, every time I get a presentation recently, it's like one thing that's further along and it is very exciting. I know we talked about this in our last presentation, but I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more to the 9% LIHTC landscape and whether or not we still feel like we're, I know we felt like we were really competitive at the time, and if we still feel that we are competitive in that space and if anything has changed there.

Yes, so staff did an evaluation of the site. And based on the latest criteria from the housing finance agency, it received a perfect score. And given our highly experienced partner, Laurel Street, I guarantee they would not pursue an opportunity unless they knew that it was highly competitive. So there is always a potential that the criteria could change annually. But based on what we know now we still expect this site to be highly competitive Wow, that is awesome.

I am also curious about the bedroom sizes and sort of how we broke that down I know there was some conversation with the working group previously about Offering sort of more large Yes, more larger units or potentially with higher bedroom counts. And it's great to see the four units with three bedrooms, but still like a small percentage of these. And I was wondering if there was any conversation about that or any sort of goals to target that and maybe the next phase or if you have any insight on bedrooms.

Yeah, I would say there is a high need for one bedroom units. That's actually one of the highest needs across most of our providers for single individual households. But I think that that is something that could be under consideration if that was a strong interest of council to look at the bedroom mix.

I'll ask the Laurel Street team if you all would like to add anything.

thank you Lee Cochran with Laurel Street what I would say is we're really we have a strong commitment to serving folks across all income and family sizes with the goal being to use it utilize as small amount of the site as possible that's why we tended to use more one bedrooms here just because of trying to minimize the footprint as one of the larger goals I will say that the beauty of this type of development is because it'll be elevator served even though it's not age-restricted those one bedrooms can also serve seniors which is common in our non-age restricted seniors i think across our work across in east durham or all of downtown durham we've tried to balance the kind of one twos and threes across kind of the whole footprint so among all our developments we think we have a really good mix and so if we got a lot of demand for threes we could always refer them to other communities other parts of the community

Great. Thank you for that. And this is a very far out question, but I just want to kind of tag it for the radar. We've got, you all have a great portfolio in Durham of housing. And I'm wondering at what point in time we talk about how buildings are managed and what property management companies we utilize. heard earlier today from folks who are not at a city and property, but they're aligned with other folks who are doing a tenants union at a city owned property, just like sort of ensuring that as we're building this, we're actually thinking about the livability in the long term and what that management selection looks like and whether we can have any say in that process. I know it's really far out. But I'm just wondering, like, in terms of timeline, when should we start thinking about that? And what kind of questions should we be asking?

Yes, that is definitely on my team's radar. And I think one of the things that we can do is in our funding commitments we can build in terms related to expectations around property management, responsiveness to tenants' concerns. That is something that we could look at. And one of the things that attracted us in particular to Laurel Street is that they have in-house property management functions, which we think is very beneficial because they're local, they work in several neighborhoods potentially across the city. So I think that's one of the things that we liked about them in particular.

Thank you. Those are my questions. Thanks again, y'all. And thank you to the working group. I know, I think, I don't know if anybody is still here, but really appreciate all the work that y'all did on this.

Council Member Baker. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I just want to echo some of my colleagues' comments. I know we've been at this a long time, some of our colleagues on the council longer than I have. Several of us joined during the process. I just want to thank the staff, first of all, for working on this. And I think it was Manager Ferguson's recommendation to go when the last project didn't fly. We're like, let's just kind of manage it ourselves, right? So I want to thank the staff for doing that, because I think we're finally now at a place where we're really moving forward. It's really exciting. I want to thank my colleagues. I know we worked hard to make sure that this city still owns the land. That was a big part of what we worked on Councilmember Cook and Baker, when we first came on the council, that's an exciting part of this. I'm glad. I wish there were more affordability, more than 80 units, but this is exciting to have that affordability on the site. It's all a big success. So I feel like the council has worked increasingly better together. I know in the past there's been a lot of questions about priorities and so forth. I think we've worked together well, and I'm glad that we have a consensus here about this going forward to give the staff good direction there. So I think it shows a lot of... A LOT OF GREAT WORK TAILED ON THIS COUNCIL, SO I WANT TO RECOGNIZE THAT. I WANT TO THANK DIRECTOR VENUS FOR HELPING MOVE THIS ALONG. LOWER STREET PARTNERS, YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT PARTNER IN OTHER PROJECTS AROUND THE CITY, SO THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE. I JUST HAD TWO QUESTIONS. SO ONE IS, FOR THE $6.3 MILLION, I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY THE BOND FUNDS HAVE BEEN ESSENTIALLY COMMITTED. SO THE $6.3 MILLION COMES FROM DEDICATED HOUSING FUND, OR WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?

Yes. So $4 million of that is dedicated housing fund, which we had included in this year's budget to provide gap funding for a development project, TBD. And then the remainder is from old bond revenue. So from the 2000 bond, I believe. So not the more recent 95. Yeah. That's great.

second question is so on this nine percent lie tech i guess my my i know that the state typically there's no rules in this but typically awards durham like one nine percent deal a year is not correct i mean again there's no rules every tip of that so do we know and i know there's other redevelopment projects going on including as we talked about today like durham housing authority so do we know what other projects may be competing with this in early 2027

Yes, that is a good question. And that is correct. We would only receive typically one for the entire county. So we're not, we have not received formal notice of any other interested project. One could pop up and that's a possibility. We would hope to get one, but this, as I said earlier, this scores perfectly based on the current QAP and we believe would be highly competitive.

Sometimes we're talking to some of the other partners, especially like the Housing Authority. I know that. Oh, yeah.

We've consulted with the Housing Authority. They're not planning to submit a 9% request.

For next year.

Right.

Okay. That's important. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Wow, what a change in feelings and sentiment up here from not that long ago. I feel like you've very quickly earned a lot of people's trust up here. I know there's still some big questions to be answered. It's not a done deal, but this feels like a really, really good direction. I feel philosophically that when we spend public dollars or loan public dollars that we need to be using those for deeply affordable, permanently affordable housing. affordable housing is infrastructure. And if we build housing or spend public dollars on housing that goes back into the speculative market in five years or 10 years or 30 years, then I see that as a wasted opportunity for something that could be more permanent. We're going to need more affordable housing 30 years from now, just as much or more. as we do today, and a great way to build wealth is to have affordable, stable rent as well, in addition to other ways of building wealth. So this is great, this is so important. I was curious, you mentioned how this leaves land on the northwest quadrant of the block. I was curious about the southeast quadrant, if there's still land available, at least with the conceptual design, I know it's conceptual, whether that would still be developable after this project were to move forward successfully.

Yes, it would be. So there would this would take up that back corner and there would still be vacant land on the other corner on the south southern side as well.

Okay, awesome. And then I would just emphasize that as much as possible, high-quality materials, great design, give people a great place to live. I saw in the rendering, at least, the balconies, and I think that follows the Jane Jacobs eyes on the street people. permeability of the frontage of the building and people being able to see in and see out and feel safe when they when they walk by when they're living in their unit so i just want to reiterate that and uh yeah i'm excited about where this could go thank you thank you thank you this is um a great presentation good news um we're all cross our fingers for nine percent um when you deliver the housing plan later is there going to be kind of like

We know we had this commitment. What are the other commitments in the pipeline with current dollars? Because you mentioned that earlier, that funding plan, so that we as council have a really clear idea of, this is the gap that we're going to have to figure out somehow, not with this project, but just broadly. Because we know that there's some pretty critical DHA properties that need to get redeveloped. I mean, the reason they got developed in the first place is because it was a bond. So I'm assuming it's going to be probably a similar plan for those. So I think it'll be helpful as we get further in to just have that totality. This is great news. 80 units, we know, is not enough. And don't want to lose sight of that bigger picture.

Yes, absolutely. So our housing plan will include general targets for affordable housing development and preservation, including a 9% deal every year, we should, I think, aim for that. And then the investment needed to meet those targets.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you for getting us here. This is very thorough, and I'm just really grateful for the work that went into this, from the working group to your staff. And also, I just want to highlight the commitment to Durham that Laurel Street has. You guys have helped us out on producing affordable housing on many properties, many sites. And that commitment, the quality overall is there. Not pertaining to this case specifically, but I'm really curious on what type of language I could utilize as an advocate in my former capacity as mayor to convince the state of North Carolina and whatever sources to provide more than just one 9% LIHTC credit. I mean, when you look at the rate of growth between Charlotte, you know, the triad is catching up, but if you think about Charlotte and then you think about the triangle, the region and the rate of growth, you would think that we would qualify, it would make sense to have an additional available tax credit.

Agreed. Yes, in Orange County they received one. much smaller population. So yes, I agree and think that there's a complicated formula for how that's determined, but I think advocacy there could be helpful because it is one of our most important tools to deliver affordable rental housing currently?

Well, you know, I think the government can figure it out. They do a really good job at providing tax credit relief to others, if you know where I'm going with that. So I think we can figure it out for housing as well, considering when it comes to housing, We're putting rules over people's head who are going to invest back into the economy. So I just outside of this case, I would love some talking points or just some data that can help me with that, taking it to our state legislature and wherever else I can take it.

One last thing, we've thanked ourselves, staff, all the partners. I also want to thank the community members. Some of them are here who have advocated for this for a long, long time, held us accountable in this. Jane, you're back there. Thank you for that. So I think that's also been an important part of this. The community has really rallied and really feels strongly about this, and I think we have a great sort of project going forward. So thank you, Jane, and other folks from Canada and elsewhere who have really advocated hard on this. Thank you.

Yeah, some of y'all needed to be on payroll. Gosh. Now, thanks for your work and your service. The other thing that I had, I'm wondering how, and this, again, probably not specifically, actually, it's not pertaining to the actual building structure that we're discussing, but it is pertaining to the site. For just the sake of just visuals, there are some inappropriate stuff. on the buildings, on the building that's currently there. And I'd like to just put that on the radar for us to address that. That would probably be, I don't, general services? Okay. So I just wanted to speak of that in the same vein, just that we could just mirror that graffiti. But I'm excited about what's to come. This is really good. I do want to say while we're on this, I went to Raleigh and I had a lunch or a sit down with the CEO of Preservation North Carolina. And just to really get a better understanding of the work that they do just in general, because I'm just really appreciative of their efforts. And just wanted to thank them for working with us here in Durham. And I just, all around, from the affordable housing developer to Preservation North Carolina, Um, we've we've all together quite a coalition from community members to the industry folks to even the city. I'm grateful. I think we're in a really good place now. You can let us know. We need to go taller, higher. You know, I'll be down for that as well. We need to come back to it and let us know if you want to go higher. You identify even more be in support of that. But thank you all so much.

Thank you.

All right, number eight. I'm gonna get my voice back soon, I tell you. I can't seem to kick it.

All right, am I still starting with good afternoon or am I moving to good evening? All right. Good afternoon. I'm Sherry Metcalf, Strategic Initiatives Manager, and I'm joined today by Andrew Holland, who is our Assistant Director over Performance and Innovation in the Budget and Management Services Department. Over the past year, you've done a lot of work establishing the strategic plan framework and identifying the priorities that will guide the city's work over the next three years. Today, we're – this is why I'm having problems. Today, we're excited to share the work staff have done to develop the initiatives that will achieve those priorities and complete the strategic plan. We'll begin today with a brief overview of what makes up a strategic plan and how we arrived at the draft before you today. We'll review the process we've followed over the past several months from council's priority setting discussions to the work staff have done to translate your priorities into actionable initiatives. Andrew will then walk through each of the strategic goals, the associated priority areas, and the initiatives staff have developed. After that, I'll come back. I'm going to talk about your four-goal versus five-goal framework that we previously said we would bring back to you. And then finally, I'll close by reviewing some next steps. We know a few questions came up during Monday's work session related to a couple of strategic plan priorities. We're aware that Councilmember Kopach sent suggestions last night. So we'd like to first walk through the presentation in its entirety, and then I'll turn it over to the Mayor to facilitate Council discussion. And that discussion would be a great opportunity to revisit any questions as well as ask any additional questions that come to mind after you've seen the full presentation. With that, let's begin by taking a quick look at what the strategic plan is and how we got here. The strategic plan serves as the city's roadmap. It establishes where we're headed, aligns our resources with council's priorities, and helps ensure we're measuring progress toward the outcomes we want to achieve. More importantly, it provides a shared direction for council, staff, and the community by connecting the city's long-term vision with the work we do every day. So just remember, the strategic plan is not intended to capture everything that the city does. The priorities included in the strategic plan are those that rose to the top through council discussions and community engagement. They represent the areas that will receive additional focus, enhance performance reporting, and strategic resource considerations over the next few years. At the same time, the city will absolutely continue delivering core services and advancing many other council priorities. through departmental work plans, existing master plans, policy direction, day to day operations. So before reviewing the plan itself, we wanted to spend just a moment talking about how it's organized. This slide represents all the components that City Council have developed. At the top are our mission and vision, which serve as the foundation for everything we do. You all approve this as part of the budget adoption process. In the middle are the strategic goals that City Council developed last fall. And at the bottom half there are the priority areas determined at the February budget retreat. This next slide adds on the development of initiatives by staff that support each priority and identify the work that will move us toward achieving Council's desired outcomes. This structure creates a clear line from Council's vision to the day-to-day work happening across the organization. You'll see that each strategic goal contains several Council priorities, and each priority is supported by a set of initiatives. So how did we get here? This process really began last fall with Council's visioning workshops right here in this room. During that September workshop, Council reflected on the current strategic plan, discussed emerging opportunities and challenges, and identified initial priority areas for the next strategic plan. In October, Council refined and confirmed those priorities, creating the framework that has guided all the work staff have done over the past several months. Now, following council's direction, we conducted an extensive engagement effort with both residents and city employees. We heard directly from nearly 500 residents through community outreach events, including more than 170 youth. We received over 700 responses through the resident satisfaction survey and engaged nearly 250 city employees through online outreach and visits to operational departments. This feedback helped validate many of council's priorities while also providing valuable insight that staff used as we developed the initiatives you'll see today. Finally, during the February budget retreat, Council reviewed all the engagement feedback. This included the quantitative data collected through surveys and also the qualitative data that our Department of Community Partnerships and Engagement did through the community conversation events that they facilitated in late fall. Council then had a conversation about the strategic plan framework as well as voted on the priority areas that staff have used to develop the initiatives we're presenting today. And that brings us to this slide. You will see your four goals on top with your priority areas listed below. These priorities have been front and center not only in the development of initiatives, but also when staff are working on the budget that you all adopted in June. So initiative development. Since February, staff have worked collaboratively across departments to translate Council's priorities into a coordinated set of initiatives designed to achieve the outcomes you identified. These initiatives were developed through extensive cross-departmental collaboration and informed by research, leading practices from peer organizations, existing plans, staff expertise, operational experience, and a careful assessment of available resources and organizational capacity. The result is a draft strategic plan that provides a realistic, coordinated, and measurable roadmap for advancing Council's priorities over the next three years. With that background, I'm going to turn this over to Andrew, who's going to share out more information around the initiatives.

Great. Thank you, Sherry. So next, I would like to walk you through the proposed initiatives that were developed by city staff. As Sherri has already alluded to, these initiatives were developed by staff who will be responsible for implementing the work and are based on their expertise and experience. The proposed initiatives are designed to be realistic and achievable using existing staffing resources. At this point, we are not anticipating significant changes to the proposed initiatives. Please note that many of our city staff are here today. If you have any questions about a particular initiative, they will be available to provide additional information and answer any questions that you may have. We are going goal by goal with your priorities in bold in the corresponding initiative listed below. So for our first goal, which is a safe community. This goal reflects Council's longstanding commitment to investing in youth and promoting community safety. The initiatives presented today build on Council's existing investments in youth development and community safety by improving positive opportunities for youth, for young people, and advancing collaborative evidence-informed strategies to reduce violence and improve quality of life for all residents. So starting with our first council priority, which is support safe, positive opportunities for youth. We have two initiatives. So the first one is support and create safe, accessible spaces that provide youth with positive opportunities. This initiative builds on council's ongoing commitment to invest in parks, community facilities, and neighborhood spaces where young people can learn, connect, and thrive. This includes safety assessments and enacting several safety procedures and protocols. Next, expand and pilot programs and services that support youth who face barriers. This initiative focuses on identifying evidence-based approaches that better support youth facing barriers to success. Staff will pilot targeted programs, evaluate what works, and use those results to inform future investments and expand successful initiatives over time. The second council priority is reduce violence. You will notice that there are a few areas throughout the plan that are identified as placeholders. These represent areas where council has already established the strategic direction, but staff is awaiting the completion of related work that is expected in the very near future. Once those reports or plans are adopted by council, staff will incorporate the resulting initiatives into the strategic plan. As we come to each of these placeholders, I'll briefly explain what work is underway and when you can expect those initiatives to be finalized. As you are aware, COUNTS has already demonstrated its commitment to community safety by supporting collaborative violence reduction efforts across the city. This initiative focuses on completing the city-county violence reduction plan and implementing evidence-informed strategies to improve safety, strengthen prevention efforts, and build healthier and more resilient neighborhoods. Moving to our inclusive economic prosperity goal. This goal is unique in that it is a placeholder related to all three of your priorities that you can see here on the slide. In May, you heard from our director, Joshua Gunn, with the Office of Economic Workforce Development, that staff is currently developing the economic development plan, which is anticipated to be completed by the end of this fiscal year. While there is significant work already underway in this area, staff is intentionally waiting for that plan to be completed and brought forward for council consideration and adoption before fully developing the specific initiatives that would be included in the strategic plan. Moving to our third goal, our high-performing organization, where we have three council priorities. The first strategic priority under this area focuses on ensuring the city has the tools, processes, and coordination needed to successfully deliver infrastructure projects and services. This party recognizes that effective capital planning is not only about identifying what needs to be built, but also about making thoughtful investments, improving project delivery, and keeping our community and leadership informed throughout the process. Under this party, there are three key initiatives. Advanced capital project planning and funding strategies. The first initiative focuses on improving how we plan and fund capital projects. By using long-term planning approaches and clearly identifying funding strategies, the city can make informed decisions about where to invest limited resources. This ensures that capital investments are aligned with community priorities and directed toward projects that provide the greatest impact and long-term value. The next one, implement coordinated strategies for efficient project delivery. The second initiative is focused on improving how we deliver projects once they are identified and funded. By approving a collaboration and streamlining workflows, the city can reduce delays, manage costs effectively, and ensure projects are completed as planned. Next, streamline capital project transparency and communication. The third initiative emphasizes the importance of transparency and communication throughout the capital project process. Providing accurate, timely, and accessible information helps residents, council, and staff better understand project status, priorities, and investments. Moving to our next priority, maintain a high-performance city workforce through competitive pay and benefits. The second priority focuses on one of the city's most valuable assets, our employees. A high-performing organization depends on having a workforce that is skilled, engaged, and supported. This priority is focused on ensuring the city remains competitive in attracting and retaining talented employees by evaluating compensation, strengthening benefits, and creating opportunities for growth and improving communication about overall value of employment with the city. Under this priority, there are four key initiatives. The first one, conduct a comprehensive compensation study and pay equity review. The first initiative focuses on ensuring the city's compensation structure is competitive, equitable, and aligned with the current labor market. Through a comprehensive compensation study and pay equity review, the city will review current pay plans and benefits to identify opportunities for improvement. This work will help ensure employees are compensated fairly while supporting the city's ability to attract, retain a highly qualified workforce. Next, evaluate employee benefits for optimization and sustainability. The second initiative focuses on reviewing the city's employee benefits to ensure they continue to meet both organizational and employee needs. This includes evaluating the competitiveness and sustainability of current offers while also improving employees' understanding of available benefits. Next, enhance career pathways and employee growth opportunities. The third initiative focuses on creating clear opportunities for employee development and advancement. By better defined career pathways, this will support the city's long-term workforce needs by developing internal talent, improving retention, and enhancing succession planning efforts. Next, promote total compensation awareness and communication. The fourth initiative recognizes the importance of communicating the full value of working for the city. By improving communication around total compensation, the city can help employees better understand and appreciate the overall investment made in them. So the next strategic priority is focused on government efficiency and meaningful outcomes. The third strategic priority focuses on refining how the city measures success, evaluates services, uses data to make informed decisions. As stewards of public resources, it is important that the city continuously evaluate how we operate, ensures programs are delivering meaningful results, and using technology and data responsibly to improve efficiency and accountability. This priority includes three initiatives. First one, strengthen citywide performance management to align strategy, resources, and results. The first initiative focuses on improving how the city measures performance and tracks progress towards goals. By optimizing performance management practices, the city can better connect resources to outcomes and use data to support informed decision making. The next, develop a systematic program evaluation process. The second initiative focuses on creating a consistent approach for evaluating city programs and services. A formal evaluation process will help determine whether it's working well, where improvements may be needed, and whether programs are achieving their intended outcomes. This provides leadership with valuable information to guide future investments and ensures public resources are being used effectively and responsibly. Developing important data in AI governance policy. The third initiative focuses on building a strong foundation for responsible use of data in emerging technologies, including AI. As the city continues to expand its use of data tools, establishing clear governance policies will help ensure information is used ethically, securely, and effectively. And now to our last goal, vibrant, sustainable, built, and natural environment where we have six council parties. The first one is encourage affordable, walkable neighborhoods with nearby shops and services. The first strategic party is centered on creating neighborhoods where residents have greater access to housing options, daily services, and safe, convenient ways to move throughout their communities. This priority supports the city's broader vision of creating connected, walkable neighborhoods where people can live, work, and access essential services closer to home. This priority includes three key initiatives. First one, refined regulatory incentive process. The first initiative focuses on improving the tools available to encourage affordable housing development. The city's existing regulatory census process, including the affordable housing density bonus, provides an opportunity to better support the creation of affordable housing options. By evaluating and refining these incentives, the city can develop a more flexible and effective approach, approaches that encourage additional housing opportunities while responding to the community needs. Next, facilitate the creation of non-residential development on or near new and existing neighborhoods. The second initiative focuses on bringing more services, shops, community amenities closer to where people live. Supporting appropriately scaled neighborhood retail services and mixed-use development helps advance the city's 15-minute community vision, where residents can access many of their daily needs within a short walk, bike ride, or transit trip. Next, improved development standards related to street design and pedestrian infrastructure. The third initiative focuses on creating safer and more accessible streets and public spaces. By updating development standards and infrastructure requirements, the city can create safer, more connected neighborhoods while advancing the goals of the Vision Zero Action Plan. Moving to our affordable housing priority. Similar to the reduced violence priority mentioned earlier, this is a placeholder that is intentionally tied to a larger planning effort currently underway. Once an affordable housing plan is completed and dotted by council, this will be updated to reflect the specific recommendations and implementation actions identified in the plan. So our next priority area is support better outcomes for our residents experiencing homelessness. The next strategic priority focuses on advanced endurance response to homelessness through coordinated partnerships, strategic investments, and a more effective service delivery system. The following three initiatives come directly from the strategic framework to make homelessness rare and brief that you have already adopted. Next, set foundations for effective resilient homeless response system. The first initiative focuses on building the foundation for a stronger and more coordinated homeless response system. This work will bring partners together around shared data, coordinated resources, and common goals to create a more unified approach to addressing homelessness. Next, implement homelessness reduction strategies. The second initiative focuses on putting targeted strategies into action to reduce homelessness. The work will begin with a pilot program to evaluate effective approaches and identify best practices before expanding to a broader implementation strategy. Next, establish, enhance, and coordinate partnerships within homelessness systems. The third initiative focuses on strengthening the partnerships and organizational capacity needed to sustain an effective homelessness response system. This includes implementing consistent evaluation practices, standardizing project management, improving communication, and supporting flexible funding strategies. Next, create more parks, playgrounds, and greenways near residents. The next strategic party focuses on connecting more residents to high quality recreational opportunities close to where they live. As Durham continues to grow, it is important that the city's park system grows with it, providing equitable access to recreational spaces, enhancing quality of life, and supporting healthy and connected communities. This party includes four key initiatives. First one is create a plan for park expansion. The first initiative focuses on creating a strategic roadmap for expanding Durham's park system. Building on the vision established in the park system plan, this effort will identify future opportunities for park development and help prioritize investments to meet the recreational needs of a growing community. Next, strengthen strategic partnerships to promote park expansion. The second initiative recognizes that expanding the park system is a shared effort. By expanding partnerships with public agencies, private organizations, developers, and community partners, the city can leverage additional resources and opportunities to accelerate development of new parks, trails, and recreational amenities. Next, identify address facility amenity gaps. The third initiative focuses on evaluating the city's existing parks, recreational amenities to better understand where services gaps exist. This assessment will help identify opportunities to add or enhance amenities that residents value most while ensuring recreational opportunities are distributed more equitably throughout the community. Enhance trail project delivery. The fourth initiative focuses on improving how trail projects move from planning to completion. By evaluating current planning, design, construction processes, the city can identify opportunities to streamline project delivery, improve coordination, and bring new trail connections to residents more efficiently. Next, develop, implement transit improvements, including Bus Rapid Transit, also known as BRT. The next strategic priority focuses on improving Durham's public transportation system by expanding transit options, increasing service reliability, and enhancing the overall rider experience. Investing in high-quality transit is essential to improving mobility, supporting economic development, connecting residents to jobs and services, and creating a more sustainable transportation network. This priority includes three initiatives. The first one, Advance Bus Rapid Transit by Completing Required Prerequisites. The first initiative focuses on advance endurance first bus rapid transit corridor toward federal funding eligibility. Before the city can compete for federal funding, several key milestones must be completed. Completing these prerequisites positions Durham to pursue significant federal investment and move the project closer to implementation. Next, improved frequency and reliability of transit. The second initiative focuses on improving the quality of daily transit service by increasing frequency and enhancing reliability. By improving on-time performance and reducing wait times, the city can provide a more dependable transportation option that better meets the needs of our residents and also our visitors. Next, improve rider experience with high-quality facilities and amenities. The third initiative focused on enhancing the overall rider experience by investing in modern transit facilities and supporting infrastructure. This includes completing the new Durham station and advancing several major transit corridor and transit center projects throughout the community. Next, reduce emissions and build resilient infrastructure to address heat and flooding. The final strategic priority within this goal focuses on preparing Durham for the impacts of a changing climate while reducing the city's environmental footprint. As our community continues to experience more extreme weather events, it is important that the city invests in sustainable operations, resilient infrastructure, and strategies that protect residents and ensure essential services remain reliable. This priority includes three key initiatives. advanced sustainable and low-emission transportation. The first initiative focuses on reducing emissions from the city's vehicle fleet. As technology continues to evolve, the city will expand the use of electric vehicles where practical, while also incorporating hybrid and alternative fuel options for vehicles that require capabilities not yet supported by current electric technology. Next, expand energy efficiency and renewable energy in city operations. The second initiative focuses on making city facilities more energy efficient, increasing the use of renewable energy. This includes updating the city's carbon neutrality and renewable energy plan, and implementing strategies that reduce energy consumption, improve operational efficiency, and lower long-term operating costs. And last but not least, enhance the city's preparation for climate resiliency. The third initiative focuses on preparing the city for the challenges posed by extreme heat, flooding, and other climate-related events. By strengthening infrastructure and improving cross-departmental coordination and enhancing emergency preparedness, the city can better protect residents and maintain critical services during disruptions. This work helps build a more resilient community that is better equipped to respond to future climate impacts. And that is our strategic plan, and I will hand it over to Sherry to wrap us up.

Okay. So here is our current goal framework. And based on the feedback from the February budget retreat, we are bringing you an alternative option with five goals, with housing being pulled into its own goal instead of part of the vibrant sustainable built natural environment goal. So unless we hear differently from you today, We will move forward with the four-goal framework, but whether there are four or five, it has no real implication for implementation, right? The initiatives would stay. We'd still do all of them. It just depends on how we organize them. So please let us know if you have a preference, and we will look for some consensus before making those changes. This slide shows This is how it is right now. This is what Andrew just went through. And then this next slide shows how it would look if housing was pulled out. You'll see it on the right where we've included the housing priority as well as the homelessness priority. OK. So what's next? So we are hoping that on August 17th you will adopt our strategic plan, which will then kick us right into implementation. When that begins, we would say that implementation is our most challenging but important phase of our strategic plan. Beginning this fall, regular meetings with executive leadership will roll out and we will start tracking outcomes and leave measures. The biannual dashboard will be updated so council and residents can see the progress being made. And we are discussing options, reporting out to all of you the progress more frequently going forward. So I'm going to turn this back to the mayor for any discussion. As previously mentioned, there are staff available here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you all for taking this work, taking this on, and I'll bring it back before the council. I want to get my voice back at some point. I'm going to bring it back before the council, and I'll start with Councilmember Kopach. I think he has the most to say right now.

All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Sherry and Andrew and your team for this work and bringing this back to us today. So first of all, you had the question pose us about four goals versus five goals. So I just want to make a recommendation that we shift to the five goals, having housing as a standalone goal. I think there's enough You know, some goals that relate to it to kind of justify. I think it'll be clear for residents be more digestible to separate that out. I don't know how you want to proceed, Mr. Mayor. If you kind of want to do one thing at a time, because I have a few items to raise. What are you Is it just as simple as like make an emotion or should I walk through all of them?

Let's go through all of it first before we start taking action.

All right. And my colleagues have this information that I sent on Monday just to have a chance to review and give feedback. So just would love to have comments that any of my colleagues have. So the first is to move to five goals. The second, I sent my colleagues and staff a recommendation for updated names for the goals, just to have a more consistent naming convention across all of them. Once again, just for consumability for residents. The third is a recommendation to explicitly call out bikes. In the areas where we talk about walkability and transit-oriented development, those tend to all go together. I think it was more just perhaps a, well, for whatever reason, that was in there, and so I want to recommend in the environment goal that it's walkability, bikeability, and transit. And then fourth, I had language that I sent that provides an update to the language around the carbon reduction and climate resilience. goal area and I can talk more about that in specifics when we get to it. But I'll pause there for now and see if my colleagues have any thoughts or questions.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor, and thanks, Councilmember Kopek, for your work looking at that. Thanks to the staff. There's a lot of work here. I appreciate the presentation, but also the whole strategic plan you shared with us as well that I've been through. So I've got a couple comments. So I don't know if you want, I'll let the mayor know, like I think five goals makes more sense. I've been saying that from the beginning, as you all remember. Like it's, to me, the sort of the built environment, the housing thing, what it matters is too much there. So I think five goals makes much more sense, easier to understand. Housing is an important enough goal for this community. I think it should be called out separately. I appreciate Council Member Kobach's comments. I would accept all the sort of changes you suggested in the word doc. I think that makes a whole lot of sense, including the five goals. I would just say, and again, I want to appreciate staff for so much work here. I think this is not quite ready. I appreciate the work that staff did on the initiative development that you described there. And I think there's also descriptions that came with those initiatives. I think those were helpful, but also not all the same. So we had some that were written as simply descriptions. Some were written as outcomes, actual outcomes we had accomplished. Some were written as aspirational, we should do this. And so I think those descriptions of those initiatives need to be, it feels like it's been a group process, which I'm sure it has across departments. To me, those need to be a little bit more kind of like wordsmithed and made consistent across the whole plan. So it's not like different kinds of descriptions that go with different initiatives in the different goal areas. So I think that needs a little more work. I'd love to send it back to staff just to make sure those goals are clearly refined, the language is consistent across the goals, so that as we share those with our community, it's a clear plan with clear descriptions and clear language across all the goal areas. So that's my feedback. And again, I'm sorry, I know there's been a lot of work you all done, but I think I want to make sure in the end, not just get it done, but make sure the plan is the full, complete plan that we want to share with the city and feel good about. Thank you.

I actually echo pretty much everything. I... and i want to appreciate councilmember kopac has done a lot of work i feel like you came in like right before we were talking about this the first time and you were like gave us this thing and we got it like the night before and everyone was overwhelmed but um i can tell you put a lot of effort into it and it and it does feel more consistent to me and it does feel clearer with the five goals so i feel fine about that i feel fine about the Names, I think we had a conversation about like built a natural environment. I might be interested in maybe continuing to like have that discrepancy because I think that those two things are important and I think they're different. I feel fine about adding the bikeability piece. To me, and I kind of agree with what Councilmember Ritz is saying, that it feels like just kind of inconsistent and the level of detail feels really inconsistent. And so something that stood out to me is like, we've got this develop and implement transit improvements. that is great. And to me, that sort of aligns with what the rest of the things are talking about. But then in the actual thing, it's like, here are the five steps to getting BRT. It's not exactly that, but that's kind of what it feels like. our transit funds are really up in the air. And are we going to focus on BRT for the next five years? I don't know. I mean, I know that this is something that we've been talking about, but do I want it in the headline of our strategic plan? Probably not. And so anyway, yeah, I'm there's some things that feel like very, very detail specific, and then other things that feel like very broad. And I feel like the the reason as you've been telling us multiple times that we want to leave it broad, because we want to be able to like, be sort of flexible and dynamic in our policymaking. And we want to have these like goals. and then have expertise coming to us and as things shift and federal and state policy shifts and our partners do things that we do or don't agree with, that we want to be able to adapt to those and still be meeting our plan. So for me it's like some things feel very ready to go and then others feel like so specific that I feel like it boxes us in in a way that I don't really care for.

Yes. Echo Councilmember Cook's comments. I agree. I don't love this document, and it does feel a bit scattered. All of that being said, There are seven of us. We didn't provide clear direction. This is a chaotic process. I also don't think it holds us back. I don't think it's the end of the world. I already knew coming into this I wasn't going to like the outcome of the document because there are seven of us, different priorities. I do think at a certain point we just need to move forward, you know, and we can always go back and amend it or whatever. As far as Councilmember Kopacz suggested at it, I'm actually okay. I'm okay with all of them, except coming back to Councilmember Cook, I would like to keep natural and built environment. And actually in that section, we actually don't have that much about the environment. like open space or anything like that. If we're breaking the seal on this thing, I would have other edits as well. I'd like to add union jobs under inclusive economic prosperity. I'd like to add tax justice, collective ownership, and housing cooperatives under inclusive economic, that section. I'd like to add humane with our homelessness description. That's really all. So if we were to... bump this back two weeks. I'd probably suggest those comments to my colleagues. I'm happy moving forward on the imperfect document. Open to the discussion. Curious to hear what everybody else has to say.

I can appreciate all those. I don't have a lot of heartburn with the adjustments. What I will say is it's a strategic plan. there there are some areas where it's really subjective and i think that you know you hit the nail on the head it's seven of us and i think it's reflective of the lack of clear direction we gave you um when you made those comments councilmember baker i felt like that was what every staff member was thinking but just not going to say it out loud um so so partly this is on us you know and and there are there's a lot of subjective language in the document and we have very different perspectives or ideas on how to reach what affordable means. Some people may feel just gut the city coffers and just put everything into building the infrastructure at a lower price and cap it there. I don't know where the funding or revenue will come from. And then there are some that believes that, you know, to get affordable housing, you have to address other determinants, you know, such as making sure we are positioning ourselves to bring in employers that are going to pay a higher wage. I think we have different economic theories to get to what get to the point of something being affordable. I think that we have different theories when it comes to, you know, how we address the environmental things. And I do say I agree, Councilman, because the more specific we are or naming something we before was BRT was passenger rail and before passenger rail, it was light rail. And so I don't feel comfortable getting so deep into naming things in a strategic plan that's supposed to really be a it's supposed to give us direction. with options in that direction, not a specific thing in that direction or one option in that direction, because things change. And I just want to make sure that we provide ourselves the flexibility, the capacity and flexibility to be able to adjust with the times. This document, when done, is going to go into a big, beautiful frame with all of our signatures on it. And it's going to be over throughout the city for everyone to see. And it's our accountability document. and so uh i don't want us getting in getting so deep into the weeds where we're you know we're we're producing ideology statements or ideology things that are so subjective what does that mean how do you actually get there within how this actual government functions and so um that that's that that's where i am on it that's how i feel about it councilmember copac thank you

So reflecting on my colleague's comments, yeah, totally fine, built in natural environment. I was just trying to tighten it up, but I still think the five flow consistently with, you know, the new naming convention. Appreciate the support for the other recommendations. I think part of it is in some ways strategic plan by committee, but that's what a lot of strategic plans are, right? People put a lot of ideas into the hopper and then you have to make priorities or, you know, choose priorities. I do think that there can be some more work done that is not about in coming up with ideas that weren't reflected in the sticky dots, but it's about language that is consistent across all the goals. Descriptions, as Council Member Riz said, that are similarly aspirational or descriptive or outcomes-based. Understanding that the inclusive economic prosperity goal may be, you know, less formed and we can choose to do that because we know that work is to come soon by Director Gunn and his team. I think I would perhaps caution against know breaking the seal in a way that introduces new priorities that weren't ones that we voted on together but i would support having kind of more consistent um kind of writing uh and and levels of information in it uh without trying to kick the can or punt too long because i know we want to get this done y'all been working on a long time yeah and i i think we're getting there um

So you just articulated it well. We're not trying to relitigate or do this process all over again, but based on what we have, just consistently presenting it in a way. Are we going to do descriptions? Are we going to do outcomes or what?

There's a lot of backup documentation here. We can certainly rewrite those descriptions and make them, yeah, we can do that.

Did you envision that was a next step, too, and you just needed our agreement now? Or were we voting on the plan?

I think today we're really, the goal conversation. I'm sorry. I'm going to let Christina talk.

Christina Reardon, Budget and Management Services Director. So I think the idea was that you would be voting on the plan at your next meeting on Monday, or a couple Mondays, yeah, on the 17th.

The final language.

So, yes, this would be the final language. I think we do hear you. I do want to also just kind of, you know, the staff were very kind of cautious about trying to use the language that council had used. you know also kind of directed us from in some of the meetings that we had heard from folks so things like natural and built environment were some of the things that we heard you say that were important to you so I think we would just like some really clear guidance on what exactly you would like us to bring back to you um so that we are not you know in a situation where you you you don't feel satisfied with the work that we're doing so that's I think Yeah, if it's not, if this is not it, we would just like to know exactly what are the things that you would, that's very helpful for us to be very specific about what you would like to know.

Colleagues, I am going to ask as we're getting some final comments to potentially consider sending back to staff, give us a little more time to give them clear depth. give them clear direction uh because i don't i mean i want to make sure all council members are here i'm not even going to be here on the 12th which we'll talk about um i'll be under 17 but just sending it back to staff before just pushing it through the process the next time we say we're voting on it um so i

So just a couple of thoughts. So I think you can blame a lot of stuff on the council. I think on this one, I think it's probably not on us. I think we gave pretty clear directions in terms of the goals and priorities, which you have, right? And so I think part of it is like, and a lot of us have written strategic plans. It's a lot of work. And so you've all have sort of tried to take the things we gave you, the goals and priorities, and add some sort of like the flesh to that, right? So part of it is just the process of writing. I'm sure it's different departments. And so I would say, Well, first thing is, I think it's important that we get this right, because part of the follow-up is that we're going to start getting, like, these updates on the dashboard, right? So the dashboard's got to relate to the plan. So if we're going to get updates and stuff, and it's going to be meaningful, it should be kind of tight, right? And so I feel like we, if we can agree, because I appreciate what Council Member Baker said about sort of opening the seal, like, if we can agree the goals and priorities with the revisions Council Member Kopick suggested do five instead of four, that if staff can just work on those descriptions to make sure those are tighter, and it sounds like there's, maybe Sherry said you got some additional backup, to make sure those are tighter, then I think we'll be there, but I think it doesn't mean we're sort of redoing the whole thing, it just means like kind of refining the stuff that you've added most recently is really what that is, so I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you for that feedback. Of course, we will do whatever the council directs us to do. But I think what you said is really important. It's the goals, it's the priorities, and those major initiatives. Some of those initiatives, we have the violent reduction plan, we have the economic development plan that's not developed, right? So there's no additional context around that at this point. You have the strategic framework to make homelessness rare and brief. You have the project delivery assessment. You have the comp class study. And you have whatever's going to be the next forever home. So those are major initiatives that are in there. The majority of everything you've talked about, everything we've been working on, it's in here. We have lots of information, there are lots of internal meetings, internal teams, the folks that are in this room. So the direction around the descriptions is not gonna change the plan. I understand what you're saying about making sure that it is clear and consistent, but some of the inconsistency is a lot of this is not built out yet. A lot of the work has not been done. So when there are teams around transit who are working on things they've been working on for a really long time, they're able to articulate that very intimately, right, regardless of some of the things that haven't been built out yet. So for example, the economic development plan, So I agree wholeheartedly that it is not consistent, but there are reasons it's not consistent, but we also can take the backup data we have and go back to those teams and say this is the standard we want to have. So we choose what that is, because there are lots of teams working on this, and teams are farther along than other teams in the work. So what we're asking of you is the goals, the priorities, and those major initiatives that we've already identified through the work that's been done.

So that makes a lot more sense to me. It's reflective of where we are. Because the other comment I was going to make, we've met the mark on a lot of these things, but there's still a lot that has to be done. If it's something that we've started already, then we can have more specificity to it. If it's something we haven't developed yet, it's going to be a bit more open-ended. So some things will sound aspirational versus an outcome. That makes sense to me. I don't know how others feel. Yeah, go ahead.

I would embrace the imperfections in this document. I do think we could spend a lot. We could spend forever on this. I mean, I completely agree with Councilmember Wriste. And at the same time, I mean, there's policy stuff I disagree with in here. I'm willing to move forward with what we've got, with the changes, with moving to the five categories, keeping the language of the built-in natural environment, knowing that, you know, I don't love everything in here. I'd be willing to move forward with this. Okay.

Yeah, I'm kind of like walking through the halls and just seeing the strategic plan with everyone's name on it and just imagining this going on the wall. And so I feel also that I like I want it to be kind of tight before we vote on it. And to me, it's like I think that we would if we wanted to have consistency and I hear what you're saying and I understand why there are more details in some spaces than in others. But if we want to have more consistency, then we sort of default to the least developed plans and then have sort of like we have we know we want to reduce violence that's great that's a very broad plan it doesn't have a lot of details under it and so we sort of make that consistent across the five and then as we sort of develop these plans we can flush out this document more but I don't know if we, do we have to vote on everything? We have to have all of the subparts ready to go when we pass it?

That's what my question is like. So in a very tangible way, so would we be voting on Monday on the 17th? Like if you look at the documents that were included with the agenda items, so there's like the plan, which is that like whatever 20-page document, and then there's a presentation, right? And so the plan is the one that has the goals, the priorities, and then the descriptions or whatever, and the whole plan. If we're voting on that, I don't think that's ready. If we're voting on that presentation that Andrew has just presented with the goals and priorities, with the changes Council Member Kobach has suggested, I'm totally fine with that. I think that makes sense. But the larger, the more detailed plan, the written one is like, that to me is not ready. That's the one where it doesn't feel like it's But if that means, as Deputy City Manager Windbridge said, that we're going to take the goals and priorities and it's going to be like an evolving kind of document, right? A living thing. And we have plans that we have. Some are already there. Some are being developed. If that's what's happening, it totally makes sense to me. Because we rely on staff to sort of like develop plans, revise us as things change, right? So to me, if it's the goals and priorities, I'm totally cool with the changes coming from what Kovacs suggested.

Yeah, and I think that's helpful. I mean, maybe you're just looking for direction from us, but it's a question, once again, what are we voting on? But I'm totally supportive of what Councilmember Cook and Rist are suggesting. It's what's in the presentation. It's a little higher level. It isn't all the double clicks and all the description writing. Embrace some of the imperfections. And I do appreciate the support for the recommendations that I made that apply to the top line document. We have built a natural environment.

So I think I think what I'm hearing is that we should go back and tighten up some of the light You know the language you would want you would be willing to vote on the goals and priorities at your next meeting But that the overall initiatives that you heard here today There's not a huge disagree as we start working with staff and stuff like that. That's part of what we'll start doing But we'll also be working on it as a living document.

That is the perfect summary of what I wanted. Yes and and I for me the And I think the only thing that feels too specific on here is the BRT thing, because it's like, but other than that, I think everything is pretty vague. And so I like the goals as they are with the five.

I'm on the five.

Yeah, just develop and improve, develop and implement transit improvements, period. Because that more aligns with what we have on the others.

Is everyone OK with that?

Could we see Mr. Holland's presentation of that page, just so I know what we'd be losing with that? Just that slide? I'm sorry. The slide.

It's just not limiting us to one type of transit.

That is like because I'm wondering that it would just that's like literally the only detail that's included in any of these things.

It's just number three under the fourth column counts on in February.

But yes, we I mean, if we get so so you've probably heard us say that because that's what the thing is now. But we and colleagues correct me if I'm wrong. We're, let's see, where is it? Develop and implement transit improvements, period. If we keep going, we're gonna get, I mean, is it BRT and light rail again, and just different types of transit, or improve transit?

Yeah. If you all, I mean, we're happy to make that change, if that's what the council wants to have.

Basically, right here, point number three under vibrant and sustainable built natural environment. Councilmember Cook was saying it feels really specific. And I agree. We don't want to really get into, in a strategic plan, determining what type, considering types change all the time. Funding sources change all the time. Light Rail was a funding source until it wasn't, and we saw what happened. So we just don't want to set ourselves up for failure when we're being too specific.

This gets at what the right level is again, because there are the other slides, right, that have each goal area with the subgoals. Would you mind pulling that up for a vibrant and sustainable built-in natural environment that includes transit? Yeah, so here I think then what it would be, that change would, from goal five, would strike including bus rapid transit, but you would still have bus rapid transit as bullet point A as one of the ways we're going about trying to tackle that top line goal. So I'm totally supportive of that, and actually I think too, with the changes I've proposed, I think we could even go to this level, of adoption, but not like the third level of adoption, like the third level of detail. So, it's like the top line, like the first double click, but then not that other document. Right. So, okay.

I mean, we would go with that.

Does everybody go with that?

Thumbs up?

All right. that you're all okay with what I proposed around, I think it has the headings, the bike, and then mainly around the three areas for number six, is what was in the document that I sent. Yeah, around emissions reductions and resilience. Okay.

Right, for six, I think what you're proposing is you were adding six A and B kind of as one, and then creating one about... Community.

Yeah, because it's like most of them need an opportunity, and the missions, like, it's really outside of operations. It sort of speaks to our last goal with that. Okay, and I have some, yeah, Gina wants to give some thoughts on that, but like, because right now, one of the goals, like, which is A, The first two really relate to what the city does with our own assets and infrastructure. And we've heard from Director Egan that, particularly with the loss of federal support, that while we're going to continue to pursue low emission transportation, We're also not on track to hit our goal. It just seems like that as a standalone doesn't make as much sense to me. That seems to collapse really well with the things that Citi does with its own assets and infrastructure. And then you have what is done to support work in community. which I think reflects the past strategic plan, our work with Central Pines Regional Council, best practices from other communities, the science of where we need to go, conversations with staff. So that's where that sort of generated from, having that community-oriented sub-goal around reducing emissions.

Good afternoon. Gina Probst, deputy city manager, and also with me is Rachel Toker, our sustainability manager. I think it'll be helpful for us to, if we're going to flesh out this discussion around community-wide emissions, to be clear about what the county's doing and what they are measuring as we look at what the city is doing currently and how we are structured and what we're measuring on city-wide emissions, to understand more your thoughts on what was submitted that we received today. so that we can have clear guidance on wordsmithing and or achievability and clarify some of that when it comes to where we have control over influence when it comes to community-wide efforts and where the county has historically led on like residential solar and some of their programs so that we either don't duplicate and or maybe understand a little bit more your thinking on that.

I absolutely agree and so that would be like the third level.

So are we saying we would table that third level for future discussion as we talk about item six we are generally accepting of this language with some tweaks or and then we work a little bit closer on further development of your

What I'm proposing is that you would have reduced emissions in city operations, reduced emissions community-wide, and enhanced city climate resiliency. And then the next double click in terms of how to flesh that out of what the details are of how we lean into that would be what we would table and revisit together.

Rachel, I invite Rachel to provide a little bit of context around the community-wide emissions and the work of the county.

Rachel Toker, Division Manager for Sustainability and Resiliency.

Hold on one second, Rachel.

I was just like, before we go too far down this road, this, to me, feels a little bit relitigating. And I'm not against the change, but this, to me, feels like breaking the seal, as opposed to the other things that felt like language and sort of setting of broadness or what it's covered.

And I under- Well, what we talked about previously was just six top line, full stop. There was nothing underneath it coming out of the last discussion. So there wasn't a chance to look at what that specific language would be.

I think that we've, I thought we voted on all of these sub things at some point in time. I thought we've had a conversation about all these things under. Are you saying that everything under like one through six, this is the first time we're seeing it?

Was that, did we have that in February?

You're saying the development is the A, B, C, D. Those are the ones that have been developed by staff or as part of this process.

And we didn't rank those when we were doing...

You ranked the ones in bold. Those were your priorities. And then we took those priorities and the city staff built out the initiatives.

And so is this the piece that we're saying that we might want to work on further? Or are folks feeling good about the ABCDs in here?

I think our question, our major concern was adding the plan, the resiliency plan, which is what was in our prior strategic plan. It came out. And we wanted to share why we did not include that in this plan. There are other initiatives that are helping us get there. But what we've talked about in the past, that that needs to be a regional plan, and that's the work you mentioned with Central Pines. So I wanted to ask DCM Prost to explain that, because that is a major change to your point.

Okay.

I cut you off.

I didn't give you any remarks. So Rachel and I are tag teaming on this a little bit as well when we describe what we mean by enhanced cities preparations for climate resiliency. And there is a lot of, if I may invite Rachel to say a little bit about that part about the data assessment and the work that we envision to do within our existing, as Andrew said at the beginning, existing resources and capacity.

And if I could just say we were asked to develop initiatives based on existing staff capacity and resources. And so there are two sort of interrelated but separate issues. One is the inclusion of an entirely new prong related to community-wide emissions mitigation. And the other is how we may or may not describe what we're doing on climate resiliency. So, you know, as I'm sure you're all familiar, there's sort of emissions management and mitigation, and then there's resiliency and adaptation. And our division is now sort of been tasked with addressing both of those things, whereas it in its early origins was focused on emissions mitigation. So as we looked at staff capacity, and resources. We are very aware that the county does a tremendous amount of community-wide emissions management and community-focused programming. Since we have added climate resiliency as an entire sort of component to our division staffed with three people. We wanted to just offer that there is programming being run out of the county for based on community wide sort of emissions management, energy efficiency and energy programming. On the other side of the coin, on the climate resiliency, that's obviously for your discussion. We did want to share today that there are many departments taking many actions to address climate resiliency even today. that in 2018 there was a Central Pines Regional Risk Assessment that was done that identified four major climate risks that our triangle is facing. That is drought, flood, heat, chronic and acute, and wildfires. We are in the process of data surfacing, understanding and building out our communication networks across the city to understand what each department is and has been doing. We know that General Services itself does urban forestry, tree canopy planting, heat island reduction, building redundancies in our buildings, and I can give you plenty of examples of that. We're working with water management. We're working with ESS. We're working with, you know, again, transportation and fleet to start to build informational networks and collaboration across climate resiliency. The plan, you know, that we have requested funding for in the past that was not, you know, funded is something for the council to decide You know, whether it wants to call that out as the goal, we are happy to continue doing what we're doing or to do whatever the council wants us to do on resilience.

So I think, I mean, I think we're getting in the weeds here a little bit. And this is not about sort of, I don't think we wanna get back and forth here. I do think what's important here in this document, ultimately, because this is a plan for the city, but for our community. And so this is partly things we wanna accomplish as a city, right? But there's also things in here that are like, leadership, aspirational, we're signaling to the community. So for example, we have in here reduce violence. We don't totally control that as a city, right? We don't control gun laws in this state. But we're saying reduce violence because it's so critical to our families. We're saying create pathways to quality jobs and economic mobility. We don't control the economy. We have some things we can control, but that's a thing we're signaling to the community. This is important for all residents. So I think this notion that, like, sure, we want to control our own emissions and our own buildings, but I think Council Member Kopach's point is really important that, like, it's not just the city controlling what we control and our fleet and our buildings, but it's also signaling to the community, to our partners at Durham County, Duke University, that we want a community-wide approach to, like, emissions at some point and resiliency. So, like, I think, like... Even though we can't totally control that, I think calling out our leadership as a city, because climate change is real. We talk about it all night. It's real. It's happening. And I think that's an important expansion of our plan to really include that community-wide piece, even though we don't totally control it. But I think it's a really important signaling piece that I would include.

And the way I was viewing this was that this is a four-year plan, not a one-year plan. And so part of it's work that we want to continue to grow over time. And also because we're not talking about that next level of how to operationalize it, that will be determined by how much staffing and resource support we give to you in every department. How generic it is or how specific it is will depend on the decisions we make each and every year going forward. but i just think it's really important for a municipality you know to say that you know our responsibility around emissions goes beyond just you know our own operations that it's community-wide and that's already ways we are partnering with the county and so i don't think we're ready to cleave off and say they have their you know sphere of influence we have ours but i totally get how much we do on it will depend on what we decide as a council as we weigh this against every other priority but i don't think it's inconsistent with that top line goal to suggest that. But I totally understand where staff is coming from.

And that's helpful. I think that, you know, if we were down a path and this is a direction to ensure that we broaden that, then you're correct. I mean, we work, as you know, the EAB is a subset. It's a joint city-county board. There's already joint city-county, you know, collaboration and coordination. So I think just getting clear on when you put in that word, it's a different word. So we want to make sure that we understand so that we can craft action plans and make recommendations accordingly.

All right. Oh, we're going to just say we also have the comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plan is a city's highest level policy document. So I think those these two documents, you know, work hand in hand in a lot of ways, that one's a little more long, long range thinking than than this one is. And when, you know, some of this is on us to I mean, when we're talking about community wide sustainability and resiliency, we got to be thinking about our zoning decisions, you know,

Agreed. All right. Are we all good?

So what is, so do we, Deputy City Manager, so send it back. Do you, do we, are we going to vote on this on Monday? If so, is there going to be a document we can see then the next week that we can look at before the meeting? What are we, how do we want to proceed?

If that is your desire, we can do that as well in terms of making sure that you see in advance exactly what we're asking you to vote on, yes.

Do you all feel like you can make the changes? You've heard us. Yes. Do you feel like you have clear guidance? And do you feel like you can get it done before the meeting? Or should we delay it a cycle? What would be your preference?

If we're just taking descriptions out and you're getting your goals, your priorities, and your initiatives, I mean, we can get that together very quickly. Is that what you're? Yes. With the changes. Yes. We'll remove the BRT comment. Just, I'm sorry, for my own clarification, what is the new title of the Vibrant Sustainable? Are we keeping the, it's the same.

I think, is it Vibrant Sustainable?

Vibrant Sustainable Build and Natural. The same. Okay. And then the new title for the fifth goal.

I think, so you have vibrant and sustainable environment, right, was one. And then affordable, accessible housing. Those are the two that I got, I think, from your.

Yeah, it's in the document that staff had. We will just follow the document that was submitted to us. Except keep built and natural. Right.

Yes.

Yeah. Thank you.

Does everyone have what they need? Including us, council.

yes we'll see something before we vote on it on monday that's amazing all right yeah sounds good and sorry this is just one minimal request but can y'all when y'all do have that can y'all just can y'all email it to us in addition to uploading it to granicus so that we like know when it is available is that okay yes thank you thank you for that because i i i mean i miss it sometimes um yes

So usually with additional attachments and things like that, we always email the attached copy when it's uploaded also into Granicus. Typically we try to do that.

Somehow it just quietly slides to my inbox and I never see it. I don't know. Do you have solid mode or something?

Yeah, so when we say please refresh and those things, we always attach. OK, gotcha, gotcha. But we'll make sure also specifically

Gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Heard. Thank you. Colleagues, I need to request an excused absence for August 12th. I didn't realize that I had my dates mixed up, so I did not request an excused absence.

I'll make a motion to.

Wait, no, I'm sorry. Well, Emmanuel, what am I doing here? Is that September?

September.

Am I missing a meeting in August?

No.

No, okay. Colleagues, never mind.

I don't, gosh.

These guys control my life, man. All right, well, colleagues, after a very short meeting, it is 5.40 p.m. We've addressed the agenda. I need to pass it over so we can settle it.

The settlement of the agenda I have on consent, items three through 30, GBA public hearings, item 31 through 37.

Thank you. I'll entertain a motion to settle the agenda.

So moved. All in favor. Aye.

Thank you. Did we do the motion for closed session before I came?

Yes. We didn't mention to approve the language. You just need to adjourn this meeting and move to go.

All right. We are now, thank you all for coming today. We will now presume to close session.

You do need a motion to go into it.

Oh, okay. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion for us to go into closed session. All right.

It's been moved and probably second that we go into closed session at this point. All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? All right. Thank you. We are now in closed. Let's start at 545. Let's take about five minutes and we'll head on in. No, let's go to the council suite.